- Email: [email protected]
The armature of conquest. Spanish accounts of the discovery of America, 1492–1589
Book Reviews
62.5
my opinion, the fact that the demolition of the ‘heroic’ values among those nobles who were engaged, as the author notes, in public service, can indicate achange in the attitude of the entire aristocracy is not self-evident, even if ample connections had come to exist among the different kinds of nobles. At the same time, the actual conformity of the behaviour of the members of that class with their supposed ‘values’ represents a related problem that a historian cannot ignore. In the third part, the author’s evaluation of the alternative conceptions of liberty is based on the distinction between the idea of liberty as participation typical of ‘civic humanism’ and liberty as a ‘negative notion of opportunity’, or ‘liberty under the law’, characteristic of natural law theory, the antecedent of liberalism. This approach takes up literally the patterns of a certain-mainly Anglo-American-historiography that works on the basis of a definition of the different ‘languages’ that shape the political discourse of a period. Finally, the author examines Montesquieu, ‘noble of both +pCe and robe’, as the best example of the state of transition between two worlds. Maria de1 Carmen’s main argument is that Montesquieu represents a ‘third way’, combining the negative liberty of modern societies and the possibility of avoiding the separation between the idea of public service (with its connected civic virtues) and individual interest. Montesquieu’s way could thus be termed an ‘aristocratic’ liberalism. In general, for the author. the aristocratic values introduced into the pattern of bourgeois negative liberty are the noblesse de robe’s notion of public service, which would save the best of the idea of participation of aristocratic republicanism, and the wish to obtain fame and prestige, which would help to protect liberty by orienting individual selfishness toward more general ends. Unfortunately within the limits of an inaugural speech the author was unable to fully develop her argument. Erica J. Mannucci University of Milan
The Armature of Conquest. Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of America, 1492-1589, Beatriz Pastor Bodmer, trans. Lydia Longstreth (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 317 pp., $42.50. The full title of the current English translation The Armature of Conquest. Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of America 1492- 1589 clearly makes the necessary spatial, textual and chronological distinctions where the previous Spanish editions (1983, 1988) fail to do so. In order to fully appreciate the importance of Pastor’s imaginative and graceful study for the English speaking world, it might be useful to briefly examine the precise spatial, textual, as well as cronological parameters of The Armature of Conquest. The locale-the Caribbean, the Gulf Region from Florida to Mexico, the Amazon Basin and Chile-is that of certain Spanish speaking accounts, as oppposed to those from territories settled by the Portuguese, and the time frame is that of 1492- 1589. This excludes Pero Vaz de Caminha, Hans Staden’s Wahrhaftige Historia (1557), Antonio Vieira (1608- 1697) or other chronicles dealing with the conquest or catechisation of the Andean regions of the American continent. Or as Arnold Toynbee would have observed, Pastor’s book focusses on all chroniclers of European descent, on both sides, writing Caribbean, Mesoamerican and Southern-Andean history in the Spanish language during the first 97 years of American history after the arrival of the Europeans. In other words ‘The New World civilisation that they were describing was alien to them, however actively it may have aroused their curiosity, and however successful they may have been in
626
Book Reviews
entering into the spirit of it by the act of historical imagination’. In fact, in her ‘Introduction’ Pastor expressly states ‘only marginal reference is made to that other version of the facts and their meaning that Miguel Leon-Portilla has called ‘the other side of the conquest’; or the view of the nature of the conquest held by the conquered, a view that likewise underwent a transformation parallel and complementary to the one examined in this study’. Such a version of the facts, of course, would contain such fascinating and often subversive major accounts as those by Fray Rambn Pane, Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca (1539- 1616) and Guaman Poma de Ayala. Pant’s Relacibn acerca de /as antigiiedades de 10s indias (1493-1498), the first book written in the New World by a European, the Inca’s magnificent The Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, written earlier, but published in Lisbon in 1609 and posthumously in Cordova in 1616- 1617, as well as Guaman Poma’s the Nueva Corbnica y Buen Gobierno (c. 1584- 1615). All are as