Books by Sean McEnroe
A Troubled Marriage: Indigenous Elites of the Colonial Americas. University of New Mexico, 2020
A Troubled Marriage describes the lives of native leaders whose resilience and creativity allowed... more A Troubled Marriage describes the lives of native leaders whose resilience and creativity allowed them to survive and prosper in the traumatic era of European conquest and colonial rule. They served as soldiers, scholars, artists, artisans, and missionaries within early transatlantic empires and later nation-states. These Indian and mestizo men and women wove together cultures, shaping the new traditions and institutions of the colonial Americas. In a comparative study that spans more than three centuries and much of the Western Hemisphere, McEnroe challenges common assumptions about the relationships among victors, vanquished, and their shared progeny.
AboutFrom Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560 1840
Book
From Colony to... more AboutFrom Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560 1840
Book
From Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560 1840 was merged with this page
In an age of revolution, Mexico's creole leaders held aloft the Virgin of Guadalupe and brandished an Aztec eagle perched upon a European tricolor. Their new constitution proclaimed the Mexican Nation is forever free and independent. Yet the genealogy of this new nation is not easy to trace. Colonial Mexico was a patchwork state whose new-world vassals served the crown, extended the empire's frontiers, and lived out their civic lives in parallel Spanish and Indian republics. Theirs was a world of complex intercultural alliances, interlocking corporate structures, and shared spiritual and temporal ambitions. Sean F. McEnroe describes this history at the greatest and smallest geographical scales, reconsidering what it meant to be an Indian vassal, nobleman, soldier, or citizen over three centuries in northeastern Mexico. He argues that the Mexican municipality, state, and citizen were not so much the sudden creations of a revolutionary age as the progeny of a mature multiethnic empire."
articles by Sean McEnroe
The Second Oregon Volunteers played an important role in the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars... more The Second Oregon Volunteers played an important role in the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars from the summer of 1898 to the spring of 1899. They were among the first U.S. soldiers to land in the Philippines; they occupied and guarded the city of Manila when the war against Aguinaldo’s Philippine nationalists commenced, and they served in the interior during the campaigns of early 1899. There is considerable evidence that these Oregon soldiers took part in the same sorts of war atrocities described in the Congressional hearings of 1902. Their private accounts of the war provide use with valuable insight into the soldier’s vision of the war, of their own actions, and of their visions of the enemy. Their writings suggest that they understood their Filipino enemies through the lens of American race relations. They patterned their vision of Filipinos on their conception of other non-white peoples of the United States. In so doing, Oregon soldiers were able to engaging in wartime practices that would have been considered barbaric if carried out against European adversaries.
The actions and attitudes of the Oregon soldiers do not stand out as anomalous in the history of the war. They are interesting precisely because they appear so representative. Their conduct in the war was no different than that of other state volunteer or U.S. regular regiments. The Oregon Volunteers were ordinary citizens who served only briefly as soldiers in the midst of the normal civic and professional lives. Their attitudes on the war, on race, and on America’s mission in the world are consistent with those expressed by their fellow Oregonians at home, their leaders in the federal government, and many of the most influential writers of the day.
Ethnohistory, 2012
This article describes warfare and diplomacy between colonial and non-colonial peoples on the nor... more This article describes warfare and diplomacy between colonial and non-colonial peoples on the northeastern frontier of New Spain in the eighteenth century. The essay considers the relationship of Spanish and Nahua colonists to indigenous populations in the north. It argues that shared assumptions about military hierarchy transcended cultural boundaries permitting diplomatic exchange and political integration. Drawing on archival military and missionary records, the article illustrates the process by which European and indigenous political units were first rendered mutually intelligible, later connected by alliance, and finally integrated through joint settlement and corporate governance. Fundamental to these processes was the communication and synthesis of cultural schemata expressing the correspondence of military commands to each party’s historical memory and social geography. The article offers a partial explanation for the development of Tlaxcalan-Chichimec pueblos, and a general set of principles for understanding intercultural diplomacy in frontier environments.
T hrough much of the history of the Americas, political life took place in two spheres: the colon... more T hrough much of the history of the Americas, political life took place in two spheres: the colonial realm, in which a complex population of Indians, Africans, and Iberians interacted within the civic framework of European institutions; and the extra-colonial realm, in which largely indigenous populations beyond the reach of imperial authority maintained separate political systems. Encounters across this divide were sometimes peaceful and symbiotic, but at other times violent. Many historical discussions of interethnic conflict presume a general and persistent difference in power between these two groups. On Mexico's northern frontier of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, the relative advantage enjoyed by colonial versus extra-colonial peoples shifted radically depending on the moment and place of encounter. This article proposes that differences in topography and ecology, often between places not far removed in absolute distance, produced inversions in the relative power enjoyed by indigenous and settler populations. The cultivation of maize was common to the refuge zones of settlers and northern Indians alike: unassimilated Indian bands concealed and protected their crops in difficult-to-find mountain valleys; settler communities, both Spanish and Indian, protected crops close to their respective concentrations of population and militiamen. Both colonial and extra-colonial peoples subsisted on cattle, and the demand for vast pasture spaces produced inevitable conflict. Thus, the geography of the north produced areas of security and vulnerability for all parties.
