This article analyzes the iconographic construction of the image of the american indian in Spain and Mexico. The analysis has been done using the History Textbooks in both countries in the period 1940-1945. The aim of this report is to carry out a comparative study about one of the historical discourse items, the indian figure, as the historic-cultural identity component in the two countries. The analysis of the inconographic representation lets us apreciate, since a plastic point of view, the way in which these images contributed to shape this abstract and intangible entity that is the nation.