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The transcription, translation, and annotation of the 17th-century manuscript prepared by the Nahua historian Chimalpahin, who based his work on Francisco Lopez de Gomara's history, "The Conquest of Mexico," first printed in Spain in 1552. (36 months)

It is our intent to prepare two editions--an annotated scholarly edition of an original Spanish text and its English translation and an English-language version for a broad audience--of the Mexican colonial manuscript "La Conquista de Mexico." The 172-folio manuscript was composed in Spanish ca. 1620 by the Nahua historian Chimalpahin a century after Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes and his native allies defeated the Aztecs. Chimalpahin's account is based on Francisco Lopez de Gomara's book, "La Conquista de Mexico," first printed in Spain in 1552. His version is unique in that it represents the only extant indigenous adaptation of a Spanish historian's account of the conquest of New Spain. In revising Gomara's book, Chimalpahin took advantage of numerous native primary sources now lost, including ancient pictorials, town histories, and dynastic records. His version of Lopez de Gomara's history uncovers significant textual evidence, rarely available to scholars, of the convergence and commingling of European and native forms of historical narrative, rhetorical models, and literary practices. This new translation explores the conquest of Mexico as it was experienced and documented on both sides of the Atlantic, and makes Lopez de Gomara's history fully available to Anglophone scholars, students, and the general public as it was interpreted and commented upon by one of the most authoritative native historians of colonial Mexico.