Prescott Response

William H. Prescott’s A History of the Conquest of Mexico, while a seminal work for its time is far more useful to us as a means of historiographic examination of the time and place in which it was written vice the subject matter it presents. Prescott lionizes Cortes and the efforts of the Spanish and casts the Aztecs as “imperfect” civilization (p. 77) and semi-civilized (p. 83). Conversely the aforementioned conquistador is “man of courage” (p. 174) and a “bold and apprising spirit.” (p. 180). Such a myopic and moralizing view can likely be written off as xenophobic but Prescott’s romanticism is often extended to Cortes’ indigenous allies who are portrayed as amenable to assimilation and Spanish rule (p 652-653). Despite the presence of these allies the credit belongs to “a handful of adventurers” (p. 5).

Prescott’s tome is drawn from an admittedly deep base of sources; however their European exclusivity should give the reader pause. Absent from the book are the archaeological evidence which are, by modern standards an absolute necessity for understand a past with limited or absent written records. The book also contains scant accounts of Old World diseases and their affects on indigenous populations. The few mentions of disease presenting them in passing and seemingly as an afterthought or result of Cortes’ military actions rather than an enabler of them. 

I heart Prescott

First, I have to commend Forrest for his outstanding introduction, and steal from Washington Irving's playbook as described by Prescott's introduction.  Like Irving, I will not attempt to re-tread Forrest's ground and instead,I will attempt to dig a little deeper on some of the points raised by Forrest and others.

Like Prescott, I will start by presenting some of my own biases.  I had the pleasure of taking a course this summer on early modern atlantic history.  Of course, the conquest of the Americas was a prominent focus of the course and one of the articles we read focused explicitly on Prescott and his impact on the historical scholarship.  (The article is available here.)  We also read John Elliot's, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830, which, though nowhere close to the detail of Prescott, provided an updated and more comprehensive history of the conquest of the America's, including a brief but inciteful discussion of Cortez, thus I approached this book with some recent fore-knowledge.

Many of the blog posts have rightly highlighted a significant degree of biases held by Prescott, but I think the characterization of the biases are perhaps mis-represented.  Prescott was not so much euro-centric as he was biased by American (United States) exceptionalism, and its protestant, liberal, democratic origins.  Prescott's exceptionally popular works, including History of the Conquest of Mexico, were popular not so much because of what they said about the Spanish conquest of Mexio, but rather, why the United States had so rapidly surpassed the Spanish empire in its success.  They represented a form of comparative history, though the comparison was indirect in that it juxtaposed catholic, absolutist, declining Spain against protestant, democratic, rising America through the lens of of Spain's conquest of the Americas.  That being said, while Prescott approached this work with an intended outcome, he was confident that the historical record would speak for itself and provides us with a relatively objective and accurate history of the conquest.

Prescott's romantic narrative writing style was extremely engaging and I could easily find myself treating this book like a "summer read", able to immerse myself in a literary work of "faction".  It is important to remember that Prescott's explicit goal was to make his historiographical works interesting and to appeal to a wide audience, thus requiring his writing to take on a degree of flare to build upon the sources available and to fill in the gaps that existed.  Graded against this intent, I give the work a solid A.

As a historian I was particularly drawn to Prescott's foot-noting.  While many of them were used to document where he drew specific facts or observations, at other points throughout the book he made an exhaustive effort to provide a very detailed description not only of the specific sources, but the motivations of those sources, and his own interpretation of the strength and weakness of those sources.  Two examples that stand out are p. 45-47 and p.666-672.

While these in-depth explanations are never sufficient to justify overt racism, stereotypes or mis-use of facts, they do allow us a more perfect understanding of the author's context, his use of the available sources and his logic for some of the "choices" he made in interpreting conflicting sources and filling gaps.  This approach is particularly important given the amount of time elapsed since the events being presented (in this case 300+ years) and the limited availability and perspective of the sources from which this historiography is drawn.  A particularly strong example of this is the paragraph that starts at the end of p.43 and ends at the top of p.44.  A second example is the closing chapter paragraph on p. 324.

I do not disagree with others critiques that the book contained many stereotypes and biases.  However, I did not find that Prescott was as guilty of negative stereotypes of the native populations as other posts haves asserted.  In fact, I found Prescott remarkably balanced in his portrayal of the native populations and was quite surprised that on occasion he contrasted them favorably when compared to other past civilization, and on at least one occasion against modern-day (post-colonial) Mexicans as he did on p. 44-45.

