Conquest of the South Sea: The Long-Term Historical Archaeology of the Port of Huatulco, Mexico

Summary

In April of 1522, Pedro de Alvarado conquered and claimed the Port of Huatulco in the name of the Spanish King Carlos V. Among the best natural harbors on the Pacific Ocean, Huatulco soon became the main port-of-trade for the Hapsburgian Empire between New Spain, Central America, and Peru up until the late 16th century. But this conquest was only one of many-- and one of the last-- of such dramatic cycles of domination and colonialization in southern Mexico. Drawing from Indigenous documents composed between the 14th and 17th centuries, European surveys and maps, and archaeological evidence, in this presentation I will argue that the Spanish themselves were pawns in an intense interregional competition between several Indigenous states and empires, including the Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Aztecs, Pochutecs, and Chontal. These long-term colonial interests in this strategic economic hub thus interrogate the restrictive paradigm of the ‘European-colonizer’ vs. the ‘Indigenous-colonized’.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Indigenous Perspectives on Historical Archaeology of Colonialism

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 128