Privacy at Sea: Practices, Spaces, and Communication in Maritime History (Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History) 3031358465, 9783031358463

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GLOBAL STUDIES IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL MARITIME HISTORY

Privacy at Sea Practices, Spaces, and Communication in Maritime History Edited by Natacha Klein Käfer

Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History

Series Editors Brad Beaven, Historical and Literary Studies, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK Joanne Begiato, School of History, Philosophy & Culture, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK Isaac Land, Department of History, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, USA

This series seeks to reconnect the maritime sphere with broader social and cultural histories across the globe. It looks to an emergent area of historiography: how the maritime was a space of global social and cultural exchange. It offers a platform for the growing community of scholars working in ‘new maritime history,’ which looks beyond (but by no means ignores) the economic, political, and military history of the seas, to understand its wider connections to social, cultural, geographical, and imperial histories. The editors welcome proposals on ‘the maritime’ in its widest sense, including projects framed in terms of coastal history or the paramaritime. Therefore, studies examining the ways that littoral societies or inland communities, spaces, and people connected to the sea are also welcome. So are studies of interstitial watery realms (straits and portages; reticulated systems of lakes, rivers, or inland seas; archipelagos or island clusters). The series considers proposals from across a long chronological period, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. We are especially keen to publish work that offers insights into the important themes of sailors’ gendered sexual identities and sexual activities, including the perspectives of non-normative and proscribed sexual activity, and aiming to incorporate queer approaches and break free of heteronormative frameworks. Similarly, we actively encourage proposals which investigate the global south or incorporate race and ethnicity into their research scope, for example by addressing the experiences of nonEuropean born sailors, or European and American sailors’ interactions with non-westerners.

Natacha Klein Käfer Editor

Privacy at Sea Practices, Spaces, and Communication in Maritime History

Editor Natacha Klein Käfer Centre for Privacy Studies (DNRF138) University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark

Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History ISBN 978-3-031-35846-3 ISBN 978-3-031-35847-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Chapters 1, 8 and 14 are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapters. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: clu/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgements

Privacy at Sea was produced at the Centre for Privacy Studies (PRIVACY), funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF138), a Centre of Research Excellence established in September 2017 and housed at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the Royal Danish Academy—Architecture, Design, Conservation, under the direction of Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun. The volume was fostered by the interdisciplinary research environment at PRIVACY and has received the help of colleagues and researchers at the Centre from its inception. I would like to thank director Mette Birkedal Bruun for all of her help, the Head of Administration Maj Riis Poulsen for the logistical support, research assistant David Lebovitch Dahl for his proofing skills, and Jesper Jakobsen and Sari Nauman for their fantastic comments on the book proposal. Most of all, this book would not have happened without the kindness and generosity of the authors in this volume and their brilliant take on the complex subject of privacy in maritime history. Privacy at Sea is also deeply in debt to the anonymous peer reviewers that were incredibly helpful in this process. Finally, I would like to thank Sam Stocker for his fantastic editorial help with the publisher.

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Contents

1

Dynamics of Privacy at Sea: An Introduction to Privacy Studies in Maritime History Natacha Klein Käfer

1

Part I Privacy, Race, and Gender 2

Black Seamen’s Privacy in an ‘Anxious Atlantic’ Charles R. Foy

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Women and Children on board—The Case of the Carreira Da India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Amélia Polónia and Rosa Capelão

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Privacy in Recife, Freedom in Amsterdam: Juliana’s Practical Strategies of Autonomy Across the Atlantic Natália da Silva Perez

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Part II The Private Under the Public Eye 5

Breaching the Cabin Walls: Madness, Privacy, and Care at Sea in the Eighteenth-Century British Navy Catherine Beck

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CONTENTS

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“Some Sly Corner”: Privacy and Sodomitical Space in the Georgian Royal Navy Seth Stein LeJacq

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Anchors, Hearts, and Crosses: Multiple Ways of Tattoo Usage by Seamen Philipp Schadner

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Part III Politics, Communication, and Intelligence 8

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Secrecy, War, and Communication: Challenges and Strategies of the General-Government of the State of Brazil in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo The Spinola System for Maritime Postal Exchanges Between the Madrid Nunciature and the Roman Curia (1645–1658) Alessia Ceccarelli A Very Secret Intelligence: The Parallel Espionage of the Republic of Genoa in the State of the Presìdi Diego Pizzorno

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Part IV Legal, Military, and Religious Perspectives from the Sea to the Shore 11

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Seas, Galleys, and Laws: Antonio de Guevara’s Del arte de marear (1539) José María Martín Humanes “[They] Are Not of Any Service, Except for Wasting Wages and Burning a Lot of Timber”: The Soldiers of the Guard of the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona (1575–1600) A. Jorge Aguilera-López The Eastern Adriatic and Privacy in Sixteenth-Century Italian Travel Narratives Jelena Baki´c

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CONTENTS

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Part V Epilogue 14

Pockets of Privacy in the Maritime World: An Epilogue Mette Birkedal Bruun and Natacha Klein Käfer

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo is Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the CAPES Fund in the History Postgraduate Programme of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil. His research focus is the early modern politics in Portuguese America and information policies in the Luso-Atlantic world. Jelena Baki´c is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Education of the Free University of Bozen in Bolzano, Italy. Her research focuses on early modern women’s history and paratextual practices. Catherine Beck is Postdoctoral Researcher and Marie Curie Fellow at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Copenhagen. Her research deals primarily with maritime history, especially concerning mental illness at sea. Mette Birkedal Bruun is Professor of Church History at the University of Copenhagen and Director of the Centre for Privacy Studies. Her research focuses mainly on early modern privacy studies and solitude in Christian monasticism. Rosa Capelão is Researcher at CITCEM—Transdisciplinary Research Centre “Culture, Space and Memory”, in Porto, Portugal. Her research focuses largely on women as historical agents in the sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century Portuguese Empire.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Alessia Ceccarelli is Researcher in early modern history at the Sapienza Università di Roma, in the department Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte Spettacolo (SARAS). She is currently the principal investigator of the projects Secret baroque (Terza missione—Sapienza 2022–23) and Republican networks in early modern Europe project (Sapienza—2022–24). Natália da Silva Perez is Assistant Professor of Popular Culture in Historical Perspective in the Department of History at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focuses mainly on women’s history, reproductive knowledge and surveillance, and early modern history. Charles R. Foy is Professor Emeritus at the Eastern Illinois University. His research focuses mainly on the eighteenth-century Black Atlantic. José María Martín Humanes is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Universidad de Sevilla. His research is dedicated to medieval and early modern history, with a particular focus on legal sources. Website: https://www. jmmartinhumanes.com. Natacha Klein Käfer is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on healing knowledge and its connections to privacy and confidentiality in the early modern period as well as transcontinental networks of knowledge. Seth Stein LeJacq is Lecturing Fellow at Duke University. His research deals mainly with the history of medicine, gender, and sexuality. Website: https://www.sethlejacq.com. A. Jorge Aguilera-López is Doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki. His thesis is dedicated to the study of the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona, its workers, and the construction of war galleys during the sixteenth century. Diego Pizzorno is Professor at the Ministero dell’Istruzione e della Ricerca. He focuses on the study of History, Modern History, and Genoese History. Amélia Polónia is Professor at the Universidade do Porto. She has extensive research experience in maritime history, with a focus on colonial studies, gender studies, and environmental history. Philipp Schadner is Magistra Doctor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. His research focuses on practices of tattooing from a historical perspective.

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 6.1

Map 8.1

Braziliaans Dorp (Brazilian Village), Frans Jansz. Post, 1675–1680 (Source Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum [call number SK-A-4272], licensed as Public Domain) Trials for sodomitical crimes by vessel type, 1690–1840 (Note Parentheses give an approximate range of official complements from 1793 to 1817. Almost two-thirds of trials between 1690 and 1840 occurred in those decades Sources TNA ADM 1/5253–5485; LeJacq, ‘Run Afoul’, appendix D; Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail, 4 vols. [Barnsley: Seaforth, 2007–2014])

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Time intervals in political communication

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CHAPTER 1

Dynamics of Privacy at Sea: An Introduction to Privacy Studies in Maritime History Natacha Klein Käfer

Looking at the vastness of the ocean, it is easy to forget how limited maritime spaces can be for the humans that sail through it. Early modern travel accounts are filled with complaints about the constant sharing of spaces, the difficulties of finding occasion to talk in private, or managing bodily functions at sea. For those not used to a life at sea, traversing the ocean was regarded as quite an uncomfortable ordeal. In his eighteenth-century travelogue, the Portuguese priest Nuno Marques Pereira described his trip to India as a challenging experience: “For the sake of brevity, I cannot explain the discomfort that I suffered. I can tell you, however, that it reminded me of something I read. When asking a

N. Klein Käfer (B) Centre for Privacy Studies (DNRF138), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_1

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philosopher why he has never sailed, he replied: why would I want to trust four madmen—the ship, the sea, the wind, and the sailor”.1 In Pereira’s account, the sailor has to be accustomed to the “madness” of life at sea, becoming one with the ship, the sea, and the wind— elements that could be such a hassle to the average traveller. When one’s life revolved around the sea, cramped spaces and the constant presence of fellow sailors were things that had to be dealt with on a daily basis. How can we even begin to think about privacy in such conditions? Most of the time, only high-ranking officials would be able to have their private quarters, and even then, walls had ears. Other officers could have more secluded divisions in the ship, but those were often only provisory.2 That does not mean, however, that the crew would simply submit to a life without privacy. As this volume will demonstrate, sources show that privacy appeared in a multitude of ways in maritime history. Privacy at Sea discusses privacy as a broader spectrum of strategies that would permit people a certain level of negotiation and regulation of how information, bodies, behaviours, and accounts could be accessed or restricted.3 At sea, privacy was not an expected right, but a constant and iterant compromise which depended on practices of concealment, consolidation, or dissolution of social bonds and unspoken agreements (a turn of the head to allow someone some discretion, using one’s own body to shield another person’s actions, and daily instances of “don’t ask, don’t tell”). Moreover, when sharing the ship, people would often hope that others would also behave in a more private manner when possible: privacy was not just something desirable for oneself, but it was expected that others would do their share to preserve their own. Too much information from fellow sailors could be disruptive of life on board, and curating oneself was needed for the sake of sociability— to the extent that it was possible to do so in confined spaces. Privacy was, therefore, individually bound and collectively established at the same time. The contributions to this volume explore the social, political, legal, economic, and cultural dynamics at play on board ships and at shore 1 Nuno Marques Pereira, Compendio narrativo do peregrino da America (Lisbon: Manoel Fernandes da Costa, 1731), 310. 2 B.R. Burg, Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 30. 3 Natália da Silva Perez, ‘Privacy and Social Spaces’, The Low Countries Journal of Economic and Social History (TSEG), 18 (3) (2021), 5–16.

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that would enable people to create or manage these malleable boundaries between individuals, groups, networks, and even governments.4 This broader, more dynamic understanding of privacy enables us to understand a different element of maritime history by focusing on the lived experiences of people at sea. Together, the chapters present the sea as a space that simultaneously limits and enables access to the multifaceted phenomenon of privacy. The volume analyses the ways in which maritime lives created instances of privacy that depended on collaboration, ingenuity, and everyday tactfulness.

Exploring Historical Notions of Privacy In the past two decades, investigating privacy from a historical perspective has attracted significant academic attention. The works of Lena Cowen Orlin5 on privacy in Tudor London and Michael McKeon6 on the history of domesticity have rekindled the interest in the “private sphere” that had been brought to the fore by Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby with their collection Histoire de la vie privée in the 1980s.7 This new spark in historical interest has been coupled with a significant shift in how privacy is explored as a social phenomenon. Instead of a focus on contrasting public and private spheres, studies have begun to approach privacy as an intrinsic part of the human experience and practice. Stephen Margulis’ approach to privacy as a social issue and behavioural concept places the subject at the centre of psychological debates, helping us understand how people tackled privacy in everyday life.8 Following a similar trail, Kirsty Hughes has stressed the different experiences of privacy as a 4 For more details on the use of different heuristic zones of analysis (such as mind, body, chamber, home, community, and society) in order to understand privacy as a historical phenomenon, see Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Towards an approach to early modern privacy: The retirement of the great Condé’ in Early Modern Notions of Privacy, eds. Michaël Green, Lars C. Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Leiden: Brill, 2021). 5 Lena Cowen Orlin, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 6 Michael McKeon, The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). 7 Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby, Histoire de la vie privée: L’Univers historique (Paris: Seuil, 1985). 8 Stephen T. Margulis, ‘Privacy as a Social Issue and Behavioral Concept’, Journal of Social Issues, 59 (2) (2003), 243–261.

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form of barrier creation inherent in human social lives.9 Beate Roessler has furthered conceptualisations of privacy by demarcating three distinct dimensions—decisional privacy, relating to actions and decisions; informational privacy, concerning access to and control of knowledge; and local privacy, designating the different spaces of privacy.10 These new and broader understandings of privacy have maximised the potential of privacy as a catalyst for analysis in multiple fields of study. The 2018 Handbook of Privacy Studies provides an overview of and introduction to the interdisciplinary possibilities of engaging with the concept of privacy in history, medicine, security, data sciences, informatics, law, archival studies, economics, anthropology, political sciences, and media studies.11 The early modern period has become a focal point in historical studies of privacy.12 Being such a pivotal moment, situated before the consolidation of the concept of privacy as a human right, the period between 1500 and 1800 provides fertile ground for understanding how people of the past tackled the very organic need to keep information, material possessions, their bodies, and their thoughts private. This approach has inspired recent publications that deal with religious, legal, spatial, and cultural concerns.13 Following these new perspectives, Privacy at Sea bridges the fields of privacy studies and maritime history by applying the lens of privacy to sources ranging from the trivial concerns of daily life to secret political matters. In our volume, privacy is understood broadly as the ways in which humans mediate between themselves and their social environments, paying heed to hierarchical, cultural, spatial, and personal differences. In her article “Spaces on Ships: Secrecy and Privacy in the Dutch East India Companies”, Djoeke van Netten departs from the material conditions on board a Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship to explore what 9 Kirsty Hughes, ‘A Behavioural Understanding of Privacy and Its Implications for Privacy Law’, The Modern Law Review, 75 (5) (2012), 806–836. 10 Beate Roessler, The Value of Privacy (Cambridge: Polity, 2005). 11 Bart Sloot and Aviva Groot, eds., The Handbook of Privacy Studies: An Interdisci-

plinary Introduction (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018). 12 David Vincent, Privacy: A Short History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), viii–31. 13 Green et al., Early Modern Notions of Privacy; Natália da Silva Perez, ed., TSEG

Special Issue: Privacy and the Private in Early Modern Dutch Contexts, 18 (3) (2021); Sari Nauman and Helle Vogt, eds. Private/Public in 18 th -Century Scandinavia (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

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could be considered as private on board such a vessel. Looking at the spaces of a replica of an eighteenth-century exemplar, she points out to “the plausible impossibility of preserving privacy or keeping secrets—or both”.14 However, through a careful examination of sources related to life on board a VOC ship, she explores the emotional and strategic elements of privacy, secrecy, and concealment that can be teased out, even when the term “privacy” is not used. She concludes that ships were “worse than prisons”15 in terms of private spaces, asking if people on board knew how much they would have to renounce their ability to regulate access to themselves. Privacy at Sea aims to add a deeper level of nuance to that assumption. While private spaces were hard to come by, we will see that people would socially engage with one another and with their environment to create pockets of privacy at sea. We demonstrate how privacy was less a matter of isolation but more about the unique dynamics between individuals and information exchanges. Beyond providing this reappraisal of privacy in such close quarters, this volume will also demonstrate how notions of privacy and the private were developed and transformed across global connections and how we can start to think of how privacy changes within moving spaces in contrast to settled locations.

Meanings of ‘Private’ in Maritime History Maritime history has a deep connection to our understanding of privacy and the private. The exploration of the sea and the conflicts deriving from establishing control over maritime routes demanded a more nuanced distinction and negotiation between state and private efforts. Privateering, for example, became a bridge between the private enterprises and the states’ warfare or trade struggles, demonstrating that the sea simultaneously required public control and enabled private endeavours. This

14 Djoeke van Netten, ‘Spaces on Ships: Secrecy and Privacy in the Dutch East India Companies’, TSEG, 18 (3) (2021), 109. 15 Ibid., 124.

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tension between private and public interests has been explored by military, economic, and legal studies, each of which adopts a particular stance to explore how the private appeared in maritime history.16 This view of the private in maritime history falls under Jeff Weintraub’s idea of the public/private dichotomy in the more “liberal-economic” sense, as represented by “state administration” on the public side and “market economy” on the private.17 Undeniably, such a perspective is crucial for understanding what ‘private’ historically meant at sea and giving us a perspective on how the ‘public’ organised its authority over maritime spaces via state navies.18 This volume adds other dimensions to this discussion by focusing on how privacy and the private were perceived and created by the historical agents at sea, combining legal, literary, notarial, and religious sources with interdisciplinary approaches from cultural, social and political history, privacy studies, and gender studies. In addition to moving beyond the mercantile ‘private’ as a direct opposite to the state ‘public’, we open the discussion of privacy at sea as a multiplicity of lived experiences. At the same time, the issue of private property and private mercantile endeavours cannot be neglected and still has a very important role in unveiling the complexities of private experience at sea. Beyond the mercantile sense of private property, we explore here how managing access to one’s private belongings could be life-defining at sea, as shown by Charles Foy’s contribution to this volume. Private trades by sailors when on shore also operated as transactions that helped to maintain their individual incomes, establishing material connections between different shores and shaping the micro-economy on board. Even the issue of nationality at sea—which was crucial for defining the proper loot of privateering endeavours—depended on private letters for its functional 16 David John Starkey, Jaap de Moor, and E.S. van Eyck van Heslinga, eds., Pirates and Privateers: New Perspectives on the War on Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997); David Head, Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2015). 17 Jeff Weintraub, ‘The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction’ in Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, eds. Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 7. 18 Lincoln P. Paine, The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World, first ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), 430.

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operation.19 As such, a mercantile notion of the private in the maritime context can operate hand-in-hand with the private as a daily experience at sea—a partnership that would benefit both the fields of maritime history and privacy studies. The sea was the great connector between shores, but it was also more than that. At sea, social dimensions transform by necessity—something that early modern authorities had to face in their attempts to control their people on board sailing ships. These ships were not only confined spaces but also mobile vessels. This combination of temporary confinement with high levels of mobility—often including several stops at culturally diverse shores—transforms this environment into a melting pot of social expectations, individual wishes, and conflicts of hierarchies in which privacy could be a desire, a tool, as well as a threat.

Privacy, Race, and Gender Race and gender were crucial factors that impacted to what extent claims of privacy could be established and would be respected by others. In this section, we will explore the implications of colonisation for people of colour, of different genders, and of young age in their efforts to survive at sea and how they had to navigate the thresholds of privacy that shifted under particular conditions and power imbalances. The section “Privacy, Race, and Gender” starts with an exposé of the strategies and hurdles of black seamen in eighteenth-century AngloAmerican ships. In “Black Seamen’s Privacy in an ‘Anxious Atlantic’”, Charles R. Foy analyses how naval social and racial hierarchies contributed to privacy violations of the black crew members and the dire consequences these abuses had for them. For the great majority of black seamen, the only space considered private was their individual chests, in which they stored and protected their possessions, including crucial documents such as identification and freedom papers or certificates of protection that were meant to guarantee their status as free men. As many of these black tars were formerly enslaved men, their chests were their only private safeguard and also materialised and protected their personhood in an environment 19 Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, ‘Reading cargoes: Letters and the problem of nationality in the age of privateering’ in A World at Sea: Maritime Practices and Global History, eds. Lauren Benton and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 75–88.

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in which their freedom was constantly at stake. Foy presents several examples in which the white crew members invaded a black seaman’s chest, meddling with his documentation and thus enabling the kidnapping of their crewmate back into slavery. The constant fear and vigilance of such events resulted in what Foy calls an “Anxious Atlantic”—a maritime locus in which black sailors could never be certain of their freedom. For the black crew, having a private space meant having a chance to protect their status as free men. As such, for the white people aiming to profit from selling their fellow crewmates, disrespecting their privacy and disregarding their personhood went hand-in-hand. In “Women and Children on board—The Case of the Carreira Da India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, Amélia Polónia and Rosa Capelão highlight the presence of women and children on the voyages of the Carreira da India, the annual link between Portugal and India via the Cape Route, from the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. These journeys would take at least six months, making these extensive trips particularly revealing of the power dynamics on board. Given that many ships prohibited women on board, Polónia and Capelão show how women would resort to clandestinity, transvestism, and negotiations with the crew to remain on board. These women used a variety of strategies to guarantee themselves enough privacy in order to be able to complete their travel. Women who received the Portuguese King’s consent to take part in the voyage were consigned to separate spaces mostly because they were seen either as a ‘temptation’, regarded as a distraction, or believed to require protection from the rest of the crew. That meant that, if identified by the crew as female, women would constantly be under surveillance on board. Children, on the other hand, were not only allowed on board but were also encouraged to start learning to service the ships early on. The authors show how women and children engaged with everyday life at sea and how they experienced the risks of the voyage differently from other sailors, thereby demonstrating how gender and age impacted the strategies of privacy on board. Concluding this section, Natália da Silva Perez’s “Privacy in Recife, Freedom in Amsterdam: Juliana’s Practical Strategies of Autonomy Across the Atlantic” presents the intersections of gender and race in the transatlantic context. Silva Perez explores how relationships of intimacy, privacy, and trust were created, used, and transformed between black people and their enslavers in the seventeenth century. She follows the case of Juliana, an enslaved black woman from Recife in Brazil who was brought to

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Amsterdam by her master Eliau Burgos, a merchant from the Sephardic Jewish community. This contribution analyses the notarial records left by Eliau Burgos and Juliana as well as Burgos’ legal demands following Juliana’s escape in Amsterdam after learning that she could claim her freedom in her new environment. Silva Perez presents the intricacies of the bonds of trust described by Burgos, how they reveal hints of intimacy between the two, and how the traversing of the ocean helped redefine the limits of their complex relationship. Recognising the sea as an in-between space with its own social and hierarchical dimensions, the contribution stresses how voyages across the Atlantic colonial nexus simultaneously enabled and curbed freedom and how intimacy strategies could be used as leverage in these negotiations of power.

The Private Under the Public Eye The spaces on board ships were confined, making it hard to snatch moments away from the presence of others. However, as we will see in this section, people were able to create privacy even under the public eye. Such privacy usually depended upon carefully orchestrated moments, a respect for the habits and timing of activities on board, and a willingness of crewmates to turn a blind eye. Besides this manoeuvring of social dynamics, the sounds of the ship or the sea could mask a private conversation, and even the passive motions of the routine on board could veil one’s presence.20 People could also actively use their bodies to create a pocket of privacy—apart from shielding one’s eyes and retreating to dark corners, keeping personal objects or letters literally close to the chest or even marking one’s skin with bodily modifications of personal significance would enable a sense of privacy on board. However, that does not mean that such privacy would be seen positively by others. Cabins, as a designated place for greater privacy, were under constant surveillance for suspicious activity. Denouncing (or even inventing) private habits or secret undertakings was a common strategy used against people when their presence became inconvenient, belligerent, or dangerous. The second section, entitled “The Private under the Public Eye”, begins with a deep dive into cases of mental illness on board. Catherine Beck’s “Breaching the Cabin Walls: Madness, Privacy, and Care at Sea in 20 Elin Jones, ‘Space, Sound and Sedition on the Royal Naval Ship, 1756–1815’, Journal of Historical Geography, 70 (2020), 71.

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the Eighteenth-Century British Navy” delves into naval court martials’ records and board surgeons’ logs, focusing on cases of madness at sea to understand how strategies of privacy helped sailors to protect or deal with mentally unstable crewmates. Beck dissects how cases of madness of both officials and crew members are depicted in the records and uses witness testimonials to reveal private spaces and negotiations of privacy on board. She points out how the fact that officials had private cabins did not necessarily imply that they had more privacy than others since the crew had continuous access to noises, lights, and the comings-and-goings of the officials. On the other hand, the crew developed a whole system of “noticing without taking notice” which was used to ensure a certain level of privacy and protect crewmates who had an episode of mental illness. This contribution highlights how the family-like bonds of the crew not only created systems of surveillance on board but also served to circumvent these systems when the crewmen deemed it necessary to do so in order to be able to maintain a balance in their life at sea. In “Some Sly Corner: Privacy and Sodomitical Space in the Georgian Royal Navy”, Seth LeJacq explores sodomy trials in the British Navy, a crime that could result in capital punishment. Considered a “secret and furtive” activity on board, sodomy coalesced several struggles of life at sea: for instance, misuse of private spaces, abuse of younger and lower-ranking crew members, lack of chances for intimacy, and struggles with sexuality. LeJacq stresses the culture of intense scrutiny of spaces, bodies, and activities on the navy ships. He describes how crew members would inspect sleeping spaces and watch, listen, touch, and even smell their suspected mates, developing a micropolitics of surveillance in which the desire for privacy could already be a reason for mistrust. On the other hand, these cases also show the malleability of how sexuality was understood at sea and how lower-status men employed strategies to deal with potential sexual abuse from their superiors, thereby navigating the tensions between privacy and surveillance of crew mates and authorities alike. “Anchors, Hearts, and Crosses: Multiple Ways of Tattoo Usage by Seamen” highlights the importance of bodily modifications as a way of establishing thresholds of ownership over one’s personhood in the challenging environment of maritime life. Philipp Schadner presents a historical outline of the practice of tattooing among sailors, making explicit how sea voyages enabled seamen to get in touch with indigenous tattooing traditions in the Americas and the Pacific Islands, which

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resulted in an association of bodily art to seafaring culture in the European context, especially in the eighteenth century. Schadner shows how tattoos worked as marks of ownership of the self and of affiliation to crew groups, becoming the only stable private property in the precarious positions these seamen found themselves in most of the time. Tattoos existed in these in-between spaces between public display and private communication, being only understandable to insiders of that particular culture. They became “objects of privacy”, compensating for the lack of privacy on board with a permanent mark of their agency, individuality, and sense of belonging to a seafaring culture that could not be taken away from them like the rest of their belongings.

Politics, Communication, and Intelligence As the ultimate connector of early modern colonial empires, the sea was one of the main conveyors of political secrets. Secrecy and privacy are closely related concepts, so much so that they are often used interchangeably.21 While a distinction is useful to tackle the different dimensions in which the terms are used, ‘secrecy’ often appears as a cognate to privacy in the medieval22 and early modern periods.23 Even when considered as separate conceptual entities, secrecy and privacy are co-dependent in historical contexts. Secrecy was a tool used to establish different levels of privacy, while secrecy depended on privacy for secrets to be maintained. Political secrets were often what could be considered the ‘private matters’ of the state.24 As paradoxical as this sounds, early modern politics was embedded in private networks and depended intrinsically on personal

21 Sissela Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 11. 22 Diana Webb, Privacy and Solitude in the Middle Ages (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007), xv–xvi. 23 Bruun, ‘Towards an approach to early modern privacy’, 21–22. 24 This goes directly against Beate Roessler’s claim that “[w]hat is secret can be private,

but is not necessarily so, as when, for example, one speaks of state secrets”. See Roessler, The Value of Privacy, 12. Her definition, based mainly on Sissela Bok’s work on secrets, is a crucial one in terms of establishing the boundaries between the two concepts. However, as we will show, politics in the early modern period was intrinsically bound to elements of privacy.

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connections.25 Private and public were categories that blended into each other at several levels in the making of politics and in the living aspects of the state as constituted by historical agents. With regard to pre-modern realities, Michael McKeon has observed that “the differential relationship between public and private modes of experience is conceived as a distinction that does not admit of separation”.26 As such, private matters of the state would include personal details of rulers’ lives, the interpersonal negotiations of war and commerce that needed to be kept under wraps,27 unusual alliance-seeking practices, and frequently, the sharing of private information of political relevance in blatant disregard of individual boundaries. These public–private issues demanded carefully-crafted systems of communication at a distance, specialised agents of intelligence, and personalised diplomatic efforts.28 In this section, we will focus on the relationship between secrecy, diplomacy, and trade, showing how systems of private communications across the sea depended on codes, intimate human connections, and concealment practices which did not always work as intended. In “Secrecy, War, and Communication: Challenges and Strategies of the General-Government of the State of Brazil in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century”, Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo examines how the sea became a space that simultaneously challenged and protected political privacy on the coast of Brazil in the midst of the conflict between Portuguese and Dutch naval forces. Araújo demonstrates how naval disputes over the Brazilian territories affected the communication between the different regions and how secrecy was employed to maintain private communication in a colonial environment. Through the examination of encrypted letters, this contribution highlights what kind

25 See Neighbors et al., eds., Notions of Privacy in Early Modern Courts: Reassessing the Public/Private Divide, 1400–1800 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming). 26 McKeon, The Secret History of Domesticity, xix. 27 See Thomas Max Safley, ‘The Paradox of Secrecy: Merchant Families, Family Firms,

and the Porous Boundaries between Private and Public Business Life in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, in Green et al., Early Modern Notions of Privacy, 245–265. 28 Dustin Neighbors and Natacha Klein Käfer, ‘Zones of Privacy in the Letters of Women of Power: Elizabeth I of England and Anna of Saxony’, Royal Studies Journal, 9 (1) (2022).

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of information was meant to be kept private and what was at stake when messages were seized from ships and decoded by adversaries. In “The Spinola System for Maritime Postal Exchanges between the Madrid Nunciature and the Roman Curia (1645–1658)”, Alessia Ceccarelli examines the strategies to keep correspondence private by focusing on a particular family and their meddling in foreign affairs in the seventeenth century. With their heavy footing in the trade of diplomatic correspondence, the Spinola family managed to establish a significant network which gave Geronimo Spinola the title of Postmaster in Genoa. This position came with great responsibilities and high scrutiny, given the potential for espionage and betrayal of confidential political information. To handle political correspondence, the Spinola system employed a complex method of concealment of information, using sea routes to avoid interceptions of potential adversaries. Ceccarelli provides us with a closer look at the protective measures utilised to guarantee privacy of early modern postal communications, thus highlighting how political relations and postal regulations depended heavily on the private maritime endeavours of highly connected families. Diego Pizzorno delves deeper into issues of espionage and its agents in “A Very Secret Intelligence: The Parallel Espionage of the Republic of Genoa in the State of the Presìdi”. Pizzorno examines the parallel intelligence network enacted through Genoese merchant ships, which operated independently from the institutional intelligence of the State Inquisitors. This is a complicated history to reconstruct, as the systems of privacy in place to protect intelligence agents often worked well enough to not leave much of a record behind for scholars to tackle. By gathering small pieces of evidence left behind and contextualising them within the convoluted events of the local disputes, Pizzorno shows us how these particular agents could enjoy both suspicion and protection from oligarchs and officials. Their ambiguous position enabled certain instances of privacy as they were able to operate independently. On the other hand, their unofficial standing also curbed their privacy as they were subjected to the investigation of the institutional agents. By looking at these spies’ encounters on board ships and at ports, this chapter is able to augment discussions of the relationship between state and private endeavours, showing how individual spies could negotiate private and political information in order to navigate the precarious positions they often found themselves in.

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Legal, Military, and Religious Perspectives from the Sea to the Shore Privacy can take different dimensions in specific early modern literary genres. By reading navigation treatises or travel accounts against the grain, one can find hidden instances of notions of privacy being defined—or invented—for particular groups of people. Especially when contrasted with contextual and detailed sources (such as accounting books), these particular texts reveal the uniqueness of each sea as a cultural environment. Moreover, this source combination highlights how these maritime cultures clashed at the shore, showing us how coastal areas had to adapt to the new conditions of their seas, environmentally, politically, socially, or even militarily speaking.29 In “Seas, Galleys, and Laws: Antonio Guevara’s Del arte de marear (1539)”, José María Martín Humanes looks at the impact of a particular navigation treatise in the development of maritime law in Spain. Del arte de marear provides a detailed account of Iberian naval tradition, the experiences of people at sea, and embedded systems of privacy in the Iberian maritime legal space based on the customs and practices detailed by the Spanish chronicler Antonio Guevara. Humanes uses Guevara’s writings to describe how the lower-status members of the galleys could strive to enjoy privacy, while the same privacy could also be seen as a threat to the authorities who saw the potential for insubordination in the crew’s private moments. This contribution shows how literary accounts can add nuance to our understanding of the private lives of people we have few sources about and also demonstrate that such texts had a broader impact on the development of laws and regulations beyond their value as entertainment. Shifting from ships to the shore, A. Jorge Aguilera-López analyses the case of the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona after the location went from being an essential base in the Mediterranean to receiving a secondary level of attention once the focus turned to the Atlantic in the late sixteenth century. The resulting lack of work and delayed wages created a scenario in which the soldiers became unruly and challenged civil-military relationships. In “‘[They] Are Not of Any Service, Except for Wasting Wages and Burning a Lot of Timber’: The Soldiers of the Guard of the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona (1575–1600)”, Aguilera-López describes 29 Joana Gaspar de Freitas, Robert James, and Isaac Land, ‘Coastal Studies and Society: The Tipping Point’, Coastal Studies & Society, 1 (1) (2022), 3–9.

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how macro-political and military changes affected communities on a smaller scale and how naval developments impacted the population on shore. This contribution exposes how militarised efforts can exacerbate local tensions, using the Shipyard guard as an example of how soldiers enforcing political forces could escalate already dire problems such as border tensions and social unease. As the population protested the presence of the Shipyard guard, the soldiers’ private daily lives became the focus of scrutiny: the sources describe their habits, vices, and crimes, connecting broader social anxieties with individual godlessness. The last contribution of this section, Jelena Baki´c’s “The Eastern Adriatic and Privacy in Sixteenth-Century Italian Travel Narratives”, looks at the transcultural perspective of privacy through the ways in which Italian travellers described their encounters with peoples, habits, and spaces along the Adriatic Sea. The eastern Adriatic was the path between the Levant and the Mediterranean as well as a route of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As this space lay in between destinations for Italian travellers, Ragusan ships and the shores along the Adriatic were seen by the Italian writers with a mix of otherness and familiarity. As such, these travel narratives create an imagined sense of what private lives in the Adriatic context would look like, describing imagined privacies that reveal some of their own anxieties about private relationships, customs, and prejudices. Baki´c demonstrates how the encounter between cultures engendered expectations of the private from outsiders and how the sea becomes a point of contact between othering and coming together. Finally, Mette Birkedal Bruun and I explore the potential of combining privacy studies and maritime history for understanding the early modern world in “Pockets of Privacy in the Maritime World: An Epilogue”. We look at the intersections of boundaries and thresholds that people created and crossed while trying to navigate privacy at sea. Together, the contributions to this volume demonstrate that conflict and consensus, confinement and mobility, and surveillance and support could go hand-inhand as people faced spatial, environmental, and cultural transformations in their lives at and around the sea.

Primary Sources Pereira, Nuno Marques, Compendio narrativo do peregrino da America (Lisbon: Manoel Fernandes da Costa, 1731).

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Bibliography Ariès, Philippe and Duby, Georges, Histoire de la vie privée: L’Univers historique (Paris: Seuil, 1985). Bok, Sissela, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (New York: Vintage Books, 1989). Bruun, Mette Birkedal, ‘Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé’ in Early Modern Notions of Privacy, eds. Michaël Green, Lars C. Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Leiden: Brill, 2021). Burg, B.R., Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Freitas, Joana Gaspar de, James, Robert and Land, Isaac, ‘Coastal Studies and Society: The Tipping Point’, Coastal Studies & Society, 1 (1) (2022), 3–9. Head, David, Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2015). Hughes, Kirsty, ‘A Behavioural Understanding of Privacy and Its Implications for Privacy Law’, The Modern Law Review, 75 (5) (2012), 806–836. Jones, Elin, ‘Space, Sound and Sedition on the Royal Naval Ship, 1756–1815’, Journal of Historical Geography, 70 (2020), 65–73. Margulis, Stephen T., ‘Privacy as a Social Issue and Behavioral Concept’, Journal of Social Issues, 59, (2) (2003), 243–261. McKeon, Michael, The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Nauman, Sari and Vogt, Helle, eds. Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). Neighbors, Dustin and Käfer, Natacha Klein, ‘Zones of Privacy in the Letters of Women of Power: Elizabeth I of England and Anna of Saxony’, Royal Studies Journal, 9 (1) (2022). Neighbors, Dustin et al, eds., Notions of Privacy in Early Modern Courts: Reassessing the Public/Private Divide, 1400–1800 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming). Netten, Djoeke van, ‘Spaces on Ships: Secrecy and Privacy in the Dutch East India Companies’, TSEG, 18 (3) (2021), 107–124. Orlin, Lena Cowen, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Pres 2008). Paine, Lincoln P., The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World, first ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013). Perl-Rosenthal, Nathan ‘Reading Cargoes: Letters and the Problem of Nationality in the Age of Privateering’ in A World at Sea: Maritime Practices and Global History, eds. Lauren Benton and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 75–88.

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Roessler, Beate. The Value of Privacy (Cambridge: Polity, 2005). Safley, Thomas Max, ‘The Paradox of Secrecy: Merchant Families, Family Firms, and the Porous Boundaries between Private and Public Business Life in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Early Modern Privacy. Sources and Approaches, eds. Michaël Green, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021), 245–265. Silva Perez, Natália da, ed., TSEG Special Issue: Privacy and the Private in Early Modern Dutch Contexts, 18 (3) (2021). ———, ‘Privacy and Social Spaces’, The Low Countries Journal of Economic and Social History (TSEG), 18 (3) (2021), 5–16. Sloot, Bart and Groot, Aviva, eds., The Handbook of Privacy Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018). Starkey, David John, Moor, Jaap de, and Heslinga, E.S. van Eyck van, eds., Pirates and Privateers: New Perspectives on the War on Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997). Vincent, David, Privacy: A Short History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016). Webb, Diana, Privacy and Solitude in the Middle Ages (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007). Weintraub, Jeff, ‘The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction’ in Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, eds. Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 1–42.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

PART I

Privacy, Race, and Gender

CHAPTER 2

Black Seamen’s Privacy in an ‘Anxious Atlantic’ Charles R. Foy

British identity in the eighteenth century was, in part, based upon the legal right to move where one wanted.1 Yet, when a seaman came aboard a ship in an Anglo-American port, he moved from cities in which he had freedom of movement into a maritime world where “control and surveillance” was a central feature.2 Service on eighteenth-century Anglo-American Atlantic ships involved living within a strict hierarchical structure. Commands by officers were to be obeyed, not questioned. On large ships, seamen worked in regimented watches, and the determination of who did what task—be it reefing the sails, steering the ship, or supervising the provisions—was “elaborate and formal”. The efficient 1 Jack P. Greene, ed., Exclusionary empire: English liberty overseas, 1600–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 3. 2 Stuart Elden and Jeremy W. Crampton, Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007), 2.

C. R. Foy (B) Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_2

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operation of these ships relied upon tight discipline, rigorous oversight of the crew, and rigidly proscribing the use of the ship’s confined spaces in order to ensure that ship owners’ goals, be they mercantile profits or naval supremacy, were met.3 Over the course of the eighteenth century, Blacks entered these cramped regulated maritime spaces in ever-increasing numbers. By the middle of the century, Blacks were a common sight on Anglo-American ships. They were not merely enslaved property, tightly wedged into the holds of slave ships but worked as crew on a wide variety of vessels, including Rhode Island coasters, Pennsylvania ferries, South Carolina schooners, Bristol slave ships, London merchant ships, Bermuda sloops, Royal Navy men-of-war, and West Indian drogers. Censuses and ship musters evidence Blacks’ substantial participation in the Anglo-American maritime economy. For example, in 1720, 29.4% of Antigua’s seamen were Blacks, in 1743, there were 41 Black mariners among 135 American sailors in Kingston, and in 1783, 481 Black seamen served on 86 Bermudian vessels.4 The author’s Black Mariner Database, a dataset of more than 44,000 eighteenth-century Black mariners and maritime fugitives, indicates that more than 3,000 readily identifiable Blacks served in the Royal Navy, with hundreds of other Blacks enlisting in the Continental and American state navies and thousands working on merchant vessels, resulting in not less than 34,000 Blacks being employed on vessels 3 N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005), 320–322; Brian Lavery, Royal Tars: The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, 875–1850 (London: Conway, 2010), 173–177; Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the AngloAmerican Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 207–209; Daniel Vickers and Vince Walsh, Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 89–91; Peter Earle, Sailors: English Merchant Seamen 1650–1775 (London: Methuen, 2007), 40–43; Michel Foucault, ‘Space, Knowledge, and Power’ in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 235. Maritime hierarchy was considerably looser on smaller vessels and those that travelled short distances. See Vickers, Young Men and the Sea, 225. However, this does not obviate the fact that seamen were subject to regular “control and surveillance”. 4 David Barry Gaspar, Bondsmen and Rebels: A Study of Master–Slave Relations in

Antigua (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 110; Edward Trelawny to Lords of Admiralty, 21 December 1743, The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom (“TNA”) ADM 1/3917; Virginia Bernhard, Slaves and Slaveholders in Bermuda, 1616– 1782 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 247. ‘Black’ refers to a person of African ancestry.

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throughout the Atlantic.5 Many of these Black seamen were formerly enslaved individuals who found freedom by providing labour to ship captains in need of hands.6 Blacks also comprised a significant portion of eighteenth-century French, Dutch, and Spanish ship crews. Throughout the eighteenth century, the crews of French privateers captured by the Royal Navy often included considerable numbers of Black sailors. For example, among the crew of nine French privateers captured by the HMS Amazon in 1758, over 22% were Black. The presence of Blacks on French privateers became even more prevalent during the Revolutionary period, and Spanish Costa Guarda and privateer vessels in the western Atlantic were regularly described as having crews comprised “chiefly [of] mulattoes and Negroes”.7 Captains typically had their own cabins and on larger ships, other officers had them as well. These small spaces provided officers both privacy and a means of reinforcing status. The eighteenth century was a period when the architecture of spaces was changing to reflect “increasing concern for privacy”. Notwithstanding this increased concern for privacy, seamen of the era experienced no greater privacy than did the seamen of earlier periods. Sailors were typically denied exclusive claim on any space aboard ships.8 The notable exception to seamen’s lack of private space 5 The Black Mariner Database has 51 fields of data from archives across the Atlantic

on readily identifiable Black mariners and maritime fugitives (enslaved individuals who sought freedom by fleeing via the sea). As many records of the period do not indicate the race of a seaman, the BMD should not be seen as a definitive statistical overview of Black maritime life. However, the scale of the BMD provides “information we need to assess the typicality” of Blacks’ maritime experiences. Geoffrey Plank, ‘Sailing with John Woolman’, Early American Studies, 7 (1) (Spring 2009), 51. 6 Charles R. Foy, ‘Seeking Freedom in the Atlantic World, 1713–1783’, Early American Studies (“EAS”), 4 (1) (Spring 2006), 46–77; Henry Snow. ‘Fugitive Harbour: Labour, Community, and Marronage at Antigua Naval Yard’, Slavery & Abolition (“S&A”), 42 (1) (2021), 1–23. 7 Charles R. Foy, ‘Eighteenth Century French Atlantic Black Seamen’, Lumières, 35 (2021), 27–31; Jeremy Young, ‘Looking for black sailors in the eighteenth-century navy’, International Maritime History Journal (“IJMH ”), 34 (4) (2022), 269–270; Linda Rupert, ‘Marronage, Manumission and Maritime Trade in the Early Modern Caribbean’, S&A, 30 (3) (2009), 367–68. (“By 1740s, two thirds of [Curacoa] sailors were black”); Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 30 September 1742; Daily Journal (London), 27 August 1728. 8 Jose María Martín Humanes, ‘Seas, Galleys, and Laws: Antonio de Guevara Del arte de marear (1959)’ in this volume, 197; Patricia Meyer Spacks, ‘Scandal and Privacy: Two Eighteenth-Century Women’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 55

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aboard ships was that they were sometimes granted privileges to store goods on board for their own trading account.9 The limited space on ships meant that sailors were rarely alone. They slept in hammocks in open spaces and, with the exception of seamen’s chests, did not have spaces to themselves. Although seamen may have had limited privacy on board, for Black seamen who had escaped enslavement, life in the cramped spaces of the forecastles of ships was a welcome change from being continually under the watchful gaze of an overseer or a slave owner. These differences in control of shipboard spaces illustrate that on sailing ships, the history of spaces is the history of power.10 In the Age of Sail, race profoundly shaped individual seamen’s privacy. Privacy is predicated upon “the need to maintain control over personal space, the body, and information about oneself”.11 This need to maintain control over one’s personal space and body was critical in the lives of eighteenth-century Black mariners. Black tars’ ability “to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them [wa]s communicated to others” was crucial to their ability to protect their personhood, maintain their freedom, and assert their chosen identities.12 Many had previously been enslaved and resented the absolute control slave owners had had over their lives. When on ships, Black seamen’s primary tool to maintain privacy—a tool which was denied to them when they were enslaved on land—was locked seamen’s chests. Seamen’s chests gave formerly enslaved Blacks a degree of control over their personhood (2) (2002), 74; Tita Chico, ‘Privacy and Speculation in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Cultural Critique, 52 (2002), 41; Lavery, Royal Tars, 172. 9 Clarence Maxwell, ‘Enslaved Merchants, Enslaved Merchant-Mariners, and the Bermuda Conspiracy of 1761’, EAS, 7 (1) (2009), 152–153. Free Black seamen took advantage of privileges in order to be able to establish economic independence. Tobey Negro, Portage bill at New Providence, February 1760, B.467 F.1, Brown Family Papers, John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island (“JCBL”); Copy of Vice-Admiralty Court, New Providence, Decree, dated 14 July 1760, Obadiah Brown & Co. Papers, B.633 F.3, JCBL; Prince Waterman, Sloop Four Brothers Portage Bill, 1 April 1763, B.707 F.4, JCBL. 10 Michel Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture. Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–

1984 (New York: Routledge, 1988), 36. 11 Jan Holvast, ‘The History of Privacy’ in The Future of Identity in the Information Society, eds. V. Matyáš et al. (Berlin: Springer, 2009), 15. 12 Stephen T. Margulis, ‘On the Status and Contribution of Westin’s and Altman’s Theories of Privacy’, Journal of Social Issues, 59 (2) (2003), 412; Daniel J. Solove, ‘Conceptualizing Privacy’, California Law Review, 90 (4) (2002), 1092.

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not possible while enslaved on land. When Newport, a seaman on the Continental Navy ship Warren, and other Black tars paid for keys to keep their chests locked, they were erecting barriers to create personal spaces and enable themselves to withhold information from others.13 Both seamen and maritime fugitives brought on board Atlantic ships seamen’s chests, such as the chest which the American Timothy Board “made and used” aboard the privateer Oliver Cromwell in 1776. When the mulatto bondsman William fled enslavement in New York by passage on “some outward bound vessel” in 1799, he took with him a chest.14 These wooden structures were small and typically stored in the ship’s forecastle. Clothing, letters, artefacts, trading goods (legal and illicit), diaries, identification documents, as well as monies were stored in the chests. Chests were not only used for storage but also served as seats where seamen read and sometimes served as a “bed at night”.15 The importance of the chests can be seen by the care which the Royal Navy took to ensure that they remained safe and that seamen were able to leave ships with their chests intact. The Navy had a well-thought-out system for the transport of chests onto its ships by which it hired Richard Clark & Co. and other private contractors to carry the chests to their proper locations and keep receipts for the chests issued so that they could be tracked. When a sea battle commenced, chests “either went into the hold or into the ship’s boats” both to clear the decks for action and to protect the chests and their contents.16 The importance of seamen’s chests was recognised 13 Naval Documents of the American Revolution, William James Morgan, ed. (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1976) (“NDAR”) 7: 1329; Kristy Hughes, ‘A Behavioural Understanding of Privacy and its Implications for Privacy Law’, The Modern Law Review, 75 (5) (2012), 809–810. 14 Log-book of Timothy Boardman, Kept on Board the Privateer Oliver Cromwell, ed. Rev. Samuel W. Boardman (Albany: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1895), 27; Daily Advertiser (New York), 5 October 1799. 15 Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 160; Samuel Kelly, Samuel Kelly: An Eighteenth Century Seaman whose Days have been few and evil, to which is added remarks etc. on the places he visited during his pilgrimage in the wilderness (New York: Francis A. Stokes, Company, 1925), 187; Gabriel Bray, ‘Seamen Relaxing on the Pallas ’, [Bray Album], National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK (“NMM”) PAJ2023; Michael J. Crawford, ed., Autobiography of a Yankee Mariner: Christopher Prince and the American Revolution (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2002), 229. 16 Richard Clarke and Co., 20 May 1776 request for payment, TNA ADM 106/ 1233/315; J.D. Davies, Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and War, 1649–1689 (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2008).

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even by enemy forces. When captured, the normal (although not always followed) procedure would be that imprisoned seamen would “carry their little trunks with them” aboard the enemy ship.17 Breaking open one’s seaman’s chest was viewed as a serious infraction. On land, a slave master could enter a slave quarter without asking. While a bondsman may have been angered by such an intrusion, there was no expectation of privacy and a slave’s anger at the master’s entering was not countenanced.18 In contrast, seamen had clear expectations that their seaman’s chest was a zone of privacy that they controlled. When a White man on St. Eustatius with whom Olaudah Equiano, the most wellknown eighteenth-century Black seaman, had a trade dispute threatened to “break open” Equiano’s chest and take his money, Equiano bristled with anger at this potential invasion of his privacy. The White man was attempting to take advantage of Equiano’s captain not being on the ship and assumed that Equiano would not dare get into a fight with him on a slave island. Fortunately for Equiano, a British seaman interceded, thereby ensuring that the chest remained locked.19 Although seamen’s chests were useful for Black seamen to store critical documentation of their free status, when British and American ships were captured, enemy ships not infrequently broke open the chests. This was usually done because it was common knowledge that sailors often kept illicit smuggled goods in their chests. Thus, when a Spanish Guarda Costa stopped Captain Jenkins in the infamous incident that helped start the War of Jenkins’ Ear, it was said that before they cut off Captain Jenkins’ ear, the Spaniards “broke open all [the] hatches, Lockers and Chests” on Jenkins’ ship. Similar news accounts of Spanish Guarda Costa breaking open the chests of British seamen were commonplace in the 1730s.20 It can be said that although the key to a seaman’s chest offered privacy to a 17 Naval documents related to the Quasi-war between the United States and France (Washington, DC: U.S. Printing Office, 1935), 1: 24. 18 Benjamin Douglas to the King, Recognizance Pursuant to the Condition of the Pardon of the Negro Man Named Falmouth, Misc., New York Historical Society, Mss. B. Douglas, 28 November 1770. 19 Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written by Himself (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 2004 [1789]), 159. 20 London Evening Post, 15 June 1731; New York Weekly Journal, 13 June 1738. The Guarda Costa breaking open British seamen’s chests was often due to an awareness that many British vessels were engaged in illicit trade with Spanish settlers in the Caribbean.

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sailor, the key was hardly an unstoppable barrier. This meant that for Black mariners, their privacy—and, therefore, their freedom—was very fragile. In the Age of Sail, seamen were easily identified by the tarred breeches they wore. Enslaved individuals and indentured servants were also similarly demarcated by the wearing of ozenbrig clothing. The rough striped clothing identified bondsmen as the property of another. For the hundreds of maritime fugitives who sought freedom through work at sea, changing from ozenbrig to tarred breeches was a critical step in their transformation to being treated as free rather than enslaved.21 Just as women at sea used clothes to hide their identities in order to stay aboard the masculine environment of a ship, maritime fugitives too used sailors’ dress to conceal their identities as former slaves in order to serve at sea and avoid re-enslavement. To be successful in their attempts to obtain a berth, escapees sometimes bartered clothes they stole for slops or sailors’ clothes.22 Once they entered on a ship, seamen’s chests provided maritime fugitives with a place and a means to hide evidence of their enslaved past. However, locked chests were not an absolute bar to others discovering that a Black tar had fled enslavement. When owners of formerly enslaved Black seamen claimed the men as their bondsmen, the tars often found themselves “returned to [their] owners” by the Royal Navy, as happened to William Stephens in Portsmouth, England, in 1759, John Incobs in New York in 1764, and a person named Dublin in St. Augustine in 1785.23 How each of these men’s former owners, as well as the owners of others who, like them, had been returned to enslavement, found out about the whereabouts of the seamen, is unknown. What is known is that slave owners’ trans-Atlantic connections often proved stronger than Black sailors’ ability to keep private their former enslaved status. 21 Foy, ‘Seeking Freedom in the Atlantic World’, 59, 62. 22 Amelia Polónia and Rosa Capelão, ‘Women and Children on Board: The case of

the Carreira da India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in this volume. Slops or sailors’ clothes were provided to naval seamen who lacked them upon entry onto a ship. “Pea Jackets, Waist-Coats, Shirts and Trousers for Sailors” were advertised for sale on both sides of the Anglo-American Atlantic. American Weekly Mercury (Philadelphia), 24 July 1735; R. Campbell, The London Tradesman (London: David & Charles, 1969 [1747]), 301. 23 HMS Garlands Muster, 1764, TNA ADM 36/7390; Letter of Vice Admiral Francis Holburne, 8 December 1758, TNA ADM 1/927; HMS Jason Muster, 1758–59, TNA ADM 36/5889; HM Galley Arbutnot Muster, 1783–1786, TNA ADM 36/10426.

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Maritime historians have often asserted that “circumstances compelled the common seaman both to emphasise teamwork and to categorically reject behaviour that posed a threat to this solidarity”. Seamen needed to shift their allegiance from home to ship in order to create the necessary cohesion among the crew, making fitting in a key part of being a sailor. With captains recruiting “with more of an eye to muscle than complexion” and offering “a relative degree of equality” on board, there were many opportunities for fugitive slaves to transform themselves by entering on board a ship.24 Thus, while work at sea offered economic independence and a path to freedom, it also often required Blacks to keep parts of their personality or culture that were not appreciated by the larger group to themselves. Was the failure to do so the reason why the Black naval boatswain Fielding found his crewmates had “taken a Dislike” to his colour, prompting him to ask to be relieved of his post?25 From the limited historical record of the incident, we cannot say for certain, although it appears that this might have been a factor in the rift among the ship’s crew. Writing privately about how one might not agree with one’s crewmates offered seamen an opportunity to maintain private identities that might not be appreciated by others in a ship’s forecastle. Having a key to lock one’s chest enabled those Black seamen who were literate to write such private thoughts without risking their relationships with other crew members. Shipboard culture, naval regulations, and Admiralty Courts regarded chests as a tar’s private space which they controlled. However, for Black sailors, the privacy of their seamen’s chests was far more pivotal than it was for other mariners. Breaking into a Black tar’s chest did not simply result in the sailor losing some monies, clothes, or having his private thoughts

24 Brian Rouleau, ‘Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Folklore, Fraternity, and the Forecastle’,

EAS, (2007), 32, 34; W. Jeffrey Bolster, ‘To Feel Like a Man: Black Seamen in the Northern States, 1800–1860’, Journal of American History, 76 (1990), 1179. This relative equality on board Anglo-American ships does not mean that Blacks did not experience disparate treatment. Charles R. Foy, ‘Compelled to Row: Blacks on Royal Navy Galleys During the American Revolution’ in Journal of the American Revolution: Annual Volume 2019, ed. Don N. Hagist (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2019), 258–268; Charles R. Foy, ‘The Royal Navy’s Employment of Black Mariners and Maritime Workers, 1754– 1783’, IJHM , 28 (1) (2016), 6–35; Vickers, Young Men and the Sea, 239–241. 25 Philip D. Morgan, ‘Black Experiences in Britain’s Maritime World’, in Empire, the Sea, and Global History: Britain’s Maritime World, C.1763–c.1840, ed. David Cannadine (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 123.

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read. The contents of a Black seaman’s chest could—and often did— determine whether they remained free or were enslaved. Freedom papers, certificates of protection, and ecclesiastical documents, typically stored in seamen’s chests, were frequently the only means that Black seamen could use to protect themselves from enslavement, imprisonment, and impressment. This crucial need for Black tars to restrict others’ access to their belongings put the privacy needs of Black sailors in conflict with the needs and desires of many Whites who wished to profit from the work of Black seamen.26 The willingness of White men to kidnap and enslave free Black sailors, their selling of captured Black seamen as prize goods, the treatment of captured Black seamen as property and not prisoners of war by Admiralty Courts, and the impressment of Black tars who lacked proof of free status created what I have termed an ‘Anxious Atlantic’, i.e. an oceanic basin in which Black tars could never be certain that they would remain free.27 Privacy was both a means to create and maintain one’s identity, and it was central to Black tars’ ability to remain free. As a result, in the Anxious Atlantic, the small wooden chests that Black sailors brought aboard ships became sites of racialised conflict as duplicitous ship captains, enemy captors, and racist shipmates all sought to steal, confiscate, or tear apart the slips of papers contained in the chests and, in doing so, doom Black seamen to enslavement. In short, for Black tars, maintaining privacy meant maintaining freedom. Many American and British ship captains and White sailors believed that they could profit from the capture and sale of Black seamen. From White seamen’s first contact with Blacks on the coast of Africa, this attitude put Black mariners at risk of enslavement. European slave traders regularly kidnapped African canoemen and sailors.28 By the eighteenth century, the kidnapping of Black mariners became a consistent feature of 26 Seth Le Jecq, ‘Some Sly Corner: Privacy and Sodomitical Space in the Royal Navy’, in this volume. 27 Charles R. Foy, ‘Eighteenth Century Prize Negroes: From Britain to America’, S&A, 31 (3) (2010): 379–393. The concept of an ‘Anxious Atlantic’ is described in my recent articles ‘Eighteenth Century French Atlantic Black Seamen’, 31–33 and ‘Black Tars’ in Britain’s Black Past, ed. Gretchen Gerzina (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), 63–80. 28 Randy Sparks, ‘Gold Coast Merchant Families, Pawning, awning, and the EighteenthCentury British Slave Trade’, William & Mary Quarterly (“W&MQ ”), 70 (2) (2013), 325–327; Gerhard de Kok and Harvey M. Feinberg, ‘‘Illegal’ Enslavement, Freedom and

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Atlantic maritime culture. While the kidnapping of Equiano’s friend and shipmate, John Annis may be the most well-known example, the BMD contains more than sixty cases of Black seamen being kidnapped. South Carolina (“many are kidnapped”), Rhode Island, the Wine Islands, and England are but four of the many Atlantic locales where Black seamen were sold into enslavement.29 As Equiano noted with regard to Annis, many of these Black seamen had no family. The kidnapping activities of White men were often made possible due to Black tars’ lack of family connections in faraway locales.30 The kidnapping of Black seamen was sporadic and done by individuals or small groups of Whites. More threatening to their freedom—and a procedure in which privacy played a significant role—was being captured and sold as prize goods. British and American courts both presumed that Blacks captured at sea were slaves and placed the burden on them to prove otherwise. Given that captured Black tars were hundreds and even thousands of miles away from relatives and friends who could send appropriate baptismal papers, manumission papers, or other documents evidencing their free status and Vice Admiralty prize proceedings were typically concluded within weeks, if not days, the legal presumption that captured

the Pursuit of Justice in Dutch Courts, 1746–1750’, Journal of Global Slavery, 1 (2–3) (2016), 282. 29 London Chronicle, 27 April 1774; Equiano, Interesting Narrative, 291–295; Granville Sharp Commonplace Books, Gloucester Records Office (“GRO”), D3549/13/4/1; Obadiah Moses Brown Papers, Series I, Correspondence, Rhode Island Historical Society. 30 There were groups of abolitionists who did assist Black seamen, Granville Sharp being the most well-known. However, even Sharp recognised the fragility of Black seamen’s lives. He noted that “a delay of even a single minute” in obtaining a writ of habeus corpus could result in Whites successfully kidnapping a Black tar. Letter of 1 August 1787, Granville Sharp letters to Archbishop of Canterbury, Granville Sharp Papers, GRO D3549/13/C3.

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Black seamen were slaves worked to enslave considerable numbers of free Black seamen.31 Privateers and Royal Navy crews each viewed Black seamen as potential objects of profit. As the Vice Admiralty Court in Barbados observed in 1795, “the practice […] has been to consider Negroes captured from the Enemy as property and consequently condemnable as Prize”.32 Numerous Black sailors on French, Spanish, and Dutch vessels, such as Francisco and Domingo del Camp who served during wartime, found themselves brought before British and American Admiralty Courts throughout the Atlantic. The scale of White exploitation of captured Black sailors can be seen by the more than 1,200 cases in the Black Mariner Database of Black tars being sold as prize goods. Black seamen’s frustration at their loss of freedom is evident from their resistance to having been sold as chattel. Some, such as Patrick Dennis, an able-bodied seaman captured from the British naval schooner Racehorse, fled enslavement in the Americas and were able to obtain a berth on a ship away from their enslavers. Others, such as the “great Number of Spanish and other Prize Negroes” who in 1743 conspired to steal a privateer sloop, found themselves re-enslaved.33 Whites profiting from selling captured Black seamen continued through the end of the century, even in places where slavery was being abolished. Isaac, a free Black captured during the American Revolution, found himself sold as a prize good in Philadelphia when the Commissary of Prisoners and part owner of the privateer refused to return to the sailor his freedom papers. Five years after the end 31 Serena Zabin, Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 106–131; Foy, ‘Eighteenth-Century Prize Negroes’. Over time, both British and American courts reversed this presumption. However, American officials warning ship captains during the American Revolution that Blacks serving on their ships were “no means liable to be sold merely because they are black” and British Vice Admiralty Courts condemning captured Black seamen into the 1790s is strong evidence that many Whites continued to equate blackness with enslavement. Naval Documents of the American Revolution (NDAR), 8: 930–931; Our Lord the King v Twenty-Eight Negroes, 2 February 1795, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, CAL 127. 32 Nathaniel Whitting Records, 1773–74, Mss 9001-W, RIHS; Edward Long Vice Admiralty Judge to William Henry Lyttleton, 10 January 1762, TNA CO 137/61, ff. 82–83; Our Lord the King v Twenty-Eight Negroes, 2 February 1795, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, CAL 127. 33 Boston News-Letter, 10 February 1743; Pennsylvania Evening Post (Philadelphia), 4 February 1777; Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 9 July 1777.

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of the war, at a time when Pennsylvania was undergoing gradual abolition of slavery, this breach of his privacy resulted in Isaac still struggling to be set free.34 Enslaved seamen who were hired out on to ships were particularly vulnerable. Slave owners hired their slaves to ship captains when other less risky and more profitable endeavours were not available on land. In 1781, Joe was one of seven Black enslaved seamen serving on the HM Galley Cornwallis . Hired out by his Virginia Loyalist owner to the Royal Navy, Joe found himself captured by the American privateer Ariel . Brought to Puerto Rico, Joe and the other Black sailors were sold into slavery hundreds of miles away from family and friends. Unlike the Curacao owners of enslaved seamen, the Loyalists who hired their bondsmen on to the Cornwallis did not provide Joe and his colleagues with temporary manumission certificates to protect them from being treated as prize goods who could be sold as slaves after being captured at sea.35 Lacking freedom papers left the Black seamen of the Cornwallis and many other Black tars vulnerable to being enslaved far away from family and friends. Black seamen’s concerns that freedom documents being stolen or destroyed would lead to being sold as prize goods were not limited to sailors captured by British or American vessels. Both Spanish and French vessels treated captured Black mariners as cargo and not as free men. British officials frequently complained that the French ships were also selling free Black sailors as prize goods when condemning captured British ships. In making such complaints, British officials spoke of the “great prejudice” that occurred when such men were “sold as slaves by the French”.36 Impressment of Black seamen also was often predicated upon a breach of their privacy. When impressment of American sailors became a highly

34 J. Franklin Jameson, Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period (New York: MacMillan Co., 1923), 399–400, 411, 414; Foy, ‘Eighteenth-Century Prize Negroes’, 379–393; Robinson’s Narrative Concerning Robert, PAS Papers, Box 4A Manumissions, Pennsylvania Historical Society, https://hsp.org/node/4097 (accessed 30 August 2023). 35 Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Nicholson), Richmond, 3 March 1781; Linda M. Rupert, Creolization and Contraband: Curacao in the Early Modern Era (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 160–161. 36 ‘Minutes of the Bermuda Council, May 4, 1761’, Bermuda Journal of Archeology Maritime History, 5 (1993), 253.

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contested issue in the last decade of the eighteenth century, Black American seamen’s privacy was central to their ability to not be coercively forced to serve the British King.37 In 1796, the United States government began issuing certificates of protection to American seamen. These certificates were used to verify the identity and nationality of American seamen and were the “gold standard of proof of citizenship”.38 It was hoped that the certificates would serve as a deterrent against the seamen being impressed by the Royal Navy. However, Royal Navy officers often refused to return to impressed Black American seamen their certificates of protection and sometimes even tore up the certificates.39 When Edward Jackson, a free Black from Philadelphia, was impressed in Liverpool and subsequently showed Mr. Craff, a Press Master, his certificate of protection, Craff “tore up the protection in front of his face”. As Jackson noted, “it very hard to be taken away in a foreign country, where I had neither friends or relations to do anything for me”.40 When a Black seaman could not produce a certificate of protection or other document evidencing his freedom, the Admiralty believed that impressment was appropriate. John Baccus and other Black American sailors whose certificates were stolen or lost were thus forced to write to American collectors of customs, requesting certified duplicates in order to prove their citizenship.41 The seamen’s lack of connections in foreign ports made the theft or destruction of certificates as well as other documentary proofs of 37 There are close to three hundred known instances in the BMD of Black seamen being impressed during the eighteenth century. Given that the BMD contains only a sampling of Royal Navy musters and many reviewed musters do not contain racial information or the place of birth of impressed seamen, this is clearly a considerable undercounting of the total number of impressed Black tars. 38 Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 237. Forged certificates of protection were used by enslaved individuals to “procure passage” to freedom. Norfolk Herald (Willet and O’Connor), 13 June 1799. 39 “Protections were notoriously easy to obtain”, thus making many Royal Navy officers dubious of their worth. Paul Gilje, American Maritime Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 159. 40 Jonathan Neale, Forecastle and Quarterdeck: Protest, Discipline and Mutiny in the Royal Navy, 1793–1814, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Warwick, 1990), 61–62. 41 Letter of 11 August 1781 from Admiralty, TNA ADM 106/1263/332 (John Tiffer); W. Jeffrey Bolster, ‘Letters by African American Sailors, 1799–1814’, W&MQ , 64 (1) (2007), 176. Black seamen who lost their certificates while in an American port could replace the documents relatively easily. Doing so limited the risk of being impressed,

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freedom devastating to Blacks in a world where Whites—slave owners, ship captains, Vice Admiralty judges, and seamen—sought to exploit them for profit. Many Black tars were compelled to serve for extended periods of time in the Royal Navy against their will, despite insisting that they were American citizens. To maintain their American identities, many refused to sign Royal Navy musters. Doing so meant that they forfeited any claims to enlistment bonuses, wages, and prize monies. In short, due to a breach in their privacy, Black sailors could find themselves working without compensation, a circumstance which many had fled enslavement in the Americas to avoid. Quite a heavy price to pay due for not being able to produce a certificate of protection. Royal Navy impressment activities created a moment when many Black seamen’s efforts to create private spaces came directly into tension with their need to convince naval officers of their status as free American sailors. As newspaper dispatches and records of judicial proceedings regarding impressment of American sailors demonstrate, seamen were often impressed because they could not show certificates of protection.42 Black seamen’s vulnerability due to their privacy being breached continued when they came ashore. Black tars typically kept their protection certificate and freedom papers in their locked sea chests. The theft of their chests while lodging ashore left them vulnerable to being impressed by naval press gangs. Thus, when Oliver Grey’s chest was stolen in London in 1800, he was left without the one possession he had certifying him as an American citizen and a free Black sailor.43 This breach of Grey’s privacy meant that if he returned to sea, he risked being impressed or, worse, treated as an enslaved individual and sold as a slave. On the other hand, if he declined to return to sea, it is likely that Gray would have

kidnapped, or captured and sold as a prize good. Surry County, Clerk, records, 1775– 1868, Mss3Su788a, Guide to African American Manuscripts in the collections of the Virginia Historical Society, https://www.virginiahistory.org/sites/default/files/uploads/ AAG.pdf (accessed 7 June 2022). 42 See for instance Weekly Museum (New York), 4 January 1804. 43 William Watkins, Theft, Old Bailey Online, case t18000115-68, https://www.oldbai

leyonline.org/search.jsp?form=searchHomePage&_divs_fulltext=&kwparse=and&_persNa mes_surname=Grey&_persNames_given=Oliver&_persNames_alias=&_offences_offenceCa tegory_offenceSubcategory=&_verdicts_verdictCategory_verdictSubcategory=&_punish ments_punishmentCategory_punishmentSubcategory=&_divs_div0Type_div1Type=&fro mMonth=&fromYear=&toMonth=&toYear=&ref=&submit.x=39&submit.y=15&submit= Search (accessed 7 June 2022).

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struggled to find sufficient work in England in order to achieve economic independence as many Black seamen in England did at that time.44 When impressed, Black seamen often had limited recourses, leading to them having to serve for a foreign nation for years. American counsels were often inattentive to Black tars’ petitions for assistance. As the impressed Black tar William Godfrey noted, this put him “under the Necessity” of writing to Congress.45 In addition to leading to lengthy unwanted and unpaid service in the Royal Navy, impressment could also result in an American Black tar becoming enslaved. Amos Anderson’s service in the Royal Navy sadly illustrates this. Anderson was impressed on to the HMS Loyalist in March 1781. Undoubtedly unhappy at this turn of events, Anderson’s life would soon take a turn for the worse. Serving at sea in a period before the advent of certificates of protection, this free-born man found himself captured by the French ship L’Aigrette three months after being impressed. As British and American ships of the time regularly did with captured Black sailors, the captain of L’Aigrette arranged for Anderson to be sold as a prize good in Martinique.46 Movement about the Atlantic basin was a risky endeavour for Blacks in the eighteenth century. For most of the century, slavery was deeply entrenched throughout the Atlantic. Many slave owners took deliberate steps to limit enslaved Black seamen’s access to the few regions where they might be able to claim freedom.47 All Black sailors were vulnerable in an Atlantic world in which Whites often sought to illicitly profit from their labour. Invading Black tars’ privacy—by taking freedom papers from seamen’s chests—provided Whites with the means to claim the seamen as slaves whom they could own and sell. Prize cases gave Whites the imprimatur of legitimacy to their claim. Kidnapping of Blacks was not uncommon, with White seamen enticing young free Blacks on to ships and then selling the unfortunate Black tars for personal profit.48 In this 44 Charles R. Foy, ‘Britain’s Black Tars’ in Britain’s Black Past, ed. Gretchen Gerzina (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), 76–77. 45 Ibid., 170. 46 Anderson’s life is detailed in Foy, ‘British Black Tars’, 63–64. 47 Charles R Foy, ‘Black Hands, White Profits: The Critical Role Black Laborers Played

in Rhode Island’s Maritime Economy, 1750–1800’ in New England at Sea: Maritime Memory and Material Culture, ed. Peter Benes (Deerfield, MA: Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, 2019), 132–137. 48 TNA SP 89/75/39–41.

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‘Anxious Atlantic’, Black seamen’s privacy, painstakingly constructed with seamen’s chests, chest keys, and freedom papers, was vital to establishing and maintaining freedom. While Black seamen could rely upon the Royal Navy to punish other seamen who broke into their chests on naval vessels, such institutional protection did not extend to merchant, slaving, and privateer sailors. Further, in the face of significant manning needs, the Royal Navy itself could not be counted on to protect the freedom of Black seamen once freedom papers were taken out of the sanctity of chests in efforts to establish exemption from impressment. In this vulnerable maritime world, the loss of any one of the elements—chest, key, or freedom papers—required to create privacy for Black tars meant that hundreds of other Black tars lost their freedom as a result of having their privacy invaded. Freedom in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world for Black seamen thus rested on very meagre factors: some wood, a small piece of metal, and some flimsy paper—elements which many Whites did not respect.

Primary Source Datasets: Charles R. Foy, Certificates of Protection (unpublished).

Manuscripts: Admiralty Letter, 11 August 1781, The National Archive, Kew (from now on “TNA”), ADM 106/1263/332. Gabriel Bray Album, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK (from now on “NMM”). Brown Family Papers, John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island (from now on “JCBL”). Obadiah Brown & Co. Papers, JCBL. Obadiah Moses Brown Papers, JCBL. Richard Clarke and Co., 20 May 1776 request for payment, TNA ADM 106/ 1233/315. Guide to African American Manuscripts In the Collection of the Virginia Historical Society, https://www.virginiahistory.org/sites/default/files/upl oads/AAG.pdf. HM Galley Arbutnot Muster, 1783–1786, TNA ADM 36/10426. HMS Garlands Muster, 1764, TNA ADM 36/7390.

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HMS Jason Muster, 1758, TNA ADM 35/5899. Vice Admiral Francis Holburne letter, 8 December 1758, TNA ADM 1/927. Edward Long Vice Admiralty Judge to William Henry Lyttleton, 10 January 1762, TNA CO 137/61, ff. 82–83. Old Bailey Online, https://oldbaileyonline.org. Our Lord the King v Twenty-Eight Negroes, 2 February 1795, NMM, CAL 127. Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society Document Based Questions, https://hsp. org/history-online/media-library/documents/pennsylvania-abolitionist-soc iety-dbq. Granville Sharp Papers, Gloucester Records Office, Gloucester, UK, D3548– 3549. R. Walpole to Earl of Rochford, 18 August 1773, TNA SP 89/75/38–41. Nathaniel Whitting Records, 1773–74, Mss. 9001-W, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, Rhode Island (from now on “RIHS”).

Newspapers: American Weekly Mercury (Philadelphia), 24 July 1735. Boston News-Letter, 10 February 1743. Daily Journal (London), 27 August 1734. New-York Weekly Journal, 13 June 1738. London Chronicle, 27 April 1774. London Evening Post, 15 June 1731. Norfolk Herald (Willet and O’Connor), 13 June 1799. Pennsylvania Evening-Post, 4 February 1777. Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 30 September 1742, 9 July 1777. Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Nicholson), Richmond, 3 March 1771. Weekly Museum (New York), 4 January 1804.

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Chico, Tita, ‘Privacy and Speculation in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Cultural Critique, 52 (Autumn, 2002), 40–60. Crawford, Michael J., ed., Autobiography of a Yankee Mariner: Christopher Prince and the American Revolution (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2002). Davies, J.D., Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and War, 1649–1689 (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2008). Earle, Peter, Sailors: English Merchant Seamen 1650–1775 (London: Methuen, 2007). Elden, Stuart, and Crampton, Jeremy W., Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007). Equiano, Olaudah, The Life of Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written by Himself (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 2004 [1789]). Foucault, Michel, ‘Space, Knowledge, and Power’ in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984). ———, Politics, Philosophy, Culture. Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984 (New York: Routledge, 1988). Foy, Charles R., ‘Seeking Freedom in the Atlantic World, 1713–1783’, Early American Studies, 4 (1) (Spring 2006), 46–77. ———, ‘Eighteenth Century Prize Negroes: From Britain to America’, Slavery & Abolition, 31 (3) (2010): 379–393. ———, ‘The Royal Navy’s Employment of Black Mariners and Maritime Workers, 1754–1783’, International Journal of Maritime History, 28 (1) (2016), 6–35. ———, ‘Compelled to Row: Blacks on Royal Navy Galleys During the American Revolution’ in Journal of the American Revolution: Annual Volume 2019, ed. Don N. Hagist (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2019), 258–268. ———, ‘Black Hands, White Profits: The Critical Role Black Laborers Played in Rhode Island’s Maritime Economy, 1750–1800’ in New England at Sea: Maritime Memory and Material Culture, ed. Peter Benes (Deerfield, MA: Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, 2019), 126–139. ———, ‘Black Tars’ in Britain’s Black Past, ed. Gretchen Gerzina (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), 63–80. ———, ‘Eighteenth Century French Atlantic Black Seamen’, Lumières, 35 (2021), 17–34. Gaspar, David Barry, Bondsmen and Rebels: A Study of Master-Slave Relations in Antigua (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985). Gilje, Paul, American Maritime Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Greene, Jack P., ed., Exclusionary empire: English liberty overseas, 1600–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

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Holvast, Jan, ‘The History of Privacy’ in The Future of Identity in the Information Society, eds. V. Matyáš et al. (Berlin: Springer, 2009), 13–42. Hughes, Kristy, ‘A Behavioural Understanding of Privacy and its Implications for Privacy Law’, The Modern Law Review, 75 (5) (2012), 806–836. Humanes, Jose María Martín, ‘Seas, Galleys, and Laws: Antonio de Guevara Del arte de marear (1539)’ in Privacy at Sea: Practices, Spaces, and Communications in Maritime History, ed. Natacha Klein Käfer (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2024), 271–304. Jameson, J. Franklin, Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period (New York: MacMillan Co., 1923). Kelly, Samuel, Samuel Kelly: An Eighteenth Century Seaman whose Days have been few and evil, to which is added remarks etc. on the places he visited during his pilgrimage in the wilderness (New York: Francis A. Stokes, Company, 1925). de Kok, Gerhard, and Feinberg, Harvey M., ‘‘Illegal’ Enslavement, Freedom and the Pursuit of Justice in Dutch Courts, 1746–1750’, Journal of Global Slavery, 1 (2–3) (2016), 274–295. Lavery, Brian, Royal Tars: The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, 875–1850 (London: Conway, 2010). Le Jecq, Seth, ‘Some Sly Corner: Privacy and Sodomitical Space in the Royal Navy’, Privacy at Sea: Practices, Spaces, and Communications in Maritime History, ed. Natacha Klein Käfer (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2024), 131– 154. Margulis, Stephen T., ‘On the Status and Contribution of Westin’s and Altman’s Theories of Privacy’, Journal of Social Issues, 59 (2) (2003), 411–429. Maxwell, Clarence, ‘Enslaved Merchants, Enslaved Merchant-Mariners, and the Bermuda Conspiracy of 1761’, Early American Studies, 7 (1) (2009), 140– 178. Morgan, Philip D., ‘Black Experiences in Britain’s Maritime World’, in Empire, the Sea, and Global History: Britain’s Maritime World, C.1763–c.1840, ed. David Cannadine (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 105–133. Morgan, William James, ed., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 7 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1976). Neale, Jonathan, Forecastle and Quarterdeck: Protest, Discipline and Mutiny in the Royal Navy, 1793–1814, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Warwick, 1990). Office of Naval Records and Documents, Naval Documents Related to the Quasiwar between the United States and France (Washington, DC: U.S. Printing Office, 1935). Perl-Rosenthal, Nathan, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015). Plank, Geoffrey, ‘Sailing with John Woolman’, Early American Studies, 7 (1) (Spring 2009), 46–81.

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Polónia, Amelia and Capelão, Rosa, ‘Women and Children on Board: The case of the Carreira da India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ in Privacy at Sea: Practices, Spaces, and Communications in Maritime History, ed. Natacha Klein Käfer (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2024), 41–76. Rediker, Marcus, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Rouleau, Brian, ‘Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Folklore, Fraternity, and the Forecastle’, Early American Studies, (2007), 30–62. Rodger, N.A.M., The Command of the Ocean: Naval History of Britain, 1649– 1815 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005). Rupert, Linda, ‘Marronage, Manumission and Maritime Trade in the Early Modern Caribbean’, Slavery & Abolition, 30 (3) (2009), 361–382. ———, Creolization and Contraband: Curacao in the Early Modern Era (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012). Snow, Henry, ‘Fugitive Harbour: Labour, Community, and Marronage at Antigua Naval Yard’, Slavery & Abolition, 42 (1) (2021), 1–23. Daniel J. Solove, ‘Conceptualizing Privacy’, California Law Review, 90 (4) (2002), 1087–1156. Spacks, Patricia Meyer, ‘Scandal and Privacy: Two Eighteenth-Century Women’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 55 (2) (2002) 73–86. Sparks, Randy, ‘Gold Coast Merchant Families, Pawning, awning, and the Eighteenth-Century British Slave Trade’, William & Mary Quarterly, 70 (2) (2013), 317–340. Vickers, Daniel and Walsh, Vince, Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). Young, Jeremy, ‘Looking for Black Sailors in the Eighteenth-Century Navy’, International Maritime History Journal, 34 (4) (2022), 259–281. Zabin, Serena, Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

CHAPTER 3

Women and Children on board—The Case of the Carreira Da India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Amélia Polónia

and Rosa Capelão

Introduction As part of a history of interaction and human activity around the sea, we will examine different dimensions of privacy in the context of maritime history, taking the Portuguese Carreira da India (the India maritime run) throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a field of observation. Our goal is to identify private forms of relationship between individuals in this specific context. We will focus especially on the presence of women and children on board. These could be orphans, sex workers, adventurers, convicts, single or married women, or widows. In particular,

A. Polónia (B) Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] R. Capelão CITCEM—Transdisciplinary Research Centre “Culture, Space and Memory”, Porto, Portugal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_3

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we will examine the presence of women who travelled clandestinely. As far as children were concerned, they could be present as passengers or as junior members of the crew. We will also explore how historical agents perceived privacy (or the lack thereof) and how they responded and adapted to the daily circumstances on board by analysing food, hygiene, health, and sexual practices. An examination of how different actors managed and suffered risks at sea will complement this analysis. Risks would comprise shipwrecks, naval battles, calms, storms, and diseases. The organisation of daily activities, the management of free time, moments of leisure, and expressions of religiosity as well as violence, fear, and laughter were crucial in these maritime contexts. Concepts such as ‘private’ and ‘public’ have assumed different meanings throughout history. ‘Private’ is a historical category and is therefore subject to the evolution of culture. Privacy is also linked to contingent factors and subjective judgements which were inherent to the period covered by this study. Privacy is usually associated with the spaces and temporal categories of daily life that separate the individual from the gaze of others. This was especially difficult for people who travelled on early modern ships. While some of the passengers had their own cabins, privacy was the privilege of only a few.1 Most people on board travelled on the decks of the vessel where they worked, ate, and even slept. The management of space, especially private space, reflected the internal hierarchy on board. The space of a ship was inevitably finite and shared by many individuals of different genders, social conditions, and professional status. Therefore, we will deal with the concept of privacy in direct connection not only with the spaces allocated for travelling but also with the daily activities on board the ship as well as the ‘public spaces’ shared by the many (sometimes up to a thousand) occupants of a ship. Even the few possible moments of solitude and isolation on these maritime routes still implied permanent social control of behaviours and interactions. Depending on how this control was carried out, privacy could be seen as an impossibility, as a threat, or rather as something to be encouraged.

1 For the argument that social status and hierarchies were reflected in the ship, see also Foy, Beck, and LeJacq’s chapters in this volume.

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Until the present day, women and children have traditionally been seen as historical agents who are practically invisible in the public sphere and have been commonly associated only with private life. Together with questions about their public life, their daily activities, and their privacy, the issue of their presence on board naval vessels has been especially neglected.2 Although the usual explanation for such lacunae points to the lack or scarcity of historical sources, it is our contention that this obstacle can be overcome by re-reading old sources in the light of new questions and new hypotheses. In actuality, the presence of women and children in sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century ships was much more frequent than historiography has hitherto assumed. A discussion of the presence of women and children on board vessels requires the analysis of historical variables and behaviours which have until now not been considered within the ambit of study. These include, among other things, an examination of the specific conditions and the different scenarios in which women and children interacted on board. Despite the paucity of extant data, the presence of children on board, even as crew members, and their daily circumstances are of particular interest. In our examination, we will use mostly European sources, including travel books, chronicles, administrative correspondence, shipwreck narratives, and letters from missionaries.

Women on the Move Across the Oceans Despite the lack of historiographic analysis on the subject, women are often referred to among the contingents of migrants who travelled across the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans in the early modern period both to the East Indies and to the West Indies (Spanish America).3 These movements 2 For instance, the published title História da Vida Privada em Portugal in the eponymous volume dealing with modern times barely refers to navigations, thereby confirming our assertion. See Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro and José Mattoso, eds., História da vida privada em Portugal. A Idade Moderna (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2011). 3 Marco Oliveira Borges, ‘Aspetos do quotidiano e vivência feminina nos navios da

carreira da Índia durante o século XVI’, Revista Portuguesa de História, 47 (2016), 195–214; Fina D’Armada, Mulheres navegantes no tempo de Vasco da Gama (Lisbon: Ésquilo, 2006); Amélia Polónia, ‘Espaços de inclusão e de exclusão de agentes femininas no processo de expansão ultramarina portuguesa (Século XV)’ in Os espaços femininos no mundo americano (Atas do XIII Congresso Internacional da AHILA. Ponta Delgada,

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took place at a time when society was extremely vigilant, controlling not only the lifestyle of its members but also their movements. This control also meant that not everyone who wanted to travel was allowed to do so. Officially, whoever wanted to go to the East or West Indies was either recruited by the Iberian Crown or had to have a license in order to do so. These licenses were not always easy to get. It should be noted that the Iberian maritime traffic to Africa, the East, and the Spanish Indias was officially controlled by the respective Crowns. However, the difference between theory and practice was sometimes huge. Regarding the involvement of women in overseas voyages and within the Portuguese context, the dominant perspective is that their presence on the vessels that crossed the seas to Africa, the East, or Brazil was forbidden and strongly punished since the early days of overseas expansion. In particular, the solteiras (unmarried) and the mancebas (women who lived with a man without being married to him) were banned from travelling. According to Charles Boxer, the Crown discouraged the emigration of women in the Carreira da India to Africa and Asia except in specific circumstances, such as in the case of the Orfãs d’el Rei (the King’s orphans) and convicts. The Portuguese kings did not legislate specifically on this matter, although men embarking for the Spanish Indias were forced to embark with their wives or the latter compelled to join them.4

3–8 de setembro de 2002), 107–124; Timothy J. Coates, Degredados e Órfãs: colonização dirigida pela coroa no império português. 1550–1755 (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998); O rosto feminino da expansão portuguesa. International Congress Lisbon, 21–24 November 1994 (Lisbon: Comissão para a Igualdade e para os Direitos das Mulheres, 1995); Elaine Sanceau, Mulheres portuguesas no ultramar (Porto: Civilização, 1979); Charles Ralph Boxer, A Mulher na Expansão Ultramarina Ibérica 1415–1815. Alguns factos, ideias e personalidades (Lisbon: Horizonte, 1977); María del Carmen Martínez Martínez, ‘Inquietudes, Viajes y Equipajes’ in Viajeras entre dos mundos, ed. Sara Beatriz Guardia (Perú: Centro de Estudios La Mujer en la Historia de América Latina CEHMAL, 2011), 55–79; Blanca López de Mariscal, ‘El viaje a la Nueva España entre 1549 y 1625: El trayecto feminino’ in Historia de las Mujeres em América Latina, eds. Juan Andreo and Sara Beatriz Guadia (Perú: CEMHAM, 2002); Enrique Otte, Cartas privadas de emigrantes a Indias 1540–1616 (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996). 4 Charles Ralph Boxer, A Mulher na Expansão Ultramarina Ibérica 1415–1815. Alguns factos, ideias e personalidades (Lisbon: Horizonte, 1977), 34, 47, 81.

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Despite this, however, we find married women and examples of family emigration in the Portuguese Carreira da India.5 Passengers legally authorised to embark on sea voyages were the wives and daughters of officials sent to occupy posts of civil administration in India in the different forts and factories. Special mention should be made of the orphans coming from Portugal and the convicts authorised and sponsored by the State to foster the colonisation process. As Timothy Coates has demonstrated, these women were an instrument of colonisation used by the central administration.6 Orphans, together with sex workers or former sex workers, were taken from Portuguese seclusions (Recolhimento do Castelo or Recolhimento de Santa Maria Madalena) as part of contingents sent to Africa, Brazil, or India. Furthermore, from the first moments of Portuguese overseas expansion, women were used as instruments of the expansionist project. In May 1487, King D. João II sent Pedro da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva on a secret expedition with the mission of reaching India by land.

5 In the 1548 Armada, “many people came, even though they were of a very low condition and poor, more people to work than to fight […] on the departure of this fleet there were so many people settling down that they only asked for a place on a ship, and many came without wages, and most of them married with their wives […] em que vinha muyta gente, indaque era muy baixa e pobre, que erão mais gente pera trabalhar que pera pelejar; em que vinha muyta gente do mar. N´esta armada veo a gente d´armas que nom vencesse soldo na viagem, e muytos que nom avião de vencer na India senão d´ahy a seis meses, e outros hum ano avião primeiro servir de graça; porque ao partir d´esta armada foy a gente tanta a se assentar que somente de graça pedião embarcação, como de feyto vierão muytos sem soldo, e mormente muytos casados com suas molheres.” See Gaspar Correa, Lendas da Índia, Book 4, Vol. 4, Part 2 (Lisbon: Tipographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1866), 666. The translation is the authors’ own, “a married man who was in the carrack with his wife, and three young daughters who, seeing the carrack opened, all five embracing each other, with a most pious weeping, and cries that penetrated the air, thus united they all went with the carrack to the bottom”. “hum homem casado que na não ya com sua molher, & três filhas moças, que vendo a não aberta, abraçando-se todos cinco, com hum pranto piadosissimo, & gritos que penetravam os ares, assi liados todos se forão com a não ao fundo, expectaculo, que fez arrebentar a todos em lagrimas, com ter cada hum bem que chorar sua desventura”.] See Diogo do Couto, Decada Quarta da Asia, dos feitos que os portugueses fizeram na conquista e descobrimento das terras, & mares do Oriente (Lisbon: Pedro Crasbeeck, 1602), 80; Fernão Lopez de Castanheda, História do Descobrimento e Conquista da India pelos Portugueses, Book 7 (Lisbon: Typographia Rollandiana, 1833), 204 [1st ed. 1554]. The translation is the authors’ own. 6 Timothy J. Coates, Degredados e Órfãs: colonização dirigida pela coroa no império português. 1550–1755 (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998), 188.

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That same year, four African women from the region south of the Zaire River embarked on Bartolomeu Dias’ expedition which left Lisbon at the end of August and made landfall in different parts of the West African coast. Their mission was to establish contact and communicate with the local populations.7 In all these situations, their presence on board was inevitable even if forbidden by the norm. Regardless of the adversities inherent in this adventure of sailing, women of all kinds and religious denominations could be found undertaking this journey: widows, married women, single women, mancebas, sex workers, religious women, enslaved women, degredadas (convicts), female service personnel, adventurers, new Christians and old Christians, Jewish, Romani, mestizas, creoles, and indigenous women. They undertook the journey sometimes in a planned manner, with the sponsorship or authorisation of the Crown, sometimes clandestinely. In the case of clandestine journeys, the collaboration of the crew was inevitable—hence the specific mentions of punishing the captains of ships who colluded with their presence on board. In 1524, before his departure for India on what would be his last voyage, Vasco da Gama observed of this trend that it was forbidden for women to board ships to India. According to these regulations, any woman found on board without royal permission would be publicly flogged and banished to one of Africa’s coutos even if she was married; the husband would be bound in fetters and be forced to return to Portugal, and the captains of ships that did not hand them over to the competent authorities would lose their wages. This measure was publicly announced both on land and on the ships through its posting on the masts of vessels, in addition to also having been registered by the Ouvidor in Lisbon.8 Vasco da Gama, who was leaving as Viceroy of India, justified the measure by decrying the great inconvenience caused to the souls of men by bringing women on the ships due to the disagreements and quarrels they allegedly provoked.9 The violation of this prohibition seems, however, to have been a current practice. It is documented for the voyage undertaken by Vasco

7 João de Barros, Década Primeira da Ásia (Lisbon: Jorge Rodriguez, 1628), 42–42v. 8 Elaine Sanceau, Mulheres portuguesas no ultramar, 22. 9 “o grande inconveniente que era os homens trazerem molheres nas naos, assy pera

as almas com oniões e brigas”. Gaspar Correa, Lendas da Índia, Book 2, Vol. 2, Part 2 (Lisbon: Tipographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1861), 819.

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da Gama himself to India in 1524. When the armada arrived in Mozambique, three women were discovered in hiding. Upon their arrival in Goa, the Viceroy ordered them to be flogged. According to Gaspar Correia, the noblemen, friars, bishops, and members of the Misericórdia prayed for them. Despite this, the exemplary sentence was publicly executed, causing great scandal among the people and winning a reputation of cruelty for its executioner.10 According to the same chronicler, when the Viceroy was at death’s door, he tried to compensate for the application of this punishment by secretly giving each of the women enough money to find husbands and thus become honourable women through marriage.11 This episode is, in several ways, illustrative of the reality under study. First, it suggests that until that time, the presence of women on board would be constant or usual enough to give rise to a deliberation of this nature and vigour. Second, despite the apparently rigorous spirit of the legislator/enforcer of the penalty, the surrounding society seemed to show solidarity with these women, condemning as scandalous a penalty that was certainly perceived as disproportionate in the face of the circumstances. Third, the women in question, who were only discovered in Mozambique, had to rely on help inside the ship in order to survive. They never denounced their accomplices. Under these regulations, women boarding the ships to India were subject to criminal penalties. They also suffered religious condemnation by bishops and missionaries, particularly Jesuits, who had greater contact with them during these trips and left abundant records. It is shown that the presence of women on board, even though in violation of the norm, was accepted and publicly acknowledged. The fear of the possible penalties imposed by the monarch was obviously no obstacle. Friar Vicente de Laguna mentioned as early as 1530 that captains, pilots, and sailors brought women on the king’s ships which was a reason for great disputes.12 Two years later, the same friar insisted again that the galleons and vessels were “laden with women”. Vicente Gil, the pilot of the vessel himself, and other officers are said to have taken women with them despite the penalties established by the

10 Ibid., 819–821. 11 Ibid., 845. 12 António da Silva Rêgo, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado

Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 2, 1523–1543 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1949), 193.

