Author: Robert Patch
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9780765604125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Records of revolts, rebellions, and revolutions provide insight into the nature of the Maya in the colonial period. This book presents five case studies - four in Guatemala and one in Yucatan, Mexico - of eighteenth-century Maya acts of violent resistance to colonialism, and, in the process, reveals a great deal about indigenous culture, social structure, politics, economics, lineage, and gender. The author carefully analyzes the causes of, participation in, and resolution of each uprising, explaining the different political, economic, and cultural catalysts, and the scope and outcome of each conflict. Through such detailed narratives, the reader not only learns about the reality of colonialism but also encounters the flesh-and-blood, real-life individuals and groups who resisted, counteracted, circumvented, and defied the Spaniards. These stories reveal the drama, tragedy, and even comedy of the history of ordinary people and everyday life at the time.
Maya Revolt and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century
Author: Robert Patch
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9780765604125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Records of revolts, rebellions, and revolutions provide insight into the nature of the Maya in the colonial period. This book presents five case studies - four in Guatemala and one in Yucatan, Mexico - of eighteenth-century Maya acts of violent resistance to colonialism, and, in the process, reveals a great deal about indigenous culture, social structure, politics, economics, lineage, and gender. The author carefully analyzes the causes of, participation in, and resolution of each uprising, explaining the different political, economic, and cultural catalysts, and the scope and outcome of each conflict. Through such detailed narratives, the reader not only learns about the reality of colonialism but also encounters the flesh-and-blood, real-life individuals and groups who resisted, counteracted, circumvented, and defied the Spaniards. These stories reveal the drama, tragedy, and even comedy of the history of ordinary people and everyday life at the time.
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9780765604125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
Records of revolts, rebellions, and revolutions provide insight into the nature of the Maya in the colonial period. This book presents five case studies - four in Guatemala and one in Yucatan, Mexico - of eighteenth-century Maya acts of violent resistance to colonialism, and, in the process, reveals a great deal about indigenous culture, social structure, politics, economics, lineage, and gender. The author carefully analyzes the causes of, participation in, and resolution of each uprising, explaining the different political, economic, and cultural catalysts, and the scope and outcome of each conflict. Through such detailed narratives, the reader not only learns about the reality of colonialism but also encounters the flesh-and-blood, real-life individuals and groups who resisted, counteracted, circumvented, and defied the Spaniards. These stories reveal the drama, tragedy, and even comedy of the history of ordinary people and everyday life at the time.
Maya Revolt and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century
Author: Robert W. Patch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317464982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
Records of revolts, rebellions, and revolutions provide insight into the nature of the Maya in the colonial period. This book presents five case studies - four in Guatemala and one in Yucatan, Mexico - of eighteenth-century Maya acts of violent resistance to colonialism, and, in the process, reveals a great deal about indigenous culture, social structure, politics, economics, lineage, and gender. The author carefully analyzes the causes of, participation in, and resolution of each uprising, explaining the different political, economic, and cultural catalysts, and the scope and outcome of each conflict. Through such detailed narratives, the reader not only learns about the reality of colonialism but also encounters the flesh-and-blood, real-life individuals and groups who resisted, counteracted, circumvented, and defied the Spaniards. These stories reveal the drama, tragedy, and even comedy of the history of ordinary people and everyday life at the time.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317464982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
Records of revolts, rebellions, and revolutions provide insight into the nature of the Maya in the colonial period. This book presents five case studies - four in Guatemala and one in Yucatan, Mexico - of eighteenth-century Maya acts of violent resistance to colonialism, and, in the process, reveals a great deal about indigenous culture, social structure, politics, economics, lineage, and gender. The author carefully analyzes the causes of, participation in, and resolution of each uprising, explaining the different political, economic, and cultural catalysts, and the scope and outcome of each conflict. Through such detailed narratives, the reader not only learns about the reality of colonialism but also encounters the flesh-and-blood, real-life individuals and groups who resisted, counteracted, circumvented, and defied the Spaniards. These stories reveal the drama, tragedy, and even comedy of the history of ordinary people and everyday life at the time.
Indians and the Political Economy of Colonial Central America, 1670–1810
Author: Robert W. Patch
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 080615134X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
The history of relations between the Spanish and the Indians of colonial Central America, often oversimplified as a story of unending Spanish abuse, forms a complicated tapestry of economics and politics. Robert W. Patch’s even-handed study of the repartimiento de mercancías—the commercial dealings between regional magistrates and the people under their jurisdiction—reveals the inner workings of colonialism in Central America. Indians were at the heart of the colonial economy. They made up the majority of the population, produced most of the goods, and performed most of the labor. The bureaucrats who ruled over them were badly paid, and to increase their income, they carried out illegal business activities with the Indians and sometimes even non-Indians. This book analyzes these commercial exchanges in colonial Central America within the context of a colonial regime dependent for income on taxes paid by Indians. Patch demonstrates that the magistrates frequently used repartimientos illegally to facilitate tax collection and then justified their actions by claiming that such commerce was necessary for the survival of colonialism. At the same time, the commerce contributed to the development of regional economies and the integration of the regions into the world economy. Patch’s case studies of highland Guatemala and Nicaragua reveal how the system worked at the regional and local levels. These studies manifest not only the profits to be made through repartimientos but also the problems faced by magistrates as they tried to be government officials and businessmen at the same time. The Spanish government eventually imposed reforms to make the colonial bureaucracy more honest by eliminating the repartimiento system. The reforms, however, also resulted in economic decline and political disaffection among the Hispanic population. Patch’s book, therefore, covers a crucial phase in the history of Central America as the region moved from colonialism to independence.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 080615134X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
The history of relations between the Spanish and the Indians of colonial Central America, often oversimplified as a story of unending Spanish abuse, forms a complicated tapestry of economics and politics. Robert W. Patch’s even-handed study of the repartimiento de mercancías—the commercial dealings between regional magistrates and the people under their jurisdiction—reveals the inner workings of colonialism in Central America. Indians were at the heart of the colonial economy. They made up the majority of the population, produced most of the goods, and performed most of the labor. The bureaucrats who ruled over them were badly paid, and to increase their income, they carried out illegal business activities with the Indians and sometimes even non-Indians. This book analyzes these commercial exchanges in colonial Central America within the context of a colonial regime dependent for income on taxes paid by Indians. Patch demonstrates that the magistrates frequently used repartimientos illegally to facilitate tax collection and then justified their actions by claiming that such commerce was necessary for the survival of colonialism. At the same time, the commerce contributed to the development of regional economies and the integration of the regions into the world economy. Patch’s case studies of highland Guatemala and Nicaragua reveal how the system worked at the regional and local levels. These studies manifest not only the profits to be made through repartimientos but also the problems faced by magistrates as they tried to be government officials and businessmen at the same time. The Spanish government eventually imposed reforms to make the colonial bureaucracy more honest by eliminating the repartimiento system. The reforms, however, also resulted in economic decline and political disaffection among the Hispanic population. Patch’s book, therefore, covers a crucial phase in the history of Central America as the region moved from colonialism to independence.
Rebellion Now and Forever
Author: Terry Rugeley
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804771308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
This book explores the origins, process, and consequences of forty years of nearly continual political violence in southeastern Mexico. Rather than recounting the well-worn narrative of the Caste War, it focuses instead on how four decades of violence helped shape social and political institutions of the Mexican southeast. Rebellion Now and Forever looks at Yucatán's famous Caste War from the perspective of the vast majority of Hispanics and Maya peasants who did not join in the great ethnic rebellion of 1847. It shows how the history of nonrebel territory was as dramatic and as violent as the front lines of the Caste War, and of greater significance for the larger evolution of Mexican society. The work explores political violence not merely as a method and process, but also as a molder of subsequent institutions and practices.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804771308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
This book explores the origins, process, and consequences of forty years of nearly continual political violence in southeastern Mexico. Rather than recounting the well-worn narrative of the Caste War, it focuses instead on how four decades of violence helped shape social and political institutions of the Mexican southeast. Rebellion Now and Forever looks at Yucatán's famous Caste War from the perspective of the vast majority of Hispanics and Maya peasants who did not join in the great ethnic rebellion of 1847. It shows how the history of nonrebel territory was as dramatic and as violent as the front lines of the Caste War, and of greater significance for the larger evolution of Mexican society. The work explores political violence not merely as a method and process, but also as a molder of subsequent institutions and practices.