In regards to the question of silences, speaking specifically of Prescott and this work, I believe he did a notable job to ensure that readers could trace his historiographical steps and realize that the availability of sources were imperfect and one-sided.  In doing so, he created opportunities for others to improve on the work and perhaps bring voices to those silenced through the sources available and selected by Prescott.  I will say that I was disappointed to learn in the intro that we were denied perhaps a different perspective because of Washington Irving's gentlemanly acquiescence to Prescott.  I hope that one of the positive outcomes of the "professionalization" of the historical enterprise is the welcome diversity of voices.

Prescott acknowledged missing / destroyed hieroglyphic documents as significant

    William H. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico can be read like an adventure novel – it has the intriguing qualities of action and romance that so effectively move those types of stories along.  In the Introduction, James Lockhart says that, as a writer, Prescott belongs with Thoreau, Melville, and historian Washington Irving.  Lockhart calls him, affectionately, a “romantic historian,” who effectively wrote a page turner in History of the Conquest of Mexico, causing its undergraduate readers “to exclaim in their innocence that they felt they had been there.” (xxvii)   I believe Prescott’s book represents an example of a phase of development in the research and writing of history, written in the biased, romantic style of the author’s time, and especially given the fact that Prescott writes from an overwhelmingly Spanish point of view and his exclusive use of Eurocentric sources.  But, moving beyond Prescott’s seeming embrace of the Great Man theory, I believe the book can also be read as, and is useful as, one interpretation of an actual history of the conquest of Mexico.  Although the book is certainly biased (reflecting the time at which it was written), and at times outright pompous in the treatment of the “vanquished,” the work seems to be impeccably researched and cited using archives to the most effective extent, and given the author’s access to the most contemporary source material.  Though the History of the Conquest of Mexico is very broad and possibly, looking through today’s lens, overly generalized, the work has stood the test of time as, if nothing else, a relatively accurate chronology of the events that took place.  Here, Trouillot may be concerned with the silence around what the social and economic conditions of the indigenous peoples were like.  Again – modern lens.

  Something which really stood out to me was that in the lead up to the wild romantic ride that the adventurer / hero Cortes would take through Mexico, Prescott took the time to acknowledge (very broadly) the aspects of the basis of Aztec civilization.  One of the elements the author examined encompassed Mexican hieroglyphs and manuscripts and the knowledge the documents surely contained. Prescott spends time on Bernardino de Sahagun, the Franciscan friar who recorded many Aztec documents, translating them, and who became an authority concerning the Mexican hieroglyph, concerning religious and other texts of the Aztecs.  The author fairly acknowledges the “blind zeal” with which documents were destroyed during the conquest.  He even acknowledges that tragically only a very few manuscripts survived and made their way to European archives (he cites these Codices and manuscripts, along with Sahagun in his work).  Prescott clearly realizes the importance of these missing sources – and even seems intrigued by Mexican hieroglyphs.  One wonders, did he wish there were more plentiful extant Aztec sources available to him in the 19^th century?  Would he, as a scientific historian, have given them their due? One can see him recognizing “silence” here – maybe we can even imagine him possibly agreeing with Trouillot on this point, lamenting the missing story.  Consider Prescott’s own words:  “We contemplate with indignation the cruelties inflicted by the early conquerors.  But indignation is qualified with contempt, when we see them thus ruthlessly trampling out the spark of knowledge, the common boon and property of all mankind.  We may well doubt, which has the strongest claim to civilization, the victor, or the vanquished?” (p.80)  But before we can let Prescott completely off the hook, the 19^th century Eurocentric bias presents itself again as he criticizes the Aztec hieroglyph as inferior to the Egyptians, though partially recognizing they (Aztecs) didn’t have the thousands of years to perfect the hieroglyphs as the Egyptians did.  Going a little further still, Prescott calls the Aztec picture writing clumsy, but “to have been adequate to the demands of the nation, in their imperfect state of civilization.” (p. 77)

  I can imagine that if Prescott had had more prominent Aztec hieroglyphic sources that he would have found a way to dismiss them given his bias.  Or would he have?  In the end, I think that Prescott merely recognizing the potential importance of the missing documents as significant is a somewhat redeeming quality that speaks to the level of scholarship offered by the book and is perhaps why the History of the Conquest of Mexico endures to this day.

