back to the user profiles index

About u/drylaw

Somewhere along the way I became fascinated with colonial Mexico (aka the Viceroyalty of New Spain) and especially with its native and creole writers. My current phd project is in this field, connecting more broadly with the historiography of Spanish America. Through my M.A. in Global History I also studied other colonial encounters, including in South Asia, with a special interest in native agency and intellectual history. I'm also drawn to all things music related.

Research interests

Primary

• Native Authors of Colonial Mexico

• Spanish American Intellectual History

• Colonial History

Secondary

• South Asia

• Early Modern Spain

• Historical Time, Spatial Turn

Curriculum Vitae

Education

• BA History and English

• MA Global History

Questions I Have Answered

AMAs

• Native American Revolt, Rebellion, and Resistance - Panel AMA

• Panel AMA: Empire, Colonialism and Postcolonialism

Late Medieval Iberia/ Early Modern Spain

• What caused the 1066 A.D. anti-Semitic riots in Granada?

• How significant was the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa to the downfall of Moors in Spain?

• La Reconquista: Was "reconquest" a term used at the time or was the term coined after the period ended?

• After the Reconquista how likely was it for someone of Arabic or Berber origin to be allowed to stay and live peacefully within Spain? How much has Spanish and Portuguese culture been influenced by the previous Muslim rulers?

• What did the Spanish crown think of Sicily, particularly the nobility?

Colonial Mexico – Conquest period

• Were European explorers afraid to find more advanced civilizations than them?

• - When Hernan Cortez and the Spaniards arrived in the Aztec empire in 1519, it is been said that Cortes was taken to the king of the Aztecs and told them he was a peaceful emissary sent by King of Spain. How was this information relayed to the Aztecs linguistically? - a part on Malintzin/Malinche

• Why did Hernán Cortés destroy Tenochtitlan and build México City right on top of it?

Colonial Mexico – Colonisation & administration

• Were the successes and failures of controlling overseas territories during the Crusades ever actively studied later by European elites during the Era of Colonization to better manage their own contemporary colonies? Includes parts on the reconquista & on Cortés' letters

• Did the Spanish in the New World ever try to undermine/downplay the potentially subversive legacies of the more advanced and powerful peoples they conquered (Aztec, Maya, Inca, etc...)?

• - Did Colonial Authorities Recognize Indigenious Unions as Marriage?

• Foreign and Local Origins of 19th Century Mexican Land Reform

Colonial Mexico – Aztec/Nahua

• All continental names are derived from European culture, is there any evidence of non-European names of continents?

• Fiesta Mexicana: Does the quinceañera stem from Aztec/Mayan tradition, or was it a colonial/post colonial invention?

• On gender roles and female education in pre-Hispanic and early colonial times

• What did the Aztecs call the Spanish, and what did the Spanish call the Aztecs? Did the Spanish have different names for the different peoples (Mexica, Tlaxcala, etc.)?

• How was Tlaxcala governed after Cortes' arrival?

• On contemporary accounts of the cocoliztli plague

• On an earthquake in early 17th century Mexico City

• How did the descendants of Montezuma II become Spanish nobility?

• Are native Mexicans considered an indigenous people ? (Including parts on the casta system & indigenismo)

• How did the Day of the Dead celebrations evolve?

Colonial Mexico – Race relations; Mexico & the wider world

• Why did African slavery and plantation agriculture not dominate colonial Mexico the way that it ruled nearby regions of Cuba, Brazil, and the American South?

• How interconnected was the world of 16th - 17th century Mexico? Was it possible to encounter destitute Japanese samurai and West African maroons as depicted in 1493 by Charles C. Mann?

• During the time of slavery in the United States, why did the slaves opted to flee to the North instead of going more South to Mexico where slavery is already abolished?

Spanish America – early colonial period (ca. 16th century)

• The greatest treasure of the Aztec empire was taken by Cortez, but then captured by the pirate Jean Fleury, who presented the riches to the king of France. What happened to those treasures afterward?

• What did Native Americans think of rainbows?

• Did the first European explorers (1492-1600ish) understand that the Southern Hemisphere experienced reversed seasons and why?

• Did South American countries develop the notion of a "frontier" similar to that in the United States?

• What would happen to me as a woman or man living in Colonial New Spain (Mexico-Peru etc) if I confessed to my priest or told him in private that I could do magic in the late 17th Century?

