I’m teaching a lesson on the effects of conquest on the peoples of America and can only seem to find sources from the European perspective. Did indigenous peoples (15th-16th century new world) document their experiences with European settlers/invaders?
Also not my specialty, but I did a lot of Conquest-era history during my undergraduate, so I know a bit of the historiography.
If you're interested in the Mexican example, Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico might be what you're looking for. It comprises translations of Nahuatl-language accounts of the Spanish Conquest. Here's a link to a short review for more information.
Hi! Yes there’s a lack of primary sources written by Native Americans. But there’s an entire school or studies called Latin American subaltern studies that you should check out! It’s “history from the below” not just in a sense that it describes micro-history.
The subaltern books and readings that I know of are still written by...non-natives but methodologically, the sources used in those books draw from materials that the natives used/produced/etc. For example, in Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy, Mangan used the pawn shop records to examine the establishment of a credit system and the influence of silver (what the Spanish came after) in Potosí.
Another reading that I recommend looking into is ”Encountering” Colonial Latin American Indian Chronicles: Felipe Guaman Pima de Ayala’s History of the “New” World. It may be a good chance to teach your students about historiography. :)
Phenomenal book here on the Spanish conquest of the Inca empire from the perspective of the prince of the Inca writing to the King of Spain
The "Chronicle of Mexico" was written by Alvarado Tezozomoc a nahuatl noble that was present and survived through the conquest of the Mexico, it is a first hand account from the first days of the nahuatl to the first days of the colony going through the conquest, it includes interesting tidbits like the first reports Moctezuma II received of the arrival of the spaniards before they began their march to Tenochtitlan.
You can also go with Domingo Chimalpain , though he deals more with the colony of New Spain itself rather than the conquest.
Sahagun and his General History of the things of New Spain, is also a reliable source that documented many things shortly after the conquest from the indigenous sources, though he should be taken with a grain of salt because while he did record his texts directly from the source and is a source of many things that would otherwise would've been lost his main porpouse was the conversion of the populations of America so many of his own opinions of what he registered should be carefully considered.
Lopez Austin is also one of the if not the most celebrated pre-columbian historian here in Mexico, while he doesnt have books specific about the conquest I strongly recommend you check out anything by him if you're interested in the period.
This is not directly from a native source but, in the eighteenth century, John Heckewelder, a Moravian missionary, lived with natives in the Ohio Valley and collected their oral traditions about their first contact with Europeans. It’s an interesting source and also opens up the question for students of relying on second-hand non-native accounts of native perspectives.
https://archive.org/stream/histmannerscust00heckrich#page/n30/mode/1up
There is the "Florentine Codex" edited and compiled by Spanish Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, which is a collection of native Nahua accounts and stories intended to provide a non-European contemporary account of the colonization of Mezo-America.