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Reading Indigenous Responses to Europeans During Moments of Early Encounter in the Caribbean and Mesoamerica, 1492-C.1585

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Reading Indigenous Responses to Europeans During Moments of Early Encounter in the Caribbean and Mesoamerica, 1492-C.1585 ‘The People from Heaven’?: Reading indigenous responses to Europeans during moments of early encounter in the Caribbean and Mesoamerica, 1492-c.1585 Claudia Jane Rogers Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History May 2018 ii The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Claudia Jane Rogers to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. iii Acknowledgements Firstly, my thanks are due to my supervisors, Anyaa Anim-Addo and Manuel Barcia Paz, to whom I owe a huge amount – both professionally and personally. Their wisdom, insights, and perspectives have shaped and strengthened this project from beginning to end. I wish to thank them for their kind and supportive guidance, which they have always given generously. Anyaa and Manuel, my study is much stronger than it would have been without you, as am I. This work was supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/L503848/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). WRoCAH has not only provided further financial support for research trips and conference attendance throughout my studentship, but valuable training and opportunities for professional development, too. I thank Caryn Douglas, Clare Meadley, and Julian Richards for all their help and support. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the School of History at the University of Leeds over the last four years or so. I am immensely grateful to all who make the School such a vibrant research community, for which it has been a pleasure, and honour, to be a part of. The School has provided me with essential training and financial support, for which I am very grateful. Special thanks go to the Directors of Postgraduate Research during my PhD, Kate Dossett and Will Jackson, and SES Officer for Postgraduate Research, Emma Chippendale. My gratitude goes, too, to Iona McCleery, for her intellectual insights and mentorship. I cannot name all those who I ought to, but I am immensely grateful to them nonetheless. I am thankful to staff at the following institutions, societies, and projects, for their generosity and kindness during this study: the libraries at the University of Leeds, the Royal Armouries at Leeds, the British Library, the British Museum, the John Carter Brown Library, the American Society for Ethnohistory, and the Wired Humanities Projects at the University of Oregon. I would like to thank Stephanie Wood in particular, here, for training me as a contributor to the Mapas Project, and for so warmly welcoming me into her beautiful home on my first visit iv to the U.S.. Stephanie, it has been a pleasure learning from you, as well as eating and drinking with you, your family, and friends. My sincere thanks must also go to Caroline Dodds Pennock and Martial Staub at the University of Sheffield, where I completed my BA and MA degrees, especially for their help in developing the initial proposal for this project. Caroline and Martial, I am so appreciative of your continued advice and guidance during my PhD, and value your mentorship so much. Outside of academia, my gratitude goes to the fitness instructors at the Edge (especially Naomi) and the Student Counselling Service (especially my counsellor, Claire) at the University of Leeds, for helping me to take care of my physical and mental wellbeing, particularly over the last 18 months. Regarding the latter, I wish to acknowledge my kitten, Coco (who will, no doubt, attempt to eat the pages of this study). As well as keeping me present, he has pushed me to continually re-evaluate my paper storage and filing systems, in increasingly creative ways. I am indebted to my wonderful friends, who have been a constant source of love, support, and much laughter. Kathryn Ward, thank you for always being there for me, and for continually inspiring me, over the last fifteen years: you are amazing. Lauren Mottle, Sarah Gandee, Sabina Peck, Giovanni Pozzetti, Giulia Zanon, and Lucy Taylor: you guys are seriously the best. I am so glad, and so fortunate, to have experienced the PhD life (read rollercoaster) with you. Thank you for all the PGR room troubleshoots and gossips, for the evenings spent eating, drinking, and dancing together, and, of course, for collectively proofreading this study in its entirety. Friends, I am so proud to be your friend! Finally, to my incredible family, to whom I owe so much. They have been with me every step of the way, sharing in good times, and picking me up in those