‘El radïante sol de don García’ (XIV. 49): Piracy, Rebellion and the Viceroy’s Voice

If Oña’s encomium to his patron’s defence of the coast lent itself to ridicule, however, it was his account of the opposition to the alcabala which elicited the most bitter and persistent hostility among his fellow citizens. As Pedro Guibovich puts it, the poem ‘enthused many and enraged many others’, and the most offensive passages were unquestionably those which touched on the difficult theme of rebellion in a province in which the civil wars were still within living memory, and, even worse, which threatened to perpetuate the memory of the unrest in print, defaming the urban residents of Peru indefinitely.2 Pedro Guibovich Pérez, ‘El poder y la pluma: La censura del Arauco domado de Pedro de Oña’, in Aguirre and McEvoy, eds, Intelectuales y poder, pp. 47–64 (p. 52). The last-minute alterations Oña made during printing were concentrated on the folios describing the revolt, and mitigated their scathing criticism of the rebels, in particular eliminating any reference to the involvement of the clergy and religious orders. As well as Muñiz’s case against the poet, separate charges were pressed against the author, printer and booksellers by five regidores of Quito, eighteen notable vecinos of Lima, the Cabildo of Lima, and at least one official of the Audiencia, and were eventually taken up by the Audiencia and incoming viceroy and remitted to the Council of the Indies. Many of the complainants cited the offensive passages of the poem in detail, and they all concentrated on the cantos which describe the arrival of the viceroy in Lima, his correction of abuses, and the imposition of the alcabala. Muñiz attempted to add some more weighty theological charges to this based on Oña’s depiction of Lautaro’s ghost, but it is clear where the problem really lies.

The collected documents relating to the case leave no doubt, therefore, that a wide spectrum of the elite of the viceroyalty was deeply vexed by the account of the recent unrest. As Bernard Lavallé makes clear, the affair had left gaping wounds in the urban social fabric. Hurtado came under criticism for his utter failure to anticipate, inform Madrid of and duly respond to the first stirrings of dissent in Quito when the tax was proclaimed, despite the fact that the factions and poverty of the city had already been brought to his attention and led to the dispatch of a visitador. Nor was the conflict cleanly resolved in the aftermath, as appeals against summary verdicts and petitions for mercedes (reward) dragged on, which left the region restive and fraught with tensions well into the seventeenth century.3 Lavallé, Quito, p. 188.

Moreover, the poet’s championing of such inflexible crushing of a tax revolt places him at odds with much of the scholastic and Jesuit tradition he would have imbibed in his university education in Lima, and to which he generally adheres. Treatists tended to uphold the commonplace of Aristotle and Ptolemy of Lucca that princes should seek to avoid novelty, and particularly the imposition of new laws and taxes, keeping the latter as low as possible, within their subjects’ capabilities; if taxes proved to be unavoidable, princes should impose them through gradual and persuasive means.4 For example, Ribadeneyra, Tratado, pp. 319–38. Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 73–77, particularly censures indirect taxes on non-luxury goods – such as the alcabala. More generally, as John H. Elliott cautions, one should be careful of seeking ‘an ideology of innovation’ in a society ‘dominated, as Early Modern European society was dominated, by the idea, not of progress, but of a return to a golden age in the past’, Spain and its World (New Haven, CT, 1989), p. 100. Acosta applied the maxim to the Indies, warning with particular stridency that any tributes should be kept to a minimum and never changed without extensive consultation, for:

It is perhaps unsurprising in this light that the tone of these cantos is often hesitant and faltering. While agreement on the swift and ruthless crushing of rebellion had come to dominate in the political treatises of the Peninsula in the late sixteenth century, as attitudes in many quarters hardened towards Flanders, this outlook sits much more uncomfortably with the moderate, conservative, consensual approach carefully elaborated by Oña in previous sections of the poem.6 For the former, hard-line approach, see, for instance, Luis Valle de la Cerda, Avisos en materia de estado y guerra, para oprimir rebeliones, y hazer pazes con enemigos armados, o tratar con subditos rebeldes (Madrid, 1599). The steady increase of pace and tension throughout the escalation of revolt gives way to a decidedly anticlimactic ending, moving abruptly from the sudden dissolution of the rebel forces to the tearful spectacle of the reprisals, including the execution of a ninety-year-old man. Its apologetic sphragis, with the uncomfortable note of transaction as the story is ‘settled up’ (for the benefit of Hurtado?), abruptly leads the reader from a triumphant to an uncertain mood (XVI. 95–108):7 Mazzotti, in ‘Paradojas’ and Lima fundida, pp. 97–112, also notes the jarring descent from masculine triumph to feminine lament. Thomas Greene, ‘The Natural Tears of Epic’, in Beissinger, Tylus and Wofford, eds, Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World, pp. 189–202, reminds us that a lamenting ending is typical of epic.

