Faith, fidelity and fantasy: Don Pedro Fernández de Quirós and the 'foundation, government and sustenance' of la Nueba Hierusalem in 1606

Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 133-148

  Luque, Miguel ^a   Mondragon, Carlos ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 58149375669     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00223340500176368     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. Pedro Fernández de Quirós, Descubrimiento de las regiones austriales, ed. Robert Ferrando Perez (3rd edn, rev. Madrid 2000), 269. All translations from original Spanish texts are by the authors.
2. Oskar Spate, The Pacific since Magellan, Vol. 1: The Spanish Lake (Canberra 1979), 136.
3. Spate's description has often been repealed, e.g. Max Quanchi and Ron Adams (eds), Culture Contact in the Pacific (Cambridge 1993), 35, thereby reinforcing a generalised Anglophone stereotype of Quirós as an obsessive religious mystic and violent 'Spanish' explorer. Most Hispanic scholarly accounts of Quirós also exaggerate his religiosity but in order to cast him in glowing terms as a pious pacifist (see fn. 7).
4. Indispensable references are to be found in several works by Celsus Kelly: Austrialia Franciscana (Madrid 1963);
5. La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo (Cambridge 1965);
6. and Calendar of Documents: Spanish voyages in the South Seas from Alvaro de Mendaña to Alejandro Malaspina 1567 1794, and from the Franciscan missionary plans for peoples of the austral lands 1617-1634 (Madrid 1965).
7. See also Andrew Sharp, The Discovery of Australia (Oxford 1963);
8. Colin Jack-Hinton, The Search for the Islands of Solomon, 1567-1838 (Oxford 1969);
9. Robert Langdon, The Lost Caravel (Sydney 1975)
10. and The Lost Caravel Re-explored (Canberra 1988);
11. and Annie Baert, Le Paradis Terrestre: un mythe espagnol en Océanie: les voyages de Mendaña et de Quirós, 1567 1606 (Paris 1999).
12. Spate's The Spanish Lake is the most informative English-language treatment of Quirós's voyages.
13. Nol surprisingly, this stereotype has also found its way into analyses by Islander scholars, e.g. Malama Meleisea and Penelope Schoellel, 'Discovering outsiders', in D. Denoon et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders (Cambridge 1997), 119 51.
14. Works which fail to consider indigenous (Oceanic histories include Leoncio Cabrero Fernández (ed.), España y el Pacífic, Vol. 1: Legazpi (Madrid 2004)
15. and idem (coord.), Historia general de Filipinos (Madrid 2000);
16. Antonio García-Abáolo, España y el Pacífico (Córdoba 1997);
17. Martha de Jármy Chapa, La expansión española hacia América y el Océano Pacífico, Vol. 2: La Mar del Sur y el impulso hacia Oriente, (Mexico 1988);
18. Amancio Landín Carrasco, Descubrimientos españoles en el Mar del Sur (Madrid 1992);
19. Carlos Martinez Shaw, El Pacífico español de Magallanes a Malaspina (Madrid 1988);
20. Hugo O'Donnell, España en el descubnmiento, conquista y defensa del Mar del Sur (Madrid 1992);
21. Carlos Prieto, El Océano Pacífico: Navegantes españoles del siglo XVI (Madrid 1975).
22. The voyages of Alendaña and Quirós were variously recounted in short and fragmentary versions by Antonio de Morga. Sucesos de las islas Filipinos (Mexico 1609);
23. Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, Hechos de Don García Hurtado de Mendoza (Madrid 1613);
24. and Fr Tomás de Torquemada. Monarquía Indiana (Seville 1615).
25. The first comprehensive and most widely known account continues to be Quiros, Historia del descubriniento de las regiones austriales hecho por el general Pedro Fernandez de Quirós, 3 vols, ed. Justo Zaragoza (Madrid 1876-82), recentlyreprinted in facsimile under the imprint of José Manuel Gómez-Tahanera (Madrid 2000).
26. Importantly, Zaragoza's edition served as the basis for the English translations by Lord Amherst of Hackney and Basil Thomson, The Diseovery of the Solomon Islands by Álvaro de Mendana in 1568, 2 vols (London 1901)
27. and Sir Clements Alarkham, The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros to 1606, 2 vols (London 1904).
28. While Spate notes the 'careless' and 'archaic' nature of Markhanrs translations (The Spanish Lake, 318 n. 21)
29. a more fundamental shortcoming is that Zaragoza's version, on which the English translations rely, is based on incomplete manuscript sources. The Ferrando Pérez edition of Quirós, which also includes the account by Luis Váez de Torres (Torres, 'Relaeión de Luis Váez de Torres a Felipe III desde Alanila, a 12 de julio de 1607', in Quirós, Deseubrimiento, 315 24) rectifies certain omissions in Zaragoza's, and provides the basis for much of our present analysis.