reviews by Sean McEnroe
Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 2021
Colonial Latin American Review, 2022
View related articles View Crossmark data into a center of Christian salvation history. Chapter F... more View related articles View Crossmark data into a center of Christian salvation history. Chapter Four focuses on the organizational methods that Hernando employed in ordering his collection that the authors reconstruct from his bibliographic records, most notably the Registrum A or Memorial de los libros naufragados, a catalogue of the more than 1,500 books that he had sent back to Spain via ship during his shopping spree through Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy but were lost at sea. Chapter Five tells the fate of the library after Hernando's death, when it was moved out of the villa, first to the Dominican convent of San Pablo and then, in 1557 to the Biblioteca Capitular in the Cathedral of Seville, where it remains to this day. For the most part, it's a rather melancholy story about the gradual loss of approximately half of the collection due to theft, neglect, and abuse before it was placed under the guardianship of the Fundación Capitular Colombina, newly created by the archdiocese of Seville and the Cathedral Chapter in 1991. The book concludes with five appendices of extremely useful primary documents, translated into English, including the Memoria by Juan Pérez, one of Hernando's librarians and steward of the library after his death; Hernando's will as well as a proposal to King Ferdinand for an expedition of circumnavigation; his appointment at the Casa de Contratación; and his Memorial al Emperador. Overall, this meticulously researched and very readable book makes an important contribution to early modern studies, as well as to the history of knowledge and information technology more broadly by reclaiming Hernando Colón as a pioneer in the early modern revolution of knowledge. Indeed, as the authors point out, Hernando's collection 'predates most of the works that are usually acknowledged as agents of these changes' (194). As such, it will be indispensable reading for book historians, historians of science, and early modernists alike.
Hispanic American Historical Review, 2019
Hispanic American Historical Review, 2019
Franciscans and American Indians in Pan-borderlands Perspective is a valuable and complex collect... more Franciscans and American Indians in Pan-borderlands Perspective is a valuable and complex collection ofessays by writers from a wide range offields and specialties. Edited by Jeffrey M. Burns, director of the Academy of American Franciscan History, and Timothy J. Johnson, a well-known scholar of Saint Francis and the Franciscan order, this collection is shaped by the expertise of church historians but is not heavily focused on theological questions or on the order itself. Rather, the collection is a study of the cultural encounters occasioned by missionary activities and mission spaces. The volume has its roots in a 2014 conference on the Franciscan borderlands held at Flagler College, and its essayswhich are much more than just brushed-up conference papers-continue the dialogue among the participants. The book's 20 chapters are compact, clearly written, and nicely contextualized by an accessible and thought-provoking introduction. Many of modern scholars' interests in missionary frontiers are inspired by questions raised early in the twentieth century by US frontier historians. Franciscans and American Indians in Pan-borderlands Perspective employs a vastly expanded set of methods to chip away at these persistent questions, drawing on archaeology, art and architectural history, linguistics, and cultural geography. Yet, the concentration of topics by culture and region remains distinctly Boltonian: Florida, California, and New Mexico dominate the book, though a few thought-provoking chapters explore other parts of the Americas. Mark Christensen's piece on colonial-era Maya texts and Constanza Ceruti's on native Andean religious leadership provide glimpses of very different indigenous environments. Helmut Flachenecker's chapter explores broad comparisons among Franciscan missions in Ireland, along the Silk Road, and in New France. Gert Melville, in an effort to reconstruct early native perspectives on missionaries, mines well-known early sources from the Caribbean and South America. The balance of Franciscans and American Indians in Panborderlands Perspective treats North America. It is difficult to do justice to the book's enormous amount of regional and sitespecific scholarship on the traditional Boltonian borderlands. David Hurst Thomas's opening chapter introduces Franciscan frontiers in California, New Mexico, and Florida, offering a good starting point for the narrower studies that follow. Five chapters treat the Mocama, Guale, and Yamasee zone of today's Florida and Georgia. George Aaron Broadwell and Timothy J. Johnson both use pastoral writings to explore Franciscans' Book Reviews / Longue Duré e
Hispanic American Historical Review, 2022
Dimensiones del conflicto: Resistencia, violencia y policía en el mundo urbano. Edited by tomás a... more Dimensiones del conflicto: Resistencia, violencia y policía en el mundo urbano. Edited by tomás a. mantecó n movellán, marina torres arce, and susana truchuelo garcía.
