To understand the indigenous view of the conquest, Laura Matthew tells us, “requires a reimagining of the conquest itself” (p. 2). We have traditionally asked, as she points out in her introduction, how Cortez, with his handful of companions, could have conquered Mexico and Central America. The answer, of course, is that they did not, at least not on their own. The conquest took almost 200 years to complete, and much of it was carried out by the indigenous allies of Cortez, Alvarado, and the other conquistadores. These allies sometimes even took the initiative and operated independently of the Spanish. The main contingent came from Nahuatl- speaking areas of central Mexico, but there were soldiers from the Mixtec and Zapotec zones of Oaxaca as well. These men considered themselves to be conquistadores as well, and they made this a prominent part of their colonial identities. The Spanish were the first...
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