Book Reviews

Hassig, Ross (2006) Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, University of Oklahoma Press
(Norman), xvii + 261 pp. $14.95 pbk.

This second edition (the first appeared in 1994) differs only slightly from its predeces-
sor. The font is larger, the paragraphing more frequent, the bibliography a bit longer,
the maps fewer in number, but there is little new writing. This second edition has,
therefore, many of the same strengths and weaknesses as the first.
Ross Hassig emphasizes what may be called ‘the logistics’ of Mesoamerican society
and how those factors influenced the Spanish conquest. In earlier monographs, he has
studied the economic history and culture of the region (Trade, Tribute and Transporta-
tion: The Sixteenth-Century Political Economy of the Valley of Mexico. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1985, Mesoamerican warfare in general (War and Society
in Ancient Mesoamerica. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992 and in particular
(Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1988). From those books we learn, for instance, how porters (tlamenes)
were paid; what the conventional load for a porter would be; how productive certain
lands were, and whether or not irrigation was needed. We read about the range and
effectiveness of the Aztecs’ main projectile weapon, the atlatl or spear-thrower, and learn
about their main shock weapon, the tepoztopilli or thrusting spear. We are told how
much a Mesoamerican foot-soldier required per day in food and water; what a typical
day’s march was; how an army was usually re-supplied, and when the war-making sea-
son began and ended. In Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, Hassig returns to these and
other related matters as he focuses on the Spanish conquest.
Chapters one to four (of eleven) describe the Spanish background to the conquest of
Mexico, what Mesoamerican society was like before the arrival of the Spanish, how
Cortés came to Yucatán and how he proceeded to the interior, gaining valuable, allies
particularly among the Tlaxcaltecs, on his march toward Tenochtitlan. Chapters 5–9 deal
with Tenochtitlan, from Cortés’s entry into the city to its eventual destruction. Chapters
10 and 11 treat the immediate aftermath of the conquest. Hassig constructs his narrative
from many of the well-known primary sources on the conquest. But he changes a familiar
narrative in significant ways, largely ignoring the relevant critical literature and the diffi-
culties that literature may present for the less familiar story that he wishes to unfold.
Hassig comments that ‘Mexico was conquered not from abroad but from within’
(p. 182). He gives the impression that the Tlaxcaltecs and other Indian groups used
Cortés to bring down the Aztec empire and that the Spanish ‘conquest’ of Mexico was
the unintended consequence of the ‘Indian manipulation’ of an ‘exploited’ Cortés and

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122 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 1
 Book Reviews

other Spaniards (p. 5). While few scholars would deny the central role that Cortés’s
Indian allies played in the destruction of Tenochtitlan and of the Aztec empire, fewer
would want to transform Cortés into a manipulated object in an internecine power
struggle among Indian groups.
Hassig’s desire to the make the Indians larger players in the conquest of Mexico is
coupled with an equally strong desire to downplay the importance of religious, ideo-
logical or ‘cultural’ factors in favour of a more materialistic interpretation such as the
availability of food and labour. His comments on another part of the New World, the
Caribbean, show that desire at work and the false impression that can then result. He
discusses the term encomienda twice. He first suggests that the encomienda was insti-
tuted by Columbus shortly after 1494 as part of his strategy to subdue Hispaniola,
ignoring the fact that the encomienda did not become Spanish policy until the second
decade of the sixteenth century with the ‘Laws of Burgos’ and that it grew out of the
repartimiento. Hassig describes the encomienda as ‘a political system in which the
rights to the labour of the Indians residing in a granted area were allocated to desig-
nated Spanish encomenderos. Their labour was managed through the cooperation of
the local caciques but enforced by the Spaniards’ (p. 15). Hassig repeats the descrip-
tion of the encomienda (p. 188) as an institution that ensured a labour supply. No-
where does Hassig hint that the encomendero was legally and morally obligated, in
return for accepting Indians ‘commended’ to him, to instruct them in Christianity and
thus to ensure their salvation as well as to bring them within the fold of civilised Eu-
ropean society. The religious aspects of the encomienda are thus suppressed.
Hassig’s interpretation of the conquest of Mexico may be viewed as a counter-
weight to more common interpretations that explain the events in psychological, reli-
gious and ideological terms, as well as with respect to Spanish military tactics; or in
terms of Cortés’s personality, strategic genius and ability as a Machiavellian manipula-
tor of individuals and groups. But in his zeal, Hassig simplifies a chapter in New World
history that should remain richly complex.

Michael Palencia-Roth
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1

© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 1 123