illuminating as some of the texts Pastor comments even though, as is often the case with colonial texts, their literary fortune or reception corresponds to a different time. Pastor’s opening chapter ‘The Discourse of Mythification’ at first might seem a bit one sided to some scholars of the Columbian question because it focusses exclusively on the fictionalisation and not on what was real and accurately perceived by Columbus in the New World, which was considerable. However, this impression is balanced out in the closing pages of Chapter One when Pastor demonstrates she has not become a casualty in the Columbus wars, or fallen into the currently fashionable p. c. trap of debunking a superb navigator as a genocidal imperialist. In other words, condemning a visionary, fifteenth-century, late-medieval-early-Renaissance man by the standards of 1984. It is to Pastor’s credit that she correctly concludes that ‘Columbus was more human, imaginative and tolerant than most European merchants living at the end of the fifteenth century’ (P. 48). Chapter Two, ‘Hernan CortCs and the Creation of the Model Conqueror’, gives a fascinating portrait of a brilliant invader, a cross between Caesar and a Machiavellian Prince. Cortts emerges as the master of the Realpolitik of his time, with a lucid, analytical grasp of concrete reality that made him a better military man, strategist, negotiator, organiser and leader of men than anyone else. Pastor’s imaginative reading of the Letters effectively portrays the ideal ‘caudillo’, a man of action adept at fictional self-justification and circumspect self-agrandizement. In addition Pastor reveals how the Spanish conquistador was able to polish his image of Renaissance hero and instrument for carrying out the mandate of divine Providence before his Caesarean Majesty, the king. Finally Pastor correctly points out the conspicuous absence of Cartes body from the Letters and speaks of the frequent laxatives, as well as other remedies he took for his physical afflictions, mentioned in the accounts of his contemporaries. What this reviewer missed in the human dimension of Cortes’ narrative discourse is an account of his fascinating relationship with La Mafinche, possibly the one individual who made his success possible. The dynamics of power with this remarkable, liberated woman sold into slavery in her childhood, who later became a guide, ‘lengua’, ‘tongue’ or interpreter, and mother of Cortes’ son appears in a native codex and has haunted Mexican nationalists throughout history. According to Octavia Paz in ‘Los hijos de la Malinche’, the fourth chapter of The Laberynth of Solitude (1950), which contributed to his Nobel Prize for literature, the liaison between the conqueror and his Indian mistress has affected the Mexican psyche to this day. Bernal Diaz’s The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1568. 1632), as well as other accounts seem to indicate that her intelligence, fluency in numerous native languages, combined with her ability to relate to and communicate with others, gave a considerable edge to the Spaniards. The internal contradictions of the Aztec military empire, some advantage of weaponry and military technology as well as the reliable, factual, cultural, strategic information Cartes received from his willing informer,
Book Reviews
627
combined with the invaders will and considerable talent, enabled him to prevail. Ultimately all influenced his superb ability to conceptualise, his ‘. . .impeccable rationality and [his] profound understanding [ofl the historical reality he proposed to pacify, seduce and control’ (p. 100). The third chapter ‘From Failure to Demythification’ examines ‘The account given by Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca on what ocurred with the Indians’, better known as Nuufrugios or Shipwrecks (1542). as well as the change from the Caesarean discourse to the narrative discourse of failure, where the relationship of Spaniards and aborigines is often inverted and men interact on equal terms. This becomes particularly evident in Chapter Four ‘The Models in Crisis-The Search for El Dorado, From Failure to Rebellion, Rebel and Madman’ where the mythical objectives of The Fountain of Youth, El Dorado, The Amazons, the fabulous kingdoms of The Seven Cities of Cibola and Omagua progressively give way to the growing humanisation of the conquerors and every day concerns: ‘In the presence of an antiheroic daily reality composed of hunger, mosquitoes, swamps, and buffaloes peacefully grazing on limitless pasturelands, mythical objectives and epic models lost their meaning’ (p. 177). Pastor substantiates her own interpretation with a superb analysis of Pedro de Urstia’s expedition of 1559 to find El Dorado and the fabulous province of the Omagua which ultimately leads to the discovery of ‘the heart of darkness’. The uprising of a Lope de Aguirre against Ursria shows the Spaniards coming apart in utter