The testimony taken in Mexico in 1544 regarding 
treatment of Native Americans by the Coronado 
expedition is as fresh and relevant as today's 
news. These documents - in both modern English 
and the original Spanish - raise issues and demonstrate 
attitudes as timeless as revelations from My Lai or Kosovo.
No other documents come close to providing the wealth of 
information about the Indian responses to the coming of 
the Europeans or about the Europeans' attitudes toward the 
native peoples they encountered. Under the influence of 
powerful advocates for Indian rights, King Carlos I had 
ordered the investigation. Despite the general brutality 
of the sixteenth-century conquest of the Americas, there 
was an energetic activism in a group of contemporary 
Spaniards who led Europe in the first modern national 
debates on human rights. It was their efforts that led 
conquistadores like Francisco Vazquez de Coronado and 
Garcia Lopez de Cardenas to be called to account.
    

In addition to transcribing and translating the testimony 
of various witnesses, Flint analyzes and annotates it, 
providing an invaluable resource for researchers in 
generations to come.


_________________________________________________________

Born in South Dakota, RICHARD FLINT has lived for most of his 
life in northern New Mexico. He received a Ph.D. in Colonial 
Latin American History and History of the U.S. West from the 
University of New Mexico. Under a 1997-98 Fulbright grant, 
Flint did research in Sevilla, Spain, which has culminated 
in this book.


Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements 
Center for Southwest Studies