Mexico’s “Golden Age” The First Half Century

The past two centuries have seen the near universal condemnation of the Spanish, beginning in the Sixteenth century, who forcefully imposed their domination over native peoples across the Americas. Yet, a most unusual circumstance underlies my choice to offer a new perspective of events during that time period in Mexico: the recent appearance of several important documents, written in Náhuatl by the chieftains of Cuernavaca who—after “the conquest”—continued to rule their respective communities under the more-or-less benign supervision of their new feudal lords, the Spanish. Unfortunately, that “Golden Age” of Mexican history lasted only a little more than a half-century; it was cut short by devastating plagues and the encroaching “political and moral degradation and vicious behavior” (in the words of historian Barbara Tuchman) that infected nearly every aspect of life in the West.