La Florida was known throughout the Iberian monarchies in the sixteenth century as the place where Christians went to die. Dominican and Jesuit missionaries who perished there held the potential to redeem their missions, which overwhelmingly failed to evangelize the Native populations, by being recognized as true martyrs. Their deaths, however, were heavily disputed. This article argues that those disputes-especially the one surrounding friar Luis C & aacute;ncer-helped birth the idea that humankind was spread across fractured temporalities in addition to vast and inaccessible geographies. Thinkers like Bartolom & eacute; de Las Casas tried to shoehorn La Florida into the paradigm of a temporally unified world continuous with Apostolic times, in which missionaries were on par with Christ's apostles and true martyrdom was within reach. Yet Jesuits such as Jos & eacute; de Acosta maintained that places like La Florida were unprecedented in their backwardness-they cast preachers aside as 'spoils of the chase' and required more violent methods of evangelization. These differing interpretations of C & aacute;ncer's and others' deaths first surfaced in the notorious Valladolid debate, where they respectively endorsed 'peaceful' versus militarized evangelization. As this article demonstrates, over time, the evident barrenness of La Florida's missionary deaths marked a shift from the synchronic temporality of early Christianity to an asynchronic vision of modern colonial difference.
In public debates on the colonial memory of Spain in Latin America, one of the least represented aspects is the Atlantic slave trade, especially in comparison with other colonial memories such as France, England or the Netherlands. This public lack of memory has its effects on history education. History teaching in Spain has ignored the trade and exploitation of enslaved Africans for many years. The silence becomes more evident when we ask about Spain's role in this historical topic. How have secondary school history textbooks addressed the Atlantic slave trade and Spain's role? To address this question, this work analyzes 168 school textbooks from the period 1975 to 2023. The result of the research shows how the phenomenon of slavery has occupied a secondary place in textbooks, both in the role of the Spanish monarchy at the beginning of this process in the early Modern Age, and its impact by maintaining slavery in Cuba and Puerto Rico in the contemporary history of Spain.
This article demonstrates how Nahuas used a precolonial song tradition adapted to early colonial circumstances to relay political beliefs to their leaders. In 1564, a Nahua singer performed the 'Water pouring song' at the wedding of the Nahua tlatoani-gobernador of Mexico City, don Luis Cipac. The singer celebrated the lord's noble lineage but focused primarily on discussions of local politics in the context of the Spanish Empire. The lyrics, found in the Cantares mexicanos manuscript, allow us to hear discussions of contemporary politics and commentaries on an imperial tax newly imposed on the city's Indigenous population by the Spanish Crown. A close reading of the lyrics, when contextualized with the performance and the events of 1564, reveals a new perspective on Nahua global political awareness by Indigenous residents of Mexico City in the mid-sixteenth century.
The persistence of early modern Iberian empires stretching across vast distances has long puzzled historians. Explanations have often emphasized the inefficiency of premodern bureaucracy or its violence, leaving unresolved how the networks forged proved so durable beyond recourse to coercion. As a microhistory, this article examines how jurist-administrators navigated competing legal, social, and moral claims in moments of rupture, revealing the logic animating imperial governance. Through an analysis of the disputed inheritance involving Andean Indigenous communities, children born outside of marriage, and the women of a marginal Castilian village, the article shows how Spanish officials selectively mobilized their authority to protect certain obligations and imperial subjects more vigorously than others. Some testamentary bequests proved to be no more than a mirage, while others were pursued with striking persistence despite geographic distance and administrative obstacles. These choices illuminate the ways in which charity and family networks functioned as tools of a rhizomatic imperial expansion. By treating this seemingly exceptional case not as an anomaly but as a diagnostic tool, the article demonstrates how close attention to individual disputes can test broader analyses of colonial bureaucracy proposed in recent scholarship. In doing so, it aims to explain the longevity of Iberian empires through attention to the role of jurist-administrators as both judges and imperial arbiters, as well as the importance of family networks and charity in sustaining colonial power.
