It's a familiar story: As history books tell it, the Europeans brought their religion to the New World, and none were as zealous in their attempts to convert Indigenous people as the Spaniards. Indeed, in the Spanish view, the quest to spread Catholicism to every corner of the world was a central pillar of colonization. In truth, Spanish control in the Americas was far from absolute. Despite the sweeping proclamations of missionaries who claimed to convert thousands of souls every day to Christianity, spiritual life in the colonies would have made the pope do a double take. Spain's colonies were a vast patchwork of borderlands built over the smoldering infrastructure of Indigenous civilizations such as the Mexica and the Inca. Even at the centers of colonial control, like Mexico City and Lima, Spanish power was decentralized, meaning that virtually no policy, order or law was consistently implemented. The reach of the Spanish crown depended as much on the whims of low-ranking...
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