Colonial Archives on the Move: Mexican Manuscripts Read out of Context

This article explores the circulation and utilization of colonial-era Mexican manuscripts outside of Mexico. With a focus on a nineteenth-century US history book, William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), and a novel, Lew Wallace's The Fair God, or the Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (1873), this article illuminates the distinct archival moments the manuscripts embody as they were read, understood, and signified in various ways outside of the place and context of their production. Conquest of Mexico and The Fair God, it is argued, engage with materials from the Colonial Mexican Archive as parts of projects that are circumscribed by nineteenth-century US exceptionalism and expansionism. The article concludes with a consideration of the Archive and the Internet.

This article explores the circulation and utilization of colonial-era Mexican manuscripts outside of Mexico. With a focus on a nineteenth-century US history book and a novel, William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and Lew Wallace's The Fair God, Or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (1873), the article illuminates the distinct archival moments the manuscripts embody as they were read, understood, and signified in various ways outside of the place and context of their production. Conquest of Mexico and The Fair God, it is argued, engage with materials from the Colonial Mexican Archive as part of projects that are circumscribed by nineteenth-century US exceptionalism and expansionism. The article concludes with a consideration of the Archive and the Internet.