Representing the New World

Transcription

1 Representing the New World

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3 Representing the New World: The English and French Uses of the Example of Spain Jonathan Hart

4 REPRESENTING THE NEW WORLD Jonathan Hart, 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2000 by PALGRAVE 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global publishing imprint of St. Martin s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hart, Jonathan Locke, Representing the New World : the English and French uses of the example of Spain / by Jonathan Hart. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. America Colonization Historiography. 2. America Colonization History Sources. 3. America Early accounts to 1600 History and criticism. 4. Spain Colonies America Historiography. 5. Spain Foreign public opinion History Sources. 6. Spain Territorial expansion Historiography. 7. Imperialism Historiography. 8. Spaniards America Histography. 9. Travelers writings, English. 10. Travelers writings, French. I. Title. E141.H dc A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Westchester Book Composition First edition: September, ISBN (ebook)

5 For Anthony Pagden

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7 CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Establishing and Questioning Empire, Uncertainty and Strife, Facing the Greatness of Spain, The Making of Permanent Colonies, Rivaling and Succeeding Spain, Concluding Remarks 283 Notes 285 Index 335

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9 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The subject of this book is the contradictory and ambivalent uses that French and English writers had in representing the example of Spain in the New World, particularly from 1492 to This study, which has seen its share of delays, involves a close examination of the texts, something integral to my method and aims. My book asks the reader to experience the primary texts close-up and in terms of their rhetorical methods and linguistic complexity. The important thing is that readers engage with the primary texts as well as with my interpretations of them. If this study, partly through its uses of the close examination of texts, sends readers back to the primary documents to see them whole, so much the better. Here I am attempting to present the ambivalence, intricacy, and contradiction in the texts to readers across the disciplines and to trace systematically and comparatively English and French responses to Spain s colonial enterprise in the Americas and studies the fictions of imperial expansion. More specifically, I am maintaining that the construction of Spain within the political and literary mythographies of France and England is a great deal more complicated and paradoxical than has hitherto been acknowledged. The French and English imitated the model of Spain in the colonization of the New World, as the Spanish were the pioneers, in ambivalent and intricate ways that did not simply involve enmity or reflect the Black Legend of Spain. Before proceeding to the Introduction, which says much more about this topic, I would like to set out principles regarding the primary texts and translation, to express my thanks, and to record acknowledgments. Whenever I could, I have transcribed primary works as they appear in order to approximate them as closely as possible. In Richard Hakluyt s "Discourse on Western Planting," I have followed the practice of David and Alison Quinn of italicizing a letter represented in the text by an abbreviation. Originally the volume was to contain the original languages, but editorial decisions led to a change and so I set out unexpectedly on a journey into translation. When no translation of primary texts in French and other languages was available, or a translation departed too much from the literal sense of the original, or when there were several editions containing significant differences, I

10 x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS provided a translation. In the notes I have indicated my translations. My thanks for permission to reprint on the book cover the image from the 1493 Basel edition of Columbus s Letter in the Grenville Kane Collection, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. Whereas I wrote the book long before I was at Princeton, I am grateful for the hospitality, advice, and support I have received from the university, library, Department of History, and Committee for Canadian Studies in the final technical stages of the volume (the work I am completing at Princeton will express more specific debts to colleagues there). I had the pleasure of writing and researching this book mainly in the two Cambridges. At Cambridge, I was fortunate to gain a new perspective on the history of the colonization of the New World. My greatest debt is to Anthony Pagden, who led by example. It is an honor to dedicate the book to him. In the Faculty of History, I wish to thank Peter Burke and Mark Kaplanoff especially, and at Clare Hall the president, fellows, students, and staff, most particularly Anthony Low, John Garrod, Marjorie Chibnall, and Philip Charrier. At Harvard, I want to thank the Department of Comparative Literature and its chair, Jan Ziolkowski, for having me as a Fulbright Faculty Fellow; Marjorie Garber, Barbara Johnson, and other members of the Department of English for their support when I returned to research in this field so long ago now; and Donald and Cathleen Pfister, co-masters of Kirkland House, and the members of that house for the kindness and hospitality they showed me once more as I completed the book. The Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, the Fulbright Commission, the British Council, and the University of Alberta all provided crucial support for this and associated research. My thanks also to my hosts at the following universities--wales,warwick, Montpellier III, Melbourne, Deakin, Stirling, Harvard, and Cambridge--for inviting me to talk about this and related topics and to the librarians who have helped, especially at the Manuscript Room, University Library, Cambridge; the British Library; the Bodleian; la Bibliothèque Nationale; Houghton Library, Harvard; the Boston Public Library; John Carter Brown Library; the Bermuda Archives; the Bermuda Public Library; the National Library of Canada; Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto; the Baldwin Room, Metropolitan Toronto Library; and the Bruce Peel Special Collections, Rutherford and Cameron Libraries, University of Alberta. I have also learned from the lectures of others,such as those by John Elliott, whom I had the good fortune to hear at University of Warwick and Brown University. Nicholas Canny, Nicole Mallet (who was kind enough to review my French translations), the anonymous readers, my editor, Kristi Long, and others have helped to improve the book, although whatever faults remain are my own. Owing to the perceptiveness, knowledge, and skill of these close readers, I have taken the liberty to take their suggestions whole at many points. Kristi Long and her colleagues, Donna Cherry and Matthew Ritter, at Palgrave were admirable in moving the project along. Thanks also to others for their support and encouragement: Alfred and Sally Alcorn, Ross Chambers, Natalie Zemon Davis, Patricia Demers, Olive Dickason, Milan Dimić, G. Blakemore Evans, Philip Ford, Sophie Goldsworthy, Peter Hulme, Ric Kitowski, Elena Levin, Paul Morrison, Glenn Rollans, Ray Ryan, and Robert Rawdon Wilson. Thank you to the editors of the official proceedings for 1994 and 1997 of the International Comparative Literature Associa-

11 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi tion, to Jean Bessière, to Theo D haen and to the editors of the Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée for earlier and different versions of brief sections from this book, which are listed in the notes. More generally, I owe a debt to those scholars who went before. My final thanks are to my friends and family, most especially to my wife, Mary, and our twins, Julia and James.