Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory) [1 ed.] 1032260041, 9781032260044

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Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination

This book examines the imperial spectacles and startling reversals of fortune related in William H Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), and investigates how these accounts inspired fictional adaptations by George A Henty, H Rider Haggard, and George Griffith. The revision of history in their Amerindian fictions both entertained young transatlantic audiences and was a vehicle to attract tourism and investment in countries such as Mexico and Peru. Henty, Haggard, and Griffith, moreover, used their tales of adventure as a platform to impart British values to their readers. Such values compel the characters and narrators of the novels discussed to act as cultural mediators, to acquire indigenous languages and adopt native ways of being, and, in several of the romance adventures under consideration, to marry Mexican or Incan noblewomen. Part I, Conquest, examines George Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico (1891), H Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), and George Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898). Part II, Reclamation, argues that English re-writings of history work to eclipse the Spanish in Haggard’s Virgin the Sun (1922), Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902), and Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897). Luz Elena Ramirez completed her undergraduate degree at Newcomb College, Tulane University in New Orleans and her PhD in English literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino, Ramirez locates her scholarship at the intersection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British literature, transatlantic studies, and archaeological fiction. She published British Representations of Latin America with University Press of Florida in 2007, and subsequently edited the Encyclopedia of Hispanic-American Literature in 2008 (Facts on File). More recently, she has written scholarly critiques of British fantasy writers George Griffith, William Hope Hodgson, and Bram Stoker, delving deeply into archaeological fiction with the chapter essay entitled, ‘The Intelligibility of the Past in Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars’ in Eleanor Dobson’s edited volume, Victorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt (2020).

Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory

Titles include: Telling Details Chinese Fiction, World Literature Jiwei Xiao Erich Auerbach and the Secular World Literary Criticism, Historiography, Post-Colonial Theory and Beyond Jon Nixon Living with Monsters A Study of the Art of Characterization in Aldous Huxley’s Novels Indrani Deb Trauma, Post-Traumatic Growth, and World Literature Metamorphoses and a Literary Arts Praxis Suzanne LaLonde Critical Poetics of Feminist Refusals Voicing Dissent Across Differences Federica Bueti The Zimbabwean Maverick Dambudzo Marechera and Utopian Thinking Shun Man Emily CHOW-QUESADA Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination The Amerindian Fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith Luz Elena Ramirez For more information about this series, please visit: https://www​.rout​​ledge​​. com/​​Liter​​ary​-C​​ritic​​ism​-a​​nd​-Cu​​ltura​​l​-The​​ory​/b​​ook​-s​​eries​​/LITC​​RITAN​​ DCULT​

Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination The Amerindian Fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith Luz Elena Ramirez

First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Luz Elena Ramirez The right of Luz Elena Ramirez, to be identified as author of this work, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 9781032260044 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032440101 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003369929 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929 Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

For my son, Ian May your inquisitiveness open to you new worlds, on earth and beyond.

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgements

viii ix

Introduction 1 PART I

Conquest 39 1 The Rewards of Adventure in Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico (1891)

41

2 Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) as a memoir of the Spanish conquest

70

3 ‘I was there’: George Griffith’s trek on the Inca trail and Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898)

97

PART II

Reclamation 129 4 Eclipsing the Spanish in Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922)

131

5 The Rewards of Speculation and the Promise of Development in Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)

157

6 The Campaign of Reclamation in George Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897)

182

Epilogue: Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination: The Amerindian Fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith Index

203 211 

Illustrations

0.1 Monjas, Chichén Itzá. Frederick Catherwood, lithographer, in John L Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843) 11 0.2 ‘The body was allowed to remain tied to the stake.’ Thomas Maybank, illustrator, Gilbert’s Conquerors of Peru (1913) 16 1.1 ‘Roger falls on his knee before Cortez.’ WS Stacey, illustrator 44 1.2 [The arrival of the Spanish]. Edward Kingsborough. Antiquities of Mexico (1831) 46 2.1 ‘“At length, de Garcia!” I cried in Spanish.’ Maurice Greiffenhagen, illustrator, Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) 75 2.2 ‘Am I among my own people of the Otomie?’ Maurice Greiffenhagen, illustrator, Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) 84 3.1 A bird’s eye view of Lima, From Fort San Cristobal. In Griffith. ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds’ (Pearson’s 1896) 98 3.2 ‘On this side are ease and pleasure and safety; but yonder lies El Dorado with its gold and silver and gems, the glory of conquest and the hope of dominion!’ Stanley L Wood, illustrator, Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898) 108 3.3 John Everett Millais. Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru (1846). Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London 110 4.1 ‘Acllahuasi where/The royal virgins dwell,—perchance embroid’ring there/Sweet dreams of love for him, while watching sacred fires.’ Eric Pape, illustrator. in Telford Groesbeck. The Inca,Children of the Sun (1896) 138 4.2 ‘In the temple of the sun … the morning lights have run’ Eric Pape, illustrator. The Inca, Children of the Sun (1896) 139 5.1 ‘Harry and Bertie introduce themselves to Dias,’ Wal Paget, illustrator. Treasure of the Incas 168 5.2 ‘It did not take long to transfer the sacks into the boat.’ Wal Paget, illustrator. Treasure of the Incas 176



Acknowledgements

As literary critic Edward Said observed, beginnings are difficult to trace. Yet I’ll venture that the conception of Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination began in the 1990s, when I was intrigued by the culturally rich settings of British fiction and eager to explore the United Kingdom, Spain, and Latin America, specifically the cultural sites of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca. At this time, I lived for several months in Peru, working briefly as a reporter for The Lima Times. Upon my return to the United States, I launched what would be repeated trips to Spain—including Cadiz where Christopher Columbus launched his voyages—to the Caribbean, Mexico, and one more trip to the Andes of Peru, adopting in my emerging project an ‘I was there’ approach— the perspective gained by seeing a place first-hand. For years, stories of the Spanish conquest and of Amerindian cultures stayed with me, and I stored these impressions so that I could complete British Representations of Latin America (2007), which focuses on the modern imaginations of novelists such as Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Malcolm Lowry, and Graham Greene. This book, Conquest and Reclamation, transports us further back in time, first to the New World encounter between Amerindian and Spanish peoples, and later to the period following Mexico and Peru’s independence from Spain, as seen through the gaze of the English narrator or fictional adventurer. For their assistance in locating materials and obtaining permissions for this interdisciplinary project, I’m grateful to librarians at the Benson Latin American Collection and the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as at the British Library. My thanks, too, to the staff who directed me to the Inca artefacts and Mexican codices in the British Museum, and to personnel who led me to the Maya and Aztec collections in Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. Jack Glover Gunn at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London provided digital imaging of John Everett Millais’s 1846 masterpiece, Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru. At the Smithsonian Libraries, Erin Clements Rushing arranged for permission to digitally reproduce an excerpt from Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico (1831), and Manuel Flores of the Huntington Library photographed several illustrations for this project. Fieldwork in Mexico and Peru was easier and more enriching with the help of locals who kindly shared insight and knowledge about regional 

x Acknowledgements treasures. The guide of Machu Picchu in Peru designed an extensive tour for visitors, answered our questions, explained the purpose of various edifices, and who built them, all the while reminding us of the precipitous drop from the mountaintop citadel, lest we stray past rope guards perhaps more symbolic than effectual. In Mexico City, my taxi driver brought me to the colossal statue of the last Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan, Cuauhtémoc, which stood as a testament that the Aztec monarch—not Hernán Cortés—reigns supreme in national memory. In the Yucatan, personnel at Tulum’s seaside archaeological site helped me identify the edifices reproduced in Frederic Catherwood’s Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1843), while the security guard in Akumal led me and my travel companions to the statues of famed Spanish castaway Gonzalo Guerrero, his Maya wife, and their children. On the island of Cozumel, I learned more about the friar Jeronimo Aguilar, who was cast away with Guerrero in 1511, and who—after years of living among the Maya—was reacquainted with the Spanish, having reportedly rowed to the island from the mainland of Mexico. In retracing the path of these early conquistadors—­getting a sense of distance, terrain, and direction of ocean currents—I realised that the stories of Aguilar and Guerrero probably provided the basis for Haggard’s hero Wingfield and Henty’s Hawkshaw in their Amerindian fictions. In writing this manuscript, I owe gratitude to several colleagues and­ associates. The publication was achieved with the dedication and the brilliance of Jennifer Manion who, over the course of several years, helped me to put together all of the pieces of my argument. I’m thankful, too, to Carla Januska for helping with the editing process. I’m indebted to Taylor & Francis acquisitions editor Jennifer Abbott for recognising the complex, interdisciplinary nature of this transatlantic ­scholarship, and to Taylor and Francis editorial assistant Anita Bhatt for helping me prepare the manuscript for editing. I appreciate the efforts of Bharath Selvamani for leading the Deanta team to produce and print the book. Over the years, many colleagues at California State University, San Bernardino, have given me feedback on the essay drafts: Jennifer Andersen, Jean Arnold, Nancy Best, Mihaela Popescu, Chad Sweeney, Vanessa Ovalle Perez, Miriam Fernandez, Jesús David Jerez-Gómez, David Carlson, Liliana Conlisk Gallegos, among others. I’m grateful too for those friends and relations who accompanied me to cultural sites in Mexico, especially Matthew Habich, our son Ian Habich Ramirez, Phoebe Grosvenor, Ece Algan, Clarissa Hulsey, Karim Elmrabet, among others. In addition, my thanks to Keith Clavin who invited me to participate in the Transimperial studies roundtable at the North American Victorian Studies Association Conference in 2021, thereby energising this project at a critical juncture. Thanks to Rey Arteaga and to Mark Rodriguez, músicos extraordinarios, for their willingness to help promote the book in Austin.

Acknowledgements  xi Professional development funds from the Department of English and the College of Arts and Letters at California State University, San Bernardino, (CSUSB), made possible travel to Mexico, Spain, and England. Finally, I’m appreciative of my CSUSB students who gave me fresh insights into these Amerindian adventures, and remind me why these stories of cross-cultural encounters and reclamation matter.

Introduction

The phrase theatre of war conveys the spectacle of armed conflict and marks the arena in which combatants clash in a struggle for life and dominion. The dramatic episodes of the 1500s that constitute the Spanish and Amerindian theatre of war were witnessed only by those involved, but nevertheless would be later re-imagined by generations of writers, artists, and cultural critics on both sides of the Atlantic. When Hernán Cortés sank his own ships in Mexico; when the linguistically gifted Malinche became Cortés’s interpreter and mistress; when conquistador Francisco Pizarro entrapped the young Inca Atahuallpa; and when General Ruminavi made his heroic last stand against the Spanish— each extraordinary event played out but once for participants and witnesses. But as I propose, these scenes, drawing from the histories of William H Prescott (1796–1859), would be reframed in future centuries for transatlantic audiences with their own distinct values and interests. This book investigates George A Henty, H Rider Haggard, and George Griffith’s Victorian retellings of the Spanish conquest and their ideologically complex fictions of reclamation. As I see it, reclamation unfolds in the way novelists rewrite history to imaginatively restore Amerindian lands and treasures yielded to the Spanish, to reinstate ancient titles and revive royal bloodlines, and to put on centre stage the Mexican and Peruvian cultures marginalised since Cortés and Pizarro’s brutal invasions in the 1500s. Taken together, I shall argue in the following essays that rewritings of the conquest and narratives of reclamation contribute to a long-standing transatlantic discourse, which both reflects and is emblematic of Britain’s informal imperialism in Latin America. Historians Cain and Hopkins persuasively argue that British informal imperialism in Latin America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries favoured investment, commerce, and cultural production over military invasion and occupation. Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s adventure novels were published in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when Mexico and Peru were free of over 300 years of colonial control, and Britain seized the opportunity to invest in mining and agriculture, railways, and government bonds.1 Informal imperialism has become a critical construct in transatlantic studies for scholars such as Robert Aguirre, Joselyn Almeida, Rebecca Cole Heinowitz, and Jessie Reeder and, indeed, DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-1

2 Introduction provides the foundation for my first book, British Representations of Latin America (2007).2 Here, in Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination, I revisit the concept to illustrate how the Amerindian fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith are inspired by or correlate with William H Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), and how Prescott’s companion volumes advertise the archaeological sophistication, wealth, and natural resources of Mexico and Peru. I argue the transatlantic movement of people, capital, goods, and ideas channels our attention to the cultural threads and economic patterns that shaped Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s Amerindian fictions. Thus, my overarching approach is historicist, and by drawing on the scholarship of, among others, Jane Tompkins, Robert MacFarlane, Mary Louise Pratt, Bradley Deane, Roger Luckhurst, and Doris Sommer, I hope to illustrate the cultural significance of the Amerindian romance of the Victorian period and the early twentieth century. Three of the most popular writers of the British romance adventure, Henty, Haggard, and Griffith seem to have dialogued with one another in their retelling of the Spanish conquest. This literary discourse resulted in Henty’s By Right of Conquest, Or, with Cortez in Mexico (1891), Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), and Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898), all of which I analyse in Part I, Conquest. In Part II, Reclamation, I examine the overt revision of history in Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922), Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902), and Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897). I maintain that Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s rewriting of history was not simply a means of entertaining young men and women—its ostensible purpose—but a way to enact, in Cain and Hopkins’s terms, a soft form of imperialism, a means of attracting tourism and investment in countries such as Mexico and Peru. The rewriting of the conquest also, perhaps unexpectedly, was a way to impart Victorian and early twentieth-century British values. Such values compel the English characters and narrators of novels discussed here to act as cultural mediators, to acquire indigenous languages, to adopt native ways of being, to defend sovereignty, and, in several of the romances under consideration, to marry Amerindian noblewomen. Drawing upon Prescott’s superbly researched volumes History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), these writers of the romance adventure offered a way for British audiences—and transatlantic readers more broadly—to see themselves engaged in a defining moment of the West: the encounter between the Old World and the New. Henty, Haggard, and Griffith invited their impressionable readers to imagine sailing across the storm-tossed waters of the Atlantic and landing, whether by boat or shipwreck, upon American shores. In By Right of Conquest (1891), for example, Henty transports us to 1516 when teenage sailor Roger Hawkshaw escapes drowning and surfaces on the shores of the Yucatan. Unlike Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Hawkshaw recovers nothing from the ship except a knife of steel, which he

Introduction  3 later presents as a gift to the Mexican chief who hosts him. Taken to be the deity Quetzalcoatl or one of his descendants who, in fulfilment of prophecy, has returned to Mexico after a long absence, the tall, fair-skinned youth is received by the natives with honour. The chief bestows upon Roger a gold necklace and a richly embroidered robe and has prepared for him a feast of Mexican fruits and cocoa. Hawkshaw plays a part denied by history, but sanctioned by fiction; through his protagonist, Henty thrusts Britain into a narrative that is equally powerful and idealised, allowing readers to conceive of an English adventurer in Mexico before Cortés’s arrival in 1519. On the heels of Henty’s By Right of Conquest are novels by Haggard and Griffith, which retell the Spanish conquest by adopting an ‘I was there’ trope, a literary strategy that characterises the testimonios of chroniclers such as the polemicist priest Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566), the soldier Bernal Díaz (c 1492–1584), and the friar-ethnographer Bernardino de Sahagún (c 1499–1590), all of whom wrote about the Spanish invasion of the Americas. In the Amerindian adventure, the ‘I was there’ trope afforded Haggard in Mexico and Griffith in Peru the opportunity to draw on their travel experiences to satisfy the Victorian appetite for verisimilitude in, respectively, Montezuma’s Daughter and Virgin of the Sun.3 And all three writers—Henty, Haggard, and Griffith—pay tribute to Prescott, the quintessential authority on the conquest whose volumes transfixed the imaginations of readers and writers alike on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, one might say a school of Prescott emerged in the late 1800s and 1900s, whereby artists and storytellers used his histories as a basis for their work.4 This is certainly the case for the romance adventures of Henty, Griffith, and Haggard who synthesised Prescott’s histories and their own creative vision to celebrate the Amerindian peoples and to align the English with, variously, Aztec, Tezcucan, Chanca, and Inca nobility who are shown to be, in many ways, superior to the Spanish. Prescott’s decision to bring to life the great civilisations of the Aztec and Inca was consequential, for it set his work apart from History of America (1777; 1798) by Scottish historian William Robertson, and was a feature with which American author Washington Irving, who had prepared to write his own history of the Spanish conquest, might have dispensed (W Irving in P Irving 331). Irving surmised that transatlantic audiences might be impatient with detailed expositions on Amerindian peoples. Yet it is these expositions that inform the fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith, have fuelled transatlantic travel to Mexico and Peru, and, arguably, inspired a catalogue of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century lost race narratives about the Aztec and Inca. Dozens of titles within this catalogue have been compiled by bibliographer Cory Sturgis (1927) and archivist Jessica Amanda Salmonson (2000) and await future study, as they are outside the scope of this book. This book begins with the investigation of the cultural work of Prescott. In History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru, Prescott crafts suspenseful narratives filled with cultural collisions

4 Introduction and startling reversals of fortune. He imparts to readers memorable lessons about survival, leadership, and military strategy. The historian brings to life a theatre of war that, at this point, was only broadly rendered to English-speaking audiences and casts Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) and Francisco Pizarro (1475–1541) as mavericks who orchestrated the invasions of, respectively, Anahuac and Tavantinsuyu, the empires of Montezuma II and the Inca Atahuallpa. Through Prescott’s historical account, we track the exploits of Hernán Cortés as he stares down an army of disgruntled Spanish compatriots in the spring of 1519. Disembarked on the eastern shore of Mexico, Cortés’s men—about 600 in number—are incensed by frays with Amerindians, disenchanted with the tropics, and fiercely conspiratorial. No stranger to intrigue and having learned a thing or two about conflicting agendas within the ranks—for Cortés had just landed his squadron in Mexico in open defiance of Cuba’s governor, Diego Velazquez—the 34-year-old captain makes one of the most audacious military decisions in the New World arena: to dismantle and sink nine of his own vessels, leaving only one remaining (Prescott 203). Those who would have manned the caravels would now enter the land campaign and Cortés avows that, once they march into the dominions of the Aztec emperor, Montezuma II (1466– 1520), there would be no turning back. With increasing evidence of having entered a land rich in gold, silver, and precious gems, Cortés set his men to invade not merely one people, nor one state, but a strong, prosperous, and until then unchecked empire. To execute this manoeuvre, ‘in the face of an incensed and desperate soldiery’ was, for Prescott, ‘an act of resolution that has few parallels in history’ (203). It is the exceptionalism of Cortés that drives episodes in Henty’s By Right of Conquest and Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter. While few parallels to Cortés as described by Prescott are to be found, one is Cortés’s distant relation and compatriot Francisco Pizarro. Pizarro was born of humble origin in Trujillo in 1476 and, after entry into the theatre of war in what are now Colombia and Panama, rose through the ranks. Pizarro’s military career has prompted historians, artists, and writers such as Griffith to view him, variously, as an illiterate menace, a fearless expeditioner, or shrewd tactician. In Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun, his transformation from young Spanish swineherd to seasoned soldier is complete. Complementing his arsenal of European weaponry is Pizarro’s reputation for decisiveness, preemptive action, and enlistment of his troops’ support. For it is with the common soldier and man of rank that Pizarro has endured hunger and hardship. Encamped on the Isle of Gallo off the coast of Panama, Pizarro knows first-hand the misery of his men, who are famished and exhausted; with them, he anxiously awaits food supplies and Spanish reinforcements to his company. Instead of coming with reserves which would allow the conquistador to lead the expedition south, Spanish authorities arrive to summon Pizarro and his troops to Panama. Realising that his men might abandon the enterprise if they all are recalled, Pizarro draws a line in the sand, forcing soldiers to choose between taking the

Introduction  5 arduous path south—through hundreds of miles of mountainous, tropical, and arid terrain—and returning to Panama, as demanded by Spanish authorities, impoverished and defeated. He takes advantage of this crisis to reiterate his faith in the promise of El Dorado, which has been conceived variously as a gilded city, an inexhaustible cache of treasure, or a marvellous ornamental ‘garden’, flowers wrought of gold and silver.5 At this time, El Dorado is rumoured to be in the Caribbean, the Amazon, Anahuac, or Tavantinsuyu, the lands constituting the Inca empire. Having drawn that line dividing his stalwart adherents from those who were ambivalent, and in a bold move parallel to Cortés’s actions in Mexico, Pizarro resolves that for those who join him, there would be no turning back. He repeats this lesson in 1532 when he stages his men outside the quarters of the Inca Atahuallpa (1502–1533) in Cajamarca. Pizarro installs his troops—160 men—in one of Atahuallpa’s fortresses and, in a treacherous and brazen move, the conquistador reverses the balance of power and takes the young emperor captive. This is a decisive moment in Pizarro’s campaign and the beginning of the end of the mighty Inca empire. These defining moments in the exploits of Cortés and Pizarro—recounted in Prescott’s histories of the conquest—are among the episodes that, as I argue in the chapters that follow, inspired fictional adaptations by Henty, Haggard, and Griffith. Taken together, these popular novelists—who collectively published over 200 books which were read by multiple generations of young readers—borrow from and reconfigure Prescott’s histories. They create fictional heroes who live with, learn the languages and customs of, and defend Amerindian peoples, all the while reaping the rewards of their adaptability, inquisitiveness, and circumspection. In crafting New World fantasies and adventures, these authors helped to mold impressionable Victorian and early twentieth-century audiences—including those who might become civil servants, soldiers, entrepreneurs, collectors, dealers, investors, engineers, and settlers working on behalf of the British empire. Given the critical discourse around British adventure fiction, I’d like to offer a few disclaimers before moving on about how I interpret Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s retellings of the conquest. I acknowledge yet diverge from recent critiques of British adventure fiction that oversimplify binaries of the European self and other.6 I see Haggard and Henty’s stereotyping of the ‘exotic other’ in their imperial fictions, particularly those set in Africa, but propose that the cultural complexity of their Amerindian adventures has yet to be fully examined. Inquisitiveness and cultural tolerance were, I believe, fundamental to Britain’s global, modern project of empire-­building and informal imperialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This project of empire-building and informal imperialism, as I map out below, does not surface spontaneously in the 1800s, but has roots in histories of the conquest and English translations and critiques of the Spanish in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary works that focus on the encounters and conflicts between European and Amerindian peoples.

6 Introduction

Representing the Amerindian encounter The Amerindian fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith originate from a lengthy tradition of English literature about the New World encounter and Spanish colonialism. This discourse was driven by a reaction to the Treaty of Tordesillas, a 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal demarcating trade and colonisation rights in what is now Latin America. Expanded in scope by the 1500s, the treaty prohibited Spain’s rivals, notably Protestant England, from occupying lands sanctioned for Catholic settlement and missionary work. Not surprisingly, this treaty prompted generations of English writers to interrogate the Spanish Catholic hegemony in the Americas through loaded translations of Spanish histories, cultural critiques of the conquest, and dramas which stage its spectacle. Representative seventeenthcentury texts include Richard Hakluyt’s 1609 translation of Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida by Don Ferdinando de Soto and Six Hundred Spaniards (1539–1543), Thomas Scott’s An Experimentall Discoverie of Spanish Practices, or, the Counsell of a Well-Wishing Souldier (1623), John Phillips’s Tears of the Indies (1656), William Davenant’s Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658), and John Dryden’s Amerindian tragedies, The Indian Queen (1664) and The Indian Emperour, or the Conquest of Mexico (1665).7 Renaissance and Restoration authors rewrote episodes of the Spanish conquest according to their own imaginative visions, expressing, variously, admiration of the conquistador on one hand, and Hispanophobia on the other. This phenomenon sparked the scholarly attention of Walter Maltby who published in 1971 the landmark study, The Black Legend in England: The Development of Anti-Spanish Sentiment 1558–1660. In this book, a foundation for transatlantic studies, Maltby observes, ‘The existence of a Black Legend that systematically denigrates the character and achievements of the Spanish people has been recognised throughout the Hispanic world for four hundred centuries.’8 Maltby goes on to provide evidence of the Black Legend, with examples furnished by Catholic priest Bartolomé de las Casas (1474–1566), who witnessed and condemned the brutality of the Spanish in the Caribbean, publishing Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias in 1552, a work translated and rewritten by John Phillips for English audiences, and published as the aforementioned Tears of the Indies (1656). Following the work of Maltby, literary critic Richard Frohock examines rewritings of the conquest in Heroes of Empire: The British Imperial Protagonist in America, 1596–1764 (2004). In reading Phillips’s Tears of the Indies and Davenant’s Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, Frohock contends: The idea of conquest and the image of the conquering hero may profitably be viewed as persisting and transforming rather than utterly vanishing in the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries … what history was lacking, the literary imagination could supply;

Introduction  7 histories of conquest could be invented; the voyages of British explorers and plunderers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries could be interpreted as glorious conquests; and a conquering future for the British in America could be projected. (Frohock 24) This is an important idea. Despite Spanish imperialism, some lands were still ‘available’ and uncharted, so writers of fiction and non-fiction could conceive of a place for the English (and after the unification of the kingdom, the British) in Latin America. A look at sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury maps reveals to the Western opportunist ‘unclaimed lands,’ as most European settlements are marked on the coast, not inland. Mary Louise Pratt explains in Imperial Eyes that these ‘blank spaces’ account in part for the European move towards interiority, led by scientists such as Charles de la Condamine (1701–1774) and Alexander Humboldt (1769–1859) in the 1700s and 1800s, a point to which I shall return.9 Literary works of the late 1700s and early 1800s that rehearse the plots of the Spanish conquest were likely prompted by the publication of William Robertson’s History of America (1777; 1798) and attentive to the imperatives of the American and French Revolutions. The struggle for equality and justice provided writers with an analogue for interpreting the imbalance of power between Amerindian peoples and Spanish colonisers. For example, Helen Maria Williams, author of Letters on the French Revolution, Written from France (1790), an eyewitness account of the French Revolution, crafted dramatic vignettes to convey the Spanish subjugation of Amerindians in the pursuit of gold in Peru, a Poem in Six Cantos (1784).10 In conversation with Williams’s epic is Richard Sheridan’s Pizarro: A Tragedy in Five Acts (1799), a play that transports English-speaking audiences to the heat of battle between Inca warriors and Iberian conquistadors. In Sheridan’s play, Pizarro appears as a personality who in equal measure loves and hates, rather than a one-dimensional antagonist; Pizarro: A Tragedy in Five Acts was immensely popular, staged throughout the nineteenth century, and has since become the subject of scholarly inquiry.11 By the early 1800s, English authors tapped into and contributed to a firmly grounded transatlantic discourse, where mention of the word ‘conquest’ was sufficient to bring into relief the contours of historical figures and events. We see this in the Romantic poetry of John Keats and Anna Barbauld, both of whom strategically enmesh references to the New World and the conquest in, respectively, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ (1816) and ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven’ (1812).12 At this time, too, poets, playwrights, and prose writers dialogued with each other, as with St. John Dorset’s (pseudonym for Hugo Belfour) answer to Sheridan’s Pizarro, namely Montezuma: A Tragedy in Five Acts (1822). Also in the early 1800s, we find the impulse to re-enact the story of the conquest with specific attention to shaping the values and attitudes of young audiences. In Richard Davenport’s Lives of

8 Introduction Individuals Who Raised Themselves from Poverty to Eminence or Fortune (1841) has a chapter on Pizarro and his compatriots, men who came to the New World with little, yet managed to enrich themselves and rise in title and station. By the mid to late 1800s, the geographical studies by Charles Marie de la Condamine (1701–1774) and Alexander von Humboldt (1769– 1859) would be followed by the scientific research of Robert Schomburgk (1804–1865), Charles Darwin (1809–1882), Alfred Wallace (1823–1913), and Henry Bates (1825– 1892), all of whom delighted in Latin America’s botanical and zoological treasures.13 This, then, concludes my necessarily brief survey of literary, historical, and scientific works that shaped the transatlantic discourse to which Henty, Haggard, and Griffith were contributing. While many eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century imaginations of the conquest were informed by Robertson’s History of America (1777; 1798), as noted in the scholarship of Joselyn Almeida and Rebecca Cole Heinowitz, I argue on the pages that follow that the writers of the 1840s and beyond looked to William H Prescott as the authoritative source.14 By the early 1840s, Prescott expanded upon and updated Robertson’s account of the conquest, relying on newly granted access to European archives and benefiting from the ‘opening up’ of Mexico and Peru to foreign tourism and archaeological study. Perhaps because of these resources, Prescott dedicates in his companion volumes significant space to Amerindian cultures and recognises their sophistication.15 In so doing, Prescott consulted multiple and competing accounts and describes in detail the religion, engineering, wealth, and social order of the Aztecs and Tezcucans in The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), and the Inca and Chanca in The History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). What Prescott did was to describe the ingenuity, order, and industriousness of the Amerindian civilisations, while also bringing to life the players in the encounter between the Old World and the New. Mostly ensconced in the proverbial armchair, Prescott may seem an unlikely expert on the Spanish conquest, and yet he was just that in his time, and still looms large in today’s historiography for his scientific approach and literary gift for bringing to life the personalities and cultures in this theatre of war.16 Educated at Harvard University, Prescott developed expertise in Peninsular and Latin American history and enjoyed correspondence with Spanish and French archivists, gaining access to source materials that, as I note, had been made only recently available to scholars of the nineteenth century. It was the use of multiple perspectives and testimonies—drawn from these newly available materials—his prose style, as well as his own awareness of the United States’ transformation from a colony to a nation, and its controversial acquisition of Native American territories, that make his histories distinctive.

Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) was widely read and praised on both sides of the Atlantic for the historian’s capacity to delight his

Introduction  9 audience with a gripping and enlightening narrative. Trustee of the British Museum Henry Hallam notes that History of the Conquest of Mexico ‘has left Robertson’s history, the only popular narrative we had, very far behind’ while chapters relating to Mexican antiquities have ‘at once excited our astonishment and curiosity’ (qtd. in Ticknor 197). Similarly, hispanicist George Ticknor, Prescott’s biographer, observes: the freshness and freedom of [Prescott’s] descriptions in the ‘Mexico,’ especially the descriptions of the scenery, battles, and marches are, I think, not found to the same degree in either of his other histories, and have rendered the style of that work singularly attractive. (Ticknor 203) The US Minister to Spain AH Everett likewise extols the virtue of Prescott’s work: We have been reading the ‘Conquest of Mexico’ about our fireside, and finish the second volume this evening. I enjoy it more than its predecessor [Ferdinand and Isabella]. The interest is of a more epic kind; and reading it aloud is more favourable to attention and effect. I think its success complete. (Ticknor 198) Famed US writer Washington Irving, lived in Spain and having published histories of Columbus and Granada, had proposed to write his own history of the Spanish conquest, and made a great sacrifice in giving up the project. Irving deferred to Prescott who, he reflects, would treat the subject with more close and ample research than I should probably do, and would produce a work more thoroughly worthy of the theme. He has produced a work that does honour to himself and his country, and I wish him the full enjoyment of his laurels. (qtd. in Irving 331)17 Recent scholars such as Daniel Boorstin and John McWilliams also admire Prescott’s histories and demonstrate their importance in transatlantic discourse. Renowned historian Boorstin views Prescott as a ‘creator of literature’, one of ‘prodigious industry,’ and notes that Prescott’s histories of the conquest were informed by an expansive library, a ‘miraculous memory,’ and by descriptions of archaeological sites in Mexico sent to him by Scottish writer Frances Erskine (1804–1882), also known as Frances Calderón de la Barca (344–5). For his part, literary critic John McWilliams appreciates Prescott’s epic vision and the rich poetic traditions the historian draws upon. Prescott conceived the history of Mexico as one concerted plot stemming from Cortés’s invasion of Montezuma’s Aztec empire, the

10 Introduction subjugation of its peoples, and the establishment of a New World colony.18 In his interpretation of Prescott’s composition, McWilliams hears the echoes of the great poets of war and observes the historian, came to his life’s work, the Matter of Spain, through extensive reading and reviewing of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Pulci, and Milton, along with much else … The greatness of the primary epic lay in the Aristotelian ability of the tale teller to convey the march of ‘one concentrated action, like the Ancient drama’ … Prescott’s aim was to merge all these genres into one prose history, creating ‘an epic in prose, a romance of chivalry … which, while it combines all the picturesque features of the romantic school, is borne on a tide of destiny, like that which broods over the fictions of the Grecian poets.’19 (McWilliams 45–46) The epic vision of Prescott, along with his careful use of multiple sources, and elegant, fluid prose are hallmarks of his writing. Prescott’s sources include contemporary accounts of the conquest, as well as letters, chronicles, and travelogues of his own time by a constellation of artists, memoirists, architects, novelists, historians, and collectors. One such collector is the Irish viscount Lord Edward Kingsborough (1795–1837) who, after studying at Oxford and collecting rare Mexican codices housed throughout Europe, published the magnificent volumes, Antiquities of Mexico (1831), which are referenced by Prescott. Sadly, Kingsborough incurred massive debt during the production of the facsimiles, was sued by a paper manufacturer, and was taken into a Dublin debtor’s prison, where he died from typhus. Yet his achievement remains. The Kingsborough facsimiles collectively illustrate the artistry, organisation, and cultural logic operating in Aztec codices, thereby confounding narrow-minded suppositions about Spain’s colonised ‘other.’ A more fortuitous connection between Prescott and his sources can be found with Scotswoman, traveller, and writer Frances Erskine (1804–1882) who married Argentine diplomat Angel Calderón de la Barca. Prescott wrote the preface to Frances Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico (1843), a collection of letters that records her travels from 1839 to 1842. In one of these letters, Calderón de la Barca acknowledges receipt of a special gift from Prescott, a copy of John Lloyd Stephens’ Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan (1843) illustrated with Frederick Catherwood’s engravings, one of which appears in Figure 0.1. An American explorer and Amerindian enthusiast, Stephens (1805–1852) toured archaeological sites with English artist Frederick Catherwood (1799–1854) who, in 1844, released his own exquisite collection of lithographs, Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. In both volumes, Catherwood conveys the sentiment of ‘I was there,’ expressed, variously, with illustrations of an expeditioner dressed in the iconic broad-brimmed hat and white linens, measuring architectural dimensions, examining sculptures, or directing the

Introduction  11

Figure 0.1 Monjas, Chichén Itzá. Frederick Catherwood, lithographer, in John L Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843). Courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Mexicans working in the archaeological site. An example characteristic of Catherwood’s vision can be found in Figure 0.1, a scene depicting an Amerindian enthusiast peering into the Aztec temple of the Monjas (nuns). Clearly, the connections between Prescott, the Irish collector Kingsborough, Scottish memoirist Calderón de la Barca, American archaeologist Stephens, and English artist Catherwood constitute a culturally rich transatlantic discourse, each writer or artist engaging with and responding to the work of his or her contemporary.20 Late Victorian writers Haggard and Henty tapped into this transatlantic discourse, while making Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico conspicuous as their source. In that volume, Prescott skilfully synthesises the critical aspects of Aztec religion, law, education, and trade and describes the natural resources, institutions, and cultural practices that strengthened Montezuma’s empire. After pointing out that Mexicans built on ancient Toltec ruins, Prescott describes the sumptuous ornamentation of Aztec temples and palaces, interiors faced in gold and silver. He then elaborates on the judicial system of the Aztec—the role of the emperor, nobility, and priesthood—and posits that, in a highly stratified society, the basic needs of the populace were met. Prescott also highlights the accomplishment of the Tezcucans, neighbouring allies of the Aztecs who enjoyed some measure of sovereignty. He extols the Tezcucan court during its Golden Age, when artists and musicians, educated in schools and

12 Introduction supported by the state, occupied a central place in Mexican life. It is the Tezcucan culture that figures prominently in Henty’s By Right of Conquest. Both Henty and Haggard revive in their fiction memorable historical figures, Mexican deities, and cultural practices recounted in Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico. Among these personalities are the conquistador Cortés, his Mexican interpreter and mistress, Malinche/Marina, the perplexing, Hamlet-like Aztec priest and emperor, Montezuma, and warrior princes Cacama and Guatemoc. Equally striking is the story of Spanish friar Jeronimo Aguilar who, Prescott explains, was cast away on the shores of the Yucatan and taken captive by the Maya. Having survived the foundering of his ship in Caribbean waters in 1511—before Cortés’s arrival in 1519—Aguilar soon witnessed the human sacrifice of many of his compatriots, including the boat’s captain. We can interpret Aguilar’s story of survival and adaptation as inspiring the characterisations of Henty’s Roger Hawkshaw and Haggard’s Thomas Wingfield as Englishmen whose arrival precedes that of Cortés in Mexico. Along with diverse personalities involved in the conquest are the legends and myths which may have paved the way for the Spanish, most notably the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl.

Stories of ‘white gods’ Quetzalcoatl’s appearance and background correlate with other ‘white god’ legends of the Caribbean and South America. While one of the major challenges of studying myth is to identify its origin, there’s little debate that European stories of white gods in the Americas begin with Christopher Columbus (also spelled Colón). As such, we can apply Claude Levi-Strauss’s structural study of myth to Columbus’s record of his Caribbean encounters, and assess how particular features surface in subsequent accounts of the conquest.21 The stories usually feature a few key elements, even while differing in other ways: white men or ‘white gods’ arrive from the sea on ‘floating castles’. They are impenetrable in their shining armour; unstoppable on their swift, charging horses; and unassailable due to their weaponry—guns, cannons, and steel-forged swords. In his reading of Columbus’s journals, cultural critic Terry O’Brien adds another motif for consideration: Amerindian peoples are to have received the Spanish first with fear, and then with ceremony: Columbus describes the natives’ total amazement and fright at seeing Spanish beards, white skin, and strange clothing—all foreign to them … [According to the Spanish] … the Indians kissed the explorers’ hands and feet with great solemnity and, raising their hands skyward, made it clear they believed the white men had come from heaven. (O’Brien 19) Elements of this scenario resurface in representations of Cortés’s reception in Mexico. Following Columbus’s account, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex refers to the white god myth on several occasions. Trained

Introduction  13 as a priest, Sahagún interviewed witnesses of the conquest, compiling an early ethnographic study of Mexico transcribed in Nahuatl and accompanied by Aztec pictographs.22 Of the encounter between the Old and the New, the Codex states, ‘And when they [Mexicans] had drawn near to the Spaniards … they thought it was Quetzalcoatl Topiltzin who had come to arrive’ (Sahagún 5). Later, when the Aztec emperor Montezuma hears of the arrival of the Spanish, he says, ‘It is said that our lord hath at last come to land. Meet him’ (Sahagún 11). The Codex then reports, ‘Moctezuma … took them [the Spanish] to be gods, he worshipped them as gods. They were called, they were named “gods come from heaven”’ (Sahagún 21). Drawing from Sahagún’s work, Prescott elaborates on how Mexicans associate the arrival of Cortés with the return of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, that deity with a fair complexion and flowing beard, so unlike the Indian physiognomy, who, after fulfilling his mission of benevolence among the Aztecs, embarked on the Atlantic Sea for the mysterious shores of Tlapallan. He promised, on his departure, to return at some future day with his posterity, and resume the possession of his empire. That day was looked forward to with hope or with apprehension, according to the interest of the believer, but with general confidence throughout the wide borders of Anahuac. (Prescott 171) As we shall apprehend in, respectively, Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter and Henty’s By Right of Conquest, the Quetzalcoatl deity is associated with the novel’s English adventurers, as well as with the Spanish. I do not claim these stories are true, only that they endure. Perhaps Amerindian peoples shared prophecies that foretold the arrival of Europeans; perhaps these stories helped the indigenous to make sense of the invasion, or perhaps they constitute a rhetoric deployed by Europeans.23 To what extent this myth served the Spanish is uncertain; what is clear in Prescott’s account is that the Aztec empire was rent by conflict stemming from Montezuma’s heavy taxation of his subjects, and the widespread practice of sacrificing captives in war. The enmity, for example, between the Tlascalans and the Aztecs was enduring and created a convenient wedge for the Spanish; representation of such tribal animosity surfaces in Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter and Henty’s By Right of Conquest. Both fictions illustrate how Iberian invaders could deepen existing divisions among Mexican peoples by forging alliances and pitting enemies against one another.24 Certainly Cortés succeeded in doing so. One reason for tribal divisions is, Prescott explains, that the Aztecs subjected captives from conquered peoples to human sacrifice; he goes on to describe the temples where it took place, the role of the priests and their instruments, and the ubiquity of this practice throughout the empire.25 In so doing, Prescott crafted indelible images of Aztec sacrifice that were rewritten as macabre, sometimes

14 Introduction gothic scenes in the Amerindian fictions of Haggard and Henty. With its assembly of players such as Malinche, Montezuma, and Cortés, and its narration of cultural beliefs around sacrifice and the white god Quetzalcoatl, Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico frames a narrative that could be retold for English audiences eager for the next New World adventure. Prescott’s subsequent volume, History of the Conquest of Peru, likewise inspired transatlantic productions of the late 1800s and the early 1900s.

Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) After writing History of the Conquest of Mexico to great acclaim, Prescott published in 1847 the excellent companion volume, History of the Conquest of Peru. Prescott continues the saga of the Spanish quest for gold by focusing on Francisco Pizarro’s incursion into Panama in the 1520s, and subsequent invasion of Inca Atahuallpa’s empire in the 1530s. History of the Conquest of Peru was similarly influential in stimulating the production of historical adventure fiction, notably Griffith’s portrait of Pizarro in Virgin of the Sun (1898), the subject of Chapter 3; the portrait of the Chanca and Inca peoples in Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922), addressed in Chapter 4; speculation about the lost riches of the temple of Pachacamac in Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902), examined in Chapter 5; and Vilcaroya’s reclamation of the Inca empire in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897), discussed in Chapter 6. Just as he had imagined one sustained narrative in the History of the Conquest of Mexico, Prescott reflects in the preface to the companion volume that he conceived of History of the Conquest of Peru as a complex, yet unified plot: The conquest of the natives is but the first step, to be followed by the conquest of the Spaniards—the rebel Spaniards, themselves,—till the supremacy of the Crown is permanently established over the country. It is not till this period, that the acquisition of this transatlantic empire can be said to be complete; and, by fixing the eye on this remoter point, the successive steps of the narrative will be found leading to one great result, and that unity of interest preserved which is scarcely less essential to historic than dramatic composition. (Prescott 727) Accordingly, Prescott begins his history with a panoramic survey of the Peruvian countryside, which had been organised according to climate and altitude, thereby maximising agricultural productivity. He then explains the Inca civilisation’s ingenious use of aqueducts to irrigate arid regions; as well, he describes the construction and maintenance of roads that threaded throughout the Andes and the manufacture of rope suspension bridges to span gaping ravines. Most importantly, he expounds upon the cultural climate in which Pizarro operated, the conquistador’s desperate circumstances on the Isle of Gallo in

Introduction  15 1527, followed years later by the Spanish invasion of Tavantinsuyu, and the entrapment of the Inca Atahuallpa in 1532. Prescott then takes inventory of the feuds and rivalries that erupted over the years between the Pizarro family and Diego Almagro. Rival and fellow expeditioner Diego Almagro was executed in 1538, and Pizarro was assassinated in 1541, events addressed in Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun.

Spanish entrapment of the Inca Atahuallpa The entrapment of the Inca Atahuallpa and the trumped-up charges that followed the collection of his ransom demand elaboration since these moments are replayed in English representations of the conquest.26 In 1532 Pizarro encamped with his men—with native allies installed nearby—in one of Atahuallpa’s palace fortresses in Cajamarca. It was in Cajamarca where Pizarro and his council orchestrated an audacious attack on the young Amerindian sovereign. More of a massacre—which is how Prescott saw it—than a battle given that the Inca’s subjects were to host and entertain the Spanish, and were thus largely unarmed, Prescott estimates native casualties ranged from 2000 to 10,000, with actual numbers probably somewhere in the middle (936). After his people were subjugated and he imprisoned, the Inca Atahuallpa arranged for his ransom—as much treasure as would fill a room—to be paid to Pizarro. The fulfilment of the Inca’s promise furnished material evidence of the legend of El Dorado that the Spanish had relentlessly pursued. At this moment in his account, Prescott catalogues gilded ornaments and precious ceremonial items the Inca had at his disposal in sacred temples and state treasuries; it is an episode that is repurposed in Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun, and is reconfigured as a scene involving the Inca Vilcaroya’s payment to English adventurers in The Romance of Golden Star. Yet after the ransom was delivered, Pizarro refused to release his royal prisoner, and fabrication of charges of treason against the Inca emperor ensued.27 Atahuallpa was found guilty of treason, coerced to convert to Catholicism—through the threat of being burned alive—and then the monarch was garroted. Gilbert’s Conquerors of Peru (1913) adapts Prescott’s history for young readers, and the illustrator of the volume, Thomas Maybank, evokes pathos in his depiction of the Inca’s public execution, seen in Figure 0.2. One might note in this image that the Inca is depicted with features typically associated with Europeans, for this was one way to interpret the story of the conquest, to use art to make it familiar to Western audiences. What’s more, there is much in the posture of the Inca with his head bowed to one side, and being tied to the stake, to suggest the crucifixion of Christ. Simultaneously, the isolated figure and feathered headdress signifying royalty recall, for transatlantic audiences, James Fenimore Cooper’s Huron warrior-chieftain Uncas, the last of the Mohicans. The feathered headdress in the illustration seems purposeful, if inaccurate, as Maybank was presumably aware that the Inca wear a turban-like llautu.

16 Introduction

Figure 0.2 ‘The body was allowed to remain tied to the stake.’ Thomas Maybank, illustrator, Gilbert’s Conquerors of Peru (1913).

Like art itself, Prescott’s history offers rich terrain for writers and artists and evokes from the audience multiple and sometimes contradictory emotions. In reading History of the Conquest of Peru, one may feel enthusiasm for the Spanish overcoming seemingly impossible circumstances; bewilderment at the execution of the Inca, a sovereign; shock at the slaughter of

Introduction  17 unarmed natives; and relief at the end of Pizarro’s long, bloody campaign in Tavantinsuyu. Readers incensed by Spanish methods of conquest might find poetic justice in the bitter and violent feuds that followed Pizarro’s invasion of Peru. Earlier in the expedition, Francisco Pizarro and Diego Almagro had been partners in the quest for El Dorado. But once the wealth of Tavantinsuyu became apparent and Spain started to carve out its empire, disputes erupted over who would control settlements in Peru and Chile, with supporters gravitating towards either the Pizarro or Almagro factions. In 1583, hostilities came to a head when Hernando Pizarro, Francisco’s brother, determined to execute Diego Almagro. This was followed by the stabbing of Francisco Pizarro by Almagro’s adherents in 1541. The historical descriptions of such incidents furnish lessons for transatlantic audiences: maintain order among the ranks, keep discrete the acquisition of wealth, check internal jealousies, and, above all, watch one’s back. For those who seek resolution of this entangled tale, Prescott concludes his history with Viceroy Pedro Gasca’s relatively peaceful, ordered administration of the 1550s. Compared to its companion volume on Mexico, History of the Conquest of Peru has not elicited the same amount of critical attention. But for Secretary of the Peruvian embassy, Guillermo Lohmann Villena, Conquest of Peru is a ‘literary classic’ with a ‘distinguished place in Peruvian bibliography,' and a 'landmark of historical literature’ (48). In a more recent commentary on the history’s cultural work, critic Patricia Roylance interprets its plot about the fall of the Inca empire as expressing Prescott’s anxiety about the fate of the United States as an emerging power in the 1840s. In turn, of course, the United States had revolted in 1776 against its coloniser, Great Britain, so that we might read Prescott’s histories, more broadly, about the rise and fall of empires—The Inca, Aztec, Spanish, British, and at some point the United States.28 Taken together, Prescott’s companion volumes informed Amerindian fictions set in Mexico and Peru. In Part I, we shall see how Henty, Haggard, and Griffith position their narrators as preservers of the past and their male adventurers as cultural mediators in the Spanish invasion of Mexico and Peru. While in Part II, we will trace how the English are portrayed as stewards and defenders of the land during the campaign of reclamation. While examinations of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s fantasy and adventure fiction in Africa, India, and the Middle East circulate among literary critics, this is the first study to put these three writers in dialogue with Prescott in their retelling of the Spanish conquest in Mexico and Peru and their conception of plots that recast the light of history or, imaginatively, take back what has been stolen or lost. I endeavour to demonstrate, for example, how Haggard and Henty reclaim the controversial figure Malinche from the harsh recollection of cultural memory before she became a figure of resistance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Their prescience, I show, likewise extends to deepening our understanding of the Aztec emperor Montezuma and the Inca Atahuallpa, both of whom were devout rulers who set an example for their subjects and could not easily dispense with religious practices and beliefs at a time of crisis. The impossible choices and moral

18 Introduction ambiguities of the novels studied here to some extent reflect the authors’ experiences abroad and their perspectives on war and invasion of foreign territory. Such views were attuned by service to the British Army (Henty), colonial administration (Haggard), and the merchant marine (Griffith). All three were well-travelled writers who conducted research for their fiction, sometimes fieldwork, and all three, while representing the British empire, stood philosophically united in condemning in their novels the catastrophe and societal collapse that the Spanish conquest brought to Mexico and Peru. When Prescott wrote History of the Conquest of Peru and History of the Conquest of Mexico, he was presumably mindful of the role his books would play in future discourses about invasion, expansion, and imperialism. He would have been curious, I think, to see how his work would be refashioned in Victorian and early twentieth-century literature, how Henty, Haggard, and Griffith retell the stories of the Spanish conquest and imagine reclamation of lost empires through their Amerindian fictions. The influence of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith on generations of young readers—measured in part by their astounding literary production, the popular interest in their action-packed lives as men of the British empire, and the widespread circulation of their books—next merits our attention.

Henty’s career in the British Army, as a correspondent and young adult novelist George Alfred Henty served in the British Army and was a war correspondent, yachtsman, father of four, and world traveller. According to his biographer George Manville Fenn, Henty was a man of great stature and endurance who was skilled with sword, rifle, and pen.29 Born on 8 December 1832 (–1902) to Mary Bovill Edwards and James Henty, a stockbroker, Henty was educated at Westminster school, after which he entered Caius College in Cambridge. Before completing his degree, however, Henty left university in 1855 to serve with his brother in the Crimean war (Fenn, 18). As a young lieutenant in the hospital commissariat, Henty was frustrated by the deplorable conditions that soldiers endured, for he saw, first-hand, gruesome amputation without anaesthesia and the deadliness of disease. Henty had arrived a few months after 600 British soldiers lost their lives in an ill-fated manoeuvre against the Russian imperial army, an event lamented in Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (1854). To cholera, which ravaged military camps in Crimea, Henty lost his brother. It was, arguably, after the Crimean war that Henty’s life as a writer, correspondent, and traveller coalesced. Henty went on to manage the hospital commissariat in Italy, where he met the liberator, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and, as a correspondent for The Standard, reported on monarchical turmoil in Spain (Fenn 223). His peregrinations brought him to Africa, where he saw the opening of the Suez Canal, and met the infamous explorer, Henry Morton Stanley; having made his name as a writer, he was invited in the 1870s to join the Prince

Introduction  19 of Wales’s royal tour of India (Lee, 249–250). I believe that Henty’s witness of appalling conditions for the enlisted in Crimea, and the imperial incursions and continental insurgencies he followed in Europe thereafter, compelled the writer to critically assess the cost of war. Henty’s career and choice of subject matter suggest an acceptance of the imperial prerogative, but he was, at the same time, sensitive to the plight of ordinary individuals caught up in conflicts, not of their own making. This, I believe, is conveyed in Henty’s 1891 novel, By Right of Conquest, Or with Cortez in Mexico. Finally, in considering the material conditions that seem to have supported Henty’s fiction writing, I believe his familiarity with the costs of excavation and the risk of investment—his father was a stockbroker who owned mines in Wales—lend authenticity to Treasure of the Incas (1902), which— as I will explain in Chapter 5—offers a road map for young Englishmen who seek to improve their prospects in Latin America. Twenty years senior, Henty paved the way for novelists H Rider Haggard and George Griffith, and these writers, in turn, took the Amerindian adventure one step further than Henty with travel throughout, respectively, Mexico and Peru.

Haggard: colonial administrator, world traveller, and author of imperial adventure Like Henty, Haggard was born to a prosperous family and was one of the younger sons of several children. Although he had access to libraries and tutors, Haggard (1856–1925) was, unlike his brothers, denied a university education. Instead, he was sent by his father to South Africa to assume a minor administrative post and, by the age of 21, he was appointed Master of the High Court of Transvaal.30 This experience was formative in that it introduced him to new cultures—notably the Zulu—and it gave him an understanding of how power operates in an imperial context; most importantly, perhaps, it forged a lifelong connection between his travel, research, and writing, colouring romance adventures which he set in distant times and exotic locales—from the pyramids of Egypt and the Aztec temples of Anahuac, to the Moorish palaces of Granada. Along with Henty, Haggard was one of the most popular writers of the Victorian period, and he continued writing with success in the early twentieth century. While King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and She [1887] are probably the most popular of his fifty-some-odd books of fiction, he set three novels in Latin America. He writes of the Aztec in Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), the Maya in Heart of the World (1896), and he extols the grandeur of the Inca empire in Virgin of the Sun (1922), set in Peru.31 Following the transatlantic crossing of, among other cultural producers, English artist Frederick Catherwood (1799–1854) and Scottish travel writer Frances Calderón de la Barca (1804–1882), Haggard set off in 1891 to explore the sites of Anahuac, the heart of Montezuma’s grand empire. Travelling with English speculator J Gladwyn Jebb, the two hunted for

20 Introduction Aztec antiquities, an experience which afforded Haggard opportunities to authenticate cultural details in Montezuma’s Daughter (1893). In his novel’s dedication, Haggard recollects Jebb’s acquisition of an ancient Mexican artefact, a figure representing Huitzilopochtli, The wealth which Cortés wept over, and his Spaniards sinned and died for, is for ever hidden yonder by the shores of the bitter lake whose waters gave up to you that ancient horror, the veritable and sleepless god of sacrifice, of whom I would not rob you—and, for my part, I do not regret the loss. Instead, Haggard returned to England with indelible impressions of his Mexican travels, which would furnish material for Montezuma’s Daughter.

Griffith: merchant marine apprentice, world explorer, and fantasy adventure writer Our third writer, George Griffith, born in 1857 (–1906), was the son of an English vicar and Haggard’s contemporary. A sailor, teacher, and news correspondent who circumnavigated the world, Griffith is not known as well as Haggard or Henty today—though he is gaining recognition—but in his time he was a popular writer who authored more than 40 books of science fiction and romance adventure. Like Haggard, he was invested in what I regard as ‘fieldwork,’ visiting cultural sites abroad and gathering scenes and plots for his travel writing and fiction. As a youth, Griffith served as an apprentice on a merchant ship bound from Liverpool to Australia and later worked as a teacher; while travelling around the world, he established a career as a journalist, explorer, and novelist.32 Like Haggard and Henty, he wrote with the British empire as a cultural point of reference and, in addition to publishing science fiction and romance adventure, edited a well-received book, Men Who Made the Empire (1899), featuring biographies of the navigator Sir Frances Drake and empire-builder Cecil Rhodes. Griffith’s body of work expresses an investment in the history of conquest and the rise and fall of empires, and he drew from a wide range of thinkers and writers for inspiration, including historian William H Prescott, astronomer Camille Flammarion, and novelist Jules Verne. In fact, Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days inspired Griffith’s own globe-trotting adventure in 1895, which brought him to the Inca trail in Peru. Perhaps because transatlantic retellings of the conquest of Mexico had been ‘done,’ Griffith recounts through his Victorian narrator Pizarro’s invasion of Peru in the 1520s and 1530s. He begins Virgin of the Sun by paying homage to the US writer-statesman Lew Wallace, the author of the acclaimed The Fair God (1873). Informed by Lewis’s military experience

Introduction  21 and travels in Mexico, The Fair God was, arguably, one of the books that launched post-Prescott transatlantic rewritings of the story of the conquest. Griffith observes in the preface to Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898), I visited Peru with the intention of traversing the route of the Conquerors and obtaining those impressions, generically described as local colour, which can only be acquired on the Spot. Marvellous as the story had seemed when read at home in the pages of Prescott, it became almost incredible after I had traversed the same wildernesses and scaled the same passes, many of them higher than the highest peaks of the Alps, over which Pizarro had led his little army to the most wonderful conquest in the history of War. Griffith’s first-hand observations of the Inca trail and attention to historical and anthropological details—the hallmark of Victorian adventure fiction— add cultural depth to his Peruvian novels, Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898) and Romance of Golden Star (1897), which I’ll address, respectively, in Chapters 3 and 6. In the pages that follow, we’ll see that as products and voices of the British empire, Henty, Haggard, and Griffith critique the agents of the Spanish conquest and celebrate Amerindian cultures, to narrate a tale of loss, or to imagine a reclamation of power through the revision of history. Another feature this literary triad has in common is that all three writers have been charged with lacking originality, borrowing from other writers, or recycling stories. Yet I maintain, following Robert MacFarlane, such compositional practices were common in the nineteenth century, and readers expected plots and characters that were somewhat recognisable. I’ll return to this point below.

Interpretation of the Amerindian adventure What purpose do Haggard, Griffith, and Henty’s English rewritings of the conquest, inspired as they are by Prescott, serve? To address this question fully—as I attempt to do in subsequent chapters—involves a critical engagement with concepts from transatlantic studies, particularly the scholarship of Tzvetan Todorov, Mary Louise Pratt, Doris Sommer, and Robert Aguirre, all of whom view the encounter from a critical perspective. In his post-structuralist work, Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (1982), Todorov contemplates the consequences of miscommunication between two radically different cultures, the Spanish and the Amerindians, while correspondingly Henty, Haggard, and Griffith all deliberate in their fictions upon the ambiguities of cross-cultural contact. For her part, Mary Louise Pratt expounds upon the explorer’s gaze and the contact zone as a site of European collection and classification in Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and

22 Introduction Transculturation (1992). With her notion of ‘interiority’, Pratt also calls attention to the European movement in the 1700s from the shores of the Americas—where the Spanish had established ports—to inland terrain; significantly, this movement is re-traced in the Amerindian adventure. For her part, Doris Sommer analyses cross-cultural romance in Latin American novels and explains how this plot provides a basis for foundational fictions of the Latin American republic. Several transatlantic scholars have taken up the idea of informal imperialism, or soft forms of domination, to account for Britain’s economic and cultural interest in Latin America. Jessie Reeder and Robert Aguirre, for example, make the idea conspicuous in, respectively, The Forms of Informal Empire: Britain, Latin America, and Nineteenth-Century Literature (2020) and Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture (2005), as well do I in British Representations of Latin America (2007).33 Here, I return to this concept to explore how conquest and reclamation rhetorically operate in the transatlantic imagination in the Amerindian fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith. Four additional paradigms are key to my analyses. First, Jane Tompkins’s theory of cultural work; second, Robert MacFarlane’s study of originality and plagiarism; third, Bradley Deane’s interrogation of oppositions of imperial self and ‘exotic other’; and finally, Roger Luckhurst’s literary notion of ‘the weight of plausibility.’ In reading popular novels such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tompkins asserts that stereotypical representations and clichés perform important cultural work and express values of their time; for her, it is impact and not necessarily originality or aesthetic merit that makes for a classic.34 Relatedly, MacFarlane argues in Original Copy: Plagiarism and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Literature (2007) that it was common for Victorian authors to repurpose the writing of other authors. When novelists such as Henty, Haggard, and Griffith were writing in the 1890s and early 1900s, a reference or a footnote signalled their credibility and shared with the reader the source for further study. In my reading of works that rewrite the conquest, I believe mentioning Prescott’s name was often sufficient to call to the reader and contemporary critic’s mind the assembly of assertions, testimonies, and interpretations that constitute History of the Conquest of Mexico or History of the Conquest of Peru. Moreover, when English authors referenced Prescott, I believe that kind of crediting would informally apply to the author’s subsequent fictions set in Latin America, a dutiful nod to the school of Prescott mentioned earlier. I hold Amerindian romances collectively express a cultural literacy about Prescott, whereby his name and histories would surface repeatedly in a given text, making it increasingly less critical to cite the historian. Indeed, Hartness in Romance of Golden Star observes in the conversation with Ruth Djama about Inca sibling marriage that ‘of course she’s read Prescott.’ In reading Amerindian fictions, I’m indebted to Bradley Deane’s study of Lost World narratives and his examination of identity in the representation

Introduction  23 of cross-cultural contact. Most refreshing is the way Deane interrogates the overly simplistic us-versus-them binary to argue that: difference is not the only weapon in the ideological arsenal of empire. Lost-world fiction demonstrates that recognitions of the self in the other, even the emulation of the other, may also serve imperial interests. Beginning with stories by Rudyard Kipling, Rider Haggard, and Arthur Conan Doyle, I will argue that this genre minimizes difference to represent barbarians not as the objects of disgust or even of intractably ambivalent envy, but as the models of a new imperial masculinity. (Deane 150) What is notable to me is Deane’s contention that ‘recognitions of the self in the other, even the emulation of the other, may also serve imperial interests.’ On the surface, Deane’s articulation of self and other resonates with Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial perspective in Location of Culture, but Deane heads in a different direction. Deane’s point is that the non-Western ‘other’ offers British characters a dynamic model of masculinity. In Chapters 1 through 6, we will see how Haggard, Henty, and Griffith foreground that interplay in the construction of their male protagonists and their encounters. Finally, as I read the work of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith, I’m very much taken with what Roger Luckhurst calls ‘the weight of plausibility’ which I understand is an author’s investment in making fiction as convincing as possible, rich in anthropological or historical detail.

