Diego Muñoz Camargo

Diego Muñoz Camargo (c. 1529 – 1599) was the author of History of Tlaxcala, an illustrated codex that highlights the religious, cultural, and military history of the Tlaxcalan people.

Diego Muñoz Camargo was born in Spanish colonial Mexico of a Spanish father and Indian mother. He acted as official interpreter for the Spanish, particularly the Franciscans. He was also a chronicler of some note, belonging to a group of mestizo chroniclers with Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc. His History of Tlaxcala, one version of a work of various forms stands as an important source for Tlaxcala, in Mexico.

Muñoz Camargo was a businessman who entered into lucrative cross-cultural enterprises. He was able to do this since both his mother and wife belonged to Tlaxcalan nobility and because his father was one of the original Spanish conquistadors of Mexico. He was very active in other realms too. Besides business, he acted as a tutor for the Seminole peoples Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca brought to Mexico with him, he took urban Tlaxcalan peoples north to Chichimec country ostensibly to ‘civilize’ them, and he took a keen interest in the Spanish chronicles being composed which he inserted into a historical frame with Tlaxcalan tlacuilo manuscripts. This led him to become one of the first Spanish-language chroniclers of Tlaxcala.