Memories of the Conquest of Mexico

FAIN: FA-56153-11

Kevin Terraciano
UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)

This book project examines how several generations of writers and artists remembered the encounter between Nahuas (“Aztecs”) and Spaniards in 1519 and the war that destroyed the island city of Mexico in 1521. Focusing on the period from 1519 to 1700, I consider the European, Mesoamerican, and transcultural traditions in which images and texts on the Conquest were produced. The project is informed by studies of social and collective memory, comparative histories of encounters and conquests, and a rich tradition of scholarship in Spanish Literature to inform my analysis. I examine how Spanish, Indigenous, Mestizo (people of mixed indigenous and European descent), and Creole (Europeans born in the Americas) writers and artists constructed and presented the Conquest differently, and consider the reasons for those differences.