30. John H. Elliot, Spain and its World, 1500-1700 (New Haven 1989);
31. John H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (London 1966);
32. and William Lytle Schurz, The Manila Galleon (New York 1939) provide classic overviews from an Anglophone perspective; conversely
33. Ricardo Garcia Cárcel et al., Historia de España Siglos XVI y XVII: La España de los Austrias (Madrid 2003)
34. and Bartolomé Yun, Marte contra Minerva: El preeio del lmperio Español c. 1450-1600 (Barcelona 2004) provide recent overviews of the Hispanic historiographic perspective.
35. Juan Gil, Hidalgos y samurais: España y Japón en los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid 1991);
36. and Manuel Ollé, La Empresa de China: de la Armada Invencible al Galeón de Manila (Barcelona 2002) offer important insights into Spanish imperial policy in the Asia-Pacific region.
37. Relevant politico-economic studies of this phenomenon can be found in Ernest Belenguer, Del oro al oropel, Vol. 2: El hundimiento de la hegemonía hispánica (Barcelona 1997);
38. C. M. Cipolla, R. S. López and H. Miskimin, 'Economic depression of the Renaissance?' I-III, Economic History Review, 16 (1964), 519 24; 525 7; 528 9;
39. H. Miskimin, Cash, Credit and Crisis in Europe, 1300-1600 (London 1989);
40. and A. Szásdi, 'Spain and American treasure: depreciation of silver and monetary exchange in the Viceroyalty of Lima, 1550-1610', The Journal of European Economic History, 4 (1975) 429-58.
41. See, e.g., the sharp critique of Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: the rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan (New York 2003)
42. in J.E. Gelabert, 'España antes de tiempo', Revis ta de Libros de la Fundación Caja Madrid, 87 (2004), where Thomas is taken to task for failing to consider the effects of the fractured, proto-modern nature of 'Spain' in his grand summary of early Spanish expansion.
43. For examples of early 16th century charts which depict the Terra australis see, e.g., the mappa mundi of Giovanni Cimmerlino from 1566, which was based on the chart by Oronce Finé from 1534, reproduced in Federico Romero and Rosa Ben avides, Mapas antiguos del mundo (Madrid 1998), 78.
44. Quiros, "Memorial 1', Memoriales de las indias australes, ed. Óscar Pinochet de la Barra (Madrid 2002), 35-6.
45. Quirós, Descubrimiento de las regiones austriales. 200.
46. Especially the Spanish aristocrat Don Diego de Prado y Tovar. Here we use the excellent edition of the diary by Prado, 'Rclación sumaria de don Diego de Prado', in Brett Hildcr, El viaje de Torres de Veracruz a Manila: descubrimiento de la casta meridional de Nueva Guinea y del estrecho de Torres y documentas de la época de travesía, trans. and ed. by Francisco Utray (Madrid 1990 [St Lucia Qld 1980]), 201-33.
47. The only extant, but not entirely satisfactory, English translation of Prado's journal, is in Henry N. Stevens (ed.) and G. F. Barwick (trans.), New light on the Discovery of Australia as Revealed by the Journal of Captain Don Diego de Prado y Tovar (London 1930), 86 205.
48. Quirós, Descubrimiento, 220.
49. For an analysis of the encounter between Taumako Islanders and Iberians see Carlos Mondragón, 'Visiones autóctonas y occidentales durante las exploraciones cspañolas de la Melanesia insular (1595 1606)', in Gustavo Curiel (ed.), Orientes y Occidentes: el arte y la mirada del Otro (Mexico, in press).
50. Information presentada por el Capitán Pedro Fernández de Quirós, a las Indias, con su mujer, hijos y criadas, que se expresan ..., 14 Mar. 1615, Seville, Archivo de Indias, Palronato 51.
51. G. Arnold Wood, The Discovery of Australia (London 1922), 203.
52. There are few accessible studies regarding the worldviews of 16th-century Portugal, bul two works by Isabel Soler stand out: El nudo y la esfera: el navegante como artífice del mundo moderne (Barcelona 2003):
53. and Los mares náufragos (Barcelona 2004).
54. See also Michael Chandeigne (ed.), Lisbonne hors tes murs. 1415-1580: l'invention du monde par des navigateurs protugais (Paris 1990);
55. Vitórino Magalhães Godinho, Les Découvertes: XVe - XVIe: une révolution des mentalités (Paris 1990);
56. and J.S. da Silva Dias, Os descobrimentos e a problematica cultural do século XVI (Coirabra 1973).
57. The authors are deeply grateful to V)r Alan Strathern, Clare Hall, Cambridge, for having originally pointed out the existence and importance of the capuços in the social life of Évora. See also Juan Bautista Moles, Memorial de la provincia de San Gabriel de la or den de los frailes menores de la observancia (Madrid 1592)
58. and Idalina Résina Rodrigues, Fray Luís de Granada y la literatura de espiritualidad en Portugal (1554-1632) (Madrid 1988).
