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Mediterranean Society for the Study of the Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment and the ‘Other’
International Conference
Haifa, June 5-7 2013
The Scottish Enlightenment and the ‘Other’: Some aspects of the
‘Spanish Otherness’
Roberto Rodríguez Milán
Hellenic Open University
Abstract
For multiple reasons, the image 18th century Europe has of its Spanish neighbour is
quite a negative one, and the attitude of thinkers and travellers of the European
cultural elite does not improve things. In the English speaking world, old literary
clichés, and some Adam Smith’s theories and analyses too, feed this current of
opinion and are used as means to justify –and perpetuate– the negative perceptions
of the Spanish Otherness. In an effort to rebut and reject the role of the “negative
mirror image” of the Anglo-Saxon modernity and progress, Spain will apparently find
some intellectual ammunition in the writings of a Scottish enlightened researcher,
William Robertson.
Key Words
Enlightenment, Civilization, Europe, America, Spain, Spanish Black Legend, Travel
literature, William Robertson, Alexander Jardine
Introduction
In the last decades of the 17th century, the building of the European identity is largely
sustained in a contrast and opposition to the non-European societies, i.e. the Other
not (yet) civilized. Since then, the common denominator of scientific explorations
reports, travel stories and philosophical reflections on human societies is their
comparison and contrast between “the West and the Rest”. This identity building
around the main concept of civilization defines the gap between Europe and the
outside humanity, but it also allows to define internal boundaries and hierarchies, at
the very core of the Old World, according to several parameters: social class (i.e.
cultivated vs. cultivator strata), gender (i.e. the role of the fair sex in society and
civilization), geographic location, both natural and cultural (i.e. countries at the centre
of civilization vs. countries at its periphery)…1
1
M. Bolufer Peruga. “Civilización, costumbres y política en la literatura de viajes a España en el siglo
XVIII.” Estudis 29 (2003): 113-158. 25-06-2012: <http://www.uv.es/iued/somos/publi/norwich2_2.htm>.
1
At the time, Spain reveals itself as a particular example of frontier because of its
vast presence, both in time and space, in the Old and the New World. In other words,
Spain would allow the establishment of a double contrast: a first one, between
European civilization and the Other; and a second one, regarding the differences
between the European nations embodying the values of civilization, progress and
liberty –and leading the reflexion on this matter–, and the European nations lagging
behind. Moreover, the image modern Europe has of Spain on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean is mediated / determined by a “black legend”, and such a perspective
reinforces the contrasts and oppositions likely to give a more accurate shape and
content to the referred Enlightenment values of civilization, etc.
I will, thus, try to summarize, 1) what is the “Spanish Black Legend”, 2) the debate
concerning the Spanish historical presence in the New World, the role the Scottish
scholar William Robertson plays in it, as well as the reception in Spain of his writings
and ideas, and 3) the persistence through the travel literature of a negative image of
the Spanish historical presence in Europe, highlighting the contribution of Alexander
Jardine, a seasoned traveller imbued with Scottish philosophy. Finally, I will attempt
to suggest some consequences all those erudite and popular writings will have in the
Western civilization’s perception of the Hispanic world on both sides of the Pond.
1. The Dark Side of Europe
Even in our time, the stereotyped image of Spain shared by both Spain itself and the
Western world, and perhaps beyond, is made up of the 19th century romantic myth
and the modern times’ black legend. The latter is a long lasting negative image
consisting of a wide range of hostile representations of Spain in World History, very
often contradictory to each other even though they distort reality more than invent it,
and fed, almost since the very beginning, from the self-criticism the Spaniards
themselves publish and spread all around Europe.2
Although modern France is credited with having played the decisive role in the
conformation, intensification and success of the “Spanish Black Legend”, its origins
date back to somewhere between the 13th and the 15th centuries in the
Mediterranean region, when the Crown of Aragon expands both military and
commercially to Italy and Byzantium, its courtly customs force their way into Naples
and Rodrigo Lanzol de Borja becomes Pope Alexander VI… exactly at the time when
the mutual perceptions are shaped which, to a certain degree, remain valid for all the
European nations until today.3 In 1527, the Emperor Charles V’s troops launch the
2
C. Iglesias. “España desde fuera.” Real Academia de la Historia. España: Reflexiones sobre el ser
de España. Madrid: RAH, 1998, 382-384; A. C. Guerrero. Viajeros británicos en la España del siglo
