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    University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona La Moneda Indigena y Sus Usos en La Nueva Espana en El Siglo XVI. by Jose Luis

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    Pedro Puntoni
    This document summarizes two book reviews. The first review examines a book about indigenous currency used in 16th century New Spain. It finds the book provides a thorough examination of the use of cotton cloth and cacao beans as currency by both indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers. It also notes some questions still remain about production controls. The second review evaluates an edited volume on Latin America's economic relationship with the global economy since 1800. It presents the papers as demonstrating the modernization of the field of Latin American economic history.

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    University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona La Moneda Indigena y Sus Usos en La Nueva Espana en El Siglo XVI. by Jose Luis

    Uploaded by

    Pedro Puntoni
    18 views2 pages
    This document summarizes two book reviews. The first review examines a book about indigenous currency used in 16th century New Spain. It finds the book provides a thorough examination of the use of cotton cloth and cacao beans as currency by both indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers. It also notes some questions still remain about production controls. The second review evaluates an edited volume on Latin America's economic relationship with the global economy since 1800. It presents the papers as demonstrating the modernization of the field of Latin American economic history.

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    [The Americas 2000-jul vol. 57 iss. 1] Berdan, Frances F. - La moneda indígena y sus usos en la Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI. By José Luis de Rojas. (Mexico_ CIESAS, 1998. Pp. 229. Notes. (2000) [10.1017_s000316150003042x] - libgen.li

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    This document summarizes two book reviews. The first review examines a book about indigenous currency used in 16th century New Spain. It finds the book provides a thorough examination of the use of cotton cloth and cacao beans as currency by both indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers. It also notes some questions still remain about production controls. The second review evaluates an edited volume on Latin America's economic relationship with the global economy since 1800. It presents the papers as demonstrating the modernization of the field of Latin American economic history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    18 views2 pages

    University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona La Moneda Indigena y Sus Usos en La Nueva Espana en El Siglo XVI. by Jose Luis

    Uploaded by

    Pedro Puntoni
    This document summarizes two book reviews. The first review examines a book about indigenous currency used in 16th century New Spain. It finds the book provides a thorough examination of the use of cotton cloth and cacao beans as currency by both indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers. It also notes some questions still remain about production controls. The second review evaluates an edited volume on Latin America's economic relationship with the global economy since 1800. It presents the papers as demonstrating the modernization of the field of Latin American economic history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    BOOK REVIEWS 153

    Though Rebels of Highland Guatemala ends before the tragic decade of the
    1980s, Carmack's study nonetheless offers essential insights that help put contem-
    porary Guatemala in a larger and deeper historical context. By revealing the com-
    plexity of social, economic, and political relations within Momostenango and show-
    ing how struggles for power among Mayas themselves creates shifting hierarchies
    and competing interests, he offers a powerful caution against the broad generaliza-
    tions and essentializing stereotypes that too often shape political debates about
    Maya peoples and diminish too much of the scholarship.

    University ofArizona KEVIN GOSNER


    Tucson, Arizona

    La moneda indigena y sus usos en la Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI. By Jose Luis
    de Rojas. (Mexico: CIESAS, 1998. Pp. 229. Notes. Bibliography. Index. No
    price.)

    Recently, many intriguing publications have appeared that tackle the complex
    issues involved in culture contact, conquest, and colonialism. These studies range
    across the globe, stretch through extensive time periods (most of them concentrat-
    ing on events over the past 500 years), and explore a wide diversity of topics, from
    religion to politics to economics. This particular study, by Jose Luis de Rojas, exam-
    ines one very important aspect of these relatively unsettled situations: the mutual
    monetary adaptations made by Spanish and indigenous peoples in sixteenth-century
    New Spain.

    Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the area of present-day central Mexico, the
    well-known Aztecs (Mexica) and their neighbors traded in bustling marketplaces,
    employing two main forms of money to facilitate exchanges: plain white cotton
    cloths (quachtli) and cacao beans. These same items were also important in long-
    distance trade, being carried by professional merchants to and from distant trading
    centers. Cacao beans and cotton cloth, along with many other goods, were also paid
    in tribute by city-states conquered by the Aztec empire. These two types of goods
    clearly played a central role in the smooth operation of the multi-faceted and com-
    plex pre-Columbian exchange systems. As Rojas emphasizes, they continued in use
    under Spanish rule during early colonial times in New Spain and adjacent areas. A
    primary objective of this book is to understand the functioning of these indigenous
    money forms in the colonial context, a context in which the Spaniards also brought
    their own type of money.

    Rojas tackles a series of related questions in unraveling the place of cotton cloth
    and cacao beans in the sixteenth-century colonial economy. Who used these objects
    as money, and in payment for what? Were there fixed values relating to cacao beans
    and cotton cloth? How were these goods produced, and were there controls over their
    production? How did their use as money compare with their use as consumables?
    And above all lies the question of why these objects persisted as money forms when
    the conquering society introduced its own type of money. Answers to these questions
    154 BOOK REVIEWS

    rely on an uneven and incomplete documentary record, so it is not surprising that,


    intriguing and important as the questions are, some answers are still elusive.

    In addition to posing a series of thoughtful questions, Rojas provides a concep-


    tual discussion of the nature of money, and background on the historical documents
    that serve as the foundation for his descriptions and interpretations. He relies on an
    admirable variety of primary documents, which makes his study the first to delve so
    thoroughly into the nature of these monies.

    Beyond introductory and concluding chapters, the book is divided into two main
    sections, one on cotton cloth and the other on cacao beans. In both sections Rojas
    augments his discussions with abundant quotes from pertinent documentary
    sources, making this book especially useful as a reference work to be consulted time
    and again for primary data.

    The cotton cloth, Rojas finds, was used at times by Spaniards to pay natives, par-
    ticularly for services (the Spaniards, in any event, having received such cloth in trib-
    ute). Since the cloth's value was closely equivalent to that of the Spanish coin, the
    two were often used interchangeably and the cloth-as-money was replaced by coin
    fairly early in the colonial period. Cacao, being of a more diminutive value, was
    used much more broadly for payments of services and goods, often by Spaniards to
    natives as well as among natives themselves. Its use as money persisted much
    longer than cloth's through the sixteenth century.

    Both goods were useful commodities as well as money forms, and both exhib-
    ited variable values depending on, especially, quality. The documentary record
    offers little in the way of information on production organization and controls, a
    topic that Rojas recognizes as highly significant, yet still only vaguely understood.
    Jos6 Luis de Rojas has provided an extremely useful, thoroughly documented, and
    systematic presentation of the place and persistence of indigenous money forms in
    sixteenth-century New Spain and adjacent areas. His contribution is additionally
    valuable in that it highlights remaining questions regarding the adaptations and
    accommodations of economies in the early years of culture contact.

    California State University FRANCES F. BERDAN


    San Bernardino, California

    Latin America and the World Economy Since 1800. Edited by John H. Coatsworth
    and Alan M. Taylor. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 484.
    Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. $24.95.)

    The modernization of Latin American economic history has begun, or so a group


    of perhaps two dozen scholars would have you believe. This anthology, the pro-
    ceedings of a conference held at Bellagio in 1998, gives an indication of where the
    field is headed and what all the fuss is about. Most of the papers included are well
    done and even the laggards are by no means bad. While I have heard it said that

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