Wood, S.: Transcending Conquest. Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico
In her book, Stephanie Wood argues that the Spanish conquest and dynamics of the Spanish colonial system had manifold effects in the way the Nahua peoples who experienced, and reflected on it. She approaches these topics through discourse analysis and comparison of little-known Nahua pictorial and textual manuscripts, from the early and the late colonial period respectively, that present pro- and anticolonial views. In order to guide her analysis, Wood asks to what extent the conquest had an impact in Nahua people, and whether or not they interpreted the Spanish invasion as a “conquest”. She is also interested in examining the power dynamics were negotiated by indigenous groups within the new colonial regime, and if their culture suffered major changes through integration into the foreign cultural system or if they found ways to preserve their own ways. Most importantly, she questions the extent to which the conquest was of any concern to them. She takes account the experiences of those who were militarily defeated, those who participated as allies to the Spaniards, those not involved in battles, survivors of epidemics, and those who were the first and last ones to be evangelized. In addition, Wood also addresses the experience of those who were born into the colonial system and thus dealt with it differently than their predecessors who experienced the transition first hand. In this way, she aims to reconstruct a picture of the colonial period that reflects the complex and diverse ways in which its indigenous players navigated their new reality. The significance of this work is its contribution to the New Conquest History by presenting less-known sources produced by indigenous peoples. In this way, she opens the venues to rethink the conquest and its meaning by contextualizing it within a sample of the Nahua experience.
“The modern reader cannot assume, just because indigenous writers of the Americas today have imperialism in the forefront of their consciousness, that it was central in the minds of native authors and painters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A long period of oral tradition intervenes, and ideas and perspectives may have shifted. Certainly, the Spanish colonial presence loomed large and affected many aspects of native people’s lives, but the records that embody indigenous memory and identity perhaps selectively emphasize pride in their own leadership and ancestry, their own creation stories, and the moments in history that strengthened their communities and autonomy, that pointed to their own heroism and even their own conquests” (19).