Staging Christ's Passion in Eighteenth-Century Nahua Mexico
Author: Louise M. Burkhart
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646424514
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Staging Christ’s Passion in Eighteenth-Century Nahua Mexico explores the Passion plays performed in Nahuatl (Aztec) by Indigenous Mexicans living under Spanish colonial occupation. Though sourced from European writings and devotional practices that emphasized the suffering of Christ and his mother, this Nahuatl theatrical tradition grounded the Passion story in the Indigenous corporate community. Passion plays had courted controversy in Europe since their twelfth-century origin, but in New Spain they faced Catholic authorities who questioned the spiritual and intellectual capacity of Indigenous people and, in the eighteenth century, sought to suppress these performances. Six surviving eighteenth-century scripts, variants of an original play possibly composed early in the seventeenth century, reveal how Nahuas passed along this model text while modifying it with new dialogue, characters, and stage techniques. Louise M. Burkhart explores the way Nahuas merged the Passion story with their language, cultural constructs, social norms, and religious practices while also responding to surveillance by Catholic churchmen. Analytical chapters trace significant themes through the six plays and key these to a composite play in English included in the volume. A cast with over fifty distinct roles acted out events extending from Palm Sunday to Christ’s death on the cross. One actor became a localized embodiment of Jesus through a process of investiture and mimesis that carried aspects of pre-Columbian materialized divinity into the later colonial period. The play told afar richer version of the Passion story than what later colonial Nahuas typically learned from their priests or catechists. And by assimilating Jesus to an Indigenous, or macehualli, identity, the players enacted a protest against colonial rule. The situation in eighteenth-century New Spain presents both a unique confrontation between Indigenous communities and Enlightenment era religious reformers and a new chapter in an age-old power game between popular practice and religious orthodoxy. By focusing on how Nahuas localized the universalizing narrative of Christ’s Passion, Staging Christ’s Passion in Eighteenth-Century Nahua Mexico offers an unusually in-depth view of religious life under colonial rule. Burkhart’s accompanying website also makes available transcriptions and translations of the six Nahuatl-language plays, four Spanish-language plays composed in response to the suppression of the Nahuatl practice, and related documentation, providing a valuable resource for anyone interested in consulting the original material. Comments restricted to single page plays composed in response to the suppression of the Nahuatl practice, and related documentation, providing a valuable resource for anyone interested in consulting the original material
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646424514
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Staging Christ’s Passion in Eighteenth-Century Nahua Mexico explores the Passion plays performed in Nahuatl (Aztec) by Indigenous Mexicans living under Spanish colonial occupation. Though sourced from European writings and devotional practices that emphasized the suffering of Christ and his mother, this Nahuatl theatrical tradition grounded the Passion story in the Indigenous corporate community. Passion plays had courted controversy in Europe since their twelfth-century origin, but in New Spain they faced Catholic authorities who questioned the spiritual and intellectual capacity of Indigenous people and, in the eighteenth century, sought to suppress these performances. Six surviving eighteenth-century scripts, variants of an original play possibly composed early in the seventeenth century, reveal how Nahuas passed along this model text while modifying it with new dialogue, characters, and stage techniques. Louise M. Burkhart explores the way Nahuas merged the Passion story with their language, cultural constructs, social norms, and religious practices while also responding to surveillance by Catholic churchmen. Analytical chapters trace significant themes through the six plays and key these to a composite play in English included in the volume. A cast with over fifty distinct roles acted out events extending from Palm Sunday to Christ’s death on the cross. One actor became a localized embodiment of Jesus through a process of investiture and mimesis that carried aspects of pre-Columbian materialized divinity into the later colonial period. The play told afar richer version of the Passion story than what later colonial Nahuas typically learned from their priests or catechists. And by assimilating Jesus to an Indigenous, or macehualli, identity, the players enacted a protest against colonial rule. The situation in eighteenth-century New Spain presents both a unique confrontation between Indigenous communities and Enlightenment era religious reformers and a new chapter in an age-old power game between popular practice and religious orthodoxy. By focusing on how Nahuas localized the universalizing narrative of Christ’s Passion, Staging Christ’s Passion in Eighteenth-Century Nahua Mexico offers an unusually in-depth view of religious life under colonial rule. Burkhart’s accompanying website also makes available transcriptions and translations of the six Nahuatl-language plays, four Spanish-language plays composed in response to the suppression of the Nahuatl practice, and related documentation, providing a valuable resource for anyone interested in consulting the original material. Comments restricted to single page plays composed in response to the suppression of the Nahuatl practice, and related documentation, providing a valuable resource for anyone interested in consulting the original material
Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands
Author: Kasey Diserens Morgan
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646422848
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands explores what has been required of the Maya to survive both internal and external threats and other destabilizing forces. These include shifting power dynamics and sociocultural transformations, tumultuous political regimes, the precarity of newly formed nation states, migration in search of refuge, and newly globalizing economies in the Yucatecan lowlands in the Late Colonial to Early National periods—the times when formal Spanish colonial rule was giving way to Yucatecan and Mexican neocolonial settler systems. The work takes a hemispheric approach to the historical and material analysis of colonialism, bridging the often disparate literatures on coloniality and settler colonialism. Archaeologists and anthropologists working in what are today southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras grapple with the material realities of coloniality at a regional level. They provide sustained discussions of Maya experiences with wide-ranging colonial endurances: violence, resource insecurity, land rights, refugees, the control of borders, the movement of contraband, surveillance, individual and collective agency, consumption, and use of historic resources. Considering a future for historical archaeologies of the Maya region that bridges anthropology, ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and Latin American studies, Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands presents a new understanding of how ways of being in the Maya world have formed and changed over time, as well as the shared investments of historical archaeologists and sociocultural anthropologists working in the Maya region. Contributors: Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Alejandra Badillo Sánchez, Adolfo Iván Batún Alpuche, A. Brooke Bonorden, Maia C. Dedrick, Scott L. Fedick, Fior García Lara, John Gust, Brett A. Houk, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gertrude B. Kilgore, Jennifer P. Mathews, Patricia A. McAnany, James W. Meierhoff, Fabián A. Olán de la Cruz, Julie K. Wesp
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646422848
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands explores what has been required of the Maya to survive both internal and external threats and other destabilizing forces. These include shifting power dynamics and sociocultural transformations, tumultuous political regimes, the precarity of newly formed nation states, migration in search of refuge, and newly globalizing economies in the Yucatecan lowlands in the Late Colonial to Early National periods—the times when formal Spanish colonial rule was giving way to Yucatecan and Mexican neocolonial settler systems. The work takes a hemispheric approach to the historical and material analysis of colonialism, bridging the often disparate literatures on coloniality and settler colonialism. Archaeologists and anthropologists working in what are today southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras grapple with the material realities of coloniality at a regional level. They provide sustained discussions of Maya experiences with wide-ranging colonial endurances: violence, resource insecurity, land rights, refugees, the control of borders, the movement of contraband, surveillance, individual and collective agency, consumption, and use of historic resources. Considering a future for historical archaeologies of the Maya region that bridges anthropology, ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and Latin American studies, Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands presents a new understanding of how ways of being in the Maya world have formed and changed over time, as well as the shared investments of historical archaeologists and sociocultural anthropologists working in the Maya region. Contributors: Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Alejandra Badillo Sánchez, Adolfo Iván Batún Alpuche, A. Brooke Bonorden, Maia C. Dedrick, Scott L. Fedick, Fior García Lara, John Gust, Brett A. Houk, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gertrude B. Kilgore, Jennifer P. Mathews, Patricia A. McAnany, James W. Meierhoff, Fabián A. Olán de la Cruz, Julie K. Wesp
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology
Author: Deborah L. Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199875006
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 996
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed by regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies--from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations--and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199875006
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 996
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed by regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies--from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations--and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.
