‘La conquista del indiano suelo’ (V. 388): Clemency, Strategy and Defence in the New Antarctic Wars

In the event of the destructive pillaging and eventual escape of a corsair, the poet’s tongue might be even more scathing. La Argentina displays the utter ineptitude of the people of Lima when the rumour of Drake’s incursion arrives, as they run around in mad panic:

Especially following the death of Drake in 1596, some representations took the other extreme of dismissing the threat of piracy completely. Already in Arauco domado, the viceroy’s defensive measures promise to expel corsairs from the coast definitively, ‘que de esta plaga y mal tan ordinario | la costa de este sur se limpiaría’ [so the coast of this South Sea would be rid of this common plague and ill] (XVIII. 39). In Lope de Vega’s epic La Dragontea (1598), which narrates the admiral’s final defeat and death, the weakness of the pirates and the loyal resistance of both high and low to invasion and subordination become central to the poem. The work aspires ‘que descubriese el desengaño lo que ignoraba el vulgo, que tuvo a Francisco Draque en tal predicamento, siendo la verdad que no tomó grano de oro que no le costase mucha sangre’ [for disillusionment to reveal the ignorance of the common people, who held Francis Drake in such esteem, when the truth was that he did not take an ounce of gold without paying a high price in blood for it] (‘Al Príncipe nuestro señor’, p. 120).3 Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio, La Dragontea, ed. by Antonio Sánchez Jiménez (Madrid, 2007), p. 120. I use this edition throughout. As the poet puts it again later:

While a satirical depiction of the failures and incompetence which plagued many of the counter-piracy missions hardly accords with the poet’s stated aim, then, triumphalism and complacency were equally to be avoided. This is particularly so in light of the precarious situation in which the naval defences of the Pacific coast found themselves at the turn of the century. The elevated costs of maintaining a permanent armed fleet in Callao often raised questions in the minds of administrative authorities. Under pressure from the Crown, Montesclaros set out from the beginning of his reign to cut costs by reducing shipping, personnel and salaries. The ongoing urgency of regular defensive measures, then, needed to be stressed by the Armada veteran. At the same time, concerns about the cost-effectiveness of the fleet coincided with a more deep-seated anxiety about the existence of any armed militia in the cities of the viceroyalty. As we saw in Chapter 3, the term ‘soldado’ [soldier] had become virtually synonymous with ‘gente valdía y vagamunda’ [idle and vagabond people], and Montesclaros’s dispatches repeatedly refer to the need to ‘clean’ the Peruvian territory of such incomers.4 Latasa Vassallo, Administración virreinal, p. 260. Miramontes himself bears witness to such attitudes: in his 1590 letter, he claims that ‘being void of all hope, and full of griefe, I am become a souldier: a thing in this countrey which is most hated of all other things, not onely of men, but of the wilde beasts: and is an occupation which is chosen of idle persons’ (Appendix, p. 117).

In attempting to offset these various negative images, Miramontes tends to explain both successes and failures against the pirates by depicting the Spanish militias as valiant and disciplined but chronically under-resourced. Outside Lima, the small ports which first encounter the English invariably proffer a dauntless, but inexperienced, few (XX. 1669), at best able to repel or divert the invaders, but ultimately looking to the capital of the viceroyalty for any decisive action. Callao thereby becomes the centre of the region’s defence, but is not necessarily equipped for this role. On Drake’s first incursion, the soldiery there gladly volunteers itself for combat, only to find that there are no suitable vessels to transport them to the enemy:

The idea that the Magellan Strait posed a sufficient natural defence against piracy seems to have persisted into the seventeenth century, despite indications to the contrary.5 Ibid., pp. 549–50. The belief is also one which defines Ercilla’s Antarctic geography at the opening of La Araucana. Armas antárticas refers to the misconception early on (II. 179) only to show its shattering as the Antarctic sphere opens onto a new cartography and new patterns of conflict:

Another explanation for the damage wrought by the corsairs is that, in contrast to the ‘inglesillo malventurado’ [unfortunate little Englishman] of Beltraneja, or the defeated opportunists of La Dragontea, Miramontes’s pirates are a force to be reckoned with. Some recent criticism, in fact, has suggested that they are the true epic heroes of the poem: morally flawed, but with aspirations and achievements which set them beyond the ordinary stock of humanity.6 McCloskey, ‘Cosmographical Warfare’; Navascués, ‘Alteridad y mímesis’; Segas, ‘Le cycle’, p. 244. This certainly seems to be true of Drake, who possesses both fortitudo and sapientia as well as that elusive heroic attribute of magnanimity, ‘de ánimo y pensamiento levantado’ [of elevated mind and thought] (III. 202), which makes him more than a mere robber. The resolute ‘constancia’ (VIII. 737) which allows him to accomplish the apparently impossible is most at evidence in the crossing of the Strait, in which he remains stoic and immovable despite the devastation of the storm, assuring his men, like Lucan’s Caesar, Ercilla’s Philip II or Oña’s Hurtado, that ‘va mi ventura con vosotros’ [my fortune goes with you] (VI. 481).