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monarch.13 The Jesuit sources also reveal that not all agreed with this prohibition. Some questioned the attitude of a religious authority in his conscientious search for women who could have embarked and were in hiding.14 However, this begs the question: why was this prohibition imposed in the first place? The sources assume that the presence of women on board was a cause of conflict within the vessels and, given the unease they caused together with their status as objects of desire among the predominantly male crew members, they were regarded as a danger to navigation. Many of the records, particularly the correspondences of the Jesuits, refer to these women as sospeitosas (suspicious), associated with the practice of mancebia on board. They were held responsible for disturbances, lack of security, unruliness of customs, and indiscipline. That is why they were subject to punishment and, whenever possible, were forced to disembark at one of the stops of the voyage. In response, some women resorted to clandestinity, premeditated invisibility, and anonymity, relying on the possibility of isolation in an environment where they were forced into deceit, control of behaviour, and secrecy. In order to survive, they had to receive logistical support from other agents on board. For the presence of women on the ships to be possible, collaboration, specifically from crew members, had to be ensured. The “suspicious women” were not, however, the only women on board; in fact, they were perhaps not even the predominant group. Clandestine journeys were made not only by individual mancebas or single women but also by groups of women, some from the same household or some who escaped from their husbands with their lovers. The Jesuit João Baptista da Ribeira tells us that, on leaving the port of Lisbon in 1565, a married woman was found hiding, fleeing from her husband with another man. Subsequently, both were forced to disembark. However, when the ship was at sea, three more women were discovered without husbands, one of them dressed as a man.15 The captain, who passed for a devout 13 Letter of Friar Vicente da Laguna to El-Rei from Goa on 29 November 1532, in Rêgo, Documentação, 2, 231. 14 Letter of Father Sebastião Gonçalves to the brothers of the Company in Portugal from Goa on 10 September 1562, in António da Silva Rêgo, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, 9, 1562–1565 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1953), 60. 15 Elaine Sanceau, Mulheres portuguesas no ultramar, 23.

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man, could have decided to evict them at Madeira or Canaria, but this did not happen. Instead, the women were placed behind a wooden partition and locked in a makeshift cabin with the key given to a trusted and god-fearing person who opened this improvised “cage” at certain hours to feed them and for other necessities.16 In the case of clandestine women on board, there were two solutions if they were caught: either they were forced to disembark at the next stop of the trip or, if this proved impossible, they were locked up and imprisoned in a makeshift chamber, away from all interaction with the crew and other passengers. In these episodes, we find that the most frequent approaches taken when the presence of women on board was discovered were punishment and surveillance. Whenever possible, these women would be forced to disembark. If this was not possible, incarceration in spaces that were always separate and always in custody seemed to be the norm. This is mostly noticed in the testimonies regarding the Carreira da India.

The Carreira Da India: Daily Life on Board The Carreira da India constituted an annual link between Lisbon and the cities of Goa and Kochi on the Malabar Coast via the Cape Route, circumnavigating the African continent and linking the Atlantic and Indian Oceans past the Cape of Good Hope. Initially established by Vasco da Gama on his first voyage to India by sea (1497–1499), it remained in use for more than three centuries. A return trip through the Carreira da India would require about 15 months (in the best conditions) and could even take two years if the departure calendar from Lisbon (on the European side) or from Goa or Kochi (on the Indian side) could not be met according to the monsoon season.17 In comparison, a trip to Brazil (Bahia) would require just two or three months each way. The Carreira da India was a very hard route both because of the length and duration of the journey and the risks of shipwreck. Sailors faced harsh weather conditions, including tropical storms, equatorial calms, the Indian Ocean monsoon regime, and the southern cold. All these conditions were reflected in the life on board, whether on carracks 16 Letter of Father João Baptista de Ribera from Goa on 27 October 1565, in Rêgo, Documentação, 9, 446. 17 Inácio Guerreiro and Francisco Contente Domingues, ‘A vida a bordo na carreira da Índia (século XVI)’, Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, 34 (198) (1988), 185–225.

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(naus ), caravels, or galleons. By the end of the sixteenth century, this route had ceased to be exclusive to the Portuguese, with other competing forces (such as the Dutch and the British) entering the scene. This increased competitiveness meant added risks of attacks by corsairs and naval combat. The ships of the Carreira da India were usually overcrowded, and in the period under study in this paper, a self-organised micro-society constituted itself on board the ship according to formal and informal standards. The formal standards were provided for by the regulations applied to logistics and trade. The informal ones arose from forms of improvisation, adaptation, and negotiation. This malleability is reflected in the 1564 account of the Jesuit priest André de Cabreira where he complained that the conditions of a ship were worse than those of a hospital or of the Limoeiro, the main jail in Lisbon where most of the occupants were poor people. He observed: of six hundred and fifty persons who came in this carrack, fifteen were poor, who had no more than the King’s provisioning, which was such that even the healthy were made to grow old, and the sick poor had to provide what was necessary for them, or were going to die of hunger, as many did.18

In these spaces, crew members and passengers had to live together. These were diverse groups from different social strata, including convicts and people who had little experience of the sea among the crew. Often, they had been recruited by force. For months, all of them had to partake in the experience of the sea, sharing a space where the threshold of nature and the psyche itself could be experienced in the extreme. In terms of daily life, there are repetitive patterns of work, routines, leisure, and social interaction. The dividing line between public and private spaces on board ships, however, was often blurred. Daily life on 18 “de seiscientoas e sinquoenta personas que venião en esta nao, mas delas quinientas

erão pobres, que no tenião mas dela regla del-rey, la qual era tal que aun a los sanos hazia adolecer, y dolientes pobres avian de prover de quanto les era necessário, o avião de morrir de hambre, como muchos morieron.” Letter from Father André de Cabreira to Father Inácio de Tolosa from Bassein on 15 December 1564, in Rêgo, Documentação, 9, 392. See also Timothy J. Coates, Degredados e Órfãs: colonização dirigida pela coroa no império português. 1550–1755 (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998), 194. Author’s translation.

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board the vessels that travelled the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans around the Cape of Good Hope has been studied with regard to the routines of crew members. These studies provide some general ideas without even addressing or specifying the presence of women and children on board, much less about their daily life.19 Due to the very limited space inside a ship, few would have had access to a separate cabin. As a consequence, intimacy, privacy, and modesty were necessarily hard to come by. These spaces were the object of disputed business, as Pyrard de Laval reports, and some crew members even rented out spaces to passengers.20 Life at sea was structured around a myriad of aspects: food, hygiene, illness, free time, risks, and religiosity on board. From the narratives produced mostly by the Jesuit priests, we can extract data on the conditions of life and survival and the number of crew members and passengers as much as about food, hygiene, organisation, and structuring of time and space, feelings, and emotions. They refer to their everyday experience, which included tropical diseases, malnutrition, reactions to adverse meteorological conditions such as cyclonic winds in tropical regions and storms, and even aspects of religiosity on board such as processions, confessions, masses, and litanies. All these aspects interfered with living conditions as well as experiences of the common and the private. In terms of food, a scarce and valuable resource that had to be managed was water which deteriorated within a few days. Among the foodstuffs transported for the journey, biscuits were essential. Live animals, such as chicken and sheep, were transported for 19 Charles Ralph Boxer, The ‘Carreira da Índia’ (Ships, Men, Cargoes, Voyages) (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos e as Comemorações Henriquinas, CEHU, 1961). Separata, 33–82; Domingues and Guerreiro, ‘A vida a bordo na carreira da Índia’, 185–225; Luís de Albuquerque and Francisco Contente Domingues, eds., Grandes viagens marítimas (Lisbon: Publicações Alfa, 1989); Francisco Contente Domingues, ‘Navios e marinheiros’ in Lisboa ultramarina, 1415–1580: a invenção do mundo pelos navegadores portugueses, ed. Michel Chandeigne (Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Ed., 1992), 49–60. Idem., ‘Arte e técnicas nas navegações portuguesas: das primeiras viagens à armada de Cabral’ in Adauto Novaes, org., A descoberta do homem e do mundo (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998), 209–228; Eduardo Paulo Guinote and António Lopes Frutuoso, Naufrágios e outras perdas da «Carreira da Índia». Séculos XVI e XVII (Lisbon, Grupo de Trabalho do Ministério da Educação para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998). 20 Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara, ed., Viagem de Francisco Pyrard, de Laval (1601 a 1611), 2 (Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1862), 172.

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food. A vital food supplement was obtained by fishing, making the most of the resources available during the journey. Food preparation could be reliably guaranteed only for the highranking crew members or those with a higher social or economic status as they could afford servants, a category which sometimes included enslaved people accompanying their masters. Each traveller was responsible for cooking in one of the cookers distributed on board. Those cookers were, therefore, public spaces, making privacy extremely difficult. In the event of illness or any other impediment, the possibilities of resorting to cooked food were scarce and people would often have to depend on the meagre assistance provided, particularly by the religious-minded, on board. It is easy to imagine the inconveniences represented by the smoke and smell produced by the cooking in addition to the risk of fire. All these activities would also have to take into account the concern for protecting the matolage, the belongings of each of the passengers. Food would deteriorate quickly and rats, cockroaches, and maggots would be constant nuisances. Another significant challenge was sickness. Among other ailments, sources tell us about open sores caused by scurvy, a disease which would cause pain, deterioration of the body, and eventually death. During the voyage from Acapulco to Manila in 1596,21 Isabel Barreto, acting as Admiral after the loss of her husband,22 observed that “there was hardly a day that one or two were not thrown into the sea, and there were days with three and four: and it was so that there was no little difficulty in removing the dead from between decks”.23 Nausea, vomiting, and sickness were common on these journeys, forcing the sufferers to remain convalescent for days and giving rise to a feeling of vulnerability. There was food poisoning due to the difficulty 21 The Galeón de Manila or Nau de China was part of the route followed by the Spanish ships crossing the Pacific Ocean by following the Kuroshio current. Lasting between four and five months, this included the route between Manila (Philippines) and the ports of New Spain in America, mainly Acapulco. 22 This is a common pattern found in the administration of overseas settlements, as happens in Brazil: the widows replace their dead husbands while a replacement is not yet in place. This episode shows that identical procedures would be followed on board, thereby putting women in charge. 23 Pedro Fernández de Quirós, Memoriales de las Indias Australes (Madrid: Ed. Oscar Pinochet, 1991), 145; Juan Francisco Maura, Españolas em Ultramar em la historia y em la literatura: Aventureras, madres, soldados, virreinas, gobernadoras, adelantadas, prostitutas, empresarias, monjas, escritoras, criadas (Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, 2005), 217.

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of preserving food and the lack of hygiene. Infectious diseases such as typhus, smallpox, measles, malaria, and yellow fever were ever-present. All of them are easily transmissible diseases with high contagion risks in such limited spaces of coexistence and circulation. The therapy practised on board was based on Hippocratic medicine and Galen’s humoural doctrine which required bloodletting, purging, the administration of enemas, suction cups, and sudorifics—methods that would irremediably cause greater weakness. Only a few would have access to private spaces to be treated; all others had to endure these procedures in public. People also died of cold and heat. The different climatic conditions would give rise to the so-called priosis (or phrenesis) due to the cold of the southern regions, together with respiratory infections. In these environments, states of sudden “madness” would not be uncommon. There are many accounts of this.24 After sailing along the Guinea Coast, the ship São Paulo, which was bound for India in 1560: had two dozen sick people with fevers and some with swelling, and the fevers were so bad, that, when they were given to the person, they made him crazy, so that he talked and did a thousand crazy things and madnesses, some of them to laugh, and others of much pity and to cry; and so there were many that, with the frenzy, they were going to lie down in the sea, if they did not have them and they tied one with the others.25

It was necessary to take medical cabinets like the ones known to have been taken on Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage, where up to 65 different medicines were stored, including waters, ointments, oils, syrups, and powders.26 Often, these medicine cabinets were used arbitrarily by the

24 For more information about madness at sea, see Catherine Beck’s contribution to this volume. 25 “Havia já neste tempo na nau duas dúzias de doentes de febres e alguns de inchações; e as febres eram tão rijas, que, em dando à pessoa, a desatinava[m], de maneira que falava e fazia mil doidices e desatinos, uns muito para rir, e outros de muita lástima e para chorar; e assim houve muito que, com a frenesia, se iam deitar no mar, se os não tiveram e ataram uns com os outros.” António Moniz, ‘Primeiras narrativas de naufrágios: história trágico-marítima. Bernardo Gomes de Brito’ in Obras Pioneiras da Cultura Portuguesa, Vol. 26, eds. José Eduardo Franco and Carlos Fiolhais (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2018), 247. 26 Germano de Sousa, História da medicina portuguesa durante a expansão (Lisbon: Temas e debates, Círculo de Leitores, 2003), 114, 294–295.

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captain of the ship.27 We have no testimonies about women’s health or how they handled conditions such as menstruation or breastfeeding. However, there are records of childbirth on board, an aspect we will return to shortly. One of the worst aspects of these long journeys was monotony as the voyage was, essentially, boring. Although there were moments of leisure and free time (which included playing musical instruments and participating in games of chance, cards, or dice), religious agents tried to put a brake on them. There were other pastimes such as cockfighting and amusements like a kind of bullfighting on board, which took the form of corridas de novilhos mansos (racing of tame oxen). Some amusements obviously implied cruelty to animals. Fish such as the tintureira or blue shark would be caught during calm waters and thrown on the deck with their eyes perforated. At other times, the sailors would tie cylinders or bottles to the tail fin of these fishes which they would then throw into the sea, having fun watching them trying to dive without being able to do so.28 On such long journeys, it was important to create spaces for leisure and community diversion. Thus, free time was also spent telling stories and reading aloud as well as on collective religious practices.29 Other leisure activities included theatre performances on board.30 27 “Los capitanes de las naos como entran en ellas, luego tomam las cosas de la botica y las cosas que V. Alteza manda dar para los dolientes ellos las gastan a sua mesa, y quando vienen los hombres a caer enfermos, no ay con que los remediar, y ansi mueren a desanparo” (“The captains of the ships as they enter them, then they take the things from the medicine cabinet and the things that Your Highness orders to be given for the sick, they spend them at their table, and when men come to fall ill, there is no way to remedy them, and they die helpless”). Letter from Frei Vicente de Laguna to El-Rei from Goa on 25 September 1530, in Rêgo, Documentação, 2, 194. Author’s translation. 28 These episodes are reported in the Itinerário of Jerónimo Lobo. See Domingues and Guerreiro, ‘A vida a bordo na carreira da Índia’; Jerônimo Lobo, Itinerário e Outros Escritos Inéditos, ed. M. Gonçalves da Costa (Porto: Livraria Civilização, 1971). 29 “que el viaje tan duro hacian los hombres en la nao como si fuese una carcel y prision, comendo mal y bebeindo peor. Dice que habia tambien grandíssimo numero de libros de cavallarias y deshonestos que era un lazo del demónio y los envanecia y enloquecia” (“[…] the voyage was so hard that the men on the ship were like on prison and under pressure, eating badly and drinking worse. He says that there were also a great number of books on chivalry and dishonesty that were a snare of the devil and drove them mad and crazy”). See António da Silva Rêgo, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 10, 1566–1568 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1953), 46. Author’s translation. 30 Mário Marins, Teatro quinhentista das naus da índia (Lisbon: Brotéria, 1973).

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Some theatre performances, such as the so-called “Emperor’s feast”, were played on several ships of the Carreira da India. The Emperor’s feast, which was celebrated after Christmas or during Pentecost, was one in which an “Emperor” (generally of humble social status) was elected.31 This inversion of social roles, reminiscent of carnival festivities, could last for several days and was accompanied by music, banquets (those possible on the stage described), and other cheerful activities.32 In this daily context, aspects related to feelings and emotions are important. What stands out most is fear—fear of the unknown, primarily based on legendary beliefs in sea monsters such as mermaids who were part of the imagery connected to the sea. Seafarers had reason to be afraid of tropical storms and thunderstorms.33 Fear of the dark also made night time fearsome. These episodes stimulated manifestations of religiosity. Prayers, confessions, requests for divine intercession with relics, promises, and processions, occasionally by flagellants, emerged as recurring responses. The presence of religious agents was essential in this context due to the possibility of mediation with the divine in moments of crisis and panic. It was also their mission to provide support to those most in need and deprived of any kind of care, a number which seems to have been considerable. There were thefts and risks of riots as well as an atmosphere of tension and conflict, hence the constant mention of the peacemaking role of religious agents.

31 The elected “Emperor” was sometimes of not-so-humble status, as was the case in the vessel São Martinho in which the Emperor was the son of the captain. See Documentos sobre os portugueses em Moçambique e na África Central. 1497–1840, 8, 1561–1588 (Lisbon: National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1975), 88. 32 Paulo Guinote et al., Naufrágios e outras perdas da “Carreira da Índia”, 60–61. 33 In a letter of 13 January 1561 written from Kochi, Father Arboleda mentions a

thunderstorm that occurred during his trip on 6 August 1560 near the islands of Tristão da Cunha: “Me dixeron que de los rostos de todos a hun panno muy blanco de linio no avia diferencia alguna” (“I was told that from the faces of all there was no difference to a very white linen cloth”). He was sheltered in the boat. See António da Silva Rêgo, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, 8, 1560–1561 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1952), 287. Author’s translation.

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Women on Board As other chapters in this volume (e.g. Foy, Silva Perez, LeJacq, Araújo, Ceccarelli, Pizzorno, Lopez) indicate, there is, in the case of women, a tension between surveillance and containment on the one hand and granting of privacy on the other. The latter could include even coercive confinement imposed by the representatives of the Crown and was applied mostly to women of higher social status. The sources present these measures as ways of women’s protection. When women were discovered travelling in clandestinity, they were separated, placed in an isolated space, locked up, and kept under guard, away from the rest of the male crew. Male supervision was hoped to remove the threat they presented. Father Manuel Teixeira, for instance, related to the brothers of the College of Coimbra how, upon his arrival in Mozambique, a woman on the carrack was taken into a chamber in the care of a virtuous man.34 “Women of bad reputation” were especially kept away. Father António de Quadros observed how, upon his arrival at the Guinea Coast from Lisbon in 1555, a woman of ill repute had been found to be in hiding, following which she was taken to another ship where she was locked up in a cabin in order to be kept “very privately”.35

34 “huma molher que vinha na nossa nao fizeram os padres com que se recolhesse em huma câmara, e tinha cudado dela hum homem muyto virtuoso” (“a woman who was coming in our way, the priests made her get back to a chamber, and a very virtuous man was looking after her”). Letter of Brother Manuel Teixeira to the brothers of the College of Coimbra from Goa on 15 November 1551. See António da Silva Rêgo, Documentaçãopara a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, 5, 1551–1554 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1951), 33. Author’s translation. 35 “Neste comenos [sic] tinha aparecido hum molher de mao viver, que ya escondidamente, e se meteo na nossa nao e, porque avia alguns inconvenientes ir nela, focou o capitão-mor que a mandassem a nao Assenssão, aonde lhe fizeram hum camarote e a fecharão com muito resguardo, e ca na India se pos em casa de huma molher casada, que creo que esta posta em caminho de ser boa molher” (“A woman of mao viver (bad living) had come to us, who was hiding, and got into our carrack, and because it was inconvenient for her to go there, the Captain-Major asked her to be sent to the carrack Assenssão, where they made a cabin for her and kept her very privately”). Letter from Father Antonio de Quadros of the Society of Jesus of Goa to the brothers of Portugal on 18 December 1555. See António da Silva Rêgo, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, 1555–1558 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1951), 55. Author’s translation.

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Even those who travelled with the King’s consent went in different spaces of the ship, not only because they were seen as a temptation and a threat, but also to protect them. In a description of his return to Portugal in a ship that ended up shipwrecked, Father Dom Gonçalo mentioned a Dona Luzia, wife of Pantaleão de Sá. She stayed in her quarters together with other women, not leaving even to attend religious services. In the same letter, he mentioned that on the same journey, many women and boys embarked, without mentioning whether they were locked up or not.36 The management of the spaces also depended on social status and not only on gender. Dom João de Castro mentioned that on his voyage to India, the orphans of the King were on board. Upon the death of Francisco Maris, a treasurer from Goa who was accompanying them, the safety of the children was entrusted to Dom Francisco Toscano, Chancellor of India, who did not allow anyone to be around them.37 However, not all women would quietly accept the control of their lifestyle. Father Gaspar Barzeo recounted how one of the women on board the ship São Pedro assaulted him, taking umbrage at his intention to convert her after he attempted to get her to take confession and give

36 “Senhora Dona Luzia sua molher que estava em seus aposentos com as molheres e por estarem perto creo que ouvião, mas nos com os devotos somente tratávamos” (“Dona Luzia, his wife, who was in her rooms with the women, and because they were close by, I think they heard us”). Facsimile of letter from Father D. Gonçalo to the Father Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Goa, sent from Mozambique on 12 February 1560. See Documentos sobre os portugueses em Moçambique e na África Central, 7 (1540–1560) (Lisbon: National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1971), 442. Author’s translation. 37 “Quando isto soube mandei prover sobre as órfãs que vinham em sua companhia e lhes mandei dar todas as coisas necessárias, entregando a guarda e recado destas órfãs ao doutor Francisco Toscano, chanceles da Índia, porque jamais se apartava delas e não consentia nenhuma gente estar derredor de seus agasalhos, de que se lhes pudesse recrescer algum nojo” (“I ordered to provide for the orphans who came in his company and gave them all the necessary things, handing over the custody and charge of these orphans to Doctor Francisco Toscano, Chancellor of India, as he would never be apart from them and would not allow anyone to be around their belongings, of which they would make them disgusted”). See Leidivaldo dos Santos Silva, Expansão portuguesa à Asia: Um estudo a respeito das narrativas de naufrágio de naus e galeões da Carreira da Índia, da História Trágico-Marítima (São Luís: Universidade Estadual do Maranhão, 2009), 53. Author’s translation.

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up her bad habits in the aftermath of a storm that lasted three days at Cape Pichel on the island of Bazaruto (Mozambique).38 What is described for the Carreira da India seems to apply also to Brazil. The 80-year-old New Christian “handicapped” widow Ana Rodrigues travelled from Brazil to Lisbon, as indicated in the records of the Inquisition. In her case file, we find descriptions of some of the conditions of this journey. Separately enclosed in a chamber which had been bought for her, she was watched, forbidden to communicate with people from the ship, and was accompanied by a creole slave named Brígida. She would end up dying in Lisbon in the prisons of the Inquisition in October of the same year.39 Another response to the prohibition of boarding women was transvestism. Women would mix with the crew and male travellers until they were discovered and denounced. Dressing up in men’s clothes (crossdressing) was a behaviour punished by law. Legislation together with royal and religious control (the prescriptions outlined in the Synodal Constitutions as well as the Inquisition) demanded the persecution of male and female offenders. The law was clear that no man could dress as a woman

38 “En esta tormenta hize confessar las mugeres, entre las quales avía una a quien de primeiro por mucho tiempo no pude persuadir que se confesase y se apartase de sus malas costumbres passadas, mas un dia me puso las manos, de manera que faltó poco que no me apaleasse; a la qual con esta tormenta disse que, pues llevávamos caminho para que nos perdêssemos, se aparejase para se confessar antes que fuese al infierno. Ella de miedo se confesó, gracias a nuestro Señor” (“In this storm I made the women to confess, among whom there was one whom at first I could not persuade for a long time to confess and turn away from her past bad habits, but one day she laid hands on me, so that it was not long before she did not beat me up”). Letter from Fr Gaspar Barzeo to his confreres in Coimbra from Goa on 13 December 1548. See António da Silva Rêgo, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, 4, 1548–1550 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1950), 157; Timothy J. Coates, Degredados e Órfãs: colonização dirigida pela coroa no império português. 1550–1755 (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998), 194. Author’s translation. 39 Inquisition proceeding of Ana Rodrigues, PT/TT/TSO-IL/028/12142, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 12,142, fol. 27–30.

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and vice versa.40 However, as with everything in Portuguese legal practice, the prescribed penalties were much heavier than those carried out in everyday life. Identifying as men and assuming a masculine gender role meant an improvement in their situation and a greater margin of freedom for these women emigrating to other territories. More than half of the women who dressed as men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were related to trades practised at sea where the risks of being discovered were also greater.41 Apart from keeping their sex secret, one of the reasons for women on board to dress like men was to escape the harassment of sailors. This was the case of the famous Asian slave who died with a reputation for sanctity in New Spain: Catarina de San Juan, known as La China Poblana. Born between 1600 and 1610 in present-day Bangladesh, she was kidnapped by Portuguese pirates. Baptised in Kochi, she was sold in Manila and sent to Acapulco on a Chinese ship. She was dressed as a boy to defend herself from unwanted attention from the sailors. The Viceroy of Mexico, Marqués de Gelves had petitioned the governor of Manila, asking him to buy him a small Chinese slave for his household. The story of her life was related by her confessors, the Jesuit Alonso Ramos (further disapproved by the Inquisition) and Joseph de El Castillo Grajeda at the end of the seventeenth century.42

40 Do homem que se veste em trajos de mulher, ou mulher em trajos de homem, e dos

que trazem mascaras, Livro V, Título XXXI, Ordenações Manuelinas (Coimbra: Real Imprensa da Universidade, 1797), 90; Livro V, Título XXXIV, Ordenações Filipinas, Cândido Mendes de Almeida, ed., Código Philippino, 14 ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Tipografia do Instituto Filomático, 1870), 1184. 41 Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte Van de Pol, La doncella quiso ser marinero: trasvestismo femenino en Europa (siglos XVII–XVIII) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2006), 13 (1st ed. 1989, published in English as The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe). Of the 93 identified women who lived as men between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more than half practised a trade at sea followed by a post in the army. 42 The name “Chinesa” was applied to those coming from Asia in general. Alonso Ramos, Los prodigios de la omnipotencia y milagros de la gracia en la vida de la venerable sierva de Dios, Catarina de San Juan, 3 Vols. (Puebla: Imprenta Platiniana de Diego Fernández de León, 1689; México: Imprenta de Diego Fernández de León, 1690, 1692); José del Castillo Grajeda, Compendio de la vida y virtudes de la venerable Catharina de San Juan (Puebla: Diego Fernández de León, 1692); Gauvin Alexander Bailey, ‘A Mughal Princess in Baroque New Spain. Catarina de San Juan (1606–1688), The china poblana’, Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 71 (1997), 37–73.

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Moments of leisure on board should ideally have involved women. However, as far as the sources show, most of these moments were forbidden to women. Members of the clergy always managed these activities and their resistance to the participation of women is noticeable. When the inclusion of an Empress was proposed as part of a theatrical performance on board the ship São Martinho sailing from Lisbon in 1562, played on stage by the daughter of a man who was on board, Father António Fernandes threatened the captain, claiming that if a woman was included among the cast, he would stop saying mass and preaching and would not even leave his cabin that day.43 The mere presence of a woman was considered a threat to the crew’s morale and was regarded as reason enough to deny any religious celebration, a reservation which built upon the early modern view of women’s participation in theatre as sinful. However, it must be borne in mind that at the time, women were not allowed—at least officially—on European stages anyway. This restriction led to a form of permitted transvestism: actors disguising themselves as women.44 Sources recognise women’s presence in the collective space in only a few circumstances. One of them was when they participated in such religious events as processions. Religious services were the only events which women would be allowed to attend, but even then, many objections were raised. The orphans (Orfãs d’el Rei) who sailed aboard the ship which followed the Jesuit Arboleda in 1560 had permission from the captain to participate in some services such as litanies and joint prayers, but such permission was granted only at the insistence of the religious-minded on board who reminded him that they were also Christians. Even so, they were only allowed to participate in the afternoon in the captain’s presence because the morning rituals were reserved for the rest of the people with whom they were prohibited to mix.45

43 Facsimile of letter sent from Goa by Brother António Fernandes to the Fathers and

Brothers of the Society of Jesus of Coimbra on 15 September 1562. See Documentos sobre os portugueses em Moçambique e na África Central, 1497–1840, 8, 1561–1588 (Lisbon: National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1975), 88. 44 For instance, see Neil MacGregor, Shakespeare’s Restless World (London: Allen Lane, 2012). 45 Letter from Kochi by Father Arboleda to the Fathers and Brothers of the Company on 13 January 1561. See Rêgo, Documentação,, 280–281.

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The children were also the target of attention of the clergy whose encouragement to participate in religious practices was not always met with success. A 1562 letter records: Also on Sundays and holy days, the doctrine was taught to the children and blacks that came in the carrack although it was work to gather them, because, even if we rang the bell, it was necessary to get them in person, and the most amazing thing was that they did not know the doctrine and they ran to come to it, and the Holy Week ceremonies the priest said them with great devotion.46

To sum up, we see that different kinds of women on board (the Orfãs d’el Rei and others noted for their social status on the one hand, and the so-called suspicious or clandestine on the other) were as a rule removed from the public sphere, from the routines of daily life on the ship and forced into confinement. They were only allowed to participate in some Catholic public rituals such as the celebration of mass. In brief, women were usually separated, incarcerated, and removed from the visual horizon of the crew.47 Daily life was thus lived differently according to gender and social position.

Children on Board The presence of women also led to the birth of children on board. There is, for instance, a report of the birth of a child of an eastern mestizo woman on the ship Nossa Senhora de Jesus on which the Frenchman Pyrard de Laval was travelling in 1610. After passing through a storm by the lands of Natal, the report observes, “There was a mestiza lady from India, the wife of a Portuguese nobleman, very beautiful and almost thirty years old,

46 “Tambem se incinava aos domingos e dias santos a doutrina aos mininos e pretos que vinhão na nao ainda que era trabalho ajunta los, porque ainda que se tangesse o sino, e campainha era necessário ylos buscar em pessoa, e do que mais maravilha era que não sabião a doutrina e se corrião de vyr a ella, e asy os officios de Somana Santa o padre os disse soo com muyta devação […]”. Facsimile of letter sent from Goa by Brother António Fernandes to the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of Jesus of Coimbra on 15 September 1562. See Documentos, 8, 86. 47 Elaine Sanceau, Mulheres portuguesas no ultramar, 24–25.

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who was stricken with childbirth pains, and died with the child, and had no other grave but the sea”.48 On the ship São Martinho, a dead child was found in the middle of the voyage to India in 1597. Her body was found below the deck and was completely covered in lice.49 Elucidating the conditions under which the trip took place, this testimony highlights the vulnerability with which the children struggled, a fact which was also noted in some of the reports of the Jesuit priests. When the ship São Tomé sank in Terra de Fumos in 1589, Joana de Mendonça, a widowed woman who was on her way to Portugal, had a two-year-old daughter with her. Just as the ship was starting to sink, the mother climbed into a barge and the child was handed over to the nanny who did not let go of her, instead sinking with her. When she asked to be rescued, her request went unheard.50 Shipping children from Portugal to India also seemed to be a common practice. A royal letter of 1620 sent to the Viceroy of India stated that the Portuguese King had been informed that many boys were leaving Portugal for India and that several cases of abuse had been recorded in this context. The content of the document leaves open the possibility that these abuses were also of a sexual nature.51 Taking children on board, however, was not prohibited. On the contrary, seafarers were encouraged to bring their male children along in

48 Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara, ed., Viagem de Francisco Pyrard, de Laval (1601 a 1611), 2 (Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1862), 249. 49 Joaquim R. Vaz Monteiro, Uma Viagem Redonda da Carreira da Índia (1597–1598) (Coimbra: Biblioteca Central da Universidade, 1985), 301. 50 Moniz, ‘Primeiras narrativas de naufrágios’, 421–422. 51 “Eu sou informado que nas naos de viagem vão deste Reino muitos meninos que os

soldados logo levão para suas cazas quando ali chegão as ditas naos, e que alguns uzão mal delles, e todos sente muito se os moços a outrem querem servir ou por se apartarem do peccado ou por mudarem de amo, e que por este respeito ha muitas brigas, e que sera grande serviço de Deus remediarem se as desordens que nisto há” (“I am informed that in the armadas there are many boys from this Kingdom, whom the soldiers soon take to their homes when the said carracks arrive, and that some of them use them badly, and everyone is very resentful if the boys want to serve others, either because they want to distance themselves from sins or because they want to change their masters, and that there are many quarrels about this”). Letter from Lisbon on 1 March 1620. See António da Silva Rêgo, Documentos Remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monções. 1619–1620, 6 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1974), 450–451. Author’s translation.

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order to teach them the art of sailing.52 A 1591 decree states that from the age of ten, male children were to receive wages and rations like their parents, implying that they were taken on board at a much earlier age. In the same way, it was established that the judges of the orphans53 could also direct boys without occupation towards a maritime life.54 Even so, a royal charter of 25 February 1638 stipulated that no boys of less than thirteen years should be taken on board the ships of the Carreira da India.55

52 “Encomendo e mando ao provedor de meus almazens e aos ditos Corregedores e provedores que tenhão especial cuidado de encomendarem e mandarem aos offiçiaes da nauegação e marinheiros que ouuer em suas comarcas e tiverem filhos que os ensinem, e apliquem desde pequenos na arte do mar leuando os consiguo as partes aonde forem” (“I commission and order the purveyor of my warehouses and the magistrates and purveyors to take particular care in commissioning navigation officials and sailors in their jurisdictions who have sons to teach them and to instruct them from a young age about the art of the sea, taking them to all the places they go”). See “Regimento sobre os offiçiaes da Nauegação, e da Ribeira e bombardeiros que se hão de matricular” in Leonor Freire Costa, ‘Os regimentos sobre a matrícula dos oficiais da navegação, da ribeira e bombardeiros de 1591 e 1626’, Revista de História Económica, 25 (1989), 89–125, 103. Author’s translation. 53 Legal figure of medieval origin, described in title 88 of Book I of the Philippine Ordinances (1603). They were required to have a degree in Law and were responsible for taking care of minors and administering their property in the event of their parents’ absence, confirming the appointment of guardians for orphans, ensuring that they learn a craft, and so on. 54 The same ordinance stated: “os filhos dos homens do mar que acompanharem seus paes nas viagens que fizerem nas naos e carreira da India e em outros nauios e minhas armadas ou de quaesquer outras Viagens em que forem seruir per conta de minha fazenda uenção tanto que forem de Idade de dez annos soldo e ração como seus pães” (“the sons of the men of the sea who accompany their fathers on voyages they take on ships and on the India route and in other ships of my armadas or any other voyages on which they serve by account of my exchequer, and who are ten years of age, shall have pay and rations like their fathers”). See “Regimento”, 103. Author’s translation. 55 “Por Carta Regia de 25 de Fevereiro de 1638 foi prohibido aos Pilotos, Mestres e Officiaes da carreira da India levar moços de idade menor de treze anos, e o mesmo aos Marinheiros, Grumetes, Fidalgos, Soldados, ou Religiosos, ficando por isso responsáveis os Capitães; para o que fariam alardos; e comminando penas aos contraventores, e aos mesmos Capitães no caso de negligencia” (“By Carta Regia of 25 February 1638, the Pilots, Masters and Officers of the Carreira da India were forbidden to take young men under thirteen years old, and the same applied to the Sailors, Grumetes, Noblemen, Soldiers, or Religious, being the Captains responsible for this”). See José Justino de Andrade e Silva, Colleção Chronologica da Legislação Portugueza (1634–1640) (Lisbon: Imprensa de F. X. de Souza, 1855), 146. Author’s translation.

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From early on, children were recruited as soldiers throughout the country to board the boats to India where they would “accept all kinds of people of any quality and condition, as long as they reach the age of nine to ten years; and they take on the role and are paid as soldiers”.56 The presence of children among the crew is also documented in the route to the Spanish Indias. In his account Norte de la Contratación, D. Ioseph de Veitia Linage observes that cabin boys: which by another name they call them moços, respecting that ordinarily they are of less age and experience than the sailors, and as such being considered novices of that profession, they are commanded what is of greater work, and of less intelligence, and they have a third less pay than the sailor, and in the voice of sailors are also included the pages, who are boys, of whom six or eight are assisted on each galleon, and serve to sweep, and for other exercises of the cleaning of the ship, and to get accustomed and promoted to the positions of cabin boy and sailors.57

Speaking of gunners, keepers, constables, foremen, and pilots, the same decree observes that “[they] having been brought up from childhood in the handling of it, have produced very eminent men worthy of occupying the first places”.58

56 “Quando se quer fazer um embarque em Lisboa para a India, fazem uma leva de soldados por todo Portugal em cada freguesia, como cá se faz com os gastadores, e aceitam toda a sorte de gente que qualquer qualidade e condição que seja, com tanto que chegue á idade de nove a dez anos; e a esses tomam a rol, e ficam tidos e pagos por soldados”. See Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara, trans., Viagem de Francisco Pyrard ás Indias Orientais (1610 a 1611), 2 (Nova-Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1862), 102–103. 57 “que por outro nombre los llaman moços, respeto de que ordinariamente son de menos edad, y experiencias que los marineros, y como tales considerándose novicios de aquella profession, se les manda lo que es de mayor trabajo, y de menos inteligencia, y tienen un tercio menos de sueldo que los marineros, y en la voz de marineros se comprehenden también los pages, que son unos muchachos de que se asisten seis, u ocho en cada Galeon, y sirven para barrer, y para otros exercicios de la limpieza dèl, y para irse habituando, y ascendiendo à las plazas de grumete, y marineros.” Joseph Veitia Linage, Norte de la Contratación de la Indias Occidentales (Sevilla: Juna Francisco de Blas, 1672), 40–41. 58 Ibid., 40–41.

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There were children on board for reasons other than servicing the ships.59 Nine orphans left from Lisbon to Brazil in 1550 in the company of Jesuits to help the missionaries in teaching doctrine, singing, and attending mass. Others were called by relatives already settled in the new territories.60 Antónia, disguised as António, left Lisbon at the age of 12, fleeing ill-treatment by her family.61 Around 1600, she played a prominent role as a soldier in the plaza of Mazagão (today Morocco). She returned to Lisbon after five years. But it was not only from Portugal that children left for overseas spaces. A charter (alvará) from the King dated 23 March 1618 gives an account of the conditions of slavery to which many of these children coming from the East were thrust: I, The King. I make it known to those who see this charter that I have been informed that in the ships that come from India to this Kingdom every year, many slaves of a young age are boarded, who are not useful to work in the service of said ships, nor on the occasions when enemies are encountered. And wanting to provide a convenient remedy for this:—I have seen fit, and I command, that no slaves who are not of an age to work in their service be shipped to this Kingdom in the ships; with the declaration that, if the contrary is done, all those who are not of the said age shall be considered as lost to my treasury, and that [applies] in this and into the incoming female slaves, should these Regulations and Laws issued about this matter to be inviolably kept […] And so everyone knows what is determined, a copy of the said charter will be fixed at the foot of the mast of each one of the said ships, before they leave India, and by their clerks.62

59 On this matter, see also Fábio Pestana Ramos, ‘A história trágico-marítima das

crianças nas embarcações portuguesas do século XVI’ in Histórias das crianças no Brasil, ed. Mary del Priore (São Paulo: Contexto, 2010). 60 Isabel dos Guimarães Sá, ‘As crianças e as idades da vida’ in História da Vida Privada em Portugal, 2, ed. José Mattoso (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, Círculo de Leitores, 2011), 72–95, 85. 61 Nunez de Leão, Descripção do Reino de Portugal (Lisbon: Iorge Rodriguez, 1610), 148–150. 62 “Eu El- Rei Faço saber aos que este Alvará virem, que eu sou informado em como nas náos, que em cada um anno vem da India para este Reino, se embarcam muitos escravos de pouca idade, os quaes não servem para trabalharem no serviço das ditas náos, nem nas ocasiões que se oferece encontrando inimigos. E querendo nisso provèr com remedio conveniente: —hei por bem, e mando, que nas náos se não embarquem escravos

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This is also stipulated in a royal letter of 27 March 1620 which attempted to enforce a prohibition on taking on board enslaved people under the age of 18 to Portugal. Moreover, the document notes “that every woman slave who does not come with a married woman and who is not locked is lost to my treasury, and so is every slave who is less than eighteen years old”.63

Risks at Sea Risks could also be experienced differently. Among the risks associated with navigation was the risk of falling overboard. In his account of the 1560 voyage to India on board the São Paulo, Henrique Dias mentioned Dona Isabel, a fourteen-year-old girl who died after falling into the sea from the balcony of the chamber where she was travelling.64 Explosions

para esse Reino, que não sejam de idade que possam trabalhar no serviço dellas; com declaração que, fazendo-se o contrario, todos os que vierem que não sejam de dita idade, se tomarão por perdidos para minha Fazenda; e que nisto, e em não virem escravas, se guardem inviolavelmente os Regimentos e Leis, que sobre esta matéria são passados […] E para vir á noticia de todos o que dito é, se fixará a copia do dito Alvará no pé do masto de cada uma das ditas náos, antes que partam da India, e pelos Escrivães dellas […]”. See de Andrade e Silva, Colleção, 276–277. Author’s translation. 63 Rêgo, Documentos, 6, 404. 64 “Seria entre o meio-dia e uma hora, quando alguns, que por bordo estavam, gritaram:

‘Homens ao mar’; e era que da varanda da câmara do leme, em que ia agasalhado com sua mulher Diogo Pereira de Vasconcelos, um fidalgo que vinha provido das viagens de Pegu, parece que, indo tirar ou pôr alguma coisa, caiu ao mar uma moça sobrinha sua, filha de um seu irmão, que consigo trazia; chamava-se D. Isabel, de idade de quatorze anos até quinze anos, muito formosa e bem afigurada; e em caindo, enquanto deram com a nau por davante, ia já meia légua, que foi vista de todos sempre sobre a água, batendo com os pés e com as mãos […]” (“It was between noon and one o’clock, when some that were on board cried out, ‘Men to the sea’; and it was that from the balcony of the helm chamber, where Diogo Pereira de Vasconcelos, a nobleman that was provided with the voyages of Pegu, was sheltered with his wife, it seems that, going to take or put something, there fell into the sea a girl, his niece, daughter of one of his brothers, that he brought with him; her name was D. Isabel, from fourteen to fifteen years old, very beautiful and good-looking; and as she was falling, while the ship was sailing ahead, she was already half a league, and everyone saw her always on the water, beating her with her hands and feet”). She did not survive. See Moniz, ‘Primeiras narrativas de naufrágios’, 278. Author’s translation.

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caused by gunpowder were another risk, as happened to the captain of Meliapor, Dom Antonio Manuel, and his family in 1624.65 Shipwrecks were, however, the most frequent danger.66 In these episodes, women played a central role. Like all narratives of maritime expansion, the extant accounts come from a masculine perspective and represent the unexpected and highlight the unpredictable nature of the ocean. The causes identified as responsible for the shipwrecks are natural, human, and symbolic. One thing, however, which these accounts have in common is the constant presence of women as victims of shipwrecks. Although this may imply that the narratives were strategically oriented to appeal to the sympathy and commiseration of the audience, they nonetheless provide documentary proof about the frequency and normality of their presence in overseas voyages. In the História Trágico-Marítima published by Bernardo Gomes de Brito, women belonging to the leading social groups are a dominant presence. The image projected is one of fragile, submissive, silent, pious, and dignified women who need male protection in their helplessness. These were the wives of Crown officers or wealthy merchants accompanying their husbands on business trips or returning to the metropolis after a commission in the East.67 Sometimes, they also included widows returning to Portugal. Captives, enslaved people, or sex workers are never mentioned among the stereotypes of the História Trágico-Marítima. They seem not to have been worth talking about, although in the light of the scenarios previously outlined, they must have been present as well.

65 António da Silva Rêgo, Documentos Remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monções (1624), 10 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1982), 134–135. 66 Kioko Koiso, Mar, Medo e Morte: aspectos psicológicos dos náufragos na História Trágico-Marítima, nos testemunhos inéditos e noutras fontes (Cascais: Patrimonia, 2004); Giulia Lanciani, Sucessos e Naufrágios das naus portuguesas (Lisbon: Caminho, 1997); Paulo Guinote, Eduardo Frutuoso and António Lopes, Naufrágios e outras perdas da «Carreira da Índia». Séculos XVI e XVII (Lisbon, Grupo de Trabalho do Ministério da Educação para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998); Moniz, ‘Primeiras narrativas de naufrágios’; António Moniz, A História Trágico-Marítima: Identidade e Condição Humana (Lisbon, Colibri, 2001); Leidivaldo dos Santos Silva, Expansão portuguesa à Asia: Um estudo a respeito das narrativas de naufrágio de naus e galeões da Carreira da Índia, da História Trágico-Marítima (São Luís: Universidade Estadual do Maranhão, 2009). 67 Leidivaldo dos Santos Silva, Expansão Portuguesa à Asia, 54.

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Other risks faced by those who embarked on the Carreira da India were corsage, piracy, and naval warfare. Within the Iberian context, it had been common since the Middle Ages to take captives in order to supply very profitable traffic: the rescue of captives—men and women, Christians, and Moors. It appears that the type of privateering that most affected the Portuguese on these overseas routes (besides the Muslim corsairs in the Indian Ocean, similar to the Portuguese in the same region) was that practised by Europeans, i.e. by the French, English, and the Dutch. The Chagas, which sailed from Goa in 1593, was burned by the English in the Azores. According to chronicles, Dona Luísa de Melo and her mother threw themselves into the sea, drowned, and were buried on the island of Faial in 1594. The story maintains that they did it by choice, preferring this over being naked and taken captive.68 The risk of these women and children becoming captives was not, in fact, negligible. There are various accounts in which we find captive women who passed from one ‘conqueror’ to another, be they Christians, Hindus, or Muslims. Consider the example, still recounted in heroic terms, of a slave who would rather die than convert to Islam.69 The author of the account, Manuel de Sousa de Faria, described the story as praise to Christian converts who would not allow themselves to be converted to Islam even under the threat of death. In the East, a Hungarian woman sailed in a Turkish boat. Once the ship was captured, the woman was taken captive and passed to Gaspar da India and later to Diogo Pereira of Cochin. She was thus part of the booty shared by the corsairs who, in this case, were Portuguese.70 In addition to the fact 68 Moniz, ‘Primeiras narrativas de naufrágios’, 630. 69 “Entre los esclavos Portugueses (despojo singular desta bien reñida batalla) se halló

una muger (poco antes amiga de uno dellos) cargada de cadenas, por no quererse volver Mora a instancia de Pate Marcar, ni por grandes promessas, ni por grandes peligros, llegando él a ponerle en la garganta el alfanje, creyendo que el temor de la muerte la doblasse: antes con gentilíssima constancia (increible hecho en hembra de tal vida!) animava los esclavos a que no desistiessen de la Fé por elgun tormento” (“Among the Portuguese slaves (singular spoil of this well-fought battle) a woman (shortly before a friend of one of them) was found loaded with chains, for not wanting to return Mora at the request of Pate Marcar, neither for great promises, nor for great dangers, He came to put the cutlass to her throat, believing that the fear of death would bend her: before with the most gentle constancy (incredible fact in a female of such a life!) he encouraged the slaves not to give up their faith because of torment”). See Manuel de Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, 1 (Lisbon: Officina de Henrique Valente de Oliveira, 1666), 338. 70 João de Barros, Década segunda da Asia (Lisbon: Jorge Rodriguez, 1628), 64.

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that some of the risks mentioned so far gave rise to different experiences according to gender or age, there were risks specific to women, particularly violence and sexual harassment. Aware of this, the authorities responsible for organising the trips of the Cape Route always advised or even obliged women to travel accompanied by a religious official or a relative. The aim clearly was to preserve their honour. Risks of violence and sexual harassment were reported even for the King’s orphans for whose transport the royal officials were responsible. The textual evidence speaks eloquently of their vulnerability: I have been informed that, going to these parts the year [1]608, three orphans from the Recolhimento do Castelo of this city embarked on the ship Salvação, sheltered in a cabin with Dona Lucrecia, wife of Domingos da Costa, who was on the same ship. Dom Luiz de Sousa, captain of the ship, disturbed and urged them to leave the company of the said Dona Lucrecia and move to other cabins, offering to pay for them, saying they were very tight, and that their health and lives were in danger because the voyage was long; not wanting them to change, he prevented the said Domingos da Costa from arriving at the door of the cabin where they were going with his wife, ordering him not to speak to her or the orphans, putting soldiers on guard, since there were passions between them both. And when he arrived in Mombasa, one of the orphans had died on the journey, and the others were on land with the wife of said Domingos da Costa, and because he did not allow the said Dom Luiz to visit them, as he wanted to do, on the second day after his arrival, he treated them badly with words, and tried by bad means and messages to disturb the orphans; and because they did not defer to him, he tried one night with armed soldiers to get into the house through a yard; and because of the said Domingos da Costa’s help, he went away, leaving the doors out of their place; so that the orphans did not want to go back on board the ship from there, and the said Dom Luiz sought him very much. And because this case is of such a nature as to be understood, and I have ordered that an inquiry to be made into the doom of the said ship, as you will see from another letter of mine, which is on these lines, I charge you to order that the same inquiry be made into it, and that, if the said Dom Luiz is guilty of it, he will be imprisoned and punished according to the fault he is guilty of.

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Written in Lisbon on 24 January 1611. King —The Count Admiral.71

The inclusion of women on board by the shipping officers themselves in order to serve them in a variety of ways—including sexual—is also present in the Mediterranean area.72

Final Remarks Women are not absent from the testimonies of the Portuguese overseas expansionist adventurers, nor were they absent from their regular overseas journeys. The sources demonstrate that female presence on board was understood as an exceptional practice and subjected to strong punitive and/or reproving measures. This perception stems from the association of the female image with (sexual) temptation which led to strong restrictions on their presence in a universe understood and lived as being exclusively 71 “Fui informado que, indo para essas partes o anno de 608 tres órfãs do recolhimento do Castello d´esta cidade embarcadas na nau Salvação, agasalhadas em hum camarote com Dona Lucrecia, mulher de Domingos da Costa, que ia na mesma nau, Dom Luiz de Sousa, capitão d´ella, as inquietou e persuadiu com instancia a deixarem a companhia da dita Dona Lurecia e se passarem a outros camarotes, oferecendo-se a pagal-os, dizendo irem muito apertadas, e correr perigo sua saúde e vidas por a viagem ser comprida; e escusando-se ellas de se haverem de mudar, impediu ao dito Domingos da Costa chegar á porta do camarote onde iam com a dita sua mulher, mandando-lhe não falasse com ella, nem com as órfãs, pondo-lhe para isso guarda de soldados, sobre que houve entre ambos paixões. E chegando a Mombaça, sendo falecida na viagem hua das ditas órfãs, e recolhendo-se as outras em terra com a mulher do dito Domingos da Costa, por elle não consentir ao dito Dom Luiz visital-as, como quizera fazer ao segundo dia depois da sua chegada, o tratou mal de palavras, e procurou por maus meios e com recados inquietar as órfãs; e por ella lhe não deferirem, tentou hua noite com soldados armados entrar-lhe em casa por hum quintal; e por o dito Domingos da Costa acudir, se recolheu, deixando as portas fora do seu lugar; pelo que se não quiseram as ditas órfãs tornar d´alli a embarcar na nau, procurando-o muito o dito Dom Luiz. E porque este caso he da qualidade que se deixa entender, e eu tenho mandado se tire devassa da perdição da dita nau, como vereis de outra carta minha, que vae n´estas vias, vos encomendo ordeneis que na mesma devassa se pergunte por elle particularmente, e que, sendo o dito Dom Luiz culpado n´isso, seja preso e castigado conforme a culpa que tiver, advertindo que na devassa, que também mando se tire n´esta cidade, ordeno se pergunte por este particular. Escripta em Lisboa a 24 de janeiro de 1611.— Rey.:— O Conde Almirante.” Raymundo António de Bulhão Pato, Documentos Remettidos da India ou Livros das Monções. 1568, 1609–1614, 2 (Lisbon: Typogrphia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1884), 12. Author’s translation. 72 Fray Antonio de Guevara, Libro de los inventores del arte de marear y de muchos trabajos que se pasan en las galeras (Valladolid: Juan de Villaquirán, 1538). Apud José Luis Martínez, Pasajeros de Indias, 240.

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male. However, the accounts also serve to prove that these norms were never fully respected in practice. The presence of women on board was always a constant feature and, in fact, became a norm. It is not possible to accurately assess this presence in numerical terms due to the lack of serial documentation, the practice of sub-registration, and the predominant practice of clandestinity. Nevertheless, we believe it is possible to posit that although the presence of women on board was considered objectionable and counterproductive, it was nonetheless constant, especially because their role as colonisers depended on previously making the voyage overseas. The accounts of shipwrecks as well as the reports of Jesuit priests show these women travelling by the dozen on each ship. This is also the case for the Carreira da India, the most tightly-controlled voyage and the one which, due to its length, complexity, and difficulty, would make the unknown presence of women on board all the more difficult. The cross-referencing of sources reveals that these women belonged to all social strata and were driven by various motivations or obligations. They appear as forced settlers, orphans, sex workers, mothers, adventurers, wives, and daughters of merchants and nobles, but also of carpenters and blacksmiths, soldiers, and sailors. Their sex and gender did not prevent them from travelling and joining the masses of migrants in circulation; rather, at times, it pushed and forced them to do so. Without women (Portuguese, European, indigenous, or the result of ethnic interbreeding), there was no viable colonisation process; without women, there was, in fact, no viable empire. The presence of children on board as newborn babies, members of mobile households, or members of crews was neither rare nor extraordinary, since they could join in significant numbers from an early age. Their vulnerability and usefulness to the Iberian Crowns and to their own families were clear. However, we must also highlight their resilience and the constant search for opportunities that led them (together with many of the ‘adventurous’ women) to undertake a journey full of vicissitudes, one in which the risks of transoceanic navigation were added to those inherent to sexual harassment and other forms of violence and ill-treatment. In the travel conditions described, the risks, vulnerabilities, and contingencies of life on board were felt in certain areas as a levelling factor between gender and status. In other ways, however, they differentiated between men, women, and children, and even within the latter

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group, there were differences which stemmed from their sex, social status, physical vulnerability, or economic capacity. Even with high tonnage in vessels, such as those that were part of the Carreira da India, it is difficult to define what is public and what is private. The presence of women in public was generally seen as a high risk for the conditions of the voyage, largely due to their perception as disruptive to the daily life at sea and as a threat which was not only moral but, above all, sexual. This explains their frequent resort to clandestinity and their recourse to transvestism, a strategy which allowed them to assume male roles and performances in order to achieve their goals. One assertion seems certain: in such conditions, in the case of women on board, privacy is usually connected with captivity, compulsive isolation, and constant surveillance. In these microcosmic spaces, they were subject to the exacerbation of control strategies similar to those which they experienced on land under the pretext of their vulnerability or the protection of their honour. All these gender stereotypes—ranging from the sexual temptress to the fragile and vulnerable woman who must be protected— reduced them to simple objects of male control. However, they also accessed the public space and were active, participatory, entrepreneurial, and adventurous. Women also emerge as builders responsible for their own destiny and as contributors to the creation of a global history that until now has hardly ever paused to consider their contributions.

Primary Source Barros, João de, Década Primeira da Ásia (Lisbon: Jorge Rodriguez, 1628). Castañeda, Fernão López de, História do Descobrimento e Conquista da India pelos Portugueses, Book 7 (Lisbon: Typographia Rollandiana, 1833), [1st ed. 1554]. Castillo Grajeda, José del, Compendio de la vida y virtudes de la venerable Catharina de San Juan (Puebla: Diego Fernández de León, 1692). Correa, Gaspar, Lendas da Índia, Vol. 2, 4 (Lisbon: Tipographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1861, 1866). Couto, Diogo do, Década Quarta da Asia, dos feitos que os portugueses fizeram na conquista e descobrimento das terras, & mares do Oriente (Lisbon: Pedro Crasbeeck, 1602). Documentos sobre os portugueses em Moçambique e na África Central, Vol. 7 (1540–1560), Vol. 8 (1561–1588) (Lisbon: National Archives of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1971, 1975).

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Inquisition proceeding of Ana Rodrigues, Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, proc. 12142, fol. 27–30. PT/TT/TSO-IL/028/12142. Leão, Nunez de, Descripção do Reino de Portugal (Lisbon: Iorge Rodriguez, 1610). Linage, Joseph Veitia, Norte de la Contratación de la Indias Occidentales (Sevilla: Juna Francisco de Blas, 1672). Lobo, Jerônimo, Itinerário e Outros Escritos Inéditos, ed. M. Gonçalves da Costa (Porto: Livraria Civilização, 1971). Moniz, António, ‘Primeiras narrativas de naufrágios: história trágico-marítima’/ Bernardo Gomes de Brito in Obras Pioneiras da Cultura Portuguesa, Vol. 26, eds. José Eduardo Franco and Carlos Fiolhais (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2018). Ordenações Manuelinas (Coimbra: Real Imprensa da Universidade, 1797). Ordenações Filipinas, Cândido Mendes de Almeida, ed., Código Philippino, 14 ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Tipografia do Instituto Filomático, 1870). Pato, Raymundo António de Bulhão, Documentos Remettidos da India ou Livros das Monções. 1568, 1609–1614, Vol. 2 (Lisbon: Typogrphia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1884). Quirós, Pedro Fernández de, Memoriales de las Indias Australes (Madrid: Ed. Oscar Pinochet, 1991). Rêgo, António da Silva, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 2, 1523–1543 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1949). ———, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 5, 1551–1554 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1951). ———, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 6, 1555–1558 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1951). ———, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 8, 1560–1561 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1952). ———, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 9, 1562–1565 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1953). ———, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente. Índia, Vol. 10, 1566–1568 (Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1953). ———, Documentos Remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monções. 1619–1620, Vol. 6 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1974). ———, Documentos Remetidos da Índia ou Livros das Monções (1624), Vol. 10 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1982).

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Ramos, Alonso, Los prodigios de la omnipotencia y milagros de la gracia en la vida de la venerable sierva de Dios, Catarina de San Juan, 3 Vols. (Puebla: Imprenta Platiniana de Diego Fernández de León, 1689; México: Imprenta de Diego Fernández de León, 1690, 1692). Rivara, Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha, ed., Viagem de Francisco Pyrard, de Laval (1601 a 1611), Vol. 2 (Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1862). Silva, José Justino de Andrade e, Colleção Chronologica da Legislação Portugueza (1634–1640) (Lisbon: Imprensa de F. X. de Souza, 1855). Sousa, Manuel de Faria y, Asia Portuguesa, Vol. 1 (Lisbon: Officina de Henrique Valente de Oliveira, 1666).

Bibliography Albuquerque, Luís de, Domingues, Francisco Contente, eds., Grandes viagens marítimas (Lisbon: Publicações Alfa, 1989). Bailey, Gauvin Alexander, ‘A Mughal Princess in Baroque New Spain. Catarina de San Juan (1606–1688), The china poblana’, Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 71 (1997), 37–73. Borges, Marco Oliveira, ‘Aspetos do quotidiano e vivência feminina nos navios da carreira da Índia durante o século XVI’, Revista Portuguesa de História, 47 (2016), 195–214. Boxer, Charles Ralph, A Mulher na Expansão Ultramarina Ibérica 1415–1815. Alguns factos, ideias e personalidades (Lisbon: Horizonte, 1977). ———, The ‘Carreira da Índia’ (Ships, Men, Cargoes, Voyages) (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos e as Comemorações Henriquinas, CEHU, 1961). Separata, 33–82. Coates, Timothy J., Degredados e Órfãs: colonização dirigida pela coroa no império português. 1550–1755 (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998). Costa, Leonor Freire, ‘Os regimentos sobre a matrícula dos oficiais da navegação, da ribeira e bombardeiros de 1591 e 1626’, Revista de História Económica, 25 (1989), 89–125. D’Armada, Fina, Mulheres navegantes no tempo de Vasco da Gama (Lisbon: Ésquilo, 2006). Dekker, Rudolf M. and Van de Pol, Lotte, La doncella quiso ser marinero: trasvestismo femenino en Europa (siglos XVII–XVIII) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2006), 13 (1st ed. 1989, published in English as The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe). Domingues, Francisco Contente, ‘Navios e marinheiros’ in Lisboa ultramarina, 1415–1580: a invenção do mundo pelos navegadores portugueses, ed. Michel Chandeigne (Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Ed., 1992)

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———, ‘Arte e técnicas nas navegações portuguesas: das primeiras viagens à armada de Cabral’ A descoberta do homem e do mundo, org. Adauto Novaes (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998). Domingues, Francisco Contente and Guerreiro, Inácio, ‘A vida a bordo na carreira da Índia (século XVI)’, Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, 34 (1988), 185–225. Guinote, Eduardo Paulo and Frutuosos, António Lopes, Naufrágios e outras perdas da «Carreira da Índia». Séculos XVI e XVII (Lisbon, Grupo de Trabalho do Ministério da Educação para as comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998). Koiso, Kioko, Mar, Medo e Morte: aspectos psicológicos dos náufragos na História Trágico-Marítima, nos testemunhos inéditos e noutras fontes (Cascais: Patrimonia, 2004). Lanciani, Giulia, Sucessos e Naufrágios das naus portuguesas (Lisbon: Caminho, 1997). López de Mariscal, Blanca, ‘El viaje a la Nueva España entre 1549 y 1625: El trayecto feminino’, Historia de las Mujeres em América Latina, eds. Juan Andreo and Sara Beatriz Guadia (Perú: CEMHAM, 2002). MacGregor, Neil, Shakespeare’s Restless World (London: Allen Lane, 2012). Martínez, José Luis, Pasajeros de Indias. Viajes transatlánticos en el siglo XVI (Madrid: Alianza, 1983). Martínez Martínez, María del Carmen, ‘Inquietudes, Viajes y Equipajes’, Viajeras entre dos mundos, ed. Sara Beatriz Guardia (Perú: Centro de Estudios La Mujer en la Historia de América Latina CEHMAL, 2011), 55–79. Martins, Mário, Teatro quinhentista das naus da índia (Lisbon: Brotéria, 1973). Maura, Juan Francisco, Españolas em Ultramar em la historia y em la literatura: Aventureras, madres, soldados, virreinas, gobernadoras, adelantadas, prostitutas, empresarias, monjas, escritoras, criadas (Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, 2005). Monteiro, Joaquim R. Vaz, Uma Viagem Redonda da Carreira da Índia (1597– 1598) (Coimbra: Biblioteca Central da Universidade, 1985). Monteiro, Nuno Gonçalo and Mattoso, José, eds., História da vida privada em Portugal. A Idade Moderna (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2011). O rosto feminino da expansão portuguesa. International Congress Lisbon, 21–24 November 1994 (Lisbon: Comissão para a Igualdade e para os Direitos das Mulheres, 1995). Otte, Enrique, Cartas privadas de emigrantes a Indias 1540–1616 (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996). Polónia, Amélia, ‘Espaços de inclusão e de exclusão de agentes femininas no processo de expansão ultramarina portuguesa (Século XV)’ in Os espaços femininos no mundo americano (Atas do XIII Congresso Internacional da AHILA. Ponta Delgada, 3–8 de setembro de 2002), 107–124.

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Ramos, Fábio Pestana, ‘A história trágico-marítima das crianças nas embarcações portuguesas do século XVI’ in Histórias das crianças no Brasil, ed. Mary del Priore (São Paulo: Contexto, 2010). Sá, Isabel dos Guimarães, ‘As crianças e as idades da vida’ in História da Vida Privada em Portugal, Vol. 2, ed. José Mattoso (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, Círculo de Leitores, 2011). Sanceau, Elaine, Mulheres portuguesas no ultramar (Porto: Civilização, 1979). Silva, Leidivaldo dos Santos, Expansão portuguesa à Asia: Um estudo a respeito das narrativas de naufrágio de naus e galeões da Carreira da Índia, da História Trágico-Marítima (São Luís: Universidade Estadual do Maranhão, 2009). Sousa, Germano de, História da medicina portuguesa durante a expansão (Lisbon: Temas e debates, Círculo de Leitores, 2003).

CHAPTER 4

Privacy in Recife, Freedom in Amsterdam: Juliana’s Practical Strategies of Autonomy Across the Atlantic Natália da Silva Perez

Introduction1 In 1654, Juliana, a woman of African origin, and Eliau Burgos, a Sephardic Jewish merchant, crossed the Atlantic together from Recife to

1 This research was funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF138). I would like to extend a special heartfelt thanks to Mark Ponte for his advice on archival sources about Juliana at the Amsterdam City Archives, to Amalia S. Levi for her advice on sources about the seventeenth-century Jewish community in Barbados, to Andrea C. Mosterman and Sanne Maekelberg for their advice and help with transcriptions of seventeenth-century handwritten Dutch sources, to Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo for his advice on sources about Dutch Brazil, to Natacha Klein Käfer for her editorial care and for her encouragement of this project, and to Marisa Fuentes for her

N. da Silva Perez (B) Department of History, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_4

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Amsterdam.2 Juliana had been serving as an enslaved domestic worker at Burgos’ house for about one decade since she had been purchased by him in Recife in 1643 when she was 10 or 11 years old. Burgos was a member of a Jewish congregation that existed in seventeenth-century Dutch Brazil called Zur Israel and Magen Abraham. When the Dutch lost control of their colony in northeastern Brazil—and Pernambuco went back to Portuguese rule and to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition—Burgos was among the Jewish colonial subjects who decided to relocate. On that occasion, Juliana pleaded with Burgos for him to bring her along to Amsterdam, promising him that she would forever be at his service. Burgos indeed brought along with him not only Juliana, who was perhaps 21 or 22 years old at the time, but at least one other enslaved girl called Esperança, who was probably around 12 years old.3 In Amsterdam, however, Juliana learned that she had the right to be free and strove to secure that right for herself through both legal and practical means. In this chapter, the Atlantic Ocean plays the part of a legal and social threshold for Juliana and Eliau Burgos. Crossing the ocean from Recife advice on how to approach the history of women of African descent. I am also grateful to the organizers and participants of the conference ‘Atlantic Jewish Worlds: 1500–1900’ in April 2021 at University of Pennsylvania as well as my colleagues at PRIVACY for their comments on early versions of this text. 2 Juliana’s case study has been discussed by other historians. See Dienke Hondius, ‘Black Africans in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam’, Renaissance & Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme, 31 (2) (Spring 2008), 87–105, https://doi.org/10.33137/rr.v31i2.9185; Mark Ponte, ‘“Al de Swarten Die Hier Ter Stede Comen”: Een Afro-Atlantische Gemeenschap in Zeventiende-Eeuws Amsterdam’, TSEG/ Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, 15 (4) (11 March 2019), 33–62, https://doi.org/10. 18352/tseg.995; ‘A afro-brasileira Juliana em Amsterdã’, BNDigital (blog), accessed 17 December 2020, https://bndigital.bn.gov.br/dossies/historias-da-nova-holanda/aafro-brasileira-juliana-em-amsterda/; ‘Juliana—Keurboek—Geschiedenislokaal Amsterdam’, accessed 27 October 2020, https://www.geschiedenislokaalamsterdam.nl/bronnen/jul iana-keurboek/; Hanneloes Pen, ‘Slavernij in Amsterdam: Juliana werd voor 525 gulden gekocht’, Het Parool, 30 June 2020, sec. Kunst & Media, https://www.parool.nl/gs-b3c 748be. 3 ‘Contract between Juliana and Eliau Burgos Notarized by Benedict Baddel’, Digitised version: Inventory 5075, Notary 44 Benedict Baddel, Minuutacten Folder 980, Digital Folio 76, Amsterdam City Archives, accessed 6 October 2021, https://archief.ams terdam/inventarissen/scans/5075/44.1.70/start/70/limit/10/highlight/6; ‘Contract between Esperança and Eliau Burgos Notarized by Benedict Baddel’, Digitised version: Inventory 5075, Notary 44 Benedict Baddel, Minuutacten Folder 980, Digital Folio 77, Amsterdam City Archives, accessed 6 October 2021, https://archief.amsterdam/invent arissen/scans/5075/44.1.70/start/70/limit/10/highlight/6.

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to Amsterdam had tremendous impact on their relationship, an intimate domestic relationship marked by a drastic imbalance of power. ‘Privacy’ here has served as an analytical lens that has directed my research on the contours of their relationship. This analytical perspective has helped me to examine the possible ways in which familial intimacy and trust might have been, at first, fostered in the domestic colonial environment that Juliana and Burgos inhabited in Recife, and subsequently, dismantled by the displacement of the Burgos household to Amsterdam. From the extant historical sources, as I show, it is possible to infer that both Burgos and Juliana, at turns, informally leveraged their trust in each other to secure their own respective interests. However, as my discussion shows, the legal and cultural contexts in which they acted could substantially influence the outcome of their personal exchanges. Crossing the Atlantic precipitated drastic changes to how they related to each other. Central to my discussion in this chapter is my interest in exploring the balance of power in an intimate relationship between an enslaver and an enslaved person. What could have been the nature of the psychological bond between Juliana and Eliau Burgos? What made it possible for an enslaved domestic worker and her enslaver to become a part of each other’s private worlds? What happened to this unequal relationship when the two people involved were geographically displaced? Is it possible, with the help of these extant documents, to get an insight into the benefits and costs for Juliana of cultivating trust with her enslaver Eliau Burgos? In the discussion that follows, I will start with a brief methodological explanation of how I engage privacy as an analytical lens in this case study, followed by an overview of the historical documents that I use for my analysis. Then, I will discuss my understanding of how Juliana and Burgos might have inhabited colonial Recife, of how their situation started to change as they boarded the ship that carried them across the ocean, of how that change was completed as they arrived and settled in Amsterdam, and of how Juliana refused to return to the predicament of slavery by refusing to go to yet another colonial setting—Barbados.

Privacy as an Analytical Lens for Historical Sources To use privacy as an analytical lens for the case of Juliana, I focus on a subset of what is encompassed by what we might currently understand as ‘privacy’, that is, I focus on the ability a person might have to regulate,

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adjust, or control access to themselves and to their material and immaterial resources.4 This ability is context- and time-dependent: access to privacy emerges as a constant negotiation between people, it is not a fixed characteristic attached to an individual or place. From a present-day perspective, we might perceive privacy as a right, one that helps to protect an individual human being. This assumption, however, does not hold very easily when we are talking about the early modern period, especially in colonial contexts. In pre-modern times, the strategies available for people to regulate access to themselves and to their resources often entailed delicate tacit negotiations. For example, a young couple might seek opportunities for intimacy by taking a walk at a park, away from parents’ eyes but in a respectable location.5 An unsanctioned religious community might conceal their place of worship with a secular facade.6 Nonetheless, there were some similarities with situations we might encounter today: in the early modern period, these tacit negotiations varied substantially depending on the socioeconomic status of a person or community, on their perceived ethnoracial traits, on their religious affiliation, on their age, and on their expected gender roles. Such tacit negotiations over privacy were not premised only on the individual person; rather, each human being had to engage in cooperation with the community to which they belonged, and this community could have a great deal of power to influence what privacy the person managed to enjoy. Regulating access to oneself in the early modern period was a precarious endeavour; within the colonial context, this precarity was compounded by political instability. As Lauren Benton argues in her book Law and Colonial Cultures:

4 Stephen T. Margulis, ‘Privacy as a Social Issue and Behavioral Concept’, Journal of Social Issues, 59 (2) (2003), 243–61, https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00063; Kirsty Hughes, ‘A Behavioural Understanding of Privacy and Its Implications for Privacy Law’, The Modern Law Review, 75 (5) (2012), 806–36, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230. 2012.00925.x; Natália Silva Perez, ‘Privacy and Social Spaces’, TSEG/ Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, 18 (3) (December 2021), https://www.tseg.nl/. 5 Julie Hardwick, Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660–1789, 2020, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db= nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2576094. 6 Natália da Silva Perez and Peter Thule Kristensen, ‘Gender, Space, and Religious Privacy’, TSEG/ Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, 18 (3) (December 2021).

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Colonial states did not in an important sense exist as states in the early centuries of colonialism. They did not claim or produce a monopoly on legal authority or on the assignment of political and legal identity. Indeed, colonial conditions often intensified the fluidity of the legal order and enhanced the strategic importance of personal law by multiplying claims made by, and on behalf of, cultural and religious communities to their own legal authorities.7

The example of the Jewish community in Dutch Brazil is telling. As soon as the Dutch lost their political control over the colony in Pernambuco, the Jewish religion became de facto illegal and the Jewish community had to move away from the Inquisition. I acknowledge that it is not straight-forward for me to find answers to the questions that I set out to investigate, and in the effort to do so, I face several obstacles. One of them is the difficulty of studying the nature of pre-modern privacy. As I mentioned above, before ‘privacy’ was codified as a human right, it could only really be achieved through tenuous, mostly informal, negotiations, and these negotiations often had to account for the possible interference of close kin, community members, and even authorities. Another obstacle is that relevant historical sources are scarce, and the ones that still survive might present competing perspectives that require a good dose of interpretation. Yet another obstacle is the extreme power imbalance between enslaved people and enslavers, which also influenced the documents that survive in the archives. Thus, this paper takes the cue from Marisa Fuentes in trying to make meaning not only out of what is present in the historical record, but also out of what is absent from it: “There will always be unanswerable questions from an archive that cannot fully redress the loss of historical perspectives and insights from the enslaved”.8 What happened in the privacy of a colonial home has, precisely by virtue of it being private, left few marks for the historian to study. In such cases, silences become important, and a historical imagination, a possible way to listen to their echoes.

7 Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400– 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 259, https://doi.org/10.1017/ CBO9780511512117. 8 Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 144, http://penn.degruyter.com/view/title/ 523046.

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To build my discussion about the role of privacy in the relationship between Juliana and Eliau Burgos, I engage primarily with clues from two documents:9 a contract between Burgos and Juliana made in Amsterdam with the notary Benedict Baddel, stipulating the terms under which she would work for Burgos to obtain her freedom, and a notarial statement left by Burgos with the notary Adriaen Lock, also in Amsterdam, denouncing Juliana’s breach of contract by running away before she fulfilled their agreement. To help contextualise my claims, I also use sources relating to the political and religious historical context of the Dutch exit from northeastern Brazil in 1654, as well as about slavery in Amsterdam. I analyse fragments that survive of the story of Juliana and Burgos through the lens of privacy, examining, contrasting, and comparing Juliana’s and Burgos’ ability to regulate access to themselves and their material and immaterial resources.

Broken Promises in Notarial Statements On 1 November 1656, Eliau Burgos left a sworn statement with the notary Adriaen Lock.10 He declared to the notary that, in Recife in 1643, he had purchased a “negerinne” named Juliana who was about 10 or 11 years old at the time. He paid 525 gilders for her. He added that he had always kept her with him as his “slavinne” until Recife passed over to the control of the Portuguese crown. Burgos also brought two witnesses with him, both members of the same Jewish congregation—Moijses Mercado and Moijses Bueno Henricques. They both attested to Adriaen Lock that they had also lived in Recife, that they knew Eliau Burgos well, that they knew that Juliana had been Burgos’ slave in Recife, and that Burgos could have sold Juliana for five to six hundred gilders. According to the statements of these witnesses, Burgos did not sell Juliana before leaving Recife because she prayed very “barmchartelijck” (mercifully) for him not to do such a thing and

9 Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm’, in Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). 10 ‘Document Where Adriaen Lock Registered Eliau Burgos’ Declaration about Juliana Running Away’ (1 November 1656), Digitised version: Inventory 5075, Notary 95 Adriaen Lock, Protocols Folder 2271, Digital Folios 766, 767, 768, Amsterdam City Archives, https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/scans/5075/95.5.9/start/760/limit/ 10/highlight/6.

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promised she would forever live to serve him. Finally, the witnesses also said that Burgos incurred great cost in bringing Juliana to Amsterdam, adding that they: […] in Recife often had been at the house of the appellant [Eliau Burgos] & there had seen [the same?] Juliana, and that they were there with him as the appellant with the same Juliana from Recife embarked to sail towards this city […].11

In his own statement, Burgos, just like his witnesses, stated that Juliana begged him to bring her to Amsterdam, adding that he did so at a significant expense. He reported that after some time in Amsterdam, Juliana somehow learned that she could be free and demanded that he free her. The two of them arrived at an agreement by which Juliana would work for Burgos for three years, after which he would let her go free. This agreement had been registered in writing with the notary Benedict Baddel. Burgos stated further that he intended to move to Barbados and would like to bring Juliana with him, but she refused to go: […] having being here for some time, the same Juliana through the inciting of others was led to believe that she was here free & not obliged to serve him and ran away from him notwithstanding her great promised to him done before […].12

The reason that Juliana was “led to believe” (in Dutch, “wijs gemaekt hebben”) that she could be free in Amsterdam was that, indeed, slavery was outlawed. A collection of city laws titled Recueil van verscheyde keuren, en coustumen: mitsgaders maniere van procederen, binne der stede Amsterdam printed in 1644 stated clearly that: “Within Amsterdam and its surrounding areas all people are free and nobody is a slave”. (“Binnen 11 "[…] op het reciff dickwils ten huijse van den req[uiran]t sijn geweest & aldaer [deselve?] Juliana hebben gesien als mede dat sij daer bij sijn geweest als den req[uiran]t met deselve Juliana vant reciff scheepging omme te vaeren naer dese steede […]." ‘Document Where Adriaen Lock Registered Eliau Burgos’ Declaration about Juliana Running Away’. 12 “[…] alhier eenigen tijt geweest sijnde is deselve Juliana door het oprockenen van anderendie haer wijs gemaekt hebben dat sij alhier vrij & ongehouden was hem Compt. te dienen van hem gelopen niettegenstaende de groote beloofte bij haer aen hem als vorige gedaen […].” ‘Contract between Juliana and Eliau Burgos Notarized by Benedict Baddel’.

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der Stadt van Amstelredamme ende haere vryheyt, zyn alle menschen vry, ende geene slaven”.) Why did Juliana run away before the three-year agreement registered with Baddel was fulfilled? To understand her choice to run away, some details stipulated in the agreement between Juliana and Burgos are helpful. The registered contract set some conditions for Juliana’s manumission: […] Juliana de Burgos Negra, 24 years old, who said and confessed says and confesses […] to be obliged to go and to board … on the ship called Pavão, whose master is Willem Claessen, to Barbados in the service of Eliau Burgos, who is departing for the said Barbados, to serve him in everything and for everything and the service of three years very efficient with great perfection and respect in everything that the said Eliau de Burgos requests […]. […] the said term of three years starting from the day of arrival in said Barbados onwards […]. […] once they are through, the said Juliana will be free and released from this contract to go wherever she sees fit or to continue if all is well for her […].13

After three years of work for Burgos, she would be granted her choice to stay or go as she wished. However, according to the contract, the three years would only start counting after they landed in Barbados. It seems that Burgos was attempting to compel her to relocate to Barbados along with his household. Juliana must have concluded that if she went to Barbados with Burgos, nothing there would help protect her interests in the same way as in Amsterdam. She must also have realised that in the colonial setting of 13 “[…] Juliana de Burgos Negra de idade de 24 anos a qual disse e confessou diz e confessa […] a verse obrigada de ir e de embarcar […] no navio chamado o Pavão de que es maestro Willem Claessen pa as Barbadas em serviço do ser Eliau Burgos o qual está de partida pra as ditas Barbadas para o servir em tudo e por tudo e do bastante o espaço serviso de tres anos bem eficiente com mto primor e respeito em todo no que pelo dito Eliau de Burgos lhe for mandado[…].” “[…] remessado o dito termo de tres annos do dia que for chegada nas ditas Barbadas em diante […].” “[…] passados eles ficara a dita Juliana livre e desobrigada deste contrato para se ir donde bem lhe parecer ou de continuar se bem lhe estiver […].” Ibid.

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Barbados, any community of African people would not be as legally empowered—and thus capable of giving her support—as the community in Amsterdam was. Going to Barbados would amount to going back to the same situation as she had in Recife. Her escape led Burgos to seek reparations and he registered the statement with Adriaen Lock, supported by witnesses, with the intent to nullify his formerly notarised promise to free Juliana. In the statement left with Lock, Burgos emphasised three points to demonstrate that Juliana wronged him: first, the “heartfelt request from Juliana” (“het hart bidden & aenhouden vandeselve Juliana”) to bring her to Amsterdam; second, the “great promise” (“groote beloofte”) made by her in Recife to serve Burgos for life; finally, her signed commitment to serve him for three years in exchange for her freedom, which they had registered with Benedict Baddel at Juliana’s own request. Burgos challenged Juliana’s claim to freedom. This defiance comes through in his statement to Adriaen Lock, which he ended by saying that, since Juliana had not upheld her promises, he considered his own promise to free her as null and void. He also stated that he maintained his full claim over Juliana as his slave “as per the deed of purchase” (“dat hij hem is houdende aen sijn volle recht & actie die hij uijt saecke van koop”), clarifying that if Juliana wanted to take legal action, she would have to uphold her part “debita forma”.

Working in a Colonial Household in Recife In reconstructing Juliana’s and Eliau’s relationship, let me start by trying to paint a picture of Juliana’s possible life in Recife. In Recife, she had to regulate access to herself through her close relationship to Eliau Burgos. Though there is no extant evidence of how Juliana and Burgos lived their day-to-day life under the same roof, from Burgos’ notarial statement discussed above, we know that he claimed that he kept Juliana always by his side at home. By virtue of her domestic placement, an emotional relationship could have developed between Juliana and Eliau, whereby it can be inferred that there was some level of mutual trust that allowed for requests to be exchanged between them. Close emotional bonds

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between people enslaved in domestic settings and their enslavers were not uncommon, as research on the topic has demonstrated.14 (Fig. 4.1). Domestic work for an enslaved person, however, was not a guarantee of bodily or psychological safety, as the following anecdote from Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl testifies: The cook never sent a dinner to [the master’s] table without fear and trembling; for if there happened to be a dish not to his liking, he would either order her to be whipped, or compel her to eat every mouthful of it in his presence. The poor, hungry creature might not have objected to

Fig. 4.1 Braziliaans Dorp (Brazilian Village), Frans Jansz. Post, 1675–1680 (Source Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum [call number SK-A-4272], licensed as Public Domain)

14 Jessica Marie Johnson, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World, 1st edition, Early American Studies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).

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eating it; but she did object to having her master cram it down her throat till she choked.15

It is unlikely that Juliana was the victim of cruelty in ways similar to what was told by Jacobs above. At least according to Burgos’ notarial statement, Juliana was the one who wanted to remain within his household and vehemently asked him not to sell her away. However, as a woman forced to work as a domestic slave to a merchant in a recently organised colony, Juliana was legally deprived of the ability to regulate access to her body and her resources. Nothing in the legal regime of Dutch Brazil was intended to help protect Juliana’s privacy as an enslaved woman. Nevertheless, legal impediment did not mean an absolute inability to claim privacy in practice. Juliana might have had other, more precarious, means to try to regulate access to herself and her resources. If Burgos’ characterisation of Juliana’s desire to remain with his household is to be believed, this implies a certain level of trust from her towards him. She might also have considered that her labour as a trusted domestic worker could continue to be useful for Burgos in Amsterdam, an argument she could use when she begged him to keep her. While in Recife, Burgos had also trusted Juliana: from his account, we know that she had his attention when she requested him not to sell her to another household, when she promised to serve him for life, and when she tried to convince him to bring her to Amsterdam despite the costs of the trip. Because Burgos trusted Juliana, she could leverage this trust to obtain passage to Amsterdam and remain within the Burgos household which, for her at that moment in time, might have seemed like the safest option for her livelihood as compared to the available alternatives.

Crossing the Atlantic The difficulties surrounding the voyage to Amsterdam across the Atlantic might have started to change Juliana’s and Burgos’ perception of their ability to regulate access to themselves and their respective resources. The most striking hint of that change was the utter scarcity of ship space to transport the Jewish community away from Pernambuco. 15 Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, eds. Nell Irvin Painter and John S. Jacobs (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 15.

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When Eliau Burgos claimed in his notarial statement that he incurred a great cost to bring Juliana to Amsterdam, he was probably not exaggerating. There would, of course, have been a price for securing space on a ship with the necessary supplies for the three-month crossing. However, on the occasion of the Jewish community’s exit from Pernambuco, these costs might have been significantly inflated. According to the capitulation agreement, the Dutch had three months to leave Pernambuco, but there were not enough ships to carry everybody back to the Netherlands. An excerpt from the diary of Hendrik Haecxs gives us a glimpse of the despair of sailing an overcrowded ship:16

In the morning, we lifted the anchor with slow N.W. wind, and we thought the ship was at the point of capsizing, in such a way that we could not use the big sails. We decided then to throw overboard a load of dyewood that was placed on the corridor, but first we needed to check the baggage, the area below deck, and the passengers: two or three of them were obliged to put their baggage in one single chest, so that the empty chests were thrown overboard. We also had to give up three barrels of flour, and to proceed in a scandalous manner with the passengers’ belongings, as if they were the product of piracy, but not even then the ship was more stable.17

The leader of the Portuguese troops and of the new government, General Francisco Barreto de Menezes, is reputed to have given a fair treatment and some level of protection to Dutch subjects during their wait, but he refused to interfere with the decisions made by the Catholic

16 Ao amanhecer, levantamos âncora com vento fraco do N.O., achamos que o navio estava a ponto de virar, de modo que não podíamos usar as grandes velas; resolvemos, então, lançar ao mar uma partida de pau-brasil, que estava no passadiço, mas era preciso ver primeiro a bagagem, os porões e os passageiros; dois ou três foram obrigados a pôr a sua bagagem num só caixão, lançando-se ao mar os caixões vazios. Tivemos que apresentar também os nossos três barris de farinha e procedeu-se de modo tão escandaloso com os bens dos passageiros, como se fossem produto de pirataria, mas nem assim o navio se tornou mais estável. 17 Hendrik Haecxs, ‘Diario de Henrique Haecxs (1645–1654)’, trans. Frei Agostinho Keijzers, Anais da Biblioteca Nacional 69 (1949), http://memoria.bn.br/pdf/402630/ per402630_1950_00069.pdf.

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religious authorities.18 For the Jewish community, the prospect of persecution by the Inquisition was looming ever closer on the horizon, especially for the many members of the congregation who had previously been Christian and had reconverted to Judaism under Dutch rule. These individuals were in danger of being targeted by the Inquisition as heretics.

In the City of Amsterdam A Sephardic Jewish community had formed in Amsterdam by the late sixteenth century, as many Jewish people who had fled from persecution in the Iberian Peninsula had settled in the city. It was in this community— referred to as the “Portuguese Nation” by its members—that Juliana and Eliau Burgos arrived after leaving Pernambuco, and their settling and integration in that community meant, in all probability, another change in their understanding of their ability to regulate access to themselves and their resources. Probably due to the trauma of persecution, the leaders of the Amsterdam Portuguese Nation were concerned with their community’s respectability and sought to tightly control the visible cultural and religious practices of its members.19 From the point of view of the community—understood as a unified body represented by its internal leaders confronting city authorities— it was important that the language used in internal documents did not construe them as breaking any law. As mentioned above, since at least 1644 there had been a law in the books in Amsterdam explicitly stipulating that nobody was to be regarded as a slave and giving an enslaved person a path to reclaim their right to freedom. The procedure for an enslaved person to attain the right to be free within the city of Amsterdam required them to take action against their enslaver before the City Court

18 Arnold Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 140. 19 The famous case of Baruch Spinoza is an example of this. See, for example, Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, (New York: Schocken, 2006).

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of Justice (“Gerechte deser Stede”).20 In order to take action, the plaintiff would be required to produce evidence of the illegal enslavement, but producing this evidence could prove to be a challenge, since slavery in Amsterdam seems to have existed mostly under the legal radar. From Dienke Hondius’ work, we learn that legal silence regarding a person’s enslaved status was a practice among the Sephardic Jewish community in Amsterdam, which seems to have avoided using the word for “slave” in their notarial records and other written materials after the second decade of the seventeenth century.21 By eschewing any mention of escravos in its internal documentation, the Portuguese Nation, as a unified community, avoided incriminating themselves by the letter of the local law that prohibited slavery in the city. The haskamot of 20 de Tamuz 5387 (year 1627) are an example where the community leaders might have avoided referring to someone’s condition as a slave. The document, which contains rules about the conversion and burial rites of “pessoas negras e mulatas” (“Black and mulatto people”), refers to a person’s skin colour as a marker of difference rather than mentioning their status as enslaved.22 The Portuguese Nation was not alone in this practice. According to Hondius, people of African descent all over the Dutch Republic “were named and described by their skin colour as swarten and swartinnen, negros and negerinnen, and their legal status was often uncertain”.23 In this context, we can imagine how

20 “Item alle slaven, die binnen deser Stede ende haere vryheyt komen ofte gebracht worden; zyn vry ende buyten de macht ende authoriteyt van haer Meesters, ende Vrouwen; ende by soo verre haere Meesters ende Vrouwen de selve als slaven wilden houden, ende tegens haeren danck doen dienen, vermogen de selve persoonen haere voorsz. Meesters ende Vrouwen voor den Gerechte deser Stede te doen dagen, ende hen aldaer rechtelyck vry te doen verklaren.” Gerard Rooseboom, Recueil van verscheyde keuren, en coustumen: mitsgaders maniere van procederen, binne der stede Amsterdam (Gerrit Jansz, 1644). 21 See the following blog post for my early thinking about this topic: Natália da Silva Perez, ‘Visibility, Respectability, and Privacy: Black and White in 17th Century Amsterdam’, Centre for Privacy Studies (blog), 2020, https://privacy.hypotheses.org/1229. The present chapter represents a development of ideas that first appeared there. 22 ‘Haskamot 20 Tamuz 5387’, GAA, 334, no. 13, fol. 42, accessed 11 June 2020, https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/scans/334/4.1/start/20/limit/10/ highlight/3. 23 Dienke Hondius, ‘Access to the Netherlands of Enslaved and Free Black Africans: Exploring Legal and Social Historical Practices in the Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries’,

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difficult it might have been for an enslaved person in Amsterdam to meet the burden of proof about their condition. Yet, for Juliana, coming to this community was an opportunity. Crossing the Atlantic entailed a change from the cultural and legal context of a colony—Pernambuco in Dutch Brazil—to that of a city in the imperial metropole—Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. This seems to have affected Juliana’s understanding of her life options and precipitated her striving for her freedom. As Juliana adapted to the new place, her circle of trust seems to have expanded. From Burgos’ notarial statement, we know that Juliana must have received advice about being able to obtain her freedom, since he insisted that “through the inciting of others [she] was led to believe that she was here free & not obliged to serve him” (“door het oprockenen van anderendie haer wijs gemaekt hebben dat sij alhier vrij & ongehouden was hem Compt” ). No other extant sources are available for me to examine how Juliana learned about the anti-slavery law in Amsterdam, but from Mark Ponte’s work, I know that there was a thriving community of African origin in the city with members who supported one another.24 Ponte’s work shows that African inhabitants of Amsterdam served as witnesses to marriages and baptisms from their community. It is very possible to imagine that, in Amsterdam, Juliana met members of this community of free African sailors and maids and that, through them, she learned that she had the right to be free. Many of these inhabitants lived near the Sephardic Jewish neighbourhood and even worked for members of the Jewish community, not unlike Juliana herself. In crossing the Atlantic, Burgos and Juliana crossed both a cultural and a legal threshold; legal protection for Juliana’s freedom and also for her privacy—her ability to regulate access to herself and her resources— was viable for the first time in her life. It was also the first time that Juliana encountered a community of people of African origin who were empowered enough to serve as her guide about the possibilities she could have in the new city. In Amsterdam, she, too, could have allies.

Slavery & Abolition 32 (3) (2011), 380, https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2011. 588476. 24 Mark Ponte, ‘“Al de Swarten Die Hier Ter Stede Comen”: Een Afro-Atlantische Gemeenschap in Zeventiende-Eeuws Amsterdam’, TSEG/ Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History 15 (4) (2019), 33–62, https://doi.org/10.18352/tseg.995.

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Privacy and Freedom Early modern imperial and colonial archives are peppered with examples of improvised freedom where people of African descent, just like Juliana, contingently strove to improve their own lot within the constraints posed by the scarce opportunities available to them in colonial contexts. In Juliana’s case, working within the private spaces of her enslaver gave her strategic access to him, allowing her to make her case and convince him to bring her to Amsterdam. The intimacy and trust that seemed to have arisen between Juliana and Eliau within those private domestic spaces were the only meagre assurance of bodily safety and contingent freedom for her as an enslaved person. Intimacy and trust were also important considerations for Eliau Burgos’ argument about his claim over Juliana as his property: Juliana’s alleged betrayal of his trust (by refusing to serve him for life, as she had promised him) justified his own breaking of his promise to free her. In the book Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World, Jessica Marie Johnson explains that it was not a legally defined free status that defined freedom: [T]he nature of free status under slavery relied on constructions of gender and sexuality rooted in the circumAtlantic exchange of black bodies and plantation commodities. Intimate acts mated with edicts, codes, and imperial jurisprudence to produce bodies of law […]25

As the institution of slavery developed during the seventeenth century, people’s lived experiences of it were quite different from what was expected in the existing codes of law that regulated human bondage. Moreover, as we have seen from the work of Lauren Benton cited above, the actual employment of codes of law was highly variable depending on the geopolitical and religious context in question. This variability is visible in the way Burgos talked about Juliana in his notarial statement: he alternated between two extremes. At times, he conceived of Juliana as a fully-fledged human being capable of making and breaking a “great promise”. At other times, he referred to her as a commodity for which he had paid much money. Already in Burgos’s language, we perceive that the legal definition of Juliana as a slave was 25 Johnson, Wicked Flesh, 12.

