The Geopolitics of Conquest: The Mixtón War and the Caxcan Diaspora

Summary

The chronicler Tello describes the Caxcans as rústicos mexicanos who accompanied the Mexica on their march south from Aztlan in the 1100s, but to the Spanish, they became known as the gente belicosa, fierce fighters who did not accept the terms of their conquest, and who ultimately led the Mixtón War of 1541-42. The discussion focuses on the results of the Spanish encounters with the Caxcans and the ways in which these interactions informed the military and political strategies pursued by the colonizers as the conquest and occupation of New Spain moved north, into what would ultimately become known as the Spanish Borderlands and the American Southwest.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Worlds Forever Changed: The Impact of Conflict and Colony in the "New World"   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage