lenguage and communication in the spanish conquest

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Language and Communication in the Spanish Conquestof America

Daniel Wasserman Soler*University of Virginia

Abstract

This article was originally presented as part of The 2009 Compass Interdisciplinary VirtualConference. You can read the article along with two commentaries and discussion at http://compassconference.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/conference-paper-language-and-communication-in-the-spanish-conquest-of-america/. One of the central questions arising from the encounterbetween Europeans and Amerindians concerns language and communication. An encounter betweentwo peoples that had not known about the others existence an encounter that scholars have longcharacterized as a clash of cultures raises the question of how they managed to communicate witheach other. Over 25 years ago, Tzvetan Todorov put forth one way of linking communication andconquest when he argued that Europeans conquered the Amerindians through their superior abilityto understand the Other. More generally, he contended that Western Europeans had a generalsuperiority in human communication, demonstrated by the fact that they used alphabetic writing(Todorov 251). For Todorov, Europeans displayed remarkable qualities of flexibility and improvisa-tion, characteristics that allowed them to be more effective in imposing their ways of life on others(Todorov 2478). They were so successful, Todorov argues, that in the centuries following the initialencounter between Europeans and Amerindians, Europeans were able to gradually assimilate theOther and eliminate alterity. While Todorovs 1982 work initially received much acclaim, since thenseveral scholars have challenged (directly and indirectly) his claims by subjecting the encounterbetween Europeans and Amerindians to further study. Scholars have questioned the extent to whichthese groups were able to communicate with one another, and in some cases, they have questionedwhat Spanish conquest, authority, and domination actually mean when Spaniards and Indians hadsuch difficulty communicating their ideas to one another. By posing these questions, scholars of var-ied backgrounds in anthropology, history, religion, and art history have fundamentally reshaped thefield of colonial Latin American studies. While they have shown that barriers impeded communica-tion and understanding between Amerindians and Europeans, scholars have also demonstrated thatboth groups made important contributions to new cultural and religious syntheses. This articlewill explore a range of scholarly works over the past 25 years that responds to the question of howlanguage and communication are interrelated with conquest.

In 1512, the Spanish Crown directed the Franciscan Order to send friars to the NewWorld to instruct the Native American communities in the Catholic faith.1 To makedoctrine as comprehensible as possible, the friars studied the natives languages.

Documentation from approximately 35 years later indicates that the Emperor CharlesV sought to encourage the friars to continue to learn native languages.2 By 1550,however, Charles sent a decree to the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians inNew Granada, ordering them to teach Castilian to the natives.3 Support for the use of

Native American languages, however, did not cease. Charless son, Philip II, sent a decreein 1578 to the archbishops of Cuzco and Lima asking that evangelization only be theduty of individuals who spoke the native languages well.4 By 1596, however, the Council

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of the Indies recommended to Philip that Catholic doctrine be taught in Castilian.5 Thereign of Philip II, however, did not terminate the issue.6 The question of how to com-municate doctrine to Native American groups remained contested, with documentationfrom as late as 1770 demonstrating the persistence of questions concerning evangelization,language, and communication.7

That Spanish monarchs, officials, and ecclesiasts could not conclusively determine alanguage policy indicates, in part, that Europeans constantly experienced obstacles tocommunication with the Native American peoples. The subject of communication haslong held significance for colonial Latin America, perhaps most notably in examining thereligious forms that developed as a result of interactions between European priests andNative Americans and in studying how Spaniards and natives together established a NewWorld civilization.

In what follows, this study offers an introduction to scholarship addressing languageand communication in the Spanish conquest and the early colonial period. It cannot,unfortunately, provide an exhaustive treatment of the subject. This essay examines Eng-lish-language studies and even within this somewhat smaller field, several works that

deserve attention cannot be included because of limits on space.8We begin with a famous (or, perhaps, infamous) argument about communication and

the Spanish conquest made by Tzvetan Todorov in 1982. While many scholars haverejected his thesis, the theme of language and communication has remained central toscholarship on Latin America. Specifically, this essay demonstrates that since the late1980s, scholarship on the conquest and early colonial Latin America is largely unified bythe attempt to show that Native American peoples were effective communicators.

Todorov and the Theory of European Communicative Superiority

Perhaps the most controversial work to examine communication in the Spanish conquestis Todorovs The Conquest of America.9 In his monograph, Todorov, a literary critic andphilosopher, argues that Europeans were able to conquer the Mexica because of theirexceptional ability to understand the Other and because of a superiority in human com-munication.10 This ability, he contends, arose from European alphabetic writing, a formof communication more advanced than the pictogram-based system employed by theMexica.11 The Mexica, according to Todorov, lived in a tradition-based world, fixed onthe past, and because they lacked alphabetic script, they could not compete with theEuropean ability to quickly communicate through signs.12 That the Spaniards camefrom a society that had alphabetic writing worked in their favor because the presence of

writing favors improvisation over ritual.13

More specifically, Todorov explains that while Spaniards preferred man-to-mancommunication, the Mexica preferred exchanges between man and the world.14 Perhapsmost illustrative of this difference is Todorovs description of how the Mexica emperor,Moctezuma, dealt with intelligence he received regarding the newly-arrived Spaniards.Once he knew about the Spanish presence, Moctezuma sought not the advice of othermen but rather the knowledge conferred by master interpreters who communicated withgods.15 Todorov concludes, It is this particular way of practicing communication(neglecting the interhuman dimension, privileging contact with the world) which isresponsible for the Indians distorted image of the Spaniards during the first encounters,

and notably for the paralyzing belief that the Spaniards are gods.16

As Spaniards favored the quicker and more flexible man-to-man communication,Todorov argues that they were able to assert their authority over the Mexica. He

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maintains, furthermore, that European communicative skills enabled them to assimilatethe Other. In his discussion of Hernan Cortes, Todorov explains that the conquistadortook an interest in the natives by learning about their language, forms of political orga-nization, and methods of communication. Following his acquisition of knowledge aboutthe Native Americans, however, Cortes (and other Europeans) attempted to eliminatethe strangeness of the external other by incorporating the natives into the Europeanworld. Europeans, according to Todorov, exhibit remarkable qualities of flexibility andimprovisation, traits that allowed them to more effectively impose their ways of life onothers.17

Although Todorov argues that westerners conquered America through their communi-cative prowess, he claims that in asserting this superiority, westerners also lost communi-cation with the rest of the world (by attempting to assimilate it).18 In fact, Todorovsaim, in his words, is to provide a cautionary tale of what happens if we lose communica-tion, as the Europeans did, and do not discover the external Other. As Europeans have,in Todorovs opinion, largely succeeded in their 350-year effort to assimilate the Otherand eliminate alterity, he implies that Europeans have failed to understand the Other, and

thus, have fallen short in acquiring self-knowledge.19 The political theorist and historianAnthony Pagden notes that Todorov aimed to understand the process of conquest inorder to prevent it, in order to recognize it when we encounter it today.20

While many colonial Latin Americanists do not acknowledge Todorovs study as afoundational work,21 others consider his research important.22 Regardless, we begin withhim here as a useful baseline for considering more recent works on communication inearly Latin America.

Native Americans as Effective and Active Communicators

Shortly after the release of Todorovs work, Inga Clendinnen questioned not only thesuperiority of European communicative abilities but also the very notion of conquest byexamining the encounter between the Franciscan friars and the Maya in the Yucatan pen-insula.23 The friars were simple, motivated, and devoted men who received from thepope the task of establishing a new Church in the Indies.24 They believed their dutiesincluded not only teaching doctrine but also protecting the Maya from the abuses ofSpanish landowners who often sought to take advantage of native labor.25

Through forming personal relationships with the Maya, these idealistic friars believedthat they had made strides in their initial efforts at evangelization. Clendinnen shows,however, that their idealism changed when they realized that the Maya had not done

away with their idols. For Clendinnen, the friars, who had dedicated themselves to theservice of the Maya, interpreted this continued idol worship as betrayal.26 By arguing thatthe Maya remained strangers to the Franciscans, Clendinnen demonstrates that the friarshad not been able to communicate effectively with the Maya.

In discovering the continued use of idols, the friars took issue with the Maya minglingof elements from Christianity and native religions. Clendinnen paints an image of friarswho struggled to make sense of how the Maya brought elements of Christianity togetherwith native religious practices to form one coherent system. The friars bewilderment andconfusion at the religion of the Maya, therefore, almost seem to invert Todorovs claimabout superior European communicative skills. Furthermore, because the Maya appropri-

ated some elements of the Christian religion and mixed them with their traditionalreligion, Clendinnens study implies that the Maya actually conquered Christianity andput it to a new use.

Language, Communication, and Conquest 493



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While Clendinnen challenges Todorovs claims about communication and conquest,part of her argument mirrors his. She demonstrates that the encounter between the friarsand the Maya radically changed the former. After discovering the idols, the friarsinstituted ad hoc inquisitions to discover which Maya had engaged in idolatry. Theyutilized torture to find answers, and they violently punished the guilty natives. Some ofthese Franciscans, Clendinnen argues, were monstrous inversions of the Franciscan ideal;missionaries as brutish as the worst pagans; men enslaved by the passions of anger, prideand cruelty.27 While many Europeans had perceived the natives as violent barbarians,now the friars had become the monsters, and in making such a claim Clendinnen parallelsTodorovs argument that Europeans discovered not an external Other but rather anOther within themselves.28

While Clendinnen and Todorov differ significantly on the question of Europeancommunicative abilities, Louise Burkhart takes a position somewhere in the middle.29

She demonstrates that Catholic friars, aiming to explain Christianity to the Nahuas, mas-tered Nahuatl and employed concepts from the native tongue to illuminate Christianones.30 Her contention that friars used indigenous rhetoric to bring the Nahuas closer to

understanding Christianity echoes one of Todorovs points, namely, that Europeans tookan interest in Amerindian languages, political organization, and forms of communicationin order to incorporate them into the European world. Furthermore, similar to Todo-rovs claim that Europeans displayed remarkable qualities of flexibility and improvisation,Burkhart attributes flexibility to the friars in their effort to fit Christianity within a Nahuacontext, arguing that the friars actually remade themselves.31

Despite these basic parallels between Burkhart and Todorov, Burkhart makes no claimthat Europeans had communicative skills superior to those of Nahuas. Rather, sheattributes flexibility both to the friars and to the Nahuas. For Burkhart, the latter becamesufficiently Christian for the new colonial society, but they retained their Nahua ideological

and moral orientation.32

While Burkhart implies that the Nahuas demonstrated flexibility in employingChristian concepts as expressions of their original beliefs, she contends that the universethat they inhabited remained a Nahua one.33 Despite the NahuaEuropean interaction, afundamental difference remained, namely the disparity between a dualistic Christianworldview, which separated the spiritual and material worlds, and a monisticNahua worldview.34 Because of this divergence, Burkhart contends that the transfer ofChristianity onto the Nahua worldview was impossible. Rather, the friars contentedthemselves with a transformation of Christian elements to fit into an already-existingNahua logic. For Burkhart, the friars success in communicating Christian concepts to the

Nahuas relied heavily on using tropes from indigenous moral philosophy.35

Like Clendin-nen, Burkhart challenges Todorovs claim that Europeans assimilated Native Americansinto a European world. Rather, both Clendinnen and Burkhart demonstrate that thenatives incorporated European concepts into their belief systems while retaining thefoundations of their own traditions.36

While Clendinnen and Burkhart trouble Todorovs arguments about communicationand assimilation, we find an even greater challenge to Todorovs argument aboutEuropean communicative superiority in the work of Serge Gruzinski.37 While hissubtitle The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World may seem similar toTodorovs description of the European effort to assimilate Native Americans, their studies

differ considerably. Gruzinski does not describe an encounter in which the Europeanremains unchanged and the native gradually approaches the European world. WhileGruzinski wishes to understand the impact of Western Europeans on America,38 he does




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not describe a one-way exchange from Europe to America. Rather, he contends that theconquestencounter produced a new, hybrid society.39

To describe this hybridity, Gruzinski examines a revolution in modes of expressionand communication, a revolution resulting from the introduction of European script tothe Mexica in the early 16th century.40 According to Gruzinski, we find the most signifi-cant disparities between Spaniards and Mexica in their systems of representation, namely,in the ways that they communicated and recorded their lived experiences. Before theSpanish arrival, the Mexica largely used a pictograph system to record information, butthe introduction of European script produced a combination of European and Mexicaforms of expression, which in turn facilitated a new manner of recording the past.41

For Gruzinski, examining forms of expression provides a unique window onto howthe Mexica conceived of the world in which they lived. He notes that in the early 16thcentury, when the Europeans arrived, the peoples of central Mexico had been undergo-ing a constant process of acculturation, a process that continued with the introduction ofEuropean script.42 In explaining how the Mexica moved from resistance to accommoda-tion of European realities,43 Gruzinski argues that in the second half of the 17th century,

they rewove the torn net that resulted from the violent European arrival in the early1500s.44 The sources that he examines, he argues, cannot be separated from either theircolonial context or from Western European modes of expression.45 Rather, Europeansand Mexica alike put together seemingly contradictory traits, which came to coexist andform a new, evolving way of thinking about the world, a mestizo reality, which he exam-ines more fully in a later work.46 While he parallels Clendinnen and Burkhart in arguingthat Native Americans were crucial contributors to a New World society, he differs fromthem in his contention that native elements were permanently transformed through theirinteraction with European ones.

Like Gruzinski, Sabine MacCormack also troubles Todorovs contention that

Europeans had superior communicative skills and that Europeans have largely succeededin eliminating alterity.47 Whereas Gruzinski made extensive use of image analysis for hisargument, MacCormack bases her study almost entirely in Spanish accounts concerningnative Andeans. In her own words, she examines Andean religion through the eyes ofthose who sought to destroy it. She studies changes in Andean religion over the courseof the 16th and 17th centuries and changes in the ways that Spaniards perceived it. 48

MacCormack indicates from the outset that, despite the Spanish invasion, Andeanreligious life was largely continuous outside of Cuzco.49 Although Andeans acceptedChristianity, MacCormack maintains that they used it to develop their own brand ofreligion.50 While they often desired to become Christian, they also sought to maintain

old religious practices.51

The encounter between Andeans and Spaniards, furthermore, didnot have uniform results, but rather, produced a wide range of religious experiences.52

Besides arguing that much continuity (despite the Europeans arrival) characterized reli-gious life in the Andean highlands, MacCormack also addresses the subject of communi-cation between Europeans and natives. She indicates that some Dominican friarsattempted to learn about Incan religion in order to help Andeans understand the path toChristianity.53 She demonstrates, furthermore, that some Spanish intellectuals possessed asophisticated understanding of the mental processes at the foundation of native religions.The friars believed, in the tradition of Aristotle, that the imagination constituted anintermediate step between ones sensory perception and ones intellect: that is, an object

perceived by the senses traverses the imagination before arriving at the intellect. Theimagination was crucial for a number of reasons: as an intermediary, it could changethe reality of the object perceived by the senses. The process of recognition first through




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the senses and then through the imagination had posed a problem for Aquinas and Cath-olic theologians, for they believed that one could not perceive God with any of thesenses. Aquinas had concluded, therefore, that one apprehends deities directly throughthe imagination, therefore bypassing sensory perception. Although humans couldconceive of deities only in the imagination, sensory perception could enforce ideas aboutdeities or phantasms existing in the imagination. In Europe, for example, the extensivenetwork of visual imagery produced by the Church (e.g., artwork, rituals) helped toreinforce the idea of the Christian God in peoples imaginations. As this visual imagerydid not exist in the New World prior to the Europeans arrival, the devil had had moreopportunities to mislead the Andeans. In other words, in the New World, the devil founda privileged space in the imaginations of the natives but did not find the same space inEurope because of the sensory reinforcement that Christian artwork and rituals provided.

Although MacCormack describes a complex system by which Spanish intellectualssought to understand the relationship between the devil and Andean religion, sheconcludes that the Andeans and Europeans employed distinct mental structures tounderstand religion and that this difference instigated the incommensurability between

the two religions. MacCormack, furthermore, questions the efficacy of European methodsused to understand Andean religion. The Andeans, for MacCormack, generally viewedtheir deities in more nuanced ways than did the Spaniards.54 While the Andeans adminis-tered a complex network of sacred power that had developed over several centuries, theSpaniards thought little of it: they considered it a delusion or a fabrication.55 Furthermore,she contends that her Spanish sources contain few descriptions of Incan festivals, aphenomenon that she attributes to a Spanish failure to understand the rituals theologicaland political significance.56 Of the Europeans who read these accounts, she maintains thatfew understood them.57

Part of MacCormacks work, thus, shows that Europeans did not necessarily

have a more sophisticated understanding of religious concepts than did the Andeans.Furthermore, the continuity of religious traditions in the Andean highlands shows thatthe Andeans continued to communicate their ancient religious traditions to youngergenerations well beyond the initial contact period. For Mesoamerica, the ethnohistorianMatthew Restall provides a similar take on the Maya during the colonial period.58 Withhis first major contribution to the study of Maya communities, Restall confronts anearlier generation of scholarship, which had demonstrated either the superiority of the Span-iards or the indigenous peoples acceptance of their own inferiority.59 He demonstrates,rather, that the Maya were a complex, (largely) culturally independent, and thriving society.

Restalls work mirrors that of most authors hitherto discussed in that he recognizes the

need to write the history of colonial Latin America not only from the Spanish colonialperspective but also from a Native American perspective. Above all, Restalls studyexamines the Maya concept of the cah, or local community, which served as the centralsocial unit of Maya society. He demonstrates that, through the colonial period, the Mayaidentified most strongly with their own communities, continuing to produce traditionalgoods, choosing their own leaders, and regulating their own local affairs.60

Restalls study differs from those examined above, however, in its use of Maya-language sources. These sources, he argues, contradict old scholarly ideas of a Mayadecline during the colonial period. Of interest to our discussion on communication andconquest and central to Restalls work are Spanish genre texts (e.g., wills) written lar-

gely in Maya. After the arrival of the Spaniards in the Yucatan, says Restall, the Mayaslearned how to use Spanish legal culture to their advantage, thus employing the requisiteSpanish legal terms and form, while also communicating their customary Maya rights in




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their own language.61 The Maya from this period, thus, demonstrate both Spanish influ-ence and the continuing importance of their own customs.

Operating on a wider scale than Restalls study of the colonial Yucatan is the work ofthe linguist Frances Karttunen, Between Worlds.62 Karttunen highlights the lives of a selectgroup of Native Americans, each of whom lived in a different location in the Americas,anywhere from the 16th to the 20th centuries. While her stated aim is to study severalindividuals who, all became bridges between their own worlds and another, unfamiliarone,63 she demonstrates implicitly that the establishment of a New World societyinvolved not only the efforts of European conquistadors and missionaries. Absolutely fun-damental was the part played by Native Americans who had the talent of communicatingin both Castilian and one or more native tongues.

Through her chapters on Dona Marina (a.k.a. La Malinche, or Malintzin), the translatorfor Hernan Cortes, and Gaspar Antonio Chi, a Maya civil servant trained by the Francis-can friars, Karttunen demonstrates how crucial native translators were to the establishmentof a New World society. While Dona Marinas contributions to Cortess ventures arewell-known both by specialists and non-specialists of Latin America, Karttunen makes a

welcome point by not attributing credit for Cortess ventures entirely to Dona Marina orto Cortes. Through Karttunens subtle narration, the reader infers that Cortess clever anddeceitful approach in playing various native Mesoamerican groups against one anothercontributed to his success, as did the talents of Dona Marina. Thus, Karttunen like theauthors hitherto discussed avoids depicting New World societies as subsuming theNative American to the European world.

Just as Karttunen and others have identified Native American European communica-tion as foundational to New World enterprises, Amos Megged emphasizes concepts suchas dialogue and negotiation as characteristic of the religion of the Chiapas region insouthern New Spain in the early colonial period.64 Overall, he contends that the interac-

tion between the friars and the Chiapas Maya produced a twofold identity, in which theMaya and colonial components were inseparably joined.65 Drawing upon the historiog-raphy of the Catholic Reformation in Europe, Megged places friars and their Mayanflock on a level in which both contribute actively to local religion. Weekly sermons, inparticular, demonstrate the dialogue that emerged between the spiritual needs of theIndian parishioners and the growing awareness by the Spanish priests of local worldviews.66

While Megged describes dialog between friars and the Maya, he also highlightsmiscommunications and misunderstandings. He maintains that the friars sometimes failedin the interpretation of local reality,67 having too easily formed connections between

Maya concepts and Catholic teachings, only to find that the parallels did not serve Catho-lic doctrine well. Megged, however, does not claim that miscommunication characterizedlocal religion. Rather, his examination of native-language sermons and etymologicaldictionaries demonstrates a slow but solid understanding of indigenous terms on the partof the European priests.68

Similar to Meggeds argument about wrongly-identified parallels, Walter Mignolocontends that Spanish intellectuals misconstrued some unfamiliar New World objects.69

When Europeans observed the Mexicas amoxtli and the Mayas vuh, they often describedthem as objects folded like accordions and translated them as books.70 The problemhere, according to Mignolo, lay in the narrow European definition of book. Renais-

sance Europeans assumed that their specific ideas about communication were universaland, therefore, misunderstood the real function that the Mexica amoxtli and the Mayanvuh served.71 Through the distortions caused by European terms, Native American




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semiotic interactions were combined with or replaced by the materiality and ideology ofwestern reading and writing cultures.72 Through Spanish influence, therefore, Europeanwriting and books replaced Mexica and Maya forms of communication.73

The assumption by 16th-century Europeans that their reading and writing norms wereuniversal has continued into the present, according to Mignolo. He refers to fairly recentscholarly works,74 which have argued that syllabic and alphabetic writing produced acritical and unique breakthrough into new worlds of knowledge.75 Mignolo notes thatneither Maya nor Mexica forms of recording information could fit within this rubric.The concepts of writing and book, he argues, ought to be construed sufficientlybroadly to include forms outside the Western European tradition. Because very specificmodels of these two concepts were ingrained in 16th-century European minds, Spaniardswere, according to Mignolo, unable to inquire into different writing systems and signcarriers other than simply describing them by analogy with their own model.76 WhileMignolo disagrees with Todorovs statement regarding Europeans superior capability forunderstanding the Other, his article nonetheless serves as something of an anomaly amongthe authors discussed here for its emphasis on Spanish colonization and lack of attention

to native forms of communication that continued beyond the conquest. Similar to theother authors mentioned here, however, he provides extensive evidence to demonstratethe sophistication of Mexica and Maya forms of communication.

Todorov and Modern Scholarship

Over 25 years ago, Todorov linked communication and conquest, positing that theconquest of the Mexica succeeded because of European communicative superiority.In explaining why many scholars disregard Todorovs work, Pagden has made twoobservations. The first lies in Todorovs implication of Mexica inferiority. As Pagden

notes, however, Todorov indicated that his distinction between Europeans and Mexicawas meant to refer to a communicative event, not to the quality of their civilizations.77

A second reason for the controversy over Todorovs work rests in its moral quality,warning the reader of the dangers of conquest.

Since then, several scholars have challenged his claims both directly and indirectly that alphabetic literacy was the decisive advantage in the Spanish conquest of the Mexicaand that, consequently, Europeans gradually eliminated Native American alterity. Scholar-ship since the late 1980s finds a common thread in arguing that the members of a rangeof Native American communities possessed effective communicative skills. Anthropolo-gists, art historians, linguists, literary critics, and historians alike have generally contended

that Native Americans continued to communicate to younger generations their religious,governmental, legal, and quotidian traditions. Rather than characterize Native Americansas individuals who passively received European culture, recent scholars have generallydepicted Native Americans as equal interlocutors with Europeans in forming a NewWorld society.

When placed against recent work, which shows Native Americans to be active andskilled communicators, Todorovs arguments seem out of place. Scholars today, however,perhaps should not distance themselves as far from Todorov as we would like to think.First of all, the scholarly view of colonial Latin America as a hybrid society, comprised ofAfrican, Amerindian, and European contributions evident in much recent work

but perhaps most clear in the research of Serge Gruzinski is by no means foreign toTodorovs work. In his chapter on Duran, or the Hybridization of Cultures, Todorovdiscusses the hybrid character of the 16th-century Dominican friar Diego Duran.78




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Duran, who recognized that Amerindians existed between their own customs and a beliefin the Christian God, shared in both Indian and European ways of life and, consequently,understood both cultures and could translate the signs of the one into signs of theother.79 While Todorovs discussion of hybridity differs from that of Gruzinski, forexample, in its use of syncretism to describe Duran, his complication of the Spanish-Indian binary remains crucial in recent scholarship.80

Furthermore, as the survey of recent scholarship above shows, Todorovs generaltheme of language and communication in the conquest remains a central concern in thestudy of early colonial Latin America. In addition, while many students of the conquesthave looked down upon Todorovs work for presenting a moral argument (i.e., theperil posed by conquest), current research often puts forth a morality of its own,whether it is the desire to give a voice to populations that traditionally lacked one, torecognize the equality of all cultures,81 or to tell a cautionary tale of the abuses thatoften result from colonial situations. While recent work has rightly sought to illuminatethe essential part played by Native Americans in the conquest and in the earlyLatin American world, one wonders to what extent recent scholarship has overstated

the agency and independence of Native American communities in an effort torevise the work of earlier scholars, who, in turn, had overemphasized the influence ofthe European conqueror. While we need not call ourselves moralists, we would do wellto recognize that the agenda informing our research are not so radically different fromthat which produced Todorovs Conquest.

The necessary effort to study the Native American side of the conquest, however, hasrevealed another important gap (or a gorge, perhaps) in the scholarship produced overthe last twenty years. An overwhelming amount of the sources that have made recentresearch possible exist because of the extensive bureaucracy established by Spaniards, oftenin collaboration with Native Americans. The part played by the Spaniards themselves

(e.g., inquisitors, missionaries, governors, bureaucrats), however, has received little atten-tion over the past 20 years, as a result of the effort to study the significance of NativeAmericans in New World societies. Very recently, however, young scholars have begunto demonstrate an interest in examining the hierarchy that played a crucial part inproducing colonial situations.82

Students of colonial Latin America are now more engaged than ever in the study ofNative American languages, and thus, the years to come have the potential to bring forth

yet even more important discoveries about New World societies. Given the interests ofyoung scholars, it seems likely that these advances in knowledge about Native Americancultures will be made alongside a new generation of scholarship examining Spanish colo-

nial institutions. The most erudite work will, perhaps, attempt to bridge the gap betweenthese two approaches.

Short Biography

Daniel I. Wasserman Soler is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Virginia.He received a masters degree from Virginia in 2008 and his bachelors degree fromthe University of Chicago in 2006. He has received grants from the U.S. FulbrightCommission, the Social Science Research Council, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, andthe Mellon Foundation. His dissertation is a study of the Spanish Empires language

policy in the 16th century. Comparing Catholic evangelization efforts in different partsof the Spanish Empire, it examines the question of what language(s) could be used toteach Catholic doctrine.




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Notes

* Correspondence: University of Virginia, PO Box 400180 Randall Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA.Email: [email protected].

The author would like to thank Brian Owensby, Patricia Seed, Camilla Townsend, and the anonymous readersfrom Blackwell-Wiley for their helpful advice in improving this article and Trey Proctor, Kivmars Bowling,

Melisssa Dragon, and the Blackwell-Wiley staff for their friendly administrative support.1 Seville, Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente General, 418, L. 3, F. 316R 316V.2 Ibid., 424, L. 21, F. 67V 69. Charles (i.e., Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Charles I of Spain) sent adecree to Diego de Mendoza, his ambassador in Rome, asking, among other things, that the pope grant graces andindulgences to the religious who evangelized in native tongues. Charles sent a similar letter directly to the pope.3 Ibid., Audiencia de Santa Fe, 533, L. 1, F. 126V 127.4 Ibid., Indiferente General, 427, L. 30, F. 298V 299V.5 Ibid., 744, N. 8.6 For more on this topic in the context of evangelization, see J. R. Lodares Marrodan, La contradictoria legislacionlingustica americana (15001770), in J. L. Giron Alconchel and J. J. de Bustos Tovar (eds.), Actas del VI CongresoInternacional de Historia de la Lengua espanola (Madrid: Arco Libros, 2006), 223542.7 Madrid, Archivo Historico Nacional, Codices, L. 739, 3640.8 Furthermore, this essay will not be able to discuss the substantial body of scholarship on subfields within linguis-

tics, such as language contact, semantic change, and speech practices. For more, see, for example, the extensivework of the linguistanthropologist William F. Hanks and the collaborative work of the linguist Frances Karttunenand the historian James Lockhart.9 T. Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, trans. R. Howard (New York: Harper Perennial,1992). The original title is La Conquete de lAmerique (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1982).10 Ibid., 251.11 Ibid., 252.12 A. Pagden, Foreword, in T. Todorov (ed.), The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (Norman, OK:University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), xi.13 Todorov, Conquest, 252.14 Ibid. I thank Camilla Townsend for underscoring the importance of this point.15 Ibid., 723.16 Ibid., 75.17 Ibid., 2479.18 Ibid., 251.19 Ibid., 45.20 Pagden, Foreword, xii.21 See Matthew Restalls assessment of Todorovs study in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2003), 85. Some authors do not refer to Todorovs research even when it addresses themesrelevant to their work. See for example, W. D. Mignolo, Signs and their Transmission: The Question of the Bookin the New World, in E. Hill Boone and W. D. Mignolo (eds.), Writing without Words: Alternative Literacies inMesoamerica and the Andes (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), 220270.22 Pagden, Foreword, xiixiii.23 I. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 15171570 (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1987).24 Ibid., 456.25 Ibid., 556.26 Ibid., 1278.27 Ibid., 1278.28 Todorov, Conquest, 2489. In the process of learning about and subsequently attempting to eliminate thestrangeness of the external other, Todorov argues that Europeans made a surprising discovery: they found anOther within themselves. That is, rather than continuing to equate the Other with wild beings living in the forest,westerners discovered the beast that existed inside them.29 L. M. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson, AZ:University of Arizona Press, 1989).30 Ibid., 114.31 Ibid., 184.32 Ibid.33

Ibid., 188.34 Ibid., 185.35 Ibid., 1889.




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36 Ibid., 192.37 S. Gruzinski, The Conquest of Mexico: The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World, 16th18thCenturies, trans. E. Corrigan (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1993). The original title is La colonisation de limaginaire:societes indige`nes et occidentalisation dans le Mexique espagnol, XVIe-XVIIIe sie`cle (Paris: Gallimard, 1988).38 Ibid., 1.39 Ibid., 283.40 Ibid., 2.41

Ibid., 2.42 Ibid., 89.43 Ibid., 20.44 Ibid., 144.45 Ibid., 4.46 Gruzinski, The Mestizo Mind: The Intellectual Dynamics of Colonization and Globalization, trans. D. Dusinberre(New York: Routledge, 2002). The original title is La pensee metisse (Paris: Fayard, 1999).47 S. MacCormack, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1991).48 Ibid., 56.49 Ibid., 4.50 Ibid., 11.51 Ibid., 867.52

Ibid., 13.53 Ibid., 845.54 Ibid., 285.55 Ibid., 63.56 Ibid., 767.57 Ibid., 79.58 M. Restall, The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society, 15501850 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,1997).59 Ibid., 1.60 Ibid., 2.61 Ibid., 301. Another recent work focusing more fully on Native Americans as active legal communicators is B. P.Owensby, Empire of Law and Indian Justice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008).62 F. E. Karttunen, Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University

Press, 1994).63 Ibid., xiv.64 A. Megged, Exporting the Catholic Reformation: Local Religion in Early-Colonial Mexico (New York: Brill, 1996).65 Ibid., 162.66 Ibid., 3.67 Ibid., 2.68 Ibid., 3.69 Mignolo, Signs and their Transmission. Mignolo notes that this article is a revised version of the second chapterin his Darker Side of the European Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (Ann Arbor, MI: University ofMichigan Press, 1995).70 Ibid., 222.71 Ibid., 2237.72 Ibid., 227.73 Ibid., 262.74 Ibid., 22930. Mignolo cites D. Diringer, Writing (New York: Praeger, 1962) and The Book Before Printing:Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental (New York: Dover Publications, 1982).75 Diringer, Writing, 84. Cited in Mignolo, Signs and their Transmission, 229.76 Mignolo, Signs and their Transmission, 234. The description by analogy system, which Mignolo describes here,has been discussed in greater length in the first chapter of Pagden, European Encounters with the New World (NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 1750.77 See Pagdens general point in his Foreword, ixxiii. See Todorovs explanation in his Conquest: Indians andSpaniards practice communication differently. But the discourse of difference is a difficult one. As we have alreadyseen with Columbus, the postulate of difference readily involves the feeling of superiority, the postulate of equalitythat of indifference, and it is always hard to resist this double movement, especially since the final result of thisencounter seems to indicate the victor explicitly enough: are not the Spaniards superior and not merely different?

But the truth, or what we regard as the truth, is not so simple. Let us start with the assumption that on thelinguistic or symbolic level, there is no natural inferiority on the Indians side: we have seen, for instance, that in




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Columbuss period, it was they who learned the Others language; and during the first expeditions to Mexico, itis again two Indians, called Melchior and Juan by the Spaniards, who serve as interpreters (63).78 Todorov, Conquest, 202218.79 Ibid., 2112.80 I thank Patricia Seed for encouraging me to add this point to my discussion.81 I thank Camilla Townsend for underscoring this point.82 See, for example, M. A. Nesvig, Ideology and Inquisition: The World of the Censors in Early Mexico (New Haven,

CT: Yale University Press, 2009); K. L. Hossain, Arbiters of Faith, Agents of Empire: Spanish Inquisitors andtheir Careers, 15501650, Ph.D. diss. (Johns Hopkins University, 2007); and K. L. Hossain, Was Adam the FirstHeretic? Luis de Paramo, Diego de Simancas, and the Origins of Inquisitorial Practice, Archive for ReformationHistoryArchiv fur Reformationsgeschichte, 97 (2006).

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lenguage and communication in the spanish conquest

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