La Etnohistoria surgió en América para estudiar a los indígenas. En principio, solamente se dedicaba a los indios de las praderas de los Estados Unidos, pero rápidamente fue acogida por los estudiosos del mundo prehispánico y colonial como una herramienta muy útil para solucionar los problemas específicos que dichas investigaciones planteaban. Conforme estas se desarrollaron, se hizo más compleja y más interesante. En los estudios prehispánicos solamente se puede aplicar a los últimos tiempos en los Andes y Mesoamérica, aunque está por definir qué hacer con los numerosos textos que el desciframiento de la escritura maya ha suministrado. Pero en el período colonial tiene un gran campo de acción que trajo como consecuencia principal el poder poner a los indígenas en el papel de protagonistas de su historia, tanto a los que vivían al margen de la sociedad colonial como a los que lo hacían dentro de ella, ocupando distintos espacios que hasta ahora no se habían valorado. Este éxito de la Etnohistoria ha extendido su utilidad al estudio de las poblaciones indígenas de otras partes del mundo e incluso puede hacerlo al estudio de diferentes grupos que vivían en el interior de la sociedad europea occidental. También se está convirtiendo en una metodología clave para el estudio de sociedades prehistóricas cuyo análisis presenta muchos puntos en común con el estudio de los indígenas americanos. Historia de la etnohistoria, métodos y fuentes, relaciones e investigaciones puntuales se agrupan en estas páginas con el objeto de contribuir a la expansión de la etnohistoria en el tiempo y el espacio. José Luis de Rojas (Madrid, 1957) es profesor de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid desde 1987 y se ha encargado desde entonces de la docencia en la asignatura Etnohistoria de América de la licenciatura en Historia, así como de algunas materias relacionadas como la Cultura Azteca y red Organización Socio-política indígena en América en la Edad Moderna. Impartió distintos cursos de doctorado, relacionados con la investigación etnohistórica. También fue profesor visitante en El Colegio de Michoacán (Zamora, Mich., México), CIESAS (México) y la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Las dos grandes líneas de investigación que siguió son la economía y política prehispánica en México, con especial atención al imperio azteca, y la economía y sociedad indígenas coloniales, preferentemente de la Nueva España. Publicó artículos y diversos libros sobre estos temas, como son México-Tenochtitlan. Economía y sociedad en el siglo XVI (El Colegio de Michoacán y FCE, México, 1986), La aventura intelectual de Pedro Armillas (El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, 1987), A cada uno lo suyo. El tributo indígena en la Nueva España (El Colegio de Michoacán, México, 1993), La información de 1554 de los tributos que los indios pagaban a Moctezuma (CIESAS; México, 1997), La moneda indígena y sus usos en Nueva España (CIESAS, México, 1998), La religión azteca (con Juan José Batalla, Trotta, Madrid, 2008) y, de próxima aparición, Cambiar para que yo no cambie: la nobleza indígena en la Nueva España (Sb, Buenos Aires).

Histories of Anthropology Annual presents diverse perspectives on the discipline’s history within a global context, with a goal of increasing awareness and use of historical approaches in teaching, learning, and conducting anthropology. The series includes critical, comparative, analytical, and narrative studies involving all aspects and subfields of anthropology. Volume 13, Disruptive Voices and the Singularity of Histories, explores the interplay of identities and scholarship through the history of anthropology, with a special section examining fieldwork predecessors and indigenous communities in Native North America. Individual contributions explore the complexity of women’s history, indigenous history, national traditions, and oral histories to juxtapose what we understand of the past with its present continuities. These contributions include Sharon Lindenburger’s examination of Franz Boas and his navigation with Jewish identity, Kathy M’Closkey’s documentation of Navajo weavers and their struggles with cultural identities and economic resources and demands, and Mindy Morgan’s use of the text of Ruth Underhill’s O’odham study to capture the voices of three generations of women ethnographers. Because this work bridges anthropology and history, a richer and more varied view of the past emerges through the meticulous narratives of anthropologists and their unique fieldwork, ultimately providing competing points of access to social dynamics. This volume examines events at both macro and micro levels, documenting the impact large-scale historical events have had on particular individuals and challenging the uniqueness of a single interpretation of “the same facts.”

Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Lawrence Boudon became the editor in 2000. The subject categories for Volume 58 are as follows: Electronic Resources for the Humanities Art History (including ethnohistory) Literature (including translations from the Spanish and Portuguese) Philosophy: Latin American Thought Music

The Casa del Deán in Puebla, Mexico, is one of few surviving sixteenth-century residences in the Americas. Built in 1580 by Tomás de la Plaza, the Dean of the Cathedral, the house was decorated with at least three magnificent murals, two of which survive. Their rediscovery in the 1950s and restoration in 2010 revealed works of art that rival European masterpieces of the early Renaissance, while incorporating indigenous elements that identify them with Amerindian visual traditions. Extensively illustrated with new color photographs of the murals, The Casa del Deán presents a thorough iconographic analysis of the paintings and an enlightening discussion of the relationship between Tomás de la Plaza and the indigenous artists whom he commissioned. Penny Morrill skillfully traces how native painters, trained by the Franciscans, used images from Classical mythology found in Flemish and Italian prints and illustrated books from France—as well as animal images and glyphic traditions with pre-Columbian origins—to create murals that are reflective of Don Tomás’s erudition and his role in evangelizing among the Amerindians. She demonstrates how the importance given to rhetoric by both the Spaniards and the Nahuas became a bridge of communication between these two distinct and highly evolved cultures. This pioneering study of the Casa del Deán mural cycle adds an important new chapter to the study of colonial Latin American art, as it increases our understanding of the process by which imagery in the New World took on Christian meaning.

Little has been written on society in the Spanish Indies during the sixteenth century, although it was during those formative decades that the Latin American class structure evolved. The Spanish conquest of the Indians produced profound social dislocations as many Spaniards of a low station found themselves members of a new aristocracy and native lords were often reduced to servitude. This book presents the firstøcomprehensive investigation of the primary issue of the first century of Spanish American colonization: the massive system of Indian forced labor, ranging from outright slavery to the encomienda, upon which Spanish colonial society rested. Focusing on the fate of the natives under Spanish rule, the author traces in graphic detail the rupturing of Indian traditions and the fate that befell the Indian people. While demonstrating the excesses of the conquistadores and unscrupulous crown officials, he also emphasizes that Central America was the scene of the first attempts to apply the famous New Laws. Although that legislation was not fully implemented, the reformist judge Alonso L¢pez de Cerrato made significant improvements in labor conditions, in the face of furious opposition from the Spanish settlers. Aside from its discussion of labor practices, this account deals with population figures and the extent of the slave trade, and corrects a number of errors in traditional sources. In addition, Spanish Indian policy, particularly at the local level, is examined in combination with character studies of individual officials, providing a much needed new look at the way in which Indians were affected by the conquest. Based primarily on documents in Spanish and Central American archives, the book includes chapters on the treatment of Indian women and the decline of the native nobility which made valuable contributions to the ethnology as well as the history of Central America.

Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Dolores Moyano Martin, of the Library of Congress Hispanic Division, has been the editor since 1977, and P. Sue Mundell was assistant editor from 1994 to 1998. The subject categories for Volume 56 are as follows: ∑ Electronic Resources for the Humanities ∑ Art ∑ History (including ethnohistory) ∑ Literature (including translations from the Spanish and Portuguese) ∑ Philosophy: Latin American Thought ∑ Music

Africans to Spanish America expands the Diaspora framework that has shaped much of the recent scholarship on Africans in the Americas to include Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Cuba, exploring the connections and disjunctures between colonial Latin America and the African Diaspora in the Spanish empires. While a majority of the research on the colonial Diaspora focuses on the Caribbean and Brazil, analysis of the regions of Mexico and the Andes opens up new questions of community formation that incorporated Spanish legal strategies in secular and ecclesiastical institutions as well as articulations of multiple African identities. Editors Sherwin K. Bryant, Rachel Sarah O'Toole, and Ben Vinson III arrange the volume around three themes: identity construction in the Americas; the struggle by enslaved and free people to present themselves as civilized, Christian, and resistant to slavery; and issues of cultural exclusion and inclusion. Across these broad themes, contributors offer probing and detailed studies of the place and roles of people of African descent in the complex realities of colonial Spanish America. Contributors are Joan C. Bristol, Nancy E. van Deusen, Leo J. Garofalo, Herbert S. Klein, Charles Beatty-Medina, Karen Y. Morrison, Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Frank "Trey" Proctor III, and Michele Reid-Vazquez.