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not enough. But Juliana herself, in Amsterdam, started to perceive her life differently, with access to opportunities that living as an enslaved woman in the colonial setting did not allow. Juliana, the human being, was capable of imagining what she could accomplish in a place and time where she had autonomy to decide what to do with her life. In Amsterdam, she had the legal protection to do what she already had wanted to do for herself in Pernambuco: secure the best life possible for herself. The legal condition of slavery, imposed on her since her childhood, did not keep her human capabilities from manifesting, it simply conditioned how she was able to use those capabilities. The ability to form close intimate bonds of trust was hers as much as it was Eliau Burgos’, and this ability enabled her to convince Burgos to bring her to Amsterdam. He did so probably under the belief that Juliana did not imagine herself as a free person. Burgos seems to have regarded Juliana as being defined by her legal condition as an enslaved woman, to whom he had a claim supported by his deed of purchase. Indeed, that claim was true in Recife, but not in Amsterdam. Crossing the ocean to Amsterdam was an opportunity for Juliana to subvert Burgos’ narrow definition of her humanity, an opportunity for her to re-signify her existence as a free woman who would not go to Barbados because she would not go back to slavery. With historical distance, I can say that Juliana and Eliau Burgos travelled together to Amsterdam due to a confluence of geopolitical, religious, and personal reasons. The geopolitical reasons can be summarised as the Dutch losing their grip on the Brazilian colony, causing Pernambuco to return to Portuguese rule, and disrupting the lives of the Dutch subjects who had come to live there. There were also religious reasons for their move: with the return of Portuguese rule came the imposition of Catholicism, opening Pernambuco to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. This posed a threat to the Sephardic Jewish community, which was left with little choice but to flee to the Netherlands or to other safer places to avoid persecution. In this context, we can easily imagine the personal reasons for Eliau Burgos to follow his fellow Jewish co-religionists. Burgos must have had little interest in living under Portuguese rule if that meant being curtailed in his commercial activities or even punished for being openly Jewish. He was an active member of the Jewish community: his contributions appear several times in the account books of the Sephardic Jewish community, both in Recife and in Amsterdam.

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The fact that Burgos brought enslaved women with him to Amsterdam indicates that he was most likely unaware of the anti-slavery law that had existed in the city books since 1644, a potential challenge to his right of property over Juliana once they were within that jurisdiction. If he was oblivious to that law, Burgos probably did believe, based on his experience with Juliana as his domestic slave, that she was docile and obedient enough to simply remain under his influence.26 Surely this helps to explain why Burgos went to Amsterdam. But why did Juliana ask to go with him? There is no extant information about Juliana’s religion, so the possibility that she had an interest in following the Jewish community for spiritual reasons can neither be accepted as certain nor wholly discarded. There is simply not enough evidence one way or another. In addition, Juliana had little way of knowing, prior to her arrival in Amsterdam, that slavery was outlawed in that city, so it is unlikely that she had planned to cross the ocean purposefully to obtain freedom. Juliana’s reasons for wanting to follow the Burgos household to Amsterdam, I conjecture, must have been linked to the relationship that she developed with them as their domestic slave. By asking to remain with the Burgos household, Juliana most likely wanted to avoid the prospect of being sold into an unknown domestic environment where her situation might deteriorate or, even worse, the prospect of being sold into a plantation where she might have been forced to work on the fields instead of at the home of her enslaver. Asking to remain with the Burgos household was one of the strategies of privacy that enabled Juliana to carve some level of protection for herself in the unstable moment of the Dutch departure from northeast Brazil. Once in Amsterdam, Juliana was exposed to a different social world, one which was more urban and more connected. In Amsterdam, information circulated plentifully and fast, and from her new community, she might have learned that she had the right to be free and no longer needed to be Burgos’ slave. Once she knew of this right, she first sought to secure it for herself through the legal path indicated in the law. When she realised that the legal strategy was unlikely to wield any

26 ‘Contract between Juliana and Eliau Burgos Notarized by Benedict Baddel’.

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concrete results from Burgos, she ran away, disappearing into the anonymous crowd in Amsterdam. Once she was on the side of the Atlantic that provided some legal protection for her freedom, running away was her practical path to durably ensuring her autonomy.

Primary Sources ‘Contract between Esperança and Eliau Burgos Notarized by Benedict Baddel’. Digitized version: Inventory 5075, Notary 44 Benedict Baddel, Minuutacten Folder 980, Digital Folio 77. Amsterdam City Archives. Accessed 6 October 2021. https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/scans/5075/44.1.70/start/ 70/limit/10/highlight/6. ‘Contract between Juliana and Eliau Burgos Notarized by Benedict Baddel’. Digitized version: Inventory 5075, Notary 44 Benedict Baddel, Minuutacten Folder 980, Digital Folio 76. Amsterdam City Archives. Accessed 6 October 2021. https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/scans/5075/44.1.70/start/ 70/limit/10/highlight/6. ‘Document Where Adriaen Lock Registered Eliau Burgos’ Declaration about Juliana Running Away’, 1 November 1656. Digitized version: Inventory 5075, Notary 95 Adriaen Lock, Protocols Folder 2271, Digital Folios 766, 767, 768. Amsterdam City Archives. https://archief.amsterdam/inventari ssen/scans/5075/95.5.9/start/760/limit/10/highlight/6. ‘Haskamot 20 Tamuz 5387’. GAA, 334, no. 13, fol. 42. Accessed 11 June 2020. https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/scans/334/4.1/start/ 20/limit/10/highlight/3. Rooseboom, Gerard. Recueil van verscheyde keuren, en coustumen: mitsgaders maniere van procederen, binne der stede Amsterdam. Gerrit Jansz, 1644.

Bibliography BNDigital, ‘A afro-brasileira Juliana em Amsterdã’, accessed 17 December 2020. https://bndigital.bn.gov.br/dossies/historias-da-nova-holanda/a-afrobrasileira-juliana-em-amsterda/. Benton, Lauren, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Fuentes, Marisa J., Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).

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Ginzburg, Carlo, ‘Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm’ in Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Goldstein, Rebecca, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (New York, NY: Schocken, 2006). Haecxs, Hendrik, ‘Diario de Henrique Haecxs (1645–1654)’, translated by Frei Agostinho Keijzers. Anais Da Biblioteca Nacional 69 (1949). http://mem oria.bn.br/pdf/402630/per402630_1950_00069.pdf. Hardwick, Julie, Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660-1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Hondius, Dienke, ‘Access to the Netherlands of Enslaved and Free Black Africans: Exploring Legal and Social Historical Practices in the Sixteenth– Nineteenth Centuries’, Slavery & Abolition 32, no. 3 (1 September 2011): 377–395. ———, ‘Black Africans in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam’, Renaissance & Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme 31 (2) (Spring 2008): 87–105. ———, ‘Mapping Urban European Histories of Slavery: New Developments in Historical Research, Commemoration, and Heritage’, Werkstattgeschichte 66– 67 (2014): 135–147. Hughes, Kirsty, ‘A Behavioural Understanding of Privacy and its Implications for Privacy Law’, The Modern Law Review 75 (5) (2012): 806–836. Johnson, Jessica Marie, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). ‘Juliana - Keurboek - Geschiedenislokaal Amsterdam’, accessed 27 October 2020. https://www.geschiedenislokaalamsterdam.nl/bronnen/juliana-keurboek/. Margulis, Stephen T., ‘Privacy as a Social Issue and Behavioral Concept’, Journal of Social Issues 59 (2) (2003): 243–261. Pen, Hanneloes, ‘Slavernij in Amsterdam: Juliana werd voor 525 gulden gekocht’. Het Parool, 30 June 2020, sec. Kunst & Media. https://www.par ool.nl/gs-b3c748be. Ponte, Mark. ‘“Al de Swarten Die Hier Ter Stede Comen” Een AfroAtlantische Gemeenschap in Zeventiende-Eeuws Amsterdam’, TSEG/Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History 15 (4) (11 March 2019): 33–62. Silva Perez, Natália da, ‘Privacy and Social Spaces’, TSEG—The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History 18 (3) (29 November 2021): 5–16. ———, ‘Visibility, Respectability, and Privacy: Black and White in 17th Century Amsterdam’. Centre for Privacy Studies (blog), 2020. https://privacy.hypoth eses.org/1229.

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Silva Perez, Natália da, and Peter Thule Kristensen, ‘Gender, Space, and Religious Privacy in Amsterdam’, TSEG—The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History 18 (3) (29 November 2021): 75–106. Wiznitzer, Arnold, Jews in Colonial Brazil (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1960).

PART II

The Private Under the Public Eye

CHAPTER 5

Breaching the Cabin Walls: Madness, Privacy, and Care at Sea in the Eighteenth-Century British Navy Catherine Beck

Introduction In 1778, Richard Cort, a seaman of the Russel , was brought before a panel of captains on board the Blenheim anchored in the Hamoaze, Plymouth Sound, to be court martialled for his “ill behaviour” and threats made towards the Russel’s boatswain.1 Several of his fellow seamen and marines from the Russel gave evidence in his defence, stating that they had frequently seen Cort in “fits” which made him “delirious for some 1 The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew (hereafter TNA), ADM 1/5310, (Cort court martial 10 September 1778).

C. Beck (B) Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_5

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time after”. If accepted by the court, such evidence could be grounds for leniency or even acquittal.2 However, Cort was unfortunate. The ship’s surgeon reported that he had never seen Cort in one of these fits and so, despite his shipmate’s evidence in his defence, the court ultimately found the charges against Cort to be “fully proved” and sentenced him to one hundred lashes. Cort’s case may seem like a strange place to begin a discussion of privacy at sea. However, the marks of madness that Cort’s shipmates provided as evidence of the effects of his “fits” are extremely revealing of the complex interplay of social expectation and physical space that moulded the construction and maintenance of privacy within the tight confines of the eighteenth-century sailing ship. Many of Cort’s shipmates focused on how he would cry out and make noise, especially at night. In particular, one marine said he knew Cort had been in a fit the week before the offence because he had heard Cort call out twice for the boatswain while “in his Hammock, nose up”. Cort’s behaviour transgressed the careful construction and maintenance of privacy on board the ship. Not only was he noisy, but his noise was seen as particularly unreasonable because he was in his hammock rather than elsewhere. Even if his shipmates had exaggerated or even fabricated these testimonies—these previous “fits” of derangement—in the hopes of securing a more lenient sentence for him, the fact that they thought such evidence could be successful suggests that either they themselves believed that the behaviour was a mark of insanity, or that the court would accept it as such. Although Cort had not behaved in his fits in a way that caught the attention of his officers, his shipmates saw his noisiness within the privacy of his own hammock as a sign of his “unreason” and, therefore, madness. Madness is a useful lens to examine the parameters of early modern privacy, especially as it was experienced within the spatial and social contexts of life on board the ship and at sea. In a wide variety of civilian contexts, madness was identified by an individual’s apparent loss of reason evidenced by their acting in an “unreasonable” way through their actions or speech being socially unacceptable or otherwise unexplainable. Many of the behaviours that contemporaries termed as “marks of insanity” and which they provided as evidence in records of poor relief, criminal trials, or guardianship proceedings shared the common theme of

2 John Delafons, A Treatise on Naval Courts Martial (London: P. Steel, 1805), 257.

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being distinctly public in nature.3 Many of the “marks of insanity” in naval records were also markedly public, and common symptoms included singing, dancing, ranting, swearing, being out of place, or on deck at the wrong time. These disruptive behaviours, common identifiers of madness on land, were all the more obvious within the tight space of the ship.4 The potential for those who experienced mental disorders to become disruptive certainly meant that one aspect of madness at sea was the way in which it transgressed standards of privacy. On land, mental disorders often prompted sufferers to breach the shifting boundaries of privacy in eighteenth-century society. The sufferer tearing at their clothes or going about in an undressed state breached the privacy of their individual self, as did incoherent speech or raving that gave voice to disordered inner thoughts or melancholic delusions.5 The privacy of the family was breached when a sufferer’s wild expressions or behaviour could be seen by the whole community in church, by visitors to the home, or when the noise of their shouts, crying, and laughter were heard by passers-by on the street outside.6 The gentlemanly sufferer who joined his servants at work in his house, drank with “low company”, or attended the funerals of people far below him on the social scale breached standards of privacy associated with social position, rank, and status.7 Privacy was an important aspect of life on board an eighteenth-century ship, although the civilian constructions of the privacy of the individual 3 Roy Porter, Mind-Forg’d Manacles: a History of Madness In England From the Restoration to the Regency. (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 35–38; Joel Peter Eigen, Witnessing Insanity: Madness and Mad-Doctors in the English Court (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 82–107. 4 Eigen, Witnessing Insanity, 82–107; Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull, Customers and Patrons of the Mad-Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London, with the complete text of John Monro’s 1766 Case Book (London: University of California Press, 2003), 58–60, 69–70. 5 R.A. Houston, Madness and Society in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 182–186; Andrews and Scull, Customers and Patrons of the MadTrade, 69. 6 Houston, Madness and Society, 175; Akihito Suzuki, ‘Enclosing and disclosing lunatics within the family walls: domestic psychiatric regime and the public sphere in early nineteenth-century England’ in Outside the walls of the asylum: The History of Care in the Community 1750–2000 (London: Athlone Press, 1999), 115–131. 7 Houston, Madness and Society, 210, 240–241; John Carson, ‘“Every expression is watched”: Mind, Medical Expertise and Display in the Nineteenth Century English Courtroom’, Social Studies of Science, 48 (6) (2018), 891–918, 906.

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self, family, and social status did not translate directly to the confined space within its wooden walls.8 Certainly, the arrangement and government of space was a crucial aspect of life at sea. This was partly to address the great need for order and control, especially on naval vessels, but the divisions of shipboard space were also intimately connected to the establishment and maintenance of privacy, particularly for the higherranking officers. Whereas the ordinary sailors lived “cheek-by-jowl” in the cramped conditions of the lower deck, commissioned officers and the higher-ranking warrant officers such as the surgeon often had their own cabins adjoined to a communal space reserved only for the use of their fellow officers and their servants.9 Parts of the ship needed for specific actions were also restricted for the use of officers and the few specialist crew members needed to work in those spaces, such as the quarterdeck, half deck, or the ship’s magazines and light rooms where weapons and gunpowder were stored. Some of these spaces (such as the magazine) were hidden from view, but others (such as the half deck and quarterdecks) were widely visible to the rest of the crew and so existed in a kind of tension between the public and the private. Indeed, despite the carefully regulated divisions of space within the ship, the unavoidable spatial limitations meant that this tension between the public and private permeated all life and work on board, blurred the lines between individual and group privacy, and placed the distinctions of rank and status under constant pressure. Within this context, then, madness was unsurprisingly often identified and understood by the way in which the sufferer’s behaviours breached the boundaries of privacy bound up in the limited private space of the hammock, the cabin walls, the order and routine of the ship, or the divisions of rank and social status. Cases such as Cort’s show that for members of the lower deck who did not have much spatial privacy, the privacy of their own hammock was established and maintained by social

8 N.A.M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (Glasgow: Fontana Press, 1988), 61–66; Elin Jones, ‘Masculinity, Materiality and Space on board the Royal Naval Ship, 1756–1815’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Queen Mary, University of London, 2016), 84–87, 92, 116–119, 182. 9 Rodger, Wooden World, 60–61; Greg Dening, Mr Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 33; Jones, ‘Masculinity, Materiality and Space’, 84–87.

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expectations surrounding the behaviour of the person within it. The inappropriate or unreasonable behaviour which could be taken as evidence of insanity thus expanded to include even subtle transgressions or breaches of this space, such as low-level noise. These standards of behaviour developed to maintain privacy within a limited space were not restricted to the difficult spatial conditions in which most of the crew or lower deck members lived. They also extended to what may appear to be the more straightforward physical privacy afforded to officers by their cabins. The tension surrounding the breaching of these boundaries exposes the importance of spatial markers of privacy on board, especially for officers whose privacy was granted them through virtue of their rank and often their status as “gentlemen”. However, as this chapter will show, the ease with which these boundaries were breached also reveals the degree to which they were, in practice, upheld by social systems of noticing but not taking notice and how, in turn, the pressures on space and individual privacy cultivated instead a flexible kind of group or communal privacy, especially among the members of the lower deck, which provided a form of tolerance and support that allowed some of those who experienced even violent episodes of mental derangement to live on board for years. This chapter draws on the medical records of the surgeons of British naval ships and particularly on the minutes of courts martial in order to explore the constructions of privacy exposed by experiences of madness among both officers and ordinary sailors. The navy upheld and maintained a well-established hierarchy and fiercely punished those who challenged authority according to a criminal code laid out in the 1749 Act, commonly known as the Articles of War. The thirty-six clauses of the Articles of War heavily regulated many aspects of seamen’s and officers’ behaviour, delineating punishments for a variety of distinctly naval offences, such as mutiny and desertion, as well as more social offences such as “profane oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness, or other scandalous actions, in derogation of God’s honour, and corruption of good manners”.10 Contravening any of these regulations could result in a court martial. Similar to criminal proceedings on land, insanity was proved in courts martial through the questioning of witnesses. It was not unusual for a sailor’s insanity to be established by numerous shipmates coming forward with no more detailed “marks of insanity” than 10 John D. Byrn, Naval Courts Martial, 1793–1815 (Navy Records Society, 2009), xvii–xviii, 5.

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to simply say that they knew the defendant was mad or that it was the general opinion of the ship that he was often out of his senses.11 However, many cases (such as that of Cort’s) provide a wealth of detail about the behaviours which the witnesses believed represented the accused’s disordered mental state and the space and contexts in which they occurred. Although the highest-ranking officers and those who were particularly well-connected socially could avoid being brought to a court martial by drawing on their social status and influence, the system operated otherwise in principle in much the same way for both officers and the lower deck members. The minutes of the courts, therefore, provide a uniquely valuable opportunity for accessing the experiences of both officers who were largely from the middling and upper levels of society as well as those of ordinary sailors; in other words, they allow us to access the history of madness and privacy at sea from below. However, it is also important to recognise the slight contradiction in relying on this source base to explore both madness and constructions of privacy. Court martial proceedings in the British navy were markedly public affairs. They were usually held in a public space on a ship large enough to ensure that an audience could attend.12 The witnesses who provided evidence for both the prosecution and in the accused’s defence gathered much of their evidence either by virtue of their physical or social proximity to the defendant or, as Seth LeJacq argues in the following chapter, through a deliberate and direct invasion of their established privacy. In this public arena, evidence of a person’s insanity could also be emphasised or exaggerated both by the prosecution, for example to damage an officer’s reputation, and by the defence to try and secure a friend’s acquittal or avoid a death sentence.13 Much of the valuable detail which we can access about constructions of privacy, therefore, is often only made accessible to us because boundaries were breached and systems failed. This can leave us with a skewed picture of both the rigidity of the standards and expectations surrounding privacy and the degree to which experiences of madness threatened them. 11 TNA, ADM 1/5299 (John Newson court martial 1 September 1760); ADM 1/ 5349 (Hugh Stevenson court martial 19 April 1799). 12 Thomas Malcomson, Order and Disorder in the British Navy, 1793–1815: Control, Resistance, Flogging and Hanging (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2016), 28. 13 See Catherine Beck, ‘Patronage and Insanity: Tolerance, Reputation and Mental Disorder in the British Navy 1740–1820’, Historical Research, 94 (263) (2021), 73–95.

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This chapter’s structure addresses this problem. It first examines the experiences of officers and the way in which symptoms of mental disorder could cause sufferers to breach the boundaries of their “gentlemanly privacy” bound up in their cabin walls. It then explores the relationship between “unobserved spaces” and cases of suicide and self-injury on board the ship as well as the anxieties surrounding them, before moving on to focus on the lower deck and on how the limited space in which the rest of the crew lived fostered a culture of noticing but not taking notice. Finally, the chapter encourages the reader to consider the evidence in the sources, paying attention not just to instances of rigidity and boundary breaching, but also to the flexible layers of communal privacy which developed within this limited space and which fostered a kind of tolerance, care, and support which was hard to establish on land. By doing so, this chapter exposes how the history of madness and privacy at sea was much more than one of simple transgression and restriction.

The Cabin and ‘Gentlemanly Privacy’ Higher-ranking officers were afforded the spatial privacy of a cabin through the privilege of their rank within the ship’s hierarchy and, for the commissioned and some of the warrant officers, their social position as a gentleman as well. But even so, in the tight space of the ship, their spatial privacy was often also defined only by canvas or wooden partitions which could be removed in times when the ship needed to be cleared for action. These often small, private spaces adjoined the gunroom or wardroom, a communal space reserved only for the use of officers and their servants. Many had lockable doors, but on smaller vessels, the cabins of officers were only screened from view by a canvas curtain. Only the captain, commander, or admiral, depending on the size of the ship, had access to a kind of spatial privacy comparable to the sort that was achievable on land although, as Seth LeJacq also illustrates in the following chapter, even this privacy was permeable and subject to surveillance. The misuse or abuse of this privacy through behaviour perceived as inappropriate within the space of the cabin could contribute to a court martial on a charge of “unofficerlike” conduct. It could also be taken as evidence of that officer’s deranged mental state. Lieutenant Daniel Butler of the sloop Bonnetta was tried in 1768 on a variety of charges, including “drinking with common men”, “disturbing the discipline” of his ship, and

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“behaving in other instances in an unofficerlike manner”.14 The court found the charges to be fully proved and judged that Butler fell under the third article of war “for behaving in a scandalous manner and unbecoming the character of an officer”. They sentenced him to be dismissed, but because of the strong evidence of his insanity, they also recommended him to the lord commissioners of the admiralty as an “object of great compassion”. The witnesses for the prosecution particularly focused on his smoking and drinking with a common soldier in his cabin as evidence of both his unofficerlike behaviour and his possible mental derangement. Butler’s cabin opened out into the gunroom where the other officers messed and spent their time when they were off duty. They had heard Butler making a “great noise and disturbance” in his cabin, but their outrage was principally piqued when the cabin door suddenly flew open and revealed the red soldier’s coat of Butler’s companion. Only the steward of the mess had known who Butler had in his cabin, and he only told the master’s mate when he was asked who Butler was making a noise and swearing with. However, neither of these men had the rank to either do anything about the situation or feel like they needed to. Until the door to the cabin flew open, none of Butler’s fellow officers knew his companion was so inappropriate and so, although they had noticed the noise and “opprobrious” language, they did not intervene until this major transgression and abuse of his gentlemanly privilege of privacy were revealed. Richard Graham, surgeon of the Heroine in 1793, was also tried for unofficerlike conduct for a variety of inappropriate behaviours, which also included tension surrounding the privacy of his cabin. Like Butler, he was considered to be insane by his fellow officers. The court sentenced him to be dismissed from his ship but recommended that he keep his position on the surgeon’s seniority list as an “object truly deserving of compassion”. The incident that his fellow officers felt showed his “exceedingly strange conduct” was his refusal to put out a candle in his cabin when ordered to by the first lieutenant.15 The lieutenant told the court that he had noticed the light coming from Graham’s cabin late at night, and when he had gone to investigate it, he had found a number of loose papers lying about the candle and so had ordered Graham to put it out. He had

14 TNA, ADM 1/5304 (Butler court martial 13 September 1768). 15 TNA, ADM 1/5330 (Graham court martial 1 July 1793).

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refused, so the lieutenant had forcibly extinguished it and had returned to his own cabin, only to notice Graham walk past a few minutes later with a new light. When he had gone to order him to put it out again, Graham had locked his cabin door and had refused to let him in, claiming that the lieutenant had wanted to rob him. Ultimately, in order to forcibly put out the candle yet again, the lieutenant had had to call the master-at-arms and the marine sentinel on the deck above in order to break into the cabin through the gap between its partition and the afterpart of the ship. These cases reveal the fraught boundaries of privacy surrounding even the apparently isolated space of the cabin. Even if screened from view by the partitions or doors, it was still fairly easy for those outside the cabin to notice what was happening inside. The privacy of the cabin was by no means absolute and, for the most part, was maintained by those outside it actively trying to ignore what happened within. Perhaps this tension was why breaching the walls of the cabin was so often included in courts martial as evidence of an officer’s derangement. In Butler’s and Graham’s cases, this was done not only socially by their inappropriate behaviour, but also physically by noise, smoke, and light. In some cases, this physical breach of the cabin walls was even more literal. In 1770, Lawrence Ross experienced an extended period of increasingly erratic and violent behaviour as the carpenter’s mate of the Magdelane which his shipmates believed began after he drank heavily on shore at Virginia. Among the many actions that his superior officer gave as evidence of his insanity at his court martial was one occasion when Ross had used his carpenter’s tools to drive two stakes through the partition separating his cabin from the boatswain’s mate.16 Neil Wauchope, lieutenant of marines on board the Thetis in 1776, experienced a similarly extended period of disorder which eventually culminated in his stabbing of the first lieutenant while he was being forced down below to his cabin, for which he was tried by a court martial.17 Several of the instances that the officers presented as evidence of his insanity included behaviours that threatened or breached the physical privacy of the cabin as well as the boundaries of privacy established by his rank. Wauchope never breached the cabin walls as drastically as Ross had, but during the extended period of his derangement when he

16 TNA, ADM 1/5304 (Lawrence Ross court martial 19 June 1770). 17 TNA, ADM 1/5307 (Wauchope court martial 21 September 1776).

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was confined to his cabin, the second lieutenant told the court that he had been “prohibited” water to wash with because he had so frequently let it run into the first lieutenant’s cabin. Unlike Ross’ behaviour, this breach was relatively harmless, although it reveals how easily the physical privacy established by the walls of his own cabin and those of the other officers could be crossed and the consequent care that must have been taken on board to maintain the physical aspects of the cabin’s privacy. Wauchope’s period of derangement drove him to cross these boundaries in other ways as well. Wauchope believed that his fellow officers were “electrifying” him and trying to rob and poison him. One of the first signs of his insanity noted by his fellow officers occurred while the ship sailed between the islands of Madeira and Ascension in the Atlantic. Apparently unprovoked, Wauchope had begun knocking on the first lieutenant’s door in the middle of the night to tell him not to “electrify him or rise him any more”. The knocking and accusations had continued for much of the rest of the voyage, and his increasingly erratic and inconsistent behaviour, including deliberately elbowing the captain while on the quarterdeck, had prompted the officers to remove him from their mess and the captain to place him under a marine guard confined to his cabin. It was during this time that he had been prohibited from using water in his cabin because he could not be trusted not to spill it. The final instance that preceded him stabbing the first lieutenant and being brought to a court martial had happened while the ship was at port, and he had been given liberty to walk on the deck accompanied by a guard. The first lieutenant had told the marines on guard under the half deck that Wauchope could remain there if he kept quiet. In response, Wauchope had called the lieutenant a “scoundrel and a rascal” and had said that he would take no orders from him. The lieutenant had once again told him to be quiet. Wauchope, however, had refused and had continued to verbally abuse the first lieutenant and had subsequently physically threatened the master, who was also on duty on the half deck. In response, the lieutenant had ordered him to be carried to his cabin. Wauchope had managed to stab the first lieutenant in the belly with his pocket knife while he assisted the marines trying to carry him down the ladder to the deck below. The space in which Wauchope behaved in this way was an important factor in the first lieutenant’s response to him. The first lieutenant told the court that he had desired Wauchope to “desist” his threats and abuse,

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particularly because “it was in the face of the Ship’s Company”.18 On fifth-rate frigates such as the Thetis , the half deck or “under the half deck” referred to the portion of the main deck of the ship that extended underneath the quarterdeck above. This space usually included access to the captain’s cabin as well as the hatchway to the gunroom and the cabins of other officers below. Like the quarterdeck, it was a part of the ship which was reserved principally for officers and crew on specific tasks, but it was also in some ways more open to the rest of the ship’s company at work on the main deck. Wauchope’s outburst in this part of the ship was, therefore, a greater breach of privacy than his interactions with the officers within the established privacy of the gunroom because he was exposed to the rest of the ship’s crew and his actions and disrespect also exposed his senior officer. Whereas his previous actions had breached the physical privacy of the officers’ cabins, through his knocking or the water running between the partition walls, the privacy afforded to him by his rank and social status had been breached. Wauchope’s case also raises another aspect of the fraught boundaries of privacy bound up within the walls of the cabin and the relationship with mental disorders. His fear of the other officers “electrifying” him reveals the anxiety that officers felt about having their cabin walls—and therefore their gentlemanly privacy—breached. A breach in the privacy of the cabin walls also featured in other officers’ delusions or paranoia. James Major, master of the cutter Nimble who experienced a delusion that the ship’s commander and other officers of the ship intended to kill him, explicitly mentioned in his court martial that he feared any one of them “might easily pop a pistol thro’ my cabin Window” and take his life.19 Maintaining the right to privacy was also a particularly powerful concern for petty officers who were not afforded the privilege of a cabin itself. William Richmond, master’s mate on board the Britannia, was tried for absenting himself from duty, drunkenness, and behaving in an insolent, impertinent manner in 1779. The court found him guilty of the charges but only chose to disqualify him from holding the rank of any officer because of the evidence brought forward that he was “at intervals insane”.20 As was common in naval courts martial, Richmond was given

18 Ibid., f. 323. 19 TNA, ADM 1/5328 (Major court martial 20 December 1790). 20 TNA, ADM 1/5311 (Richmond court martial 10 July 1779).

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the opportunity to question each of the people sworn to give evidence. Much of the prosecution’s questions centred on Richmond’s behaviour once he had been confined for his apparent drunkenness, during which time he had managed to slip past his marine guard and had burst into the officer’s wardroom to remonstrate with the first lieutenant and other officers about his situation. Richmond questioned the witnesses, asking them to confirm that the reason why he had forced his way into the wardroom was to ask the officers to allow him to be confined to his own berth rather than where he had been placed under guard on the half deck where, he stressed, he was “exposed to the Ships Company” as if he had been a murderer. Many of the marks of insanity presented in courts martial which revolved around transgressing privacy reveal how easily the physical spatial privacy of the cabin could be breached. The officer’s gentlemanly right to privacy in these spaces was maintained by a set of social expectations for appropriate behaviour, similar to how the limited privacy of the hammock was established. However, privacy was also maintained by a sort of social contract whereby those outside granted the person inside privacy by ignoring any sights or sounds which crossed the boundary. Although experiencing a mental disorder could mean an officer breached the physical spatial boundaries of his cabin, these socio-spatial systems could ensure that he retained his gentlemanly privacy. Lieutenant John Gold was brought to a court martial in 1791, primarily to judge whether he was insane or not when he had disobeyed his orders as commanding officer of an impressment tender on duty along the south coast of Wales. The symptoms of his madness presented by the witnesses were associated closely with his role in command of the vessel, and unlike some of the previous cases, nearly all of these instances related to his time while on deck or on shore. This may have been because, in his role as commander of the vessel, Gold was afforded more privacy surrounding his behaviours within his cabin. The master, in particular, told the court that he could not answer their question about whether Gold had a “wildness in his looks” at the time when he disobeyed orders and sailed to the wrong location because—and he stressed this point—Gold was in his cabin.21

21 TNA, ADM 1/5329 (Gold court martial 26 July 1791).

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Suicide, Self-Injury, and ‘Unobserved’ Spaces The efficacy of the socio-spatial systems surrounding the officer’s privacy in his cabin is also evident in the anxiety that surrounded the potential for self-injury and suicide within that unobserved space. Lieutenant Hugh Lawson, while serving off the coast of Turkey in 1773, was reportedly deprived of his reason when he was rejected by the parents of the woman he had hoped to marry.22 His captain relieved him from duty and ordered the removal of his sword and cutlass as a precaution. However, Lawson managed to get hold of a razor and, two days later, in the privacy of his cabin, he cut his own throat. The captain was both angry and horrified. In response, he took extreme measures to police Lawson’s behaviour, but he also continued to maintain his entitled privacy. He physically barred Lawson’s cabin door and posted sentries outside it and on the deck above to watch over his cabin window. When he was questioned about his behaviour towards Lawson, he told the station commander that he had acted only to prevent Lawson from making any further attempts to “make away with himself instantly”.23 Although the captain and presumably the other officers were aware of Lawson’s despondent state previous to his suicide attempt, their response was not to watch him more closely and thus contravene his right to privacy, but rather to take away any means by which he could do himself harm. Even after he had managed to harm himself and appalled his captain, his right to privacy was restricted by the placement of the marines but not entirely removed. Although there were instances where it could have been beneficial or supportive to an officer to have their privacy changed or even removed, in many cases it was maintained regardless of the circumstances. The socio-spatial mechanisms which maintained an officer’s privacy were even more powerful when it was the commanding officer who experienced symptoms of mental disorder. William Fox, master of the tender Fanny in 1779, wrote to the Navy Board in some anxiety because of the increasingly erratic and aggressive behaviour of his commander, Lieutenant John Whiston. Besides turning the master out of his own cabin, a point which Fox was keen for the Board to comment on, Fox reported that Whiston had tried to jump overboard and drown himself three times. 22 TNA, ADM/5306. 23 TNA, ADM 1/5306 (John Brooks court martial 12 Sept 1774), Brooks to Sir Peter

Denis, 24 June 1773.

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The last instance occurred on their journey to Bristol when he had nearly succeeded by climbing out of his cabin window.24 He was retrieved from the water by a boat from another tender that happened to be nearby, implying that the crew of the Fanny may not have even been aware that he had gone overboard, perhaps because Whiston had made this final attempt from the privacy of his cabin. Jumping overboard was, in many instances, an extremely public exhibition of disorder. If it was noticed, it required the action of the whole watch to retrieve the unfortunate person from the water. Of course, the vigilance surrounding sailors falling or jumping overboard was not necessarily driven by a concern for protecting those experiencing mental disorders or for preventing suicidal acts. Falling overboard was a common cause of accidental death for sailors, and sentries were also commonly posted while a ship was at anchor to prevent deserters from slipping overboard and swimming ashore. Nonetheless, repeated attempts to jump overboard were frequently cited as evidence of a sailor’s derangement, often because they were so obvious. Charles Price was initially thought to be drunk by the surgeon when he arrived on board the Rivoli at anchor in the Portsmouth harbour in 1816. However, over the course of the day, the surgeon instead settled on a diagnosis of mental derangement, citing the fact that Price “frequently had thrown himself overboard” and kept the ship “in a constant state of alarm”.25 Similarly, James Oliver, on board the Seahorse sailing in the Mediterranean in 1797, was entered into the sick list when he “broke out into a furious madness”, his previous low spirits replaced by an “irascible” temper and repeated attempts to jump overboard.26 In some cases, surgeons only became aware that a seaman or marine was experiencing a problem entirely because he had jumped overboard or attempted to.27

24 National Maritime Museum, ADM/B/199, William Fox to Navy Board, 1 June 1779. 25 TNA, ADM 101/117/5B/3, f.21, Journal of the HMS Rivoli by John S Hasted, surgeon for 22 January 1816 to 22 January 1817, during which time the ship has been employed in Portsmouth Harbour. 26 TNA, ADM 101/120/6A, f.16, Medical and surgical journal of HMS Seahorse for 1 December 1796 to 17 August 1797 by David Fleming, Surgeon. 27 TNA, ADM 101/115/3B, f.6, Medical journal of HMS Princess Royal for 7 February to 17 April 1802 Ben Lara, Surgeon, during which time the said ship was employed in the Channel service.

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Despite the vigilance surrounding jumping or falling overboard, however, it could also easily go unobserved. In 1799, the surgeon of the Captain noted in his log that the able seaman Patrick Howe had “jumped overboard” and was drowned. He gave no further details about Howe’s case that could offer insights into whether Howe’s going overboard had been noticed right away or why the crew was unable to recover him and prevent his drowning. However, he did record that Howe’s messmates had told him afterwards that they had noticed Howe’s “spirits were unusually depressed” for some days before he committed “this rash action”.28 Although Howe’s messmates had been aware of his mental state, the implication that he was able to jump overboard without them preventing him or alerting the crew demonstrates that it was possible for such actions to go unobserved on board even without the privileged privacy of an officer’s cabin. William Green, a young marine on James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific aboard the Endeavour, also took his life by jumping overboard without being observed. He was lost overboard one evening in March 1769 while the ship was under sail, and nobody noticed he was missing until half an hour later when it was too late to try to recover him. Cook recorded in his journal that Green was lost overboard either “by accident or design”, but it was widely assumed by the rest of the crew, including the scientist Joseph Banks, that he had deliberately jumped. Earlier that day, he had impulsively stolen a piece of highly valued seal skin which had been placed under his charge and been driven “almost mad” by anguish when his fellow marines ostracised him and threatened to bring him before the captain to be punished for betraying their trust.29 The way privacy was afforded to one another on board is particularly striking in Green’s case. According to Banks, he disappeared while he was following his sergeant up on deck to be presented to Cook as a thief. Banks wrote that it was assumed that Green was “going to the head” to relieve himself, 28 TNA, ADM 101/93/2D/5 f.26, Journal of HMS Captain by James Farquhar, Surgeon between 3 September 1798 and 26 May 1799, during which time the ship was employed in the Channel until 6 May 1799 and from that time until 26 May 1799 on her passage and in the Mediterranean. 29 National Library of Australia, MS 1, James Cook ‘Journal of HMS Endeavour, 1768–1771’ 26 Mar 1769; Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Safe 1/ 65 James Roberts, ‘A Journal of His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour Round the World, Lieut. James Cook, Commander, 27th May 1768’, 27 May–14 May 1770, with annotations 1771 f. x.

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which is why nobody went with him when he slipped away.30 He was not technically under arrest, and it is possible that the marine sergeant never actually intended to bring him before the captain but rather meant just to scare him. His slipping away was perhaps ignored for a time due to sympathy for his age and distress. Either way, his case demonstrates how even something which could be a very public exhibition of disorder (such as jumping overboard) could quite easily go unobserved on board the ship because of the social systems in place to give each other privacy.

Lower Deck: Noticing but not Taking Notice The socio-spatial systems which upheld the privacy of the officers’ cabins were even more important, and in some ways more powerful, for members of the lower deck. The “cheek-by-jowl” nature of the cramped conditions in which most of the crew lived on board have occupied the attention of many historians of social life at sea, but more recent studies, such as that by Elin Jones, have argued that the lack of privacy in these conditions has been overstated.31 Many courts martial demonstrate the difficulty with which offences could be reliably observed below deck. Darkness, especially at night, the equipment and structures of the ship, and the hanging hammocks themselves often severely limited visibility when a watch was asleep.32 During the day watches, when the hammocks were stowed away, the crew socialised and messed together in berths between the ship’s guns, and canvas partitions could be hung between these berths to provide even further privacy, especially for petty officers or the “young gentlemen” of the ship.33 Even in the cramped conditions, then, a kind of spatial privacy was possible to establish and maintain for those without the privilege of a cabin. However, these spatial divisions were also supported by a similar set of social mechanisms which maintained the privacy of the officers’ cabins 30 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Safe 1/457 series 3. Joseph Banks—Endeavour Journal Volume 1 25 August 1768–14 August 1769, 25 March 1769. 31 Rodger, Wooden World, 60–61; Dening, Mr Bligh’s Bad Language, 33; Jones ‘Masculinity, Materiality and Space’, 84–87. 32 TNA, ADM 1/5316 (William Thompson court martial 2 October 1780); ADM 1/ 5331 (William Smith court martial 18 December 1794). 33 Michael Lewis, A Social History of the Navy 1793–1815 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1960; repr. London: Chatham publishing 2004), 271.

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whereby shipmates afforded each other privacy by actively not taking notice of certain behaviours which may cross or disrupt the boundaries. This seems to have been particularly the case for those who experienced mental disorders and the potentially disruptive behaviours they could cause. Richard Forrester, a marine on board the Monarch, was brought to a court martial for mutiny in 1798 after he had become drunk onshore and then lost his senses while in the boat bringing him back to the ship, lecturing the lieutenant in command at length about a number of treasonous topics.34 Peter Phillips, the coxswain of the boat’s crew, told the court that he had known Forrester for five years and that he was “not in his right mind” when he drank. When Forrester had been put into the boat, Phillips thought that he seemed to be “very much in liquor” and because of this, he “did not take notice of him for a considerable time”. When he realised that Forrester was talking directly to the lieutenant and understood the topic of his conversation, Phillips asked the officer if he could “put a handkerchief in his mouth” to prevent him from saying anything more. The lieutenant refused, so Forrester was told simply to be quiet, which he was not able to do and which ultimately led to his court martial. Within the tight space of the ship, privacy was, in effect, created through a system of noticing but not taking notice. Thomas Nicholson of the Essex was court martialled in 1761 for having unexpectedly attacked the master’s mate and then one of the lieutenants who had tried to break up the fight. The court found the charges against Nicholson to be fully proved but acquitted him because he appeared to have been “disordered in his senses”.35 Nicholson’s messmates told the court in his defence that they had often seen Nicholson “out of his mind”, talking to himself, biting his fingers, or playing with his hands and that he often had violent “fits” which made him “use those worst whom he loved best”. When he was in these fits, they would often be forced to leave him in their shared berth because he would come in and strike whoever he saw first. One messmate who had known Nicholson for nearly two years said that these fits would “come upon him five or three times a day” and then “sometimes not for a month”. Another mate stressed that even when Nicolson’s

34 TNA, ADM 1/5344 (Forrester court martial 9 April 1798). 35 TNA, ADM 1/5300 (Nicholson court martial 22 January 1761).

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behaviour forced him to leave their shared berth, he “never complained or took any notice of it”. Perhaps because of the restrictions of life on board, seamen could be very sympathetic to certain kinds of disruption, especially if it was considered to be something to which anyone could be prone or fall prey to. For example, seamen often resisted mandates to report their messmates for drunkenness even if explicitly ordered to do so by their captains.36 As one sailor put it, “Sailors in general would rather screen than report a brother-sailor in his cups”.37 Madness was, of course, not an offence in the same way as drunkenness, but it was often associated with drinking, especially if a sailor had a head injury. If officers became aware of a man’s situation, it could also result in his removal from the ship, usually to a hospital. A fair proportion of men sent to hospital for mental disorders were returned to their ships, but most were either discharged as “unserviceable” or spent long enough in the hospital or asylum on shore that they had to be discharged from their ship and entered aboard a different one if they recovered.38 The potential that a messmate could be removed may have motivated this “screening” of his condition from the view of the officers. However, the reason for this privacy was not necessarily as direct as trying to prevent someone’s removal. Rather, the culture on board the ship and the way in which privacy was constructed and layered meant that many just did not see their shipmate’s mental disorder as something which the officers needed to know about. For example, Alexander Ryan, a seaman on board the Princess Royal , was entered to the sick list in April 1802 for experiencing symptoms of disturbed “intellectual faculties”.39 The surgeon treated him on board for five days before discharging him to the hospital with the diagnosis of “mania”, and he did not return to the ship before it was paid off.40 The surgeon noted in his log, perhaps with some frustration, that he had found from Ryan’s messmates that they had “conceived him deranged for several months” but that he did his duty so 36 Nicholas Rogers, ‘Lower Deck Narratives and Sociability in the British Navy, 1750– 1815’ in Sociable Places: Locating Culture in Romantic-Period Britain, ed. Kevin Gilmartin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) 224–246, 231. 37 Five Naval Journals 1789–1817 , ed. Rear-Admiral H. G. Thursfield (London: Navy Records Society, 1951), 154. 38 Beck, ‘Patronage and Insanity’, 78–79. 39 TNA, ADM 101/115/3B, f.6, Princess Royal , 1 April 1802–6 April 1802. 40 TNA, ADM 102/287, Royal Naval Hospital Haslar: Alexr Ryan, 6–19 April 1802.

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they did not mention it, and “nor would they now, but from his having attempted to throw himself overboard”.41 Thomas Nicholson’s case also demonstrates how the layers of privacy from individual messes, berths, and between the ranks of the ship operated in practice.42 The ship’s corporal told the court when he gave his evidence that it was “the common report” that Nicholson had been “out of his senses” for the past four years in the ship’s company. However, almost all of the officers stated in their evidence that they had initially thought that Nicholson was drunk and only later heard that he was “sometimes out of his senses”, “often had fits”, or appeared to be “a Lunatic at times”. It may have been common knowledge on board that a seaman was prone to experiencing episodes of mental disorder, but the officers of the ship could remain unaware. Even those officers who did know appear to have been able to readily forget because of the layers of privacy on board. The master’s mate told the court that he had seen Nicholson experience these “fits” before on previous ships. Despite this, he had also initially thought that Nicholson was under the influence of liquor when he attacked him, and it was only afterwards, when he “found that he was not”, that he believed him instead to have been in one of these “fits”. He had served with Nicholson for two years, so it seems surprising that he would not recognise him as experiencing the condition which he knew he was prone to, especially since Nicholson’s messmates said that he experienced his fits fairly regularly. The implication is that the master’s mate had not recently observed Nicholson while he was in his fits and so had forgotten about them. Even if Nicholson’s behaviour was disruptive within his mess and berth, the privacy of the mess was robust enough that other members of the crew either did not take notice or—as seems to have been the case with the officers—actually did not observe these instances at all. The division of duty within the ship into different areas of control or concern certainly created parameters by which men would, or would not, take notice of mental derangement. Some officers were quite explicit about how they did not feel it was their responsibility to intervene or look after someone who was acting strangely if he was outside their

41 TNA, ADM 101/115/3B, f.6, Princess Royal , 1 April 1802–6 April 1802. 42 TNA, ADM 1/5300 (Nicholson court martial 22 January 1761).

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area of control. In the court martial of Jeremiah Cronan of the Ramillies for insolent behaviour in 1800, the lieutenant of marines stated in his evidence that he had seen Cronan “sometime prior” on his knees speaking incoherently on the quarterdeck and that he thought him to be a “man deranged”. However, he told the court that he did not investigate Cronan’s behaviour any further at the time because he did not see it as part of his duty and so “took no further notice of him”.43 Both officers and seamen also saw mad sailors as essentially the responsibility of their messmates. John Wheland, a seaman on board the Magnificent , appeared in the defence of Patrick MacKenzie, his shipmate of five years, at his court martial in 1791. In describing MacKenzie’s frequent mad behaviour, he mentioned one particular instance when, while lying in his hammock, he heard “a man tumble down the fore hatchway” and then run up the ladder and do it again. When he went to investigate, he found it was MacKenzie, who told him he was a “Messenger sent from Heaven” who had come to tell them that “the Day of Judgement was at Hand”. Thinking that MacKenzie was consequently not “in his senses”, Wheland told the court that he “took him forward to his Birth and left him with his Messmates”.44 The mess and berth acted, then, as a fairly flexible sociospatial division which carried with it an expectation of privacy as well as responsibility. In effect, seamen did notice mad behaviour on board, especially because disorder often drove sufferers to be disruptive, but they kept it to themselves or expected those within that sailor’s close circle to deal with it, usually privately.

Communal Privacy and Care However, the social systems for maintaining privacy within the tight conditions of the ship also created layers of privacy beyond the small socio-spatial unit of the mess. Like drunkenness, an individual’s derangement seems to have been widely treated as something to be sorted out between the members of the lower deck, perhaps with the intervention of petty officers, but without needing to alert the senior officers or “gentlemen” of the ship. Thomas Buck was tried by a court martial in 1779 for mutinous and riotous behaviour while on board the Bienfaisant . Richard

43 TNA, ADM 1/5355 (Cronan court martial 10 December 1800). 44 TNA, ADM 1/5328 (MacKenzie court martial 13 May 1791).

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Fox, who had served with him for two years, told the court he had seen Buck “raving” and “distracted” and that, on one occasion, he had sat up with Buck for a whole watch. When pushed by the court about whether he had ever alerted the surgeon of Buck’s condition, he answered that he had not and also added that he was “ordered to sit up with him that night as were several of the Idlers by the ships corporal”.45 Similarly, when Daniel Matthews, a corporal of marines on board the Frederickstein in 1809, encountered William Delaney, the purser’s steward, running around between decks in the dark with his shirt in his hands, talking about how he was going to hell and making “no sense”, he took charge of him himself rather than calling for the surgeon’s mates or the officer on watch. First, he took Delaney to his own berth and offered him a “prayer book”, perhaps hoping to calm him down. Finding that Delaney was “not capable of reading it”,46 he instead took him above to the half deck and placed him under the marine standing as sentinel there, who he ordered to watch Delaney and let him go when he considered him “capable of taking care of himself” again. The marine later told the court in his own evidence that the corporal’s main concern was that Delaney would “go over board”.47 This example shows a kind of communal or group privacy in effect— in this case, connected to social status, the lower deck equivalent to the privacy of rank that Lieutenant Wauchope transgressed when he verbally attacked his superior officer on the half deck. This kind of group privacy, rather than the individual privacy of the self, was an important aspect of the construction of privacy in the space of the ship and was a particularly crucial element in the treatment of those who experienced mental disorders on board. For members of the lower deck, the difficulties with which the individual privacy of the hammock could be maintained meant that the group privacy of the mess was more important. The tight conditions on board also meant that there were layers of group privacy which expanded throughout the wider community of the lower deck. Within this, shipmates granted each other the privacy of not taking notice of

45 TNA, ADM 1/5324 (Buch court martial 4 November 1779). 46 This was presumably because of his mental state rather than illiteracy because as a

purser’s steward, he was likely literate. 47 TNA, ADM 1/5401 (Delaney court martial 1 January 1810).

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certain actions if they knew someone was prone to mental derangement. However, the courts martial demonstrate how they also watched each other quite closely in order to care for one another. Unlike officers, for whom individual privacy was tantamount, the prominence of the privacy of the mess and other kinds of group privacy for the lower deck meant that seamen suffering from mental disorders had access to, in some respects, a greater degree of support and care. Within the different scales of group privacy, seamen would sit up with their shipmates who were experiencing problems. This was sometimes organised semi-formally, and seamen were asked to sit up with their shipmates by the petty officers of the ship, as was the case for Thomas Buck. Other men’s experiences show that it was quite normal for messmates to arrange this among themselves. David Graham, a gunner’s yeoman on the Stately, was tried in 1793 for the murder of the ship’s gunner. While suffering under a delusion that the rest of the ship was trying to kill him, Graham barricaded himself in the ship’s magazine with several loaded muskets and eventually shot the gunner through the door, killing him instantly.48 Graham’s messmates had been concerned the night before that he had seemed unusually despondent and low-spirited. In their evidence given in his defence, they stressed that they had thought he was out of his mind and that they had even taken it in turns to sit up with him and make sure he did no harm to himself. Allen Wager went into some detail about the night before the tragic event. He told the court that when Graham “quitted the birth in the evening he shook hands with me and two others and said God Bless you all”. This, together with Graham’s despondency while they had messed together that night, had prompted Wager to ask one of their messmates to join him in sitting and talking with Graham for a while. After a time, Graham had gotten up to go and search for the gunner, but he had come back a short while later, saying that he could not find him. Wager told the court that he then “sent another of my messmates to stay with him”. It was widely acknowledged that officers should allow seamen to choose their own messes and not to dictate their arrangement just to make victualling the crew easier.49 Seamen could change messes if they wanted

48 TNA, ADM 1/5330 (Graham court martial 8–9 October 1793). 49 Anselm Griffiths, Observations on Some Points of Seamanship (Cheltenham: Minerva

Press, 1824), 98–99.

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to and they were generally allowed to do so at the beginning of every month.50 Part of the reason why this was considered to be important was because of the intimacy that being in a mess created. This meant that the messes on board the ship were formed by a mixture of circumstance and personal bonds, forming a kind of domestic or familial unit within the shared space.51 The care that was provided to those experiencing mental disorders was, therefore, largely voluntary. Thus, although the expectation of care meant that seamen would often watch their messmate closely if he was experiencing a mental disorder, the family-like bonds involved in the construction of the shared privacy of the mess meant that the relative lack of privacy did not equate to a culture of surveillance. Even if messmates or shipmates watched each other closely, this was not done in order to report or even to control a sufferer’s behaviour. The flexibility of the layers of privacy in the lower deck, which could expand from the small socio-spatial or family-like unit of the mess to the wider social unit of the lower deck, meant that this support system was also fairly robust and provided a level of extra-familial support which was not necessarily available to people on shore. In some ways, then, sailors who experienced mental disorders at sea potentially had more support than their counterparts on land because of the relative lack of individual privacy posed by the spatial conditions of their lives on board. In turn, this may have been why some sufferers seemed to have fared better while they served in the navy than when they returned to civilian society.52 However, there were limits to this care. The voluntary nature of messes meant that the support they provided to those who could be disruptive or anti-social because of their mental disorder could be extremely variable. Seamen or marines without strong bonds with their mess or shipmates could suffer on board and did not experience the same kind of tolerance demonstrated by some of the cases looked at here.53 Messmates also did not necessarily work together in the same watches or spaces within the ship, so even for those who did provide this level of support, it was not possible to watch over each other all the time. In some cases, the

50 Griffiths, Observations, 96. 51 Jones, ‘Masculinity, Materiality and Space’, 87. 52 R.A. Houston, ‘New Light on Anson’s Voyage, 1740–4: A Mad Sailor on Land and

Sea’, Mariner’s Mirror, 88 (3) (2002), 260–70, 268. 53 Beck, ‘Patronage and Insanity’, 88.

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layers of privacy that extended beyond the mess meant that some of those experiencing mental disorders received support from other members of the lower deck, like that given to William Delaney. However, the layers of privacy created by the division of duty in the ship also meant that an officer or seaman might not intervene if someone was outside their area of control or seemed to be going about his duty. David Graham managed to barricade himself in the ship’s magazine on the morning after the night his messmates had taken it in turns to watch over him.54 As gunner’s yeoman, he did not work alongside them, and they could not carry on watching over him when he went about his duty in the morning. Others in the ship besides his messmates had been aware of his unusually low state the night before, including both the master-at-arms and the gunner himself. Despite this, the witnesses in his court martial revealed that nobody knew where he was for a time before he was discovered to have barricaded himself in the magazine, which suggests that they had also not been keeping an eye on his behaviour. Graham’s position as a gunner’s yeoman gave him access to the restricted space of the magazine and the narrow lightroom passage leading to it. Here, he was unobserved both because of the physical privacy of the space and the privacy granted to him by others that assumed he needed to be there in order to do his duty. In this case, the layers of privacy which existed on board may have supported Graham the night before, but they also allowed him to act on his delusion.

Conclusion The relationship between privacy and madness in the difficult conditions on board a ship, then, is far more complicated than simply one of either transgression or care. The potential for those who experienced mental disorders to become disruptive within the tight space of the ship certainly meant that one aspect of madness at sea was the way in which it transgressed standards of privacy. In many ways, madness was identified and understood by the way that the sufferer’s behaviours breached the boundaries of privacy bound up in the limited private space of the hammock, the cabin walls, the order and routine of the ship, or the divisions of rank and social status. The tension surrounding the breaching of these

54 TNA, ADM 1/5330 (Graham court martial 8–9 October 1793).

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boundaries exposes the importance of spatial markers of privacy on board, especially for officers. However, the ease with which these boundaries were breached also reveals the degree to which they were upheld by social systems of noticing but not taking notice. For officers, these systems, in some ways, created further tension. On the one hand, the officer’s cabin was not robust enough to provide complete privacy for behaviours inside its walls, although it presented enough of an inflexible barrier to make the behaviours that breached them obvious and difficult to ignore. On the other hand, the visual privacy which the cabin did provide and the strength of the cultural ideal of the gentleman’s need for, or right to, privacy meant that many officers who experienced mental disorders on board became isolated, their privacy maintained even when it may have been beneficial to them for support to have eroded the boundary. For members of the lower deck who did not have even the symbolic spatial privacy of the cabin walls, the socio-spatial systems of privacy, grounded in a culture of not taking notice, were even more powerful because these elements of spatial privacy were so fraught in nature. In consequence, the social systems which established and maintained privacy were in many ways more effective for members of the lower deck who experienced mental disorders on board whose conditions caused them to be disruptive and, therefore, otherwise very noticeable in the space of the ship. Layers of group privacy, ranging in scale from the small familylike socio-spatial unit of the mess and berth to the privacy of simply not reporting disruptive behaviours to an officer, provided members of the lower deck with a kind of protection and support that was not available to other officers in the same space. Although there was a lack of individual privacy, the flexible layers of group privacy provided a form of care that allowed some of those who experienced even violent episodes of mental derangement to live on board for years. However, the efficacy of the layers of privacy within the space of the ship also meant that members of the lower deck who needed support could go unobserved even when they were in plain view of the rest of the ship’s company, leading to their coming to harm or harming someone else. Of course, the action of privacy in the lives of those who experienced mental disorders at sea means that the records that give us the most detail about how they lived on board are also the ones where these systems of support broke down in some way. The times when sailors and even officers lived on board without problems are unlikely to appear in courts

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martial or surgeons’ logs. This may provide a somewhat skewed picture of the relationship between privacy and madness, especially for officers. Looking at patterns of continued employability for all ranks discharged to hospitals with insanity and related conditions suggests that a culture of tolerance towards mental disorder existed in the navy in the long eighteenth century, often facilitated by personal connections.55 The way in which privacy was established and maintained within the tight conditions on board through layers of socio-spatial systems in which shipmates noticed without taking notice also supported a kind of tolerance. We see this most clearly in the cases of members of the lower deck examined here, but the same may also have been true of officers whose bonds with their messmates may have kept their disorderly or disruptive behaviour private from their superiors and thus from the historical record as well. Examining madness at sea reveals several different ways in which privacy was established and maintained in the ship and the effects it had on the lives of those on board. Privacy, such as that provided by the officer’s cabin, did not necessarily grant protection from judgement or scrutiny. The lack of individual privacy available to sailors did not necessarily equate to surveillance. The spatial conditions of the ship may have made privacy more difficult to establish, but they also made the social systems developed within these conditions even more powerful. For madness, this meant that even though mental disorder so often drove sufferers to breach the fraught bounds of privacy that existed both in eighteenth-century society and on board the ship, rather than making it impossible for sufferers to live on board, these social systems actually allowed the opposite.

Primary Sources Manuscript Sources The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew Courts Martial: ADM 1/5299 (John Newson court martial 1 September 1760) ADM 1/5300 (Nicholson court martial 22 January 1761) ADM 1/5304 (Butler court martial 13 September 1768), (Lawrence Ross court martial 19 June 1770) 55 Beck, ‘Patronage and Insanity’, 88–89, 90–95.

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ADM/5306 (John Brooks court martial 12 September 1774) ADM 1/5307 (Wauchope court martial 21 September 1776) ADM 1/5310, (Cort court martial 10 September 1778) ADM 1/5311 (Richmond court martial 10 July 1779) ADM 1/5316 (William Thompson court martial 2 October 1780) ADM 1/5324 (Buch court martial 4 November 1779) ADM 1/5328 (Major court martial 20 December 1790); (MacKenzie court martial 13 May 1791) ADM 1/5329 (Gold court martial 26 July 1791) ADM 1/5330 (R. Graham court martial 1 July 1793); (D. Graham court martial 8–9 October 1793) ADM 1/5331 (William Smith court martial 18 December 1794) ADM 1/5344 (Forrester court martial 9 April 1798) ADM 1/5349 (Hugh Stevenson court martial 19 April 1799) ADM 1/5355 (Cronan court martial 10 December 1800) ADM 1/5401 (Delaney court martial 1 January 1810). Surgeons Logs: ADM 101/93/2D/5 f.26, Journal of HMS Captain by James Farquhar, Surgeon between 3 September 1798 and 26 May 1799, during which time the ship was employed in the Channel until 6 May 1799 and from that time until 26 May 1799 on her passage and in the Mediterranean. ADM 101/115/3B, f.6, Medical journal of HMS Princess Royal for 7 February to 17 April 1802 Ben Lara, Surgeon, during which time the said ship was employed in the Channel service. ADM 101/117/5B/3, f.21, Journal of the HMS Rivoli by John S Hasted, surgeon for 22 January 1816 to 22 January 1817, during which time the ship has been employed in Portsmouth Harbour. ADM 101/120/6A, f.16, Medical and surgical journal of HMS Seahorse for 1 December 1796 to 17 August 1797 by David Fleming, Surgeon Hospital Muster Books: ADM 102/287, Royal Naval Hospital Haslar: Alexr Ryan, 6–19 April 1802. National Library of Australia MS 1, James Cook ‘Journal of HMS Endeavour, 1768–1771’ 26 Mar 1769; Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Safe 1/65 James Roberts, ‘A Journal of His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour Round the World, Lieut. James Cook, Commander, 27th May 1768’, 27 May–14 May 1770, with annotations 1771 f. x. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales Safe 1/457 series 3. Joseph Banks—Endeavour Journal Volume 1 25 August 1768–14 August 1769, 25 Mar 1769.

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Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich ADM/B/199, Board Of Admiralty, In-Letters May-Sep 1779, William Fox to Navy Board, 1 June 1779

Printed Sources John Delafons, A Treatise on Naval Courts Martial (London: P. Steel, 1805) Anselm Griffiths, Observations on Some Points of Seamanship (Cheltenham: Minerva Press, 1824).

Primary Source Edited Collections Five Naval Journals 1789–1817 , ed. Rear-Admiral H. G. Thursfield (London: Navy Records Society, 1951). John D. Byrn, Naval Courts Martial, 1793–1815 (Navy Records Society, 2009).

Bibliography Andrews Jonathan, and Scull, Andrew, Customers and Patrons of the Mad-Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London, with the Complete Text of John Monro’s 1766 Case Book (London: University of California Press, 2003). Beck, Catherine, ‘Patronage and Insanity: Tolerance, Reputation and Mental Disorder in the British Navy 1740–1820’, Historical Research, 94 (263) (2021), 73–95. Carson, John, ‘“Every expression is watched”: Mind, Medical Expertise and Display in the Nineteenth Century English Courtroom’, Social Studies of Science, 48 (6) (2018), 891–918. Dening, Greg, Mr Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Eigen, Joel Peter, Witnessing Insanity: Madness and Mad-Doctors in the English Court (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Houston, R.A., New Light on Anson’s Voyage, 1740–4: A Mad Sailor on Land and Sea’, Mariner’s Mirror, 88 (3) (2002), 260–270. ———, Madness and Society in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Jones, Elin, ‘Masculinity, Materiality and Space on board the Royal Naval Ship, 1756–1815’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Queen Mary, University of London, 2016). Lewis, Michael, A Social History of the Navy 1793–1815 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1960; repr. London: Chatham publishing 2004). Malcomson, Thomas, Order and Disorder in the British Navy, 1793–1815: Control, Resistance, Flogging and Hanging (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2016).

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Porter, Roy, Mind-Forg’d Manacles: A History of Madness In England From the Restoration to the Regency. (London: Penguin Books, 1990). Rodger, N.A.M., The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (Glasgow: Fontana Press, 1988). Rogers, Nicholas, ‘Lower Deck Narratives and Sociability in the British Navy, 1750–1815’ In Sociable Places: Locating Culture in Romantic-Period Britain, ed. Kevin Gilmartin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) 224– 246. Suzuki, Akihito, ‘Enclosing and Disclosing Lunatics within the Family Walls: Domestic Psychiatric Regime and the Public Sphere in Early NineteenthCentury England’ in Outside the walls of the asylum: The History of Care in the Community 1750–2000 (London: Athlone Press, 1999) 115–131.

CHAPTER 6

“Some Sly Corner”: Privacy and Sodomitical Space in the Georgian Royal Navy Seth Stein LeJacq

Introduction People have long feared that privacy at sea brings sexual crime. Maritime fiction regularly depicts sailors misusing privacy to indulge in vices associated with life at sea, including buggery. Tobias Smollett, a one-time naval surgeon, helped establish this tradition with his popular picaresque novel The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748). The hero serves as a surgeon’s mate, coming under the command of one Captain Whiffle. Whiffle’s men suspect their captain of “maintaining a correspondence with his surgeon not fit to be named”. It is Whiffle’s secretiveness that reveals that he and the surgeon are sodomites. The captain instals the medical practitioner in a cabin “contiguous” to his stateroom. He then orders that nobody enter “without first sending to obtain leave”. These

S. S. LeJacq (B) Duke University, Durham, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_6

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efforts to hide their activities protect the two from detection and punishment, but they leave no doubts about their relationship.1 Whiffle abuses his considerable power as a naval captain to make his quarters sodomitical, turning them into a space where sexual criminals can hide in order to satisfy their ‘unnatural’ appetites safely, beyond the reach of surveillance and state authority. Smollett’s contemporaries shared his mistrust of privacy and secrecy. His portrait of Whiffle reveals fears about what men do with access to spatial privacy, with the power to control whether others can observe them. Early modern people viewed privacy and especially secretiveness with suspicion, associating both with sexual misbehaviour.2 They suspected that nefarious individuals and groups used private spaces to hide all manner of criminal acts, and they viewed ‘unnatural’ sex and concealment as closely intertwined. Britons saw sodomitical crime (potentially any erotic act between males) as secret and furtive.3 Sodomy was “an offence of so dark a nature” that it was hard to detect, try, or even comprehend.4 The public’s discovery of London’s molly subculture earlier in the century stoked fears about communities of covert sodomites hiding in the capital’s drinking and lodging establishments.5 Regular sodomy scandals suggested that clandestine networks of sexual criminals permeated British society, particularly its upper reaches; some centred on well-connected naval officers, such as Captain Edward Rigby (convicted in 1698) and

1 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, Vol. 1 (London: J. Osborn, 1748), 305–312. 2 Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch, and Power in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 30–33, 156; Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 70, 270–271; Lena Cowen Orlin, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 10. 3 George Haggerty, ‘Keyhole Testimony: Witnessing Sodomy in the Eighteenth

Century’, Eighteenth Century, 44 (2003), 167–182. 4 Blackstone, Commentaries IV, Chapter 15, 4; John McArthur, A Treatise of the Principles and Practice of Naval Courts-Martial (London: Whieldon and Butterworth, 1792), 40. 5 Alan Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), chapter 4.

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the ship’s surgeon James Nehemiah Taylor (executed in 1809).6 English criminal courts began regularly trying these offences in the late seventeenth century. Trial proceedings and reports on them provide evidence of intense anxieties over secretive behaviour and misuse of privacy. They abound with tales of offences committed in darkened rooms, shared beds, alleys, secluded corners of drinking establishments, privies, and other locations that permitted spatial privacy. Accounts of Captain Rigby’s crimes reported that he committed his worst offences when he believed himself safe in a rented room in a Pall Mall tavern.7 The Royal Navy participated vigorously in intensifying legal efforts against sex between males, regularly prosecuting sailors from at least the 1690s. Its justice system became one of the most active and visible venues for these trials in Georgian Britain (1714–1837). Courts martial tried hundreds for same-sex offences, convicting most. Naval reactions to ‘unnatural’ sex show that men at every level carefully managed privacy around illegal erotic activity. In her chapter in this volume, Catherine Beck argues that sailors navigated multiple “layers” of shipboard privacy when monitoring, responding to, and caring for mentally ill shipmates. They had methods for protecting communal privacy and “noticing without taking notice”. Seamen used similar social practices to detect, respond to, and overlook sex acts that were technically illegal under the Articles of War. When they became aware of potentially criminal erotic activity, navy men usually avoided involving the justice system. Administrators, officers, and lower-deck sailors alike preferred to instead look the other way, suppress what they had learned, or circulate the information only among a restricted audience. Formally accusing a sailor meant publicising his alleged misdeeds. Even when that happened, officers and administrators usually sought to maintain communal privacy, generally electing to confront accusations informally and punish infractions summarily.8 While they became increasingly common over the course of the eighteenth 6 An Account of the Proceedings Against Capt. Edward Rigby (London: F. Collins,

1698); ‘Maritime Execution’, Glasgow Herald, January 1, 1810. 7 See, for instance, A Compleat Collection of the Remarkable Tryals... (London: Whieldon and Butterworth, 1718), vol. 1, 236–242. 8 Seth Stein LeJacq, ‘Escaping Court Martial for Sodomy: Prosecution and its Alternatives in the Royal Navy, 1690–1840’, International Journal of Maritime History, 33 (2021), 16–36.

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century, naval buggery trials remained relatively rare by design. The men who ran the navy’s justice system intended these public trials and the public punishments that usually followed as infrequent and spectacular ‘striking examples’. Grand, terrifying, and highly visible, they were meant to scare others away from specific prohibited behaviours.9 The navy used its buggery trials almost exclusively to discipline officers and seamen against abusing their positions in the shipboard hierarchy in order to obtain sexual contact with lower-status men and boys. Most trials involved allegations of sexual activity between men and sailors inferior to them on their ships. These were usually young sailors: ships’ boys, adolescents, and young men. Accusations tended to come from young sailors or from shipmates who believed that young sailors had been involved in sodomitical acts. Navy men showed little concern for these inferiors, whether they were adults or boys. Trial records reveal intense mistrust of accusers; participants were quick to believe that they were culpable in these acts even when they were below the male age of consent, which was fourteen years old. Rather, trials and reports on them in the press indicate that the overriding goal of prosecutions and punishments was to make examples of men who had abused their station and shipboard power. The standard charge in naval buggery cases, regardless of the defendant’s rank, was of abuse of power, of misusing rank, social standing, authority, possessions, or perquisites in order to obtain sex.10 One of the strongest and most consistent messages sent by trials was displeasure with secretive behaviour and abuse of individual spatial privacy—with how men used their power to control whether they were observed by others. Administrators, officers, and trial participants expressed particular hostility towards ‘unnatural’ crimes that, like those of the fictional Captain Whiffle and the real Captain Rigby, involved secretiveness and abuse of privacy. James Nehemiah Taylor’s case was, in many ways, a paradigmatic naval buggery trial: a man tried for sex with a subordinate, a marine boy who worked as his servant, while attempting to hide

9 James Parker case, The National Archives (Kew) (TNA), ADM 7/309, 8 October 1811. On deterrence, see Thomas Malcomson, Order and Disorder in the British Navy, 1793–1815 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016), Chapter 7. 10 Seth Stein LeJacq, “Run Afoul: Sodomy, Masculinity, and the Body in the Georgian Royal Navy” (Ph.D dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2016), Chapter 2; B.R. Burg, Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

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his crimes in his cabin.11 Allegations that men had abused private spaces are ubiquitous in trial testimonies and in public reports on cases. This relentless focus on secrecy reveals norms and discourses around privacy and sexual activity. Naval authorities worried that their men abused private spaces to offend. As Beck and Charles R. Foy show in this volume, even low-status sailors could have access to some privacy. Nobody doubted that sailors of any rank could find “secret occasions” and “might get into some sly corner, and do what they wanted without anybody seeing them”.12 Personal quarters, hammocks, and berths caused the greatest concern. Witnesses alleged sexual offences in hammocks and cabins more than in any other places. A special perquisite of officer rank, cabins were the most common locations named. Courts tried officers far out of proportion to their numbers in the force.13 Those bringing charges often claimed that officers attempted to shield crimes from prying eyes by concealing them in their cabins, much like Whiffle and Taylor. The trials also document ubiquitous prying. To investigate and try allegations, officers relied on a culture of intensive mutual surveillance. Those with formal policing roles like masters-at-arms, ships’ corporals, and sentries were required to surveil shipmates and often testified. However, they were joined by many more witnesses whose positions did not demand the same watchfulness. Sailors adhered to a “social mandate for mutual surveillance” closely resembling what historians have documented on land.14 They acted like the early modern English women Laura Gowing has studied, watching others closely and intervening forcefully when discovering apparent misbehaviour. Gowing shows that when these women suspected wrongdoing, they would investigate aggressively, going so far as to grab and probe other women’s bodies to gather evidence.15 Sailors likewise monitored subordinates, peers, and even superiors and at times directly interfered. They invaded private spaces like hammocks

11 J.N. Taylor trial, ADM 1/5400, 11–12 December 1809. 12 Don Philip Dumaresq trial, ADM 1/5485, 1–2 March 1839; John Dendass trial,

ADM 1/5421, 7 December 1811. 13 LeJacq, ‘Run Afoul’, 126–128. 14 Orlin, Locating Privacy, 14; James Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550–

1750 (London: Longman, 1999), 119. 15 Gowing, Common Bodies.

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and cabins, interrupted shipmates in flagrante delicto, and even grasped and examined genitals to gather evidence. Cultural norms and naval discipline set bounds on these actions. It was inappropriate to interrupt licit sex, for instance, and working-class ratings could never legitimately manhandle officers. However, those prohibitions did not extend to other forms of surveillance, and the trials show that navy men expected shipmates to carefully monitor each other and the spaces they inhabited.

Sodomy and Privacy at Sea Some naval historians believe that warships’ legendary lack of privacy discouraged sodomy; yet others opine that it fostered it.16 Whatever the true effect, naval observers were certain it was possible to get away with sodomitical acts on tightly packed men-of-war. For instance, David Morrice’s The Young Midshipman’s Instructor (1801) fretted that “younkers” (youngsters) nurtured “improper growing familiarity” when “in private”. He had seen it himself as a naval schoolmaster and counselled constant vigilance.17 The naval archives reveal that sailors could violate the sodomy prohibition without getting in trouble and hide other secrets relating to sex and gender for long periods.18 Mary Lacy, “the female shipwright”, lived afloat “almost continually in company with 700 men” for years “without incurring the least suspicion of being a woman”.19 “A little female tar” who had lived as a ship’s boy testified in the 1807 sodomy trial that hanged Lt. William Berry.20 Like the trials of Rigby and Taylor, Berry’s trial created a public scandal. Reports in newspapers and periodicals described the young sailor’s role in the case, noting that they had gone undetected for the better part of a year.21 With such

16 N.A.M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (London: Fontana, 1988), 80–81; Eugene Rasor, Reform in the Royal Navy: A Social History of the Lower Deck, 1850 to 1880 (Hamden: Archon, 1976), 99. 17 David Morrice, The Young Midshipman’s Instructor (London: Knight and Compton, 1801), 7. 18 LeJacq, ‘Escaping Court Martial’, 20. 19 Mary Lacy, The History of the Female Shipwright, ed. Margarette Lincoln (London:

National Maritime Museum, 2008 [1773]), 8. 20 William Berry trial, ADM 1/5383, 2–3 October 1807. 21 For example, Annual Register (1807), 58–59.

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material, the press helped to disseminate the idea that sexual and gender misbehaviour was not only possible but indeed rife at sea. Cases came to trial from a wide range of vessels—everything from the massive 114-gun first-rate ship of the line HMS San Josef to the 4-gun schooner Renegade. They arose on storeships and hulks. The hospital ship Union, the steam-powered survey ship Congo, and the prison ship Captivity each produced one.22 Most cases occurred on vessels with complements of between about 75 and 650 (Fig. 6.1), a range covering small floating communities with no anonymity to those roughly the size of contemporary urban parishes.23 Cases that went to trial rarely came from the navy’s largest ships, suggesting that they permitted sailors the greatest degree of privacy and anonymity. Higher-ranking and more senior officers also commanded these behemoths. These men were in the best position to keep accusations from coming to trial. Lower-ranking officers had less power and social capital, and cases originating on the vessels they commanded provided the easiest sources for the Admiralty’s ‘striking examples’. This dynamic may explain the prevalence of trials originating from accusations made on smaller craft, particularly unrated vessels. Navy men lived in close quarters, and sailors coveted privacy while also fearing secrecy. Like Smollett’s mistrustful crew, witnesses at sea and on land were quick to cite “clandestineness” as suspicious.24 They pointed to dousing lights, sitting in the dark,25 shutting or covering doors and windows, using locks, placing blinds and screens, sneaking and meeting in secluded places, inappropriate invitations into cabins, and even covering oneself with a coat or blanket. One officer covered his keyhole; another closed his cabin door and then drew and “look’d through the Curtain several times to see if he was watch’d by any person”.26 Defendants

22 LeJacq, ‘Run Afoul’, Appendix D. 23 Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 24. 24 Thomas Burrows trial, 4 December 1776, Old Bailey Online, oldbaileyonline.org,

ref. t17761204-2. 25 “It was very improper to sit in the Dark smoking Cheroots [cigars], when they might have had light.” Christopher Beauchamp and James Bruce trial, ADM 1/5453, 6–15 January 1816. 26 William Berry trial, ADM 1/5383, 2–3 October 1807; Richard Lee trial, ADM 1/ 5382, 16 July 1807.

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Fig. 6.1 Trials for sodomitical crimes by vessel type, 1690–1840 (Note Parentheses give an approximate range of official complements from 1793 to 1817. Almost two-thirds of trials between 1690 and 1840 occurred in those decades Sources TNA ADM 1/5253–5485; LeJacq, ‘Run Afoul’, appendix D; Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail, 4 vols. [Barnsley: Seaforth, 2007–2014])

pointed to evidence that they had not acted secretively to exculpate themselves. Commander Richard Inman emphasised that he had left his cabin door and curtains open.27 Courts often heard about whispering, covert conversations, stifled vocalisations, and other hushed sounds. Some speech was ambiguous (“two breaths panting […] a slow whispering”); others less so (“you do not do it so well to me as I do it to you”); and much not at all (“will you take my Prick in your mouth?”; “shall I fuck you?”).28 Whispering voices could hide a great deal.

27 Richard Inman trial, ADM 1/5484, 19–20 October 1838. 28 David Wilson trial, ADM 1/5389, 26 October 1808; Thomas Hubbard and George

Hynes trial, ADM 1/5355, 10 December 1800; Antonio Lemart trial, ADM 1/5346, 15 May 1815.

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Courts frowned on secretiveness. Had one prisoner ever attempted to “sit down with” his accuser “in any Private place before”?29 Had witnesses seen another “betray by his manner any anxiety for secrecy”?30 Witnesses charged that offenders sought secrecy in many different locations. Unfortunately, we cannot precisely quantify them. Many witnesses were unclear about location; some disagreed. It is not always obvious which allegations courts took seriously, especially as they often allowed testimony about offences they were not technically trying. However, we can describe broad trends in the data. B.R. Burg has done so for the infamous series of HMS Africaine trials that began in 1815. The most common locations specified in trial testimony include the galley, areas like the bow and manger, and places on “various decks” including on and around guns, hatchways and the bills, and a main deck roundhouse. Sexual activity was even alleged on the quarterdeck. As Burg observes, though, the Africaine cases are not representative.31 All of those locations recur in testimony from other trials—sometimes often, as with guns. However, hammocks and cabins dominate allegations. With non-officer defendants, witnesses spoke of beds, berths, and especially hammocks. They treated all as places that allowed the secrecy necessary to get away with sodomy. For officers, cabins are most common, though they also faced allegations of misusing other restricted spaces like storerooms and magazines.32 Cabins are the single most common location in allegations, regardless of defendant status.33 Sailors lived and slept close together. Naval vessels were notorious for enforced proximity, considered extreme even by contemporary standards. The popular novelist Captain Frederick Marryat described an early nineteenth-century midshipman’s berth as hellishly cramped: “The population here very far exceeded the limits usually allotted to human beings in any situation of

29 John Guese trial, ADM 1/5407, 2–3 July 1810. 30 Henry Avery trial, ADM 1/5484, 16–17 and 19 November 1838. 31 B.R. Burg, ‘The HMS African Revisited: The Royal Navy and the Homosexual

Community’, Journal of Homosexuality, 56 (2009), 173–194, 184–185. 32 See, for instance, Richard Jones trial, ADM 1/5305, 5 July 1771 (purser, slop room). 33 Officers were usually but not always defendants in cases involving cabins. See William Osborne and William Webber trial, ADM 1/5465, 11 November 1822 (private marine and ship’s boy).

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life, except in a slave ship”.34 Witnesses nonetheless regarded sleeping spaces as ambiguously private, capable of hiding grievous crimes but, with appropriate surveillance, unable to fully shield wrongdoing.

Shipboard Space, Mutual Surveillance, and Investigation Common sailors, marines, and boys slept in individual hammocks, hanging in groups. Regulations ensured a minimum of just fourteen inches’ width in which to sleep. Men and boys expected minimal personal privacy for rest and activities like urination, defecation, and licit sex. Officers merited more space and solitude as they rose in rank. They slept in cabins, though these were generally small. Many used canvas partitions for walls. Moreover, servants and other domestics worked in officers’ living spaces, creating opportunities for surveillance and sexual crime. Higherranking officers might have wooden walls, interior windows with covers, and locking doors. Commanders, captains, and their superiors had the most space. Larger vessels afforded suites of compartments or cabins, guarded by marine sentries.35 In trials, those in command spoke of these spaces as permeable and subject to constant surveillance, but they nevertheless provided the most spatial privacy available on naval vessels. In allegations, officers use their cabins like their brutal counterparts in James Hanley’s censored 1931 novel Boy. In it, Hanley, who had himself gone to sea young, tells the story of a poor Liverpool boy hideously exploited when afloat. Men sexually abuse him practically from the moment he is discovered as a stowaway. The spaces they control are dangerous, often sodomitical: “I am frightened to go back to that room”, the boy declares after the ship’s cook attempts to “interfere” with him the night he is assigned to the man’s berth.36 In Hanley’s vision of seafaring, the vulnerable are never safe in the space of others. 34 Frederick Marryat, The Naval Officer, vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), 55. 35 Brian Lavery, The Ship of the Line, vol. 2 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984),

130–145, 177; Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1793–1815 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 108–112, 206–207; Rodger, Wooden World, 61– 63, 66–67. The navy never tried officers above the rank of post captain for sodomitical crimes. 36 James Hanley, Boy (London: Deutsch, 1990), 76–79, 93–95.

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A hammock might seem a poor option for secrecy. Smollett depicts his hero’s hammock as nothing but “a narrow bag”.37 However, witnesses described them as opaque. Hammocks were receptacles for mattresses and bedding.38 Sailors agreed that they could shelter a great deal; many alleged non-consensual acts in hammocks and other sleeping places. However, their privacy was incomplete and socially negotiated. Shipmates surveilled them with multiple senses and could easily invade. The trials uncover a semiotics for monitoring hammocks. There were telltale movements. “Did you see the Hammacoe have any motion whereby you might suppose any ill was doing there”?39 One moved “as if a woman was in it”.40 “I felt the Hammock moving in the same manner as if man and woman were in the act of Copulation”, testified one sailor. He treated his statement as self-explanatory.41 (Girls and women were often found on ships, including female sex workers when in port.) Ships were dark, so touch was just as useful as sight. A witness explained that “when placing his hand on” a hammock, he “was confirmed in his suspicion” that two men were acting improperly together in it.42 Another felt a hammock after seeing “great moving”, though he “could not tell whether it was man or woman at first”.43 Listening was also a key tool of surveillance. “I heard kissing and puffing the same as a Man and a Woman enjoying themselves”.44 One witness spoke of perceiving the sort of breathing “commonly felt in the act of copulation”.45 That could be enough to discover illegal behaviour. A sailor testified he heard “a Noise like a Man and Woman in Copulation, and

37 Smollett, Roderick Random, vol. 1, 240. 38 Lavery, Nelson’s Navy, 206–207. Consider too the reputed origin of the “show a

leg” order: to determine the gender of a hammock’s occupant. Jonathon Green, ed., Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), 1279. 39 Hali Algiers trial, ADM 1/5289, 10 March 1746/7 (O.S.). 40 John Palmer trial, ADM 1/5305, 19 August 1772. 41 Thomas Winfield and John Anderson trial, ADM 1/5449, 15 May 1815. 42 William Grange and Thomas Priest trial, ADM 1/5346, 3 August 1798. 43 Hubbard and Hynes trial. 44 William Taylor and James Barrett trial, ADM 1/5400, 4 December 1809. 45 Archibald McArthur and William Morgan trial, ADM 1/5439, 26–29 November

1813.

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knowing there was no woman on board I was certain it could not be that”.46 Even smell could reveal hidden crimes.47 When surveillance raised suspicions, men sometimes investigated. One witness claimed he had been alerted by a hammock “moving as if [the defendant] had a woman in bed with him”. He called another man, who confirmed the observation. When they heard troubling speech (“he liked the boy as well as he liked his mother or sister”), they invaded it.48 Incursions were frequently violent. Men cut hammocks down, dumped occupants out, reached in hands. Stories of investigations regularly involve touching and grabbing offending genitals (“private parts”), something which was also a common feature of cases on land.49 One investigator reached into a hammock and “catched the Boy by his Privates then I sung out for a light”.50 In another case, a sailor forced his hand into a hammock and felt “Thomas Little’s Yard [penis], which was in Thomas Cook’s Backside”.51 This sort of touch could furnish important evidence. Prosecutors needed to establish phallic penetration of the anus to prove the felony; at times, courts also required proof of ejaculation inside the body. Manual inspection gave some of the clearest evidence. And all the senses could be useful when gathering circumstantial evidence. Sailors searched hammocks, bedding, clothing, and bodies. Investigators in one case rushed to examine a sailor’s bed for semen.52 A Victorian trial included extended debate over whether “a mess” found on an officer’s bed was “a seminal emission”.53 There were also limits to hammock surveillance and investigation. Non-sexual hammock sharing was normalised just like bed sharing on land. Sailors slept together for various legitimate reasons, though it could

46 John Powell trial, ADM 1/5418, 3 September 1811. 47 William Embury Edwards trial, ADM 1/5403, 5 March 1810; John Cater trial,

ADM 1/5474, 20–22 April 1830. 48 John Palmer trial. 49 Seth Stein LeJacq, ‘“O My Poor Arse, My Arse Can Best Tell”: Surgeons, Ordi-

nary Witnesses, and the Sodomitical Body in Georgian Britain’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 31 (2022), 137–168. 50 Daniel Henry Gibbs trial, ADM 1/5447, 20 January 1815. 51 Thomas Cook and Thomas Little trial, ADM 1/5375, 31 October 1806. 52 John Dendass trial, ADM 1/5421, 7 December 1811. 53 William Renwick trial, ADM 1/6475, 22–26 September 1873.

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create troubling ambiguity.54 A few trials document officers banning hammock sharing on individual ships, indicating that the practice was normally permitted.55 Suspicions roused, one witness demanded, “who is in the Hammock is it a Man or a Girl?” On discovering it was a ship’s boy, he declared “it was not allowed for two Men to be in one hammock”. The boy countered that he was new aboard the ship and did not have a place to sleep. The investigator let him and his hammock mate be.56 Boys involved in these cases appear to have sometimes been truly marginal, without assigned sleeping places, hammocks, or bedding, suggesting that some sailors targeted those at the very bottom on the shipboard hierarchy. Like the protagonist of Hanley’s Boy, those who did not control any space on ship depended on others and were therefore particularly vulnerable. Men also expected some limited privacy when conforming to rules and social norms, including during sexual activity with female partners. One man explained that when he and a shipmate spied two people having sex, “I asked him if it would not be best to go and catch them in the Act”, but his companion “said it was a Man and a Woman, and if he was to go and disturb them it might be the means of causing a Quarrel”.57 In another case, a sailor told an investigator to desist after hearing rustling in a hammock: “never mind it, perhaps it is a Man and his Wife doing some business”.58

Surveillance, Privacy, and Publicity Men kept a close watch on each other’s bodies and activities. Courts expected that shipmates would know about others’ physical condition, asking questions like “did he walk as normal?”.59 Daily life on board the ship revealed a great deal. In one trial, a marine confirmed a boy’s gender, explaining, “I have seen his private parts several times”.60 A witness told

54 See, for instance, James Vernon trial, ADM 1/5416, 11 June 1811. 55 See, for instance, Carol Manning trial, ADM 1/5362, 17 December 1802. 56 George Wilkins trial, ADM 1/5432, 13 November 1812. 57 John Jewell and Francis Terat trial, ADM 1/5427, 25 June 1812. 58 Gibbs trial. 59 Anthony Parrott trial, ADM 1/5307, 31 May 1775. 60 Taylor trial.

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another court that he knew a boy to “urine in his bed, often”.61 Officers and especially those subordinate to them—members of the lower deck— shared an expectation that peers knew about each other’s sexual activities. In an 1803 desertion trial, a sailor who went by William Morris depended on such knowledge to make a remarkable defence. Morris claimed “neutrality of gender”—to be neither male nor female—and thus not subject to the court’s jurisdiction. The sailor testified that “the people onboard […] Teazed me on accompt of my having a Girl and slept with her two nights without doing anything to her. For I am not a Man that could do it. I never had power to do it”.62 Sex was public knowledge, especially on the lower deck. Life at sea also demanded other forms of intimacy. Men and boys performed the vast majority of necessary “bodywork”, from cutting hair to cleaning excreta to nursing the ill.63 Intimate labour created opportunities for surveillance and sexual crime. Indeed, witnesses sometimes struggled to distinguish bodywork, surveillance, and sodomy.64 Closeness left space for ambiguity. One witness spoke of “very great intimacy” between two marines, “insomuch so that it appeared to me that though indelicate the remark […] they could not go to the head to ease themselves [defecate] without each other”. In his eyes, they were too close and the charges against them were no shock: “I expressed myself publickly that I was not surprised at what had happened”.65 Many different types of relationships could become sodomitical, especially when hidden from view. This witness had watched closely for suspicious signs. Men often testified about defendants’ sexual histories. This evidence could establish whether they showed “proclivities” or “inclinations”

61 James Toole trial, ADM 1/5409, 2 October 1810. 62 William Morris trial, ADM 1/5364, 23 December 1803. Robert Liddel, judge advo-

cate at the trial, reports that surgeons found Morris a “perfect Man, with the Peculiarity of very small Testicles”. Morris was convicted and flogged round the fleet. See Liddel, A Detail of the Duties of a Deputy Judge Advocate (London: H. Bryer, 1805), 137. 63 On bodywork, see Mary Fissell, ‘Women, Health, and Healing in Early Modern Europe’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82 (2008), 1–17. 64 Henry Giddy trial, ADM 1/5808, 30 September 1862. 65 Peter Caskie and Robert Whittle trial, ADM 1/5409, 4 September 1810.

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towards sodomy. Testimony of this sort was particularly common in officers’ trials. Military courts served as “courts of honour”.66 In these cases, martial and gentlemanly honour culture demanded that officers do more than simply avoid conviction. Accusation caused a taint “in the Eyes of the World”, one that those facing charges needed formally dispelled in open court.67 A marine lieutenant observed that “the mere imputation” of buggery “is infamy”, leaving him “contaminated in public opinion”.68 Character witnesses fought conviction and contamination by publicly establishing a defendant’s heteroerotic bona fides. Had the clerk of the Bermuda recently seen her sailing master “in bed with a female”? He had. Was the master “in frequent habits of intercourse with women of loose character”? He was certainly “too wild in that respect”, though happily also “too fond of women to be guilty” of any sodomitical crime.69 The purser of the Rolla told a court that he had seen Lt. William Palmer bring “a Girl belonging to him” into his cabin the night before his alleged crime. She left in the morning.70 Some described lower-deck men’s sexual histories too. A cook gave evidence that one sailor showed “much partiality to women”. He cited examples from various commissions, including “a black woman” on a ship in Falmouth Bay, Antigua and “the Cooper’s wife” on another (“but I do not know that he cohabited with her”). Had the sailor “had any whore on board” their present ship? The cook could not say, but he told the court that the defendant was sexually voracious with women. When he could, the man on trial sought female company “every other day, if not oftener”.71 In testimony of this sort, officers’ and working-class sailors’ sexual reputations are public and much of their sexual activity directly surveilled. Sailors kept track of what occurred in cabins. In allegations, cabins give officers unprecedented opportunity to offend. However, they cannot ensure total spatial privacy, much as in the trial testimony analysed by

66 A.N. Gilbert, ‘Law and Honour among Eighteenth-Century British Army Officers’, Historical Journal, 19 (1976): 75–87. 67 T.G. Muston trial, ADM 1/5382, 19 June 1807. 68 Patrick Bryson trial, ADM 1/5433, 24 December 1812. 69 Thomas Gunton trial, ADM 1/5435, 29 March 1813. 70 William Palmer trial, ADM 1/5447, 31 December 1815. 71 Joseph Derrett trial, ADM 1/5377, 19 January 1807.

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Beck. The “little female tar” discussed above witnessed a crime through a cabin’s keyhole. Many others—many of them ships’ boys and lowerdeck men—testified similarly. George Haggerty shows that this “keyhole testimony” was a stereotyped element of sodomy narratives on land and in print.72 There was a long tradition of keyhole testimony about heteroerotic offences too. This narrative element was so conventional that scholars have debated whether it was actually a legal fiction.73 Nevertheless, and whatever the truth of testimony, naval courts treated these stories as plausible. Some trials included detailed discussion of the holes and similar features that permitted prying. James Nehemiah Taylor’s capture depended on “a small hole”, through which “you can see all over the Prisoner’s cabin”. It sat in a corner, made to allow the tiller “to traverse over”. Witnesses claimed that by stooping, you could see in clearly with one eye. In his defence, Taylor questioned “whether it is possible that through so small a space the Eye could command so much or even a tenth part of what they have sworn they saw”.74 The court concluded it was. Taylor’s case caused a scandal, and press accounts publicised the role of the hole in his conviction.75 While cabins were far more secure than hammocks, strong suspicions warranted similar incursions. In one case, investigators ordered a ship’s armourer to pick the boatswain’s lock when they suspected two men were hiding sodomitical deeds in his cabin.76 Officers pointed to surveillance as proof against accusations. Boatswain William Maxwell reminded a court that “the boy states upon every occasion that he hallooed out”. However, this is perfectly impossible, every member composing the court must be fully and clearly aware of the situation of a Boatswain’s cabin in an 8 and 20 gun Frigate, and that had he done so, someone in the next cabin, in the gunroom or in the steerage, at the hours he says… when every Midshipman &c and the hands of the Ship, Servants going to and fro to the Gunroom &c could not avoid having heard him had he done so. 72 Haggerty, ‘Keyhole Testimony’. 73 Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 56, 70; Gowing, Common Bodies, 106, 189–191; Orlin,

Locating Privacy, 154–155, 178–192. 74 Taylor trial. 75 ‘Court Martial’, Lancaster Gazette, 23 December 1809. 76 George Wormold and John Steers trial, ADM 1/5401, 8 January 1810.