Part I: conquest Part I of this volume focuses on three English renderings of the Spanish conquest. Chapter 1 illustrates how Henty’s By Right of Conquest adapts material from Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico in its characterisation of English adventurer Roger Hawkshaw and his experience of contact and assimilation in Mexico before and during Cortés’s 1519 invasion. I argue that a historical parallel for Hawkshaw can be found in the real castaway Jeronimo Aguilar, whose life as mariner turned castaway Prescott sketches in History of the Conquest of Mexico, or in Aguilar’s fellow mariner, Gonzalo Guerrero. Early in the novel, Hawkshaw lands on the shore of Mexico and is received there as an incarnation of the fairskinned Quetzalcoatl. Once absorbed into Montezuma’s empire, he’s taken in by the (historically real) Tezcucan noble Cacama and his people, anointed as a Tezcucan warrior and betrothed to the Mexican princess, Amenche. In his depiction of what I call the cultural mediator, Henty emphasises Hawkshaw’s facility for learning different languages and adopting local customs. Ever mindful of his Victorian audience, Henty conveys the lesson that young and daring men, regardless of class, may court and marry into royalty and bring back to England the rewards of their exploits and

24 Introduction liaisons. Though assuming different guises in their adventures, such men, Henty implies, may ultimately keep their English identity without completely ‘going native’ or compromising their values. Quoting from critic Deirdre McMahon, ‘Portable Britishness’ is, we shall see, an indispensable concept for this study of Amerindian fictions. In Chapter 2, on Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), I analyse Thomas Wingfield’s role during the Spanish conquest of Mexico from about 1517 to the 1530s. Like Henty’s Hawkshaw, Wingfield is cast ashore in the Yucatan, is taken in by the Maya, introduced to Malinche, and ultimately received in Anahuac as the Mexican deity, Tezcat. The complication of the plot involves Wingfield’s divided loyalties as he is born of a Spanish mother and English father; after Cortés invades Mexico, Wingfield joins the Aztec resistance to the Spanish invasion. He later marries Otomie, Montezuma’s daughter, fathering four mixed-race children who, like himself, are ‘caught between’ opposing cultures. As such, Wingfield can be read as Haggard’s ingenious double for the historical figure Malinche—who uses her knowledge of different cultures in her role as Cortés’s interpreter. As Malinche is often associated with treachery in Mexico, so, too, is Wingfield labelled a traitor by the Spanish. His difficult position also has much in common with Gonzalo Guerrero, a historically real Spanish castaway whose story is recounted in the chronicles of conquistador Bernal Díaz. Guerrero, like Aguilar, was cast away upon Mexican shores in 1511 and, after being taken in by a Maya tribe, faced the grim fate of sacrifice; yet he escaped to a rival clan and assimilated to its ways, ultimately marrying and having children with a Maya princess. Similarly, Wingfield helps defend his family and the Otomie people from the ongoing Spanish incursions, but after his wife and children die, Wingfield returns home to England, enriched with a few spoils from the Aztec empire. One of these, an emerald, he presents to Queen Elizabeth; perhaps the more precious offering to the monarch is his memoir, which reflects on the destruction of the Spanish armada and goes back in time to trace the rise and fall of Cortés, Malinche, and his brother-in-arms Guatemoc. This metatextual interplay between the New World encounter and the act of writing likewise surfaces in Griffith’s novel, Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru, the topic of Chapter 3. Unlike the other fictions addressed in this book, Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun features no English heroes or protagonists. Instead, the narration relays impressions from Griffith’s 1895 tour of Incan fortresses, temples, and palaces, and draws heavily on Prescott to recount the history of Pizarro’s conquest. While paying tribute to the famed historian, whom the author acknowledges in the preface, Griffith supplements History of the Conquest of Peru with images of archaeological sites Prescott never got to see first-hand. With its depiction of the Old World meeting the New, and its dazzling portrait of the Inca court, Virgin of the Sun satisfies the Victorian obsession with ancient civilisations.35 All the tropes of the adventure novel come into play: the rewards and hardships

Introduction  25 of exploration, imperfect communication between two cultures, and internal conflict within the invading military. In analysing Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun within a Victorian context, we see that the novel functions as a guide to military strategy given desperate circumstances and seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Part II: reclamation The novels studied in Part II of this book can be considered more deliberate departures from the authors’ recognisable borrowings from Prescott in Part I. In extending this book’s line of inquiry in Part II to the trope of reclamation, I investigate the fanciful revision of history that celebrates the English in their Amerindian encounters and archaeological explorations and, in so doing, critiques or effaces the activities of the Spanish. As I see it, reclamation can take a variety of forms, either singly or in combination. It may involve the appropriation of gold and silver seized during the conquest, or precious minerals and metals subsequently held by a colony or republic; the re-distribution of land and other resources among the peasantry; the re-vitalisation of royal lineages; the rehearsal of ancient legends; the use of stirring symbols to forge a new identity; and the creation of a narrative which records the Amerindian past, and imagines a future free of Spanish domination. These ideas surface in Chapter 4 with my examination of Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, in Chapter 5 in my discussion of Henty’s Treasure of the Incas, and in Chapter 6, which focuses on Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star. In Chapter 4, we will observe how Haggard displaces the Spanish in his dramatic revision of history with Virgin of the Sun (1922), which takes place in Tavantinsuyu, the ancient name for the Inca empire, in the 1360s. After landing in the New World with the Inca Kari in the 1360s, English adventurer Hubert of Hastings takes up Kari’s cause and helps lead the campaign to restore him to his rightful position as Inca. In Virgin of the Sun, Haggard achieves a remarkable synthesis of the historical and the archetypal, as demonstrated in the novel’s dual narration and perspective. The first perspective is that of the twentieth-century English editor who acquires Hubert’s Black-letter manuscript, Viking sword, and Inca jewellery after they are extracted in the 1800s from an ancient Peruvian tomb. The second perspective comes from Hubert who, as King of the Chanca people, is writing his memoir as he awaits the invasion of Kari’s troops. The source of conflict between the men, once brothers-in-arms, is the beautiful princess Quilla, who is a Virgin of the Sun and thus forbidden to wed. In pursuing and marrying Quilla, Hubert makes a lifelong enemy of Kari. Hubert retreats to a mountain settlement with Quilla to jointly govern the Chanca people—fulfilling the English courtship fantasy through a marriage that not only takes place before the Spanish arrival in Peru in the 1520s but also is, for readers of 1922, surprisingly mixed-race and enduring. While Kari

26 Introduction ultimately defeats the Chanca, facilitating the expansion of the Inca empire, Haggard imagines that Hubert has left behind a fourteenth-century legacy and an Anglo-Chanca lineage that would endure for ages to come. In Chapter 5, I analyse nineteenth-century speculation and daring in Treasure of the Incas (1902), the last of several transatlantic adventures Henty published.36 This quest narrative takes place just after Latin America’s Wars of Independence in the 1800s and involves the young Prendergast brothers who set off from London to seek abandoned treasure in Peru. Harry, a ‘half pay’ lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and Bertie, an apprentice in the merchant marine, capitalise on the assistance and tireless labour of their Peruvian guide, Dias Otero, who has insight about Chinoo repositories of gold and Inca mines. As the two brothers follow clues to archaeological sites, they learn important lessons about the terrain, its resources and hazards, and the cultural conflict between Western travellers and indigenous peoples. They also face post-Independence political turmoil that makes them vulnerable to kidnapping and robbery, a scenario which readers of Malcolm Lowry’s masterpiece will recognise as the plot of Under the Volcano (1947) in Mexico, and Graham Greene’s Honorary Consul (1973) in Argentina. Meanwhile, the plot of looting precious ingots in Henty’s plot anticipates that of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo (1904). In Romance of Golden Star, the subject of Chapter 6, Griffith uses elements of fantasy to rewrite the history of conquest in Peru in the form of a memoir written by the Inca Vilcaroya. Chapter 6 focuses on the role of the Inca Vilcaroya and Francis Hartness, his brother-in-arms, and examines how lands and titles lost during Pizarro’s conquest are recovered through the novel’s Quechua-Anglo alliances and marriages in the 1890s. The novel begins with the reawakening of the Inca Vilcaroya who, along with his halfsister, Golden Star, had entered a death-like slumber in the 1530s, when the gold-hungry Spanish invaded Tavantinsuyu. Upon their reawakening 300 years later, Vilcaroya and Golden Star gradually assimilate to Western ways, abandoning their troth to one another, learning English, and finding their place in modern-day Peru. Vilcaroya reclaims his lost empire by enlisting English ‘gun for hire’ Francis Hartness in a successful coup against the Spanish American government. An English soldier of fortune, Hartness offers military advice, acquires arms, organises drills, and leads the Peruvians in the insurrection against their Spanish oppressors, which mirrors the actual involvement of British soldiers in Latin America’s Wars of Independence. Hartness is rewarded for his intervention with marriage to the wealthy, young, lovely, and obedient Princess Golden Star. Hartness and Golden Star’s union will join empires and, with their children, energise the Inca bloodline. Vilcaroya, meanwhile, marries his English nurse, Ruth Djama, displacing the Spanish with their cross-cultural marriage and embodying what Doris Sommer might view as a foundational fiction of the Latin American republic.

Introduction  27 Taken together, Henty, Haggard, and Griffith owe a debt to Prescott at the same time they have their own ways of retelling the stories of conquest and reclamation in the theatres of war in Mexico and Peru. Adopting a historicist lens, I’m able to draw upon diverse critical concepts to explore cultural dynamics on both sides of the Atlantic. In my interpretation of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s works as being in dialogue with Prescott, I argue their plots anticipate, for example, Doris Sommer’s ‘foundational fiction,’ at the same time illustrating Cain and Hopkin’s theory of informal imperialism, all the while performing ‘cultural work’ in the words of Jane Tompkins, to showcase English values of the 1800s and early 1900s. An historicist approach allows me to situate a text in its transatlantic framework—attentive to its publication and audience, the lessons it teaches, and the story it tells—prompting me to elaborate perhaps more from multiple angles on its ideological power than if I were to filter it through, for instance, Marxism or postcolonialism, or de-colonialism. In order to be logically consistent, these approaches—though resonating in today’s political landscape—might distort or ignore a significant characterisation, description or episode in the fiction under consideration. What I’ve learned in reading closely these Amerindian adventures is that they escape the margins of any one literary theory, though paradoxically they may anticipate it in their rhetoric and representation. While Parts I and II contextualise the three novels of conquest and three novels of reclamation in the study, the last instalment of this book, the Epilogue, registers an entire archive out of which these texts have been chosen. This archive of nearly 60 works of fiction, many of which are catalogued by bibliographer Cony Sturgis (1927) and writer and archivist Jessica Amanda Salmonson (2000), evinces a transatlantic obsession with Amerindian cultures. The Epilogue serves, then, as an invitation to scholars to delve into this body of nineteenth- and twentieth-century work, and to ascertain to what extent such Amerindian fictions may express or reinforce Britain’s informal imperialism, as articulated by historians Cain and Hopkins; to recognise literary borrowings given MacFarlane’s scholarship; to measure the ‘weight of plausibility’ as articulated in Luckhurst’s study of archaeological fiction; to assess, as Tompkins would have it, a novel’s cultural work; or to interrogate oppositions between imperial self and cultural other, as suggested by Deane. In this way, we may come to appreciate the complexity and ideological richness of a long-standing transatlantic discourse about the New World encounter and the Spanish conquest.

Notes 1 See Rippy’s British Investments in Latin America, 1822–1949 (1977). 2 I’ve learned of Jessie Reeder’s contribution to the scholarly conversation, The Forms of Informal Empire: Britain, Latin America, and Nineteenth-Century Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). As I make my way through,

28 Introduction this work looks to be a sophisticated and well-researched contribution to ­transatlantic studies. 3 Literary endeavours to satisfy the Victorian appetite for verisimilitude took many forms—from a footnote about history; to documentation of facts or impressions gathered while travelling; to careful observation of phenomena; to accurately conveying in dialogue the unique colloquialisms and utterances of various dialects; to furnishing data such as train schedules; to describing in detail architecture, furnishings, dress, and other objects. Haggard’s inclusion of a potsherd in the opening of She (1887), for example, is representative of the Victorian impulse to present artefacts as a ‘real’ basis for their stories. For more on the topic of realism in Victorian literature, see Caroline Levine’s ‘Victorian Realism’ (2012) in the Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (2012) and John Kucich’s ‘Scientific Ascendancy’ in the Companion to the Victorian Novel (2007). 4 I’m grateful to editorial readers at Edinburgh University Press for sharing the school of Prescott idea, which brilliantly captures the transatlantic dialogue between the historian and cultural producers drawing on his work. 5 See Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana for his 1596 description of El Dorado. Prescott’s influence was broad in scope, inspiring Henty, Haggard, and Griffith as well as English writers George Cubitt and Henry Gilbert who published condensed versions of Prescott’s histories for young British audiences. See George Cubitt’s The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (1848) and Pizarro, Or the Discovery and Conquest of Peru (1849). See also Henry Gilbert’s Conquerors of Peru Retold from Prescott’s ‘Conquest of Peru’ (1913). 6 I am thinking of critiques of Haggard’s and Henty’s adventure fiction, such as Wendy Katz’s Rider Haggard and the Fiction of Empire: A Critical Study of British Imperial Fiction (1987) and Mawuena Kossi Logan’s Narrating Africa: George Henty and the Fiction of Empire (2015). 7 The Indian Queen is attributed to both Dryden and his brother-in-law Robert Howard. Tears of the Indies is Phillips’ (1656) translation of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s widely disseminated book, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias [1552]. 8 Greer, Quilligan, and Mignolo’s edited volume Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires (2008) enters into dialogue with Maltby’s work by applying his ideas to Asia and the Near East. The editors contextualise the Black Legend by examining how the New World Encounter/European invasion operates within a global context, one that includes China and the Ottoman Empire. They write, ‘By seeking to revisit the processes of global colonial domination in the context of the European debate about Spain’s New World empire, we hope to locate a historical intersection for the creation of stereotypes, classifications, or what Foucault called “dividing practices”—practices of enormous ideological and practical consequence in forging, justifying, and maintaining early modern regimes of domination and exploitation, whose shifting combinations continue to shape how we think and act in the world we inhabit today. We approach this intersection via a rereading of the Black Legend about the Spanish conquest of the Americas, itself a manifestation of imperial conflicts within Christian Europe’ (3). 9 Pratt elaborates on the study of the equator in South America by French geographer and mathematician Charles de la Condamine and his fellow scientists in the 1730s. 10 Williams’s Peru, a Poem in Six Cantos (1784) elevates the historical figure of the priest Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566), author of Brevísima relación de la

Introduction  29 destrucción de las Indias (1552). In so doing, Williams demonstrates that the Spanish were divided in their policies in the Americas. 11 See Julie Carson’s ‘Trying Sheridan’s Pizarro’ in Texas Studies in Literature and Language (1996). Carson addresses the immense popularity of Sheridan’s play in the late eighteenth century, as well as how the work functions as an analogue for contemporary events in England in the 1790s. 12 On Barbauld, see the thoughtful analysis of Jessie Reeder, ‘A world without “Dependant Kings”: “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” and the forms of informal empire’ in Studies in Romanticism (2014). 13 Though English explorers such as Sir Walters Ralegh had entered the Amazon as early as the 1500s, scientific writing about the zoological, entomological, and botanical treasures of Latin America was popularised by Charles Darwin’s Voyage on The Beagle (1845), and, correspondingly, by the Amazonian treks in the 1840s of naturalists such as Robert Schomburgk, Alfred Wallace, and Henry Bates. 14 Joselyn Almeida and Rebecca Cole Heinowitz address how Robertson’s History of the Conquest [1777;1798] influenced late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature in, respectively, Reimagining the Transatlantic, 1780–1890 (2016) and Spanish America & British Romanticism 1777–1832 (2010). Their shared attention to Robertson provides an approach which is invaluable to my study of Prescott’s literary influence on the Victorian and early twentieth-century Amerindian fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith. 15 Although Robertson’s History of America [1777; 1798] is an eloquently written and oft-cited resource for literary authors, his research on the Spanish conquest was limited. This is arguably because, as Prescott himself observes, European archives had not been as widely available to Robertson in the late 1700s, as they were when the US historian conducted his research in the 1830s and 40s. 16 Perhaps the notoriety of Prescott’s birthplace in the colonial port Salem, associated with seventeenth-century witch hunting (and 12 miles from my Massachusetts childhood home), explains the historian’s inclination to probe the known ‘truths’ and ‘facts.’ 17 Washington Irving’s fuller response quoted below suggests that popular topics, such as the conquest, generated competition among writers, and the stakes were high: ‘I doubt whether Mr. Prescott was aware of the extent of the sacrifice I made. This was a favorite subject, which had delighted my imagination since I was a boy. I had brought home books from Spain to aid me in it, and looked upon it as the pendant to my “Columbus.” When I gave it up to him, I in a manner gave him my bread, for I depended upon the profit of it to recruit my waning finances. I had no other subject at hand to supply its place. I was dismounted from my cheval de bataille, and have never been completely mounted since. Had I accomplished that work, my whole pecuniary situation would have been altered’ (W Irving in P Irving 331). 18 See Prescott’s preface to History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). 19 McWilliams asserts that Prescott ‘had by 1839 committed himself to shaping his history of the earlier conquest of Mexico into “an epic in prose” with Hernando Cortés as “the hero of the piece”’ (McWilliams 45).   McWilliams goes on to quote Prescott to observe that ‘By shaping his immense research into an epic history, Prescott sought—as a willed act of the historian’s reason—consistently to demonstrate that the conquest of the vast Aztec empire by a few ironclad Spaniards had been a “grand drama of Western Progress,” a “daring, chivalrous enterprise” full of “stupendous achievements,” and exhibiting all that “extraordinary personal qualities in a hero can give”’ (McWilliams 46)   While conceiving of his history in the tradition of the epic, he drew from a multiplicity of sources and, thus, diverse viewpoints. Prescott laboured over the

30 Introduction narrative not merely to relate incidents, but to create a sense of nuance, suspense, and drama. See John McWilliams’s ‘The Epic in the Nineteenth Century’ in Jay Parini and Brett Millier’s edited volume, The Columbia History of American Poetry (1993). 20 In the introduction to Views—a collection of picturesque lithographs of the temples, palaces, and pyramids of the ancient Maya—Catherwood acknowledges Prescott’s argument about Mexicans as masterful builders and sophisticated artisans. 21 See Cohen’s edition of Christopher Columbus: The Four Voyages. (1969) 22 A Franciscan monk who worked closely with the Aztecs during the conquest, Bernardino Sahagún changed the way historians view the encounter. His transliterations from Nahuatl to Spanish were confiscated in 1578 by order of a Spanish royal decree, and they did not surface again until the 1800s. Prescott explains that Sahagún’s work, Historia Universal de Nueva España: presented a mass of curious information that attracted much attention among his brethren. But they [the Spanish clergy] feared its influence in keeping alive in the natives a too vivid reminiscence of the very superstitions, which it was the great object of the Christian clergy to eradicate. Sahagún had views more liberal than those of his order, whose blind zeal would willingly have annihilated every monument of art and human ingenuity, which had not been produced under the influence of Christianity. They refused to allow him the necessary aid to transcribe his papers, which he had been so many years in preparing, under the pretext that the expense was too great for their order to incur. (Prescott 52) Sahagún was able to complete and revise his 12-book history; the first 11 deal with Mexican history and life, and the last book centres on the conquest, though the 1585 edition remained in obscurity. In the late 1700s historiographer Juan Baptista Muñoz (1744–99) recovered Sahagún’s manuscript; it then made it into the hands of Carlos María de Bustamante (1774–1848), editor of Historia de la conquista de México por el P. Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún (1829) and Lord Kingsborough (1795–1837), compiler of Antiquities of Mexico (1831). 23 In reading an early draft of my work, communications studies scholar Liliana Gallegos argues that Europeans invented the white god mythology in the Americas. This is an interesting and important claim worth further investigation. 24 Though ancient in construction, this plot resurfaces recognisably in Rudyard Kipling’s Afghani romance adventure, ‘The Man Who Would be King’ [1888]. 25 On the topic of sacrifice as represented in Prescott, cultural critic Jesse Alemán sees development of a gothic narrative. He reads the horror the reader would presumably feel for the captive being led to his inescapable doom as the anxiety the United States began to feel in native resistance to colonial expansion and subjugation in the 1840s. Alemán writes, Before the second siege of Tenochtitlán, the story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico is romantic because Mexico’s Indians, save for the Tlascalans, an ostensibly independent republican nation, cannot muster an effective resistance to Spanish wile and warfare. Prescott’s debt to the Black Legend at first favors the Aztecs, for as Anna Brickhouse explains, the legend ‘cast the Spanish conquistadores as bloodthirsty, Catholic villains who preyed mercilessly upon the hemisphere’s indigenous races, who were simultaneously characterised as gentle and culturally advanced to an extent that ostensibly set them apart from the indigenous races of the United States’(Brickhouse 76). But, when the Aztecs unite under Guatemozin, whose bellicosity is a far cry from Montezuma’s ‘pusillanim-

Introduction  31 ity’ (Prescott 2: 296) the romance of indigenous adversaries darkens as their terrifying resistance inspires the gothic in the romantic historian whose greatest fear in the 1840s may very well be collective racial rebellion against Anglo imperialism. (Alemán 418) 26 Perhaps the most famous image is that by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru (1846), and currently housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 27 Historians estimate that one-fifth of Inca treasure made its way to Spain. I note that appropriation of Inca treasure is, for Prescott, a cultural liability and not an advantage. Prescott’s belief in self-reliance and advocacy of innovation emerges when he points out that, by gaining such a stupendous quantity of gold, the Spanish lost or compromised their spirit of industriousness, values satisfying to Prescott’s largely Protestant readers (966). 28 Cultural critic Jesse Alemán sees the gothic operating in Prescott’s scenes of sacrifice in History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), and reads these scenes allegorically for US relations with its colonised peoples. Similarly, Patricia Roylance interprets History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) analogically to argue that Prescott: identifies the United States as much with the conquered Incas as he does with the Spanish conquerors, even if his identification comes in the form of a defensive rejection of Incan economics prompted by his recognition of modern US counterparts to Incan economic philosophy. Furthermore, the subjugation of the conquistadors by the Spanish crown, a second layer to The Conquest of Peru’s narrative of imperial eclipse, changes the signification of Prescott’s discovery of resemblances between the United States and the Spanish. These resemblances, too, function to correlate the United States with an eclipsed empire. Both stages of Peru’s conquest—the Incas succumbing to the conquistadors and the conquistadors succumbing to the crown—inspire Prescott to fear for US property rights, facing the dual threat of a communist redistribution of wealth and a destabilizing abolition of slaveholders’ ‘property.’ (Roylance 48) 29 Fenn (1831–1909) contributed to the transatlantic literary conversation with his Peruvian adventure, The Golden Magnet (1883). 30 See Haggard’s 1926 autobiography, Days of My Life. 31 Haggard’s Heart of the World (1896) features the ill-fated love affair between a Mayan princess and an English engineer in nineteenth-century Mexico, and while the romance adventure is outside the scope of this book, it assuredly invites critical examination. 32 See my biography, ‘George Griffith,’ in The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature, edited by Dino Franco Felluga, Pamela K Gilbert, and Linda K Hughes (Blackwell, 2015). 33 Aguirre’s Informal Empire (2005) registers the nineteenth-century archaeological traffic between Mexico and Britain as an index of foreign interests in Mexico and its impact on Victorian culture. His work helps us to read critically the loot English adventurers get their hands on in fictions of the New World: the emerald-studded necklace from the Aztec court in Montezuma’s Daughter, the stunning set of jewels from the Tezcucan court in Henty’s By Right of Conquest, the wedges of Incan gold in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star, and the cache of golden ingots in Treasure of the Incas. My book British Representations of Latin America (2007) also adopts the concept of informal imperialism to investigate the intersection between British exploration of and investment in Latin America and literary production, as seen in Robert Schomburgk’s Hakluyt Society edition of Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana (1848), Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo (1904), Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost

32 Introduction World (1912), Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano (1947), and Graham Greene’s Americanist oeuvre (1936–1984). 34 See Jane Tompkins’s Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790–1860 (1986). 35 Victorian and early-twentieth-century readers were primed for the study of ancient civilisations for many reasons, among them the increase of literacy; the popularisation or abridgement of scientific and historical works; the development of disciplines such as archaeology; and the expansion of the British empire. Henty and Haggard targeted young readers in setting their romance adventures in eras long ago and places far away from Britain. Representative titles are Henty’s Cat of Bubastes: A Story of Ancient Egypt (1889) and Haggard’s Cleopatra: An Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis, the Royal Egyptian, as Set Forth by His Own Hand (1889) and biblical sagas such as Henty’s For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem (1888) and Haggard’s Pearl-Maiden: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem (1903). For a historicist perspective, see Kevin McGeough’s ‘Biblical Archaeology through a Victorian Lens’ (2014). 36 These transatlantic adventures include Henty’s Out on the Pampas: The Young Settlers, Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main, and The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru, about which I write in Chapter 5.   In references, dates included in brackets signal an early, but not necessarily original year of publication; likewise, locations may not be the original place of publication. In many cases I rely on public domain materials and open-access libraries, which do not consistently provide these bibliographic details. Nevertheless, I believe including this bracketed information is helpful for context and a starting point for scholars who wish to pursue original material.

References Aguirre, Robert. Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture. University Press of Minnesota, 2005. Alemán, Jesse. ‘The Other Country: Mexico, the United States, and the Gothic History of Conquest.’ American Literary History, vol. 18, no. 3, 2006, pp. 406–426. Almeida, Joselyn. Reimagining the Transatlantic, 1780–1890. Taylor & Francis, 2016. Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, A Poem [1812].’ A Celebration of Women Writers. https://digital​.library​.upenn​.edu​/women​/ barbauld​/1811​/1811​.html. Bhabha, Homi. Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994. Boorstin, Daniel. The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2012. Cain, PJ and AG Hopkins. British Imperialism 1699–2000. New York: Longman, 2002. Calderón de la Barca, Madame. [Frances]. Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country. [London 1843]. A Celebration of Women Writers. https://digital​.library​.upenn​.edu​/women​/calderon​/mexico​/mexico​.html. Carson, Julie. ‘Trying Sheridan’s Pizarro.’ Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 38, nos. 3/4, 1996, pp. 359–378. Catherwood, Frederick. ‘Monjas, Chichen Itza.’ In John L Stephens (Ed.), Incidents of Travel in Yucatan: Illustrated by 120 Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1843.

Introduction  33 ———. Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. [London 1844]. https://library​.si​.edu​/digital​-library​/book​/vie​wsan​cien​tmon​00cath. Cohen, JM, trans. Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus. New York: Penguin, 1969. Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Lost World [1912]. Ed. Ian Duncan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Conrad, Joseph. Nostromo [1904]. New York: Penguin, 1994. Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans [1826]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/940​/940​-h​/940​-h​.htm. Cubitt, George. Cortes, or the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico. London: John Mason, 1848. ———. Pizarro: Or the Discovery and Conquest of Peru. London: John Mason, 1849. Darwin, Charles. The Voyage of the Beagle [1845]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /944​/944​-0​.txt. Davenant, William. Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru [London 1658]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/ text​-idx​?c​=eebo2​;idno​=A81963​.0001​.001. Davenport, Richard. Lives of Individuals Who Raised Themselves From Poverty to Eminence or Fortune. London: Thomas Tegg, 1841. https://catalog​.hathitrust​ .org​/Record​/007679216. Deane, Bradley. Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Michael Shinagel. New York: WW Norton, 1994. Dorset, St. John. Montezuma and Other Poems. [London 1822]. https://babel​ .hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=nc01​.ark:​/13960​/t6ww8h85q​&view​=1up​&seq​=13​ &skin​=2021. Dryden, John. The Indian Emperour [1665]. Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Vol II. Edited by Walter Scott, esq. [1808]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/12166​/pg12166​.txt. Dryden, John, and Robert Howard. The Indian Queen. [1665]. Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Vol II [1808]. Ed. Walter Scott, esq. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/12166​/pg12166​.txt. Fenn, George Manville. George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life. London: Blackie and Sons, 1907. ———. The Golden Magnet [1883]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/24909​/24909​ -h​/24909​-h​.htm. Frohock, Richard. Heroes of Empire: The British Imperial Protagonist in America, 1596–1764. Newark: University of Delaware, 2004. Gilbert, Henry. The Conquerors of Peru, Retold from Prescott’s Conquest of Peru. Edinburgh: Riverside Press, 1913. https://ia800206​.us​.archive​.org​/19​/items​/con​ quer​orso​fper​u00gilb​/con​quer​orso​fper​u00gilb​.pdf. Greene, Graham. The Honorary Consul. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. Greer, Margaret R, Walter D Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan, Eds. Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Griffith, George. Men Who Made the Empire. [3rd ed. London: Pearson, 1899]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/63148​/63148​-0​.txt.

34 Introduction ———. The Romance of Golden Star. [London: FV White, 1897]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20173​/pg20173​.txt. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson, 1898]. Haggard, H Rider. Cleopatra: An Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis, the Royal Egyptian, as Set Forth by His Own Hand. [1889]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/2769​/2769​-0​.txt. ———. Days of My Life. Vol. II. [1926]. http://gutenberg​.net​.au​/ebooks03​/0300141​ .txt7​/21​/2009. ———. Heart of the World. Mattituck, NY: Amereon House [London, 1896]. ———. King Solomon’s Mines. [London: Cassell and Company, 1885]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/2166​/2166​-0​.txt. ———. Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. Pearl-Maiden: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem [1903]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/ebooks​/5175. ———. She. [1887] Daniel Karlin. Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ———. The Virgin of the Sun. [London: Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. Hakluyt, Richard, trans. Hernando De Soto. Virginia Richly Valued, by the Description of the Maine Land of Florida, Her Next Neighbour: Out of the Foure Yeeres Travell and Discoverie... of Don Ferdinando de Soto and Sixe Hundred Able Men in His Companie. London: F Kyngston for M Lownes, 1609. https://archive​.org​/details​/vir​gini​aric​hlyv​00ha​klgoog. Heinowitz, Rebecca Cole. Spanish America & British Romanticism, 1777–1832. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. Henty, George A. By Right of Conquest, or With Cortez in Mexico. [London: Blackie, 1891]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. ———. Cat of Bubastes: A Story of Ancient Egypt [1889]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/cache​/epub​/29756​/pg29756​.txt. ———. For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem [1888]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/21614​/pg21614​.txt. ———. Out on the Pampas: The Young Settlers. [London, 1876]. https://catalog​ .hathitrust​.org​/Record​/008689624. ———. The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru. [London, 1902]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/7070​/pg7070​.txt. ———. Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main [1883]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/19206​/pg19206​.txt. Irving, Pierre M. Life and Letters of Washington Irving. Vol. II. New York: GP Putnam’s Sons, 1882. Katz, Wendy. Rider Haggard and the Fiction of Empire: A Critical Study of British Imperial Fiction. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Keats, John. ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.’ [London: 1816, The Examiner]. https://www​.poetryfoundation​.org​/poems​/44481​/on​-first​-looking​ -into​-chapmans​-homer. Kingsborough, Lord. Antiquities of Mexico: Comprising Fac-Similes of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, Preserved in the Royal Libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial Library of Vienna; in the Vatican Library; in the Borgian Museum at Rome; in the Library of the Institute at Bologna; and

Introduction  35 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Together With the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix: With Their Respective Scales of Measurement and Accompanying Descriptions. The Whole Illustrated by Many Valuable Inedited Manuscripts. London: Printed by James Moyse, 1831. Kipling, Rudyard. The Man Who Would Be King. [Allahabad, India: A H Wheeler & Co., 1888]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/8147​/8147​-h​/8147​-h​.htm. Kucich, John. ‘Scientific Ascendancy.’ In Patrick Brantlinger and William B Thesing (Eds.), A Companion to the Victorian Novel. Malden: Blackwell, 2007. Las Casas, Bartolomé. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Or, a Faithful Narrative of the Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and All Manner of Cruelties, That Hell and Malice Could Invent, Committed by the Popish Spanish … [Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. Sevilla, 1552]. London: R Hewson, 1689. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20321​ /pg20321​.txt. Lee, Sidney, Ed. ‘Henty.’ Dictionary of National Biography. Second Supplement. Vol. II Faed-Muybridge, pp. 249–250. New York: Macmillan, 1912. Levine, Caroline. ‘Victorian Realism.’ In Deidre David (Ed.), Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 94–106. Levi-Strauss, Claude. ‘The Structural Study of Myth.’ In David Richter (Ed.), The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. Logan, Mawuena Kossi. Narrating Africa: George Henty and the Fiction of Empire. New York: Routledge, 2015. Lohmann Villena, Guillermo. ‘Notes on Prescott’s Interpretation of the Conquest of Peru.’ The Hispanic American Historical Review. Vol. 39 Feb 1959. pp. 46–80. Lowry, Malcolm Lowry. Under the Volcano [1947]. New York: Harper Collins, 2000. Luckhurst, Roger. ‘The Essay: Bram Stoker.’ BBC Sounds. Radio 3. 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​.co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. MacFarlane, Robert. Originality and Plagiarism in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Maltby, Walter. The Black Legend in England: The Development of Anti-Spanish Sentiment 1558–1660. Durham: Duke University Press, 1971. Maybank, Thomas. ‘The Body Was Allowed to Remain Tied to the Stake.’ In Henry Gilbert, The Conquerors of Peru, Retold From Prescott’s Conquest of Peru. London: George G Harrap & Company, 1913, p. 192. https://dmr​.bsu​.edu​ /digital​/collection​/HistChldBks​/id​/41826. McGeough, Kevin. ‘Biblical Archaeology Through a Victorian Lens.’ Biblical Archaeology Review, vol. 40, no. 1, 2014, pp. 26, 67. McMahon, Deirdre. ‘“Quick, Ethel, Your Rifle!”: Portable Britishness and Flexible Gender Roles in GA Henty’s Books for Boys.’ Studies in the Novel (Winter 2010). McWilliams, John. ‘The Epic in the Nineteenth Century.’ In Jay Parini and Brett Millier (Eds.), The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Millais, John Everett. Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru [1846]. London: Victoria and Albert Museum. https://collections​.vam​.ac​.uk​/item​/O80546​/pizarro​-seizing​-the​ -inca​-of​-oil​-painting​-millais​-john​-everett/.

36 Introduction O’Brien, Terry. Fair Gods and Feathered Serpents: A Search for Ancient America's Bearded White God. Bountiful, UT: Horizon Publishers, 1997. Phillips, John. Tears of the Indies [Trans. Bartolomé de las Casas Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias]. London Printed by I. C. for Nath. Brook, at the Angel in Cornhil. 1656. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/e​/eebo​/A35553​.0001​.001​?view​=toc. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Ralegh, Sir Walter. Discoverie of Guiana. Ed. Robert Schomburgk. London: Hakluyt Society, 1848. Ramirez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. ———. ‘George Griffith.’ In Dino Franco Felluga, Pamela K Gilbert, and Linda K Hughes (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature. Malden: Blackwell, 2015. Reeder, Jessie. ‘A World Without ‘Dependant Kings’: “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” and the Forms of Informal Empire.’ Studies in Romanticism. vol. 53, no. 4, 2014, pp. 561–590. ———. The Forms of Informal Empire: Britain, Latin America, and NineteenthCentury Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. Rippy, James Fred. British Investments in Latin America, 1822–1949. New York: Arno Press, 1977. Robertson, William. History of America. Printed for Samuel Campbell, by Robert Wilson, M.DCC.XCVIII [1798; 1777]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=evans​ ;idno​=N25924​.0001​.001. Roylance, Patricia. Eclipse of Empires: World History in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013. Sahagún, Bernardino. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Vols. I–XII. Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J.O. Anderson (Eds., Trans., notes and illus.). Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah Press, 1982. Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s Lost Race Checklist, 2000. https://www​.rohpress​.com​/lost​_race​_check​_guide​.html. Scott, Thomas. An Experimentall Discoverie of Spanish Practices or the Counsell of a Well-Wishing Souldier [London, 1623]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=eebo​;idno​ =A11786​.0001​.001. Sheridan, Richard. Pizarro: A Tragedy in Five Acts [1799]. https://hdl​.handle​.net​ /2027​/chi​.65588647. Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Stephens, John. Ed., Incidents of Travel in Yucatan: Illustrated by 120 Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1843. Sturgis, Cony. The Spanish World in English Fiction: A Bibliography. Boston: FW Faxon Co., 1927. https://babel​.hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=mdp​.39015033681134​ &view​=1up​&seq​=37​&skin​=2021.

Introduction  37 Tennyson, Lord Alfred. ‘Charge of the Light Brigade.’ [1854]. https://www​ .poetryfoundation​.org​/poems​/45319​/the​-charge​-of​-the​-light​-brigade. Ticknor, George. The Life of William Prescott. New York: Lippincott, 1904. Todorov, Tzvetan. Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Perennial Library, 1982. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Treaty Between Spain and Portugal Concluded at Tordesillas. June 7, 1494. https:// avalon​.law​.yale​.edu​/15th​_century​/mod001​.asp. Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days [1873]. Translated by G M Towle. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/103​/103​-0​.txt. Wallace, Lew. The Fair God, or the Last of the ‘Tzins’: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. New York: Grosett & Dunlap Publishers, 1873. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/43340​/43340​-h​/43340​-h​.htm. Williams, Helen Maria. Peru, a Poem in Six Cantos [1784]. https://www.gutenberg. org/cache/epub/11054/pg11054.txt. ———. Letters on the French Revolution, Written from France [1790]. https://quod. lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;idno=N18502.0001.001.

Part I

Conquest

1

The Rewards of Adventure in Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico (1891)

George Alfred Henty (1832–1902) lived an action-packed life, travelled all over the world, and gained experiences and insights that would enrich the 100 novels he published in a highly successful career. Born to a well-to-do family—his father was a stockbroker and owned coal mining property in Wales—Henty left Cambridge University to serve in the British Army during the Crimean war, tasked with provisioning and superintending wards for the sick and wounded (Fenn, 18). During this formative experience, Henty saw first-hand the toll of war. He lost his brother, who served with him, to cholera, which spread throughout army camps. After Henty’s own illness and convalescence, he was sent to Italy where, based on expertise in the commissariat, he helped organise legion hospitals; there he came to write about Giuseppe Garibaldi’s campaign to unify Italy in 1859 and the country’s concerted resistance to Austrian armies (Lee, 249–250). In the 1860s, as a special correspondent for The Standard, Henty travelled extensively to cover news about the opening of the Suez Canal; in the 1870s, he witnessed the Anglo-Ashanti wars, the Carlist wars over succession in Spain, and joined the royal tour in India of Edward, Prince of Wales (Lee, 249–250). A widower early in his marriage and father of four, Henty first fashioned tales of adventure for his own young children, and later published imperial romance and historic fiction for a rapidly growing audience.1 While his literary rivals H Rider Haggard (1856–1925) and George Griffith (1857–1906) were to publish their own Amerindian romances, Henty was, of the three novelists, the first to popularise the plot line of the Spanish conquest in a strategically timed publication to herald the quadricentennial of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. In so doing, Henty and his counterparts extend a transatlantic literary dating back to accounts of Sir Frances Drake’s exploits in Francis Fletcher’s The World Encompassed (1628); Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana (1596); Richard Hakluyt’s translations of European chronicles of exploration in the late 1500 and early 1600s; theatrical pieces such as John Dryden’s Indian Emperour (1665), and St. John Dorset’s Montezuma, A Tragedy (1822); and British works of art such as Frederick Catherwood’s Views of Ancient DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-3

42 Conquest Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1844), all of which brought to life Amerindian cultures and landscapes for Victorian audiences. Henty contributes to this discourse with several transatlantic fictions published from the 1870s to 1902.2 Henty wrote adventure and historical fiction about European invasion, exploration, and colonisation of the Americas—stories set variously in the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina—all of which create their own context for By Right of Conquest (1891), the focus of this study. Of these transatlantic adventures, Under Drake’s Flag, published in 1883, demands brief commentary because it showcases the rewards of adventure; it reflects a broader transatlantic conversation about the Anglo-Hispano rivalry in the Americas to which Henty contributed; and, with its p ­ ortrait of Drake and the English privateer, the novel illustrates the nineteenth-century strategy of borrowing from or rewriting source materials.3 Taking place in the 1570s, Under Drake’s Flag follows the lives of English teenagers Ned Hearne and Gerald Summers who join the crews of the historically real brothers, Francis and John Drake, captains of, respectively, the Pacha and The Swanne—a significant name and one to which I shall return—and commandeers of several Spanish prizes. After a storm, one of these ships smashes into the rocky embankment of Puerto Rico, and the boys leap off the foundering vessel to swim with great labour through the treacherous breakers. Once on land, they learn to adapt to difficult circumstances, go into ­hiding and then carefully insinuate themselves into new social structures. With no way home in a Spanish settlement hostile to the English, the boys take shelter in the mountains with a loosely bound community of Cimarrons and Amerindian peoples; an opportunity comes 18 months later for them to secure passage on The Maria, which brings them back to England. At this point, the young Englishmen are enriched by their experiences in the Caribbean and wealthy with shares allocated to them by the Drake ­expedition.4 Given Drake’s success in attacking Spanish galleons, seizing valuable goods such as wine and cloth, and plundering Amerindian treasure in the Caribbean and Spanish Main, accounts related to his voyages were irresistible to Victorian audiences who saw the seeds of the British empire in his exploits. Henty’s portrait of the infamous privateer furnishes support for Robert MacFarlane’s critical observation that nineteenth-century authors borrowed with frequency from the annals of history. I would like to expound upon MacFarlane’s book, Originality and Plagiarism, to argue that Henty refashions history to suit his Victorian audience, drawing upon Drake’s exploits as an example of English moral and tactical superiority in the imperial arena.5 Yet writing about Drake was a straightforward proposition, as Henty would largely follow the existing contours of history. With By Right of Conquest, the author purposefully moves the narrative lens back in time before the age of the buccaneer and colours the scene of the encounter with his own palette.

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  43 By the time Henty published By Right of Conquest in 1891, his audiences were schooled in the history of the Americas, culturally sophisticated, and enmeshed in the intricate web of the British empire, eager for a new adventure novel in a fresh geography. With his eye on Mexico, Henty set out to create a young English hero who would face seemingly insurmountable odds in thrilling locales, yet would overcome them in displays of daring and resourcefulness. Through Roger Hawkshaw’s perspective, the novel brings to life the personalities and episodes of the Spanish conquest and, in so doing, captures the grandeur of the Aztec civilisation, from the minute figures of its pictographs and feathered adornments of its nobles to the grand geometries of its stone pyramids. The quest for wealth and treasure begins in 1516, when we find young Roger cruising the turquoise waters of the Caribbean on the English ship, The Swan. The ship’s name is meant to sound familiar and evocative to readers for, as mentioned, Henty references the Elizabethan Swanne, a historically real vessel, in Under Drake’s Flag. Henty makes intertextual moves like this one to engage readers of his different yet related works. Having entered forbidden waters of the Caribbean, Hawkshaw and his mates successfully evade pursuit by a Spanish galleon, only to shipwreck on the shores of the Yucatan. Hawkshaw is the ship’s sole survivor. Like Daniel Defoe’s hero Robinson Crusoe—arguably the most famous castaway of English literature— Hawkshaw finds himself marooned in Mexico. But unlike the seasoned Crusoe who scavenges from the wreck tools, clothing, food, and books, the youth has nothing but a knife with him when he is flung from sea to shore. Through a series of encounters, first with the Maya, later with the Aztec peoples, and finally with the Spanish, Henty makes clear that the teenager will have to survive by his wits and ability to adapt. Taken in first by a Maya cacique, or chief, Hawkshaw is received as if a god and is waited upon by Malinche, an intelligent and resourceful Mexican maiden who helps him acclimate to his perplexing circumstances. Hawkshaw then travels inland to Anahuac and is welcomed into (the historically real) Lord Cacama’s Tezcucan court, where he comes to appreciate the art, beauty, and prosperity of this culture and its relation to Montezuma’s vast empire.6 It is in Anahuac that Hawkshaw meets the Aztec emperor-priest Montezuma, where he bears witness to the bravery of Mexican peoples in their tireless resistance to Hernán Cortés’s steel-clad army, and where he meets his future wife, the Tezcucan princess Amenche.7 Throughout his adventures, Hawkshaw serves as a lens for English audiences which allows them to immerse themselves in a time and place that was distant both geographically and historically. While living in Mexico for six years, Hawkshaw adopts the practices of the Mayan and Tezcucan peoples. Depending on circumstances, the youth wears different fashions, acquires new languages, and adopts distinct identities. Changes in appearance are nicely captured by the illustrations of the novel by WS Stacey (1846–1929),

44 Conquest as in Figure 1.1, which depicts Hawkshaw, dressed in tribal garb, kneeling in front of Cortés, ‘Roger falls on his knee before Cortez.’ When taken into captivity on the coast, Hawkshaw learns Maya and then acquires Nahuatl, the language spoken in Montezuma’s Aztec empire. Once the Spanish have invaded, he takes his place among Cortés’s troops and

Figure 1.1 ‘Roger falls on his knee before Cortez.’ WS Stacey, illustrator. Courtesy of Huntington Library, San Marino CA.

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  45 learns to speak Castilian well enough to serve as an interpreter. As a Henty protagonist, Hawkshaw sizes up the situation, sits tight, bucks up, or acts as needed—all the while safely navigating a foreign land and handling unforeseen events, with his Englishness intact. In fact, perhaps most importantly for the novel’s Victorian readers, Hawkshaw fully reclaims his Englishness upon his return home, enlightened by discovery and hardship and, indeed, better for it. Literary critic Deidre McMahon addresses this phenomenon with her astute conception of ‘portable Britishness’—the idea that British characters bring their values, knowledge, and, to varying degrees, their identity wherever they go.8 With this kind of characteristic pluck, Hawkshaw learns when to embrace the attribution of godhood and when to reject it; how to switch sides in war; when to guard or abandon the spoils of conquest; and how to ingratiate himself into Mexican society and marry into nobility.9 When faced with the Aztec ritual of human sacrifice, Hawkshaw is circumspect, understanding full well that he is the outsider and his ability to intervene has reasonable limits. While Henty’s exploits abroad must have contributed to the tone and flair of his hero’s adventures, neither they nor Henty’s imagination would have provided sufficient detail for the historically layered and culturally engrossing aspects of By Right of Conquest. I surmise many situations that Hawkshaw negotiates are informed by Henty’s reading of History of the Conquest of Mexico, and perhaps one of Prescott’s sources, Lord Kingsborough and his magnificent reproduction of Aztec codices, Antiquities of Mexico (1831). I’m thinking particularly of Henty’s description of the codex that reports Hawkshaw’s arrival to the King of Tezcuco: It consisted of two thin boards, within which was a sheet of paper. It contained a number of paintings and signs, of which Roger could make nothing … The merchants themselves were only able to gather the general contents of this picture dispatch, but the slave who had drawn the one sent forward interpreted every sign and colour; for Roger found that colours, as well as signs, had their meaning. He learned from the merchants that this picture writing was a science in itself, and that it needed years of instruction and labour to acquire it. In every town and village there were certain persons skilled in the art, so that messages of all kinds could be sent to the capital, and orders and instructions received. The national archives were entirely written in this manner, and in the temples were immense stores of these documents, affording information of every event of interest, however minute, in the history of the people. (Henty) While the record of Hawkshaw in a Mexican codex is sheer fancy, Henty’s investment in its details and uses lend to it what Roger Luckhurst calls in his study of archaeological fiction the ‘weight of plausibility’ (2012). As

46 Conquest Prescott references Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico, it’s possible Henty perused one of these remarkable volumes, or one of the codices acquired by the British Museum, which the novelist frequented to conduct research.10 I say this because in the above passage, Henty identifies the p ­ urpose of these manuscripts to record history and the implementation of a complex system of vibrantly coloured pictographs. In perusal of Volume II of Antiquities of Mexico, one can see drawings of Aztec deities and animals—such as ocelots, parrots, and monkeys—along with scenes of tribal warfare, human sacrifice, and the arrival of white-robed missionaries and Spanish soldiers. The codex records as well the Spanish destruction of Aztec temples, forced conversion of Mexicans to Catholicism, and horrific scenes of torture. One representative scene from Mexican codices collected and compiled by Kingsborough—what I call ‘the arrival of the Spanish’—appears in Figure 1.2. Henty’s allusion to Mexican codices would lend a touch of authenticity to his story and help underwrite the informal empire that, as critic Robert Aguirre has observed, Britain was building in Latin America in the 1800s after its independence from Spain. By Right of Conquest helps to advertise Mexico’s archaeological riches, in this case highly treasured codices which depict life before, during, and after Spain’s conquest of Mexico. Before expounding on this cultural collision, however, we must map out Hawkshaw’s transatlantic crossing, how it recalls other English voyages, and how the youth finds himself in the heart of Montezuma’s empire at the moment of crisis.

Figure 1.2 [The arrival of the Spanish]. Edward Kingsborough. Antiquities of Mexico. (1831). Courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries.

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  47

Transatlantic adventures By Right of Conquest begins with commentary on the early-sixteenth-century rivalry between England and Spain, and the Catholic Church’s controversial authority in the Americas. The first of many moves to historically anchor By Right of Conquest is when Henty asserts in the preface, While history is silent as to the voyage of the Swan, it is recorded by the Spaniards that an English ship did, in 1517 or 1518, appear off the port of San Domingo, and was fired at by them, and chased from the islands. (Henty) Henty’s observation closely follows Captain James Burney’s A Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea and Pacific Ocean (1816), which recounts England’s sixteenth-century efforts to get in on European trade with Caribbean islanders. Burney explains that: In the year 1517 or 1518, some Spaniards in a caravela going from St. Domingo to the Island Porto Rico, to take in a lading of cassava, were surprised at seeing a ship there of about 250 tons, armed with cannon, which did not appear to belong to the Spanish Nation; and on sending a boat to make inquiry, she was found to be English. (Burney 32) The Swan in By Right of Conquest, as in Burney’s account, makes a clandestine voyage to the Caribbean in about 1516, armed with cannon, arms, and provisions; both voyages anticipate Drake’s historically real Swanne of the 1570s, thus lending substance and plausibility to Henty’s plot of a very early English presence in these contested waters. At the core of debates surrounding New World exploration and trade was the Treaty of Tordesillas. Authored in the 1490s and revised in the 1500s to extend its reach, the treaty authorised Spain and Portugal to appropriate ‘unclaimed’ territory in the West Indies, thereby prohibiting other nations—namely the English—in the Southern seas.11 Early in the story, we find Roger and his cousin Dorothy debating papal authority, an exchange that creates a sense of intrigue about the Swan’s forbidden voyage and, true to the instructive nature of the Henty adventure novel, educates readers about how England came to be closed off from trade. Roger reflects, ‘But I do not see why Spain and Portugal should claim all the Indies, East and West, and keep all others from going there.’ ‘But the pope has given the Indies to them,’ Dorothy said. ‘I don’t see that they were the pope’s to give,’ Roger replied. ‘That might do for the king, and his minister Wolsey, and the bishops; but when in time all the people have read, as we do, Master Wycliffe’s

48 Conquest Bible, they will come to see that there is no warrant for the authority the pope claims; and then we may, perhaps, take our share of these new discoveries.’ (Henty) This is a consequential moment, for it encourages young readers to interrogate, as Roger does, the basis for imperial authority, especially that of a rival European power. To what extent are new lands sovereign and open to trade? What authority does the Catholic Church have in lands where that religion is unknown? These are the kinds of questions Roger seeks to understand. While obviously mindful of England’s Catholicism, when Roger says, ‘all the people read, as we do, Master Wycliffe’s Bible,’ the youth identifies with a growing literacy that empowers the individual, rather than a pope or monarch. Henty here depicts the emerging Protestant disposition in the 1500s, as Roger argues the pope has no authority to give away lands that are not his to give, a perspective shared by Roger’s father, Captain Reuben Hawkshaw. Knowing full well the risk, Captain Hawkshaw contemplates the high return if the Swan’s venture to the Caribbean were successful. He tells his English stakeholders: by all I hear the number of islands is large, and there are reports that there lies, farther west, a great land from which it is they procure, chiefly, the gold and silver and precious things. Now it seems to me that, were the matter secretly conducted, so that no news could be sent to Spain, a ship might slip out and cruise there, dealing with the natives, and return richly stored with treasures. (emphasis mine, Henty) This ‘great land’ is Mexico, whose mineralogical wealth gave some basis to the legend of El Dorado, a fabulous place never definitively found but rumoured to be in regions as disparate as Tavantinsuyu, Guiana, and Anahuac. El Dorado, as its name suggests, was associated with Amerindian peoples who adorned themselves with gold and precious jewels, and nobles whose coffers were rich with treasure. It was a famed city that sparked the imagination of Renaissance explorer Sir Walter Ralegh in Discoverie of Guiana (1596), Romantic poet Helen Maria Williams in Peru: A Poem in Six Cantos (1784), and Henty with his last novel, Treasure of the Incas (1902). After associating Hawkshaw’s voyage with the quest for El Dorado, Henty then delivers to his readers—perhaps future sailors, mercantilists, engineers, and financiers—practical instruction on the steps needed for the long journey across the Atlantic. First, in a characteristically English approach to mercantilism, the Swan’s voyage is underwritten and the risk is shared. Then the ship is caulked and outfitted with new sails, quality provisions are bought and stowed, items of trade purchased, and a hearty crew is hired in the quest for Amerindian treasure. But even if treasure were not

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  49 discovered, the New World was known to be rich in natural resources: coffee, cocoa, pineapple, potatoes, precious woods, as well as mines of silver, copper, and gold. All bodes well for Captain Hawkshaw’s enterprise until, while evading Spanish ships and riding out a storm, the Swan smashes into the reefs of the Yucatan, leaving the orphaned Roger Hawkshaw to fend for himself and to forge a new identity in Mexico.

Playing off Prescott With an understanding of the back story and transatlantic context for Hawkshaw’s arrival in the New World, we can move to Henty’s sustained correlation between Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and By Right of Conquest (1891). Henty joined many late-nineteenth-century writers who closely read Prescott and borrowed from the famed historian in what was a fairly common practice of the time, a point to which I shall return. By Right of Conquest opens with warm praise for History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843]: Fortunately, the details of the extraordinary expedition of Cortez were fully related by contemporary writers, several of whom were eyewitnesses of the scenes they described. It was not necessary for me, however, to revert to these; as Prescott, in his admirable work on the conquest of Mexico, has given a summary of them; and has drawn a most vivid picture of the events of the campaign. The book far surpasses in interest any volume of fiction, and I should strongly recommend my readers to take the first opportunity that occurs of perusing the whole story, of which I have only been able to touch upon the principal events. (emphasis mine, Henty) Here, reference to History of the Conquest functions as a form of cultural capital, for in invoking Prescott, adventure novelists such as Henty could elevate their fiction by demonstrating they had researched historical figures, settings, and cultural practices. Despite this kind of rhetorical move—which openly identifies one source for By Right of Conquest—Richard Huttenback levels the charge that Henty’s writing, generally, is ‘close to plagiarism’ (65– 73). I counter this assertion by looking at MacFarlane’s study of originality and his argument that borrowing and copying were common practices in the Victorian period. When Henty recommends to his audience that they read Prescott’s history in its entirety, he makes what Robert MacFarlane would call a self-conscious gesture, signalling to his readers the idea that this tale comes from somewhere, ‘to perform a narrative of origins’ (MacFarlane 14). Contemporary reviewers of Henty’s fiction knew what they were reading was repurposed history, and this did not detract from Henty’s ability to invite the reader into the experiences of the protagonist. Through the adventures of Roger Hawkshaw—filtered, as they are, by Henty through the lens

50 Conquest of Prescott—we meet intriguing historical personalities such as Cortés, the besieged emperor Montezuma, the intelligent and ambitious Malinche, the resolute Tezcucan king Cacama, the Spanish castaway Jeronimo Aguilar, and we come to observe the Mexican association of Hawkshaw with the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. Yet these parallels are sometimes subtle or purposefully complicated by the characters themselves, thereby demanding from the reader a cultural literacy that goes beyond simple oppositions of Amerindian and European; self and other; insider and outsider; or, indeed, historical truth and fiction. Now, let us investigate the transatlantic discourse into which By Right of Conquest can be productively placed.

Reception of Henty’s fiction It is this transatlantic discourse with other authors, artists, and historians, along with a knack for tapping into topical interests of Victorian Britain, that help account for Henty’s acclaim as a fiction writer. This is particularly true of By Right of Conquest, which, as noted, was released to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the New World encounter. By the time the Amerindian romance was published, Henty had excelled in establishing a faithful, young adult readership. William Blackie, Henty’s London publisher, asserts that Henty is ‘the most popular boys’ author of his day’ (Arnold 17). Similarly, the New Editions columnist in The Academy & Literature (1902) takes inventory of the author’s career to conclude: Mr Henty knew, perhaps better than any other writer of our day, what it is the average youth likes to read about. Whether setting his scenes in distant times or building up a story around the incidents of the latest campaigns, he was able to hold the attention of his readers by a ­succession of interesting and exciting episodes. (620) Henty’s winning formula was to excavate chronicles and episodes of history for his plots and to afford his characters the opportunity to reckon with what it means to be English while abroad. Yet recent literary scholars largely denigrate Henty’s contribution to Victorian culture, and the body of criticism available is disproportionate to the author’s considerable literary production and influence. Notable exceptions include Ross Forman’s concise and illuminating biography of Henty (2015), Rachel Johnson’s A Complete Identity: The Youthful Hero in the Work of G.A. Henty and George MacDonald (2014), and Joseph Bristow’s Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man’s World (2016). Scholars such as Guy Arnold, Dennis Butts, Brooke Allen, Deirdre McMahon, and Angela Woollacott critique Henty for his cultural views but recognise his influence.12 In his biographical sketch of the novelist, Forman convincingly argues that ‘the relative lack of critical interest in the period’s popular

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  51 literature has meant that Henty’s position as a major cultural figure is often overlooked.’ Supporting this view is The Guardian’s commentator Brian Thompson, who writes on the centennial of Henty’s death that, not all the adolescent longing Henty drew from his readers has dissipated completely. Reading any Henty novel today, there is a tiny thread that leads back to where in England the heart once beat. It is an unfashionable judgment to make and an uncomfortable one, but for anyone interested in Victoria’s reign, the test of GA Henty is in the reading. This is a critical point and one I will pursue in analysing By Right of Conquest. Although set in the 1500s, the work very much expresses values and ideas relevant to Victorian Britain, particularly its cult of acquisition, construction of manhood, fascination with ‘the exotic,’ and intrigue with mixed-race romance. I agree with Forman, who holds that Henty is: one of the most significant and popular writers of adventure fiction in the late Victorian era. Although his work is often dismissed as blindly pro-imperial and racist, a closer study of Henty reveals a crucial engagement with Britain’s global presence and bears witness to popular literature’s important role in shaping Victorian culture and politics. Forman’s commentary prompts a brief note about a trend in recent literary criticism, which is to apply today’s values, knowledge sets, and attitudes to the past. This is the problem of presentism and is exacerbated by generalisations about Henty’s massive volume of historical fiction set, variously, in Ancient Egypt, the Holy Lands, and the Ancient Mediterranean; during the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Wars of Religion and Succession, the Napoleonic Era; at the height of colonialism in India, and when war erupted in the nineteenth century throughout Europe and Russia. While I recognise the controversial representations addressed by other scholars, I posit the portrait of Mexico is complex and nuanced in By Right of Conquest.13 This is perhaps owing to Henty’s use of Prescott who, in History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), drew from multiple and contemporary accounts, and from Spanish and Mexican points of view, to get as many perspectives as possible in the narration of encounter, invasion, war, and colonisation. Given the number of books that Henty published, his popularity, and the global scope of his writing, the scholarly reticence about his contribution to Victorian literature is perplexing, and I hazard the opinion that a few factors may be at play. Academic study of Henty’s work may be hindered by the current attractiveness of his historical fiction to home-schooling populations with a fundamentalist Christian perspective.14 Home-schoolers’ immersion in some, or all, of his tales—entire curricula are designed around his books— perhaps lowers the estimation of his work by literary critics.15 Another reason for the exclusion of Henty in academic discourse may be that his work is

52 Conquest formulaic. However, Forman’s insights are yet again edifying, as he astutely questions whether, as we do, ‘Victorians uniformly shared the same investment in aesthetics that characterises elite reading practices.’ Forman argues that ‘a formula might be comforting to readers of popular fiction, in the way it is with fairy tales or works aimed at very young children.’ Henty’s popularity for Forman ‘lies in his near universal appeal, rather than uniqueness,’ an insight that corresponds with contemporary commentary on Henty’s fiction and a point to which I shall return. First, however, I note that his influence on young readers in the late Victorian period and beyond can be measured by book sales, outlets of circulation, and contemporary commentaries. Surely this impact on a substantial Victorian readership makes Henty’s work worthy of critical attention. After Henty’s death in 1902, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art registered the author’s achievement of publishing over 100 books—mostly imperial adventures and historic fiction: Mr Henty’s books are not literature as Mr Meredith’s or Mr Hardy’s novels are, but they are the best produced for a particular market. He was for a long time the doyen of writers for the young … Mr Henty had a knack of rousing the interest of the reader on the first page and of keeping it alive to the last. The sentiments of his books are irreproachable, and he had that best of gifts in writers for youth of being able to impart knowledge without forgetting for an instant that his first business was to amuse. (emphasis mine, vi) Regarding the imparting of knowledge and amusement as the business of the author, the Saturday Review invokes one of Horace’s principles of criticism. For Horace, poetry—let’s say literature more broadly—should both delight and instruct.16 In my view, reading a Henty novel involves familiarity with Victorian literary conventions and recognising the specific lessons and knowledge he sought to convey about life in lands far away and in times past. This idea resonates today if we consider, for example, the endurance of fantasies such as CS Lewis’s Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter, series that have—through the use of patterns and formulas—engaged multiple generations and diverse audiences. Transatlantic readers and reviewers enjoyed and expected formulaic fiction from Henty, and his adherence to such literary moves has kept the author’s books in print. Arnold’s oft-cited Held Fast for England: G.A. Henty, Imperialist Boys’ Writer estimates that in each year of Henty’s popularity— the 1880s to the early 1900s—150,000 copies were sold of the novelist’s work. Twenty-five million books by Henty were sold before 1914, making available his adventure and historical fiction in the home, the library, school, and church (Arnold 17). According to McMahon, Henty’s corpus of novels was ‘Circulated in libraries, purchased by parents, awarded

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  53 as Sunday school and boys’ club prizes, and read as history textbooks for the Civil Service exams’ (320). Joseph Bristow points out that copies of Henty’s published works were rationed because they were in such high demand. While reflecting on Henty’s incorporation of histories and military concepts, Bristow also observes that in Henty’s writing, ‘empire reads as an adventure’ and ‘passages of his prose read like instruction for cadet corps’ (147). Bradley Deane, too, argues in his study of Victorian masculinity that ‘The imperial adventure novel, made popular by GA Henty, George Manville Fenn, and others, populated by manly heroes and set in hostile territory (India and elsewhere) was a perfect vehicle for promoting Empire’ (2). Added to this scholarly conversation is Angela Woollacott’s recognition that colonial populations were an important part of Henty’s readership, young men and women who could imagine themselves playing roles in his stories set abroad (60). Contemporary reviewers of By Right of Conquest admired Henty’s narration of Hawkshaw’s experience in Mexico, in particular the novel’s cultural allusiveness and historical grit. The Academy & Literature asserts, ‘By Right of Conquest is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful historical tale that Mr Henty has yet published.’ The Saturday Review praises By Right of Conquest by noting that ‘Prescott’s brilliant work has of course supplied Mr Henty with the richest material of romantic history, yet it must be admitted that Mr Henty’s skill has never been more convincingly displayed than in this admirable and ingenious story’ (569). To be sure, Prescott informs Henty’s characterisation of Hawkshaw as a ‘white god,’ and his association with the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl, the Spanish castaway Aguilar, and the Mexican interpreter Malinche. But, as we will see, Henty is careful not to paint a portrait of Hawkshaw as resembling Cortés. His novel insists, ultimately, on Hawkshaw’s Englishness, and advocates a softer touch than the Spanish in the imperial encounter.

The ‘white god,’ Quetzalcoatl After he is cast away in the tropics of the Yucatan, Roger is taken in by the Maya and housed by a cacique, or chieftain. It is among the Maya, armed only with his jackknife, that Roger’s transformation begins from adolescent sailor to ‘supernatural being,’ to cultural mediator, an individual who purposefully integrates aspects of a different society into his own ways of being. Due to Roger’s unexpected appearance in Mexico, and given his tall stature, light hair, and fair skin, he is received on the coast and elsewhere as akin to a god. The coastal villagers prostrate themselves to Hawkshaw in an iconic scene that first appears in Columbus’s Caribbean travelogues of the 1490s, and later in the sixteenth-century chronicles of the Spanish conquest: the welcome of white-skinned visitors who, according to legend or European propaganda, descended from the heavens or alit from ‘floating palaces of the sea.’ But while Henty revives this archetypal spectacle

54 Conquest of the New World encounter, he offers a much more layered and subtle account of his character’s ‘godhood’ in the novel. This account begins with Roger’s landing on terra firma. While many castaways might safeguard a weapon upon entering strange territory, Hawkshaw does otherwise, presenting his jackknife, manufactured from steel, to the cacique of the coastal village. The narrator explains of Mexicans that: gold and silver and copper they knew, and also tin, which they used for hardening the copper. But this new metal was altogether strange to them. It enormously exceeded copper in strength and hardness. Its edge did not, like that of their own weapons, blunt with usage, and they could well understand that, if armour could be formed of it, it would be altogether unpierceable. (Henty) This passage counters the assessment of William Robertson (1721–1793) who suggests in History of America that Mexicans and Peruvians are only on the cusp of civilisation.17 Instead, Henty in following Prescott educates his audience to understand that Mexicans worked their weapons, utilising what materials they had available to them, knowing full well the strength and hardness of the metal. What they did not have were iron mines, and thus local sources of ore, the material used to forge steel. The knife episode is also important because it links Hawkshaw to Quetzalcoatl who, we learn from the narrator of By Right of Conquest, ‘had instructed the Mexicans in all the arts that they possessed, and this new, and most valuable metal, seemed a fresh proof of his relationship to the “white god,” whose return had been so long expected and longed for’ (Henty). Henty emphasises the connection between the youth and this Aztec deity in Hawkshaw’s conversation with Malinche, who explains to Roger that: Quetzalcoatl was the kindest of our gods. He taught us the use of metals, instructed us how to till the ground, and laid down all the rules for good government. When he lived in Anahuac everyone was happy. Every head of corn was so big that a man could scarce carry one. The earth was full of flowers and fruit. Cotton grew of many colours, so that there was no need to dye it, and the very birds sang more sweetly than they have ever sung since. Ah! If Quetzalcoatl had always stopped with us, we should have been happy, indeed! (Henty) Malinche’s adoration of and Hawkshaw’s association with Quetzalcoatl are important for two reasons. First, Quetzalcoatl’s connection to agriculture and bounty might resonate with Victorian audiences mindful of Britain’s own ancient harvest beliefs and rituals. Second, the legend of Quetzalcoatl helps Henty’s audience understand the circumstances that facilitated the Spanish entry into Montezuma’s mighty empire. It was not weaponry alone

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  55 that allowed Cortés to prevail but, along with other factors, the Spanish ability to deploy myths which fuelled their campaign. In the exchange between Malinche and Roger, Henty taps into the following passage of History of the Conquest of Mexico where Prescott recounts the legend of Quetzalcoatl, who was: God of the air, a divinity who, during his residence on earth, instructed the natives in the use of metals, in agriculture, and in the arts of government … From some cause, not explained, Quetzalcoatl incurred the wrath of one of the principal gods and was compelled to abandon the country … When he reached the shores of the Mexican Gulf, he took leave of his followers, promising that he and his descendants would revisit them hereafter, and then, entering his wizard skiff, made of serpents’ skins, embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan. He was said to have been tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. The Mexicans looked confidently to the return of the benevolent deity; and this remarkable tradition, deeply cherished in their hearts, prepared the way, as we shall see hereafter, for the future success of the Spaniards. (Prescott 39) The tactical question that By Right of Conquest poses is this: When should an English interloper accept divine privilege, as Hawkshaw does when he first lands in Mexico, and when should he reject it? This is a lesson that, significantly, Dravot would fail to learn in Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Man Who Would Be King,’ published in 1888. Unlike Dravot, and as a typical Henty hero with ‘pluck,’ Hawkshaw draws on the association with Quetzalcoatl as long as it can be safely incorporated into his own identity, and as long as it is plausible. Indeed, Hawkshaw is adept at taking what is foreign, construing it in terms that he can relate to, and maintaining it if it seems strategically beneficial. When news circulates of the youth’s arrival, he finds, that the report must have been a favourable one of him, and that the natives were impressed with the idea that he was a superior being. It was, therefore, needful for him to comport himself so that this impression should be confirmed. The chiefs bowed profoundly as they approached him, stooping so far forward that one hand touched the earth, and was then carried to their forehead. Roger did not understand the meaning of this, but he bowed graciously, as if accepting the homage that was offered. (Henty) While Hawkshaw has qualms about his association with a heathen god, he manages to embed the story of Quetzalcoatl within his own faith, equating the Aztec deity’s return with that of Christ. In this regard, Kipling’s story again is illuminating, as Dravot and Peachey associate the black and

56 Conquest white pavement squares of the Kafir—whose land they have invaded and occupied—with the design of the Masonic lodge, one emblem of the British empire. This manoeuvre to legitimise their presence in Afghanistan corresponds with Roger’s repurposing of the Quetzalcoatl legend in Mexico to safeguard his life. Still, while Henty draws on the legend of Quetzalcoatl to characterise his English protagonist as a ‘white god,’ he purposefully chooses to make the connection between Hawkshaw and the Mexican deity tenuous. Once Hawkshaw arrives in Tezcuco from the Yucatan, the nobles and priests argue about who he really is and where he has come from: There had been an animated debate, at the royal council at Tezcuco, when the news of his [Hawkshaw’s] coming had arrived. Some were of the opinion that it was an evil omen, for there was a prophecy existing among them that white strangers would come from beyond the seas, and overthrow the Aztec power; but upon the other hand, it was pointed out that this could only refer to a large body of men, and that as this stranger came alone, it was far more probable that he was either Quetzalcoatl himself, or one of his descendants, and that he came in a spirit of goodwill. If he were a man, one man could do nothing to shake the Aztec power. If he were a god, he could work evil to the whole country, whether he remained on the seashore or advanced to the capital; and it was far better to propitiate him with gifts, than to anger him with opposition. (Henty) In an imaginative moment that anticipates Pascal’s Wager (1657–1658), and contrary to European conceptions of Amerindian peoples as disseminated in Spanish travelogues, the Mexicans readily question Roger’s ‘godhood’ as he prepares to visit Tezcuco. Quick to apprehend the situation—what cultural critic Todorov will articulate as a crisis of communication during the conquest—Roger accepts godhood only so long as it is tenable. The Tezcucan noble Cacama looks at the youth and reflects on his father’s prediction that ‘a white people would shortly arrive, from the sea, and would overthrow the Anahuac kingdoms’… and goes on to conclude, ‘It is strange, indeed, that within three years of his death you should appear’ (Henty). Yet Hawkshaw rejects the association and instead connects the prophecy with the Spanish fleet. On some occasions, then, Henty associates Roger with a Mexican deity, and in other cases, he keeps his hero’s Englishness pliable, so that he can assume, as needed, another identity.

