Bio
Peter B. Villella holds a BA in History and Spanish from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Los Angeles. His academic expertise is Latin American History, with a focus on Mexico and its indigenous peoples during and after the Spanish conquest. Villella is currently a contributing editor with the Library of Congress’s Handbook of Latin American Studies and was formerly the Executive Director of the American Society for Ethnohistory. His scholarship has received support from the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and several special collections and libraries. His current research involves the intellectual culture of Spanish-ruled Mexico, and especially the exchange of knowledge between native and non-native writers and scholars.
Villella arrived at USAFA in 2019 and teaches in the Core World History program. Born and raised in Albuquerque, N.M., before entering academia he taught high school Spanish in California and worked with volunteer organizations in Ecuador and Brazil. He currently lives in Colorado Springs with his family.
Education
Ph.D. in History, University of California, Los Angeles (2009)
BA with Distinction in History and Spanish, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (2001)
Professional Experience
Associate Professor of History, U.S. Air Force Academy (2020-present)
Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Greensboro (2016-19)
Assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Greensboro (2010-16)
Lecturer, Department of History, University of California-Los Angeles (2009)
Honors & Awards
Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society (2025)
Research Fellow, John Carter Brown Library (2023)
William J. Bouwsma Fellow, National Humanities Center (2018-19)
National Endowment for the Humanities Scholarly Editions & Translations Grant (2014-17)
Fellow, American Council of Learned Societies (2012-13)
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow, Huntington Library (2011)
Helm Research Fellow, Lilly Library, Indiana University (2010)
José Amor y Vázquez Fellow, John Carter Brown Library (2008)
Research and Scholarly Interests
Latin American and Mexican history
Cultural, intellectual, and legal history of Mexico’s indigenous peoples
Latin American nationalisms and national identities
Publications
Forging a New Spain: Native Patrons and Jesuit Education in Early Colonial Mexico (forthcoming 2027)
Indigenous Elites and Creole Identity in Colonial Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
The Conquest of Mexico: Five Centuries of Reinventions, co-edited with Pablo García Loaeza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2022).
History of the Chichimeca Nation: Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Seventeenth-Century Chronicle of Ancient Mexico (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019)
“Aztec History, Colonial Heroes: Reimagining the Mexica-Chalca War in Early New Spain,” Colonial Latin American Review 34, no. 1 (2025): 86-112.
“’Indians Governing Indians’: Indigenous Advocates for Progress and Representation in the Hispanic Enlightenment,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 56, no. 2 (2023): 181-87.
“Founding Mothers: The Tapias of Early Querétaro, 1578-1663,” in Cacicas: The Indigenous Women Leaders of Spanish America, 1492-1825, edited by Margarita Ochoa and Sara Guengerich (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021)
“Corrientes subyacentes de la Conquista: un conflicto multilateral,” in Nuevos asedios a la Conquista de México, edited by Pablo García Loaeza and Héctor Costilla Martínez (Lima: CELACP, 2021), 25-54.
“’For So Long the Memories of Men Cannot Contradict It’: Nahua Patrimonial Restorationism and the Law in Early New Spain,” Ethnohistory 63, no. 4 (2016): 697-720.
“Indian Lords, Hispanic Gentlemen: The Salazars of Colonial Tlaxcala,” The Americas 69, no. 1 (2012): 1-36
“‘Pure and Noble Indians, Untainted by Inferior Idolatrous Races’: Native Elites and Blood Purity in Late-Colonial Mexico,” Hispanic American Historical Review 91, no. 4 (2011): 633-63.