Benjamin Keen has again contributed an excellent translation of another valuable Spanish work. The work is a basic document for the study of colonial Mexico, and this edition makes available for the first time in English this contemporary account of the economic, political, and social impact of the conquest. Keen has adapted the entire Brief Relation from the Spanish editions of García Icazbalceta and Ramírez Cabañas, and the paragraphing and some of the wording are his own.
The value of the work is increased by his extensive introduction. Keen’s introduction is helpful when it is discussing Zorita and the Brief Relation; it is prolonged, however, when it elaborates upon the life of the colonies, the Indians, and government officials. Much of the additional information on the Indians is excessive and would be better left to the authorities in the fields of anthropology and ethnology.
As for the main text, it remains largely unaltered in content and tone. Zorita wrote the Brief Relation to inform the king of the remedial action needed to stop “the tragedy that was unfolding in the Indies.” He described the exorbitant Indian tributes, the cruelty of the encomenderos, the manners and customs of the pre-conquest Indians, and how the conquest had deplorably changed their lives.
Zorita recorded this work after nineteen years in the king’s service in the New World as an oidor and a juez de residencia. Zorita’s firsthand contact with the situation enabled him to write a well-informed account of the conditions of the Indians. But, the subjective quality of his writing cannot be ignored. Zorita was a disciple of Las Casas, and his love for the Indians and his idealism caused him to create an idyllic picture of pre-conquest Indian life and to draw too black a picture of the Spaniard and of the gap between Spanish colonial administrative theory and practice.
Although Keen has tried to present a balanced introduction to Zorita’s account, even he ultimately criticizes Zorita as being “guilty of embellishing the role of the Indian aristocracy in the post-conquest era.” Keen further notes that Zorita’s “frequent contrast of an idealized past with a somber present makes the Brief Relation a study in unrelieved whites and blacks. . ..”
Zorita’s overdrawn picture becomes understandable, if not acceptable, though, when viewed in perspective. The problems of his service in the New World and the philosophy of his age molded Zorita’s opinions and biases. His work is, in reality, as Keen points out, a product of the prevalent Renaissance Humanist mood of disillusionment with European civilization.
Despite these subjective failings, the work is a wealth of information on ancient and colonial Mexico, and in some areas of knowledge, such as clan structure, it is the only available source. Zorita’s style is dramatic, and Keen’s translation does not detract from this. Indeed, this translation should make the account of interest to the layman as well as the specialists in the field.
