Peter Villella

Research Interests: Colonial Spanish and Portuguese America; Indigenous cultures of the Americas, past and present; Intellectual and legal strategies of native peoples under colonial rule; Transculturation and creolization among colonial peoples; Dissertation: The True Heirs to Anáhuac: Native Nobles, Creole Patriots, and the ‘Natural Lords’ of Colonial Mexico (UCLA, 2009).

There are 2 included publications by Peter Villella :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
The Last Acolhua: Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Elite Native Historiography in Early New Spain 2014 4603 The present article offers a thematic analysis of the lords’ discourse as a means of contextualizing and historicizing the works of don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl.4 Students of the famous chronicler of Tetzcoco will recognize the parallels betwee...
“Pure and Noble Indians, Untainted by Inferior Idolatrous Races”: Native Elites and the Discourse of Blood Purity in Late Colonial Mexico 2011 5049 As sixteenth-century Spaniards constructed their global empire, they carried with them the racial-religious concept of “limpieza de sangre,” or blood purity, which restricted marginalized communities from exercising prestige and authority. However, t...