The Araucanian Loot: Heretics and Renegades against the Spanish Empire

• In Event: Piracy and Colonial Identities I

Abstract

In the last decades of the sixteenth century, the presence of pirates in the Spanish Pacific and the Caribbean resulted in a persistent fear, among Spaniards, that the Amerindians could make alliances with their European enemies. It was not only a threat to the security of the Spanish overseas territories, but it was also a menace to the process of evangelization undertaken by the religious orders in America. According to the “bulas papales,” the Spanish crown gained the exclusive rights of discovery and conquest of those lands with the condition that they would evangelize the newly found people. A coalition between European “heretics” and Amerindians “renegades” could put into question the legitimacy of the Spanish conquest of America.
As many scholars have already shown, the alliance between British corsairs and the “cimarrón” populations was critical to the good fortune of these piratical attacks. In this presentation I will argue how it became likewise crucial, among English writers, to represent the Araucanian population as future imperial allies. Because they were a persistent threat to the security and stability of the territories at the south of the Peruvian viceroyalty, Englishmen believed that the Araucanians could help them dominate the Strait of Magellan. Furthermore and probably in response to these English narratives, Spanish writings that dealt with piracy commonly represented the Araucanians as already tamed. I will demonstrate that the Araucanian became a rhetorical device through which both Englishmen and Spaniards tried to legitimate their presence in America.

Author

• Maria Gracia Rios, Yale University