Promiscuous PowerScholars have written reams on the conquest of Mexico, from the grand designs of kings, viceroys, conquistadors, and inquisitors to the myriad ways that indigenous peoples contested imperial authority. But the actual work of establishing the Spanish empire in Mexico fell to a host of local agentsmagistrates, bureaucrats, parish priests, ranchers, miners, sugar producers, and many otherswho knew little and cared less about the goals of their superiors