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The Tweed’s carpenter, Maxwell’s neighbour, agreed: “If persons speak tolerably loud, I can hear them. I can swear if a person hallooed out, I could hear them. I never heard any scuffling”.77 Testimony of this sort played on the deeply entrenched expectation that those making accusations of sexual violence prove they had not consented by providing evidence they had struggled and screamed loudly enough that others could hear them. This requirement put accusers in maritime sodomy cases at a special disadvantage—trial participants assumed that sailors were usually in earshot of shipmates. Officers in other cases agreed that they never experienced true personal spatial privacy. Lt. George Sargent of the St Vincent declared, “My Cot is in the most Public and conspicuous place of any in the Cutter”.78 Captain Philip Carteret went further, declaring, “Let it not be forgotten that the Cabin was perhaps the most open in the Navy”.79 Captain Charles Sawyer, a well-connected repeat offender whose previous misdeeds had been hushed up, complained of a “system of prying and research”: “No man suspected of a design to overturn both Church and State was ever watched with a greater degree of vigilance than I have been, and not only my words and actions, but even my looks, have been under a state of constant inspection”.80 These officers insisted that cabins’ apparent privacy was illusory, that others surveilled them constantly. Some asserted they had no expectation of privacy. Lt. John Harrison Bowker, commander of the Leveret , described his cabin as a public space. Only a “thin partition” separated it from the gunroom. The slightest sound was audible—a quiet conversation, a drawer’s lock turning, even papers rustling. A skylight also granted a clear view from above. He often left it open and uncovered, sometimes speaking to the officer of the watch and quartermaster through it. Unlike Smollett’s Captain Whiffle, Bowker allowed unannounced visitors. He never required subordinates to knock “or give me any intimation that you were going to open it”. “I never knocked” and “always opened the Door, without giving any

77 William Maxwell trial, ADM 1/5472, 5 May 1828. 78 George Sargent trial, ADM 1/5351, 9 December 1799. 79 Philip Carteret trial, ADM 1/5448, 13 April 1815. 80 Charles Sawyer trial, ADM 1/5337, 18 October 1796.

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warning”, agreed a midshipman; “I always went bold in, without knocking”, confirmed a marine corporal.81 Defences such as those of Sawyer and Bowker claimed panoptic surveillance. One sentry testified he heard everything in the sailing master’s cabin; he “could hear if a Rat stirr’d” there.82 In 1762, Captain Henry Angel attempted to “prove” that at the moment of each supposed offence, he was “not only seen, but observed, as it were”.83 Some defences led to painstaking reconstructions of spaces and surveillance practices.84 Trials on commanders and captains produced the most detailed descriptions, drawing on testimony from throughout shipboard hierarchies. Angel was tried for “indecencies” against a passenger in his cabin and on the quarterdeck of the Stag frigate. Eyewitnesses represented a cross-section of his subordinates: the carpenter, surgeon, second lieutenant, and purser’s steward, as well as the captain’s clerk, his servant, his steward, two marines, and a midshipman. Angel’s case was scandalous, in part because his officers had arrested him, and it established important precedents in naval justice and discipline. Later citations and discussions circulated the details widely, much like reporting on Berry and Taylor’s trials.85 Accounts of Taylor’s trial explained that two boys and a marine had seen his crime through the hole discussed above. Stories of subordinates spying on officers would not have surprised audiences. Masters may have felt that servants “should see all, and say nothing”, but readers enjoyed the testimony of domestics about their employers’ misdeeds in print.86 81 J.H. Bowker trial, ADM 1/5471, 7–13 March 1827. 82 John Carter trial, ADM 1/5290, 11 May 1747. 83 Henry Angel trial, ADM 1/5301, 12 January 1762. Witnesses in H.H. Christian

trial, ADM 1/5446, 28 October 1814, explained that everything a frigate captain did occurred “in the face of three hundred Men”. 84 For a terrestrial example, Robert King case, TNA HO 47/51/17, 1813, documenting extensive surveillance and experiments to test how sound carried in a building. 85 Graves court martial manual, National Maritime Museum (Greenwich) (NMM) GRV/118, fol. 8v-9r; Grey court martial manual, NMM GRE/7, fol. 10r; John Delafons, A Treatise on Naval Courts Martial (London: P. Steel, 1805), 260–262. 86 Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Philadelphia: Morris and Co., 1902 [1771]), 8; Michael McKeon, The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 121–122. On spying at sea, see Frederick Marryat, Peter Simple (London: George Routledge, 1873 [1834]), 390–393, 417–425; Smollett, Roderick Random, vol. 1, 260.

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Conclusion: Secret Crime and “Publick Justice” As we have seen, courts martial dispensed “publick Justice”.87 Trials were open to naval and sometimes civilian audiences, and the press witnessed virtually for the broader public. “The eyes of the whole nation and of the Legislature as well as of the Service are upon you”, a boatswain reminded the officers trying him.88 Sailors, officers, and administrators had many ways to respond to detected offences, most calculated to maintain some degree of privacy and avoid public notice.89 When Captain Richard Matson’s officers attempted to broker a “compromise” allowing him to flee the ship and evade trial, they informed their Commanderin-Chief that it was “far from […] our wish that this Matter should be brought to a public Issue”.90 The navy used courts martial to provide ‘striking examples’ because they were public. High conviction rates and brutal, spectacular punishments sent clear warnings. Public floggings, executions, and other punishments were intended to impress the naval audiences ordered to witness them as well as observers back on shore. A court sentenced one boatswain “to be exposed in the most publick and ignominious Manner round the fleet at Spithead and in Portsmouth Harbour with a Halter round his Neck and his sentence to be read onboard” all ships in service.91 Press coverage spread the news of his sodomitical crime and punishment even further.92 Only after this publicity was he forced from view, interred in solitary confinement in London’s Marshalsea prison. Naval personnel at all levels managed publicity and privacy in buggery cases. One sailor revealed in court that he had threatened to tell his shipmates about two offenders but not to lodge a formal accusation: “I meant to scandalize them through the Ship only, and no farther”.93 Publicising allegations in the right setting meant official notice and perhaps summary punishment or worse. Doing so in the presence of or about 87 W.R. Johnson trial, ADM 1/5438, 14 October 1813. 88 William Maxwell trial, ADM 1/5473, 2–5 January 1829. 89 LeJacq, ‘Escaping Court Martial’. 90 Richard Matson trial, ADM 1/5350, 15 July 1799. See also Samuel Blow trial,

ADM 1/5314, 1–4 January 1780. 91 James Glanville trial, ADM 1/5438, 27 October 1813. 92 For example, Hampshire Telegraph, 1 November 1813. 93 Joseph Moore and William Cochrane trial, ADM 1/5423, 14 February 1812.

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officers particularly invited a reaction. As one captain put it, “the charge having been publicly made, must be examined”.94 Some witnesses were wary of pursuing allegations. One sailor informed a boy that he required clear evidence of an officer’s intentions: “I told him I would not give publicity to it at present if he was not certain”.95 Those involved in cases grappled with powerful anxieties over privacy and publicity, sometimes explicitly invoking notions of ‘public’ and ‘private’ as they did so. Most Georgian Royal Navy sex crime trials involved charges that higher-status men abused their power and misused privacy to obtain sexual contact with lower-status men or young sailors. This preoccupation with secretiveness and with private spaces, particularly cabins and hammocks, reveals deep fears about what sailors could do when they were able to control whether others observed them. Seamen and naval authorities believed that the privacy available to officers and even ratings made secrecy, and thus sodomy, possible. In their eyes, ships’ private spaces could easily become sodomitical. In order to discipline the use of space and root out secretive behaviour, officers trying these cases drew on knowledge generated by a culture of intensive mutual surveillance. Men and boys attended closely to each other’s spaces, bodies, and activities. In court, they spoke warily of privacy and especially secrecy. Georgians, so often concerned with sailors’ sexual activities, were quick to see warships as places fostering furtive sexual crimes. Like London’s molly houses, men-of-war appeared to allow sodomites to indulge in their secret vices. As naval buggery trials became increasingly common, ships appeared ever more menacing. Who knew what sailors, already a strange and secretive community, did on those dimly imagined vessels when out at sea, far from public view? The hundreds of ‘unnatural’ crime trials in the navy and a string of naval buggery scandals suggested that there was serious cause for concern. This sort of thinking has persisted, and some continue to regard ships’ concealed spaces as sodomitical. They fascinate and terrify. Following Smollett and Hanley, Dan Simmons’ historical horror epic The Terror (2007) presents the depths of the ice-bound HMS Terror as a zone of dangerous misrule. A villainous, rodent-like caulker’s mate retires to “the stinking darkness of the hold” for secret trysts with “his idiot disciple

94 James Woolls trial, ADM 1/5459, 23 December 1818. 95 Dumaresq trial.

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and arse-fuck buddy”. The evil little “sodomite” emerges from the dark to murder, mutiny, and turn gleefully cannibal.96 In the recent television adaptation, he and his partner pant as they skulk in the gloomy lower decks, coupling alongside the vermin that feast on their shipmates’ frozen corpses. “Do you know what copulates on this ship? Rats. Nesting in our rubbish, swimming in our filth. Devouring each other just to make more rats”.97 Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britons imagined these hidden places harbouring sodomy and associated enormities. And even now, some people continue to see their worst fears lurking in the sly corners of wooden ships.

Primary Sources Archival Sources ADM 1/5253–5485, Court Martial Papers, 1680–1839. ADM 1/5808, Court Martial Paper, 1862. ADM 1/6475, Court Martial Papers, 1873. ADM 7/309, Law Officers’ Opinions, 1811. HO 47/51, Home Office, Reports on Criminals, 1813. The National Maritime Museum (Greenwich, UK) GRE/7, George Grey, Rules for Naval Courts Martial, 1746–74. GRV/118, Thomas Graves, Book of Courts Martial, 1771.

Published Sources An Account of the Proceedings Against Capt. Edward Rigby. London: F. Collins, 1698. Annual Register. A Compleat Collection of the Remarkable Tryals … London: Whieldon and Butterworth, 1718. Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–70. Delafons, John. A Treatise on Naval Courts Martial. London: P. Steel, 1805. Glasgow Herald.

96 Dan Simmons, The Terror (New York: Little, Brown, 2007), 280–283, 351–352,

370. 97 The Terror, ‘Gore’, season 1, episode 2, dir. Edward Berger, written by Soo Hugh. AMC, March 26, 2018.

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Hampshire Telegraph. Hanley, James. Boy. London: Deutsch, 1990. Lacy, Mary. The History of the Female Shipwright. Ed. Margarette Lincoln. London: National Maritime Museum, 2008. Lancaster Gazette. Liddel, Robert. A Detail of the Duties of a Deputy Judge Advocate. London: H. Bryer, 1805. Marryat, Frederick. The Naval Officer. London: Henry Colburn, 1829. Marryat, Frederick. Peter Simple. London: George Routledge, 1873. McArthur, John. A Treatise of the Principles and Practice of Naval CourtsMartial. London: Whieldon and Butterworth, 1792. Morrice, David. The Young Midshipman’s Instructor. London: Knight and Compton, 1801. Old Bailey Online. Oldbaileyonline.org. Simmons, Dan. The Terror. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Smollett, Tobias. The Adventures of Roderick Random. London: J. Osborn, 1748. ———, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. Philadelphia: Morris and Co., 1902. The Terror, ‘Gore’, season 1, episode 2, dir. Edward Berger, written by Soo Hugh. AMC, March 26, 2018.

Bibliography Bray, Alan, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). Burg, B.R., Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). ———, ‘The HMS African Revisited: The Royal Navy and the Homosexual Community’. Journal of Homosexuality, 56 (2009), 173–194. Fissell, Mary, ‘Women, Health, and Healing in Early Modern Europe’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82 (2008), 1–17. Gilbert, A.N., ‘Law and Honour among Eighteenth-Century British Army Officers’. Historical Journal, 19 (1976), 75–87. Gowing, Laura, Common Bodies: Women, Touch, and Power in SeventeenthCentury England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). ———, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Green, Jonathon, ed., Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005). Haggerty, George, ‘Keyhole Testimony: Witnessing Sodomy in the Eighteenth Century’. Eighteenth Century, 44 (2003), 167–182. Lavery, Brian, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1793–1815 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994).

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———, The Ship of the Line (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984). LeJacq, Seth Stein. ‘Escaping Court Martial for Sodomy: Prosecution and its Alternatives in the Royal Navy, 1690-1840’. International Journal of Maritime History, 33 (2021), 16–36. ———, ‘“O My Poor Arse, My Arse Can Best Tell”: Surgeons, Ordinary Witnesses, and the Sodomitical Body in Georgian Britain’. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 31 (2022), 137–168. ———, ‘Run Afoul: Sodomy, Masculinity, and the Body in the Georgian Royal Navy’ (Ph.D Dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2016). Malcomson, Thomas, Order and Disorder in the British Navy, 1793–1815 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016). McKeon, Michael, The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Orlin, Lena Cowen, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Rasor, Eugene, Reform in the Royal Navy: A Social History of the Lower Deck, 1850 to 1880 (Hamden: Archon, 1976). Rodger, N.A.M., The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (London: Fontana, 1988). Sharpe, James, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550–1750 (London: Longman, 1999). Winfield, Rif, British Warships in the Age of Sail. 4 vols. (Barnsley: Seaforth, 2007–2014).

CHAPTER 7

Anchors, Hearts, and Crosses: Multiple Ways of Tattoo Usage by Seamen Philipp Schadner

Introduction Within the general perception of tattooing, this social and cultural practice was deeply associated with mariners and their various working environments until the beginning of the nineteenth century. A prominent reason for this view is that the earliest tattoo parlours were mostly opened by former navy soldiers, ex-seamen, or (retired) maritime craftsmen in harbours. Although one of the oldest archaeological discoveries with tattoos—the glacier mummy called ‘Ötzi’—was found in central Europe, it is still considered within public knowledge that the process of pricking pigments permanently into the skin was imported by so-called ‘Western’ sailors from ‘exotic’ cultures in the Pacific Ocean. On the basis of an ethno-historical retrospective which reaches from the early modern period to the end of the eighteenth century and a

P. Schadner (B) University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_7

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critical analysis of available sources, this chapter will display how European seafarers used tattooing in various ways: tattooed motifs not only provide insights into their socioeconomic statuses, ethnic and religious affiliations, as well as the daily routine in respect of their various occupations, but were also an important means of non-verbal communication. Specific tattoos were, for instance, a special kind of souvenir from ‘exotic’ places and the proof of lengthy sea travels for crewmates. Other motifs showed where the mariners came from as well as reminded them of home and also served as lucky charms for protection against dangers during voyages into uncharted waters. The second topic of this contribution addresses the indistinct demarcation between privacy and publicity concerning the tattooing process during the cruises. Although this social practice could generally be watched by everybody on the ship, the process itself and the personal meaning of its outcome are, in various cases, individually perceived. Another example explains that many sailors compensated for their lack of privacy on board by the use of tattooing as well as through collecting tattoos as an appropriate way of self-expression. Seamen also tattooed themselves to overcome not only the boredom and weariness of the excruciating waiting times on the vessels but also their loneliness due to their separation from loved ones. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate handed-down maritime tattoo motifs, specific interpretations of their meanings, as well as various tattooing customs by sailors. Furthermore, the dichotomy between privacy and publicity will be thematised in relation to this focused social and cultural practice as well as by how mariners used tattooing in multiple ways.

The Earliest Records of Travellers Across the Oceans with Indelible Marks One of the major reasons for the present-day popularity of the cultural and social practice of pricking pigments permanently into the skin can be traced back to the accounts of mariners—such as castaways, also known as beachcombers—with inked (imprinted or stamped) designs who came back from their long-term stays abroad and presented their bodies with indelible marks during public performances accompanied

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by sensational narratives.1 One prominent beachcomber, Jean Baptiste Cabri (alias José Cabris, Joseph Kabris, or Jozé Kabrit) lived for many years during the late eighteenth century in the ‘Polynesian Triangle’2 where he was permanently marked with traditional designs all over his body by the indigenous peoples of the Marquesas Islands. He returned to Europe with the help of Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe and got—like many other shipmates of his—indelible marks on board the Nadezhda by a Pacific Islander.3 Although there are not many detailed descriptions mentioning inked (embroidered or permanently marked) seafarers before the middle of the eighteenth century and there was no specific term available for this cultural and social practice in the European languages, there are some clues which provide hints that tattooing was used by sea voyagers—including Christian believers who travelled by vessels to pilgrimage sites—during earlier epochs. Early accounts of European sailors with indelible marks can be traced back to the first half of the sixteenth century. The conquistador Bernal Diáz del Castillo wrote in the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España about the expedition of Hernán Cortés who arrived with his ships at the island of Cozumel near the Caribbean shore of southern Mexico in 1519 where he was told that two “bearded men” from Europe were slaves of a cacique (the chief of a Mayan group). These two Europeans were survivors of a shipwreck and had stayed in this region since 1511. The name of one of the castaways was Gonzalo Guerrero, who 1 Steve Gilbert, ed., Tattoo History: A Source Book (New York: Juno Books and RE/ Search Publications, 2000), 135–147; Stephan Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut: Die Geschichte der Tätowierung in Europa (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1985), 32–43; Nicholas Thomas, Body Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 2014), 159–162. 2 Polynesia or the ‘Polynesian Triangle’ (including all landmasses between the corner

points of the Hawaiian Islands in the north, the southwesterly located New Zealand [M¯aori: Aotearoa], and the ‘Easter Island’ in the southeast, namely the ‘Polynesian Outliers’, e.g. New Caledonia, are excluded from this geometrical construct) forms, together with Melanesia and Micronesia, the cultural area known as Oceania (or ‘Nesia’) in the Pacific Ocean. See Alfred Gell, Wrapping into Images: Tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009), 17–20. 3 Jane Caplan, ed., Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History (London: Reaktion Books, 2000), 196–198; Karl von den Steinen, Die Marquesaner und ihre Kunst: Band 1, Tatauierung (Saarbrücken: Fines Mundi, 2008), 28–29; Nicholas Thomas, Anna Cole, and Bronwen Douglas, eds., Tattoo: Bodies, Art, and Exchange in the Pacific and the West (London: Duke University Press, 2005), 67–84.

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used to be a seaman before he settled down in Yucatán, finally rising to a high-ranking status within the indigenous population. Guerrero told the arriving Europeans that his face was “mutilated in the Indian way”. As scholars have demonstrated, the term ‘mutilated’ should be translated in this case as ‘carved’ or ‘scarified’.4 Originally, the Spanish vocable labrada was used which, because it means ‘tattooed’ within that context, is a sign of Guerrero’s enculturation into the indigenous group.5 A similar example, from the same decade, can be found in Florida where a Spanish sailor is mentioned as having been embroidered in the traditional way of the indigenous people. After a storm destroyed the whole fleet of the Pánfilo de Narvárez expedition in 1528, the seaman Juan Ortiz was shipwrecked and found shelter among the Timucua. He was rescued by Hernando de Soto in 1539 or 1540 and described as indistinguishable from the local population. Ortiz was described by the author named “A Gentleman of Elvas” as having “arms embroidered in the style of the Indians”.6 Luys Hernándes de Biedma also wrote that “he was naked like them, with a bow and arrows in his hand, his body decorated like an Indian”.7 Although the Timucua used the cultural and social practice of pricking pigments permanently into the skin, it is not clear if Ortiz was tattooed at all because his physical ornamentation was described by de Biedma with a common paraphrase for any bodily modification. Secondly, the European shipmates who travelled with de Soto never mentioned indelible marks in any way. Ortiz also chose to return to Europe, which was dubious if he had tattoos since he would 4 The strong similarities between scarifications and tattoos are illustrated, for instance, by the cultural and social practices of the indigenous people called M¯aori who are inhabitants in Aotearoa. For a description of the parallels between these bodily modifications, see Philipp Günther Schadner, ‘“Geschichte(n) in die Haut eingraben”—Tätowieren und Tatauieren zwischen Polynesien und Europa’ (PhD dissertation, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2019), 22–24, https://phaidra.bibliothek.uni-ak.ac.at/detail_object/o:34699. 5 Caplan, Written on the body, xvii; Maarten Hesselt van Dinter, Tatau: traditionelles Tätowieren weltweit (Uhlstädt-Kirchhasel: Arun-Verlag, 2008), 215; Michael C. Frank, ‘Das Tattoo als Tabu: Kulturelle Grenzgänger und ihreTätowierungen in der Kolonialliteratur—von Gonzalo Guerrero bis Jean-Baptiste Cabri’ in Unter die Haut: Tätowierungen als Logo- und Piktogramme, ed. Iris Därmann and Thomas Macho (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2017), 101–106; Anna Felicity Friedman Herlihy, ‘Tattooed Transculturites: Western Expatriates Among Amerindian and Pacific Islander Societies, 1500–1900’ (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2012), 81, 84–88. 6 Translated by Friedman Herlihy. See ‘Tattooed transculturites’, 89. 7 Quoted in Friedman Herlihy, ‘Tattooed transculturites’, 89.

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be marginalised. On the other hand, the Gentleman of Elvas applied the word ‘embroidered’ to this technique of skin alteration, which indicates the use of needles. Garcilasco de la Vega wrote in his second- or thirdhand account of the de Soto expedition about the scars of Ortiz in a way that can be interpreted as describing scarifications (tattoos) and could explain the strong possibility of the usage of this kind of permanent bodily modification.8 Besides mariners, pilgrims such as William Lithgow, one of James I’s courtiers, travelled—like many other Christian believers throughout the Middle Ages—by ship to the Holy Land approximately one hundred years later and received indelible marks. After their return home, their indelible marks were seen as evidence of their journey to Jerusalem or Bethlehem and their commitment to the service of God.9 Another example for the usage of religious motifs can be found in A Relation of a Journey begun An.Dom. 1610, written by the English traveller and colonist, George Sandys who noted that Christians “use to mark the Arms of Pilgrims, with the names of Jesus, Maria, Ierusalem, Bethlem, the Ierusalem Crosse, and sundry other characters”.10 In the 1680s, Lionel Wafer, a surgeon on pirate expeditions to North America, wrote in A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America about his experiences in Darien (a region in the south of Panama). He portrayed the indigenous people with “their painted bodies” and explained how these finer figures were imprinted deeper in the skin, thus describing the practice of pricking pigments permanently. He also noted that his shipmates had been acquiring indelible marks from the local population. Wafer pointed out that an example of such a mariner was one Bullman who “desired me once to get out of his Cheek one of these imprinted Pictures, which was made by the Negroes”.11 In Written on the Body,12 Jane Caplan has demonstrated that the indelible marks mentioned above were, in the majority of the cases, the

8 Dinter, Tatau, 250–252; Friedman Herlihy, ‘Tattooed transculturites’, 90–94. 9 Caplan, Written on the Body, 80–81; Dinter, Tatau, 37–38; Frank-P. Finke,

Tätowierungen in modernen Gesellschaften (Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag Rasch, 1996), 44; Gilbert, Tattoo History, 150. 10 Quoted in Caplan, Written on the Body, 79. 11 Quoted in Caplan, Written on the Body, xvii–xviii. 12 Quoted in Caplan, Written on the Body, xvii–xviii.

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outcome of the typical process of pricking pigments permanently into the skin, although there was no word available which could unequivocally describe this kind of bodily modification. However, that started to change after the incursion of European conquerors into the ‘South Sea’ region13 and their importation of the Tahitian vocable tatau into the English language in the early 1770s, which was the linguistic origin as well as the conceptual clarification of the cultural and social process of tatauing/tattooing.14

Increasing Reports of Seafarers Having Their Bodies Permanently Marked Since 1750 Starting in the second half of the eighteenth century, the usage of indelible marks by mariners became much more documented. Even though various paraphrases were used to describe the outcome of this cultural and social practice as well as the process itself, the references about this kind of bodily modification contained more detailed explanations. Moreover, Europeans could now look at indigenous people with permanently marked bodies during public exhibitions commonly known as Völkerschauen. Before chiefs of the Iroquois and Cherokee were forced to perform in ethnological exhibitions in 1710 and 1762, one of the most prominent attractions was Giolo (alias ‘Jeoly’), wrongly described as the “painted Prince from Moangis” by his abductor, the buccaneer and three-time circumnavigator William Dampier, who was responsible 13 This term dates back to the conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa and implies connotations which are associated with stereotypical ideas. Although many Pacific islands are located in the southern hemisphere, this ethnocentric term excludes the Hawaiian archipelago from the South Sea region that is nowadays predominantly called ‘Polynesia’ and illustrates the multitude of landmasses within this region as well as the similarities between the social and cultural practices of the inhabitants. See Hermann Mückler, Einführung in die Ethnologie Ozeaniens (Wien: Facultas, 2009), 20–30 and Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 47–56. 14 Dinter, Tatau, 42; Finke 1996, 25; Gilbert, Tattoo history, 103; Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 9; Thomas et al., Tattoo, 7. There are commonalities (concerning the techniques, materials, and suchlike) as well as differences between the cultural and social practice of tatauing and tattooing. Whereas tatauing, which was practised by indigenous peoples, had predominantly positive associations, tattooing was a practice which had been used for centuries not only to brand slaves and convicts but also to identify an otherness in order to legitimise a claim to power over ‘barbarians’ and their territories. For a detailed explanation of these terms, see Schadner, ‘Geschichte(n) in die Haut eingraben’, 11–27.

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for the displacement of Giolo from Southeast Asia. The epithet was coined because the marks all over his body were indelible and not temporary.15 Even though eighteenth-century sources had no specific term for the cultural and social practice of pricking (inscribing permanently or scarifying) pigments into the skin, an example of such usage appears in a record of the London Marine Society. In this particular case, a young mariner was said to be identifiable due to the unequivocal mark on his body. This is the account of a fourteen-year-old sailor named Henry Rowning, who returned from sea service in 1763 and was described as having his name written on his right arm. This is undeniably a case of tattooing for various reasons.16 The first and most decisive factor is the durability of Rowning’s mark. If it was temporary, the mark could have been washed off after he arrived at the home port. Secondly, as will be demonstrated later in this chapter, tattooing names or initials on the arms or hands of boys and men was well-documented only a few years later. The practice was so widespread by the 1880s that scholars have conjectured that the trend must have started earlier.17 Even though the oral histories of Pacific Islanders mentioning the cultural and social practice of pricking pigments permanently into the skin goes back by about 500 years, it is only in the second half of the eighteenth century that seafarers exploring the cultural area of Polynesia provide the evidence of tattooing being used by a large number of European sailors. Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s Voyages autour du Monde 1766–69 provided a specific term for this kind of bodily modification by using the word tataou (tatoument). However, tataou appears to be used less frequently by Europeans than the vocable tatau, which is phonetically different from the Francophone transcription and which was brought

15 Geraldine Barnes, ‘Curiosity, Wonder, and William Dampier’s Painted Prince’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 6 (1) (Spring 2006), 31–50; Dinter, Tatau, 249–251; Gilbert, Tattoo History, 29–31; Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 22–29; Roland W.B. Scutt and Christopher Gotch, Art, Sex and Symbol: The Mystery of Tattooing (Cranbury: Cornwall Books, 1986), 151–152. 16 Roland Wilhelm Walter Pietsch, ‘Ships’ Boys and Charity in the Mid-Eighteenth Century: The London Marine Society (1756–1772)’ (PhD dissertation, Queen Mary University of London and the National Maritime Museum, 2003), 156. 17 Caplan, Written on the body, xxviii; Ira Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers, 1796–1818’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 133 (4) (December 1989), 523; Scutt and Gotch, Art, Sex and Symbol, 93; Thomas et al., Tattoo, 74.

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back to England by James Cook and his shipmates.18 In addition to Joseph Banks, Sydney Parkinson, A. B. Stainsby, and some other mariners on the HMS Endeavour who travelled with Cook from 1768 to 1771 and were tattooed during their stay in Polynesia, John Elliot, a midshipman on the Resolution during Cook’s second voyage (1772 to 1775), was also inspired by the tattoo tradition of the Polynesians in Bora Bora in the Society Islands.19 Elliot wrote in Captain Cooks Second Voyage: The Journals of Lieutenants Elliott and Pickersgill that he and a few of his shipmates got a black star tattooed on their left breasts by a practitioner of the indigenous people in the same manner as the local islanders. The star tattoos were a way of bringing the sailors closer together and commemorating their having been in Tahiti.20 Later in Elliott’s report, it is mentioned that tattooing “spread halfway through the ship” and eventually became a trend on board because the tattoos were observed by other members of the crew during bathing.21 In this case, the traditional Tahitian design that was adapted not only served as a souvenir of the sailor’s sea travel but also as a permanent demonstration of an exclusive relationship between the men, as seamen were quite often crewmates for a long period of time. In comparison to the indelible marks of pilgrims during the Middle Ages, other religious designs are mentioned in a letter dated 20 June 1789, sent by the duchess Anna Amalie of Weimar to the German poet Christoph Martin Wieland from Portici (a city in South Italy). In that letter, the duchess indicates how tattoos worn by European sailors were associated with the cultural and social practice of Polynesians. Anna Amalie of Weimar mentioned a seaman at Chevalier Hamilton’s at the Barca whose arms and legs were permanently marked in the ‘Otahitian’ (Tahitian) fashion, showing the crucifixion of Christ, the English coat of arms, and the Holy Sacrament—il capo di Policinello.22 This instance 18 Finke 1996, 25; Thomas et al., Tattoo, 34–36. 19 Caplan, Written on the body, 100; Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 44; Scutt and

Gotch, Art, Sex and Symbol, 89; Thomas et al., Tattoo, 33. 20 The traditional motif that Elliott described as a black star was the sign of the elite group arioi in Bora Bora, which distinguished them from other islanders and was therefore chosen by the European mariners to illustrate their unity as well as the exclusivity of the relationship between the tattooees. See Thomas et al., Tattoo, 74–75. 21 Thomas et al., Tattoo, 74–75. 22 Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 45.

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illustrates that despite the use of Christian motifs (some of which were familiar from believers who got permanently marked during their stay in the Holy Land, as will be demonstrated later), the practice of tattooing remained closely associated with Tahiti and Polynesia. As mentioned in the introduction, the assumption that the Pacific Ocean was the starting point of tattooing as a cultural and social practice is not only still common within public knowledge, but was also sustained in scientific discussions until the end of the twentieth century. Alfred Gell estimated that “[t]attooing, as it is now practiced in western countries, originated as a consequence of European expansion into the Pacific, as is witnessed by the Polynesian origin of the word ‘tattoo’”.23 Further, he suggested that sailors’ usage of tattooing lay in its uniqueness for expressing their class position, lifestyle, or habitus. Therefore, on encountering tattooing in Polynesia, mariners consequently “made it their own”. In contrast to Gell, the American historian Ira Dye, who has studied tattoos of American seafarers, has used the Seamen’s Protection Certificate Applications (SPC-A) and Prisoners of War (POW) records from 1796 to 1818 to argue that tattooing must have been a well-established practice among eighteenth-century seafarers because around 1800, tattooing was so common throughout merchant and naval fleets that the fact of its introduction a mere twenty years earlier was hardly possible.24 More recently, Caplan has written that “the Pacific encounter is not originary”25 because archaeological evidence as well as written records show that the practice dates back to the late fourth millennium BCE and includes the stigmatising of slaves or convicts among Greeks and Romans.26 Another well-known evidence for mariners with indelible marks is that twenty-two of the twenty-five mutineers on the HMS Bounty were described as tattooed individuals by the vessel’s commander William Bligh in 1789 during their sea travels through the South Pacific Ocean. Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate on board and later leader of the mutiny, had a tattoo in the form of a star on the left breast and his backside was tattooed as well. Peter Heywood was described as heavily tattooed. One

23 Gell, Wrapping into images, 10. 24 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 522–523. 25 Caplan, Written on the body, xvi. 26 Dinter, Tatau, 31–32; Finke 1996, 40–42; Gilbert, Tattoo history, 15.

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of his tattoos was the “three legs of the Isle of Man” on his right leg, a clear assertion of his Manx nationality. Other examples of the Bounty mutineers are Edward Young, who had a heart and a dart tattooed on the right arm with his initials ‘EY’ beneath and the year 1789, and George Steward, who had a star tattoo, a heart and darts tattooed on his left arm, as well as a tattooed backside. Thomas Ellison was tattooed on the right arm with his name and a date—25 October 1788, the day the HMS Bounty first arrived in Tahiti. Innovation of traditional Polynesian motifs also took place: one of the mutineers was described as being tattooed under the pit of his stomach with the ornamental design of the taumi (the Polynesian vocable for the Tahitian breastplate), and the Tahitian lover of Adam Smith was permanently marked on her arm with his initials and a significant date.27 Bligh’s description indicates how, twenty years after Cook’s first voyage, tattooing was already a growing phenomenon among underprivileged mariners and practised within their own particular social group. However, it was less observed by the superiors, which is proven by the fact that Bligh depended on the mutineers’ crewmates for descriptions of the different designs on the bodies of the individual buccaneers. Greg Dening, in his work Mr. Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the ‘Bounty’ has pointed out that the “essence of a sailor’s existence was to be utterly without space he could call his own, to have all his possessions calculated narrowly, to be a totally public man to his peers and to be totally public to superiors who could muster him twice daily at his quarters”.28 In a context in which privacy was limited and the mariner’s few belongings—many times hardly considered private—could be lost or broken, their tattoos were not only ineradicable and inalienable but also unambiguously part of the individual. Consequently, it might be said that the sailor’s own body seems to be the only true object of privacy or private property that a common seaman possessed. Therefore, tattoos also provided a substitute for belongings; they provided a means to articulate expressions of individuality as well as affiliation. They constituted as well as maintained attachments between the body, the self, and others. In 27 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 522–523; Simon Peter Newman, Embodied History: The Lives of the Poor in Early Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 108; Scutt and Gotch, Art, Sex and Symbol, 162; Thomas et al., Tattoo, 75–77. 28 Quoted in Thomas et al., Tattoo, 75.

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contrast with their controlled life on board, body markings allowed the sailors an unrestrained and autonomous space for both private and public expressions (such as the strong connection to their loved ones or the affiliation to their homeland). Another aspect of the usage of tattooing was the harshness of life at sea itself—shipwrecks, disastrous illnesses, serious injuries, or deadly accidents during the voyages. Sailors were also always at the mercy of violent superiors and expected strong reactions from people in foreign harbours. Given these reasons, sailors and mariners saw tattooing as a lucky charm to safeguard them from dangers threatening their health and life. Living under such harsh circumstances within an unpredictable social surrounding and staying apart from relatives and friends, mariners found in tattooing an appropriate practice of reaffirming not only their individual identities but also their personal relationships. Tattooing one’s initials and/or name (statistically speaking, the most prevalent tattoo motif) was not only an indelible confirmation of individuality but also a guarantee of identification after a fatal accident. This identification worked as an assurance of adequate burial. If these tattooed names differed partly or completely from their own, they might indicate a change of name or the names of relatives, friends, or lovers. This latter case clarifies that the connection to their beloved ones at home was very important to the seamen.29 Strongly connected with this category were tattoo designs such as hearts in all forms and shapes—simple hearts, hearts linked with other hearts, hearts with arrows, doves, or inscribed with dates or the initials of their loved ones.30 Tattoo motifs in the shape of pigs or cocks on the feet were once regarded as a charm against drowning while horseshoes, four-leaf clovers, black cats, and anchors served for protection.31 Moreover, these tattoo designs, as Dye observes, “would give the seaman some supernatural ability to hold on to ropes, spares, etc”.32 Another category of motifs which could be found on the body of a mariner of the eighteenth century includes anchors, fish, mermaids, ships, whales, or wind roses. These

29 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 536, 542. 30 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 542–45; Newman, Embodied History,

63, 72–73, 82. 31 Scutt and Gotch, Art, Sex and Symbol, 38–39, 67. 32 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 548.

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served to identify the mariner with other sailors, a sort of collective group symbol implying that they had been at the toughest frontiers and had seen “exotic” sights that the “landlubbers” would never visit.33 Seamen also chose patriotic motifs which were of particular interest within the international community of mariners, because if they were serving on a foreign ship, these designs referred to their country of provenance and therefore demonstrated, as Simon P. Newman has noted, the sailor’s involvement in politics “of the new nation, but very much on their own terms”.34 As mentioned above, religious images such as the Christogram, crucifixes, Adam and Eve, or the likeness of Christ as well as variations thereof, such as Adam and Eve with the Tree of Life, were tattooed by mariners as devotional signs. Designs of human figures, flora, animals, or (mostly Masonic) lodge symbols which were used less often are also accounted as tattoo motifs.35 Although some tattoos seem to have a specific meaning—for instance, initials and names of the mariners or their beloved ones—other motifs could be interpreted by spectators differently from the wearer’s intention. Therefore, the motivation to become tattooed as well as the significance of a design were individual choices and acts of privacy that could not be shared with others, even if the design itself could be seen publicly. Examples of inconclusive meanings of maritime tattoos are widely dispersed, such as the aforementioned anchor, which, as the part of the vessel which mounted the ship and thereby ensured safety, could be associated first of all with life at sea, but which could also be a lucky charm safeguarding the ship and its crew from stormy weather, a representation of hope, or the giver of some kind of supernatural ability. An anchor might also be a sign of initiation into the sailor’s community and, at the same time, operate as a Christian symbol associated with the Cross of Jesus.36 The palm tree is another tattoo motif that could be decoded in various ways, for instance, as a souvenir representing an ‘exotic’ part of the world far away and, if associated with the Tree of Life, bridging the ‘paradisiacal South Sea’ with 33 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 542–544. 34 Simon Peter Newman, ‘Reading the Bodies of Early American Seafarers’, The William

and Mary Quarterly, 55 (1) (January 1998), 82; Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 540–541. 35 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 541–47. 36 Caplan, Written on the body, 126; Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’,

547–548; Newman, ‘Reading the Bodies’, 69, 74.

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the Biblical paradise. The inked palm can thus be used as a connection drawn by a mariner between an element of his own culture and that of the foreign one visited by him.37 With a few exceptions, until the transition to the eighteenth century, mariners would get tattooed mostly because of boredom during the long-lasting voyages, with one or two motifs placed every time, usually on their arms or hands.38 Between 1796 and 1803, American sailors had “20.6 percent average tattoos over the periods, 27.8 percent at its peak in 1801”.39 The tattoo iconography continued to use the traditional patterns of folk art and were hardly ‘exotic’ motifs. Therefore, this iconography conserved a limited palette of relatively stable designs across the centuries but also responded to changes at the frontiers of culture by absorbing new images from printed sources and fairs.40 Beachcombers such as Cabri, George Bruce, or Edward Robarts performed as tattooed mariners in public and made the cultural and social practice not only interesting for spectators at European fairs but also for other seamen on board or at the harbours.41 Robarts insisted that his tattoos were forced on him by the Polynesian islanders. Many Royal Navy soldiers were punished by being tattooed with the letter ‘D’ if they had been deserters or, for instance, with ‘BC’ (the initials for ‘bad character’) on their underarms until 1879.42 In this context, one instance mentioning such a practice of tattooing was found by Dye in the British POW records from 1815 and referred to the punishment given to three American prisoners who had been forcibly tattooed as traitors with the letter ‘T’. The process was described as pricking and marking, and it was written that one convict had two large letters carved into

37 Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 50–52. Oettermann notes that “already in 1791, a mariner showed himself at a fair in London with a big palm tree tattooed on his back which he supposedly received in Tahiti. According to a newspaper article, thousands of seafarers and dock workers, following his example, got a palm tree tattooed”. See Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 45 (my translation). 38 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 534–535, 553. 39 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 533. 40 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 528; Oettermann, Zeichen auf der

Haut, 44–57. 41 Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 38–41; Thomas et al., Tattoo, 67–69, 83. 42 Caplan, Written on the body, 142; Oettermann, Zeichen auf der Haut, 108; Scutt

and Gotch, Art, Sex and Symbol, 163.

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his cheeks.43 Nevertheless, from the sketches in the POW and SPC-A records, most of the motifs were probably executed by sailor-tattooers. Since tattooing became increasingly practised by seamen and was finally accepted as a part of naval life, shipboard pricksters paved the way for permanent tattoo parlours. Although the tattooers continued to ply their handicraft-like skill, many obtained the appropriate proficiency which enabled them to retire and begin to practise ashore. Such men eventually became established in harbours and were the pioneers of today’s tattooists (combination of tattoo and artists).44

Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that though a specific term for the cultural and social practice of pricking pigments permanently into the skin was imported by European mariners in the second half of the eighteenth century, tattooing was used on and by sea travellers from Europe since the beginning of the early modern era. Not only were castaways indelibly marked (embroidered or scarified) by indigenous peoples throughout the European invasion into the ‘New World’ of North America, but pilgrims who travelled during the same period by ship to the Holy Land also brought back tattoos as enduring souvenirs of their voyages. At the same time, seafarers displaced indigenous peoples with permanent marks from across the oceans to Europe since the end of the seventeenth century and forced them to become a part of ethnological exhibitions. By contrast, beachcombers performed voluntarily (in most cases) on public stages and presented their tattooed bodies for viewership. Together with the descriptions of the adverse conditions during the long-lasting sea voyages, the narrow spaces on board and their lack of privacy, the various threats against health and life, the loneliness and separation from loved ones, and the boredom caused by the excruciating waiting times could be plausible reasons behind sailors deciding to get tattooed. The sailor’s body was the only object of privacy that could not be alienated from him, and therefore tattoos offered comfort and a sense of control. They could also be a way to autonomously 43 Dye, ‘The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers’, 528. 44 The differences between tattooers and tattooists are concerning their techniques,

localities, designs, and so on. For a detailed explanation of these terms, see Schadner, ‘Geschichte(n) in die Haut eingraben’, 229–237.

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articulate expressions of individuality and community. The most documented motifs were the names or initials of the seamen (in order to ensure their identification after being washed away after a shipwreck and for an appropriate burial) or of their loved ones, as well as hearts in different forms and shapes to overcome the separation. Mariners also chose maritime designs such as anchors, ships, or, for instance, mermaids as well as religious tattoos (crucifixes, Adam and Eve, and pictures of Christ) in order to express their hopes and ethnic affiliation. Although most tattoos were on the arms or hands which could be seen publicly, the significance of a design was an individual choice and an act of privacy that probably would not be shared with shipmates. With the foray of European seamen into the Pacific Ocean and the beginning of contact with Polynesians, the word tatau became available in the lexicon, and the regional meaning of this practice for the islanders paved the way for a new perspective and a focused attention on this kind of bodily modification. The impact of indigenous peoples on the mariners and how the latter used tattooing in multiple ways influenced the methods of tattoo applications in Europe and globally, a development that continues to affect us to this day.

Bibliography Barnes, Geraldine, ‘Curiosity, Wonder, and William Dampier’s Painted Prince’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 6 (1) (Spring 2006). Caplan, Jane, ed., Written on the body: the tattoo in European and American history (London: Reaktion Books, 2000). Dinter, Maarten Hesselt van, Tatau: traditionelles Tätowieren weltweit (UhlstädtKirchhasel: Arun-Verlag, 2008). Finke, Frank-P., Tätowierungen in modernen Gesellschaften (Osnabrück: Universitätsverlag Rasch, 1996). Frank, Michael C., ‘Das Tattoo als Tabu: Kulturelle Grenzgänger und ihre Tätowierungen in der Kolonialliteratur—von Gonzalo Guerrero bis JeanBaptiste Cabri’ in Unter die Haut: Tätowierungen als Logo- und Piktogramme, ed. Iris Därmann and Thomas Macho (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2017). Gell, Alfred. Wrapping into images: tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009). Gilbert, Steve, ed., Tattoo history: a source book (New York: Juno Books and RE/ Search Publications, 2000).

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Herlihy, Anna Felicity Friedman, ‘Tattooed Transculturites: Western Expatriates among Amerindian and Pacific Islander Societies, 1500–1900’ (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2012). Newman, Simon Peter, ‘Reading the Bodies of Early American Seafarers’, The William and Mary Quarterly, 55 (1) (January 1998). ———, Embodied History: The Lives of the Poor in Early Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Oettermann, Stephan, Zeichen auf der Haut: Die Geschichte der Tätowierung in Europa (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1985). Pietsch, Roland Wilhelm Walter, ‘Ships’ Boys and Charity in the Mid-Eighteenth Century: The London Marine Society (1756–1772)’ (PhD dissertation, Queen Mary University of London and the National Maritime Museum, 2003). Schadner, Philipp Günther, ‘“Geschichte(n) in die Haut eingraben”—Tätowieren und Tatauieren zwischen Polynesien und Europa’ (PhD dissertation, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2019), 22–24, https://phaidra.bibliothek.uni-ak. ac.at/detail_object/o:34699. Scutt, Roland W.B. and Gotch, Christopher, Art, Sex and Symbol: The Mystery of Tattooing (Cranbury: Cornwall Books, 1986). Steinen, Karl von den, Die Marquesaner und ihre Kunst: Band 1, Tatauierung (Saarbrücken: Fines Mundi, 2008). Thomas, Nicholas, Body Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 2014). Thomas, Nicholas, Cole, Anna, and Douglas, Bronwen, eds., Tattoo: Bodies, Art, and Exchange in the Pacific and the West (London: Duke University Press, 2005).

PART III

Politics, Communication, and Intelligence

CHAPTER 8

Secrecy, War, and Communication: Challenges and Strategies of the General-Government of the State of Brazil in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo

Introduction1 The Governors-General of the State of Brazil were the main royal officers in Portuguese America. Their powers were received by royal delegation through regimentos (royal ordinances) and cartas patente (letters patent) that gave them extended jurisdiction over several captaincies of 1 This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001. Open access provided by the Centre for Privacy Studies (DNRF138). I would like to thank Natacha Klein Käfer for her editorial care—her suggestions have improved this text from the beginning. I also extend my thanks to my colleagues at Latin American Privacy Studies (LAPS) and to the participants

H. A. F. F. Araújo (B) Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_8

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Brazil.2 The governance of a vast and discontinuous territory was made possible through the constant circulation of information and orders that were transmitted in the form of letters, alvarás (permits), regiments, and portarias (ordinances), among other types of documents.3 During the second half of the seventeenth century, Portuguese America went through political processes that had a great influence on the organisation of General-Government powers as well as on the dynamics of political communication in the State of Brazil. Beyond the border war in Europe, the Braganza’s rise to power in Portugal and the rupture with the Spanish monarchy in 1640 had an impact on the social profile of the noblemen sent to deal with the General-Government4 and in the relations between the American territories of the two monarchies.5 In

of the seminar “Historical Notions of Privacy in Latin America” for their comments on early versions of this text. In this article, I chose to translate and adapt all the citations from sources and bibliography that were originally in Portuguese in order to make the text more cohesive. 2 Scholarship on the General-Government has primarily been conducted by Francisco Cosentino and Dauril Alden. Cosentino’s work has focused on analysing the powers, ceremonies, and social trajectories of the Governors-General of the State of Brazil in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries while Alden has written on the experiences of the Marquis de Lavradio as Governor of Bahia and Viceroy of Rio de Janeiro during the second half of the eighteenth century. See Francisco C. Cosentino, Governadores gerais do Estado do Brasil (séculos XVI–XVII): ofício, regimentos, governação e trajetórias (São Paulo: Annablume, 2009) and Dauril Alden, Royal government in colonial Brazil: with special reference to the administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, viceroy, 1769–1779 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 3 In a previous work, I conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the correspondence and military patents issued by the General-Government of the State of Brazil to show how the jurisdiction of the General-Government was extended to and covered vast stretches of territory in Portuguese America. See Hugo A.F.F. Araújo, A construção da governabilidade no Estado do Brasil: perfil social, dinâmicas políticas e redes governativas do governo-geral (1642–1682) (PhD dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2018). 4 Mafalda Soares da Cunha and Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro, ‘El gobierno del império portugués: Reclutamiento y jerarquía social de los gobernantes (1580–1808)’ in El mundo de los virreyes en las monarquías de España y Portugal , eds. Joan Lluís Palos and Pedro Cardim (Madrid & Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana & Vervuert, 2012), 247–285. 5 Rafael Valladares, Por toda la tierra: España y Portugal : globalización y ruptura (1580–

1700) (Lisboa: CHAM, 2017), 229–260.

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addition, the State of Brazil was going through the war against the West Indische Compagnie (the WIC or Dutch West Indies Company), linked to the States-General of the Netherlands, which occupied the heart of the sugar plantations in the captaincies of northeast Brazil between 1630 and 1654.6 The control of maritime spaces was a fundamental part of the policy of European empires in the early modern period which led to constant disputes for control of navigation routes and coastal areas.7 As such, I would like to stress two considerations about maritime disputes. The first was made by Jan Glete who claimed that the nature of war at sea was associated with the dispute for maritime lines of communication. These lines were “used for trade, power projection into territories close to the sea and as a source of wealth extracted by violence or through protection from violence”.8 Glete indicates that disputes around these lines of communication were at the core of “trade, state formation and the rise and decline of various centres of economic and political power”.9 The second consideration about the disputes over maritime spaces was made by Lauren Benton who analysed the legal construction of the claims over maritime spaces. Benton suggests that early modern empires organised their maritime claim policies through the idea of maritime jurisdictional corridors. To Benton, it is important to recover the understanding of sea “as a space crossed in many directions by jurisdictional corridors [which] helps us to make sense of imperial visions organised around the discovery and militarisation of maritime passages”.10 Thus, these disputes in legal and military fields have transformed the understanding of maritime spaces 6 Charles R. Boxer, Os holandeses no Brasil, 1624–1654, trans. Olivério M. de Oliveira Pinto (Recife: Companhia Editoria de Pernambuco, 2004); Hugo A.F.F. Araújo, ‘The Insurrection of Pernambuco and the Surrender of the Dutch in Brazil (1645–1654)’ in Oxford Research Encyclopedia, of Latin American History 2022, accessed May 13, 2022. 7 Louis Sicking indicates how “[m]aritime conflict management, particularly as manifested in the law of maritime warfare, gave rise to mechanisms that were later applied in other arenas of international law and diplomacy”. Louis Sicking, ‘Introduction: maritime conflict management, diplomacy and international law, 1100–1800’, Comparative Legal History, 5 (1) (2017), 5. 8 Jan Glete, Warfare at sea, 1500–1650: maritime conflicts and the transformation of Europe (New York: Routledge, 2000), 1. 9 Glete, Warfare at sea, 3. 10 Lauren A. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires,

1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 106.

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which “came to be understood as a peculiar legal region in which multiple powers exerted influence but not control”.11 I read Glete and Benton’s proposals as complementary and regard them as particularly useful in understanding the implications of the disputes analysed here. It is important to emphasise that ensuring the viability of communication circuits meant ensuring the governance and control of the territory since information and governmental orders were carried mostly by sea. Therefore, the defence of ship convoys and coastal areas was essential to guarantee the functioning of the government in Brazil and Portuguese sovereignty in America. However, as this defence could not always be guaranteed, strategies had to be created to prevent information from falling into the wrong hands. This chapter deals with political privacy as the deliberate use of secrecy and information protection in order to ensure that governmental intentions and decisions were communicated in secret and remained hidden from the public for as long as necessary. The sea, therefore, was a space that at the same time challenged and protected political privacy.

“The Casualties at Sea are Several, and Cannot be Prevented as They Should be” To govern at a distance meant having to deal with several factors that interfered with the dynamics of communication.12 This concern about the uncertainty of maritime communication was expressed in several letters and even in the government’s royal ordinances. In the regiment concerning the command of the General Brazil Company’s fleet delivered to the Governor-General Count of Castelo Melhor in 1649, this concern is summarised in the expression: “the casualties at sea are several, and cannot be prevented as they should be”.13 In the unpredictable realm of the seas, travel could be affected by “the time lost in struggling with 11 Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 110. 12 Alessia Ceccarelli addresses this topic by analysing the organisation and the challenges

of the intricate maritime postal system existing between the Madrid nunciature and the Roman Curia. For more on the subject, see this chapter in this volume. 13 “os casos do mar são vários, e se não podem prevenir como convém”. Chapter 20, ‘Regimento que trouxe o senhor Conde de Castelo Melhor sobre a armada da companhia Geral de Comercio’, 10 November 1649, Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil—Seção de Manuscritos, from now on “BNB-SM”), Códice 9, 2, 20, (1642–1753), N°. 2.

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headwinds, still air, storms, diseases on board, pirates, accidents at sea, lack of water, of food, etc”.14 The first constraint to maritime transit was weather conditions and sea currents. Coastal navigation in Brazil had well-defined seasonal windows that varied according to the travel destination. That means that during certain months, the winds and sea currents interfered in the direction of navigation. Usually, the period between September and April favoured trips towards the south of the coast while the period between April and September was favourable for travelling north.15 Combined with climatic and nautical conditions, the long distances between the villages of Portuguese America were another major constraint to navigation and consequently affected the periodicity of communication flows, especially with the locations most distant from the city of Salvador, capital of the State of Brazil. As we can see in Map 8.1, the combination of distance and favourable navigation periods directly interfered with the duration of the trips and with the time of transportation of correspondence.16 14 José Roberto do Amaral Lapa, A Bahia e a Carreira da Índia (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1968), 141. 15 Luis Felipe de Alencastro, O trato dos viventes: formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul

(São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000), 57; Anthony Russell-Wood, ‘Ports of Colonial Brazil’ in Atlantic Port Cities: Economy, Culture, and Society in the Atlantic World, 1650– 1850, eds. Franklin W. Knight and Peggy K. Liss (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991), 200–201. 16 Salvador to Rio de Janeiro: The estimate was made from Salvador Correia de Sá e Benavides travel data from 1645. See Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Administração Central, Conselho Ultramarino (from now, on AHU_ACL_CU) 017-01, Cx.3, D. 374; Charles R. Boxer, Salvador de Sá e a luta pelo Brasil e Angola 1602–1686 (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1973), 201–202. Rio de Janeiro to Salvador: This travel time was estimated in the Regimento da Armada da Companhia Geral de Comércio and in the Regiment delivered to Salvador Correia de Sá as General of the Fleets. See Regimento da Armada da Companhia Geral de Comércio, “Capítulo 11” and “Capítulo 12”, 11 October 1649, BNB-SM, Códice 9, 2, 20 (1642–1753), N°. 2; Marcos Carneiro de Mendonça, Raízes da formação administrativa do Brasil, Vol. 2 (Rio de Janeiro: IHGB/ Conselho Federal de Cultura, 1972), 616. Salvador to Vitória: The estimate was made through the letter sent by the Governor-General Count of Castelo Melhor about the departure of the commissioners of the General Company of Commerce to the captaincy of Espírito Santo (13 March 1650, Documentos Históricos da Biblioteca Nacional, (from now on “DHBN”), Vol. III, 32) and the protest written by the municipal council of Vila de Vitória, contesting the conditions and prices imposed by the commissioners (16 May 1650, AHU_ACL_CU_005-02, Cx.11, D. 1364). Salvador to Recife: This was estimated according to reports of Salvador Correia de Sá’s trip in 1645 after he arrived in Bahia

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Map 8.1

Time intervals in political communication

on 23 July 1645, left for Recife in early August, and arrived at his destination on 8 December 1645. See José A.G. Mello, João Fernandes Vieira: mestre-de-campo do terco de infantaria de Pernambuco (Lisboa: CEHA, 2000), 167; Diogo L. Santiago, História da guerra de Pernambuco (Recife: CEPE, 2004), 283. Cape Santo Agostinho to Salvador: On 27 February 1650, the Count of Castelo Melhor informed that he had made a stopover at Cape Santo Agostinho, sending supplies from the General Trading Company to the Field Marshal General, Francisco Barreto (AHU_ACL_CU_015, Cx. 5, D. 393).

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These time intervals are estimates made from sparse data, giving us only an approximate idea of the travel time of the correspondences. In some cases, other external factors beyond weather conditions could affect the duration of these trips. These included mainly stopovers and communication chains. In 1650, the journey from Salvador to Vitória listed above, which usually took approximately 30 days, took an unusually long time of 63 days. Not only did the trip occur outside the favourable season, but there were also possible stopovers. Further, the correspondence was shuffled between captaincies (as happened in some other cases), going first to the Captaincy of São Vicente and then to the Captaincy of Espírito Santo. In the case of the trip from Santos to the island of São Gabriel, the duration of the trip is tied to a stopover in Maldonado. It is worth noting that the governors of Brazil were concerned with guaranteeing the continuity of these communication flows. To ensure the frequency of communication, they resorted to penalties on vessels leaving Brazil without a licence from the General-Government and even to trips that did not carry correspondence.17 In an order given to the Provedor da Alfândega (a royal officer in charge of the Royal Treasury in Bahia), the Count of Óbidos explained that the purpose of this measure was to According to D. José de Mirales, the Count of Castelo Melhor arrived in the city of Salvador on 3 July 1650, taking possession of the government on 10 July. See D. José de Mirales, ‘História militar do Brasil’, Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, 22 (1900), 146. Santos to Island of São Gabriel: This travel time was calculated from the trip of D. Manuel Lobo who left on 8 December 1679 from Rio de Janeiro, made a stopover in Maldonado on the 31st of the same month, and arrived in the island of São Gabriel on 1 February 1680. See “Catálogo dos capitães-mores, governadores, capitães generaes, e vice-reis, que tem governado a capitania do Rio de Janeiro desde sua primeira Fundação em 1565, até o presente ano de 1811”, Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográphico Brasileiros (from now on, “RIHGB”), Tome. II(1840), Terceira Edição, (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1916), 66; Paulo C. Possamai, ‘A fundação da Colônia do Sacramento’, Mneme: Revista de Humanidades, 5 (12) (2004), 20. Rio de Janeiro to Colônia do Sacramento: The estimate was made from Duarte Chaves’ trip who left Rio de Janeiro on 1 June 1683 and arrived at the destination on the 30th of the same month. See RIHGB, Tome. II, 1916, 70; Paulo C. Possamai, Colonia del Sacramento: vida cotidiana durante la ocupación portuguesa, trans. Alejandro Ferrari (Montevideo: Torre del Vigía ediciones, 2014), 29. 17 The portaria passed by the Viceroy Count of Óbidos provided for two types of

punishment. For vessels heading to Portugal or other parts of the overseas territories, the punishment was the execution “of the Master’s bail bondsman, for the punishment that is customary and will be declared on bail”. In the case of vessels transiting on the coast of Brazil, the punishment was imprisonment in jail “from where they will not be released without my order”. See DHBN, Vol. VII, 28 July 1663, 112–113.

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ensure that the government dispatches and letters to other captaincies of Brazil would be collected and delivered by the ships that left Salvador.18 The limitations of the Portuguese fleet was another major problem for the viability of communications between the General-Government in Bahia and the other captaincies of the State of Brazil. The naval superiority of the Dutch in the Atlantic was one of the main problems faced by the authorities in Portuguese America for almost 30 years (1624–1654).19 During this period, the city of Salvador was besieged twice—in 1638 and 1647—using naval blockades. Attempts to expel the Dutch from Brazil succeeded in 1654 when the States-General got involved in the first Anglo-Dutch war (1652–1654). Due to this war, the Dutch navy had to focus on fighting the English, allowing King John IV to order a naval blockade of the city of Recife in Pernambuco (the main Dutch hold in Brazil), leading the troops of the WIC to surrender. Between 1641 and 1644, the truce between Portugal and the StatesGeneral of the Netherlands ensured at least an appearance of stability. The signed agreement led to a reduction of hostilities, at least until the insurrection of Pernambuco in 1645.20 The General-Government of Brazil was directly involved with the uprising, organising and supporting the insurgents, sending troops and ammunition under the false pretext of appeasing the inhabitants of Pernambuco. The WIC’s reaction was to intensify the seizing and plunder around the Brazilian coast from

18 DHBN, Vol. VII, 2 December 1664, 134. 19 In 1624, the city of Salvador was taken by the Dutch with ease, requiring a huge

naval expedition that combined Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian forces to retake the city in 1625. Something similar happened in 1630 when the WIC took over Pernambuco and managed to consolidate its forces in most of the northern captaincies (Pernambuco, Ceará, Rio Grande, Alagoas, and Itamaracá) within a few years. 20 In 1645, the inhabitants of Pernambuco revolted against the rule of the WIC in Brazil. Led by João Fernandes Vieira and other sugar mill owners, this insurrection intended to expel the Dutch forces and reclaim Portuguese control of sugar-producing regions. The insurrection resumed the war initiated in 1630, and the victories achieved by the Luso-Brazilian army managed to impose a siege on the Dutch in Recife and Mauritstad (Mauritia City), the heart of the WIC administration in Brazil. This revolt was fundamental to recover the occupied territories since the siege weakened the WIC forces and supported the naval blockade that led to the Dutch surrender in 1654. See Evaldo Cabral de Mello, Olinda restaurada: Guerra e açúcar no Nordeste, 1630–1654 (São Paulo: Editora 34, 2007).

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1646 onwards as well as besieging Salvador in 1647.21 Once again, the Dutch naval advantage came into play. Between 1647 and 1648, the maritime activities promoted by the WIC were responsible for the seizure of 220 merchant ships that transited between Portugal and Brazil.22 Evaldo Cabral de Mello provides an accurate insight into these numbers. According to Mello, between 1647 and 1648, the Zeeland privateers managed to seize 49 vessels on the coast of Brazil. The majority of seizing occurred near Portugal where the vessels were brought into the Netherlands. Mello indicates that between 1646 and 1653, WIC and Brasilse Directie managed to seize 89 ships on Brazilian waters.23 At that point, the Portuguese ability to react was very limited. In 1644, the General Salvador Correia de Sá commanded a fleet organised to ensure the protection of the mercantile vessels, mainly the sugar fleet.24 This navigation system aimed to concentrate all vessels leaving Brazilian ports into a single fleet headed for Portugal, but this fleet was mobilised only once.25 A new initiative was only organised after the creation of Companhia Geral de Comércio (General Brazil Company) in 1649. This company was set up with private capital and obtained the monopoly of some products from Brazil, which caused great dissatisfaction in Luso-Brazilian producers and traders. However, the convoy system of the Company’s fleets provided a significant reduction of Dutch seizures on the coast of Brazil, thereby increasing commercial profits. On the other hand, the

21 Virginia Lunsford indicates how the States-General made use of privateers for their effectiveness, pointing out how “during the course of the seventeenth century, the StatesGeneral deliberately instituted two privateering concerns dedicated to the repression of the Republic’s enemies: the ‘Duinkerkse Directie’ (Dunkirk Directory), created in 1642 for the purpose of eradicating the Flemish menace, and the 1646 ‘Brasilse Directie’ (Brazil Directory), the goal of which was the removal of the Portuguese from WIC waters”. See Virginia W. Lunsford, Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 179. 22 Boxer, Os holandeses no Brasil, 284. 23 Mello, Olinda restaurada, 114–115. 24 Mendonça, Raízes da formação administrativa do Brasil, Vol. II , 615. 25 General Correa de Sá only commanded the convoy system in 1645. Over the next

two years, he was raising an Armada to recover Angola from the Dutch. During this time, the shipping between Brazilian ports and Portugal operated freely and unprotected. See Mello, Olinda restaurada, 105–119; Boxer, Salvador de Sá, 233–235.

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convoy system reduced the frequency of communication since the fleet’s vessels all left together and on predefined dates.26 The security of the seas and the viability of communication circuits were the foundations for the maintenance of government and sovereignty and during this period, these foundations were seriously threatened by the Dutch presence. The challenges imposed in creating and maintaining political privacy were factors that shaped government policies, as indicated in this section. In the following section, I will analyse the main strategies employed to protect communication and to ensure the maritime circulation of government orders.

When Secrets are Created: Ciphered Letters and Strategies of Secrecy in Communication With the constant foreign threats on the coast of Brazil, the GeneralGovernment had to adopt strategies to ensure the continuity of communication circuits. If, on the one hand, these actions show us the limitations and disadvantages of Luso-Brazilians in the dispute over the sea, on the other hand, they indicate that there was a great need for adaptation and careful employment of available resources.27 The first type of strategy consisted of the transmission of instructions for safe methods of sailing. In the course of my archival research, I found instructions sent to several locations indicating how it was preferable to arrive and leave the port of Salvador after sunset, starting the journey very close to the coast until safety to enter the high seas was ensured.28

26 Leonor F. Costa, ‘Privateering and Insurance: Transaction Costs in SeventeenthCentury European Colonial Flows’ in Ricchezza del mare ricchezza dal mare: secc. XIII– XVIII, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2006), 723. 27 For more information on the pragmatic dimension of government actions, see Maurizio Viroli, From politics to reason of state: the acquisition and transformation of the language of politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Michel Senellart, As artes de governar: do “regimen” medieval ao conceito de governo, trans. Paulo Neves (São Paulo: Editora 34, 2006); Marco A Silveira, A colonização como guerra: conquista e razão de estado na América portuguesa (1640–1808) (Curitiba: Appris Editora, 2019). 28 Special mention to the letters sent to Ilhéus (DHBN, Vol. III, 13 December 1648, 26) and to Rio de Janeiro (DHBN, Vol. IV, 31 March 1648, 432–434) that emphasise navigation at night and proximity to the coastal fortifications as a way to protect the vessels.

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Another strategy employed, especially after the Dutch capitulation in 1654, was the organisation of naval expeditions to “run the coast”, patrolling the sea against pirates and privateers from foreign nations. These expeditions also relied on cautious use of the resources available for defence since they depended much more on dissimulation29 and surprise attacks than on ostensible patrolling at sea.30 The third type of strategy employed to ensure secrecy31 was the use of ciphered letters.32 In general, we can define the technique of ciphering letters as the use of alphabetic characters, numbers, or special characters to make a message unintelligible to anyone who did not have the key to decipher it.33 In the specific case of the State of Brazil, ciphers 29 The notions of dissimulation and prudence emerge as central to government techniques since Machiavelli, whose work “subordinates morality to necessity” (Senellart, As artes de governar, 227), referring to the use of these qualities as State maintenance strategies. 30 In general, these expeditions had few vessels (two to four ships) and had instructions to lure and ambush pirates and privateers, posing as normal and unprotected vessels. The main objective of these expeditions was to seize the pirates and recover the stolen vessels and cargo. See Hugo A.F.F. Araújo, ‘O governo-geral do Estado do Brasil e as expedições navais na segunda metade do século XVII’, Anais do Encontro Estadual de História da ANPUH-RS: História & resistências, 10 (2020), https://www.eeh2020.anpuh-rs.org.br/ anais/trabalhos/trabalhosaprovados#H, accessed on 9 October 2020. 31 In this work, I use the definition of secrecy presented by Sissela Bok who argues that secrecy may be understood as “intentional concealment” of information in which can be noted “the methods used to conceal, such as codes or disguises of camouflage, and the practices of concealment, as in trade secrecy or Professional confidentiality”. See Sissela Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 6. 32 Michel Senellart understood that the use of ciphers was not only associated with practices of secrecy but also of dissimulation, indicating that “a great part of the discourse that was then developed in Spain, Italy, France, and England on the art of dissimulation can be associated with the cipher technique”, since “to be secret is to pretend to hide nothing, multiplying the signs of unsuspecting visibility”. See Michel Senellart, As artes de governar, 275–276. As far as we know, the Portuguese have been using encrypted correspondence since the mid-sixteenth century, especially in their relations with the Ottoman Empire. See Dejanirah Couto, ‘Spying in the Ottoman Empire: sixteenthcentury encrypted correspondence’ in Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700: Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, eds. Franscisco Bethencourt and Florike Egmond (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 274–312. 33 David Kahn provides a long description of the types of ciphers that were created throughout history as well as the many variations and evolutions in encryption techniques. See David Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing (New York: Macmillan, 1967).

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can be found from the time of the war against the Dutch, specifically from the time of the government of António Teles da Silva (1642–1647). The risks of correspondence being intercepted and revealing secrets and strategic information demanded the use of encryption to safeguard this information away from prowling eyes. This last dimension of political privacy used by the GeneralGovernment of the State of Brazil was based on two typologies of privacy:34 communicational privacy and informational privacy. Communicational privacy is the practice of “restricting access to communications or controlling the use of information communicated to third-parties” and “involve different ways of limiting access or controlling the communicated messages”.35 Informational privacy refers to “the interest in preventing information about one-self to be collected and in controlling information about one-self that others have legitimate access to”.36 In this way, secrecy and cryptography were essential elements in shaping political privacy during the war. During the second half of the seventeenth century, the main officer in charge of ciphering the letters of the General-Government was the Secretary of the State of Brazil, a position occupied by Bernardo Vieira Ravasco and passed on to his son. António Teles da Silva wrote a report recommending Ravasco to the Overseas Council, informing them of his various qualities, highlighting in particular his knowledge of the techniques of ciphering and deciphering letters: “[F]or his sufficiency I recommend having him in charge of translating the letters of cypher that Your Majesty used to ask me to write, and the ones I wrote to Your Majesty”.37 In this report, the Governor-General informed about the skills of Ravasco, mentioning his proficiency in Latin and his graduation in Philosophy,

34 Bert-Jaap Koops and others have conceptualised nine typologies of privacy, namely bodily, spatial, communicational, proprietary, intellectual, decisional, associational, behavioural, and informational. See Bert-Jaap Koops et al., ‘A Typology of Privacy’, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 3 (2) (2017), 483–575. 35 Ibid., 567. 36 Ibid., 568. 37 “experimentei nele maior suficiência, e compreensão para se lhe encarregarem e havendo-se no traduzir as cartas de cifra, que sua Majestade se servia mandar-me escrever, e fazer, e cifras, as que eu escrevia a Sua Majestade”. Report of 10 July 1650. AHU_ ACL_CU_005-02, Cx. 14, D. 1702.

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emphasising that he “always trusted him as a person, as well as his intelligence and secrecy”.38 In this sense, more than his skill in cryptography, Ravasco mattered to the political privacy of the State of Brazil for his trustworthiness and integrity with state secrets. The ciphers used to code the correspondence were delivered to the Governors-General from time to time and were changed when the Crown deemed it necessary. Governors António Teles da Silva,39 Count of Vila Pouca de Aguiar,40 Count of Castelo Melhor,41 and the Viscount of Barbacena received ciphers to use in their secret letters. From 1671 onwards, the Overseas Council standardised the use of ciphers, as shown in the royal letters (cartas régias ) to the Governors of Brazil and Pernambuco. These letters detailed the use of ciphers to be shared among “Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Angola, Maranhão, Ilhas de Cabo Verde”42 —namely, the main Atlantic territories of the Portuguese monarchy in that period. As the royal order itself declared, the adoption of this measure was to avoid “by this means that letters be taken by enemies of this Crown, especially

38 “em todas as mais obrigações, que lhe tocavam muito como devia a confiança que sempre fiz de sua pessoa, inteligência e segredo”. Report of 10 July 1650. AHU_ACL_ CU_005-02, Cx. 14, D. 1702. 39 In António Teles da Silva’s testament, it is stated that the Governor had several ciphered letters in his “offices, as in a drawer of Secretary, [in which] there are many letters os secret from Your Majesty; I very much order […] that this closed [letters] be handed over to my brother to give to Your Majesty because at all times it is recorded that I have always worked at his orders”. Testament of António Teles da Silva of 19 July 1650. See Virginia Rau, ‘Fortunas Ultramarinas e nobreza portuguesa no século XVII’ in Estudos sobre história econômica e social do Antigo Regime, ed. J. M. Garcia (Lisboa: Editorial Presença, 1984), 45. These ciphered letters were probably lost in the shipwreck of the ship Nossa Senhora da Conceição in which António Teles da Silva died in 1650 when he was returning from Brazil to Portugal. 40 The “Regiment to the General of the Armada” given to António Teles de Menezes, the Count of Vila Pouca de Aguiar (1647–1649), indicates that the governor received a cipher to be used in “matters that ask for secrecy” (10 August 1647, BNB-SM, 08,01,016. n°002). 41 The Governor-General Francisco Barreto (1657–1663) stated that he had used the cipher that the Count of Castelo Melhor (1649–1653) had received to send letters to the King (28 September 1658, DHBN, Vol. IV, 348). 42 Royal letter to the governor of Pernambuco, Fernão de Souza Coutinho, 21 October 1671, Arquivo da Universidade de Coimbra, Coleção Conde dos Arcos (from now on, “AUC, CA”), Cod. 33. fl.66; “Letter from Your Highness on having a cipher for business of importance” to the Governor-General Afonso Furtado de Mendonça, Viscount of Barbacena, 21 October 1671, DHBN, Vol. LXVII, 210–211.

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in cases of casualties at sea” or in cases where only foreign vessels were available to carry the correspondence.43 The use of ciphered correspondence was mostly successful, to the point that they can be regarded as invisible letters in the General-Government’s correspondence record books. As these letters contained State secrets, they have not been recorded in these books.44 The only copies of ciphered letters found in archival research were just the few that were seized, deciphered, and registered by the Dutch on the WIC’s record books.45 The two ciphered letters which I was able to find were made with simple substitution ciphers in which the characters were replaced by numbers without changing the order of the original text. The two letters were written on very close dates, but the keys to decipher them are very different from one another.46 These ciphered letters were addressed to the Portuguese King and were sent in the name of António Teles da Silva who at the time had been removed from government and imprisoned in

43 “por este meio serem tomadas as cartas por inimigos desta Coroa, e por outros sucessos do mar, ou sucedendo não terdes embarcações se não de Estrangeiros como por muitas vezes sucede”. Letter dated 21 October 1671, DHBN, Vol. LXVII, 210. 44 Michael Jucker suggests that this type of secret documentation only became accessible to historians due to failures in the process of destruction of these records or by accidents. See Michel Jucker, ‘Secrets and Politics: Methodological and Communicational Aspects of Late Medieval Diplomacy’, Micrologus. Nature, Sciences and Medieval Societies, 14 (2006), 275–309 for a parallel to the case we have been analysing. 45 I found the ciphered letters and accompanying keys in the following registers: 28 May 1649, National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, Old West India Company( from now on, “NL-HaNa, OWIC”), 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f.167 and 3 June 1649, NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f.168. The same codex also contains the letters already deciphered and in Portuguese: 28 May1649, NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f.88-88v and 6 March 1649, NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f.89. I have not identified who deciphered these letters. Other works indicated that some members of the Jewish community of Pernambuco acted as codebreakers for the WIC’s authorities. See José A. G. Mello, Gente da Nação: Cristãos-novos e judeus em Pernambuco, 1542–1654 (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco/Editora Massangana, 1996), 311–312; Ronaldo Vainfas, Jerusalém Colonial: judeus portugueses no Brasil Holandês (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2010), 345–347. 46 For example, in the letter written on 28 May 1649, the key shows between letters and numbers: A = 11, B = 25, C = 24, D = 4, E = 21. correspondence is quite different in the letter dated 3 June 1649, with variables for each letter: A = 24, 241, 242, 245; B = 9, 91; C = 10, D = 20, 201, 202, 205; E = 30, 301, 302, 305.

the relationship By contrast, the more numerical 101, 102, 105;

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Salvador by royal order due to his direct involvement in the insurrection of Pernambuco.47 The letter of 28 May 1649 is divided into two parts—one in ciphered text and the other in regular writing. The encrypted part contains a series of complaints and criticisms about the attitudes of GovernorGeneral Count of Vila Pouca de Aguiar. The criticisms are around two points: the weakness of the city removed by artillery from the forts and licences granted to military officers to return to Portugal, and the accusation of loading the Armada’s flagship with products to Portugal for the purpose of trade, especially brazilwood and jacarandá wood. This part also contains a statement apparently made by the Governor whereby he had said that if the Dutch vessels around Salvador captured Teles da Silva, “it would be very good because the Dutch would take avenge on me, and then make peace with Portugal”.48 In the uncoded part of the letter, António Teles da Silva complains of being arrested, becoming sick, and forgotten by the King, pointing out that he did not complain about the Count of Vila Pouca de Aguiar for having arrested him. The initial part of the letter was ciphered probably because of the denunciations and reports of misconduct of government as well as the clear threat made by the Governor. Meanwhile, the unciphered part of the letter presented a very different tone. In the letter of 3 June 1649, the text is fully encrypted and presents a very different report from the other ciphered letter. In this letter, António Teles da Silva describes the internal problems of war management in Pernambuco, pointing out that there were disputes between the military commanders Francisco Barreto and João Fernandes Vieira to control the Luso-Brazilian army.49 Teles da Silva also reports what Francisco Barreto had informed him about the threats of mutiny by the troops of Pernambuco instigated by Fernandes Vieira as well as about the pressure exerted

47 Some authors argue that his imprisonment was a strategy to appease the Dutch authorities and undo perceptions that King John IV supported the revolt against the Dutch. See Boxer, Os holandeses no Brasil, 267. 48 “seria muito bom porque se vingariam os holandeses de mim, e logo fariam pazes com Portugal”. 28 May 1649, NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f. 88. 49 It is worth noting that João Fernandes Vieira was one of the main local leaders of the insurrection while Francisco Barreto was a Portuguese military officer who was appointed by the King to centralise the management of the war under the control of the Royal Councils.

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by soldiers to receive their wages. The letter presents the weaknesses of the Dutch at the time, reporting the enemy’s inability to leave the fortifications. It also reports that 400 soldiers of the WIC had returned to the Netherlands while rumours were circulating that the rest of the Dutch troops would surrender if they did not receive assistance within three months. The text also presents concerns about the Dutch ships that “walked in theses seas waiting for me, for news they had that I was going [to Portugal], as well as to the Count of Castelo Melhor [who was coming to rule in Brazil]”.50 The letter concludes with no complaints of forgetfulness on the part of the monarch (a complaint which had been made in the previous letter) but only with the greetings and good wishes that were commonly used in the letters sent to the King. Unlike the previous letter which was a denunciation, this letter hid State secrets: the account of the disputes for the command of the war in Pernambuco, information about the situation of the enemy forces, and the concern for the safety of the vessels that left from and arrived in Salvador. This example indicates what such a political actor considered to be worthy of secrecy. These cases present a double dimension related to communicational privacy and informational privacy. In the first instance, the withheld information had a personal dimension and could lead to reprisals if the accused adversaries discovered the denunciation. Secondly, information about the internal problems of the Luso-Brazilian command exposed weaknesses that could provide advantages to the Dutch at that moment which could weaken the position of the State of Brazil in the war. In cases such as these, personal interests and State secrets are intertwined which allows us to understand how the political dynamics worked in the Portuguese Atlantic. The ciphered letters were seized by the Dutch vessels mentioned in the accounts cited above.51 It is worth emphasising once again what kind of information was being concealed by the ciphers: political disputes 50 “andavam nesta barra da Bahia esperando por mim, por noticias que tinham de que eu ia [para Portugal], como também ao Conde de Castelo Melhor [que vinha para governar o Brasil]”. 3 June 1649, NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f. 89. 51 Bastiaen Thuijnman, captain of the frigate De Brack, obtained the ciphered letters.

On 18 June 1649, Thuijnman captured the caravel Nossa Senhora de Remédios which was carrying the ciphered letters in the proximity of Alagoas. On 19 June 1649, the Hoge Secrete Raad gave orders to examine and decipher the letters. See 18 June 1649, NLHaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f. 97; 23 July 1649, NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 65, f. 107.

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between the Luso-Brazilian war command, denunciations and complaints about government practices, information about the enemy’s actions, and concerns about the fragility of Brazil’s defences. All such information was valuable and could be exploited by Portugal’s enemies. In the following section, I will analyse in more detail which problems arose from the violation of State secrets contained in the correspondence of the GeneralGovernment and the uses which the Dutch made of information seized in actions at sea.

When Secrets are Revealed: Political Uses of Seized Correspondence The vast majority of the General-Government’s correspondence comprised a variety of instructions and orders that were part of the daily repertoire of governance. However, in contexts of conflict, letters issued by Governors could also contain State secrets which, if made public, could compromise Portugal’s fragile diplomatic relations and threaten the security and maintenance of its territories. By putting the insurrection plan into motion, Governor António Teles da Silva was entering a very delicate territory in which the success or failure of his enterprise could cause repercussions that would directly affect Portugal’s relations with the Dutch Republic. The plan brought together Pernambuco’s inhabitants and the government’s troops sent from Salvador. The insurgents of Pernambuco were to begin the uprising, taking over fortresses, burning plantations, and ambushing enemy troops. A fleet was dispatched by the General-Government to Pernambuco on the pretext of defeating the insurgency,52 but its real objective was to combine land and naval forces to conquer “the Cape [Santo Agostinho] stronghold, to provide a seaport for communications with the Kingdom [of Portugal]”.53 From this outpost, the forces from Pernambuco and Bahia would unite to “harass Recife and other garrisons, surrendering

52 The vessels commanded by Colonel Jerônimo Serrão de Paiva were not suitable for combat; they were designed to transport the troops that landed in Tamandaré and had orders to wait for reinforcements from the fleet of Salvador Correia de Sá which, coming from Rio de Janeiro, had more appropriate warships. The combination of these two forces was the cornerstone of the plan to blockade the city of Recife. 53 Mello, Olinda restaurada, 63.

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them one by one, simultaneously with the maritime blockade of the sugar fleet of Rio and Bahia bound for Portugal”.54 However, several factors contributed to this plan’s failure. There was a disagreement between the General-Governor of the State of Brazil and fleet general Salvador Correia de Sá who was reluctant to execute the plan, which ultimately made the naval blockade impracticable. The forces of Salvador Correia de Sá and Jerônimo Serrão de Paiva met and set sail for Recife, anchoring beyond the reach of the forts’ artillery. However, one of the “casualties of the sea” (an intense windstorm) made this part of the plan impossible to accomplish as the fleets of Correia de Sá and Serrão de Paiva split up and followed different routes. The fleet of Salvador Correia de Sá took advantage of the bad weather to continue its trip to Portugal, abandoning the plan he had disagreed with. Jerônimo Serrão de Paiva’s squadron found itself in the middle of bad weather, trying unsuccessfully to regroup with the warships of Correia de Sá. This disagreement gave the Dutch the opportunity they had hoped for as they organised their fleet under the command of Jan Cornelisz Lichthardt and imposed a catastrophic defeat on the fragile squadron of Serrão de Paiva. The weight of the defeat is not only due to the destruction of ships and crew but also to the seizure of several letters that were in possession of Serrão de Paiva. I was able to identify twenty-four letters which had been seized55 and most of them reveal the real intentions of the mobilisation organised by the General-Government. Among the letters were orders from the Governor António Teles da Silva about the naval blockade, a letter from the King authorising Salvador Correia de Sá to participate in the naval blockade, and several letters exchanged among military officers which prove that they acted in a planned and dissimulated manner to support the insurrection. The content of these letters can be understood as State secrets. The letters of António Teles da Silva and King John IV were undoubtedly those which contained the most compromising information. The King’s letter ordered Salvador Correia de Sá to remain in the State of Brazil and be subject to the orders of António Teles da Silva if there were

54 Ibid. 55 “Documentos pela maior parte em Portuguez sobre varios assumptos”, Revista do

Instituto Archeológico e Geográphico de Pernambuco (from now on, “RIAHGP”), no. 34, (1887); NL-HaNa, OWIC, 1.05.01.01, inv 61.

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warnings of actions “of the enemies of this crown”.56 The Governor’s letters to Serrão de Paiva described the mobilisations made to bring the two fleets together57 and, at the same time, exposed the fragility of the plan and the concerns that Correia de Sá might fail to keep his word. The Governor-General was informed by a captain that Salvador Correia’s wife had confessed that her husband was unwilling to proceed with the plan, mostly because he was afraid that António Teles da Silva would get credit “for the honour of restoring Pernambuco”.58 This information led the General-Government to draw a “strong presumption to doubt his goodwill”,59 indicating to Serrão de Paiva his doubts about the participation of Correa de Sá in the naval blockade of Recife. The letters seized by Colonel Lichthardt were translated into Dutch and published in a printed leaflet aimed at changing the diplomatic discussions between the two governments.60 It is worth noting again that these letters have come to our attention today only because they were seized and recorded in the WIC’s record books as they do not appear in the official correspondence of the General-Government. The publication of these letters have revealed the secrets behind the actions of the Portuguese Crown and the General-Government. As Sicking and Wijffels have pointed out, in these circumstances “[c]onflicts became public as soon as public authorities started taking actively an interest in them, other than providing a framework for their settlement. Public conflicts, in other words, affected the policies of political governance”.61 To put it differently, because they were state secrets that became public, this information

56 5 September 1645, RIAHGP, no. 34(1887), 86. 57 24 July 1645, RIAHGP, no. 34(1887), 86. 58 “eu, aqui descansado, aguardaria a honra de restaurar Pernambuco”. 17 August 1645, RIAHGP, no. 34 (1887), 87. 59 “se pode tirar daí uma forte presunção para duvidar da sua boa disposição”. 17 August 1645, RIAHGP, no. 34 (1887), 87. 60 Claar vertooch van de verradersche em vyantlijcke acten em proceduren van Portugaal, In’t verwecken ende stijven van de Rebellie ende Oorloghe in Brasil (Amsterdam, 1647), https://archive.org/details/claarvertoochvan00unkn/mode/2up, accessed on 29 June 2020. 61 Louis Sicking and Alain Wijffels, ‘Introduction: Flotsam and Jetsam in the Historiography of Maritime Trade and Conflicts’ in Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000–1800 (Leiden: Brill—Nijhoff, 2020), 5.

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weakened Portugal’s political and diplomatic image.62 The Portuguese ambassador to the States-General, Francisco de Sousa Coutinho tried to counter the battle for control of the narrative, funding pamphlets63 that presented how the actions of the WIC motivated the residents of Pernambuco to rebel while also using the pretext presented by António Teles da Silva in his attempt to help the Dutch to subdue the rebels.64 This situation weakened the plans held by a part of the Portuguese court which wanted to reclaim the northeast through a “purchase” agreement for the territories. At the same time, the circumstances provided excuses for the Dutch sectors that wished to intensify the hostilities and increase the gains made by the privateers in the Brazilian seas.65 I argue that the dispute over control of maritime spaces could put state secrets at risk, and narratives about the Portuguese defeat in this naval battle off the coast of Brazil were used and transformed by European courts and embassies, causing substantial changes in the direction of the policy discussed in these places. On the other hand, the role of print media was decisive in the discussions about the actions in Brazil, which is why “[b]y the time the West India Company surrendered Recife in January 1654, everything that could be said had already been said. As the conformation of defeat arrived, the print media suddenly fell silent”.66 62 Michiel Van Groesen conducted an in-depth study of the print culture and its influence on the political relations of the West India Company during the period of Dutch Brazil (1624–1654). The author has pointed out that the printed news about the events in Brazil could interfere with the policy towards the Dutch presence in South America: “[W]hile good news could lead to joy, support, or approval, bad news could nurture dissent”. See Michiel Van Groesen, Amsterdam’s Atlantic: Print Culture and the Making of Dutch Brazil (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 190. 63 Van Groesen has indicated how the Portuguese ambassador “knew how to make use of the discussion culture as well, funding the publication of pamphlets that countered calls for unity or disseminated the Portuguese point of view in such a way that they would create further division”. See Van Groesen, Amsterdam’s Atlantic, 133. 64 Boxer, Os holandeses no Brasil, 250–251; Evaldo Cabral de Mello, O negócio do Brasil. Portugal , Os Países Baixos e o Nordeste. 1641–1669 (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1998), 62–63. 65 “A number of the Zeelands privateering firms united in the Brasilse Directie (Brazilian Directorate) in Middelburg in 1646. Within two years, those privateers affiliated with the Directie had seized some 220 Portuguese prizes, as well as a number of vessels of various nationalities that were in Portuguese service”. See Lunsford, Piracy and Privateering, 250. 66 Van Groesen, Amsterdam’s Atlantic, 128.

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Moreover, as Adriano Comissoli has observed, “war was also a game of information: if one side could know more about the enemy than the other, they would acquire a tactical advantage”.67

Conclusion In this chapter, I have showed the importance of political communication in governance, demonstrating how many natural and human factors interfere with the dynamics of the circulation of information. I have pointed out how control of maritime spaces in times of war was a fundamental issue and how insufficient control over these spaces endangered State secrets and consequently the very conservation of the territory. I have demonstrated how the insufficiency of material resources motivated the adaptation and adoption of preservation strategies that used dissimulation, prudence, and secrecy to create political privacy. The use of ciphered correspondence implies that the need for secrecy was a central point in governmental relations as several instructions recommended the adoption of this type of technique to transmit sensitive information in a concealed manner. I have also presented the problems arising from the violation of State secrets and the political costs of failure to preserve this type of information: the increase in hostilities, the undermining of diplomatic relations, and the damage to the political image of the Portuguese monarchy. Unquestionably, the sea at the same time enabled and challenged notions of privacy at the state level. I have showed how the sea was a vital arena in the political disputes between the colonial empires and which, by its nature as an unpredictable in-between space, demanded secrecy. I have also pointed out how fragile maritime communication concerning State secrets was: it was dependent on the actions of individuals, and the failure to secure its privacy could endanger the sovereignty of the empire.

67 Adriano Comissoli, ‘Bombeiros, espias e vaqueanos: agentes da comunicação política no sul da América portuguesa (Rio Grande de São Pedro, sécs. XVIII–XIX)’, Revista de Indias, 78 (272) (2018), 124.

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Primary Sources Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Conselho Ultramarino, Luiza da Fonseca (AHU_ACL_CU_005-02) Cx.11, D. 1364; Cx. 14, D. 1702 Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Administração Central, Conselho Ultramarino, Avulsos de Pernambuco (AHU_ACL_CU_015) Cx. 5, D. 393. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Administração Central, Conselho Ultramarino, Castro Almeida (AHU_ACL_CU_017-01), Cx.3, D. 374 Arquivo da Universidade de Coimbra,Coleção Conde dos Arcos (AUC, CA) Cod. 33 (Ordens Reais para o Governado de Pernambuco. Tomo I.) BNB-SM (Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil,Seção de Manuscritos) Códice 9, 2, 20 (1642–1753); Códice 08,01,016. n°002.“Catálogo dos capitães-mores, governadores, capitães generaes, e vice-reis, que tem governado a capitania do Rio de Janeiro desde sua primeira Fundação em 1565, até o presente ano de 1811”, Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográphico Brasileiro, (RIHGB), Tome II (1840), Terceira edição (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1916). Claar vertooch van de verradersche em vyantlijcke acten em proceduren van Portugaal, In’t verwecken ende stijven van de Rebellie ende Oorloghe in Brasil. Amsterdam, 1647. https://archive.org/details/claarvertoochvan00 unkn/mode/2up Accessed on 29 June 2020. Santiago, Diogo L., História da guerra de Pernambuco (Recife: CEPE, 2004). Mirales, D. José de, ‘História militar do Brasil’, Annaes da Bibliotheca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, 22 (1900), 1-215. Documentos Históricos da Biblioteca Nacional (DHBN). Volumes: III, IV, VII, XI, LXVII. “Documentos pela maior parte em Portuguez sobre varios assumptos”, Revista do Instituto Archeologico e Geographico de Pernambuco (RIAHGP), no. 34, Dezembro de 1887, (Recife: Typographia Universal, 1887). National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, (NL-HaNa). Old West India Company, (OWIC), 1.05.01.01, inv 61; 1.05.01.01, inv 65.

Bibliography Alden, Dauril, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil: With Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769–1779 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). Alencastro, Luis Felipe de, O trato dos viventes: formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000). Araújo, Hugo A. F. F., A construção da governabilidade no Estado do Brasil: perfil social, dinâmicas políticas e redes governativas do governo-geral (1642–1682) (PhD dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2018).

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———, ‘O governo-geral do Estado do Brasil e as expedições navais na segunda metade do século XVII’, Anais do Encontro Estadual de História da ANPUHRS: História & resistências, 10 (2020). ———, ‘The Insurrection of Pernambuco and the Surrender of the Dutch in Brazil (1645–1654)’ in Oxford Research Encyclopedia, of Latin American History 2022, accessed May 13, 2022. Benton, Lauren A., A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Bok, Sissela, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (New York: Vintage Books, 1989). Boxer, Charles R., Salvador de Sá e a luta pelo Brasil e Angola 1602–1686 (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1973). ———, Os holandeses no Brasil, 1624–1654, trans. Olivério M. de Oliveira Pinto (Recife: Companhia Editoria de Pernambuco, 2004). Comissoli, Adriano, ‘Bombeiros, espias e vaqueanos: agentes da comunicação política no sul da América portuguesa (Rio Grande de São Pedro, sécs. XVIII– XIX)’, Revista de Indias, 78 (272) (2018). Cosentino, Francisco C., Governadores gerais do Estado do Brasil (séculos XVI– XVII): ofício, regimentos, governação e trajetórias (São Paulo: Annablume, 2009). Costa, Leonor F., ‘Privateering and Insurance: Transaction Costs in SeventeenthCentury European Colonial Flows’ in Ricchezza del mare ricchezza dal mare: secc. XIII–XVIII, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2006), 703–726. Couto, Dejanirah, ‘Spying in the Ottoman Empire: sixteenth-century encrypted correspondence’ in Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400– 1700: Cultural exchange in early modern Europe, eds. Franscisco Bethencourt and Florike Egmond (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 274– 312. Cunha, Mafalda Soares da and Monteiro, Nuno Gonçalo, ‘El gobierno del império portugués: Reclutamiento y jerarquía social de los gobernantes (1580–1808)’ in El mundo de los virreyes en las monarquías de España y Portugal, eds Joan Lluís Palos and Pedro Cardim (Madrid & Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana & Vervuert, 2012), 247–285. Glete, Jan, Warfare at Sea, 1500–1650: Maritime Conflicts and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Routledge, 2000). Jucker, Michel, ‘Secrets and Politics: Methodological and Communicational Aspects of Late Medieval Diplomacy’, Micrologus. Nature, Sciences and Medieval Societies, 14 (2006), 275–309. Kahn, David, The Codebreakers: the story of secret writing (New York: Macmillan, 1967).

