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How can researchers across academic field productively use visual images as historical documents in their own right to refine or alter our understanding of the past? This panel bring together scholars from history, literature, and art history to consider this question in relation to colonial-New Spain, which extended from Central America to modern-day southern Canada. Each panelist explores analytical strategies for how to productively “read” images from the era to understand how the Crown expanded and consolidated its control both by asserting claims to the people and territory of New Spain, and by revising fundamental historical narratives about people, territory, science, and imperial power. The presentations are particularly interested in how images can shed light on the experiences of individuals who are normally marginalized or excluded from standard historical narratives, such as indigenous people, laborers, and draftsmen.