The War for Mexico’s West: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524–1550 (review)

Ida Altman’s book on the early military subjugation of central-western Mexico takes a cue from recent histories of the conquest, which emphasize the participation and perspectives of indigenous peoples. Altman’s work, however, is far from celebratory. She grimly details violence and dislocation, and the surprisingly immediate resistance of New Galicia’s population. In this, Altman’s work is both traditional and a needed reminder of the heavy cost of encounter with Europeans for many Mesoamericans.

The victims were not only the residents of New Galicia (encompassing the modern Mexican states of Nayarit, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, and Jalisco) but also the Spaniards’ mostly Nahua allies from central Mexico. Thousands campaigned with Nuño de Guzmán from 1527 to 1537. In contrast with the respect usually bestowed upon them, the Mesoamerican warriors who accompanied Guzmán were considered slaves, and few survived. So poor was their lot that even the locals whose lands they were invading at times took pity on them, going so far as to offer some of them asylum.

Once they had a foothold in the region, the Spanish provoked deep resentments from a population unused to the demands of imperial rule. Altman spends two full chapters on early Spanish settlement in the region, complicated political intrigues, and abuses of the native population. The violence culminated in a co-ordinated regional uprising in 1540 that very nearly threw the Spanish out. Altman draws a sharp distinction between the leadership style of Guzmán and his cohorts and that of the new viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, who curried favor with his allies and succeeded in putting down the uprising. Again, however, Altman’s emphasis remains the human costs of this second period of war.

One of Altman’s most notable findings is the quick, absolute rejection of Christianity by many of the western peoples. This contrasts with the conversion of central Mexico’s Nahua nobility, who would point to their acceptance of the foreigners’ religion as proof of their loyalty to the Crown and higher status amongst colonial-era Indians. Anti-Christian millenarianism, says Altman, contributed to what many still expect from this period of history: that is, interethnic indigenous solidarity against the Europeans.

In the end, however, resistance was futile. A final chapter charts the “transformation of Nueva Galicia” into a thriving colonial mining region whose first inhabitants were permanently displaced by newcomers—not only Spaniards but also Africans and immigrant Mesoamericans. The book’s final sentence is elegiac, paying homage to the original founders of towns such as Juchipila, Tonala, and Xalisco, who “survive only in memory” (p. 344).

Although Altman attempts to keep western Mexico’s native peoples front and center, the nature of her material as well as her own considerable skill at tracking down the careers of individual sixteenth-century Spaniards sometimes shifts the emphasis back to Europeans. Nonetheless, Altman is to be commended for her judicious consideration of the archaeology of the region and her use of Mesoamerican pictorial documents, in addition to the painstaking work of combing through sixteenth-century judicial cases for the occasional Mesoamerican witness. The War for Mexico’s West is a thorough recounting of a devastating period of loss in what would become the heart of Mexico’s mining economy.