Francisco Javier Clavijero, nationalist, indigenist or enlightened? Notes for a contextualized reading of his Ancient 'History of Mexico'.

Abstract

Upon reading Historia antigua de México by Clavijero separatedly from its complementary Disertaciones, in which the discussion on the inferiority of the American continent predominates, the question of the fall of the Mexican Empire emerges as a leitmotiv –a notion that puts the Mexican Jesuit beside the European historians of the XVIII Century such as Montesquieu or Gibbon–, which shows the preoccupations of his own time among his motives for writing history. This is generally overshadowed by the tendency in recent historiography to emphasize, more than Clavijero’s modernity, his criollo origin, his criollismo, his americanism and nationalism, which place him as an author either against or outside the ideas or spirit of the Enlightment.

Keywords

• Illustrated Historiography
• Francisco Javier Clavijero
• Historia Antigua de México
• New Spain Jesuits
• Mexican Empire
• fall or ruin of Empires.