The Spanish castaway, Aguilar In addition to Quetzalcoatl, Henty adopts details of two historical figures of the conquest, Jeronimo Aguilar and Malinche, to develop Hawkshaw’s

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  57 character. We will recall of the Swan’s voyage to the Caribbean that Hawkshaw, alone, survives the shipwreck and is cast away on Mexican shores. This was the real fate of the Spanish friar Jeronimo de Aguilar. In 1511, Spaniards based in Darien on the coast of what is now Panama were immersed in the slave trade and launched a ship, captained by Juan Valdivia, to set sail for Hispaniola. As the ship made its way towards the island, a storm hit, and it foundered. Valdivia and his passengers were able to board the ship’s launches, which took them by the Gulf stream through coral reefs to the sandy white shores of the Yucatan. Any thoughts of having landed in a palm-studded paradise would have been eclipsed by the fact that Aguilar and his compatriots were promptly seized by the Maya. Several captives—including Valvides—were sacrificed. In this desperate situation, Aguilar and his compatriot Gonzalo Guerrero escaped and were taken in by tribes rival to their captors. Years later, rumours of Spaniards living in the Yucatan had reached the governor of Cuba, and Cortés sailed to the island of Cozumel, just off the coast of Mexico, to retrieve them.18 Aguilar’s feat of survival is in itself extraordinary, but perhaps even more so is his story of re-assimilation. For eight years after he was taken captive, Aguilar served the Maya community in which he lived as a holy man and healer. In 1519, he nearly missed rescue by Cortés’s men on the island of Cozumel, but managed to present himself to the Spanish by rowing out to them, dressed like a Mayan and slow to regain his Castilian speech. Prescott explains in History of the Conquest of Mexico that Aguilar succeeded in re-integrating into the Spanish ranks and worked closely with Malinche to interpret for Cortés. He notes, ‘Her residence in Tabasco familiarised her with the dialects of that country, so that she could carry on a conversation with [the priest] Aguilar, which he in turn rendered into Castilian.’ Aguilar’s story provides a useful model for Henty’s Hawkshaw, who consults with Malinche to devise a way to explain his appearance in Mexico to Cortés without betraying his English identity: ‘They will easily believe that you may have been wrecked,’ said Malinche; ‘for they rescued a man who had been living many years among a tribe at Yucatan, to the west of Tabasco. There were other white men living among them, though these they could not recover. You saw him by me this morning—he is an old man, a priest; and he translates from the Spanish into the Yucatan dialect, which is so like that of Tabasco that I can understand it, and then I tell the people in Mexican.’ (Henty) Roger’s association with Aguilar, therefore, is based on his survival as a castaway and his capacity to serve as a cultural mediator who can go back and forth between diverse peoples.19 Like Aguilar, too, Hawkshaw regains his Western identity—as I will demonstrate below. First, though, I’d like to

58 Conquest extend this analysis of Hawkshaw as a cultural mediator by reflecting on La Malinche, Cortés’s accomplished Mexican interpreter and mistress.

The Mexican noblewoman and interpreter, Malinche The most important woman in the history of the conquest Malinche, also known as Marina and Malintzin, was born in Painalla in the Yucatan in about 1500. Her father was a wealthy cacique who died when she was a young girl; her mother remarried, had a son, and apparently sold young Malinche into servitude. In History of the Conquest of Mexico, Prescott offers a sympathetic picture of Malinche’s arduous circumstances: It was not very long, however, before Marina, who had a lively genius, made herself so far mistress of the Castilian as to supersede the necessity of any other linguist. She learned it the more readily, as it was to her the language of love. Cortés, who appreciated the value of her services from the first, made her his interpreter, then his secretary, and won by her charms, his mistress…. Marina was at this time in the morning of her life. She is said to have possessed uncommon personal attractions, and her open, expressive features indicated her generous temper. She always remained faithful to the countrymen of her adoption, and her knowledge of the language and customs of the Mexicans, and often of their designs, enabled her to extricate the Spaniards, more than once, from the most embarrassing and perilous situations … All agree that she was full of excellent qualities, and the important services which she rendered the Spaniards have made her memory deservedly dear to them; while the name of Malinche—the name by which she is known in Mexico—was pronounced with kindness by the conquered races with whose misfortunes she showed an invariable sympathy. (Prescott 163) Malinche finds a place in Henty’s By Right of Conquest as a survivor, quick to learn new languages and customs and adept at making fortuitous alliances and friendships. She excels as a cultural mediator, moving back and forth between the Spanish military camps and Mexican palaces. In his portrait of Malinche as a reflective, generous, and politically astute woman, Henty echoes Prescott in his Victorian interpretation of her story. Yet, following Prescott and Henty—and Haggard in Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)—Malinche’s story and reputation continue to be open to debate and interpretation. In the 1930s, famed modernist Diego Rivera depicts Malinche as a young woman of beauty and grace, and places her figure prominently in a mural at Palacio de Nacional de Mexico (which I had the opportunity to visit). Rivera’s image accords with the largely positive depiction in Henty’s novel. But in The Mask (1945), by Rivera’s equally

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  59 famous wife, Frida Kahlo, Malinche appears as a frowning, crumpled mask crowned with a mop of purplish hair (suggestive of the rich plumed headdresses of Mexican peoples), and worn by an alter ego. Kahlo’s painting and its title seem to argue for Malinche as a figure of duplicity. Yet because the mask is worn—and apparently held in the hands of the artist herself— the painting also expresses complicity, meaning that Mexicans could use Malinche to take the blame for the conquest, when their own part to play may be hidden. Following Rivera and Kahlo, Nobel Prize writer Octavio Paz (1914–1998) writes about Cortés’s mistress in his 1950 polemic, ‘Los Hijos de La Malinche’ (1994). In this essay, Paz demonstrates how in common parlance her very name has become an anathema: If the Chingada is a representation of the violated Mother, it is appropriate to associate her with the Conquest, which was also a violation, not only in the historical sense but also in the very flesh of Indian women. The symbol of this violation is doña Malinche, the mistress of Cortés. It is true that she gave herself voluntarily to the conquistador, but he forgot her as soon as her usefulness was over. Doña Marina becomes a figure representing the Indian women who were fascinated, violated, or seduced by the Spaniards. And as a small boy will not forgive his mother if she abandons him to search for his father, the Mexican people have not forgiven La Malinche for her betrayal. (Paz 86) In recent decades, this attitude has begun to change yet again, with the poem ‘Malinche’ (1971) by Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos (1925–1974), Laura Esquivel’s novel Malinche (2006), and critical studies such as Sandra Messenger Cypess’s La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth (2010) and Camilla Townsend’s La Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico (2006). It bears emphasis that Henty in 1891 in By Right of Conquest anticipates twentieth- and twenty-firstcentury recuperations of her tarnished character. In the same way Roger’s experiences mirror that of the castaway Aguilar, so, too, can he be compared to the historical Malinche, called Marina in the novel. First, Hawkshaw learns from her the language of Tabasco, a Mayan dialect, by pointing to objects and attending to verbs; this method of language acquisition established, he goes on to learn Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs. Eventually, once Hawkshaw masters the Mexican languages, he becomes second only to Marina in interpreting for Cortés and, reluctantly, acting as a spy for the Iberian invaders. Henty obviously understood the complexity of Marina’s situation, her extraordinary ability to adapt to cultural collisions and to handle competing alliances, an understanding he likely acquired from reading Prescott. Another element that Marina and Roger have in common is that they both function in the novel as moral barometers. By this I mean that hazard places them into

60 Conquest ethical conundrums, forcing them to make decisions that compromise their identities, values, and allegiances. For example, in the scene below, Marina laments how the Spanish have rent the vibrant fabric of Aztec life, first with an attack on Cholula directed by Cortés, and later with Alvarado’s unprovoked slaughter of 600 Aztec nobles. To Roger she confesses, I had hoped that the white men would have done great things for my country. They know so much, and although I thought there might be trouble at first, for great changes can never be introduced without trouble, I never dreamed of anything like this. Cholula was bad enough, but there the people brought it on themselves; and the Spaniards would have been slain, had they not first begun to kill. But here it is altogether different. It was an unprovoked massacre, and after this, who can hope that the whites and Mexicans can ever be friendly together? I love Cortez. He is great and generous, and had he been here this would have never happened; but many of his people are cruel, and they are all greedy of wealth; and he, general though he is, has to give way to them. (Henty) What she regrets is, while loving Cortés and dutiful in her service to the Spanish, she has witnessed atrocities against the Mexican people and has become implicated in carrying out such brutality. Even after the historical figure Malinche visited Spain she wasn’t, it seems, entirely adopted by this European culture, nor has she been wholly accepted in Mexico, endlessly caught between two worlds. Hawkshaw, too, also finds himself caught up in the entanglements of war, and indeed at the center of this difficult situation is Cortés. Roger assesses his position as an Englishman cast upon Mexican shores during the Spanish invasion and decides he must fight with the infamous conquistador: I must fight for the Spaniards … They are not my countrymen, but they are white men as I am, and surrounded by foes. Besides, I have no option. The Mexicans cannot distinguish between Spaniards and Englishmen, and I should be seized and sacrificed, were I to set foot beyond the walls.20 (Henty) Henty’s audience—future civil servants, colonial administrators, and imperial entrepreneurs—might heed the youth’s insight. Upon arrival to the ‘New World’, the distinctions made among Westerners may be lost on

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  61 Amerindians, thus compelling Roger’s uncomfortable but necessary alliance with Spain, England’s imperial rival.

Cortés In his characterisation of Cortés, Henty had to decide whether to mirror images of Spanish cruelty, as for example illustrated in the Kingsborough codices, or to focus on the impressive aspects of his military character. The author offers several parallels between Hawkshaw and Quetzalcoatl, Aguilar, and Malinche, but is careful not to associate his protagonist too closely with the oft-reviled conquistador. While personages such as Malinche are increasingly considered cultural mediators rather than traitors, there is much more ambivalence in Mexico about Cortés, and understandably so.21 Henty seems to have understood this, and he follows Prescott’s lead in depicting both sides of the man’s character: the inspirational, courageous, enterprising leader who surmounts all obstacles, and the merciless conquistador who stops at nothing to topple the Aztec empire. One example that illustrates Cortés’s extreme methods is his discovery of a mutiny upon arrival on Mexican shores, which, if successful, would put an end to his quest for gold and treasure. In a spectacular demonstration of will, he decides to sink his own ships, and, in this moment, Henty follows Prescott’s account quite closely: Cortez however, as usual, speedily allayed the tumult [the Spanish mutiny in which men sought to join Velasquez]. He pointed out that his loss was the greatest, since the ships were his property; and that the troops would in fact derive great advantage by it, since it would swell their force by a hundred men, who must otherwise have remained in charge of the vessels. He urged them to place their confidence in him, and they might rely upon it that success would attend their efforts. If there were any cowards there, they might take the remaining ship and sail to Cuba with it, and wait patiently there until the army returned, laden with the spoils of the Aztecs. (Henty) Several characteristics of this scene would appeal to Henty’s audience. The first is the attention to property, for the conquistador had leveraged his own personal wealth to fund the expedition to Mexico, and he takes responsibility for the destruction of his vessels, framing it as a necessary sacrifice. Victorian audiences immersed in the dynamic of empire-building would also appreciate the idea that expansionism involves limited resources in foreign terrain, and, in this case, sailors must become soldiers.22 The next trait that would resonate with English readers is Cortés’s insistence on duty; imperial exploits cannot be compromised by internal dissent. Unity and duty are essential, and Cortés shames those who might not fulfil the mission by

62 Conquest proposing they return to Cuba. This strategy serves another purpose: to thin out potential mutineers in the future. Not only does he weed out his ranks when needed, but Cortés also can build them. Henty allows his readers to witness how Cortés confronts, rather than evades, Spanish officials and troops who have been sent to detain him. Henty’s Cortés knows how to persuade and when to offer incentives, and he does so effectively, winning over to his side several of Velasquez’s troops. As in so many moments of the novel, Henty follows Prescott’s history when he shows Cortés leading by example and saying the right words at the right time. In History of the Conquest of Mexico, Cortés presents to his troops the dazzling prospect of Mexican treasure and spoils of war, and he is sufficiently motivating such that approximately 600 men go on to face wave upon wave of Aztec troops. So, too, does By Right of Conquest convey the important lesson that numbers in an invasion aren’t everything, for in Henty’s telling, the conquistador accomplishes much with smaller forces than the Mexicans. Readers learn from Prescott that Cortés capitalised on pre-existing tribal rivalries to enlarge Spanish troops in his campaign and came to recognise important emblems among Aztec chiefs. Similarly, Henty shows us that during the attack on Otompan, Cortés and his officers target the chiefs who wear distinctive warrior garb, thereby creating disorder among the Mexicans and weakening their defence. Further, the Spanish target Aztec morale by destroying sacred temples and figures representing Aztec deities, images that recall Kingsborough’s collection of codices, Antiquities of Mexico. While playing off Prescott to dramatise Cortés’s bold leadership, Henty also depicts the misery caused by the Spanish. This the novelist depicts with scenes of the Spanish burning and razing the edifices of Tenochtitlan and their relentless attack on Mexicans, whose numbers diminish with famine and smallpox. The novelist expresses a sense of loss over what would never be rebuilt, when he details Cortés’s orders to destroy palaces, temples, and buildings of state. Henty’s fictionalisation of the massacre of Cholula, referenced by Marina in the scene I called out earlier, shows the lengths to which Cortés went to achieve his ends: Cortez raised his hand. A gun gave the signal, a terrible volley was poured into the Cholulans, and the Spaniards then fell upon them with pikes and swords …. The massacre was a terrible one, and is a stain upon the memory of Cortez, who otherwise throughout the campaign acted mercifully, strictly prohibiting any plundering or ill treatment of the natives, and punishing all breaches of his orders with great severity. The best excuse that can be offered is, that in desperate positions desperate measures must be taken; that the plot, if successful, would have resulted in the extermination of the Spaniards; and that the terrible lesson taught was necessary, to ensure the safety of the expedition. Moreover, a considerable portion of those who fell, fell in fair fight; and after the action

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  63 was over, the inhabitants were well treated. It must, too, be taken into consideration that the Spaniards were crusaders as well as discoverers; and that it was their doctrine that all heretics must be treated as enemies of God, and destroyed accordingly. (Henty) This scene at once condemns and justifies Cortés’s actions and invites readers to align themselves with the Mexicans and with Roger, the voice of conscience. Roger tells the Tezcucan noble Cacama, ‘I abhor as much as you do the doings of the Spaniards’ (Henty). This he says even though, as we’ve seen, he will fight with the Spanish. Another occasion when Henty encourages readers to sympathise with the Mexicans is when Cortés takes captive the emperor Montezuma in Tenochtitlan, the heart of the Aztec empire. Cortés charges the monarch with having orchestrated an attack on the Spanish in Cholula, but this is a pretext for Spain’s own imperial ambition. Henty writes, it was an act of treachery, and reflects dishonour upon the fame of Cortés. At the same time, the position occupied by the Spaniards was so strange, and even desperate, as to palliate, though it cannot excuse, such a course of action … No honourable man would have acted as Cortez did; but Cortez was a rough soldier, and moreover, firmly held the doctrine, at that time and long afterwards held by the Spaniards in their dealing with those of other religions, that faith need not be kept with heretic and heathen. (Henty) In such descriptions, Henty brings readers back to the brutal rules of engagement of the 1500s, which were not unique to Spanish Catholics: the Aztecs also sacrificed thousands of captives to their deities while, on the other side of the Atlantic, Moors, Turks, and Christians seized captives to settle scores, to serve as galley slaves, or to barter with.23 What By Right of Conquest does is illustrate how invasion, appropriation, and occupation were managed in sixteenth-century Mexico. As importantly, in the English adventurer Roger Hawkshaw, Henty offers an alternative vision to that of Spanish conquerors in the New World. Rather than relying on duplicity and aggression in his relations with Mexicans, Roger typically displays inquisitiveness, and accommodates ways that differ from his own. With Hawkshaw, Henty collapses the binaries between self and other in several configurations—English/Mexican, Spanish/Mexican, and English/Spanish—paving the way for his marriage to the Tezcucan princess Amenche. After Cortés lays waste to Montezuma’s architecturally exquisite empire, the couple finds refuge on a ship sailing back to Spain. When they reach England, Roger insists to his family that, despite being baptised in the Catholic Church with the name Caterina, his wife shall

64 Conquest remain Amenche. His union with Amenche brings together two worlds; she brings her rare beauty and, with precious jewels from Mexico, subsidises the Hawkshaw country estate. For his part, Roger fathers their Anglo-Mexican children and integrates the family into the English gentry. The message conveyed is multi-fold: young, able, and daring men may court and marry Amerindian royalty; such men may honourably bring back to England and trade upon the spoils of war; such men, though assuming different identities, may ultimately keep their Englishness. Such messages would have been important to enthusiasts of imperial expansion, for Roger’s story reassures readers that ‘going native’ need not result in a loss of self. In Henty’s Hawkshaw, we have a sophisticated cultural mediator who appeals to young readers because of his curiosity, circumspection, and capacity to adapt. Relatedly, inspirations for Hawkshaw and episodes relating to his character come from Spanish chronicles and borrowings from Prescott’s history. Next, we will see how this same approach unfolds in Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter and Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. For example, the choice of forging ahead or facing shame and the invasion of hostile territory and navigation of difficult terrain in the quest for gold will get replayed in Griffith’s adaptation of Prescott’s history. While for his part, Haggard revives many of the same historical figures as Henty—Cortés, Malinche, and Montezuma—and he draws upon similar episodes of Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico. Yet, Haggard offers a dramatically different take on the story of shipwreck, survival, and cultural adaptation than does Henty. Rather than Roger and Amenche’s life happily ever after, Haggard’s imagination of the mixed-race romance between Thomas Wingfield and Princess Otomie ends in calamitous loss.

Notes 1 After his Irish wife and mother of four young children died from tuberculosis, Henty married his housekeeper Elizabeth Keylock. 2 Henty’s transatlantic adventures which focus on the Anglo-Hispano rivalry in the Americas include Out on the Pampas, Under Drake’s Flag, With Cochrane the Dauntless: The Exploits of Lord Cochrane in South American Waters, and Treasure of the Incas, which I discuss in Chapter 6. In addition, Henty wrote about resistance to French imperialism with A Roving Commission: Or, through the Black Insurrection of Hayti and other romance adventures that land their protagonists in the Caribbean, such as The Queen’s Cup. 3 Unlike in some of his other novels, Henty doesn’t identify his source. He probably drew upon one of two early accounts: Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation [1600] or Francis Fletcher’s The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake (1628). 4 After returning to Plymouth, Ned embarks upon another voyage with Sir Frances Drake, this time sailing the south seas on The Golden Hind. 5 Indeed, Henty with Under Drake’s Flag (1883) and George Griffith with Men Who Have Made the Empire (1899) and several other nineteenth-century English

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  65 writers retell the deeds of Sir Frances Drake and rehearse similar episodes. One such episode is when Drake suffers a grievous wound while he and his men plunder Nombre de Dios; his men choose to depart and ensure their commander’s safety, rather than abscond with the treasure that lay so appealingly within their reach. Yet not all personalities of history are suitable for literary re-fashioning— I’m thinking here of Sir Walter Ralegh’s unfortunate beheading by command of James II. Henty—and his Victorian counterparts—were selective in their creative portraits of the past. As bibliographer Cony Sturgis notes, several transatlantic fictions were published about Drake and his times. Contrastingly, we find a scarcity of books on Ralegh’s life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the most notable one is probably Schomburgk’s Hakluyt Society edition of Discoverie of Guiana. Ralegh’s popularity as a topic of inquiry resurged in the late twentieth century. 6 The Tezcucans entered into a fifteenth-century alliance with the Aztecs and were known for their ingenuity in architecture, art, and the design of grand botanical and zoological gardens. At the time Hawkshaw resides in the Tezcucan court, it is ruled by the historically real Cacama. 7 Except for quotes from Henty, including the title of his novel, By Right of Conquest: or, with Cortez in Mexico, this study spells the conquistador’s name as the Spanish do, Hernán Cortés. 8 Given the novel’s setting in the early 1500s, one would be more accurate in reconfiguring McMahon’s concept to ‘portable Englishness’ as the United Kingdom had not yet formed. 9 The word ‘pluck’ is often associated with Henty protagonists, a label presumably derived from his novel By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War (1883). 10 See Under Drake’s Flag when during their travels Ned and his compatriots come upon ‘effigies which the South Sea Islanders worship, and which are affixed to the prow of their boats; and may be seen in the British Museum, and in other places where collections of Indian curiosities are exhibited.’ 11 The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas was signed by King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella of Spain, and John II of Portugal and ratified by Pope Julius II in 1506. While the treaty and its demarcations were later ignored by other parts of Europe, at the time the story is set, it granted Spain the Americas and it granted Portugal what is now Brasil. 12 See Brooke Allen’s, ‘G. A. Henty & the Vision of Empire’ in New Criterion (2002); Dennis Butts’s, ‘Exploiting a Formula: The Adventure Stories of GA Henty’, in Julia Briggs (Ed.), Popular Children’s Literature in Britain, 2008. 13 Much literary criticism on Henty centres on his controversial representation of the British empire in India, the Middle East, and Africa. Kathryne S McDorman’s brief biography points out Henty’s charged views of Jews and Boers in his South African adventure fiction (1996) and Mawuena Logan interrogates Henty’s representations of South Africa in ‘History and the Ashantis’ (1991). This research of Henty’s South African and Haitian fictions is important, yet outside the scope of my inquiry and expertise. Given the 100-plus books Henty published over several decades, it's likely that he demonstrates cultural sensitivity in some fictions more than others, as his career unfolded, as new scholarship emerged or corrected earlier suppositions, and as attitudes changed. This suggestion is based, for example, on a comparison of the superficial representations of the (multi-racial) Caribbean islanders in Under Drake’s Flag (1883) with a deeper description of Amerindian cultures in By Right of Conquest (1891) and Treasure of the Incas (1902). 14 The Christian website is managed in Virginia (http://www​.reformation​.org​/hentybio​.html) and another publisher, Robinson Books, provides a useful categorisation of Henty’s historic fiction (https://www​.robinsonbooks​.com​/pages/chron​ ologi​cal-l​istin​g-of-​g-a-h​enty-​books​).

66 Conquest 15 In analysing Henty’s influence, Allen, Butts, and McMahon note that the Victorian author has a strong readership in home-schooled children in the USA. 16 See Horace’s Ars Poetica: ‘He who joins the instructive with the agreeable, carries off every vote, by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader.’ Relatedly, see Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy [1666]: ‘Lisideius, after some modest denials, at last confessed he had a rude Notion of it … that he conceived a Play ought to be, A just and lively Image of Humane Nature, representing its Passions and Humors, and the Changes of Fortune to which it is subject; for the Delight and Instruction of Mankind’. 17 We should place Robertson’s History of America into its proper eighteenthcentury context, before many of the artefacts and source materials about the Amerindian peoples would circulate in Britain. That being said, in interpreting Robertson’s work, EA Hoebel declares that ‘In the organization of his material Robertson used three stages of evolutionary typology: savagery, barbarism, and civilization in ascendant order. Savages [for Robertson] have neither writing, nor metals, nor domesticated animals, he noted, thus treating most of the New World tribes under the rubric of savagery’ (Hoebel 2). Hoebel then synthesises Robertson’s views: ‘Mexico and Peru, by virtue of intensive horticulture, their urban centers, and relatively developed and elaborate social structure and arts, he deemed to represent advanced states of barbarism’ (Hoebel 2). Hoebel then quotes Robertson, ‘But notwithstanding so many particulars, which seem to indicate a high degree of improvement in Peru, other circumstances occur that suggest the idea of a society still in the first stages of transition from barbarism to civilization’ (Robertson 1812: II:224 qtd in Hoebel). 18 My insights about Aguilar are gathered from fieldwork in Cozumel, off the coast of Mexico, in 2020. 19 Hawkshaw also has much in common with Aguilar’s fellow survivor Gonzalo Guerrero in that they both marry royal Mexican women, learn the language of their wives, and fight against the Spanish. Prescott doesn’t mention Guerrero, but he does cite the chronicle of Bernal Díaz who, in turn, relates the dilemma Guerrero faced, torn between his Mexican family and the Spanish who sought to re-acculturate him. So it’s possible Henty was aware of Guerrero’s story in conceiving Hawkshaw’s character. A stronger case for the parallel between the English adventurer and Guerrero can be made in Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter. The reason is that Haggard dedicates an episode to the figure of Bernal Díaz, a soldier who wrote about the conquest and who specifically mentions Guerrero as Aguilar’s companion. 20 A similar crisis of identity in the New World erupts in Henty’s Under Drake’s Flag, whereby castaway English teenagers Ned and Gerald are seized by Caribbean natives because they are taken to be Spanish, though when these young men make it clear they are English, their captors release them. Under Drake’s Flag takes place in the 1570s when there would have been few, yet more, opportunities for these youths to sail to the West Indies and be recognised as English than for Roger Hawkshaw in By Right of Conquest, which is set much earlier, in 1519. 21 For a recent perspective, see the Economist’s ‘The Conquest of Mexico: On the trail of Hernán Cortés: A journey into a past most Mexicans would rather forget.’ 22 This may seem to be an obvious strategy; however, history includes at least one example of the inability of the British navy and land forces to coordinate their respective troops in Admiral Vernon’s 1740 invasion of Cartagena, Colombia.

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  67 23 For an eyewitness account of the brutal cultural climate of the Mediterranean, see Life of Captain Alonso de Contreras. Contreras (1582–1641) wrote about his impoverished youth in Spain, escapades as a sailor and soldier, and mishaps in love in the Mediterranean. Thanks to literary scholar Jesús David Jerez-Gómez for introducing me to the genre of the testimonio and to Contreras’s memoir.

References Allen, Brooke. ‘GA Henty & the Vision of Empire’. New Criterion 20.8 (April 2002): 20–24. Arnold, Guy. Held Fast for England: GA Henty, Imperialist Boys’ Writer. London: H Hamilton, 1980. Bristow, Joseph. Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man’s World. New York: Routledge, 2016. Burney, James. A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean; Illustrated With Charts: To the Year 1723, Including a History of the Buccaneers of America. Printer: Luke Hansard, 1816. Butts, Dennis. ‘Exploiting a Formula: The Adventure Stories of GA Henty’. In Julia Briggs (Ed.), Popular Children’s Literature in Britain, pp. 149–163. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008. Castellanos, Rosario. ‘Malinche’ [1971]. In Maureen Ahern (Ed.), Rosario Castellanos Reader: An Anthology of Her Poetry, Short Fiction, Essays, and Drama. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. Catherwood, Frederick. Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. [London, 1844]. https://library​.si​.edu​/digital​-library​/book​/vie​wsan​ cien​tmon​00cath. ‘Christmas Books’. The Saturday Review of Politics, Art and Literature, November 15, 1890, pp. 569–570. Cypess, Sandra Messenger. La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth. Austin: University of Texas at Austin Press, 2010 [1991]. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Michael Shinagel. New York: WW Norton, 1994. Dorset, St. John. Montezuma, A Tragedy in Five Acts, and Other Poems. London: Rodwell and Martin, 1822. https://babel​.hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=nc01​.ark:​ /13960​/t6ww8h85q​&view​=1up​&seq​=13​&skin​=2021. Dryden, John. An Essay on Dramatic Poesy. [1666]. https://www​.poetryfoundation​ .org​/articles​/69377​/an​-essay​-of​-dramatic​-poesy. ———. The Indian Emperour [1665] in Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Vol II. Ed. Walter Scott, esq. [1808]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/12166​/pg12166​.txt. Esquivel, Laura. Malinche. Translated by Ernesto Mestre-Reed. New York: Washington Square Press, 2006. Fenn, George Manville. George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life. London: Blackie and Sons, 1907. Fletcher, Frances. The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake Being His Next Voyage to That to Nombre de Dios Formerly Imprinted; Carefully Collected Out of the Notes of Master Francis Fletcher Preacher in This Imployment, and Diuers Others His Followers in the Same: Offered Now at Last to Publique View, Both for the Honour of the Actor, But Especially for the Stirring Vp of Herock Spirits, to Benefit Their Countries, and Eternize Their Names by Like Noble Attempts (1628). http://name​.umdl​.umich​.edu​/A20784​.0001​.001.

68 Conquest Forman, Ross. ‘George Henty’. In Dino Felluga, Pamela Gilbert, and Linda Hughes (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Victorian Literature. Malden: Blackwell, 2015. Griffith, George. Men Who Made the Empire. [3rd ed. London: Pearson, 1899]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/63148​/63148​-0​.txt. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson, 1898]. Haggard, H Rider. Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation Collected By Richard Hakluyt, Preacher and Edited By Edmund Goldsmid, F.R.H.S. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. [1600]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/25645​/25645​-pdf​.pdf. Henty, George Alfred. A Roving Commission: Or, Through the Black Insurrection of Hayti. https://gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/38764​/pg38764​.txt. ———. By Right of Conquest [London: Blackie and Sons, 1891]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/19398​/19398​-h​/19398​-h​.htm. ———. By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War [1883]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/8576​/8576​-0​.txt. ———. Out on the Pampas: The Young Settlers. [London, 1876]. https://catalog​ .hathitrust​.org​/Record​/008689624. ———. The Queen’s Cup. [1898] https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/17436​/ pg17436​.txt. ———. The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru. [London, 1902]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/7070​/pg7070​.txt. ———. Under Drake’s Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main. [1883]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/19206​/pg19206​.txt. ———. With Cochrane the Dauntless: The Exploits of Lord Cochrane in South American Waters. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/25993​/25993​-0​.txt. ‘Historical Stories’. The Saturday Review of Politics, Art and Literature. 6 December 1902, vol. 94, p. vi. Hoebel, EA. ‘William Robertson: An 18th-Century Anthropologist Historian’. American Anthropologist, vol. 62, 1960, pp. 648–655. Horace. Ars Poetica. [19–18 BC]. https://www​.poetryfoundation​.org​/articles​/69381​ /ars​-poetica. Huttenback, Robert. ‘GA Henty and the Imperial Stereotype. University of Pennsylvania Press’. Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, 1965, pp. 63–75. Johnson, Rachel E. Complete Identity: The Youthful Hero in the Work of GA Henty and George MacDonald. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2014. Kahlo, Frieda. The Mask (1945). http://www.fridakahlo.it/en/scheda-eventi.php?id=8#. Kingsborough, Lord Edward. Antiquities of Mexico: Comprising Fac-Similes of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, Preserved in the Royal Libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial Library of Vienna; in the Vatican Library; in the Borgian Museum at Rome; in the Library of the Institute at Bologna; and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Together With the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix: With Their Respective Scales of Measurement and Accompanying Descriptions. The Whole Illustrated by Many Valuable Inedited Manuscripts. London: Printed by James Moyse, 1831. https://library​.si​.edu​/ digital​-library​/book​/ant​iqui​ties​mexi​v2king. Kipling, Rudyard. The Man Who Would Be King. Allahabad, India: AH Wheeler & Co., 1888. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/8147​/8147​-h​/8147​-h​.htm.

Henty’s By Right of Conquest  69 Lewis, CS. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Lee, Sidney, Ed. ‘Henty’. Dictionary of National Biography. Second Supplement. Vol. II Faed-Muybridge, pp. 249–250. New York: Macmillan, 1912. Logan, Mawuena. ‘History and the Ashantis’. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 16, 1991, p. 82. Luckhurst, Roger. ‘The Essay: Bram Stoker’. BBC, 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. MacFarlane, Robert. Originality and Plagiarism in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. McDorman, Kathryne S. ‘Henty, George Alfred’. In James S Olson and Robert Shadle (Eds.), Historical Dictionary of the British Empire. Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 152–154. McMahon, Deirdre. ‘“Quick, Ethel, Your Rifle!”: Portable Britishness and Flexible Gender Roles in GA Henty’s Books for Boys.’ Studies in the Novel, Winter 2010, p. 320. ‘New Editions’. The Academy & Literature Christmas Supplement, 6 December 1902, vol. 63, p. 620. Paz, Octavio. ‘Los Hijos de La Malinche’ [1950]. Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings. Translated by Lysander Kemp, Yaro Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash. New York: Grove Press, 1994. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Ralegh, Walter. Discoverie of Guiana [1596]. Ed. Robert Schombugk. London: Hakluyt Society, 1848. Robertson, William. History of America. Printed for Samuel Campbell, by Robert Wilson, M.DCC.XCVIII. [1798]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=evans​;idno​=N25924​ .0001​.001. Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999. Stacey, WS. ‘Roger Falls on His Knee Before Cortez’. In GA Henty, By Right of Conquest, or, With Cortez in Mexico. [London: Blackie & Son]. https://babel​ .hathitrust ​ . org ​ / cgi ​ / pt ​ ? id ​ = uc2 ​ . ark: ​ / 13960 ​ / t1td9np0w​ & view​ = 1up​ & seq​ = 223​ &skin​=2021. Sturgis, Cony. The Spanish World in English Fiction: A Bibliography. Boston: FW Faxon Co., 1927. https://babel​.hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=mdp​.39015033681134​ &view​=1up​&seq​=37​&skin​=2021. Thompson, Brian. The Guardian. Dec. 6, 2002. https://www​.theguardian​.com​/ books​/2002​/dec​/07​/featuresreviews​.guardianreview31. Tolkien, JRR. Lord of the Rings. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Townsend, Camilla. La Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Treaty Between Spain and Portugal Concluded at Tordesillas. [June 7, 1494]. https:// avalon​.law​.yale​.edu​/15th​_century​/mod001​.asp. Williams, Helen Maria. Peru, a Poem in Six Cantos [1784]. https://www.gutenberg.org/ cache/epub/11054/pg11054.txt. Woollacott, Angela. Gender and Empire. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006.

2

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) as a memoir of the Spanish conquest

In the fictional memoir Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), H Rider Haggard’s narrator Thomas Wingfield thinks back upon his life as a castaway, warrior, and chieftain during Hernán Cortés’s invasion of Mexico in 1519.1 Born to a Spanish mother and English father, Wingfield is a man whose conflicting allegiances make him a uniquely situated protagonist for Haggard’s imaginative retelling of the Spanish conquest. Indeed, it’s the fall of the Spanish Armada in 1588 that prompts Wingfield, settled comfortably in England, to reflect on his experiences 60-odd years earlier, when he lived among the Maya, Aztec, and Otomie. In his reflections, Wingfield recalls being castaway as a young man on the shores of the Yucatan; his friendship with the maiden Malinche; his marriage to Montezuma’s daughter, Otomie, named after her mother’s people; the siege of Hernán Cortés (1485–1547); and the Otomie people’s stand against conquistador-chronicler Bernal Díaz (1492– 1584).2 After such thrilling events and his 20-year odyssey abroad—with the last Aztec emperor executed, the Mexicans vanquished, his sons and wife dead, and a family vendetta settled— Wingfield picks up the pieces of his life and makes his way back to England.3 Once reintegrated into English society, he presents to Queen Elizabeth (1533–1603) an emerald pendant from his Aztec necklace, the one treasure remaining to him besides memories of everything he gained and lost in the New World. As he takes up his quill in service of the Queen, who has asked for a written account of his escapades, it is as a man who has prevailed despite impossible circumstances—cheating death from famine, by drowning, at the stone of sacrifice, and in battle. Having lived a peaceful, prosperous life since his return from Mexico, the devastation of the ­conquest nevertheless remains fresh. As he begins his memoir, Wingfield sees in his mind’s eye image after image superimposed on the views of his English surroundings:4 For the valley of the Waveney I see the vale of Tenoctitlan, for the slopes of Stowe the snowy shapes of the volcanoes Popo and Iztac, for the spire of Earsham and the towers of Ditchingham, of Bungay, and Beccles, the soaring pyramids of sacrifice gleaming with the sacred DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-4

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  71 fires, and for the cattle in the meadows the horsemen of Cortes sweeping to war. Wingfield goes on to record the devastating loss of his sons, and recalls how the wars of conquest made captive peasant and noble alike; how the ambitions of Cortés and those of Malinche, the conquistador’s lover and interpreter, benefited them little in the long run. With this context in place, I shall examine the catastrophic collision between the Mexicans and Spanish that Wingfield observed decades before he commits his New World adventures to paper. In so doing, I shall also investigate the multiple cultural references associated with Wingfield’s character that allow him to function in the novel as a multilingual, politically astute player in the theatre of war. Montezuma’s Daughter ranks as one of Haggard’s masterpieces for the way it depicts the trauma of conquest, and for its rich anthropological details, historical episodes, and metatextual references. In ways I shall map out below, these details, episodes, and references stem from and go on to help shape a transatlantic discourse, one which arguably reached its height in the late nineteenth century. As I’ve explained elsewhere, this discourse includes the reports detailing Sir Frances Drake and Sir Walter Ralegh’s sixteenth- and seventeenth-century entradas, Richard Hakluyt’s sixteenth-century translation of Spanish travelogues, John Phillips’s Tears of the Indies (1656), an adaptation of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s La Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indies), and plays such as John Dryden’s The Indian Emperour (1665). Along with these materials in the transatlantic archive are visual media such as Edward Kingsborough’s facsimiles of Aztec codices, The Antiquities of Mexico (1831), Frederic Catherwood’s splendid lithographs, Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1844), and drawings by artists such as WS Stacey and Maurice Greiffenhagen, who illustrated the Amerindian adventure.5 It’s my view that Prescott’s publication of History of the Conquest of Mexico in 1843 was a literary catalyst, prompting several British authors to rewrite the story of the Spanish invasion in the Victorian period and early twentieth century. In Montezuma’s Daughter, Haggard taps into the Conquest of Mexico proper, as well as Prescott’s sources and citations. For example, Haggard’s recounting of religious rituals and ceremonies borrows from Prescott (1796–1859), and one of his sources, Franciscan priest Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590). Wingfield’s memoir, moreover, recalls the observations and deeds of soldier-chronicler Bernal Díaz (c 1492–1584), another of Prescott’s sources, and one who becomes a character in Haggard’s novel. Elements of Montezuma’s Daughter, moreover, echo aspects of the Victorian travelogue by Scottish expatriate Frances Calderón de la Barca (1804–1882), who published Life in Mexico in 1843. A correspondent of Prescott and wife to an Argentine diplomat, Calderón recorded her impressions gathered from visits to Aztec temples and Spanish colonial settlements.

72 Conquest In her commentary on daily life and customs of Mexico’s past and present, she tenders to English-speaking audiences a travel guide, offering what Mary Louise Pratt calls a view of ‘interiority.’ Interiority, for Pratt, is the movement inland from the coast, which Calderón entered from Vera Cruz. This is the path taken by Thomas Wingfield, Haggard’s fictional adventurer.6 Another distinctive feature of Calderón’s memoir—one found as well in Catherwood's lithographs—is a sense of authenticity, which may be conveyed here as ‘These are true, realistic depictions: I was there.’7 Taken together, the creative efforts of Calderón and Catherwood, though mediated by a British lens, provide audiences with glimpses into the unique lives and rich cultural productions of Amerindian peoples. The effect was to stimulate travel and investment, the kind of informal imperialism that historians Cain and Hopkins (2002) propose in their study of British involvement in Latin America. In the same way Calderón’s travelogue and Catherwood’s lithographs signal 'I was there' to their audience, so, too, does Haggard draw on his 1891 tour of Mexico to colour his retelling of the Spanish conquest.8 Liberated from Spanish rule since 1821, at peace with the United States, and free by 1867 of the French and Austrian occupation, Mexico was relatively stable at the time of Haggard's visit. Under the administration of Porfirio Díaz, and with its rich history, mineral and agricultural wealth, and well-preserved archaeological sites, the country in the late 1800s was open to foreign investment, fieldwork, and tourism. Haggard seized the chance to gather new material for his adventure fiction, and while touring Mexico he sojourned in Vera Cruz, the city Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) founded on the eastern coast, and the point of entry for Calderón. He visited Querétaro, where the unfortunate Austrian emperor Maximilian I (1832–1867) was executed by firing squad, and he ventured south through the Yucatan to Chiapas, which perhaps of all the Mexican states had—and still has—­successfully preserved its indigenous traditions (Haggard, Days of My Life). Most importantly, for this study, Haggard explored Mexico City and its environs with spectator J Gladwyn Jebb. It was there—once the heart of the Aztec empire—that ruins and relics from centuries long ago piqued Haggard’s interest. As had Calderón and Catherwood before him, Haggard toured archaeological sites in Tenochtitlan, the heart of Montezuma’s empire, and Chapultepec, the site of the emperor’s palace and gardens. These impressions colour the record of Mexico that Haggard’s fictional narrator will present to Queen Elizabeth many decades after the conquest. Through Wingfield’s travels and trials readers learn about the ceremonial importance of the teocalli (pyramid), the unquestioned authority of the paba (priest), and the terrifying use of the itztli (obsidian knife used to rip open a sacrificial victim’s chest). Like Calderón de la Barca, Haggard offers readers something immediate, and tangible in Wingfield’s experiences, including the pleasures of bittersweet chocolate and aromatic tobacco, and the shade of ancient cypresses, the same majestic trees upon which gazed Montezuma as sovereign.

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  73 It is this ‘I was there’ quality and his retelling of a pivotal moment in history that lend to Montezuma’s Daughter what Roger Luckhurst calls in his study of archaeological fiction, the ‘weight of plausibility’ (2012). Both the novel’s sense of propinquity and Haggard’s anthropological details contributed to the book’s success; his interpretation of the Spanish conquest was well received by reviewers and Victorian audiences, and the novel became a bestseller within weeks of publication. The Bookman notes in 1894, Montezuma’s Daughter has perhaps sold more quickly than any other book written by that author. Although it has only been issued some three or four weeks, a first edition of 10,000 is already exhausted, and another is in the press. This refers to England only and does not include the very large sale of the book in the United States. (The Bookman 111) Along similar lines, The Speaker concludes, ‘Montezuma’s Daughter is, in all essential matters, fully equal to King Solomon’s Mines. In some it is indubitably superior. Mr Haggard is now a more practiced and more careful writer than he was a few years ago’ (576). A critic of the Review of Reviews acknowledges the influence of Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico and the attractive presentation of the novel, with its full-page illustrations that the critic describes as ‘strictly in keeping with the spirit of the tale itself’ (735). I hold that Montezuma’s Daughter continues to appeal to transatlantic audiences. Despite it being a bestseller and well-received overall—and despite being informed by Haggard’s tour of Mexico and by Prescott’s history— recent scholars have tended to look past Montezuma’s Daughter, turning instead to Haggard’s Africanist fictions, such as She, King Solomon’s Mines, and Allan Quatermain.9 Only a few critics have recognised the cultural significance of Montezuma’s Daughter. Robert Aguirre’s Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture (2005) and my British Representations of Latin America (2007) focus on the historical context in which Montezuma’s Daughter was written. Aguirre concentrates on the Victorian interest in Mexican archaeology, and I examine the ­novel’s plot within a 500-year survey of what I call ‘Americanist literature.’ Together, Aguirre and I telegraph the importance of Montezuma’s Daughter rather than present a full critique. Robust essays by Rene Kollar, Richard Pearson, Jessie Reeder, and Norman Etherington add depth to our understanding of this text. Given the novel’s setting during Spain’s Inquisition, Rene Kollar investigates one of the novel’s controversial representations of Catholicism.10 Another point of scholarly interest is the intense grief Haggard experienced while writing the novel, and how that grief worked its way into his fiction. When Haggard and his wife were travelling in Mexico, their young son passed away in England, a biographical detail which is the subject of Richard Pearson’s

74 Conquest study of trauma and Montezuma’s Daughter. On the topic of Haggard’s novel and vexed family relations is a chapter in The Forms of Informal Empire in which Jessie Reeder argues the ‘family form is the axis around which informal empire gets wrapped’ (Reeder 167). For his part, Norman Etherington calls attention to Haggard’s chosen genealogy for Wingfield. Of these critiques, Etherington offers an especially useful reading for my own interpretation of Wingfield’s embedded identities in the New World. Etherington contends that an Englishman of Spanish blood was an unusual combination for a Haggard hero, that, It would be unthinkable for Haggard, whose previous romances emphasized the identification with the ‘savage peoples,’ to side with the Spanish, particularly the famous Conquistador Hernán Cortés and the soldier-historian Bernal Díaz. On the other hand, he had never attempted to view resistance to European conquest directly through the eyes of the conquered. (Etherington 66) I extend Etherington’s analysis to argue that Wingfield’s Andalusian roots— evident in his skin, hair, and eye colour, along with his mother’s birth in Sevilla—allow him to pass for a Mexican of rank. In the illustration by Royal Academy artist Maurice Greiffenhagen (1862–1931), as seen in Figure 2.1, Wingfield wears Aztec warrior garb, with a plumed helmet, a padded tunic, and tribal armbands (195). The Mexican collection at Museo Nacional de Antropología exhibits evidence that Aztec warriors did indeed adorn themselves with feathers—in the pictographs of codices, carved images of battle, and the brilliant emerald-coloured plumed headdress on display. Haggard, and by extension Greiffenhagen, must have recognised Aztec sumptuary laws and how adornments are an emblem of rank. (This supposition is supported by the novel itself, when Otomie initially rejects garments that Marina brings to her, as they do not accord with her royal status.) Wingfield is depicted as barelegged in battle, showing a good deal of thigh. He looks intently at the soldier, the historically real Bernal Díaz, whom he has mistaken for his nemesis, the fictional character de Garcia. Visual media accentuate Wingfield’s cultural hybridity, whose colouring allows him to switch sides between the Aztecs and the Spanish, as Cortés’s invasion builds momentum. Having mapped out recent scholarship on Montezuma’s Daughter and using Etherington’s work as a point of entry into the conversation, I will next assess Haggard’s portrayal of Wingfield and his role in the episodes of the conquest. This essay thus examines the parallels between Wingfield and Aztec deities, between Wingfield and the Aztec ruler Guatemoc, between Wingfield and two historically real Spanish castaways, Aguilar and Guerrero, and between Wingfield and the Mexican interpreter, Malinche/Marina (c 1501–1551). The cultural work of Montezuma’s Daughter is multi-fold as it contributes to a transatlantic discourse; draws on the renowned historian

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  75

Figure 2.1 ‘“At length, de Garcia!” I cried in Spanish.’ Maurice Greiffenhagen, illustrator, Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Prescott and his sources to educate young readers about the history of Mexico, and imagines a place for the English adventurer-chronicler there. Yet, as we’ll see, Wingfield is chronically caught in between the present and the past; the self and ‘other’; heroism and treachery; the Old World and the New.

76 Conquest Before pursuing these ideas, I first must confront the obvious parallels between Henty’s By Right of Conquest and Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter. At first glance, it seems as if Haggard is merely imitating Henty, who published his novel in 1891, but upon closer inspection, it’s clear that what the authors are doing is enriching a long-standing transatlantic discourse about Spain’s invasion. To that end, Henty and Haggard draw heavily on Prescott’s work and focus on some of the same figures and myths. Henty’s By Right of Conquest rewrites the story of the Spanish conquest through the perspective of young Roger Hawkshaw, who is cast away on the shores of the Yucatan right before Cortés’s invasion of 1519. Both Henty’s Hawkshaw and Haggard’s Wingfield benefit from the wisdom of the Mexican slave turned interpreter Malinche, also known as Marina. Marina and these young English castaways learn new languages and customs and move between the cultures of the Old World and the New. Hawkshaw learns the cultural mores of the Mexicans and fights alongside the Tezcucan king Cacama against the Spanish. Similarly, Haggard’s Wingfield fights alongside the Aztec prince Guatemoc during Cortés’s siege of Tenochtitlan.11 As with Henty’s Hawkshaw, Wingfield can be associated with the castaway Jeronimo Aguilar (1489–1531), a historically real Spaniard who shipwrecked off the coast of Mexico in 1511. Further, Hawkshaw and Wingfield defend and fall in love with Mexican princesses and have mixed-race children with them, and both adventurers succeed in re-integrating into English society, having lived among the Mexicans during the conquest. Like Henty, Haggard juxtaposes his English adventurer with notable historical figures and Aztec deities in Montezuma’s Daughter. Haggard’s hero Wingfield embodies aspects of the Aztec ‘white god’ Quetzalcoatl and the ‘soul of the world’ deity, Tezcat. Finally, both Henty and Haggard retell the story of the conquest and simultaneously advertise Mexico’s archaeological treasures and natural resources. These connections attest to the transatlantic discourse in which personalities and elements of the story of the conquest are interpreted, revived, and placed in the author’s imaginative landscape. Still, Haggard departs from Henty’s By Right of Conquest in notable ways. He gives chronicler-soldier Bernal Díaz, rather than Cortés, a prominent place in the narrative, and indeed Wingfield’s account, as suggested earlier, seems to mirror that of Bernal Díaz in its chronicle of war. Henty’s novel is told through an omniscient narrator and one who is, at times, selfconsciously Victorian. Moreover, while both Haggard and Henty gesture to the story of survival of Spanish friar Jeronimo Aguilar (1489–1531), Haggard apparently makes use of the story of acculturation in Aguilar’s rebellious counterpart, Gonzalo Guerrero (1470–1536), a castaway Díaz mentions in his account. Like the sailor Guerrero, Wingfield marries an Amerindian princess and fights with her people against the Spanish. Moreover, while Henty’s is a romance adventure that rewards Hawkshaw

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  77 with love, wealth, and re-integration into English society, Montezuma’s Daughter is a reckoning of the costs of war, a narrative of suffering and catastrophic loss, a loss made meaningful in Haggard’s use of Prescott as a source.

Haggard’s debt to Prescott To address the cultural work of Montezuma’s Daughter, let us investigate Haggard’s adaptation of History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), and the reception of Prescott’s volume. Prescott (1796–1859) was widely read by transatlantic audiences and the topic of lengthy critiques in the British press. For example, The Spectator recognises Prescott’s achievement in drawing on newly available archives to update William Robertson’s The History of America (1777; 1798). Prescott, The Spectator asserts, has detailed Robertson … The introductory view of Aztec civilization, which gives a general outline of the national history, an account of the reign of the two great monarchs immediately preceding the arrival of the Spaniards, as well as an elaborate description of the arts, institutions, and religions of the people, is about the most popular piece of archaeological exposition we have met with. (The Spectator 1046) For its part, The Dublin Review interprets The History of the Conquest of Mexico as an opportunity to reflect on Britain’s own tainted project of empire-building: the man who regards his character, as a subject of the British empire, cannot presume to visit the spirit of conquest with a sweeping censure. Were we to practice this self-denying virtue, we might be called upon to prove our own title to the Canadas, or produce evidence of the right of the grocers of Leadenhall street, to the possession of their Indian empire. We might be forced to call Anson a pirate, Clive a robber, the conqueror Assaye a soldier of fortune, Cornwallis and Wellesley tyrants and oppressors … We should be driven to admit, that the Afghans scarcely deserved to be punished by the slaughter of their young men and the razing of their cities for the questionable offence of repelling the invader from their soil; that the Chinese sinned not in attempting to ‘throw physic to the dogs,’ and refusing to be drugged with opium. (The Dublin Review 45) In interpreting History of the Conquest of Mexico, The Dublin Review continues, ‘We might learn much from those who have gone before us, were we not too proud to accept the lesson’ (45). These are just a few instances of

78 Conquest the ‘cultural work’ and popularity of Prescott’s history, and it makes sense that in retelling the story of the conquest, Haggard would owe a literary debt to the historian, as would other novelists and prose writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, Prescott inspired abbreviated multiple British retellings of the conquest for adolescent audiences.12 One reason for the historian’s popularity is the crystalline detail and elegance of his prose, as well as the depth of his research. In addition, Prescott takes a broad view of the conquest, equally ready to critique Spanish cruelty as well as point out the pre-existing vulnerabilities created by Aztec beliefs and tribal animosities. The Harvard-educated historian distilled Spanish language accounts into one highly descriptive and often riveting history. I believe citation of Prescott gave Haggard purchase in a rich discourse and lent to his novel an air of authenticity expected by Victorian readers who, by this time, were immersed in a rich canon of adventure writing set all over the world. Haggard writes in the preface to Montezuma’s Daughter: to Prescott’s admirable history the author of this romance is much indebted. The portents described as heralding the fall of the Aztec Empire, and many of the incidents and events written of in this story, such as the annual [im]personation of the god Tezcatlipoca by a captive distinguished for his personal beauty, and destined to sacrifice, are in the main historical. The noble speech of the Emperor Guatemoc to the Prince of Tacuba uttered while they both were suffering beneath the hands of the Spaniards is also authentic. (Haggard) Here, the novelist carefully identifies passages of Prescott’s that he found inspirational; there are, however, many more instances that closely follow The History of the Conquest of Mexico. This correlation is purposeful and works to highlight aspects of the conquest, framing it through Haggard’s—and by extension, his narrator’s—perspective. Haggard’s ‘The Night of Fear,’ for example, corresponds to Prescott’s Book V, Chapter III—the recounting of an episode in which the Aztecs succeed in trapping the Spanish in the canals of Tenochtitlan, an area that is now, roughly, Mexico City. Weighed down by looted treasure, many conquistadors sank in the mud with their horses and formed, with the equipment abandoned, a bridge of corpses for those who managed to make it to safety. Similarly, Haggard’s ‘The End of Guatemoc’ corresponds to Prescott’s Book VII, Chapter I, an episode that evokes pathos from the audience about the death of the last Aztec emperor and, with it, the frustrated hopes of Mexican resistance to Spanish domination. Both writers celebrate Mexican resistance and expose Spanish cruelty, although Haggard and Prescott offer a favourable representation of

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  79 conquistador Bernal Díaz, who is a shared source for their writing. Díaz chronicled his experiences with Cortés in his memoir of what he saw as a soldier and, in so doing, challenges the contention that the last Aztec emperor Guatemoc, as alleged, had conspired against the Spanish. I believe Haggard settles on these moments and personalities to help readers understand—through Wingfield, who, like Díaz, is an eyewitness observer and tells his tale decades after the invasion— that the Spanish prevailed not because of might, but because of a web of Amerindian beliefs, practices, and circumstances, which benefited Cortés. Through Wingfield, we gain insight about these beliefs, practices, and circumstances. For example, we learn about the hegemony of the Aztec priests and Montezuma’s ardent faith, which made it difficult for him to challenge oracles and prophecies. We also learn about long-standing hostilities among the Mexican peoples. Wingfield observes how Cortés’s campaign was facilitated by tribal animosities—for example, between the Aztecs and the Tlascalans—and how the conquistador capitalised on these fissures to create timely alliances. Further, the conquest was served by a fortuitous liaison between Cortés and his interpreter turned lover, Marina, as recounted by Wingfield in Montezuma’s Daughter. The novel’s reference to the historically real and steadfast Otomie people, moreover, reveals that the Spanish conquest was not complete and total by 1521; some tribes held out longer than others. And, similarly, Haggard demonstrates in his novel’s smallpox episode that what compromised Tenochtitlan after Cortés’s invasion was the spread of European disease—rather than the sheer fire power of the Spanish. In so doing, he anticipates the argument of Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (2003), namely that there were multiple factors besides Spanish military organisation and weaponry that accounted for Cortés’s victory. Haggard imagines the story of the conquest by creating his own versatile, linguistically astute, brave, and circumspect Anglo-Hispano hero who is caught up in the collision between the Old World and the New. With Wingfield as his lens, Haggard brings to life the myth of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcat and acknowledges Aguilar’s captivating story of shipwreck and adaptation to life in Mexico. So, too, does Haggard educate his Victorian audience about the last Aztec emperor, Guatemoc; and, finally, Haggard tells the story of Malinche/Marina, one of the most intriguing and controversial women in Western history. These are individual features of Montezuma’s Daughter, yet as I will continue to illustrate, they are contributing elements of a pattern in the transatlantic conversation about Spain’s invasion of Montezuma’s empire. Let’s begin with the parallel between Wingfield and Quetzalcoatl, and Wingfield as the human embodiment of the Aztec god Tezcat, as these figures reveal the richness of Haggard’s anthropological vision.

80 Conquest

Wingfield as Quetzalcoatl, the ‘white god’ and embodiment of Tezcat In positioning Wingfield’s character in Mexico, Haggard drew on a ‘white god’ myth that reportedly circulated in the New World, and is a story that has been rehearsed over time. In Haggard’s rendition, the English adventurer is received in Mexico as one related to the ‘white god,’ Quetzalcoatl. This reception by Amerindian peoples is because Wingfield has arrived from the sea, because of his physiognomy and weaponry, and because of his power to heal. Wingfield recalls his time in the Yucatan, ‘I learned something of the history and customs, and of the picture writing of the land, and how to read it, and moreover I obtained great repute among the Tobascans by my skill in medicine, so that in time they grew to believe that I was indeed a child of Quetzal, the good god.’ (Haggard).13 Realising his readers would need some explanation of this fair-skinned deity, Haggard pauses in the narration to explain: Quetzal, or more properly Quetzalcoatl, was the divinity who is fabled to have taught the natives of Anahuac all the useful arts, including those of government and policy; he was white-skinned and dark-haired. Finally he sailed from the shores of Anahuac for the fabulous country of Tlapallan in a bark of serpents’ skins. But before he sailed he promised that he would return again with a numerous progeny. This promise was remembered by the Aztecs, and it was largely on account of it that the Spaniards were enabled to conquer the country, for they were supposed to be his descendants. Perhaps Quetzalcoatl was a Norseman! (Haggard) In this passage, Haggard draws upon broad readings of history to link myths between distinct warrior peoples—in this case between the Vikings and Aztecs. The connection between the Vikings, Wingfield, and Quetzalcoatl constitutes a pastiche of legends; these work to highlight Wingfield’s unusual arrival in Mexico before Cortés lands in 1519. In Nahuatl, Quetzalcoatl means plumed serpent, and perhaps for this reason Haggard names his New World adventurer Wingfield. Wingfield, in turn is associated with the Norman conquest of England, and a coat of arms that features a plumed helm. Taken by the Aztec and Otomie as a descendant of Quetzalcoatl, Wingfield shares with them his insights about military strategy, and, once inculcated in tribal society, he introduces drills and advocates the strategic use of mountain fortifications. Along with his association with Quetzal, which though present in the novel is not as strong an association as the one between Henty’s Hawkshaw and

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  81 the ‘white god,’ Wingfield is received as the Aztec creator deity, Tezcat. I quote Prescott at length here, as much of this passage resonates in Montezuma’s Daughter: One of their most important festivals was that in honour of the god Tezcatlipoca, whose rank was inferior only to that of the Supreme Being. He was called ‘the soul of the world,’ and supposed to have been its creator. He was depicted as a handsome man, endowed with perpetual youth. A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and dignity. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans were as fond as their descendants at the present day. When he went abroad, he was attended by a train of the royal pages, and, as he halted in the streets to play some favourite melody, the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life, till within a month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the principal goddesses, were then selected to share the honours of his bed; and with them he continued to live in idle dalliance, feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the honours of a divinity. At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of his short-lived glories was at an end. He was stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal barges transported him across the lake to a temple which rose on its margin, about a league from the city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked, to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplets of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the hours of captivity. On the summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disorderly over their sable robes, covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its upper surface somewhat convex. On this the prisoner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and his limbs; while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor of itztli,—a volcanic substance, hard as flint,—and, inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. (Prescott 46) Haggard incorporates many elements from Prescott’s history. Chosen for his physical beauty, strength, and poise, Wingfield serves as the embodiment

82 Conquest of this Aztec god to whom he will be ultimately sacrificed. Haggard’s Guatemoc explains to his brother-in-arms with a grim sense of humour that: For one month you will live with your wives, and this month you will pass in feasting at all the noblest houses in the city. On the last day of the month, however, you will be placed in a royal barge and together with your wives, paddled across the lake to a place that is named ‘Melting of Metals.’ Thence you will be led to the teocalli named ‘House of Weapons,’ where your wives will bid farewell to you for ever, and there, Teule, alas! that I must say it, you are doomed to be offered as a sacrifice to the god whose spirit you hold, the great god Tezcat, for your heart will be torn from your body, and your head will be struck from your shoulders and set upon the stake that is known as ‘post of heads.’ (Haggard) For one year, Wingfield embodies the deity Tezcat, and prepares for the fatal moment when he will be sacrificed to his namesake. The strong, fearless daughter of Montezuma, named Otomie after her mother’s people, is one of the four maidens who will accompany him on this metaphysical journey. Like Prescott, Haggard describes the four wives who accompany Wingfield, the knife to be used for sacrifice, the role of the priests, and the terrifying nature of the ceremony. Here Haggard’s attention to anthropological details lends plausibility to the novel’s setting during the conquest. Yet in one of the novel’s many twists and turns, characteristic of the cliff hanger of serialised fiction, the minute Wingfield and Otomie are to be killed on the stone of sacrifice, the Spanish storm the Aztec pyramid and free them.14

Wingfield as castaway: the curious episodes of Aguilar and Guerrero The arrival of the Spanish just at the moment of Wingfield’s evisceration helps us to discern yet another set of parallels that Haggard creates, namely those between Wingfield and castaways Aguilar and Guerrero. In the same way that Haggard draws on Prescott with the doubling of Wingfield and the deities Quetzalcoatl and Tezcat so, too, does he draw on Prescott when he places Wingfield in circumstances like those of the seafaring Aguilar who arrived in Mexico before Cortés. Prescott recounts that Jeronimo Aguilar was a Spanish friar who landed in the Yucatan in 1511, and then was captured by the Maya. Haggard pays tribute to Aguilar with Wingfield’s admission that ‘with the exception of a certain Aguilar who with some companions was wrecked on the coast of Yucatan six years before, I was the first white man who ever dwelt among the Indians.’ According to Prescott, Aguilar had been taken captive by the Maya, learned their language, and then ‘became a great man among the Indians’ as a healer (Prescott 151). Haggard’s reference to Aguilar allows readers to consider Wingfield’s own

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  83 cultural adaptiveness, for after he’s castaway, he lives with the Maya, learns about their culture, and taps into his earlier training in Spain as a physician. Like Aguilar, Wingfield assimilates to life in the Yucatan and Anahuac, yet eventually returns to Old World conventions. Haggard’s hero also resembles Aguilar’s fellow castaway, Gonzalo Guerrero. Prescott doesn’t mention Guerrero, but does cite the memoir of conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Based on his eyewitness observation, gathering of testimony, and experience in battle, Díaz published his own account of the Spanish invasion and occupation, one episode of which explains Guerrero’s conundrum. Guerrero, like so many involved in the conquest, was caught between the country of his birth and that which he adopted. Díaz relates how Cortés sought to rescue Spanish captives of the Maya, sending a message through merchants of Cozumel (an island off the coast of Mexico). … and the letters were in two days received by a Spaniard named Jeronimo de Aguilar, together with the beads sent for his ransom. He immediately waited upon his master, who accepted them with satisfaction, and gave him his liberty. Aguilar then went to his companion Alonso [aka Gonzalo] Guerrero, and having made known his business, Guerrero replied to him as follows: ‘Brother Aguilar, I am married; I have three sons, and am a cacique and captain in the wars; go with you in God’s name; my face is marked, and my ears bored; what would those Spaniards think of me if I were among them? Behold these three beautiful boys; I beseech you give me for them some of these green beads and say that my brother sent them as a present to me from our country.’ (Díaz 35) Wingfield similarly follows Guerrero’s path, in that both men are taken captive and adapt to Mexican culture. Both men wed Amerindian noblewomen and father children with them. Guerrero marries Zazil Há, a Mayan princess, and Wingfield marries Otomie, Montezuma’s Aztec-Otomie daughter, and just as Guerrero expresses pride in his children in the passage above, Wingfield expresses profound joy in his three sons.15 Perhaps most compelling, both the historically real Guerrero and the fictional Wingfield assimilate in dress, language, and custom, and determine to fight on the side of the Mexicans, against the Spanish. Doing so further deepens the aspects of his character, particularly in the inversion of gender norms with Otomie—his wife. During several years of retreat from the conflict, Wingfield lives in the City of Pines, a mountain stronghold which he governs with Otomie. Unlike Henty’s delicate heroine, Amenche, in By Right of Conquest, Otomie is no damsel in distress. Quite the contrary. Indeed, I pause here to note that Haggard not only inverts the self/other and New World/Old World oppositions which characterise representations of the conquest, but he also plays with gender stereotypes. On at least two occasions, Haggard depicts

84 Conquest Wingfield as vulnerable and injured, supported by his strong, imperious wife. The first is when Otomie helps Wingfield—who has been tortured—to escape a Spanish prison, and the second is when the couple arrives in the mountain city of Otomie’s people, as pictured in Figure 2.2. This supports Bradley Deane’s idea that imperial relations offered new possibilities in the construction of masculinity. In this illustration by Greiffenhagen, Wingfield

Figure 2.2 ‘Am I among my own people of the Otomie?’ Maurice Greiffenhagen, illustrator, Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  85 reclines, convalescing from injuries, while Otomie proudly rallies her mother’s people to resist, once again, Spanish aggression. Unlike Malinche, for whom she has contempt, Otomie actively resists the Iberian invasion. In the illustration she stands in front of an edifice rich in Mexican patterns and motifs—a serpentine design across the lintel, nested squares along the cornice, cross-hatching in the façade, and a fierce, open-mouthed figure on the corner—all characteristic of the period’s architecture. One wonders if Greiffenhagen was inspired by Frederick Catherwood’s exquisite lithographs published in 1844—perhaps the plate of Uxmal. After this speech, relative peace endures in the City of Pines for several years until, led by Bernal Díaz, the Spanish invade the mountain stronghold. In desperate retaliation, Otomie and her people seize some of the Spanish soldiers and prepare them to be sacrificed in an unanticipated resurgence of this practice. Wingfield manages to free some of these captives, and this exchange follows: ‘Farewell,’ he said [a Spanish soldier], ‘and may the blessing of God be on you for this act of mercy, renegade though you are. Say, now, will you not come with me? I set my life and honour in pledge for your safety. You tell me that you are still a Christian man. Is that a place for Christians?’ and he pointed upwards. ‘No, indeed,’ I answered, ‘but still I cannot come, for my wife and son are there, and I must return to die with them if need be. If you bear me any gratitude, strive in return to save their lives, since for my own I care but little.’ Here, Wingfield echoes Guerrero’s sentiments, as relayed in Díaz’s chronicle. According to Díaz, Guerrero was caught between devotion to his Maya family and the efforts of Cortés and Aguilar to re-acculturate him. When Aguilar endeavours to bring Guerrero back into the fold, he faces the wrath of Guerrero’s wife Zazil Há, who dismisses Aguilar as a ‘slave’ trying to win over her husband. Aguilar, Díaz relates, persevered in advising the other [Guerrero] not to lose his precious soul for the sake of an Indian, or at any rate if he could not part from his wife and children, to bring them with him; but he [Guerrero] could not be induced to quit his home. (Díaz 36) Just as Guerrero stays with the Maya and fights against the Spanish, so, too, does Wingfield. Indeed, Wingfield stays true to the Mexicans for as long as he and Otomie are married. For this he is reviled by the Spanish, who insult him by calling him a heathen and traitor, an eater of human flesh. Yet despite these taunts, Wingfield functions as a highly adaptive character that

86 Conquest can move back and forth between cultures, born an Englishman, embracing his Spanish roots, and assuming the role of Otomie warrior and chieftain. In his resistance to the Spanish, we can thus view Wingfield in a similar light as Guerrero, as well as the Aztec ruler Guatemoc who, after the death of Montezuma and Cuitlahuac, is the last hope of the Mexican peoples.

