Representation and subjectivity in 16th and 17th century Afro-Hispanic Caribbean texts
Description
This dissertation analyzes the African presence in chronicles and documents of the early Spanish American colonial period, critically examining such textual presence as both European construct and African discursive resistance to colonialism. In order to access an African voice in the colonial period, traditional notions of 'text,' and 'writing' are theoretically expanded to explain the multidiscursivity that exists both on the African body and the pages of the texts considered. The African voice and articulation of difference are revealed as part of a process of reinscription of body and territory that simultaneously translates as a claim to textual- and historical-space The first chapter treats European contact with Africans before and after the encounter with the New World and explores the construction of the African Other within Renaissance texts such as Cervantes' Don Quijote, and Novelas ejemplares; Lazarillo de Tormes, dramas by Tirso de Molina and Lope de Vega, El Abencerraje and writings by Juan Latino. Chapter two is devoted to the analysis of the texts of rebellion and escape by African slaves within various chronicles of the 16th century. Included herein are Bartolome de las Casas (Historia de las Indias) and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo (Historia general y natural de las Indias), and from the region of the Nuevo Reino de Granada, Lucas Fernandez de Piedrahita (Noticia historial de las conquistas del Nuevo Reino de Granada); Fray Pedro Simon (Noticias Historiales de las conquistas de Tierra Firme in las Indias Occidentales). Chapter three is an analysis of constructions of blackness and Africanness in the only known chronicle devoted exclusively to Africans in the early colonial period, that of the Jesuit missionary Alonso de Sandoval: De instauranda Aethiopum salute (1627, 1647). Finally, chapter four treats documents from the 16th century in which Africans negotiate for freedom and rights by gaining access to writing as a source of power This dissertation intends to serve as a contribution to the neglected theme of African discursive and textual presence in the Spanish American colonial period and to also define directions for further research, specifically with document sources