isolation, the fearful confinement of the sixteenth-century Marafibn, an unforgiving Amazon jungle that leads to nothing but horror and despair. Pastor is at her best in Chapter Five, ‘Alonso de Ercilla and the Development’of Spanish American Consciousness’ where she makes a convincing case that Alonso de Ercilla v Z6Aiga (1533- 1594) ‘was determined to challenge the view that ‘natives’ were not ‘human’ and that everything civilised could only be identified with Europe, proposing instead the notion that the natives were equal to the Europeans in that both groups shared a common human condition’ (p. 236). Whatever the case may be, it is evident that the views of the soldier-poet of Spain and Chile share some common ground with Las Cusas opinions and those of Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca. Whether we agree or not with her conclusion, it amounts to an imaginative interpretation of the unique, much read epic poem. If there are any reservations to Pastor’s ambitious study is that she should provide a better English translation of the parts ofLu Aruucunu (1569, 1589) quoted in her book. If T. Bergin could do justice to Dante’s Divinu Commediu, it should not be beyond the wit of man, or L. Longstreth, to come up with a more accurate, readable and literary acceptable version of Ercilla’s resounding Renaissance verse. This can easily be remedied in a second edition. A cursory examination of the ‘Reference Matter’ of Pastor’s carefully crafted account indicates that although she is familiar with the basic literature of S.E. Morison and Irving Leonard, as well as Jo& Durand’s significant contributions to the field, and many more, she does not factor in some seminal work by other outstanding colonial scholars such as J.J. Arrom. M. Alvar, J.V. Murra and R. Adorn0 or Europe and its Encounters with the Amerindiuns a special issue of History of European Ideas [6 (4), 19851 edited by D. Fernandez Morera. However this does not detract from a fine, implacable reading and a well-honed interpretation of an endlessly fascinating subject that has the grand sweep that should appeal to the interested layman. For all of these reasons Pastor’s remarkable study is a notable contribution to the understanding of the fateful encounters with distant cultures in an alien New World and should also be of value to the university student as an excellent supplement to the reading of the original texts by Columbus, Cortts, Cabeza de Vaca and Ercilla. Klaus Miiller-Bergh The University of Illinois at Chicago
62.5
my opinion, the fact that the demolition of the ‘heroic’ values among those nobles who were engaged, as the author notes, in public service, can indicate achange in the attitude of the entire aristocracy is not self-evident, even if ample connections had come to exist among the different kinds of nobles. At the same time, the actual conformity of the behaviour of the members of that class with their supposed ‘values’ represents a related problem that a historian cannot ignore. In the third part, the author’s evaluation of the alternative conceptions of liberty is based on the distinction between the idea of liberty as participation typical of ‘civic humanism’ and liberty as a ‘negative notion of opportunity’, or ‘liberty under the law’, characteristic of natural law theory, the antecedent of liberalism. This approach takes up literally the patterns of a certain-mainly Anglo-American-historiography that works on the basis of a definition of the different ‘languages’ that shape the political discourse of a period. Finally, the author examines Montesquieu, ‘noble of both +pCe and robe’, as the best example of the state of transition between two worlds. Maria de1 Carmen’s main argument is that Montesquieu represents a ‘third way’, combining the negative liberty of modern societies and the possibility of avoiding the separation between the idea of public service (with its connected civic virtues) and individual interest. Montesquieu’s way could thus be termed an ‘aristocratic’ liberalism. In general, for the author. the aristocratic values introduced into the pattern of bourgeois negative liberty are the noblesse de robe’s notion of public service, which would save the best of the idea of participation of aristocratic republicanism, and the wish to obtain fame and prestige, which would help to protect liberty by orienting individual selfishness toward more general ends. Unfortunately within the limits of an inaugural speech the author was unable to fully develop her argument. Erica J. Mannucci University of Milan
