Chimalpahin's Conquest

This volume presents the story of Hernando Cortes's conquest of Mexico, as recounted by a contemporary Spanish historian and edited by Mexico's premier Nahua historian. Francisco Lopez de Gomara's monumentalHistoria de las Indias y Conquista de Mexicowas published in 1552 to instant success. Despite being banned from the Americas by Prince Philip of Spain,La conquistafell into the hands of the seventeenth-century Nahua historian Chimalpahin, who took it upon himself to make a copy of the tome. As he copied, Chimalpahin rewrote large sections ofLa conquista, adding information about Emperor Moctezuma and other key indigenous people who participated in those first encounters. Chialpahin's Conquestis thus not only the first complete modern English translation of Lopez de Gomara'sLa conquista, an invaluable source in itself of information about the conquest and native peoples; it also adds Chimalpahin's unique perspective of Nahua culture to what has traditionally been a very Hispanic portrayal of the conquest.

Susan Schroeder is the Scholes Professor of Colonial Latin American History at Tulane. Anne J. Cruz is Professor of Spanish at the University of Miami. Cristián Roa-de-la-Carrera is Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois. David E. Tavárez is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Vassar College.