Bibliographic Essay

For a general overview of the historiography of the Spanish Conquest era in the Americas, a useful essay is Matthew Restall, ‘The New Conquest History', History Compass 10.2 (2012), 151-60.

For more on early enslavement of, and violence against, indigenous groups in the Spanish Caribbean, see Massimo Livi Bacci, Conquest: The Destruction of the American Indios (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018); Erin Stone, ‘Slave Raiders vs. Friars: Tierra Firme, 1513-522', The Americas 74.2 (2017), 139-70. A detailed treatment of indigenous enslavement in the Americas, including all North America, can be found in Andres Resendez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

A primary source on early violent encounters between Spaniards and indigenous Americans is Bartolome de las Casas's Historia de las Indias, but as it is not yet available in English I recommend An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Andrew Hurley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003). Neil Whitehead treats early violence in the Caribbean, along with a useful overview of the use of the term ‘Carib' in justifying indigenous slavery, in Of Cannibals and Kings: Primal Anthropology in the Americas (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011); the book is the 7th in the Latin American Originals series, of which ten volumes (as of 2018) present primary sources, in translation with accessible introductions, on the history and literature of the Spanish Conquest.

For more on the wars of invasion and conquest of central Mexico, see Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) and When Montezuma Met Cortes: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (New York: Ecco, 2018), and Matthew Restall and Robert Schwaller, ‘The Gods Return: Conquest and Conquest Society (1502-1610)', in William H.

The vast literature on invasion and conquest in the Yucatan includes Robert S. Chamberlain, The Conquest and Colonization of Yucatan, 1517-1570 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1948); Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517-1570, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Elizabeth Graham, Maya Christians and Their Churches (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011); W. George Lovell, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchmatan Highlands, 1500-1821, revised 4th edn (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015); and Matthew Restall, Maya Conquistador (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1998) and ‘Invasion: The Maya at War, 1520s- 1540s', in Andrew Scherer and John Verano (eds.), Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre­Columbian Mesoamerican and the Andes (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2013), pp. 93-117. For the larger context of Spanish-Maya protracted conquest and conflict in southern Yucatan, see Pedro Bracamonte y Sosa, La conquista inconclusa de Yucatan: Los mayas de la montana, 1560-1680 (Mexico City: CIESAS, 2001). For the fall of the Itza kingdom in Guatemala, see Grant D. Jones, The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).

In addition to most of the items listed above, studies on the role of indigenous peoples in the Spanish conquest wars include Florine G. L. Asselbergs and Matthew Restall, Invading Guatemala: Spanish, Nahua, and Maya Accounts of the Conquest Wars, Latin American Originals 2 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007); Amber Brian, Bradley Benton and Pablo Garcia Loaeza, The Native Conquistador: Alva Ixtlilxochitl's Account of the Conquest of New Spain, Latin American Originals 10 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015); Laura Matthew and Michel R.