University of Alberta The Anxiety of Contact: Representations of the Amerindian in Early Modem English Colonial Writings, c. 1576-1622 Paul Warren DePasquale A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partiai fUlfhent of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of English Edmonton, Alberta Fall 1999 National Library Bibliothhue nationale of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellingtan OttawaON KIAOM Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, przter, hstribuer ou copies of hsthesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la fonne de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique . The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propnett du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent &re imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract This dissertation examines representations of Amerindians in early modem English travel narratives, colonial instructions, sermons, propaganda, letters, diaries, plays, and poems. It focuses on the primary and historical evidence associated with three key moments in England's carlicst cfforts to colonizc North Amcrica: Frobishcr's expeditions to the modem Canadian Arctic (1576-78); Ralegh's voyages to modem Carolina's Outer Banks (from 1584 and 1590); and the early years of England's colony at Jarnestown (around 1606 to 1622). Several scholars, notably those whose writings appeared in the journal Renresentations and were reprinted in Greenblatt's New World Encounters ( 1993), have valuably challenged notions of Euro-American contact as monolithic and one way, but have been less successful in attending to what Greenblatt calls the "rumor of words" in a search for textual otherness. I explore the "rumor of words" to see to what extent a sense of agency in past American peoples is inscribed in texts written by EnglmdS early imperialists. Through an examination and contextudization of representations of Amerindians, this work offers the idea that many of these images express a significant degree of contemporary uncertainty, anxiety, and ambivalence--among travel writers. colonial oqmizers, leaders, propagandists, and the reading public-to American exploration and contact with America's others. The dis-ease I find results not in a counter- or anti-imperialist discourse as such, although there are strong moments of such an oppositional critique. More commonly it results in an impression of several communities of readers, travellers, theorists, investors, and setllers that were quite tentative about, and uncertain of, England's hegemony over America's indigenes. This project suggests that there were many English on both sides of the Atlantic thinking and writing in a way that questioned England's colonial activities as well as European assumptions about non-European peoples. New World experiences forced a reevaluation of Old World typologies and mythologies. obviously. English texts of the period suggest, further, that Amerindians played a significantly active role in this reevaluation. Acknowledgments The idea for this dissertation began to take shape in 1993 when Jonathan Hart listened patiently (or so it seemed) to a graduate student who had several loosely formulated interests and ideas, but no real staning point or direction. Thank you, Jonathan, for your guidance back then, and for your encouragement, support. and belief in the value of this project since. I am indebted to Ian MacLaren for the time and energy he gave to this project at several stages, and I thank him for helping make this a more accurate and readable work. My project has also benefited from the creative theoretical insights of Robert Wilson, who first piqued my interest in Renaissance nmative during a graduate course on Shakespearean comedy in 1992-93. I also wish to thank Olive P. Dickason for her advice and encouragement at various stages of my research and writing. Olive, as well as Mary B. Campbell. offered thoughtful and detailed assessments of the finished project; my appreciation to both for the interest they have shown in my work, and for their advice as to how I might go about improving it from here. Several institutions have enabled my studies and research over the years. I am especially indebted to the Department of Indian Affairs and to the Grand River Post Secondary Education Office of the Six Nations Reserve for sponsoring and encouraging my academic studies. Various education counselors I have had at the GRPSEO,from Gloria Wasacase to Justine Henhawk-Bombeny, have always been supportive and helpful. Some of the research for this project was undertaken with the financial assistance oC the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. A Fulbright Scholarship in 1998-99 gave me the opportunity to examine rare materials at Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University; and the Huntington Library. My thanks to Denise Yap, Program Officer of the Canada4J.S. Fulbright Program, for helping to make my year a fun and productive one. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Department of English at the University of Alberta, and the help over the years of Graduate Secretary Kim Brown. To my Mom and Dad, Diana and Paul DePasquale, and my Mom, Pat Boraski, my appreciation for your love and support. I can think of at least two times when completing my studies would have been next to impossible if not for your help. Thank you for everything. And thank you to my friend and colleague William Thompson for listening to, and helping to further, my intellectual and other interests. Finally, my warmest thanks to Doris Wolf. Thank you for proofreading this work, and for your input over the course of its writing. My appreciation especially for your conversation. friendship, love, and sense of humour. You have helped to make the past two-and-a-half years the most joyful and productive ever, so that the greatest blessing of all is to share a life with you. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One "A miraculous manlinesse to abound in that brutish nation": Martin Frobisher Among the Inuit, c. 1576- 1578 13 Chapter Two Troubles in Paradise: A Study of Arthur Barlowe's Roanoke Account, c. 1584 Chapter Three Trifling in Jarnestown, c. 1607- 1622 113 Conclusion 162 Works Cited 169 Introduction The major sighed, "War is a dirty business, Giinter, you ought to know that. We all have to do temble things. For example, I like you, and I admire your integrity. Never more than at this moment. But I must remind you that the penalty for refusing to obey an order is execution by firing squad. I don't state this as a threat, but as a fact of life. You know this as well as I do." The major walked to the window and then turned on his heel, "You see, these Italian traitors are all going to be shot anyway, whether you do it or not. Why add your own death to theirs? It would be a waste of a fine officer. All for nothing." Giinter Weber swallowed hard, and his lips trembled. He found it hard to speak. At last he said, "I request that my protest be recorded and put in my file, Herr Major." "Your request is granted, Giinter, but you must do as you are ordered. Heil Hitler." . .Inside the office the major reasoned with himself that since the order came originally from the top, it was Colonel Barge's responsibility, or perhaps that of someone in Berlin. Ultimately, of course, it was down to the Fiihrer. "That's war," he said aloud, and decided not to enter Leumant Weber's protest in his record. There was no point in messing up his career for the sake of some laudable scmptes. (Louis de Bernieres, -rain Corelli's Mandoli~321) It might seem rather unusual to begin a dissertation on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English representations of Amerindians with a passage from a recent novel dealing with the 1941 Germadtalian occupation of the Greek island Cephallonia. Before I flesh out the connections between this passage and what it is I am trying to do in my own work, let me finish off the scene from de Berni&resl historical fiction. Moments after leaving the major's office, Leutnant Giinter Weber gave the order to his men to gun down a group of Italian officers, Captain Corelli among them, whom he had, despite himself, become familiar with and grown to like during the few months of the occupation. Weber's verbal protest, one plainly made not part of the official historical record but one de Bernieres imagines and weaves into his fictional world, is the clearest indication that the German officer felt any misgivings about his most horrific assignment in Greece. De Berni&restwork foregrounds problems of historical fact and fiction, and attempts in a compelling and sophisticated way to explore and uncover what Foucault might term, in his formulation of the concept of genealogy, the "local and specific knowledges [which are] disqualified from the hierarchy of knowledges and sciences" (see esp. 83-85). The hypothetical exchange between Weber and the major polemicizes a reductive understanding of the historical past that focuses only on humanitarian crimes of unutterable gravity carried out by faceless and heartless automatons.