Recent Collections of Latin American Historical Documents

Recent Collections of Latin American Historical Documents Kenneth Mills and William B. Taylor, eds. ColonialSpanishAmerica:A Documentary History. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998. 372p. June E. Hahner, ed. Women through Women's Eyes: Latin American Women in Nineteenth-Century TravelAccounts. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998. 184p. William H. Beezley and Judith Ewell, eds. The Human Tradition in Modern Latin America. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997. 277p. John E. Kicza Washington State University For perhaps fifteen years, Scholarly Resources has published with great success imprints devoted exclusively to LatinAmerican history. Although this press brings out various types ofbooks, its most characteristic format is an edited collection of reprinted essays, original contributions, or documentary sources, often touching on an aspect ofsocial history broadly defined. The three books discussed here are certainly ofthis type. Mills and Taylor skillfully put together the most distinctive compilation of original documents on and from colonial Spanish America yet assembled, accompanied by a select numberofinterpretive essays byother authors. Hahner brought together selections from nineteenth-century women's travelers accounts from Latin America that comment about the lives of women there. Finally , Beezley and Ewell collected original essays on representative individuals, usually from non-elite groups, from a two-volume set on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This single volume is a condensed version covering the two centuries , thus creating a short work very suitable for courses on the national period. ColonialSpanish America is designed to serve as a secondary reader in courses on the colonial period, complementing whatever textbook is assigned. But it is very substantial both in its length — consisting ofnearly 350 large pages packed SPUING 2000 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 101 with text — and in the character and complexity ofmost ofthe documents. The volume contains 50 entries, 29 ofwhich are original sources; another thirteen are composed ofvisual representations from the period — generally with explanatory or interpretive text, and eight are excellent reprinted articles on important issues. The documents are often excerpted from extensive texts. Some ofthe larger works represented by selections are the Huarochiri Manuscript, the 1 524 Colloquium between Aztec holy men and Spanish Franciscans, José de Acosta's De Procuranda, Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala's Nueva coránicay buengobierno, and Concolorcorvo's El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes. The collection is divided into four parts, the first on the precontact worlds of the Spaniards and the native peoples of the Americas plus the era of discovery, and then one for each ofthe colonial centuries. However, following accepted historical chronology, Mills and Taylor extend "the long seventeenth century" until 1750, with the short eighteenth century beginning then and lasting until the achievement ofindependence around 1820. A cursorysurveyofthe original documents indicates that seventeen originated in Mexico, fifteen in Peru, five in Spain itself, and two inArgentina. Thus Chile, Upper Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, and the Caribbean are unrepresented by any contributions. Or put in terms fashionable among historians, they concentrate on the central zones to the virtual exclusion ofthe more numerous peripheral colonies. The collection is very innovative and is pedagogically oriented, exposing undergraduates to the variety ofsources available to scholars. The second selection, for instance, displays and discusses the royal tunics worn by the Inca rulers. The fourth considers the Aztec Stone of the Five Eras, commonly termed the Aztec Sun Stone. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh treat early woodcuts and drawings of native peoples. Ahealthy representation ofother paintings, sculpture, altarpieces, cathedral designs, and the like, are gathered in each ofthe book's major sections. The thirteenth entry offers a segment from the town council minutes of the Indian community ofTlaxcala from 1 553. Already by this early date numerous native peoples of central Mexico had learned to record their own languages using the European alphabet. Consequently, we enjoy an abundance ofdocumentation composed by the natives ofMexico themselves with minimal cultural interference or mediation by Spaniards. As to the themes addressed, seventeen entries speak to religious issues, fifteen to Indian matters, six to the system ofgovernance, four to the nature ofcolonial society (especially ethnicity), three to geographical or urban descriptions, three more to artistic concerns, and only one to aspects ofpersonal or family life. This distribution is perhaps more understandable given that the most recent...