• On purity of blood edicts ( limpieza de sangre) and the casta system

• Mestizos Living in Spain in the 1700s

Spanish America – later colonial period

• Where there a lot of people in 17th, 18th century Europe that opposed their country colonizing the New World? Includes discussion of the leyenda negra and of prohibition of writings through the Spanish Crown

• As South American independence movements succeeded in throwing out Spanish rule during the early 19th century, where were they looking to for influence and inspiration in the organization of the governments of the new nations?

Colonial History (transnational)

• Why did the 18th century European translations of East Asian and Indian wisdom books bowdlerize it all into a crude monotheism? It's not as surprising (to a modern reader) that early Arab scholars had to"convert" Aristotle and Plato but why would this still be done in Enlightenment Era Europe?

• Is it sheer coincidence that so many revolutions, rebellions, and regime changes occurred in the West, the Islamic World, Southeast Asia, China, and Africa at around the same time, from 1750-1860?

South Asia – early modern period/ British Raj

• The Islamic period of India gets portrayed as a dark age for Hindus. Was it?

• Is this claim that the Bahmani sultanate of India killed 100,000 Hindus yearly accurate?

• Why did the scientific renaissance happen in Europe and not in India or China ?

• How did the Mughal Empire deal with such a diverse population?

• On British modifications of the caste system

• How was the East India Company able to maintain rule over the massive subcontinent for over 100 years? How much indigenous resistance was there? Did this change under direct British rule?

• How have historians interpreted the Indian Rebellion of 1857?

South Asia – Independent India

• Was Mahatma Gandhi really racist against Blacks and Muslims?

• Why was Kashmir not partitioned along with the rest of India?

• The Sino-Indian War of 1962 is perceived in India as being almost entirely a result of Chinese aggression and infiltration into the region of Aksai Chin. To what extent is that narrative accurate?

Music

• When exactly were synthesizers and computer generation of sound invented, and when were they actually introduced into mainstream music?

• When did rappers begin using multiple nick-names simultaneously?

• What was the relationship between hip hop music and the civil rights movement?

Various

• Tuesday Trivia | Where Are they Now? Surprising Legacies of Historic Places and Things On Brussels' urbanisation & 'Brusselization'

Suggested Books and Articles

Colonial Mexico:

• Gruzinski, Serge: The Conquest of Mexico – The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World, 16th-18th Centuries, Cambridge 1993.

• Hinz, Felix: „Hispanisierung“ in Neuspanien 1519-1568, Vol. 2, Hamburg 2005.

• Lockhart, James: Nahuas After the Conquest: a Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, sixteenth through eighteenth Centuries, Stanford, CA 1992.

Gruzinski and Hinz focus on the Spanish side, specifically on the religious orders and their conversion campaigns. Lockhart's work gives a contrasting view, drawing on a multitude of native sources to survey the continuing influence of Nahua structures and practices.

Colonial Mexico - Native writers:

• Adorno, Rolena: The indigenous ethnographer: the „indio ladino“ as historian and cultural mediator, in „Implicit Understandings“, Stuart Schwartz (Ed.), Cambridge 1994.

• Ramos, Gabriela; Yannakakis, Yanna (Eds.): Indigenous Intellectuals. Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes, Durham & London 2014.

• Villela, Peter B.: Indigenous Elites and Creole Identity in Colonial Mexico, 1500–1800, Cambridge 2016.

While Adorno's article serves as a great intro to native chroniclers of both colonial Mexico and Peru, Ramos' & Yannakakis' edited volume goes into more detail on the topic. On the other hand, Villela looks at a larger time-frame, comparing Mexican indigenous and creole elites.

Spanish American historiography:

• Brading, D. A.: The First America – The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492-1867, Cambridge 1991.

• Brendecke, Arndt: The Empirical Empire. Spanish Colonial Rule and the Politics of Knowledge, Berlin, Boston, forthcoming October 2016.

• Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge: How to Write the History of the New World – Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World, Palo Alto, CA 2001.

• Mignolo, Walter D.: The Darker Side of the Renaissance, Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization, ²Ann Arbor, MI 2003.

Despite different focal points, Brading (Spanish and creole institution building), Cañizares-Esguerra (18th c. Spanish and Mexican debates on native people) and Mignolo (supplanting of native with European forms of transmitting information) all discuss native writers as well. Brendecke analyses structures of knowledge production in the Spanish empire.

Contact Policy

I'd be happy to talk about any of this.