How did a series of brutally conquered states and forced labor camps evolve over 200 years into a flourishing empire of trade, art, and culture? How did this new civilization manage land, money, and the status distinctions of ancestry and color? Why did Spanish America, one of the biggest imperial domains ever seen on earth, fail to benefit the mother country? And how did a cloistered nun in Mexico City come to be known as the first intellectual leading light of the Americas? Please become a patron to hear the upcoming Myth of the Month: Astrology -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Image: Depiction of John the Evangelist in feather art, Mexico, 1500s, held by National Museum of Art, Mexico City Suggested further reading: D.A. Brading, "The First America"; John Elliott, "Empires of the Atlantic World"