The Indian Militia and Description of the Indies. BERNARDO DE VARGAS MACHUCA: Edited and with an introduction by Kris Lane and translated by Timothy F. Johnson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008

Abstract

In Madrid, in 1599, a little-known veteran conquistador named Captain Don Bernardo de Vargas Machuca published a manual. In four books, titled Milicia y Descripción de las Indias, or Milicia Indiana, the manual was a guide to fighting native peoples in Spanish America, or "the Indies." Like other books by conquistadors-most, like the narrative of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, more widely read-Vargas Machuca's manual was an extension of the ubiquitous conquistador literary genre of the probanza de mérito, the petitionary record of service.