The heroic texts depicting the discovery of territories, and the ultimate subjection of land and cultures to European nation-states all but erase the vanquished. This work lays bare the discursive strategies that generated the founding texts of Latin American history and engulfed its subjected peoples in silence for 500 years.

By unpacking these texts, Verdesio shows that from the European point of view, the colonial encounter draws the New World into historical time and ushers in a new concept of knowledge. For the first time, the historian's role is to discover, to interpret eye-witness testimonies and first-hand experience, to write "a new history of admirable things." Even in this reconstruction of historical truth, Old World ideology drives the narratives, whose chief purpose is to justify conquest. "Forgotten Conquests" lays bare the discursive strategies that generated the founding texts of Latin American history and engulfed its subjected peoples in silence for 500 years. Author note: Gustavo Verdesio is Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan.

Preface
Introduction
1. The Entrance to Historical Time
2. Years of Disappointment, or the Long European Siesta
3. The Pacific Penetration
4. Empires in Conflict
5. The Encyclopedias
6. The Tentative Gaze of the Traveler
Conclusion: The Territory as the Stage for the Drama of Difference
Notes
Bibliography
Index