Women in the Crucible of Conquest: The Gendered Genesis of Spanish American Society, 1500-1600

The Spanish conquest of the southern hemisphere of the New World disrupted the "gender parallelism and gender complementarity" in the Native American societies. Associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State U.-Tempe, Powers describes and analyzes how native women of all classes, tribes, and varied capabilities and ingenuity adapted to the patriarchal culture imposed on them by the Spanish conquerors. Virtually all of the women were forced into certain positions resulting in a "demotion in status." Marriage, slavery, employment, and prostitution were among these. But in many cases--Powers's main topic of interest--women tried to varying degrees of success to keep or regain the equal, respected status they had in their Native American cultures. For example, some women became landowners. And the meztiso children from all types of relations between the women and the Spanish conquerors had a central role in modifying, though not changing the fundamental patriarchal structure, of the society. Powers moves the past couple of decades of feminist-motivated scholarship and development of perspective into this relatively untouched area of the changes the Spanish conquest forced on Native American women in particular.