Aside from hedging around these cantos with such apologetic equivocations, Oña’s first response to the formidable challenge of rendering this controversial dispute in epic terms is to distort the causes of the insurrection, turning it from a protest against unjust taxation or a defence against the besieging forces to a duplicitous and self-interested attempt to shed the yoke of Spanish rule altogether. To judge by the litigation which followed, this is one of the claims which particularly angered many of the poem’s early readers. At the outset, it is asserted that the tax is not in fact new at all, but that the monarch’s administrators had refrained from imposing it until that date out of fear (another provocative claim). The controversial president of the Audiencia of Quito, Manuel Barros de San Millán, who undoubtedly exacerbated tensions, is thoroughly whitewashed.

The provocative account of Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza’s restoration of royal authority in Lima in the Primera parte of La Araucana, already alluded to at the beginning of Arauco domado (I. 16), proves a useful model here, allowing Oña to bypass some of the problematic complexities referred to above. In both episodes, the uprising is figured in images of civil war, flames and a gathering of storm-clouds which in Oña’s version never break thanks to the foresight of the viceroy and the ‘mañas’ [ruses] of his general Pedro de Arana. The image of the storm, as we have seen elsewhere, figuratively connects otherwise disparate outbreaks of rebellion, and allows Oña to create some unsavoury parallels between the leaders at Quito and the discredited Araucanian caciques. In one passage, the rebel leaders are presented as fomenting their ‘libertad’ outside the city, in a communal feast in the midst of nature which bears some resemblance to the ‘borrachera’ of the second canto:

Nevertheless, the presentation of the rebels is not typical in all respects. Ercilla does not distinguish the traitors of Peru according to type, but rather differentiates the king’s subjects simply by the criterion of loyalty or disloyalty. Contemporary accounts of the Quito revolt tended to take the opposite approach, isolating the unrest in a particular sector of society, particularly under-employed armed men (‘soldado’, soldier, is, in the documents, virtually synonymous with ‘gente valdía y vagamunda’ [idle and vagabond people]); mestizos (including the recently ordained mestizo priests), criollos and the lower classes in general, with some overlap between these categories.9 Lavallé, Quito, pp. 83–89. Arauco domado distances itself from both approaches. The seed of rebellion is, in the poem, not planted only in socially suspect soil, but is equally liable to take root in any estate. While the ‘vulgo novelero’ [fickle multitude] responds quickly to the ‘primero movimiento’ of dissent, the narrative voice goes on to insist that the plebs tend to follow their head (XVI. 30), and that ‘No hay para qué culpemos la rudeza | del bando popular, sino del grave’ [we should blame not the boorishness of the popular bloc, but that of the important people] (XVI. 32); oidores, women, senior citizens, lawyers and priests are all singled out for criticism at various points. Divisions between criollos and peninsulares, or according to ethnic status, are never even mentioned. Often, the ambiguous status of the urbanised indio (as opposed to the rural labourer), the ladino, mestizo or yanacona, led to suspicions of only surface-deep Christianity, compounded with deceit, disloyalty and a number of social vices, an attitude which is reflected in documentary accounts of the revolt.10 Cañeque, The King’s Living Image, pp. 186–205; Adorno, Polemics, pp. 23–25. Oña, by contrast, makes no distinction between the two indigenous groups: both are abused and their abuses redeemed in cantos III and XIV respectively in passages which employ a similar and highly emotive language; the comparison of the domestic service of the urban Indians to slaves serving in the galleys was read with particular horror by the poet’s various prosecutors. The rebellion is, in Oña’s rendition, entirely a Spanish affair.

Finally, and again controversially, the boundaries between loyalty and disloyalty are disconcertingly permeable. Other cities are said to have been as liable to revolt as Quito, had the news not been suppressed by the viceroy, while only a minority of the population fall neatly into either camp: most ‘ni eran bien traidores ni leales, | sino del tercio género: neutrales’ [were neither treacherous nor loyal, but of the third kind: neutral] (XIV. 88). Within this uncommitted sector, the attribution of guilt or innocence is inevitably tentative: individual reactions are often impossible to decipher, with many revealing sentiments at odds with their inner convictions or ‘disimulando’ entirely (XIV. 86–88). The urban communities of the viceroyalty, then, are portrayed by Oña as at once inherently unstable and extremely complex, with the motivations and loyalties of each individual, let alone each ‘estado’, ambivalent, unpredictable and constantly subject to change. Little wonder that the narrative so perturbed much of its immediate audience.