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Koops, Bert-Jaap, et al., ‘A Typology of Privacy’, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, 3 (2) (2017), 483–575. Lapa, José Roberto do Amaral, A Bahia e a Carreira da Índia (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1968). Lunsford, Virginia W., Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Mello, Evaldo Cabral de, O negócio do Brasil. Portugal, Os Países Baixos e o Nordeste. 1641–1669 (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1998). ———, Olinda restaurada: Guerra e açúcar no Nordeste, 1630–1654 (São Paulo: Editora 34, 2007). Mello, José A. G., Gente da Nação: Cristãos-novos e judeus em Pernambuco, 1542– 1654 (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco/Editora Massangana, 1996). ———, João Fernandes Vieira: mestre-de-campo do terco de infantaria de Pernambuco (Lisboa: CEHA, 2000). Mendonça, Marcos Carneiro de, Raízes da formação administrativa do Brasil, Vol. 2 (Rio de Janeiro: IHGB/Conselho Federal de Cultura, 1972). Possamai, Paulo C., ‘A fundação da Colônia do Sacramento’, Mneme: Revista de Humanidades, 5 (12) (2004), 32–59. ———, Colonia del Sacramento: vida cotidiana durante la ocupación portuguesa, trans. Alejandro Ferrari (Montevideo: Torre del Vigía ediciones, 2014). Rau, Virginia ‘Fortunas Ultramarinas e nobreza portuguesa no século XVII’ in Estudos sobre história econômica e social do Antigo Regime, ed. J. M. Garcia (Lisboa: Editorial Presença, 1984). Russell-Wood, Anthony, ‘Ports of Colonial Brazil’ in Atlantic port cities: economy, culture, and society in the Atlantic world, 1650–1850, eds. Franklin W. Knight and Peggy K. Liss (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991), 196–239. Senellart, Michel, As artes de governar: do “ regimen” medieval ao conceito de governo, trans. Paulo Neves (São Paulo: Editora 34, 2006). Sicking, Louis, ‘Introduction: Maritime Conflict Management, Diplomacy and International Law, 1100–1800’, Comparative Legal History, 5 (1) (2017), 2-15. Sicking, Louis and Wijffels, Alain, ‘Introduction: Flotsam and Jetsam in the Historiography of Maritime Trade and Conflicts’ in Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000–1800 (Leiden: Brill—Nijhoff, 2020), 1-18. Silveira, Marco A., A colonização como guerra: conquista e razão de estado na América portuguesa (1640–1808) (Curitiba: Appris Editora, 2019). Vainfas, Ronaldo, Jerusalém Colonial: judeus portugueses no Brasil Holandês (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2010). Valladares, Rafael, Por toda la tierra: España y Portugal: globalización y ruptura (1580–1700) (Lisboa: CHAM, 2017).

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Van Groesen, Michiel, Amsterdam’s Atlantic: Print Culture and the Making of Dutch Brazil (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Viroli, Maurizio, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

CHAPTER 9

The Spinola System for Maritime Postal Exchanges Between the Madrid Nunciature and the Roman Curia (1645–1658) Alessia Ceccarelli

Introduction: Privacy at Sea and Postal Systems In this chapter, I investigate a regional solution to the ever-pressing issue of privacy and secrecy of political news in the context of the emergence and consolidation of postal systems in the modern world. While commonly overlooked within the greater scheme of historical enquiry, the rise of the modern postal system has been seen as constituting an

A. Ceccarelli (B) Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_9

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‘undetected revolution’ (rivoluzione inavvertita) by some historians.1 My case study is provided by the activities of the Postmasters General of the Republic of Genoa and the shipping system they ran. Their enterprise is sufficiently well-documented by archival sources and has been studied for the significance of the trigger given by it to the modernisation of State apparatuses (diplomatic and administrative), of society, and of economic systems.2 A further topic of enquiry are the points of contact between the public and private spheres, particularly where they gave rise to a potential (and often actual) conflict of interests. A case in point here is the exposure to conflicting demands as Genoese Postmasters provided special services to the Holy See, eminent among other foreign powers. The efficiency of early modern postal services largely depended on relations of trust and on the personal networks established by postal officials, as this case study will demonstrate. The postal system examined in this paper also offers stimulating insights into the geopolitical and historical contingencies of the period in which it was run. Genoa and its port were a hugely important hub within the so-called Spanish imperial system, not only for trade and military

1 Bruno Crevato-Selvaggi, ‘Posta e viaggi in Dalmazia fra mare e terra’ in Sguardi sulla Dalmazia: storie di viaggi e viaggiatori tra XVIII al XXI secolo, ed. Ester Capuzzo (Roma-Venezia: Società Dalmata di Storia Patria-La Musa Talìa, 2021), 113. Cf. Onorato Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova (Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, LIII) (Pontremoli: Cavanna, 1926); Bruno Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti. Territorio e comunicazioni in Italia dal XVI secolo all’Unità (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1993). 2 Andrew Pettegree, The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2014); Johann Petitjean, L’intelligence des choses: une histoire de l’information entre Italie et Méditerranée (XVI e –XVII e siècles) (Rome: École française de Rome, 2013); Mario Infelise, Prima dei giornali. Alle origini della pubblica informazione (secoli XVI e XVII) (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2002); Filippo de Vivo, ‘How to Read Venetian “Relazioni”’, Renaissance & Reformation, 34 (1) (2011), 25–59; Luciano De Zanche, Tra Costantinopoli e Venezia. Dispacci di Stato e lettere di mercanti dal Basso Medioevo alla caduta della Serenissima (Prato: Istituto di Studi Storici Postali, 2000).

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operations but also for communications.3 Genoa was, that is, a significant marketplace of news and intelligence from which the earliest printed gazette was issued (1639) and in which gazetteers and postal couriers entertained very close relations.4 I also compare the vicissitudes and technicalities of maritime routes versus land routes. The Genoese Postmasters General managed a substantial stream of information, and this was run by land as well as by sea. This study specifically focuses on the customised shipping system devised and controlled by Geronimo Spinola, primarily in the service of the Holy See (which, in the long-term perspective, proved to be the chief interlocutor of the Republic).5 During the Thirty Years’ War, especially in its final years, Rome was acting as an intermediary between France and Spain and urgently needed to ensure that its exchanges with Madrid were as fast and secure as possible. While the standard postal route between Rome and Genoa (a land route crossing the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) was relatively expedited and secure, the remainder of the route along which dispatches from the Vatican had to travel to reach Madrid was not. Past Genoa, the standard route traversed the Duchy of Savoy and then French territory. It was not just very long, but also extremely treacherous, especially given the political contingencies of the time. Conversely, Spinola could negotiate a sea route between Genoa and the Spanish ports (mainly Valencia

3 The importance of this route in the history of relations between Genoa and the

Spanish monarchy is discussed in Arturo Pacini, Desde Rosas a Gaeta. La costruzione della rotta spagnola nel Mediterraneo occidentale nel secolo XVI (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2013). See also Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567– 1659: the Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries’ Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). Cf. Paolo Calcagno, ‘Corsari e difesa mobile delle coste. Il caso genovese nella seconda metà del XVII secolo’, Studi Storici, 55 (4) (2014), 937–964. 4 Biblioteca Universitaria di Genova, from now on BUG, B.VIII.27, Nuove, e novellarij; Mario Infelise, ‘Roman Avvisi: Information and Politics in the Seventeenth Century’ in Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–1700, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 212; Infelise, Prima dei giornali, 85–115; Roberto Beccaria, ‘Giornali e periodici nella Repubblica Aristocratica’ in Storia della cultura ligure, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, Vol. 3, XLV/ CXIX-I, ed. Dino Puncuh (2005), 452–454. 5 Cf. Alessia Ceccarelli, ‘Il caso delle prelature personali dei Genovesi nella Roma tardo-barocca’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 102 (2022), 308–332.

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and Alicante), which, although attended by its own perils (typically represented by the threat of corsair raids and gunfire exchanges between the French and Spanish fleets, for instance), was nonetheless incomparably faster and safer than its land alternative. In addition, the Spinolas formed an extensive family network with a consolidated strategic position along the Spanish route not only on account of their commercial and financial interests, but also due to the conspicuous political, military, and ecclesiastical investitures of some of its eminent exponents. Between Genoa and the main Spanish ports, there was a constant flow of ships and men, many of which were attached (more or less directly) to the Spinolas. The inauguration of the Spinola system coincided with the time in which the Republic of Genoa launched (and later consolidated) a convoy navigation system to and from Spain in order to recover Genoese loans to the Spanish monarchy. In the course of his own activities, Geronimo Spinola was thus often able to rely on the Genoese public fleet of galleys. On account of his reliability and a set of other reasons, he became the trusted agent of Pope Innocent X. In their duties towards the Vatican Secretariat of State, Geronimo Spinola and, later, his son Filippo, who could rely on a strong family network and the means (manpower, boats, and infrastructure) that went with the office they held, reshaped the assets at their disposal to fit the specific demands made by Rome which often required urgent and speedy deliveries combined with the utmost confidentiality. Incidental to this particular appointment as messengers of the Popes was the production of a wealth of written documentation composed directly by Geronimo, Filippo, and eminent dignitaries of the Holy See. This paper is essentially based on valuable primary sources, mostly held at the Vatican, that have unaccountably been passed over. At the same time, it should be stressed that one of the reasons for the postal revolution to have remained, in effect, an undetected revolution to this day is the rarity of proper documentation that has usually made it difficult for historians to enquire into the structure and workings of communication systems in the early modern age.6 6 Cf. Giuseppe Felloni, ‘La storiografia marittima su Genova in età moderna’ in Tendenze e orientamenti nella storiografia marittima contemporanea: gli stati italiani e la repubblica di Ragusa (secoli XIV–XIX), ed. Antonio Di Vittorio (Napoli: Pironti, 1987), 29–46; Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova.

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The Spinola Family Network Between Rome, Genoa, and Madrid: Ecclesiastical and Military Careers, Trade, Finance, and Postal Services The correspondence of Geronimo Spinola with the Roman Curia at the time of the pontificate of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj (1644–55) is held at the Vatican Apostolic Archive in the section entitled “Segreteria di Stato, Particolari”. It is a collection of over 350 letters, the main part of which relates to the period between the summer of 1645 and the summer of 1648 (though the earliest item is dated 3 June 1645 and the last 26 May 1653).7 The correspondence sheds light on the services rendered by Spinola, a Genoese nobleman, to the Papal States. Writing from Genoa, Spinola corresponded directly with the Pope’s most eminent collaborators in the persons of cardinal Camillo Pamphilj (a young nephew of the Pope’s, created cardinal nephew) and cardinal Giovanni Giacomo Panciroli (in his capacity as Secretary of State), respectively entrusted, as was customary, with the temporal affairs of the Papal States and with foreign affairs.8 Based on the letters, this chapter analyses Geronimo Spinola’s particular trade, which involved a purpose-built system of maritime postal exchanges by sea that largely remedied breaches of privacy in the exchanges between the Spanish and Papal courts. What came to be known as the ‘Spinola system’ sprang from a background of family and personal connections (both with the Spanish court and with Innocent X and the most influential personalities of his papacy) combined with Geronimo Spinola’s appointment as Postmaster General of the Republic of Genoa.

7 Vol. 20, with the letters for the year 1647, is unfortunately missing from the collection. 8 Panciroli was the first Secretary of State not to hold family relations with the reigning pontiff. See Oliver Poncet, ‘Innocenzo X’ in Enciclopedia dei Papi, 2000, https://www.tre ccani.it/enciclopedia/innocenzo-x_(Enciclopedia-dei-Papi)/; Gianvittorio Signorotto, ‘Lo squadrone volante. I cardinali “liberi” e la politica europea nella seconda metà del XVII secolo’ in La corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento “teatro” della politica europea, eds. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998), 119. In the same volume, see Antonio Menniti Ippolito, ‘Note sulla Segreteria di Stato come ministero particolare del pontefice romano’, 167–188. Cf. Stefano Tabacchi, ‘L’amministrazione temporale pontificia tra servizio al papa ed interessi privati (XVI–XVII)’ in Offices, écrit et papauté (XIII e –XVII e siècle), ed. Armand Jamme and Olivier Poncet (Rome: École française de Rome, 2007), 569–599.

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Geronimo was a Spinola of the San Luca branch,9 an eminent family among the Genoese aristocracy. In the first half of the seventeenth century, several bishops and cardinals were Spinolas of the San Luca and Luccoli branches,10 while other family members were financiers (acting as licensed hombres de negocio and asientistas ) and military officers (huomini d’arme) in the service of the Spanish monarchy. To cite but one notable instance, Ambrogio Spinola (1569–1630) was General of the Spanish armies in Flanders, Marquis de los Balbases, then Governor of Milan (1629–30).11 The brothers Bartolomeo and Gregorio Spinola were also close relations of Geronimo’s. Bartolomeo, one of the most important Genoese figures in the history of Spain, held a key position in the Spanish revenue service operating under Philip IV (whom Bartolomeo served as factor general from 1627 to his death in 1644), a member of the Councils of Finance and War, Treasurer-General (in charge of the media annata), and Count of Pezuela de las Torres (in 1642).12 Gregorio was the founder of a prosperous trading company which had been taken over by Giacomo Maria Spinola (son of Giovanni Luca, Gregorio’s partner) in 1644 and which continued to operate successfully between Spain, Genoa, and the Spanish dominions in Italy.13

9 Natale Battilana, Genealogie delle famiglie nobili di Genova (Genova: Pagano, 1826); Spinola, tables 12 and 14. 10 Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da S. Pietro sino ai nostri giorni, Vol. 68 (Venezia: Tipografia Emiliana, 1854), 293–296. 11 Giampiero Brunelli, ‘Spinola, Ambrogio’ in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana G. Treccani, 1960–2020 (from now on DBI), Vol. 93, (2018), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ambrogio-spinola_%28DizionarioBiografico%29/. 12 Carlos Álvarez-Nogal, ‘I genovesi e la monarchia spagnola tra Cinque e Seicento’,

Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, XLI–CXV/II (2001), 117–119; Carlos ÁlvarezNogal, ‘La dimension sociale et politique d’un banquier génois dans l’Espagne du XVIIe siècle’ in Circulations maritimes. L’Espagne et son empire, XVI e –XVIII e siècle, ed. Michel Bertrand and Jean-Philippe Priotti (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011), 185– 205; Nicolás Broens, Monarquía y capital mercantil: Felipe IV y las redes comerciales portuguesas (1627–1635) (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1989), 24–65. 13 Álvarez-Nogal ‘I genovesi e la monarchia spagnola’, 119; Álvarez-Nogal, ‘La dimension sociale et politique’; Luca Lo Basso and Claudio Marsilio, ‘La rete finanziaria della famiglia Spinola: Spagna, Genova e le fiere dei cambi (1610–1656)’, Quaderni storici, 124 (1) (2007), 97–110; Battilana, Genealogie delle famiglie nobili; Spinola, table 14.

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For his specialised trade—diplomatic correspondence—Geronimo could therefore count on the vast political, commercial, and social network established by his Spanish relations in Spain and the Spanish dominions.14 In 1626, he was already managing official dispatches between Rome and the Paris and Madrid nunciatures (although less regularly than he later would), working in close contact with Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, who was Nuncio to Spain from 1626 to 1630 (afterwards Pope Innocent X) and with cardinal Panciroli, who would be Nuncio to Spain from 1642 to 1644. Panciroli, indeed, was twice a guest of Luca Spinola’s as he stopped at Genoa en route from Rome to Madrid and back, whereas Gregorio Spinola was part of Panciroli’s entourage when he reached the court of Philip IV in 1642.15 Geronimo was ideally placed, that is, to become the most trusted messenger of the Popes;16 similarly, a relative of his, Claudio Spinola (of the Luccoli family branch) became Manager of the Genoese office of the Spanish Post, taking over from the Madrid Correo Mayor.17 Over two 14 Manuel Herrero-Sánchez, ‘La red genovesa Spínola y el entramado transnacional de los marqueses de los Balbases al servicio de la Monarquía Hispánica’ in Las redes del imperio: élites sociales en la articulación de la Monarquía Hispánica, 1492–1714, ed. Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia-Universidad Pablo de Olavide, 2009), 97–134. 15 Agostino Schiaffino, ‘Memorie di Genova (1624–47)’, Quaderni di Storia e Letteratura, ed. Carlo Cabella, 1996, year 1642, 10, 15; year 1644, 48, http://www.quaderni. net/WebCAB/CABindex.htm. 16 Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, from now on AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fol. 196r-v. Letter by Geronimo reminding the Secretary of State of his good work in the service of the papacy. The Nuncios of Spain and France and the Pope himself (formerly Nuncio in Madrid), he writes, should be mindful of it. Giuseppe Presutti, ‘Diario di Mons. Lorenzo Azzolini. Viaggio da Madrid a Roma nel 1626’ in Il Muratori. Raccolta di documenti storici inediti o rari, tratti dagli Archivi italiani, pubblici e private, Vol. II (Roma: Tipografia Vaticana, 1892), 184; Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova, 320. 17 Before Claudio Spinola, the Genoese office of the Spanish Post was controlled by a branch of the Tasso family, who were the principal actors in the creation of the modern European postal system, Battilana, Genealogie delle famiglie nobili, Spinola, table 142; Archivio di Stato di Torino, from now on ASTo, C, PNA, mazzo 18, fasc. 4–5, 1652; Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova, 323–325, 335–336; Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 211–262; Pettegree, The invention of News, 51–55. Cf. Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef Garfia, ‘Entre el servicio a la Corona y el interés familiar. Los Serra en el desempeño del Oficio del Correo Mayor de Milán (1604–1692)’ in Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica (1528–1713), Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, LI/ CXXV–I, ed. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef Garfia, Carlo Bitossi, and Dino Puncuh (2011), 303–330; Julia Adams, The Familial State: Ruling Families

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decades, Geronimo came to occupy a wholly distinctive position in the history of the relations between Rome, Genoa, and Spain, at once serving the Genoese Republic and the Papacy and running a complex system of maritime postal exchanges devised to meet the particular requirements of the Vatican Secretariat of State whose dealings with the Madrid nunciature were to be treated with the greatest speed and degree of privacy.

Geronimo Spinola, Postmaster General of Genoa When Geronimo became Postmaster General of the Republic of Genova in 1635,18 the position neither carried particular eminence among the magistracies of the Republic, nor had it proven particularly remunerative for his predecessors.19 However, it was to earn Geronimo considerable profits over his successive mandates spanning a total of almost 20 years, after which it was briefly held by his son Filippo (1655–1658).20 We know that Geronimo first secured his position as Postmaster—and, with it, the right to bear arms (licentia armorum)—against a payment of 38,000 Genoese lire.21 In Genoa, as in most European states, the position of Postmaster General was customarily a venal office awarded to the highest bidder, usually for a period of 5 years and was subject to renewal. This arrangement made the postal service an area of specialist business run by entrepreneurs who invested private capital and presided over the financial management of their enterprise—a venture that required both capital and excellent organisational, commercial, and political skills.22 Beyond that, it also required shrewdness and discretion and carried with it great responsibilities.

and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005). 18 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fol. 196r-v. 19 In the opinion of Giulio Pallavicino (1558?–1635), a leading figure of Genoese

culture, the sum hardly covered dues to the tax authorities. See Alessia Ceccarelli “In forse di perdere la libertà”. La Repubblica di Genova nella riflessione di Giulio Pallavicino (1583–1635) (Roma: Viella, 2018), 152, 158, 162–166 and Appendix (Giulio Pallavicino, Vero e distinto ragionamento. https://www.viella.it/media/30008d2a.pdf). 20 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 29, fol. 10r, 208r; Vol. 37, fol. 457r. 21 PAstine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova, 327. 22 Ceccarelli, “In forse di perdere”, Appendix (Pallavicino. https://www.viella.it/media/

30008d2a.pdf); Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 65.

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The moral and political implications of that particular office were, in fact, examined by Andrea Spinola (1562?–1631), a distant relative of Geronimo’s23 who was Genoa’s most eminent political theorist (locally nicknamed il filosofo). In his Dizionario politico-filosofico (or Ricordi),24 Andrea Spinola devoted an entry to the subject under the heading ‘Posta’, noting how the importance of a Postmaster and all of his agents derived from the highly sensitive nature of the materials they handled. As he saw it, it was not only in the nature of things but a “special duty” of all governments to want to control the postal system because each state had an interest in preventing foreign powers from becoming “masters” of its own correspondence while conversely seeking to “seize” theirs. This was, quite simply, a question of “reason of State”.25 The ideal Postmaster, according to Andrea Spinola, had to enjoy a reputation as a “good person”, as one most loyal to his state and capable of choosing collaborators who were equal to himself. On these very grounds, Andrea Spinola objected to the venal status of the office of Postmaster General, warning the governing class against such malpractices as he had witnessed in Rome and other Italian states. He had seen “certain Princes” become all too familiar with foreign Postmasters and deemed this a most dangerous custom, liable to degenerate into corruption and treason. It was quite natural to fear that when a Postmaster took gifts from the sovereign of another state, he was being rewarded for his readiness to become a master spy and betray confidential political information.26 For instance, Vincenzo De Marini, who was one of Geronimo’s predecessors, had set an infamous precedent by becoming an informer for the Franco-Piedmontese with whom Genoa was then at war and was 23 Also of the San Luca branch. See Alessia Ceccarelli, ‘Spinola, Andrea’ in DBI, Vol.

93 (2018), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/andrea-spinola_%28Dizionario-Biografic o%29/. 24 The Dizionario was a work that remained almost entirely in manuscript form as well as unfinished as Andrea was still working on it from his deathbed in 1631. Selected entries were published by Carlo Bitossi: Andrea Spinola, Scritti scelti, ed. Carlo Bitossi (Genova: Sagep, 1981). 25 BUG, ms. B.VIII.28, Posta and Ragion di Stato. See also Maurizio Viroli, From politics to reason of state: the acquisition and transformation of the language of politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 26 BUG, mss. B.VIII.28, Posta; B.VIII.29, Spie. See also Michael Jucker, ‘Secrets and politics: methodological and communicational aspects of late medieval diplomacy’, Micrologus, 14 (2006), 275–309; Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 38–43.

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sentenced to death on charges of treason in 1625.27 However, Andrea Spinola also acknowledged that this was a distinctly intractable problem, at least in the case of Genoa. Better, then, to close one’s eyes, and pretend not to see how postal flows were managed.28 Andrea Spinola’s Dizionario, it should be noted, is a vast and largely unpublished treatise structured as a more or less explicitly crossreferenced system of entries with headwords linked to each other in order to expound certain themes. The entries referring to the privacy and secrecy of political news, for instance, form a rather substantial set. Living between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this member of the Spinola family showed remarkable perspicuity in understanding the importance of the notion of privacy and the difficulties that attended it, both at large and in the domain of communication, at a time in which the overall conceptual framework of privacy was not just rather fluid but somewhat patchy and vague.29 Entries such as Posta and Corrieri, specifically referring to postal systems, intersect with others such as Sicurtà su vascelli (security on boats), Sicurezza publica (public safety), and Segreti publici, sotto silentio (secrecy in civil affairs, under silence).30 Under Sicurtà su vascelli, in particular, Spinola discussed the importance of security at sea, particularly in matters of trade, observing that molte frodi (several frauds) occurred on merchant ships especially.

27 On Vincenzo De Marini, see Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova, 327; Ceccarelli, “In forse di perdere”, 152–164. Cf. Ben Yessef Garfia, ‘Entre el servicio a la Corona y el interés familiar’, 303–330. 28 BUG, ms. B.VIII.28, Posta. 29 Mario Infelise, ‘Sistemi di comunicazione e informazione manoscritta tra ‘500 e ‘700’

in Scripta volant, verba manent. Schriftkulturen in Europa zwischen 1500 und 1900. Les cultures de l’écrit en Europe entre 1500 et 1900, eds. Alfred Messerli and Roger Chartier (Basel: Schabe Verlag, 2007), 15–35; Petitjean, L’intelligence des choses; Johann Petitjean, ‘Gênes et le bon gouvernement de l’information (1665–1670)’ in Les Consuls en Méditerranée, agents d’information XVI e –XX e siècle, ed. Silvia Marzagalli (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2015), 215–232; Natacha Klein Käfer, ‘Dynamics of Privacy at Sea: An Introduction to Privacy Studies in Maritime History’ in this volume. 30 BUG, mss. B.VIII.25, Corrieri; B.VIII.28, Posta; Sicurtà su vascelli; Sicurezza publica; Segreti publici, sotto silentio.

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“Via the Sea Route Exclusively”: The Emergence of the Spinola System of Exchanges Between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Nunciature in Madrid The career of Geronimo Spinola perfectly illustrates the issues raised by his relative, Andrea. Between 1645 and 1653, Geronimo secured the special patronage of the Roman Curia, serving a pontiff (Giovanni Battista Pamphilj) and a Secretary of State (Panciroli) while still holding his position as the Postmaster of Genoa. Since the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Nuncio Giulio Rospigliosi (1644–52; later Pope Clement IX, 1667– 69) required their correspondence to be managed with the greatest care and discretion, Geronimo’s offices in Genoa became the hub for postal exchanges between Rome and the Madrid nunciature. The stakes were high: as the Thirty Years’ War was nearing its end and Rome sought a peace treaty between the two main contenders, the Crowns of France and Spain. Madrid, however, was averse to a settlement (and would, indeed, reject the Westphalia agreements in 1648) and had been on bad terms with Innocent X’s predecessor, Urban VIII Barberini whom the Habsburg court regarded as pro-French. Rome, for its own part, regarded the new Nuncio, Rospigliosi with suspicion because of his former affiliation with the Barberini faction (although he would later, in fact, act unimpeachably).31 To complicate matters, the customary postal route to Madrid had always been very slow as the standard courier for Spain normally covered the Genoa-Madrid route in about 39 days. It was also unsafe, although the Spanish postal service to Genoa was run by Claudio Spinola, a trusted relative of Geronimo’s. With the post travelling by land, there was no way the standard courier could avoid traversing French territory, usually travelling through Bordeaux and Lyon followed by Turin and Alessandria (in the Duchy of Savoy) or vice versa. In Lyon, the courier would also cross paths with the French courier to Rome, to which it sometimes entrusted its correspondence.32

31 Luciano Osbat, ‘Clemente IX, papa’ in DBI, Vol. 26 (1982), https://www.treccani. it/enciclopedia/papa-clemente-ix_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29. 32 Giuseppe Felloni, ‘Itinerari e tempi delle comunicazioni secondo le fonti genovesi (secc. XVI–XVII)’, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, LIII/CXXVII–I (2013), 112. See also Ottavio Codogno, Nuovo itinerario delle poste per tutto il Mondo, d’Ottavio

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The Vatican Archives also document previous occasions in which, under similar conditions, Genoese postmasters (and relations of theirs) had served the Popes. In 1616–17, during the papacy of Paul V Borghese (1605–21), Pier Francesco De Marini (the father of Vincenzo De Marini, who in 1625 would disgrace himself as Postmaster General by spying for the enemies of the Republic) acted as an informant for the Secretariat of State, reporting to cardinals Scipione Caffarelli Borghese and Pietro Aldobrandini and occasionally sorting correspondence sent from Rome to the Nuncio in Turin.33 Under Pope Urban VIII Barberini (1623–44), who held close ties with the Genoese aristocracy, Genoese Postmaster General Giovanni Raffaele Lomellino served the Roman Curia as informant and provider of special services.34 At the time of Spinola’s predecessors, however, the flow of intelligence and correspondence originating from and destined for Rome could neither qualify as a system in terms of periodicity or intensity, nor—most importantly—did it involve a route by sea. Around the mid-1640s, however, the Vatican Secretariat of State expressly demanded that its dispatches (and occasionally small parcels)35 for the Nuncio in Madrid travel “via the sea route exclusively”,36 unless insurmountable difficulties forbade it. In his capacity as Postmaster of Genoa and on the strength of his personal ties with the Holy See, Geronimo Spinola was able to meet just this demand, serving a route between Rome and Madrid that involved travelling by sea between the ports of Genoa/Savona and Valencia/ Alicante, cutting out the French leg of the journey entirely. He could further ensure a direct sea route (a drittura, a diligenza)37 for greater Cotogno Luogotenente del Corriero Maggiore del presente Stato di Milano (Milano: Bordoni, 1616), 14, 24–26, 44, 168, 282. 33 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 9, fols. 68r, 78r, 90r, 102r, 104r, 106r, 108r, 112r 114r, 116r, 142r, 146r, 173r, 175r, 177r, 189r, 197r, 203r, 217r, 225r, 229r, 235r, 245r, 249r. On Pier Francesco De Marini, see Ceccarelli, “In forse di perdere”, 152–164. 34 Claudio Costantini, ‘Corrispondenti genovesi dei Barberini’ in La Storia dei Genovesi, Atti del convegno di studi sui ceti dirigenti nelle istituzioni della Repubblica di Genova, Genova, 15–17 aprile 1986, Vol. VII (Genova, 1987) 189–206. See also Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Lat. mss. 8750; 8939; 10036–10039. 35 Mostly crates containing books or gifts. See AAV, SS, P, Vol. 32, fol. 427r. 36 “Per via di mare solamente conforme [come si] comanda” (via the sea route exclusively

in conformity to orders given). See AAV, SS, P, Vol. 27, fol. 469r. 37 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fols. 214r, 362r, 469r–470r; Vol. 25, fol. 352r; Vol. 26, fol. 214r, 325r; Vol. 27, fol. 288r; Vol. 34, fol. 485r.

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speed and to avoid making stops in French ports through which his merchant vessels, some of which were armed, sailed in convoy for greater safety. On certain instances, convoys of privately owned merchant vessels were escorted by one or more galleys from the Genoese public fleet of warships,38 although some particular parcels are known to have travelled directly on board a galley. The latter function was performed either by the Santa Maria, the Genoese flagship, or some other public galleys (primarily employed for the transportation of individuals of rank and on patrol missions).39 The fleet was often formed by privately owned galleys known as galee di particolari, supplied by the Genoese aristocracy (foremost among which was the branch of the Doria family descended from the great Andrea Doria, Marquis of Tursi). Such fleets, numbering just under a score of galleys, were at the regular service of the Spanish Crown under the terms of an asiento contract and were referred to as the squadra di Genova, one of the four squadrons of the Spanish Armada.40 On rare occasions, parcels were loaded onto galleys from the squadra di Spagna 41 or galleys flying the flag of the Holy See.42 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was not infrequent for the papal fleet to be placed 38 Gian Carlo Calcagno, ‘La Navigazione Convogliata a Genova nella seconda metà del Seicento’, Miscellanea Storica Ligure, 1 (Guerra e commercio nell’evoluzione della marina genovese tra XV e XVII secolo) (1970), 267–269. See also Claudio Costantini, ‘Aspetti della politica navale genovese nel Seicento’ in the same volume, 207–235; Calcagno, ‘Corsari e difesa mobile delle coste’, 937–964; Emiliano Beri, Genova e il suo Regno. Ordinamenti militari, poteri locali e controllo del territorio in Corsica fra insurrezioni e guerre civili (1729–1768) (Novi Ligure: Città del silenzio, 2011), 183–186; Erik Odegaard, ‘Convoys and Companies: Privatising Economic Warfare at Sea in the Dutch Republic, 1580–1800’ in Economic warfare and the sea: grand strategies for maritime powers, 1650–1945, eds. David G. Morgan-Owen and Louis Halewood (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), 63–84; Pacini, Desde Rosas a Gaeta. 39 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 25, fols. 31r, 116r; Vol. 26, fol. 405r; Vol. 27, fol. 50r, 207r, 288r; Vol. 32, fols. 160r, 196r, 404r, 442r; Vol. 34, fol. 272r. See also Luca Lo Basso, ‘Evoluzione delle marine da guerra e costruzione dello Stato moderno: Genova e Savoia, due percorsi a confronto (secc. XVI–XVIII)’ in Genova e Torino. Quattro secoli di incontri e scontri. Nel bicentenario dell’annessione della Liguria al Regno di Sardegna (Quaderni della Società Ligure di Storia Patria), eds. Giovanni Assereto, Carlo Bitossi and Pierpaolo Merlin (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2015), 221–222. 40 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 55r; Vol. 27, fol. 284r; Vol. 32, fols. 489r, 575r. See BUG, ms. B.VIII.27, Galee di particolari; Calcagno, ‘La Navigazione Convogliata a Genova’, 289. 41 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 26, fols. 340r, 344r; Vol. 37, fol. 258r. 42 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 27, fol. 417r.

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under the command or supervision of the Genoese (primarily members of the Sauli, Pinelli, Centurione, Raggi, and Lomellino families).43 The Genoese government had recently introduced a convoy navigation system between the Republic and Spain with the specific aim of securing the transfer of capital, which, in considerable amounts, was to be recovered from Spain (these assets dramatically increased in volume when the monarchy declared bankruptcy in 1627). In the letters of Filippo Spinola, explicit reference is made to Genoese convoys for the transportation of metal coins,44 and towards the mid-seventeenth century, the Republic strengthened these fleets by setting up so-called ‘galleons’ which were small formations of tall ships derived from the northern countries. Albeit sporadically, the Spinola system did, in fact, employ ships from England and the Netherlands.45 By rule, under the Spinola system, parcels issued by the Secretariat of State would travel by land between Rome and Genoa where they were handled directly by Geronimo’s agents (who were agents and couriers of the Genoa Post Office).46 On occasion, they could be shipped from Civitavecchia so as to travel the first leg of the journey by sea.47 For further security, these items were enclosed in disguised envelopes addressed to Geronimo rather than to the Spanish Nuncio. Once they had reached Geronimo in Genoa and had been checked for intactness, they would be slipped into a new envelope bearing the address of one of Geronimo’s 43 Carlo Bitossi, Il governo dei magnifici. Patriziato e politica a Genova fra Cinque e Seicento (Genova: ECIG, 1990), 50; Costantini, ‘Corrispondenti genovesi dei Barberini’, 189–206; Ciro Manca, ‘La storiografia marittima sullo Stato della Chiesa’ in Tendenze e orientamenti nella storiografia marittima contemporanea: gli stati italiani e la repubblica di Ragusa (secoli XIV–XIX), ed. Antonio Di Vittorio (Napoli: Pironti, 1987), 73–94; Alessia Ceccarelli, ‘Pinelli, Domenico’ in DBI, Vol. 83 (2015), 721–723, http://www.tre ccani.it/enciclopedia/domenico-pinelli_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 44 As in the case of dispatches from Spain sent on the command galley of the Doria, Dukes of Tursi, which arrived at Genoa at the end of April 1657 with a shipment of money in cash. See AAV, SS, P, Vol. 36, fol. 95r. There was also the instance of a shipment made from Livorno on board a ship from a convoy sailing to Alicante (Vol. 34, fol. 485r). Inoltre, Vol. 32, fol. 611r. 45 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fol. 43r, 164r; Vol. 26, fol. 64r, 380r; Vol. 27, fols. 288r, 380r; Vol. 28, fol. 327r. See Lo Basso, ‘Evoluzione delle marine da guerra’, 223–224. 46 Couriers whose final destination was sometimes Naples. In one letter, Geronimo warns cardinal Pamphilj of a parcel he is about to send via a courier bound for Naples. See AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 12r. 47 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 164r.

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agents in Spain (again, not the Nuncio Rospigliosi’s address) before they were shipped from the port of Genoa (or Savona—but, at any rate, from a port in Liguria). The system of sailing in convoys—which Geronimo adopted—had originally been devised by Genoese companies trading between Liguria and Spain, including the company run by the relatives of his own family.48 The ships were mostly small cargo vessels (tartans or feluccas ) or small warships (petacchi) travelling in flotillas,49 but at least one (a felucca or a larger vessel), in any case, would be armed (carrying artillery and armed men),50 as pirate attacks were especially frequent along those routes and posed a prime concern.51 Generally, the final ports of destination would be Denia, Cartagena, and Cadiz (or, less frequently, the Canary Islands or Lisbon), though the ships customarily stopped at intermediate ports along their route where some of their cargo would be unloaded, and new cargo would be taken on board.52 Having reached the ports of Valencia or Alicante, the parcels from Rome then travelled overland to the nunciature in Madrid, their final destination, again through couriers Geronimo regarded as trustworthy.53 By the same route and procedure and the same kind of means and personnel, the Nuncio Rospigliosi could send items bound for Rome to Geronimo’s address, and these would first land in

48 Calcagno, ‘La Navigazione Convogliata a Genova’, 268–276; Felloni, ‘Itinerari e tempi delle comunicazioni’, 103–107; Giuseppe Felloni, ‘Organizzazione portuale, navigazione e traffici a Genova: un sondaggio tra le fonti per l’età moderna’ in Studi in memoria di Giorgio Costamagna, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, XLIII/I, ed. Dino Puncuh (2003), 337–364; Felloni, ‘La storiografia marittima su Genova’, 29–46. See also Fernand-Paul Braudel, ‘Note sull’economia del Mediterraneo nel XVII secolo’, Economia e Storia, 2 (1955), 126–129. 49 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fol. 237r; Vol. 26, fols. 239r, 302r, 366r, 380r; Vol. 27, fols. 50r, 117r, 290r. 50 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fols. 56r, 105r, 255r; Vol. 22, fols. 469r–470r; Vol. 26, fols. 116r, 184r, 221r; Vol. 27, fol. 288r; Vol. 28, fol. 186r; Vol. 32, fol. 344r; Vol. 36, fol. 213r; Vol. 37, fols. 315r, 366r; Vol. 38, fol. 31r. 51 Archivio di Stato di Genova, from now on ASGe, AS, LM, 2358, Gio. Battista Lasagna to the Government, 26 February 1650. Compare with Calcagno, ‘La Navigazione Convogliata a Genova’, 271; Felloni, ‘Itinerari e tempi delle comunicazioni’, 103–105. 52 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fols. 214r, 237r, 418r–419r; Vol. 23, fol. 166r; Vol. 25, fols. 106r, 116r; Vol. 27, fol. 117r, 284r; Vol. 37, fol. 93r. 53 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fols 164r, 185r, 214r; Vol. 23, fol. 131r–133r.

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Genoa (or Savona) and then be forwarded to the Vatican Secretariat of State. A combination of factors made the sea route the fastest and most secure. There was, of course, the strategic advantage of not having to traverse French territory, which had previously made the journey both slow and unsafe. Beyond that, however, the sea route took care of problems that had afflicted postal systems in general. Even in the most efficient systems, letters and parcels travelled in suitcases or packing cases which were loaded on to carts, stagecoaches, or pack animals and were therefore always at risk of getting lost or damaged due to bad weather, frequent carrier changes, excess loads, customs controls, or mere human error on the part of any of the several agents involved in the process. On impervious and isolated stretches such as mountain passes, during overnight stops, and at or around border crossings, mail coaches were the easy target of thieves and bandits hoping to find valuable items or information. Letters and parcels were often delivered late, with broken seals, or other clear signs of mishandling. With each state authority spying, or attempting to spy, on others, postal interception of politically sensitive data was the privileged domain of political jealousy and competition between governments.54 Cipher and disguise envelopes, as typically contrived by diplomats and Secretaries of State, could prove insufficient and be easily broken. In Venice, quite famously, not even the correspondence of the papal Nuncio was spared.55

54 Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 23–40, 44–60. 55 Pettegree, The invention of News, 130–150; Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di

tutti, 24–25. See also Guillaume Alonge, Ambasciatori. Diplomazia e politica nella Venezia del Rinascimento (Roma: Donzelli, 2019), 40–70; Filippo de Vivo, Patrizi, informatori, barbieri. Politica e comunicazione a Venezia nella prima età moderna (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2012), 30–76; Ioanna Iordanou, Venice’s Secret Service: Organising Intelligence in the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press 2019), 35, 98–130; Paolo Preto, I servizi segreti di Venezia (Milano: Il saggiatore, 1994); Eric R Dursteler, ‘Power and Information: The Venetian Postal System in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean’ in From Florence to the Mediterranean: Studies in Honour of Anthony Molho, eds. Diogo Ramada Curto, Eric R. Dursteler, Julius Kirshner, and Francesca Trivellato (Firenze: L. S. Olschki, 2009), 601–623.

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Workings of the Spinola System Geronimo Spinola and his son Filippo held an intense correspondence with the Vatican Secretariat of State to which they addressed several hundreds of letters. These letters now give us a detailed picture of the workings of the postal system operated by them as well as of some mishaps and notable events. In a relatively early letter to cardinal Pamphilj (dated 25 July 1645), Geronimo reports that two sets of correspondence travelling opposite courses between Rome and Madrid had recently passed through his offices. Because letters for the Nuncio Rospigliosi had also come from Venice, all correspondence to the Nuncio had been shipped together on an armed felucca that had left Genoa in the evening of the previous Thursday and was bound for Valencia. The courier to Rome, he further reports, would be leaving shortly.56 Due to the urgency and secrecy of their mission, ships would set out to sea from the Ligurian ports in the evening, at night, or at the break of day, weather permitting, even in the winter months.57 The aim, at any rate, was to reach Spain in the shortest possible time and with the fewest possible stops.58 A letter of 6 January 1646, again by Geronimo, further documents the procedure, informing the Roman Curia that the usual shipment to Spain had recently left port at night.59 Particular urgency must have attended seven items Geronimo received from the nunciature in Madrid, again by sea, at the end of December 1645. Writing an accompanying letter, Geronimo specifies that six of them could not possibly travel by land via the French courier and further asks cardinal Pamphilj to surely confirm their arrival in Rome.60 Indeed, between the spring of 1645 and the beginning of 1646, the Nuncio Rospigliosi was mediating several complex negotiations as representatives of the Madrid court solicited Innocent X not to recognise the legitimacy of John IV of Bragança’s accession to the throne of Portugal while, on the other hand, Madrid finally agreed to

56 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 56r. 57 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fols. 14r, 164r, 185r, 214r; Vol. 23, fols. 131r–133r; Vol. 24,

fols. 523r; 595r; Vol. 25, fol. 154r; Vol. 26, fol. 43r; Vol. 27, fols. 166r, 204r, 465r; Vol. 32, fol. 233r; Vol. 34, fol. 87r; Vol. 38, fol. 31r. 58 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fol. 54. 59 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 281r. 60 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 274r.

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appoint cardinal Pamphilj (the Pope’s grandson and one of Geronimo’s two regular correspondents) Archdeacon of Toledo.61 While the Spinola system tended to follow a regular route, it is less easy to determine the average duration of a dispatch between the Vatican and Madrid as several factors could intervene. Spinola mentions bad weather,62 lack of wind,63 and such “inevitable accidents” as the tearing of a sail, damage to the ship, or sickness among crew members as causing delays beyond his control.64 Nonetheless, the letters enable us to make approximate calculations for items sent from the Secretariat of State to the nunciature in Madrid. The quickest route between Rome and Genoa was by land and on average took six to seven days (through the Grand Duchy of Tuscany).65 After receiving the items, Geronimo could usually have them shipped within a few days.66 To reach the Spanish port of destination, it would take another eight to ten days (considerably less than the 39 days required over land)67 and, within the next four days, the items would arrive at the Madrid nunciature.68 Overall, then, a dispatch from the Vatican would take at least three weeks to reach Calle del Nuncio. In his letters, Geronimo also avows that the owners (patroni)69 of the ships in his service as well as their captains are highly trusted. He knew his men and their ships personally, and some of their names have come down to us. In a letter to cardinal Pamphilj (dated 12 August 1645), for example, Geronimo details the forthcoming departure of items for Madrid which, he specifies, would travel on the ship captained by Giovanni Battista da Michele, sailing from Genoa for Alicante on the 61 Osbat, ‘Clemente IX, papa’. 62 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 25, fol. 116r; Vol. 26, fols. 43r, 103r, 347r; Vol. 27, fol. 288r;

Vol. 28, fol. 12r; Vol. 32, fol. 575r. 63 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 26, fol. 239r. 64 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 185r; Vol. 21, fol. 29r. 65 Felloni, ‘Itinerari e tempi delle comunicazioni’, 112; Pastine, L’organizzazione postale

della Repubblica di Genova, 338; Codogno, Nuovo itinerario delle poste, 23, 40, 54–55. 66 Quite often on the following day itself. See, for example, his letter dated 23 September 1645, AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 121r. 67 Calcagno, ‘La Navigazione Convogliata a Genova’, 328. 68 Codogno, Nuovo itinerario delle poste, 272. 69 Felloni, ‘Itinerari e tempi delle comunicazioni’, 104. See also Luca Lo Basso, Capitani, corsari e armatori. I mestieri e le culture del mare dalla tratta degli schiavi a Garibaldi (Novi Ligure: Città del Silenzio, 2011).

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following Monday.70 Likewise, in May 1650, he noted that the ship which would be sailing would be the San Vincenzo, and in March 1653, he mentioned the San Nicolò (both sailing for Alicante).71 Letters by his son Filippo record shipments to Alicante on the Elefante (22 October 1650), the Mortora (16 December 1651), on a ship commanded by “Giustiniano” (16 October 1651), and on the galleon Dunkerque (13 December 1653).72 When Geronimo was directly in charge of a shipment, he would have all items travel on the same boat, although the same was not always guaranteed with dispatches from Madrid. Thus, a letter of his announces that he would be sending mail for Rospigliosi from his Genoa office to Savona on the following day where it would embark on a tartan about to leave for Spain. He also reports that the mail he had received from the Nuncio and his retinue had come partly by ship, the rest by felucca.73 An unusual occurrence is related in a letter of 19 December 1645 in which Geronimo says that mail from the Nuncio was delivered by ‘special’ courier. This agent, whose identity remained unspecified, embarked on the galley of the Constable of Castile on which the new Viceroy, Rodrigo Ponce de León, Duke of Arcos (former Viceroy of Valencia) was travelling to Naples.74 The agent had travelled on that warship only as far as the island of Mallorca, continuing from there to Genoa on a tartan. With Naples as his final destination, this same individual apparently was to deliver in person the parcels entrusted to him by Rospigliosi and bound for Rome. Geronimo could only certify their arrival in Genoa and announce a rather tortuous continuation of the journey, as the crew had told him their ship would first stop in Sardinia before the agent in question could reach Civitavecchia (and, from there, Rome).75 A similar occurrence is related by Geronimo in a letter dated 24 February 1652, informing the Vatican Secretariat of State that he had received two unannounced dispatches from the Madrid Nuncio by means of an unspecified

70 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 71 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 25, fol. 72 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 26, fol. 73 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol.

101r. 35r; Vol. 28, fol. 95r. 11 r; 347r, 434r; Vol. 28, fol. 327r. 105r.

74 Gaspare De Caro, ‘Arcos, Rodrigo Ponce de León duca d’’ in DBI, Vol. 4 (1962), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/rodrigo-ponce-de-leon-duca-d-arcos_ (Dizionario-Biografico)/. 75 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 255r-v.

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passenger. The latter, however, had reached Genoa on board the ship Geronimo had selected for his next shipment (i.e. on a ship that would soon be returning to Spain).76 In short, Geronimo was only fully in command of operations when it came to shipments originating from Rome, which he managed either personally and through agents of his—the Genoa Post Office couriers, the ship captains, ship owners, and crews he commissioned at each venture. Far more limited and often null was his control over shipments ordered by the Nuncio, whose arrangements were often extemporaneous and who sometimes fell back on the land route and on French ports, thereby jeopardising the confidentiality of his letters. On several occasions, Geronimo voiced his reservations, as in the instance of the several parcels he received from Madrid, via Marseilles or via Bayonne, in December 1652.77 In a letter to cardinal Pamphilj sent on 3 June 1645, Geronimo confirms receipt of the letter sealed in Rome on 27 May (to be forwarded to Madrid as part of the usual parcels), but also expresses his fears that three parcels from Spain had been tampered with. In spite of their having reached their destination (Rome), the parcels had neither been sorted by him, nor had they travelled by means of his couriers; in fact, against standard procedure, they had arrived directly at the Vatican without an accompanying letter issued by him. For reasons unspecified, the Nuncio Rospigliosi had availed the services of the standard French courier who, in turn, had adopted an unusual procedure, taking delivery of the parcels not in Lyon or in another French city, but from the owner of the boat on which they had initially travelled. Geronimo doubted this account of events and was instead convinced that the three parcels had travelled by land and had been opened at some stage as the outer envelope addressed to him had been removed. Lamenting the episode, he promised to identify and punish the culprits, but also felt that it was his duty to rebuke the Nuncio who ought to have followed the usual procedure, delivering the parcels only “in Valenza, et Alicante” and exclusively in the hands of the owner of the ship whose name had been given to him, as well as announcing his dispatch in a separate letter.78

76 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 27, fol. 79r. 77 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 27, fols. 469r, 475r. 78 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 4r-v.

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Use of the overland route, on the other hand, was not altogether ruled out but limited to special contingencies. On one occasion, Geronimo was initially forced to rely on the Posta di Spagna and an extraordinary courier for Naples with mail bound for Rome. However, he soon noticed that several parcels addressed to certain other recipients had in fact been tampered with. While he could ensure that the parcels for the Secretariat of State had been handled with the usual care and forwarded to Rome in a disguise envelope addressed to his agent Fabio Casciani (who managed the Genoa Post Office in Rome), he duly hastened to make the possible breach of security known to cardinal Panciroli.79 The land route was not wholly ruled out but remained a last resort (with the shortest, via Bayonne, being preferred) for such instances as when the sea was too rough for sailing.80 There were, then, a few occasions in which Geronimo had to simultaneously manage mail coming from Spain and from the Contado Venassino (for which the legate of Avignon used a special foot courier).81 Finally, on two occasions in August 1647, Geronimo chose to avail the services of special couriers to Madrid, who were men in the service of two eminent Spanish ministers in Italy—the Governor of Milan and the Duke of Arcos (then dealing with the revolt in Naples), thereby ostensibly ensuring an expedited and secure delivery.82 It is worth pointing out that before the Franco-Spanish War ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), it was not only France that was unsafe for couriers serving between Rome and Madrid, nor were the problems limited to their route. In the Monferrato region around Alessandria (which was part of Piedmont but bordered the Republic of Genoa), troops were constantly on the move, and postal interception was a common occurrence. Giannettino Giustiniani, representing the King of France in Genoa, frequently complained in his letters to Christine, Duchess of Savoy, that their post was too easily intercepted by the Spanish in the Monferrato (the first leg of the Genoa-Alessandria-Turin-LyonParis route and part of the Duchess’ domains). Giustiniani also opted for

79 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fol. 187r. On the Roman Post Office in Genoa, see Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della Repubblica di Genova, 321–328, 333–346. 80 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 24, fols. 484r, 575r; Vol. 25, fol. 47r; Vol. 27, fol. 216r. 81 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 560r, 622r. 82 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fols. 288r, 330r.

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the sea route whenever possible, using the ports of Savona or Nice.83 Further, during those years, Ferrante Pallavicino, a complex intellectual of libertine persuasions, began composing the most famous of his novels, the Corriero svaligiato (The robbed courier, written around 1640).84 This being the case, the sea route used by Spinola, on the whole, offered comparative security. Only two noteworthy accidents occurred, both of which took place during Geronimo’s last mandate and could in no way be imputed to negligence on his part. On 25 April 1650, he informed cardinal Panciroli that the entire contents of the previous shipment sent on 16 April had been loaded on to the Sansone sailing from Genoa to Alicante. Seventy-five miles along its route, the Sansone had been intercepted and pursued by six French vessels but managed to take cover at the fortress in Finale (then a Spanish outpost in Liguria) and had subsequently been escorted back to Genoa by two galleys from the Republic’s fleet. Besides, Geronimo had ensured that he had recovered all the letters for the Nuncio, still intact.85 A worse outcome was suffered by the San Giacomo and its entire crew, which included Geronimo’s courier. Having set sail from Genoa on 20 March 1653, the San Giacomo was captured by a French corsair between Mallorca and Formentera and forcibly escorted to Toulon. Geronimo’s courier tried everything in his power to persuade the corsair to hand back the Nuncio’s mail, offering gifts, promising donatives, and seeking the mediation of friends. He managed to ransom the letters and a couple of the larger parcels (the seals of which had been broken, however) but not the bulk of the dispatches. The corsair said that he intended to send them to the Paris court, which was bound to 83 ASTo, C, LM, G, 5, Giannettino Giustiniani to Christine Duchess of Savoy, 17 February 1657. Giannettino Giustiniani is the object of a forthcoming study based on archival research that provides further archival and bibliographic references. See Alessia Ceccarelli, ‘So long and tormenting is the silence: The great plague of Genoa in the letters of Giannettino Giustiniani to the Court of Turin (1656–59)’, EuroStudium3w 58 (1) (2022), 3–79, https://rosa.uniroma1.it/rosa01/eurostudium/article/view/2670. See also Barbara Marinelli, ‘Un corrispondente genovese di Mazzarino: Giannettino Giustiniani’, Quaderni di Storia e Letteratura, 7 (2000), http://www.quaderni.net/WebGianne ttino/1GIAN1a.htm. 84 Ferrante Pallavicino, Il corriero svaligiato con la Lettera dalla prigionia, ed. Armando Marchi (Parma: Università di Parma, 1984); Albert N. Mancini, ‘Stampa e censura ecclesiastica a Venezia: il caso del “Corriero svaligiato”’, Esperienze letterarie, 10 (4) (1985), 3–36; Mario Infelise, ‘Pallavicino, Ferrante’ in DBI, Vol. 80 (2014), https://www.treccani. it/enciclopedia/ferrante-pallavicino_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/. 85 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 24, fol. 626r.

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offer a higher price for them. Geronimo was thus forced to resort to the mediation of the French Nuncio.86 As a further precaution and with very few exceptions,87 Geronimo composed “in his own hand” the letters that accompanied the RomeMadrid mail (or announced its dispatch, or warned of any inconveniences or delays). Serving as a further layer of security for confidential messages, Geronimo’s letters and the ones of a similar nature that he received from the Nuncio and the Secretariat of State were an integral part of this system as a means of tracking the mail and controlling its integrity. None of these letters was ciphered because the object was to protect the information enclosed within the envelope, which formed the first and most important “level” of these exchanges. The system devised for political and diplomatic written communication, that is, was structured on three levels, two of which served as devices of control and security, namely: (1) the outer disguise envelope (coperta) inside which was placed the sealed letter from the Secretariat of State or the Nuncio (notably, these too were rarely ciphered); (2) the letters that accompanied the mail (and travelled with it) or were sent in advance to announce its arrival, sometimes warning of problems or delays (occurring en route).88 Some of these letters suggest that Geronimo (and later his son Filippo) could rely on a broad network of informers, foremost among which were the crews of other ships (the ones that from time to time might pass the ships bearing the contents of a given expedition).89 It has been noted that the system of using disguised envelopes with unciphered letters in itself indicates the high degree of trust that the senders placed in the postal system they relied on and should be taken, at least in the abstract, as suggesting a high level of secrecy.90 Outside

86 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 28, fol. 105r. Cf. Thomas W. Gallant, ‘ Brigandage, Piracy, Capitalism and State-Formation: Transnational Crime from a Historical World-Systems Perspective’ in State and Illegal Practices, ed. Josiah McC. Heyman (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1999), 25–62. 87 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fols. 518r, 523r; Vol. 26, fol. 241r; Vol. 28, fol. 95r. For the letters by Filippo Spinola not in his hand, see Vol. 27, fol. 241r; Vol. 34, fol. 485r. 88 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 28, fol. 22r. See Vol. 34, fol. 87r. 89 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 26, fol. 239r; Vol. 27, fol. 288r; Vol. 34, fol. 391r; SS, S, Vols. 95

and 99. 90 Cf. Infelise, ‘Sistemi di comunicazione e informazione manoscritta’, 15–35; Petitjean, L’intelligence des choses; Petitjean, ‘Gênes et le bon gouvernement de l’information’,

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of the Spinola system, we may note the instance of another professional in political communication from the ranks of the Genoese aristocracy— Giannettino Giustiniani, who was a key figure in one of the main pro-French Italian information networks also operating around that time, who also sent his letters to the Savoy Court, and who had letters regularly addressed to him from the Principality of Monaco, Milan, Venice, Mantua, Modena, Florence, and Rome, to mention the most significant. None of his letters was ciphered (even when they travelled by sea via Savona/Nice) but were enclosed in disguise envelopes addressed to the Postmaster of Turin whom Christine Duchess of Savoy, trusted absolutely.91 When we investigate this other network, it transpires that a large part of the information must clearly have come through the ship owners and crews and must have invariably been connected with what went on between the Principality of Monaco (subject to the ancient seignory of the Genoese Grimaldi family) and the Ligurian coasts and ports. On 10 March 1657, for instance, Giannettino could inform Christine of the feats accomplished by the Dutch squadron commanded by admiral De Ruyter between the coast of Liguria and Cap Corse.92 In July, he again reported on De Ruyter, who had raided numerous French ships off the coast of La Spezia, and noted that his fleet, composed of eight large warships, was still patrolling the stretch of sea off the port of La Spezia (the most important port of the Ligurian Riviera di Levante).93 On 5 May, instead, he had announced the imminent departure from the port

215–232; De Zanche, Tra Costantinopoli e Venezia; Patrizia Cremonini, ‘Segrete scritture estensi. Cifre, controcifre, lettere cifrate, cifristi e dezifratori tra XIV e XVIII secolo nell’Archivio di Stato di Modena’ in Cito Cito volans. Lettere di guerra, cifrari e corrispondenze segrete di Lucretia Estensis de Borgia, eds. Bruno Capaci and Patrizia Cremonini (Città di Castello: Emil, 2019), 99–191; Hugo André Flores Fernandes Araújo, ‘Secrecy, war, and communication: challenges and strategies of the General-Government of the State of Brazil in the second half of the seventeenth century’ in this volume. 91 Ceccarelli, ‘So long and tormenting is the silence’. Cf. Georges Dethan, ‘Mazarin et Gênes in Rapporti Genova-Mediterraneo-Atlantico nell’età moderna’, Atti del I congresso internazionale di studi storici, Genova, 31 marzo-3 aprile 1982, ed. Raffaele Belvederi (Genova: Università di Genova, 1983), 165–173. 92 ASTo, C, LM, G, 5, Giannettino Giustiniani to Christine, Duchess of Savoy, 10 March 1657. 93 ASTo, C, LM, G, 5, Giannettino Giustiniani to Christine, Duchess of Savoy, 7 July 1657.

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of Genoa of ships headed for Malaga and Alicante and the passage of the English fleet, commanded by admiral Black, off the coast of Liguria.94 We cannot rule out that the Madrid network (to which Geronimo and Filippo Spinola were attached) and the Paris-Turin network (to which Giustiniani was attached) did in fact share some points of contact despite being notionally conflicting rivals. We do know that Giannettino Giustiniani was well acquainted with the Spinolas, citing them frequently in his own letters, and was even more intimately acquainted with the Genoese postal service couriers. In fact, he spoke highly of both—a fact which is unsurprising given that over several decades, he entrusted dozens of letters each week to the Genoese (as well as French) postal service.95

Geronimo and Filippo as Intermediaries Between the Republic of Genoa and the Roman Curia: the Port of Civitavecchia Experiment (1652) Save for a very small number of requests for additional favours and rewards, Geronimo’s letters seldom deal with anything but the sending and reception of mail. However, in the summer of 1645, he did ask for one of his sons, preferably Filippo or Giovanni Battista, to be put in charge of the Abbey of San Bartolomeo del Fossato.96 A few months later, he petitioned Innocent X to obtain the bishopric of Noli for his brother-in-law, Francesco Maria Spinola (son of Andalò),97 and in June 1647, in addition to renewing this same request, he asked for benefits and pensions for his five children, all of whom, he wrote, were most devoted to the Holy Church. With each request, he would always bring up his excellent services to the papacy, and to the Pamphilj and the nunciature in Madrid in particular, all of which he had rendered with “good fortune, loyalty, and diligence”.98 In a similar vein, he informed the Vatican Secretariat of State of the death of his uncle, Ludovico Spinola, who had also

94 ASTo, C, LM, G, 5, Giannettino Giustiniani to Christine, Duchess of Savoy, 5 May 1657. On the death of Robert Black (1598–1657) in August of that year, see Effemeridi politiche, letterarie, e religiose, Vol. 8 (Verona: Società Tipografica Editrice, 1823), 144. 95 Ceccarelli, ‘So long and tormenting is the silence’. 96 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 15, fol. 104r. 97 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 19, fol. 41r-v. See Vol. 25, fol. 116r. 98 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fol. 196r-v.

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been one of the Pope’s loyal servants.99 Subsequently, in his later letters, Geronimo eventually started complaining of poor health and began laying the ground for his succession by his son Filippo. Filippo began assisting him in the summer of 1650 and frequently stood in for his father when he was unwell,100 before taking over as Postmaster General at the end of 1655.101 By and large, over the period that ran from the autumn of 1648 to his last letter on 26 May 1653,102 Geronimo’s personal correspondence with the Secretariat of State became less and less frequent, and there was even an interval (between August 1648 and the winter of 1649) during which Giovanni Battista Sauli took over from Geronimo Spinola as Postmaster General for Genoa and became, for that time, the Pope’s interlocutor.103 Nonetheless, in December 1649, Geronimo obtained his final mandate as Corriere maggiore of the Republic of Genoa, of which he presently informed the Pope.104 The Pope and his court must have leant heavily on the Genoese to secure his re-election, as partly indicated by their response to the news of Giovanni Battista Sauli’s takeover. That Sauli’s succession after Spinola had not been to the liking of the Curia is something that we can infer from the urgent summoning in October 1648 of the Genoese ambassador in Rome by cardinal Panciroli, head of the Secretariat of State, to remonstrate on behalf of the Pope.105 The following autumn, a thorough search of the Rome branch of the Genoa Post Office 99 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 26, fol. 377r. On Ludovico Spinola, see Battilana, Genealogie delle

famiglie nobili, Spinola, table 12. 100 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 21, fol. 236r; Vol. 23, fol. 166r; Vol. 24, fol. 398. In several letters, Filippo mentions his father’s ill health. On 23 July 1650, for instance, he wrote to cardinal Panciroli saying his father was in bed with a fever (Vol. 25, fol. 237r); a few days later, he wrote that his father had retired to the countryside in order to recover (fol. 257r). See also fol. 262r; Vol. 26, fols. 140r, 309r. 101 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 29, fol. 208r. 102 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 28, fol. 176r. 103 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 23, fol. 131r; Vol. 24, fols. 371, 386r–387r, 398r, 410r; ASGe,

AS, LM, 2359, Lazzaro Maria Doria to the Government, 27 July 1651. 104 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 24, fol. 371r. 105 ASGe, AS, LM, 2357, Cattaneo Cattaneo to the Government, 3 October 1648:

“This morning I was summoned by Sig. Cardinale Panciroli, who gravely deplored, on behalf and order of His Holiness of the lately introduced innovation of a new Postmaster general”. See also ASGe, AS, LM, 2357, Letter of 17 October 1648; Giovanni Battista Lasagna to the Government, 27 March 1649.

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was ordered as a further measure. The Genoese ambassador, Giovanni Battista Lasagna (who, significantly in this instance, wrote a ciphered message to report back to his government) condemned such an open interference with “matters of State” as “unprecedented” and a “very grave turn”.106 The incidents were indicative of the state of tension affecting the relations of the Genoese government with the court of Innocent X,107 which largely stemmed from jurisdictional disputes, and its international relations at large as its alliance with Spain came to a crisis, and France sought to impose a protectorate on the entire region of Liguria.108 From the point of view of Geronimo’s personal interests, however, the situation enhanced the strategic role played by his office. Genoese diplomats (and those appointed to Rome especially) came to depend on his speciali servizi. Lazzaro Maria Doria, for instance, had no other option at times but to refer to his own government through Geronimo and send his dispatches sometimes in sotto coperta (that is, in envelopes addressed to Geronimo) and sometimes by sea (via Civitavecchia).109 In 1652, after a full outbreak of plague had occurred in Sardinia,110 reports of suspected cases of plague along the Tyrrhenian coast persuaded the Genoese government (whose interest in Geronimo’s postal system was growing)111 to entrust its post to Geronimo along the Genoa-Rome route, not just for the sake of protecting the privacy of its exchanges, but also because the Grand Duke of Tuscany had banned couriers from

106 ASGe, AS, LM, 2357, Giovanni Battista Lasagna to the Government, 27 November 1649; 2358, 13 March 1650. 107 Bitossi, Il governo dei magnifici, 267–268. 108 Carlo Bitossi, ‘Il granello di sabbia e i piatti della bilancia. Note sulla politica

genovese nella crisi del sistema imperiale ispano-asburgico, 1640–1660’ in Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica (1528–1713), Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, LI/CXXVI, eds. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef Garfia, Carlo Bitossi, and Dino Puncuh (2011), 495–526. 109 ASGe, AS, LM, 2359, Lazzaro Maria Doria to the Government, 27 July 1651; 2360, Letters of 19 September and 22 November 1652. 110 ASGe, AS, LM, 2361, The Government to Lazzaro Maria Doria, Genoa, 20 December 1652. Cf. Alessia Ceccarelli, ‘Rome, 1656–57: The Plague Recounted by Genoese Diplomacy’, EuroStudium3w, 57 (2) (2021), 27–76, https://rosa.uniroma1.it/ rosa01/eurostudium/article/view/2409. 111 ASGe, AS, LM, 2357, Giovanni Battista Lasagna to the Government, 27 March

1649.

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traversing his domains to help contain the spread of the plague.112 Thus, in the summer of 1652, Geronimo and Filippo Spinola had to extend their sea route between the Spanish ports and Genoa to reach Civitavecchia (the most important of the Tyrrhenian coast sea ports within the papal domains) in order to ensure the continuity of the postal service from and to Rome. For this stretch, too, the Spinolas employed couriers travelling on armed feluccas.113 As soon as the Tuscan land borders reopened the following autumn, however, the sea route between Civitavecchia and Genoa once again became secondary. We learn from the letters that during the short time in which it was operated, it had frequently caused frictions between the Spinolas and Genoese representatives in the Papal States. Geronimo and Filippo, the complaints went, were reticent in their reports to them and made a show of excessive zeal in their adoption of sanitary measures against the plague. These dignitaries accused them of refusing to take charge of certain shipments and of burning the packing cases that had passed through high-risk areas or had been handled by quarantined agents.114 Egidio De Rossi, Genoese consul at Civitavecchia, further complained that the papal authorities had prevented certain couriers from boarding and that the Spinolas were behind on payments to certain couriers.115 The impression we get from the documents is that the Spinolas conspired with the papal authorities to boycott the GenoaCivitavecchia sea route as soon as an alternative was again viable. We may surmise that that route proved to be an excessive burden and posed problems of a logistical, political, and financial nature, and that the Spinolas elected to give priority to the main segment between Genoa and Spain.116 As far as the latter route is concerned, in the years leading up to the great plague of Naples, Rome, and Genoa (1656–57)—which is to say, in the seven years it took the plague to travel by stages from North Africa 112 ASGe, AS, LM, 2361, R, The Government to Lazzaro Maria Doria, Genoa, 28 July 1652. 113 ASGe, AS, LM, 2360, R, Lazzaro Maria Doria to the Government, 26 July and 3 August 1652; 2361, The Government to Lazzaro Maria Doria, Genoa, 23 July 1652. 114 ASGe, AS, LM, 2360, R, Lazzaro Maria Doria to the Government, 13 July and 4 August 1652. 115 ASGe, AS, LM, 2360, R, Egidio De Rossi to the Government, Civitavecchia, 4 and 30 August 1652. 116 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 27, fol. 290r.

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to the Italian peninsula—there is no evidence that the need for sanitary measures was taken seriously enough.117 On 11 January 1648, for instance, as the plague broke out in Valencia, Geronimo wrote to cardinal Panciroli to lament that the ship with a consignment in his charge had been forced to stop at Marseilles and that the local port authorities had ordered his couriers to soak the parcels in vinegar, a fact which he found greatly regrettable.118 In the midst of the great plague at Genoa, Filippo Spinola was also known to apologise for disruptions to the service, such as when he was obliged to correspond through some other agent to get around the tight quarantine restrictions he had been placed under after a barber he had patronised had died of the plague.119 These attitudes betray complex interactions between sets of priorities since in this part of the world, throughout the modern age and almost without interruption, the plague continued to be a fact of life with which people had to come to terms and which even lent itself to strategic political ends, from the enforcement of raison d’état to securing privacy in communication. This is clearly illustrated in Giannettino Giustiniani’s letters to the Turin court120 as much as in the letter of 25 August 1652 addressed by the Genoese Collegi to their representative at the Papal court, Lazzaro Maria Doria on the subject of the Civitavecchia-Genoa leg of the postal route. The Collegi informed Doria of a grave breach of privacy occurring at Sarzana, on the eastern border of the Republic, at the expense of the Spanish ambassador in Genoa. The ambassador had sent his secretary to Sarzana to meet the courier bearing his post from Rome. The sanitary measures put into effect by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany prevented couriers from reaching Genoa by land. Mail travelling by land (and not along the newly inaugurated sea route to and from Civitavecchia) had to be exchanged between couriers at the border between states and fumigated. In this instance, some of the seals had broken, or

117 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 32, fol. 404r. Giovanni Assereto, “Per la comune salvezza dal morbo contagioso”. I controlli di sanità nella Repubblica di Genova (Novi Ligure: Città del silenzio, 2011); Ceccarelli, ‘The Plague Recounted’, 27–76. 118 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fol. 14r. 119 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 34, fol. 533r. 120 Within the framework of the secrecy of news travelling over land in times of plague,

the connections between plague, health systems, and postal interception are the subject of my essay ‘So long and tormenting is the silence’. The study provides an extensive survey of primary sources on the subject.

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had been broken, in the course of the operation; letters got mixed up, some were lost, and some of the letters conveyed sensitive information to the King of Spain. The ambassador’s secretary complained of the damage brought against the king, forcing the Genoese government to promise that it would take the greatest care to recover the lost letters and punish the culprits.121 Lamentably, not much else is known about the incident. The Spanish ambassador’s reasons for persisting with the land route at that junction are not known, nor do we learn of the identity of the presumed culprits charged with the theft of and damage done to these letters. We do know that the investigation extended to some of the Genoese postal service officials, one of whom was imprisoned, and that Geronimo Spinola was forced to write a letter of protest on his behalf in November 1652.122

Filippo Spinola (1653–58) and His Successors (1658–67): Demise and End of the System The Spinola system continued to operate until October 1658123 at the service of a new Pope (now Alexander VII Chigi), Secretary of State (Giulio Rospigliosi, formerly Nuncio in Spain) and the Nuncio in Madrid (Camillo Massimo, 1654–58, who was to replace Rospigliosi after the brief nunciature of Francesco Caetani, 1652–53).124 The Roman Curia was certainly pleased it could count on Filippo as successor to Geronimo and made a show of appreciating his services through small gifts (in the form of small crates of fruit or chocolate) which occasionally came to him from Rome or the Madrid nunciature.125 A little over 200 letters from Filippo to the Vatican Secretariat of State survive, the first 50 or so of which refer to the period in which Filippo was 121 ASGe, AS, 2360, LM, R, the Government to Lazzaro Maria Doria, Genoa, 25 August 1652. 122 ASGe, AS, 2360, LM, R, Lazzaro Maria Doria to the Government, 22 November

1652. 123 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 37, fol. 457r. 124 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 29, fols. 10r, 12r, 14r–15r, 20r, 26r–27r, 35r, 37r, 39r, 49r,

74r, 76r, 84r, 86r, 92r, 102r, 108r; Vol. 32, fols. 376r, 489r. See Osbat, ‘Clemente IX, papa’; Claudia Terribile, ‘Massimo, Carlo Camillo’ in DBI, Vol. 72 (2008), https://www. treccani.it/enciclopedia/carlo-camillo-massimo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 125 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 36, fol. 53r.

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assisting or replacing his ailing father (that is, from 1650 to 1653). On the whole, they are indicative of his efforts to keep the system in place, though some clear differences emerge: Filippo was less specific about the procedures, means, and the shipping agents and crews involved.126 Nonetheless, we learn of the two great challenges he faced due to the crisis in Genoese relations with Spain in 1654 (relating to the loans which the Monarquía had yet failed to pay back)127 and a new outbreak of the plague in 1656, which affected Rome very seriously and Liguria even more gravely.128 On 25 January 1657, Filippo had to write to Flavio Chigi (the Pope’s nephew, soon to be created cardinal) to apologise for his delay in replying and the disarray of his office. All of his employees had died of plague, he wrote.129 The combination of these factors gradually entailed a more frequent recourse to the land route between 1653 and 1658 and a shortening of the sea route to the port of Barcelona instead of Valencia and Alicante.130 The route between Barcelona and the Madrid nunciature was, furthermore, largely covered by a corriere straordinario 131 and entirely managed, not by the Spinolas, but by Catalan agents, of which Pablo Lleopart was soon to emerge as the foremost.132 The red genovesa, in short, was falling apart, as Filippo acknowledged in his letter of 15 March 1655, remarking 126 See AAV, SS, P, Vol. 29, fol. 10r. 127 Carlo Bitossi, ‘Lo strano caso dell’antispagnolismo genovese’ in Alle origini di

una nazione. Antispagnolismo e identità italiana, ed. Aurelio Musi (Milano: Guerini, 2003), 163–200; Manuel Herrero Sánchez, ‘La quiebra del sistema hispano-genovés’ (1627–1700), Hispania, 65 (219) (2005), 115–151; Thomas A. Kirk, ‘La crisi del 1654 come indicatore del nuovo equilibrio mediterraneo’ in Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica, (1528–1713), Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, LI/CXXV-I, eds. Manuel Herrero Sánchez, Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef Garfia, Carlo Bitossi, and Dino Puncuh (2011), 527– 538; Carlo Bitossi, ‘“Il piccolo sempre soccombe al grande”. La Repubblica di Genova tra Francia e Spagna’ in Il bombardamento di Genova nel 1684, Atti della giornata di studio nel III centenario, Genova, 21 giugno 1984 (Genova: La Quercia, 1988), 39–69. 128 Assereto, “Per la comune salvezza dal morbo contagioso”. 129 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 36, fol. 17r. 130 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 32, fol. 248r, 344r, 514r; Vol. 34, fols. 3r, 87r, 272r, 435r; Vol.

36, fols. 213r; Vol. 37, fols. 93r, 106r, 127r, 294r, 315r, 366r; Vol. 38, fol. 31r. 131 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 39, fol. 319r. 132 Lleopart was sometimes assisted by his brother Gerónimo and by their cousin Jaime

Costados. See AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fol. 113r; Vol. 39, fol. 491r. Pablo Lleopart’s letters to the Vatican Secretariat of State are numerous and comprise all the volumes for 38 to 46.

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that he could no longer ensure safe and dependable shipping (spedizioni certe) from and to Spain. Nevertheless, several more consignments were made (through special or fiduciary couriers) both on land and by sea,133 but the system became progressively slow and uncertain, combining transportation by sea and land. Quite crucially, the Spanish nunciature began to operate its dispatches from Madrid to Genoa with complete autonomy. In December 1653, for instance, Filippo received four dispatches from the Nuncio which he described as “very old” (molto vecchi)—so old, in fact, that he doubted whether they could still be of use and whether there would be any point in forwarding them to Rome.134 On 28 September 1658, Filippo notified the Vatican Secretariat of State that Giacomo Maria Salvago (1658–1659) would be taking over as Postmaster General of Genoa the following week.135 That spelt not only the end of his tenure but also of the Spinola system in general which had been set up as an answer to concerns that were also about to be removed. The signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in November 1659 put an end to the Franco-Spanish conflict (the last to remain open following the Westphalia agreements). Rome, quite simply, was in far less need of exchanging intelligence with Madrid. All the same, the Genoa-Barcelona sea route did not fall into disuse until 1667. Filippo Spinola was succeeded by Giacomo Maria Salvago136 who was succeeded by Luca Panesi (1659–1663),137 although another Spinola subsequently followed—Francesco Maria Spinola Cibo (1664– 1667).138 From the time of Salvago’s short mandate, we have a letter dated 6 January 1659 recording a shipment to Madrid via an unspecified Spanish port, from which we understand that the system of convoy navigation was still in use. It also appears that the courier was expressly appointed in this case (boarding ship at Genoa with instructions to deliver the dispatches in the hands of the Nuncio).139 During Panesi’s mandate,

133 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 29, fols. 26r–27r. 134 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 28, fol. 319r. 135 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 37, fol. 442r. 136 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 7r. 137 AAV, SS, P, Vols. 38–43. 138 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 43, fols. 7r ff. Several of Francesco Maria’s later letters are included

in volumes 44–46. 139 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 7r.

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instead, differences broke out with Pablo Lleopart when the latter failed to refund some travel expenses.140 Panesi strained his relations with the Roman Curia by continually pleading for benefices to be awarded to his son Giuseppe (then only twelve years old) and to his brother-in-law, Angelo Delle Piane.141 It is not surprising, then, that breaches of privacy became more frequent and serious, with several occurring at sea. In a letter dated 27 May 1662, for instance, Panesi reports that the disguise envelope that bore his address had been torn away by the crew who were protesting against low pay. He also wrote that the owner of the command ship he had commissioned in Barcelona refused to hand over part of the mail to him at the instigation of Pablo Lleopart. In order to obtain those letters, Panesi was considering requesting the intervention of the Genoa magistrates.142 By Panesi’s time, the system became definitively erratic, with arrangements typically made on the spot. His letters are concise and formulaic.143 Although the sea route was still the one preferred by the Roman Curia,144 it proved ever more impractical or involved recruiting from a wider circle of men and vessels. Alongside the feluccas, much smaller, unarmed merchant boats were used (balacche, sacherie) and these often set sail individually, coasting between Genoa and Barcelona via Marseilles.145 It could, further, take Panesi up to seven or ten days before a ship was found to which he could entrust mail for the Spanish nunciature.146 While warships were still occasionally employed, these seldom belonged to the Republic.147 More frequently, they were units from the Neapolitan, Sicilian, Sardinian, or Spanish squadrons,148 equipped and 140 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 40, fol. 305r. 141 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 159r, 543r, 589r, 606r-v, 635r; Vol. 39, fol. 46r, 143r;

Vol. 40, fol. 151r, 268r, 299r; Vol. 41, fol. 452r. 142 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 41, fol. 249r. 143 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 40, fol. 234r. 144 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 231r, 385r; Vol. 40, fol. 353r. 145 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 52r, 64r, 109r, 219r, 345r, 411r, 484r, 506r, 517r, 534r,

561r, 564r, 589r; Vol. 39, fols. 58r, 167r–168r, 90r, 182r, 312r, 319r, 478r, 507r, 529r, 574r; Vol. 40, fols. 15r, 256r, 266r, 515r; Vol. 41, fols. 7r, 76r, 100r, 184r, 206r, 225r. 146 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 408r, 411r; Vol. 40, fol. 256r. 147 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fol. 303r; Vol. 39, fol. 252r. 148 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 318r, 330r; Vol. 39, fols. 170r; Vol. 40, fol. 330r; Vol.

41, fols. 250r, 349r.

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manned with minimum direct involvement of the Genoese.149 Only rarely had Geronimo and Filippo Spinola used such ships, their reason being that (as Filippo wrote in a letter) their crews were not to be trusted.150 The intellectual Andrea Spinola had also reasoned against their use along similar lines.151 It is apparent that the efficiency of a postal system such as the one devised by Geronimo Spinola was the outcome of a combination of factors, not least of which was the professionalism and loyalty of everyone involved (agents, couriers, ship owners, captains, crew, and informers). Under Geronimo and his son, these men were all Genoese and all, in some degree, linked with the Spinolas. As this element of personal commitment gave way, the system collapsed. An episode of the plague, a corsair raid, an armed conflict, or a temporary political crisis, on the other hand, had never represented an insurmountable problem because they did not amount to a structural failure.152

Conclusions: News and Intelligence as Commodities Researchers with an interest in communication networks in Mediterranean Europe will agree on the significance of the shipping system run by the Spinolas along the Iberian route. Between the 1640s and 1660s, this maritime waterway was at the centre of conspicuous military, commercial, and political concerns and continued to be so irrespective of the decline of Spanish influence and the deterioration of Spanish relations

149 Pacini, Desde Rosas a Gaeta, 269; Benoît Maréchaux, ‘Los asentistas de galeras genoveses y la articulación naval de un imperio policéntrico (siglos XVI–XVII)’, Hispania. Revista española de historia, 80 (264) (2020), 47–77. See also Maurice Aymard, ‘Chiourmes et galères dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle’ in Il Mediterraneo nella seconda metà del ‘500 alla luce di Lepanto, ed. Gino Benzoni (Firenze: L. S. Olschki, 1974), 71–91. 150 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 32, fol. 489r. 151 BUG, ms. B.VIII.27, Galee forastiere. 152 See also Michel Fontenay, La Méditerranée entre la Croix et le Croissant. Navigation, commerce, course et piraterie (XVI e –XIX e siècle) (Paris: Garnier, 2010); Jan Glete, La guerra sul mare 1500–1650 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010).

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with the Genoese Republic.153 With specific reference to the particular trade with which the Spinolas were involved, their shipping system lends support to the observation by Richard W. Unger that “the impression that northern European states were more willing and able to use their powers to protect shipping may well be false. Mediterranean maritime republics and states also mobilised naval forces and organised convoys to protect shipping”.154 Without discounting the setbacks they inevitably had to face, the Spinolas put in place effective measures to secure the secrecy of news exchanges, and it is in this sense that we refer to it as a system: it was, indeed, an elaborate system which involved a remarkably high number of agents and vessels in order to ensure frequent and regular shipping even throughout the winter months. Their couriers and crews were claimed as—and proved to be—loyal and committed individuals who would even subject themselves to exacting negotiations with corsairs so as to recover sensitive postal items looted in a raid. The know-how that the Spinolas shared in and could put to use came from the great Genoese tradition of maritime enterprise, in itself a notable chapter in the history of sea ventures.155 More importantly, the particular history of the Mediterranean (ostensibly a small sea, but of such dense and intricate history as to

153 Cf. Catia Brilli, ‘Coping with Iberian Monopolies: Genoese Trade Networks and Formal Institutions in Spain and Portugal during the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, European Review of History, 3 (2016), 456–485. 154 Richard W. Unger, ‘Overview: Trades, Ports and Ships: The Roots of Difference in Sailors’ Lives’ in Law, Labour and Empire Comparative Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500–1800, eds. Maria Fusaro, Bernard Allaire, Richard J. Blakemore, and Tijl Vanneste (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 4. 155 BUG, mss. B.VIII.26, Corso, e corseggiare; B.VIII.27, Marineria; Gabriella Airaldi, ‘Marinai, etnie e società nel Mediterraneo medievale. Il caso di Genova’ in Le genti del Mare Mediterraneo, Vol. I , eds. Rosalba Ragosta and Luigi de Rosa (Napoli: Pironti, 1981), 59–85; Antonio Musarra, Medioevo marinaro: prendere il mare nell’Italia medievale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2021); Guerre et commerce en Méditerranée IX e –XX e siècles, ed. Michel Vergé-Franceschi (Paris: Veyrier, 1991); Mutazioni e permanenze nella storia navale del Mediterraneo, secc. XVI–XIX, Annali di storia militare europea, Vol. 2, eds. Guido Candiani and Luca Lo Basso (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2010); Lo Basso, ‘Evoluzione delle marine da guerra’, 215–235; Emiliano Beri, ‘“Per la difesa delli bastimenti nazionali”. Genova e la protezione degli spazi marittimi in età moderna (XVI–XVIII sec.)’ in La polizia nelle strade e nelle acque navigabili. Dalla sicurezza alla regolazione del traffico, ed. Livio Antonielli (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2018), 161–178.

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have been rightly identified as “the great sea”)156 is a history of systems of knowledge and techniques, not least those relating to the domains of mediation and communication, transmitted and refined through the ages.157 The Genoese postal system thus had its peculiarities which set it apart even from the other republics in Mediterranean Europe. In Venice, for instance, the magistracies enjoyed far greater authority in matters pertaining to the postal service—an opinion shared by both historians and contemporary observers. In comparison with its Venetian counterpart, the office of Postmaster General in Genoa had features more indicative of a private enterprise, affording its holder greater autonomy and creating the conditions in which the secrecy of news could be traded for personal gain. On this very issue, Andrea Spinola’s Dizionario has an entry comparing the Genoese courier system with the Venetian, the tenor of which is that only the Venetian was so structured as to guarantee the full confidentiality of classified political information to those in government, with the Genoese system lagging far behind.158 Unlike the former Postmaster General, Vincenzo De Marini, who actually betrayed the Republic, Geronimo Spinola seems not to have ever attracted suspicions of political disloyalty from any side. On the other hand, it transpires that Geronimo did offer (at least occasionally) his company’s special services to individuals whose political affiliations were doubtful. Thus, for instance, we have the case of Luca Assarino, a Ligurian intellectual and gazetteer suspected of taking part in the 156 David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Cf. Rethinking the Mediterranean, ed. William V. Harris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 157 For an essential frame of reference out of the vast bibliography on the subject, see Petitjean, L’intelligence des choses; Petitjean, ‘Gênes et le bon gouvernement de l’information’, 215–232; Francesca Trivellato, Il commercio interculturale. La diaspora sefardita, Livorno e i traffici globali in età moderna (Roma: Viella, 2016); Braudel, ‘Note sull’economia del Mediterraneo’, 117–142; Salvatore Bono, ‘Sulla storia della regione mediterranea’, Mediterranea, 2 (2005), 409–418; Henry Kahane, Renée Kahane, and Andreas Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958); Monique O’Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Rapporti diplomatici e scambi commerciali nel Mediterraneo moderno, Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Fisciano, 23–24 ottobre 2002, ed. Mirella Mafrici (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004). 158 BUG, ms. B.VIII.25, Corrieri.

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Vachero conspiracy of 1628 and whose sympathies lay with the Savoy court in Turin. Writing to the government of Piedmont in 1638, Assarino asked that letters to him be sent under a cover envelope addressed “to Postmaster Geronimo Spinola”.159 In the first half of the seventeenth century, Genoa was, that is, a flourishing marketplace of news, with the Avvisi, the Novellari, and later, the Gazzette issuing from there and travelling to the major Italian courts where they enjoyed wide circulation through the involvement of the chief postal systems.160 The first gazette to be printed in Italy came out in Genoa from the press of Pier Giovanni Calenzani in July 1639. As Roberto Beccaria and others have noted, it was the early beginning of journalism as we know it and hinged on a close collaboration between gazetteers and postal couriers, particularly the standard couriers of Rome, Lyon, and Paris and the special couriers of Paris and Madrid, whose regular transits through Genoa made it possible to obtain news that was reliable and very up-to-date. The readership was typically made up of diplomats, public officials, high prelates, and merchants.161 There was an agreement, in fact, between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Genoese Postmasters, which specifically mentioned the regular delivery of gazettes.162 At that early point in the modern age, couriers effectively became masters of the news commodity, and their monopoly meant that they could make gains equally from securing the confidentiality of news exchanges or from breaching that confidentiality (as those were always two sides of the same coin).163

159 Gaudenzio Claretta, Sui principali storici piemontesi e particolarmente sugli storiografi della R. Casa di Savoia. Memorie storiche, letterarie e biografiche (Torino: G.B. Paravia, 1878), 165. See also Alberto Asor Rosa, ‘Assarino, Luca’ in DBI, Vol. 4 (1962), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/luca-assarino_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 160 Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 63–65. 161 Beccaria, ‘Giornali e periodici nella Repubblica Aristocratica’, 452–454. See also

BUG, B.VIII.27, Nuove, e novellarij; Giuseppe Gangemi, ‘Castelli, Michele’ in DBI, Vol. 21 (1978), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/michele-castelli_%28Dizionario-Biografic o%29/; Infelise, ‘Roman Avvisi’, 212; Infelise, Prima dei giornali, 85–115; de Vivo, ‘How to Read Venetian “Relazioni”’, 25–59; Maria Maira Niri, La tipografia a Genova e in Liguria nel XVII secolo (Firenze: L. S. Olschki, 1998). 162 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 40, fol. 298r. 163 Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 44–65; Pettegree, The invention of

News, 52–78; de Vivo, Patrizi, informatori, barbieri, 56–89; Iordanou, Venice’s Secret Service, 43–107.

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Even assuming that Geronimo and Filippo were loyal to both their patrons (the government of the Republic and the Pope) and that they guarded the secrecy of their respective postal exchanges with equal diligence, several questions remain unanswered. We do not know, first of all, what knowledge the Genoese authorities had of the workings of the Spinola system (for instance, of the frequency of their shipping, of the means and personnel involved) although, as we have seen, the Republic’s flagship was sometimes used for Spinola’s operations. Another question pertains to the person(s) materially entrusted with the mail. Spinola, for obvious reasons, never disclosed their names, though his letters enable us to make certain guesses. Sometimes, the person entrusted with the mail seems to have been the shipowner. Usually, the trusted agent was one of his own couriers,164 though he could also be a crewman or some other unnamed man in his service (huomo particolare, huomo proprio)165 whose actual mission would not have been known to his fellow travellers. Besides, the use of a huomo proprio et secreto—one who operated incognito—was an established practice within Genoese diplomacy,166 and we also have records of several instances in which the Vatican Secretariat of State ordered the use of a special trusted courier (variously qualified as huomo a posta, pedone a posta, or persona espressa) when the land route was the only route available.167 The names of these individuals have mostly not come down to us, with very few exceptions relating to the Genoa-Rome land route which was largely run by ordinary couriers such as Lazzaro Pareto and Paolo Campi.168 It is only inevitable that, acting in the joint capacity of “chief courier” of the Republic and “special messenger” of the Pope, Geronimo and Filippo should sooner or later have met with a conflict of interest. We glean indirect evidence of such potential conflict from the later objections made by the Roman Curia to the appointment of Giovanni Battista Sauli as Postmaster General. The problem, as Andrea Spinola had observed,

164 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fol. 14r; Vol. 26, fols. 34r, 221r, 340r, 344r; Vol. 27, fols. 207r, 284r, 465r; Vol. 28, fol. 176r; Vol. 32, fol. 344r. 165 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 22, fol. 105r; Vol. 27, fols. 74r, 288r. 166 ASGe, AS, 2169, LM, C, De Franchi and Grillo to the Government, 26 October

1558. 167 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 26, fol. 325r; Vol. 27, fol. 117r, 469r;Vol. 34, fol. 73r. 168 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 32, fols. 427r, 508r.

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was common to all states, but not always in equal measure. In comparison with the Venetian postal system (regarded as the most efficient in the world), there is no doubt that the Genoese system lagged behind or was at least less well-regulated, particularly with regard to the regulatory powers conferred to the civil authorities. While Genoa had issued a comprehensive postal law in 1581, the situation in the first half of the seventeenth century was still such as to make Andrea Spinola suggest that it was best to have “closed one’s eyes”.169 Postmaster Generals of Genoa were at greater liberty to act on their own initiative than their Venetian counterparts, especially in their dealings with the Spanish monarchy which exercised a protectorate over Genoa, and with the papacy which was traditionally Genoa’s main interlocutor among Italian potentates. It is precisely this rather loose-knit system of political relations and postal regulations that ensured the prosperity and effectiveness of the Spinola system. Regarded from the angle of its political authorities, this system revealed an inherent weakness in the postal system of the Republic. Moreover, from the point of view of its originator and managers (Geronimo, his family, and his agents) as well as of those who benefited most from it (the Holy See), the Spinola system was an efficient and well-organised system, leveraging Geronimo’s familial and commercial connections and his personal know-how.170 Procuring such large numbers of men and, above all, vessels in a timely manner, over the course of so many years, and under varying climatic and political conditions, was far from simple. When Geronimo mentions the occurrence of delays in his letters (mostly without giving further details), we must assume, given the specific reference to the sea route between Liguria and the Spanish ports, that

169 BUG, ms. B.VIII.28, Posta. See also Pastine, L’organizzazione postale della

Repubblica di Genova, 99; de Vivo, Patrizi, informatori, barbieri, 30–109; Petitjean, L’intelligence des choses; Infelise, Prima dei giornali; De Zanche, Tra Costantinopoli e Venezia; Preto, I servizi segreti di Venezia; Iordanou, Venice’s Secret Service, 35, 98, 207; Adriano Cattani, Storia delle comunicazioni postali nella Repubblica di Venezia (Padova: Elzeviro, 2018); Dursteler, ‘Power and Information’, 601–623; Caizzi, Dalla posta dei re alla posta di tutti, 14–19, 65, 71, 79–81, 107, 163, 214–216; Pettegree, The invention of News, 41–80. 170 See Giorgio Doria, Conoscenza del mercato e sistema informativo. Il know-how, dei mercanti finanzieri genovesi, nei secoli XVI e XVII , in La Repubblica internazionale del denaro tra XV e XVII secolo, eds. Aldo De Maddalena and Hermann Kellenbenz (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 57–122.

