Writing Captivity in the Early Modern Atlantic: Circulations of Knowledge and Authority in the Iberian and English Imperial Worlds (review)

In this work of Atlantic history, Lisa Voigt explores the trope of captivity as a site of power, authority, and identity. She constructs an intellectual genealogy of narratives beginning with Old World texts of Moorish captivity and continuing with tales of indigenous, Iberian, and British bondage in the New World. Voigt draws from manuscripts, chronicles, and fictional accounts to demonstrate that both people and texts may be held captive, mined for information, and as such, serve the interests of a broadly-defined European imperialism. She focuses primarily on the following texts: Peter Carder's and Hans Staden's 16th century accounts of captivity among the Tupinambá in Brazil, Cabeza de Vaca's Relación (1542, 1555), El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's La Florida del Inca (1605), Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán's Cautiverio Feliz (1673), José de Santa Rita Durão's, Caramuru (1781), Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations of the English Nation (1589 and 1598–1600) and Samuel Purchas's Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrims (1625).

While Voigt is careful to avoid Luso-Brazilian exceptionalism, the importance of the Portuguese world is undeniable in this study. Many of the earliest extant canonical captivity narratives involve enslavement and the threat of cannibalism by Brazilian Indians. Portuguese pilots and Portuguese-authored texts were choice prizes to be taken by British privateers should the opportunity arise. And, for the British, Portuguese and Spanish texts were critical to the accumulation of useful knowledge about the New World. Sir Walter Ralegh, for example, depended heavily on Iberian texts to inform his expectations and representation of his activities in the Guianas.

Voigt focuses on transculturation as an essential component to understanding captivity narratives and their reception. Captivity could be "happy" and "productive" or "unhappy" and "unproductive" depending upon the relative benevolence of the captor and the degree to which European captives retained core aspects of their identity, especially the Christian faith. "Happy" captives like Staden and Pineda took care to emphasize their steadfast resistance to sexual temptation, drink, or lascivious dances. They transcended cultural difference while simultaneously acculturating New World peoples to European norms. The most "unproductive" European captives went native, thereby depriving the mother country of useful information. Voigt is careful not to romanticize transculturated individuals, showing that, more often than not, they served the interests of imperial projects than subverting or deconstructing them.

Captivity also serves potentially as a medium for identity formation. Pineda, for example, held captive by the Araucanians in Chile, represents himself as Creole-born and therefore superior to more economically privileged Spaniards who lacked the ability to transculturate and who treated Indians harshly. Andean mestizo, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega identifies personally with the travails of the indigenous populations of Florida in his account of the Hernando de Soto expedition. He is one of the few writers in this study to address explicitly the generally "unhappy" and widespread abuses suffered by indigenous captives at the hands of Europeans. He also privileges the figure of the captiveintermediary who uses his position to interpret and foster understanding.

Voigt also demonstrates how unstable identity in captivity could be. In many accounts, European captives were seen as alien because they had lost obvious markers of European identity. Some redeemed captives allegedly grew hair all over their bodies or had forgotten how to speak European languages. Clothing is repeatedly singled out as a key signifier. For example, when the survivors of the Soto expedition arrived in New Spain, sunburned and dressed in rags or animal skins, they were not recognized as authentic Spaniards. Only when clothed in Spanish garb could they reclaim their identities. In some cases, the humanity of the captive was verified only through Christian ritual and prayer.

The instability and fluidity of the idea of the captive is exemplified by Voigt's many examples of overlapping motifs...