The Cradle of Words: Language and Knowledge in the Spanish Empire

How languages served as archives of local knowledge and a crucial resource for both the human and natural history of the Americas in the Spanish empire.

In the sixteenth century, the conquest of the Americas exposed Spanish writers to previously unknown peoples and their many languages. The linguistic multiplicity of the new transatlantic empire presented enormous challenges both in terms of governance and religious conversion. Yet it also became a crucial resource for learning about the new...