Indigenous Technologies in the Conquest and Colonization of Mexico: The Case of Cooking and Pottery

Many scholars have explained the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of Mexico in part by alluding to the supposed technological superiority of the invaders. This article argues that the conquest and colonization of Mexico were successful not because of Spanish military superiority but because the Spanish adopted Indigenous technologies. It focuses on technologies of food and pottery production. Spanish conquistadors and colonizers depended on Indigenous technologies of food and pottery production to survive in a foreign land and to develop the political alliances that allowed them to bring a giant army of Indigenous warriors to fight against the Aztecs. This perspective not only challenges commonly held assumptions about the role of technology and material production in the conquest of Mexico but also invites scholars to reexamine historical processes of the conquest and what they mean for the study of technological change.