Credit for Prescott

As an historian, William H. Prescott performed due diligence in securing the information to write the History of the Conquest of Mexico.  Having contacted those in Spain, England, Italy and Mexico, he gathered, as he himself delineates, 8,000 folio pages. (4)  From these materials he constructed his History.  There is the persuasion that he did not do his utmost since he remained in Boston, Mass.  Let it not be forgotten, however, that Mr. Prescott was fully blind in one eye, and occasionally blind in the other.  The History was written using a writing-case, which prevented him from actually seeing his own manuscript. (8)  In these circumstances, he produced a fully sourced narrative of events.  Excluding perhaps real artifacts, the sources that he employed are the same for modern historians.  Rather than classify his work as an example, it deserves credit as an actual history of the conquest.

As for silences, Prescott is clear to identify the conquerors, Hernan Cortés and followers, the conquered, Montezuma and followers, and the involved agents, Charles V and others; but in the sense that Trouillot advocates, the viewpoint of the Aztecs is a case in point.  Prescott includes the Historia Chichemeca by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, who was descended from the sovereigns of Tezcuco. (152)  Ixtlilxochitl accompanies Prescott's narrative as a constant reference until the abrupt ending of his own Historia during the cannonade of 1521. (748, footnote 10)  No doubt his continued accompaniment would please Trouillot as a native voice.

Prescott Response

Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico is more useful as an example of a certain phase during the development of the research and writing of history than as an actual history of the conquest. This is coming from a purely contemporary standpoint in that a lot of what he has written is opinionated and does not seem to come across as objective by any means. However, I feel that it really cannot be criticized overly much from some of its language regarding the Aztecs because it really is just a product of the 19^th century mindset. Overall, this book is at its most useful as a starting point when beginning to delve into the historiography of Latin America. And because of the literary narrative style it is written in, it is highly accessible for those looking to dip their toes in the water of the historiography of Latin America.

In regards to the silences within this history, I believe Trouillot would be most concerned in regards to the Aztec’s side to the narrative, since Prescott really only provided what was happening from the European point of view. However, like other results of colonizing, I feel this would be difficult to achieve today, let alone during Prescott’s time because of the amount of history that was erased over time as a consequence of this. I feel that even if Prescott had decided to write a full contextual history that was encompassing of both sides of the coin to avoid silences that he would have had issues trying to find sources to represent the Aztec’s as a result of this.

Prescott's History

I guess I would say that the History of the Conquest of Mexico is more useful as an actual history. I hesitate to specifically choose either just because even though he had a lot of sources, the information was limited because primary documents were mainly written by the conquerors. As far as writing history, it seemed that while this text is certainly a development within general research and historical writing, this particular topic was fairly new. I think it should be examined differently and is maybe more important to the development of research and writing of Mexican history. As a history, I was actually surprised by Prescott’s thoroughness. I was not expecting him to have as many sources as he did.

This leads me to respond to the next question regarding silences. Just examining his sources alone, Prescott had far more at his disposal than anyone else writing on Mexican history at the time. He was able to copy manuscripts of Don Juan Baptista Muñoz, which referenced his findings from archives and all libraries. By using this large collection, Prescott relied on the interests and viewpoints of Muñoz which surely contained some silences. Much of his other sources come from high ranking individuals or Spaniards that were more knowledgeable about the events of the conquest from the Spanish point of view. These limitations are not particularly Prescott’s fault because he was able to obtain far more sources than most people. The sources themselves were limiting and it is difficult to do a complete history of the conquest of Mexico without that other side of the story, even though I think he tries.  

Prescotts Conquest of Mexico

May its the history romantic inside of me, but I thoroughly enjoyed Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. Yes, I know that it is completely wrong in how it was written, but you can really get a sense of the 19th century industrial WASP'iness from Bill Prescott.  With lines such as when describing Cortez ancestry saying his "royal geology was not found out till Cortes had acquired a name which would confer distinction on any decent..."  This is a fantastic way of saying it didn't matter until someone else cared about who he or who his family was. Prescott's work oozes with a certain level of superiority. The description of Roman Catholicism when compared to Protestant is simply fantastic. On page 113, its supposed to be a compliment, but there is a heavy sense of Boston smugness.

While I understand that looking at this work from the eyes of a 21st century historian we can somewhat judge and maybe even look down on how Prescott did his research, but he does the job of telling the story of the conquest of Mexico in a way that makes me want to learn more.  His work is extremely well written and understandable to even the most casual reader.  This should be a work that should be included in any historiography class or even a Latin American history course.