Danna A. Levin Rojo Ph.D.

In Return to Aztlan, Danna A. Levin Rojo attempts to show that the Spanish search for a “Nuevo México” (New Mexico) north of New Spain was based on indigenous legends of Aztlan, the mythological ancestral homeland of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples. Levin Rojo, Professor of Mexican Historiography at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City, analyzes an array of Spanish and Indian sources along with archaeological texts and maps to support her thesis. Though not without faults,Return to Aztlan presents an intriguing example of how Spaniards and Indians adopted and adapted information in the colonial encounter, focusing on how Indian cultural and historical beliefs influenced Spanish exploration for a “Nuevo México.”

Still, historians of exploration will appreciate Return to Aztlan as an interesting addition to the long line of works that force scholars to consider the role that indigenous cartographic ideas played in European discoveries and colonization. Levin Rojo’s thesis rests more on textual evidence than cartography, but she does discuss Mesoamerican story-maps quite well. A deeper dive into European cartographic material would have improved her work. She would have also benefited from addressing more recent works of Atlantic/transatlantic history, such as the work of Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, which discuss the utilization of indigenous sources in European thought. Overall, Return to Aztlan is an excellent contribution to the literature of exploration and colonization, and illustrative of the dynamic interplay between Europeans and indigenes in creating the societies of the New World.… (plus d'informations)