The Armature of Conquest. Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of America, 1492-1589, Beatriz Pastor Bodmer, trans. Lydia Longstreth (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 317 pp., $42.50. The full title of the current English translation The Armature of Conquest. Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of America 1492- 1589 clearly makes the necessary spatial, textual and chronological distinctions where the previous Spanish editions (1983, 1988) fail to do so. In order to fully appreciate the importance of Pastor’s imaginative and graceful study for the English speaking world, it might be useful to briefly examine the precise spatial, textual, as well as cronological parameters of The Armature of Conquest. The locale-the Caribbean, the Gulf Region from Florida to Mexico, the Amazon Basin and Chile-is that of certain Spanish speaking accounts, as oppposed to those from territories settled by the Portuguese, and the time frame is that of 1492- 1589. This excludes Pero Vaz de Caminha, Hans Staden’s Wahrhaftige Historia (1557), Antonio Vieira (1608- 1697) or other chronicles dealing with the conquest or catechisation of the Andean regions of the American continent. Or as Arnold Toynbee would have observed, Pastor’s book focusses on all chroniclers of European descent, on both sides, writing Caribbean, Mesoamerican and Southern-Andean history in the Spanish language during the first 97 years of American history after the arrival of the Europeans. In other words ‘The New World civilisation that they were describing was alien to them, however actively it may have aroused their curiosity, and however successful they may have been in
626
Book Reviews
entering into the spirit of it by the act of historical imagination’. In fact, in her ‘Introduction’ Pastor expressly states ‘only marginal reference is made to that other version of the facts and their meaning that Miguel Leon-Portilla has called ‘the other side of the conquest’; or the view of the nature of the conquest held by the conquered, a view that likewise underwent a transformation parallel and complementary to the one examined in this study’. Such a version of the facts, of course, would contain such fascinating and often subversive major accounts as those by Fray Rambn Pane, Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca (1539- 1616) and Guaman Poma de Ayala. Pant’s Relacibn acerca de /as antigiiedades de 10s indias (1493-1498), the first book written in the New World by a European, the Inca’s magnificent The Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, written earlier, but published in Lisbon in 1609 and posthumously in Cordova in 1616- 1617, as well as Guaman Poma’s the Nueva Corbnica y Buen Gobierno (c. 1584- 1615). All are as illuminating as some of the texts Pastor comments even though, as is often the case with colonial texts, their literary fortune or reception corresponds to a different time. Pastor’s opening chapter ‘The Discourse of Mythification’ at first might seem a bit one sided to some scholars of the Columbian question because it focusses exclusively on the fictionalisation and not on what was real and accurately perceived by Columbus in the New World, which was considerable. However, this impression is balanced out in the closing pages of Chapter One when Pastor demonstrates she has not become a casualty in the Columbus wars, or fallen into the currently fashionable p. c. trap of debunking a superb navigator as a genocidal imperialist. In other words, condemning a visionary, fifteenth-century, late-medieval-early-Renaissance man by the standards of 1984. It is to Pastor’s credit that she correctly concludes that ‘Columbus was more human, imaginative and tolerant than most European merchants living at the end of the fifteenth century’ (P. 48). Chapter Two, ‘Hernan CortCs and the Creation of the Model Conqueror’, gives a fascinating portrait of a brilliant invader, a cross between Caesar and a Machiavellian Prince. Cortts emerges as the master of the Realpolitik of his time, with a lucid, analytical grasp of concrete reality that made him a better military man, strategist, negotiator, organiser and leader of men than anyone else. Pastor’s imaginative reading of the Letters effectively portrays the ideal ‘caudillo’, a man of action adept at fictional self-justification and circumspect self-agrandizement. In addition Pastor reveals how the Spanish conquistador was able to polish his image of Renaissance hero and instrument for carrying out the mandate of divine Providence before his Caesarean Majesty, the king. Finally Pastor correctly points out the conspicuous absence of Cartes body from the Letters and speaks of the frequent laxatives, as well as other remedies he took for his physical afflictions, mentioned in the accounts of his contemporaries. What this reviewer missed in the human dimension of Cortes’ narrative discourse is an account of his fascinating relationship with La Mafinche, possibly the one individual who made his success possible. The dynamics of power with this remarkable, liberated woman sold into slavery in her childhood, who later became a guide, ‘lengua’, ‘tongue’ or interpreter, and mother of Cortes’ son appears in a native codex and has haunted Mexican nationalists throughout history. According to Octavia Paz in ‘Los hijos de la Malinche’, the fourth chapter of The Laberynth of Solitude (1950), which contributed to his Nobel Prize for literature, the liaison between the conqueror and his Indian mistress has affected the Mexican psyche to this day. Bernal Diaz’s The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1568. 