Reassessing European Contact: Insights from Spanish America

[From Isonomia Quarterly 4.1 Spring 2026. Read the full article at Isonomia Quarterly.]

There’s no doubt that the Americas were irrevocably changed by European contact. The decimation and sociopolitical transformation of the Western Hemisphere was so thorough that many scholars speak of an indigenous genocide—the intentional destruction of native societies. But there’s also no doubt that the story is not so simple.

Over the last fifty years, many scholars have steadily added nuance to it by showing how native agency—the universal human will and ability to act—impacted Euro–Indian diplomatic relations and foreign policy, the conduct of trade, and the newcomers’ possession, settlement, and enjoyment of the land. So significant was the influence of native peoples that European governments and their colonial populations couldn’t simply push the locals aside. Colonial domination was not a foregone conclusion, at least not in the short term. 

Yet in spite of all this great scholarship on native power, the general outline of European contact and what followed it remains virtually unchanged: American Indians were ultimately hopeless to stop European expansion. They were almost destined for extinction or for the sociopolitical margin, to make way for new peoples and their aggressive market order. It’s strange how little this narrative has changed. The reason for the stasis, I think, is framing. Much nuance has been added, yes, but the same structural framework remains: natives versus whites, supposed tribal communism versus so-called European capitalism, arrows versus gunpowder, stone versus iron. 

These divisions have one thing in common: They are all extremely broad and therefore rigid. Under these thematic frameworks, the nuances of time and place can’t really be woven into the story. There’s no place for them, so they end up in the bin of exceptions and other odd scraps of history. In this essay I invite readers to interpret the history of the Americas through a more useful thematic lens: rulers versus subjects

[Read the full article at Isonomia Quarterly.]

Image credit: public domain via Wikimedia.