Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Ecological and Political Landscapes; 2. Land; 3. Canoes and Commerce; 4. Demography and Society; 5. Crisis in the Seventeenth Century; 6. Late-Colonial Watersheds; 7. Nahuatl Sources from Xochimilco; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

Thanks to creative uses of the environment, Xochimilco's residents preserved their culture and society in the face of colonial disruption.

About the Author

Richard M. Conway is Associate Professor of History at Montclair State University. A historian of colonial Latin America, his research focuses on the social and environmental history of Mexico.

Reviews

'Richard Conway's extensive and detailed research into Nahuatl-language documents provides a rich portrait of early colonial Mexico but also reveals the distinctiveness of the region. Using the idea of the lakes as contact zones, Conway provides a better and more detailed sense of the transition from conquest to colonialism and the interconnectedness of change. It is a rich tapestry and a superb story.' Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Carleton University and author of The Origins of Macho: Men and Masculinities in Colonial Mexico

'In this fascinating analysis, Richard Conway brings together two strains of recent historiography, environmental history and the New Philology, to provide a groundbreaking study of the Xochimilco region. Using linguistics, Ethnohistory, demography, and ecology, Conway explains the deeper social and political impact the Spanish invaders had on the indigenous community.' John F. Schwaller, Professor Emeritus, University at Albany, SUNY

'Richard Conway has written an outstanding ethno/environmental history of the lakeside Nahua altepetl of Xochimilco near Mexico City. The author uses scores of original sources to document the community's survival throughout the long colonial period and beyond. This book is a most valuable contribution to Latin American and Indigenous history.' Kevin Terraciano, E. Bradford Burns Chair of Latin American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

'An original study combining environmental history and ethnohistory, Islands in the Lake is a major contribution to colonial Mexican history.' Susan Kellogg, Hispanic American Historical Review