Matthew Restall's Maya Conquistador: Colonial Yucatec primary sources

Maya Conquistador

About the Author

The historian writer Matthew Restall is an associate lecturer of Colonial Latin American History as well as in the Women's Studies. Furthermore, at the Pennsylvania State University, he is also the director of Latin American Studies (Project Muse).The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society 1550-1850, published in 1997 whereas Maya Conquistador was followed in 1998. His latest publications include a book on Blacks in colonial Yucatan along with editing a volume on black-native relations in colonial Latin America (Project Muse).

Analysis of the Book

The author has made important contribution in guiding his readers through each chapter analysis by representing in the explanations as to where a number of interpretations became possible and where his understanding of the document either varies from preceding scholars or based on good guesswork. These notes further offer brief histories of each text, making itself an interesting reading.

The main theme or argument in the book given by Restall was about the Spanish invasion of the Maya native soil in southern Mexico where this writer had given three key incidents (Caribbean and Latin America, April 2000): the first one was the advent of reconnaissance parties shortly after the Cortez's first settlement in the year 1520, then later the following arrival of conquistadors along with their newly conquered Aztec allies and then came finally the Spanish colonists (Project Muse).

Though these incidents have been actually in official Spanish documents but with Restall's translation, they are related through the eyes of the Maya themselves, giving an upturned perception documents thrived in Aztec literature (Project Muse). However, being the first discovery of same accounts from the Maya, it makes a significant contribution to the ethnographic and chronological literature of history (Caribbean and Latin America, April 2000).

This compilation of firsthand Mayan notes represents another point-of-view by enlightening a tale of adaptation and endurance, where the Mayan perspective comes up from an individuality based on strong loyalty of class, family, as well as community by telling the Spanish colonization of the Yucatan peninsula (Reviews). Whereas, the common understanding of the Spanish Conquest was that of foreign defeaters instantly destroying native populations and taking up their culture (Reviews).

The author, however, aimed the title of this revisionist history to be challenging and proving where instead of Spanish conquistadors, his 'Maya conquistadors' were Mayan citizens, belonging mostly to the upper classes adjusting themselves to Spanish rule (Reviews).

Thus, the reproduction of the story in the form of English translation; Mayan accounts of the Conquest community histories, where letters, annals, petitions, municipal records from the late 16th century to the early 19th, that does conflict the primary sources that were written generally by Christianized Maya notables decades after the description of events (Project Muse). These sources, however, often taken as an unstable platform where the author based his claims that the Mayas perceived the Conquest as continuity instead than change, as a continuation of life's routine adversities (Project Muse).

However, few of the sources collected and assembled has not been translated into English gives controvertible Mayan viewpoint on the killing imposed by the Spanish, the imposition of tributes, the presentation of Christianity as well as the survival of native cultures under the rule of Spanish is given (Caribbean and Latin America, April 2000).

Conclusion

Thus, this exceptional new book by Matthew Restall looked at the invasion of the Yucatan peninsula from the point-of-view of late sixteenth to early nineteenth century writings of the "conquered" Mayan (Reviews). His translations of Mayan accounts as well as his examination of Spanish rule offer his reader a new way of thinking about the victory with some larger issues of colonialism (Reviews).

Finally, Restall with a unique understanding of the Mayan viewpoint on their history, their rulers, and their sense of identity; experience in a chronological manner is given through the articles in the book. It is highly recommended for those who have an interest in history. However, a general reader may find it a bit boring (Project Muse).