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they were not only due to bad weather or accidents that took place during the stage of outfitting the ship or its crossing (thus involving crew, the vessels themselves, and their cargo), nor to the endemic problem of corsairs. More to the point, these vessels crossed waters that were also the scene of naval skirmishes between French and Spanish fleets.171 The transition of the Principality of Monaco (which was presided over by the Grimaldis, a Genoese family) from Spanish to French protectorate between 1633 and 1641 was one such critical period.172 Other disturbances arose with the insurrection of Catalonia from 1640 to 1643 and the repeated incursions of the French fleet between 1646 and 1648 into the Spanish State of the Presidi which particularly affected the Civitavecchia-Genoa sea route (an obvious reason for it being rarely used under the Spinola system). Until the time of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in November 1659, fire was indeed occasionally exchanged along the sea routes, as documented in a letter sent by Filippo Spinola to cardinal Chigi in October 1655. In this letter, he accounts for the delay in two prior shipments to Madrid. In one instance, the mail had been travelling on the galley of the Duke of Tursi (command ship of the Genoese squadron), which had been forced to change its course back to Liguria, taking refuge at the port of Vado due to bad weather. In the second instance, however, their ship (unnamed in the letter) had been caught in the crossfire between units of the Spanish Armada and French ships off the coast of Catalonia. After four hours of gunfire and the sinking of a French fireship, the dark of night came to stifle the battle. Once again, the mail directed to the Nuncio had come out unharmed.173 The stretch of sea off the Ligurian coast and the Mediterranean at large were crossed by Dutch and English fleets as well as those of the French and Spanish, and this international presence, motivated by various 171 On the usual route taken by Genoese fleets in those decades, and later under the orders of the Magistrate of the Nuovo Armamento (from about 1655 onwards), see Calcagno, ‘La Navigazione Convogliata a Genova’, 267–269, 285. See also Odegaard, ‘Convoys and Companies’, 63–84. 172 Schiaffino, ‘Memorie di Genova’, year 1634, 11; year 1639, 1; year 1641, 37, 70, 73; year 1642, 25, 42, 71; year 1646, 49; year 1647, 47; Carlo Errera, Piero Baroncelli, and Vito Vitale, ‘Monaco, Principato di’ in Enciclopedia Italiana G. Treccani (1934), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/principato-di-monaco_%28Enciclopedia-Ita liana%29/1934. 173 AAV, SS, P, Vol. 32, fol. 489r.

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interests, was a permanent fixture in that broad, densely populated, and busy scenario.174 Within that setting, Genoa held a geopolitical position of high profile in the mid-seventeenth century despite the demise of the Spanish system. Genoa was also central to the key communication networks and particularly to the postal system at large, political and diplomatic relations, and espionage. These networks probably shared nodes of commonality far more numerous than is now possible to document from surviving archival resources. Nonetheless, many Genoese citizens had careers as informers of sorts (officially acting as magistrates, postal couriers, diplomats and/or spies, men of letters, and gazetteers), gathering, mobilising, and occasionally buying and selling news of enormous political relevance, and the conveyance of this news involved, a lot of the time, a voyage by sea.

Primary Sources Archivio Apostolico Vaticano Segreteria di Stato—Particolari (AAV, SS, P) Letters from Pier Francesco De Marini to cardinals Caffarelli Borghese/ Aldobrandini, Vol.: -9, fols. 68r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 17 September 1616), 78r (to cardinal Aldobrandini, Genoa, 17 December 1616), 90r (to cardinal Aldobrandini, Genoa, 2 decenne 1616), 102r (to cardinal Aldobrandini, Genoa, 27 December 1617), 104r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 7 January 1617), 106r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 14 January 1617), 108r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 21 January 1617), 112r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 17 January 1617), 114r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 24 January 1617), 116r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 28 January 1617), 142r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 8 June 1617), 146r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 16 May 1617), 173r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 30 June 1617), 175r (to cardinal 174 Molly Greene, ‘Beyond the Northern Invasion: The Mediterranean in the Seventeenth Century’, Past and Present, 174 (2002), 42–73; Alexander H. De Groot, The Netherlands and Turkey: Four Hundred Years of Political, Economical, Social and Cultural Relations (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2008); Marie-Christine Engels, Merchants, Interlopers, Seamen and Corsairs: The ‘Flemish’ Community in Livorno and Genoa (1615–1635) (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1997); Cees Reijner, ‘Il mito dell’Olanda. Politiek en geschiedschrijving in vroegmodern Italië’, Incontri. Rivista europea di studi italiani, 30 (2) (2015), 41–55. Cf. Onorato Pastine, ‘Cromwell, Mazzarino e la nobiltà genovese’, Genova, 30 (9) (1953), 30–35; Onorato Pastine, ‘Genova e Inghilterra da Cromwell a Carlo II’, Rivista storica italiana, 46 (3) (1954), 309–347; Edoardo Grendi, ‘Gli inglesi a Genova (secoli XVII–XVIII)’, Quaderni storici, 115 (XXXIX–1) (2004), 241–278.

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Borghese, Genoa, 1 July 1617), 177r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 3 July 1617), 189r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 5 July 1617), 197r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 10 July 1617), 203r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 15 July 1617), 217r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 22 July 1617), 225r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 28 July 1617), 229r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 30 July 1617), 235r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 3 March 1617), 245r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 15 March 1617), 249r (to cardinal Borghese, Genoa, 17 March 1617). AAV, SS, P, Letters from Geronimo Spinola to cardinals Panciroli/Pamphilj/to Innocent X, Vols: -15, fols. 4r-v (to cardinal Pamphilj, 3 June 1645), 12r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 23 June 1645), 55r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 22 July 1645), 56r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 25 July 1645), 101r, (to cardinal Pamphilij, 12 August 1645), 104r (to card. Panciroli, 24 August 1645), 105r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 26 August 1645), 121r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 23 September 1645), 164r (to cardinal Panciroli, 7 October 1645), 185r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 4 November 1645), 255r-v (to cardinal Pamphilij, 19 December 1645), 274r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 30 December 1645), 281r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 6 January 1646), 518r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 14 July 1646), 523r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 21 July 1646), 560r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 8 September 1646), 622r (to cardinal Pamphilij, 22 September 1646); -19, fols. 41r-v (petition to Innocent X, 9 December 1645); -21, fols. 29r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 26 January 1647), 54r (to cardinal Panciroli, 9 February 1647), 187r (to cardinal Panciroli, 18 May 1647), 196r-v (to Panciroli, 1 June 1647), 187r (to cardinal Panciroli, 18 May 1647), 236r (to Panciroli, s.d.), 288r (to cardinal Panciroli, 3 August 1647), 330r (to cardinal Panciroli, 17 August 1647); -22, fols. 14r (to cardinal Panciroli, 11 January 1648), 34r (to cardinal Panciroli, 18 January 1648), 105r (to cardinal Panciroli, 8 February 1648), 164r (to cardinal Panciroli, 1 March 1648), 185r (to cardinal Panciroli, 16 March 1648), 214r (to cardinal Panciroli, 28 March 1648), 237r (to cardinal Panciroli, 6 April 1648), 362r (to cardinal Panciroli, 23 May 1648), 418r419r (to cardinal Panciroli, 13 June 1648), 469r-470r (to cardinal Panciroli, 27 July 1648); -23, fols. 131r-133r (to cardinal Panciroli, 1 August 1648), 166r (to cardinal Panciroli, 8 August 1648); -24, fols. 371r (to cardinal Panciroli, 18 November 1649), 386r-387r (to cardinal Panciroli, 25 November 1649), 398r (to cardinal Panciroli, 9 January 1650), 410r (to cardinal Panciroli, 15 January 1650), 484r (to cardinal Panciroli, 18 February 1650), 575r (to cardinal Panciroli, 26 March 1650), 626r (to cardinal Panciroli, 25 April 1650);

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-25, fols. 31r (to cardinal Panciroli, 7 May 1650), 35r (to cardinal Panciroli, 16 May 1650), 47r (to cardinal Panciroli, 21 May 1650), 106r (to cardinal Panciroli, 11 June 1650), 116r (to cardinal Panciroli, 18 June 1650); -26, fols. 43r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 19 November 1650), 64r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 6 December 1650), 103r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 7 January 1651), 184r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 25 March 1651), 214r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 29 April 1651), 221r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 13 May 1651), 239r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 27 May 1651), 241r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 10 June 1651), 302r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 19 August 1651), 380r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 11 November 1651), 405r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 18 April 1651), 434r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 16 December 1651); -27, fols. 50r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 3 February 1652), 74r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 26 February 1652), 79r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 24 February 1652), 117r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 9 March 1652), 207r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 27 April 1652), 216r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 11 May 1652), 241r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 31 May 1652), 284r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 6 July 1652), 288r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 13 July 1652), 417r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 26 September 1652), 465r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 7 December 1652), 469r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 16 December 1652), 475r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 29 December 1652); -28, fols. 12r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 25 January 1653), 22r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 1 February 1653), 95r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 22 March 1653), 105r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 29 March 1653), 176r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 26 May 1653), 186r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 7 June 1653). AAV, SS, P, Letters from Filippo Spinola to cardinals Pamphilj/Chigi/Rospigliosi (cardinal from 9 April 1657)/the Secretariat of State, Vols.: -25, fols. 237r (to cardinal Panciroli, 23 July 1650), 257r (to cardinal Panciroli, 29 July 1650), 262r (to cardinal Panciroli, 6 August 1650); -26, fols. 11r (to cardinal Panciroli, 22 October 1650), 116r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 28 January 1651), 140r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 4 February 1651), 309r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 26 August 1651), 325r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 2 September 1651), 340r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 30 September 1651), 344r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 7 October 1651), 347r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 16 October 1651), 366r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 21 October 1651), 377r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 6 November 1651); -27, fols. 290r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 17 August 1652), 380r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 21 September 1652); -28, fols. 319r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 6 December 1653), 327r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 13 December 1653); -29, fols. 10r (to cardinal Pamphilj, 31 January 1655), 12r (to cardinal Chigi, 21 February 1655), 14r-15r (to cardinal Chigi, 28 February 1655), 20r (to cardinal Chigi, 7 March 1655), 26r (to cardinal Chigi, 15 March 1655), 27r (to cardinal Chigi, March 1655), 35r (to cardinal Chigi, April 1655), 37r

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(to cardinal Chigi, April 1655), 39r (to cardinal Chigi, April 1655), 49r (to cardinal Chigi, April 1655), 74r (to cardinal Chigi, 2 May 1655), 76r (to cardinal Chigi, 9 May 1655), 84r (to cardinal Chigi, 16 May 1655), 86r (to cardinal Chigi, 30 May 1655), 92r (to cardinal Chigi, 13 June 1655), 102r (to cardinal Chigi, 17 June 1655), 208r (to cardinal Chigi, 5 December 1655); -32, fols. 160r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 12 June 1655), 196r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 26 June 1655), 248r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 10 July 1655), 344r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 7 August 1655), 376r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 28 August 1655), 404r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 6 September 1655), 427r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 18 September 1655), 442r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 25 September 1655), 489r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 16 October 1655), 508r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 23 October 1655), 514r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 30 October 1655), 575r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 27 November 1655), 611r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 18 December 1655); -34, fols. 3r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 1 January 1656), 73r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 19 February 1656), 87r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 26 February 1656), 272r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 6 June 1656), 391r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 5 August 1656), 435r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 11 September 1656), 485r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 4 November 1656), 533r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 18 November 1656); -36, fols. 17r (to cardinal Chigi, 25 January 1657), 53r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 25 February 1657), 95r (to cardinal Rospigliosi, 22 April 1657), 213r (to cardinal Chigi, 16 September 1657); -37, fols. 93r (to cardinal Chigi, 9 March 1658), 106r (to cardinal Chigi, 26 March 1658), 127r (to cardinal Chigi, 4 April 1658), 258r (to cardinal Chigi, 16 June 1658), 294r (to cardinal Chigi, 13 July 1658), 315r (to cardinal Chigi, 20 July 1658), 366r (to cardinal Chigi, 26 August 1658), 442r (to cardinal Chigi, 28 September 1658), 457r (to cardinal Chigi, 5 October 1658); -38, fol. 31r (to cardinal Chigi, 18 January 1659). AAV, SS, P, Letters from Luca Panesi to cardinal Chigi, Vols.: -38, fols. 52r (to cardinal Chigi, 1 February 1659), 64r (to cardinal Chigi, 8 February 1659), 109r (to cardinal Chigi, 8 March 1659), 159r (to cardinal Chigi, 29 March, 1659), 219r (to cardinal Chigi, 3 May 1659), 231r (to cardinal Chigi, 10 May 1659), 303r (to cardinal Chigi, 13 June 1659), 318r (to cardinal Chigi, 21 June 1659), 330r (to cardinal Chigi, 28 June 1659), 385r (to cardinal Chigi, 9 July 1659), 408r (to cardinal Chigi, 23 August 1659), 411r (to cardinal Chigi, 30 August 1659), 484r (to cardinal Chigi, 11 October 1659), 506r (to cardinal Chigi, 18 October 1659), 517r (to cardinal Chigi, 25 October 1659), 534r (to cardinal Chigi, 8 November 1659), 543r (to cardinal Chigi, 11 October 1659), 589r (to cardinal Chigi, 6 December

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1659), 606r-v (to cardinal Chigi, 13 December 1659), 635r (to cardinal Chigi, 1 December 1659), 564r (to cardinal Chigi, 22 November 1659), 589r (to cardinal Chigi, 6 December 1659); -39, fols. 46r (to cardinal Chigi, 31 January 1660), 58r (to cardinal Chigi, 7 February 1660), 90r (to cardinal Chigi, 6 March 1660), 143r (to cardinal Chigi, 3 April 1660), 312r (to cardinal Chigi, 10 July 1660), 529r (to cardinal Chigi, 27 November 1660), 574r (to cardinal Chigi, 18 November 1660); -40, fols. 256r (to cardinal Chigi, 5 June 1661), 15r (to cardinal Chigi, 22 January 1661), 151r (to cardinal Chigi, 2 April 1661), 234r (to cardinal Chigi, 16 May 1661), 256r (to cardinal Chigi, 5 June 1661), 266r (to cardinal Chigi, 10 June 1661), 268r (to cardinal Chigi, 12 June 1661), 298r (to cardinal Chigi, 2 July 1661), 299r (to cardinal Chigi, 2 July 1661), 305r (to cardinal Chigi, 9 July 1661), 330r (to cardinal Chigi, 26 July 1661), 353r (to cardinal Chigi, 13 June 1661), 515r (to cardinal Chigi, 31 December 1661); -41, fols. 7r (to cardinal Chigi, 7 January 1662), 100r (to cardinal Chigi, 25 February 1662), 184r (to cardinal Chigi, 14 March 1662), 206r (to cardinal Chigi, 22 April 1662), 225r (to cardinal Chigi, 6 May 1662), 249r (to cardinal Chigi, 27 May 1662), 452r (to cardinal Chigi, 14 October 1662); -43, fol. 10 (to cardinal Chigi, 12 January 1664). AAV, SS, P, Letters from Pablo Lleopart to cardinal Chigi, Vols.: -38, fols. 561r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 18 November 1659), 345r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 16 July 1659), 446r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 13 September 1659); -39, fols. 167r-168r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 15 April 1660), 170r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 17 April 1660); 182r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 28 April 1660), 252r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 4 June 1660), 319r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 21 July 1660), 478r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 23 October 1660), 491r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 4 November 1660), 507r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 16 September 1660); -40, fols. 16r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 22 January 1661), 289r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 28 June 1661); -41, fols. 76r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 6 February 1662), 250r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 28 May 1662), 349r (to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 11 August 1662); -42; 43. AAV, SS, P, Vol. 38, fols. 7r (Giacomo Maria Salvago to cardinal Chigi, Genoa, 6 January 1659); 113r (Jaime Costados to cardinal Chigi, Barcelona, 10 March 1659). AAV, SS, P, Letters from Francesco Maria Spinola Cibo to cardinal Chigi, Vols.: -43, fol. 7r (Genoa, 5 January 1664); -44–46. Segreteria di Stato –, Spagna (S)

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CHAPTER 10

A Very Secret Intelligence: The Parallel Espionage of the Republic of Genoa in the State of the Presìdi Diego Pizzorno

Introduction: Some Historiographical Links There are only a few studies on the secret services of the Republic of Genoa, primarily because the documentation produced by the State Inquisitors has been largely lost1 and also due to the serious historiographical gaps on the institutions of the Genoese State.2 This is, therefore, a field of research that is difficult to explore, unless alternative sources 1 Diego Pizzorno, ‘La cura del “serviggio pubblico”. Gli Inquisitori di Stato a Genova: il percorso ordinario di una magistratura straordinaria’ in Per una ricognizione degli “stati d’eccezione”. Emergenze, ordine pubblico e apparati di polizia in Europa: le esperienze nazionali (secc. XVII–XX) (Rubbettino: Soveria Mannelli, 2015), 177–188. 2 Only scant information can be found in a brief and summary work by Giovanni Forcheri. See Forcheri, Doge, governatori, procuratori, consigli e magistrati della Repubblica di Genova (Genova: Tipografia Tredici, 1968).

D. Pizzorno (B) Ministero Dell’Istruzione E Della Ricerca, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_10

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are used to compensate for the paucity of documentation, and wellsupported hypotheses are used to draw conclusions. For these reasons, this chapter is necessarily of a conjectural nature. Nonetheless, such a conjectural analysis can be defended on the grounds that, while it affords a broader perspective to research, the disputes which such a study inevitably raises also contribute to furthering the dynamic historiographical debates, without which the study of the past can never be complete. Historiographical study often mandates the adoption of methodologies which revolve around the simple but fundamental premise that the past does not ‘see’ the present, it does not ‘prepare’ for it. Destruction, accidental loss, as well as desired concealment of sources means that the past often leaves very faint traces of itself, a fact which greatly affects research and compels scholarly study to take on a hypothetical dimension. In this regard, it is helpful to bear in mind the injunction forwarded by Heidegger in Holzwege,3 where he advised that hidden research paths should be followed with courage, good luck and the strength of one’s personal convictions. The Holzwege—the tracks off the beaten path—can be a good starting point to question and discard the uncritical acceptance of historiographical positions. In the case of this particular study, the most influential position has usually been to accept at face value the fact that the Republic of Genoa was a protectorate of the Spanish Crown. This position was pioneered by Claudio Costantini, who wrote that the alliance between Genoa and Madrid limited the sovereignty of the Republic, forcing its oligarchy to perform sacrifices that did not depend on free choice.4 Costantini’s examination follows that of Elena Fasano Guarini, who defined the Republic of Genoa as a satellite state of the Spanish Crown.5 A more moderate but no less explicit stance was taken by Manuel Herrero Sánchez who wrote that Genoese freedom was guaranteed by the fact that the Republic reserved its ports exclusively for the Spanish forces,

3 Martin Heidegger, Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1950). Nolte has offered an insightful analysis of Heidegger’s reflections on history. See Ernst Nolte, Martin Heidegger: Politik und Geschichte im Leben und Denken (Berlin, Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen, 1992). 4 Claudio Costantini, ed., La Repubblica di Genova nell’età moderna (Torino: UTET, 1978), 52–53. 5 Elena Fasano Guarini, Repubbliche e principi: istituzioni e pratiche di potere nella Toscana granducale del ‘500–‘600 (Bologna: il Mulino, 2010), 228.

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that its businessmen and galley contractors offered their services only to the Spanish emperor, and that the ambassador of the Catholic king was the only recognised diplomat in Genoa.6 Nonetheless, the question of the Spanish protectorate is a multifaceted one, and it is more appropriate to talk about the relationship between the Spanish Crown and the Genoese Republic as a symbiotic one. The so-called Siglo de los genoveses has by now become a historiographical bulwark, astutely described by Giovanni Assereto, who spoke of a process of rhetorical celebration of Genoese glories in the modern age which was very similar to the stereotype of the Genoese merchant and conqueror of the medieval period.7 This rhetoric stems from the fact that the vast majority of historians emphasise the financial ties between the Spanish Crown and the Genoese bankers8 who took advantage of the continuous need of the Catholic sovereigns for money to enrich themselves. In fact, perhaps the relationship between the two should be characterised as parasitosis rather than symbiosis. Moreover, even if it is true that the Genoese financiers could successfully interfere in state matters, they could not subvert the condition of political, diplomatic and military subordination of the Republic of Genoa. After all, Genoa’s integration into the Spanish imperial system was dictated by the power of Madrid, which, during the seventeenth century, guaranteed the best military protection for a state with weak military forces (such as the Republic of Genoa). In short, the question of Hispano-Genoese symbiosis seems to belong to the field of negationism, something which can operate in any historical context precisely because it is based on unwavering prejudices matured in the shadow of the lack of incontrovertible evidence, of accurate documentary traces.9 Moreover, it is significant that there has never been a debate on the periodisation of the Siglo de los genoveses which had always followed a

6 Manuel Herrero Sánchez, ‘La Finanza genovese e il sistema imperiale spagnolo’, Rivista di storia finanziaria 19 (2007), 31. 7 Giovanni Assereto, ‘Il ceto dirigente genovese e la sua “diversità”’ in Ceti dirigenti municipali in Italia e in Europa in età moderna e contemporanea (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2003), 83. 8 On this issue, historiography is very extensive. For a representative example, see the pioneering work on Charles V and his bankers by Ramon Carande, ed., Carlos V y sus banqueros (Madrid: Sociedad de estudios y publicaciones, 1967). 9 Francesco Germinario, ‘Negazionismo, antisemitismo, rimozionismo’ in Razzismo, antisemitismo, negazionismo, ed. G. D’Amico (Asti: ISRAT, 2007), 65–78.

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trend governed by the strong interferences of the Spanish Crown. In 1522, imperial troops sacked Genoa, paving the way for Andrea Doria’s coup of 1528 that placed the Republic in the system of powers ruled by Charles V. About two decades later, the failed pro-French coup of Gian Luigi Fieschi complicated the synergies between Genoa and the Spanish Crown, thereby raising doubt about the stability of the oligarchic Republic. Foiled by any risk of direct domination of Madrid, Genoa then found itself involved in the Thirty Years’ War. This great European conflict led Philip III and Philip IV to tighten their surveillance of Genoa so that it could remain within the sphere of Spanish influence. Embroiled in the War of Succession of Mantua and Montferrat,10 Genoa faced a Franco-Savoy invasion which was only resolved thanks to Spanish military intervention.11 As already mentioned, military protection was one of the conditions of the protectorate as well as a feature of Spanish diplomacy, which tried to resolve the disagreements between the Republic and the Duchy of Savoy amid numerous difficulties. Madrid found itself somehow having to forge strategic alliances with the Savoy State, which weakened the international position of the Republic.12 At the same time, the Genoese oligarchy began to express doubts about this ostensibly symbiotic relationship that mostly served the interests of Madrid.13 In this context, espionage began to play an increasingly important role.

Institutional and Non-Institutional Structures of Espionage: The Problem of the State of the Presìdi The existence of a non-institutional Genoese intelligence service emerges from the activity of some agents linked to the different governments of the Republic. For the activities of one of these agents—a certain Speroni—some evidence can be found in a letter sent by the Prince of 10 Romolo Quazza, La guerra per la successione di Mantova e del Monferrato (1628– 1631) (Mantova: Mondovì, 1926). 11 Giorgio Casanova, La Liguria centro-occidentale e l’invasione franco-piemontese del 1625 (Genova: E.R.G.A. 1983). 12 Romolo Quazza, Genova, Savoia e Spagna dopo la congiura del Vachero (Bene Vagienna: Tipografia F. Vissio, 1930). 13 Carlo Bitossi, Il governo dei magnifici: patriziato e politica a Genova fra Cinque e Seicento (Genova: ECIG 1990), 189–250.

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Massa, Carlo I Cybo-Malaspina to the Genoese government at the end of 1631. The Cybo-Malaspina belonged to the ancient Genoese aristocracy from which they had not detached themselves due to the importance of maintaining good relations with Genoa in order to strengthen the international position of their small state.14 In addition, Carlo I had married a Genoese noblewoman, Brigida Spinola who had helped him raise a large family in Genoa, including the future Prince Alberico and the future Cardinal Alderano. These connections help to explain why the Cybo-Malaspina family would be involved in the parallel intelligence of the Republic of Genoa, at least starting from that missive sent by Carlo I in 1631. The letter seems to have little content, being an expression of the Prince’s satisfaction on the good progress of the establishment of peace between the Republic and the Duke of Savoy.15 However, on the margins of that missive, the Prince of Massa added in small handwriting a brief annotation that can be translated as “the spur’s affair is solved”.16 This mysterious information appears difficult to understand. However, given that there were no particular spurs made in Massa and that this was a correspondence between two states, it was clearly a political affair in which monetary issues could have entered. The “chonto” referred to in the letter could have indicated a salary provided by Carlo I behind the guarantee of the Genoese oligarch-bankers. An agreement around a man who, six years later, will make his appearance among the papers of the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani, a well-known rich patron who, on the occasion, carried out diplomatic tasks in Rome, where he resided. In 1637, Vincenzo Giustiniani begged the Genoese government to help a certain “Speron de Massa” [sic] because something was going against the interests of the Republic and its bankers.17 Genoa hastened to send an agent to Talamone, as had been annotated on the side of the same letter by Giustiniani.

14 For details about the family and about Carlo I, see Leone Tettoni and Francesco Saladini, La famiglia Cibo e Cybo Malaspina (Massa: Aedes muratoriana, 1997). 15 Archivio di Stato di Massa, from now on, ASMS, Archivio ducale, Negozi dello Stato e della Casa, 121. 16 In the missive, the annotation in the original Italian reads: “l’affare dello sperone resta agiutato lo chonto”. 17 Archivio di Stato di Genova, from now on, ASGE, Archivio segreto, Lettere Ministri Roma, 2351.

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Talamone was part of the so-called Presìdi, a state that extended from Argentario to the island of Elba. Philip II of Spain had created it in order to secure control of sea routes in the upper Tyrrhenian Sea.18 Presìdi was an intermediate stopover that was also a military garrison used to prevent a possible defection of Genoa from the Spanish area of influence.19 Boats stopped in the State of the Presìdi for food, but only in case of extreme need, given that those areas were often marshy and were consequently very often short of food. More frequently, ships stopped in those places due to weather conditions or if there was a threat of attack by Barbary corsairs—two occasions frequently exploited by the Spanish as opportunities for espionage.

The Activity of the Genoese Parallel Espionage in the State of the Presìdi The so-called Speron di Massa was a Genoese agent, as can be seen in a report read in the Genoese Senate in 1636 (a few months before all references to him disappeared from the archival documentation that has been possible to consult so far). The report of 1636 dwelled on several topics—the chronic unrest caused by bandits in Genoa, observations on the Genoese fortifications, a mention of the League of Rivoli, which was the first sign of rebellion against the Pax Hispanica in Italy.20 In addition to this, there is the report of a certain Jacobus Speroni, qualified as a Genoese citizen21 who was appointed on a Genoese boat carrying grains for the Papal Annona that was blocked by the Spanish in the State of the Presìdi, perhaps for meagre payment or with vague promises of future payments that probably would not have been made. This problem had already occurred in 1634 when another Genoese ship bound for Civitavecchia with a cargo of wheat had been stopped in Porto Longone, 18 On the State of the Presìdi, see Simone Martinelli, ‘I Presìdi spagnoli di Toscana: un’intuizione strategica di Filippo II per la difesa del Mediterraneo’, Le Carte e la Storia, 1 (2006), 162–178; Arturo Pacini, Desde Rosas a Gaeta: la costruzione della rotta spagnola nel Mediterraneo occidentale nel secolo XVI (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2013). 19 Antonio D’Onofrio, ‘I Presìdi di Toscana: forme di lunga durata e mutamenti in un piccolo spazio (1557–1801)’, Mediterranea-Ricerche Storiche, 16 (45) (2019), 41. 20 Salvatore Foà, Il trattato di Rivoli (11 luglio 1635) (Bene Vagienna: Tip. F. Vissio, 1931). 21 ASGE, Senato, 1063.

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another place in the Presìdi, on the grounds that there were several corsairs out at sea. It is difficult to say whether these were mere pretexts or genuine reasons, but such stops certainly harmed those Genoese who had made a career in Rome, very often thanks to their ability to bring grain during the famine. Already appointed as Prefect of the Roman Annona during the detention of the Genoese boat in 1634, the Genoese Cardinal Stefano Durazzo had sent a strong protest to Genoa by means of a leaflet attached to a dispatch in the hands of the diplomat Giovanni Battista Lasagna.22 Durazzo explained that, according to news brought by a man from the State of the Presìdi, the Spanish had seized a part of the shipment of grain for no reason. Therefore, it was necessary to act as quickly as possible. A few months before Durazzo’s protest, the Prince of Massa, Carlo I CyboMalaspina had warned the Genoese government that a man linked to the Republic of Genoa had left the port of Viareggio due to a sentence,23 probably leaving as a galley slave. Of course, it is possible that he was a simple bandit wanted by the Republic and arrested in the domains of Massa. However, the fact that this was more-than-usual attention than that typically given to a bandit, together with the fact that the man was not indicated by name and surname as was usually done, seems to suggest that he was a Genoese spy—the same man of whom Cardinal Durazzo had spoken. After all, the Genoese government had noted in the letter of the Prince of Massa that it was necessary to send a man of trust to the State of the Presìdi in order to obtain news about “grains and other robes of our own”.24 Considering his activities in the State of the Presìdi, the “Speron de Massa” was the best agent the Genoese oligarchy could rely on. A few weeks later, in a silk crate from Messina, which had arrived at the port of Genoa, the State Inquisitors had discovered an anonymous message with no date or place. The writer reported that the Spanish had found a way to provide for the State of the Presìdi by plundering the ships that passed through it, which is why he considered it appropriate to support the “French spirit” in Genoa.25

22 ASGE, Archivio segreto, Lettere Ministri Roma, 2350. 23 ASMS, Archivio ducale, 275. 24 In the document, the original reads: “granaglie et altre robe nostre”. 25 ASGE, Senato, 1045.

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Once the anonymous writing had been discovered, the Genoese Inquisitors arrested a certain Cristoforo Ruffo, who had been seen prowling around the silk crates from Messina. It is very probable that Ruffo was linked to Speroni and to the Genoese government, given that the State Inquisitors had immediately questioned Giovanni Stefano Speroni and Pietro Battista Speroni, who had entered the Genoese nobility in 1620.26 We do not know whether these Speroni were relatives of Giacomo Speroni, the so-called Speron de Massa, nor whether they were aware of that espionage activity. Nonetheless, considering that the Speroni family had never before entered the Genoese aristocracy, their recent ennobling sounds like a sign of recognition for their participation in the Genoese parallel espionage. Unless this was the case, it would not explain why the Genoese government hastened to cover up the investigation, immediately setting Ruffo free. However, the Genoese Inquisitors must have known Ruffo’s activity well, as suggested by the almost surgical search of those silk bales from Messina—a discovery very difficult to regard as a random case. In short, the Inquisitors must have obtained confidential information, thanks either to one of their agents or following a blow to Spanish espionage, but it is very strange that they were not aware of the protections enjoyed by Speroni’s family. Taking the perspective of a historiographical Holzwege, as mentioned in the introduction, leads us to infer that the information on Ruffo had come from a Spanish source that the Genoese Inquisitors could not ignore precisely because of the protectorate of Madrid over Genoa. In any case, given the outcome of the investigation, it seems very possible that it was a sort of pantomime agreed either with the Genoese government or perhaps with a part of the Genoese oligarchy hostile towards Spanish political restrictions. However, it cannot be ruled out that the investigative dedication of the Inquisitors had depended on the proSpanish zeal of the oligarchs, who, at that time, were the upholders of that institutional structure.

26 ASGE, Archivio segreto, Nobilitatis, 2859B.

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The Concerns of the Spanish What is certain is that Cristoforo Ruffo was a spy of the Genoese parallel espionage who was much more reckless than Speroni. In fact, the Spanish authorities in Genoa had been monitoring him for some time. This justified the immediate intervention of the Genoese State Inquisitors in the matter of the paper found in the silk bale, irrespective of whether it was a staged event or a question of removing an information channel not aligned with the Spanish protectorate. Ruffo used to move between Genoa and Naples on Spanish convoys under the pretext of a false relationship with the Ruffo of Calabria.27 This situation turned his spy affair into a farce, even though it might have seemed that Ruffo would come in handy for the Spanish to take care of him rather than other agents like Speroni. We do not know when Ruffo began to circle the Tyrrhenian Sea, but a few weeks prior to the affair of the silk crates, the Spanish ambassador to Genoa, Francisco de Melo had denounced his shady movements to the Genoese government. On the subject of de Melo’s protest (which had not communicated anything about that dangerous spy story to Madrid, at least through official channels), we have a document drawn up by the Republic of Genoa.28 The writing (sent in copy to de Melo, as indicated in the margin of the same text) must have outraged the Spanish diplomat. In the document, far from taking Ruffo’s side, the Genoese government distanced itself from him, declaring itself not aware of his trafficking. However, despite their acknowledgement that he was an unreliable man, the Genoese oligarchs added that Ruffo was not a person harmful to the affairs of the Spanish Crown. After all, Ruffo had helped to bring down the conspiracy of Giulio Cesare Vachero in 1628 when he denounced several men involved in the conspiracy, including some members of his family. It is probable that, in those circumstances, Ruffo had simply wanted to save himself and the Genoese oligarchy 27 In 1630, the anonymous author wrote that “quel mentitor di Ruffo si dice parente de li Ruffo di Calabria et se ne gira su galere hispagnole pensando di farla franca”. The same writer added that “tra Napoli e Genova correva molta aqua e più anchora sono le orecchie longhe. Li spagnuoli sono furbi assai e non tolerano [sic] intrusi a bordo” (ASGE, Archivio segreto, Politicorum, 1653). 28 The document is called “In risposta alle lagnanze dell’ambasciator de Mello” (ASGE, Senato, 69).

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had deliberately forgotten his participation in the conspiracy in order to make use of his ability in the field of espionage. In fact, Ruffo appears among the documentation of the trials instituted upon Vachero’s failed coup, although there is no evidence of his cooperation with the Genoese government.29 However, already in 1630, three years before the protest of ambassador de Melo, an anonymous person had begged the Genoese oligarchy to watch over men like Cristoforo Ruffo who were considered dangerous for the security of the Republic. Ruffo was regarded as dangerous both for his anti-Spanish militancy and also because he moved around the city with thieves and bandits as his companions.30 Therefore, the Ruffo of the popular imagination had a following of bravi, which must have been guaranteed to him by some Genoese patrician hostile towards the Spanish protectorate—a man to whom the former conspirator had perhaps recommended an exchange of favours during the repression of Vachero’s conspiracy. It is particularly significant that, in the same anonymous sheet, the expression “male afecto” (a Genoese with anti-Spanish sentiments) was used. This term, in fact, appears in a very famous examination of Genoese patricians conducted by the same Spanish ambassador, de Melo in 1633.31 The anonymous author was, therefore, a man very close to Spanish circles who had evidently intended to issue a clear warning to the Genoese oligarchy which had probably ordered Ruffo to no longer embark on Spanish ships and to limit his operations to Genoa. Moreover, the discovery of a spy necessitated an exclusion from intelligence networks or at least a different use for that person—in fact, Ruffo will reappear a few years later in Genoa in the case of the leaflet intercepted by the State Inquisitors. After that, however, given its all-too-compromised position, the Genoese oligarchy had to do without him. From then onwards, there 29 The procedural files are in ASGE, Archivio segreto, Lesa Maestà, 2984, 2986. 30 The secret paper talks about “huomini di male afecto come Cristofaro Raffo [sic]

spargitor di menzogne contra spagnoli et sovvertitor della publica quiete, chiedendosi inoltre come fosse possibile «tolerar anchora che huomini di tal fatta [potessero] muovere con compagnia di ladroni et banditi” (ASGE, Archivio segreto, Secretorum, 1639 V). 31 The document drawn up by de Melo divided the Genoese patricians on the basis

of their fidelity or infidelity to the Spanish Crown (Archivo General de Simancas, Papeles de Estado, Génova, 3591). Bitossi rightly noted in the compilation of that document the signs of a serious tension in relations between Genoa and Madrid. See Carlo Bitossi, Oligarchi: otto studi sul ceto dirigente della Repubblica di Genova (Genova: Dipartimento di Storia moderna e Contemporanea, 1995), 53.

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was no further news about Ruffo. Perhaps his silence was bought with money or he was killed by someone—a relatively cheaper solution and far from challenging to implement.

Between Paris and Madrid: In the Service of Which Crown? An explanation of why there was no more news of Giacomo Speroni after 1637 is provided by the fact that the man began to be called the “Speron de Modena”. In a call made by the Republic of Genoa in 1638, an unspecified Speroni was listed among the ranks of second-class bandits. Subsequently, the Genoese oligarchy took emphatic steps to ensure his capture,32 as evidenced by a letter from the Duke of Modena, Francesco I d’Este in which he stated that Speroni was in the territory of his state.33 Again, this seems to be excessive attention given to a second-class bandit, especially considering the effectiveness of this kind of agreement between the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Modena of which there is ample evidence in the archival papers of the Genoese State.34 Indeed, given the fact that such particular attention was given only to first-class bandits, as well as the fact that despite the Duke’s letter, Speroni was not arrested, the implication seems to be that the Genoese oligarchy had shielded Speroni from possible Spanish reprisals and the ban was actually a farce. This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that in 1647, the Genoese cardinal Girolamo Grimaldi—who was to take part in the French offensive in the State of the Presìdi35 —will write to the Duke of Modena about a certain Giacomo Speroni at his service.36 Perhaps Speroni was in reality close to the French Crown, or maybe he no longer knew who he was serving.

32 ASGE, Archivio segreto, Grida e proclami, 1021. 33 Cf. a letter from the Genoese government to the Duke of Modena in February 1639

(ASGE, Archivio segreto, Lettere Principi alla Repubblica di Genova, 2787). 34 The documentary evidence of agreements made by the Genoese oligarchy with neighbouring states are numerous. For this period, see ASGE, Archivio segreto, Secretorum, 1564. 35 See Carlo Mangio, ‘L’assedio di Orbetello e l’occupazione di Porto Longone e di Piombino’ in Orbetello e i Presidios, ed. Anna Guarducci (Firenze: Centro editoriale toscano, 2000). 36 Archivio di Stato di Modena, from now on, ASMO, Archivio segreto estense, Cancelleria, Carteggi con principi esteri, 1381.

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During the years in which he had attended to the Presìdi, Speroni had distinguished himself for some manoeuvers so daring that it is very difficult not to think that he was a sort of lieutenant of the Genoese parallel espionage. It is possible that Speroni had some men at his service, perhaps even some Spanish who he had bribed or who had potentially doubleplayed their allegiances—like Speroni himself who, in 1632, had protested to the Vicar General of the Presìdi after taking part in a brawl with Spanish sailors and had nonetheless escaped without ending up in chains.37 This news had once again passed through Massa, but this time it had done so through Princess Brigida Spinola, who had reported to Genoa that Speroni had had a confrontation with some Spanish sailors, confident that he could find the support of some Spanish commander.38 These strange relationships of conflict without consequences suggest that Speroni had passed into the spy services of the Spanish. Indeed, at this point, Princess Spinola, who until that moment had spoken of Speroni, changed track and began to report on a certain Horatio who would have been “well-behaved”, not questioning the loyalty of the Republic of Genoa to the Spanish Crown but spreading the suspicion that many Genoese patricians were pursuing pro-French politics. Brigida Spinola probably used a fictitious name when mentioning “Horatio”, a fact which, paradoxically, seems to reinforce the belief that Speroni had not betrayed the Republic. Moreover, Princess Spinola added that “Horatio” had had to sacrifice part of his activities in order to obtain good news—the same sacrifices that Cristoforo Ruffo had also probably had to make, thereby condemning him to expulsion from the parallel secret services of the Republic. There is no documentary evidence—always a difficult proposition in matters of espionage—of counter-intelligence activities and betrayal dynamics. Besides, given that Ruffo was certainly more compromised in Genoa, it is likely that Speroni had sold Ruffo’s name to the Spanish espionage network so as to be able to continue his activity as a secret informant on behalf of the Republic of Genoa. Although it was an institution of the Republic, the State Inquisitors did not always adhere strictly to the logic of the Spanish protectorate, especially when a pro-French oligarch 37 See Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Consulte della Sommaria, XLI. 38 A copy of the letter, as further evidence of the centrality of the Este in those

manoeuvres, is in ASMO, Archivio segreto estense, Cancelleria, Carteggi con principi esteri, 1211.

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was elected. As in the case of Ruffo, whose activity was unmasked by an anonymous blow from the Spanish authorities, it is very likely that the Spanish counter-intelligence service used men who acted covertly. This was the real weak point of the unofficial intelligence network of the Republic of Genoa, whose agents, not institutionally linked to the Genoese State, enjoyed dangerous freedom of action.

Conclusion The events outlined above explain the reasons that led the Republic of Genoa to equip itself with two different intelligence services—the institutional one, represented by the State Inquisitors and more linked to the directives of the Spanish protectorate, and the non-institutional one, freer to move beyond the meshes of the protectorate. In such matters, Genoa had to operate with the utmost caution. Given the scarcity of documentation, it is not possible to replicate what has been written about the Republic of Venice.39 Nonetheless, Genoese espionage—more elusive, secret and controversial—can open up significant areas of investigation for the history of the Aristocratic Republic of Genoa, a state that knew how to silence even its own spy, counter-espionage and parallel espionage services, exchanging and substituting them according to the circumstances. The development of intelligence services parallel to the official ones (and much more active at sea, unlike the State Inquisitors, who were more operational in the territories of the Republic of Genoa) opens up new research spaces that help to overcome the stereotype of the Siglo de los Genoveses . The field of investigation canvassed by this study further underlines the geopolitical importance of the Republic of Genoa in the European balance of power. However, such an investigation needs to overcome the hurdles of the historical systems within which privacy often managed to prevail. Historians need to follow the tenuous breadcrumb trails of agents who had to be very aware of the marks they left behind, as the consequences of being discovered in espionage could be dire. This study has taken a small 39 Paolo Preto, I servizi segreti di Venezia (Milano: Il saggiatore, 1994); Filippo De Vivo, Patrizi, informatori, barbieri: politica e comunicazione a Venezia nella prima età moderna (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2012).

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step in that direction by having demonstrated not only that early modern privacy could be achieved, but also that it was necessary for the proper functioning of the political structure.

Primary Sources Archival sources Archivio di Stato di Genova Archivio segreto, Grida e proclami, 1021. Archivio segreto, Lettere Ministri Roma, 2350. Archivio segreto, Lettere Ministri Roma, 2351. Archivio segreto, Lettere Principi alla Repubblica di Genova, 2787. Archivio segreto, Lesa Maestà, 2984. Archivio segreto, Lesa Maestà, 2986. Archivio segreto, Nobilitatis, 2859B. Archivio segreto, Politicorum, 1653. Archivio segreto, Secretorum, 1564. Archivio segreto, Secretorum, 1639 V. Senato, 69. Senato, 1045. Senato, 1063. Archivio di Stato di Massa. Archivio ducale, Negozi dello Stato e della Casa, 121. Archivio ducale, 275. Archivio di Stato di Modena. Archivio segreto estense, Cancelleria, Carteggi con principi esteri, 1211. Archivio segreto estense, Cancelleria, Carteggi con principi esteri, 1381. Archivio di Stato di Napoli. Consulte della Sommaria, XLI Archivo General de Simancas. Papeles de Estado, Génova, 3591.

Bibliography Bitossi, Carlo, Il governo dei magnifici: patriziato e politica a Genova fra Cinque e Seicento (Genova: ECIG, 1990). Bitossi, Carlo, Oligarchi: otto studi sul ceto dirigente della Repubblica di Genova (Università degli Studi di Genova: Dipartimento di Storia moderna e Contemporanea, 1995).

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Carande, Ramon, Carlos V y sus banqueros (Madrid: Sociedad de estudios y publicaciones, 1967). Casanova, Giorgio, La Liguria centro-occidentale e l’invasione franco-piemontese del 1625 (Genova: E.R.G.A., 1983). Costantini, Claudio, La Repubblica di Genova nell’età moderna (Torino: UTET, 1978). D’Onofrio, Antonio, ‘I Presìdi di Toscana: forme di lunga durata e mutamenti in un piccolo spazio (1557–1801)’, Mediterranea-Ricerche Storiche, 16 (45) (2019). De Vivo, Filippo, Patrizi, informatori, barbieri: politica e comunicazione a Venezia nella prima età moderna (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2012). Foà, Salvatore, Il trattato di Rivoli (11 luglio 1635) (Bene Vagienna: Tip. F. Vissio, 1931). Germinario, Francesco, ‘Negazionismo, antisemitismo, rimozionismo’ in Razzismo, antisemitismo, negazionismo, ed. G. D’Amico (Asti: ISRAT, 2007), 65–78. Heidegger, Martin, Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1950). Mangio, Carlo, ‘L’assedio di Orbetello e l’occupazione di Porto Longone e di Piombino’ in Orbetello e i Presidios, ed. Anna Guarducci (Firenze: Centro editoriale toscano, 2000). Martinelli, Simone, ‘I Presìdi spagnoli di Toscana: un’intuizione strategica di Filippo II per la difesa del Mediterraneo’, Le Carte e la Storia, 1 (2006), 162–178. Nolte, Ernst, Martin Heidegger: Politik und Geschichte im Leben und Denken (Berlin, Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen, 1992). Pacini, Arturo, Desde Rosas a Gaeta: la costruzione della rotta spagnola nel Mediterraneo occidentale nel secolo XVI (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2013). Pizzorno, Diego, ‘La cura del “serviggio pubblico”. Gli Inquisitori di Stato a Genova: il percorso ordinario di una magistratura straordinaria’ in Per una ricognizione degli “stati d’eccezione”. Emergenze, ordine pubblico e apparati di polizia in Europa: le esperienze nazionali (secc. XVII–XX) (Rubbettino: Soveria Mannelli, 2015), 177–188. Preto, Paolo, I servizi segreti di Venezia (Milano: Il saggiatore, 1994). Quazza, Romolo, La guerra per la successione di Mantova e del Monferrato (1628–1631) (Mantova: Mondovì, 1926). Quazza, Romolo, Genova, Savoia e Spagna dopo la congiura del Vachero (Bene Vagienna: Tipografia F. Vissio, 1930). Tettoni, Leone and Saladini, Francesco, La famiglia Cibo e Cybo Malaspina (Massa: Aedes muratoriana, 1997).

PART IV

Legal, Military, and Religious Perspectives from the Sea to the Shore

CHAPTER 11

Seas, Galleys, and Laws: Antonio de Guevara’s Del arte de marear (1539) José María Martín Humanes

“la vida en la galera, dela Dios a quien la quiera” (medieval Castilian proverb)1

In 1539, the friar Antonio de Guevara (1480?–†1545) published the Libro de los inventores del arte de marear y de los muchos trabajos que se 1 I would like to thank Renzo Honores, Angela Ballone, David Rex Galindo, and José Luis Paz Nomey for their recommendations to improve the Spanish text. In particular, I wish to reiterate my thanks to my colleague, Angela Ballone who has also supported me in adjusting and revising the English translation. English translation: “Life on the galley,/May God almighty give it to whoever wants it!”

J. M. M. Humanes (B) Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_11

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passan en las galeras in Valladolid.2 The book is an interesting biographical account of the author’s experiences aboard the Spanish fleet that had attacked Tunis in 1535. Antonio de Guevara was a multifaceted character of fundamental importance for the literature of the Spanish Golden Age, and an excellent observer of Hispanic maritime law. The publication of this text had a strong impact on the territories of the Spanish monarchy. The sixteenth century was a time of great conquests and ‘discoveries’ on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, an increasing interest in the global dimensions of the Spanish empire and the development of a transoceanic nautical culture has led to more research being done on ships and voyages on the high seas. It is not surprising that Guevara’s work soon became a bestseller, although today it seems to be known only to specialists. My interest in this work transcends its literary value as I am more intrigued by its descriptions of daily life on the galley, a feature that makes it an object of study in itself. Camilo José Cela (who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989) has already pointed out the text’s contribution to fields such as historical literature and philology, highlighting its richness and heuristic value.3 Such various ways of reading the text are also possible with regard to the private sphere of personhood. From a historico-legal approach, Guevara’s work provides us with an insight into the concept of privacy as it evolved from late medieval Hispanic maritime law, together with some interesting hints on its connections with the most personal and intimate spheres of early modern people. This article is concerned with the study of the idea of privacy based on the account of Antonio de Guevara in the Del arte de marear. For this purpose, this article first offers a general assessment of Guevara and his work before moving on to an analysis of the galley as a legal space, 2 Hereafter called Del arte de marear. 3 In his work, Camilo José Cela highlighted his indebtedness to the Del arte de marear

in his compilation of old naval vocabulary and the seafaring jargon of the men of the sea. His notes inspired later authors. See Camilo José Cela, La obra literaria del pintor Solana (Madrid: Papeles de Son Armadans, 1957); Gracia Lozano, ‘El vocabulario náutico del “Arte de marear” de fray Antonio de Guevara’, Antiqua et nova Romania, 1 (1993), 373; María Lourdes García-Macho Alonso de Santamaría, El léxico del Libro de los inventores del Arte de Marear y de muchos trabajos que se passan en las galeras de Antonio de Guevara (Madrid: Uned, 2001); Alberto Moreiras, ‘El Arte de marear, de Antonio de Guevara. Y la autonomización del texto literario’, Hispania, 68 (4) (1985), 724.

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together with a discussion of its relationship to privacy in the context of early modern peninsular maritime regulations. It then explores the legal reality on board by considering notions of privacy and their repercussions upon the space of freedom and the obligations of people travelling on board. Finally, the article concludes with some final remarks together with some suggestions about potential lines of research to be developed in the future.

Guevara, a Legal Interpreter in the Del arte de marear Antonio de Guevara has gone down in history as one of the outstanding figures of the reign of Charles I and one of the most influential authors of the culture of his time. Born in Cantabria (Spain) at the end of the fifteenth century, he can be defined as a typical Renaissance man. Having joined the Franciscan order at the age of twenty-four, Guevara focused on philosophy, literature, and oratory from an early age, soon achieving great prestige in court and enjoying a successful intellectual career.4 The turning point of his life happened in 1520 when he came into contact with the emperor’s entourage. From then on, he served the monarch in various royal and ecclesiastical posts, which enabled him to devote himself to intellectual activity and to build a successful career as a writer. In fact, Guevara was one of the most lauded writers in the history of Castilian scholarship and enjoyed great celebrity status in Habsburg Spain.5 His works were the most widely reproduced in Spain for a century-and-a-half, and his translations circulated around the world, breaking down frontiers and language barriers. His books were published in many countries and were translated into different European national languages, including Latin. Guevarian literature arrived in France and England in the 1530s, in Italy in the 1540s, in Germany and

4 Francisco Márquez Villanueva, ‘Antonio de Guevara’, in Diccionario Biográfico de la Real Academia de la Historia,http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/11073/antonio-de-guevara, accessed January 2021; Manuel de Castro, ‘Antonio de Guevara’ in Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España II (Madrid, 1972), 1066; Pedro Correa Rodríguez, ‘Fray Antonio de Guevara’ in Gran Enciclopedia Rialp XI (Madrid, 1972), 454. 5 Keith Whinnom, ‘The Problems of the “Best Seller” in Spanish Golden-Age Literature’, Bulletin Hispanic Studies, 57 (1980), 189; Francisco Márquez Villanueva, ‘Crítica Guevariana’, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 28 (2) (1979), 334.

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Holland in the second half of the sixteenth century, in Hungary in the seventeenth century, and in Denmark, Poland, and Armenia in the eighteenth century.6 Scholarly attention has traditionally focused on his most successful treatises, eclipsing the rest of his production.7 Comprehensive critical approaches to his other works have been scarce, remaining limited largely to tangential and essentially descriptive approaches. Del arte de marear is a good example of those descriptive approaches.8 The work represents a window into the world of navigation and an anthropological account of the early modern age. Its passages are inspired by Guevara’s own experiences aboard the galleys of the Spanish imperial fleet that had attacked Tunisia in 1535. The imperial naval force sought to overthrow the troops of Sultan Suleiman I who a year earlier had deposed King Hafsid Bey Muley Hassan, governor of the city and vassal of the emperor. Although Guevara travelled as a royal chronicler during the African campaign, the work is neither an account of the conflict nor a record of the significant details of the military operations, but rather a chronicle of his experience on board one of the galleys that formed part of the army.9 The text consists of a total of 30 pages and reflects the spirit of humanism where the human being occupies a central position. Its style combines historical erudition and pragmatic knowledge as a result of the author’s first-hand experience, and both of these aspects are highlighted and sustained throughout the structure. The line of thought of historical erudition is developed within the first four chapters, where a narrative section presents the story of the galleys as its main focus. Beginning with antiquity, the author traces the development of these vessels in the Mediterranean all the way to his own time, including accounts of their first builders, technological improvements, tragic accidents, and the famous corsairs who had piloted the galleys. The following six chapters are 6 See Lino Gómez Canedo, ‘Las obras de fray Antonio de Guevara. Ensayo de un catálogo completo de sus ediciones’, Archivo Iberoamericano, 6 (1946), 441–601. 7 Libro áureo de la vida y cartas de Marco Aurelio, emperador y eloquentissimo orador (Sevilla, 1528); Relox de Príncipes (Valladolid, 1529); Epístolas familiares (Valladolid, 1539, 1542). 8 The edition referred to here can be found in the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica which is an online repository run by the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Written in Spanish, printed in Antwerp (Belgium), and dated 1546, Guevara’s work is identified by the archival reference R/5928. 9 Rubén González Cuerva and Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, Túnez 1535: voces de una campaña europea. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2017).

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a memoir of what Guevara himself experienced and came to know during the weeks of the voyage. The final section of the Del arte de marear offers an overview of the ancient privileges granted to the galleys, the daily tasks of sailors, the jargon of the sea, the dangers of bad weather, and some tips on how to adapt to life on board. Overall, the style of writing utilised by Guevara avoids romantic stereotypes, preferring high doses of realism instead. His viewpoint emphasises the extreme living conditions suffered by the people on board, revealing the hidden face of the most important means of transport in the expansion strategy of the Hispanic monarchy—seafaring. The pragmatic literature of the Golden Age found a recurring theme in the world of sailing, often combined with accounts of the extreme experiences of passengers on board or the dramatic lives of sailors on the seas. Publishing success was guaranteed and as a writer, Guevara knew this, which is why he did not want to miss the opportunity to write a new book during his voyage.10 As a specific genre, seafaring literature was part of a ‘pocket-sized’ tradition that aimed at placing concepts and experiences within the readers’ reach, allowing them to come in contact with it and enhance their skills of interpretation of the field of navigation. The narrative of the treatise is simple and accessible. Instead of burdening the narrative with a great deal of stylistic and rhetorical forms, its tone is pleasant, with the use of satire, sarcasm, and colloquial expressions that give dynamism and a rhythmic cadence to the reading. Throughout the treatise, there is a multitude of jokes and hilarious situations that make one laugh out loud.11 This literary simplicity goes hand-in-hand with an 10 José Manuel Herrero Massari, ‘El naufragio en la literatura de viajes peninsulares de los siglos XVI y XVII’, Revista de Filología Románica, 14 (2) (1997), 205; Elizabeth B. Davis, ‘Travesías peligrosas: escritos marítimos en España durante la época imperial, 1492– 1650’, Actas VII Congreso de la AISO (2006), 31–41; Jorge Lebrero Cocho, ‘Hidrofobia medieval: miedos y peligros vinculados al agua en la literatura castellana del siglo XV’, Medievalismo, 25 (2015), 261. Alongside this genre, others of a scientific nature, aimed at the technical instruction of pilots, have flourished. Pablo Emilio Pérez-Mallaína Bueno, ‘Viejos y nuevos libros para pilotos: la evolución de los tratados de náutica españoles del siglo XVI al XVIII’, in Antonio de Ulloa: La biblioteca de un ilustrado, eds. Pablo E. PérezMallaína, Julia Mensaque Urbano and Eduardo Peñalver Gómez (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, Secretariado de publicaciones, 2015), 33–49. 11 An interesting reference to the bedbugs, lice, and fleas that were shared by all the people on board can be found in Antonio de Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VI, fol. 19r. “Es privilegio de galera, que todas las pulgas que salten por las tablas, y todos los piojos que se crian en las costuras, y todas las chinches que están en los resquicios,

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innate visual acuity. Guevara’s testimony contains a multitude of details about real-life and dramatic situations at sea that had a great impact on the author. His sufferings on the high seas come out most clearly when he talks about the uncertainty of the crossing, the difficulties in getting to sleep, the problems with food and personal hygiene, and the constant threat of death. Could the charge of sensationalism be levelled against Guevara’s writing? Perhaps this is not the most appropriate context in which to analyse the reliability of Guevara’s work in his appraisals or to conclude whether he exaggerated the experiences he had or the characteristics of the people he lived with on board. However, it is worth remembering two aspects and establishing a fair assessment: first, this treatise is a work which was written for commercial purposes, and second, the world of maritime navigation at the time must have been extreme in a way that is difficult for us to comprehend today or to understand the things that happened there and the logic behind them. Despite all this, an established order prevailed in the chaos that permeated every corner of the ship. The community was organised on the basis of an authority that was perceived as well-established on board and in line with a set of rules revealed as the treatise progressed. Indeed, despite the remoteness of the centres of power, law was also present on the borders of the empire, as Guevara explains in his treatise. As there are no repertories or cedularia on the legal regime in force in the galleys, we only know of their existence owing to a few literary testimonies. Based on usage and custom, it is thanks only to accounts such as Guevara’s Del arte de marear that we know about the legal system in place for the galleys. Thus, it is no surprise that treatises such as this have now become sources for legal studies. For this reason and for his rigorous work of observation, Antonio de Guevara can be considered a valuable interpreter of Hispanic naval law in early modern times.

sean comunes a todos, anden entre todos, y se repartan por todos, y se mantengan entre todos: y si alguno apeleare de este privilegio, presumiendo de muy limpio, y pulido, desde ahora le profetizo, que si echa la mano al pescuezo, y a la barjuleta, halle en el jubón más piojos, que en la bolsa dineros”.

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Legal Space and Guevara Within a historical perspective, maritime law is a young field of research that is becoming increasingly vital in Europe. There is burgeoning interest in maritime historiography done in tandem with legal studies, something which constitutes one of the most interesting challenges for the future of legal history.12 So far, within the scholarly literature produced, legal approaches have been combined with contributions from other branches of knowledge. This broad epistemological community has looked at the Hispanic world and its complex imperial reality with interest. Its European, North African, American, and Asian territories encompassed disparate cultural identities and political trajectories. These factors had a decisive influence on their systems of government as well as the development of their rights in their respective regions. This diversity was not exclusive to the law on land but also applied to the oceans and seas that washed their coasts. Far from considering these as uniform bodies of water, each had its own personality, and not just for environmental reasons. The process of development of Hispanic cartography was nourished by previous legislative experiences and determined its subsequent expansion. In Spain, Serna Vallejo has reflected on the nature and medieval origins of peninsular maritime law. In her opinion, “legal autonomy” was one of the distinctive features of this law which was, in turn, sustained by three other elements: (1) the power granted to seafarers to be the architects of their own law; (2) the recognition of self-government and the establishment of their own institutions; and (3) the recognition of privative jurisdictions by kings and kingdoms, leading to the emergence of different

12 Edda Frankot, ‘Medieval Maritime Law from Oléron to Wisby: Jurisdictions in the Law of the Sea’ in Communities in European History: Representations, Jurisdictions, Conflicts, eds. Juan Pan-Montojo and Frederik Pedersen (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2007), 151–172; Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Maria Fusaro, Bernard Allaire, Richard J. Blakemore, and Tijl Vanneste, eds., Law, Labour, and Empire: Comparative Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500–1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Richard J. Blakemore, ‘Law and the Sea’ in The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400–1800, eds. C. Jowitt, C. Lambert and S. Mentz (London: Routledge, 2020), 388–425; Lauren Benton and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, ed., A World at Sea: Maritime Practices and Global History (The Early Modern Americas) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).

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maritime jurisdictions in coastal areas.13 This interesting approach questions preliminary postulates such as the homogeneity of maritime space or the pre-eminent role of land-based normative issues. At the same time, it appeals directly to the reproduction processes of the symbolic order of law outside its places of origin as well as appealing to such notions as that of ‘legal space’ that are relevant today. Thomas Duve has recently drawn attention to the same issue, highlighting the need to reconsider the importance of the spatial dimension not only in historical and cultural research but also in legal studies concerned with the creation and transformation of laws on land.14 The approaches that have given greater visibility to this normative phenomenon have come from those known as ‘peripheral spaces’, a category that has been used to designate places far from the centres of political power and where the regional context was a factor to be considered by the legislator.15 These remote centres of power initiated processes of law reformulation and publication that sought to adapt to the reality of the environments, trying to mould it in accordance with their ‘civilising canons’ (early-modern imperial expansion). On the other hand, coinciding with chronologies prior to the empire (late medieval period versus peninsular conquest), the fragmentation of political power, its weakness, remoteness, and the prominence achieved by local actors led to resorting to the models of legal autonomy or self-regulation.16 It is in this second scenario that the reality of Mediterranean galleys described by Guevara is inserted. Throughout the Del arte de marear, the

13 Margarita Serna Vallejo, ‘La autonomía jurídica en los mares: derecho propio,

jurisdicciones privilegiadas y autogobierno’, Ivs Fvgit, 16 (2009–2010), 197. 14 Thomas Duve, Benedetta Albani, and Samuel Barbosa, ‘La formación de espacios jurídicos iberoamericanos (s. XVI–XIX): Actores, artefactos e ideas’, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Research Paper Series (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.2532868, accessed on 1 January 2021. 15 Charles R. Cutter, The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700–1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995); Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 16 Margarita Serna Vallejo, ‘La monarquía hispánica en la encrucijada de las dos tradiciones marítimas de origen medieval: la mediterránea y la atlántica’, Revista de Dret Històric Català, 18 (2019), 9.

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vessel is shown as a legal space enjoying its own legal personality, consolidated and shaped by privileges and concessions issued specifically.17 Small in size, this ‘demarcation’ also had the quality of moving and operating beyond the political borders of the monarchy. This type of singularity was a collateral product of the strengthening process of the peninsular naval power. Far from imagining the galleys outside the system or the action of the law, they had their own regulations which were rooted in Mediterranean maritime traditions and shared some essential features with land law, such as multinormativity. The simultaneous action of several legal systems on the ship is described with great fidelity by Guevara and evokes Plato’s parable of the ship on the importance of good governance on board.18 According to Guevara’s testimony, the following were in force on the galley: the code of ethics and conduct of the sailors, the pragmatic instructions of the ship itself, the old naval customs and habits, positive land law, and canon law. On deck, all of them wove a dense web of norms whose conventions overlapped with the freedom of the individual and his most personal and intimate sphere, thereby determining his will and behaviour at the discretion of the ship’s captain.19 Guevara warns the reader of the existence of a code of ethics and conduct. These basic rules were based on respect, obedience, honesty, gratitude, empathy, humility, temperance, companionship, and coexistence and were addressed to the crew and passengers. The rules aimed at favouring coexistence within the vessel, avoiding conflicts arising from social interaction and giving visibility to the authority of the captain and his subordinates. Along with it were the instructions aimed at maintaining

17 Guevara constantly alludes throughout the treatise to the so-called “galley privileges”, a technical term that he does not use with the intention of referring expressly to the validity of privileges sensu stricto, at least not as defined by positive law. On the concept of privilege, see Pedro Murillo Velarde, Cursus Iuris Canonici, Liber V, Tit. XXIII, No. 282. On the contrary, Guevara uses this term with a sarcastic and histrionic connotation to refer to a whole series of conventions, practices, and behaviours that happened in this type of vessels with total naturalness, which were against the law or outside the law, and which were not censured by the commanding authority. 18 Thomas Duve, ‘European Legal History—Concepts, Methods, Challenges’ in Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches, ed. Thomas Duve (Frankfurt am Main: Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, 2014), 29. 19 The information offered by Guevara is neither the result of a systematic study, nor is it organised into specific sections, but is scattered throughout the treatise according to the subject he wishes to comment on in each case.

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the internal organisation of crew and passengers, thus allowing their adaptation to the navigation routines. This type of provision also established protocols for a wide range of procedures, such as types of food and drink suitable for sailing, use of provisions, allocation of spaces inside the ship, loading of goods, on-board inspections, payments at coastal customs, departures to ports, and so on. Other principles that governed life on board were the ancient customs of seafarers, which were characterised by their customary nature and oral transmission. This unwritten law was based on the experiences of the seamen’s guild and generally related to the seafaring profession and the practical aspects of the trade, such as tax exemptions and administration of justice on board, food confiscations in cases of the crew’s need, controversial leisure activities, respect for ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, and so on. The reality of this body of law is rather complex and is still being studied. In this sense, it does not appear to be a single, coherent, or universal body of law (already in the Iberian Peninsula itself, we find important differences in this respect), but it was often very localised, and the local factor had a decisive influence on it. From very early on, the practice was to set the standard to be followed in matters not previously regulated or left to the law of the sea itself, a circumstance that sometimes led it to enter into conflict with some land-based criteria that the legislator had established for certain matters as well as the importance of custom in ‘performing’ navigation correctly. Maritime law was not an alien body, nor was it disconnected from the reality of its time. This Janus-like two-faced nature had its other side in the “positive land law” which looked at it from the coast with great attention, in turn regulating situations such as the arrival of vessels at port, seafarers’ permanence on land, the rights which enabled seafarers to buy food and goods necessary for shipping in port and at low prices, tax exemption, jurisdictional limitations of the local judiciary to judge seafarers, and so on. Canon law was also present on the galleys, even if it was only contemplated on board by Guevara. Canon law does not seem to have been a matter of particular relevance to the crew members, although it was, of course, a matter of importance for the Catholic Church as its faithful were on board. Church authorities had long recognised the uniqueness of these marginal environments and the circumstances within which Catholics lived while on board. To this end, numerous apostolic dispensations had been issued to exempt the faithful from certain daily or weekly obligations (such as Sunday service) because of the practical impossibility of fulfilling them. In this way, the non-observance did not

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affect the salus animarum (health of souls) of those who risked their lives on the forefront while defending the interests of the empire and that of the Holy Mother Church. The actions of normative bodies and their implications on board were observed with special attention by Antonio de Guevara. Although Guevara does not specifically address the question of which type of law prevailed in the galleys and how they interacted on a day-to-day basis, some of the episodes described by the Cantabrian author show that there were permanent tensions and conflicts between these systems that were resolved (as we shall shortly see) in very different ways. For example, was the private property of the crew on board (mainly food) respected in the holds in the event of a ship’s emergency? Who was responsible for deciding this? Was there any kind of compensation in cases where a person’s property had been affected? If a seaman travelling on one of these galleys had committed a crime on land and was wanted by the local authorities, who had the jurisdiction to arrest him, and which judge was responsible for his prosecution? Bearing in mind the fact that the Catholic Church held the body as sacred, how was the Catholic burial of the deceased on board resolved, especially in the event of an epidemic and given its potential effect on the entire crew? On the other hand, his observations are also the starting point that I will use below to explore the projection on board the galley of the most common and widespread theoretical notions of privacy: (1) the state of being alone, (2) the right to keep personal affairs and relationships secret, (3) the right to have affairs conducted for one person or group and not for all, and (4) the inviolability of aspects related to domicile, home, family, or intimacy.20 Whenever the details of the text have permitted it or encouraged us to pause for further considerations, I have also tried to reflect on the four functions of privacy enunciated by Alan Westin: (1) As an essential element for personal autonomy, development of individuality, and awareness of one’s individual choice in life; (2) As an essential element for the emotional liberation of the individual; 3) As a basic element for the individual’s self-evaluation and decision-making; and 4) As a confidentiality guarantee for communications.21 Although they have been defined 20 Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Privacy in Early Modern Christianity and Beyond: Traces and Approaches’, Annali dell´Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 44 (2018), 33. 21 Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (New York: Atheneum, 1967); Jan Holvast, ‘History of Privacy’ in The History of Information Security: A comprehensive Handbook,

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with an eye to contemporary societies, many of Westin’s reasonings are, in my opinion, extremely useful in the observation of the historical realities surrounding privacy.

Customs, Practices, and Privacy on Board One of the recurring themes among researchers working in the field of maritime history is the issue of physical space on board. Our curiosity about this feature of the ships of history has a very clear reason—we are impacted by these historical realities because of our ideas about standards of comfort and how privacy and its function determine our conception of space today.22 During the process of navigation, Guevara must have had thoughts very similar to ours on this matter. Perhaps because he was a man used to the modus vivendi of the imperial court, his testimony contained numerous references pointing at the restrictions both on the basic notions of private space as well as personal and territorial ones on board.23 The first of these reflections has to do with the narrowness and discomfort of the ship. Its high spatial density was its main distinguishing feature. The body of oarsmen arranged on both sides together with the rest of the crew and its passengers created a suffocating atmosphere on board and one with a high degree of corporal saturation. From a morphological point of view, the galley was a warship with a narrow, elongated body, fitted with a lateen sail and oars on both sides. Light, fast, and manoeuvrable, with good cargo capacity and range, it was capable of coastal and even deep-sea navigation. Passenger comfort and accommodation never aroused the slightest interest among shipbuilders.24 The interior spaces eds. Karl Maria Michael de Leeuw and Jan Bergstra (Amsterdam and Oxford: Elsevier Science, 2007), 737. 22 José Manuel Marchena Giménez, La vida y los hombres de las galeras de España (siglos XVI–XVII) (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2010). 23 From a sociological perspective, see Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations (London: Collins,1969); Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (New York: Doubleday, 1966); Robert Sommer, Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1969). 24 Pedro Luis Fondevila Silva, Evolución y análisis de las galeras de los reinos peninsulares (Siglos XII–XVIII). Construcción, dotación, armamento, aparejos y táctica (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2018).

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were designed according to the needs of navigation (working areas for the crew and as a hold for storing goods and provisions), and any technological improvements were aimed at increasing their war capacity. Passengers and crew were forced to adapt to the limited number of free spaces available.25 The deck configuration of the ship changed daily, which meant that the extent of its surface which was free was different and was occupied by different people every single day. Generally, at the level of the open-plan of the ship (without internal divisions), the deck was the only habitable place. The ship’s internal code forbade the permanent allocation of specific places during the voyage.26 The hierarchy of Ancien Régime society did not influence their distribution and use. As Guevara points out, contrary to what might be expected, distinctions by status were not allowed. Therefore, no one was given a specific, more comfortable, or betterisolated place by virtue of their nobility of blood or membership in a social group. Even Guevara himself, a royal chronicler and a member of the emperor’s closest circle, did not enjoy any luxury on board, nor did he have any space specially set aside for him. Only in exceptional situations resulting from substantial monetary payments to the captain or the comitre (second-in-command) could a permanent and somewhat more comfortable place be obtained.27 However, this place was not a secluded, private, individual, and more comfortable space on board, a fact made impossible by the very low comfort standards of the galley. This aspect related to the lack of social distinctions on board contrasts with some of the contributions in this volume (such as those of Polónia & Capelão,

25 See Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. V, f. 15v.: “Es privilegio de galera, que como ella de su condición sea larga, sea estrecha, y esté de remos muy ocupada, y vaya de jarcias muy cargada, téngase por avisado el pasajero que entrare en ella, que de solamente se ha de arrimar a do pudiere, y no asentarse a do quisiere”. 26 Ibid., cap. VI, f. 19r.: “Es privilegio de galera, que las camas que allí se hicieren para los pasajeros y remeros, no tengan pies, ni cabecera señaladas, sino que se echen a do pudieren y cupieren, y no como quisieren, es a saber, que a do una noche tuvieren los pies tengan otra la cabeza […]”. 27 Ibid., cap. VI, f. 18v: “Es privilegio de galera, que ninguno, por honrado que sea, pueda tener lugar señalado, a do se pueda pasar, ni tampoco retraer, ni aun todas veces que quiérase asentar; y si alguno quisiere estarse de día algún poco en la popa, y dormir de noche en alguna ballestera halo de comprar primero del Capitán a poder de ruegos, y alcanzarlo del comitre por buenos dineros”.

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Foy, Beck, and LeJacq) in which social position did influence the allocation of space. However, it is worth remembering the military purpose of this kind of ship, the type of passengers who travelled on it, and the short average duration of its voyages. All these circumstances meant that the living conditions in the galley were precarious. Likewise, all daily routines were carried out together with the rest of the people, sharing the same physical space and in full view of everyone.28 Personal hygiene habits or activities such as eating, resting, or sleeping were carried out without an established place and wherever it became possible to perform them.29 Sharing space also had social implications. In such a hierarchical and unequal society, an individual’s identity made sense in the way in which it projected that person to others, how it was perceived by them, the places frequented by the individual, or the people they interacted with. These were indicators of individual and familial social status, and they were of immense significance in early modern times and, above all, within the Spanish empire. The ship made it possible for individuals to live together in a way that was unlikely to happen outside. The experience on board made contact, knowledge, and reciprocal observation between distant and antagonistic social strata possible. Guevara’s testimony is the most palpable example of the interest that many of these observers showed in the marginal social profiles that coexisted with them in the galley and, in his particular case, in contrast with the court where he usually resided and the appeal that this could have on his readers.30 With the disappearance of privileges on board, interaction with these men was established on equal terms, their role being extremely important due to their experience and knowledge

28 Ibid., cap. VI, fol. 20r.: “Es privilegio de galera, que todo pasajero, que quisiere purgar el vientre, y hacer algo de su persona, esle forzoso de ir a las letrinas de proa, y arrimarse a una ballestera: y lo que sin vergüenza no se puede decir, ni mucho menos hacer, tan públicamente le han de ver todos asentado en la necesaria, como le vieron comer a la mesa”. 29 Ibid., cap. V, f. 17v.: “Es privilegio de galera, que no haya en ella escaño a do se echar, banco a do reposar, ventana a do se arrimar, mesa a do comer, ni silla a do se asentar: mas junto con esto, para lo que allí le darán licencia al bisoño pasajero es, que en una ballestera, o cabe crujia, o junto al fogón coma en el suelo como Moro, o en las rodillas como mujer”. 30 Guevara had a profound knowledge of the modus vivendi of the court of Emperor Charles I. This courtly way of life was reflected in his other book. See Antonio de Guevara, Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea (Valladolid, 1539).

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of the marine environment. It was, therefore, advisable to keep pace with them and even try to build camaraderie. Getting on board did not only involve the restriction on physical mobility. Time was another important variable to consider, not only because of the number of days needed to reach the destination, which had a clear psychological, emotional, and physical impact on the passengers, but also because it called into question the most elementary temporal coordinates of human privacy—the number of hours of sleep, the time to be able to sleep or rest from the constant hustle and bustle on deck, the time to eat, and so on. The course of navigation set the rhythm of everything. The busiest hours on deck, the breaks, the manoeuvre to and from the port, or the daily sea conditions—all of these subordinated people’s lives and their routines to the times of the day when it was possible to undertake them.31 Normality returned during the short intervals when sailing had ceased and a port was reached. Such situations tended to recur with some frequency, given the limited autonomy of the galleys. Disembarkation allowed time for the resupply of provisions and, above all, leisure for passengers. However, in terms of living conditions, these pauses aggravated the effects of constant circadian adjustments.32 As we can see from Guevara’s voyage, the Mediterranean routes and sailing times had nothing to do with those of the Atlantic vessels where all these effects must have been accentuated among their occupants.33 The transatlantic crossing of the Spanish galleons of the Fleet of the Indies could last up to two-and-a-half months, with continuous navigation intervals on the high seas of more than a month.34 Guevara recounts how the arrival of these ships in port was one of the greatest fears of the coastal populations. Having spent days confined to the ship and subjected to strong environmental pressure, men on board

31 De Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. V, f. 17r.; cap. VI, f. 19v. 32 Entry: According to the Oxford English Dictionary (1972), the term ‘circadian’

designates physiological activity which occurs approximately every twenty-four hours, or the rhythm of such activity. 33 The fleet in which Guevara travelled to Tunisia sailed outbound—via Barcelona, Mallorca, Sardinia, La Goleta (Tunis)—and inbound—via Palermo, Messina, Reggio Calabria, Naples, Gaeta, Civitavecchia, Genoa, Nice, Fréjus, Toulon, and Aguas Muertas. See Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 22r. 34 Pablo Emilio Pérez-Mallaína Bueno, Los hombres del océano. Vida cotidiana de los tripulantes de las flotas de Indias. Siglo XVI (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 1992).

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would come down brimming with adrenaline and desire. This explosive cocktail created serious problems, often resulting in riots, theft, and cases of public disorder. The local shopkeepers also had serious problems with the sailors because they did not want to sell them provisions. The refusal was due to fear of running out of supplies or because they did not pay the required price. However, the law was very clear in this regard, and the jurist Hevia de Bolaños himself records as much in the Curia Philippica. Local merchants were bound by law to sell their goods to the men of the sea, and if there was no judicial authority in the town, the latter could take them before two people and force the tradesmen to accept a reasonable price for their goods in cash.35 In addition to the chronological and spatial dimensions, another issue addressed by Guevara was that of food. He gives numerous pieces of advice on water dosage, how to tolerate the insufferable meals on board, and the discomfort caused by the absence of kitchenware.36 Also interesting is the advice given about nutritional routines prior to the trip, the ways in which to eat during the crossing (he recommended quantities and healthy habits in case of storms), as well as the appropriate foods to consume in order to overcome common nausea, vomiting, and headaches.37 In terms of privacy, Guevara explores the gastronomic

35 Juan Hevia de Bolaños, Curia Philipica, t. II, lib. III, cap. IV, §58, p. 475: “[…] No queriendo los dueños de los mantenimientos venderlos á los Navegantes, y pasageros de Mar, ó Tierra, ó pidiéndoles por ellos precios demasiados, han de ser compelidos á vendérselos por la Justicia; y no la habiendo en el Lugar, ó parte donde succediere, los mismos navegantes, ó personas pasageras, se los pueden tomar de su autoridad, delante de dos personas, á razonable precio, pagandole de contado, y no se queriendo recibir, poniendole en deposito en poder de una buena persona, con que quedan libres, y quitos: así lo dice una Ley singular recopilada”. 36 De Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. V, f. 15v., 16r., 16v., 17r., 17v.; cap. VI, f.

20r.; cap. X, f. 26v., f. 27v., f. 28v, f. 29r. 37 Ibid., cap. V, f. 18v.: “Es saludable consejo, que el mareante regalado, se provea de pasas, higos, ciruelas, almendras, diacitrón, dátiles, confites, y de alguna delicada conserva: porque en haciendo marea, o sobreviniendo la tormenta, como luego las arcadas son a la puerta, y el revesar en casa, y se quita la vista, y se pierde el comer, si en aquella hora, y conflicto no tiene el pobre pasajero alguna conserva confortativa, yo mando mala ventura”; f. 19r. “Es saludable consejo, y aun necesario, y provechoso, que cada pasajero trabaje en la mar, de tener siempre el estómago muy templado, y no de manjares cargados, es a saber, comiendo poco, y bebiendo menos, porque si en la tierra es inhonesto, en la mar es inhonesto, y para el tiempo de la tormenta muy peligroso, comer hasta regoldar, y beber hasta revesar. Y porque no parezca hablar de gracia, pasando el golfo de Narbona

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facet of maritime societies.38 In the collective imagination of the men of the sea, the moments dedicated to food served to socialise and make contacts—a kind of daily ritual that Catherine Beck (in her contribution to this volume) considers a form of communal privacy. There is no doubt that the sharing of food or drink had a clear social bias, and it created bonds of camaraderie and friendship that had a positive effect on coexistence. Thanks to food, there emerged a feeling of mutual understanding, conformism, and even complicity in the face of the extreme situations shared on board.39 The partaking of food was a social interaction that was obligatory but ultimately helped to mitigate the effect of the systematic invasion of privacy and to reduce the impact caused by the general hostility of the environment. Paradoxically, many of these invasions also came from food. Following the ship’s code, both the foodstuffs taken on board by each passenger and the goods loaded in the holds had to be known and recorded by the captain, the ship’s first authority.40 Similarly, under the protection of the law, personal and private belongings could be confiscated to deal with emergency situations on the ship.41 For these reasons, passengers were urged to carry fishing gear with them to provide themselves with food in the event of complications on board.42

con una gravísima tormenta, vi en mi galera a uno que estaba borracho, y relleno, el cual en dos arcadas echó la comida, y con la tercera revesó el ánima”. 38 Food was one of the favourite topics discussed by Guevara. See María de los Ángeles Pérez Samper, ‘Entre la intimidad y la sociabilidad: la alimentación según Fray Antonio de Guevara’, Revista de Historia Moderna, 30 (2012), 101. 39 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VI, f. 19v.: “Es privilegio de galera, que el pan, el queso, el vino, el tocino, la carne, el pescado, y las legumbres que metieras allí para tu provisión, has de dar de ello al Capitán, al Comitre, al Piloto, a los compañeros, y al timonero, y de lo que te quedare, tente por dicho que de ello han de probar los perros arrebatar los gatos, roer los ratones, diezmar los despenseros, y hurtar los remeros; por manera, que si eres un poco bisoño, y no muy avisado; la provisión que hiciste para un mes, no se llegará a diez días”. 40 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 20v.; cap. VII, f. 21v.; f. 22r.; cap. X, f.

27v. 41 Juan de Hevia Bolaños, Curia Philipica, t. II, lib. III, cap. IV, §59, p. 475: “[…] Y quando en la Nave no hay mantenimientos, sino los que alguno lleva, se le puede tomar, para que se repartan, y comuniquen á todos, como está difinido en el Derecho”. 42 Ibid., cap. X, f. 28v.: “Es saludable consejo, antes que se embarque el pasajero, se provea de anzuelos, cordel, cebo, y cañas, para que cuando alguna vez estuvieren en calma, o metidos en alguna cala, o cogidos tras alguna roca, opuesta la proa en tierra, saque sus aparejos, y se ponga a tomar algunos pescados: pues tomará recreación en los

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Guevara’s account is not all about standards of comfort. As a humanist and astute writer, he found within the microcosm of the galley themes that could generate interest among his readers. Marginal collectives such as The Men of the Sea captured his attention, and at times, Guevara’s passages are written in the style of popular novels of the time known as jácaras, characteristically telling the stories of “malhechores, rufianes y valentones.”43 The condition of these men did not produce a relaxed and easy-going account by Guevara. Indeed, these characters were the very incarnation of the picaresque at the court: men of low status, with an obscure past, cunning, ingenious, and with a bad disposition. To Guevara’s eyes, the galley looked like a “prison of troublemakers and an executioner of passengers”, full of “testifiers, forgers, fraudsters, privateers, thieves, traitors, whippersnappers, knifemen, robbers, adulterers, murderers, and blasphemers”.44 The idea of privacy was also closely linked to that of these types of individuals. Indeed, they were the most obvious example of the desire to break with the established order and searching for privacy on board. Life at sea, beyond being a well-paid activity (which it admittedly was), represented for many people a distant space where it was possible to find freedom and solitude from the society of the Ancien Régime. Once at sea, one left one’s previous life behind. This radically changed the course of an individual’s life and escaped the pressure that society exerted upon them. Hacerse a la mar (going to the sea) was, therefore, a way of disappearing by staying alive, by breaking one’s ties to the suffocating world on land. Of course, there were many professional seafarers whose only motivation was their attraction to the business or such a lifestyle. At the same time, there could be many others who had turned to seafaring to escape life on

pescar, y gran sabor en los comer: porque muy mejor le está a su ánima, y aun a su bolsa irse a pescar peces a proa, que no estarse jugando dineros en popa”. 43 According to the Diccionario de la lengua española Espasa-Calpe (2005), ‘jácara’ refers to a lighthearted romance, written in the jargon of ruffians and rogues, narrating events in the lives of these characters. 44 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VI, f. 20v.: “Es privilegio de galera, que los ordinarios vecinos, y cofrades de ella, sean testimonieros, falsarios, fementidos, corsarios, ladrones, traidores, azotados, acuchilladizos, salteadores, adúlteros, homicianos, y blasfemos: por manera, que al que preguntare, qué cosa es galera, le podremos responder, que es una cárcel de traviesos, y un verdugo de pasajeros”.

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land or those who had been forcibly sent away by the courts to row on the galleys as slaves because of some serious crime they had committed.45 Did these people really sever all ties with their previous life? From a legal point of view, the case of those professional sailors who, in a clandestine and hidden way, married several women at the same time (polygamy) and had several families simultaneously, one in each port, was very special. Not much research has explored the legal consequences of these controversial practices in the secular sphere. By ‘secular sphere’, I am referring, above all, to the consequences of these practices in the familial and social spheres as well as the economic damage they could cause to those who were close to them in terms, for instance, of the distribution of inheritance or assumption of debts. Nonetheless, we do have more information on the consequences of such practices in the religious sphere. Originally, the Catholic Church labeled these sinners as bigamists and, in the case of Spain, exposed them to public ignominy and shame. They were usually branded on their foreheads to mark their bigamous status and sent to the galleys for ten years.46 Later, from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, it was the Inquisition that persecuted and judged them on the grounds that these individuals made erroneous interpretations of the sacrament of marriage, which led them to commit heresy. Particularly, strict and severe was the Inquisition’s persecution of the bigamists who sailed on the ships of the Carrera de Indias .47 In addition to these were the fugitives from justice who were persecuted throughout the empire for committing crimes or for not repaying outstanding debts. Such fugitives

45 José Luis De las Heras, ‘Los galeotes de los Austrias: la penalidad al servicio de la Armada’, Historia social, 6 (1990), 127. This well-known “galley sentence” has been extensively studied within the field of Hispanic historico-legal studies. There is considerable documentation on these sentences and how long they lasted. In general, they were usually applied as a means of commuting other types of irreversible corporal punishment (amputation of limbs or branding with iron) and their duration was usually between two and ten years (even if the sentence dictated a “life sentence”). See Luis Rodríguez Ramos, ‘La pena de galeras en la España moderna’, Anuario de derecho y ciencias penales, 31 (2) (1978), 259. 46 Recopilación de Castilla (1581), lib. 8, tít. 20, ley 8. 47 Enrique Gacto Fernández, ‘El delito de bigamia y la inquisición española’, Anuario

de Historia del Derecho Español, LXXVII (1987), 465–492; Manuel Torres Aguilar, ‘Algunos aspectos del delito de bigamia en la Inquisición de Indias’, Revista de la Inquisición, 6 (1997), 117–135.

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found the anonymity of the sea the best place to hide and remain unpunished. Unfortunately, we do not have much information yet on how these global issues worked. Looking at privacy from the perspective of legal history, the fourteenth-century jurist Baldo explains how the ship was considered the domicile of seafarers and shipowners.48 Parallel to the urban environment, it acquired an inviolable character against external elements, and strangers who accessed it without consent were liable to public force (lex Plautia de vi publica). In the eyes of the judicial administration, the authority on board was the captain/admiral, who enjoyed wide-ranging powers. His role resembled that of the military position of a warden. In fact, Covarrubias has defined the ship as “vn castillo bien armado de gente, y munición, que se mueve por la mar” (“a castle well-armed with people and ammunition, which moves by sea”), of which the warden was the principal authority.49 The law of the Siete Partidas recognised the captain’s special jurisdiction within the domain of secular jurisdiction, which, in practice, also meant that there was a sphere of protection for his subordinates in case of arbitrary intrusion from the outside. Based on this approach, if any seafarer had, while ashore, committed theft, accrued debts, or been accused of having committed murder, no land-based body was empowered to enter the ship to search for him without taking into consideration the role of the captain. The potential collateral effects of jurisdictional confrontation were serious, as they could reach the point of armed confrontations with the crew.50 Guevara himself describes this type of situation on board with a revealing phrase: “In the galleys, it is where the good ones go to lose, and the bad ones to defend”.51 Positive land law should not always be seen as an element of confrontation with maritime law and the regulatory systems in force on board. At times, it also complimented them and helped to enhance navigation, making it possible in cases of extreme technical difficulty at sea. This 48 Juan de Hevia Bolaños, Curia Philipica, t. II, lib. III, cap. II, §33, 461: “La Nave es refugio del dueño de ella, como lo es su casa, conforme a Derecho Civil y Real, y en especial Straca, el qual dice, que por lo mismo, el que con gente armada le injurirare, y sacare de ella, comete fuerza pública, como consta de un texto; porque la Nave se equipara al precio urbano, y no al rústico, según Baldo”. 49 Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana, voz ‘Nave’, t. I, f. 561r. 50 Siete Partidas del rey sabio, Partida II, Tít. IX, ley XXIIII. 51 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 21v.

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was the case with the ship pilots of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, a town on the Atlantic coast of Andalusia (Spain). These professionals of maritime navigation, whose profession was regulated by a body of ordinances from the late medieval period, made possible the navigation of ships approaching the mouth of the river Guadalquivir.52 Under the authority of the mayor of the sea, the first port authority of the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and after an economic agreement, the pilots of Sanlúcar took the helm of the ships that approached the port or wanted to navigate the Guadalquivir, making them sail through an area of large sandbanks and with a very high rate of sinking. From the moment the economic agreement was reached between the captain and the local pilot, the technical direction of the ship, and the rest of the regulatory systems on board were subject to the authority of the local pilot and his technical expertise.53 This may seem to be an isolated phenomenon of little relevance, but this is not the case. All the ships of the Carrera de Indias that arrived in Seville loaded with precious metals from the American continent passed through Sanlúcar de Barrameda.54 The technical difficulty of the area, the extremely high value of the goods they carried, and the damage to navigation that could be caused by the sinking of a ship on a key route for Hispanic trade made these local pilots very popular and an excellent resource that positive land law offered to ship captains. In the field of jurisdictions, the gloss by Gregorio López (1555) questions the articulation and possible existence of conflicts between the special powers granted to captains and admirals to impart justice on board as special judges and the jurisdiction of the ordinary land judges of the territories adjacent to the sea, bordering their district.55 Did the existence of special judges on board derogate the jurisdiction of the land judges? Apparently not. At least, the law does not make this expressly

52 José María Velázquez Gaztelu, ed., Estado marítimo de Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Sanlúcar de Barrameda: 1998), 405–425. 53 Pablo Emilio Pérez Mallaina, Andalucía y el dominio de los espacios oceánicos la organización de la Carrera de Indias en el siglo XVI (Sevilla: Fundación Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía, 2010). 54 Luis Parejo Fernández, Comercio, fiscalidad y rentas de los duques de Medina Sidonia en Sanlúcar de Barrameda (1500–1645) (Universidad de Córdoba, Ph.D. dissertation [ongoing]). 55 Gregorio López, Glosa a las siete Partidas del rey sabio (1555), Partida II, Tít. IX, ley XXIIII, Glosa k. Deve Fazer iusticia.

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clear, leaving open the possibility for the ordinary land judge to judge problems that occurred on board. However, in practice, the role of the land judge must have been rather limited, as cases on board were immediately tried in order to restore order within the ship, in the first instance by the comitre and, on appeal, by the captain/admiral.56 Antonio de Guevara’s view also included the religious perspective. Observing the beliefs and practices on board, the Franciscan was saddened by the difficulties involved in complying with Catholic doctrine, additionally noted how Jesus Christ and his teachings did not guide the lives of those men. On the other hand, he was well aware that the extreme conditions of life on board had brought the Church to grant some concessions to these men. Thus, around the daily scenes of sailing, Guevara would enumerate the canonical obligations that had been dispensed with by the ecclesiastical authorities.57 The first dispensations regarded the liturgical calendar, the celebrations, and the sanctification of the feast days. These were very difficult to observe on board, given the insurmountable distance at which the galleys often found themselves. In the galley, it was not that the main feasts were not observed, but that they were not institutionalised in accordance with the fixed calendar on land. Thus, no one really knew when feast days fell and what was celebrated on each of them. Even Sunday services were not taken into great consideration.58 Life on the galley never ceased, and it mattered little whether it was the day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, Easter Sunday, or the Feast of Corpus Christi.59 The precept of fasting was another aspect of the dispensations granted by the Church.60 Neither was this practice observed on any date from the liturgical calendar, nor was the prohibition of certain 56 Siete Partidas del rey sabio, Partida II, Título XXIIII, ley IIII. 57 Guevara is neither a treatise writer nor a systematic writer. He is not in the habit of

glossing his texts or citing the sources from which he draws his quotations. 58 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 22v.: “Es privilegio de galera, que ni por ser Pascua de Cristo, o día de algún gran Santo, o ser día de Domingo, no dejen en ella los remeros, y pasajeros de jugar, hurtar, adulterar, blasfemar, trabajar, ni navegar; porque las fiestas y Pascuas en la galera, no sólo no se guardan, mas aun ni saben cuándo caen”. 59 Pedro Murillo Velarde, Cursus Iuris Canonici, Liber II, Tít. IX, No. 78–79. 60 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, fol. 23r.: “Es privilegio de galera, que los

que en ella andan, no tengan memoria del Miércoles de la Ceniza, de la Semana Santa, de las vigilias de Pascua, de las Cuatro témporas del año, ni aún de la Cuaresma mayor; porque en la galera todas las veces que ayunan, no es por ser vigilia o estar en Cuaresma, sino porque les falta la vitualla”.