XVIII. Madrid: Aguilar, 1990, 354-362.
3
J. López de Abiada. “Teoría y práctica de los estudios imagológicos: hacia un estado de la cuestión.”
López de Abiada, José y Augusta López Bernasocchi (eds.) Imágenes de España en culturas y
literaturas europeas (siglos XVI-XVII). Madrid: Verbum, 2004, 21-22; Claudio Guillén. Múltiples
moradas: Ensayo de literatura comparada. Barcelona: Tusquets, 1998, 339-351.
2
Sack of Rome and that episode fuels in Renaissance Italy the darkest speculations
about Spain.
The main 16th century campaigns to disparage and denigrate Spain do not come
from southern Europe, though. Distinguished scholars as Martin Luther and Erasmus
of Rotterdam accuse the Spaniards of being crypto Jews and baptized Moorish,
since there is no doubt their blood and Catholic faith have been deeply and
irrevocably compromised by centuries of coexistence with the oriental and African
otherness. For some nations in northern Europe, the Habsburgs and the general preeminence of their Spanish possessions threaten their maritime and commercial
ambitions as well as their religious freedom. In the Apologie ou Défense du très
illustre Prince Guillaume d’Orange contre le ban et édict publié par le roy d’Espagne
(1581) Spain is excluded from the ranks of civilized nations through a series of new
arguments: the personal attacks on King Philip II, the Spaniards’ catholic bigotry, and
the butchering of the American natives. These ideas spread very quickly among the
adversaries of Spain, shaped henceforth its black legend and provided it with an
intensity and timeframe without parallel in European history.4
Apparently, the “Spanish Black Legend” spreads in the English speaking world
much deeper, and longer, than anywhere else.5 The first symptoms of a conflict with
Spain appear when Mary Tudor ascends the English throne, restores Roman
Catholicism, starts a bloody persecution of religious dissenters and marries Philip of
Spain, heir of the greatest Catholic power in Europe.6 After defeating the mighty
Spanish Armada, in the 1588 war for survival, England develops a strong
Hispanophobia affecting all social classes, fed by scholar treatises, propaganda
tracts and theatrical comedies that disseminate well-known clichés: the cruel and
greedy conquistador, the bigot torturer of the Inquisition, the vain and idle hidalgo, all
of them resulting from a mongrel generation corrupted body and soul by Goth,
Jewish and Moorish blood.7 Of course, the American side of this image is not
neglected, and sometimes achieves a remarkable success:
That this would justify the conduct of the Spaniards in all their barbarities practis’d in America,
and where they destroyed millions of these people, who however they were idolaters and
barbarians, and had several bloody and barbarous rites in their customs, such as sacrificing
human bodies to their idols, were yet, as to the Spaniards, very innocent people; and that the
4
L. Diez del Corral. La Monarquía hispánica en el pensamiento político europeo: De Maquiavelo a
Humboldt. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1975, pássim; J. Marías. España inteligible: Razón histórica
de las Españas. 1985. Madrid: Alianza, 1998, 199-259; J. Pérez. La leyenda negra. Madrid: Gadir
Editorial, 2009, 15-138; F. Lopez. “Forner, apologista de España.” Juan Pablo Forner (1756-1797) y la
crisis de la conciencia española. 1976. Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Educación y Cultura,
1999, 311-336.
5
E. Moradiellos. “Más allá de la leyenda negra y del mito romántico: El concepto de España en el
hispanismo británico contemporaneísta.” Ismael Saz (ed.) España: La mirada del otro. Ayer 31 (1998).
Madrid: Marcial Pons, 1998, 186-188.
