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The limits of power: the political ecology of the Spanish Empire in the Greater Southwest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Thomas E. Sheridan
Thomas E. Sheridan*
Affiliation:
Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ 85721, USA
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Extract

The Spanish conquest of the Americas was one of the most dramatic cultural and biological transformations in the history of the world. Small groups of conquistadores toppled enormous empires. Millions of Native Americans died from epidemic disease. Old World animals and plants revolutionized Native American societies, while New World crops fundamentally altered the diet and land-tenure of peasants across Europe. In the words of historian Alfred Crosby (1972: 3),

The two worlds, which God had cast asunder, were reunited, and the two worlds, which were so very different, began on that day [I1 October 14921 to become alike.

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Special section
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Antiquity , Volume 66 , Issue 250 , March 1992 , pp. 153 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1992

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