Wingfield as warrior: Guatemoc Known as Cuauhtemoc and Guatemozin, Guatemoc (as Haggard spells the name) was Montezuma’s nephew and the last Aztec emperor before Spanish colonial rule prevailed. With the exception of one vandalised monument of Cortés and Malinche, one would be hard-pressed to find a monument celebrating Cortés in Mexico City (Sibley). Yet one can view the enormous statue of Cuauhtemoc on Avenida de los Insurgentes, erected in 1887 and symbolising strength and cultural autonomy.16 It is probable Haggard saw the monument in 1891 when he toured Mexico, just a few years after the statue was designed by Francisco Jiménez and Miguel Noreña and installed to promote the government of Mexico’s president, Porfirio Díaz. In Montezuma’s Daughter, Guatemoc is a fierce and loyal prince of the Aztec people whom Wingfield honours: Never shall I forget my first meeting with this prince who afterward became my dear companion and brother-in-arms … He was young, very tall and broad, most handsome in face, and having eyes like those of an eagle, while his whole aspect breathed majesty and command. His body was encased in a cuirass of gold, over which hung a mantle made of the most gorgeous feathers, exquisitely set in bands of different colours. On his head he wore a helmet of gold surmounted by the royal crest, an eagle, standing on a snake fashioned in gold and gems. On his arms, and beneath his knees, he wore circlets of gold and gems, and in his hand was a copper-bladed spear. (Haggard) In this passage, Haggard emphasises Guatemoc’s youth, stature, and strength, while signalling with the headdress the warrior’s ancient Aztec lineage. For it is told that the Aztecs would found their city on a lake, and they would know the site by an eagle holding a snake in its beak; this is, as elsewhere, a key moment in which Haggard’s description of the Aztec warrior creates a sense of verisimilitude for his Victorian audience. Wingfield mirrors Guatemoc in appearance, fortitude, and endurance, particularly when he dons the garb of the Mexican warrior. In Haggard’s retelling of the conquest, Guatemoc appears as a heroic figure who leads his people, fights against the Spanish, and endures torture rather than reveal the source of Aztec treasure. Wingfield falls in step with his brother-in-arms. After the Spanish have invaded Anahuac and have begun their plunder of

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  87 Montezuma’s empire, Haggard presents a torture scene that has become emblematic in English literature representing the conquest.17 Although burned by hot coals, Guatemoc remains true to his beliefs and refuses to disclose the location of Montezuma’s treasure; so, too, does Wingfield. This scene works to align Guatemoc and Wingfield in their contempt for Spanish greed, rendering them more than brothers-in-arms as, indeed, in many ways doubles. These kinds of cultural alignments complicate postcolonial assessments of Haggard’s writing in particular and Victorian adventure fiction more generally, since such critiques often express a presentist bias, clumsily imposing twenty-first-century assumptions of cultural insensitivity on work produced over a hundred years ago. A subtler reading of Montezuma’s Daughter disrupts these critical assumptions that fictional (and historical) works of this period necessarily display and perpetuate a ubiquitous, callousness towards and oppression of ‘the Other’ by a monolithic West. For example, in Haggard’s novel we find Wingfield appreciating the majesty, ingenuity, and social order of the Aztec and expounding on the loss ushered in by Spanish rule. After he makes a life with Otomie in their mountain stronghold, he hears of Guatemoc’s plight in Honduras, where the Aztec ruler has been taken captive by the Spanish. The English mariner-turned Otomie chieftain leaves his family to embark on a lengthy journey south to help Guatemoc, but discovers that he has come too late. Wingfield recounts how he sees the fallen warrior hanging from a tree: Here he hung in the dim and desolate forest, death by the death of a thief, while the vulture shrieked upon his head. I sat bewildered and horror-stricken, and as I sat I remembered the proud sign of Aztec royalty, a bird clasping an adder in its claw. There before me was the last of the stock, and behold! A bird of prey gripped his hair in its talons, a fitting emblem indeed of the fall of Anahuac and the kings of Anahuac. (Haggard) According to Prescott, Cortés had Guatemoc taken south to Honduras to mitigate the power and influence that Montezuma’s nephew enjoyed in Anahuac. Once the Aztec emperor embarked on the journey, a ‘plot’ was discovered that Guatemozin (as Prescott calls him) was conspiring with Amerindian parties to ensnare the Spanish. According to conquistador Bernal Díaz, Guatemoc was innocent of conspiracy; nevertheless, the result was that the last Aztec emperor was hanged, like a felon (Prescott 648). Within a literary tradition of writing about the New World encounter, Haggard’s Guatemoc—though of the sixteenth century—elicits from the reader a similar feeling as does the death of James Fenimore Cooper’s Heron warrior, Uncas, in The Last of the Mohicans (1826), a sense of loss, bewilderment, and the cataclysmic end of an Amerindian people.18 Perhaps Haggard’s rewriting of the conquest pre-empts a postcolonial critique,

88 Conquest rather than perpetuating the kind of oppression that such critiques find in Victorian literature. That is, Haggard aligns the hero of the tale with the Mexican nobility and exposes the treachery of the Spanish conquistadors, again reinforcing Bradley Deane’s idea that British encounters with the ‘other’ may offer a different model of stereotypical masculinity, one in which grief is openly expressed. On a related note, Wingfield can be associated with one of the most famous women in the history of the Americas, Malinche, called by the Spanish, Marina.

Wingfield as cultural mediator: Malinche/Marina Malinche, also known as Marina, was Cortés’s Mexican interpreter, lover, and mother to his son. Because of her relations with Cortés, she was ever divided between her people and the Iberian invaders. Generally speaking, Malinche has been considered a traitor and, symbolically, a whore who sold herself to the Spanish. Recently her role in the conquest is being considered in a more favourable light by cultural critics such as Sandra Messenger Cypess, Julee Tate, and Camilla Townsend. Malinche’s survival of a traumatic childhood may account for her fluid sense of cultural allegiances during the Spanish invasion. Though of noble of birth, Malinche’s family abandoned her when she was a young girl; Prescott explains that: Her father, a rich and powerful cacique, died when she was very young. Her mother married again, and having a son, conceived the infamous idea of securing to this offspring of her second union Marina’s rightful inheritance. She accordingly feigned that the latter was dead, but secretly delivered her to the hands of some itinerant traders of Xicallanco. By the merchants the Indian maiden was again sold to the cacique of Tabasco. (Prescott 162) In Montezuma’s Daughter, Wingfield meets Marina in Tabasco while she is in the cacique’s servitude. Wingfield recalls, ‘Among these [women] I noticed one girl who far surpassed all the others in grace, though none were unpleasing to the eye. She was dark, indeed, but her features were regular and her eyes fine. Her figure was tall and straight, and the sweetness of her face added to the charm of her beauty.’ (Haggard) Readers at this point might expect a romance to blossom between Marina and Haggard’s fictional hero, and the two do become close friends—with Marina saving Wingfield in moments of crisis. However, Haggard does not develop the attraction Wingfield feels towards Marina and is faithful to history in describing her relationship with Cortés. One of Haggard’s

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  89 meaningful fictions is the fact that he has Wingfield teach Marina about the ways of white men before Cortés even meets her. As Prescott notes, this ‘civilizing impulse’ belonged to the real Spaniard, Aguilar, who had met Marina when he left the Maya, and joined the ranks of Cortés as an interpreter. In Haggard’s Amerindian fiction, Marina—despite losing her family and status—excels as a cultural mediator and offers us an important figure of comparison for Wingfield. Like Marina, Wingfield occupies the Old World and the New—skilfully negotiating between them and learning the different tribal norms of the Maya, Aztec, and Otomie. In another parallel, Wingfield serves as a liaison between the Aztec and the Spanish; along with English and Castilian, he learns to speak Nahuatl and the language of the Otomie. As much as Marina succeeds in navigating the Spanish and Mexican camps, she is also caught between them, as is Wingfield. Divided allegiances stem from numerous factors: Wingfield’s English birth, his marriage to the princess Otomie, his pledge to the Aztecs signified by the blood-mixing ceremony with Guatemoc, and his Spanish heritage on his mother’s side. In yet another parallel, both Wingfield and Marina bear the label ‘traitor,’ prompting readers to question what constitutes or justifies treachery. Wingfield is a traitor for fighting against the Spanish, and Marina for serving Cortés and facilitating his conquest. In Montezuma’s Daughter, Guatemoc chides Marina, for the choices she makes during Cortés’s invasion: [Y]ou have betrayed your country and you have brought me to shame and torment … For the rest, may your name be shameful for ever in the ears of honest men and your soul be everlastingly accursed, and may you yourself, even before you die, know the bitterness of dishonour and betrayal! (Haggard) Otomie, Wingfield’s wife, also harangues Marina when she says, ‘You are Marina … you who have bought ruin on the land that bore you, and have given thousands of her children to death, and shame, and torment’ (Haggard). Haggard accepts the reasons for Marina’s infamy, while nevertheless registering her difficult social position at a critical juncture in history. Haggard’s sympathetic portrayal of Marina is found in Wingfield’s reflections at the end of the novel, when he observes the personal and cultural costs of conquest. Whereas Prescott suggests that Marina lived—more or less—happily ever after—although not as Cortés’s wife—Haggard recognises that she betrayed many, but ultimately won little: Look again at the fate of Marina herself. Because she loved this man Cortes … she brought evil on her native land; for without her aid Tenoctitlan, or Mexico, as they call it now, had never bowed beneath the yoke of Spain—yes, she forgot her honour in her passion. And what

90 Conquest was her reward, what right came to her of her wrongdoing? This was her reward at last: to be given away in marriage to another and a lesser man when her beauty waned, as a worn-out beast is sold to a poorer master. (Haggard) Ultimately, then, Haggard looks at the narrative of the conquest as one of loss and separation and, as the previously cited passage shows, he launches a stinging cultural critique of its time. Thus, part of the cultural work of the 1893 novel is that, like Henty’s By Right of Conquest published in 1891, Haggard gives a voice to Marina that she has, until recently, been denied. Indeed, in the 1950s, Nobel Prize-winning author Octavio Paz writes about how Malinche is viewed as a traitor and a ‘prostitute’ to foreign interests, forsaking her countrymen for her liaison with Cortés (1994). Montezuma’s Daughter illustrates that, despite being abandoned to servitude, Marina deploys her resourcefulness and intelligence to reclaim status during the Spanish campaign. In this way, Haggard—and Henty before him—anticipates more recent recuperations of her character. These include Rosario Castellanos’s [1972] poem ‘La Malinche,’ Sandra Cypess’s (1991) study of the myth and history of Malinche, and Laura Esquivel’s (2006) novel Malinche. Castellanos emphasises Marina’s abandonment in her childhood and her destiny in the conquest, symbolised by the weight of the scale tipping, in the poem, to one side, and not the other. For her part, Cypess views Malintzin, as she calls her, as a cultural synecdoche.19 Esquivel’s Malinche combines, as Haggard does, fiction and history to recreate the shadowy facts about Cortés’s interpreter. To the best of my knowledge, no cultural critic—whether of Latin American studies or of British adventure fiction— has recognised the cultural work of Henty and Haggard’s Marina.20 One key difference between Haggard’s two cultural mediators is that while Marina is considered the mother of the mestizos, all four of Wingfield’s mixed-race children die. Instead of living out his years in Mexico, he returns to England to marry the love of his youth, Lily. Yet Haggard allows for a mixed-race family nearly 30 years later in his Anglo-Peruvian romance adventure, Virgin of the Sun (1922), a fourteenth-century saga which predates Pizarro’s invasion of Peru and a topic about which I write in another essay. By cataloguing the parallels in this novel, we see that Wingfield has ­positive traits of several figures who appear in Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico, as well as the contemporary account of soldier-historian Bernal Díaz. Wingfield has the wisdom of Quetzalcoatl; the physical beauty of Tezcat; the adaptability and resilience of Aguilar; the defiance of Guerrero; the strength, bravery, and sense of justice in Guatemoc; and Marina’s ability to learn new languages and negotiate cultural encounters. Haggard’s Wingfield is both insider and outsider: a man of initiative, strength, intelligence, and perseverance who understands to some extent Aztec culture, but who comes from England and is of Spanish descent. He is

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  91 a warrior who wins the battle but loses the war—much like the vanquished Aztecs he admires. Wingfield’s story, created and told by Haggard, is not of glorious success but rather of serial alienation, of not being fully accepted by either one culture or the other. It is a tale of catastrophic loss and all the ugly conditions that accompany invasion: starvation, disease, and violence. Though Wingfield’s memoir unfolds only within the confines of ‘fiction,’ its basis is in history and its cultural truths endure, including various crises of self-understanding, self-presentation, and identity that are reconciled through compartmentalising. With this novel, Haggard collapses the binary between history and fiction and reminds today’s readers of Hayden White who, in ‘The Historical Text as Literary Artifact,’ points out that historians use tropes and conventions that characterise fiction. White writes, But in general there has been a reluctance to consider historical narratives as what they most manifestly are: verbal fictions, the contents of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in the sciences. (White 82) Anticipating White’s work is Virginia Woolf’s beautifully simple expression that there is truth in fiction.21 So in agreeing with the subjective nature of historical accounts and the truth of fiction, I read Montezuma’s Daughter as a novel telling cultural truths about the multiple factors that led to Cortés’s success, Montezuma and Guatemoc’s fall, and Marina’s controversial status both as Cortés’s interpreter and lover and as mother of mestizo Mexicans. By the 1520s, the ties that bound the Mexican peoples—the Aztec, the Maya, the Tabascan, the Otomie, the Tlascala—have been sundered, with Wingfield surviving the crossfire of the conquest. As an Otomie chief, Wingfield resists the Spanish, but he must yield once his stronghold is penetrated by the historically real conquistador, Bernal Díaz. With Otomie dead by her own hand, Guatemoc hanged by Cortés’s orders, the Aztecs decimated by smallpox, and all four of his sons dead, Wingfield finds a passage to Spain, and from there one to England, where he is submerged in memories of his adventures, which he records for Queen Elizabeth. With this ‘fact within a fiction’ device, Haggard retells the story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in his own imaginative terms, producing a masterwork of historical fiction, Montezuma’s Daughter, a memoir of war, and a narrative of loss.

Notes 1 Most historians spell the conquistador’s name ‘Hernán Cortés.’ This essay follows Haggard’s spelling with an s only with quotation of his novel. Relatedly, readers will discern that Henty uses a z in the title of his 1891 novel, By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico.

92 Conquest 2 Díaz wrote The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Historians generally spell the chronicler’s name Bernal Díaz or Díaz del Castillo. Haggard spells Diaz with no accent in Montezuma’s Daughter.   The Otomie are an indigenous people of the mountains; Otomie is also Haggard’s name for the princess whom Wingfield marries, Montezuma’s daughter. 3 I use the term Mexican in a general sense, recognising that there are distinct cultures and languages of Mexico. Whenever possible, I employ specific terms, such as Otomie or Aztec. When referring to multiple tribes, I use the term Mexican. 4 In the 1930s, Malcolm Lowry followed Haggard and DH Lawrence’s footsteps in Mexico to craft his modernist, lyrical masterpiece Under the Volcano. Lowry’s novel employs a similar palimpsest of the Mexican and the English landscapes, but with a significant inversion, whereby rural Mexico suggests the Cotswolds, Windemere, and Cheshire. 5 Catherwood opens his volume with a reflection upon the hardships of travel and the arduous task of clearing vegetation at archaeological sites, foliage that obscured the intricate ornamentation of Maya temples, palaces, and pyramids. The artist and traveller avows to his Victorian audience that such buildings, masterpieces that have since become icons of Maya antiquity, ‘demand some preliminary explanations of the circumstances under which they are found to exist, and the historic interest that attaches to them, as the most important aids that we possess, for the investigation of the great unsettled problem— the origin of the inhabitants of the American continent, and the sources from whence their early civilization was derived.’ Echoing Prescott, what follows is Catherwood’s argument that the Maya were a sophisticated people and were accomplished architects and artisans, a proposition strengthened by his images of curiously macabre stone idols, majestic pyramids, and beautifully proportioned temples that are glimpsed through a curtain of lianas, ferns, agaves, and palm trees of the Yucatan. Catherwood’s art and engagement with Prescott in the 1840s anticipates a similar connection between Prescott and Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter in the 1890s. Both artists lean on Prescott to offer a culturally sophisticated portrait of Mexican peoples. 6 For example, Calderón mentions the Stone of Sacrifice which is a prominent image in Haggard’s novel. She also reflects on the ancient cypresses of Chapultepec, which Haggard also notes in Montezuma’s Daughter. 7 Calderón and Catherwood express cultural biases that we, in the twenty-first century, readily identify. My point isn’t to discount the existence of these biases, but rather to emphasise how these cultural producers contribute to a transatlantic conversation that has developed over hundreds of years, each one reflecting on the conquest specifically, or the past more generally but filtered through Western attitudes and interests of the day. In this case, Calderón de la Barca and Catherwood record their impressions of Mexico in the late 1830s and early 1840s. For a scholarly look at the Scotchwoman’s unusual position as a diplomat’s wife in post-independent Mexico, see M Soledad Caballero and Jennifer Hayward’s ‘ “An occasional trait of Scotch shrewdness”: Narrating Nationalism in Frances Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico’ (2010). 8 Porfirio Díaz is a controversial figure in Mexican history. On one hand, he ushered in changes to modernise Mexico that would elevate the standard of life for its citizens. On the other hand, he allowed the oligarchy to acquire large tracts of land, leaving the peasantry largely disenfranchised. The president’s ambition to make Mexico City the Paris of America gave rise to European influences in art, music, and architecture. The iconic pillars of neo-classicism in, for example, the Palace of Arts would sit in a landscape built upon the colossal stone remnants of the great Aztec builders. 9 Postcolonial scholars Wendy Katz, Anne McClintock, and Laura Chrisman have examined Haggard’s exotic settings within the context of British imperial litera-

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  93 ture as does, more recently, Gerald Monsman. While these critics deepen our understanding of Haggardian fiction, they focus on his Africanist narratives. 10 In a footnote, Haggard seeks to authenticate the scenario in which a nun such as Isabella would be immured as punishment for breaking her vows. Haggard retracted the footnote after the first edition, but that gesture did not end the debate. According to John Sloan, ‘in the summer of 1894, H Rider Haggard entered into a long and acrimonious correspondence with the secretary of the Catholic Truth Society in the pages of The Pall Mall Gazette on the subject of the immuring of nuns, a row sparked off by a footnote in his novel, Montezuma’s Daughter’ (John Sloan. John Davidson, First of the Moderns: A Literary Biography 119, Clarendon Press 1995).   Continuing the debate in 1896, The Month (vol 86) speculates as to what Haggard might have seen when he went to a Mexican museum, if it were a mummy of a nun, or whether, perhaps, he was being misled. 11 I adopt Haggard’s spelling of the last Aztec emperor’s name. It is more commonly spelled Cuauhtémoc. 12 See, for example, George Cubitt’s Cortes: Or the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (1848). 13 Haggard understood Maya and Aztec languages are distinct but in writing fiction he simplified terms for his audience. Accordingly, he abbreviates the Nahuatl Queztalcoatl to ‘Quetzal’ to signify ‘feathered serpent’. The Maya word for the feathered serpent deity is Kukulkan. 14 Montezuma’s Daughter was serialised in The Graphic. 15 Yucatan history departs from Díaz’s account in that Guerrero was supposed to have had three daughters, who are memorialised in a statue in Akumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico, which I had the opportunity to visit in 2018. 16 The statue of Cortez, Malinche, and their son Martin was erected in Mexico, but protesters objected to it and the installation was relocated and then vandalised. 17 Two precedents for this kind of torture scene are in John Dryden’s 1665 Conquest tragedy, The Indian Emperour and Helen Maria Williams’s 1784 Peru: A Poem in Six Cantos. 18 I thank David Carlson, author of Sovereign Selves: American Indian Autobiography and the Law, for suggesting the parallel between Haggard’s Guatemoc and James Fenimore Cooper’s Uncas. The Indian warrior Magua kills Uncas, so the chieftain does not fall the same way as Guatemoc. But in both cases, the reader registers the cultural catastrophe of Europeans invading sovereign lands, and the obliteration of the meaningful relationships that survive the collision, in this case between the Aztec Guatemoc and the Anglo-Hispano Wingfield, and between the Heron Uncas and American captive, Cora. 19 Rhetoric scholar Miriam Fernandez, in reading an earlier draft of this essay, reminds me of this important aspect of Cypess’s work. 20 Julee Tate offers an excellent overview of how Malinche has been represented from Díaz to Esquivel in ‘La Malinche: The Shifting Legacy of a Transcultural Icon’ (Latin Americanist, 2017). But Tate does not address the English tradition of representing Malinche in the Victorian period, as that is outside the scope of her project. Dryden was certainly familiar with the historical figures of the Spanish conquest in his two Amerindian tragedies published in the 1660s, but while he gives space to Montezuma, he omits Marina/Malinche. 21 See Chapter One of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929).

References Aguirre, Robert. Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture. University Press of Minnesota, 2005.

94 Conquest Caballero, M Soledad, and Jennifer Hayward. ‘“An Occasional Trait of Scotch Shrewdness”: Narrating Nationalism in Frances Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico.’ In Joselyn Almeida (Ed.), Romanticism and the Anglo-Hispanic Imaginary. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Cain, PJ and AG Hopkins. British Imperialism 1699–2000. New York: Longman, 2002. Calderón de la Barca, Madame. [Frances]. Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country [London, 1843]. A Celebration of Women Writers. https://digital​.library​.upenn​.edu​/women​/calderon​/mexico​/mexico​.html. Carlson, David. Sovereign Selves: American Indian Autobiography and the Law. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Castellanos, Rosario. ‘Malinche’ [1972]. In Maureen Ahern (Ed.), Rosario Castellanos Reader: An Anthology of Her Poetry, Short Fiction, Essays, and Drama. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. Catherwood, Frederick. Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan [London, 1844]. https://library​.si​.edu​/digital​-library​/book​/vie​wsan​ cien​tmon​00cath. Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. [1826]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/940​/940​-h​/940​-h​.htm. Cubitt, George. Cortes, or the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico. London: John Mason, 1848. Cypess, Sandra Messenger. La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth. Austin: University of Texas at Austin Press, 2010 [1991]. Deane, Bradley. Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ cache​/epub​/32474​/pg32474​.txt. Dryden, John. Indian Emperour. [1665]. Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Vol II. Ed. Walter Scott, esq. [1808]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/12166​/pg12166​.txt. Esquivel, Laura. Malinche. Translated by Ernesto Mestre-Reed. New York: Washington Square Press, 2006. Etherington, Norman. Rider Haggard. Boston: Twayne, 1984. Greiffenhagen, Maurice. “‘At length, de Garcia!’ I cried in Spanish.” In H Rider Haggard. Montezuma’s Daughter. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893. ———. ‘Am I Among My Own People of the Otomie?’ In H Rider Haggard Montezuma’s Daughter. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893, p. 251. Haggard, H Rider. Days of My Life. Vol. II. [1926]. http://gutenberg​.net​.au​/ ebooks03​/0300141​.txt7​/21​/2009. ———. King Solomon’s Mines. London: Cassell and Company, 1885. ———. Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. She. [1887] Ed Daniel Karlin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ———. The Virgin of the Sun. [London: Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation Collected by Richard Hakluyt, Preacher and Edited by

Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893)  95 Edmund Goldsmid, F.R.H.S. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. [1600] https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/25645​/25645​-pdf​.pdf. Henty, George Alfred. By Right of Conquest. [London: Blackie, 1891]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. Katz, Wendy. Rider Haggard and the Fiction of Empire: A Critical Study of British Imperial Fiction. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Kingsborough, Lord. Antiquities of Mexico: Comprising Fac-Similes of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, Preserved in the Royal Libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial Library of Vienna; in the Vatican Library; in the Borgian Museum at Rome; in the Library of the Institute at Bologna; and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Together With the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix: With Their Respective Scales of Measurement and Accompanying Descriptions. The Whole Illustrated by Many Valuable Inedited Manuscripts. London: Printed by James Moyse, 1831. Kollar, Rene. ‘They Walled Up Nuns, Didn’t They?: H Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter and Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England.’ In A Foreign and Wicked Institution: The Campaign Against Convents in Victorian England. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co Ltd, 2011, pp. 19–38. Las Casas, Bartolomé. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, or, a faithful Narrative of the Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and All Manner of Cruelties, That Hell and Malice Could Invent, Committed by the Popish Spanish…[Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. [Sevilla, 1552] London: R Hewson, 1689. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20321​ /pg20321​.txt. Lowry, Malcolm Lowry. Under the Volcano. New York: HarperCollins, 2000 [1947]. Luckhurst, Roger. “The Essay: Bram Stoker.” BBC, 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. Paz, Octavio. ‘Los Hijos de La Malinche’ [1950]. Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings. Translated by Lysander Kemp, Yaro Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash. New York: Grove Press, 1994. Pearson, Richard. “Personal and National Trauma in H. Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter.” English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920, Vol. 58, No. 1, 2015, pp. 30–53. Phillips, John. Tears of the Indies. Translated by Bartolomé de las Casas Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. London Printed by IC for Nath. Brook, at the Angel in Cornhil. 1656. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/e​/eebo​/A35553​.0001​ .001​?view​=toc. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Ralegh, Walter. Discoverie of Guiana. Ed. Robert Schomburgk. London: Hakluyt Society, 1848 [1596]. Ramirez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. Reeder, Jessie. “H Rider Haggard and the Antagonism of Valid Fiancées.” In The Forms of Informal Empire: Britain, Latin America, and Nineteenth-Century Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

96 Conquest Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Rev. ‘Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter.’ Bookman, January 1894, p. 111. Rev. ‘Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter.’ Review of Reviews, Vol. 8, 1893, p. 735. Rev. ’Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico.’ Dublin Review, Vol. 16, 1844, p. 45. Rev. ‘Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter.’ In The Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts. London: Mather and Crowther, 25 November 1893, p. 576. Robertson, William. History of America. Printed for Samuel Campbell, by Robert Wilson, M.DCC.XCVIII [1777; 1798]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=evans​ ;idno​=N25924​.0001​.001. Sahagún, Bernardino. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Vols. I– XII. Charles E Dibble and Arthur JO Anderson (eds., trans., notes and illus.). Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah Press, 1982. Sibley, Destry. ‘A Lesson From Mexico: How to Forgive Historical Wrongs to Do Right in the Present.’ National Geographic Society Newsroom, 29 January 2018. https://blog​.nationalgeographic​.org​/2018​/01​/29​/a​-lesson​-from​-mexico​-how​-to​ -forgive​-historical​-wrongs​-to​-do​-right​-in​-the​-present/. Tate, Julee. ‘La Malinche: The Shifting Legacy of a Transcultural Icon.’ Latin Americanist. 2017. Vol 61: No. 1 pp 81–92. Townsend, Camilla. La Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. White, Hayden. ‘The Historical Text as Literary Artifact’. Clio, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1 June 1974, p. 277. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. [1929] http://gutenberg.net.au/ ebooks02/0200791h.html

3

‘I was there’ George Griffith’s trek on the Inca trail and Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898)

In ‘Railway beyond the Clouds’ (1896), George Griffith (1857–1906) launches his travelogue of Peru with a photograph of three men dressed in European travel suits and standing atop Cerro San Cristobal in Lima, 400 metres above sea level. In the accompanying photo, we can discern the attitude of the adventurers—one is presumably Griffith—who assume a confident pose, knee bent, hand on hip, one of them astride an old cannon, as ‘Masters of all they surveyed.’1 Their position on the overlook affords them a view of Lima and its environs and, a little further out, a glimpse of the Pacific, as seen in Figure 3.1. Known as ‘The City of the Kings,’ Lima was established in the 1530s by conquistador Francisco Pizarro at the end of a violent and destructive campaign to topple the Inca empire. Griffith chose an appropriate image to begin his reflections on Peru, past and present, for it invites readers to think about the Inca—for whom San Cristobal is an ancient site of worship—about the Spanish who invaded and colonised the country in the 1530s—and about affairs in 1894 when Griffith visited, in the wake of a Peruvian revolution. I begin with this scene to set the stage, as it were, for my reading of Griffith’s masterpiece, Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru, written and published after he retraced the magnificent and often perilous contours of the Inca trail. Before delving into my interpretation, I’d like to reiterate that Virgin of the Sun contributes to a lengthy transatlantic tradition of representing the Spanish conquest. The transatlantic archive about the Amerindian encounter in which Virgin of the Sun may be situated was launched by, among others, polemicistpriest Bartolomé de las Casas in the 1500s, writers John Dryden, Helen Maria Williams, and Richard Sheridan in the late 1600s and late 1700s, and historians William Robertson and William H Prescott in, respectively, the late 1700 and mid-1800s. In the 1840s, young Royal Academician John Everett Millais (1829–1896) painted perhaps the most famous canvas depicting the conquest of Peru with Francisco Pizarro’s seizure of the Inca Atahuallpa (an image to which I shall return). By the late 1800s, the transatlantic discourse about the Spanish conquest began to crystallise with the dissemination of Prescott’s companion volumes, History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] and History of the Conquest of Peru [1847], and Lew Wallace’s The Fair God, or the Last of DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-5

98 Conquest

Figure 3.1 A bird’s eye view of Lima, From Fort San Cristobal. In Griffith. ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds’ (Pearson’s 1896).

the ‘Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (1873). The histories of Prescott and the historical fiction of Lewis—along with the Anglo-Mexican romances of Griffith’s Victorian counterparts George Henty and H Rider Haggard—collectively worked to popularise the Amerindian adventure. Before releasing Virgin of the Sun, Griffith published the Anglo-Inca adventure, Romance of Golden Star (1897), a text I examine in chapter 6. It was Prescott, Lewis, and Haggard with whom Griffith saw himself in dialogue, a point on which I shall soon elaborate.

Griffith’s travels Griffith was a world traveller and news correspondent for Pearson’s Magazine. Recognising Griffith’s importance in literary history and Victorian culture, Robert Godwin collected the author’s travelogues from the 1890s in the volume entitled Around the world in 65 days (2010). This compilation of articles, often illustrated with photographs or picturesque drawings, helps one understand how Griffith crafted his writing for Victorian audiences who were culturally sophisticated and connected by the routes and pathways of the British empire. In many ways the iconic Victorian expeditioner with the Cook timetable, sun helmet, camera, and field glasses in hand, Griffith travelled comfortably in the first-class berth of the transoceanic steamer and the rich upholstered wagon lit of the railway. On other occasions, he relied on more humble

‘I was there’  99 or fantastic means of transportation, human-drawn rickshaws, ornery mules, and a gas-powered balloon which took him from the Crystal Palace of London, across the English Channel, to France. The nineteenthcentury technologies and imperial pathways facilitated Griffith’s travel around the world not once, but at least four times. The most famous expedition took him 65 days—a tribute to Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days—from Dover to Calais, to Italy and through the strait of Messina, and onto Port Said and the Suez Canal; through the Red Sea, then a 10,000-mile steamship journey through the Indian Ocean with stops at Colombo, Sumatra, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and then a trek across the Pacific to the Americas: Vancouver, Montreal, New York— and, finally, across the Atlantic back to England. In producing copy for Pearson’s Griffith was ever mindful of the next deadline and called attention to his work as an author-explorer by advertising the plot of his next novel or wryly warning off other authors who might pick over his first-hand observations for their own stories. While his round-the-world expeditions were mostly at ports of call, Griffith, with the spirit of a geographer and explorer as well as correspondent, well apprehended the importance of travel inland. As Mary Louise Pratt explains in Imperial Eyes, it is this sense of interiority that distinguishes the surveying expeditions of Charles Marie de La Condamine (1701–1774) and Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1869) from their earlier European counterparts who mostly kept to the coasts. When he explored Peru, I believe Griffith placed himself in the same constellation as these writer-scientists who measured, documented, and synthesised data in their geographic study of South America: the driest of deserts; the tallest of mountains in the Western hemisphere; and the source of the Amazon. With this global framework in place, let us now consider Griffith’s travels in Peru.

‘I was there’: Griffith in Peru In reading Griffith’s ‘Railway beyond the Clouds,’ it becomes obvious that the Victorian writer-explorer tapped into a network of agents and personnel in South America, mostly British and American, to retrace the Inca trail. In Peru, these included the chief engineer of the Central Railway; the astronomer taking photometric readings at Harvard’s observatory in Arequipa; the assistance from the Backus and Johnston outfit—US engineers who invested in Andean copper mining—to secure two mules for his Andean journey that hadn’t yet been used for back pay for soldiers, appropriated as spoils of war, or killed during the revolution in the wake of which Griffith travelled. It is these connections that bring to the surface the contours of foreign investment and Britain’s own informal empire in Peru. And it is these connections that gave Griffith a special place for observing the gorges, valleys, and peaks of the Andean region he explored, following the Inca trail, inspiring his novel, Virgin of the Sun, and lending his work an ‘I was there’ quality.

100 Conquest Published in 1898, Virgin of the Sun is one of Griffith’s literary achievements as a romancer, fantasist, and globe-trotting correspondent. In this historic fiction recounting Pizarro’s conquest of Peru, he paints a striking picture of the stone-hewn fortresses, gilded temples, and stately palaces, as well as the extreme geographies that shaped the Iberian-Inca theatre of war. One such impression is Griffith’s account of Pizarro leading his expedition of about 160 men through the Andes to meet the Inca Atahuallpa in Cajamarca, Peru:2 Men who would have charged a host single handed at the call of faith or duty reined up their trembling steeds on the brink of frightful precipices with hands that shook as though they had never held lance or sword and their eyes gazed blankly down into the awful voids … Then, at length, they passed through the region of burning sun and piercing wind which lay above the soft summer of the valleys into the eternal winter that reigns unbroken through the centuries on its everlasting thrones of ice and snow. There indeed they thought themselves wanderers beyond the limits that God had set to human life. Before and behind and around them towered the vast white shapes that seemed like the guardians of the portals of some other world into which no human foot had ever ventured. The icy blasts smote them with the keenness of sword edges, and they and their labouring, shivering beasts gasped agonizingly for breath in the thick, frozen air. (Griffith 54) Here, Pizarro’s ascent to empyrean heights, ‘beyond the limits that God had set to human life,’ symbolises his rise and anticipates his eventual fall, a point to which we shall return at the end of this essay. But for now, let us attend to Griffith’s stunning picture of the hazards of imperial ventures, with Spaniards riding ‘steeds on the brink of frightful precipices’ assailed by ‘icy blasts,’ that hit them ‘with the keenness of sword edges.’3 These precipices, otherworldly portals, were known to the author, as were the burning sun, blasting winds, and dizzying heights made even more intense by lower atmospheric pressure, what Griffith refers to as soroche, or altitude sickness. The author’s formative experience in Peru provided him with inspiration for this imagery and placed him within a constellation of novelists who conducted ‘fieldwork’ for their rewritings of the conquest, fieldwork that yielded close descriptions not only of the terrain—extreme and rugged—but also historical and anthropological elements. Fieldwork gave verisimilitude to Amerindian romances that earlier, and perhaps more archetypal, rewritings of the clash between the Old World and the New lacked, lending it what Roger Luckhurst calls in his study of archaeological fiction, ‘the weight of plausibility’ (2012).

Griffith’s contribution to the transatlantic archive With fieldwork as one basis for his fiction, Griffith particularly saw himself in dialogue with the US writer-statesman Lewis Wallace (1827–1905) and

‘I was there’  101 immensely popular Victorian novelist H Rider Haggard (1856–1925), as he notes in the preface to Virgin of the Sun: It is a somewhat curious fact, especially in these days when books are many and subjects hard to seek, that none of our great historical novelists on either side of the Atlantic should have done for the conquest of Peru what Lew Wallace in America and Rider Haggard in England have done for the conquest of Mexico. (Griffith 9) Wallace, a Union general and statesman, led a clandestine operation to subvert the French occupation of Mexico in the 1860s. There, he became familiar with the history and geography of Anahuac, the heart of Montezuma’s empire. Wallace capitalised on his experiences to write the two-volume adventure, The Fair God (1873) which, in many ways, provided a model for his transatlantic successors.4 The Fair God begins with a celebration of Prescott, whom Wallace calls an ‘incomparable genius,’ and relies on History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) as a narrative anchor. Following Wallace, Haggard drew on his 1891 tour of Mexico to colour his description of the Aztec empire and to recount Hernan Cortés’s 1519 invasion in the romance, Montezuma’s Daughter (1893). Griffith, then, was astute in associating his work with that of Wallace and Haggard, for all three novelists personally explored cultural sites fundamental to their Amerindian fictions, which makes them notable in the transatlantic archive. Another feature uniting these novelists is the citation of Prescott. But drawing on the work of a highly publicised historian was, for Griffith, a double-edged sword. In writing Virgin of the Sun, Griffith reflects that historiography is both a source of material for and a liability to the creative impulse of the novelist. He explains in the novel’s preface, It is one of the misfortunes of the romancer who devotes himself to the re-telling of a story which has already been recorded by the pen of History that he cannot deal with his characters as he would with those who are purely the creation of his own fancy. Here or there a date or an incident may be altered, and to a certain extent he may put such words as he pleases into the mouths of those whom he has recalled from the grave to play their parts upon the stage which he has reconstructed for them. But with this the license which he may legitimately use is exhausted. To push his privileges beyond this point would be to utterly destroy the verisimilitude of his narrative by bringing it into flat contradiction with the known facts of history. (emphasis mine 152) To address the difficulty of writing a ‘romance’ when faced with the ‘known facts of history,’ Griffith devises a few strategies. First, he signals historic

102 Conquest authenticity by referencing the work of Prescott, taking part in a practice that was common at the time of the novel’s composition, for the citing of sources had become customary by the nineteenth century and gives Virgin of the Sun the ethos that Victorian audiences expected. Second, he invests in what I call the ‘I was there’ quality, and he signals to the reader his use of a prototype which may be similar to, but not the same as, other Amerindian adventures one has read before. Given these strategies, I shall frame my argument about Griffith’s contribution to a transatlantic conversation about the conquest by drawing on Jane Tompkins’s idea of ‘cultural work,’ Robert MacFarlane’s interrogation of the idea of literary ownership and originality in the nineteenth century, and Joseph Bristow’s interpretation of the Victorian adventure novel as cadet manual. Then, I shall survey key episodes and figures that make clear Griffith’s debt to Prescott in Virgin of the Sun’s illustration of the cultural encounters and dramatic collisions in the ‘New World.’ Finally, I’ll circle back to Griffith’s portrait of Pizarro, examine the Inca resistance to the Spanish invasion, and propose that this novel—taken with Henty and Haggard’s Amerindian fictions of conquest—sets up the argument for narratives of reclamation, the subject of Part II of this book.

The prototype of the Amerindian adventure Though admiring rewritings of the Spanish conquest of Mexico by Wallace and Haggard, Griffith saw the retelling of Cortés’s invasion of Montezuma’s empire as already having been done. Accordingly, he draws our attention to Pizarro, and the conquistador’s invasion of Tavantinsuyu, the swath of lands cutting across what are now Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and parts of Argentina. Griffith reasons in the preface: And yet surely Pizarro is as picaresque a character as Cortes, and certainly the achievements of the devoted little band of heroes who braved with him the terrors of the then unknown Sea of the South, who starved with him in Hunger Harbour and on the desolate shores of Gallo, who followed him across those colossal mountain-bulwarks which guarded the golden Empire of the Incas, who seized a conquering monarch in the midst of his victorious army and put him to death as a common criminal, bordered more closely on miracle than did those of Cortes and his followers. (Griffith) While carving out his own literary terrain, Griffith, to maintain his position in the transatlantic discourse, does not depart too far from the convention, one made apparent in the Booklist’s 1898 review of Virgin of the Sun. The Booklist’s critic writes,

‘I was there’  103 It is, as the author remarks in his preface, a little strange that no romance should have treated the conquest of Peru in the fashion which Mr Rider Haggard has dealt with the conquest of Mexico. Mr Griffiths [sic] has, therefore, thrown himself into the breach, and has certainly succeeded in producing a very vivid and exciting story, closely modelled on its prototype. He has been fortunate enough to visit the country himself, and he has thus been able to attain an accuracy of local colour and description which would hardly have been possible under other conditions. (The Booklist 489) As we shall see, the ‘prototype’ for Virgin of the Sun depends on a pattern of showcasing the sophistication of Amerindian civilisations; demonstrating sources of conflict between the Old World and the New; examining the critical role of the interpreter in cross-cultural communication; exposing internal rivalries among both Spanish invaders and Amerindian defenders; probing rumours of El Dorado, the famed city of gold; and retelling legends that link fair-skinned deities and sea-faring invaders.5 All the while, Griffith imparts lessons and insights that might benefit Victorian audiences—future explorers, financiers, agents of empire, educators, and military personnel.

Victorian reviews of Virgin of the Sun Reviewers from The Paul Mall Gazette and Observer appreciated this prototype at play, or at least saw an author’s use of a set of conventions as an acceptable approach to engaging young readers. The Paul Mall Gazette observes in 1898, Mr Griffith handles his subject in a masterly way, and makes the most of the many dramatic possibilities which it affords. We follow with absorbed interest the fortunes of Francisco Pizarro and his devoted little band of followers, from the time of their starvation and despair on the desolate island of Gallo as described in the opening chapter, through their almost incredible journey across the wild mountain passes through which they threaded their way to the long coveted El Dorado, to their final triumphant conquest by means of brutal massacre and vile treachery towards the kindly and unsuspecting Children of the Sun. The descriptive parts of the book are excellently done. (The Paul Mall Gazette 9) In addition to highlighting some elements of the ‘prototype’ to which I’ve called attention, this reviewer hints at a critical idea in interpreting the story: enactment. Enactment as a trope helps readers appreciate the dual narratives operating at the same time. Historical personalities rehearse roles— for example, civilising the Amerindian ‘other’—staged for the annals of history, but underlying their performance are harsh material and physical

104 Conquest consequences which convey an entirely different message. We see this enactment in Francisco Pizarro’s role as intrepid conquistador in the pursuit of El Dorado; Father Vincente de Valverde’s fanaticism; Dr Martin de Zarate’s cruel pretence of upholding the law in charging the Inca Atahuallpa (1502– 1533) with concubinage, idolatry, and conspiracy; and the sensational and public staging of the young Inca’s execution, all of which I’ll address in turn. Similarly, The Outlook recognises the episodic and performative aspects of Virgin of the Sun: The incidents of Pizarro’s conquest of Peru furnish Mr Griffith with the material for a fine, robust, historical romance, packed full with such thrilling adventures, desperate combats, and long heroic set speeches as must surely satisfy the most exacting reader into whose hands it may fall. (The Outlook 279) With reference to ‘the most exacting reader’ and ‘long-heroic set speeches,’ The Outlook gestures to the idea that Griffith’s readers—familiar with formulaic adventure fiction—were schooled in history and the rise and fall of civilisations—notably the Aztec, the Inca, the Spanish, perhaps at some time even Britain’s own. There would be a pleasure for Victorian audiences, I believe, in recognising the elements of an advanced civilisation, its achievement in the arts and architecture, the development of its institutions and systems to accommodate an ever-increasing populace and territory, as well as the corresponding impulse to trace its inevitable downfall, as penned by historians. By 1898, Griffith and his readers would not be merely attentive to the expanse of the British empire but enmeshed in it, deeply immersed in a global set of cultural and commercial exchanges at home and abroad and served by the nineteenth-century technologies that afforded the author both the chronological perspective and geographical proximity to contemplate his subject: Pizarro’s invasion of the Inca empire. The sophistication and cultural literacy of the Victorian reader demanded much from adventure romancers and historic fiction writers, and Virgin of the Sun most certainly delivers.

Context for Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun Despite laudatory reviews from the British press, Griffith’s engagement with culturally astute audiences, the novel’s genesis from his ‘fieldwork’ in Peru, the lyrical quality of his writing, and his contribution to a well-established transatlantic conversation, very little recent scholarship sets Virgin of the Sun front and centre. Darren Harris-Fain’s biography of Griffith highlights the visionary aspect of his fiction, notably Honeymoon in Space (1901), Valdar the Oft-Born (1895), Angel of the Revolution (1893), novels serialised in Pearson’s about, variously, interstellar exploration, time travel,

‘I was there’  105 and futuristic weapons of war. We can turn to the work of transatlantic scholars such as Walter Maltby, Doris Sommer, Rebecca Cole Heinowitz, and Joselyn Almeida for relevant insights, however. Maltby, for example, critiques the dissemination of the Black Legend in literature—that is, the stereotypical representation of the Spanish as cruel, tyrannical, greedy, violent, treacherous, or hypocritical. These traits surface in Griffith’s portrait of Catholic priest Vincente de Valverde and conquistador Diego Almagro. Sommer, with her focus on Latin American novels that use marriage and romance as a metaphor for the emergence of the nation-state, proposes the idea of the foundational fiction, a concept indispensable in interpreting the novel’s union of the historic Inca Manco Capac and the fictionalised character Nahua who, upon entering the House of the Virgins, gives the book its name. For their part, Heinowitz and Almeida investigate historian William Robertson’s influence on Romantic visions of the ‘New World’ which will become Latin America. In the same way Robertson’s History of America [1777; 1798] informs a catalogue of literary texts that re-imagine the New World encounter in the late 1700s and early 1800s, so do Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] and History of the Conquest of Peru [1847] prompt authors on both sides of the Atlantic to re-imagine episodes of Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro’s respective campaigns.6 In this close reading of Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun—as in my analyses elsewhere of the Amerindian adventure—I’ve benefited from Jane Tompkins’s idea of cultural work and Robert MacFarlane’s study of ‘originality.’ As articulated by Tomkins in her study of American fiction from 1790 to 1860, ‘neglected texts’—texts popular at their emergence but now less so—are worthy of study because their authors (among others James Fenimore Cooper and Harriet Beecher Stowe) seek to ‘win the belief and influence the behaviour of the widest possible audience. These novels have designs upon their audiences, in the sense of wanting to make people think and act a particular way’ (xiii). Virgin of the Sun is one of these neglected texts, and Tompkins’s approach compels me to question to what extent a novel set from the 1520s—when Pizarro embarks on his quest for El Dorado— to 1541, when he’s assassinated, resonated with Victorian audiences. In deploying a self-consciously English narrator of 1898, Griffith took the licence to occasionally interrupt the story with a footnote or a commentary that invited reflection on British affairs, that called attention to topics such as primogeniture, entailment, succession, as well as more pressing concerns for ordinary folk, such as being clothed, having employment, and being fed.7 As appropriate occasions come up, I’ll return to Griffith’s engagement of his Victorian readers throughout this essay. For his part, Robert MacFarlane argues in Original Copy: Originality and Plagiarism in Nineteenth-Century Literature (2007) that Victorian writers interrogated the notion of originality, given that texts always come from somewhere. He observes, ‘From the late 1850s onwards, received notions of originality (as the pre-eminent literary virtue) and plagiarism (as

106 Conquest the pre-eminent literary sin) came under increasingly sceptical scrutiny’ and, further, that the ‘inventive reuse of the words of others’ was ‘discerned as an authentic form of creativity’ (8). Moreover, he notes that, Instead of seeking to conceal, deny, or abolish the very notion of a precursor or precursors, they [authors] perform a narrative of their origins. All tip the wink that they are in some way begotten, by devising ways of gently nudging, or sometimes forcefully shoving, their provenance to the fore. All possess, it might be said, a historical self-consciousness: by acknowledging that they have come from somewhere, and not out of nowhere. (MacFarlane 13) My view is that Griffith certainly performs this gesture of literary debt—that he cites Prescott, paraphrases him, and models many of the episodes and characters of Virgin of the Sun on History of the Conquest of Peru. And yet, as we shall see, Griffith threads throughout the story his own elegant prose, imagery, and comparisons between the conquest of Peru and topics germane to his readership, making his novel much more than a recycling of the observations and assessments of his historical source.

Griffith’s debt to Prescott One of the most obvious ways that Griffith performs the gesture of owing a literary debt to Prescott is in the novel’s format and use of ‘books,’ and these, in turn, recall the organisation of Robertson’s History of America [1777; 1798]. Each book of Virgin of the Sun—and there are four, plus the prologue and epilogue—roughly corresponds with the organisation of History of the Conquest of Peru. In that volume, Prescott begins Book I by detailing his view that the Inca empire was extensive, geographically diverse, socially ordered, agriculturally productive, and well-engineered. The historian proceeds to outline Pizarro’s career and recounts the discovery and conquest of the Inca empire in Books II and III. Books IV and V, respectively, survey Spanish imperial rivalries and the settlement of Peru and Chile. Like all vast empires, Prescott explains, the Inca empire was vulnerable to internal divisions that then created fault lines for the Spanish to penetrate. Prescott points out how a crisis of succession in the Inca dynasty led to civil war, and how longstanding tribal animosities erupted between emperor and conquered peoples, such as the Canaris, who were conscripted or relocated in service to the state. According to Prescott, further ripening the seeds of Pizarro’s conquest was the Spanish association with the Inca deity Viracocha, a move that seems to have facilitated Spanish entry into Tavantinsuyu, largely unchecked. Prescott goes on to note that compounding the ordinary challenges of interpreting two radically different languages, Spanish and Quechua, was the intrigue

‘I was there’  107 surrounding Filipillo, a native interpreter for the Spanish. According to Prescott, Filipillo deliberately miscommunicated Atahuallpa’s messages, owing to his resentment of the Inca.8 Finally, one other important factor in Pizarro’s success that Prescott calls out is that the delay in orchestrating military resistance to the Spanish made futile the efforts of great Inca generals Challcuchima and Ruminavi, and lent weight to the balance to favour the conquistadors.9 Griffith incorporates these elements into his novel and elaborates on key episodes that, because they appear with frequency, are emblematic of a transatlantic discourse, one that we can rightly regard as motivated but not wholly circumscribed by Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru. Let’s further examine the moments and figures that both mirror and depart from Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru. One of these is Griffith’s prologue entitled, ‘Line of fate,’ which takes place in 1527 on the sun-baked Isle of Gallo, off the coast of Panama. Pizarro and his men have been digging for grubs while hungrily awaiting food supplies to arrive from Panama so they can continue their exploits south, through what later are known as Ecuador and Peru. Spanish ships land, but not with the intent of distributing provisions. Instead, Don Lorenzo Tafur charges Pizarro with recklessness for subjecting Spanish troops to famine and orders Pizarro and his men to abandon their expedition south. Pizarro seeks El Dorado, a land ever elusive but rumoured to be rich in jewels, gold, and silver, prompting adventurers to sludge through swamps, scale icy heights, and endure scorching deserts, all the while risking starvation, injury, and disease.10 In a moment borrowed from Prescott, Griffith’s Pizarro draws a line in the Gallo beach to separate his steadfast brothers-in-arms from those who would join Tafur’s expedition back to Panama: On yonder side are toil and hunger, nakedness, the pitiless storm and the drenching rain, and it may be a grave in the unknown wilderness. On this side are ease and pleasure, and safety; but yonder lies El-Dorado with its gold and silver and gems, the glory of conquest and the hope of dominion. Here is Panama, poverty and dishonour. Now choose each of you that which seems to you best becoming a brave Castilian. For my part I go south.11 (Griffith 18) This moment is illustrated by military artist and Pearson’s Magazine illustrator Stanley L Wood (1866–1922) in Figure 3.2. Facing the prospect of uncertainty, if not failure, 12 men cross this line, choosing to resume their quest for El Dorado. Ultimately, Pizarro leads the expedition south, entering upon the Inca trail—an incredible feat of civil engineering and architecture that shaped the landscape and led the Spanish to the golden temples they sought. This journey takes place at the same time the Inca empire faces crises within its borders.

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Figure 3.2 ‘On this side are ease and pleasure and safety; but yonder lies El Dorado with its gold and silver and gems, the glory of conquest and the hope of dominion!’ Stanley L Wood, illustrator, Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898). Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Book I of Virgin of the Sun begins in the 1520s with the image of the sun setting on the empire of the Inca Huayna Capac, while the Spanish are making their way to Peru. Griffith depicts a scene in which the Inca ruler, on his deathbed, considers dividing his dominions between his elder son and rightful heir, Huascar, and Atahuallpa, a younger son of a favoured wife. The High Priest, a trusted counsellor of great status in the Incan state, advises Huayna Capac to bequeath to Huascar the entirety of the empire. As scholarship on Henty and Haggard’s adventure novels amply demonstrates—and as my own interpretation of their Amerindian fictions hopefully makes clear—Victorian adventure fiction was pedagogical, imparting the values and interests of the late 1800s. Thus, at this juncture of Virgin of the Sun, British readers might have reflected on the practices of primogeniture and succession—privileges and rights afforded to firstborn sons. Certainly, many of these same readers—second sons—would be impacted

‘I was there’  109 by entailment, the practice of keeping family estates entire, rather than parcelling them among heirs, which would result in the diminution of ancestral lands over time. In Griffith’s telling, the High Priest’s arguments persuade Huayna Capac, who decides to keep the empire whole and intact. Yet through his mother’s treachery, Atahuallpa, called the ‘Usurper,’ prevails in Griffith’s novel, and what ensues is enmity between the two sons. Their civil war, concurrent with Pizarro’s invasion, creates a fault line in the empire that Huayna Capac had successfully expanded and governed. This crisis, too, would have resonated with British audiences accustomed to the twists and turns of succession, as young Queen Victoria wasn’t the main contender for the throne and had been I believe fifth in line, yet ascended to extend and govern an empire covering much of the globe. Atahuallpa would not be so lucky. Having established the Inca empire’s crisis at the very moment the Spanish arrive, Griffith’s story advances to 1532 in Cajamarca, where the laconic, meditative Atahuallpa is installed with his troops. By this point in Book II, Griffith has amply illustrated the order and prosperity achieved under Inca rule. Yet he warns us early on that the Inca: was an empire at its zenith. It had reached that acme of military and social organisation beyond which, as the history of the world would seem to tell us, the Fates who govern human destiny do not permit a human society to develop. (Griffith 19) It is in Cajamarca that Pizarro plans the ambush and capture of the sovereign, and in the next moment, Pizarro calculates a timely ‘intervention,’ laying hands on the royal Atahuallpa to extract him from the turmoil. In Virgin of the Sun, Pizarro orders the conquistadors surrounding the besieged sovereign to back off, ‘On thy life harm him not! Let go, I tell thee, or, by our Lady, I will cut thee down myself’ (Griffith 72). We get a sense in this scene that Pizarro is mindful of how this unprovoked attack on the Inca and his people will be recorded in history—a concern that will re-surface in his future relations with the Inca Atahuallpa.

Transatlantic imaginings of the conquest of Peru This seizing of the Inca—and Pizarro’s contentious role—is one of those episodes emblematic of the ‘prototype,’ mentioned earlier. First, of course, it was an actual event, then recorded in Spanish accounts, later featured in Robinson and Prescott’s histories, and then re-fashioned by Griffith for Virgin of the Sun. This moment also belongs to the world of art, for in 1846, Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais painted the spectacle of the Spanish conquest in Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru, and exhibited the

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Figure 3.3 John Everett Millais. Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru (1846). Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

painting in the Royal Academy. It is now housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a photograph of which appears in Figure 3.3. In the painting, feathered headdresses and offerings lay scattered on the ground, signifying the violent interruption of the Inca Atahuallpa’s ceremonious reception of the Spanish. Catholic priest Vincente Valverde, on the left of the composition, wields a crucifix to sanction the attack on the Inca’s procession. Beneath Atahuallpa’s litter are his Inca bearers, one of whom is being trampled by a conquistador. Huddling together in the foreground is a Peruvian couple; the woman richly dressed for the occasion and shielding her child from the violence; she watches as a Spaniard furtively strips a deceased noble of his property; a young man, perhaps her husband, looks with anxiety at the fate of the equally young sovereign. A pineapple, presumably for the welcoming feast, has fallen to the ground. Centre stage and surrounded by chaos, the seasoned leader Pizarro, dressed in red with a yellow doublet and white ruff, confidently lays a hand on the besieged monarch. Millais signifies the royalty of the Inca Atahuallpa with the golden llautu, red feather, precious jewellery, and sumptuous litter, which is covered with a jaguar skin and richly coloured tapestry. In the background on the right, a conquistador impales with his sword an unarmed attendant—a cowardly attack. Far off in the distance on the left of the composition, the

‘I was there’  111 sun sets on Tavantinsuyu. What Millais captures here are the complexity and drama that characterise interpretations of the Spanish conquest, as well as the ambiguity of Pizarro’s role. Is the conquistador a protector of the fallen emperor, as in Millais’s romanticised portrait? Or is Pizarro, the grand orchestrator of this attack, placing the Inca on his guard as leverage for future ambitions?12 For Griffith, an equally important element of this moment is the heroic last stand of the Inca’s attendants, men who adorn themselves not for battle, but for the momentous meeting of two empires.13 The nobles and princes of the doomed empire, their trappings of gold and silver and gems splashed and spattered with the noblest blood in the Land of the Four Regions, crowded round the litter of their Lord, opposing their bare hands to the steel of the Spaniards, and making a wall of their bodies to protect him from the plunging, trampling chargers. (Griffith 72) The image of these bejewelled princes, of the ‘noblest blood,’ using their bare hands against the steel weaponry of the Spanish reinforces a motif of the novel: the Inca dynasty’s inability to resist technologies and strategies of European warfare (enthusiasts of Griffith’s science fiction, notably Angel of the Revolution, would recognise technology and warfare as an important theme). Having been made a prisoner, and apprehending the Spanish greed for gold, the Inca Atahuallpa offers to amass an exceptional ransom, one worthy of a sovereign of the largest empire of the Americas. Thus, Inca treasure is gathered from temples, palaces, and hidden caches. After it has been secured and inventoried, the Spanish charge the sovereign with treason and concubinage, among other crimes. This affair involves two historically real personalities, the Inca’s sham trial conducted by Dr Martin de Zarate and the Inca’s forced conversion by Catholic priest Valverde. Charged and found guilty, the young sovereign is publicly executed by garrotte. With detailed descriptions drawn from both historical materials and his own peregrinations, then, Griffith relays the collapse of the Inca empire in Books I, II, and III of Virgin of the Sun. Book IV follows the conquistadors’ path to Cusco, and the resistance led by the young Inca Manco Capac, Huayna Capac’s son and Huascar’s brother, as well as the renowned Inca generals Challcuchima and Ruminavi. Manco Capac is made of different stuff than Atahuallpa, and given Virgin of the Sun’s multiple plot lines, his is one of the most important because he orchestrates an insurrection against the Spanish. The epilogue concludes the story in Lima, where an ageing Pizarro is brutally assassinated by his countrymen.14 True to ancient Greek notions of hubris and irony, Pizarro at the outset ascends empyrean heights and comes to act the part of puppet master. Yet, by the end of this bloody drama, he is stripped of that role,

112 Conquest unable to withstand the murderous attack by his Spanish compatriots. He has fallen spectacularly from the apex of his position of power, an ascendance we will next trace.

Griffith’s Victorian portrait of Pizarro Francisco Pizarro (1475–1541) arrived in the Caribbean after its 1492 ‘discovery’ by Columbus and a few years before Cortés’s invasion of Mexico in 1519. At first glance, the seasoned conquistador may appear an unlikely topic of English letters, yet his role in the conquest has inspired explicitly or implicitly the plots and characters of several literary works, notably Davenant’s The Cruelty of Spaniards in Peru (1658). Helen Maria Williams’s Peru, a Poem in Six Cantos (1784), Sheridan’s Pizarro, a Tragedy in Five Acts (1799), and Robertson’s oft-reprinted History of America (1777; 1798).15 The authority on the conquest until Prescott published his volumes, Robertson describes Pizarro as the ‘natural born son of a gentleman’ and a ‘low woman,’ a youth who kept hogs and was illiterate (Robertson 150). For his part, Prescott also acknowledges Pizarro’s humble origins and portrays him as a ruthless opportunist in History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). Griffith recognises these associations and mostly highlights Pizarro’s attributes—his bold actions in desperate circumstances; his ability to uphold rules and the law when doing so reinforces his own power; and his leadership given difficult terrain, limited troops, and ever-dwindling resources. Stepping back a bit, one apprehends that successful strategies in the theatre of war get replayed in different geographies. Pizarro in Peru launched an expedition that mirrors that of Cortés in Mexico. We see the parallel in a number of ways: the quest for gold; enlistment of a native interpreter; association with Amerindian deities; use of European weaponry and horses in combat; strategic alliances with tribes hostile to the Amerindian sovereign; and occasional exercise of extreme measures, such as torture, execution, and massacre. In Virgin of the Sun, Griffith portrays Pizarro as a common soldier who rises in rank from humble origins, a particularly relevant message for Britain’s second sons and enlisted youth for whom the empire and military allowed some measure of mobility.16 In the same way that, as pointed out by literary critic Joseph Bristow, George Henty’s historic novels function as cadet manuals in the service of the British empire, so, too, does Griffith’s novel offer Pizarro’s career in the Iberian-Peruvian theatre of war as a playbook, whether for the Victorian reader’s edification, entertainment, or perhaps to be used in one’s own military exploits. In the case of the latter, Virgin of the Sun could relate but not necessarily condone actions—such as making terms with mutineers—that historically the British have shunned. For example, when faced with insubordination among his compatriots, Pizarro shames, but does not punish, the mutineers. Instead, he relates to them as a soldier who has made the same

‘I was there’  113 arduous journey and calls out the Catholic cause as a reason to stay the course. Gentlemen and soldiers of Spain, champions of the holy Faith and comrades who have followed me thus far through storm and calm, hunger and plenty, cold and heat, I have called you here to speak to you with such plainness as the occasion demands. To my sorrow I have heard that there are some in the army who have talked of going back … You all know with what difficulty we came here … How much harder would it be for us all to go back even if we went united? But for a few it would be impossible, for they would not only have the hosts of the Inca to fight their way through over those long and weary leagues that we have traversed, but—in the name of God and Santiago, in the cause of his Most Catholic Majesty and our high enterprise—I swear on the faith of a true man that one Christian sword at least, held by one Christian hand, will bar their way should they seek to tread the path of the recreant and the coward—so help me God and his holy Saints, I swear it! (Griffith 67) And soldiers, we might recall, were few for Pizarro who came to Peru with about 160, so each man counted and could not readily be replaced. In the scene above, Griffith’s Pizarro speaks with ‘plainness’ to recall the privation, sickness, and isolation he and his men suffered on the Isle of Gallo. Seeing division in his army, he firmly asserts that the only path is onward—there is no turning back—a directive that echoes the one Cortés issued when he sank his own ships off the coast of Mexico in 1519. With determination, then, and the Church’s blessing, Pizarro tenders Peruvian gold as the reward for his men’s endurance on the ‘road to El Dorado.’ Griffith thus places his Pizarro in the ‘rallying’ scenes found in comparable historical adventures, such as Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, With Cortez in Mexico (1891). What such scenes have in common is the use of rhetoric to inspire combatants or shame the naysayers and in both ways move the campaign forward. This would be an especially important lesson for British youth—perhaps cadets or future officers—who would serve the empire in India, Ireland, and Australia, throughout Africa, and the Americas. Again, Joseph Bristow’s critique of Henty novels resonates here in so far as Victorian adventure fiction operates as an instruction manual on leadership, duty, and, of course, conquest. What’s more, as Griffith’s novel reveals, Pizarro’s military vision and promises of fantastic wealth came to fruition; once within the borders of Tavantinsuyu, soldiers trespassed into palaces, temples, and store houses to behold a precious array of gold and silver ornaments, goblets, and plates— the treasure for which they hungered. But how do the Spanish gain entry? One trope that surfaces in the annals of history is the Peruvian association of the Spanish with the Inca creator deity, Viracocha.