The Maya Apocalypse and Its Western Roots
Author: Matthew Restall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538154994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
This fascinating history explores the cultural roots of our civilization’s obsession with the end of the world. Busting the myth of the ancient Maya prediction that time would end in 2012, Matthew Restall and Amara Solari build on their previous book, 2012 and the End of the World, to use the Maya case to connect such seemingly disparate historical events as medieval European millenarianism, Moctezuma’s welcome to Cortés, Franciscan missionizing in Mexico, prophetic traditions in Yucatan, and the growing belief today in conspiracies and apocalypses. In demystifying the 2012 phenomenon, the authors draw on their decades of scholarship to provide an accessible and engaging explanation of what Mayas and Aztecs really believed, how Judeo-Christian apocalypticism became part of the Indigenous Mesoamerican and modern American worlds, and why millions continue to anticipate an imminent Doomsday.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538154994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
This fascinating history explores the cultural roots of our civilization’s obsession with the end of the world. Busting the myth of the ancient Maya prediction that time would end in 2012, Matthew Restall and Amara Solari build on their previous book, 2012 and the End of the World, to use the Maya case to connect such seemingly disparate historical events as medieval European millenarianism, Moctezuma’s welcome to Cortés, Franciscan missionizing in Mexico, prophetic traditions in Yucatan, and the growing belief today in conspiracies and apocalypses. In demystifying the 2012 phenomenon, the authors draw on their decades of scholarship to provide an accessible and engaging explanation of what Mayas and Aztecs really believed, how Judeo-Christian apocalypticism became part of the Indigenous Mesoamerican and modern American worlds, and why millions continue to anticipate an imminent Doomsday.
The Oxford Handbook of Latin American History
Author: Jose C. Moya
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195166205
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 551
Book Description
This Oxford Handbook comprehensively examines the field of Latin American history.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195166205
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 551
Book Description
This Oxford Handbook comprehensively examines the field of Latin American history.
Aztec and Maya Apocalypses
Author: Mark Z. Christensen
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806191341
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
The Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the Final Judgment: the Apocalypse is central to Christianity and has evolved throughout Christianity’s long history. Thus, when ecclesiastics brought the Apocalypse to native audiences in the Americas, both groups adapted it further, reflecting new political and social circumstances. The religious texts in Aztec and Maya Apocalypses, many translated for the first time, provide an intriguing picture of this process—revealing the influence of European, Aztec, and Maya worldviews on portrayals of Doomsday by Spanish priests and Indigenous authors alike. The Apocalypse and Christian eschatology played an important role in the conversion of the Indigenous population and often appeared in the texts and sermons composed for their consumption. Through these writings from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century—priests’ “official” texts and Indigenous authors’ rendering of them—Mark Z. Christensen traces Maya and Nahua influences, both stylistic and substantive, while documenting how extensively Old World content and meaning were absorbed into Indigenous texts. Visions of world endings and beginnings were not new to the Indigenous cultures of America. Christensen shows how and why certain formulations, such as the Fifteen Signs of Doomsday, found receptive audiences among the Maya and the Aztec, with religious ramifications extending to the present day. These translated texts provide the opportunity to see firsthand the negotiations that ecclesiastics and natives engaged in when composing their eschatological treatises. With their insights into how various ecclesiastics, Nahuas, and Mayas preached, and even understood, Catholicism, they offer a uniquely detailed, deeply informed perspective on the process of forming colonial religion.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806191341
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
The Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the Final Judgment: the Apocalypse is central to Christianity and has evolved throughout Christianity’s long history. Thus, when ecclesiastics brought the Apocalypse to native audiences in the Americas, both groups adapted it further, reflecting new political and social circumstances. The religious texts in Aztec and Maya Apocalypses, many translated for the first time, provide an intriguing picture of this process—revealing the influence of European, Aztec, and Maya worldviews on portrayals of Doomsday by Spanish priests and Indigenous authors alike. The Apocalypse and Christian eschatology played an important role in the conversion of the Indigenous population and often appeared in the texts and sermons composed for their consumption. Through these writings from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century—priests’ “official” texts and Indigenous authors’ rendering of them—Mark Z. Christensen traces Maya and Nahua influences, both stylistic and substantive, while documenting how extensively Old World content and meaning were absorbed into Indigenous texts. Visions of world endings and beginnings were not new to the Indigenous cultures of America. Christensen shows how and why certain formulations, such as the Fifteen Signs of Doomsday, found receptive audiences among the Maya and the Aztec, with religious ramifications extending to the present day. These translated texts provide the opportunity to see firsthand the negotiations that ecclesiastics and natives engaged in when composing their eschatological treatises. With their insights into how various ecclesiastics, Nahuas, and Mayas preached, and even understood, Catholicism, they offer a uniquely detailed, deeply informed perspective on the process of forming colonial religion.