Celia López-Chávez

"First published in 1569, La Araucana, an epic poem written by the Spanish nobleman Alonso de Ercilla, valorizes the Spanish conquest of Chile in the sixteenth century. Nearly a half-century later in 1610, Gaspar de Villagra, Mexican-born captain under the explorer, Juan de Onate in New Mexico, published Historia de la Nueva Mexico, a historical epic about the Spanish subjugation of the indigenous peoples of New Mexico. In Epics of Empire and Frontier--a...