114 Conquest As with the Amerindian romance adventures of Henty and Haggard, Griffith revives in his fiction the ‘white god’ myth, and in so doing all three writers borrow from Prescott. In History of the Conquest of Peru, Prescott explains the Spanish were received in Tavantinsuyu as ‘Children of the Sun’ for ‘their fair complexions, brilliant armour, and the thunderbolts which they bore in their hands’ (Prescott 874).17 Virgin of the Sun’s narrator, similarly, observes that the Iberian invaders were ‘the long-foretold messengers from the Sun, fair of skin and mighty of arm, who were coming to rule over the Land of the Four Regions, and to advance its borders till they included the whole habitable world and all the men that lived upon the earth’ (Griffith 29). Griffith’s Pizarro profits from the association with Viracocha in the same way Cortés’s arrival was related to the return, from the sea, of the Aztec deity, Quetzalcoatl. Pizarro confides to his men, ‘You know through many rumours that these heathens have received us … as beings somewhat more than human, as children of one of their gods, whom they have by an unwelcome if somewhat useful flattery taken me to be’ (Griffith 60). But in the same way that Mexicans call into question the association of the Spanish with Amerindian deities in Henty and Haggard’s transatlantic adventures, so, too, the Peruvians in Griffith’s characterisation are circumspect about the supposed supernatural abilities of the Iberian invaders in Virgin of the Sun. This suspicion arises when Valverde rides across a stream on his mule. When she stops to drink, the priest struggles with her, and man and beast fall unceremoniously into the water. Griffith describes the Peruvians as then recognising that, … the sad-robed clerics were not true sons of Viracocha at all, since they had no shining raiment or weapons, nor did they see how the god would permit any of his children to be overcome by a beast and put into such a ludicrous and contemptible position. (Griffith 47) Along similar lines, Quito General Challcuchima advises the Inca, ‘These strangers are no gods, or sons of gods’ (Griffith 66). Atahuallpa, too, comes to bitterly avow that Pizarro ‘hath falsely been called the son of Viracocha’ (Griffith 75). But when deification fails to serve the Iberian invaders, Pizarro draws upon another strategy: alliances with tribes conquered by the Inca. Once encamped in Tavantinsuyu, Griffith’s Pizarro follows the military strategy of driving a wedge deeper into an empire already fractured and forging new alliances. We learn in Virgin of the Sun that Cortés in Mexico first conquers and then wins over to his cause the Tlascalans, a tribe that felt enmity towards the Aztec; Tlascalan warriors filled out Spanish ranks from a few hundred to several thousand (Griffith 67). Similarly, Pizarro enlists the support of the Canaris tribe, which is hostile to the Inca Atahuallpa (Griffith 115). Originating in what is now Ecuador, the Canaris people had their own language and customs and had long resisted Inca domination, though they

‘I was there’  115 eventually capitulated. According to Prescott, during the civil war between Huascar and Atahuallpa in the 1520s, the Inca Atahuallpa targeted the land of the Canaris, launched a war of extermination, and ‘laid the country to waste with fire and sword, sparing no man capable of bearing arms who fell into his hands’ (Prescott 903). It was not surprising the Canaris then aligned themselves with the Spanish, and a fortuitous alliance it was for Pizarro. In addition to creating alliances, Griffith’s Pizarro shows himself to be an astute politician. For example, he tempers the excess violence of the lower ranks and the extremism of his counterparts, trying to preserve the appearance of order in his enterprise. He deliberates on questions of state, which makes him tolerable to Victorian audiences and sets him apart from other personalities in the novel, such as the over-zealous priest Valverde and the sadistic, ‘one-eyed scoundrel’ Diego Almagro (Griffith 119). In Virgin of the Sun, Valverde incites the Spanish to attack the Inca in the name of God and he forcefully converts the Inca Atahuallpa, since, in his view, a Christian death would be better than a heathen one (Griffith 106). Almagro, Pizarro’s Spanish counterpart and rival, is shown by Griffith to advocate the harsh methods of the Inquisition in the interrogation of Atahuallpa. When the Spanish debate the monarch’s fate, Almagro remarks that ‘a very brief trial of the match or the thumbscrew, or maybe a few minutes on the rack, would speedily open his Majesty’s lips and loosen his royal tongue’ (Griffith 102). This scene resonates with critic Walter Maltby’s observation that, since the 1500s, English writers have ‘created a formidable stereotype of the Spaniard himself which comprises most of the vices and shortcomings known to man’ (Maltby 4). But Griffith makes Pizarro more of a Machiavellian character than a villain. From Griffith’s pen and imagination, Pizarro is an accomplished tactician and a rhetor who, if illiterate, nevertheless knows how his actions will be recorded in history. This is a point I hinted at earlier, when the conquistador ‘saves’ the Inca from Spanish violence in Cajamarca. During the debate about how to proceed now that Atahuallpa has been charged, Griffith’s Pizarro guards his reputation and assumes a more neutral position than his counterparts. He distances himself from the order to kill an Inca emperor: It seems to me that the Inca hath already suffered enough at our hands, unless of course the finding of this honourable court be that he is guilty of the crime imputed to him, in which case let the just penalty fall on him, but let us not forget, Señores, that, whatever his fault may be, he is a crowned monarch, and that it would ill please the tender mercy and high chivalry of his Most Catholic Majesty to learn that soldiers of his had put the indignity of torture upon a brother sovereign. (Griffith 102) The issue here is torture as opposed to punishment. Griffith’s Pizarro will allow punishment after Atahuallpa has been tried by a court—although as

116 Conquest Pizarro will point out, he is not tried in a court of the Inca’s peers. He reminds his Iberian counterparts that their ‘Most Catholic Majesty’ (Charles V) would be horrified to hear of the torture of a ruler.18 When the Spanish court finds the Inca guilty of conspiracy, Griffith’s Pizarro hesitates to place his seal on Atahuallpa’s death warrant and asks: Hath not, after all, the Inca to be tried, as every other man hath, by his peers? And if so, would not a more proper course be to pronounce the lighter sentence and send our prisoner, with a due statement of this process that we have held, to the government of Panama, so that either final judgement may be pronounced by the Viceroy or the Inca may be sent to Spain to receive his sentence from the august lips of our master the Emperor? (Griffith 103) Here Griffith conveys the message that matters of state should be handled very carefully and with equal measures of justice and respect for the monarchy, as well as with attentiveness to one’s own potential contribution to news or history. Victorian audiences would see in the llautu, the headdress I remarked upon in Millais’s painting and a detail which appears in Virgin of the Sun, a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, and tradition. Griffith characterises Pizarro as respecting Inca royalty and possessing a greater sense of humanity than Valverde and Almagro. Yet once the Inca’s death warrant is made official by court de Zarate’s proceedings, Pizarro takes prompt action. Having divided the Inca’s incredible ransom, sending Spain its royal fifth, and distributing the rest among his army, Pizarro directs his brothers Juan Pizarro and Hernando Pizarro to Cusco. Francisco Pizarro, meanwhile, travels to the coast of Peru, eventually founding the city of Lima. We will pause Griffith’s narrative here, ‘leaving’ Pizarro in Lima, while we survey the Inca resistance throughout the lands known as Tavantinsuyu.

The Inca resistance Having considered Griffith’s Machiavellian characterisation of Pizarro as a figure who hovers between antagonist and protagonist, my next objective is to examine the novel’s heroic Inca characters—the General Challcuchima, the heir apparent Manco Capac, and General Ruminavi—for the potential they embody or ideals they represent. These three figures are significant because, to varying extents, they fight against the Spanish and expose the treachery and violence of Pizarro’s campaign. We will begin with the Quitoborn Challcuchima (late 1400s–1535) who supports the Inca Atahuallpa and advocates resistance to the Spanish incursion. Yet once Atahuallpa is taken prisoner, Challcuchima has little recourse to act independently. This is a society based on absolutism, and once the Inca’s authority is held in abeyance, Challcuchima cannot effectively lead troops which might compromise

‘I was there’  117 the safety of the Inca and the security of the state. The aged general is summoned to Cajamarca on a pretence by the Spanish and, while belatedly launching a revolt, is taken into custody and charged with treasonable acts. He awaits execution in this scene: Like his master, he was convicted before he was judged, and the Captain-General, to the anger of de Soto and all the better minded of the cavaliers, condemned him to die by fire at the stake. The old warrior met his fate as became a prince and soldier. Up to the last moment before the torch was applied to the fagots which his own countrymen piled round him, Valverde sought to do with him as he had done with Atahuallpa; but the brother of Huayna-Capac was made of sterner stuff than his son. His last words were— ‘I do not understand the religion of the white men. They come with words of peace and kindness on their lips, and with their hands they do deeds of violence and cruelty and treachery. My place is waiting for me in the Mansions of the Sun. Let me go quickly back into the presence of my Father.’ And so he died, unmoved by the torment of the flames, and with the name of his ancient deity upon his lips. (Griffith 213) In this speech, Griffith elevates Challcuchima above his tormenters and exposes how what the Spanish say does not accord with what they do—that enacting of roles I called out earlier. They present themselves as Christians who offer ‘peace and kindness,’ yet torture the general in order to force conversion to their faith. In the end, the Inca general holds on to his beliefs, seeking his place in ‘the Mansions of the Sun’ and maintaining his dignity. With Atahuallpa garrotted and Challcuchima burnt alive, only Manco Capac and General Ruminavi remain. Manco Capac (1514–1544) has a foot in both the Spanish and Peruvian camps, and in Griffith’s telling of his story, he is affianced to the adolescent (fictional) Nahua. Functioning mostly as a symbol, Nahua represents the highborn families of Peru, she embodies purity as a Virgin of the Sun, and in her betrothal to Manco, she also heralds the future of the Inca dynasty. Nahua doesn’t say or do much in the novel, but her one significant act is to compel Manco to fight for their people, and he takes up the charge.19 While Griffith adopts the image of Atahuallpa as a somewhat helpless figure who falls with the setting of the sun, as seen in Millais’s painting, Manco Capac is made of ‘different stuff’ and represents in the novel Peru’s freedom (Griffith 117). The prince, Huayna Capac’s younger son, is noble in rank and deed and rightful heir to the ‘throne’ after Atahuallpa and Huascar are killed.20 He learns to speak Spanish, which means that his communications cannot be mistranslated—as were Atahuallpa’s by the Peruvian interpreter, Filipillo. In Prescott and Griffith’s work, it is Filipillo who, while speaking

118 Conquest Quechua and acquiring Spanish, plays one Inca brother against the other: Atahuallpa against the rightful heir Huascar. It is Filipillo who, with his treachery, facilitates the downfall of Atahuallpa. Manco Capac’s fluency in Spanish means that he can both protect himself from misinterpretation and build meaningful relations with certain conquistadors.21

The cultural mediator in the Amerindian adventure Of course, we have seen this figure of cultural mediator in the adventure fiction of Henty and Haggard, with their shared attention to Malinche in, respectively, By Right of Conquest and Montezuma’s Daughter. The intelligent, ambitious, and culturally versatile Malinche moves between two worlds: in the service first of a Tabasco cacique and, later, of Cortés. But unlike Malinche who facilitates the conquest of her people, Manco Capac learns the ways of the Spanish and cannot be outmanoeuvred in the way Atahuallpa was. He does not fall into the caricature of an Amerindian standing in awe of the thunderous approach of the cavalry, nor does he become a casualty in Griffith’s novel, trampled upon, as depicted in Millais’s painting.22 Indeed, in Virgin of the Sun, Manco Capac expertly rides a beautiful steed given to him by his rival turned advocate, Alonso de Molina. Moreover, adaptive to new modes of warfare, Manco Capac wears steel armour and uses the weapons of Spaniards fallen in battle. Unlike Atahuallpa, who in the novel waits too long to resist Pizarro, Manco takes the offensive, rallying his people with this speech: … though defeated and broken, we have become united, and so are still unconquerable. Now for the first time since the death of the great Huayna, the heart of every warrior within the Four Regions is beating high and true for his lawful Lord and his beloved country. It has fallen to me, the unworthy bearer of the Divine Name, to lead you, my brothers of the Blood, in the last struggle with the invader of our country and the dishonour of our holy things. Before two more suns have risen and set that struggle will have begun, and we have come here unto this holy place, where the Divine Manco held his first war-council, to take the most solemn oath that the lips of the Children of the Sun can utter that, when the struggle has once begun, it shall not end while an invader is left alive in the land or one of us has power to do him harm. (Griffith 132) When Manco says, ‘we have become united,’ he reminds his listeners of the internal divisions of the Inca empire upon Pizarro’s arrival, the partition of Tavantinsuyu into two regions governed by Huascar of Cusco (Peru) and Atahuallpa of Quito (Ecuador). As Huayna Capac’s lawful son, Manco Capac would have been the rightful heir to the empire after his father died and Huascar murdered, thus the self-referential phrase

‘I was there’  119 ‘lawful Lord.’ It is Manco Capac, rather than Atahuallpa who is the ‘Usurper,’ that deserves the title of Inca. But the Spanish invasion disrupts the line of succession. Pizarro’s campaign and the fracturing of the Inca dynasty would resonate, I think, with Griffith’s Victorian audience. As mentioned, Manco Capac is the younger son of Huayna Capac and the rightful heir of the Inca ‘throne’ after the death of his brother Huascar. I believe Griffith dedicates space to Manco Capac because the ideas of succession and continuity were important for audiences of the 1890s, when Queen Victoria had been ruling for over 50 years and provided a strong cultural identity for her subjects in the United Kingdom and those living outside its borders. Another significant aspect of Manco Capac is his self-determination in the face of Spanish aggression. Griffith’s epilogue—though not history— closes with the likelihood that Manco Capac and Nahua find refuge in a mountain stronghold, free from persecution by the Spanish. Griffith repeatedly calls Huayna Capac’s younger son, ‘the Last of the Inca,’ an obvious nod to James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans (1826). Both stories function as what Doris Sommer calls foundational fiction in the project of nation-building. In this case, Manco Capac is royal, legitimate, brave, linguistically versatile, resilient, and both adaptive to European ways and oppositional to Spanish hegemony; with Nahua by his side, he represents the promise of a renewed Inca dynasty. Yet, as versatile as he may be, Manco Capac faces an impossible decision: to either confront the Pizarro brothers Juan and Hernando in their invasion of Cusco—the heart of the Inca empire—or lead his people in harvesting grain. A leader true to traditions of cultivation, the young Inca leaves the field of battle to his Inca generals.

Ruminavi, Inca general Now leading the insurrection against the Spanish in Book IV is the experienced, astute General Ruminavi (1490s–1535). Ruminavi was an Ecuadoran chieftain who served the Inca Atahuallpa and then fought the Spanish, first against Francisco Pizarro, and later against brothers Hernando and Juan. By the end of Griffith’s novel, Hernando Pizarro and his compatriots have infiltrated an Inca fortress that is their only route out of Cusco, while Ruminavi, equipped with a mace, stands his ground. One by one the general’s compatriots are killed, but the ‘stoney eyed’ warrior holds his own, laying fatal blows upon his adversaries. The prose at this point in the novel is Griffith at his best, anticipating action-packed graphic novels of our day. He writes: Old Ruminavi was the only defender left. Don Hernando had picked up an axe in place of his lost sword, de Soto had shifted his sword to his left hand, and de Leon and a dozen more Spaniards were making ready for a last rush at the gallant old warrior.

120 Conquest And now Ruminavi saw that the end had come. One swift glance over the corpse-strewn roof showed him that he alone was left, another at his closing enemies showed him that the trust he had so desperately defended was lost at last … The great mace swung round again and then like a stone from a catapult it whistled through the air, and taking Don Hernando full on the breast it sent him reeling backwards and hurled him prone on the roof. (Griffith 152) Outnumbered, Ruminavi hurls the mace at his attackers. By this point in the narrative, the Inca Huayna Capac, who provided stability in the empire, has gone ‘to the mansions of the sun.’ His sons have engaged in civil war, leaving Huascar murdered through intrigue and Atahuallpa executed by the Spanish. Ruminavi’s military counterpart Challcuchima has been burnt alive. The surviving Inca, Manco Capac, has reluctantly left the field of battle to lead the harvest. Thus, the hurling of the mace expresses defiance of the Spanish—and it hits its mark. Ruminavi’s last act is to injure Hernando Pizarro and to deprive the Spanish of the opportunity to take him prisoner, as he flings himself off the fortress’s precipice. De Soto pays tribute to him by observing ‘Heathen or not, comrades, a stark warrior and a good patriot’ (Griffith 152). He recognises, as would have Griffith’s readers, Ruminavi’s bravery against impossible odds. He represents perhaps the bravest, fiercest Inca warrior in a bloody saga of invasion, plunder, rapine, and subjugation. And it isn’t just in Griffith’s novel that he is extolled; a monument commemorating the Inca general can be found in Otavalo, Ecuador, and he is honoured each year in December.

Epilogue: Spanish in fighting By the time we reach the epilogue of Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun, the Spanish have robbed Inca treasure houses, plundered royal palaces, and invaded sacred temples. Yet, as we shall see, they do not entirely prevail, prompting one’s curiosity about the cost of Pizarro’s quest for El Dorado. Virgin of the Sun’s rendering of the fate of Pizarro and other conquistadors is instructive for his Victorian readers, cautioning future soldiers, adventurers, opportunists, and speculators about the hazards of power and burdens of treasure. Griffith anticipates the work, for example, of Joseph Conrad who questions the master narratives of empire, whether as a civilising mission, military occupation, or platform for exploitation of natural resources as can be seen in, for example, Heart of Darkness (1899) and Nostromo (1904), both published after Virgin of the Sun (1898). Despite overall success in his conquest, and the acquisition of titles, lands, and wealth, Pizarro is unable to temper the growing divisions among the Spanish invaders, for once the country is occupied and pillaged and the Inca fabric of social order rent, the lands of Tavantinsuyu are exposed to internal conflict and

‘I was there’  121 civic unrest. Griffith’s modern narrator echoes Prescott to warn his audience that, The gold that they came to seek proved to be their ruin when they had found it. Faction turned against faction, and comrade against comrade, and fiercer fights were fought between Spaniard and Spaniard than had ever been fought between Spaniard and Peruvian, and today there is not a rood of ground on all the South American continent over which the golden banner of Spain flies. (Griffith 153) Here, gold leads not to enrichment, but to ‘ruin.’ Both Prescott and Griffith viewed the acquisition of treasure as something of a liability, as it hampered development of an enterprising spirit—for Prescott—and the foundation for societal prosperity—for Griffith. I’ll return to this idea in Part II in the discussion of Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star. But first I must address the end of Virgin of the Sun. By this point in the novel, the Amerindians have been subjugated, Inca royalty taken captive or killed, ancestral treasure looted, and the city of Lima founded by Pizarro. Yet now a fresh conflict emerges when the Spanish invaders fight one another in what is an early civil war in Peru and Chile. In 1541, we find Pizarro in Lima, the ‘City of the Kings,’ a war-ravaged soldier who succumbs to the intrigues of the Almagro rebellion. Virgin of the Sun ends not on a note of victory for Pizarro, but on a note of warning for those who dare conquest. Griffith writes that: There, in a room in his own palace, lies an old battle and travel-worn man of nearly three-score years and ten, pierced by the swords of those for whom he had opened the long-locked gates of El-Dorado. His lifeblood is dripping from his throat onto the floor … And this is the end of that iron-souled Conqueror who fought so many a bitter battle with Destiny and who, with the sword that was to win an empire for others, had traced that Line of Fate on the desolate sands of Gallo. (Griffith 154) Though once known for his leadership, Pizarro fails to unify the Spanish forces. After being stabbed by supporters of the Almagro faction, he dies of his wounds in Lima, the city he had founded. Today, the mounted conquistador statue associated with Pizarro in Lima has been relocated multiple times, first because clergy reputedly do not want the horse’s backside facing the church, and later because Peruvians, mostly indigenous, Quechuaspeaking, or mestizo, denounce the conquistador in their history.23 In the same way monuments rise and fall in the expression of national sentiment, so, too, does Griffith highlight certain episodes, remain silent about others, or reconfigure entirely the way the conquest historically

122 Conquest unfolded. For example, Griffith does not relate in his fiction what happened to Manco Capac’s wife in real life: she was raped and killed by the Spanish; nor does he mention that, after having engineered Atahuallpa’s execution, Pizarro fathered a daughter with one of the Inca’s sisters. And the novelist entirely rewrites Ruminavi’s actual fate; in fact, the general was tortured in Spanish attempts to extract information about Inca gold. In showcasing some episodes and changing others, Griffith deployed the meeting between cultures and Pizarro’s campaign to impart recognisably Victorian values. Virgin of the Sun reveals the ability of Pizarro to lead in arduous circumstances; to set an example despite limited resources; to tire out the enemy; to capitalise on indigenous beliefs; and to divide, create alliances, and conquer. The novel offers an example of where leadership succeeds, and fails, in Pizarro’s campaign. In addition, Griffith rhetorically celebrates the Inca’s orderly and prosperous society and rational use of natural resources. Virgin of the Sun registers with eloquence the loss of one of the greatest Amerindian civilisations, and the promise of a revived Inca dynasty with the flight of Manco Capac and his (fictional) lover Nahua. Readers are left to speculate that perhaps Manco will return and reclaim his empire. And satisfying his readership’s curiosity, Griffith explores this kind of imaginative terrain in Romance of Golden Star, which I address in Part II of this book. But first, we will revisit the figure of the Virgin of the Sun, not as a merely symbolic figure as in Griffith’s novel, but a strong, brave, eloquent warrior queen in Haggard’s New World romance adventure, also called Virgin of the Sun (1922).

Notes 1 I owe this phrase to D Graham Burnett’s Masters of all they Surveyed: Exploration, Geography and a British El Dorado (2000). 2 Griffith’s descriptions revive memories of my stay in Peru for several months; I toured, among other sites, Arequipa and Sacsayhuamán, the Inca fortress in Cusco. 3 This scene anticipates Thomas Maybank’s illustration for Henry Gilbert’s Conquerors of Peru (1913); the otherworldly imagery of the Antarctic in Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1931); and the caravan of conquistadors and their chained slaves threading their way through the Andes, encumbered by heavy baggage, equipment, and canon, in Werner Herzog’s 1972 film Aguirre, the Wrath of God. 4 Wallace had a distinguished military and political career as governor of New Mexico and ambassador to Turkey. He went on in 1880 to publish one of the best-selling historical fictions of this period, Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. 5 According to Prescott, whom Griffith references, Viracocha was an Inca creator deity associated with the foam of the sea. 6 See Maltby’s The Black Legend  in England: The development of anti-Spanish sentiment, 1558–1660 (1971); Sommer’s Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1993); Cole Heinowitz’s British Romanticism and Spanish America, 1777–1825: Rewriting Conquest (2010); and Almeida’s Reimagining the transatlantic, 1780–1890 (2011).

‘I was there’  123 7 For example, echoing Prescott’s praise for the social organisation of the Inca empire, the Victorian narrator of Virgin of the Sun explains, ‘there was not one man who had need to take thought for the things of tomorrow, not one who did not know that if he fulfilled his duty to the State of which he was a unit, all that he could demand from it would be freely and ungrudgingly granted’ (Prescott 19). With Britain’s great disparities in wealth and its civic protests about labour, the cost of food, and the periodic scarcity of grain, Victorian audiences might be ever more attentive to how the Inca adapted agriculture to various climates, employed terraces and other systems for irrigation, scheduled cultivation rationally, dedicated labour to animal husbandry for meat and wool, and built a system of food store houses to provide for its people in times of scarcity. There was reportedly little poverty among the Inca’s subjects (yet neither was there much agency). 8 Prescott observes: ‘The intercourse with the Inca was carried on chiefly by means of the interpreter Felipillo, or little Philip, as he was called, from his assumed Christian name,—a malicious youth, as it appears, who bore no good-will to Atahuallpa, and whose interpretations were readily admitted by the Conquerors, eager to find some pretext for their bloody reprisals’ (944). 9 Prescott explains: ‘Ever since the capture of his master [the Inca Atahuallpa], Challcuchima had remained uncertain what course to take. The capture of the Inca in this sudden and mysterious manner by a race of beings who seemed to have dropped from the clouds, and that too in the very hour of his triumph, had entirely bewildered the Peruvian chief. He had concerted no plan for the rescue of Atahuallpa, nor, indeed, did he know whether any such movement would be acceptable to him’ (958). 10 The quest for El Dorado brings with it something of the curse of the Egyptian tomb. In the 1550s, conquistador Lope de Aguirre (1510–1561) would follow in Pizarro’s footsteps in the quest for El Dorado, focusing his efforts, with calamitous results, on the Amazon. Most members of the expedition died, including Aguirre’s daughter, whom he killed to keep from his enemies. Aguirre himself was charged with rebellion against the crown and was captured and executed in Venezuela, his body drawn and quartered. Sir Walter Ralegh led two expeditions in search of El Dorado, one in 1596 to Venezuela/British Guiana and one in 1617 to the Caribbean; neither resulted in the acquisition of much gold, and the 1617 voyage cost Ralegh his son’s life and, ultimately, his own, beheaded as he was in October 1618 by King James for engaging in conflict with the Spanish with whom, at this time, England was seeking peace. 11 Virgin of the Sun follows Prescott’s writing closely here: ‘On that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. For my part, I go to the South!’ (864). 12 Prescott argues that what the Spanish did was nothing less than murderous treachery: From the hour that Pizarro and his followers had entered within the sphere of Atahuallpa’s influence, the hand of friendship had been extended to them by the natives. Their first act, on crossing the mountains, was to kidnap the monarch and massacre his people. The seizure of his person might be vindicated, by those who considered the end as justifying the means, on the ground that it was indispensable to secure the triumphs of the Cross. But no such apology can be urged for the massacre of the unarmed and helpless population—as wanton as it was wicked. (Prescott 978)

124 Conquest 13 Here Griffith shares Prescott’s criticism of the Spanish persecution of Atahuallpa: The treatment of Atahuallpa, from first to last, forms undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in Spanish colonial history. There may have been massacres perpetrated on a more extended scale, and executions accompanied with a greater refinement of cruelty. But the blood-stained annals of the conquest afford no such example of cold-hearted and systematic persecution, not of an enemy, but, of one whose whole deportment had been that of a friend and a benefactor. (Prescott 978) 14 Historically, Ruminavi’s last stand was not in battle but in being tortured and executed by the Spanish for refusing to disclose the location of Inca treasure. 15 Sheridan’s Pizarro: A Tragedy in Five Acts is an important precedent for Griffith’s work, and there are points of convergence. Sheridan’s Pizarro recognises the importance of native allies in conquering what are now Ecuador and Peru. In Act I, Pizarro plans his invasion with his countryman, Almagro: ‘Consulting with our [native] guides, the route of your divisions shall be given to each commander. If we surprise, we conquer; and if we conquer, the gates of Quito will be open to us.’   Sheridan’s Pizarro is shrewd in statecraft and military strategy. In addressing the delicate political balance of his position in the Inca empire, the conquistador coolly observes: ‘Ambition for a time must take counsel from discretion / Ataliba [Atahuallpa] still must hold the sceptre in his hand— Pizarro still appear dependent upon Spain; while the pledge of future peace, his daughter’s hand, secures the proud succession to the crown I seek.’   Here Sheridan attributes to Pizarro the devious rebelliousness that, as Walter Maltby notes in The Black Legend, is often associated with the Spanish. While Sheridan dramatises the romance between Ataliba’s daughter and Pizarro, Griffith creates his own story of love between Manco Capac and the fictional character, Nahua. 16 In History of the Conquest of Peru, Prescott asserts Pizarro: Possessed a good share of that frank and manly eloquence which touches the heart of the soldier more than the parade of rhetoric or the finest flow of elocution. He was a soldier himself, and partook in all the feelings of the soldier, his joys, his hopes, and his disappointments. He was not raised by rank and education above sympathy with the humblest of his followers. Every chord in their bosoms vibrated with the same pulsations as his own, and the conviction of this gave him a mastery over them. (Prescott 921) 17 In reading an earlier version of this essay, communication studies scholar Liliana Gallegos points out that ‘white god’ legends are a Spanish invention. Gallegos explains, ‘to develop stories under such a premise … makes those misconceptions and lies unquestionable or matter of fact, and it makes Incas and Mexicas look gullible and participants in their own demise.’ 18 In her reading of an early version of this essay, Renaissance scholar Jennifer Andersen notes that Griffith’s episode of Atahuallpa’s torture and execution call to mind for the student of English history: 1. The idea that religious persecution was very unpopular with English audiences; practices depicted in the novel bring to mind horrific images of the Inquisition. 2. The objection of Griffith’s Pizarro to the principle of torturing a monarch reminds one of Queen Elizabeth’s hesitation to pursue and carry out the execution of Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland. One danger of which Queen Elizabeth was keenly aware was that doing so would create a precedent that could be used against her.

‘I was there’  125 Similarly, Andersen notes that Griffith’s Pizarro appears somewhat like ‘John Lilburne, a Leveller leader and popular hero of the English Civil War who insisted on the principle of the trial by jury.’ I agree with Andersen that it is consequential that ‘Pizarro should be standing up for quintessentially English values.’ 19 I’ll return to the figure of the Virgin of the Sun with Quilla in Haggard’s novel, also called Virgin of the Sun (1922). 20 It may be more accurate to say llautu, the headpiece that signifies Inca rank, rather than ‘throne’. 21 The Amerindian noble adopting the ways of the Spanish only to later wage war against them has precedence in Manuel de Jesus Galván’s novel Enriquillo: leyenda histórica Dominican (1882), set during Columbus’s invasion of the island of Hispaniola and subjugation of the Taino people. But that novel was not translated for English-speaking audiences until 1954, and it’s unlikely Griffith would have read it in Spanish. Presumably he conceived of the idea while travelling in Peru. 22 Horses had roamed the North American continent but died out; the Spanish reintroduced them in the late 1490s. 23 I say associated with Pizarro rather than representing Pizarro because cultural critics view the statue generically, as that of a conquistador. One account holds the statue was to be delivered to Mexico, but Mexicans did not want it. It now stands in Muralla Park, just near the restored walls of the old city of Lima. See Hector Tobar’s Los Angeles Times article, ‘Pizarro Knocked from his pedestal’ (2005). See also Peter Hess’s cultural commentary, ‘Pizarro in Exile’ (2013).

References Almeida, Joselyn M. Reimagining the Transatlantic, 1780–1890. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. Bristow, Joseph. Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man’s World. New York: Routledge, 2016. Burnett, D. Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography and a British El Dorado. Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 2000. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. [1899]. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/219/ 219-h/219-h.htm. ———. Nostromo. New York: Penguin, 1994 [1904]. Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. [1826]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/940​/940​-h​/940​-h​.htm. Davenant, William. Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru [London, 1658]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/ text​-idx​?c​=eebo2​;idno​=A81963​.0001​.001. Galván, Manuel de Jesus. Enriquillo: leyenda histórica Dominican. [1882]. https:// archive​.org​/details​/enr​iqui​llol​eyen​00ga​lvgoog. Griffith, George. Angel of the Revolution. [1893]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ ebooks​/31324. ———. Around the World in 65 Days. Ed. Robert Godwin. Burlington, Canada: Apogee Books, 2010. ———. Honeymoon in Space. [1901]. https://gutenberg​.net​.au​/ebooks06​/0602351​ .txt. ———. ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds.’ Pearson’s Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 6, June 1896, pp. 618–622. https://babel​.hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=inu​.30000093231268​ &view​=page​&seq​=626​&skin​=2021​&q1​=George​%20Griffith.

126 Conquest ———. The Romance of Golden Star. [London: FV White, 1897]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20173​/pg20173​.txt. ———. Valdar, the Oft-Born. [1895]. https://archive​.org​/details​/val​daro​ftbo​rnsa​ g00grif. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson’s, 1898]. Haggard, H. Rider.  Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. The Virgin of the Sun. [London: Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. Harris-Fain, Darren. (Ed. and Introd.). British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers Before World War I. Detroit, MI: Gale; 1997, pp. 103–108. Heinowitz, Rebecca Cole. Spanish America & British Romanticism, 1777–1832. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. Henty, George A. By Right of Conquest, or With Cortez in Mexico. London: Blackie, 1891. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. Herzog, Werner Aguirre. Wrath of God [Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes]. New Yorker Films, 1972. Hess, Peter. “Pizarro in Exile.” Cultures Contexts: Essays on Global Issues, Present and Past. 2013. https://sites​.utexas​.edu​/culturescontexts​/2013​/05​/17​/pizarro​-in​ -exile/. Lovecraft, HP. At the Mountains of Madness [1931]. https://gutenberg​.net​.au​/ ebooks06​/0600031h​.html. Luckhurst, Roger. ‘The Essay: Bram Stoker.’ BBC, 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. MacFarlane, Robert. Originality and Plagiarism in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Maltby, Walter. The Black Legend in England: The Development of Anti-Spanish Sentiment 1558–1660. Durham: Duke University Press, 1971. Maybank, Thomas. ‘The Body Was Allowed to Remain Tied to the Stake.’ In Henry Gilbert, The Conquerors of Peru, Retold From Prescott’s Conquest of Peru. Edinburgh: Riverside Press, 1913. Millais, John Everett. Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1846. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Rev. Virgin of the Sun. The Booklist, May 6, 1898, p. 489. Rev. Virgin of the Sun. The Outlook, April 2, 1898, p. 279. Rev. Virgin of the Sun. The Paul Mall Gazette, May 28, 1898, p. 9. Robertson, William. History of America. Printed for Samuel Campbell, by Robert Wilson, M.DCC.XCVIII [1798, 1777]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=evans​ ;idno​=N25924​.0001​.001. Sheridan, Richard. Pizarro: A Tragedy in Five Acts. [1799]. https://hdl​.handle​.net​ /2027​/chi​.65588647. Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Tobar, Hector. ‘Pizarro Knocked From His Pedestal.’ Los Angeles Times, 2005. https://www​.latimes​.com​/archives​/la​-xpm​-2005​-mar​-28​-fg​-pizarro28​-story​.html.

‘I was there’  127 Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days. Franklin, TN: Dalmatian Press Classics, 2010 [1873]. Wallace, Lew. Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​ /8810. ———. The Fair God, or the Last of the Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. [New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1873]. https://www.gutenberg.org/ cache/epub/11054/pg11054.txt. Williams, Helen Maria. Peru, a Poem in Six Cantos. [1784]. https://www.gutenberg. org/cache/epub/11054/pg11054.txt. Wood, Stanley. Illustrator. ‘On This Side…’ in George Griffith. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. [London: Pearson’s, 1898]. https://books​.google​ .com​/books​/content​?id​=ItI​_AQAAMAAJ​&pg​=PR2​&img​=1​&zoom​=3​&hl​=en​ &sig​=ACf​U3U1​gJzx​SJGg​xmrQ​CO27ednVq​-shjgQ​&w​=1025.

Part II

Reclamation

4

Eclipsing the Spanish in Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922)

Fictions of reclamation Though set apart from the annals of history, storytelling paints the past with a fine brush, bringing to the fore the richness and texture often lost in the assembly of facts. In this study, we have seen how William H Prescott’s histories of Mexico and Peru inspired multiple Victorian rewritings of the conquest in the form of historic fiction. Taken together, George Henty’s By Right of Conquest (1891), H Rider Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), and George Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898) dramatise the cultural encounters and collisions between the Spanish and Amerindian peoples, among them the Tezcucan, Aztec, and Quechua.1 Yet what happened after the conquest? And what might have unfolded before? A counterpoint to narratives of conquest is the idea of reclamation, an important trope that informs my reading of Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922), Henty’s Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru (1902), and Griffith’s The Romance of Golden Star (1897). These three plots radically depart from history as told by Prescott (1796–1859), and, at the same time, the novelists assume in their readers a familiarity with Amerindian civilisations that prepares them to fully apprehend what is at stake in the project of reclamation. As I develop a definition appropriate for transatlantic studies, I believe reclamation involves the re-settlement of colonised lands by native peoples, as well as the re-appropriation of natural resources and anything else of use or value that was previously controlled by colonial or state authority.2 Reclamation entails the expression of stories that were suppressed by Spanish imperialism, the revival of Amerindian languages, the enactment of ancient customs, the showcasing of architectural achievements, and the revitalisation of ancient dynasties. I argue in the pages that follow that Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, Henty’s Treasure of the Incas, and Griffith’s The Romance of Golden Star ‘restore’ the Inca empire to its moment of greatness and thereby realise the project of cultural reclamation. In so doing, these popular writers share a few narrative tropes and literary manoeuvres, while also capitalising on the expectations of their audiences. First, Haggard, Henty, and Griffith insert English heroes or narrators into DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-7

132 Reclamation their narratives to cater to audiences who looked at these stories as a mirror reflecting English values, behaviours, and interests. Second, the novelists express inquisitiveness about indigenous peoples—the Quechua, Chanca, and Chinoo—and, in so doing, advertise the archaeological and natural treasures of Peru. Third, and relatedly, these writers associate their heroes with Peru’s past. Henty conceives of the Prendergast brothers who seek the lost treasure of the Inca, while Haggard and Griffith draw on the Amerindian white god myth, which has been associated with the Spanish conquistador and which is repurposed in their romance adventures to elevate the English adventurer in Peru. In this essay, I explore how in Virgin of the Sun, Haggard entirely eclipses the figure of the Spanish conquistador with the fictional English seafarer Hubert of Hastings. Freshly widowed from his wife, Blanche, Hubert arrives in Tavantinsuyu in the 1360s, when the Inca empire is expanding and at war with the Chanca peoples. The story is set before the Spanish invasion in the 1520s and 1530s when Francisco Pizarro, having crossed the Atlantic in the wake of Columbus and Cortés, brutally pursued his quest for El Dorado.3

Overview of Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun Lore of the transatlantic encounter dates to the age of the Vikings, at the very least, and is a subject in which Haggard was deeply invested. Before Virgin of the Sun appeared in 1922, Haggard toured Mexico in 1891, which inspired his account of the Aztec and Otomie in Montezuma’s Daughter (1893) and the Maya in Heart of the World (1895). What I shall demonstrate here is how his last novel, Virgin of the Sun, is epic and mythic in scope, and at the same time it is historical and anthropological in detail.4 As such, it demands a lens of inquiry that can move back and forth on the narrative spectrum between history and fiction in order to reveal what Jane Tompkins would call the novel’s ‘cultural work.’5 In my interpretation, Virgin of the Sun endeavours to transport the modern reader to the Inca empire, advertise Peru’s natural resources and cultural treasures, and conceive of an English adventurer among the Quechua 200 years before Francisco Pizarro (1478–1541). First, I shall situate Virgin of the Sun in a transatlantic discourse of historians, anthropologists, artists, and writers. Second, I shall identify the critical role of the novel’s dual English narrators and investigate Haggard’s use of archaeological details, which help him stage the drama of cultural reclamation in a way that eclipses the Spanish. Virgin of the Sun relies on two narrators to transport Haggard’s audience to Tavantinsuyu, the Quechua name for the Inca empire. Both narrators are fundamental to Haggard’s situating the novel within a transatlantic discourse and to advancing the theme of cultural reclamation. The first narrator is a predictably inquisitive English editor and collector who, in the novel’s introduction, relates his acquisition of three precious objects: a Black Letter manuscript, a Viking sword, and an Inca ring. According to

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  133 the editor–collector, these items had been extracted in the 1800s from an ancient Chanca tomb, a scenario quite plausible given the British and US expeditions to the Andes after Peru’s independence from Spain in 1821. Haggard gestures here to the nineteenth-century trafficking of Amerindian artefacts, objects that find their way to museums, private collections, and curiosity shops like the one in the novel. As the first narrator, the editor–collector embodies the novel’s premise of the inextricable relationship between writing and acquisition. He is uniquely positioned to identify what object from the past is important, and to serve as the intermediary by which stories of yore may be told. The second narrator is Hubert of Hastings, who has been buried with his fourteenth-century memoir, a book that recounts his passage to the New World and reception there as the ‘White god from the Sea.’ In his account, Hubert tells the story of his love for the Chanca princess Quilla, ‘the Daughter of the Moon,’ and his friendship and then vexed relations with the heir to the Inca throne, Kari, the ‘Son of the Sun.’ In the triangulation of the sun, moon, and sea, Haggard deftly manipulates archetypes that have a basis in Quechua and Chanca iconography, a verisimilitude that gives Hubert’s fictional adventure what Roger Luckhurst calls the ‘weight of plausibility’ (2012). But to what end, one might wonder. Robert Aguirre’s study of Victorian tourism and archaeological traffic in Informal Empire, and my analysis of the relationship between literary production and economic activity in British Representations of Latin America, provide insights to address this question. I maintain Virgin of the Sun appeared at a time when Britain was invested in Peru’s development, intrigued by its Amerindian civilisations, and attentive to archaeological discoveries in the country, such as Machu Picchu in 1911.

Peru as a site of British investment and anthropological study Transatlantic scholars use the concept of informal imperialism or soft forms of domination, as mapped out by historians Cain and Hopkins, to explain the literary and economic currents between Britain and Latin America after independence.6 Informal imperialism is a concept that describes Britain’s economic, rather than military, invasion: its attraction to Latin America’s natural resources, its offering of loans for economic development, and its engineering of infrastructure in the Andean region. The term nicely informs our multifaceted reading of Haggard’s vision of Peru as a site of potential investment and archaeological inquiry. When Virgin of the Sun appeared in 1922, British capital in Latin America was increasing and, according to the historian James Rippy, would reach its peak in 1928.7 From 1909 to 1930, British entrepreneurs profited from government securities in Peru with a satisfying 6% return on their investment (Rippy 130). Part of this capital was invested in the Andean infrastructure. The Arica–Tacna Railway was launched in 1858, and the Lima Railway Company in 1865. In 1890, the

134 Reclamation British took over additional Peruvian railway lines ‘to salvage their extravagant investment in Peruvian government bonds. The nominal value of British capital tied up in Peruvian railroads exceeded £18 million by the end of that year, and little reduction occurred, between 1890 and 1950’ (Rippy 130). The significance of railways cannot be overestimated. Not only were they possible sources of profit but also an emblem of British order and industry, and one of the ways the British empire ensured reliable communication and transportation of its goods and peoples. They were also a basis for tourism, as we saw earlier with George Griffith’s tour, by train, of the Andes and the publication of his 1896 travelogue, ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds.’8 Raw materials for textiles, of course, were also valuable to British investors, and in this period—the early 1900s—stakeholders in the Peruvian Cotton Manufacturing Company enjoyed a return, on average, of 7.2% from 1898 to approximately 1918 (Rippy 130). This climate of investment brings into sharper focus for Haggard’s audience Peru’s impressive mineral resources and its abundance of fertile land for agriculture in the Andean region. Along with its economic context, Haggard’s Amerindian adventure may be understood within developments in nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury history and anthropology. At the time of the novel’s development, scholars studied, among other subjects, the singularity of the Inca empire, the role of Virgins of the Sun, the rivalry between the Chanca and Quechua in Tavantinsuyu, and the ubiquity of the white god legend, topics I’ll address in turn. Haggard appropriately associates the sun with the Quechua and the moon with the Chanca. He is equally accurate in depicting the holy Virgin of the Sun. Typically selected for their beauty, young Virgins of the Sun lived communally and tended to the Inca dead, preparing feasts in honour of them, stoking the sacred fires, and weaving garments for the reigning Inca and his household. These maidens might become one of the Inca’s concubines or sacrificed. In Haggard’s novel, Quilla enters service as a Virgin of the Sun in evasion of the story’s villain, Urco, who has usurped Kari’s rightful place as Inca. Flight to the House of the Virgins reveals Quilla’s ideological versatility, which allows her to pick and choose aspects of the Quechua religion that will ensure her safety. For while outwardly dutiful to the Inca regime, she is a princess of the Chanca people and therefore does not join the sun worshippers with an ardent faith. Ultimately, a civil war ensues between the moon-worshipping Chanca and the sun-worshipping Quechua. In this conflict, Haggard re-inscribes the historical tug of war between the autonomous Chanca, who rose to prominence from 1000 to 1400, and the Quechua, who invaded neighbouring territory from the 1300s to the early 1500s to expand the Inca Empire. It is challenging to identify definitively the historical sources that Haggard drew upon to re-tell the conflict between the Chanca and Quechua, since the author does not document them in this text, in his memoir, or in promotional material about Virgin of the Sun. Therefore, any claims here are about confluence and context rather than attribution. But we don’t need

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  135 definitive attribution to note that Haggard’s attention to the Chanca peoples is a distinctive feature of the text, as I see a limited number of historical and anthropological studies published in English on the topic before 1922. And Haggard does acknowledge in his Anglo-Otomie epic, Montezuma’s Daughter, William H Prescott, author of the immensely popular History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). Along with Prescott, the elegant illustrations of Eric Pape (1870– 1938), the history of the Inca by Sir Clements Markham (1830–1916), and the anthropological research of Thomas Joyce (1878–1942) bear inquiry, as do records of the excavations of US archaeologist Hiram Bingham (1875– 1956).9 Taken together, the work of Prescott, Pape, Markham, Joyce, and Bingham represents an archive Haggard would have known about, and even if he weren’t explicitly conversant with specific publications, their productions constitute a dynamic transatlantic discourse about Amerindian peoples to which the novelist added his own contribution.

Playing off Prescott Even though Haggard does not cite Prescott in Virgin of the Sun, the parallels between his novel and History of the Conquest of Peru demand attention.10 A perusal of Prescott’s history makes it clear why it had become a catalyst for Amerindian adventure fiction. A brilliant Harvard-educated historian and eloquent prose writer, Prescott offers striking accounts of the opulence, masterful engineering, and tightly organised social structures of the Quechua, and their customs—these figure prominently in Haggard’s novel. In The Conquest of Peru, Prescott explains that Yupanqui is a renowned patriarch in the Inca dynasty and that the emperor wears a fringe called the llautu. Likewise, Haggard describes the Inca Upanqui—Kari and Urco’s father—as adorned with an identically detailed llautu.11 Prescott describes the curious ear ornaments or orajones worn by Inca princes (742). Similarly, Haggard situates the Inca prince Kari in an elite class of ‘earmen’ in Virgin of the Sun. About Quechua cosmology, Prescott explains that Pachacamac is ‘the Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe’ (Prescott 778). Correspondingly, Haggard’s Kari, the Inca’s first-born son, fashions an ornament with the emblem of Pachacamac, ‘the Spirit of the Universe,’ which he wears as a token of his faith and a mark of his identity. In addition to these parallels between Prescott and Haggard is the writers’ shared fascination with the figure of the Virgin of the Sun. Prescott explains that the Virgins were: dedicated to the service of the deity, [and] who, at a tender age, were taken from their homes, and introduced into convents, where they were placed under the care of certain elderly matrons, mamaconas, who had grown grey within their walls. Under these venerable guides, the holy virgins were instructed in the nature of their religious duties. They were employed in spinning and embroidery, and, with the fine hair of the

136 Reclamation vicuna, wove hangings for the temples, and the apparel for the Inca and his household. It was their duty, above all, to watch over the sacred fire obtained at the festival of Raymi. From the moment they entered the establishment, they were cut off from all connection with the world, even with their own family and friends. No one but the Inca, and the Coya or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts … Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue. By the stern law of the Incas, she was to be buried alive, her lover strangled, and the town or village to which he belonged was to be razed to the ground, and ‘sowed with stones,’ as if to efface every memorial of his existence. (Prescott 788) Haggard incorporates many elements of Prescott’s study. As a Virgin of the Sun, Quilla lives in seclusion and takes instruction from her female elders, the mamaconas. She tends to the offerings for the Inca, and she is forbidden to consort with suitors. It is Quilla’s status as a Virgin of the Sun that ignites the conflict between her Chanca people and the Inca state.

The sun-worshipping Quechua and moon-worshipping Chanca By 1922 when Virgin of the Sun was released, English audiences were privy to a 400-year-old cultural discourse about Amerindian peoples and the encounter. Their exposure to if not immersion in the transatlantic archive meant that late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers, artists, historians, and archaeologists need not rehearse the ‘backstory’ but could enter into the conversation in media res. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Haggard, Henty, and Griffith assume their readers have read Prescott and make explicit reference to the historian, as does geographer and translator Sir Clements Markham. Markham writes, The fascinating story of Inca civilisation was told to our fathers by Dr Robertson, whose ‘History of America’ appeared in 1788, and to ourselves by Prescott, whose ‘Conquest of Peru,’ was published in 1843 [1847]. It is assumed most educated people have read the latter. (emphasis mine, Incas of Peru) This kind of literacy meant that cultural producers could craft their work with nuance and a high degree of detail. Let us take, for example, the representation of sun and moon worship in a poem published just after the quadricentennial of the discovery of the Americas and typical of the transatlantic archive upon which I’ve elaborated: Telford Groesbeck’s The Inca: Children of the Sun (1896). While the poem is rich in symbolism and lyrical in the style of Helen Maria Williams’s Romantic antecedent, Peru: A Poem in Six Cantos (1784), I’m mostly interested in its ethos, the way Groesbeck insinuates his epic in the transatlantic archive. A graduate of Princeton

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  137 and Harvard, the history enthusiast Groesbeck (1854–1936) went to great efforts to produce The Inca: Children of the Sun for discerning readers. He enlisted one of the most accomplished illustrators of his time, Eric Pape, and perhaps the most renowned Victorian geographer, Sir Clements Markham, to write the book’s preface. Groesbeck could choose no greater authority. Secretary of the Royal Geographic Society, Markham was an expert on the Inca and a translator of Spanish chronicles. He travelled to Peru early in the 1850s, and again from 1859 to 1861. In addition to his fluency in Spanish, he studied Quechua. Markham’s publications include the 1912 edition of The Incas of Peru (and its earlier iterations), Cuzco and Lima (1856), and translations of accounts of conquistadores, such as the infamous mutineer Lope de Aguirre (1510–1561), ‘the wrath of God,’ and chronicler Pedro Cieza de León (c 1520–1554). A man of empire, Markham orchestrated the transplantation of Cinchona plants from Peru to India, the extract of which is quinine—a Quechua word—an indispensable curative in the tropics. Before he set out to write about Peru’s history, Markham consulted with Prescott, who advised him to undertake field research in a country that the famous US historian—the nineteenth-century authority on the Spanish conquest of Peru—never got the chance to visit.

Pape’s Amerindian vision Groesbeck’s enlistment of US illustrator Eric Pape (1870–1938) is also strategic for Pape’s culturally evocative imagery and contribution to another immensely popular Amerindian adventure. Pape studied in Paris at Ecole des Beaux Arts, was an accomplished artist, and travelled to Mexico to create nearly 300 illustrations for a special 1898 edition of Lew Wallace’s Aztec saga The Fair God (1873), a novel that, as I explained earlier, inspired George Griffith to write Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898). Thus, the discourse about the Inca recalled, inevitably, the Aztec and Maya and includes the work, on both sides of the Atlantic, of geographers such as Markham, historians such as Prescott, writers such as Haggard, Wallace, Griffith, and Groesbeck and artists such as Pape. These cultural producers sought to express their vision through historical study, archaeological fieldwork (a point to which I shall return), or by capitalising on images of Amerindian peoples that were already circulating. Pape’s portrait of holy virgins in Groesbeck’s The Inca: Children of the Sun appears in Figure 4.1. If the illustration brings to mind the Near East or Mediterranean antiquity, it is perhaps because Pape was the student of Orientalist painter Benjamin Constant, spent two years in the 1890s working as an artist in Egypt, and illustrated Padraic Colum’s exquisitely produced volume Arabian Nights (1923). Pape’s artwork in Groesbeck’s poem conveys an equivalence between the Near East and the Inca court. The young women assemble in a private patio dotted with potted plants, lounging around

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Figure 4.1 ‘Acllahuasi where/The royal virgins dwell,—perchance embroid’ring there/ Sweet dreams of love for him, while watching sacred fires.’ Eric Pape, illustrator. The Inca, Children of the Sun (1896).

a sacred fire from which rises a serpentine trial of smoke. Each female is dressed in a light-coloured tunic, endowed with long, dark luxuriant tresses and adorned with delicate headpieces and armbands. The image recalls, simultaneously, vestal virgins of Rome and the odalisques of the harem.12 As noted in the discussion of Prescott, Virgins of the Sun are holy, and their role is to serve the Inca, though they may also become concubines. As such, Pape depicts a scene of female companionship, yet he suggests a disquiet in the maidens who look towards the horizon, seeking escape from interminable leisure. The elements of contemplation, perspective, and confinement help us to understand Quilla’s position in Haggard’s novel. Quilla chooses to live as a Virgin not out of religious devotion to the sun worshippers, but as a means of evading Urco, who is determined to make her a concubine. The rightful Inca, Kari, regards Quilla as inviolate as a Virgin of the Sun, and sees the fate of the Quechua enmeshed with

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Figure 4.2 ‘In the temple of the sun … the morning lights have run’ Eric Pape, illustrator. The Inca, Children of the Sun (1896).

hers. He believes that he would anger the sun and bring doom upon his people if he were to free her from the House of the Virgins, creating an unbridgeable rift with Hubert. Pape illustrates the sun-idolising Quechua, Kari’s people, as seen in Figure 4.2. Differences between the Chanca and Quechua narrated by Haggard’s Hubert have a historical basis in Markham’s Incas of Peru, his translation of the chronicle of conquistador–ethnographer Pedro Cieza de León, and the scholarly investigations of Thomas Joyce (1878–1942). Joyce served as president of the Royal Anthropological Institute, conducted fieldwork in Central and South America, and, in 1912, just after Hiram Bingham’s ‘discovery’ of Machu Picchu, published South American Archaeology: An Introduction to the Archaeology of the South American Continent with Special Reference to the Early History of Peru. In this work, Joyce addresses religious practices that divided the fiercely independent Chanca people from

140 Reclamation their expansionist neighbours, the Quechua, known as ‘children of the Sun.’ Joyce writes, The Chanca and their allies were supporters of the low form of huacaworship [animism], which the children of the Sun were continually striving to suppress … Provided that the Sun were recognised as the chief object of worship, they [the Quechua] refrained from active interference with such local cults as did not involve human sacrifice and vicious practices. (Joyce 92) My supposition that South American Archaeology is one possible source for Virgin of the Sun stems from the fact that both Joyce and Haggard observe the conflict between the Chanca and Quechua people, identify the difference in religious practices, and both characterise the Chanca as a force with which to be reckoned. Religious differences have profound repercussions in Haggard’s adventure, for the Chanca and Quechua conflict about sun versus moon worship, along with territory disputes, escalates to war. Hubert rescues Quilla from the clutches of Urco [Kari’s brother] who, having declared himself Inca, seizes her from the House of Virgins. Hubert and Quilla retreat first to a Chanca city in a bowl-shaped plain and, years later, to the Chanca’s ancestral home, deep in the forest, reputedly a city of gold. Meanwhile, with Urco defeated, the Inca Kari now reigns over the entirety of Tavantinsuyu, and will eventually enlarge his empire by invading Chanca lands.13 Having considered, then, some of the sources Haggard may have drawn on in the Chanca and Quechua rivalry, I would like to remark on his character names. Urco’s role as a usurper in Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, for example, coincides with Markham’s biographical sketch of Urco in Incas of Peru. In that volume, Markham relates the power struggle between the warrior Urco, an illegitimate and favoured son of the Inca Uira Cocha, and Urco’s legitimate brothers. As we’ll recall, Haggard portrays Kari as the rightful heir to the Inca dynasty. In Cieza de León’s chronicle, translated by Markham, there is mention of the chieftain ‘Cari’ from the Collao (the highest plateau of the Andes), who eventually makes terms with the reigning Inca. Hubert’s Kari adopts the alias Zapana while he moves incognito through Tavantinsuyu, and we find in Cieza de León’s chronicle that Zapana (also spelt Sapana) is a Chanca leader. Haggard thus chooses character names which are meant to be evocative, but not exact corollaries to historical personalities. This is the challenge of the novelist, to use details that are plausible yet fictional. It is the same technique Haggard uses in his setting of the early Inca empire, which is likely inspired by the 1911 discovery of one of the seven wonders of the world: Machu Picchu.

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Archaeology in Peru Having thus identified the transatlantic discourse about Virgins of the Sun and religious rifts over moon versus sun worship, we move to another milestone in the study of Amerindian cultures: Hiram Bingham’s ‘discovery’ of Machu Picchu in 1911. Bingham’s excavations are arguably as consequential to the study of the Inca as, for example, the tomb of Tutankhamun or the ‘Lost’ city of Luxor is to our understanding of Ancient Egypt. The archaeological features of this beautifully preserved Inca citadel may be considered, generally, as inspiration for settings in Virgin of the Sun.14 While other travellers and locals must have heard of or seen the site before 1911, it was American archaeologist Bingham who put Machu Picchu on the map.15 In the same way Markham’s fieldwork in Peru correlates with the history of Prescott, with its ‘I was there’ quality, so too does Bingham’s. Bingham’s ‘In the Wonderland of Peru,’ published in National Geographic (Bingham 1913), validates Prescott’s assessment of the Inca empire as a sophisticated and impressive enterprise. In excavating one of the empire’s citadels of Machu Picchu, Bingham observes that the site: not only is larger and contains more edifices than any other ruin discovered in Peru (except Cuzco); it has the additional advantage of not having been known to the Spaniards, of not having been occupied by their descendants, and of not having been torn to pieces by treasure hunters seeking within the walls for the gold and silver ornaments that were not to be found in the floors. (Bingham) This sentiment of astonishment and relief informs our reading of Virgin of the Sun. Haggard imagines Tavantinsuyu of the late 1300s as an exquisite example of early Inca architecture and civil engineering—before the Spanish came— described much the same way as the ancient roadways, fortresses, and temples of Bingham’s account. Through Hubert’s memoir, we glimpse the immense rock construction of Inca fortresses and the impenetrable stone masonry of the House of the Virgins of the Sun.16 So, too, does Haggard situate Upanqui’s country estate in Yucay, which Bingham notes in National Geographic is ‘famous for being the most highly prized winter resort of the Cuzco Incas.’ Also of note is that Bingham substantiates Prescott’s detail about the deceased Inca, entombed in a seated position. Virgin of the Sun opens with this very image: the excavation of two royal figures, man and woman, Hubert and Quilla, sitting next to each other in an earthen tomb. The transatlantic discourse generated by the ‘school of Prescott,’ including writers such as Bingham, Markham, and Groesbeck, suggests the circulation of very specific images of the Inca empire that had a material reality. This material reality, in turn, leads us to consider the exportation of archaeological artefacts from Latin America to Britain, artefacts that satisfied the impulse to exhibit rare Amerindian treasures, to acquire them for personal collections, or to turn, as Haggard does, objects into fictions.17

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Luckhurst on Haggard: ‘Turning Objects into Fictions’ Roger Luckhurst’s approach to archaeological fiction helps us to understand the role of specific artefacts—and the past more generally—in Virgin of the Sun. Luckhurst interprets Haggard’s Egyptological fiction as stemming from the author’s ‘maniac and absolutely anti-categorical “habit of collecting”’ (203, 2013). Luckhurst argues, If artefaction is the process of turning unruly things into museum artefacts, Haggard adopted a parallel process of turning objects into fictions. For such a fantastical writer, his imagination was often utterly material, starting out with a literal handling of objects. (Luckhurst 203, 2013) This interpretation relates to the Amerindian adventure as well, as it helps explain why Haggard employs the dual narrators discussed earlier: Hubert, of the fourteenth century, and the English editor–collector of the twentieth. In the Haggard corpus, the connection between artefact and story is constant and reciprocal, with the object signifying the story and the story being authenticated by the object. Following Luckhurst, I see Haggard’s affinity for artefacts in the novel’s introduction, when the editor–collector describes his acquisition of items recovered from an ancient Chanca tomb. In this tomb, we learn, is the fair-haired Hubert, buried upright with the amber hilt of the Viking sword, Wave Flame, by his side, and his Black Letter manuscript at his feet. His wife, Quilla, is also buried in the tomb and in possession of her marriage ring, and Hubert’s, ‘a very massive wedding ring, but six or eight times as thick, and engraved all over with an embossed conventional design of what look like stars with rays round them, or possibly petalled flowers.’ It is Hubert’s ring for which Haggard provides his novel’s backstory in a publicity piece appearing in The Western Argus. In a series of episodes each further removed from the novel’s audience, Haggard relates an anecdote about a similar piece of jewellery worn by his (Haggard’s) childhood tutor which was, in turn, found by the tutor’s friend: … in a cave at a place called Mount Sepulchre, and inside the cave was the mummified figure of a king seated at the head of a stone table and wearing this ring. Round the table were twelve others, men and women, who, it seems, had been sacrificed to die with the king. They were Incas, or probably pre-Incas. When this man opened the tomb, all of them crumbled to dust. But he brought this ring back and gave it to his friend. This ring affected my imagination very much, and I think it turned my mind to write romance. I reproduced the scene of the stone table in ‘King Solomon’s Mines.’

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  143 A little while ago I wrote another story called ‘The Virgin of the Sun,’ which will be published next week, and this ring figures largely in it. I had not seen it, however, for 55 years. When I had finished the story I met a relative of my tutor (who is now dead), and I enquired after the ring. Eventually it was found and given to me, and I found that after this long lapse of years I had described it accurately in my last story. I wore it for a week or two, but I thought that in view of its own interests—it is a great curiosity in itself—the nation should have it. (‘The Inca’s Ring: Inspiration of Sir Rider Haggard’s Romances’, The Western Argus) Rather than keep the rare piece of Inca jewellery, Haggard donated it to the British Museum so that the ‘life’ of the ring would extend beyond his own.18 And so it has; it is catalogued as Item Am1922, 0111.1.19 In addition to the ring, the Americas collection of the British Museum exhibits delicate ceremonial and ornamental Amerindian objects of gold, many acquired in the 1800s, that were associated with the legend of El Dorado.20 This collection operates in tandem with books such as Virgin of the Sun, for Haggard clearly understood that behind each item recovered from the past—whether a manuscript or a ring—there is a story. In the introduction to Virgin of the Sun, Potts, the proprietor of the curiosity shop, tells the English editor–collector that he and only he may have these precious items, as that is the will of Quilla. According to Potts, the royal lady has resurfaced momentarily from the past and relayed this message in Quechua: It’s a little difficult to tell you for she spoke in a strange tongue, and I had to translate it in my head, as it were. But this is the gist of it. That you were to have that chest and what was in it. There’s a writing there, she says, or part of a writing for some has gone—rotted away. You are to read that writing or to get it read and to print it so that the world may read it also. She said that ‘Hubert’ wishes you to do so. I am sure the name was Hubert, though she also spoke of him with some other title which I do not understand. That’s all I can remember, except something about a city, yes, a City of Gold and a last great battle in which Hubert fell, covered with glory and conquering. (Haggard) Using his editor–collector figure to share Hubert’s story, Haggard combines a satisfying measure of fact and fiction, equally synthesising developments in history and archaeology and rehearsing Amerindian legends in a fourteenth-century romance adventure that narratively pre-empts the Spanish conquistador. Thus far, I have traced the important literary, historical, and anthropological threads that help us to understand the cultural fabric of Virgin

144 Reclamation of the Sun as recorded by Hubert in the 1300s, before the arrival of the Spanish. Next, I take inventory of the archetypal and formulaic characteristics of Virgin of the Sun. Yet in so doing, I recognise that the archetypal sometimes reverts, predictably, to the historical, thereby necessitating a dual approach in my interpretation of the text. By the time Virgin of the Sun appeared late in his long career, Haggard was writing with an acute awareness that there was a transatlantic conversation to which he contributed and that some stories—whether his own or those of others—were available for ‘re-purposing.’ The recycling of plots dates back, at least, to ancient Greece and surfaces as a topic of discussion in Aristotle’s Poetics. In Poetics, Aristotle points out that poets of the age, such as Homer and Sophocles, refer to the same royal families and devise plots from the same histories and myths, and that audiences were attentive to these practices. Two millennia after Aristotle, Robert MacFarlane points out in his book on originality that borrowing, adapting, and rewriting were common practices in the 1800s, and we can extend that assessment to the early twentieth century. Thus, following classic traditions of storytelling, adventure writers such as Haggard were in plentiful company and wrote for audiences who similarly observed the resonance between the works of different authors, versed in and presumably appreciative of literary conventions. When Virgin of the Sun appeared in print, Haggard had already published two Mexican romances: Montezuma’s Daughter and Heart of the World. Further, he had conceived of the story of a fateful Viking sword, White Fire, in the Icelandic saga Eric Brighteyes (1891), a move he repeats in Virgin of the Sun in naming Hubert’s ancient sword, Wave Flame. To call attention to the author’s own literary production, the editor–collector of the novel’s introduction wonders whether Hubert could be connected to Eric, a Viking explorer reputed to have sailed to what is now North America.21 Even though established writers openly recycled narratives and elements of fiction, Haggard was sensitive to reviewers who regarded his work as merely formulaic. For example, The Spectator’s 1907 reviewer of Benita observes that ‘Mr Haggard was born a story-teller … We feel that Mr Haggard’s formula is less satisfying than formerly, and yet a cool analysis tells us that this story has as many good points as the others’ (24).22 Similarly, in assessing She, a Blackwood’s Magazine critic observes in 1887, ‘There is, inevitably, we suppose, a certain amount of resemblance between this wonderful tale and its predecessor’ (302). That ‘predecessor’ is the wildly popular King Solomon’s Mines, and the similarities between it and She are the setting of Africa, the English discovery of a lost civilisation, and the fateful entanglement of the hero with a beautiful and highborn woman. These last two elements also surface in Virgin of the Sun in Hubert’s pursuit of Quilla. The question, then, is not whether Haggard’s fiction is formulaic, because obviously it is. But how does Haggard recirculate elements of his own and others’ stories to craft something new?

