Books by Nicholas A. Robins

Investigates three Indian revolts in the Americas: the 1680 uprising of the Pueblo Indians against the Spanish; the Great Rebellion in Bolivia, 1780-82; and the Caste War of Yucatan that began in 1849 and was not finally crushed until 1903. This book examines their causes, course, nature, leadership, and goals.

Examines the application of late-colonial Bourbon policies concerning marriage, morality, and intimacy. Drawing on archival sources, Nicholas A. Robins examines how such policies and the means by which they were enforced highlight the moral, racial, and patriarchal ideals of the time, and, more important, the degree to which the policies were evaded.

On the basis of an examination of the colonial mercury and silver production processes and related labor systems, Mercury, Mining, and Empire explores the effects of mercury pollution in colonial Huancavelica, Peru, and Potosi, in present-day Bolivia. The book presents a multifaceted and interwoven tale of what colonial exploitation of indigenous peoples and resources left in its wake. It is a socio-ecological history that explores the toxic interrelationships between mercury and silver production, urban environments, and the people who lived and worked in them. Nicholas A. Robins tells the story of how native peoples in the region were conscripted into the noxious ranks of foot soldiers of proto-globalism, and how their fate, and that of their communities, was-and still is-chained to it.