The "Original Conquest" of Oaxaca: Nahua and Mixtec Accounts of the Spanish Conquest

This article features the transcription, translation, and analysis of two primordial titles, written in the Mixtec and Nahuatl languages, and a large map. Two indigenous communities in the Valley of Oaxaca attempted to lay claim to disputed territory by presenting these competing "titles," ostensibly written in the 1520s, to Spanish authorities in the 1690s. The titles present each community's account of the Spanish Conquest of Oaxaca and subsequent colonial events. We consider how the documents shed light on Mixtec and Nahua ethnic identity and historical memory in the Valley of Oaxaca in the late colonial period.