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  145

The Robinsonade To address the question of inspirations and archetypes, let us consider Haggard’s piece in Books Which Have Influenced Me (1897). In this collection of essays reprinted from The British Weekly, popular writers reminisce about texts that have left a strong impression on them, Haggard recalls his profound attachment to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719): I well remember a little scene which took place when I was a child of eight or nine. ‘Robinson Crusoe’ held me in his golden thrall, and I was expected to go to church. I hid beneath a bed with ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and was in due course discovered by an elder sister and a governess, who, on my refusing to come out, resorted to force. Then followed a struggle that was quite Homeric. The two ladies tugged as best they might, but I clung to ‘Crusoe’ and the legs of the bed, and kicked till, perfectly exhausted, they took their departure in no very Christian frame of mind, leaving me panting indeed, but triumphant. (Haggard, Books Which Have Influenced Me 65) In this passage, we see a young Haggard cling to ‘Crusoe,’ struggling to keep in his possession this action-packed tale of discovery and survival. When he wrote his memoir, Days of My Life (1926), his childhood attachment to Robinson Crusoe persisted, with the novel still occupying imaginative space, albeit from a seasoned author’s perspective. Haggard acknowledges the accomplishment of Defoe while expressing the predicament of literary successors, such as himself, who write fiction:23 What is there that has not been used? Who, to take a single instance, can hope to repeat the effect of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, or the thrill of that naked footprint in the sand? Defoe exhausted these long ago; everything of the sort that follows must be a mere pastiche. (Days of My Life, 329) Here, Haggard still ‘clings’ to Defoe but does so to create his own Robinsonade episode in Virgin of the Sun.24 Haggard’s ‘pastiche’ of Robinson Crusoe is recognisable in Hubert’s being cast ashore with the Inca prince, Kari, on a deserted island off the coast of Tavantinsuyu.25 As in Defoe’s novel, the South American mainland is tantalisingly close but too far to swim to, for Hubert’s ship, Blanche, has been crushed, and of all his belongings, only Hubert’s sword, Wave Flame, armour, and crossbow remain. In both Robinson Crusoe and Virgin of the Sun, the English self is juxtaposed with the Amerindian ‘other.’ As with Defoe’s enterprising hero, Hubert and Kari survive by adjusting to a harsh environment; they fish and gather seabird eggs, build a hut of tortoise shells, and piece together otter pelts for clothing.

146 Reclamation Yet the fact that Blanche is destroyed foreshadows the fact that Hubert will leave his dead English wife behind, as well as whiteness itself, opening up new ways of being. Hubert is far more culturally inquisitive and adaptive than Crusoe who holds tenaciously to his Englishness.26 Moreover, the imperious Kari is nothing like Crusoe’s stereotypically submissive servant. First of all, Kari is the one who is cast away on English shores in a reversal of the conventional transatlantic encounter. Unlike Friday, Kari resists Hubert’s attempts to convert him to Christianity and explains his own beliefs which he holds firmly: ‘Yes, Pachacamac is the god above gods, the Creator, the Spirit of the World, but the Sun is his visible house and raiment that all may see and worship,’ a saying that I thought had truth in it, seeing that all Nature is the raiment of God. I tried to instruct him in our faith, but although he listened patiently and I think understood, he would not become a Christian, making it very plain to me that he thought that a man should live and die in the religion in which he was born and that from what he saw in London he did not hold that Christians were any better than those who worshipped the sun and the great spirit, Pachacamac. (Haggard) And unlike Friday who ultimately leaves the Caribbean and his people and remains in service to Crusoe, Kari intends nothing less than the reclamation of his empire. Once he enters his own domain, the lands of Tavantinsuyu, Kari takes a leadership role in the quest to regain his rightful place in the Inca dynasty as the first-born son. Haggard’s Robinsonade takes another turn from the ever-pragmatic Crusoe—with his crops and terraces—with the interracial romance between the English adventurer and Chanca princess. Hubert first sees Quilla in a dream; a tall, dark-eyed woman mysteriously appears on the rocky, blighted isle and comes to bend over Hubert’s sleeping figure, kissing him, and comingling her gorgeous tresses with his blond locks.27 As if summoned by his dream, the actual princess, Quilla, appears on the island, adorned with a silver headdress and wielding a silver spear. She rescues the love-struck Hubert and brooding Kari and brings them to the mainland of Tavantinsuyu on her balsa, a lightweight sea-faring craft. There, Hubert is received among the natives as ‘Lord of the Sea’ and a ‘white god.’ This Robinsonade episode reveals Haggard’s playfulness with the plot of the New World encounter, and at the same time it corresponds with the idea that the Spanish conquerors were welcomed as deities in Amerindian lands, from the Caribbean to Mexico and south to Peru.

‘White god’ myths Haggard draws on white god myths both to set Hubert apart from Amerindians and to make him appear familiar to them. As related in

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  147 chronicles by Hernando Colón, Columbus’s son, Aztec testimonies of the Spanish conquest recorded by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (cited in Montezuma’s Daughter) and Prescott, the story of the ‘white god’ is that he brings to Amerindians technology, weaponry, and military strategy (or the arts of healing). Natives, in turn, offer the best of what they have.28 Time and again, chroniclers recount how the natives warmly receive the Spanish, how they pay homage to them and—after scrutinising their weapons and galleons—wonder if the explorers are gods.29 Hernando Colón describes a meeting between Columbus’s men and Caribbean islanders that typifies what has become a trope in the New World narrative: Having made our men sit down, all the Indians immediately sat on the ground around them, and then, one by one, came close to them to kiss their feet and hands, in the belief that they came from the sky. Shortly afterwards a great number of women came in to take a look at the Spaniards and the men went out. These women also kissed the strangers’ feet and hands in awe and wonder, as if they were holy objects, and proffered presents they had brought. (Cohen 78) After accepting these gifts, Columbus’s men cultivate the islanders’ apparent belief that the Spanish ‘came from the sky.’30 Similarly, in Virgin of the Sun, Hubert observes the kindness and generosity of the indigenous people whom he meets on his travels: ‘so gentle were all these people, that not once did we meet with any who tried to harm us or to steal our goods, or who refused the best of what they had’ (Haggard 131). As in Hernando Colón’s account, the natives show deference to Haggard’s English hero to the point of adoration: ‘when the white-robed chiefs or priests and their following were close to me, suddenly they prostrated themselves and beat their heads upon the sand, from which I learned that they, too, believed me to be a god’ (Haggard 151). Indeed, when the natives perceive Wave Flame and Hubert’s chain mail as accoutrements of the divine, Hubert encourages this impression, declaring, Now god or man, I am also a soldier, King, and I know arts of battle which perhaps are hidden from you and your people; also I cannot be harmed by weapons because of magic armour that I wear, and none can stand before me in fight because of this magic sword I carry, and I can direct battles with a general’s mind. (Haggard 185) With well-chosen details—the white-robed priests, the sword of steel, the arts of battle, the awe and prostration of the natives—Haggard synthesises aspects of the white god myth.

148 Reclamation As he travels from Mexico to Peru, hosted by one tribe after another, Hubert notes ‘the rumour that a white god had appeared in the land out of the sea had already reached them, and therefore they were prepared to worship me’ (Haggard 131).31 At this point in the novel, the white god mythology is recognisable yet somewhat general. But when Hubert arrives in Tavantinsuyu, the story becomes more specific with the figure of Viracocha. Haggard first mentions this sea-faring god in his novel’s dedication to historian James Stanley Little (1856–1940), author of Progress of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century (1901) and Doom of Western Civilisation (1907). Some five-and-thirty years ago it was our custom to discuss many matters, among them, I think, the history and romance of the vanished Empires of Central America. In memory of those far-off days will you accept a tale that deals with one of them, that of the marvellous Incas of Peru; with the legend also that, long before the Spanish Conquerors entered on their mission of robbery and ruin, there in that undiscovered land lived and died a white god risen from the sea? (Haggard) This ‘white god risen from the sea’ is a reference to Viracocha, who according to Prescott, is also associated with the figure of Pachacamac. Markham, who studied Quechua and travelled throughout Peru, informs us that Huira-ccocha means ‘foam of a lake.’ Similarly, British folklorist Donald Mackenzie (1873–1936) published Myths of Pre-Columbian America (1923) in the year following Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun to note that:32 Viracocha was supposed to have come from the west and to have returned westward, disappearing in the ocean. Another myth makes him emerge from Lake Titicaca as the creator of the sun and moon, and another makes him the sun which emerged from Pacari, the cave of dawn … Peruvian legends, according to Torquemada, tell of giants who came across the Pacific, conquered Peru and erected great buildings. There were also ‘numerous vague traditions of settlements or nations of white men, who lived apart from the other people of the country, and were possessed of an advanced civilization.’ (Mackenzie 269) For his part, Haggard launches the Viracocha reference first in the dedication to James Little and then throughout Hubert’s memoir of his life in Tavantinsuyu. The Inca Upanqui, Kari’s father, in contemplating Hubert as the ‘white god risen from the sea,’ admits to the English adventurer, ‘Well, now I remember there are strange prophecies about a white god who should rise out of the sea, as did the forefather of the Incas’ (Haggard 189). Today’s

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  149 readers must wonder to what extent these white god myths were devised by the Spanish or disseminated by Amerindian peoples, a question posed by both Mackenzie and not one to be settled here. What is verifiable is that Haggard, in using the white god figure, is acutely aware that it is part of a story that gets told and retold.

The limits of godhood Haggard thoughtfully represents deification as, in Claude Lévi-Strauss’s terminology, a mytheme with purposeful variations. In ‘The Structural Study of Myth,’ Lévi-Strauss argues that the replication of myth, in all its variants, renders its structure apparent. In just this way, Haggard sets up and then ‘deconstructs’ the idea of the white god. For example, when Hubert is captured by the Inca troops, he endeavours to maintain his god-like status. But the Inca Upanqui recognises the ruse and shrewdly remarks: Greetings, White Lord-from-the Sea … they tell me they have captured you in the battle, though I expect that was by your own will as you had wearied of those Chancas. For what laso can hold a god? (Haggard 224) It is Kari, the arbiter of signs, the voice of exhortation, who warns Hubert, A god to remain a god … should live alone in a temple. When he begins to mix with others of the earth and to do things they did, to eat and drink, to laugh and to frown; even to slip in the mud or stumble over the stones in the common path, those others would come to think that there was small difference between god and man. (Haggard 167)33 Readers of Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King (1888) will observe similar wisdom in Peachy Carnehan’s counsel to Daniel Dravot, who goes to tyrannical ends to maintain his ‘godhood’ and defies custom to force marriage on an Afghan maiden. Both Carnehan and Kari expose the façade of deification, a fact that makes The Man Who Would Be King and Virgin of the Sun modern in their ambivalent repurposing of the notion of ‘white gods.’ The conflict over interpretation indicates an anthropological problem of which Haggard seems aware: signs—as noted by linguist de Saussure—are inherently arbitrary, and meaning has to be shared by a community. In Virgin of the Sun, the Chanca and Quechua, though neighbouring tribes and sometimes related by ties of kinship, do not agree on the sign and signified. Nor do Western travellers and Amerindian peoples view the encounter the same way. Haggard knows the limits of this ‘mytheme’ and does not let his hero push it too far. Hubert understands

150 Reclamation that his ‘godhood’ is open to interpretation and that the granting of this status is tentative. We thus come full circle, synthesising the historical and anthropological reading of the text with the archetypal and formulaic approach. Indeed, it is through this synthesis that Haggard engages with the history of the Inca empire while using fantasy to insinuate in the transatlantic archive a hearty, English adventurer of Nordic stock who discovers the New World and, in his marriage to the princess, Quilla, creates an Anglo-Chanca family whose destiny in Peru is yet to be written. Of the three stories of reclamation I analyse, Virgin of the Sun sets the stage, despite being published in 1922, for our discussion of Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902) and Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897). It does so because our attention is focused on Hubert’s relations with Kari, Quilla, and the Inca Upanqui in the late 1300s—before Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro have been born.

Eclipsing the Spanish Yet the erasure of the conquistador is purposefully incomplete. We may recall in the novel’s dedication to British empire historian James Little that Haggard employs the phrase ‘robbery and ruin’ to describe the Spanish conquest and the destruction of the Inca civilisation. At this moment, the novelist makes use of the ancient and well-used formula that civilisations rise and fall with a quantifiable and irreparable loss, and recalls the assessment so eloquently expressed by Prescott in Conquest of Peru that, in their invasion of Tavantinsuyu, the Spanish destroyed one of the greatest civilisations of the Americas. In the novel proper, there is one other moment in which Haggard gestures to Spain’s impending arrival: the Oracle of Rimac. The Oracle issues this haunting warning to Hubert, Kari, and Quilla (‘ye three’): The snows of Tavantinsuyu shall be red with blood, the waters of her rivers shall be full of blood. Yes, ye three shall wade through blood, and in a rain of blood shall pluck the fruit of your desires. Still, for a while the gods of Tavantinsuyu shall endure and its kings shall reign and its children shall be free. But in the end death for the gods and death for the kings and death for the people. Still, not yet—not yet. (Haggard 159) Taken together, the snows of Tavantinsuyu (the Andes) and the Rimac (a river flowing from the Andes to the Pacific) lend a sense of geographical specificity to this message of doom. ‘Death for the gods’ summarises Spain’s obliteration of ceremonial objects and repurposing of Inca temples as churches, thereby replacing sun worship with Catholicism.34 The utterance ‘not yet—not yet’ means that Francisco Pizarro and his compatriots have not yet come to this land.

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  151 The Spanish ‘robbery and ruin’ of Haggard’s dedication thus becomes a refrain in the Oracle, two moments that only bring into sharper delineation Haggard’s elision of the Spanish. Haggard anticipates their eventual invasion but eclipses them as figures in this transatlantic epic, opening imaginative terrain for the project of reclamation. This task is taken up by Henty and Griffith in their Anglo-Amerindian adventures set in the nineteenth-century Peruvian republic of, respectively, Treasure of the Incas and Romance of Golden Star.

Notes 1 One might associate the word Quechua with the indigenous language of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. However, it can also be used to describe the Quechuaspeaking peoples. In this work, I try as much as possible to reserve the term Inca to describe the civilisation and the sovereign who could rightfully claim that title. 2 Examples of reclamation in the USA include California and Arizona lawsuits to resettle Native American territory along the Colorado river, and the instruction of Hawaiian, Diné, and other indigenous languages of North America. 3 Tavantinsuyu is the Quechua name of the Inca empire. 4 Arguably, this debate about history and myth was launched by Aristotle’s Poetics, which points out historical events give rise to artistic interpretation, and it is the storyteller who brings those events to life for the audience. Two thousand years later, Miguel de Cervantes engaged in a playful repartee with Aristotle in the prologue to Don Quijote, a parody of European chronicles of knight-errantry.   Don Quixote’s humour and brilliance reside in the narrative’s self-conscious deconstruction of concepts such as truth, reality, and the veracity of recorded events. A more recent example of deconstructing history and myth can be found in the work of Hayden White, who avows that the binary split between history and fiction is false, and that the narration of history, like that of any story, emphasises certain points and follows a particular emplotment. 5 Jane Tompkins studies the cultural work of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, among other works. I adopt the concept in my reading of Haggard, Henty, and Griffith’s Amerindian fictions. 6 At the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, we see the publication of transatlantic studies such as Mary Louise Pratt’s Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992), Stephen Greenblatt’s edited collection, New World Encounters (1993), and Anthony Pagden’s European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism (1993). These scholars paved the way for the critical approaches of Joselyn Almeida, Rebecca Cole Heinowitz, Robert Aguirre, and me. While the period under review may differ, all of us appreciate the concept of informal imperialism to analyse British literary texts set in Latin America. 7 See James Rippy, British Investments in Latin America, 1822–1949. In citing Rippy I acknowledge that some investments resulted in loss—a fact reflected in British novels set in Latin America: Trollope’s The Way We Live Now and Conrad’s Nostromo. For a fuller discussion of the relationship between investment and speculation, see my British Representations of Latin America (2007), particularly for British involvement in speculative industries such as mining and petroleum. 8 I develop this idea in my analysis of Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun and his travel writing in Peru, published in Pearson’s Magazine (1896).

152 Reclamation 9 Pape’s illustrations appear in Telford Groesbeck’s poem, Inca: Children of the Sun (1896). George Griffith’s travel writing in Peru published in Pearson’s Magazine (1896) may also have inspired Haggard. Along these lines and as I’ve addressed elsewhere, Griffith published the Amerindian adventure Romance of Golden Star in 1897 and Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru in 1898. Both Griffith novels were released 20 years before Haggard wrote Virgin of the Sun. 10 Haggard cites Prescott in Montezuma’s Daughter but does not reference him in his Peruvian romance. This could be an oversight, or perhaps Haggard thought that citing Prescott in Montezuma’s Daughter was sufficient, as Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru were published as companion volumes. Moreover, Prescott’s work was so widely circulated that the novelist may have thought the references to be obvious. 11 Historians Prescott and Markham use the spelling ‘Yupanqui’ and Haggard uses ‘Upanqui.’ 12 We see a similar romantic exoticism in Frederick Catherwood’s lithographs of the Maya temples. 13 The Chanca were great warriors and they invaded Quechua lands before finally being conquered by the Inca. 14 Haggard’s novel is set in the 1360s and Machu Picchu was built in the 1400s. As with character names, Haggard’s setting is suggestive rather than exact. 15 While conducting early research for this book, I visited Machu Picchu. The Andean tour guide reported that locals knew about the mountain fortress but tried, understandably so, to keep it hidden from Spanish plunder. It is, in any event, a difficult place to access, even with the train from Cuzco, the bus that ascends the mountain, and the perilous hike that follows. 16 Haggard references in 1918 the massive stonework that typifies ancient architecture in Peru in When the World Shook (208), so he was aware of the distinctive features of Inca architecture—large stones that were fixed into place (with very tight margins). 17 See Robert Aguirre’s Informal Empire for an analysis of the archaeological inquiries the British and North Americans launched in Central America and Mexico in the Victorian era. 18 See Aguirre’s Informal Empire. 19 Haggard performed a similar publicity stunt in his creation of a fake potsherd for She. 20 The British Museum’s Americas collection includes Inca figurines, cloak pins, and beautifully woven textiles. Characteristic of Britain’s obsession with New World treasures is the British Museum’s 2014 exhibition Beyond El Dorado: Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia. 21 Haggard is au courant and far-seeing in his tapestry of cultural connections, for the idea of the Vikings in the Americas drove transatlantic studies as Benjamin de Costa’s The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen (1868) and anticipates Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad’s 1960s excavations of L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. 22 In his biography of Haggard, Norman Etherington notes that the cross-cultural encounter and identification are essential features of ‘the reiterated formula of his exotic tales’ (55). Similarly, John Conlon in Victorian Britain: An Encyclopaedia (2011) points out that ‘Haggard’s formula involved fast-paced action based on motives of love and hate, greed, and wander lust’ (348). 23 On Robinsonades in Haggard’s work, see RD Mullen’s ‘The Books of H. Rider Haggard.’ 24 Haggard first adopts the Defoe formula in King Solomon’s Mines when George and Jim are stranded in an African desert oasis. ‘As for food, however, they got

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  153 on pretty well, for they had a good supply of ammunition and the oasis was frequented, especially at night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. These they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.’ George observes, ‘we have lived for nearly two years, like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.’ 25 Echoes of Defoe also can be found in Wilkie Collins’s Victorian domestic saga The Moonstone and JM Coetzee’s perplexing, postmodern novel Foe. For Collins’s character Gabriel Betteredge, Robinson Crusoe functions as a guidebook for handling the scandals and intrigues of the landed gentry. The Nobel Prize-winning author Coetzee rewrites Robinson Crusoe’s island episode by introducing a female character into the story, reworking Defoe’s narrative as a polyphony. 26 My thanks to manuscript copyeditor Jennifer Manion for pointing out the significance of the ship’s name. 27 One Routledge manuscript reader points out how this scene mirrors the dream of a wanderer on a moonlit night in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, ‘Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude’ (1816): Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep There came, a dream of hopes that never yet Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veilèd maid Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. Her voice was like the voice of his own soul Heard in the calm of thought 28 In accounts of the conquest of Mexico, native testimony recorded by Sahagún follows the same pattern as that established in Hernando Colón’s travelogue. In Sahagún’s Florentine Codex, the Aztec emperor Montezuma associates the arrival of Cortés with the return of the fair-skinned deity, Quetzalcoatl. As a priest–ruler, Montezuma dutifully obeys oracles and sends gifts to Cortés, allowing the Spanish to gain entry into Anahuac, the heart of the Aztec empire. 29 For more critical readings of the literature of the encounter, see Greenblatt’s edited volume New World Encounters (1993). 30 Here, too, Hernando Colón’s account is paradigmatic: When the inhabitants saw the Christians they all rushed out of the village and fled into the woods. But the Indian interpreter from San Salvador, who was with our men, went after them and shouted words of encouragement, saying much in praise of the Christians and affirming that they had come from the sky. The natives then returned reassured, and in awe and wonder they placed their hands on the heads of our men as a mark of honour and took them off to a feast, giving them everything they asked for without demanding anything in return. (Cohen 86) See Cohen, JM, Trans. The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Being His Own Log-Book, Letters and Dispatches with Connecting Narrative Drawn from the Life of the Admiral by His Son Hernando Colon and Other Contemporary Historians (1969). 31 I use Latin America, Mexico, and Peru as terms of convenience to refer to specific geographies, since these regions were not called as such in the 1300s when Hubert travels with Kari.

154 Reclamation 32 Mackenzie’s study of myth argues for transpacific migrations to what are now the Americas. The one point in which he anticipates postcolonial inquiry is in opining that it’s unclear whether white god myths existed among the Amerindians, or whether Europeans introduced them. 33 The referencing to slipping or stumbling is an oblique reference to Valverde’s fall from a mule crossing a river, an episode retold in Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun (1898). 34 To this day, many Spanish churches sit on the hallowed sites of the Quechua people, a fact made apparent in immense slabs of rock that serve as foundations and which bear an ancient architectural imprint.

References Aguirre, Robert. Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture. Minnesota: University Press of Minnesota, 2005. Almeida, Joselyn, Ed. Romanticism and the Anglo-Hispanic Imaginary. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Aristotle. Poetics. [330 BCE] http://classics​.mit​.edu​/Aristotle​/poetics​.1​.1​.html. Beyond El Dorado: Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia. London: British Museum, 2014. Bingham, Hiram. ‘In the Wonderland of Peru: The Work Accomplished by the Peruvian Expedition of 1912, Under the Auspices of Yale University and the National Geographic Society.’ National Geographic, Vol. XXIV, April 2013. https://openlibrary​.org​/books​/OL6562525M​/In​_the​_wonderland​_of​_Peru. Books Which Have Influenced Me. [Reprint of British Weekly]. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1897. Bryce, Viscount James, Holland Thompson, and Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie. The Book of History: South and Central America. New York: Grolier Society, 1915. Cain, PJ, and AG Hopkins. British Imperialism 1699–2000. New York: Longman, 2002. Catherwood, Frederick. Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan [London, 1844]. https://library​.si​.edu​/digital​-library​/book​/vie​wsan​ cien​tmon​00cath. Cieza de León, Pedro. The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Léon, A.D. 1532–50, Contained in the First Part of His Chronicle of Peru. Translated by Clements R Markham. London: Hakluyt Society 1854. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /48770​/48770​-h​/48770​-h​.htm. Coetzee, JM. Foe. New York: Penguin, 1986. Cohen, JM, Trans. The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Being His Own Log-Book, Letters and Dispatches With Connecting Narrative Drawn From the Life of the Admiral by His Son Hernando Colon and Other Contemporary Historians (1969). Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Ed. John Sutherland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Conlon, John J. ‘Haggard, Henry Rider (1856–1925).’ In Sally Mitchell (Ed.), Victorian Britain: An Encyclopaedia. New York. Routledge, 2011. Conrad, Joseph. Nostromo. New York: Penguin, 1994 [1904]. de Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quijote. Ed. Diana de Armas Wilson. New York: Norton Critical Edition, 2020.

Eclipsing the Spanish in Virgin of the Sun  155 de Costa, Benjamin. The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen. Albany: J Munsell, 1868. De Saussure, Ferdinand. “Nature of the Linguistic Sign.” In David Richter, Ed., The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Michael Shinagel. New York: WW Norton, 1994. Etherington, Norman. Rider Haggard. Boston: Twayne, 1984. Greenblatt, Stephen, Ed. New World Encounters. Berkley: University of California Press, 1993. Griffith, George. The Romance of Golden Star. [London: FV White, 1897]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20173​/pg20173​.txt. ———. ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds.’ Pearson’s Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 6, June 1896, pp. 618–622. https://babel .hathitrust .org /cgi /pt ?id =inu .30000093231268&view =page &seq =626 &skin =2021 &q1 =George %20Griffith. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson, 1898]. Groesbeck, Telford. Illus. Eric Pape. Preface Clements R. Markham. In The Inca, Children of the Sun. New York and London: GP Putnam & Sons, 1896. Haggard, H Rider. Benita. [1906]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/2761. ———. Days of My Life. Vol. II. [1926]. http://gutenberg​.net​.au​/ebooks03​/0300141​ .txt7​/21​/2009. ———. Eric Brighteyes. [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1891]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/2721. ———. Heart of the World. Mattituck, NY: Amereon House 1896. ———.‘The Inca’s Ring: Inspiration of Sir Rider Haggard’s Romances.’ The Western Argus. 21 Mar 1922. https://trove​.nla​.gov​.au​/newspaper​/article​/34226484. ———. King Solomon’s Mines. London, Cassell and Company, 1885. ———. Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. She. [1887] Daniel Karlin. Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ———. The Virgin of the Sun. London: [Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. ———. When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot [1919]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/1368. Heinowitz, Rebecca Cole. Spanish America & British Romanticism, 1777–1832. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. Henty, George A. By Right of Conquest, or With Cortez in Mexico. London: Blackie, 1891. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. ———. The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru. London, 1902. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/7070​/pg7070​.txt. Joyce, Thomas. South American Archaeology: An Introduction to the Archaeology of the South American Continent With Special Reference to the Early History of Peru. New York: GP Putnam & Sons, 1912. Kipling, Rudyard. “The Man Who Would be King.” [1888]. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/8147​/8147​-h​/8147​-h​.htm. Levi-Strauss, Claude. “The Structural Study of Myth.” In David Richter, Ed., The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998.

156 Reclamation Little, James Stanley. Doom of Western Civilization. London: WH & L Collingridge, 1907. ———. Progress of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia: Linscott, 1901. Luckhurst, Roger. ‘The Essay: Bram Stoker.’ BBC, 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. ———. The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. MacFarlane, Robert. Originality and Plagiarism in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Mackenzie, Donald. In Myths of Pre-Columbian America. Virgin Islands: Longwood Press, 1978 [1923]. Markham, Clements. Cuzco and Lima: A Journey to the Ancient Capital of Peru and a Visit to the Capital and Provinces of Modern Peru. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 [1856]. ———. The Incas of Peru. New York: EP Dutton and Company, 1912. Mullen, RD. ‘The Books of H Rider Haggard: A Chronological Survey.’ Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1978. https://www​.depauw​.edu​/sfs​/backissues​/16​ /mullen16bib​.htm. Padraic, Colum. Arabian Nights. Illus. Eric Pape. New York: MacMillan, 1923. Pagden, Anthony. European Encounters With the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Ramirez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. Rev. Benita. The Spectator a Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, Theology, and Art, Vol. 98, 30 March 1907, p. 504. Rev. She. Blackwood’s Magazine, February 1887, p. 302. Rippy, James. British Investments in Latin America, 1822–1949. New York: Arno Press, 1977. Robertson, William. History of America. Printed for Samuel Campbell, by Robert Wilson,  M.DCC.XCVIII [1777; 1798]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=evans​ ;idno​=N25924​.0001​.001. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. ‘Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude.’ [1816]. https://www​ .poetryfoundation​.org​/poems​/45113​/alastor​-or​-the​-spirit​-of​-solitude. Tompkins, Jane. Sentimental Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Trollope, Anthony. The Way We Live Now. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Wallace, Lew. The Fair God, or the Last of the ‘Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. New York: Grosett & Dunlap Publishers, 1873. https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/43340​/43340​-h​/43340​-h​.htm. White, Hayden. ‘The Historical Text as Literary Artifact.’ Clio. Vol. 3, No. 3, 1 June 1974, p. 277. Williams, Helen Maria. Peru, A Poem in Six Cantos. [1784]. https://www.gutenberg. org/cache/epub/11054/pg11054.txt.

5

The Rewards of Speculation and the Promise of Development in Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)

Of the English novelists in this study of conquest and reclamation—Henty, Haggard, and Griffith—George A Henty (1832–1902) was arguably the most influential among young adult audiences. Of the 100 books he published in his highly successful career, several are set in South America and the Caribbean. With an investment of 20 years in adapting for his stories the tumultuous history of Latin America, Henty composed adventure fictions about conquest, privateering, pioneering, insurgency, British involvement in the Wars of Independence, and the quest for treasure.1 Of his six transatlantic books, Treasure of the Incas was published last, in 1902, and follows Henty’s winning formula of an adventure set in a culturally dynamic geography, a journey informed by a legend or colourful episode of history, and undertaken by characters that function as models for transatlantic audiences.2 The novelist explains the premise of his story in the preface: The mysterious loss of a large portion of the treasure of the Incas has never been completely cleared up. By torturing the natives to whom the secret had been entrusted, the Spaniards made two or three discoveries, but there can be little doubt that these finds were only a small proportion of the total amount of the missing hoards, although for years after their occupation of the country the Spaniards spared no pains and hesitated at no cruelty to bring to light the hidden wealth. The story of the boat which put to sea laden with treasure is historical, and it was generally supposed that she was lost in a storm that took place soon after she sailed. (Henty) This passage, particularly the words ‘torturing,’ and ‘cruelty,’ exposes the violence of the Spanish conquest of Peru, thereby setting the stage for an alternative situation in which not the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, nor his compatriots, but English expeditioners discover what their Iberian rivals could not. In the narrative that unfolds, we meet young Englishmen Harry and Bertie Prendergast who risk all to seek their fortune in freshly liberated Peru. Their entry into the 400-year-long search for Inca gold is heralded by their surname Prendergast which means, etymologically, to take or seize as DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-8

158 Reclamation a guest or visitor.3 With such a fitting appellation, the brothers enter lands formerly colonised by Spain and embark on a nineteenth-century expedition, eager to recover ‘missing hoards’ of Peruvian treasure.

Overview of Treasure of the Incas Treasure of the Incas unfolds in stages and in different settings, each one of which imparts important lessons to adolescent readers. Henty first introduces us to Harry and Bertie Prendergast and their guardian, Mr Barnett, in England, as they plan the trip to Peru. Next, we follow the brothers’ transatlantic crossing on the merchant ship, the Para, which then enters the waters of the Pacific to dock in Lima. Then, we join the expedition to various archaeological sites in the Andes and on the Pacific coast. Finally, we see the young men a few years later, schooled in the hazards of treasure hunting, fabulously enriched, and ensconced in their country estates. Throughout each stage, Henty demonstrates in his account of the Prendergast adventures the importance of industriousness, perseverance, strategy, resourcefulness, and bravery in entering new lands. Once the narrative moves to Peru, it surveys the country’s coastal, mountain, and forest terrain and operates as a kind of field guide for readers to identify what to hunt and fish, and where to seek treasure.4 Throughout the expedition, Henty teaches his culturally sophisticated readers about the distinct cultures of Peru, from the sacred site of Pachacamac, to the seat of the Inca empire in Cusco, to the western forests and rivers of the Tinta region, and back towards the coast, via Junín, to the port of Callao, where the English youths surreptitiously will ship their loot to England. In tracing this route, Henty’s readers were presumably conversant with Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), research of South American ecologies, and study of Amerindian archaeology.5 In the same way Henty observes the differences between the Maya and Aztec societies in By Right of Conquest, so too does he distinguish between the Quechuaspeaking peoples of the Inca state. The ‘Chimoo’ (or Chimu) were master ceramicists who built their settlements with adobe along the coast. The ‘Chinca’ (or Chincha) were hunting-fishing tribes, one of which the party encounters inland. In his sketch of these Amerindian peoples, Henty may have relied on Prescott, whose History of the Conquest of Mexico he references in By Right of Conquest. My supposition is that Henty also repurposes material from Prescott’s companion volume History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), to generate cultural and geographic details for Treasure of the Incas (a point to which I shall return). As well, Henty may have been influenced by geographer, historian, and translator Sir Clements Markham (1830–1916) who published, among other works, A History of Peru [1892] and Cuzco and Lima: A Journey to the Ancient Capital of Peru and a Visit to the Capital and Provinces of Modern Peru [1856]. During his expeditions to South America, Markham studied medicinal botanicals of Peru and Chile; I’m guessing Henty may have read the geographer’s work because the

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  159 novelist mentions the distribution of Cinchona at the port of Callao, where the Prendergasts disembark: They crossed a square covered with goods of all kinds. There were long rows of great jars filled with native spirit, bales of cinchona bark, piles of wheat from Chili, white and rose-coloured blocks of salt, pyramids of unrefined sugar, and a block of great bars of silver; among these again were bales and boxes landed from foreign countries, logs of timber, and old anchors and chains. (Henty) Markham wrote about the properties of Cinchona and helped to import the plants to fight fever in India. Today, Cinchona is one of the most important fever-fighting botanicals in South America and is prepared as quinine.6 This seemingly small detail signals an important message to Henty’s readers about life-saving remedies for travellers, while its specificity makes his fiction plausible, lending to it what Roger Luckhurst calls ‘the weight of plausibility’ (2012). Let us now survey the reception of Treasures of the Incas and critical approaches to the text. The last novel Henty published before he died in 1902, Treasure of the Incas was enthusiastically received by transatlantic audiences and reviewers. The Bookman notes that Treasure of the Incas is ‘one of the author’s very best narratives’—a considerable achievement, given Henty published over 100 books (25). The Saturday Review, similarly, determines that Treasure of the Incas and its accompanying volumes (a triple decker), published for Christmas audiences, ‘are worthy of their long line of predecessors, and that is saying a great deal when we remember the general standard of literature for youth.’ The Canadian Bookseller and Library Journal references Henty’s preface to observe, There is a fairly well authenticated legend to the effect that the Spaniards succeeded in gaining possession of only a small part of the golden hoard that had been piled up by the Peruvians, and where the great bulk of the treasure was hidden has always been a mystery. Certainly, the conditions are admirably adapted for a romance of adventure, and Mr Henty has made excellent use of the material. (80) Yet despite its positive reception and the enormous impact Henty had on adolescent Victorian readers, very little scholarship, except for Laurence Kitzan’s critique of British stories of treasure hunting, exists on Henty’s final contribution to an archive of historic fiction about Amerindian peoples and its cultural work. By cultural work, I refer to Jane Tompkins’s proposal that popular fictions are worthy of study not necessarily because of their literary merit or craftsmanship, but because of the values or projections they convey

160 Reclamation to readers. In the quest for treasure, Henty’s story functions as a playbook on how to deal with hostile natives and brigands; how to tap into Peru’s natural resources in different ecologies; and how to evaluate the cost of labour, money, or time in prospecting for gold. In my investigation of the cultural work of Treasure of the Incas, first I draw on Laurence Kitzan’s argument about British fictions focused on treasure seeking. Next, I address how Peruvian muleteer Dias Otero and English gentleman–speculator Barnett view Peru as a newly liberated republic, and, finally, I highlight a few lessons learned throughout the expedition as the brothers methodically investigate sources of gold ore and potential caches in ancient Inca sites. First, though, I’d like to reiterate my conception of reclamation as it informs my reading of the novel’s cultural work.

Reclamation One of the organising principles of this study is that Treasure of the Incas, set in the late 1820s, shares the theme of reclamation with Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, set in the 1360s, and Romance of Golden Star, set in the 1890s.7 I see reclamation as the literary imagination of a different outcome to the Spanish conquest, a topic about which Henty, Haggard, and Griffith wrote in the 1890s.8 As I develop the concept for transatlantic studies, I believe it involves the recirculation of ancient stories and beliefs, revitalisation of Amerindian symbols and customs, the re-settlement of colonised lands, and the re-appropriation of natural resources, and anything else of value that was previously controlled by colonial or state authority. We’ll recall Hubert’s fourteenth-century memoir in Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922) which imaginatively precedes sixteenth-century chronicles of the Spanish explorer in Peru. It is through Hubert’s eyes—not Pizarro’s—that we view the marvellous architecture and cultural sophistication of the Inca, and it is through his perspective that we come to understand how religious differences spurred the Quechua war with the Chanca people, with whom Hubert becomes aligned. Henty’s contribution to what elsewhere I have called an ‘Americanist’ conversation is in illustrating Britain’s potentially stabilising influence in Peru, as represented by the Prendergast contribution to local economies (Ramirez). In their exploits, the Prendergasts learn to distinguish themselves from Spanish Americans, who are associated in the novel with the abuse of the indigenous, plundering of resources, and neglect of the infrastructure. Indeed, I propose that the brothers’ expedition to Peru has the contours, on a small scale, of what historians Cain and Hopkins call informal imperialism. Rather than a military incursion, informal imperialism is characterised by finance, commerce, and cultural production in a foreign region and has become, in the last 30 years or so, a key concept in transatlantic literary studies to examine the relations between Britain and Latin America, particularly after the nineteenth-century Wars of Independence. We should remember, too, the Monroe Doctrine, written in 1823 and invoked in 1895,

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  161 discouraged Europe from military interventions in Latin America, a phenomenon brilliantly captured by Punch cartoons (Lindsay). In Treasure of the Incas, the brothers purchase llamas, coffee, and foodstuff; they patronise inns, engage Dias Otero as a mule driver, and, upon the success of their expedition, restore some measure of wealth to the descendants of the Inca. What gets re-distributed to Dias in Henty’s novel is much less than what Griffith conceives of for the Inca Vilcaroya in Romance of Golden Star (1897). But these two Amerindian adventures function rhetorically in different ways, for Treasure of the Incas is about the Prendergast contribution to local economies, while Griffith’s novel imagines a modern, militarised Inca nation state. Another aspect of the project of reclamation is to take inventory of what has been lost; this Henty achieves in his survey of archaeological sites, and in ruminations recounted by the nobly descended Dias who, as their Indian muleteer, guides the English in their search for hidden treasure.

Fictions of treasure hunting Inextricable from the novel’s trope of reclamation is the treasure-hunting narrative. Laurence Kitzan contends that Treasure of the Incas is in many ways characteristic of Victorian adventures such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883), George Manville Fenn’s The Golden Magnet: A Tale of the Land of the Incas (1883), and H Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885).9 For Kitzan, the problem these stories pose is how the Englishman of modest means acquires wealth in far-away, sun-kissed lands that are purportedly rich in untapped treasure. Kitzan argues persuasively that treasure hunting operates as a potentially rewarding alternative to the investment of time that colonial settlement demands. Settlement—in one of Britain’s domains or a newly liberated Latin American republic—might improve one’s economic prospects, as it does in Henty’s Out on the Pampas (1871). But this means of success requires sustained labour and sacrifice with no guarantees, as we can see, for example, in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), with Angel Clare’s plantation failure and sickness in Brazil. Moreover, as Kitzan points out: Even when comfortable affluence was achieved, seldom would it be possible, except in the works of determined fiction writers such as G.A. Henty, for the settlers to reverse the process, sell their colonial possessions, and retire to England to live a life of quiet gentility. The fiction writers who were anxious to promote the varieties of adventurous experience and the potentialities the wide world held for acquiring sudden and substantial sums of money therefore needed some alternatives to sober settlement. A truly enticing way to escape the grinding path to prosperity was to find treasure, already gathered, lying hidden perhaps for centuries and waiting for the adventurers to come along to liberate it, and take all or a large part of it back to England. (91, Kitzan emphasis mine)

162 Reclamation Having articulated the novel’s premise of seeking treasure ‘already gathered,’ let us next assess the lessons Henty conveys. First, through anecdote, and later through the brothers’ experiences, Henty cautions audiences about various pitfalls in travel and treasure seeking. At the same time, he highlights skills, resources, and affiliations, both familial and institutional, already available to the young men. In this way, Henty telegraphs a specific message to his primarily male audience who might serve, as the brothers do, in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Navy, or at the outposts of the British empire, eager to build their fortunes. Before they leave England in the1820s, the brothers understand that the transatlantic and transpacific voyage to Peru and exploration there are risky. Their guardian, Barnett, is acutely aware of the dangers but, as a man of the world, counsels Harry to proceed with the Peruvian scheme, and to include his younger brother, Bertie. After all, A lonely man laid up with fever, or accidental injury, fares badly indeed if he is at a distance from any town where he can obtain medical attendance … It is possible that the lad might catch fever, or be killed in an affray with natives; that must, of course, be faced; but as a sailor he runs the risk of shipwreck, or of being washed overboard, or killed by a falling spar. (Henty) Barnett explains that while the hazards of the venture are undeniable, so, too, is a sailor’s life. This point about the risks is echoed by Henty’s significant interruption of the Prendergast quest with Johnson’s narrative. First mate on the Para—the ship transporting the brothers to Peru—Johnson recounts his survival of a disastrous whaling expedition in the North Sea. The ship to which Johnson’s boat belongs never returns, and while his mates leave the shore and attempt to traverse a mountain range to seek help, he—a sort of Robinson Crusoe in the Artic—decides to stay put and set up camp until winter passes. Johnson survives because of his resourcefulness and is rescued by another whaling operation in the spring. What does this tale of survival accomplish? It teaches Harry and Bertie about the importance of adaptability, maintaining one’s equilibrium, and the value of patience in arduous circumstances. It is this kind of insight, whether witnessed first-hand or heard as an anecdote, which equips the brothers to hunt treasure in a remote, foreign, culturally complex, and politically volatile landscape. Yet why, Kitzan compels us to ask in his study, does Henty imagine that middle-class youths would exchange one danger for another, to abandon sea-faring life to spend two years abroad in the deserts, jungles, and mountains of Peru? What Kitzan helps one to recognise in Treasure of the Incas is that courtship is a strong motivation to face peril, endure hardship, and separate from one’s loved ones. Seeking treasure allows Harry Prendergast to

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  163 demonstrate his worth to his intended, Hilda Fortescue, and her family, for while he has no trouble living on his modest income in the Royal Navy, he cannot expect his upper-class sweetheart to do the same. Mr Fortescue, a peer of the realm and solicitor, initially rejects Prendergast’s suit for his daughter and Harry, in turn, understands the bias very well. The young officer had no feeling of animosity against her father. It was natural that, as a large landowner, and belonging to an old family, and closely connected with more than one peer of the realm, he should offer strong opposition to the marriage of his daughter to a half-pay lieutenant, and he had been quite prepared for the burst of anger with which his request for her hand had been received. (Henty) While today’s readers may be perplexed by Mr Fortescue’s heated response, fin de siècle audiences would consider Harry’s proposal as a challenge to English socioeconomic strictures. Ultimately, Henty upholds traditional values with Harry’s initial failure to secure Hilda’s hand, and inspires modern audiences with Harry’s eventual and hard-won success. Furthermore, he conceives of a path of prosperity for daughters of the gentry, for Hilda, we learn, ‘had three brothers, and as the estates and the bulk of Mr Fortescue’s fortune would go to them, she was not a great heiress, though undoubtedly she would be well dowered’ (Henty). Harry thus has a good reason to risk life and limb to prove himself a worthy match—and provider—for Hilda. Taken together, the Prendergast brothers Harry and Bertie will get rich by figuring out where the Inca gold is hidden, but much travel takes place before that happens, many insights gleaned, and obstacles overcome.

Lessons learned Henty offers several lessons to be learned in the quest for Inca treasure, one of which is that skills gained earlier in one’s career have use and value, and that time is, itself, an important resource. Bertie offers his services as a supernumerary to subsidise his trip onboard the Para, which takes the brothers to Peru. Harry, although an officer with privilege, volunteers to keep watch on the ship and to make himself useful to the captain. The young men also develop proficiencies, as when Bertie seeks to improve his command of Spanish while abroad, an endeavour of which the captain of the Para approves. The captain explains: Most of us speak a little Spanish, but I have often thought that it would pay the company to send a man who could talk the lingo well in each ship. They could call him supercargo, and I am sure he would pay his wages three or four times over by being able to bargain and arrange with the Chileans and Peruvians. In ports like Callao [Peru] where there

164 Reclamation is a British consul, things are all right, but in the little ports we are fleeced right and left. Boatmen and shopkeepers charge us two or three times as much as they do their own countrymen and I am sure that we could get better bargains in hides and other products if we had someone who could knock down their prices. (Henty) Here, the captain thinks according to systems of trade and understands how such connections can be strengthened abroad. Ideally, consuls would help to facilitate commerce in Latin America and the British empire more generally. But in the absence of such consuls, or given their tenuous situations in politically unpredictable republics, he advocates the employment of English personnel who can speak, as Bertie will, Spanish. Along with the acquisition of new languages, the vitality and strength of the British empire depend on the relations between local contacts and gentlemen travellers, naturalists, sportsmen, entrepreneurs, military personnel, and mariners/explorers. It is the brothers’ guardian, Barnett, who recommends the services of Dias Otero, a muleteer he had at one time employed, and whose life he saved during his own earlier travels in Peru.

Perspectives of Dias Otero and Mr Barnett From Dias Otero, the brothers learn about Peru’s post-liberation political turmoil, something about which, by the time Henty published Treasure of the Incas in 1902, transatlantic audiences were primed. I elaborate on this topic in my discussion of, among other texts, Conrad’s Nostromo (1904) in British Representations of Latin America, but briefly stated, naturalists, novelists, journalists, cartoon artists, and statesmen debated the profits and losses of investing in Latin America. For example, in reflecting on his voyage on the Beagle in the 1830s Darwin observes, No state in South America, since the declaration of independence, has suffered more from anarchy than Peru. At the time of our visit there were four chiefs in arms contending for supremacy in the government: if one succeeded in becoming for a time very powerful, the others coalesced against him; but no sooner were they victorious than they were again hostile to each other. Similarly, George Griffith exposes post-liberation chaos in Romance of Golden Star when he portrays the readiness with which Peruvian soldiers mutiny against their officers.10 In Treasure of the Incas, the muleteer Dias validates these viewpoints when he reflects: It is always the same, señors, there is a revolution and two or three battles; then either the president or the one who wants to be president

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  165 escapes the country or is taken and shot, and in a day or two there is a fresh pronunciamento. We thought that when the Spaniards had been driven out, we should have peace, but it is not so; we have had San Martin, and Bolivar, and Aguero, and Santa Cruz, and Sucre. Bolivar again finally defeated the Spanish at Ayacucho. Rodil held possession of Callao castle, and defended it until January of this year. We in the villages have not suffered—those who died fighting went out with one or the other generals; some have returned, others have been killed— but Lima has suffered greatly. Sometimes the people have taken one side, sometimes the other, and though the general they supported was sometimes victorious for a short time, in the end they suffered. Most of the old Spanish families perished; numbers died in the castle of Callao, where many thousands of the best blood of Lima took refuge, of these well-neigh half died of hunger and misery before Rodil surrendered. (Henty) One of Dias’s significant expositions in the novel, this passage encapsulates many of the key moments of nineteenth-century Latin American history that seem to repeat themselves if not in the specifics, in the outcome.11 First, when Dias says ‘it is always the same,’ he exposes a cycle of violence with a coup d’état, an ensuing struggle for power, with the losing politico executed or on the run, and a new government installed. Thus, a ‘fresh pronunciamiento.’12 Descended from the Inca, and making a living as a muleteer for travellers of the Andes, Dias explains, ‘We thought that when the Spaniards had been driven out we should have peace, but it is not so.’ Here, the ‘Spaniards’ refers to the land-holding families who settled in Peru and appropriated its resources. Next, Henty uses Dias’ character to educate us about the key players in Latin America’s independence movement, beginning his lecture with José de San Martín (1778–1850) and Simon Bolívar (1783–1830), who worked together to liberate Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.13 Fuelled by Enlightenment thought, Latin America’s liberation from Spain might have re-distributed power and wealth among the people. But regarding Peru’s ‘independence,’ Dias adopts a modern disaffection, given that villagers ‘have taken one side, sometimes the other,’ and the outcome is roughly the same, no matter what side or general one opts to support. No one seems to prosper. In the second half of his speech, Dias observes that during the post-independence military tugs of war, those living in Lima suffered greatly, caught as they were between loyalists to the Spanish crown and the liberators of the country. Dias recounts General Ramon Rodil’s historic defence of Spanish loyalists in Callao, a strategic port just outside of Lima. Surrounded by Bolívar’s forces in 1824, Rodil blockaded himself and his adherents for a year and a half in the last of the Spanish strongholds. After eating whatever they could find—dogs, cats, rats, seagulls, and horses—many loyalists

166 Reclamation succumbed to famine, especially as the blockade by sea limited their ability to fish.14 Others died of infirmities such as dysentery, dropsy, and scurvy, but Rodil endured (Cornelio Espinoza 145). In January of 1826, with about 2000 military casualties and about 2000 civilian deaths, Rodil obtained an honourable capitulation to Bolívar’s nationalist forces.15 Henty’s rhetorical tactic is to mention dynamic figures like Rodil—or Cortés as we saw in my critique of By Right of Conquest—whose achievement speaks volumes, and whose overall example, with a few blemishes on the record, would be instructive for young adult audiences. Rodil’s defence of the Spanish crown would appeal to audiences loyal to Britain’s monarchical government. Many of Henty readers and their parents enjoyed the relative stability, pomp, and circumstance of Queen Victoria’s 63-year reign until her death in 1901. Dias’s exposition on Rodil also helps us to set the novel around 1826, just after Peru gained independence from Spain in 1821. When the Prendergasts arrive, they enter a charged political landscape, about which Barnett has cautioned them. In Barnett’s warning, Henty offers some correspondence with the views of Dias. Having travelled to Peru, Barnett observes that it: is a sort of cock-pit, where a succession of ambitious rascals struggles for the spoils, and the moment one gets the better of his rivals fresh intrigues are set on foot, and fresh rebellions break out. There are good Peruvians—men who have estates and live upon them, and who are good masters. But as to the politicians, there is no principle whatever at stake. It is simply a question of who shall have the handling of the national revenue and divide it and the innumerable posts among his adherents. (Henty) By the phrase ‘ambitious rascals,’ Barnett means the politicos who replaced the Spanish colonisers, but who did little to represent the interests of the ordinary Peruvian. Taken together, Dias Otero and Mr Barnett build the argument that liberation from Spain did not guarantee the prosperity or well-being of the people. In this way, Treasure of the Incas echoes Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) in the historian’s critique of how the Spanish exploited human capital, wasted resources, and destroyed the technologically advanced civilisation of the Inca. At its height, the Inca empire created an infrastructure for irrigation, communication, and transportation of goods to support food, clothing, and work for about ten million people. Thus, the stage is set for the English campaign of reclamation which, if successful, would help mitigate or reverse the abuses of the Peruvian state. The campaign to reclaim lost treasure begins with a tour of Pachacamac, which allows the brothers to become familiar with how the Inca designed their temples and vaults, in which treasure was laid. After they visit Pachacamac, the brothers, Dias, his wife, Maria, and nephew, José, ride east to the Andes,

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  167 to Cusco, then through the Tinta region to pursue an Inca legend of treasure hidden in a mountain gorge. On the return of their journey, they will stop in an inland village near Junín for supplies, and then come full circle to the Pacific to explore the legend of a seaside fortress. Reclaiming treasure that the Inca had lost—particularly gold and silver—will require adaptation to distinct ecologies, cultivating a familiarity with different tribes and contending with their English otherness in a freshly ‘liberated’ republic. When they enter Chinca territory, Dias cautions the brothers about this new environment. He warns of the poisonous arrows and darts of the indigenous and the vulnerability of gold-seekers: From time-to-time gold-seekers have returned with as much as they could carry, but not one in a hundred of those that go ever come back; some doubtless die from hunger and hardship, but more are killed by the Indians. Most of the tribes there are extremely savage, and are constantly at war with each other, and they slay every white man who ventures into their country. (Henty) In their search for the distinctive mountain gorge that might hide treasure, the Prendergasts follow a riverbed and, sure enough, find themselves surrounded by a hunting party of Chincas. The Prendergast party is completely outnumbered, about 50 to 1, and unable to hold their position among the boulders. With offence as the best defence, they intimidate the natives with a combination of harmless firecrackers and deadly ammunition, with the idea of having the Chincas associate the firecrackers with the injury inflicted by the guns. The plan works, the Chincas armed with arrows flee, and the expedition continues its search for hidden gold. This scene communicates another of Henty’s lessons: superior technology of the West prevails, but in this case as a defence tactic of the Englishmen—not, like the Spanish, deployed to subjugate.

Legends of the Inca Given that the Prendergasts have only two years to complete their exploration—this being the span of time during which Hilda Fortescue will wait for Harry, and how long their savings will last—one of the problems they must solve is where to focus their efforts. Four months are devoted to the transatlantic journey and four months are required for the return to England. That leaves a little over a year to traverse, by mule, an enormous country with an unforgiving—if majestic—topography of deserts, mountain ranges, and jungles. The Prendergasts rightly believe the key to discovering the lost treasure is to be found in Inca legacies passed down to royal families, impoverished as they might be in the 1800s. Luckily for the brothers, Dias, pictured in Figure 5.1, is descended from Inca nobility, and agrees to help the brothers narrow the scope of their search.

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Figure 5.1 ‘Harry and Bertie introduce themselves to Dias.’ Wal Paget, Illustrator. Treasure of the Incas. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

At first, Dias’s compliance is to pay a debt of gratitude to Barnett, but as the expedition continues, the muleteer comes to appreciate the brothers in their own right. Dias explains to the young Englishmen that the Inca did not typically hide their wealth in temples—such as those in Cusco, which, as

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  169 Henty and his audience would know from reading Prescott, were ransacked by the Spanish—but more so in ruins or mountain gorges. Thus, the party searches for the mountain gorge that, seen from a certain perspective, frames the rising of an equinoctial star. In thinking about how he and Bertie—and not the Spanish—become the repository of ancient lore, Harry reflects, No doubt fear that the Spaniards would force them [the Indians] to work in the mines till they died has had a great effect in inducing them to conceal the existence of these places from them. Now that the Spaniards have been cleared out there is no longer any ground for apprehension of that kind, but they may still feel that the Peruvians would get the giant's share in any mine or treasure that might be found, and that the Indians would, under one pretence or another, be defrauded out of any share of it. (Henty) Here, the Prendergasts gain knowledge which had been denied for centuries to the Spanish conquistador, colonist, and politico. As I suggested earlier, the campaign of reclamation is based on the novel’s premise that, from a Peruvian perspective, the English are preferable to both Spanish colonialist and the politico of the new republic. Throughout the novel—when the brothers defend Dias in a cantina brawl; when they want to compensate the muleteer for his losses during the expedition; and when they insist the mule driver take some measure of Inca wealth—Henty positions the English as morally superior to the Spanish. Harry and Bertie’s code of conduct wins the muleteer’s respect and, accordingly, he reveals the legend of the mountain gorge that may lead them to the treasure of the Incas: The place cannot be far from Tinta, but somewhere this side of it. … On a day that answers to the 21st of March, Coyllur—that is a star—will rise at midnight in a cleft in a peak. It can be seen only in the valley in which the stream that contains the gold runs down. This is what my father taught me. Yet despite winning Dias’s trust and expending considerable time, money, and effort in investigating this sacred site, which lies south of Cusco and north of Lake Titicaca, the party realises that any potential treasure has been subject to flooding by a nearby lake. The cost of draining the water and transporting treasure—if there is any—is prohibitive. The Prendergasts quickly abandon such a scheme, and they take time to regroup, setting an example for impressionable readers. When faced with undeniable obstacles or failure, the brothers do not blame or despair, or undertake anything rash. Rather, they take counsel, get rest, eat a satisfying meal, smoke a pipe, and plan the next reasonable course of action (in keeping with the example I called out earlier of Johnson’s whaling expedition in the Arctic).

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‘There is no government’ The next step of the journey towards the coast finds the Prendergasts steeped in Peru’s post-independence period of military anarchy. Henty calls out, specifically, the conflict between [Agustín] Gamarra [1785–1841], a mestizo who rose in rank and briefly served as Peru’s president, and Colonel Vivancohidas.16 Henty sets the scene in this way, When they arrived at Cerro de Pasco they found that the division of Gamarra’s army stationed in the district had mutinied and had declared for Vivancohidas, and were killing all those known as adherents of Gamarra. All traffic was at a stand-still. Numbers of the soldiers who did not choose to join in the mutiny had taken to the hills, and were pillaging convoys and peaceful travellers alike. (Henty) We learn through Henty’s characters that after Bolívar’s liberation of Peru, Spanish American factions agitate against one another, and soldiers who don’t choose sides instead skirt the military fray to become bandits. It is in this political climate that one of these brigands, Valdez, orders the rough awakening of Harry and Bertie in their lodgings, after the brothers have stopped in the village to replenish supplies near Junín, east of Lima. Capitalising on military discord and social disorder at this time, Valdez fears no repercussions in interrogating the two young Englishmen about their travels in Peru. Given that this is a dynamic period of European study of Latin American flora and fauna, the Prendergasts could claim to be aspiring naturalists, a pretence suggested to Harry by Mr Barnett before their trip. Having travelled throughout Peru earlier in his career, Barnett assures Harry that the politicos ‘have no time to concern themselves with the doings of an English traveller, whose object out there is ostensibly to botanize and shoot.’ Keeping in mind the story is set in the 1820s, Barnett’s attention to the gentleman–naturalist ‘anticipates’ the research of Charles Darwin (birds and lizards, in the Galapagos) in the 1830s, Robert Schomburgk (of orchids in the Amazon) and Alfred Wallace and Henry Bates (of insects) in the 1840s, as well as Henty’s contemporary Sir Clements Markham, all of whom broadcast a genuine delight in the botanical and zoological diversity of Latin America. But perhaps because they lack any specimens or substantive knowledge to prove their interest in science, the Prendergasts tell Valdez they have been hunting, not collecting. ‘English sportsmen, eh! How long have you been shooting?’ he asked. ‘Eight months.’ ‘Eight months! Then guard them securely, Montes; they are doubtless rich Englishmen, and we shall get a good ransom for them. English

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  171 señores who come out here to shoot must be men with plenty of money; but likely enough they are not sportsmen, but gold-seekers. However, it matters little.’ ‘I protest against this,’ Harry said. ‘Our consul at Lima will demand satisfaction from the government.’ The other laughed. ‘Government!’ he said, ‘there is no government; and if there were, they would have no power up in the hills.’ Harry’s assertion that the consul will ‘demand satisfaction from the government’ is a lofty way of saying that brigands can expect reprisals for imperilling British citizens. Valdez’s laughter and quick retort of ‘there is no government’ is a warning not just to the brothers, but to those who put too much faith in post-Independent Peru or in the ability of British diplomats to intervene in local affairs. Heavily guarded in a village, Harry and Bertie would probably have languished—and thus the end of the story—were it not for Dias and his wife, Maria, who devise a plan to save the brothers. This episode teaches readers that if ransom demands are unreasonable and diplomacy unworkable, the best plan is to escape and, as always, having a local guide is invaluable. In reading Treasure of the Incas within a broader literary context, which is how its cultural work becomes most apparent, we might consider how this kidnapping episode anticipates twentieth-century stories of anti-foreign violence in Malcolm Lowry’s masterpiece, Under the Volcano (1947), set in Mexico, and kidnapping in Graham Greene’s thriller, The Honorary Consul (1973), set in Argentina.17 This prescience is a quality not readily associated with Henty’s writing, dismissed as he often is for being merely a writer of juvenile literature. But his novel captures the pulse of Peruvian life in the early 1800s. Once free from the bandits, who are disarmed and locked up, the brothers undertake one final expedition in the quest for treasure.

Spare the Llamas After evading the Chinca hunting party, experiencing the disappointment of the flooded mountain gorge, and escaping captivity by the brigands, the Prendergasts regroup to pursue Dias’s legend of a mysterious castle on the Pacific coast, with little time remaining for their explorations. At this juncture, the expedition needs more food and many tools to excavate. This is an emblematic moment that demonstrates how the English stimulate the local economy through their purchases and patronage of muleteers, shopkeepers, and innkeepers. But the purchases and management of the expedition are significant for another reason, as once again the English are set apart from the Spanish conquistador and coloniser in the stewardship of resources. As they take inventory of what they have and what they need, the Prendergasts agree that llamas are superfluous. Up to this point, the llamas have been invaluable to carry supplies in difficult mountainous terrain and,

172 Reclamation with their sensitive nature, to act as sentries. Harry tells Dias to have the animals sold for carriage work, that they have ‘done good work’ and he does not want to kill them for food. His respect for the animals accords with the way, historically speaking, the Inca tended their flocks. As Prescott explains in Conquest of Peru, during periodic hunts, llamas would be driven to a central site and captured; some would be used for food for the people, or sacrifice, but most of the flock, 30,000 or 40,000, would be sheared and released. Their wool would be gathered, deposited into magazines, and re-distributed to the populace to weave into clothing, blankets, and other textiles. Henty must have been aware of such practices, for when the brothers eventually reach and explore the seaside castle, they find evidence of a pen used to domesticate the animals. The llama was essential to Peruvian life—and continues to play a role in tourism, textile manufacture, and animal husbandry. It’s this kind of detail that lends to Henty’s writing a sense of authenticity that his fin-de-siècle audience would expect. Harry’s care of the llamas contrasts with the history of how the Spanish reportedly treated them. Prescott relates that under the Spanish, ‘They suffered the provident arrangements of the Incas to fall into decay. The granaries were emptied; the flocks were wasted in riotous living. They were slaughtered to gratify a mere epicurean whim, and many a llama was destroyed solely for the sake of the brains—a dainty morsel, much coveted by the Spaniards’ (Prescott 1121). Through Harry’s management, the llamas used on the expedition enter service with one of Dias’s fellow muleteers. With this episode, Treasure of the Incas anticipates the argument of critic Patricia Roylance who, in reading Prescott, apprehends the historian’s comparison of the Spaniards’ dissolute prodigality with Peru’s resources and the Incas’ traditionally careful stewardship of them. The Spanish stripped Peru of its resources and ‘wantonly destroyed’ the sophisticated agricultural system so crucial to the Peruvians’ sustenance, because their goal was profit, not good governance. (Roylance 59–60) The English, for Henty, would do better in the stewardship of livestock and stimulation of the economy. As we have seen, activities such as travelling, hunting, and archaeological and mining investigations depend on the local purchase of goods and services. And within a broader context, Barnett observes, Peru needs capital for her development, and at present that can best be got from this country. The discovery of a fresh mine means employment to a large number of people, and the increase of the revenues by a royalty or taxation. (Henty)

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  173 Once again, Henty reinforces Barnett’s perspective through Dias, for their guide reiterates Barnett’s point when he recalls that a sense of order—amidst political unrest—is imposed by the convoys of silver financed by foreigners: The silver mines have always been a considerable force in their pay. They used to have troops from the division stationed here, but what with the constant revolutions, and the fact that more than once the escort, instead of protecting the convoys, mutinied and seized them, they found it better to raise a force themselves. … The consequence is that, in spite of the disturbed state of the country, it is a long time now since one of their escorts has been attacked, especially as the robbers would find great difficulty in disposing of the silver, as each ingot is marked with the name of the mine it comes from. (Henty) Taken together, Barnett and Dias, in assessing the instability of Peru, validate the role of English developers and investors. Henty offers a significant—and to the best of my understanding, unacknowledged—literary precedent to Charles Gould’s struggle with insurgency and his promise of order and prosperity in Conrad’s Nostromo. If Nostromo is a satirical masterpiece for its portrait of mining in the emerging Latin American republic, Costaguana, then Treasure of the Incas lays the groundwork for the arguments that unfold in Conrad’s work, published as it was in 1904. We find the same level of insurrection among the politicos; the same necessity for reliable men who can transport precious minerals; the accident of ingots being immersed in the ocean; and the prospect of growing immensely rich with the discovery of those ingots. Conrad writes of Nostromo’s cache: The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible source of his fortune. The crew of his own schooner were to be feared as if they had been spies upon their dreaded captain. He did not dare stay too long in port. When his coaster was unloaded, he hurried away on another trip, for he feared arousing suspicion even by a day’s delay. Sometimes during a week’s stay, or more, he could only manage one visit to the treasure. And that was all. A couple of ingots. He suffered through his fears as much as through his prudence. To do things by stealth humiliated him. And he suffered most from the concentration of his thought upon the treasure. (Conrad) The primary difference is that Conrad’s famed cargador Nostromo grows rich slowly in Sulaco, retrieving silver ingots over time, while the Prendergasts abscond with two loads of gold, surreptitiously shipping the treasure across the Atlantic to England, where instantly they will become fabulously rich.