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foods (meat, eggs, and dairy products), the number of meals per day, or the time devoted to them adhered to. The reasons were obvious. The physical wear caused by sailing and the hectic physical activity of the sailors made any dietary restrictions unfeasible. Even so, Guevara jokingly added that most of the sailors lived in perpetual fasting, not because they were fervent Christians, but because of the permanent shortage of food on the galley.61 Fear was a constant feature of life on the sea. As such, it allows us to explore the hidden and singular popular religiosity of seafarers. The usual indifference to catechism contrasted with the religious fervour that took hold of the boat at times of storm. In those moments, in the absolute intimacy of their being, the men of the sea commended themselves to their local devotions, repented of their sins, reconciled with their companions, and prayed to their most devout saints to ask for protection and intercession in avoiding shipwrecks. As Guevara noted with emotion, these were the only moments when religion regained the role it deserved in that underworld at sea. Despite everything, however, as soon as the calm returned, the friar remarked how all good intentions and pious commitments were shattered into pieces and immediately forgotten. Despite the peak of fear felt during the hardship of sailing, everyone returned to their sinful daily routines.62 The routines in place on the galley also determined the manner of burying passengers who died on board. The role of these daily rhythms on board was so important that they even had a decisive influence on the performance of such an important and private rite for Christians as burial.63 Canonical doctrine aside, Guevara sadly

61 Velarde, Cursus Iuris Canonici, Liber III, Tít. XLVI, No. 423–429. 62 De Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 17v. “Es privilegio de galera, que

todo pasajero que es de nación cristiano, y de Dios temeroso, mire que en el tiempo de pasar algún golfo, o de alguna mala borrasca, se acuerde de encomendarse a algunos notables santuarios, arrepentirse de sus pecados, reconciliarse con sus compañeros, y rezar algo a los Santos sus más devotos: lo cual todo, y aun mucho más a cada paso en la mar se hace, y después tarde, o nunca en la tierra se cumple.” On the fear of the crews of the ships of the Carrera de Indias, see Flor Trejo Rivera, ‘Pecadores y tormentas. La didáctica del miedo’ in Los miedos en la historia, eds. Elisa Speckman Guerra, Claudia Agostoni, Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (El Colegio de México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2009), 17-26; See another interesting study on the religious devotions and practices of the seafarers, Margarita Gil Muñoz, La vida religiosa de los mareantes: devociones y prácticas (Ministerio de Defensa Armada, 2005). 63 Genesis 3:19; Pedro Murillo Velarde, Cursus Iuris Canonici, Liber III, Tít. XXVIII.

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recounted how death on board was resolved by throwing the corpse to the bottom of the sea. This measure was adopted without taking into consideration the last wishes of the deceased because health and hygiene onboard took precedence, and the priority was to eliminate the risk of a possible contagion of diseases within the crew.64 Neighbours, residents, and passengers of the galley also enjoyed an advantageous fiscal situation during the time they spent on board as they did not have to pay the mainland taxes demanded by the Crown and the Church. Bishops also did not have the power to excommunicate them, and priests could not expel them from the churches, even if they had not confessed or received communion.65 The presence of women on board is also mentioned by Guevara.66 In theory, it was forbidden for women to accompany crew members during the voyage in order to avoid, above all, disorder among crew members due to base passions. However, as Guevara points out, this rule was not enforced, probably

64 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 23r.: “Es privilegio de galera, que

ninguno que muriere en ella, sea obligado a tomar la Extremaunción, ni a pagar al Sacristán los clamores del tañer, ni a los cofrades los derechos del llevar ni al Cura el enterramiento, ni a la fábrica la sepultura, ni a los Frailes la Misa cantada, ni a los pobres el llevar de la cera, ni a los ganapanes el abrir la huesa, ni al cofradero el muñir la cofradía, ni aun a la comadre el coser de la mortaja: porque el triste y malaventurado que allí muere, apenas ha dado a Dios el ánima cuando arrojan a los peces el cuerpo”. See Delphine Tempère, ‘Vida y muerte en alta mar. Pajes, grumetes y marineros en la navegación española del siglo XVII’, Iberoamericana, 5 (2002), 103; Esteban Mira Caballos, ‘La vida y muerte a bordo de un navío del siglo XVI: algunos aportes’, Revista de historia naval, 28 (108) (2010), 39–57. 65 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 17v.: “Es privilegio de galera que todos los vecinos y moradores, y pasajeros de ella, en todo el tiempo que la sirviesen, y la siguiesen sean exentos de pagar alcavalas, portazgos, empréstitos, pechos, martiniegas, subsidios, pensiones, cuartas, diezmos, y primicias al Rey, ni a la Iglesia. Y más, y allende de esto, que no los puedan descomulgar los Obispos, ni echar de las Iglesias los Curas, aunque no estén confesados, ni comulgados. Es verdad, que algunas veces burlándome yo con los remeros, y marineros en la galera, como yo les pidiese cédulas de confesión, luego ellos mostraban una baraja de naipes, diciendo, que en aquella santa cofradía no aprendían a se confesar, sino a jugar, y trafagar”. 66 Ibid., cap. VI, f. 20r.: “Es privilegio de galera, que ni el Capitán ni el Comitre, ni

el Patrón, ni el Piloto, ni el remero, ni pasajero, puedan tener, ni guardar, ni esconder alguna mujer suya, ni alguna casada, ni soltera, sino que la tal, de todos los de la galera ha de ser vista, y conocida, y aun de más de dos servida: y como las que allí se atreven ir son más amigas de caridad, que de castidad, a las veces acontece, que habiéndola traído algún mezquino a su costa, ella hace placer a muchos de la galera”.

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to avoid sexual relations among the crew members themselves.67 In this sense, the control established by galley captains was lax, so sailors used to cheat and illegally bring women on board at their own expense. The only function of these women was to be used as sexual objects for the entire crew. Generally in their youth, these women came from the same background as the rest of the sailors, living between destitution, delinquency, and prostitution.68 The phenomenon was so widespread that it soon led to the creation of institutions exclusively dedicated to providing them with assistance after their lives on board, such as “Houses for repentant girls, women’s homes and women’s galleys”.69 In this volume, Amélia Polónia and Rosa Capelão have also documented and analysed the role of many women who travelled on the ships of the Carreira da India as sex workers between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Given that the Carrera de Indias was a colonising voyage with much more detailed and strict control mechanisms over the crew and passengers than those of the Spanish Mediterranean galleys at the beginning of the sixteenth century, we get an idea of how deep-rooted and widespread this phenomenon was in the world of maritime navigation. In spite of everything, the galley was also a space of freedom where coexistence was based on the recognition of cultural diversity and religious tolerance. On board, people enjoyed the freedom to live the life they wanted and to practice the faith they were born into.70 Guevara 67 Sodomy was such a grave sin in the eyes of the Spanish political authorities that it was even one of the justas causas used by Spanish theologians and jurists to carry out the conquest of the Indies by law. See Juan de Solórzano Pereira, Política Indiana (Madrid, 1776), Libro I, Cap. IX, §33, 40. There are also studies on sex on the ships of the Carrera de Indias, in particular on sodomy. See María Fernanda Molina, ‘La sodomía a bordo: Sexualidad y poder en la Carrera de Indias (Siglos XVI–XVII)’, Revista de Estudios Marítimos y Sociales, 3 (2010), 9–20. 68 Juan Francisco Maura, Españolas em Ultramar em la historia y em la literatura: Aventureras, madres, soldados, virreinas, gobernadoras, adelantadas, prostitutas, empresarias, monjas, escritoras, criadas (Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, 2005). 69 José Luis De las Heras Santos, ‘Casas de Recogidas y Galeras de mujeres en la Edad Moderna: moralidad, asistencia y represión contra las mujeres en los siglos XVII y XVIII’, Mujeres en riesgo de exclusión social y violencia de género, ed. Óscar Fernández Álvarez (León: Universidad de León, 2014): 417–426. 70 The ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity of the Mediterranean galleys is perfectly comparable to the Spanish model of a multi-confessional city in North Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Beatriz Alonso Acero, Orán y Mazalquivir en la política norteafricana de España, 1589-1639 (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de

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highlights this aspect when he states that on these vessels, it was common to find people from different religious traditions—such as monks from different congregations, apostates, Moors, Jews, Protestants, Elches, or other abjurers, and so on—each of them behaving and praying according to the precepts of their religion.71 That situation was in open contrast to the directives established by the Hispanic monarchy in religious matters, particularly on the Iberian Peninsula.72 However, in the peripheral areas, the Crown had experience in these ‘integration policies’, limiting its actions to the wish of accumulating the necessary human resources at any cost in order to maintain control of border cities and towns that would act as a retaining wall against the thrust of external powers. According to Guevara’s description, the Spanish galleys in the Mediterranean Sea can be considered as the maritime arm of the policy of religious practices flexibly done on the borders of the empire.73 On the other hand, regardless of the fact that the habit of cohabitation for different religions was an ancient custom long practiced in the galleys, it was clear that it was in opposition to new regulations being developed for the political and spiritual conquest of the New World. While navigation to the Indies aimed at the incorporation of the new territory, spreading the word of God among the natives, and tried to extirpate

Madrid, 2003). I would like to point out another interesting study of religious tolerance and its evolution in the Hispanic world from 1500 to 1820, focused on the attitudes and beliefs of the common people, rather than those of the intellectual elites. His author finds that a significant segment of the population believed in freedom of conscience and rejected the exclusive validity of the Church. See Stuart B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). 71 De Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 21v. “Es privilegio de galera, que en ella anden, y tengan libertad de vivir, cada uno en la ley que nació; es a saber, casados, solteros Monjes, Frailes, Clérigos, Ermitaños, Caballeros, Escuderos, Elches, Canarios, Griegos, Indios, Herejes, Moros, y Judíos: por manera, que sin ningún escrúpulo verán los Viernes hacer a los Moros la zalá, y a los Judíos hacer los Sábados la baraha”. 72 The expulsion of the peninsular Jewish population was decreed by the Catholic kings just a few decades earlier (1492). The Muslim minority was placed under special surveillance from 1567 until its final expulsion in 1613. 73 In the North African cities of the Spanish Empire, the Jewish community was present until the second half of the seventeenth century. See Jonathan I. Israel, ‘The Jews of Spanish Oran and their Expulsion in 1669’, Medíterranean Historícal Review, 9 (2) (1994), 235–255.

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indigenous idolatries in favour of the Catholic faith,74 the movement of European galleys was aimed at carrying out military tasks in defence of Mediterranean imperial interests. Hence the differences between the new Atlantic and the old, between medieval and Mediterranean models when it came to allowing certain social and religious profiles on board.75 The restrictive Indian laws harshly regulating leisure in the Carrera de Indias , such as card and dice games, do not seem to have been in force on the Mediterranean galleys.76 Instead, all of these forms of amusement were allowed, and Guevara’s text refers to the wide range of modalities and variants of the games, which came from as many different territories as the sailors’ places of origin.77 As the Franciscan friar himself would say with regard to possible restrictions on leisure time, “el día que en la mar formaren conciencia y pusieren justicia, desde aquel día no habrá sobre las aguas galeras ” (“On the sea when men shall have conscience and the authorities shall administer justice, from that day on there shall be no galleys on the waters”).78 Many of these particular situations permitted on the galley had to be remedied decades later, and a specific branch of the Inquisition was instituted (the “Inquisition of the Galleys”) during the reign of Philip II. However, this innovation had little success, given the complicated task that it had been entrusted with and the fact that galleys were much needed for the defence of the interests of the monarchy. In the

74 Emilio Sola, Un Mediterráneo de piratas: corsarios, renegados y cautivos (Madrid: Tecnos, 1988). 75 See legislation on passengers who travelled to the Spanish Indias. Cf. Recopilación de

las leyes de Indias, Libro IV, Tít. XVI; Tít. XXVII; Cedulario de Encinas, Libro I: 457 y ss. A recent work on the evangelisation of the Americas is David Rex Galindo’s To sin no more: Franciscans and Conversion in the Hispanic World, 1630–1830 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018). 76 Miguel Pino Abad, ‘Jugadores ante la Inquisición: algunos ejemplos’, Revista de la Inquisición. Intolerancia y Derechos Humanos, 20 (2016), 37. 77 Guevara, Libro de los inventores, cap. VII, f. 21r.: “Es privilegio de galera, que allí todos tengan libertad de jugar a la primera de Alemania, a las tablas de Borgoña, al alquerque Inglés, al tocadillo viejo, al parar Ginovisco, al flux Catalán, a la figurilla Gallega; al triunfo Francés, a la calabriada Morisca, a la ganapierde Romana, y al tres, dos, y as Boloñés […]”. 78 Ibid., cap. VII, f. 21v.

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end, the “Inquisition of the Galleys” was reduced to preventing the circulation of forbidden books and contemplating the swaying of the waves on the sea coast.79

Conclusions Antonio de Guevara’s treatise Del arte de marear proves to be a very useful source for the analysis of privacy at sea as well as a valuable starting point for new debates around that concept. In its pages, it shows how spaces on deck, together with the characteristics and circumstances on board, influenced and changed the meaning of the concept of privacy, a well-defined and accepted idea in terrestrial contexts. This work has also approached notions from the field of historico-legal studies that are fairly recent and still under-studied within the academic community. The notion of the galley as a legal space and its inclusion within the peninsular maritime law of the time, together with its different traditions, undoubtedly deserves new and deeper analyses. I have also dealt with this concept in detail with the complex normativity collected by Guevara inside the galley. The simultaneous action of several legal systems on the ship wove a dense web of norms, with conventions overlapping with the freedom of the individual and his most personal and intimate spheres, thereby determining his will and behaviour. Even if perhaps these norms were not the only ones present on board, they were certainly the most visible to Guevara’s eyes. It is for this reason that many of the aspects of privacy and its functions discussed in this study deserve more attention in the future. Canonical, jurisdictional, gender, tolerance, or diversity approaches can be studied in order to reveal highly interesting aspects. What we need, if possible, is a more extensive and systematised research with a long-term perspective, one in which the support of archival sources will be also essential. The account offered by Guevara confirms, moreover, that notions of privacy specifically adapted to the galleys were socially widespread and that in the early sixteenth century, they were shared by broad sectors of the Iberian Peninsula—not only by Guevara and his readers, who surely enjoyed a high cultural and socio-economic status, but also by other actors from the lower strata of society, from whom one would not expect 79 Juan Llorente, Historia crítica de la Inquisición de España, t. IV, Cap. XIX, art. II, n. 21–22: 159–161.

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it. As Guevara himself has shown in describing the lifestyle of the men of the sea, the members of these marginal communities also perceived the notion of intimacy and manifested their desire to enjoy it through their actions. Their motivations and forms of expression were different from what has been traditionally analysed so far in studies of life on land. Therefore, galleys and sailors can be considered as new elements to contribute to the debate on the roots and popularity of the idea of privacy in the society of the Ancien Régime as a whole. Indeed, it would be very interesting to learn about other anthropological accounts similar to Guevara’s from other countries and cultures, a fact which would help to draw comparative insights into the concept of privacy on board.

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Rodríguez Ramos, Luis, ‘La pena de galeras en la España moderna’ Anuario de derecho y ciencias penales, 31 (2) (1978), 259–276. Schwartz, Stuart B., All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Serna Vallejo, Margarita, ‘La autonomía jurídica en los mares: derecho propio, jurisdicciones privilegiadas y autogobierno’ Ivs Fvgit 16 (2009–2010), 197– 218. Serna Vallejo, Margarita, ‘La monarquía hispánica en la encrucijada de las dos tradiciones marítimas de origen medieval: la mediterránea y la atlántica’ Revista de Dret Històric Català, 18 (2019), 9–33. Sola, Emilio, Un Mediterráneo de piratas: corsarios, renegados y cautivos (Madrid: Tecnos, 1988). Sommer, Robert, Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, 1969). Tempère, Delphine, ‘Vida y muerte en alta mar. Pajes, grumetes y marineros en la navegación española del siglo XVII’ Iberoamericana, 5 (2002), 103–120. Torres Aguilar, Manuel, ‘Algunos aspectos del delito de bigamia en la Inquisición de Indias’ Revista de la Inquisición, 6 (1997), 117–135. Trejo Rivera, Flor, ‘Pecadores y tormentas. La didáctica del miedo’ in Los miedos en la historia, eds. Elisa Speckman Guerra, Claudia Agostoni, Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (El Colegio de México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2009), 17–26. Velázquez Gaztelu, José María (ed.), Estado marítimo de Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Sanlúcar de Barrameda: 1998). Westin, Alan F., Privacy and Freedom (New York: Atheneum, 1967). Whinnom, Keith, ‘The Problems of the “Best Seller” in Spanish Golden-Age literature’ Bulletin Hispanic Studies, 57 (1980), 189–198.

CHAPTER 12

“[They] Are Not of Any Service, Except for Wasting Wages and Burning a Lot of Timber”: The Soldiers of the Guard of the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona (1575–1600) A. Jorge Aguilera-López

Introduction Using the soldiers in charge of guarding the Shipyard of Barcelona as a case study, we can examine how the public and the private, as well as the military and the civilian, coexisted, interacted, and collided on the shore of the capital of Catalonia. Such an existence was a convoluted one that was far from simple. The thin line that separated these spheres was often

A. J. Aguilera-López (B) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_12

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unclear since they were forced to share not only spaces but also individuals and interests, the latter habitually opposed. Inevitably, this generated conflicts of different nature and intensity. These conflicts became especially frequent shortly after the famous battle of Lepanto (1571). From that point, the Spanish monarchy focused its attention and most of its resources on fighting the Protestants of the Atlantic sphere, turning the Mediterranean into a secondary war zone. The investment in the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona and the large galley shipbuilding industry dropped dramatically, while at the same time, social and political tensions were intensifying in Catalonia. This brought about a significant change in the dynamics of the Shipyard, especially for its soldiers, since their work became less demanding and their low wages usually arrived late. Through the detailed reports of the royal officials and the accounting records, we can conduct a deeper study of these anonymous men, their lives, and the always challenging civil-military relations. That way, we can know not only what fraudulent activities and altercations they carried out (robberies, gambling, and violence) but also the important and involuntary role they played in the context of the political confrontation between the royal power and the local authorities.

The Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean: Rise and Fall of Massive Galley Warfare The early modern Mediterranean was a sea teeming with galleys. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, to opposing empires emerged at each end of the Mediterranean and confronted each other: the Spanish monarchy and the Ottoman empire.1 Both tried to take control over the old Mare nostrum using massive galley armadas. The galley was a ship mainly propelled by rowing, of antique origin but capable of quickly being adapted to the needs of the “military revolution”2 by modifying

1 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1995); Phillip Williams, Empire and Holy War in the Mediterranean: The Galley and Maritime Conflict between the Habsburgs and Ottomans (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2014); Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (London: Red Globe Press, 2019). 2 Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

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its design and thus incorporating the novel artillery.3 In addition to that frontal war between those two empires, there was a permanent war of attrition occurring simultaneously, which was much more effective and damaging. That other small-scale parallel war was waged by pirates and corsairs, both Muslim and Christian, attacking the coasts and the trade routes of their opposite sides.4 For these reasons, galleys and everything related to them were given high priority and relevance by Mediterranean states.5 A great arms race began, and tough competition developed around material and human resources.6 The arsenals and shipyards located on different seashores maximised their role as strategic places. They not only concentrated resources from all over the Mediterranean and beyond but were also the place where the galleys were built, consequently absorbing the enormous investments of money that this industry and all its ancillary aspects entailed.7

3 Francisco-Felipe Olesa Muñido, La galera en la navegación y el combate (Madrid: Junta Ejecutiva del IV Centenario de la Batalla de Lepanto, 1971); John Francis Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at the Sea in the Sixteenth Century (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2003); José Luis Casado Soto, ‘Política naval y tecnología en el mundo mediterráneo’ in Edad Moderna, vol. I. Ultramar y la Marina, ed. Hugo O’Donnell y Duque de Estrada (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2012), 283–313; Pedro Fondevila Silva, Evolución y análisis de las galeras de los reinos peninsulares (Siglos XII–XVIII). Construcción, dotación, armamento, aparejos y táctica (Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad de Murcia, 2018); Brice Cossart, Les Artilleurs et la Monarchie hispanique (1560–1610). Guerre, savoirs techniques. État (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021). 4 Andrew C. Hess, The Forgotten Frontier. A History of the Sixteenth-Century IberoAfrican Frontier (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978); Emilio Sola, Un Mediterráneo de piratas: corsarios, renegados y cautivos (Madrid: Tecnos, 1998); Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Daniel Hershenzon, The Captive Sea: Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018); Francisco Velasco Hernández, Corsarismo, piratería y guerra costera en el Sureste español: el acoso turco berberisco a las costas de Alicante, Murcia y Almería en los siglos XVI y XVII (Murcia: Ediciones Nova Spartaria, 2019). 5 I.A.A. Thompson, War and Government in Hapsburg Spain, 1560–1620 (London: The Athlone Press, 1976); Jan Glete, Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America, 1500–1860 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1993). 6 I.A.A. Thompson, ‘The Galley in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Mediterranean Warfare’ in The Military Revolution and the Trajectory of Spain: War, State, and Society 1500–1700. Ten Studies (London: Paragon Publishing, 2020), 124–125. 7 David C. Goodman, Power and Penury: Government, Technology and Science in Philip II’s Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Karl Appuhn, A Forest on the

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The most significant and best studied of all shipyards is the Venetian Arsenal, a huge and well-coordinated infrastructure located at the heart of the Most Serene Republic, which ultimately became the backbone of its commercial power.8 With its extensive and populous territory, the Ottoman empire had greater resources for shipbuilding than its rivals and therefore had several arsenals, the largest and most important of which were located in Gallipoli and Galata.9 The Spanish monarchy, for its part, had four main galley-producing centres: Barcelona, Naples, Messina, and Genoa.10 The foremost among them was also the only one located in Spain—the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona.11 Barcelona became an important military, political, and commercial enclave within the Habsburg empire.12 Catalonia was a territory with both maritime and land borders. Its coast was subjected to the constant harassment and raids of the Barbary corsairs

Sea: Environmental Expertise in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 8 To cite just a few studies on the subject, see Frederic C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1973); Ennio Concina, L’Arsenale della Repubblica di Venezia. Tecniche e istituzioni dal Medioevo all’età Moderna (Milano: Mondadori Electa, 1984); Robert C. Davis, Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1991); Guido Ercole, Duri i banchi! Le navi della Serenissima 421– 1797 (Trento: Gruppo Modellistico Trentino, 2006); Antonio Lazzarini, Boschi, legnami, costruzioni navali: L’Arsenale di Venezia fra XVI e XVIII secolo (Roma: Viella, 2021). 9 Colin Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1996); Christine Isom-Verhaaren, The Sultan’s Fleet: Seafarers of the Ottoman Empire (London: I. B. Tauris, 2013). 10 The Republic of Genoa was an independent state under the orbit of the Spanish monarchy. This relationship proved to be a great success in both the short and long term, lasting as long as the Habsburgs in Spain. That is why in the La Repubblica di Genova nell’Età Moderna (Turin: UTET, 1978), Claudio Constantini speaks of a “Hispano-Genoese imperial system”. See Manuel Herrero Sánchez, ed., ‘La República de Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica (siglos XVI–XVII)’, Hispania, 219 (2005), 9–151; Thomas Kirk, Genoa and the Sea: Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559–1684 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). 11 A. Jorge Aguilera-López and Alfredo Chamorro Esteban, Las Reales Atarazanas de Barcelona en la Edad Moderna: La gran fábrica de galeras de la Monarquía hispánica (siglos XVI–XVIII) (Barcelona: Museu Marítim de Barcelona, 2022). 12 Jaume Vicens Vives, Coyuntura económica y reformismo burgués (Barcelona: Ariel, 1968); Albert García Espuche, Un siglo decisivo. Barcelona y Cataluña, 1550–1640 (Madrid: Alianza, 1998).

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who were subsidiaries of Istanbul. The raids not only harmed maritime trade but also led to assaults on land: the corsairs robbed, looted, and kidnapped as many people as they could in order to either sell them as slaves or demand a ransom from their families.13 As a result, some areas of the coast became depopulated.14 In order to try to counter these attacks, authorities were forced to invest large sums of money in the construction of defensive towers and watchtowers along the entire coastline.15 At the same time, on its northern border, Catalonia bordered the Kingdom of France, the great rival of the Habsburg monarchy in the Christian sphere. Sharing an enemy prompted France to not only collaborate regularly with the Turks but—much to the scandal of Christendom—to openly ally with the Ottoman Sultan in order to wage war on the Emperor.16 This alliance led the bulk of the Ottoman armada to obtain a base of operations on the Christian Mediterranean from which to take actions of much greater calibre than those that could be carried out by small pirate squadrons.17 In Barcelona, a large-scale attack by the Franco-Ottoman

13 On 13 June 1527: “At dawn, seventeen fustas of Moors arrived […] before Badalona, where they killed four men and took more than twenty-five souls. And the viceroy with many people […] went to [Sant Adrià de] Besòs, but the Moors were already returned and embarked on the galleys and fustas and, from them, they fired many artillery shots […] and all seventeen passed before Barcelona without any opposition”. See Dietari de la Generalitat de Catalunya (from now on, DGC), vol. 1, 384. This type of episode is constantly found in extant documentation. 14 In 1595, the villages of Reus, Vilaseca, Masricart, and La Canonja asked the deputies of the Generalitat for help, observing that: “For many years [we] have suffered great humiliation and damage from the Moors, Turks and corsairs […], both at sea and on land, and they ordinarily rob and captivate us and do other enormous damage […] and that’s why nowadays most of that land is wasteland or is badly cultivated”. DGC, vol. 3, 289. 15 Alicia Cámara Muñoz, ‘Las fortificaciones y la defensa del Mediterráneo’ in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo: La Monarquía y los reinos II , ed. Ernest Belenguer Cebrià (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), 355–378; Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, ed., Las fortificaciones de Carlos V (Madrid: Ediciones del Umbral, 2000); Juan Francisco Pardo Molero, La defensa del imperio. Carlos V, Valencia y el Mediterráneo (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001). 16 Christine Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infidel: The Ottoman and French. Alliance in the Sixteenth Century (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011). 17 Perhaps the most characteristic episode of this collaboration was the wintering of the Ottoman armada in Toulon in 1543–1544. The general of the galleys of France wrote: “To see Toulon, one would think oneself in Constantinople”. See Jérome Maurand,

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fleet was consequently feared. From the late 1520s, Emperor Charles V decided to increasingly concentrate the construction of galleys in Barcelona, thus leading to Barcelona becoming an important naval base. In 1535, a great armada commanded by the Emperor himself successfully expelled the great Ottoman admiral Barbarossa from Tunisia. The victorious Charles V, like the ancient Roman emperors, triumphantly travelled through Italy from south to north, being received as a hero of Christianity by the Pope.18 That not only brought fame to the Emperor but also to Barcelona, which was to appear in the many chronicles, texts, and other artistic representations that were to be made about this episode.19 It is therefore not surprising that Barcelona would become a prime enemy target.20 Given its susceptibility to attacks, the decision was soon made to improve and expand the city’s maritime defences, with a especial focus on reinforcing the Shipyard by constructing a new and modern bastion.21 The defences were continually revised because,22 by the late 1550s, the Franco-Ottoman threat remained very real.23 These were key years for the Shipyard, which was not only constantly working on its defensive works, but also on the construction of new galleys. In fact,

Itinéraire de Jérome Maurand: D’Antibes a Constantinople (1544), trans. L. Dorez (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1901), 311. 18 María José Rodríguez-Salgado, ‘¿Carolus Africanus ? El emperador y el Turco’ in Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558) vol. 1, eds. José Martínez Millán and Ignacio Javier Ezquerra Revilla (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001), 487–532. 19 Antonio Gozalbo Nadal, ‘La representación artística de la campaña de Carlos V en

Túnez (1535): estado de la cuestión’, Fòrum de recerca, 20 (2015), 229–245; Rubén González Cuerva and Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, Túnez 1535: voces de una campaña europea (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and Polifemo, 2017); Vicenç Beltran, ‘De Túnez a Cartago. Propaganda política y tradiciones poéticas en la época del emperador’, Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 315 (2017), 45–114. 20 Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (from now on, ACA), Generalitat (G), serie V, vol. 204, f. 108, The deputies on the transfer of the shipyard in the face of the threat of a Turkish attack, Barcelona, 20 November 1542. 21 Archivo General de Simancas (from now on, AGS), Estado-K (EST-K), leg. 1691, f.

37, The Archbishop of Zaragoza to Francisco de los Cobos, Barcelona, 3 February 1537. 22 Damià Martínez Latorre, ‘La fortificación de Barcelona a mediados del siglo XVI: el baluarte de las Atarazanas y la Puerta de Mar de Giovan Battista Calvi’, Drassana: revista del Museu Marítim, 12 (2004), 82–92. 23 AGS, Guerra y Marina (GyM), leg. 47, f. 106, The counsellors of Barcelona to Prince Philip, Barcelona, 30 July 1552.

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they were so industrious that the Shipyard was overflowing and there was a lack of space to work, which led the Crown to further strengthen Barcelona’s naval industry by expanding and reforming the Royal Shipyard—a process that would be slowly carried out in segments over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.24 This military, political, economic, and religious conflict of the Mediterranean reached its climax in the famous battle of Lepanto in 1571, described by Cervantes (who participated as a soldier aboard of the galley Marquesa) as “the most noble and memorable event that past centuries have seen or future generations can ever hope to witness”.25 The great galley armada of the Christian Coalition of the Holy League managed to inflict a harsh defeat on the Ottoman empire that had been almost incontestable until then.26 The bitter and prolonged confrontation between the Spanish monarchy and the Ottoman empire revealed that both the enormous naval offensives and the minor war of economic attrition did not succeed in imposing a clear, unequivocal, and unilateral dominance of either side on the Mediterranean. If all available resources were utilised and attention focused exclusively on that objective, only then would there be a chance to outmanoeuvre the enemy. However, the cost of such a large endeavour with such uncertain results was too high, and a hypothetical defeat could have catastrophic consequences.27 The situation was unsustainable in the long term, and both sovereigns were aware of it, especially since the Mediterranean was not their only open war front.28 For this reason, at the end of the 1570s, King Philip II and Sultan Murad III secretly negotiate (in order to keep up appearances of their respective roles as Defenders of Faith) a series of truces that ultimately became a de

24 Iñaki Moreno Expósito and Marcel Pujol i Hamelink, ‘Arqueologia a la Drassana: l’evolució de l’edifici quan s’hi construïen galeres’ in Tribuna d’Arqueologia 2012–2013 (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 2015), 181–198. 25 Miguel de Cervantes, Exemplary Stories, trans. L. Lipson (London: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3. 26 Alessandro Barbero, Lepanto. La battaglia dei tre imperi (Bari: Editore Laterza, 2010). 27 Imber, Studies in Ottoman History, 85–101; David García Hernán and Enrique García Hernán, Lepanto, el día después (Madrid: Actas, 1999). 28 Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 122–146.

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facto lasting peace from 1581.29 The active confrontation ended this way, allowing both contestants to redirect their attention away from the Mediterranean. Consequently, there was a significant and progressive arms race deescalation in the Mediterranean. The Spanish monarchy began to reorganise its naval forces and greatly reduced the number of galleys, keeping them in the different ‘regional squadrons’ where they operated,30 their main mission being the suppliers of North African presidios (military outposts), the surveillance of the coasts against attacks of the Barbary pirates,31 and the transport of money, troops, and personalities.32 From the 1570s onwards, a change that was already evident in the following decade began to take shape—the so-called Atlantic turn. The truces with the Ottomans, the complications of the Dutch revolt, the involvement in the French wars of religion, the incorporation of the Crown of Portugal into the patrimony of Philip II, and the open war against Elizabeth I’s England implied that the attention and resources that had been invested in the Mediterranean had to be diverted towards the Atlantic, since it was impossible to support both fronts at the same time.33 This meant a huge decline in the economies of the Mediterranean provinces of the Spanish monarchy. Catalonia suffered particularly badly as a consequence of this. Shipbuilding was reduced dramatically, and the first to notice the repercussions were the Shipyard’s workers. That is why in 1584, the shipbuilders, who were paid per day worked, begged once again the king for an increase in their wages. The royal overseer

29 María José Rodríguez-Salgado, Felipe II, el “Paladín de la Cristiandad” y la paz con el Turco (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2004). 30 The king’s galley armada operated in squadrons, the number and size of which varied

over time. The main—and permanent—were four: the squadrons of Spain, Genoa, Naples, and Sicily. 31 Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, ‘Bases y logística del corso berberisco’ in La expulsión de los moriscos y la actividad de los corsarios norteafricanos (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2011), 83–102. 32 Benoît Maréchaux, ‘Los asentistas de galeras genoveses y la articulación naval de un imperio policéntrico (siglos XVI–XVII)’, Hispania, 264 (2020), 47–77. 33 I.A A. Thompson, ‘The Spanish Armada: Naval Warfare between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic’ in England, Spain and the Gran Armada 1585–1604. Essays from the Anglo-Spanish Conferences, London and Madrid 1988, eds. María José Rodríguez-Salgado and Simon Adams (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1991), 70–94; Parker, The Grand Strategy.

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and accountant, Pedro de Isunza, reported that the four hundred men hired at the Shipyard “are having a hard time and hard will have it until the factory is reactivated”.34 Isunza admitted that the salary was not too good in comparison with what they could earn by working for private ship constructors. Subsequently, wanting to prevent further concerns, Isunza recommended to the King to increase the wages of the workers since “if favour were not done, they would all be very sad and would come to work reluctantly and with the feeling that their work is not valued”.35 The situation deteriorated, and by 1601, there were only a hundred workers.36 The investment in the Shipyard plummeted from 100,000 ducats per year to 20,000,37 and this little amount was constantly arriving late and being used to pay other priority expenses and debts38 —a completely different situation to that which was previously experienced. It is in this context of decline that we find the soldiers of the guard of the Royal Shipyard of Barcelona who were in charge of protecting such strategic infrastructure.

The Guard of the Shipyard The Shipyard’s guard was inevitably linked to the Mediterranean conflict, increasing in size and importance and reaching its zenith in the days of Lepanto. At the beginning of the century, the guard was only made up of between four and six guards without any type of military character and whose sole mission was to ensure that there were no robberies or fires.39 As the construction of galleys became centralised in Barcelona, both the defences and security of the Shipyard had to be reinforced, and the number of guards was increased in order to prevent similar sabotages to those that occurred in 1530 in Genoa and 1534 in Venice. In both

34 “lo pasan mal y lo pasaran hasta que torne dha fabrica”. AGS, GyM, leg. 166, f. 5, Pedro de Isunza to Philip II . Barcelona, 27 August 1584. Also in Thompson, ‘The Galley in Sixteenth-Century’, 142. 35 “y que sino se le hiziese alguna mrd quedarian muy tristes todos los dellas, y vendrian a servir de mala gana y con sentimiento de que no se tiene qtta . con sus trabajos”. Ibid. 36 AGS, GyM, leg. 582, f. 94, Report on the Galleys That Can be Done at Once, Barcelona, 11 November 1601. 37 Thompson, ‘The Galley in Sixteenth-Century’, 143. 38 AGS, GyM, leg. 582, f. 94. 39 Dietari de l’Antich Consell Barceloní (from now on, DACB), vol. 10, 272.

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shipyards, large fires broke out at night that devastated part of the buildings, destroying galleys and a large amount of military and construction material.40 At the beginning of the fifties, the guards were permanently replaced by professional soldiers who “[are] trustworthy and who understand the businesses that are done and have to be done in the Shipyard”.41 Less than four years later, their number was increased to twenty-five soldiers, building barracks for them within the arsenal attached to the new bastion.42 In 1570, those soldiers were guarding “every night” the thirty-two new galleys that were being built for the Holy League.43 Immediately after the battle of Lepanto, the guard was increased to fifty soldiers, “among them a sergeant and two squad corporals” in addition to a fife and a drummer.44 However, from the 1580s onwards, the numerous guards established to avoid problems in the galley factory began to be considered as one of its main drawbacks: “[They] are not of any service, except for wasting wages and burning a lot of timber that is good for shipbuilding, and stealing tools and nailing and many other things”.45 Contrary to what the Pope wanted, Lepanto was not the beginning of the war against the Ottomans but rather the end. The Crusade dream of taking the war to the territories of the Sultan and recovering Christian lands ran into the prevailing reality of the earthly raison d’état, full of conflict and suspicion among Christians. Already in 1574, the hero of Lepanto, Don John of Austria, was militarily impeded because soldiers and money initially destined for his galleys were diverted to Flanders.46 One of the main sources of financing the galleys were the “Three

40 AGS, Estado (EST), leg. 1364, f. 61, Gómez Suárez de Figueroa to Charles V. Genoa, 22 February 1530; AGS, EST, leg. 1367, f. 16, Genoa, 15 February 1534. 41 “de confiança y que entienden los negocios que se azen y an de azer ala ataraçana”. AGS, EST, leg. 319, f. 188. Prince Philip to Charles V , Montserrat, 2 August 1551. 42 AGS, GyM, leg. 59, f. 115, Superintendent Setantí to Secretary Francisco de Ledesma, Barcelona, 28 August 1555. 43 AGS, GyM, leg. 75, f. 160, García de Velasco to Philip II , Barcelona, ca. 1570. 44 “entre ellos un sargento, y dos cabos descuadra”. AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 226,

Report of Antonio de Alzate, Barcelona, August 1588. 45 “los quales no son de ningun serviçio sino de llevar sueldo y quemar mucha madera de la que es buena pala fabrica y hurtar la herramta s. y clavaçon y otras muchas cosas”. Ibid., f. 249, Bartolomé Jordán to Philip II , Barcelona, 1589. 46 AGS, GyM, leg. 78, f. 7, Don John of Austria to Philip II , Palermo, 10 October 1574.

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Graces”, the name given to a series of ecclesiastical taxes granted by the Popes to the Spanish monarchs to use in their fight against infidels and heresy.47 Little by little, these pecuniary, military, and human resources were diverted from the Mediterranean in order to sustain the expansive and increasingly demanding war machine that was being formed in the Netherlands and throughout the Atlantic front. The immediate and growing lack of funding seriously damaged the defence and security of the Mediterranean, inflicting a severe blow not only to the Barcelona Shipyard but also to sectors and people directly and indirectly linked to the galleys. In Catalonia, in turn, it caused an increase in banditry, an epidemic problem of noble and feudal origin, as well as worsening the tense relations between the Catalan political representatives48 and the Viceroy, the King’s alter ego.49 The Viceroy was, in the absence of the sovereign, the highest political and military authority in the territory.50 The strong pactist and constitutional tradition of Catalonia directly clashed with the absolutist will and needs of the monarch,51 a common and recurring problem in all composite states.52 The Atlantic turn helped to complicate matters and made quarrels and discontent more frequent.53 In 1585, Philip II and his court visited Barcelona, the Shipyard, and the galleys.54 During his visit, the King was informed of and was able to directly witness some of the problems that haunted the Shipyard. The reform of the building had been halted due to lack of money and an ongoing lawsuit between the Generalitat and the Crown about who 47 Thompson, War and Government, 80–93. 48 The deputies of the Generalitat and the counsellors of the city of Barcelona. 49 Xavier Torres, Nyerros i cadells: bàndols i bandolerisme a la Catalunya moderna

(1590–1640) (Barcelona: Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres and Quaderns crema, 1993). 50 Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, La edad de oro de los virreyes. El virreinato en la Monarquía Hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII (Madrid: Akal, 2011). 51 Victor Ferro Delgado, El Dret Públic Català. Les Institucions a Catalunya fins al Decret de Nova Planta (Vic: Eumo, 1987). 52 John H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past and Present, 137 (1992), 48–71. 53 Miquel Pérez Latre, ‘Diputació i Monarquia. El Poder Polític a Catalunya, 1563– 1599’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2001). 54 Henrique Cock, Relación del viaje hecho por Felipe II en 1585 a Zaragoza, Barcelona y Valencia (Madrid: Imprenta de Aribau, 1876), 133–134, 140–141.

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should pay for the aforesaid works.55 The situation of the workers was not much better. The shipbuilders begged again for an improvement in their conditions since they were unable to support their households and families with the low wages and the little work that was available. This situation prompted many to stop serving the King and become sailors at the risk of being captured by Barbary pirates who did not accept any ransom for them since they were forced to work building galleys.56 At the same time, the workers confronted each other and were divided because, as Isunza warned, there were “three heads in one house”.57 The King had previously appointed a Genoese, a Catalan, and a Ragusan simultaneously as foremen of the shipwrights, and one of them was trying to end the live of one of his rivals.58 The Viceroy was in charge of supervising the Shipyard, but during the past few years, his priority had been to eliminate the bandits who endangered the roads and the flow of American silver bound for Genoa that served to pay for the war in Flanders.59 That is why the figure of the superintendent—who supervised the Shipyard on a daily basis—was so necessary.60 However, no one had been appointed to that position for many years, and it was being temporarily held by other royal officials who had neither the qualities nor the dedication required for the job.61 The unemployed and numerous soldiers of the Shipyard became idle and troublesome, negative aspects which were enhanced for various reasons. The first reason was, paradoxically, the lack of tension. Pressure on the Mediterranean and on Barcelona had been lowered radically in 55 AGS, GyM, leg. 81, f. 246, Deliberations of the Council of War, 11 May 1576; DGC, vol. 2, 528 and 533; vol. 3, 6. 56 AGS, GyM, leg. 182, f. 31, Plea of the shipbuilders, caulkers, and other workers, Barcelona, 28 August 1585. 57 “tres caveças en una casa”. AGS, GyM, leg. 179, f. 299, Pedro de Isunza to Philip II , Barcelona, 5 December 1585. 58 A. Jorge Aguilera-López, ‘Riberas enfrentadas: catalanes y genoveses, maestros mayores de las Atarazanas Reales de Barcelona (1558–1599)’ in A la sombra de las Catedrales: Cultura, Poder y Guerra en la Edad Moderna, eds. Cristina Borreguero Beltrán et al. (Burgos: Universidad de Burgos, 2021), 1833. 59 Benoît Maréchaux, ‘Instituciones navales y finanzas internacionales en el Mediterráneo de la época moderna: Los asentistas de galeras genoveses al servicio de la Monarquía Hispánica (1500–1650)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2017). 60 AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 235, On the position of superintendent, 1589. 61 Ibid., f. 239, Pedro de Urquina to Philip II , Barcelona, 18 July 1589.

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comparison with when the French and Ottomans threatened the coasts. Consequently, the number of galleys being built had decreased substantially, and as progressive ‘atlantinisation’ caused the shores of Andalusia and Lisbon to assume tasks on construction and repair of galleys,62 there remained fewer things to guard. The second aspect was legal. The Royal Shipyard of Barcelona had acquired a special jurisdiction dependent on the Council of War, being the justice delivered by the Viceroy.63 Therefore, neither the city of Barcelona nor the Generalitat could interfere or judge its affairs. The same happened with its soldiers and other workers who enjoyed military jurisdiction. As a result, both elements gave way to numerous legal disputes and squabbles between the Viceroy and the local authorities. The third reason was closely linked to the political and constitutional struggle. The Viceroy’s authority was constantly challenged and to reaffirm it, he made use of those soldiers stationed in the city who unofficially served as part of his viceregal guard.64 The galley factory with its fortified bastion, artillery, special jurisdiction, and permanent garrison was being used as a small fortress to control the city, increasingly defiant of the royal authority. The Viceroy was also using some of the Shipyard soldiers outside the city against the bandits.65 It is not surprising that the Viceroy wanted to increase the number of soldiers to at least a hundred and create a small company, preferably “entirely of Castilians”.66 This was due to the distrust of the native recruits who were suspected of having connections with the bandits and were believed to have enlisted either to obtain

62 Koldo Trápaga Monchet, ‘Las armadas en el reino de Portugal en los reinados de los Felipes (1580–1640)’ in Familia, cultura material y formas de poder en la España Moderna, ed. Máximo García Fernández (Madrid: Fundación Española de Historia Moderna, 2016), 843–854. 63 Due to the position of the Captain General of Catalonia, the highest military authority of the principality, held simultaneously by the Viceroys since 1543. AGS, GyM, leg. 953, s.f., Report from the bishop of Solsona, Barcelona, 4 September 1627. 64 Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, ‘“Estar en nuestro lugar, representando nuestra propia persona”. El gobierno virreinal en Italia y la Corona de Aragón bajo Felipe II’ in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo: La Monarquía y los reinos I , ed. Ernest Belenguer Cebrià (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), 247–248. 65 Pérez Latre, ‘Diputació i Monarquia’, 237. 66 “podrá ser toda de castellanos”. AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 230, Report on the Barcelona

shipyard, Barcelona, 1589.

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immunity, intelligence, or to be able to carry prohibited weapons like petronels.67 Finally, another important reason was money. It frequently happened that the money sent by the King was spent in repaying past debts,68 which meant that only on a few occasions were enough funds available to meet the needs of the moment. In most cases, there was no other choice but to go into debt again or simply not pay.69 That is why the soldiers’ payments were usually late, accumulating months—if not years—of wages owed.70 It is for all these reasons that the Viceroy turned a blind eye, consented to, or even promoted the indiscipline of these poorly paid and idle soldiers who at the same time were so necessary for him. The viceroyalty of Count Manrique de Lara exemplifies all the aforementioned issues. Appointed by the King in 1586, he had the triple mission of cementing royal power, ending banditry, and reviving the construction of galleys.71 Manrique de Lara was determined and authoritarian, which inevitably led to complaints from the Catalan authorities who held his actions to be contrary to Catalan laws.72 He immediately pressured the deputies to resume and pay for the works of the Shipyard.73 Concerning shipbuilding, he wrote: “I am scandalised that in Catalonia, which, I have understood all my life, is where galleys are most comfortably built, Your Majesty pays so much [money] for every ship”.74

67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., f. 241, Pedro de Cardona to Philip II , Barcelona, 26 May 1589. 69 AGS, GyM, leg. 202, f. 27, Manrique de Lara to Philip II , Barcelona, 8 October

1587. 70 “The soldiers of the shipyard of Barcelona relate about the great need they suffer because 45 payments are due to them” [“Los soldados del ataraçana de Barzna , refieren la gran neçesid q padesçen por deverseles 45 pagas”]. AGS, GyM, leg. 182, f. 165, List of requests, 1585. 71 AGS, GyM, leg. 180, f. 109, The Council of War to Philip II , Madrid, 26 January 1585. 72 DGC, vol. 3, 171. 73 AGS, GyM, leg. 188, f. 201, Manrique de Lara to Philip II , Barcelona, 26 November

1586; DGC, vol. 3, p. 255. 74 “estoy escandaliçado deque en Cataluña que esdonde mas comoda mente entendido toda mi vida que selabran galeras le salga a V. Md . cada buco por tanto”. AGS, GyM,

leg. 202, f. 27.

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In his efforts to institutionally reform the Shipyard, Manrique de Lara put lackeys and debtors in charge of old and new positions to set it under his undisputed control.75 One of his first actions was to grant the captaincy of the Shipyard guard to his secretary and accountant, Matías de Cárcamo.76 Simultaneously, he became directly involved in the conflict between the foremen of the shipwrights, supporting the recently arrived Catalan master and unfairly incriminating the Genoese master.77 This attracted Governor Pedro de Cardona to his faction,78 who had had enmity with the Genoese ever since he arrived decades ago in Barcelona.79 All served to attack the very influential royal official, Pedro de Isunza, whom the Viceroy distrusted.80 Isunza was not intimidated and did not hesitate to repeatedly denounce the multiple irregularities and abuses committed by the Viceroy and his faction.81 One of the most shameless situations which demonstrates the corruption of the viceroyalty of Manrique formed around the new Captain of the guard, Matías de Cárcamo. The position of Captain was a recent creation and now included the soldiers previously commanded by a sergeant. From now on, the sergeant became third in the hierarchy, since Cárcamo’s first subordinate was Artillery Lieutenant Juan de Palenzuela. Both had the power to hire and fire soldiers.82 Thus, they wanted to not only take control of the guard but also to deprive other workers and officers less loyal to the Viceroy of important responsibilities. Such was the case of the gatekeeper who was in charge of the keys and control of access to the arsenal. From that moment on, the keys remained in the custody of 75 AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 247, Pedro de Isunza to Philip II , Barcelona, 9 March 1589. 76 AGS, Contaduría del Sueldo (CSU), Segunda Serie (SE2), leg. 47, ff. 37–38,

Appointment of Matías de Cárcamo, Barcelona, 27 August 1586. 77 Aguilera-López, ‘Riberas enfrentadas’. 78 In the absence of the King and the Viceroy, the Governor was the political leader

of Catalonia. 79 A. Jorge Aguilera-López, ‘La maestranza de las Atarazanas Reales de Barcelona durante el siglo XVI’, Pedralbes: Revista d’Història Moderna, 38 (2018), 78–80. 80 AGS, GyM, leg. 209, f. 552, The Council of War to Philip II , Madrid, 30 September 1587. 81 AGS, GyM, leg. 252, f. 211, Pedro de Isunza to Philip II , Hostalric, 12 October 1589. 82 AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 243, Records of the books of Pedro de Isunza, Barcelona, 1589.

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Cárcamo, who could do as he pleased with impunity, protected by the Viceroy, his military jurisdiction, and assisted by Prosecutor Puigvert, a “bad judge and close friend” of Cárcamo.83 Those who tried to prevent or denounce the abuses of the new captain were neutralised. That was the case for both Sergeant Benito de Lara and gatekeeper Lorenzo Roger. Both were framed with numerous false charges of robberies and disturbances that were taking place in the arsenal and were subsequently fired. Cárcamo also took revenge on the Sergeant by illegally imprisoning him for more than twenty days “for only taking away the friendship of a woman whom Cárcamo later took advantage of”.84 The interaction between soldiers and both “lost women” (sex workers) as well as married women was yet another problem. He also commanded soldiers out of the post to attend to his personal business and employed them as his own personal guard. Since he was also the secretary, Cárcamo went on to take charge of the supply of the arsenal, not complying with the agreements, demanding commissions, or simply mistreating people because, after having spent all night in the casino or in the company of women, “when he woke up [early] he negotiated angrily”.85 People complained not only because the King was tremendously disserviced, but also because honest workers were disgraced and trade was damaged. The latter greatly annoyed the local authorities. The soldiers controlled access to the portal of the city walls attached to the Shipyard and, therefore, to the many goods that entered through there, which were sometimes seized to supply the galleys.86 Besides, extortion and fraud were committed. Fraud benefited both the merchants and the military since this merchandise avoided payment of the taxes demanded by the Generalitat and the soldiers and galley captains paid for cheaper goods or received a bribe.87 The city authorities, following what was established in the parliament (Cortes ) of 1585, demolished a series of fishermen’s barracks located near 83 “ques mal juez, y amigo intimo del dho Carcamo”. Ibid., f. 242, Pedro de Isunza to Philip II , Barcelona, 7 May 1589. 84 “por solo quitarle la amistad de una muger dela qual el Carcamo se aprovecho después”. Ibid. 85 “quando se levantava negoçiava con tanto enfado, pesadumbres y descomedimtos que en general nadie loa podido sufrir”. Ibid., f. 243. 86 DACB, vol. 5, 285. 87 Ibid., 435.

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the Shipyard that had become a centre for gambling and prostitution.88 The following year, the King’s galley factory filled that void because the soldiers established a casino there, “causing such a bad guard in it, because all the soldiers are busy gambling, watching gambling or being in charge of the bets”,89 something that had never been allowed before. Isunza insisted that “gambling should be extirpated from that house”,90 not only because in the factory of the last fifteen galleys “more than 1,000 ducats in timber, nailing and other things had been stolen”,91 but for the misery and discomfort that the casino was bringing: Because [the Shipyard] is not subject to the justice of the land [Catalonia], all kind of people go there, not only to gamble their money but also silver, dresses, and jewellery from their wives and [even] stolen. At the end of the year, thousand homes that would be standing if it were not for this are destroyed. And so, the land that these past years has not been listened, weeps.92

The casino generated and attracted violence and crime. There were several who wrote to the King denouncing this as well as other arbitrary measures of the Viceroy and his faction. It was not only the wronged Genoese master who did it93 but also the favoured Catalan master who feared that they would eventually turn against him.94

88 Pérez Latre, ‘Diputació i Monarquia’, 92. 89 “causando esto tan mala guarda en ellas por estar todos los soldados ocupados en

jugar, veer jugar, o tener a su cargo el juego”. AGS, GyM, leg. 252, f. 211. 90 “el juego ha de mandar V. Md . en todo caso stirpar de aquella casa”. Ibid. 91 “haverse urtado mas de mil duº de fusta, clavazon y otras cosas”. Ibid. 92 “por no estar subjeta ala Justa : de la trrâ, van alla tantos generos de jentes, no a solo jugar su dino : pero plata, vestidos y juyas de sus mujeres, y aun hurtadas, que al cavo

del año se destruyen mil casas q estuvieran em pie sinó fuera por esta ocasión, y anssí se plañe de hordino : la trrâ aunq estos años no ha sido oyda”. Ibid. 93 AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 249. 94 AGS, GyM, leg. 228, f. 102, Pedro Catalán to Philip II , Barcelona, 14 December

1588.

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Faced with this situation, the King and the Council of War decided to send the experienced galley captain, Antonio de Alzate to Barcelona to inspect and audit the arsenal. Alzate’s reports were devastating. The galley factory was in very bad shape, its operation inefficient, and everything cost much more than it should. That was the consequence of years of neglect, poor planning, and, above all, due to lack of investment and fraud, the existence of inconvenient privileges and lack of leadership which had led to the intolerable attitude of both workers and soldiers. He proposed to save most of the expense and problems of this permanent guard by bringing twenty-five soldiers from the companies garrisoning the border with France and rotating them every four months. These soldiers would not entail an additional expense and should be quartered in the Shipyard, thereby avoiding undesirable interactions with civilians since the current guard relaxed too much and indulged in “bad liv95 ing”, which “causes vile custody and disservice”. Alzate was so diligent and efficient that he was appointed superintendent of the Shipyard and commissioned to carry out the reforms he proposed,96 which ultimately could not be done because the necessary funds were rerouted to the Gran Armada and Flanders. Viceroy Manrique was summoned to the King’s court in 1589 and was removed from office, leaving Catalonia without an effective replacement until the Duke of Maqueda’s arrival in 1592. This situation was particularly problematic given the worrying external and internal circumstances of the principality. There were fears that the riots (alteraciones ) in Aragon could spread to Catalonia97 and that the wars of religion would cross the Pyrenees, as indeed the armed bands of Huguenots who collaborating with Catalan bandits did. Meanwhile, Barbary corsairs continued to ravage the coasts: “You cannot believe the many tears that I came

95 “causa ruin custodia y deserviçio”. AGS, GyM, leg. 264, ff. 225 and 226, Reports

of Antonio de Alzate, Barcelona, 1587–1588. 96 AGS, GyM, leg. 372, f. 174, Copy of the appointment of Antonio de Alzate, El Pardo (Madrid), 1 December 1590. 97 Political conflict between the authorities of Aragon and the royal power, whose final trigger was the criminal case around the royal secretary, Antonio Pérez and which ended up degenerating into a rebellion that the King had to put down by sending an army.

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across all over the coast from those who have their children and husbands in Algiers”.98

“[He] Hires Sinful and Criminal Men to Be His Soldiers”:99 The Guard, the Lesser of Two Evils Catalonia was certainly a frontier territory in every sense: against Islam, against Protestantism, and against internal dissent.100 It is unsurprising that Alzate’s proposal to reduce and redeploy the soldiers stationed at the border was categorically rejected by the Council of War “since it would be to remove them from where they are so much needed”.101 This situation was exacerbated by the difficult conditions on the border where the soldiers deserted because they were “hungry and naked” and “the French are informed of it”.102 Distrusting both the loyalty and quality of the local militias, the Viceroy had very few troops in case of an emergency. It was essential for him to have immediate access to those few soldiers from the Shipyard who were still much-needed on a daily basis. They controlled part of the access to the city, the bastion, and protected the Shipyard. The guard also watched over the galley slaves and convicts who were occasionally forced to work in the construction and launching of galleys and escorted them back and forth to the royal prisons.103 The soldiers maintained public order in the area. A lot of money was owed for the transport of timber, the biscuit, and provisions for the galleys, and those families approached the Shipyard to ask for their money: “We owe wages

98 “nose puede creer las lagrimas que por toda ella he hallado y clamores delos que tienen su hijos y maridos en Argel”. AGS, GyM, leg. 319, f. 283, The Master of Montesa to Philip II , Barcelona, 19 March 1591. 99 “pren per soldats seus a hòmens facinerosos y de mala vida”. DGC, vol. 3,

119. 100 Joan Reglà, Bandolers, pirates i hugonots a la Catalunya del segle XVI (Barcelona: Selecta, 1969). 101 “pues seria quitarlos dedonde son tanto menester”. AGS, GyM, leg. 263, f. 332,

Opinion of Juan de Cardona, Madrid, 1589. 102 “porque la hambre y desnudez de los soldados no promote menos”; “los franceses tan informados dello”. AGS, GyM, leg. 566, ff. 143–144, The Duke of Feria to Philip II , Barcelona, 10 September 1600. 103 ACA, Cancillería (C), reg. 4758, ff. 176v–177, Manrique de Lara to the jailor, Barcelona, 7 April 1588.

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to poor people, which is the greatest pity in the world to see them suffer because every day they come to bother and to yell at us”.104 In Venice, a similar situation had caused riots and a fire in the arsenal.105 For all these reasons, the Council of War did not dare to modify the guard and simply hoped that the successive Viceroys would know how to manage it better. An attempt was made to ban—or at least to strictly limit—gambling and prostitution among the soldiers in the Shipyard that had caused so much social unease. Despite this, in 1594, the city counsellors complained to the Viceroy that the coming and going of not only ruffians but also decent people continued to be common, which caused “many inconveniences” and “offended God”.106 Something similar happened with robberies. Obviously, the royal administration wanted to put an end to that, but the ministers were glad even if they were merely able to limit it. The theft of iron and timber was especially damaging as it increased the already high construction costs of galleys. Everything was seen as a necessary lesser evil and a way to keep soldiers content and loyal. Years before, those same soldiers could have been sentenced to row in the galleys or even to death,107 but it was not advisable—even if they wanted—to take such drastic measures anymore. Viceroy Duke of Feria wrote to the King: “I am not very fond of another way out for criminals except for the gallows”, referring to the proposal for recruiting a company of soldiers made up of criminals and bandits in exchange for amnesty.108 The quality of the men who made up the arsenal guard was quite questionable. Most of them came from Catalonia, mainly from Barcelona and its surroundings, although there were many from the neighbouring kingdoms of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile, as well as a few Italians and Portuguese. Soldiers of French origin also appear, a natural consequence of the massive wave of French immigration that Catalonia received 104 “la mayor parte dellos se deve de jornales de gente pobre que es la mayor lastima del mundo berlos padecer, porque cadaldia bienen a molestarnos y dar bozes”. AGS, GyM, leg. 376, f. 93, Antonio de Alzate to Philip II , Barcelona, 12 August 1593. 105 AGS, EST, leg. 1326, f. 249, Tomás de Cornoça to Philip II , Venice, 29 September

1569. 106 “de hont se seguexen molt grans inconvenients”; “ne resultan molt grans offensas a Deu nostre S.or ”. DACB, vol. 6, 481. 107 DGC, vol. 3, 116–122. 108 “yo soy poco aficionado a otra salida para hombres fascinedosos sino es la horca”.

AGS, GyM, leg. 566, f. 144.

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throughout that century.109 In the 1590s, half of the members of the guard were from outside Catalonia.110 The accounting books not only reveal the origins of these soldiers but also provide insights into their identities, earnings, payment schedules, length of service, and even their physical appearance. This data served multiple purposes, including accurate identification of individuals and the prevention of fraud. Salaries were paid during troop reviews, and it was common (though illegal) practice for captains to try to obtain bonus salaries by “recruiting” outsiders for these inspections. They posed as soldiers who had died or deserted to receive their pay, which ended up in the hands of the captain. As a countermeasure, the royal officials meticulously noted the soldiers’ appearance and distinctive features, such as age, complexion, appearance, marks, deformities, and scars. The latter, in particular, were extremely common. To cite some examples (for more, see the Appendix): Esteban Garriga, son of Guillem Garriga, 21-year-old native of Barcelona, of medium height, good face, and with a large knife-slash from the head to the right side of the right eyebrow. He settled as a soldier of the shipyard on 24 April 1583 with 30 reales per month.111 Francisco del Val, son of Martín del Val, a 35-year-old neighbour of Santacruz in Aragon. Black-bearded, small body, toothless from the top. He has served as a soldier since 15 December 1576.112 Francisco Travieso, the son of Pascual Travieso, from and neighbour of the town of Candelera in Catalonia, aged 35, in good shape, with a knife-slash to the middle of the forehead that almost reached his nose. He settled as a soldier of the shipyard on 7 July 1583.113 109 AGS, CSU, SE2, leg. 47 and 48, Books on the payments of the guards of the shipyard, Barcelona, 1584–1600. 110 AGS, CSU, SE2, leg. 47, ff. 1111–1417, Payments to the guards, Barcelona, 1591–

1595. 111 “Estevan Garriga hijo de Guillen Garriga natural de Bar.a de hedad de veinte y un años de mediana dispusiçion Buenrostro y con un golpe grande de cuchillada que le llega de la cabeça al lado de la ceja derecha asentose por soldado dela ataraçana en 24 de abril 1583 con 30 Rs de su.do al mes”. Ibid., f. 69. 112 “Françisco del Val hijo de Martin del Bal vezino de Sanctacruz en Aragon de 35 años barbinegro pequeño de cuerpo desdentado de la parte de arriba sirve de soldado desde 15 de dez.e de 1576”. Ibid., f. 73. 113 “Françisco Travieso hijo de Pascual Travieso natural y vez.o de la villa de Candelera en Catalunnia de hedad de 35 años de buena dispusiciçion con un golpe de cuchillada en

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Sebastián de Morales, son of the same [name], a native of Zaragoza, of medium complexion, beginning to grow a beard, aged 25, with a shot of arquebus in the left hand that has amputated the thumb. He settled as a soldier of the shipyard on 1 January 1585.114

Some personal stories of these individuals are occasionally found in these books, such as that of a soldier who had made a pilgrimage to Montserrat Abbey;115 another who, due to the premature death of his father, asked for a leave permit to temporarily return to his town, arrange his inheritance, and take care of his sister;116 yet another who was sick (or injured) and was allowed to leave Barcelona for two months to get treatment but died shortly after, following which the salary of 152 reales owed to him for his five months and two days of service were given to his daughters Dominga and Mariana;117 or the case of Pedro Moya who was sentenced to row in the galleys because he was a bigamist.118 Furthermore, the undemanding work at the Shipyard, far from any war front, in turn served as a kind of early retirement for the elderly, veteran, and disabled soldiers as a reward for their years of service. This led to cases like Andrés de Villamir’s, who was deemed not suitable “to serve in any of the things related to warfare” but whom the King “in consideration of the years he served in the states of Flanders, where he came from with license, crippled and with very low vision”, granted him a fully salaried position as a soldier in the Shipyard and “serving in what he willingly could”.119 Another clear example is the case of Joan García de medio de la frente que le llega casy a la nariz asentose por soldado de las Ataraçanas en 7 de julio 1583”. Ibid., f. 81. 114 “Sebastian de Morales hijo del mismo natural de Caragoça de mediana dipusiçion barbiponiente, de hedad de veinteycinco años con un arcabuzazo en la mano yzquierda que le toma todo el dedo pulgar. Asento por soldado de las Ataraçanas en primero de henero de 158 V”. Ibid., 289. 115 Ibid., f. 787, Payment order to Cristóbal García Sarmiento, Barcelona, 21 February

1591. 116 Ibid., f. 845, Leave permit for Jerónimo Díaz, Barcelona, 28 November 1590. 117 Ibid., f. 509, Payments to Francesc Domingo. 118 Ibid., f. 243, Payments to Pedro Moya. 119 “realmente no es su persona para que pueda servir en ninguna delas cosas tocantes a la Miliçia”; “en consideracion delos años que le sirvio en los Estados de Flandes de donde vino con licencia estropeado y con muy corta vista”; “sirviendo en los que buenamente pudiere”. Ibid., f. 1367, Payment to Andrés de Villamir, Barcelona, 6 August 1595.

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Vicastillo, “disabled soldier […] who is not fit to continue to serve” but who in 1594 was removed from the border in Perpignan and relocated to the Shipyard guard.120 Thanks to such information, we can get closer to the unknown, personal, and private aspects of these unfortunate and corrupted soldiers, as hated by the locals as they were ill-employed and neglected by their superiors. As for the ranks of corporal, lieutenant, and sergeant, they were usually given to veteran soldiers with experience outside of Catalonia. Thanks to Cárcamo’s precedent, the position of captain gained much relevance and even prestige among the soldiers, especially because of the power and influence that it apparently conferred. Captain Cárcamo accompanied Manrique de Lara to Madrid in 1589. During his absence, the position was temporarily held by Lieutenant Palenzuela, who also took advantage of the position.121 Cárcamo was not officially replaced until 1591.122 The different people who briefly took the reins of Catalonia between the departure of Manrique and the arrival of Maqueda in 1592 appointed captains of their complete trust.123 Philip II sought to lighten the burden that he was going to leave to his young heir, which is why at the end of his reign, he tried to close some of the open war fronts. In the year of his death, he signed the Peace of Vervins (1598) with France, which was a relief to Catalonia. In 1599, young Philip III visited Barcelona and summoned Cortes. He was recognised as the rightful sovereign after swearing to protect the constitutions and distributed gifts and graces. He also made several promises,

120 “soldado inutil […] que no esta para servir”. Ibid., f. 1459, Payments to Joan García de Vicastillo. 121 AGS, GyM, leg. 264, f. 242. 122 Although the multiple charges against him ended without any conviction, his rising

career suffered greatly. He was replaced as Captain of the Shipyard and relocated more than 150 km from Barcelona. Even though he was appointed Governor and Captain of the small Castle of the Trinity in Roses (1593), he lost all offices and privileges that being a member of the inner circle of the Viceroy had formerly provided. Apparently, he was not too happy with that new posting and repeatedly begged the King to relocate him anywhere outside of Catalonia to a position “in accordance with the quality of his person”. The King rejected all of his requests and he remained in Roses at least until 1597. AGS, GyM, leg. 445, f. 132, Papers of the services of Matías de Cárcamo, March 1595; AGS, GyM, leg. 506, f. 242, Matías de Cárcamo to Philip II , 13 September 1597. 123 AGS, CSU, SE2, leg. 47, ff. 1069–1098, Appointments of captains, Barcelona, 1591–1593.

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including allowing the creation of a Catalan galley squadron, aimed not only at securing the coasts and trade of the territory, but also at reactivating the shipbuilding industry. Both the change of sovereign and century as well as the gathering at the Cortes served to reassure and kindle new hopes in the states while the new King won over his Catalan subjects.124 Thanks to the money obtained from the states, Philip III was able to pay his soldiers in Catalonia.125 Eventually, money would run short again and the Shipyard’s soldiers would cause new problems. In 1628, the superintendent tried to alleviate the lack of financing by establishing a butchery attached to the Shipyard and managed by the soldiers.126 The meat business was extremely lucrative and heavily taxed by the city. This competition and significant loss of income from taxes due to the military jurisdiction of the Shipyard caused a new dispute with the local authorities. Looking at their statements, we can see the little consideration they had for the Shipyard and its soldiers, whom they did not consider as much: The site and post of the shipyard, it cannot be called fortress nor presidio, because it is deceptive and devaluates the military. Some want to compare the way the shipyard proceeds to the castle of Milan, Antwerp, and in our land, Perpignan. But [the shipyard is] a place […], to build galleys and a warehouse to store timber safely. And in recent times, it has been invented to call ‘soldiers’ the few men who reside there […], and before their name was ‘guards of the shipyard’, and there were no more than four to six people just to prevent a fire.

The Viceroy, preferring to avoid conflicts and aggravate his difficult relationship with the authorities, agreed to close the butchery.127

124 John H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans: A Study in the Decline of Spain 1598– 1640 (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1984), 49–50. 125 AGS, GyM, leg. 564, f. 121, Payments to the soldiers in Catalonia, Barcelona, 31 December 1599. 126 DACB, vol. 10, 267. 127 “el sitio y puesto de la tarassana, no se puede llamar fortalesa, ni lugar de presidio, y

assi es enganyo y querer hazer muy gran tiro a la militia, como quieren algunos comparar el modo de proceder de la tarassana, al castillo de Milan, Amberes y en nuestra tierra Perpinyan, sino un puesto a propósito […] para fabricar galeras, y juntamente magazen de guardar madera con seguridad, y de nuestros tiempos se ha inventado el llamar soldados, a los pocos hombres que alli residen […], que antes el nombre de ellos era guardas del

12

“[THEY] ARE NOT OF ANY SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR WASTING …

329

During the seventeenth century, despite the more or less regular construction of galleys, productivity never got anywhere near to the levels of the Lepanto era. Despite this, it continued to be a key piece in the Habsburg military policy since the Shipyard was acquiring and enhancing other relevant functions—defence, military barracks, artillery and weapons deposit, and provisions store. Besides, its influence on local politics was gaining significance since it was now considered as a bastion of royal power. We can observe this during the events of 1640 when, in the context of the war with France within the Thirty Years’ War, the Catalans revolted. One of the main reasons for the discontent of the population was the abuses committed by the King’s soldiers.128 The mob entered the city shouting “Death to the bad government” and pursued the Viceroy and other royal officials, who rapidly took refuge—as they had done on prior occasions—in the Shipyard. However, on June 7, things became complicated and they tried to escape by boarding the royal galleys near the coast. However, the Viceroy was caught and stabbed to death by the mob on the beach next to the Shipyard. The city and the Shipyard were lost for the King until the rebellious Catalans surrendered in 1652.129 A few years after Lepanto, the Spanish-Turkish hostilities ceased and, with them, the need to continue feeding the enormous Mediterranean war machinery and industry. These human, material, and economic resources were needed in other theatres of operations. Therefore, even without the endemic problem of North African piracy being solved, Mediterranean societies suffered severely from this change in international politics.130 This new reality became immediately palpable at the epicentre of the Mediterranean naval industry of the Spanish monarchy. Barcelona’s arsenal experienced a severe recession and subsequent crisis, which contributed to escalating the political and social situation in Catalonia. The soldiers of the guard involuntarily switched their main role and took an active part in the Catalan struggle. With no money to pay them, they were rewarded by being granted a quasi-immunity to tarassanal y no eran mas de quatro a seys personas, solo a fin de evitar un incendio”. Ibid., 272–275. 128 Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans, 426–427. 129 Xavier Torres, La Guerra dels Segadors (Lleida, Vic: Pagès and Eumo, 2006); Raquel

Camarero, La Guerra de Recuperación de Cataluña 1640–1652 (Madrid: Actas, 2015). 130 Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, Políticas de Felipe III en el Mediterráneo, 1598–1621 (Madrid: Polifemo, 2021).

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the abuses and illegalities they committed. As we have seen, that exacerbated and created new tensions which complicated the always fraught civil-military coexistence, a cornerstone of the 1640 revolution. Acknowledgements Research for this paper was made possible by the trust and funds provided by the Harry Hendusen Grant of the Finnish Cultural Foundation as well as by the Eino Jutikkala Fund of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. I am thankful to all my colleagues from the Research Seminar of Finnish and Nordic History at the University of Helsinki for their comments and feedback on the early versions of the text. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to the volume’s editor, Natacha Klein Käfer, for her patience, care, and wise advice.

Appendix Troop review of the Shipyard, Barcelona, 31 October 1587131

131 AGS, CSU, SE2, leg. 47. Various inspections and payments are collected in this book. This one, in particular, was carried out by the royal overseer and accountant, Pedro de Isunza. See ff. 21–24.

Joan Guanter

127–128

33

29

Age134 [37]137

Barcelona

Birthplace135 [Oran] (Castile)138 Cordova (Castile)

17 April 1575

24 July 1585

Enlisted136 27 August 1586

(continued)

“Tall man, in good shape, dark face, blackish light beard, wide nose” “Black beard, with a small wart near the nose on the right side […], [with] a sunken mouth”

Description –

“[THEY] ARE NOT OF ANY SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR WASTING …

138 He was born in Oran (present-day Algeria). AGS, GyM, leg. 445, f. 132. His two grandparents, as well as his father and uncles, took part in the conquest in 1509 and settled there.

137 His age does not appear in this document. I have obtained it through the data that appears in AGS, GyM, leg. 445, f. 132; AGS, GyM, leg. 506, f. 242.

captain (154 r p/m), the sergeant (80 r p/m), the corporals, and the gatekeeper (60 r p/m). Among the musicians, the drummer earned 48 r p/m and the fifer 20 r p/m.

135 I have indicated in parentheses only those places outside of Catalonia. 136 I omit the salaries since all the soldiers earned 30 reales per month (r p/m). The only ones who had a different salary were: the

1587), the soldiers were between one and three years older at the time of this inspection.

134 The given ages come from when they were registered in this book (from 1584). Therefore, except for the new recruits (from

133 Names, surnames, and locations were always translated using its Castilian equivalent. When that was not possible, they were phonetically adapted to Castilian. I have retranslated into Catalan the “obviously” Catalan names, while in case of doubt I have left them in Castilian.

132 This column indicates the reference to the profile and payments of each soldier. The 49 soldiers are listed in respect of the order of the review.

365

Name133 Captain Matías de Cárcamo Sargent Benito de Lara

f./ff132 37–38

12

331

Joan March

Miguel de Barricarte

Lorenzo Barrufet

Joan Aymerich

Juan Salvador

Miguel Alzamora

119–120

199–200

173–174

131–132

135–136

187–188

26

–

36

30

29

29

45

Montblanc

–

Barcelona

Cervera

Sangüesa (Navarre)

Isona

Barcelona

13 August 1580

13 October 1577

22 September 1580

1 July 1578

8 March 1577

6 November 1578

19 April 1575

(continued)

“He has a small scar above his left eyebrow […], he has gone grey and a bit of his right ear is missing” “Small body, pale face,139 little blonde beard, a missing tooth in the lower left part and a mark of a wound in the middle of the upper lip that is not exposed” “Small physique, missing the little finger of the left hand” “Of moderate height, red-bearded, curly [hair], with large moustaches, without any mark on his face” “Of moderate physique, red-bearded” “With a scar on his head and another on his forehead” “Of moderate physique, black-bearded, without any mark on his forehead”

139 “blemio de rostro” in the original. ‘Blemio’ does not resemble any Spanish word that I know of. I consider it to be a loan word from the French ‘blême’, which means pale.

Juan Montañés

123–124

(continued)

332 A. J. AGUILERA-LÓPEZ

Jeroni Puig

Nicolau Geltrú

Pere Jofre

Jerónimo Diego

Miguel Vidal

Francesc Vallès

97–100

203–204

207–208

103–104

191–192

285

20

48

27

40

35

40

–

Valls

1 January 1585

1 May 1575

2 May 1583

Barcelona140 Perpignan

14 August 1577

7 June 1582

8 June 1582

13 October 1577

Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona

Puigcerdà

(continued)

“Large forehead, sunken eyes, long red face, moderate constitution” “Of moderate physique, starting to go grey, with a small wound scar on the forehead above the left eyebrow” “Small body, with a small scar on the left side of the forehead” “Black-bearded, good physique, starting to go grey” “Of small physique and small face” “Of moderate physique, robust, going grey, huge beard” “Slim body a little fit, good-looking face, red-bearded, with a knife-slash above the right eye”

“[THEY] ARE NOT OF ANY SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR WASTING …

140 “Son of Diego de Flandes”. Was Diego a Flemish immigrant?

Samsó Carles

235–236

(continued)

12

333

Tomás Miralles

Corporal Marc Aguilera

Bartolomé Esparselha142 Joan Canosa

Ramon Casanyes

Francisco Martín

Jerónimo del Abad

239–240

177–183

311–312

335–336

339–340

359–361

34

26

–

33

–

38

42

ca. 40

Barcelona

Barcelona

Puigcerdà

Cervera

[Occitania?]

Sant Pere de Riudebitlles

Barcelona

L’Atmella de Mar141

23 July 1585

4 July 1585

14 September 1585

4 January 1585

11 February 1585

1 May 1575

22 November 1582

14 January 1582

(continued)

“Of moderate constitution and slim, black-bearded, huge moustache” “Tall body, black-bearded, sunken eyes, black eyes” “With a mark on the left side and a little severed left ear, of medium height” “Tall man, long-faced, red-bearded, snub nosed”

“Moderate constitution, pale face, and black eyebrows” “Of moderate constitution, a little bald, with a scar on his forehead” “Moderate body, brown-bearded […], good-looking face” –

Occitan origin.

141 “Native from [La] Cala of Catalonia”. La Cala was the former and alternative name of L’Ametlla de Mar. 142 It is very likely that his data was collected in a previous accounting book. The etymology of his surname suggests a possible

293–294

Pedro Martín

215–216

(continued)

334 A. J. AGUILERA-LÓPEZ

Nicolás de Morales

Corporal Jerónimo de Heredia Rafael Lanuza

Lorenzo de Riscla

Cristóbal Guillermo

Baltasar Monllau

Antich Maura

387–388

419–420

487

493

497

379

257–258

Francesc Domènec

373–375

(continued)

40

36

30

27

40

34

22

ca. 45

Vic

Berga

Barcelona

Zaragoza (Aragon)

Molina [de Aragón] (Castile) Barcelona

Villajoyosa (Valencia)

Barcelona

2 October 1585

8 June 1587

22 May 1587

17 May 1587

16 October 1584

26 March 1586

23 October 1585

14 August 1585

“[THEY] ARE NOT OF ANY SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR WASTING …

(continued)

“In good shape, beardless […], with a wound on the palm on his left hand” “Youngster, good height, red-bearded, blue eyes, with a mark on the nose between the two eyebrows” “Good-bodied, reddish light beard, a wart-like wound on his left cheek” “Man with a good body, brown beard, a small wart in the corner of the forehead on the left side, sunken eyes” “Starting to go grey, good-bodied, beardless, the little finger of the right hand severed”

“Man of medium height, white beard, snub and cleft nose with a slash in it, and a stab under the right cheek” “Youngster, medium height, narrow-faced, black-bearded” “Of moderate constitution”

12

335

Bernat Alemany

Jaume Abrich

Francesc Domingo

Pedro Moya

Luis Rovira

Juan Saball

Joanot Saulera

411

505

509–511

243–245

501

521

525

(continued)

28

34

26

35

44

20

30

Osor

Berga

Barcelona

Barcelona

Tarroja [de Segarra]

Barcelona

Barcelona

14 September 1587

4 September 1587

4 September 1587

26 September 1584

28 August 1587

26 August 1587

23 February 1586

(continued)

“With a knife-slash in the middle of the forehead, of medium body” “Youngster, slender, beardless, light brown eyes, aquiline nose” “Medium-bodied man, with a mark under the right eye similar to a wart, chestnut-bearded” “In good shape, a mark of a pierced wound on the tip of the nose and another on the forehead above the left eyebrow, and a mark of a blow to the forehead above the right eyebrow” “Lad of good figure, chestnut-bearded, with a knife-slash on the right side of the nose” “Youngster, tall, chestnut-bearded, blue eyes, the nose a little wide” “Tall man, with a hole in the middle of the beard, a little bald, with a mark on the forehead above the left eyebrow”

336 A. J. AGUILERA-LÓPEZ

Joan Ferrer

Joan Puig

Joan Pujol

Miguel Carrión

Monserrat Planes

Drummer Tomás Valle

533

537

541

545

549

483

24

20

25

36

22

27

36

15 October 1587

2 May 1587

Rouergue143 (France)

22 September 1587

22 September 1587

22 September 1587

21 September 1587

14 September 1587

Barcelona

[Palma de] Mallorca (Mallorca)

[Palma de] Mallorca (Mallorca)

Igualada

Girona

Barcelona

(continued)

“Medium-bodied man, very dark brown beard, with a mark in the middle of the forehead” “Youngster, tall, long-faced, aquiline nose, black-bearded” “Youngster, medium body, unibrow, light brown eyes and squinty, beginning to grow a beard” “Good-bodied man, chestnut-bearded, bulging moustache, light brown and sunken eyes, snub nosed, with a wart on the forehead” “Youngster of good figure, dark brown light beard and bushy eyebrows, with a mark between two eyebrows” “Youngster, medium body, red-bearded, light brown eyes” “Youngster, good body, black-bearded”

“[THEY] ARE NOT OF ANY SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR WASTING …

143 “Native from Ruerga, France”.

Marc Martinón

529

(continued)

12

337

Gatekeeper Joan Bosch

115–117

38

21

Lliçà

Bareilles144 (Bigorre, Lower Navarre) 17 April 1575

1 May 1584

“Of moderate physique, dark-haired and badly bearded” “Red-bearded, grey head […], good body and large moustache”

144 “Native from Barillas, Kingdom of France [sic]”. Bareilles was located in the county of Bigorre, a fiefdom of the BourbonAlbret, independent sovereigns who, under the—disputed—title of King of Navarre, ruled Lower Navarre, as well as other fiefdoms such as Bearn, Foix, or Bigorre. Eventually—between 1607 and 1620—these territories would be integrated into the Crown of France.

Fifer Bernat Soler

277–278

(continued)

338 A. J. AGUILERA-LÓPEZ

12

“[THEY] ARE NOT OF ANY SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR WASTING …

339

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343

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CHAPTER 13

The Eastern Adriatic and Privacy in Sixteenth-Century Italian Travel Narratives Jelena Baki´c

Introduction Travelogues offer an important material for cultural and historical analysis, providing the reader with a representation of the historical past (which mainly draws upon Greek and Latin sources), some chronological data, distance, and geographical features. At the same time, these narratives offer a personal record of the unique experience of the encounter with other cultures, their manners, and private practices in everyday life. As such, travel accounts have become a vital historical resource for historiography, which in the case of the eastern Adriatic shore, has been mainly

J. Baki´c (B) Faculty of Education, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_13

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drawn from the travel narratives and reports by the travellers who travelled from west to east for reasons spiritual, political, or for the purpose of discovery.1 On the eastern shore of the Adriatic, the authors of travel books mainly focused on approximately a dozen locations: primarily (and most extensively) on Dubrovnik, but also Koper, Poreˇc, Rovinj, Pula, Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, Herceg Novi (most often held by Ottomans), Venetian Kotor, and island settlements such as Osor, Cres, Pag, Hvar, and Korˇcula.2 Although the historical and cultural circumstances on both shores were constantly changing, the Adriatic Sea remained the common ground for people coming and going, being for many centuries a unique cultural and historical region between the Italian and Balkan peninsulas. In the words of Fernand Braudel, “The Adriatic is perhaps the most unified of all the regions of the sea”.3 However, this unifying characteristic of the Adriatic Sea can be seen mainly in the domain of cultural history and the history of emotions. The idea of ‘adriaticità’ and ‘l’homo adriatucus ’4 —the people rooted between three cultures and three languages—offers fertile ground for looking at the Adriatic as a compact unity from the point of view of cultural history—a history that is not

1 See the digital library of the Centro interuniversitario internazionale di studi sul viaggio adriatico (CISVA), http://www.viaggioadriatico.it/, accessed on 1 December 2021. On historical contexts between the two shores, see Sante Graciotti, Dalmatia and the Adriatic of the “Venetian” Pilgrims on the Holy Land (14th–16th Centuries ) (Venezia, La Musa Talìa, 2020); Paola Pinelli, ‘Florentine Merchants Traveling East Through Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and the Balkans at the End of the 15th Century’, in Zbornik radova u cˇast akademiku Desanki Kovaˇcevi´c Koji´c/Conference Proceedings in honor to Academician Desanka Kovaˇcevi´c Koji´c (Banja Luka, 2015); Egidio Iveti´c, Adriatico orientale. Atlante storico di un litorale mediterraneo (Trieste, Rovigno: Unione italiana Fiume, Università Popolare, 2014); Egidio Iveti´c, ‘L’Adriatico come spazio storico transnazionale’, Mediterranea, Ricerche storiche (Palermo: Anno XII, 2015). 2 Milorad Pavi´c, ‘Perception of the Eastern Adriatic in the Travel Literature of the Early Modern Period’, Tabula: cˇasopis Filozofskog fakulteta (Pula: Sveuˇcilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli, 2016), 104. 3 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1 (London: Collins, 1972), 125. 4 Sante Graciotti, ‘L’homo adriaticus di ieri e quello di oggi’ in Homo Adriaticus : Identità culturale e autocoscienza attraverso i secoli. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio, eds. N. Falaschini and S. Sconocchia (Reggio Emilia, Edizioni Diabasis, 1998), 11–26.

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national in the strict terms of the nation-state, but rather one which looks at the Roman and Slavic cultural symbiosis. The nature of littoral societies (the port towns and coastal regions) encountered by travellers becomes fundamental if we want to research the history of the sea—an idea forwarded by Michael N. Pearson.5 According to Pearson, the people from the shore are more connected culturally with other people on the shore rather than with the neighbouring places. Arguing against the division between the sea and the land as well as the divisions between us and them, good and bad, familiar and strange,6 he intercedes for the concept of an ‘amphibious’ littoral society. As such, the sea could be understood as a region and as a text from which we can read the past and which can offer data from a mix of different ideologies as an “alternative to historical, canonised narrations”.7 The political, cultural, and trade connections between the two shores were tight and complex, reinforced by the fact that most of the towns on the eastern shore had been a part of the Republic of Venice. It was the route of pilgrims to Israel, merchants, soldiers, priests, diplomats, professors, students, naturalists, writers of isolaria, cartographers, geographers, and physicians. However, the Adriatic was also the route and battleground of spies, captives, and Uskoks8 whose testimonies are unfortunately scarce and difficult to trace. According to Egidio Iveti´c, the history of the eastern Adriatic is the history of the Venetian Republic, the Republic of Dubrovnik, and maritime encounters between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. In the early modern period, there were eleven wars between Venice and the Ottoman empire, of which seven were conducted on the eastern shore of the Adriatic in 1463–1479, 1499–1502, 1537–1540, 1570–1573, 1645– 1669, 1684–1699, and 1714–1718.9 In fact, the Adriatic was and still is

5 Michael N. Pearson, ‘Littoral Society: The Concept and the Problems’, Journal of World History, 17 (4) (2006), 353–373. 6 Pearson, 356. 7 Iveti´c, Adriatico orientale, 21. 8 About Uskoks, see Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy

War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). 9 Iveti´c, Adriatico orientale, 88.

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“a zone where multiple borders of political, cultural, religious and finally national nature have for centuries been interlaced and overlapped”.10 When writing about distant locations, the traveller’s perception of places, monuments, manners, customs, and geography depended on the cultural and historical context they came from. Their perceptions came in the first place from the contexts of travellers’ homelands and their culture. This fact allows us to grasp how conflicting notions of privacy between the writers and the people they write about might permeate the misunderstandings of certain practices. On the other hand, it can provide us with some insights into social conventions at the time, not only of the described other but also of the authors of the travelogue. These sources can count as ego documents, as writing about the other is always a way of writing about the self. The maritime dimension relates to privacy as well. In this chapter, the meanings of ‘privacy’ and ‘private practices’ are understood not only as connected with private life, spaces (for instance, the home), and time (for instance, dinner) as well as opposed to public, but also as an analytical category useful for understanding the personal, daily, domestic, interior, and familial aspects of life in ports and within society.11 Privacy can be understood as freedom from prohibited intrusion and public attention, the right to privacy, but also as something secret and intimate. When etymology is taken into consideration, the origin of the word can be traced back to the words of secret and secrecy, such as “a private or personal matter, secret” and “seclusion, state of being in retirement from company or the knowledge and observations of others”.12 Finally, the concept can also be used in economic terms whereby ‘private’ stands for negation and something illicit. According to Milorad Pavi´c, a Croatian scholar researching the early modern eastern Adriatic shore, there are three main reasons for the long duration and slow change of misconceptions about the eastern shore:

10 Egidio Iveti´c, ‘The Adriatic Sea as a Historical Region’, Belgrade Historical Review, 4 (Belgrade, 2013), 205–206. 11 See Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé’, Early Modern Privacy. Sources and Approaches, eds. Michaël Green, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021). 12 Online etymological dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, last visited 10 July 2022.

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“the negative legacy from earlier periods, the uncritical assumption of information from other authors, and the existence of ingrained distorted images, misconceptions and stereotypes”.13 By comparing travel narratives, we can then explain how certain conflicting views regarding some private practices are perpetuated. For example, the mainly negative view of the inhabitants of inner Dalmatia was repeated until the eighteenth century and the reception of Alberto Fortis’ discourse on Morlacchi in Travels into Dalmatia (1774),14 which offered a sentimental representation of Morlachs influenced by Enlightenment and pre-Romantic ideas. It was written by the abbot Alberto Fortis (1741–1803), an Italian writer, naturalist, and geologist. After visiting Dalmatia between 1765 and 1791, he wrote Travels into Dalmatia: Concerning General Observation and the Neighbouring Islands; the Natural Productions, Arts, Manners, and Costumes of the Inhabitants (1774). It became widely popular and successful in the period due to its content—a narrative on the inhabitants of inner Dalmatia, the Vlachs/Morlachs, and their “primitive” and (at the time) “exotic” customs,15 which were of particular interest in the historical and cultural moment of the Enlightenment. The duration of the journey from the Italian shore to Dalmatia depended on the weather and the size of the ship. From Venice to Dubrovnik, for example, the journey lasted three to four days, but mostly it would take six or seven days. During the winter, ships were travelling for up to twenty days.16 It was the shortest way, with favourable winds adequate for following the shoreline or costeggiare. According to Braudel, “navigation in those days was a matter of following the shoreline, moving crab-wise from rock to rock, ‘from promontories to islands and from islands to promontories’. This was costeggiare, avoiding the open sea”.17 Moreover, the three main winds of the Adriatic (scirocco or the south-east wind, bora and mistral /maestral —the north-eastern 13 Pavi´c, 102. 14 Alberto Fortis, Viaggio in Dalmazia dell’abate Alberto Fortis (Venice: Presso Alvise

Milocco, 1774). The English translation of this work appeared in 1778. 15 See Larry Wolff, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightment (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2002); Larry Wolff, ‘The Adriatic Origins of European Anthropology’, Chromohs, 10 (2005). 16 Jorjo Tadi´c, Promet putnika u starom Dubrovniku (Dubrovnik: Turistiˇcki savez Dubrovnika, 1939), 21. 17 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 103.

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winds) were more suitable for the ships than the winds on the Italian shore.18 Describing his approach towards the port of Zara in Dalmatia, the pilgrim Pietro Casola19 notes: “and then, notwithstanding that the sea had calmed down, all the sails were spread and turned, now to this side, now to that, to catch the different winds that sprang up—now bonanza,20 now provenza,21 now garbino,22 now scirocco”.23 The Adriatic Sea had different names in the early modern Italian narratives. The Venetian gulf (Golfo di Vinegia or Venezia) had been the predominant name from the twelfth century onwards. This name also shows the supremacy of the Venetian Republic in the Adriatic, as “all goods carried in the Adriatic must pass through Venice”.24 Other names included the Adriaticum Mare and the Mare Superum (as opposed to the Mare Inferum, the name for the Tyrrhenian Sea), and not infrequently, the sea around the two shores also had different names, such as the Slavic Sea (Riva degli Schiavoni) and the Italian Sea. For example, Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) refers to the eastern shore of the Adriatic as “the Slavic Sea”, while the western is called “the Tuscan Sea”.25 Lodovico Beccadelli (1501–1572), the Archbishop of Dubrovnik, referred to the eastern part of the Adriatic Sea as “the sea of Schiavonia”.26 The “other shore” (l’altra sponda) or Esclavionia, as it was called by the Venetians,

18 Tadi´c, 1939. 19 Pietro Casola, Viaggio di Pietro Casola a Gerusalemme, 1494 (Milano: Tipografia di

Paolo Ripamonti Carpano, 1855). 20 The Dizionario etimologico describes the Bonanza (also known as bonaccia) as a state of calm and tranquility in the sea (“lo stato del mare in calma ed in tranquillità”). See Dizionario etimologico, http://www.etimo.it/?cmd=id&id=2428&md=52d340fc215b a8a1c58a097c93a4372d, accessed 21 January 2022. 21 The west wind. 22 The south-west wind, also known as Libeccio or Africano. 23 The south-east wind. 24 “Ogni merce che entra nell’Adriatico o exce dall’Adriatico deve toccar Venezia”, Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia, A.d.S Venice, f. 175. Quoted in Braudel, The Mediterranean, 128. 25 Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, eds. E. Sanguinetie and M. Turchi (Milan: Garzanti, 1964), 84: “come Appenin scopre il mar schiavo e il tosco”. 26 Mentioned in Mirko Deanovi´c, ‘Talijanski pisci o Hrvatima do kraja 17. Vijeka’, Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske Akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku, 8–9 (1962), 122.

