The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico
An Exhibition at the Newberry Library, Chicago
September 28, 2006 - January 13, 2007

The story of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec (Nahua) empire in 1521 is well known. Yet today in Mexico, there are 1.5 million native speakers of Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. How did the indigenous population preserve their language, culture, identity, and history? Drawing upon the Newberry Library’s extraordinary colonial Mexican materials, The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico uses an awe-inspiring array of religious, historical, and legal documents produced by, for, and about the Nahua to posit answers to this question.

Informative and often highly decorative maps, manuscripts, and printed books tell us profound stories about the interaction and intersection of Spanish and Aztec cultures. They speak eloquently, and beautifully, of the richness and vigor of indigenous creativity and intellectual production in the colonial period and highlight the dynamic vitality and resilience of the Nahua descendants of the Aztecs throughout the colonial period and beyond.

More information available here