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The castle Up to this point, Treasure of the Incas has performed a great deal of cultural work for its readers. It has functioned as a guidebook about where and what to hunt and fish in Peru; it has surveyed archaeological sites; it has taken inventory of streams reportedly rich in gold; and it has operated as a primer on dealing with hostile natives and brigands. In the same way Henty references Prescott in By Right of Conquest, so too does the novelist seem here to depend on Prescott or one of his sources to trace a path to treasure that has gone missing.18 Henty follows Cieza de León’s Crónica in referencing Hernando Pizarro’s expedition to Pachacamac and the sacking of an ancient temple.19 While Hernando Pizarro and his men absconded with the temple’s valuables in the 1500s the conquistador, Now found, to his chagrin, that he had come somewhat too late; and that the priests of Pachacamac, being advised of his mission, had secured much the greater part of the gold, and decamped with it before his arrival. A quantity was afterwards discovered buried in the grounds adjoining. Still, the amount obtained was considerable, falling little short of eighty thousand castellanos, a sum which once would have been deemed a compensation for greater fatigues than they encountered. (Prescott 957) Correspondingly, Henty writes, The wealth of the temple [Pachacamac, creator of the world] was great; the Spaniards carried away among their spoils one thousand six hundred and eighty-seven pounds of gold and one thousand six hundred ounces of silver; but with all their efforts they failed to discover the main treasure, said to have been no less than twenty-four thousand eight hundred pounds of gold, which had been carried away. (Henty) It is this lost treasure the Prendergasts seek, and their final stop in the expedition is the seaside fortress. Perhaps this fortress is Centinela, or the Sentinel, a real Chinca archaeological site on the Pacific ocean. If Centinela is what Henty has in mind, he chose the setting with care as it lends plausibility to the notion that the Inca—who typically centred their operations inland— commandeered this coastal castle to deposit their wealth. The last lesson the narrative imparts is the rewards of patience in verifying a legend of hidden treasure. Dias explains that: Tradition says that it was not the work of the Incas, but of the people before them. I have never seen it close. It is guarded, they say, by demons, and no native would go within miles of it. The traditions are that the

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  175 Incas, when they conquered the land, found the place and searched it, after starving out the native chief who had fled there with his followers and family. Some say that they found great treasure there, others that they discovered nothing; all agree that a pestilence carried off nearly all those who had captured it. Others went, and they too died, and the place was abandoned as accursed, and in time its very existence became forgotten; though some say that members of the tribe have always kept watch there, and that those who carelessly or curiously approached it have always met with their death in strange ways. (Henty) When Dias mentions the people before the Incas, he may refer to the Chimoo who lived, traded, and fished along the coast of Peru and capitulated in the fifteenth century to Inca rule while maintaining some degree of autonomy.20 The native belief in a curse or haunting is a curious detail. In adventure fiction, the dissemination of frightful stories—hauntings by ghosts or threats of demons—works to safeguard treasure, yet Western explorers are shown to know better than to succumb to superstition.21 Once the party finds and enters the castle, the brothers do not hesitate to closely examine the interior chambers. Harry and Bertie painstakingly drill into the stone floor and chisel at walls, trying to find concealed ingots. But alas, they find nothing. Not giving up, however, the Prendergasts, mariners that they are, shrewdly notice one opening in the interior of the castle that allows a view of the sea, and this puzzles them. Eventually, the Prendergasts realise that this opening allows a guard to keep a lookout on the sea, and they put together all the details that help them figure out that the Inca sent their treasure by boat from Pachacamac to the castle. It’s a plausible idea, given the episode in Prescott about Hernando Pizarro’s search for gold in the 1530s. We don’t know what happened to such treasure, or if it existed, but in Henty’s fiction, boats laden with gold sunk in front of the castle, and the Inca left the ingots buried in the sea, close enough for retrieval. Retrieval is never effected, and the site is abandoned, except by a few stalwart guardians of the secret, and these individuals eventually pass away. Rewarded for their toil, curiosity, perseverance, and ability to adapt to difficult circumstances, the Prendergast brothers fulfil the English dream of discovering lost treasure. They load it up and send it to England, as seen in Figure 5.2. After returning to England, Harry is now suitably enriched to marry Hilda Fortescue; Bertie also settles down and both brothers purchase estates to keep company with the landed gentry. That the respectable Englishman has an opportunity to prove himself through courage and determination to his high-born intended appealed to readers of a class system that was becoming increasingly pliable when Henty’s work was published in 1902. A financially compromised aristocracy could not afford to snub the prosperity offered by respectable, albeit humble, suitors who succeeded in their exploits abroad, one of the most important messages imparted to Henty’s

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Figure 5.2 ‘It did not take long to transfer the sacks into the boat.’ Wal Paget, illustrator, Treasure of the Incas. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

readers. Another message is that while the freshly liberated republic fails to improve the lot of the ordinarily Peruvian, the Prendergasts can deploy their successes and resources at the level of family and community. The project of reclamation in Treasure of the Incas is therefore modest in its depiction of the distribution of wealth, yet enduring in the way Henty imagines how

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  177 English financiers, engineers, and merchants could contribute to the national economy. British informal imperialism, which favours capital, finance, or a cultural invasion rather than military force, supports the project of reclamation. While Dias refuses a significant part of the loot, he accepts the silver torch brackets installed in the castle and will use some of the wealth to support an orphanage for indigenous children in Lima. We have a glimpse of Britain’s future in Peru with Harry’s remark to Dias about the possibility of returning for another expedition. Harry reflects, I think it likely that I shall someday get up a company to drain that lake in the golden valley. The gold will be more useful as money than lying there. It must depend partly upon whether the country is settled. People will not put money into Peru as long as you are always fighting here. (emphasis mine, Henty) Inca gold will be transformed into currency, again stimulating the mining and travel industries.

Notes 1 Before Treasure of the Incas (1902), Henty published five books about Latin America and the Caribbean: By Right of Conquest, Or, With Cortez in Mexico (1891), addressed in another essay, as well as several novels worthy of future scholarly study: Under Drake’s Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main (1883), Out on the Pampas, Or the Young Settlers (1871), Cochrane the Dauntless: A Tale of the Exploits of Lord Cochrane in South American waters (1896), and A Roving Commission, or Through the Black Insurrection of Hayti (1899). Of these, Cochrane the Dauntless is most closely aligned with Treasure of the Incas in how it showcases British involvement in the Latin American wars of Independence. 2 Henty’s novels were popular, indeed pirated, in the USA. 3 The Latinate root prender means ‘to take,’ ‘seize,’ or ‘secure,’ and gast in German means ‘visitor,’ ‘tourist,’ or ‘guest.’ 4 Henty refers to the inheritors of colonial power as Spanish or Peruvian, and to the indigenous as and Indians natives, although, by the nineteenth century, many Peruvians were mestizo, an ethnic mixture. Use of these identifiers is complex and varied because some mestizos think of and present themselves as European, and others relate more to Amerindian cultures. Further complicating this is the idea that in Latin America money makes one ‘white,’ regardless of ethnic background. 5 Like Haggard in Virgin of the Sun, Henty doesn’t specify his source in Treasure of the Incas, but he does acknowledge Prescott in By Right of Conquest: Or with Cortez in Mexico. One running thread throughout this study of conquest and reclamation is that Victorian and fin-de-siècle readers developed through Prescott a literacy about the conquest, particularly as each new work of fiction would rehearse the drama of the Spanish invasion, the encounter with Amerindian peoples, and the reclamation of their resources after independence. I hold that when a novelist such as Henty cited Prescott on one occasion, doing so may underwrite future uses of the historian’s work.

178 Reclamation 6 Cinchona bark has been used for hundreds of years to combat malaria and is known to us as quinine. Quinine was synthesised in the mid-1900s; however, a resurgence in naturally grown cinchona is underway because malaria strains have grown resistant to the artificially produced quinine. 7 The continuum that Henty creates with Treasure of the Incas and his earlier stories set in the Caribbean and South America is a line of inquiry that is outside the scope of this study, but worth pursuing in future scholarship. 8 See my discussion of Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico (1891), Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), and Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898). 9 To Kitzan’s list of treasure-seeking adventures, I’d add Frank Aubrey’s 1896 fantasy adventure Devil Tree of El Dorado. 10 On a similar note, Victorian fantasist Frank Aubrey speculates in the preface of The Devil Tree of El Dorado that regarding British Guiana, ‘there is reason to fear we may be on the point of allowing one of the most scientifically interesting and geographically important spots upon the surface of the globe to slip out of our possession into that of a miserable little state like Venezuela, where civil anarchy is chronic, and neither life nor property is secure.’ 11 A similar lament for instability can be found in Santiago Pérez Triana’s Colombian travel narrative about a flight from insurrection, Down the Orinoco in a Canoe (1902), Abel’s flight from Venezuela to Guiana in WH Hudson’s novel Green Mansions (1904), and Joseph Conrad’s portrait of Ribeira in his Latin American masterpiece, Nostromo (1904). 12 A pronunciamiento is a coup d’état against the prevailing government. 13 The other figures Dias Otero mentions are leaders of Peru: José Mariano de la Riva Agüero (1783–1858) served as Peru’s first president; Andrés de Santa Cruz (1792–1865), seventh president of Peru and president of Bolivia; and Antonio José de Sucre (1795–1830), fourth president of Peru. 14 See Cornelio Espinoza, ‘La disminución diaria de alimentos de primera necesidad obligó a civiles y militares a alimentarse de perros, gatos, ratones, caballos, aves de mar, lobos marinos y mariscos; el pescado, por un tiempo, formó parte de la dieta, pero la intensificación del bloqueo marítimo y el mal clima hicieron casi imposible conseguirlo.’ 15 History enthusiasts curious to know what happened to the intrepid general would learn that after the capitulation, Rodil returned to Spain and became Prime Minister from 1842 to 1843, the subject of Ricardo Palma’s Rodil (1852). Henty demonstrates his capacity to single out colourful figures and events of history; a name such as Rodil invokes competing perspectives about the past and invites from critical audiences a spirit of inquiry in which those perspectives come into alignment or opposition. 16 While Gamarra’s identity is clear, Henty’s reference to Vivancohidas requires further investigation. In this scene, the novelist signals a period of military anarchy in Peru when generals launched attacks against one another after independence in 1821, but before Gamarra died in 1841. I presume, although I could be mistaken as the name isn’t exact and neither is the timing, that Vivancohidas is Henty’s reference to the historically real Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco (1806– 1873). Vivanco seized power after Gamarra, and after the overthrow of Manuel Menéndez, president of the Council of State. Vivanco established a conservative government in 1843–1844, and then Menéndez was reinstalled. 17 I analyse Lowry and Greene’s work, as well as that of Conrad and Conan Doyle, in British Representations of Latin America (2007). 18 Again, Henty doesn’t specify his source in Treasure of the Incas, but he does acknowledge Prescott in By Right of Conquest. One running thread throughout my study of conquest and reclamation is that Victorian and fin-de-siècle

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  179 readers developed through Prescott a literacy about the conquest, particularly as each new work of fiction would rehearse the drama of the Spanish invasion or the encounter with Amerindian peoples. I hold that provided an author references Prescott in an earlier work, the gesture seems to ‘cover’ subsequent publications. 19 Prescott cites conquistador–ethnographer–chronicler Pedro Cieza de León in History of the Conquest of Peru. Cieza de León published Crónica, and was translated by Clements Markham as The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de León, 1532–50: Although the captain Hernando Pizarro succeeded in reaching the temple of Pachacamac, it is notorious among the people that the priests had already taken away four hundred loads of gold, which have never yet appeared, nor do  any Indians now living know where they are. Nevertheless Hernando Pizarro (the first Spanish captain who came to this place) found some gold and silver. As time passed on, the captain Rodrigo Orgoñez, Francisco de Godoy, and others, took a large sum of gold and silver from the burial places. It is considered that there is much more, but as the place where it was buried is unknown, it was lost (Chapter LXXII). 20 In describing Chimoo edifices, Henty pays careful attention to the archaeological details in attributing to them the use of adobe, which is to be distinguished from the Inca use of huge stones closely fitted together for building their structures. 21 ‘Haunted’ treasure is an element likewise to be found in adventure novels such as Aubrey’s Devil Tree of El Dorado (1896) and Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912). The difference between these works and Henty’s is that the aptly named man-eating Devil tree of Aubrey and the ‘missing links’ of Conan Doyle pose real threats to the British adventurers in the tropical forests, while there is nothing to alarm Harry and Bertie in the ancient sea-side fortress.

References Aubrey, Frank. Devil Tree of El Dorado (1896). https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /43944​/43944​-h​/43944​-h​.htm. Cain, PJ and AG Hopkins. British Imperialism 1699–2000. New York: Longman, 2002. de Cieza de León, Pedro. The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de León, 1532–50. Trans. Clements Markham [1864]. https://gutenberg​.org​/files​/48770​/48770​-0​.txt. Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Lost World. Ed. Ian Duncan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1912]. Conrad, Joseph. Nostromo. New York: Penguin, 1994 [1904]. Cornelio Espinoza, Christopher. ‘Los últimos defensores del rey en el Perú. Ramón Rodil y las élites limeñas en Lima y Callao durante las guerras de Independencia (1824–1826).’ Tesis para optar el título de Licenciado en Historia que presenta el Bachiller. Pontifica Universidad Católica del Peru. 2015. https://www​.scribd​.com​ /document​/386687788​/Los​-ultimos​-defensores​-del​-rey​-en​-el​-Peru​-Ramon​-Rodil​ -y​-las​-elites​-limenas​-en​-Lima​-y​-Callao​-durante​-las​-guerras​-de​-Independencia​ -1824​-1826​-Christo. Darwin, Charles. The Voyage of the Beagle [1845]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /944​/944​-0​.txt. Fenn, George Manville. The Golden Magnet [1883]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ files​/24909​/24909​-h​/24909​-h​.htm.

180 Reclamation Greene, Graham. The Honorary Consul. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000 [1973]. Griffith, George. The Romance of Golden Star. [London: FV White, 1897]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20173​/pg20173​.txt. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson, 1898]. Haggard, H Rider. King Solomon’s Mines [1885]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /2166​/2166​-h​/2166​-h​.htm ———. Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. The Virgin of the Sun. [London: Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. [1891]. https://www.gutenberg.org/ files/110/110-h/110-h.htm. Henty, George A. By Right of Conquest, or With Cortez in Mexico. [London: Blackie, 1891]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. ———. Out on the Pampas: The Young Settlers. [London, 1871]. https://catalog​ .hathitrust​.org​/Record​/008689624. ———. A Roving Commission: Or, Through the Black Insurrection of Hayti [1899]. https://gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/38764​/pg38764​.txt. ———. The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru. [London: Blackie & Son, 1902. Illustrated Wal Paget]. http://gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/7070. ———. Under Drake’s Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main [1883]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/19206​/pg19206​.txt. ———. With Cochrane the Dauntless: The Exploits of Lord Cochrane in South American Waters [1896]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/25993​/25993​-0​.txt. Hudson, WH. Green Mansions [1904]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/942​/942​-h​ /942​-h​.htm. Kitzan, Laurence. Victorian Writers and the Image of Empire: The Rose-Colored Vision. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001. Lindsay, James. ‘TWE [The Water’s Edge] Remembers: The Monroe Doctrine.’ Council on Foreign Relations. 2 December 2010. https://www​.cfr​.org​/blog​/twe​ -remembers​-monroe​-doctrine. Lowry, Malcolm Lowry. Under the Volcano. New York: Harper Collins, 2000 [1947]. Luckhurst, Roger. ‘The Essay: Bram Stoker.’ BBC, 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. Markham, Sir Clements. A History of Peru [1892]. https://archive​.org​/embed​/ historyofperu00mark. ———. Cuzco and Lima: A Journey to the Ancient Capital of Peru and a Visit to the Capital and Provinces of Modern Peru. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 [1856]. Palma, Ricardo. Rodil: drama en tres actos y un prologo, escrito en prosa y verso. Peru, Impr. del Correo, 1851. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847] New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Ramirez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. Rev. Treasure of the Incas. The Bookman, December 1902, p. 25.

Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902)  181 Rev. Treasure of the Incas. The Canadian Bookseller and Library Journal, October 1902, Vol. 15, No. 7, p. 80. Rev. Treasure of the Incas. The Saturday Review, 6 December 1902, p. 716. Roylance, Patricia. Eclipse of Empires: World History in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Triana, Santiago Pérez. Down the Orinoco in a Canoe. New York: Thomas Y Crowell & Co., 1902. Introduction RB Cunninghame Graham. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/50506​/50506​-0​.txt.

6

The Campaign of Reclamation in George Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897)

With Romance of Golden Star (1897), explorer and fantasist George Griffith fashions an ingenious story that is, at once, ancient and modern. Drawing on Victorian conventions of archaeological fiction as well as impressions from his travels in Peru, Griffith imagines a radically different outcome to the Spanish conquest than that which is outlined in Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). The novel, which takes the form of a memoir by the Inca Vilcaroya, explains how he and sister Golden Star had, in an act of self-preservation, entered a death-like slumber in the 1530s, when the gold-hungry Spanish invaded Tavantinsuyu. Upon their extraordinary re-awakening in the 1890s, the Inca recounts how they gradually assimilate to Western ways, learn English, and seek their place in modern-day Peru. Golden Star emerges perfectly preserved from the past—a tabula rasa upon which will be inscribed an image of Victorian propriety. For his part, the Inca Vilcaroya relates in his memoir how he abandons his troth to his halfsister, and focuses his efforts on his campaign of reclamation. To that end, he enlists English gun-for-hire Francis Hartness to help him restore what has been lost and destroyed with the Spanish occupation of Peru. Hartness, we learn, will be generously compensated to orchestrate Vilcaroya’s insurrection against the Peruvian government; his reward is gold, a governorship, and a royal bride, no less than Golden Star herself. In this essay, I seek to frame Vilcaroya’s revolt against the Peruvian government of the 1890s not as destabilisation and political chaos, which is what the British press sometimes associated the Latin American republic with, but as a campaign of reclamation.1 As I’ve endeavoured to illustrate throughout this study, reclamation is the restoration of anything that was appropriated, stolen, or destroyed after Francisco Pizarro’s invasion of Peru in the 1530s. In the Amerindian fictions studied in Part II—Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922), Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902), and Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star (1897)—reclamation involves the revival of ancestral languages, customs, and beliefs; it results in the re-appropriation or discovery of lost treasure; it imagines the re-invigoration of ancient lineages languages, and legends. It also creates, as we shall see here with Vilcaroya’s revolt, a new nation-state. In what immediately follows, first I’ll map out how Griffith DOI: 10.4324/9781003369929-9

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  183 stages the campaign of reclamation in ways similar to and at the same time quite distinct from the Amerindian adventures addressed in Part II of this book: Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902) and Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922). Second, I shall situate Griffith’s Inca-Anglo romance within its critical context. Third, I shall analyse the key players in the campaign of reclamation to assess what Jane Tomkins calls in her study of nineteenth-century fiction, ‘cultural work.’ In this case, I propose that with Romance of Golden Star Griffith draws on his travel to Peru and employs the conventions of archaeological fiction and the lost-race narrative to advance the idea of reclamation. Further, with the figure of Francis Hartness, Griffith conceives of a place for the British adventurer—or investor—in the new nation-state.

Reclamation in the Amerindian adventure Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star and Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun—discussed earlier—imagine the nineteenth-century discovery of Inca mummies, and both stories work to rhetorically eclipse or displace the Spanish. In Haggard’s captivating tale, the discovery of royal mummies is revealed to an English editor–collector who acquires Hubert of Hasting’s manuscript which, along with other artefacts, is taken in the 1800s from a royal Chanca tomb. In Griffith’s equally enthralling work, the key player is Professor Lamson, a Victorian archaeologist who discovers the seemingly dead Inca Vilcaroya in his carefully concealed Andean burial chamber. What follows is Lamson’s removal of the Inca’s body, its secret transportation to England, and its revival by the scientist of the novel, Doctor Laurens Djama. Taken together, Haggard and Griffith’s characters—the English collector–editor, Professor Lamson, and the Victor Frankenstein-like Djama—act as critical mediators between the past and the present, for without their interventions, the past would stay hidden. We see this in Haggard’s novel, for had it not been for the English collector-editor, who is in fact the first narrator of Virgin of the Sun, we would not see Hubert’s fourteenth-century memoir come to light. Adding Henty and his Treasure of the Incas (1902) to our introductory considerations, we see more parallels. Henty, Haggard, and Griffith weave socio-political threads throughout their stories, taking up—and developing—the theme of reclamation. Indeed, all three authors craft fictional but nevertheless pointed criticisms of Spanish interventions in Peru while putting forward favourable visions of the British as a stabilising force. For example, Griffith and Haggard conceive of bi-racial marriages that, in the development of the two stories, culturally displace the Spanish and invigorate royal bloodlines. In Griffith’s case—and as we shall see—the author envisions the revitalisation of the Inca dynasty in dual marriages between Vilcaroya and Ruth Djama, and Hartness and Golden Star. So, too, is there a confluence between Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star and Henty’s Treasure of the Incas, as both fictions expose the political turmoil following Peru’s 1821 liberation from Spain and set up the expectation that post-independent Peru

184 Reclamation is ripe for British exploration, investment, and development.2 As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Peru offered investors a rich menu of natural resources— cotton, coffee, guano [fertiliser], alpaca wool, cinchona (produced as quinine), and precious mineral ores—and by the time Griffith wrote it was becoming a site of tourism and archaeological fieldwork. Fieldwork, indeed, is a critical element of Romance of Golden Star’s composition and its plot. For it is Professor Lamson who discovers Vilcaroya’s tomb and absconds with the Inca’s body. Yet once the tomb is invaded and the ‘mummy’ is brought into consciousness, it is the Inca Vilcaroya who narrates the story and drives Romance of Golden Star’s campaign of reclamation. Under his leadership, the ancient royal dialect of Quechua resurfaces, alongside the revival of ancient Inca customs. Throughout the Andean expedition that he launches to retrieve the body of his half-sister, Golden Star, Vilcaroya showcases Peru’s cultural and archaeological treasures to his English companions, notably the ingenuity and impenetrability of Inca fortresses. And during his campaign, Vilcaroya strategically deploys stirring symbols, such as the Rainbow banner, and rehearses legends suppressed after the Spanish invasion of Tavantinsuyu.3 Clearly, Romance of Golden Star invites critical commentary. Yet Griffith’s literary achievement has not, to the best of my knowledge, gained much notice by scholars of Victorian or transatlantic studies. Science fiction historians Robert Reginald and Robert Menville recognise the lost-race motif of Romance of Golden Star, aligning it with Haggard’s Maya 1895 saga, Heart of the World, but offer only a summary of Griffith’s fantasy (76). Therefore, this essay seeks to extend the conversation by drawing on John Rieder’s analysis of the lostrace genre, by identifying the archaeological motifs that would resonate with Egyptophiles and those inquisitive about Amerindian cultures, and by examining what Jane Tompkins considers a novel’s ‘cultural work.’ Moreover, in assessing the novel’s tidy conclusion with the dual marriages, I see what Doris Sommer calls a foundational fiction in her landmark study of Latin American novels which imagine unions between individuals of different classes or ethnicities. These are points to which I shall return. Let us now consider key elements of Romance of Golden Star and how it compares with other Amerindian fictions. Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star takes the form of Vilcaroya’s late nineteenth-century memoir, written from an indigenous point of view. We may consider this a bold move, given the more conventional perspective of English characters in the Amerindian romance, such as Haggard’s Hubert of Hastings and Thomas Wingfield, both of whom narrate their own stories. Moreover, the treasure excavated when Vilcaroya orchestrates his insurrection against the Spanish remains mostly in Peru, rather than shipped across the sea to England, as with the ingots in Henty’s Andean adventure, Treasure of the Incas. Another striking difference is the scope of reclamation. Though published in 1897, five years before Henty’s Treasure of the Incas (1902) and 25 years before Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, (1922) Romance of Golden Star is the most radical of the novels under consideration. For while contributing to the same transatlantic discourse of reclamation, Griffith

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  185 imagines a dramatic repossession of Inca wealth and complete reconfiguration of the political and cultural landscape of Peru. A notable feature of Romance of Golden Star, and one that also marks Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru that we looked at earlier, is its archaeological richness. Indeed, this aspect of Griffith’s fiction sets it apart from many other texts in what I call the Amerindian archive—more fully addressed in the Epilogue— and it is born of the fact that Griffith experienced Peru first hand. In this way, Griffith accomplished for the Amerindian adventure what historians, archaeologists, and artists achieved in their fieldwork, imbuing their productions with an ‘I was there’ quality. Griffith followed on the heels of, among others, English geographer and scholar Sir Clements Markham (1830–1916), renowned for his publications such as Cuzco and Lima: A Journey to the Ancient Capital of Peru and a Visit to the Capital and Provinces of Modern Peru (1856) and History of Peru (1892). Griffith embeds into his Peruvian novels impressions gathered during his 1896 tour of Inca archaeological sites. Let us now survey contemporary reviews of Romance of Golden Star, since they illuminate the challenges that Griffith faced as a writer of mixed genres, and help us appreciate the novel’s cultural work.

The critical context of Romance of Golden Star After it was published with fine illustrations and sold for three pence, six shillings, the novel met with mixed commentaries that fall into a few distinct categories. Some reviewers thought he too overtly imitated other established novelists.4 Other critics deemed Griffith as too excessive in the composition of his novel. Still others faulted Griffith for too freely crossing or mixing genres. The 1897 reviewer of The Literary World denigrates Griffith’s fiction for using a literary formula popularised by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein (1818), and later deployed by Robert Louis Stevenson in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). This reviewer calls attention to Griffith’s choice of ‘the inevitable scientist and his equally inevitable friend [who] reinstate an Inca mummy of high estate’ (The Literary World, 110). On the perceived similarity of Griffith to Haggard, the Academy Fiction Supplement observes of Romance of Golden Star, After so startling a beginning as the resurrection of Vilcaroya, one is, of course, prepared for an essay in the romantic manner, and, to do Mr Griffith justice, his accounts of the old Incas and their treasure houses are very well done, and at least as plausible as were the jewel caves in [Haggard’s] King Solomon’s Mines of yore. I can quite well imagine that an adventurous boy would want to take his passage as a stowaway for South America on the strength of them. (Academy Fiction Supplement 26) Clearly, the Academy approves of Griffith in so far as his fiction encourages tourism or exploration abroad. Perhaps, too, as noted in the earlier

186 Reclamation discussion of the well-received Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898), critics favour Griffith’s writing when he ‘stays in his lane’ and doesn’t mix genres, as with that historical novel. But in reading Romance of Golden Star (1897), reviewers are notably strident and, taken together, often contradict one another. The Literary World notes, ‘Mr. Griffith suffers in common with those who cheapen their mysteries by the prodigality with which they diffuse the miraculous element through their chapters’ (110). This reviewer reads Romance of Golden Star as mystery, whereas The Athenaeum classifies it as an archaeological fantasy: ‘The process of restoring a mummy is increasingly popular with novelists. George Griffith relates a story of revolution in Peru to-day, where the hero is brought to life after having been embalmed (without the removal of intestines) in 1532’ (92). Along these lines, Publishers’ Circular is quick to critique Griffith for his ‘uncommonly reckless and romantic imagination’ (12). And yet while seeing an excess in Griffith’s imagination, Publishers’ Circular goes on to admit, The accomplishment of the Prince’s mission by means of a bloody war and the help of his hidden palaces of gold; the raising of his English lady-love to share with him the throne of his ancestors; the marriage of Golden Star with a worthy Englishman, and the untimely end of the dangerous scientist through his lust for the hidden gold, are the threads which the author has strung together in the making of this extraordinary book. (Publishers’ Circular 12) The Publisher’s Circular review, with its reference to the Inca’s ‘ladylove,’ helps us recognise Griffith’s unusual contribution to the Amerindian archive. As we’ve seen in earlier chapters, Haggard depicts the mixed-race marriage of the Mexican princess Otomie and Anglo-Iberian adventurer Thomas Wingfield in Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), and Henty conceives of the union of Tezcucan princess Amenche and English castaway Roger Hawkshaw in By Right of Conquest (1891). But in these novels, the English character functions as a saviour from or neutraliser of Spanish violence, protecting the Amerindian noblewoman. It is true that, in Griffith’s novel, Hartness marries Golden Star, but this is not to save her, as she could repose indefinitely in the Andean chamber where she was entombed, without a special need for rescue. Arguably, then, Griffith is more radical than Henty and Haggard in the union of Vilcaroya and Ruth Djama, later called by the Inca ‘Joyful Star.’ Indeed, Vilcaroya’s naming of Joyful Star constitutes a reversal in the stereotypical colonial encounter—as with, for example, the changing of Malinche’s name to Marina in the history of the conquest of Mexico. While literarily—and historically—women have been depicted as the objects of desire during conquest and colonialism, it would be unusual to see the union of an Inca and English gentlewoman, and to see the pattern of acculturation reversed.

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  187 Another radical element of Griffith’s story is that he defies the conventions of storytelling about the ‘other’—for example Defoe’s Amerindian servant Friday—by deliberately giving voice to Vilcaroya as narrator in idiomatic English. This is a move that respects the Inca’s nobility though stretches the limits of plausibility, since Vilcaroya rapidly learns to read and write in a second language. Shelley’s Frankenstein, one literary antecedent for Griffith’s hero, accomplishes much the same, but through arduous study and observation. And, finally, one other defining characteristic of Romance of Golden Star that distinguishes it from its Amerindian counterparts is what Roger Luckhurst in his study of archaeological fiction would call ‘the weight of plausibility’ (2012). We will recall that in Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru, Griffith imparts insights about Inca archaeology and culture gained by travelling throughout the Andes in 1896. He does much the same in Romance of Golden Star. The result is a striking story of reclamation that, no doubt with its revolutionary cast, might be disarming to the more conservative sensibilities of reviewers.5 While Henty and Haggard were popular in the USA—indeed so much so that Henty’s works were pirated—the same cannot be said of Griffith. This is, perhaps, because of his radical social views, which are implicit in Vilcaroya’s overthrow of the Peruvian government in Romance of Golden Star, and crystal clear in fantasy adventures such as Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror (1893).

Key players in the campaign of reclamation Let us proceed with Griffith’s merging of the Inca past and Victorian present and his cast of players in the campaign of reclamation: Golden Star, Captain Frances Hartness, and Vilcaroya. High born in the Inca dynasty, the dark-eyed Golden Star is Vilcaroya’s half-sister, to whom he is, in keeping with tradition, affianced. She takes a draught and enters a ‘death-sleep’ to escape the bloodshed of the Spanish conquest in the 1530s, reposing in a lake-side cavern for 365 years until Vilcaroya removes her body. The disentombment of her ‘corpse’ recalls the unearthing of real mummy maidens in the Andes by conquistadors and explorers who looted sacred burial sites. One important difference is that it is Vilcaroya—blood brother and fellow Inca—who undertakes this task, not the hand of invaders.6 Golden Star awakens with the medical expertise of Dr Lauren Djama, and in the care of the young English nurse, Ruth, Lauren Djama’s sister. Golden Star embodies the royal, virginal, holy aspects of Inca culture and, as I mentioned before, is a ‘blank slate’ open to inscription. She obeys without question the arrangements Vilcaroya makes for her and is ‘as obedient as a little child.’ She looks at her brother ‘with the simple wonder that shines out of the eyes of a little child’, and she falls into his way of doing things, ‘laughing and

188 Reclamation clapping her hands like a delighted child.’ This infantilising of her character makes sense within the context of lost-race narratives that, for John Rieder, manifest: ethical indecision between condemning the colonial enterprise as conquest of the weak and vulnerable versus embracing it as benevolent modernization of the primitive and savage heathen, and in the ideological dichotomy between glorification of nostalgia, for primitive joy and simplicity. (Rieder 40) Golden Star expresses this ‘primitive joy’ as simplicity itself. She unquestioningly follows Vilcaroya’s directive and accepts the gentle care of the English nurse Ruth Djama/Joyful Star. Sheltered for the entirety of the novel, when Golden Star does acculturate to life in 1897, her brother Vilcaroya gives her hand to Hartness, with the promise of purity, fertility, and extraordinary wealth. Next, we have Francis Hartness, the tall, fair-complexioned, and dashing English maverick who resembles the historically real Captain–General Bernardo O’Higgins (1778–1842). Owing in part to O’Higgins and his British counterparts, the Latin American Wars of Independence largely have been won, and Captain Hartness is enmeshed in the military revolts after Peru’s liberation from Spain. Along with O’Higgins, Griffith incorporates aspects of the ‘white god’ legend which is referenced in Prescott and elaborated upon in the Amerindian literary archive. Like the English adventurers Roger Hawkshaw in By Right of Conquest and Thomas Wingfield in Montezuma’s Daughter, Hartness is taken as an arresting figure, appearing as a kind of double for the Inca deity, Viracocha. Vilcaroya describes the captain as: of about thirty years, tall of stature and strong of limb, brief of speech and straight of tongue, with eyes as blue as the skies which shine on Yucay, and hair and beard golden and bright as the rays which flow from the smile of our Father the Sun. (Griffith) These details recall History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) in which Prescott explains that the Spanish were received as ‘Children of the Sun’ for ‘their fair complexions, brilliant armour, and the thunderbolts which they bore in their hands’ (874). Romance of Golden Star, likewise, appropriates for Hartness the white god mythology associated with the Spanish.7 The white god myth attached by Vilcaroya to Hartness makes the English adventurer a familiar figure of the past, and a part of Peru’s future. With his military success in bringing peace and order to Peru and his association with the Inca pantheon of gods, Hartness is the means by which political stability,

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  189 re-installation of Inca nobility, and distribution of wealth may be achieved, and we’ll return to his role as a gun for hire, brother-in-arms, and governor. The last and most important of the three players, Vilcaroya, is excavated from his stone-hewn chamber and transported to London as an object of Professor Lamson’s archaeological curiosity. Vilcaroya’s re-awakening and acclimation to life are marked by trauma. He remembers the Spanish destruction of the Inca civilisation—its grand temples plundered, its cities in ruins, its nobles slaughtered, and its people subjugated. His quest, then, is fuelled both by a long-harboured hostility towards the Spanish and by the confidence inspired by Captain Francis Hartness. Like Wingfield in Montezuma’s Daughter, Hawkshaw in By Right of Conquest, and Manco Capac in Griffith’s own Virgin of the Sun, Vilcaroya is a cultural mediator. He learns to speak English and apprehends that, to maintain his lofty position in the Inca dynasty, he will need to fund his campaign with gold, use cavalry, and deploy modern weaponry. Not only does he learn to speak English, but he writes his memoir in this language, calling the shots and telling his own story. This could not be a more strikingly different picture than what Victorian painter John Everett Millais presents of the surprised, seemingly helpless, and somewhat effeminised Inca Atahuallpa in the Pre-Raphaelite painting Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru (1846). Vilcaroya’s role throughout the novel is to calibrate practices and resources from the past and the present, to negotiate the ways of the ‘Old World’ and the New in his campaign of reclamation. Having sketched portraits of the novel’s key figures, let us now consider the literary framework into which they may be placed: within lostrace fiction and archaeological fiction. These two genres are interrelated. As noted by science fiction scholars Robert Reginald and Robert Menville, an important literary context for Romance of Golden Star is the lost-race narrative. This is a genre upon which scholar John Rieder elaborates, and my reading of Romance of Golden Star owes much to his conceptualisation. Set in far-away locations, lost-race novels often imagine marriage or ancestral connections between ancient cultures and Western travellers. The plot goes like this: Expeditioners enter a remote settlement or city usually encircled by mountains, jungles, or oceans; they discover lands rich in gold, silver, or precious gems. English male adventurers in these stories typically become entangled in the affairs of beautiful, high-born ladies who, themselves, have become embroiled in conflict, or who face some kind of duress. Amerindian lost-race romances from the Victorian age and early twentieth century constitute a veritable archive and include Bowen’s An Inca Queen (1891), Arthur Mason Bourne’s A Mystery of the Cordillera: A Tale of Adventure in the Andes (1895), and Frank Aubrey’s Devil Tree of El Dorado: A Romance of British Guiana (1897).8 Of these, Romance of Golden Star particularly resonates with Devil Tree of El Dorado, as Aubrey and Griffith both use fantasy to couch an argument about tapping into Latin America’s mineral resources and envisioning some measure of English intervention.9

190 Reclamation John Rieder offers a particularly useful framework to help us to understand Griffith’s contribution to ‘Lost-race fiction.’ Rieder applies Claude Levi-Straus’s idea of the oppositions of myth to argue: we find that the social contradiction that the stories repeatedly ‘solve’ ultimately lies between colonial claims to the territory’s resources and land, and the competing claims of the indigenous people. Within imperial society, this contradiction made itself felt in political supporters and opponents of imperialist policy. … Lost-race fiction, while registering the whole range of internal debate, derives its fundamental ‘mythic’ power from the discovery of uncharted territory and representing the journey as a return to a lost legacy, a place where the travelers find a fragment of their own history lodged in the midst of the native population that usually has forgotten the connection. (Rieder 40) Rieder’s analysis accords with my reading of Vilcaroya, recognised as Inca by archaeologist Lamson in his Andean chamber, where he has been preserved for 360 years. But to effect his campaign, Vilcaroya must be received more widely as Peru’s long-lost emperor. For this task, Vilcaroya appoints the Quechua-speaking and nobly descended Tupac Rayac to re-familiarise the indigenous peasantry with their sun-worshipping faith and to remind the people of the Inca’s role as emperor and divine ‘Son of the Sun.’ This is one critical aspect of the project of reclamation: to assert one’s royal lineage and revive ancient beliefs and practices. Captain Hartness reinforces Vilcaroya’s ancestral claim by pointing out, These people, these Peruvians, are only mongrel descendants of those who have plundered and oppressed them for centuries. They owe them [the Spanish] no allegiance that is worth the name; but you they would hail, not only as their lawful king, but almost as a god—as, indeed, they could well be pardoned for doing so, seeing what a marvellous fate yours has been.’ (Griffith, emphasis mine) A few other aspects of the lost-race motif help delineate the theme of reclamation in Griffith’s novel. Vilcaroya reaches out to the colonised Peruvians by addressing them in their ancestral language, creating a sense of community and reinforcing their indigenous identity as Quechua-speaking people. So, too, does Vilcaroya vow to raise ‘the Rainbow Banner above the restored throne of the divine Manco,’ associating his late nineteenth-century reign with the legendary founder of the Inca dynasty (Griffith). Further, Vilcaroya strategically uses gold wedges from royal treasuries to fund his coup against the Peruvian government; these serve as both modern currency and historic emblems of the Inca’s power and ancestry.

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  191 Along with Griffith’s use of the stirring symbol of the Rainbow banner, the royal wedge of ancient treasuries, his attention to the Vilcaroya’s Quechua-speaking, sun-worshipping peoples, one other image signifies attention: the suspension bridge. Vilcaroya and his expedition cross the bridge on their way to Golden Star’s mountain cavern and he, taking inventory of what he has lost, describes the crossing this way: We came to the long bridge which swings in mid-air from rock to rock across the chasm through which the Great Speaker rolls his swift, roaring flood. Its cables were loosened and its floorway broken, for, like all things else in the land, the Spaniards had suffered it to fall well-nigh to ruin; and, as I led Joyful Star across it by the hand, I thought of what it had been in the olden times, when not a rope or a stick was suffered to be out of place, and when the Son of the Sun had been borne across it in his golden travelling litter, with long processions of his adoring people going before and behind him, strewing his way with flowers, and waking the echoes of these gloomy gorges with the melody of their songs and laughter. (Griffith) The suspension bridge represents the ingenuity of the Inca peoples, the connectedness of the empire, the ability to solve seemingly impossible problems in creating a path from one side of a gorge to another. It is iconic of the Inca, and geographer and historian Sir Clements Markham calls attention to the use of such bridges during the Conquest in History of Peru (1892). Not only might we regard the bridge as an emblem of Inca resourcefulness, but we can see it as reflecting continuity between the past and the present, and a powerful link between tradition and modernity. Indeed, in crossing the bridge, Vilcaroya laments his country’s ruinous state and affirms his mission to restore what has been lost, with Joyful Star at his side.10 This quest begins with a return to his burial chamber and that of Golden Star.

Archaeological fiction In situating the key players within a literary context, I’ve touched upon the study of lost-race fiction. Related to this motif—indeed a broader category—is archaeological fiction. As its name suggests archaeological fiction imagines peoples of the past and the material remains of their civilisations; it also conceives of the encapsulation of isolated individuals or communities in modernity (however modernity is defined). We know Vilcaroya and his younger half-sister Golden Star enter their death sleep in the 1530s, while around them rages Francisco Pizarro’s bloody conquest of Tavantinsuyu. The siblings rest in separate mountain chambers until Professor Lamson discovers Vilcaroya’s tomb after a ‘year’s relic-hunting in Peru and Bolivia.’ An English archaeologist, Lamson revels in ‘the luxury of unpacking his treasures with the almost boyish delight which, under such circumstances,

192 Reclamation comes only to the true enthusiast.’ After bringing Vilcaroya’s mummy to London, Lamson calls upon his colleague, Dr Djama, to examine the body, and Djama does more than just look over the body: he succeeds in reviving the last heir of the Inca dynasty. In the very first paragraphs of Griffith’s work, we read Vilcaroya’s description of his ‘awakening,’ the moment he opens his eyes after having fallen into a ‘death trance’ beside his half-sister many generations earlier. Incorporating this theme of Inca mummies into Romance of Golden Star, Griffith contributes to a Victorian canon of archaeological fiction. The second mummy to be resuscitated is Vilcaroya’s half-sister, Golden Star, and both tomb-raiding scenes suggest the Egyptological thrillers and historic fictions that circulated when Griffith published his novel. Britain saw a proliferation of stories about tomb raids, mummy awakenings, and cultural hauntings after Napoleon invaded and looted Egypt and, subsequently, the country became a veiled British protectorate in the 1880s. These include Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories ‘Ring of Thoth’ (1890) and ‘Lot No. 249’ (1892) and novels such as Theo Douglas’s Iras: A Mystery (1896) and Richard Marsh’s immensely popular The Beetle (1897). Significant contemporary critiques of this fiction have been published by, among others, science fiction historian Brian Stableford, literary critic Roger Luckhurst, and most recently the contributors to Eleanor Dobson’s edited volume Victorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt. In Stableford’s view, the impact of archaeology on literary work was powerful because of the market dominance of the historical novel for the greater part of the nineteenth century. Archaeological evidence was a vital resource for historical novelists’ ambitions to extend the scope of their work into eras for which documentation was sparse. (Stableford 27)11 For his part, cultural critic Roger Luckhurst calls the archaeologically inspired stories ‘Museum Gothic’, a subgenre informed by tours of the British Museum and/or by the private act of collecting ancient artefacts. Following Luckhurst is Dobson’s 2020 volume, which addresses, among other scenarios, the sensational unwrapping of female mummies. Taken together Dobson’s volume, and Luckhurst and Stableford’s critiques help illuminate the gender dynamics and the acquisitive impulse expressed in Griffith’s novel. While Vilcaroya narrates his own coming into consciousness, his sister does not. The spectacle of Golden Star’s coming into being unfolds in a few episodes, first with Vilcaroya recording the discovery of her long-entombed body. The scene takes place in the Andean chamber where the princess took her leave of the world of the living. Her brother explains, I stood in the doorway and let the light fall full upon the figure. A glance showed me that so far all was well. No profaning hand had disturbed

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  193 the peace and sanctity of her long slumber. She lay there as perfect as form and feature as she had lain beside me that night in the little chamber of the Sanctuary of the Sun. (Griffith) Here, Vilcaroya examines the chamber to ensure that no ‘profaning hand’— meaning any hand other than his own—has disturbed Golden Star’s body. Once satisfied that she is as virginal as the day she went to sleep, Vilcaroya releases her to Dr Djama for the delicate and arduous process of resuscitation—another parallel to Victor Frankenstein’s creation of the female creature in Shelley’s novel. But while Victor destroys his own female creation, Djama successfully revives the beautiful, youthful Golden Star. She is then transported to a remote hacienda in the Peruvian countryside far from prying eyes and is trapped in a liminal state—neither completely dead, nor fully alive, and wholly subject to Djama’s will. Vilcaroya explains: Djama caught me by the arm, and half led, half dragged me to the bedside. Then with his other hand he parted the curtains and pointed to the pillow. I felt his burning eyes fixed on me as I looked and saw the sweet fair face of Golden Star lying in the midst of her dusky tresses, which lay spread out on the pillow, cleansed from the dust of the grave, and soft and shimmering as silk. (Griffith) The showcasing of Golden Star’s body is a highly sexualised act, especially given Vilcaroya’s (and so, Griffith’s) description of the ‘parting of the curtain;’ by this point, it is presumed Djama has violated boundaries with his unconscious patient. It is clear that Vilcaroya is also entranced by his sister’s beauty. At this critical juncture, in steps Ruth Djama, who recognises at once the male appetite for the beauty of the sleeping princess. The final step of Golden Star’s awakening is attended by Ruth, who sends Vilcaroya away, and warns Djama he may see Golden Star ‘when necessary, as her doctor, but only as her doctor, mind.’ Ruth preserves the Victorian sense of propriety as Golden Star makes the difficult transition from the past to the present, from her protected chamber to a new world, one which does not look fondly upon marriage with her half-brother, Vilcaroya, Inca and sovereign to the Inca empire though he may be.

The Inca Vilcaroya Griffith’s characterisation of Vilcaroya manifests careful research of the Inca dynasty, most likely relying on Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru [1847] and details based on the observations the novelist made when he toured archaeological sites.12 In the figure of Vilcaroya, one apprehends parallels with the historical Huayna Capac (c 1464–1527) and Huayna Capac’s son

194 Reclamation Atahuallpa (c 1500–1533), figures that Prescott examines in his history. While reflecting on life in the 1500s, Vilcaroya recalls the reign of his father, the ‘great Huayna Capac’ Griffith. Under the historical Huayna Capac’s reign in the early 1500s, Tavantinsuyu was a relatively stable, prosperous society—despite the Inca penchant for human sacrifice and instigation of tribal wars.13 The Inca were remarkable social engineers who secured order by readily enfranchising conquered peoples and expelling or relocating defiant tribes. Vilcaroya’s character follows Huayna Capac in the way that he orchestrates the coup against the presiding Spanish American government, reinforcing tribal loyalties and marginalising opponents. Another parallel with Huayna Capac—who highly valued his Ecuadorian concubine over his legitimate Peruvian wife—is that Vilcaroya breaks with convention in marrying the English and well-comported, but not royal, Ruth Djama—Joyful Star—rather than Princess Golden Star to whom he, by tradition, was affianced in the 1530s. Because of Vilcaroya’s role as the last Inca in the dynastic line, Griffith prompts an association with another key Inca figure discussed by Prescott: Tupac Amaru (1545–1572), the last Inca before the line ended in the sixteenth century. Tupac Amaru was accused of plotting a revolt against the Spanish, though it is unclear whether this is true, or a fabrication used to justify Spanish tyranny. Indeed, Vilcaroya specifically reflects on the terrible fate of Tupac Amaru who, . . . had revolted many years before against the oppressors of his race, and for this, after being forced to watch the torture and murder of his wife in the square of Cuzco, had himself been torn limb from limb by horses. (Griffith) But while Vilcaroya occupies the same place in the dynasty as the historically real Inca, Griffith’s character sleeps through much of the conquest. As a survivor, however, Vilcaroya sets out to avenge fallen brethren and prepare for a modern Inca state in the 1890s. Another historical parallel—though perhaps more subtle—is between Vilcaroya and the Inca Atahuallpa, son of Huayna Capac who, in Griffith’s novel, is the father of Vilcaroya. The parallel becomes discernible when Vilcaroya promises Dr Djama a room filled with gold if he can revive Golden Star from her death sleep. This offer brings to mind the episode in Prescott— and later, in Griffith’s own Virgin of the Sun (1898)—when Pizarro enters Cajamarca with the apparent intention of establishing diplomatic relations with the Inca Atahuallpa. Instead, Pizarro determines to take the young emperor captive; Atahuallpa then offers the conquistadors a room filled with gold as payment for his freedom. Correspondingly, Vilcaroya offers Djama a room filled with treasure to pay for the doctor’s expertise in bringing Golden Star back to the world of the living. Once his sister is revived, Vilcaroya makes good on his word. But when Djama apprehends the fabulous display of treasure,

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  195 his hatred of Vilcaroya and greed kick in, and he schemes with the Spanish American governor of Cusco to entrap Vilcaroya. Thereafter the doctor is made a prisoner inside the treasure room, until the sight of gold—which offers no comfort to the captive—drives him mad. Such punishment signifies even more, if we are familiar with the story of Atahuallpa’s ransom and the history of treachery, violence, retaliation, and avarice that shaped Inca–Spanish relations in the 1530s. Yet the justice Atahuallpa is denied in history is granted through fiction in the 1890s. Justice delivered is one of the many tropes of the novel, and it is often associated with Captain Hartness who, as mentioned, orchestrates the junta against the Spanish American government.

Francis Hartness: the indispensable British hero Captain Francis Hartness is instrumental in Vilcaroya’s establishment of a new political order. We learn early in the novel that Hartness has come to South America ‘to see what work he could find to keep his sword from rusting’ (Griffith). Presumably serving the British empire, doing what he can to maintain its current territory, to shore up its imperial outposts, or to yield them once and for all, Hartness is idle until he enters Vilcaroya’s campaign. Latin America allows the captain to put his military training to use and he is received well for, from Vilcaroya’s perspective, he is a fellow warrior, well-armed, honourable, and astute in affairs of the military and state. The Inca needs Hartness because Peru is, in the late 1800s, ungovernable. This was a popular sentiment expressed in the Victorian press, spurred by post-independence turmoil in countries such as Venezuela and Mexico.14 When Vilcaroya enlists Hartness in his cause, Peru is rife with insurrection, for, ‘there are always factions of men they call politicians scheming for power and setting the soldiers fighting against one another and against their countrymen for no benefit to themselves’ (Griffith). Finesse, though, rather than brute force is needed, and Hartness knows how to balance the two. He speaks Spanish; he is familiar with both ancient Inca customs and modern-day Peru, and he supports Britain’s informal empire by protecting the interests of its merchants and investors. These qualities equip him to serve first as a gun for hire, and later as a strategist and governor. During Vilcaroya’s campaign of reclamation, Hartness shares military tactics and helps lead the revolt. His participation as an Englishman helps legitimise rebellion, particularly when we recall that the Wars of Latin American independence were waged with the support of the British. As with the blood oath between Wingfield and the Aztec prince Guatemoc in Montezuma’s Daughter, we find Hartness adopts the role of Vilcaroya’s brother-in-arms. This relationship develops after Hartness offers good tidings to Vilcaroya about the shifting state of affairs in Peru: I could believe the very fates themselves had conspired to prepare the way for you [Vilcaroya]. You have come back to the world and to your own country at the very moment that these miserable wretches are

196 Reclamation getting ready to tear each other to pieces. The government is as hopeless as it is impossible, and the popular party, as they call themselves, have neither a leader that they can trust, nor money to buy weapons and pay soldiers with. The treasury is empty, for, so to speak, almost the last dollar had been stolen. The native troops have had no regular pay for months, and I believe they would desert to a regiment if they once believed that you are what you are, and that you possess, as you do, the means of paying them well and honestly for their help. (Griffith) Here Hartness lends both a sense of urgency and respectability to Vilcaroya’s claim. Many Victorian readers would appreciate Vilcaroya as the long lost yet now rightful heir to the Inca dynasty. And if audiences questioned insurrection against a republican government, those objections would be tempered by the Spanish American abuses of power as depicted by Griffith (and a trope which Henty elaborates in Treasure of the Incas and Conrad in Nostromo). The captain plays a key role in this theatre of war, sharing political insight and military experience, and—through his leadership—authorises intervention. Hartness enlists the largely indigenous peasantry, organises men into troops, and leads their drills. This is a common move in Amerindian romances; we’ll recall that Haggard’s Wingfield leads the Otomie against the Spanish in Montezuma’s Daughter, and Henty’s Roger Hawkshaw fights on the side of the Mexicans against Cortés in By Right of Conquest. All three novels imagine an English adventurer at the forefront of battle. Captain Hartness helps to legitimise Vilcaroya’s swift and efficient revolt against the Spanish. He lends his expertise in warcraft and statecraft to create a new Inca state driven by Vilcaroya’s hatred of the Iberian invaders. Griffith explains this animosity in a footnote, writing: ‘The Inca naturally does not distinguish between the modern Peruvians and their Spanish ancestors.’ Indeed, Vilcaroya calls the Spanish cowards, saying: ‘As for the Spanish officer, being a coward, as many of his sort are, he was already white with fear, and his knees were shaking as he stood between the two soldiers who held him.’ Unlike the ‘Spanish tyrants’ of the novel, Vilcaroya—and his new governor Hartness—will pay the Peruvians fairly for their labour. With Hartness conspicuously at his side, Vilcaroya prevails in reclaiming Inca land from the Spanish American politicos: More than half the garrison of Cuzco had already been won over, and only waited for the signal which should bid the whole Indian population of the valley to rise and seize the arms and ammunition in the city, and make the officers and the Governor and all the officials prisoners … I at once had the Governor brought before me in the Cuartel and told him by the lips of Hartness to write a proclamation surrendering the city to us and ordering all the officials to come in and make their

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  197 submission before sundown, threatening fire and sack to every Spanish house if it was not done. This he did, knowing well what would befall him if he refused. (Griffith) The seizure of the governor merits our attention, as it leaves an important post to be vacated. As a reward for his contribution to the campaign, Vilcaroya appoints Hartness governor of the liberated territory. To that end, Hartness proclaims in the Inca’s name, ‘perfect freedom and security to all foreign merchants in the region that was under our command’ (Griffith). Hartness’s capacity to gain the trust of Vilcaroya, lead the disenfranchised Peruvians, communicate with English- and Spanish-speaking stakeholders, and stabilise the economy for foreign merchants imagines a place for the intrepid Englishman in the modern republic, a place secured by his marriage to an Inca princess.

Golden Star and the marriage of two empires By the end of the novel, Golden Star conveniently forgets that she was betrothed to her half-brother, and no one reminds her. So, she utters no objection to the shifting of Vilcaroya’s desire from her to Vilcaroya’s Joyful Star (Ruth). Meanwhile, the Inca princess learns to speak English and is outfitted like a Victorian lady. Dressed in an outfit of ‘light grey soft stuff,’ with ‘a broad-brimmed straw hat such as Ruth wore,’ Golden Star’s transformation begins but is not absolute. Griffith imagines that she maintains enough of her Inca identity to play the part of exotic ‘other.’ Indeed, as they are extracting treasure and ceremonial garments, Vilcaroya instructs Golden Star to clothe both herself and Joyful Star in the royal raiment ‘so that we might see our two Inca princesses side by side as they might have looked in the days of the past.’ In the shifting garb between Inca princess and Victorian lady, Golden Star serves as the link between the past as a mummy brought back to life, and the future mother of a new mixed lineage in Vilcaroya’s campaign of reclamation, one in which Hartness has played such a critical role. After Vilcaroya and Joyful Star marry, the captain and Golden Star then approach the altar to take their vows. This moment represents the fantasy of a capable Englishman of ordinary birth marrying into Amerindian nobility, thereby emerging from the position of military opportunist to the head of a royal family—a scene with which we are familiar in the work of Haggard and Henty. At the same time, Griffith appeals to the Victorian respect for the monarchy and right of rule by re-installing Vilcaroya as Inca. Thus, Vilcaroya’s campaign of reclamation is a spectacular success: civil order is restored; Inca wealth distributed through fair payment of wages; the Inca court is re-installed; and ancient practices and the royal dialect revived, all within a modern, militarised Amerindian nation.

198 Reclamation Throughout this book, I’ve endeavoured to illustrate the cultural work accomplished by each text under examination. If we are to consider the cultural work of the novel, then we would keep in mind Griffith’s blistering critique of the Spanish anticipates by 30 years José Carlos Mariátegui’s now classic Marxist treatise, Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality, published in 1928. The indigenous intellectual Mariátegui exposed the inefficiencies and exploitation of Spanish colonial rule to argue that the Inca system was far more enriching and productive to support the population. During Inca rule, the peasantry would have had their basic needs met—shelter, food stores from communal harvests, and alpaca wool to make clothing, as well as social stability. In Griffith’s novel, we see that under Vilcaroya’s rule, soldiers are paid for their service and merchants and foreign interests are protected. Peruvians can freely speak Quechua and worship, as they once did, the sun. Further, the romances that develop between Vilcaroya and Joyful Star and between Hartness and Golden Star bring into alignment the political and domestic spheres of the novel. In marrying a blond-haired English maiden and elevating her to the status of queen, Vilcaroya strengthens ties between the two empires—with Spanish rule vanquished once and for all. And as noted, with the marriage between the princess and Hartness, Griffith communicates that the reclamation of the Inca state ‘requires’ the fearless, ordered intervention of the British. The moral is this: what is broken or ruined may be rebuilt or mended, and the presence of the British is, in part, the glue that makes this possible. As this is the final instalment on the Amerindian adventure, it’s important to retrace the transatlantic currents of Griffith’s work. In Romance of Golden Star, the movement across the waters from England to Peru is at first driven by archaeological curiosity and results in Lamson’s ‘acquisition’ of the Inca Vilcaroya’s mummy. The second voyage from England to Peru is final, driven by Vilcaroya’s quest to find and resuscitate Golden Star and to restore his empire. Yet as I mentioned earlier, unlike the ingots that the Prendergast brothers discover in Henty’s Treasure of the Incas, the wealth that Vilcaroya excavates largely stays in Peru and will remain under his control, that of Governor Hartness, and the future generations born to Peru by Joyful Star and Golden Star. With tropes such as tomb raiding, mixed race marriage, and reclamation of once vanquished dynasties, Romance of Golden Star Griffith contributes a unique archaeological adventure to the Amerindian archive. This archive includes, as well as Henty and Haggard, and is a body of work to which I shall return in the Epilogue.

Notes 1 I elaborate on this argument about how Britain perceived the Latin American republic more fully in British Representations of Latin America (2007). 2 While I focus on the Amerindian fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith, it should be noted that the Amerindian archive into which their novels can be placed amounts to at least 60 books about the Incas and the Aztecs; many of

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  199 these can be categorised as ‘lost race’ novels. The transatlantic discourse is as broad as it is deep and worthy of future inquiry. 3 As noted earlier in the volume, Tavantinsuyu is the ancient name for the Inca empire. 4 Examination of the publishing circular reveals that the price for Romance of Golden Star was more costly than ‘six-shilling novels’ and the ‘two-shilling Popular novels’ and it was, of course, dearer than the cheaply printed and wildly popular Penny Dreadfuls. Although beyond the scope of this study, one wonders if the high cost of Griffith’s novel could be associated with one genre over another (Publisher’s Circular, 3 July 1897, p. 2). 5 Many students at California State University, San Bernardino, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, are enthusiastic about Romance of Golden Star. They express appreciation of how Griffith dramatically reconfigures history to envision the reappropriation of Inca resources and revival of practices lost during the Spanish conquest; the romance element, too, between Ruth and Vilcaroya speaks to them, as they are likewise products of two or more cultures. And the mixing of genres for them is not a distraction, as it seems to have been for reviewers in 1897, but rather expresses a literary richness. 6 Young women (and children), often of noble birth or beautiful in appearance, were selected for sacrifice to the Inca gods; sometimes these individuals were bound and sometimes left free, but typically these victims would have been intoxicated by coca or other narcotics to face death by exposure to the cold. For more on this topic, see Brian Handwerk, ‘Inca Child Sacrifice Victims Were Drugged’ (2013). 7 This association between Europeans and white gods worshipped among the Amerindians is a common trope to be found, as we’ve discussed in this book, in the Mexican romances Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter and Henty’s By Right of Conquest. Griffith will return to this motif in Virgin of the Sun to explain that the Spanish ‘were the long-foretold messengers from the Sun, fair of skin and mighty of arm, who were coming to rule over the Land of the Four Regions, and to advance its borders till they included the whole habitable world and all the men that lived upon the earth’ (Griffith). 8 For a critique of Aubrey’s Devil Tree of El Dorado, see Cheryl Blake Price, ‘Vegetable Monsters: Man-Eating Trees in Fin de siècle Fiction.’ Victorian Literature and Culture. 41.2 (2013): 311–27. Bourne and Bowen’s Amerindian lost-race novels are ripe for further inquiry but are outside the approach I have taken in this book. 9 This is the overarching argument of my British Representations of Latin America. 10 Conan Doyle employs similar imagery of the link to the past and present in The Lost World (1912), when the tree bridge connecting the pre-historic plateau to the Amazon is dislodged. 11 See Brian Stableford on archaeology and fiction in Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (2006). 12 See Griffith’s travelogue for Pearson’s Magazine, ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds’ (1896). 13 It is unlikely that one factor or decision would have made a difference in the outcome of the Spanish conquest of Peru. But it does seem that Huayna Capac left his vast empire open to internal division when, in 1528, he recognised the royalty of both his legitimate son Huascar and the son of his concubine, Atahuallpa. According to Prescott, Atahuallpa opened his empire to plotting and intrigue and it was at this moment that Pizarro entered Peru with about 200 Spaniards and further split the existing fault lines in the Inca empire. 14 I elaborate on the perceived ungovernability of newly liberated republics in British Representations of Latin America.

200 Reclamation

References Aubrey, Frank. Devil Tree of El Dorado: A Romance of British Guiana [1897]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/43944​/pg43944​.txt. Bourne, Arthur. A Mystery of the Cordillera: A Tale of Adventure in the Andes (London: Bellairs & Co, 1895). Bowen, EJ. An Inca Queen, Or, Lost in Peru. Illustrations by L. Speed (London: Sampson Low & Co., 1891). Douglas, Theo. Iras: A Mystery Dodo Press, 2009. Doyle, Arthur Conan. ‘Lot No. 249’ [1892]. https://www​.arthur​-conan​-doyle​.com​/ index​.php​/Lot​_No.​_249 ———. ‘Ring of Thoth’ [1890]. https://www​.arthur​-conan​-doyle​.com​/index​.php​/ The​_Ring​_of​_Thoth. Griffith, George. Angel of the Revolution (1893). https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​ /31324​/31324​-h​/31324​-h​.htm. ———. ‘Railway Beyond the Clouds.’ Pearson’s Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 6, June 1896, pp. 618–622. https://babel​.hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=inu​.30000093231268​ &view​=page​&seq​=626​&skin​=2021​&q1​=George​%20Griffith. ———. The Romance of Golden Star. [London: FV White, 1897]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20173​/pg20173​.txt. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson, 1898]. Haggard, H Rider. Montezuma’s Daughter [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. The Virgin of the Sun [London: Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. Handwerk, Brian. ‘Inca Child Sacrifice Victims Were Drugged.’ July 2013. https:// www ​ . nationalgeographic ​ . com ​ / news ​ / 2013 ​ / 7 ​ / 130729 ​ - inca ​ - mummy ​ - maiden​ -sacrifice​-coca​-alcohol​-drug​-mountain​-andes​-children/. Henty, George A. By Right of Conquest, or With Cortez in Mexico (London: Blackie, 1891). https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. ———. The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru [London, Blackie & Son, 1902]. https://books​.google​.com​/books​?id​=bmdWAAAAMAAJ​&dq​ =editions​%3AUOM39015073479852​&pg​=PP1​#v​=onepage​&q​&f​=false. Levi-Strauss, Claude. ‘The Structural Study of Myth.’ In David Richter (Ed.), The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. Luckhurst, Roger. ‘The Essay: Bram Stoker.’ BBC, 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. Mariátegui, José Carlos. Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality. Translated by Marjory Urquidi. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990 [1928]. Markham, Clements. A History of Peru (1892). https://archive​.org​/embed​/ historyofperu00mark. ———. Cuzco and Lima: A Journey to the Ancient Capital of Peru and a Visit to the Capital and Provinces of Modern Peru. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 [1856]. Marsh, Richard. The Beetle (1897). https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/5164​/ pg5164​.txt.

