Narrative Circuits of New World Copper

In adapting a variety of printed forms to convey their faith in untried sources of imperial wealth, colonial writers, reformers, and projectors shaped the malleable possibilities of copper into creative narrative mediums. As they told and retold stories, their own and others’, such writers build an iterative archive of maps, reports, and “true relations” that redefined the meaning of experience, eyewitness testimony, and knowledge of metals in the colonial Americas. This chapter opens the section on copper by analyzing Hernando de Soto’s search for copperworks in La Florida, as inspired by Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, narrated by Portuguese footsoldier o Fidalgo de Elvas, and translated by English polymath Richard Hakluyt.

“Have You Not Heard of Florida?” Jean Ribault, Thomas Stukeley, and the Dream of England's First Overseas Colony

English overseas colonialism is generally traced to the anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish ideologies of Richard Hakluyt, Humphrey Gilbert, and other exponents in the 1570s and 1580s. This article puts Florida at the forefront of English colonialism by taking seriously Thomas Stukeley's proposed colonisation expedition in 1563. The focus on the 1560s reveals how a dynastic rivalry with France, rather than a religious rivalry with Spain, gave birth to England's first colonial impulse. Jean Ribault, well known as the founder of French Florida, serves as the connecting link between Florida and England. His previously unappreciated role in European diplomacy unwittingly turned his fledgling colony into a pawn to be traded among France, Spain, and England. Furthermore, Queen Elizabeth's interest in joining the race for colonies may have been fuelled more by her desire to regain Calais from the French than to plant settlers in America. But while her motives may well have been cynical, the English public for the first time began to see itself as a colonising people. The end result was that Florida not only emerged as part of the fountainhead of English colonialism, but also came to play an important role in European politics.

Translation, a Tudor political instrument

Starting with an overview of F. O. Matthiessen’s work on the role of translation during the Elizabethan period, this article delves into the paratexts of the translations of Spanish colonial texts by Richard Hakluyt, Edward Grimeston, Michael Lok and John Frampton to discuss the underlying reasons why Spanish accounts of the conquest were rendered into English. The analysis of the dedications and addresses shows that, although these translations may have served to express admiration for the Spanish conquerors or to criticize their actions, the ultimate goals of these texts were to encourage England to replicate the Spanish empire in the Americas, on the one hand, and to obtain social, political and economic benefits for the translators, on the other.

Before 1619

Before 1619, the English failed time and again in their efforts to establish colonies in the Western Hemisphere. But, despite the disappointments and loss of capital and human life, a group of Elizabethan promoters, led by the younger Richard Hakluyt, kept the goal of establishing American settlements alive. Yet even Hakluyt eventually grew weary of the problems that the English faced, including in Virginia. Still, efforts to maintain the nascent colony in the face of its many problems continued long enough for the colonists to recognize the value of tobacco. That economic possibility proved sufficient to sustain investment in Virginia despite the terrible relations that the newcomers had with the Pasapeghs, the local Algonquians led by Wahunsonacock, known as Powhatan to the English. The colony survived to 1619, but its existence remained precarious unless the English could identify a reliable source of labor to produce and export tobacco.

Shakespeare’s The Tempest Revisited: Nietzsche and the Myth of the New World

The Tempest is the only play in the Shakespearean canon that is open to a purely “Americanist” reading. Although Prospero’s island is located somewhere in the Mediterranean, numerous critics claimed that it deals with the New World (Hulme & Sherman 2000: 171). The paper revisits the existing interpretations, focusing on the turbulent relationship between Prospero and other inhabitants of the island: Caliban, Miranda, and Ariel. In the article I propose a rereading of their relation in the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspectivism, utilising Nietzsche’s key philosophical concepts like the Apollonian/Dionysian elements and der Übermensch (the overman). In his vast canon, Nietzsche refers to Native Americans only once and in passing. However, his call for the revaluation of all values seems to be an apt point of departure for a discussion on early colonial relations. Nietzsche’s perspectivism enables to reread both the early colonial encounters and character relations on Shakespeare’s island. Hence, in an attempt at a “combined analysis”, the paper looks at Prospero as the potential overman and also offers a reading of the English source texts that document early encounters between the English and native inhabitants of North America (Walter Raleigh, Richard Hakluyt, Thomas Harriot, Robert Gray).

Spenser, Raleigh, Harvey, and Nashe on Empire

This article explores the responses to early modern colonial enterprises in the writings of four major English writers: Edmund Spenser, Sir Walter Raleigh, Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe. The article shows how diverse responses to such undertakings were and that there was as much hostility and indifference as there was enthusiasm, not only for political and/or moral reasons but also because expensive overseas ventures were sometimes thought of as a needless waste of money and lives. In doing so the article aims to contribute towards recent calls to ‘decolonize’ the university and the curriculum, showing that responses to colonialism in colonising societies were never monolithic and that it is important that this historical reality is recognised if we are to engage seriously with the impact of colonialism and imperialism. Harvey and Raleigh were enthusiastic proponents of the benefits of colonial settlements, and took their cue from reading Richard Hakluyt the Younger’s Principal Navigations (1589), which suggested that the English had always thrived when they had ventured overseas and expanded their dominions. Spenser was much more ambivalent, despite his status as a colonist in Ireland after 1580, and Nashe was scornful of the purpose of such grand plans. For Nashe, partly inspired by his vitriolic quarrel with Harvey, it was much more important to concentrate on the locality of England itself and he accuses others of failing to see what surrounds them because they have been misled by the prospect of plunder and profit from exotic lands.