In Ercilla, as we have seen, one problematic feature of the Peruvian rebellion is the question of how far the justice and authority of the king might be communicated through the representative who transmits his ‘voz’, whose methods are effective but decidedly Machiavellian. In Arauco domado, the problem is twofold, residing firstly in the question of how justice might be applied and unrest fully quelled in the tangled scenario described above, and secondly in the fact that, in this case, the distant epicentre of the revolt and the multiple provinces in which its quakes are felt are inevitably beyond the physical reach not only of the absent monarch but also of the viceroy. The creative response to these dilemmas moves us further from the conventional representation of dissent in this period. Beginning with the first issue, Oña leaves the reader in no doubt that the resolution of the affair is not merely a triumph on Hurtado’s part, but is in fact the most powerful demonstration of his heroic virtues of fortitude and wisdom (XIV. 79). The dispute between Talguén and Tucapel over whether it was Arana’s ‘fuerza’ or ‘maña’ that won the day (another ‘justo medio’) makes the viceroy’s deputy a foil in this regard. However, while the account employs many of the topical preliminaries of the epic battle – from the ‘borrachera’ cited above, to the spectacle of gallantly decked soldiers gathering in Lima, to the heroic catalogue of warriors, their stormy voyage and steady march by land – the carefully laid expectations of civil war are never met, and thus the usual arena for the display of heroism is conspicuously absent.

The portrayal of these virtues, therefore, has a distinctive emphasis. The very embodiment of epic ‘furor’, Tucapel, reinterprets the fortitude of the protagonists as their courage to patiently wait for the onslaught of a vastly superior number – a virtue somewhere mid-way between stoic imperturbability and traditional valour. ‘Maña’, likewise, has less to do with military strategy than with an astute assessment of and interaction with both potential supporters and adversaries during the unrest, and is characterised not by ‘presteza’, but by the slowness and caution of the hero’s course of action. Following the moderate, conciliatory model already put to the test in the militia and frontier communities, both the viceroy and his general proceed consensually as far as possible, convoking juntas at each step, never advancing without ‘común consentimiento’ (XIV. 83) and thereby eventually avoiding recourse to ‘sangre y fuego’. The image used in the conclusion is a striking reworking of the conventional advice to cut off the cancer of rebellion as swiftly and completely as possible:

One final subtle shift in allusion also seems pertinent in this light. Hurtado is throughout most of the poem presented as a new Caesar, with analogies both to the Pharsalia and to the Caesar of the Gallic Wars, and in the war in Chile as a new Aeneas (comparisons to other figures such as Ascanius, Achilles, Ulysses, Hercules and Mars also appear, but are less consistent as epithets or structuring elements). As Arana approaches the port of Guayaquil, a voice reassures him that ‘no podrá ofenderte cosa alguna | en fe de don Hurtado y su fortuna’ [nothing can harm you, trusting in Don Hurtado and his fortune] (XV. 67), transforming the hubris of Lucan’s Caesar, who declares on a stormy crossing that no harm will come to the pilot because of his own fortune, into a Providential admonition. In the midst of the rebellion itself, however, the terms of reference are unexpectedly reversed, as the lukewarm attitude of those in authority permits that ‘el pecho y ánimo plebeyo | a César se inclinase y no a Pompeyo’ [the plebeian heart and mind inclined to Caesar and not to Pompey] (XVI. 32). The just cause here, then, is Pompey’s. In a narrative in which shared decision-making, cautious delay and moderation largely displace ‘presteza’ and ‘fortuna’ in the eventual outcome, the imperial conqueror of Chile behaves among his viceregal subjects as a republican ruler, first among equals.

