Introduction : imperial ironies -- A failed conquest : the northwest before the Jesuits, 1500-1591 -- A Mestizo conquest: 1590-1610 -- The Jesuit reduction : the birth of the Yaqui mission towns, 1610-1617 -- Mission and empire -- Cracks in the foundation : early Bourbon reforms and the breakdown of negotiated peace, 1700-1740 -- "Now God wants all this to end" : the shattering of the colonial pact, 1740-1744 -- Reorientations : the collapse of the mission and the rebirth of the Yaqui towns, 1744-1810 -- Epilogue : republican ironies
Summary
This important new book on the Yaqui people of the north Mexican state of Sonora examines the history of Yaqui-Spanish interactions from first contact in 1533 through Mexican independence in 1821. The Yaquis and the Empire is the first major publication to deal with the colonial history of the Yaqui people in more than thirty years and presents a finely wrought portrait of the colonial experience of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico's Yaqui River Valley. In examining native engagement with the forces of the Spanish empire, Raphael Brewster Folsom identifies three ironies that emerged from the dynamic and ambiguous relationship of the Yaquis and their conquerors: the strategic use by the Yaquis of both resistance and collaboration; the intertwined roles of violence and negotiation in the colonial pact; and the surprising ability of the imperial power to remain effective despite its general weakness. Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-285) and index
