The global community, dependent as always on the cooperation of nation states, is gradually learning to address the serious threats to the cultural heritage of our disparate but shared civilizations. The legacy of conquest, colonialization, and commerce looms large in defining and explaining these threats. The essays contained in this challenging volume are based on papers presented at an international conference on cultural heritage issues that took place at Willamette University . The conference sought to generate fresh ideas about these cultural heritage issues; offer a good sense of their nuances and complexities; and reveal how culture, law, and ethics can interact, complement, diverge, and contradict one another. This book seeks to accomplish these purposes. What it explores is the fact that, allong with an emerging blend of adversarial and collaborative processes to address cultural heritage issues, has come a substantial broadening of the normative framework in recent years. This framework now spans a welter of issues ranging from the creation of cultural safety zones during armed conflict, to the ongoing rectification of genocidal conquest during the European Holocaust and World War II, to the treatment of shipwrecks and their cargo, to the protection of folklore and other intangibles, to the promotion of traditional knowledge in the interest of biological diversity. All of these topics are controversial, as are the legal instruments that incorporate them, but the issues they embrace are vital to us all, whether our viewpoint is in the global arena, a national legislature, a courtroom, a classroom, an archaeological site, or a museum.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Note on Transliteration and Translation -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Frontier with the House of Gold -- Chapter 2. A Foundation for History -- Chapter 3. Dear Son, What Is the Matter with You? -- Chapter 4. A Demon with Ruby Eyes -- Chapter 5. The Half Smile -- Chapter 6. A Conquest of Pasts -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Indigenous allies helped the Spanish gain a foothold in the Americas. What did these Indian conquistadors expect from the partnership, and what were the implications of their involvement in Spain's New World empire? Laura Matthew's study of Ciudad Vieja,

As Spain rebuilt its colonial regime in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the Spanish American revolutions, it turned to history to justify continued dominance. The metropolitan vision of history, however, always met with opposition in the colonies.The Conquest of History examines how historians, officials, and civic groups in Spain and its colonies forged national histories out of the ruins and relics of the imperial past. By exploring controversies over the veracity of the Black Legend, the location of Christopher Columbus's mortal remains, and the survival of indigenous cultures, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara's richly documented study shows how history became implicated in the struggles over empire. It also considers how these approaches to the past, whether intended to defend or to criticize colonial rule, called into being new postcolonial histories of empire and of nations.