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consisted of Dalmatia, Venetian Albany, and Istria, which were under Venetian governance, and the Republic of Dubrovnik (Ragusa).27 The inhabitants of the eastern shore also had different names in the Italian testimonies. In the medieval period, the inhabitants who lived in the maritime areas (maritimae civitates ) were mostly called Romans. If they lived in the inner parts, they were called Slavs. Romans were mainly Catholic, and Slavs, Orthodox. Later, the inhabitants of the Dalmatian coast were called Latins, Schiavi, Illyricum, Illiri, Schiavoni, Schiavi, and Slavi and were mainly separated from the Morlacchi-Vlachs.28 The inhabitants of the inner part of Dalmatia were called Morlachs (morlacchi) by Italians and were mainly considered barbarous, fierce, and “capable of any crime”.29 As noted by Deanovi´c,30 the most used name for people living on the eastern coast was Schiavoni (Slavus/Schiavus ) which, apart from indicating Slavic ethnicity, also meant a class denomination. ‘Schiavo’ in Italian means ‘slave’, and it might also refer to the slavery of Slav inhabitants in the late Middle Ages.

27 After 150 years of Venetian supremacy, the republic or city-state of Dubrovnik on the eastern shore of the Adriatic had been an independent republic from 1358 until the time of Napoleon, and the year 1808, when Napoleon I subjugated Dubrovnik. In order to maintain its privileged position between the Ottomans in the east and Venice in the west, Ragusa was required to pay an annual tribute to the Ottomans from 1458 onwards, and the Ottomans in turn granted a privileged position to Ragusans in their lands. That was the period known as the pax ottomana or pax turcica. Due to its geopolitical position, Ragusa had a very important political and economic role. It represented a transitional port for Turkey, as the road through Ragusa was known as the shortest one for reaching Constantinople. 28 See Iveti´c, Adriatico orientale, 36–37. 29 On the Morlachs during the Enlightenment as well as on Morlacchism in general,

see Alberto Fortis, Travels into Dalmatia Containing General Observations on the Natural History of That Country and the Neighboring Islands; the Natural Productions, Arts, Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants: In a Series of Letters from Abbe Alberto Fortis (London: J. Robson, 1778); Wolff, Venice and the Slavs; Wolff, ‘The Adriatic Origins of European Anthropology’; Valentina Gulin, ‘Morlacchism Between Enlightenment and Romanticism (Identification and Self-Identification of the European Other)’, Nar. Umjet, 34 (1) (1997), 77–100. 30 Mirko Deanovi´c, ‘Talijanski pisci o Hrvatima do kraja 17. Vijeka’ in Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske Akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku, No. 8–9 (Dubrovnik: Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1962).

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On his way through the Dalmatian hinterland in 1497, the Florentine humanist Bonsignore Bonsignori31 found its inhabitants savage, barbaric, similar to “gipsies”, with unknown tastes and habits: “if we can call them humans, and I believe they should be called brutes without religion, they do not know if they descend from God or devil”.32 Such stereotypes of the inhabitants of the other side of the Adriatic created by Italian travellers come from a long history of encounters marked by conflicting cultural expectations. In trying to make sense of different customs and behaviours, travellers had to fill the gaps of reasoning behind the local ways of living, a reality that they had only superficial access to. In doing so, I propose that Italian travel writers had to invent private lives for the people they were trying to portray to their audience back in their homeland. By analysing these travelogues, I will show how competing notions of privacy and expectations of private life resulted in a stereotypification of the eastern Adriatic, a development which had long-term historical ramifications. The emotion of disgust expressed by some Italian travellers in their encounters with the inhabitants of inner Dalmatia is strongly connected with the emotion of fear. This emotion influenced the life of not only the traveller who expressed it, but also all communities to which he belonged. Analysing the emotions of disgust and fear can help us to understand the connections between privacy and the sea, given that we can follow how these emotions were deployed and shaped through time. The personal emotional responses of disgust and fear should be connected with collective fear and disgust and looked at in their reciprocity, as these narratives were written according to certain presumptions which were confirmed after the physical encounters with the inhabitants from the other shore. In that sense, fear cannot be treated neither as an individual emotion, nor as a social performance, but as “a foundational ingredient of the collective

31 See Eve Borsook, ‘The Travels of Bernardo Michelozzi and Bonsignore Bonsignori in the Levant (1497–98)’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36 (1973), 145–197. 32 Quoted in Pinelli, ‘Florentine Merchants’, 108: “E manchatoci el pane che togliemo

a Raugia, habiamo mangiato stiacciate non lievite cotte sotto la brace, che così usano questi huomini, se si possono chiamare huomini, che a me pare sia conveniente chiamargli bruti, sanza religione alchuna, né sanno se si sono di Dio o del diavolo […]. Messa non ci s’ode perché non ci si dice; a chiese non si va perché non s’odono le chanpane che ci chiamino”.

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affective dispositions that define constitutionally-specific communities”.33 As such, otherness, when looked at from the point of view of the history of emotions, becomes different. In the Italian emotional responses to Dalmatia (and mainly inner Dalmatians or Morlachs), such otherness was influenced by the background of the writer (geographical, religious, and cultural) and by historical events both present and past.

Travelogues The reasons for travelling across the Adriatic changed over the centuries. Until the sixteenth century, such travel was undertaken mainly because of commercial reasons and for pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The Ragusa road (stradda di Ragusi)34 extended from Dubrovnik across the Balkan peninsula to Istanbul. Moreover, Venetian diplomats (Venetian consuls in Constantinople) called bailos 35 travelled from Venice to Istanbul, especially during the governance of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1546). There are five travelogues that I am addressing in this chapter, written by a Catholic canon, Pietro Casola, by the Dominican friar, Serafino Razzi, two bailos named Paolo Contarini and Benedetto Ramberti, and a cartographer, Gioseppo Rosaccio. The canon from Milan, Pietro Casola (1427–1507) left Venice on 5 June 1494 on a Venetian galley (the Jaffa Galley) and jotted down some details about the eastern shore in his Journal from Pilgrimage to Holy Land, from Venice.36 A Dominican Tuscan friar and writer, Serafino Razzi (1531–1613) left an important testimony about the ship from Dubrovnik in his Adriatic Travels from 1572 to 1577.37 In 1534, the 33 Catherine Gray, ‘Republics’, in Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, ed. Susan Broomhall (London, New York: Routledge, 2017), 184. 34 On the Ragusa road, see Jesse C. Howell, ‘The Ragusa Road: Mobility and Encounter in the Ottoman Balkans (1430–1700)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2017). 35 See Eric Dursteler, ‘The Bailo in Constantinople: Crisis and Career in Venice’s Early Modern Diplomatic Corps’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 16 (2001), 1–30; Eugenio Alberi, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato, 15 vols. (Florence: Società Editrice Fiorentina, 1839–1863). 36 Pietro Casola, Canon Pietro Casola’s Piligrimage to Jerusalem in the Year 1494. Ed. and transl. M. Margaret Newett (Manchester: University Press, 1907). 37 The original is preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, sign. Palat. 37. I consulted the online version of the work. See I viaggi adriatici di Serafino

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humanist, Benedetto Ramberti (c.1503–c.1547)38 travelled to Istanbul as companion of the Venetian ambassador, Daniele de’ Ludovisi. Ramberti and de’ Ludovisi sailed from Venice on 4 January 1533 to Istanbul to negotiate the peace following the naval fight between the Ottomans and Venetians that had occurred in November of the previous year. Following their return to Venice, Ramberti published his observations in three volumes under the title Delle cose dei Turchi in 1539, published by the Aldine Press. This book appeared during the historical moment of the flourishing of Ottoman power and became very popular. It was republished in 1541 and served as a source for many other travelogues, being one of the earliest testimonies of Venetian missions over the Balkans. In the first book of the Delle cose dei Turchi (1539, republished in 1541),39 we can read about Dubrovnik and its inhabitants, women, clothing, and cultural habits in general. Paolo Contarini (1529–1585)40 sailed from Venice on 2 May 1580 with his family and his travel party to reach Istanbul and act in the capacity of bailo for three years. His diary was published for the first time in 1856 and it documents almost the same route as Ramberti’s travelogue.41 The travelogue entitled Viaggio da Venetia a Constantinopoli per mare e per terra by Gioseppo (Giuseppe) Rosaccio (1530–c.1621), a doctor of philosophy and medicine, cartographer, and geographer, was published in 1598 in Venice.42 The Viaggio provides cartographic information about the journey from Venice to

Razzi, ed. Monica de Rosa (Biblioteca digitale C.I.S.V.A. 2007). Available at biblioteca digitale C.I.S.C.V.A, http://www.viaggioadriatico.it/biblioteca_digitale/titoli/scheda_bib liografica.2006-10-26.2215467942 [accessed on 21 January 2022]. Apart from this, Razzi also wrote a history of Dubrovnik. See Serafino Razzi, La storia di Ragusa: scritta nuovamente in tre libri (Ragusa: Editrice tipserbo-ragusea, 1903). 38 See Howell, ‘The Ragusa Road’, 183–190. 39 Benedetto Ramberti, Delle Cose de Tvrchi. Libri Tre. Delli Qvali Si Descrive Nel

Primo Il Viaggio da Venetia À Costantinopoli, Con Gli Nomi de Luoghi Antichi et Moderni. Nel Secondo La Porta, Cioe La corte de Soltan Soleymano, Signor de Turchi. Nel Terzo & Vltimo Il Modo Del Reggere Il Stato et Imprio Suo (Venice, 1541). 40 See Howell, ‘The Ragusa Road’, 190–203. 41 Paolo Contarini, Diario di un viaggio da Venezia a Costantinopoli di M. Paolo

Contarini che andava bailo per la repubblica veneta alla porta ottomana nel 1580, (Venice: Teresa Gattei, 1856). 42 Giuseppe Rosaccio, Viaggio da Venetia, a Costantinopoli Per Mare, e per Terra, insieme quello di Terra Santa (Venice: Giacomo Franco, 1598). The work was republished in 1606.

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Dubrovnik (by sea) and from Dubrovnik to Istanbul (by land). Illustrations with copper engravings, a graphic representation of the towns, islands, and fortresses which we find in his book represent a valuable source for the historiography of, and especially for the representation of, the places from the eastern shore of the Adriatic. In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, various editions of Rosaccio’s book appeared, although his authorship was questioned and the originality of his works was treated with scepticism43 as Gioseppo Rosaccio had mainly rewritten Giovanni Botero’s work.44 Rosaccio’s narrative demonstrates how, despite personally witnessing the workings of other cultures and customs, he built his entire narrative on the basis of what had been published—and therefore made public—a few years earlier. Although they had the possibility of travelling, the travellers would often reuse earlier travel accounts and simply repeat the same information and ideas contained in the previous travelogues which were published and republished, read, and accepted. This is an example of how travellers gathered their own private knowledge through experience which did not have value as a published book. In these narratives, the focus on private themes (such as ideas about households, families, gender differences, and the meaning of nobility) can be used to question the nature of these ideas and their impact on social behaviour in general. They include representations of food, economic trade, ships and ports, women and men, and—frequently and importantly—the emotions of fear, disgust, and wonder experienced by travellers in contact with the other.

Food The description of food in these travel narratives is strictly connected with class distinction. Mentioning his privileged position (that is, being rich, Italian, noble, and connected with the church), the canon from Milan, Pietro Casola (1494) does not fail to notice that the other pilgrims were poorly treated on the ship. Although he almost always tried to make a 43 See Orietta Selva, ‘Per mare e per terra verso l’oriente: l’opera cartografica di Giuseppe Rosaccio’, in Atti, Centro di ricerche storiche, Vol. XLV (Rovigno: Mosetti Tecniche Grafiche, 2015), 147–175. 44 Giovanni Botero (1544–1617) was an Italian priest, poet, and diplomat. For his work, see Botero, Delle relationi universali di Giovanni Botero Benese, Vol. I (Rome: Giorgio Ferrari, 1591), 83.

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good case for the patron of a galley, he did note that pilgrims were rightly dissatisfied with the food. He was able to exercise sympathy, being in close contact with the other people on board. Given the enclosed nature of the space, he might have witnessed many private encounters between the lower-class men that might have facilitated his understanding of their struggles. He observes thoughtfully: [V]ery injurious words had been said on both sides, because the pilgrims went on to speak of their discontent with the food given them to eat. I calmed the discussion as well as I could. There was right on both sides, and therefore a satisfactory sentence could not be pronounced. The matter remained undecided.45

Regarding food practices in Dubrovnik, Casola writes that Ragusans “make good red wines and excellent malmseys […] produce a great quantity of wax, and also much fruit […] Nevertheless, I could not see or taste good bread. The bread appears to me to be unleavened, made without raising material such as we use”.46 At this point, the importance of bread should be pointed out. David Gentilcore observes that: Nothing evinces the divide between rich and poor in early modern Europe more than bread. At once unifying, in that it was eaten (or at least desired) by everyone, it was also divisive […] it reflects the ideologies, beliefs and aspirations of the entire period.47

To share a slice of bread has a symbolic meaning in the formation of identity, apart from the fact that it was the basic food, “the staff of life”48 and the most important ingredient in the European diet. “Bread was a social marker, effectively dividing European society into the haves and the have-nots (albeit with various gradations of ‘haves-less’ in between)”.49

45 Casola, 311–314. 46 Casola, 177. 47 David Gentilcore, Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450–1800 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 58. 48 Gentilcore, Food and Health, 19. 49 Gentilcore, Food and Health, 61.

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It was also the main source of sustenance during travel, evoking memories of family, of home, of comfort. Casola was unable to understand the Ragusan taste in bread and the fact that it was difficult to find leavened bread throughout the journey. We find the same complaint about bread in Contarini’s diary from 1580. Contarini’s diary is rich in descriptions of food and it often includes the prices of the items mentioned. Like Casola, he complains about “flatbread impossible to eat”, but praises “the excellent wine”.50 However, it was also possible to find good bread on the eastern shore. In Casola’s narrative, we can read that in Korˇcula, “as bright and clean as a beautiful jewel”, they managed to find good, fresh bread. The freshness of the bread becomes an important characteristic in these narratives. We can see how the preparation of bread also represented a possibility for the lower-class people to gain some additional money: Most of the pilgrims landed, thinking to find a good supper. But there is no fish to be had here, although the place is in the midst of the sea, no eggs, no cheese. There was hot bread, for, as soon as the people heard of the arrival of the galley, every man ran to make bread in order to earn a little money; it was good, and so was the wine.51

The ideal bread, according to the Italian travellers, was white and wellrisen, and Venice was the only place where it was possible to find it: “[T]here is bread the sight of which tempts even a man who is surfeited to eat again. In my judgment, Venice has not its equal for this”.52 Casola mentions the bread on the ship, noting that it was hard and full of worms, and adding that when they would remain without it, they would eat only biscuits. The description of the food and the toasted bread eaten at the ship can be found in Razzi’s narrative (1572–1577). However, what is striking in this narrative is the description of silence during lunch. He describes around twenty young men eating the toasted bread and fava beans in

50 Contarini, Diario di un viaggio, 14. When he arrived at the port in Ragusa, he was offered a true feast. He describes it in detail, mentioning six goats, three pairs of capons, six packs of sugared almonds, six wax candles, and a basket each of artichokes, broad beans, and salad. 51 Casola, 327–328. 52 Casola, 130.

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silence using wooden spoons and drinking wine with water. He emphasises the silence and the obedience, observing that some kind of noise could only be heard when they worked hard.53 The inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Adriatic were mainly praised for the wine production. In Zara, red wines “are good and pleasant to look at”.54 In Dubrovnik, “they make good red wines and excellent malmseys; they say they are better than those of Candia, but I have not been able to pronounce this judgment”.55 There was one practice in Ragusa (Dubrovnik) that did not please Pietro Casola: […] that a man cannot keep wine in his house even though it is produced on his own property. When they want some, they must send for it to the tavern; and their women and servants, if they want it, must secretly do the same, and on that account also they are more lukewarm about working.56

In the Statute of Dubrovnik, the rule that inhabitants of the suburb could not have wine in their houses did exist, but only applied to houses which were not built of stone.57 However, this public view about what could and could not be done in the privacy of one’s home is significant because of the double contrast we can see from this description of the public and the private as applied to the eastern and western shores of the Adriatic. Nevertheless, Casola concluded that if a similar custom existed in Milan, there probably would be fewer gouty people. The gout-ridden feet of the inhabitants were mainly connected with overindulgence in food and alcohol and, therefore, with the upper classes. When he arrived in Zadar, Casola mentioned that the whole city was “paved with little hard pebbles

53 Razzi, 129–130: “Quivi non sono contenzioni, o risse; quivi non si sentono romori, se non quando faticano”. 54 Casola, 164. 55 Casola, 176–177. 56 Casola, 178. 57 See the Statute of Dubrovnik mentioned in Statut grada Dubrovnika, sastavljen

godine 1272, na osnovu kritiˇckog izdanja latinskog teksta B. Bogiši´ca i K. Jireˇceka, ed. and trans. A. Šlji´c, Z. Šundrica, and I. Veseli´c (Dubrovnik: Državni arhiv, 2002), 340–341. In this statute under number XXVII we read: De victuabilis que possunt haberi in burgo pp. 340–341.

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in such a way that many of our Milanese (I mean those who have gouty feet) could not walk about there very comfortably”.58 When food practices are taken into consideration, we see an interesting description in the narrative of Ramberti in 1539. He writes that in Dubrovnik, neither friends nor relatives eat together or, if they eat together, it happens very rarely, as they care only about profit—just like in other mercantile places.59 For Ramberti, eating together is a sign of public respect. As the inhabitants do not have the same custom in these parts, he judges it as greed. According to Ramberti, the private interest of the individuals is so important to them that they forfeit social obligation. Rosaccio (1598), on the other hand, mentions two important practices followed by Ragusans. These two practices are mentioned in Giovanni Botero’s Relazioni Universali (1591) where we find the same observations. The first one is about the cultivation of a special fish which is possible to find in a valley that, during the winter, becomes a lake, and at the end of spring, becomes the fertile terrain for the cultivation of wheat. This fish is so oily that it is prepared in its own grass. The other practice is the way of growing oysters on trees. He admires this method which consists of bending over the trees’ branches with a stone. For two years, the oysters would cling to those trees, and from the third year, they would be almost mature and ready to be eaten.60

58 Casola, 165. 59 Benedetto Ramberti, Delle Cose de Tvrchi. Libri Tre. Delli Qvali Si Descrive Nel

Primo Il Viaggio da Venetia À Costantinopoli, Con Gli Nomi de Luoghi Antichi et Moderni. Nel Secondo La Porta, Cioe La corte de Soltan Soleymano, Signor de Turchi. Nel Terzo & Vltimo Il Modo Del Reggere Il Stato et Imprio Suo. Venice, 1541, 4r: “Gli amici et gli parenti raro o non mai mangiano insieme, attendono solamente a far denari contanti, sono superbissimo di modo, che non credono che altro sapere o nobiltà sia al mondo che la loro […]”. 60 Rosaccio, 1598: 22v–23r: “Vi è una certa valle, ove d’inverno se vi reduce tanta acqua che fa un Lago et qui se genera pesce de incredibili grassezza; per che si cuoce senza Ogli solamente con il suo grasso. Dissecandosi poi l’acqua nella fine della primavera, se vi semina grano, che vi proviene felicemente; si che in un anno istesso il medesimo Luogo da’ pesci et baide”. “Nel mare poi usano diverse industrie, et tra l’atre una, con la quale fanno, che gli alberi fruttifichino, ostrghe, chinando i rami de gli alberi con sassi, acioche stiano sotto l’acqua; a questi rami in capo di dua anni vi si appigliano tante ostreghe, che e cosa mirabile et nel terzo anno sono quasi mature et buone da mangiare”.

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Trade The detailed description of the anchoring in the port of Dubrovnik provides us with some glimpses of public–private trading. In the words of Casola: There was not a single man of them who had not had some kind of merchandise on the galley, according to the terms of agreement made when they were engaged; and when the galley entered a port, they took the said merchandise ashore and established a sort of fair […] There were more than three thousand pieces of clothes alone on board […] The officers, galeotti, and the other sailors on board Venetian galleys and other vessels, had the right of carrying merchandise on their own account in their sea chests and added to their salaries by doing a little private trading in the places visited.61

Compared to the official cargo from the galleys, the crew could also do their trading outside of these official bonds as private traders. The officers and the oarsmen had the possibility of carrying and selling merchandise which would add to their salaries. These private affairs become the opposite of official, and the word ‘private’ used in this way has the meaning of ‘negation’, as Mette Birkedal Bruun observes, “Privatus is, above all, deployed to indicate the opposite of that which is public, official, professional, communal, or evident”.62 The relationship between public and private and the respect for public space can also be seen in the description of Poreˇc, “which they say is a hundred miles from Venice”63 and its cathedral, where people, according to Casola, are more honest than in Italy: Amongst others, I saw one thing which showed me that there are very honest people in that city—more so than at home—for in the choir of the said church there was not a stall (it is true there were not many of them) which had not the surplice of a priest thrown over the back. I asked who they belonged to, and was told they belonged to the canons. I am certain

61 Casola, 161. 62 Birkedal Bruun, ‘Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy’, 22. 63 Casola, 163.

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that if I left one of mine (surplice) at our cathedral or at the Church of St. Ambrose, I should find either two or none when I got back.64

The people from the eastern shore were seen as more honest than Italians, which could be proved by their respect towards the Church and Christianity in general. Christianity is, in fact, their public point of contact. He also describes the Convent of St. Francis, the Church dedicated to Saint Nicolas “built on the rock in the sea opposite the said city”, adding that “It is very beautiful, and was built with the offerings of sailors, to whom it is a great object of devotion”.65 Casola might have been able to honour these people, to describe them with generous eyes, and to sympathise with them mainly because they shared the same Catholic faith.

Ships, Sailors, and Shipbuilders The men from Dubrovnik were known as good shipbuilders in the early modern period. In his book on naval battle tactics, navigation and boat construction, Pantera Pantero (1568–1625) mentions that “Ragusan ships are the biggest and the most renowned among others”66 and adds that Ragusans are notable shipbuilders, together with the Portuguese and Englishmen. Rosaccio also states that the inhabitants of Dalmatia are very diligent in naval construction, although he adds that they are not the best for the oars.67 Ragusans, in Rosaccio’s narrative, are represented as good

64 Casola, 23: “Inter alia vidi una cosa, che mi dete signali in quella città siano persone da bene, e più che a caxa nostra; nam in el choro de dieta Glesia non ch’era stadio (è vero che erano pochi) che non avesse apozato suxo una colla da prete. Domandai de chi erano; me fu dicto erano de li canonici. Io son certo se lassassi una de le mie al Domo overo a Sancto Ambrosio, o che ne trovaria due o nulla”. 65 Casola, 164. In the original, Casola, 24: “Andassemo da poi a visitare una Giesia de Sancto Nicolo posta sopra uno scoglio in mare a rimpeto a dicta città: è assai bella ed è fatta per marinari e in grande devozione a naviganti”. 66 Pantera Pantero, L’Armata Navale (Roma: Egidio Spada, 1613), 40: “La nave, il galeone, 1’urca […] questi istessi sono anco chiamati particolarmente le navi col nome della Patria o della Provincia dove sono state fabricate, come le Ragusee, le Biscagline, le Valentine, le Genovesi […]”. See also Pantero, 66: “per la fabrica delle navi, et dei galeoni, sono grandemente stimati i maestri Ragusei, i Porthogesi e gl’inglesi”. 67 Rosaccio, 23r: “Gli Schiavoni vagliono assai nelle cose maritime e non è gente migliore per il remo”.

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merchants, possessing many good ships and many privileges to trade and navigate.68 When describing the Venetian galley (the Jaffa Galley) he was travelling on (comprising 140 crew members and 170 pilgrims), Pietro Casola points out that the most experienced sailors were those from the eastern shore of the Adriatic: “[C]ounting men and women, friars, priests and hermits, Ultramontanes and Italians […] However, the most experienced sailors were the Sclavonians and Albanians”.69 Casola also provides a description of the Ragusan arsenal which could be dated back to the year 782 and was presumed to be where the largest galleys were constructed and maintained: “The said Ragusans have, moreover, like the Venetian gentlemen, a place built towards the port, which they call the Arsenal, where they also construct galleys and sailing ships”.70 Ragusan ships became so well-known in the early modern period that they were recognised by a unique name, Ragusea or Argosy, as it was common to give names to the ships according to the place where they were produced.71 The OED provides the definition for ‘argosy’ as “a merchant-vessel of the largest size and burden; esp. those of Ragusa and Venice”.72 There are also other nouns and adjectives derived from the word, such as ‘ragusye’, ‘arguess’, and ‘arguze’, which were in use in the sixteenth century. Also known as an ‘Aragousey ship’, this three-masted vessel navigated and traded across Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Apart from its quality and large size, argosies were known for the rich and diverse cargo they traded. In The Merchant of Venice, Salarino refers to that richness: Your mind is tossing on the ocean, There, where your argosies with portly sail, (Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea) 68 Rosaccio, 23v: “Ma I Ragugei attendono sopratutto alla mercantia. Hanno molte

buone navi, con le quali navigano et trafficano con grandissimi privilegi”. See Botero, Delle relationi, 64. 69 Casola, 160–161. 70 Casola, 175. 71 Pantero, L’Armata Navale, 40. 72 See the entry on ‘Argosy’ in the OED Online, https://www-oed-com.ep.fjernadgang.

kb.dk/view/Entry/10650?redirectedFrom=Argosy&, accessed 3 December 2021.

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Do overpeer the petty traffickers That curtsy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their woven wings.73

In his Adriatic Travels from 1572 to 1577 ,74 the Dominican Tuscan friar and writer, Serafino Razzi11) provides an important testimony of cultural practices within the specific setting of the interior of a ship in 1577: “[O]ne Ragusan ship, the biggest, and they say, that it goes over waves, and it rides the sea, whereas it carries one thousand and two hundred carros 75 and it holds 140 people. As it stopped around 4 miles away, it gave a salute to the shore with artillery”.76 It was common, mainly during the sixteenth century, that ships from Ragusa sailed through Southern Italy to transport silver, wheat, and wool to Western European ports.77 On 11 September 1577, this ship arrived at the beach of Vasto (known as Little Naples), in the province of Chieti in Abruzzo, where it was admired by Serafino Razzi and his friends. According to Razzi’s account, they saw the main room “with carved attic, painted and gilded. And next to that room, there is a large room with an attic with rose windows”.78 In this room, they were offered to eat. While in the other room, there were around twenty young men, “called mozzi” (Razzi probably refers to the Slavic noun momci, meaning ‘young men’, which he wrote using Italian phonetic rules). A small room used 73 William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, ed. John Dover, The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare, Vol. 21 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 42. 74 Razzi, 2007. 75 It was common to measure the capacity in carro, according to the measurement used

for quantity of grain in southern Italy (1 carro = 20hl = 1.6 tonnes).

76 Razzi, 129: “A gli 11 di settembre arrivò qui nella spiaggia del Vasto una nave Raugea, la maggiore, come dicono, che vada sopra onde, e che cavalchi il mare, onde porta mille, e dugento carra di grano, e tiene di famiglia 140 huomini. Essendosi fermata circa 4 miglia lontana, salutò con artiglierie la Terra”. 77 Gianluca Masi, ‘The Maritime Trade from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to Western Europe during the 16th and the 17th Century’ in Seapower, Technology and Trade, Studies in

Turkish Maritime History, ed. Dejanirah Couto, Feza Gunergun, and Maria Pia Pedani Fabris (Istanbul: Piri Reis University Publications, 2014), 275. 78 Razzi, 129: “Vedemmo la camera principale con soffitta intagliata, dipinta, e dorata. Et accanto a quella una sala grande co’ soffitta a rosoni”.

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for eating meals, called dinette, had a long and high table, and there was also another one for bombardiers. He enumerates the animals they saw at the ship: piglets, a certain number of rabbits, chickens, and very beautiful cats.79

Women Although the women described in the travelogues were mainly seen in public spaces, the travel writers did not hesitate to write about the private sphere which they rarely saw.80 Female dress codes and lifestyles were strictly connected with terms of honour, good reputation, and nobility. The social distinction in women in early modern Dubrovnik was visible and would frequently provoke the wonder of Italian travellers. The public sphere (which included the State and the Church) permeated all domains of people’s lives and very often; it was legally prescribed how noblewomen should be dressed.81 Casola points out that women look very strange in Dubrovnik due, for the most part, to their strange dresses: I do not know how to describe it, but I can assure you that their dress is more than decent. For not only do they wear their dresses very high and cover themselves to the neck, but they have a certain thing which looks like the tail of a fat ram, which goes in the front right under the chin and well over behind the hair.82

This thing that looks like “the tail of a fat ram” might be a ‘cercelli’, ‘çerçelli’, ‘circelli’, or ‘zorcelli’ which has the Slavic name ‘oboci’. In Dubrovnik, married noblewomen carried the cercelli, a kind of earring connected with the hook of the veil. It was a visible and public symbol, proof that they were married. Cercelli were made of gold or gold-plated

79 Razzi, 2007. 80 See Divna Mrdeža Antonina, ‘The Pereception of Women from the European South-

east in the Travelogues from the Early Modern Period’, Slavica litteraria, 21 (2018), 73–92. 81 See Zdenka Janekovi´c Romer, ‘La legge come sopruso: le autorità municipali e la vita privata nella Repubblica di Dubrovnik a cavallo tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna’, Acta Historiae, 10 (2002), 265–284. 82 Casola, 178.

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silver, and as they were heavy, they were usually not worn as earrings. They extended from the ears and were connected to the veil on the head with a kliˇcak or riguletum.83 On holidays, Casola saw some beautiful women, although—according to him—not many: Considering the importance of the city, I saw, specially on the holiday, some beautiful women, though not many, but those I saw were very beautiful and well adorned with jewels. They were dressed in the fashion aforesaid and resplendent with gold and silver and pearls. They are pleased to be looked at even by foreigners; they go about, however, with the greatest modesty out of doors. From what I could hear, they are not very fond of work or of gaining their living.84

However, in Ramberti’s narrative, women in Dubrovnik are represented as not very beautiful, and he also observes that they dress badly, “or better to say, they wear clothes which make them look bad”.85 He explains that women wear a cloth on their hair which serves as a kind of class distinction. It is made of white silk and it is shaped like a pyramid if a woman belongs to a noble family. If not, it is made of linen.86 These public displays of private life with the symbolism of a visible sign of marriage are important public markers of private conditions. They were important to people within their culture, but they were considered as merely unflattering to outsiders. He also notes that only rarely do women go out: “Rarely do they leave their home, but they voluntarily stay at the windows”.87 As such, the window becomes one of the socially acceptable public spaces for women, a meeting point between private and public which “indirectly testifies to the role of woman as an observer of public events, or consequently to the absence of the role of an active social

83 Described in Filip de Diversis, Opis Dubrovnika (Dubrovnik: Casopis ˇ Dubrovnik, 1973), 48. 84 Casola, 178. 85 Ramberti, 4r: “Le donne non sono molto belle e vestono male cioè habiti nelli quali

compareno male”. 86 Ramberti, 4r: “portano in capo una cosa lunga di panno di lino, et se son nobili di seta bianca in forma di piramide […]”. 87 Ramberti, 4r: “raramente escono di casa, ma stanno volentieri alle finestre. Le dongelel non si vedono, usano quasi tutti la lingua schiava […]”.

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participant (men do not stay at the window!)”.88 The younger women are not seen and they speak only the Schiavone language, while men also know Italian.89 However, in Korˇcula, according to Casola: Their women cannot fear the cold. They go about with their chests and shoulders entirely uncovered from the breasts upwards, and they arrange so that their breasts hold up their clothes and prevent them from falling down on to their feet.90

Although brief, Rosaccio provides a description of women, noting that women do not have very long hair and that they artificially colour it black. He also adds that young women are married at the age of 25 or later.91

Dubrovnik and Men When men are taken into consideration in Dubrovnik, the description is quite different. Casola observes that: “The men of this city are generally handsome, and the younger they are, the taller they seem to be”.92 In Korˇcula, the island in Adriatic Sea, he notes: The said citadel is full of people. The men dress in public like the Venetians, and almost all of them know the Italian tongue. When I asked the reason, I was told it was because they often go to Venice.93

88 Antonina, ‘The Perception of Women’, 75. 89 Ramberti, 4r–4v: “Portano in capo una cosa lunga di panno di lino, et se son nobili

di seta bianca in forma di piramide…rare volte escono di casa, ma stanno volentieri alle finestre. Le dongelle non si vedono. usano quasi tutta la lingua schiava, ma gli huomini et questa et la italiana”. 90 Casola, 327. 91 Rosaccio, 22v–23r: “Le donne non portano i capelli molto lunghi, e li fanno

artificiosamente negri. Le donzelle di venticinque et più anni si maritano”. 92 Casola, 177. 93 Casola, 327.

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In Ramberti’s words, Dubrovnik “has a small port, with a small dock”,94 people “rich and parsimonious, like the majority of merchants”.95 Ramberti mentions that they are “very arrogant, so that they believe that there is no other nobility or knowledge than theirs on the earth”.96 However, there is one thing that Ragusans should be praised for—their capacity for developing every commodity irrespective of their harsh and tight position and only with their diligence.97 This affirmation echoes the words of the seventeenth-century Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682)98 who remarked that “[t]he site in itself would not have mattered as it did, were it not for the wisdom of its citizens in understanding their peculiar position in the world and making the best out of their circumstances through foresight and skill”.99 For Ramberti, people from Dubrovnik were arrogant about their knowledge, motivated only by private interest. The only good part was that they at least worked hard to maintain their status and goods. For Çelebi, on the other hand, it was because of their wisdom and knowledge of their position that they were able to flourish, not despite it. In Casola’s travelogue, Dubrovnik was represented as an independent state, despite the tributes it paid both to the Hungarian King and the Ottoman Sultan.100 Casola points out the importance of freedom for Dubrovnik, noting that:

94 Ramberti, 4v: “porto picciolo fatto à mano, con muolo molto picciolo”. 95 Ramberti, 4v: “Gli Rhagusei universalmente sono ricchi et avari, come il più delli

mercanti […] gli amici et gli parenti raro o non mai mangiano insieme. Attendono solamente a far denari contanti”. 96 Ramberti, 4v: “Sono superbissimi di modo, che non credono che altro sapere o nobilità sia al mondo che la loro”. 97 Ramberti, 4v: “ma meritano invero grandissima laude che, essendo posti in uno sito aspero et stretto sopramodo, si habbiano aperta la via di ogni comoditade con la sola virtù et industria loro, si può dire al dispetto di natura”. 98 See Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions : Kossovo, Montenegro, Ohrid, ed. And trans. Robert Dankoff and Robert Elsie (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2000). 99 Cemal Kafadar, ‘Evliya Çelebi in Dalmatia: An Ottoman Traveler’s Encounters with the Arts of the Franks’ in Dalmatia and the Mediterranean, ed. Alina Payne (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 70. 100 See Lovro Kunˇcevi´c, ‘The Myth of Ragusa: Discourses on Civic Identity in an Adriatic City-State (1350–1600)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Central European University, 2012).

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They are content with their Government or Signoria. This seems natural to me, because they are free, and do not pay tribute to anyone other than the Turk. This is twenty thousand ducats, and before the end of the year, it becomes twenty-five thousand, and this happens every year—in truth, they are almost neighbours. Every year they also send a present of five hundred ducats to the King of Hungary, by whom they are protected. I could not discover whether they have any other charges at present. They are occupied in building a port, which they intend to fortify, and in enlarging the moat of the said city on the land side. It will be a beautiful fortress when it is finished.101

Dubrovnik, according to Rosaccio, is the biggest, the most mercantile, and the richest town, which safeguards its liberty by paying tribute to the Ottomans.102

Conclusion: Privacy and the Adriatic, “a Sea of Intimacy”103 In this chapter, I have discussed the main narratives in the representation of the private practices of the inhabitants of the eastern Adriatic shore by closely reading the travelogues that were written at the end of fifteenth and in the sixteenth century by Venetian bailos, pilgrims, and cartographers. The observations by travellers are based on their previous knowledge of the places and customs they describe, with added distances and travel times. We have notes on the cultures they met, the women and men they encountered, the different practices they witnessed, what travellers ate and drank as well as who they travelled with. Additionally, we can also grasp the emotions experienced by travellers when they came in contact with the ‘other’. Therefore, in the sixteenth-century Italian travelogues, the inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Adriatic are represented following a certain pattern. As mentioned briefly at the beginning the hinterland of Venetian Dalmatia—Morlacchia and its inhabitants who spoke in the Slavic language—are represented as wild, dark and barbaric, inhuman, and 101 Casola, 177–178. 102 Rosaccio, 22v: “Questa si mantiene in libertà con pagare al Turco 14 mila cechini,

et ne spende altrettanti in doni et in alloggiamenti di Turchi”. 103 Predrag Matvejevi´c, Mediteranski brevijar (Zagreb: Biblioteka Ambrozija, 2007).

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dangerous. Bonsignori could not find any proper wine, neither eat proper bread, nor could he go to attend Mass. This means that what he found was completely the opposite of what he had left—the western model of living. In line with Paola Pinelli’s conclusions, this should be interpreted as a sign: […] of a deep fear and strong disorientation that westerners felt when they ventured into the inland regions of the Balkans, an almost totally unknown environment, which was, and still is, wild, untamed, with typical features of a poorly urbanised area of which the habits and language were unknown.104

Another prominent perception was that the stingy and arrogant Ragusans from the other side only thought about money. Their belief that noble descent made them virtuous and their haughtiness in front of foreigners were pointed out in Ramberti’s narrative. The arrogance, the conviction “that there is no older nobility in the world than theirs”, and their status as a tribute-payer to the Ottoman empire are facts that were repeated in Italian travelogues. However, the people from Dubrovnik were also praised as good shipbuilders and diligent workers. In the description of the noblewomen of Dubrovnik, the words “strange”, “not beautiful”, “badly dressed” recur, but it is important to remember that they refer only to external appearance. Female laziness is mentioned, but female honour is praised. The Adriatic Sea has become a place in history, a “transnational historical space in which one can read the past […] [a] small-scale Mediterranean”.105 In its transnational history, the Adriatic brings to light the different expectations of what the private could mean between cultures. Individual travellers had to grasp the reality of customs and practices of places which were new and unknown to them. By creatively reconstructing the private lives of locals and projecting their own private beliefs onto them, the writers attempted to translate this reality to their audience. Their writings reflect how they struggle to capture the conflicting emotions brought to them by the sea and its encounters—emotions of wonder and, frequently, of frustration, dislike, contempt, and fear.

104 Pinelli, ‘Florentine Merchants’, 198. 105 Iveti´c, ‘L’Adriatico come spazio’, 483.

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Bracewell, Wendy, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1 (London: Collins, 1972). Gray, Catherine, ‘Republics’ in Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, ed. Susan Broomhall (London, New York: Routledge, 2017). Çelebi, Evliya, Evliya Çelebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions: Kossovo, Montenegro, Ohrid. Translated and edited by Robert Dankoff and Robert Elsie (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2000). Centro interuniversitario internazionale di studi sul viaggio adriatico (C.I.S.V.A), http://www.viaggioadriatico.it/, accessed on 1 December 2021. De Rosa, Monica, ed., I viaggi adriatici di Serafino Razzi, in Biblioteca digitale C.I.S.V.A. 2007, http://www.viaggioadriatico.it/biblioteca_digitale/tit oli/scheda_bibliografica.2006-10-26.2215467942, accessed on 21 January 2022. Deanovi´c, Mirko, “Talijanski pisci o Hrvatima do kraja 17. Vijeka”, Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske Akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku, No. 8–9 (Zagreb, Dubrovnik: Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1962). Dursteler, Eric, ‘The Bailo in Constantinople: Crisis and Career in Venice’s Early Modern Diplomatic Corps,’ Mediterranean Historical Review, 16 (2001), 1– 30. Gentilcore, David, Food and Health in Early Modern Europe. Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450–1800 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016). Graciotti, Sante, Dalmatia and the Adriatic of the “Venetian” Pilgrims on the Holy Land (14th–16th Centuries) (Venice: La Musa Talìa, 2020). Gulin, Valentina, ‘Morlacchism Between Enlightenment and Romanticism (Identification and Self-Identification of the European Other)’, Nar. Umjet, 34 (1) (1997), 77–100. Howell, Jesse C., ‘The Ragusa Road: Mobility and Encounter in the Ottoman Balkans (1430–1700)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2017). Iveti´c, Egidio, ‘L’Adriatico Come Spazio Storico Transnazionale’, Mediterranea, Ricerche Storiche (Palermo: Anno XII, 2015). ———, ‘The Adriatic Sea as a Historical Region’, in Belgrade Historical Review, 4 (2013), 205–206. ———, Adriatico orientale. Atlante storico di un litorale mediterraneo (Trieste, Rovigno: Unione italiana Fiume, Università Popolare, 2014). Janekovi´c Romer, Zdenka, ‘La legge come sopruso: le autorità municipali e la vita privata nella Repubblica di Dubrovnik a cavallo tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna’, Acta Historiae, 10 (2002), 265–284.

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Kafadar, Cemal, ‘Evliya Çelebi in Dalmatia: An Ottoman Traveler’s Encounters with the Arts of the Franks’ in Dalmatia and the Mediterranean, ed. Alina Payne (Leiden: Brill, 2014). Kunˇcevi´c, Lovro, ‘The Myth of Ragusa: Discourses on Civic Identity in an Adriatic City-State (1350–1600)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Central European University, 2012). Masi, Gianluca, ‘The Maritime Trade from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to Western Europe during the 16th and the 17th Century’ in Seapower, Technology and Trade, Studies in Turkish Maritime History, eds. Dejanirah Couto, Feza Gunergun, and Maria Pia Pedani Fabris (Istanbul: Piri Reis University Publications, 2014). Matvejevi´c, Predrag, Mediteranski brevijar (Zagreb: Biblioteka Ambrozija, 2007). Mrdeža Antonina, Divna, ‘The Pereception of Women from the European Southeast in the Travelogues from the Early Modern Period’, Slavica litteraria, 21 (2018), 73–92. OED Online Oxford University Press, accessed 3 December 2021. Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, accessed on 10 July 2022. Pavi´c, Milorad, ‘Perception of the Eastern Adriatic in the Travel Literature of the Early Modern Period’, Tabula: cˇasopis Filozofskog fakulteta (Pula: Sveuˇcilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli, 2016). Pearson, Michael N. ‘Littoral Society: The Concept and the Problems’, Journal of World History, 17 (4) (2006), 353–373. Pinelli, Paola, ‘Florentine Merchants Traveling East Through Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and the Balkans at the end of the 15th century’, in Zbornik radova u cˇast akademiku Desanki Kovaˇcevi´c Koji´c/Conference Proceedings in honor to Academician Desanka Kovaˇcevi´c Koji´c (Banja Luka, 2015). Selva, Orietta, ‘Per mare e per terra verso l’oriente: l’opera cartografica di Giuseppe Rosaccio’, in Atti, Centro di ricerche storiche, Vol. XLV (Rovigno: Mosetti Tecniche Grafiche, 2015), 147–175. Tadi´c, Jorjo, Promet putnika u starom Dubrovniku (Dubrovnik: Turistiˇcki savez Dubrovnika, 1939). Wolff, Larry, ‘The Adriatic Origins of European Anthropology’, Chromohs, 10 (2005). ———, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightment (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2002).

PART V

Epilogue

CHAPTER 14

Pockets of Privacy in the Maritime World: An Epilogue Mette Birkedal Bruun

and Natacha Klein Käfer

Envisioning a historical study of privacy means attempting to connect deeply with the experiences of the people of the past. As human beings who embody a need to protect ourselves at a physical, emotional, informational, and social level, we often need to situate these shared feelings within historical circumstances that make the notion of privacy seem nearly impossible.1 The early modern period witnessed many of these circumstances where control and spatial constriction were the norm. Highly controlled abbeys, hospitals, and prisons would perceive a private life within its walls as a potential threat if not closely inspected for conformation to the tenets of their regulations. Yet, in each of these 1 Djoeke van Netten, ‘Spaces on Ships: Secrecy and Privacy in the Dutch East India Companies’, TSEG, 18 (3) (2021), 109.

M. B. Bruun · N. Klein Käfer (B) Centre for Privacy Studies (DNRF138), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] M. B. Bruun e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_14

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institutions, inmates managed to create ephemeral pockets of privacy. A private connection with God was necessary for a pious life, and monks knew how to instrumentalise their daily practices in order to engender moments of privacy. Hospitals were usually overcrowded spaces, mostly hosting the sick and injured at their most vulnerable, having to attend to all their needs in cramped quarters with little or no division between beds. Nevertheless, bedside secrets were shared, last confessions took place, and visitors managed to exchange private information amidst the collective suffering. Prisons held people in conditions where, depending on personal status, basically no dignity could be maintained. Still, prisoners found ways of sharing letters or notes, planned—and sometimes succeeded in orchestrating—escapes, and kept their self-established rules of sociability. Most sailors and travellers were also aware of these constraints, many of whom lived through some of those institutions. But the confines of abbeys, hospitals, and prisons did not equate to the reality of life on board. Life at sea combined constricting living spaces with high mobility. Periods of confined exchanges with an unchanging group of individuals were followed by reaching ports where this social constellation changed drastically. Although essentially inescapable when on board, personal interactions were also marked by this sense of temporality. As stated in the introduction to this volume, beyond being the connector between shores, the sea was an enabler of cultural encounters and, at times, the first point of conflict. This means that boundaries of access to one another, negotiations of proximity and distancing, and social compromises had to be constantly redrawn in the cultural diversity and usual temporariness of relationships, thereby making privacy at sea a revealing instance of how people adjust to the expectations and challenges of private life. The chapters of this volume study a particular dimension of life at sea— questions, anxieties, and the drawing of boundaries related to privacy. Maritime notions and experiences of privacy come to the fore in connection with concerns related to access and non-access, vulnerability and protection, as well as knowledge and ignorance. These concerns are structured and regulated by an intricate grid of zones and boundaries. Some of these zones and boundaries are physical and, at first glance, relatively stable, made as they are of wood, canvas, or other tangible materials; others are based on codified behaviours associated with rank, gender, ethnicity, and the explicit and tacit standards that apply at sea. Finally, some of these zones and boundaries are transient and intangible,

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shaped by human interaction, social codes, or social contracts—and the willingness to dispense with them—as well as by individual choices and dispositions. Each of these boundaries can serve to create, shield, order, or impose some form of privacy, and each of them is vulnerable to various forms of transgression and thus comes with an inherent porosity. When we look closer at these boundaries, we get a sense of interfaces between individuals and communities on board as well as of the spatial organisation, hierarchies, values, and norms that regulated early modern maritime life. The ship itself may be seen as a boundary that demarcates some form of communal privacy for the crew and passengers. Some of the examples treated by Beck and LeJacq exemplify the maxim ‘What happens on board, stays on board’. However, most of the spatial boundaries examined in the chapters concern segregations within the ship. Obvious spatial and material delineations are created in connection with cabins, berths, and hammocks, but also in relation to gender—or rank—specific clothes as well as the wooden chests that contained the seamen’s private belongings. Access to and possession of such spaces depend on hierarchies, and these material boundaries signal the immediate forms of spatial privacy that were available to different groups on board. Cabins, allocated or rented, were reserved for the superiors and particularly distinguished passengers. Their walls were made of wood or canvas and they had doors with locks as well as windows and keyholes that might be covered. The boundary provided by a cabin could be reinforced by the lodger drawing rank and prohibiting people from entering, by the demand to knock on the door before entering, or by posting, as shown in the examples cited by Polónia & Capelão, sentries inside the door or guards or soldiers outside. Cabins, to some extent, shielded their inmates from the gaze of others, but they did not prevent other people from hearing or suspecting the nature of the activities that went on inside it. The protection offered by ad hoc canvas partitions, berths, and hammocks was even less robust— sounds were heard more easily, movements sensed or felt, and smells perceived. Nocturnal darkness, lowering the voice, and subduing movements might somewhat reinforce the boundaries of the spatial privacy offered by such spaces. Temporary shelter could be found in places allocated to storage or specific activities and accessible only to a few specialist crew members. Other corners and crannies that might afford frail and ephemeral protection are indicated in the records studied by Beck and

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LeJacq, who mention the galley, the bow, the manger, and various gaps and nooks as potential places for momentary privacy. As observed by Polónia & Capelão as well as Foy, male clothes might mask women as men just as tarred clothes might disguise landlubbers as seamen, or the enslaved as free, thus creating a shield of privacy around an individual. Foy shows how the smallest spatial unit—the chests that contained personal objects, letters, trading goods, money, personal writings, and identification documents—offered the only form of spatial privacy available to common seamen. Such chests could contain the very identity of their owner and were thus vital, especially for people who desperately needed to be able to prove or conceal their identities. The skin may be seen as the ultimate and most intimate material boundary. As Schadner shows, the seamen’s tattoos hovered at the intersection of public appearance and the private meaning that was associated with a particular tattoo and known only to the tattooed individual or to a small community of like-minded people who were marked with the same tattoo. Such boundaries provide some form and degree of what we may perceive as the privacy of individual or communal recognition. Privacy, however, is vital not only in relation to personal information but also in relation to state information. Ceccarelli, Pizzorno, and Araújo present three different scales of boundaries applied for the secure transportation of state secrets by sea. The intricate and closely supervised postal systems, developed by the Genoese Spinola clan and sometimes reinforced by arms, created a large-scale set of boundaries around the secrets of the Roman Curia, but messages could also be hidden in silk crates unbeknownst to the people who transported them. The cipher used to mask the content of a state letter transported through hostile waters is the minutest boundary for such protection, creating a shield within the letter and thus protecting its message even if it were stolen. As Silva Perez notes, privacy at sea is often not “attached to an individual or place”. The strength of boundaries hinges on the behaviour on board which was, in turn, regulated by tacit or codified social expectations and individual or communal relationships. Beck and LeJacq both show examples of this form of privacy. The crew could close rank and refuse to tell on a mate or choose to hear or disregard hushed sounds, to see or overlook hidden movements in hammocks, and to ascertain or ignore suspicious movements by touching or not touching the hammock; they could choose to seek this kind of knowledge actively or to disregard even

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highly suggestive indications. One prevailing form of privacy at sea was created by fellow crew members’ conscious and deliberate overlooking. Privacy could be appropriated, carved out, bought officially or through bribes, imposed, or granted. As demonstrated by Polónia & Capelão’s study of the segregation of women on board, there is sometimes a fine line between protection, privacy, and incarceration. Beck reminds us that occasionally human care would take the form of privacy bestowed upon fellow seamen who were particularly afflicted by melancholy, drunkenness, or mental illness. The privacy afforded by material or intangible boundaries would secure the virtue of females or vulnerable males, allow space for voluntary or imposed sexual encounters, shroud episodes of mental afflictions, severe drunkenness, or dire cases of melancholy, state secrets, or matters related to individual identities. No matter how material and seemingly robust they appeared, each of these boundaries could be traversed. Keyholes offered views, doors could be broken open or otherwise fail to hide what went on inside, hammocks could be touched, observed, or listened to, thus giving away tell-tale signs of the activities inside, chests could be pried open or stolen, and black seamen could be sold as slaves even though they were free if they lost their token of freedom. Despite and because of such risks, boundaries were taken seriously. It is telling that in some of Beck’s cases, the failure to respect privacy becomes decisive proof, either when the suspect flung open his door, thus revealing suspicious behaviour that a sane person would have taken care to keep hidden from view, or when a suspect banged on a superior’s door or even broke through it, thus revealing his lacking the sense of rank-specific privacy. Issues related to knowledge is a staple in the cases examined in this volume. Who knew what? How did they come by this knowledge? Did they bring forth or withhold it—and from whom? Some forms of privacy depend on the maintenance of intricate knowledge systems. They could be the authorised and organised understanding of cipher codes, the more or less accidental and fragmentary awareness of illicit intimacy that is related or contained, or the insider knowledge of the meaning of a particular tattoo. Sometimes privacy depended on the professional ethos of those who were entrusted with particular knowledge, as in the cases outlined by Araújo and Ceccarelli. However, the question of professional obligations also appears in relation to particularly vulnerable passengers or crew members, as shown by Polónia & Capelão as well as LeJacq, or with the expectations related to a particularly regulated form of behaviour,

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as demonstrated in Aguilera-López’s study of the soldiers in the Royal Shipyard in Barcelona. Trust and loyalty are other privacy-inducing factors foregrounded in the chapters. The confines offered through trust and loyalty may be considered either strong and lasting or frail and ephemeral, relying as they do on human tolerance, care, and sense of community as well as the willingness to turn a blind eye to transgressive behaviour or to withhold one’s knowledge thereof. Such boundaries come with the inherent exclusion of people and conditions to which such bonds of loyalty do not extend. Sometimes privacy could be bought. Trust, loyalty, and professionalism could be buttressed by material provisions such as benefices or bribes given to the keeper of private information, as shown by Ceccarelli and Pizzorno, or by purchasing a cabin or a particular location on deck, as in the cases studied by Humanes as well as Polónia & Capelão. The cases examined in this volume show how, in the early modern maritime world, privacy was often a hard-fought boon. At the same time, however, privacy at sea was dogged by the generally negative associations that it had on shore. LeJacq shows how carving out privacy could inspire so much suspicion about the activities occurring under this cover that the crew members actively bypassed it by, for example, keeping doors open rather than shut. After all, the ultimate consequence of guarding one’s privacy for behaviour that was deemed uncouth or illegal could be the extreme public exposure of a trial and the ensuing penalties, be they public flogging or public execution. Overall, just like on the shore, early modern privacy at sea is perceptible in the absence of traces. As Pizzorno reminds us, the historical material available to us is generally fraught with large gaps, although, in accordance with the nature of the matter, this is particularly acute for issues related to privacy. Silva Perez notes the silences of extant sources that hint at or shroud private matters and motivations. Araújo remarks on the archival lacunae with regard to particular sources, in casu encrypted letters. Ceccarelli notes the silence shrouding the names of private persons who travelled incognito while trusted with secret messages. Humanes and Foy both comment on those who boarded the vessels in order to be forgotten because of crimes committed onshore or an enslaved past, concluding that some of these did indeed disappear from view.

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Maritime Contraction and Extension The situation on board early modern ships resembles that of other tightly defined communities. The many tacit and explicit regulations bring to mind the Benedictine abbey with its strictly hierarchical organisation within a confined space, the call for obedience towards the superior, the constant presence of others, as well as the inherent mutual surveillance.2 As noted by Humanes, crew members often left their past behind when boarding—a situation which has some similarities with the forsaking of the world by the monastic novice. Even the maritime ruptures of rules and regulations, in the shape of harassment of fellows, homoeroticism, and murder, have some parallels in the monastic world.3 While the meticulously regulated communal work-life balance on board may be compared to other early modern institutions such as the abbey, the workhouse,4 or the prison,5 the sea, however, makes a decisive difference. Conditions at sea are characterised by a particular dynamic of contraction and extension. As demonstrated by Araújo and Humanes, ships are thoroughly regulated 2 For the pillars of Benedictine monastic life, see, for example, Timothy Fry, Imogen Baker, Timothy Horner, Augusta Raabe, and Mark Sheridan, eds. and trans., RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1980), especially the appendices. For the communal regime in the late seventeenth century monastery abiding by the Rule of St. Benedict, see Mette Birkedal Bruun, The Unfamiliar Familiar: Armand-Jean de Rancé (1626–1700) between Withdrawal and Engagement (Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 2021 [2017]), https://static-curis.ku.dk/portal/files/280514170/Bruun_ Ranc_September_2021.pdf, 387–752, particularly 531–581. 3 For the harassment, see Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Wandering Eyes, Muttering, and Frowns: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Communiticative Implications of Gesture’ in Monastic Oral Communication, ed. S. Vanderputten (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 337–363. Brian McGuire has argued for a homoerotic streak in the oeuvre of the twelfth-century Cistercian Aelred of Rievaulx in Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx (New York: Crossroad, 1994) while John Boswell straightforwardly identified Aelred as gay in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982), 222. For a critical response, see Marsha L. Dutton, ‘Aelred of Rievaulx: Abbot, Teacher, and Author’ in A Companion to Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167), ed. Marsha L. Dutton (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 17–47, 26–28; for murder, see Janet Burton and Julie Kerr, The Medieval Cistercians (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2011), 86 and 159. 4 Paul Slack, ‘Hospitals, Workhouses and the Relief of the Poor in Early Modern London’ in Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500–1700, eds. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (London: Routledge. 1997), 229–246. 5 Susan E. Brown, ‘Policing and Privilege: The Resistance to Penal Reform in Eighteenth-Century London’ in Institutional Culture in Early Modern Society, eds. Anne Goldgar and Robert I. Frost (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 103–130.

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legal entities of their own, but they are also defined, culturally and legally, by the powers that they belong to as well as by the nature, purpose, and size of the vessel. As Baki´c, Foy, Humanes, LeJacq, as well as Polónia & Capelão underline, the pockets of privacy created on board were influenced by the conditions that reign at the particular maritime interface of strict hierarchies, norms, and legally defined structures on the one hand, and a sense of anarchical chaos caused by constant dangers from within and without the ship on the other. A voyage brought into co-existence different groups such as superiors, crew, and passengers, but also people of different ethnicities, religions, and classes who would not otherwise co-exist in such close proximity and with as little distinction. On the one hand, this tension caused societal norms to be upheld with similar or even stricter fervour than on land. On the other hand, they created a disruption of landlocked standards—as Beck shows, there are cases where the maritime context seems to create a heightened sense of community and a greater interpersonal responsibility than on land, while Foy demonstrates that the vulnerability that dogged some groups on land could be augmented at sea, deprived as they were of even the scarce protection that codified measures would offer on land. Life at sea retains some of the expansive and chaotic nature of the ocean itself that, as Baki´c, Ceccarelli, Foy, and Pizzorno show, makes it fit for all manners of licit as well as illicit business. As Humanes reminds us, the tight and socially complex community with its potentially higher proportion of human beings that would have been considered outcasts on shore was a factor that added to the tension on board. In some dimensions, the chaotic anarchy on board does, however, also afford some degree of freedom that is not available on shore, as shown in Foy’s chapter.

Privacy Studies and Maritime Studies Privacy studies has much to learn from maritime history. The situation at sea was unique and complex which amplifies both the absence and presence of privacy with equal acuteness. As underlined by Araújo, Baki´c, Ceccarelli, Foy, Humanes, and Pizzorno, ships were arms in war, vehicles for the open (non-secret) transportation of people, goods, and messages. They were, however, also hiding places for people, goods, and messages. Ships were a place of training, exploitation, as well as intimate and communal bonding. The overall aim of going from point A to point

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B was the ultimate goal, but one that left plenty of room for other intermediary goals. This particular situation creates a spatial and social density which enhances issues related to early modern privacy. The pervasive nature of early modern surveillance by peers and superiors is increased, just as the charge of forgoing surveillance takes on more nuances.6 The threat of public exposure in punishment by legal authorities or by the vox populi is a reminder that privacy was considered a boon.7 Although questions of private and public knowledge, trust and confidentiality prevail in early modern theory and practice, the sea makes it more acute.8 The intense social interaction at sea augments the dense intercourse of early modern towns which are equally characterised by porous boundaries.9 Privacy requires that human agents are able to evade some, but not necessarily all the senses of those around them. Actions may be heard but not seen, or seen but not heard, and sometimes these sensory distinctions

6 For recent historical privacy studies, see Michaël Green, Lars C. Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun, eds., Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches (Leiden: Brill, 2021); Natália da Silva Perez, ed., TSEG Special Issue: Privacy and the Private in Early Modern Dutch Contexts, 18 (3) (2021); Sari Nauman and Helle Vogt, eds., Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). 7 The public punishment of crimes, maritime and otherwise, was part of a culture of exposure ranging from the medieval pillory to the early modern newspaper defamation with slander, libel, and general gossip as potentially devastating supplements. See Jesper Jakobsen, ‘Commercial Newspaper and Public Shame Pole: Exposure of Individuals in the Copenhagen Gazette Adresseavisen 1759–73’ in Nauman and Vogt, Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia, 99–118. 8 For studies of early modern deliberations of the extent to which knowledge obtained in, for instance, private conversations can be conveyed publicly, see Johannes Ljungberg, ‘Talking in Private—And keeping It Private: Protecting Conversations from Exposure in Swedish Pietism Investigations, 1723–1728’ in Nauman and Vogt, Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia, 63–80. See also the study of the status of a judge’s private knowledge in Paolo Astorri, ‘Can a Judge Rely on His Private Knowledge? Early Modern Lutherans and Catholics Compared’ in Comparative Legal History, 9 (2021), 1–34. For a study of confidentiality between healers and patients, see Natacha Klein Käfer, ‘Dynamics of Healer-Patient Confidentiality in Early Modern Witch Trials’ in Green et al., Early Modern Privacy, 281–296. 9 See Bob Pierik, ‘Privacy, Publicity and Gender in Amsterdam’s Early Modern Urban Space’, Privacy Studies Journal, 1 (2022), 1–22; Camilla Schjerning, ‘Of Chamber Pots and Scorned Houses: Exposing Hidden Bodies and Private Matters in Eighteenth-Century Copenhagen’ in Nauman and Vogt, Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia, 119– 138.

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make all the difference.10 Tensions around facilitating, identifying, and revealing sexual promiscuity are enhanced.11 The maritime situation does away with most human autonomy, largely subjecting individual needs to the requirements of navigation. This reinforces issues pertaining to public authority and private behaviour in the superiors; the maritime context sharpens the apprehension that a superior acts against his public authority if he is directed by his private inclinations.12 Privacy studies, in turn, brings to maritime history an acute sense of the many different material and immaterial zones and thresholds on board. The concern with privacy is an analytical catalyst that brings to the fore spatial and social segregations, power dynamics, issues related to control of access, and autonomy. When examining the zones and thresholds on board, we are reminded that early modern privacy is not simply a matter of stable and firmly delineated distinctions of public and private. Such distinctions are, as shown in the chapters of this volume, hard to come by in the early modern period. However, when we begin to look for malleable and ephemeral instances of privacy in the early modern material world, and in the silences of such a world, we begin to discover

10 Lena Cowen Orlin underscores this point in her observation that the early modern gallery offered an opportunity for private conversations because in this open space, conversants could see anybody approaching. Lena Cowen Orlin, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 226–261. 11 This alarm regarding homoerotic relationships and the measures to reveal them is an intensification of situations described by Natália da Silva Perez in ‘Sexual surveillance in Paris and Versailles under Louis XIV’ in Histories of Surveillance from Antiquity to the Digital Era: The Eyes and Ears of Power, eds. A. Marklund and L. Skouvig (London: Routledge, 2021), 53–69. The exploitation of hidden or semi-hidden spaces at sea for illicit business is a more acute version of conduct on land. See, for instance, the fear that any form of spatial segregation, in casu private chapels, may be used for misconduct in Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘A Private Mystery: Looking at Philippe de Champaigne’s Annunciation for the Hôtel de Chavigny’ in Quid est sacramentum?: Visual Representation of Sacred Mysteries in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1700, eds. W. Melion, E. Pastan, and L.P. Wandel (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 606–655, 622. 12 See the study of the early modern view that the exercise of authority is dependent on the public office held and can be undermined if, in this office, the magistrate acts as a persona privata in Paolo Astorri and Lars C. Nørgaard, ‘Publicus Privatus: The Divine Foundations of Authority in Dietrich Reinking’, Journal of Early Modern Christianity, 9 (1) (2022), 93–119. See also the case study of how the proper alignment of the public and private figure of the prince is cultivated in princely education in Michaël Green, Lars C. Nørgaard, and Mette B. Bruun, ‘En privé & en public: The Epistolary Preparation of the Dutch Stadtholders’, Journal of Early Modern History, 24 (3) (2020), 253–279.

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all the many subtle and delicate ways in which the people of this era created pockets of privacy. We need to approach such pockets from many different angles. As demonstrated in the contributions to this volume, privacy is carved out, granted from above or from below, appropriated, and even forfeited within a composite framework defined by legislation, spatial delineations and restrictions, social conditions, hierarchies defined by social and professional rank, bodily and mental challenges, needs, and concerns as well as issues of beliefs and convictions. All of these factors interact and, depending on the immediate circumstances, particular ones predominate. As Beck, Foy, LeJacq, and Schadner show, communal bonds and a sense of peer loyalty occasionally trumped demands related to rank, ethnicity, the moral concerns of religious hegemony, or the sense of security on board in favour of—or against—an individual. As Humanes demonstrates, the regulations secured by national and maritime laws created strong, albeit sometimes mutually conflicting, dense grids of demands and obligations. Several contributions underline the spatial limitations and the way in which they fenced in the potential for achieving privacy, just as many contributions give paradigmatic examples of ways in which such spatial restrictions were overcome by means of other strategies. Privacy studies alert us to zones and thresholds. A stylised systematisation of such zones may help us reflect on different dimensions of life at sea.13 If we begin in the innermost, mental core, the care of the souls on board is referred to in legislation, albeit often in terms of dispensations from feast days and other religious requirements. Thus, as shown by Humanes, the state of the souls is identified by religious observants as a dimension of maritime life fraught with risks and threats, even if storms and other dangers may, for a time, spur on a sense of religious acuteness. Silva Perez underlines the inaccessibility of the mind and choice of historical persons. Convictions or beliefs may be represented by the tattoos studied by Schadner. They underline the body as a boundary zone between private knowledge and public appearance, condensed in Schadner’s observation that the most common tattoo was one’s initials or name. The privacy of the body can be violated or shared, accessed 13 For the zones and system of zones examined at the Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies, see Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé’, in Green et al., Early Modern Privacy, 12–60, 22–24.

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either with or against one’s will—the clothes shielding one’s gender and keeping it private; the cabin, the berth, and the hammock as secluded spaces. Different communities on board have access to forms of privacy marked by more or less explicit boundaries—the chapters in this volume linger over, for example, the community of upper-rank crew members discernible by their ampler private spaces; the ‘Tahitian’ community marked by the tattoo of a star (Schadner); the community emerging around messes. However, as Beck and Foy remind us, such communities could be exclusive, thus posing a threat in turn to the privacy of individual seamen who were not integrated into such communities. Moving to the wider zones, several cases remind us that the state and its penal systems represent the ultimate publicity. This is the case, not least, in the juridical exposure of homosexuality, studied by LeJacq. However, privacy was not only a concern for the individual and smaller groups but also for states or state representatives, which means that while the zone of the state may in many ways seem the ‘most public zone’, it is also a zone that comes with its own measures of privacy, as shown by Araújo and Ceccarelli. The conveyance of state secrets by the sea challenges the imperative of political secrecy, as indicated by the vocabulary related to the arcana imperii (state secrets and the strategies to keep them).14 The household may be said to be a zone that is not relevant for ships. That said, some similarities do appear between the ship and an early modern household understood as a composite social unit where different people are living, working, eating, sleeping, and making love together within a shared space under the watchful eye of the pater familias or another such superior figure, subject to written and unwritten laws and codes. Early modern households consisted of family members as well as other people such as servants, journeymen, clerks, or workers. The ship as a microcosm—as a composite unit of crew, superiors, and passengers of a potentially wide variety—may be said to be akin to the household in its complex, living and working as well as hierarchical nature. Beck describes the mess as a socio-spatial or family-like unit. Foy talks of competing loyalties, observing that it required a shift of allegiance from home to ship to secure the cohesion of the crew. As brought forth by historical privacy studies, the intersections and thresholds between these zones of analysis are one of the most fruitful 14 See, for instance, Vera Keller, ‘Mining Tacitus: Secrets of Empire, Nature and Art in the Reason of State’, British Journal for the History of Science, 45 (2) (2012), 189–212.

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research loci to find examples of early modern privacy being carved, craved, or challenged. Beyond the zones of the mind, body, chamber, household, community, and state, the chapters of this volume vividly demonstrate how privacy can also be found at the clashing point between opposing forces. Strategies of privacy enabled people at sea to navigate between conflict and consensus, confinement and mobility, surveillance and support. If social and cultural expectations, hierarchical powers, bonds of friendship and convenience, fears, and conflicts are rivers feeding an ocean of state regulations and normative definitions, then privacy can be more easily found when navigating the brackish waters of the estuary.

Bibliography Astorri, Paolo, ‘Can a Judge Rely on His Private Knowledge? Early Modern Lutherans and Catholics Compared’ in Comparative Legal History, 9 (2021), 1–34. Astorri, Paolo and Nørgaard, Lars C., ‘Publicus Privatus: The Divine Foundations of Authority in Dietrich Reinking’, Journal of Early Modern Christianity, 9 (1) (2022), 93–119. Boswell, John, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982). Brown, Susan E., ‘Policing and Privilege: The Resistance to Penal Reform in Eighteenth-Century London’ in Institutional Culture in Early Modern Society, eds. Anne Goldgar and Robert I. Frost (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 103–130. Bruun, Mette Birkedal, ‘Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé’ in Early Modern Privacy. Sources and Approaches, eds. Michaël Green, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021), 12–60. ———, The Unfamiliar Familiar: Armand-Jean de Rancé (1626–1700) between Withdrawal and Engagement (Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 2021 [2017]), https://static-curis.ku.dk/portal/files/280514170/Bruun_Ranc_S eptember_2021.pdf. ———, ‘A Private Mystery: Looking at Philippe de Champaigne’s Annunciation for the Hôtel de Chavigny’ in Quid est sacramentum?: Visual Representation of Sacred Mysteries in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1700, eds. W. Melion, E. Pastan, and L.P. Wandel (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 606–655. ———, ‘Wandering Eyes, Muttering, and Frowns: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Communiticative Implications of Gesture’, Monastic Oral Communication, ed. S. Vanderputten (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 337–363. Burton, Janet, and Kerr, Julie, The Medieval Cistercians (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2011).

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Dutton, Marsha L., ‘Aelred of Rievaulx: Abbot, Teacher, and Author’ in A Companion to Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167), ed. Marsha L. Dutton (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 17–47. Fry, Timothy, et al., eds. and trans., RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1980). Green, Michaël, Nørgaard, Lars C., and Bruun, Mette Birkedal, eds., Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches (Leiden: Brill, 2021). Green, Michaël, Nørgaard, Lars C., and Bruun, Mette Birkedal, ‘En privé & en public: The Epistolary Preparation of the Dutch Stadtholders’, Journal of Early Modern History, 24 (3) (2020), 253–279. Jakobsen, Jesper, ‘Commercial Newspaper and Public Shame Pole: Exposure of Individuals in the Copenhagen Gazette Adresseavisen 1759–73’ in Private/ Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia, eds. S. Nauman and H. Vogt (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), 99–118. Käfer, Natacha Klein, ‘Dynamics of Healer-Patient Confidentiality in Early Modern Witch Trials’ in Early Modern Privacy. Sources and Approaches, eds. Michaël Green, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021), 281–296. Keller, Vera, ‘Mining Tacitus: Secrets of Empire, Nature and Art in the Reason of State’, British Journal for the History of Science, 45 (2) (2012), 189–212. Ljungberg, Johannes ‘Talking in Private—And Keeping it Private: Protecting Conversations from Exposure in Swedish Pietism Investigations, 1723–1728’ in Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia, eds. S. Nauman and H. Vogt (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), 63–80. McGuire, Brian, Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx (New York: Crossroad, 1994). Nauman, Sari and Vogt, Helle, eds., Private/Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). Netten, Djoeke van, ‘Spaces on Ships: Secrecy and Privacy in the Dutch East India Companies’, TSEG, 18 (3) (2021), 107–124. Orlin, Lena Cowen, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Pierik, Bob, ‘Privacy, Publicity and Gender in Amsterdam’s Early Modern Urban Space’, Privacy Studies Journal, 1 (2022), 1–22. Schjerning, Camilla, ‘Of Chamber Pots and Scorned Houses: Exposing Hidden Bodies and Private Matters in Eighteenth-Century Copenhagen’ Private/ Public in 18th-Century Scandinavia, eds. S. Nauman and H. Vogt (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), 119–38 Silva Perez, Natália da, ed., TSEG Special Issue: Privacy and the Private in Early Modern Dutch Contexts, 18 (3) (2021).

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———, ‘Sexual Surveillance in Paris and Versailles under Louis XIV’ in Histories of Surveillance from Antiquity to the Digital Era: The Eyes and Ears of Power, eds. A. Marklund and L. Skouvig (London: Routledge, 2021), 53–69. Slack, Paul, ‘Hospitals, Workhouses and the Relief of the Poor in Early Modern London’ in Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500–1700, eds. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (London: Routledge. 1997), 229–246.

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Index

A Abruzzo, 363 Acapulco, 52, 59 Adriatic Sea, 346, 350, 358, 369 Africa, 29, 44–46, 49, 226, 274, 277, 295, 296, 312, 329 Africaine ship, 139 A Gentleman of Elvas, 158 Alagoas, 180, 188 Aldobrandini, Pietro, 210 Algiers, 323 Alicante, 202, 210, 213, 216, 220, 223, 229 Amsterdam, 79, 82, 84–85 Andalusia, 291 Anderson, Amos, 35 André de Cabreira, 50 Angel, Henry, 148 Angola, 177, 181, 185 Anna Amalie of Weimar, 162 Annis, John, 30 Antigua, 145 anti-slavery laws, 91, 94

Antónia, 65 Anxious Atlantic, 7, 8, 22, 29, 36 Aragon, 322, 324 Argentario, 258 Ariel , 32 Ariosto, Ludovico, 350 Armenia, 274 Articles of War, 105, 133 Ascension, 110 Asia, 277 Assarino, Luca, 234 Atlantic Ocean, 43, 49, 51, 78, 79, 87, 91, 95, 110, 180, 272, 285, 297, 306, 312, 315 Avignon, 219 Azalte, Antonio de, 322 Azores, 68 B Baddel, Benedict, 82, 84, 85 Bahia, 174, 177, 179, 180, 185, 188, 189 Baldo, 290 Balkan, 346, 353, 354

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 N. Klein Käfer (ed.), Privacy at Sea, Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0

391

392

INDEX

Bangladesh, 59 Banks, Joseph, 115, 162 Barbados, 79, 85 Barbarossa, 310 Barcelona, 229–231, 305, 308, 310, 316, 322 Barrameda, Sanlúcar de, 291 Barreto, Isabel, 52 Bayonne, 218, 219 beachcomber, 156, 167, 168 Beccadelli, Lodovico, 350 Bermuda ship, 145 Berry, William, 136, 148 Bethlehem, 159 Biedma, Luys Hernándes de, 158 Bienfaisant ship, 120 Black Mariner Database, 22, 23, 31 Blenheim ship, 101 Bligh, William, 164 Bolaños, Hevia de, 286 Bonnetta ship, 107 Bonsignori, Bonsignore, 352 Bora Bora, 162 Bordeaux, 209 Borghese, Scipione Caffarelli, 210 Botero, Giovanni, 355, 359 Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, 161 Bounty ship, 163, 164 Bowker, John Harrison, 147 Brazil, 8, 12, 44, 45, 49, 52, 58, 65, 78, 81, 82, 87, 91, 94, 173–177, 179–185, 188–190, 192 Brígida, 58 Bristol, 114 Britannia ship, 111 Brito, Bernardo Gomes de, 67

Bruce, George, 167 Buck, Thomas, 120, 122 Burgos, Eliau, 9, 78–80, 82–85 Butler, Daniel, 107

C cabin, 10, 23, 42, 49, 51, 56, 60, 64, 69, 104, 105, 107–113, 115, 116, 124–126, 131, 135–137, 139, 140, 145–148, 150, 377, 380, 386 Cabri, Jean Baptiste, 157, 167 Cadiz, 213 Caetani, Francesco, 228 Calabria, 261 Calenzani, Pier Giovanni, 235 Campi, Paolo, 236 Canaria, 49 Canary, 213 Candia, 358 Cantabria, 273 Cape of Good Hope, 49, 51 Cape Pichel, 58 Cape Route, 49, 69 Cape Santo Agostinho, 178 Captain ship, 115 Captain Jenkins, 26 Captivity ship, 137 Cárcamo, Matías de, 319, 320, 327 Cardona, Pedro de, 319 Carlo I Cybo-Malaspina, 257, 259 Carreira da India, 8, 27, 41, 44, 49, 50, 58, 63, 68, 295 Carrera de Indias , 289, 291, 295, 297 Cartagena, 213 Carteret, Philip, 147 Casciani, Fabio, 219 Casola, Pietro, 350, 353, 355

INDEX

Castile, 217, 324 Castillo, Bernal Diáz del, 157 Castro, Dom João de, 57 Catalonia, 238, 305, 306, 308, 312, 318, 322, 324, 327 Ceará, 180 Çelebi, Evliya, 367 certificates of protection, 7, 29, 33–35 Cervantes, 311 Charles I, 273 Charles V, 256, 310 charm, 156, 165, 166 Chaves, Duarte, 179 Cherokee, 160 Chigi, Flavio, 229 Christian, Fletcher, 163 Christine, Duchess of Savoy, 219, 222 Cibo, Francesco Maria Spinola, 230 Civitavecchia, 212, 217, 225, 226, 238, 258 College of Coimbra, 56 Colônia do Sacramento, 179 Congo ship, 137 Contarini, Paolo, 353, 354 Continental Navy, 25 Cook, James, 115, 162, 164 Cook, Thomas, 142 Correia, Gaspar, 47 Cortés, Hernán, 157 Cort, Richard, 101 Costa, Domingos da, 69 Costantini, Claudio, 254 Count of Castelo Melhor, 176, 177, 185, 188 Count of Óbidos, 179 Count of Vila Pouca de Aguiar, 185, 187 courts martial, 105, 109, 111, 112, 116, 122, 126, 133, 149 Coutinho, Fernão de Souza, 185 Cozumel, 157

393

Cres, 346 Cronan, Jeremiah, 120 D Dalmatia, 349, 351, 352, 361 Dampier, William, 160 Delaney, William, 121, 124 Denia, 213 Dening, Greg, 164 Denmark, 274 Dias, Bartolomeu, 46 Dias, Henrique, 66 Dom Antonio Manuel, 67 Dom Luiz de Sousa, 69 Dona Isabel, 66 Dona Lucrecia, 69 Dona Luzia wife of Pantaleão de Sá, 57 Don John of Austria, 314 Doria, Andrea, 211, 256 Doria, Lazzaro Maria, 225, 227 drunkenness, 105, 111, 118, 120, 379 Dublin, 27 Dubrovnik, 346, 347, 349, 350, 353, 356, 358, 361, 364 Duchy of Savoy, 201, 209, 256 Duke of Feria, 324 Dunkerque ship, 217 Durazzo, Stefano, 259 Dutch East India Company, 4 E Elba, 258 Elefante ship, 217 Elizabeth I, 312 Elliot, John, 162 Ellison, Thomas, 164 Endeavour

394

INDEX

ship, 115, 162 England, 162, 183, 212, 273, 312 Espírito Santo, 177, 179 Essex ship, 117 Europe, 277 F Fanny ship, 113 Faria, Manuel de Sousa de, 68 Farquhar, James, 115 Father António de Quadros, 56 Father António Fernandes, 60 Father Dom Gonçalo, 57 Father Gaspar Barzeo, 57 Father Manuel Teixeira, 56 Fieschi, Gian Luigi, 256 Flanders, 204, 314, 316, 322 Fleming, David, 114 Florence, 222 Florida, 158 Formentera, 220 Forrester, Richard, 117 Fortis, Alberto, 349 Fox, Richard, 121 Fox, William, 113 France, 183, 201, 209, 225, 273, 322 Francesco I d’Este, 263 Franciscans, 273 Francisco Barreto, 178, 185, 187 Frederickstein ship, 121 freedom papers, 7, 29, 31, 32, 34–36 Friar Vicente de Laguna, 47 G Galata, 308 Galen, 53 Gallipoli, 308 Gaspar da India, 68

Genoa, 200–204, 206, 207, 210, 212, 216, 218, 220, 224, 226, 230, 231, 238, 239, 253, 256–261, 263, 308, 313, 316 gentlemanly privacy, 107, 111, 112 Gil, Vicente, 47 Giolo, 160 Giustiniani, Giannettino, 219, 222, 223 Giustiniani, Vicenzo, 257 Goa, 47, 49, 57 Godfrey, William, 35 Gold, John, 112 Graham, David, 122, 124 Graham, Richard, 108 Green, William, 115 Grey, Oliver, 34 Grimaldi, Girolamo, 263 Guerrero, Gonzalo, 157 Guevara, Antonio de, 271, 273, 276, 279, 281, 288, 290, 292, 298 Guinea Coast, 53, 56

H hammock, 24, 102, 104, 112, 116, 120, 121, 124, 135, 139–143, 146, 150, 377–379, 386 Hamoaze, 101 Hanley, James, 140, 143, 150 Hasted, John S., 114 Henricques, Moijses Bueno, 82 Heywood, Peter, 163 HM Galley Cornwallis , 32 HMS Loyalist , 35 Holy See, 200–202, 210, 211 homosexuality, 386 Howe, Patrick, 115 Hungary, 274 Hvar, 346

INDEX

I identity, 21, 29, 33, 81, 217, 228, 284, 356, 378 Ilhas de Cabo Verde, 185 impressment, 29, 32–36, 112 Incobs, John, 27 India, 1, 8, 45–47, 49, 53, 56, 57, 61–66 Indian Ocean, 43, 49, 51, 68 Inman, Richard, 138 Inquisition, 58, 59, 78, 81, 289, 297 Iroquois, 160 Isaac, 31 Island of São Gabriel, 179 Istanbul, 309, 353, 354 Isunza, Pedro de, 313, 319, 321 Italy, 183, 204 Itamaracá, 180 J Jackson, Edward, 33 James I, 159 Jerusalem, 159 Jesuits, 47, 48, 50, 51, 59, 60, 62, 65, 71 João Fernandes Vieira, 178, 180, 187 Joe, 32 John IV, 180, 187, 190 John IV of Bragança, 215 Joseph de El Castillo Grajeda, 59 Juliana de Burgos, 8, 78–80, 82–85, 87, 91–94 K kidnapping, 8, 29, 30, 35 King D. João II, 45 King Hafsid Bey Muley Hassan, 274 King Philip II, 311 Kochi, 49, 59 Koper, 346 Korˇcula, 346, 357, 366

395

L Lacy, Mary, 136 L’Aigrette, 35 Lara, Ben, 114 Lara, Benito de, 320 Lara, Manrique de, 318, 322, 327 Lasagna, Giovanni Battista, 225, 259 La Spezia, 222 Lawson, Hugh, 113 Léon, Rodrigo Ponce de, 217 Levante, 222 Leveret ship, 147 Lichthardt, Jan Cornelisz, 190 Liguria, 213, 220, 223, 225, 229, 238 Linage, D. Ioseph de Veitia, 64 Lisbon, 49, 50, 56, 58, 60, 65, 70, 213, 317 Lithgow, William, 159 Lleopart, Pablo, 229, 231 Lobo, D. Manuel, 179 Lock, Adriaen, 82, 83, 85 Lomellino, Giovanni Raffaele, 210 London, 132, 149, 150, 161, 167 López, Gregorio, 291 lower-deck, 104, 121, 133, 145 Ludovisi, Daniele de’, 354 Lyon, 209, 218, 235 M MacKenzie, Patrick, 120 Madeira, 49, 110 Madrid, 201, 205, 209, 210, 216, 218, 221, 228–230, 235, 254, 256, 260, 261, 327 Magdelane ship, 109 Magellan, Ferdinand, 53 Magnificent ship, 120 Major, James, 111

396

INDEX

Malabar Coast, 49 Malaga, 223 Maldonado, 179 Mallorca, 220 mania, 118 Manila, 52, 59 Mantua, 222 Maranhão, 185 Marini, Pier Francesco De, 210 Marini, Vicenzo de, 207 Marini, Vincenzo De, 210, 234 Maris, Francisco treasurer from Goa, 57 maritime fugitives, 22, 23, 25, 27 marks of insanity, 102, 105, 112 Marquesas Islands, 157 Marqués de Gelves, 59 Marryat, Frederick, 139 Marseilles, 218, 227, 231 Massimo, Camillo, 228 Matson, Richard, 149 Matthews, Daniel, 121 Mauritstad, 180 Maxwell, William, 146 Mediterranean Sea, 274, 278, 285, 297, 306, 311, 312, 316, 329 melancholy, 379 Meliapor ship, 67 Melo, Dona Luísa de, 68 Melo, Francisco de, 261 Mendonça, Afonso Furtado de, 185 Mendonça, Joana de, 62 Mercado, Moijses, 82 Messina, 259, 308 messmate, 115, 117–120, 122–124, 126 Mexico, 59, 157 Michele, Giovanni Battista da, 216 Middelburg, 192 Milan, 204, 222, 353, 358 Modena, 222, 263

molly subculture, 132 Monaco, 222, 238 Monarch ship, 117 Monferrato, 219 Morlacchi, 349 Morocco, 65 Morrice, David, 136 Morris, William, 144 Mortora ship, 217 Mozambique, 47, 56, 58

N Nadezhda ship, 157 Naples, 217, 219, 226, 261, 308 Narvárez, Pánfilo de, 158 Netherlands, 175, 180, 181, 186, 188, 212, 315 Nice, 220, 222 Nicholson, Thomas, 117, 119 Nimble ship, 111 Noli, 223 North America, 159, 168 Nossa Senhora de Jesus ship, 61 Novi, Herceg, 346

O Oliver Cromwell privateer, 25 Oliver, James, 114 Ortiz, Juan, 158 Osor, 346 Ottoman empire, 308, 309, 311, 347, 354, 369 Ötzi, 155

INDEX

P Pacific Ocean, 115, 155, 163, 169 Pag, 346 Paiva, Afonso de, 45 Paiva, Jerônimo Serrão de, 189, 190 Palenzuela, Juan de, 319 Pallavicino, Ferrante, 220 Palmer, William, 145 Pamphilj, Camillo, 203 Pamphilj, Giovanni Battista, 205, 209 Panama, 159 Panciroli, Giovanni Giacomo, 203 Panesi, Luca, 230 Pantero, Pantera, 361 Pareto, Lazzaro, 236 Paris, 220, 223, 235 Parkinson, Sydney, 162 Pedro da Covilhã, 45 Pereira, Nuno Marques, 1 Pernambuco, 78, 81, 175, 178, 180, 185–187, 189–192 Pezuela de las Torres, 204 Philip II, 297, 315, 327 Philip III, 256, 327 Philip II of Spain, 258 Philip IV, 204, 205, 256 Phillips, Peter, 117 Piane, Angelo Delle, 231 Piedmont, 219, 235 plague, 225–227, 229, 232 Plato, 279 Poland, 274 Polynesia, 161–163 Polynesian Triangle, 157 Pope Alexander VII, 228 Pope Clement IX, 209 Pope Innocent X, 202, 203, 205, 215, 223, 225 Pope Paul V, 210 Pope Urban VIII, 209, 210 Poreˇc, 346, 360 Portici, 162

397

Portsmouth, 114, 149 Portugal, 8, 45, 46, 57, 62, 65–67, 174, 179–181, 185, 187–190, 192, 215, 312 Portuguese Nation, 90 Presìdi, 238, 258, 259, 263 Price, Charles, 114 Princess Royal ship, 114, 118, 119 prison, 5, 49, 54, 58, 137, 149, 179, 187, 288, 323, 375, 376, 381 privateering, 5, 6, 68, 181, 192 privateers, 23, 25, 31, 32, 36, 181, 183, 192, 288 Pula, 346 Pyrard de Laval, 51, 61

R Ragusa, 316, 351, 353, 361 Ramberti, Benedetto, 353, 354 Ramillies ship, 120 Ramos, Alonso, 59 Ravasco, Bernardo Vieira, 184 Razzi, Serafino, 353, 363 Recife, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 175, 177, 180, 186, 189–192 Renegade ship, 137 Resolution ship, 162 Ribeira, João Baptista da, 48 Richmond, William, 111 Rigby, Edward, 132, 136 Rio de Janeiro, 174, 176, 177, 182, 185, 186, 189, 192 Rio Grande, 180, 193 Rivoli ship, 114 Robarts, Edward, 167 Rodrigues, Ana

398

INDEX

widow, 58 Roger, Lorenzo, 320 Rolla ship, 145 Rome, 201, 202, 206, 209, 210, 212, 216, 218, 221, 222, 225, 226, 228–230, 235 Rosaccio, Gioseppo, 353, 354 Rospigliosi, Giulio, 209, 228 Rossi, Egidio De, 226 Ross, Lawrence, 109 Rovinj, 346 Rowning, Henry, 161 Royal Navy, 10, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31–36, 133, 150, 167 Royal Shipyard of Barcelona, 306, 308, 311, 313, 317 Ruffo, Cristoforo, 260–262, 264 Russel ship, 101 Ryan, Alexander, 118

S Sá, Salvador Correia de, 177, 181, 189, 190 Salvador, 177, 179–182, 187–189 Salvago, Giacomo Maria, 230 Sandys, George, 159 San Giacomo ship, 220 San Josef ship, 137 San Juan, Catarina de, 59 San Nicolò ship, 217 Sansone ship, 220 Santa Maria ship, 211 Santos, 179 San Vincenzo

ship, 217 São Martinho ship, 60, 62 São Paulo ship, 53, 66 São Pedro ship, 57 São Tomé ship, 62 São Vicente, 179 Sardinia, 225 Sargent, George, 147 Sarzana, 227 Sauli, Giovanni Battista, 224, 236 Savona, 210, 213, 217, 220, 222 Sawyer, Charles, 147 scarification, 158, 159 Seahorse ship, 114 seamen’s chests, 24–29, 35, 36 Sephardic Jewish community, 9, 90, 91, 93 Seville, 291, 317 Šibenik, 346 Siglo de los genoveses , 255, 265 Silva, António Teles da, 184–187, 189, 190, 192 Simmons, Dan, 150 slavery, 8, 31, 32, 35, 65, 79, 82, 83, 90, 93, 94, 351 Smith, Adam, 164 Smollett, Tobias, 131, 132, 137, 141, 147, 150 sodomy, 10, 132, 136, 139, 144–147, 150, 151, 295 Soto, Hernando de, 158 Sousa Coutinho, Francisco de, 192 souvenir, 156, 162, 166, 168 Spain, 183, 201, 202, 204–206, 209, 217, 225, 228, 230, 273, 289 Speron di Massa, 257–260 Speroni, Giacomo, 260, 263

INDEX

Speroni, Giovanni Stefano, 260 Speroni, Jacobus, 258 Speroni, Pietro Battista, 260 Spinola, Ambrogio, 204 Spinola, Andalò, 223 Spinola, Andrea, 207–209, 232, 234 Spinola, Bartolomeo, 204 Spinola, Brigida, 257, 264 Spinola, Claudio, 205, 209 Spinola, Filippo, 202, 206, 212, 215, 221, 223, 224, 226, 228, 230, 232, 238 Spinola, Francesco Maria, 223 Spinola, Geronimo, 201–206, 209, 210, 215, 219, 221, 223, 224, 226, 228, 232, 235, 237 Spinola, Giacomo Maria, 204 Spinola, Giovanni Battista, 223 Spinola, Gregorio, 204 Spinola, Ludovico, 223 Spithead, 149 Split, 346 Stag ship, 148 Stainsby, A.B., 162 Stately ship, 122 Stephens, William, 27 Steward, George, 164 St Vincent ship, 147 suicide, 107, 113 Suleiman the Magnificent, 353 Sultan Murad III, 311 surgeon, 10, 102, 104, 105, 108, 114, 115, 118, 121, 126, 131, 133, 144, 148, 159

T Tahiti, 162–164 Tamandaré, 189

399

Taylor, James Nehemiah, 133, 134, 136, 146, 148 The Adventures of Roderick Random, 131 Thetis ship, 109, 111 The Young Midshipman’s Instructor, 136 Thirty Years’ War, 201, 209, 329 Thuijnman, Bastiaen, 188 Timucua, 158 Toledo, 216 Toscano, Dom Francisco Chancellor of India, 57 Toulon, 220 Treaty of the Pyrenees, 219, 230, 238 Trogir, 346 Tunisia, 274 Turin, 209, 210, 222, 223, 235 Turkey, 113 Tuscany, 201, 216, 225, 227 Tweed ship, 147 Tyrrhenian Sea, 258, 261, 350 U Union ship, 137 unofficerlike conduct, 108 Uskoks, 347 V Vachero, Giulio Cesare, 261 Valencia, 201, 210, 213, 227, 229 Valladolid, 272 Vasco da Gama, 46, 47, 49 Vatican, 201, 202, 206, 209, 210, 214, 216, 217, 223, 228, 235 Vega, Garcilasco de la, 159 Venetian Arsenal, 308 Venetian Kotor, 346

400

INDEX

Venice, 214, 222, 313, 347, 349, 353, 357 Vicastillo, Joan García de, 327 Villamir, Andrés de, 326 Virginia, 109 Viscount of Barbacena, 185 Vitória, 177, 179 Völkerschauen, 160 von Krusenstern, Adam Johann, 157 W Wafer, Lionel, 159 Wager, Allen, 122 Wales, 112 War of Succession of Mantua and Montferrat, 256 Warren

ship, 25 Wauchope, Neil, 109–111, 121 West India Company, 175, 192 Wheland, John, 120 Whiston, John, 113 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 162 Y Young, Edward, 164 Yucatán, 158 Z Zadar, 346, 358 Zaire River, 46 Zara, 358 Zeeland, 181