An old adage warns that those who live by the sword also perish by it. Nicholas Robins takes these words to heart in his new comparative study of indigenous rebellions in the Spanish colonial and postcolonial world. He compares New Mexico’s Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the great Andean rebellions of the early 1780s, and the Caste War of Yucatán that began in 1847. He argues that Hispanic genocide, or at least ethnocide, provoked violent recoils. These responses achieved mixed results, forcing some reforms but just as often bringing greater repression against the rebels and their ethnic kin. As Robins concludes, “While nothing can justify the murder of innocents, genocide can beget genocide” (p. 172).
Native Insurgencies operates through a mixture of anthropology, history, political science, and sociological theory. Robins begins with an exploration of the term genocide, sorting through definitions that have emerged in both academic contexts and in...