6
López Abiada, op. cit. 34.
7
T. J. Dadson. “La imagen de España en Inglaterra en los siglos XVI y XVII.” López de Abiada, José y
Augusta López Bernasocchi (eds.), op. cit. 127, 136-137, 141, 150; I. A. A. Thomson. “Aspectos del
hispanismo inglés y la coyuntura internacional en los tiempos modernos (siglos XVI-XVIII).” Obradoiro
de Historia Moderna 15 (2006): 9-28. 25-06-2012: http://www.usc.es/revistas/index.php/ohm/article
/view/461/465: 11, 21-23.
3
rooting them out of the country, is spoken of with the utmost abhorrence and detestation, by
even the Spaniards themselves, at this time; and by all other Christian nations of Europe, as
meer butchery, a bloody and unnatural piece of cruelty, unjustifiable either to God or man; and
such, as for which the very name of a Spaniard is reckon’d to be frightful and terrible to all
people of humanity, or of Christian compassion: As if the kingdom of Spain were particularly
eminent for the product of a race of men, who were without principles of tenderness, or the
common bowels of pity to the miserable, which is reckon’d to be a mark of generous temper in
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the mind.
At the twilight of its European hegemony, since the mid-seventeenth century,
Spain gradually adapts to the political and cultural coordinates of its continental
relatives, which work as a kind of mirror image allowing the Iberian country to
contemplate, compare and correct itself.9 For its neighbours, Spain is, in turn, a
mirror image, but the one reflected by “the witch’s mirror”: it is one region of Europe
that stresses particularly well their own condition of champions of civilization,
progress and liberty. In general, Europe is still interested in propaganda tracts,
theatrical plays and travellers stories repeating ad nauseam old negative clichés
about Spain and Spaniards;10 simultaneously, the cultural elites, especially in the
English speaking world, show a growing interest to determine the reasons of the
emergence, rise and fall of empires, the causes of the fluctuations in their power, the
motives of the alleged Spanish historical failure.11
2. Spain in America and the Enlightened Historian
Since the mid-eighteenth century, the scholars’ interest in the New World, in its
natural and cultural reality, flourishes. The pioneers of this intellectual endeavour are
French: Georges-Louis Leclerc (Count de Buffon), author of Histoire naturelle (17491804), Jean-François Marmontel, author of Les Incas ou la destruction de l’empire du
Pérou (1777). Its approach and diffusion among the cultural elites, though, is the
work of three enlightened priests: the Dutch Cornelius De Pauw (1739-1799), author
of Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains, ou Mémoire interessans pour
servir à l’histoire de l’espèce humaine (6 volumes, Berlin, 1768-1769); the French
Guillaume-Thomas Raynal (1713-1796), author of Histoire philosophique et politique
des établissements et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes
(Amsterdam, 1770); and the Scottish William Robertson (1721-1793), author of
History of America (3 volumes, London, 1777), whose historical insight on the
8
Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. 1719. Edited with an introduction and notes by John Richetti.
London: Penguin Books – Penguin Classics, 2001, 136.
9
A. Diz. Idea de Europa en la España del siglo XVIII. Madrid: BOE-Centro de Estudios Políticos y
Constitucionales, 2000, 23-29.
10
F. Quiroz Chueca. “Clío contra el imperio: Historiografía anglosajona sobre Hispanoamérica en los
siglos XVIII-XIX.” Investigaciones Sociales 15, Año IX (2005): 153-172. 25-06-2012: http://sisbib.
unmsm.edu.pe/bibvirtualdata/publicaciones/inv_sociales/n15_2005/a08.pdf: 157-158.
11
Thomson, op. cit. 25, who suggests that the first treatise on the subject is On the Causes of the
Decay of the Spanish Government under the Kings of the Austrian Family (1690), de Alexander
Stanhope.