By contrast, the symbolic impact of the king is much weaker. When the oidores call for aid in the plaza by raising ‘por el rey la voz en alto’ [their cry for the king] (XVI. 18–19) they do succeed in rallying the citizens to their ‘natural señor’, like birds to ‘el silvo de su madre verdadera’ [the whistle of their true mother], but with only ephemeral efficacy. The scene is placed not at the conclusion of the revolt, but during its course; the fearful judges fail to take advantage of the opportunity, and the turbulence increases rather than dying down. Far more strongly felt, by contrast, are the fear and awe inspired by the king’s representative. In Chile, Hurtado’s majesty is very much associated with his physical presence. In the events in Quito, it is instead communicated through his ‘voz’ (a term ambiguously employed, as in Ercilla). At the outset of his reign, this ‘voz’ extends throughout the entire territory of Peru and beyond, and it is the decisive factor in the sudden vanishing of the storm, ‘a polvo y luego a nada reduzido’ [reduced to dust and then to nothing] (XVI. 76):

If the painful narrative of the rebellion in Quito showed the urban communities of the viceroyalty at breaking point, the response to the incursion of Hawkins, as if in compensation, demonstrates their strength. The viceroy remains, of course, a prominent presence, overseeing preparations in person and demonstrating his prudent foresight and evident command of the mechanisms of naval warfare, but, perhaps surprisingly, the cantos largely move away from the symbols and recourses of epic. They also, intriguingly, suggest and then dispel the alternative approach of presenting the triumph obliquely, as a victory ode in the style of Herrera: the ‘enigma’ of Quidora’s vision of a dragon emerging from its cave to confront a lion explicitly alludes to the biblical allegory of Herrera’s ‘Canción en alabança de la Divina Magestad por la vitoria del señor don Juan de Austria en la batalla de Lepanto’ [‘Song in Praise of the Divine Majesty for the Victory of Don John of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto’], before its interpreter is pointedly cut off by the poet’s own voice, ‘arrebatándole el cuento de la boca’ [snatching the tale from her mouth] (XVIII, title). No longer a sun, a lion, or a new reincarnation of an epic hero, the viceroy’s measures are effective on much more concrete and mundane grounds. The change of tone certainly owes itself in part to an extremely close adherence to Balaguer’s official Relación of the event, the first piece of ‘news’ to be printed in Lima, but this in itself is a significant gesture. As we have seen, variety and an experimental testing of the boundaries of epic are integral to Oña’s poem, and here entertain the reader by detailing in very prosaic style, beginning with the exact date and time, what might have lent itself to the trappings of an epic naval battle (although the latter does begin to emerge in the final stanzas).

The effect of this shift is to place a particular emphasis on the victory as a community endeavour, even a shared public spectacle (XVIII. 64), very much centred in the everyday environs of Lima. The one notable innovation Oña makes on his source with his inclusion of an epic storm differs from the previous two elaborations of the topic in the conspicuous absence of Hurtado and his ‘fortuna’: instead, the poet’s lengthy appeal to God places emphasis on the crew’s representation of the entire community, the new Israelites of the Christian people (XIX. 33–41), as well as postulating that the tribulations come so that Don Beltrán might emerge stronger from the test (XIX. 46). At the same time, while the corsairs are undoubtedly heretical, and with a ‘sed hiposa de oro y plata’ [dropsical thirst for gold and silver] (XVIII. 9), their overall presentation is not outrightly diabolical, nor as repulsive as that of the rebels of Quito. The focus instead is on the human, empirical dimension of the conflict, in which the adversary’s virtues ‘según moral filosofía’ [according to moral philosophy] (XVIII. 41) are very much to the fore. The emphasis falls, therefore, on the remarkable spectacle of Lima as a centre for the pursuit of heroism and the military art. The complexity of the crowd’s portrayal in the Quito affair, and the afflictions of the frontier forces of Chile, here give way to a united display of discipline and valour on the part of the volunteers. The point is reinforced by allusions to Hawkins’s own under-estimation of Callao, whose fleet he is said to have disregarded, and its novelty noted again in the poet’s voice:

Overall, then, in his accounts of the tax revolt and the defeat of Hawkins, Oña builds on his depiction of Hurtado’s governance of the frontier in order to construct an image of both ruler and political community which, while utilising many of the commonplaces of conventional scholastic discourse, is increasingly independent in their application. The power, majesty and imagery consistently associated with the king in Ercilla and in the mirror of princes tradition is transferred in its entirety to the viceroy, who thereby almost completely displaces the monarch. In the process, this allows the poet to obviate some of the difficulties of the effective rule of a far-flung empire which repeatedly trouble his predecessor; empire as a concept, in fact, never really disturbs the local, grounded vision of governance of Arauco domado. The urban and frontier communities over which the governor-viceroy rules, in contrast, while capable of uniting against a common threat, be it internal rebellion or foreign incursion, prove heterogeneous, unpredictable and ever liable to repudiate the ties to their natural lord. If the authority wielded over them is in essence unquestionably regal, these communities are shown to be best directed, and most effectively chastised, through a manner of exercising it which is consensual, civic and republican in practice.