The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of History COMMUNICATION AND THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF CONTACT IN THE SPANISH ATLANTIC, 1341-1602 A Dissertation in History by Scott Cave Ó 2018 Scott Cave Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2018 The dissertation of Scott Cave was reviewed and approved* by the following: Matthew Restall Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Colonial Latin American History Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Ronnie Hsia Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History David G. Atwill Associate Professor of History Amara Solari Associate Professor of Art History and Anthropology Gregory Smits Professor of History and Asian Studies Director of Graduate Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT When Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492, he brought local people aboard and "spoke" with them—or so he claims. Many of the Europeans who followed in his wake similarly claim to have "spoken" with the indigenous people they met. The questions that immediately occur to modern readers are all variations of "How?" How did the people of Guanahani speak to Columbus? How did the conquistadors of Puerto Rico learn the "secrets of the land" they were about to conquer? How did the Calusa of south Florida know to reject Spanish visitors before those visitors had even arrived? How did information flow in the absence of a shared language? In this dissertation, I answer those basic questions, and describe how the struggle to communicate and gather information shaped the social landscapes of European and indigenous people in the Spanish Atlantic through the long sixteenth century. I argue that efforts to communicate, whether in the Canary Islands or Kansas, fell into broad, nearly universal patterns, centered around material exchange, gesture, performance, and kidnapping. In telling this story, I also argue for a new kind of history of the early Americas, rooted in the story of a collective intellectual labor across the Spanish and indigenous Atlantic. By focusing on this common struggle, I make Curaçao, the Colorado River, and Tenochtitlan different stages for the performance of a common, connected drama. Rather than clashing civilizations, I tell the stories of individuals. I tell the history of the complex and contested Atlantic world that was, without undue deference to the colonial iv world that would be. I am as concerned with the "useless islands" of the Bahamas as the Zocalo of Mexico City, as devoted to the "doomed" Taino as the enduring Zapotecs of Oaxaca. The first chapter tells the story of contact in the Canary Islands, and demonstrates how indigenous islanders and visiting Europeans stumbled upon ways to communicate in the first contact frontier of the early modern Atlantic that would be repeated in the Americas. It also introduces the idea of the Long Contact, the decades of indigenous adaptation and reaction to repeated European visits that defined the experience of contact. The second chapter tells the stories of three Long Contacts in places that were never conquered by Spaniards, and how indigenous information networks responded to European presence. The following chapter examines the role of material exchange, hand signals, and body language as a surprisingly effective form of early contact communication. The next chapter examines the role of the indigenous slave trade in creating a corps of bilingual indigenous people who could be used as the first generation of translators. Finally, I turn to the trade in musical instruments and the use of music and nonverbal sound in contact situations. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................viii LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................xii 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................1 1.1 Definitions ................................................................................................4 1.2 Sources .....................................................................................................10 1.3 Historiography, Influences, and Position within the Field..................12 1.4 Organization ............................................................................................21 2 Islands: A Pre-History of Contact in the Canary Islands, 1341-1496 .......24 2.1 The Islands and Their Islanders .............................................................30 2.2 Speaking as Italians, 1341 ......................................................................35 2.2.1 Recco’s First Account ..................................................................... 38 2.2.2 Recco’s Second Account and the Birth of Sensory Interrogation ...................................................................................... 41 2.3 Kidnapping, Conversion, Catalans, and the Virgins of Candelaria ..43 2.4 A Seaside Discussion of the Trinity, Christian Ethics, and the 15th Century Petroleum Industry, 1404 ........................................................58 2.5 The Retrieval System and Canary Islander Mobility............................61 2.6 French Dancing and Canarian Laments ...............................................65 2.7 Conclusion ...............................................................................................67 3 Rumors: “The Long Contact” and Indigenous Conversations about European Presence ........................................................................................70 3.1 Rumors: The Bahamas and South Florida, 1492-1570 .......................73 3.2 Madalena’s World ...................................................................................78 3.2.1 The Coming of the “Malas Cosas” ................................................ 78 3.3 Miguel’s World ........................................................................................86 3.3.1 Arrival, part I: Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado ........................................................................................... 91 3.3.2 Arrival, pt. 2 ..................................................................................... 95 vi 3.4 Conclusion ...............................................................................................99 4 Signals: Objects and Signed Communication at the Dawn of Contact ..101 4.1 Puerto Rico, 1507-1513 ..........................................................................106 4.2 The Southwest, 1540 ..............................................................................115 4.2.1 Developing an Analytical System for Nonverbal Communication ............................................................................... 117 4.2.2 Thursday, August 26, 1540. The Mouth of the Colorado ........ 120 4.2.3 Friday, August 27, 1540. 18 miles up the Colorado River ...... 120 4.2.4 Saturday, August 28. An unknown distance up the Colorado River .................................................................................................. 130 4.2.5 Lessons of the Alarcón Expedition, or Getting on Board with Kinetic Communication .................................................................. 135 4.3 Tampa Bay, 1500-1549 ..........................................................................136 4.3.1 Signals on the Beach .................................................................... 143 4.3.2 One week in summer, Tampa Bay, 1549 ................................... 144 4.3.3 Cáncer’s Manifesto ....................................................................... 146 4.3.4 The Tocobaga Story ..................................................................... 147 4.4 Life in Mexico City: Miguel and the Ultimate Sensory Interrogation ...................................................................................................................149 5 People: The Trade in Indigenous Bodies and Bilingual Minds ................154 5.1 Fear and Loathing in Central Florida: The Captivities of Two Spaniards and Four Tocobaga ..............................................................157 5.1.1 Taken: Madalena’s Story, part II .................................................. 158 5.1.2 In the Governor’s House .............................................................. 162 5.1.3 Adrift in the Atlantic...................................................................... 169 5.1.4 Madalena, La Lengua ................................................................... 175 5.2 Part II: Bilingual Individuals in the Circum-Caribbean ........................180 5.3 The Slave Trade and Indigenous Lenguas, 1492-1550......................185 5.3.1 Reunion and Ruination in the Arawakan Caribbean ................ 186 5.3.2 The Retrieval System and the Second Wave of Indigenous Slavery .............................................................................................. 195 5.3.3 Global Indios ................................................................................. 200 5.4 Conclusion ...............................................................................................203 vii 6 Sounds: Instruments, Soundscapes, and the Indigenous Encounter with European Musical Culture ....................................................................206