59. That Quirós felt a special devotion to the Franciscan Order is beyond doubt, but the continuing problem is to know how deeply. Annie Baerl states that Quirós was a so-called 'Tertiary' (non-ordained) member of the Franciscans; see Baert, Le paradis terrestre, 66-78
60. and idem, 'Pedro Fernandez de Quirós, o el otro Colón', in F.J. Antonio Burgos and L.O. Ramos Alonso (eds), Traspasando frouteras: el reto de Asia y el Pacífico (Valladolid 2002), 41-2. However, she provides no concrete evidence. As wc suggest, Quirós's activities, behaviour and written comments prior to 1606 demonstrate that he was not particularly religious but was probably infused with the utopianism of the capçeos.
61. Quirós, Deseubrimiento de las regiones austriales, 252.
62. Fcrrando Pérez highlights the fact that, over the course of 18 months as a guest of the Spanish ambassador to the Vatican, Quirós carefully planned the lime of his approach to the Holy See - the highly symbolic Jubilee Year of 1600 - as well as the style of his presentation: pilgrim's garb and missionary rhetoric. Ferranclo Pérez, 'Tntroducción', ibid., 34.
63. see Luis Weckmann, La hereneia medieval de México (2nd edn, rev., Mexico 1994), 155-6.
64. The chivalric spirit was also expressed in the early stages of Lusitanian colonisation; see Weckmann, La hereneia medieval del Brasil (Mexico 1993), 1 16 36.
65. Two chronicles stand oui: that of Juan de Iturbe, overseer of the expedition, who complained to the King about Quirós's attitude (Carta de S.M. par Juan de Iturbe, sobre la navegación y descubrimiento del Capitán Quirós; Mexico, 25 de mayo de 1607, Ms. 3099. folio 129, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional);
66. and Prado's 'Relación sumaria'. 30 'The general [Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira], in the name of His Majesty, took possession of all these four islands [the Marquesas], he strolled through the village [a coastal settlement], planted maize under the gaze of the Indians, and having had all possible conversation with them, he reembarked ...', as recounted by Hernán Gallego, 'De cómo el adelantado saltó en la isla de Santa Cristina, y lo que pasó con los indios de ella', in Quirós, Descubrimiento de las regiones austriales, 76.
67. The maize that Mendaña planted came from Peru and symbolised the extension of the Viceroy of Peru's authority to these distant lands. See Hermann Buse, Los peruanos en Oceanía: geografía y crónicas del Pacífico. Cuarto centenario del viaje de Álvaro de Mendaña a las islas Salomón (Lima 1967), 296-7.
68. According to Weckmann some of the rituals associated with land claims were quite simple (e.g. cutting a tree branch or having stones thrown at a tuft of grass taken from the land in question), and 'reflected ancient [Visi]Gothic ceremonial, and were registered by a notary whenever one was on hand'. Weckmann, La herencia medieval de México, 88.
69. Quirós, Descubrimiento de las regiones auslriales, 254-6.
70. Prado, 'Relatión sumaria', 212.
71. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Book V.
72. Prado, 'Relación sumaria', 216-17.
73. See Fernán Altuve-Febres Lores, Los Reines del Perú (Lima 2001), 134-5 and fn. 178.
74. Quirós, Descubrimiento de las regiertes austriales, 260.
75. Prado, 'Relación sura aria', 211.
76. The numeral classification for Quirós's Memorials originally suggested by Kelly in Austrialia Franeiseana has since been widely adopted. The version of Memorial 40 from which we have worked is in Quirós, Memoriales de las Indias australes, 251-309.
77. For a discussion about the roots of XVIIth century Utopian discourse in Spain see Fernando Ainsa, De la edad de oro a El Dorado: génesis del discurso utópico amencano (Mexico 1992).
78. At least one researcher has suggested that Quirós's Memorials may have had a direct influence on Francis Bacon's Nova Atlantis. See J.M. Gómez-Tabanera, 'Sir Thomas More, (1478-1535). Pedro Fernandez de Quirós, (1562-1615), y Sir Francis Bacon, (1561-1626): la forja de una Utopía política en la Inglaterra del sigio XVII, unpub. paper presented to the XII Congress of the International Association of Hispanists, Birmingham, 1995.
79. See also. Gómez-Tahanera, 'La Sinapia, una España imposible en el mundo austral o la forja de una Utopia his pana en el siglo XVII', in García-Abásolo, España y el Pacífico, 121-4.
80. See Antonio Rubial Garría, 'La Insulana, un ideal franciscano en Nueva Lspaña', Estudios de Historia Novohispana, 6 (1978), 3-46;
81. and Paz Serrano Cassent, 'Introducción' in Vasco de Quiroga, La utopía en América, ed. P. Serrano Cassent (Madrid 2002), 5-57.
82. and Josep Ignasi Saranaya, 'Sobre el milenarismo de Joaquín de Fiore: una lectura retrospectiva', Tealogía y Vida, 44 (2003), 221-32.
83. Roberto Rusconi, 'La historia del fin: cristianismo y milenarismo', Teología y Vida, 44 (2003), 209-20.
84. See fn. 40.