American Historical Review, 2019
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History , 2021
Ethnohistory, 2017
Barry Robinson's study of conquest, settlement, and rebellion is geographically narrow, chronolog... more Barry Robinson's study of conquest, settlement, and rebellion is geographically narrow, chronologically deep, and thematically rich. At its center is Colotlán. Today, Colotlán is a small town on the northern fringe of Jalisco not widely known outside the region; but in the sixteenth century, the "Fronteras de Colotlán" described a much larger area, and one of great strategic importance for the Spanish mining economy. Among students of the conquest era, the name "Colotlán" immediately calls to mind a dramatic panel from the famed indigenous chronicle the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, which commemorates a battle fought there for the foundation of the first colonial settlements by Spain's Tlaxcalan allies. More than two centuries later, Colotlán played an important role in the Hidalgo rebellion and by extension in the subsequent independence of Mexico. In a fascinating and ambitious book, Robinson tells the long and complex history of indigenous and creole politics that connects the two eras.
sources produced by both Europeans and natives, and the University of Texas Press's characteristi... more sources produced by both Europeans and natives, and the University of Texas Press's characteristic care and attention to publishing copious and high-quality images of these sources is gratifying. Indeed, Scolieri's interdisciplinarity is another ofthe book's strengths; the fields of dance and performance studies, art history, ethnography, and history come together seamlessly in this very fine contribution to conquest historiography.
index. $29.95 cloth, In 1579 the Spanish Crown handed Luis de Carvajal a remarkable boon:
and other parts of the Americas. The discussions about creolization and whitening question long-s... more and other parts of the Americas. The discussions about creolization and whitening question long-standing, often nationalist-inspired assumptions about racial mixture, cultural contact, and modernity in the historiography of Spanish America and the African diaspora. Despite their thematic ties with the other essays, the chapters on Cuba do not fit within the anthology's emphasis on the first two centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Although the inclusion of nineteenth-century Cuba in an anthology on colonial Spanish America is welcome, the jump from seventeenth-century mainland Spanish America to nineteenth-century Cuba is a little too big and not adequately justified.
In its sparest retelling, the "conquest of Mexico" is a narrow story that begins with Cortés' rec... more In its sparest retelling, the "conquest of Mexico" is a narrow story that begins with Cortés' reckless landings of 1519 and ends with a Castilian flag flying over the ruins of Tenochtitlan in 1521. Even this well-trodden narrative involves an astounding range of Spanish and Indigenous actors, and presents complex puzzles of documentation and transcultural interpretation. It is no small wonder that the tale of these few years has consumed entire academic careers. How much more daunting, then, is the longer and more complete story of Spanish military, religious and cultural dominion? The broadest definition of the Conquest of Mexico extends over several centuries to embrace the history of evangelization, acculturation and state formation among peoples throughout Mesoamerica and North America. It includes traditions of inquiry based on
Reference Articles by Sean McEnroe
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Books by Sean McEnroe
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From Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560 1840 was merged with this page
In an age of revolution, Mexico's creole leaders held aloft the Virgin of Guadalupe and brandished an Aztec eagle perched upon a European tricolor. Their new constitution proclaimed the Mexican Nation is forever free and independent. Yet the genealogy of this new nation is not easy to trace. Colonial Mexico was a patchwork state whose new-world vassals served the crown, extended the empire's frontiers, and lived out their civic lives in parallel Spanish and Indian republics. Theirs was a world of complex intercultural alliances, interlocking corporate structures, and shared spiritual and temporal ambitions. Sean F. McEnroe describes this history at the greatest and smallest geographical scales, reconsidering what it meant to be an Indian vassal, nobleman, soldier, or citizen over three centuries in northeastern Mexico. He argues that the Mexican municipality, state, and citizen were not so much the sudden creations of a revolutionary age as the progeny of a mature multiethnic empire."
articles by Sean McEnroe
The actions and attitudes of the Oregon soldiers do not stand out as anomalous in the history of the war. They are interesting precisely because they appear so representative. Their conduct in the war was no different than that of other state volunteer or U.S. regular regiments. The Oregon Volunteers were ordinary citizens who served only briefly as soldiers in the midst of the normal civic and professional lives. Their attitudes on the war, on race, and on America’s mission in the world are consistent with those expressed by their fellow Oregonians at home, their leaders in the federal government, and many of the most influential writers of the day.
reviews by Sean McEnroe
Reference Articles by Sean McEnroe
Book
From Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560 1840 was merged with this page
In an age of revolution, Mexico's creole leaders held aloft the Virgin of Guadalupe and brandished an Aztec eagle perched upon a European tricolor. Their new constitution proclaimed the Mexican Nation is forever free and independent. Yet the genealogy of this new nation is not easy to trace. Colonial Mexico was a patchwork state whose new-world vassals served the crown, extended the empire's frontiers, and lived out their civic lives in parallel Spanish and Indian republics. Theirs was a world of complex intercultural alliances, interlocking corporate structures, and shared spiritual and temporal ambitions. Sean F. McEnroe describes this history at the greatest and smallest geographical scales, reconsidering what it meant to be an Indian vassal, nobleman, soldier, or citizen over three centuries in northeastern Mexico. He argues that the Mexican municipality, state, and citizen were not so much the sudden creations of a revolutionary age as the progeny of a mature multiethnic empire."
The actions and attitudes of the Oregon soldiers do not stand out as anomalous in the history of the war. They are interesting precisely because they appear so representative. Their conduct in the war was no different than that of other state volunteer or U.S. regular regiments. The Oregon Volunteers were ordinary citizens who served only briefly as soldiers in the midst of the normal civic and professional lives. Their attitudes on the war, on race, and on America’s mission in the world are consistent with those expressed by their fellow Oregonians at home, their leaders in the federal government, and many of the most influential writers of the day.