Maya Conquistador

Our familiar images of Mexico's conquest are powerful and enduring -- bold and blood-thirsty Spanish conquistadors, nobly savage Aztecs lamenting their broken spears, the triumph and tragedy of Cortes and Moctezuma. But one story has not been told -- and it is one that reshapes our entire vision of the conquest. It is the Maya story of the Spanish creation of a colony in the ancient Maya homeland of Yucatan. Maya Conquistador tells this tale through a collection of unique first-hand accounts -- most of them previously untranslated from the original Maya texts -- written from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. In it are surprising twists: The conquistadors were not only Spaniards, but also Mayas, reconstituting their own sophisticated governance and society; and the conquest was not one catastrophic event, but the story of the survival of a vital and complex civilization evolving over centuries of contact with the Spanish and other peoples. Out of this new chapter in history, the Maya emerge not as passive victims of European expansion, but as astute observers of their own past and participants in a rich tradition of cultural resilience. Their story is exciting reading to all who are fascinated by the Maya, by the ancient Americas, and by the history of colonialism.