One of the most comprehensive studies ever made of the effect of white conquest on native peoples of the New World is Edward H. Spicer’s Cycles of Conquest. The area concerned is the present Southwest and northwest Mexico. The conquerors were from Spain, Mexico, and the United States. The time span of this huge work is 1533-1960.
Spicer’s purpose was to present an overall view of the acceptance, modification, and spread of cultural traits, to synthesize what is known of individual tribes. As he states in the Preface, “The kind of interpretation attempted . . . grew out of a search for answers to the following questions: What are the chief ways in which Indians have responded to Western civilization and what has happened to their cultures as a result of contact? . . . The present volume attempts to answer the questions in a broad way for the region as a whole, but with sufficient detail to provide a sense of concreteness regarding the experience of each of the major Indian groups.”
This is clearly an ambitious undertaking, and Spicer is to be commended for his successful handling of so complex a problem. Diversity is one of the most persistent themes. Indian cultural traits varied considerably. The idea of the “civilization” consciously introduced by each of the conquerors also differed, even between Spaniards and Mexicans. And the impact of these bearers of civilization was not the same on any two tribes. None of the intruders achieved a complete cultural conquest of the Indians, but each caused some cultural changes.
The organization followed is an introductory description of the cultural frontiers and the general characteristics of the major tribes; Part I is “The Events of Contact: Spanish-Indian Relations”; Part II, “The Framework of Contact: Programs for Civilization”; Part III, “Results of Contact: The Course of Cultural Change”; Part IV, “Paths to Civilization: The Processes of Cultural Change.”
Cycles of Conquest is of considerable interest to all Latin Americanists, a remarkable effort. More than this, it is worth the attention of anyone concerned with the effects of conquest and transculturation. While it is an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the present Southwest, it is part of a much larger story—the spread of Europeans and their civilization overseas.