1632), as well as other accounts seem to indicate that her intelligence, fluency in numerous native languages, combined with her ability to relate to and communicate with others, gave a considerable edge to the Spaniards. The internal contradictions of the Aztec military empire, some advantage of weaponry and military technology as well as the reliable, factual, cultural, strategic information Cartes received from his willing informer,
Book Reviews
627
combined with the invaders will and considerable talent, enabled him to prevail. Ultimately all influenced his superb ability to conceptualise, his ‘. . .impeccable rationality and [his] profound understanding [ofl the historical reality he proposed to pacify, seduce and control’ (p. 100). The third chapter ‘From Failure to Demythification’ examines ‘The account given by Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca on what ocurred with the Indians’, better known as Nuufrugios or Shipwrecks (1542). as well as the change from the Caesarean discourse to the narrative discourse of failure, where the relationship of Spaniards and aborigines is often inverted and men interact on equal terms. This becomes particularly evident in Chapter Four ‘The Models in Crisis-The Search for El Dorado, From Failure to Rebellion, Rebel and Madman’ where the mythical objectives of The Fountain of Youth, El Dorado, The Amazons, the fabulous kingdoms of The Seven Cities of Cibola and Omagua progressively give way to the growing humanisation of the conquerors and every day concerns: ‘In the presence of an antiheroic daily reality composed of hunger, mosquitoes, swamps, and buffaloes peacefully grazing on limitless pasturelands, mythical objectives and epic models lost their meaning’ (p. 177). Pastor substantiates her own interpretation with a superb analysis of Pedro de Urstia’s expedition of 1559 to find El Dorado and the fabulous province of the Omagua which ultimately leads to the discovery of ‘the heart of darkness’. The uprising of a Lope de Aguirre against Ursria shows the Spaniards coming apart in utter isolation, the fearful confinement of the sixteenth-century Marafibn, an unforgiving Amazon jungle that leads to nothing but horror and despair. Pastor is at her best in Chapter Five, ‘Alonso de Ercilla and the Development’of Spanish American Consciousness’ where she makes a convincing case that Alonso de Ercilla v Z6Aiga (1533- 1594) ‘was determined to challenge the view that ‘natives’ were not ‘human’ and that everything civilised could only be identified with Europe, proposing instead the notion that the natives were equal to the Europeans in that both groups shared a common human condition’ (p. 236). Whatever the case may be, it is evident that the views of the soldier-poet of Spain and Chile share some common ground with Las Cusas opinions and those of Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca. Whether we agree or not with her conclusion, it amounts to an imaginative interpretation of the unique, much read epic poem. If there are any reservations to Pastor’s ambitious study is that she should provide a better English translation of the parts ofLu Aruucunu (1569, 1589) quoted in her book. If T. Bergin could do justice to Dante’s Divinu Commediu, it should not be beyond the wit of man, or L. Longstreth, to come up with a more accurate, readable and literary acceptable version of Ercilla’s resounding Renaissance verse. This can easily be remedied in a second edition. A cursory examination of the ‘Reference Matter’ of Pastor’s carefully crafted account indicates that although she is familiar with the basic literature of S.E. Morison and Irving Leonard, as well as Jo& Durand’s significant contributions to the field, and many more, she does not factor in some seminal work by other outstanding colonial scholars such as J.J. Arrom. M. Alvar, J.V. Murra and R. Adorn0 or Europe and its Encounters with the Amerindiuns a special issue of History of European Ideas [6 (4), 19851 edited by D. Fernandez Morera. However this does not detract from a fine, implacable reading and a well-honed interpretation of an endlessly fascinating subject that has the grand sweep that should appeal to the interested layman. For all of these reasons Pastor’s remarkable study is a notable contribution to the understanding of the fateful encounters with distant cultures in an alien New World and should also be of value to the university student as an excellent supplement to the reading of the original texts by Columbus, Cortts, Cabeza de Vaca and Ercilla. Klaus Miiller-Bergh The University of Illinois at Chicago