Reclamation in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star  201 Millais, John Everett. Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1846. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Ramirez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2007. Reginald, Robert, and Robert Menville. Classics of Fantastic Literature: Selected Review Essays. Cabin John: Wildside Press, 2005. Rev. Romance of Golden Star. Academy Fiction Supplement. July 3, 1897, p. 26. Rev. Romance of Golden Star. The Athenaeum. July 17, 1897, p. 92. Rev. Romance of Golden Star. The Literary World. August 13, 1897, p. 110. Rev. Romance of Golden Star. Publishers’ Circular. July 3, 1897, p. 12. Rieder, John. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2012. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein [1818]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/84​/84​-h​/84​-h​ .htm. Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Stableford, Brian. Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2006. Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). https://www​.gutenberg​ .org​/files​/43​/43​-h​/43​-h​.htm. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Epilogue Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination: The Amerindian Fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith

Echoes of Prescott in Victorian imaginations of the Spanish conquest George Alfred Henty (1832–1902), Henry Rider Haggard (1856–1925), and George Chetwynd Griffith (1857–1906) convey in their Amerindian romances a complex worldview inspired by William Prescott’s meticulously researched histories of the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru. With his contribution to a lengthy and multi-genre transatlantic discourse about the New World encounter, Prescott lent cultural capital to Victorian conceptualisations of Cortés and Pizarro’s invasions. As we interpret Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico (1891), Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter (1893), and Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898), we come to recognise certain features that surface in the retelling of this dynamic moment of contact between Iberian and Amerindian peoples. We’ve seen how, for example, Henty, Haggard, and Griffith present the conquistador as a tactical genius and how—whatever else might be said of their campaigns—Cortés and Pizarro are shown to be remarkable in surmounting obstacles, enlisting the support of indigenous allies hostile to, respectively, Montezuma II and the Inca Atahuallpa, and seizing vast territory and spoils from royal treasuries. Another trope discernible in literary adaptations of Prescott’s work is the risk and reward of the transatlantic crossing, as Haggard and Henty imagine English swashbucklers who navigate the tropics, ascend sacred temples, and marry Mexican princesses, while Griffith offers his audience of history enthusiasts an arresting portrait of Francisco Pizarro in the quest for El Dorado. Part I, through a transatlantic New Historicist lens, advances the argument that Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s Amerindian romances are characterised by the thrill of discovery, the exchange of cultural beliefs, and English adaptations to new ways of being. All three narratives involve European relations with Amerindian sovereigns and noblewomen, the introduction of new technologies and strategies in the quest for treasure, and all three stories take place in architecturally spectacular theatres of war.

204 Epilogue As I have endeavoured to demonstrate in earlier chapters, a critical aspect of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s Amerindian adventures is that they adopt Prescott’s vivid rendering of the conquest to inform the story of their cultural mediators in Mexico and Peru. Chapters 1 and 2 propose that Henty’s Roger Hawkshaw and Haggard’s Thomas Wingfield are circumspect, linguistically versatile Englishmen modelled on the Spanish castaway and friar Jeronimo Aguilar, and perhaps his compatriot Gonzalo Guerrero, both of whom arrived in Mexico in 1511, nearly a decade before the arrival of Cortés in 1519. Like Aguilar, and his Spanish fellow survivor Guerrero, Hawkshaw and Wingfield quickly adapt to their new and difficult circumstances, shipwrecked and castaway on the shores of the Yucatan. These English mariners learn from the young Mexican noblewoman Malinche the Aztec language Nahuatl, and they come to understand from her the intricacies of the Aztec religion and cosmology. When faced with the horrifying spectacle of human sacrifice, both Englishmen express shock at this aspect of Aztec culture in the same way, I imagine, that Guerrero and Aguilar would have, having narrowly escaped this grim fate after being taken captive by the Maya. Returning to the Mexican noblewoman Malinche, later called Marina by the Spanish, we find yet another inspiration for Henty and Haggard. Intelligent, culturally sophisticated, and well-comported, the young Malinche interpreted for the Spanish, helped advance Cortés’s campaign, and became the conquistador’s mistress. These novelists revive Prescott’s account of the Mexican interpreter Malinche/Marina in their re-writings of the conquest, and seem to use her story as a basis for their own English heroes and Amerindian heroines, notably Henty’s Tezcucan princess Amenche in By Right of Conquest and Haggard’s Princess Otomie in Montezuma’s Daughter. For in the same way that Prescott informs us that Marina was born into nobility and, once embroiled in the conquest, became Cortés’ lover and gave birth to his son, so too do the royal heroines of By Right of Conquest and Montezuma’s Daughter fall in love with English adventurers and become mothers to mixed-race children.

White gods in the Amerindian encounter Inspirations for Henty, Haggard, and Griffith include historic personalities such as Aguilar and Malinche and Amerindian deities as well. In interpreting Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s historic fictions, I’ve endeavoured to explain how the identity of the Englishman is ever interrogated and reconfigured in the New World. In narratives of both conquest and reclamation, Henty, Haggard, and Griffith make use of the legend of the ‘white god’ reportedly disseminated among Amerindian peoples. First emerging in Columbus’s travelogues in the 1490s and pervading historical accounts of the Spanish conquest, the ‘white god’ takes on different names but generally is associated with fair skin, the sea, wisdom, healing,

Epilogue  205 technology, and/or creation. Set after Pizarro’s 1532 entry into the Inca Atahuallpa’s empire, Tavantinsuyu, Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun follows closely Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), while Haggard’s cross-cultural romance, also called Virgin of the Sun, is set in the early years of the Inca empire, well before Spain’s transatlantic crossing. Both Griffith and Haggard refer to the Quechua deity Viracocha as the ‘white god’ or ‘Lord risen from the Sea,’ and both novelists associate this figure with the European adventurer. Griffith returns to the ‘white god’ mythology in his Victorian archaeological fantasy, Romance of Golden Star, when the Inca Vilcaroya, awakened after 360 years of slumber, describes in his memoir the appearance of English Captain Frances Hartness in terms very much like Viracocha. For their part, Henty and Haggard revive the legends of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcat in, respectively, By Right of Conquest and Montezuma’s Daughter. Earlier chapters have shown how, because of their prowess, appearance, and use of weaponry, both Englishmen are received or read as the human embodiment of Mexican gods—Quetzalcoatl for Hawkshaw and the Tezcat for Wingfield. Yet it’s important to reiterate that in all the renderings of the ‘white god’ mythology studied here, the novelists expose its very constructedness through the scepticism of Amerindian characters—such as when the priest Valverde struggles with his mule while fording a river and is unceremoniously dunked in the water in Griffith’s Virgin of the Sun. Despite common threads, significant differences among these Amerindian romances critiqued in Part I merit attention. Comparison of By Right of Conquest and Montezuma’s Daughter reveals distinct interpretations of the history of the conquest. For the young Roger Hawkshaw, there is— after his involvement in the war between Cortés and the Aztec—a return to England, a resolution of order, establishment of family and acquisition of wealth. Haggard’s portrait of family life is much bleaker, for while Wingfield is enriched with the jewels of the Aztec empire, he experiences the catastrophic loss of his Mexican family. These diverse plots reflect Henty and Haggard’s unique imaginations, but they are equally a testament to the rich cultural work that their shared source, History of the Conquest of Mexico. Both Hawkshaw and Wingfield witness the bloody and divisive nature of the conquest; their speeches and narrations both reinforce and call into question Britain’s own imperial agenda when the books were published in the 1890s. However, Haggard and Henty use Prescott to different ends. Henty’s By Right of Conquest brings Hawkshaw and Amenche to England where they raise their family and retire on the prosperity of her dowry, respected and admired by the Devonshire gentry. Haggard refuses to overly romanticise the story of the Spanish conquest, and he ‘kills off’ Wingfield’s Anglo-Mexican children. Moreover, unlike Henty’s Amenche who acculturates to English life, Haggard maintains Queen Otomie’s warrior character, her avowal of ancient beliefs, and her decision to take her

206 Epilogue own life rather than live under the pretence of assimilation with her English husband. Unlike Henty and Haggard’s Mexican romances with their English swashbucklers and Amerindian princesses, Griffith’s depiction of Pizarro’s invasion of the Inca empire largely adheres to Prescott’s history. Griffith does not seek to insert an English character into his story. Rather, Griffith dramatises those events and explains them to his Victorian audience in a narration informed by the author’s tour of archaeological sites. The ‘I was there’ quality elevates Griffith’s writing beyond that of the armchair novelist. The cultural work of these Amerindian adventures is important; these stories both educate and perhaps inspire potential or existing agents of the British empire, which needed this kind of cultural capital. Victorian readers (predominantly male) might, like the Spanish conquistador or young English mariner, also overcome tremendous obstacles and yield great rewards in Mexico or Peru’s spectacular mountains, deserts, and jungles. What they bring back to England may be treasure, a wife, or impressions of their transatlantic travel. Wingfield presents his Aztec emerald necklace to Queen Elizabeth in Montezuma’s Daughter. At the end of By Right of Conquest, Roger brings home his Tezcucan bride Amenche who is ‘remarkable, not only for her beauty, but for the richness of her jewels, many of which were fashioned in a way such as had never before been seen at the English Court’ (Henty). In Virgin of the Sun, Griffith preserves the trajectory of Prescott’s history but infuses the story with his first-hand observations of Inca edifices, yielding impressions that would resonate with Victorian audiences who were becoming increasingly sophisticated, and some of whom must have glimpsed the British museum’s collection of Inca textiles, ceremonial items, and jewellery, items that were acquired soon after Peru’s independence from Spain.

Representations of reclamation Corresponding with Victorian imaginations of the Spanish conquest discussed in Part I of this book is the concept of reclamation elaborated on in Part II. Reclamation helps explain the intricately woven fabric of Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun (1922), Henty’s Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru (1902), and Griffith’s The Romance of Golden Star (1897). The rhetoric of conquest—and thus Prescott—informs these works, yet all three novels enter different ideological grounds in their treatment of reclamation. As articulated earlier, I see reclamation as the struggle for Amerindian sovereignty; the re-settlement of ancestral lands; and the excavation of wealth or natural resources historically controlled by Spanish colonial and later state authority. In the narratives analysed in Part II, reclamation entails the re-emergence of Amerindian languages such as Quechua and the enactment of Inca rituals or beliefs; it showcases the architectural ingenuity of Amerindian peoples and—as seen in Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star—it

Epilogue  207 enmeshes the English adventurer in the struggle for national autonomy. Perhaps most importantly, as a thread that weaves everything together, reclamation depicts the legends or enacts the stories silenced or nearly forgotten after Spanish domination. One of the premises of Part II is that Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, Henty’s Treasure of the Incas, and Griffith’s The Romance of Golden Star conceive of the Inca empire at a moment of greatness, whether before Pizarro’s entry or after nineteenth-century ties are cut with Spain. In developing the idea of reclamation, Haggard, Henty, and Griffith create heroes or narrators who function as a cultural mirror, reflecting English values, behaviours, and interests. Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun relays the story of the fictional English seafarer Hubert of Hastings who arrives in Tavantinsuyu in the 1360s when the Inca empire engaged in war with, among others, the Chanca peoples to extend its dominion. Hubert’s presence in Peru nearly 200 years before Pizarro’s conquest in the 1530s affords the English a place in the New World that history denies and fiction affords. Meanwhile, in Treasure of the Incas and Romance of Golden Star, Henty’s Prendergast brothers and Griffith’s Hartness help create a modern Anglo-Peruvian state in which the distribution of resources or wealth may be more equitably achieved. All three novels imagine English adventurers as the means by which the Amerindian nobility is re-instated and Inca customs re-established. In taking inventory of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s Amerindian fictions, one may wonder why and how the authors re-stage the theatres of war in Mexico and Peru. The authors visit and revisit the theatres of war in Mexico and Peru. In investigating this query, I explain throughout this study that I’m indebted to the concepts and arguments of numerous scholars; to Cain and Hopkins’ explanation of informal imperialism; to Jane Tompkins’s notion of cultural work; to Doris Sommer’s identification of the elements of the foundational fiction in Latin America; to Robert Aguirre’s research on the trafficking of artefacts in Mexico which led me to consider a similar impulse in Peru; to Romanticists Joselyn Almeida and Rebecca Cole Heinowitz who provided a model for me to think about Prescott with their attention to the influence of his literary ancestor, William Robertson; to Robert MacFarlane’s concept of borrowing in Victorian literature; to Ross Forman who has prompted scholars to re-assess Henty’s Victorian young adult fiction. Likewise, I’ve learned from a host of literary critics who have equipped me with terms indispensable to critiquing this rich, culturally complex body of work: McMahon’s ‘portable Englishness’; Bradley Deane’s attention to identity in the Lost World narrative; John Rieder’s analysis of lost race fictions; and Roger Luckhurst’s analyses of archaeological fiction, which can be applied to the jewellery, tombs, and monuments that figure prominently in the Amerindian adventure. With this arsenal of ideas, I’ve come to understand Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s attraction to the Euro-Amerindian encounter arises from a variety of circumstances. First, all three writers were history enthusiasts and travelled the world, and all had first-hand experience with the British

208 Epilogue empire vis-a-vis its military (Henty), colonial administration (Haggard), and merchant marine (Griffith), and all three authors deployed history and their cultural inheritance and experiences abroad to appeal to young readers. The transatlantic discourse enlivened by Prescott’s work and everevolving in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries demanded recognition of what was lost with the Spanish invasion of the Aztec and Inca empires—something that Haggard and Griffith saw first-hand. Henty, Haggard, and Griffith wrote with the sentiment that, perhaps, the British could have managed things differently. It seems to me, in any case, that the modern Latin American republic shaped or inspired their fictions of reclamation. Liberated from Spain in the early nineteenth century, Mexican and Peruvian governments opened themselves to British investment in mining, infrastructure, and agriculture in the 1800s and early 1900s. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mexican and Peruvian governments recognised the role of tourism and exploration and increasingly made archaeological sites open to foreigners. As we saw in earlier discussions, Haggard and Griffith seized the opportunity to visit, respectively, the ancient sites of the Aztec and Inca. Also of importance was that the magnificent mountain city Machu Picchu was ‘discovered’ by US archaeologist Hiram Bingham in 1913—a find that may have influenced Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun in 1922. As argued in British Representations of Latin America, specifically my reading of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, literature representing Latin America performed the work of both stimulating interest in developing natural resources and exposing the hazards of the enterprise.

An archive of Amerindian fiction These, then, are my final thoughts on the context shaping six Amerindian novels published in the late Victorian and the early twentieth century: Henty’s By Right of Conquest: Or, with Cortez in Mexico, Haggard’s Montezuma’s Daughter, Griffith’s The Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru, Haggard’s Virgin of the Sun, Henty’s Treasure of the Incas, and Griffith’s Romance of Golden Star. My contribution to the existing readings of transatlantic fiction has been to analyse representations of the Iberian and Amerindian theatre of war and to investigate a different model of empire building proposed by Henty, Haggard, and Griffith. I’ve endeavoured to illustrate how their fiction, through characters or narrators, self-consciously conceives of cross-cultural contact more as a contest and exchange and less as a one-sided hostile exertion of power. In concluding this examination of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith’s six Amerindian adventures, what I seek to demonstrate is that these novels are shaped by Prescott’s rendering of the inexplicable twists and turns of the Spanish conquest, by a longstanding transatlantic discourse of fellow writers, artists, and archaeologists, by the imaginative landscape of the authors, their times, insights, and experiences.

Epilogue  209 And yet the literary context into which Henty, Griffith, and Haggard’s Amerindian stories can be placed is much broader than their novels. Thanks to the research of bibliographer Cory Sturgis [1927] and Lost Race archivist Jessica Amanda Salmonson [2000], we can identify dozens of Amerindian fictions worthy of scholarly inquiry. Some of these texts set in Mexico and Peru blend—as Henty, Haggard, and Griffith do—history and fiction. Others deploy the trope of the lost race; and yet others veer off into science fiction. With Conquest and Reclamation in the Transatlantic Imagination: The Amerindian fictions of Henty, Haggard, and Griffith as a springboard, my hope is that transatlantic critics will delve deeper into this captivating literary archive.

References Aguirre, Robert. Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University Press of, 2005. Almeida, Joselyn. Reimagining the Transatlantic, 1780–1890. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. Cain, PJ and AG Hopkins. British Imperialism 1699–2000. New York: Longman, 2002. Conrad, Joseph. Nostromo [1904]. New York: Penguin, 1994. Deane, Bradley. Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Griffith, George. The Romance of Golden Star. [London: FV White, 1897]. https:// www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/20173​/pg20173​.txt. ———. Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru. Kessinger. [London: Pearson, 1898]. Haggard, H Rider. Montezuma’s Daughter. [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/files​/1848​/1848​-h​/1848​-h​.htm. ———. The Virgin of the Sun. [London: Cassell and Company, 1922]. https://www​ .gutenberg​.org​/files​/3153​/3153​-0​.txt. Heinowitz, Rebecca Cole. Spanish America & British Romanticism, 1777–1832. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. Henty, George A. By Right of Conquest, or With Cortez in Mexico. London: Blackie, 1891. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/ebooks​/19398. ———. The Treasure of the Incas: A Tale of Adventure in Peru. [London, 1902]. https://www​.gutenberg​.org​/cache​/epub​/7070​/pg7070​.txt. Luckhurst, Roger. The Essay: Bram Stoker. BBC. 19 April 2012. https://www​.bbc​ .co​.uk​/sounds​/play​/b01g5zfc. MacFarlane, Robert. Originality and Plagiarism in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. McMahon, Deirdre. ‘Quick, Ethel, Your Rifle!’: Portable Britishness and Flexible Gender Roles in G.A. Henty’s Books for Boys. Studies in the Novel (Winter 2010), pp. 154–172. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico [1843] & History of the Conquest of Peru [1847]. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000.

210 Epilogue Ramirez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007. Robertson, William. History of America. Printed for Samuel Campbell, by Robert Wilson,  M.DCC.XCVIII [1798]. Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. https://quod​.lib​.umich​.edu​/cgi​/t​/text​/text​-idx​?c​=evans​;idno​=N25924​. 0001​.001. Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s Lost Race Checklist [2000]. https://www​.rohpress​.com​/lost​_race​_check​_guide​.html. Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. Sturgis, Cony. The Spanish World in English Fiction: A Bibliography. Boston, MA: FW Faxon Co., 1927. https://babel​.hathitrust​.org​/cgi​/pt​?id​=mdp​ .39015033681134​&view​=1up​&seq​=37​&skin​=2021. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Index

Academy of Fiction Supplement 185 acculturation 76, 186, 205 adaptation 5, 12, 64, 71, 77, 79, 167, 203 adolescent 51, 53, 78, 158–159, 198 adopting 3, 23, 27, 60, 125n21 adornment, Aztec 74 adventure fiction 14, 21, 42, 51, 90, 104, 108, 198; fieldwork 20, 100; ‘I was there’ trope 3, 103, 131, 161; plagiarism 49 advertise 2, 46, 76, 132 Africanist fiction 73 agents 21, 99, 103, 206 agriculture 1, 55, 123n7, 134, 208 Aguilar, J. 12, 23, 56–58, 74, 76, 82–86; see also castaway Aguirre, R. 1, 21, 46, 73, 207; Informal Empire 133 Aleman, Jesse 30n25, 31n28 allegiances 60, 70, 88, 89, 190 Allen, B. 50, 65n12, 66n15 alliances 13, 26, 58–59, 65n6, 79, 112, 114–115, 122 Almagro, D. 15, 17, 105 Almeida, J. 105, 207 Amazon 5, 29n13, 99, 123n10, 170, 199n10 Amenche 23, 43, 63–64, 83, 186, 204–206 Americanist 32n33, 73 Amerindian 14, 17–18, 21–25, 27, 29n14, 41–42, 48, 50, 56, 61, 64, 65n13, 66n17, 71–72, 76, 79–80, 83, 87–89, 93n20, 97–98, 100–105, 108, 112, 114, 118, 121–122, 125n21, 131–137, 141–143, 145–147, 149, 151n5, 152n9, 154n32, 158–161, 177nn4–5, 179n18, 182–189, 196– 198, 198n2, 199nn7–8, 204–209

Amerindian adventure 13, 27, 41, 42, 71, 98, 104–105, 114, 142, 183, 185; cultural mediator 118–119; fieldwork 20, 100; ‘prototype’ 102–103; see also adventure fiction; fiction Anahuac 4–5, 13, 19, 24, 43, 48, 54, 56, 80, 83, 86–87, 101, 153n28 anarchy 164, 170, 178nn10, 16 Andean 99, 133–134, 152n15, 183– 184, 186, 190, 192 Andes 100, 122n3, 133–134, 140, 150, 158, 165–166, 187 anger 117, 163 Anglo 26, 31n25, 41, 42, 64, 79, 90, 93n18, 98, 135, 150, 183, 186, 205, 207 annals 42, 103, 113, 124n13, 131 anthropology 21, 23, 71–73, 79, 82, 100, 132–135, 143, 149 Antiquities of Mexico (Kingsborough) 10, 45, 71 appearance 12, 43, 53, 57, 86, 115, 199n6, 205 appropriation 25, 31n27, 63, 131, 160 archaeological fiction 45, 73, 142, 183, 191–192; ‘weight of plausibility’ 23, 27, 45, 73, 100; see also Romance of Golden Star archaeology 8–10, 24, 72, 76, 208; Peru 139–140; see also informal imperialism archetype 25, 53, 100, 133, 144–145, 150 architecture 28n3, 65n6, 85, 92n8, 104, 107, 141, 152n16, 160, 187 archive 8, 27, 29n15, 45, 71, 77, 97, 100–102, 135–136, 150, 159, 185–186, 188–189, 198n2, 208–209 Argentina 26, 42, 102, 165, 171 Arica-Tacna Railway 133–134 

212 Index Aristotle, Poetics 144, 151n4 armour 12, 54, 114, 118, 145, 147, 188 army 4, 18, 21, 41, 43, 61, 102, 113, 116, 170 Arnold, G. 50; Held Fast for England: G. A. Henty, Imperialist Boys’ Writer 52–53 arrival 3, 12–13, 25, 41, 45–46, 49, 55, 60, 61, 77, 80, 82, 114, 118, 144, 150, 151n6, 153n28, 174, 204 art 15, 30n22, 41, 43, 45, 65n6, 92n5, 109 artefacts 20, 28n3, 66n17, 133, 141–142, 183, 192, 207 Atahuallpa 1, 4, 5, 15, 17, 97, 100, 104, 107–111, 114–120, 122, 123nn8–9, 12, 124n134, 124n18, 189, 193, 194, 199n13, 203 Atlantic 1–3, 9, 26, 46, 63, 97, 100, 104, 132, 135, 173, 198 Aubrey, F., Devil Tree of El Dorado: A Romance of British Guiana 178nn9– 10, 179n21, 189, 199n8 authenticity 78, 102; in Calderón de la Barca 71–72 awe 118, 147, 153n30 Aztec 3, 8, 10, 13, 158; adornment 74; culture 42, 90; human sacrifice 13 Barbauld, A., ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven’ 7, 29n12 Bates, H. 8, 29n13, 170 The Beagle 29n13, 164 belief 14, 17, 31n27, 54, 78–79, 87, 105, 117, 122, 146–147, 160, 175, 182, 187, 190, 203, 206 Bhabha, H., Location of Culture 23 bibliographer 3, 27, 65n5, 209 Bingham, H. 135, 139, 141, 208 biography 50, 65n13, 104 Blackie, W. 50 Black Legend 6, 28n8, 30n25, 105 blood 74, 81, 111, 150, 165, 195 boat 2, 47, 157, 162, 175 Bolivia 102, 151n1, 165, 178n13, 191 Bookman, The 73, 159 Books Which Have Influenced Me 145 Boorstin, D. 9 borrowing 21, 25, 27, 42, 49, 144, 207 botanicals, Cinchona 158–159; see also quinine Bourne, A. M. 189, 199n8 boys 42, 50, 52, 83

bravery 43, 90, 120, 158 brigands 160, 170–171, 174 Bristow, J. 50, 102, 112, 113; Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man’s World 50 Britain 1, 3, 5, 17, 22, 27, 31n33, 46, 50, 54, 66n17, 77, 99, 104, 112, 123n7, 133, 141, 152n20, 160–161, 166, 177, 192, 195, 198n1, 205 British Museum 46, 192; America’s collection 143 Britishness 24, 45 brutality 6, 60 Burney, J., A Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea and Pacific Ocean 47 Butts, D. 50, 65n12, 66n15 By Right of Conquest, Or with Cortez in Mexico 203, 204; Aguilar 56–58; Cortés 61–64; Malinche 58–61; reception and criticism 50–53; reception and critiques 50–53; similarities with Montezuma’s Daughter 76–77; white god myth 53–56 Cacama 12, 23, 43, 50, 56, 63, 65n6, 76 cacique 43, 53, 58, 83, 88, 118 Cain, P. J. 1, 2, 27, 72, 133, 160, 207 Cajamarca 5, 15, 100, 109, 115, 117, 194 Calderón de la Barca, F. 10–11, 19, 71–72, 92n7; Life in Mexico 10 Callao 158–159, 163–164 campaign 4–5, 17, 25, 41, 49–50, 55, 62, 79, 90, 97, 105, 113, 116, 122, 166, 169, 182–184, 187–191, 195, 197–198, 203–204 Canadian Bookseller 159 Canaris 106, 114–115 capital, cultural 49, 203 captivity 44, 81, 171 Caribbean 5–6, 12, 42–43, 47–48, 53, 57, 64n2, 66n20, 112, 123n10, 146–147, 157, 177n7 Casas, B. 3, 6, 28nn7, 10, 97 castaway 24, 43, 53, 54, 56, 57, 70, 74, 76, 204; Robinson Crusoe 145; Wingfield as 82–86 Castellanos, R. 59; ‘La Malinche’ 90 Castilian 45, 57–58, 60, 89, 107 catalogue 3, 15, 105 catastrophe 18, 93n18

Index  213 Catherwood, F. 10, 11, 19, 41–42, 71, 85; Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan 71 Catholic Church 47, 48, 63 ceremony: blood-mixing 89; human sacrifice 81. see also human sacrifice Challcuchima 107, 111, 114, 116–117, 120, 123n9 Chanca 3, 8, 14, 25, 132–136, 139, 140, 142, 146, 149, 152n13, 160, 183, 207 characterisation 12, 23, 27, 53, 61, 114, 116, 193 Chiapas 72 chiefs/chieftain 3, 15, 43, 53, 55, 62, 70, 86, 91, 93n18, 119, 140, 147, 164, 175 Chile 17, 102, 106, 121, 158, 165 Chimu 158, 175 Chincha 158 Cholula 60, 62 Christ/Christians 15, 30n22, 51, 55, 63, 65n14, 85, 113, 115, 117, 123n8, 145–146, 153n30 chronicle 24, 41, 50, 53, 76, 85, 137, 139–140, 147, 151n4, 160 Cieza de León, P. 137, 139, 179n19; Cronica 174 Cinchona 137, 159, 178n6; see also quinine cite/citation 22, 66n19, 71, 78, 101 civilisation 3, 8, 14, 24, 32n35, 43, 54, 103–104, 122, 131, 133, 136, 144, 150, 166, 189, 191 class 23, 135, 162, 175, 184 cliché 22 cliff hanger 82 climate 14–15, 67n23, 123n7, 170 coastal 53, 158, 174 codex 45 codices 10, 45–46, 61, 71, 74 Cohen, J.M. 30n21, 153n30 collecting/collection 10, 15, 21, 30n20, 65n10, 74, 133, 141–143, 170, 192 collisions 3, 46, 59, 71, 79, 93n18, 102, 131 Colombia 66n22, 165 Colón, H. 147 colonialism 27, 51; Spanish 6; see also reclamation Columbus, C. 9, 12–13, 29n17, 41, 53, 112, 125n21, 132, 147, 150, 151n6, 204

communication 25, 56, 103, 124n17, 134, 166 company 4, 144, 163, 175, 177 competition 29n17 complexity 5, 27, 59, 111 compromised 31n27, 61, 79, 175 Condamine, C. 7, 8, 28n9, 99 conquest 7, 8, 20–24, 43, 70–73, 203; eyewitness observer 79; retelling 72, 73, 86–87; see also reclamation conquistador 6, 14, 83, 102, 105, 115, 137, 150, 194 Conrad, J. 120–121, 164; Nostromo 26, 31n33, 120, 151n7, 164, 173, 178n11, 208 Constant, B. 137 consul 164, 171 context: Romance of Golden Star 185–187; Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru 104–106 Cooper, J. F., Last of the Mohicans 87, 119 copper 49, 54, 99 correspondent 18, 20, 41, 71, 98–100 Cortés, H. 1, 3–5, 9, 12–14, 24, 44, 53, 57, 70–72, 76, 79, 83, 112; Henty’s characterisation 61; see also Cortez counterpart 76, 115, 120 coup d’etat 165, 178n12 Cozumel 57, 66n18, 83 Crimean war 18, 41 criticism: archaeological fiction 191– 193; G. A. Henty 48; Montezuma’s Daughter 73, 74; see also reception; reviews cross-cultural contact 21, 23, 208 crown 14, 31n289, 123n10, 165–166 cruel/cruelty 61, 112 Cuba 57, 61 Cubitt, G. 28n5 cultural capital 49, 203 cultural identity 119 cultural literacy 136–137; Victorian audience 104 cultural mediator(s) 2, 17, 23, 53, 57–58, 61, 64, 88, 90, 118–119, 189, 204 cultural productions 1, 160 cultural work 3, 17, 22, 27, 74–75, 90, 102, 105, 132, 151n5, 159–160, 171, 174, 183–185, 198, 205–207 Cuzco/Cusco 111, 116, 118, 122n2, 141, 152n15, 158, 167–169, 195

214 Index Darwin, C. 8, 164, 170 Davenant, W. 112; Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru 6–7; Lives of Individuals Who Raised Themselves from Poverty to Eminence or Fortune 8 Deane, B. 2, 22–23, 27, 53, 84, 88, 207 defence 165–167 defend 2, 5, 24, 76, 169 Defoe, D. 2–3, 43, 187; Robinson Crusoe 145 deity 76, 80; Pachacamac 135; Quetzalcoatl 12–14, 23, 53–56, 76, 79–82, 90, 205; Tezcatlipoca 78, 81; Viracocha 106–107, 113–114, 148, 205 descendants 3, 55–56, 80–81, 141, 161, 190 desert 99, 107, 145, 152n24, 162, 167, 196, 206 de Soto, H. 117, 119–120 destiny 10, 90, 109, 121, 150 destruction 24, 46, 61, 150, 189 dialect 28n3, 57, 59, 184, 197 Díaz, P. 70, 85, 92n8 Díaz del Castillo, B. 3, 24, 66n19, 70–72, 74, 76, 79, 83, 85, 87, 90, 92n2 disease 18, 79, 91, 107 distribution 159, 176, 189, 207 divine 55, 147, 190 Dobson, E. 192 doctor 193–195 domination 22, 25, 28n8, 78, 114, 133, 207 Dorset, J. 41; Montezuma: A Tragedy in Five Acts 7, 41 Douglas, T. 192 Doyle, A. C. 23, 32n33, 179n21, 192, 199n10 Drake, F. 71 drama 6, 10, 29n19, 111–112, 132, 177n5, 179n18 Dryden, J. 41, 97; The Indian Emperour, or the Conquest of Mexico 6, 41, 71, 93n17; The Indian Queen 6, 28n7 Dublin 10 Dublin Review, The 77–78 duty 61, 100, 123n7, 136 economy 171–172, 177, 197 Ecuador 102, 107, 114, 120, 124n15, 151n1

edifices 141, 179n20, 206 Egypt 19, 137, 192 El Dorado 5, 15, 17, 28n5, 48, 103–105, 107, 120–121, 123n10, 132, 143, 203 emblem 56, 62, 74, 87, 134–135, 190–191 embodiment 79, 80, 205 emerald 24, 70, 206 empire 4–5, 11, 13–14, 17–26, 28n8, 29n19, 31n28, 32n35, 42–44, 46, 50, 53–54, 61, 65n13, 72–74, 77, 87, 97–99, 101–104, 106–109, 111–113, 118–122, 123n7, 124n15, 131–132, 134, 137, 141, 146, 150, 151n3, 153n28, 158, 164, 191, 193, 195, 197–198, 199nn3, 13, 205–208 empire building 5, 61, 77, 208 enactment 103–104, 131, 206 encounter 2, 5–6, 8, 12–13, 21, 23–24, 27, 42–43, 50–51, 53, 87, 90, 97, 102, 105, 131–132, 136, 146, 149, 152n22, 158, 174, 177n5, 179n18, 186, 203–208 engineering 8, 107, 133, 135, 141 England 6, 47; informal imperialism 133–135, 160–161 Englishman 60, 74, 86, 161, 175, 186, 195, 204 Englishness 45, 53, 56, 64, 65n8, 146, 207; see also ‘portable Britishness’ enriched 24, 42, 158, 175, 205 entailment 105, 109 enthusiasts 10–11, 64, 111, 137, 178n15, 192, 203, 207 entrepreneurs 5, 60, 133, 164 Epilogue 27, 106, 111, 119–120, 185 Eric Brighteyes 144 Esquivel, L. 57; Malinche 90 estate 64, 109, 141, 158, 163, 166, 175, 185 Etherington, N. 73–74, 152n22 Europe 10, 51, 65n11, 161 European movement 21 Europeans 13, 15, 30n23, 93n18, 154n32, 199n7 Everett, A. H. 9 evidence 4, 6, 15, 77, 172, 192 executed 15, 70, 72, 111, 120, 123n10, 124n14, 165 ‘exotic other’ stereotype 5, 22, 197 expansionism 18, 61 explorers 7, 12, 29n13, 103, 144, 164, 175, 187

Index  215 eyewitness observation, Spanish conquest 79, 83 The Fair God 20, 97, 101, 137 familiarity 19, 52, 131, 167 famine 62, 70, 107, 166 fantasy 17, 20, 25–26, 150, 178n9, 184, 186, 187, 197, 205 fear 12, 31nn25, 28, 169–170, 173, 178n10 feathered 15, 43, 93n13, 110 female 136, 138, 153n25, 192–193 Fenn, G. M. 18, 161 fiction 90; adventure 14, 20, 41, 51, 78, 87; Africanist 73; Amerindian 71; archaeological 45, 73, 142, 182, 191–193; cultural work 102, 105, 132, 159–160, 171, 174; formulaic 52; foundational 105, 119, 184; historical 50; lost-race 183–184, 207; ‘Museum Gothic’ 192; neglected texts 105; plagiarism 49; plausibility 45; plot recycling 144; romance adventure 2, 51, 104, 143; trope 3, 24, 91. see also trope fieldwork 18, 20, 66n18, 100–101, 104, 137, 139, 141, 184; see also archaeology Filipillo 107, 117 fin de siècle 172, 177n5, 179n18 Flammarion, C. 20 Fletcher, F., The World Encompassed 41, 64n3 footnote 22, 28n3, 93n10, 105, 196 forbidden 25, 43, 47, 136 Forman, R. 50, 51, 207 formulaic fiction 52 Fortescue, Hilda 163, 167, 175 fortress/fortresses 5, 15, 24, 100, 119–120, 122n2, 141, 152n15, 167, 174, 179n21, 184 foundational fiction 22, 26, 105, 119, 184, 207 Frankenstein, Victor 183, 193 friar 3, 12, 57, 76, 82, 204 Friday 146, 153n24, 187 Frohock, R. 6 Gallo 4, 14, 102, 107, 113, 121 Gamarra, A. 170, 178n16 garb 197 Garibaldi, G. 18, 41 Gasca, P. 17 gender, stereotype 83, 192

genre 10, 23, 67n23, 184–186, 189, 199nn4–5 gentry 64, 153n25, 163, 175, 205 geographer 28n9, 99, 136–137, 158, 185, 191 gifts 3, 8, 10, 56, 147, 153n28 godhood 45, 54–56, 149 gods of the air 55 Godwin, R. 98 ‘going native’ 24, 64 Golden Star 26, 182–189, 191–194, 197–198 gorge 167, 169, 171, 191 gothic 14, 31nn25, 28 govern 25, 109 Greene, G., The Honorary Consul 26, 171 Greiffenhagen, M. 71, 74, 75, 84, 84, 85 grief 73–74, 88 Griffith, G. 1–6, 8, 17, 20–21, 41; contribution to the transatlantic archive 100–102; debt to Prescott 106–109; ‘I was there’ trope 102; in Peru 99–100; ‘Railway beyond the Clouds’ 97, 134; Romance of Golden Star 2, 14, 26, 164–165; travels around the world 98–99; Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru 2, 4–5, 14, 20–21, 24–25, 203; see also Romance of Golden Star; Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru Groesbeck, T., The Inca: Children of the Sun 136–137 guardian 100, 158, 164, 175 Guatemoc 12, 24, 74–75, 78–79, 82, 86–91, 93n18, 195 Guerrero, G. 24, 74, 82–86, 90; see also castaway guilty 15, 111, 115–116 Haggard, H. R. 1–3, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14, 17, 19, 27, 41, 64, 77, 98, 101, 134, 138, 160; Montezuma’s Daughter 2, 4, 13–14, 19–20, 24, 58, 64, 70, 101; tour of Mexico 72–73; see also Montezuma’s Daughter; Virgin of the Sun hair 15, 53, 55, 74, 87, 135, 188 Hakluyt, R. 41, 71; Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida by Don Ferdinando de Soto and Six Hundred Spaniards 6

216 Index Hakluyt Society 31n33, 65n5 Hallam, H. 9 Hardy, T., Tess of the D’ubervilles 161 Harris-Fain, D. 104–105 Harvard University 8 Hastings, Hubert of 25, 132–133, 184, 207 headdress 15, 74, 86, 110, 116, 146 Heart of the World 19, 31n31, 132, 144, 184 heathen 55, 63, 85, 114–115, 188 Heinowitz, R. C. 1, 8, 105, 207 heir 108, 116–118, 133, 140, 192 Henty, G. A. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 17, 41, 50, 98, 112, 157, 163–164, 168, 172; career in the British army 18– 19; contribution to the transatlantic archive 158–159; Under Drake’s Flag 42; popularity 51–52; By Right of Conquest, Or with Cortez in Mexico 2–4, 13, 19, 23, 41–64, 158; Treasure of the Incas 2, 14, 25–26, 48; see also By Right of Conquest, Or with Cortez in Mexico; Treasure of the Incas hero/heroine 83, 111, 131–132, 204, 207; Guatemoc 86–88 Hispanophobia 6 historical fiction 51 historiography 101 History of the Conquest of Mexico 205; reception and critique 77–78; as source for Montezuma’s Daughter 77–78 History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) 2–3, 8, 14, 17–18, 22, 24, 29n18, 97, 105–107, 112, 114, 124n16, 135, 152n10, 158, 166, 172, 179n19, 182, 188, 193, 205 Hoebel, EA 66n17 Hopkins, A. G. 1, 2, 27, 72 horses 12, 46, 78, 112, 121, 125n22, 165, 194 Huascar 108, 111, 115, 117–119, 199n13 Huayna Capac 193–194 human sacrifice 12, 13, 45, 140, 194, 204; itztli 72, 81 Humboldt, A. 7, 8, 99 hunger 4, 107, 113, 123n11, 165, 167 hunting 29n16, 158–159, 161, 167, 170–172, 191 Huntington Library 44, 75, 84, 108, 168, 176 Huttenback, Richard 49

Iberian 7, 13, 59, 85, 88, 100, 112, 114, 116, 157, 196, 203, 208 iconic 10, 53, 92n8, 98, 191 identity 22, 24, 25, 43, 55, 57, 60, 91, 197, 207; cultural 74; mixed-race 90; ‘portable Britishness’ 45 ideological 1, 23, 27, 28n8, 134, 188, 206 illustration/illustrator 10, 15, 43, 73–74, 84–85, 102, 107, 122n3, 135, 137, 152n9, 185 imagery 100, 106, 122n3, 137, 199n10 imaginations 3, 6, 8, 22, 29n17, 45, 48, 64, 115, 142, 160, 186, 203–204 impart 2, 4, 103, 122, 158, 174, 187 imperialism 2, 5, 7, 18, 19, 21–23; informal 1, 27, 72, 133–135, 160–161 Inca 3, 5, 14, 15, 97, 106, 194, 207; Machu Picchu 140–141; suspension bridge 191; in Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru 116–118 Independence 26, 116, 133, 157, 160, 164–166, 177nn1, 5, 178n16, 188, 206 India 17, 19, 41, 51, 53, 65n13, 113, 137, 159 Indian Emperour 6, 41, 71, 93n17 Indians 12, 30n25, 82, 147, 167, 169, 179n19 Indies 47 indigenous people 26, 72, 92n2, 131–132, 147, 190 Informal Empire 46, 73, 99, 195 informal imperialism 1, 5, 22, 27, 31n33, 72, 133–135, 151n6, 160–161, 177, 207 infrastructure 133, 160, 166, 208 ingenuity 8, 30n22, 87, 184, 191, 198, 206 inhabitants 63, 81, 92n5, 153n30 inland 7, 22, 43, 72, 99, 158, 167, 174 inquisitiveness 5, 63, 132 insurrection 26, 111, 119, 173, 178n11, 182, 184, 195–196 interiority 7, 22, 72, 99 intertextuality 43 intervention 26, 109, 161, 183, 189, 198 inventory 15, 50, 144, 161, 171, 174, 191, 207 investigation 3, 30n23, 92n5, 139, 160, 172, 178n16

Index  217 investment 157, 161; Latin American 161; see also informal imperialism involvement 26, 72, 151n7, 157, 177n1, 198, 205 Irving, W. 3, 9 Isle of Gallo 4, 14, 107, 113 itztli 72, 81 ‘I was there’ trope 3, 99–100, 102, 141, 185 Jebb, G. 19, 72 Jewellery/jewels 25, 31n33, 48, 64, 107, 110, 142–143, 185, 205–207 Johnson, R., A Complete Identity: The Youthful Hero in the Work of G. A. Henty and George MacDonald 50 Joyce, T. 135; South American Archaeology: An Introduction to the Archaeology of the South American Continent with Special Reference to the Early History of Peru. 139–140 Joyful Star 186, 188, 191, 194, 197–198 justice 7, 17, 90, 116, 185, 195 Kahlo, F. 59 Katz, W. 28n6, 92n9 Keats, J., ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ 7 Kingsborough, E. 11, 61; Antiquities of Mexico 10, 45, 71 Kipling, R., The Man Who Would Be King 30n24, 55, 149 Kitzan, L. 159–162, 178n9 knife 2, 43, 54, 72, 82 Kollar, R. 73 landed 4, 57, 82, 153n25, 159, 175 language 59, 76, 89, 204, 206; interpreting 106, 164, 204; see also Quechua Last of the Mohicans 15 Latin America, independence movement 165–166; see also Spanish conquest law 11, 104, 112, 136 lawful 118–119, 190 leadership 4, 62, 112–113, 122, 146, 184 Lee, Sydney 19, 41 legend 12, 15, 25, 30n25, 48, 53, 55, 56, 80, 103, 124n17, 134, 143, 148, 157, 159, 167, 169, 171, 174, 184, 188, 204, 205, 207 legitimate 119, 140, 194, 196, 199n13

lesson 4–5, 17, 23, 26–27, 52, 55, 62, 77, 103, 113, 158, 160, 162–163, 167, 174 Levi-Strauss, C. 12, 190; ‘Structural Study of Myth’ 149 liberated/liberation 72, 158, 160–161, 165–167, 170, 176, 183, 188, 197, 199n14, 208 Library Journal 159 Lima 97; see also Peru lineage 25, 86, 182, 190, 197 linguistic 1, 79, 119, 204 literacy 32n35, 48, 136, 177n5, 178n18 literacy, cultural 22, 50, 104, 136–137 literary criticism 51; see also criticism Literary World, The 185 lithography 72, 85 litter 110–111, 191 Little, J. S. 148, 150 llama 161, 171–172 llautu 116, 135 looted 78, 121, 187, 192 lost-race genre 183, 189–190 Lost World narrative 22, 207 Lowry, M., Under the Volcano 26, 171 Luckhurst, R. 2, 27, 45, 73, 100, 133, 142, 159, 187, 192, 207; see also ‘weight of plausibility’ MacFarlane, R. 2, 21, 42, 49, 102, 144; Original Copy: Plagiarism and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Literature 22, 105–106 Machu Picchu 139–141, 208 Mackenzie, D., Myths in PreColumbian America 148 maiden/s 43, 70, 82, 88, 134, 136, 138, 149, 187, 198 male 17, 23, 162, 189, 193 Malinche 1, 12, 17, 24, 56–61, 70, 71, 74, 76, 79, 88–91, 118, 204; see also Malintzin; Marina Malintzin 90 Maltby, W. 105; The Black Legend in England: The Development of AntiSpanish Sentiment 6 Manco Capac 105, 111, 116–120, 122, 124n15, 189 Mansions of the Sun 117, 120 Marina 12, 58–60, 62, 76, 79, 88–91, 93n20, 186, 204; see also Malinche Markham, C. 135–137, 141, 148, 158, 170, 185, 191; Incas of Peru 139

218 Index marriage 25–26, 41, 63, 70, 89, 105, 142, 149, 163, 183–184, 186, 189, 193, 197, 198 Marsh, R. 192 masculinity 23, 53, 84, 88 massacre 15, 60, 62, 103, 112, 123n12, 124n13 Maximilian I 72 Maya 12, 19, 24, 30n20, 43, 53, 57, 70, 82–83, 85, 89, 91, 92n5, 93n13, 132, 137, 152n12, 158, 204 Maybank, Thomas 15, 16, 122n3 McMahon, D. 24, 45, 50, 52, 65n8, 66n15, 207 McWilliams, J. 9, 10, 29n19 Mediterranean 51, 67n23, 137 memoir 182, 183; see also Romance of Golden Star memory 9, 17, 58, 62, 148 Menville, R. 184, 189 mercantilism 48 Messenger, S. 59, 88 metal-working 54 Mexican codex 45, 46 Mexico 1–5, 8–10, 12–13, 17–18, 20, 23, 46, 48–49, 51, 53, 55, 57–58, 60–61, 63, 65n7, 66n17, 70–73, 75–76, 79–80, 82–83, 86, 89–91, 92nn3–4, 7–8, 93nn15–16, 101–103, 112–114, 125n23, 131–132, 137, 146, 148, 152n17, 153nn28, 31, 171, 186, 195, 203–204, 206–207, 209; Haggard in 72–73 Millais, J. E. 97; Pizarro Seizing the Inca Atahuallpa 31n26, 110–111, 189 mineral 25, 72, 134, 173, 189 mines 26, 49, 54, 161, 169, 173 mirror 26, 59, 61, 76, 86, 107, 112, 132, 153n27, 207 mistress 1, 12, 58–60, 204 mixed-race identity 24, 25, 51, 64, 76, 90, 186, 204 model 23, 57, 88, 106, 157, 207–208 modern 5, 28n8, 31n28, 58, 121, 132, 149, 161, 165, 182, 189–190, 194–197, 207–208 Monroe Doctrine 160 Montezuma 4, 9, 12–14, 17, 19, 23, 30n25, 43, 46, 50, 54, 63–64, 70, 72, 79, 82–83, 86–87, 91, 93n20, 101, 153n28 Montezuma’s Daughter 70, 71, 101, 204, 205; Malinche 88–91; Prescott as

source 77–79; reception 73; retelling of conquest 74, 76; similarities with By Right of Conquest 77; Wingfield as castaway 82–86; Wingfield as Quetzacoatl 80–81; Wingfield as warrior 86–88; Wingfield’s embodiment of Tezcat 81–82 monument/s 30n22, 86, 120–121, 207 moon 133–134, 136, 140, 148 motif 85, 111, 184, 190–191, 199n7 mule 99, 114, 154n33, 161, 167, 169, 205 muleteer 160–161, 164–165, 168, 169, 171–172 mummy 93n10, 183–186, 192, 197–198 ‘Museum Gothic’ 192 mutiny 61–62, 112, 164, 170 myth 12, 79, 90, 149; replication 190; white god 12, 53–56, 76, 114, 132, 134, 147–149, 188, 204–206 ‘mytheme’ 149 Nahuatl 13, 30n22, 44, 59, 80, 89, 93n13, 204 narration, Virgin of the Sun 132–133 narrative 3–4, 25; Lost World 22; recycling 144 National Geographic 141 naturalists 29n13, 164, 170 nature 47, 82, 91, 135, 172, 205 necklace 3, 31n33, 70, 206 ‘neglected texts’ 105 New World 6, 8, 10, 24, 27, 74, 102, 105 nobility 3, 11, 45, 88, 167, 187, 189, 197, 204, 207 noblewomen 2, 83, 203 Nostromo (Conrad) 26, 31n33, 120, 151n7, 164, 173, 178n11, 208 O’Brien, T. 12 obstacles 25, 61, 163, 169, 203, 206 occupied 12, 56, 63, 120, 141 Old World 2, 8, 24, 75–76, 79, 83, 89, 100, 103, 189 oppositions 22, 27, 50, 56, 83, 119, 163, 178n15 orajones 135 originality 49, 105, 144; see also plagiarism origins 12, 49, 92n5, 106, 112 Otero, Dias 26, 160–161, 164, 166, 178n13

Index  219 ‘other’ 23, 75, 87, 103, 145, 187; exotic 5, 22, 197 Otomie 24, 64, 70, 74, 79–80, 82–87, 89, 91, 92n2, 132, 186, 196, 204–205 Outlook, The 104 overthrow 56, 178n16, 187 paba 72 Pachacamac 14, 135, 146, 148, 158, 166, 174–175, 179n19 Pacific ocean 174 painting 45, 110, 116–118, 189 Panama 4–5, 14, 57, 107, 116, 123n11 Pape, E. 135, 137–141, 152n9 Paul Mall Gazette, The 103 Paz, O. 90; ‘Los Hijos de La Malinche’ 59 Pearson’s Magazine 98, 104, 107 peasantry 25, 92n8, 190, 196, 198 Peru 2, 8, 17, 18, 97, 98, 158; AricaTacna Railway 133–134; Chimu 175; Griffith in 99–100; informal imperialism 133–135; investment 133–135; llama 171–172; Machu Picchu 140–141, 208; Virgins of the Sun 134–135, 138; see also Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru Phillips, J., Tears of the Indies 6, 28n7, 71 Pizarro, F. 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, 15, 17, 24, 97, 100, 102, 105, 121; in Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru 112–116 Pizarro, H. 17 plagiarism 22, 42, 49, 105 plausibility 47, 73 plot recycling 144 pluck 45, 55, 65n9, 150 plumed 74, 80 plunder 7, 42, 62, 64n5, 86, 120, 152n15, 160, 189–190 poetry 7, 52, 136–137 politico(s) 165, 166, 169, 170, 173 politics 51, 115 ‘portable Britishness’ 24, 45, 207 ports 22, 99, 163–164 Portugal 6, 47 postcolonialism 23, 27, 87, 92n9, 154n32 power 7, 19, 27, 79, 190; see also conquest Pratt, M. L. 2, 21, 72; Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation 7, 21–22, 99

Prendergast, Harry 26, 132, 158, 160–163, 167, 175, 198, 207 Prescott, W. H. 1, 5, 8, 14, 20, 22, 24, 27, 45, 53, 64, 75, 83, 97, 98, 101, 102, 105, 106, 131, 135, 137, 158, 203, 207; The History of Conquest of Mexico 2–4, 8–12, 14, 23, 49, 51, 54–55, 57, 58, 62, 71, 73, 90–91; The History of the Conquest of Peru 2–4, 8, 14, 17–18, 107, 112, 188; as source for Montezuma’s Daughter 77–80 priests 3, 6, 12, 13, 28n10, 56–57, 71– 72, 81–82, 105, 110–111, 114–115, 147, 174, 179n19, 205 primogeniture 108 Prince 18, 41, 78, 86, 117, 135, 145, 195 princes 12, 111, 135 princess 23–26, 31n31, 43, 63, 76, 83, 89, 92n2, 133–134, 146, 150, 186, 192–193, 197–198, 204 princesses 76, 197, 203, 206 prisoner 15, 81, 111, 116, 120, 195 Professor Lamson 183 protagonist 3, 45, 49, 56, 61, 70, 116 prototype 102–103, 109 Publisher’s Circular 186, 199n4 punishment 93n10, 115, 195; see also torture pyramids 72, 81–82 Quechua 26, 106, 118, 121, 131–140, 143, 148–149, 151nn1, 3, 152n13, 154n34, 158, 160, 184, 190–191, 198, 205–206 Queen Elizabeth 24, 70, 91, 124n2, 206 Quetzal/Quetzalcoatl 3, 12–14, 23, 50, 53–56, 61, 76, 79–82, 90, 93n13, 114, 153n28, 205 Quilla 25, 125n19, 133–134, 136, 138, 140–144, 146, 150 quinine 137, 159, 178n6, 184 Quito 114, 116, 118, 124n15 races 3, 123n9, 194, 207, 209 railways 99, 134 Ralegh, W. 71; Discoverie of Guiana 28n5, 31n33, 41, 48, 64n5 Ramirez, L. E., British Representations of Latin America 2, 22, 133, 164 ransom 15, 83, 111, 116, 170–171, 195

220 Index readers/readership 2–5, 15, 17, 18, 21, 25, 28n4, 30n25, 32n35, 43, 47–53, 61–64, 66n15, 72, 75, 78, 80, 82, 87–89, 91, 91n1, 97, 102– 106, 108, 120, 122, 131, 136–137, 149, 158–160, 163, 166, 169, 171, 174, 175, 177n5, 178n18, 196, 206, 208 reception: Montezuma’s Daughter 73; By Right of Conquest, Or with Cortez in Mexico 50–53; Romance of Golden Star 185; Treasure of the Incas 159–160; Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru 103; see also reviews reclamation 1, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25–27, 102, 131, 132, 150, 183–185, 197, 204, 206–208; in Romance of the Golden Star 184–189, 191–193; in Treasure of the Incas 160–161, 166–167, 169, 175 record 10, 12, 25, 45, 46, 71–72, 91, 92n7, 101, 109, 115, 135, 144, 147, 151n4, 153n28, 166, 192 recovered 26, 30n22, 142–143 Reeder, J. 1, 22 Reginald, R. 184, 189 reign 51, 77, 150, 166, 190, 194 relics 72 religion 8, 11, 48, 63, 77, 117, 134, 146, 204 Renaissance 6, 48, 124n18 representation 13, 15, 22, 27, 51, 59, 65n13, 73, 78, 81, 83, 105, 136, 206–208 rescue 57, 83, 123n9, 140, 146, 162, 186 resourcefulness 43, 90, 158, 162, 191 Restall, M., Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest 79 retell/retellings 1–3, 5, 17–18, 20, 27, 64n5, 70, 72, 76–78, 86, 91, 102–103, 203 retold 14, 149, 154n33 return 3, 7, 13, 21–22, 24, 42, 45, 48–49, 52, 54–55, 61, 70, 80, 83, 85, 90, 100, 105, 114, 121–122, 133–134, 153n28, 162, 167, 184, 189–191, 205 Review of the Reviews 73 revision 2, 21, 25 revitalisation 25, 131, 160, 183 revival 131, 182–184 revolt 117, 182, 188, 194, 196

reward 5, 23–24, 26, 42, 76, 90, 113, 174–175, 182, 197, 203, 206 rewriting 42, 87, 100, 144 rhetoric 13, 27, 49, 93n19, 113, 122, 124n16, 161, 166, 183, 206 Rieder, J. 184, 188–190, 207 Rippy, J. 133 risk 48, 158, 162–163, 203 ritual 45, 71, 206 rival/rivalry 6, 24, 41–42, 47, 48, 57, 61–62, 103, 106, 115, 118, 134, 140, 157, 166 Rivera, D. 58 robbery 26, 148, 150 Robertson, W., History of America 3, 7, 8, 54, 105, 106, 112 Robinsonade 145–146 Rodil, R. 165–166, 178n15 romance adventure 2, 20, 30nn24, 31, 51, 76, 90, 101, 105, 143; lost-race 189–190 Romance of Golden Star 182, 192; archaeology 185; critical context 185–187; Francis Hartness 195–197; lost race motif 184, 189, 190; reception 185–186; reclamation 183–184, 187–191; similarities with Henty’s Treasure of the Incas 182–183; suspension bridge 191; Vilcaroya 193–195 Romanticism 29nn12, 14, 122n6, 151n6 Routledge 153n27 Roylance, P. 17 Ruminavi 1, 107, 116, 119–120, 122 sacrifice, Tezcatlipoca 81; see also human sacrifice saga 14, 32n35, 90, 120, 137, 144, 153n25, 184 Sahagún, B. 3, 71, 147; Florentine Codex 12 sailor 2, 20, 48, 53, 61, 67n23, 76, 162 Salmonson, J. A. 3, 27, 209 Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art 52, 53, 159 Schomburgk, R. 8, 170 School of Prescott 3, 22, 28n4, 141 science 20, 45, 91, 111, 170, 184, 189, 192, 209 science fiction 20, 111, 184, 189, 192 Scott, T., An Experimentall Discoverie of Spanish Practices, or, the Counsell of a Well-Wishing Souldier 6

Index  221 seize/seizing 1, 25, 42, 57, 60, 63, 66n20, 72, 85, 102, 109, 123n12, 140, 173, 177n3, 178n16, 196, 203, 208 self 23, 75, 145; binaries 63; imperial 22; see also ‘other’ settlements 6–7, 17, 25, 42, 71–72, 106, 148, 158, 160, 161, 189 Shelley, M., Frankenstein 185, 187 Shelley, P. 153n27 Sheridan, R. 97, 112; Pizarro: A Tragedy in Five Acts 7 shipwreck 2, 43, 57, 64, 76, 79, 162, 204 shore 2, 4, 12–13, 20, 22–24, 43, 55, 60, 70, 76, 80, 102, 146, 162, 195, 204 showcasing 103, 122, 131, 193 signs 45, 149 silver 4–5, 11, 25, 48, 54, 107, 111, 113, 141, 146, 159, 167, 173–174, 177, 179n19, 189 skin 12, 53, 55, 74, 80, 110, 114, 199n7, 204 smallpox 62, 79, 91 Sommer, D. 2, 21, 22, 26, 105, 119, 184 Son of the Sun 133, 190–191 Spaniard/s 13–14, 20, 29n19, 47, 55, 57–60, 62, 76–78, 83, 89, 110–111, 115, 118, 119, 121, 141, 147, 157, 159, 165, 169, 172, 174, 191, 199n13 Spanish conquest 6, 8, 17, 27, 41, 43, 53, 97, 109, 111, 146–147, 150; eyewitness observation 79, 83; torture 86–87, 157; white god myth 12 Speaker, The 73 spectacle 1, 6, 53, 109, 192, 204 speech 57, 78, 85, 104, 117–118, 165, 188, 205 Stableford, B. 192 Stacey, W. S. 43, 71 Standard, The 41 Stanley, H. M. 18 statue 86, 93nn15–16, 121, 125n23 Stephens, J. L., Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chipas, and Yucatan 10, 11 stereotype: ‘exotic other’ 5, 22, 197; gender 83, 186; Spaniard 105, 115 Stevenson, R. L. 161, 185 stewardship 171–172

stories 12–13, 18, 21, 23, 27, 28n3, 42, 71, 99, 119, 131–133, 144, 150, 157, 159–161, 171, 175, 178n7, 182, 189–190, 192, 203, 205, 207 strategy 3–4, 25, 42, 62, 66n22, 80, 114, 124n15, 147, 158 stronghold 83, 85, 87, 91, 119, 165 Sturgis, C. 3, 27, 209 subjugation 7, 10, 30n25, 31n28, 120, 125n21 succession 108–109, 119 Sun 100, 108, 111, 114, 133–134, 136, 138–140, 148, 150, 199n7 sun worship 134, 136–138, 141, 150, 190 survival 4, 12, 57, 64, 76, 88, 113, 145, 162 suspension bridge 14, 191 The Swan 43, 47–49, 57 symbol 59, 116–117, 191 Tabasco 57, 59, 88, 118 Tate, J. 88 Tavantinsuyu 102, 106–107, 111, 113, 114, 140, 141, 146, 148, 194 technology 111, 147, 167, 203 temple 11, 14, 81, 149, 174 Tenochtitlan 30n25, 62–63, 72, 76, 78–79 teocalli 72 testimonios 3 textiles 134, 152n20, 172, 206 Tezcatlipoca 78, 81, 205; Wingfield’s embodiment of 81 Tezcucan culture 11–12, 43 theatre 4, 8, 27, 71, 100, 112, 203, 207–208 theatre of war 1, 112–113, 207 theory 22, 27 theory of cultural work 22, 102, 105 Thompson, B. 51 Ticknor, George 9 title 1, 3, 8, 26, 32n35, 65n7, 77, 91n1, 119–120, 143, 151n1 Tlascalan 79, 114–115 Todorov, T., Conquest of America: The Question of the Other 21 tomb raiding 192; see also archaeological fiction Tompkins, J. 2; cultural work 102, 105, 132, 159–160, 184 torture 86–87, 93n17, 112, 115–117, 122, 124nn14, 18, 194

222 Index tourism 8, 134, 184, 208; see also informal imperialism Townsend, C. 59, 88 trade 6, 11, 47, 48, 57, 64, 164 tradition/s 6, 9, 29n19, 55, 72, 87, 93n20, 97, 116, 119, 144, 148, 174, 187, 191, 194 tragedy 93n17 train 12, 28n3, 81, 83, 134, 152n15 traitor 24, 61, 85, 88–90 transatlantic archive 136, 137, 141, 144, 150, 159, 198, 203, 208; Griffith’s contribution 100–102; Henty’s contribution 160–161 translation/s 5–6, 28n7, 41, 71, 137, 139 travelogue 71–72, 97–98; ‘Railway beyond the Clouds’ 97 travel/travellers 3, 19–20, 26, 72, 92n5, 97, 99, 104, 141, 149, 151nn8–9, 159, 162, 164–165, 170, 177, 178n11, 182, 189, 206 treachery 24, 63, 75, 88–89, 103, 109, 116–118, 123n12, 195 Treasure of the Incas 157, 166, 172, 176; cultural work 170–171, 174; lessons learned 163–164; overview 158–160; perspectives of Dias and Barnett 164–167; reception 159–160; reclamation 160–161, 166–167, 169, 176; similarities with Griffith’s Romance of the Golden Star 182–183; treasure hunting 161–163, 167–169, 174–175 treasuries 15, 190–191, 203 Treaty of Tordesillas 6, 47 tribal conflict 79, 114–115, 140; see also Chanca; Quechua tribe 24, 57, 66n17, 79, 92n3, 112, 114, 148, 149, 158, 167, 175, 194 tribute 3, 24, 82, 99, 120 trope(s) 24, 91, 195, 203, 209; enactment 103–104; ‘I was there’ 3, 99–100, 102, 141, 185; reclamation 131; white god 146, 204–206 truth 29n16, 50, 91, 146, 151n4 Tupac Amaru 194 Uncas 15, 87, 93n18 ‘unclaimed territory’ 47 Upanqui 135, 141, 148–150, 152n11 ‘us-versus-them’ binary 23

Valverde, V. 104, 105, 110, 111 Velazquez, D. 4 Venezuela 123n10, 165, 178nn10–11, 195 Verisimilitude 3, 28n3, 86, 100–101, 133 Verne, J. 20; Around the World in 80 Days 99 Victorian period 19, 41, 45, 51–53, 207; adventure fiction 21, 78, 87; archaeology 73; cultural literacy 104; originality 49; travelogue 71–72 Viking/s 25, 80, 132, 142, 144, 152n21 Vilcaroya 14–15, 26, 161, 182–198, 199n5, 205 Viracocha 106, 113, 114, 148, 205 Virgin of the Sun 144; narrators 132–133; similarities with Prescott’s Conquest of Peru 135–136; white god myth 146–149 Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru 97, 100, 186, 203, 205; Book I 108–109; Book II 109; Book III 111; Book IV 111–112; context 104–106; cultural mediator 118–119; epilogue 120–122; Inca resistance 116–118; Pizarro in 112–116; prologue 107; reviews 103–104; Ruminavi 119–120; source citation 102 Virgins of the Sun 134–135, 138, 139, 141 von Humboldt, A. 8, 99 Wallace, A. 8 Wallace, L., The Fair God 101, 137 warrior, Guatemoc 86–88 warrior/s 7, 12, 15, 23, 62, 70, 74, 80, 86–88, 90, 93n18, 114, 117–120, 122, 140, 152n13, 195, 205 war/warfare 4, 8, 10, 13, 18–19, 21, 26, 30n25, 41, 45–46, 50, 59–60, 62, 71, 76, 91, 99–100, 105–106, 109, 111–112, 115, 118, 120–121, 125n21, 132, 134, 140, 160, 165, 167, 186, 203, 205, 207–208 weapons 23, 54, 105, 114, 118, 147, 196 ‘weight of plausibility’ 22, 23, 27, 45, 73, 100, 133, 159, 185, 187 White, H., ‘The Historical Text as Literary Artifact’ 91

Index  223 white god myth 12, 53–56, 114, 132, 134, 146–149, 188, 204–206; see also deity Williams, H. M. 97, 112; Peru: A Poem in Six Cantos 7, 48 witness/witnessed 1, 6, 12, 19, 41, 43, 51, 60, 81, 162, 205 Wood, S. L. 107, 108 wool 123n7, 172, 184, 198 Woollacot, A. 50, 53 The World Encompassed (Fletcher) 41, 64n3 worshipping 134, 136, 139, 190–191

writers/writing 1–4, 6–11, 16– 22, 24, 28n5, 29n13, 29n17, 41–43, 45, 49–52, 59, 66n17, 73, 77–78, 80, 87, 97–99, 101–102, 104, 105, 114, 123n11, 131– 133, 135–137, 141–145, 152nn8–9, 161, 171–172, 185–186, 196, 206–208 young adult 18, 41, 50, 157, 166, 207 Zarate, M. 104, 111, 116 Zazil Há 83