A major work of reference for the ethnohistory and particularly the ethnohistorical bibliography of Mesoamerica is the Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, which comprises the four final volumes (12–15) of Robert Wauchope (ed.), Handbook of Middle American Indians (Austin, Tex., 1964–75). The four volumes were edited by Howard Cline and they contain articles on the relevant bibliographical materials, the Relaciones geográficas, the chronicles and their authors, the pictorial manuscripts (codices), materials in the native and in the European traditions, and much else. There is no comparable guide to the ethnohistorical source material of South America. But see – albeit dated – Julian H. Steward (ed.), The Handbook of South American Indians, especially vol. 2, (Washington, D.C., 1946). Two useful summary articles that survey the bibliography and the state of research c. 1970 are. John V. Murra, ‘Current research and prospects in Andean ethnohistory’, LARR, 5 (1970), 3–36, and Karen Spalding, ‘The colonial Indian: Past and future research perspectives’, LARR, 7 (1972), 47–76.

Basic works on Spanish institutional controls over Indians include Clarence Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, rev. ed. (New York, 1963), which is still a useful one-volume general summary. For other general works, see essay II: 1. A number of monographs treat special topics: Alberto Mario Salas, Las armas de la conquista (Buenos Aires, 1950), on conquest, warfare, and weapons; Silvio Zavala, La encomienda indiana (Madrid, 1935) and Las instituciones jurídicas en la conquista de América (Madrid, 1935; rev. ed., 1971); L. B. Simpson, The Ecomienda in New Spain (1950; rev. ed., Berkeley, 1966), Guillermo Lohmann Villena, El corregidor de indios en el Perú bajo los Austrias (Madrid, 1957); Constantino Bayle, Los cabildos seculares en la América española (Madrid, 1952); and many others.