most difficult. To my sister, Ellie, for all her support and kindness, and whose company has made conference trips even more enjoyable. To Mama and Papa Rogers, who are my anchors. Mum and Dad, I could not have done this – or many other things – without you. This study is dedicated to you. v Abstract This study examines how indigenous groups and individuals responded to and identified Europeans in moments of early encounter in the Caribbean and Mesoamerica, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Whilst the narrow issue of whether Mesoamericans viewed the arriving Europeans as ‘White Gods’ has dominated scholarship considering indigenous views of Europeans during first encounter, this study departs from this simplistic ‘god’/‘not god’ binary. Instead, it explores the wide and complex spectrum of indigenous responses to these newcomers – from flight to fight, trade and exchange to provision of aid – and asks how such responses reflected the nature and stability of cross-cultural relations. By exploring Taíno and Nahua worldviews, this study highlights the multiple and diverse categories of identity into which indigenous groups may have placed the Christian strangers. In telling multiple, smaller stories of these early meetings – from multiple perspectives – the intricacy, fluidity, and fragility of the contact situation emerges. In the following reading of European accounts and indigenous-authored pictorial texts – the ‘purest’ sources for Nahua perspectives – I take a microhistorical approach, focusing on interpersonal relationships. I deconstruct personal, face-to-face encounters between Taínos and Christopher Columbus, Nahua groups and Hernando Cortés, as well as the unique experiences of indigenous and European individuals caught between – individuals who occupied in-between states and in-between spaces. Throughout the study, particular attention is given to the methodological challenges arising from the uncovering and reading of indigenous voices and actions in the (ethno)historical record. Significantly, by examining the early encounters using a methodology based on transcending Westward-facing perspectives, the evidence from my case studies highlights the action and agency of indigenous groups and individuals, and, above all, positions Taíno and Nahua agents not as ‘vanquished,’ but as powerholders. vi Table of contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………..iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………v Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………...vi List of figures…………………………………………………………………………………viii List of diagrams………………………………………………………………………………..x Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………………….xi Glossary………………………………………………………………………………………..xii A note on naming…………………………………………………………………………….xvi Introduction…………….......…………………………………………………………1 A historiographical survey………………………………………………………………2 i. Approaching the White Gods…………………………………………………2 ii. The Caribbean……………………………………………………………….7 iii. Mesoamerica……………………………………………………………….12 Conceptual frameworks: the Other & Space…………………………………………...16 i. The Other……………………………………………………………………16 ii. Space………………………………………………………………………..21 The structure of the study…...………………………………………………………….25 I. Sources & Methods…………………………………………………………………..27 I.I Alphabetic sources……………………………………………………………………..29 I.II Pictorial sources………………………………………………………………………..34 II. Allies…………………………………………………………………………………..49 II.I Making ‘friends’: an introduction……………………………………………………...49 II.II Balls of cotton for beads & bells: low-level exchange in the Diario…………………..54 II.III Meeting chiefs & making alliances: high-level gift giving in moments of early encounter……………………………………………………………………………….64 vii II.IV Giving gifts & sharing symbols: the creation of in-between identities in the formation of friendships……………………………………………………………………………...78 II.V Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...96 III. Enemies……………………………………………………………………………....99 III.I Making ‘enemies’: an introduction…………………………………………………….99 III.II Escaping the Cannibal: understanding existing notions of dangerous identities in Taíno worldview……………………………………………………………………………..103 III.III Flight & fight: ‘negative’ indigenous responses to Europeans in the Diario…………109 III.IV Suspecting strangers & false friends: fluctuations and manipulations of indigenous responses to Europeans……………………………………………………………….116 III.V Depicting disparity: the separation of symbols and actions in Mesoamerican pictorials………………………………………………………………………………126 III.VI Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….143 IV. In-betweens………………………………………………………………………..146 IV.I In-betweens & in-betweenness: a definition of terms and concepts………………….146 IV.II Caribbean nepantleras:
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