Based on unpublished documentary sources from Spain and Guatemala, this innovative study reveals previously unknown episodes in the history of Guatemala's early colonial period. Kramer traces the distribution of Indian communities to Spanish conquistadors and settlers in the first two decades of the colonization of Guatemala, establishing for the first time a dynamic chronology of the development of the encomienda.

She examines closely the intense rivalries between competing Spaniards, the political maneuvers of the principal authorities, and the role of individual captains and governors in developing the encomienda and pacifying the colony.