The assertion holds less true for Drake’s compatriots, however. While criticism of the poem tends to treat the three English pirates as a single type, there is in fact significant differentiation between them. While consciously imitating Drake, the young and intrepid Cavendish lacks his caution and initiative and repeatedly falls into the traps laid out for him. The most evident comparison, though, is between Drake and his companion Oxenham, who set out for the Americas together and initially intend to rejoin in the Pacific ‘para tener al Sur escala y llaves’ [to scale and unlock the South Seas] (III. 276). In contrast to the plethora of heroic epithets applied to Drake, Oxenham is first introduced simply as ‘un plático cosario’ [an experienced corsair] (IV.283), and it is this ‘práctica’, a veteran’s knowledge of military and naval strategy, which is his salient characteristic, rather than any more remarkable virtues. This tactical mastery is often in evidence over the course of the narrative, as he mounts a lightning attack on the Isla de las Perlas (VI. 487), selects, constructs, repairs and defends a fort (VI. 488, VIII. 739, IX. 827), trains the inexperienced cimarrones (IX. 757), and maintains the discipline and spirit of his men during the steady Spanish advance. Despite this evident competence in the art of warfare, the fortunes of the two seafarers take very different trajectories. While Drake suffers initial losses on the Strait, he returns victoriously to England, loaded with stolen riches, whereas Oxenham meets with initial success, but is subsequently pursued and trapped by two Spanish expeditions, losing his ship, his allies, his fort and eventually his liberty. He would be hanged in Lima in 1580, but the poem makes no mention of this.

There is one salient difference in the conduct of these two allies in which their contrasting fates seem partly to reside. For the most part, Drake remains at sea, a mobile target attacking other vessels and ports before moving swiftly on, whereas Oxenham ventures further onto land, attempting to establish a base in Panama and engaging the Spanish in direct combat, at first through deliberate aggression and subsequently out of necessity. On one level, this serves only to demonstrate the conundrum previously discussed: while woefully under-equipped for oceanic naval combat, the Spanish are unmatched in battles and sieges on land. Thus, the marshal Pedro de Ortega is able to taunt Oxenham as the latter makes a shamefaced retreat from his ship and fort on the Tuira river:

Oxenham’s ransacking of the Isla and his capture of a ship near Guayaquil are immediately juxtaposed in the narrative, and throw into particular relief the captain’s apparently contradictory behaviour in the two episodes. In contrast to the bloodlust and sacrilege of his attack on the island, he comports himself towards the crew of the captured vessel with exemplary courtesy. The surrendering ship and its passengers are allowed to depart unharmed, and the women’s clothes and jewels left untouched, in an instance of ‘hidalgo cumplimiento’ [gentlemanly courteousness] which elicits the praise of the narrator (VII. 513). In addition to an emphasis on the greater readiness of the Spanish for land warfare than naval combat, then, might there also be an ethical element in play here? In absolute terms, the English (and Dutch) ventures into Pacific waters are defined from the outset as an unjust war, heretical, the fruit of the devil’s work, and an unprovoked injury stimulated primarily by greed and envy. As McCloskey points out, in Cicero’s influential formulation, the pirate was the ‘enemy of all’.7 McCloskey, ‘Mythologizing Greed and Betrayal’, pp. 673–74. Such a war lacked any code of ethical conduct in the scholastic tradition. Nevertheless, whereas both Oxenham and, later, the Dutch invaders acknowledge few constraints when mounting attacks on land (XIII. 1195), the corsairs do seem to follow a set of self-imposed restrictions when attacking other vessels. Just as Oxenham allows the crews of captured ships to go on their way without harm, so Drake neglects to burn or sink the unprotected ships in Callao, doing nothing more than unmooring them (VIII. 682–83), and treats the passengers of San Juan de Antón with such courtesy as to even compensate them for their loss (VIII. 697–99). These (historical) actions are accompanied by moral excursus on the preservation of honour (VIII. 683) and ‘piedad’ in warfare:

Even this, however, is not a fully satisfactory explanation. For while Drake’s acts of clemency undoubtedly soften the ire of the aggrieved and smooth his escape, the opposite might be said of his compatriots. Cavendish’s rescue of the survivor Tomé Hernández from the miseries of the Strait only encourages the latter to betray him at the first opportunity, putting the ties of religion above the obligations of gratitude. Likewise, ignoring Oxenham’s plea for silence, the ship he lets go free immediately spreads the news of his arrival, while the captain’s eventual expulsion of civilians from the fort for their own safety only affords an opportunity for its betrayal to the Spanish. There is, perhaps, a difference in motive for such displays of clemency which becomes significant here. Cavendish’s act of Christian compassion becomes something more self-interested when he attempts to recall the debt by asking Hernández to disguise the vessel’s identity and garner provisions in Chile. Oxenham’s own clemency is, as we have seen, inconsistent. It is in addition motivated initially by passion, as the fury of cruelty gives way to the ‘amoroso | fuego’ [passionate fire] of his infatuation with one of the ship’s passengers, Estefanía (IV. 300).8 For a discussion of the way the love stories of Armas antárticas are intertwined with its poetics of colonial desire, see my article ‘Os lusíadas and Armas antárticas’. The ship is allowed to depart only in exchange for her kidnap; ‘amor me disculpa, amor la ofrece | mi vida, si ella quiere; si no, justo | me es como vencedor hacer mi gusto’ [love excuses me, love offers her my life, if she wants; if not, it is just for me as the conqueror to do what I like] (IV. 302), pleads the besotted captain in a twisted attempt to persuade himself of the legitimacy of his action. While all the English corsairs are motivated by ‘codicia’, then, Oxenham is a far more temperamental character, undone at last by the consequences of his cruelty and lust.9 Curiously, a similar version of Oxenham’s demise is given in Richard Hawkins’s 1622 account of his own voyage to the Pacific. Hawkins claims that Oxenham captured from the ship ‘a lady of singular beauty, married, and a mother of children’ (in Miramontes she is on the way to meet her fiancé), who ‘grew to bee his perdition’: it is through her pleas that he lets the rest of the crew go and breaks his promise to the cimarrones that they should have the Spanish captives: The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt, in his Voyage into the South Sea in the Year 1593, ed. by C.R. Drinkwater Bethune (London, 1847), pp. 235–38. The Spanish lady does not appear in any other contemporary accounts. Since no survivors returned to England from Oxenham’s expedition, it is a likely conjecture that both Hawkins’s and Miramontes’s narratives have their source in an oral rumour circulating in Lima in 1593, where Hawkins was well treated in his captivity before being sent to Madrid and eventually finding his way home.

This greater possessiveness over the land and people he encounters also reflects a more profound distinction between the navigators. Following in Magellan’s footsteps, Drake navigates the Strait and enters the Pacific; but here, after an agonised decision (VIII. 703), he prudently resolves not to join his companion on the Isthmus of Panama, but to betray him and proceed in a summary three stanzas back to London (VIII. 736–38). In other words, he holds true to his early ambitions to ‘ver y descubrir’ [see and discover] (III. 210, cf. 206), and resists the temptation to stay and conquer. Oxenham is more ambitious. Inciting the Africans to ‘levantar el vuelo | a la conquista del indiano suelo’ [raise their sights to the conquest of the soil of the Indies] (V. 387), he appears to model himself on Cortés (V. 409–10), or Pedro Arias Dávila (V. 442). As he boldly sinks his ships in the Atlantic and proceeds by land with his new-found allies and a handful of soldiers to subjugate the ‘Mar del Sur’, he is no longer explorer, but conquistador, and in an ironic reversal of the Black Legend, accrues many of the negative stereotypes associated with this part.10 It might be added here that contemporary accounts, both English and Spanish, frequently suggest that English navigation in the Americas formed part of a broader scheme of colonisation, one not definitively transferred until later in the seventeenth century to North America: see Paul Firbas, ‘La geografía antártica y el nombre del Perú’, in Kohut and Rose, eds, La formación de la cultura virreinal, II, 265–88.

Overall, then, on one level, Miramontes’s representation of the pirates is intended to magnify the scale of the threat and stress the urgency of implementing a systematic naval policy, while shielding the forces involved in the defence efforts to date from any corrosive criticism. As the differentiation between the fates of the three corsairs grows more complex and subtle, however, it becomes clear that there is also more at stake. The pirates are clearly unjustified in their greed, aggression and heresy, but they are not depicted in the lurid diabolical tones of Lope de Vega’s La Dragontea. At times, they are capable of exemplifying the pragmatism of clement, ethical conduct in the aftermath of violence, a preoccupation common to all the poets discussed in this book. Moreover, they also intervene in the poem’s pervasive exploration of the dynamics of expansion, desire and conquest. This motif finds programmatic expression in two episodes that bracket the beginning and end of the poem, which tie both pirates and Amerindians into an overarching concern most immediately relevant to the political community of the Viceroyalty itself.