An expert in colonial Latin-American history presented a lecture
May 12, exploring how the indigenous cultures of Mexico reacted
negatively to the major onslaught of disease during the Spanish
conquest. Dr. Kevin Terraciano, professor of history and chair
of the Latin American Studies Program at University of
California, Los Angeles, gave the 2010 Jonas A. “Steine”
Jonasson Endowed Lecture to a crowd of more than 60 people.
“Most studies on the spread of disease beginning in 1520 are
focused on the types of disease and how they were spread,”
Terraciano said. “But I want to explore what the indigenous
people of the time thought the cause and spread of disease was.”
Terraciano used various historical sources written by Native
Americans to illustrate how the people felt about disease and
what they thought caused it. “I’m trying to uncover and showcase
indigenous voices from the past,” he said. “It is heavy history,
but to understand the magnitude of events, we need to try to
weigh into it and try to understand h