to put it differently, there could be a certain competence, sucha putdown implied in generous gifts of giftgiving. let me repeat, know this is entirely clear or certain that none of this is entirely clear or certain. -- none of this is entirely clear certain. the entire situation was fraught with miscommunication. there simply had to be a lot of misunderstanding when i side with completely unfamiliar with cultural practices on the other. both sides made mistakes. perhaps it was dumb luck that the spanish mistakes proved to be less costly in the end than those of the indians. good fix onting a trickyole topic seems and difficult. how complete was the conquest anyway? what was its actual extent? how lasting was its impact? how did the concord indian groups across -- conquered indian groups across america respond to it? take a fascinating and complex area of study and maybe never finally settled. historians in recent years have become generally quite reluctant to see conquered groups as mere victims who are just defeated and helpless to change their fate. instead, many historians nowadays