New World, First Nations : Native Peoples of Mesoamerica and the Andes Under Colonial Rule

The Spanish conquest and colonisation of the Americas dramatically transformed the lives of native peoples in Mesoamerica and the Andes. This revolutionary and multilayered process varied greatly in its intensity and timing from region to region, but in all cases radically changed indigenous societies, their values and beliefs. The encounter between native peoples and the Spanish conquistadors and later settlers was marked by violence and drastic, epidemic-driven population decline. This dislocatory phase gradually gave way to myriad forms of accommodation, resistance, and social, cultural and religious hybridity -- the colonial heritage of Spanish America. The innovative essays in this volume compare the colonial experience of native peoples of the conquered Aztec, Maya and Inca civilisations, from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. They highlight their creative responses to the challenges posed by colonial rule, its institutions, religion, and legal and economic systems. Interdisciplinary in approach, the essays distil a generation of scholarship and suggest an agenda for future research. This book will be of great interest to historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and post-colonialists.