Introduction; Part I. Conversion: 1. The burning temple: religion and conquest in Mesoamerica and the Iberian Atlantic, circa 1500; 2. Christening colonialism: the politics of conversion in post-conquest Mexico; Part II. Construction: 3. The staff, the lash, and the trumpet: the native infrastructure of the mission enterprise; 4. Paying for Thebaid: the colonial economy of a mendicant paradise; 5. Building in the shadow of death: monastery construction and the politics of community reconstitution; Part III. A Fraying Fabric: 6. The burning church: native and Spanish wars over the mission enterprise; 7. Hecatomb; Epilogue: Salazar's doubt: global echoes of the Mexican mission.
Offers a social history of the Mexican mission enterprise, emphasizing the centrality of indigenous politics, economics, and demographic catastrophe.
Ryan Dominic Crewe is Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Denver.
'Crewe's multifaceted reassessment of early mendicant
evangelization demonstrates how it served not only to impose
Spanish hegemony, but also to animate ethnic persistence. In the
midst of exploitation and high epidemic death tolls at
mid-century, indigenous leaders and communities undertook a massive
effort to build churches and monasteries as a deliberate means of
perpetuating native agency.' Susan M. Deeds, Professor Emerita of
History, Northern Arizona University
'An enigma of the early years of Spanish rule in Mesoamerica has
been the construction of scores of magnificent, monumental
Christian church compounds of cut and sculpted stone by indigenous
peoples whose numbers dwindled horribly from disease and
displacement during the height of the building campaign. Ryan
Dominic Crewe's well-documented study plumbs the political and
social reasons why local communities and their leaders participated
in the building campaign at such great cost, contributing to the
establishment of the Spanish empire and their own subjection, but
also checking its power over them and renewing their own
traditions.' William B. Taylor, author of Theater of a Thousand
Wonders: A History of Miraculous Images and Shrines in New Spain
(Cambridge, 2016)
'This book deftly tackles a mystery: hundreds of large churches
mushroomed in mid-sixteenth-century Mexico at the very height of
three demographic catastrophes. The buildings reflected a major
reorganization of geopolitics by old and new indigenous elites
seeking dominance over neighbors, ethnic rivals, and
commoners. This brilliant new account of religious conversion
puts indigenous communities, not friars, at the center of the
'spiritual conquest of Mexico'.' Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Alice
Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History, University of Texas,
Austin
'Bold in its thesis and ambitious in its scope, The Mexican Mission
situates this quintessentially colonial institution in its Atlantic
and global contexts while expanding the history of the Christian
project to capture the experiences and perspectives of native
commoners and a wide range of native communities.' Yanna
Yannakakis, 2018–2021 Winship Distinguished Research Professorship
in History, Emory University, Atlanta
'Scholars and students alike will find this book eminently
readable, a fine addition to the scholarship on early colonial New
Spain.' Leslie S. Offutt, Hispanic American Historical Review
'… this is a book of discrete microhistories that work well
cumulatively to substantiate the central, indigenous agency thesis
… this is a fine one.' Matthew J. Butler, The Journal of
Ecclesiastical History
'The Mexican Mission will become a central text for those studying
the history of the early church in New Spain.' Jason Dyck, Comptes
Rendus
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