lan, and Robert Potter f
fireworksor though
tful commentary on earlier versions
of this work.
1. Gaspar de Villagra,
History of New Mexico, 1610, tran
s. Gilberto Espinosa (Los Angeles:
Want to learn the history of Quivira So
ciety, 1933), 38. Despite losses in tr
anslation, I will c
the transla
tion is in prose. The pindar
ic ode quoted above was transla
ted in verse.
2. Beatriz Pastor Bodmer
doesn't even mention Villagrd's Historia in her study of Spanish accounts of exploration and conquest in the New World. She assumes the genre of conquest writing is effectively over after publication of La Araucana, in 1589. 3. See Greenblatt 1991, Seed, Todorov 146-49 for more extended analyses of the Requerimiento and acts of taking possession. 4. Debray 27. Debray discusses the "primary-determinants" Of time and space in the founding of national societies, arguing that any community requires (1) a delimitation in time, or the assignation of origins (the Temple), and (2) delimitation within an enclosed space (the Ark). It seems to me that unlike the "nation," empire uses the assignation of origins to renegotiate and expand its delimitation in space, or in his terms, that the "Te
mple" always travels on the "Ark." 5. See Sdnchez-Albomoz. 6. See "Contract of Don Juan de Onate for the Discovery and Conquest of New Mexico," in Hammond (1953, 42-57). Hammond's collection and translation of the official documents, writings, and letters associated with Don Juan de Onate will hereafter be referenced in this text as D/O. 7. See "Instructions to Don Juan de Onate, October 21, 1595," DJO 65-68. 8. Cortes himself owed many of his strategies to the reconquest of Muslim Spain, which was coming to an end during his childhood. See H. B. Johnson, 331.
Nevertheless, Cortes's devastation of Tenochtitlan emerges in both contemporary accounts and in our historical memory as the paradigmatic tale of Spanish conquest, in part, no doubt, because he was so widely imitated. 9. See Gutierrez for a fascinating discussion of the parallels between Onate's conquest and that of C
illustrious as her model: well into the expedition, Onate complained that "she does not know the language or another in New Mexico, nor is she learning them" (D/O 321). 12. From the official "Itinerary of the Expedition." 13. Gutierrez claims that Onate definitely played the role of CortSs and that Indians actually participated in this drama (49). While this is probable, I have found no evidenc
How Much Does it Cost?e to confirm it. 14. This new Requerimiento no longer authorized the enslavementof Indians. But this conduct is not therefore ended, only re-moved: the "improved" Ordinances of Discovery in 1573, for example, recommend that if the Indians are not cooperative, the preachers "should ask for their children under the pretext of teaching them and keep them as hostages" (in Hanke 1973,114). 15. From the letter of Captain Velasco to the viceroy, March 22, 1601. 16. See D/O 337-62 for the official records of the Acts of Obedience and Vassalage by the Indians in each of the Pueblos. Each varies slightly, but all end with this gestu
re of submission. 17. From the "Conviction of Onate and his Captains, 1614." WORKS CITED Debray, Regis. "Marxism and the National Question." New Left Review, no. 105 (Sept.-Oct. 1977): 25-41. de Certeau, Michel. Heterologies: Discourse on the Other. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minne
apolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. .The Wr
iting of History. Trans. Tom Conley. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988-. Derrida, Jacques. "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority.' " Cardozo Law Review 11, nos. 5-6 (July/August 1990): 919-1046. Greenblatt, Step
hen. Marvelous Encounters: TheWonder of the New World.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. , ed.