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This article assesses the contribution to the field of Latin American history made by Charles Gibson with his seminal work The Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810 (1964). It argues that Gibson was in effect a man ahead of his time, prepared by his own life experience to recognize not only the victimization of native peoples, but also their agency and strength. He himself, untrained in any indigenous language, was not able to pursue the matter through the use of indigenous-authored sources, whose importance he nevertheless underscored. Although most of his peers missed his main point, it was recognized by the most penetrating of his readers, one of whom was able to disseminate the concept throughout a generation of scholars. Gibson, like the people he studied, had confidence that if he did his best, even if he failed in some respects, his labors would be put to use by posterity in ways he himself might not be able to specifically foresee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]