4
Spanish Atlantic empire complements the economical interpretation offered by his
fellow countryman Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations (1776).12
Their verdict is unanimous. They have quite a negative opinion, both of the
American nature and of its native populations’ stage of civilization, which largely
explains their subjugation by the Europeans. On the other hand, they launch a harsh
criticism of the historical presence of Spain in the New World, and by extension in the
Old World, opening thus a debate that will last for more than a century on both sides
of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Spanish political and cultural elite witnesses how the presence of their country
in America, which is a central axis for they consideration of the role of Spain in World
History, becomes the hearth of a European controversy that refuels its black
legend.13 The Enlightened minds are committed to revamping the image of Spain visà-vis the neighbouring nations, so they conclude that the best way to put an end to
this issue is to spread their own version of the history of the New World. They
confront a void in historiography, though, because the Spanish Royal Academy of
History has not yet managed to produce the research assigned to it by the Spanish
Crown in 1755.
All of a sudden, the attention is focused on a foreign treatise, William Robertson’s
History of America.14 In 1778, less than a year after its publication in London, Ramón
de Guevara Vasconcelos presents its translation into Spanish to the Royal Academy.
Immediately thereafter, King Carlos III expresses a favourable opinion to its printing
and his unconditional support to its publication.15 Apparently, the Scottish History
meets all the requirements: its author is a foreign scholar of highly respectable
reputation,16 scientifically rigorous, very well documented, respectful of the Spanish
King, Country and Church, and the publication of the “adapted” translation –as was
the rule back then– would finally allow the Royal Academy to provide some evidence
of good performance.
12
M. Batllori Munné. Prólogo. Historia de España Menéndez Pidal. La época de la Ilustración. Vol. I
“El Estado y la cultura (1759-1808).” Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1992, XXV-XXVII.
13
R. García Cárcel. Introducción. La construcción de las historias de España. Madrid: Marcial Pons,
2004, 24-27.
14
J. F. Pérez Berenguel. Alexander Jardine. Cartas de España. Edición crítica, traducción y notas de
José Francisco Pérez Berenguel. Universidad de Alicante, 2001, 112-114; Mª Luisa Pascual Garrido.
“La recepción española de la obra de Samuel Johnson.” Odisea 11 (2010): 329-342. 25-06-2012:
http://www.ual.es/odisea/Odisea11_Pascual.pdf: 337-338; F. Uzcanga Meinecke. “El relato de viaje en
la prensa de la Ilustración: entre el prodesse et delectare y la instrumentalización satírica.” Revista de
Literatura 145, vol. LXXIII (2011): 219-232. 25-06-2012: revistadeliteratura.revistas.csic.es/index.php/
revistadeliteratura/.../275: 220-221.
15
N. Bas Martín. “Juan Bautista Muñoz y las polémicas con Europa.” Estudis 27 (2001): 247-298.
http://www.uv.es/dep235/PUBLICACIONS_III/PDF128.pdf: 254-255; Alfonso Esponera Cerdán. “El
alicantino Antonio de los Reyes ofm y su dictamen sobre la Historia de W. Robertson (1778).” Estudis.
Revista de Historia Moderna 23 (1997): 297-320. 25-06-2013: http://centros.uv.es/web/
departamentos/D235/data/informacion/E130/PDF48.pdf: 298-302.
16
E. Adamson Hoebel. “William Robertson: An 18th Century Anthropologist-Historian.” American
Anthropologist 62 (1960): 648-655. 25-06-2012: http://www.aaanet.org/committees/commissions/
centennial/history/021hobel.pdf: 1.
5
A closer analysis of Robertson’s treatise would reveal its adequacy to the
purposes of the Spanish enlightened elite. In contrast to De Pauw and Raynal,
Robertson’s contribution appears to be more serious, that is, less negative towards
Spain.17
According to him, the responsibility for the blunders of the conquest, colonization
and evangelization of the New World lies with their direct agents on the ground, and
also with the native populations –as they are, generally speaking, savages and
ignorant, even the advanced cultures of the Aztecs and Incas.18 He, furthermore,
rejects the allegation of the Spaniards’ deliberate killing of thousands of Indians, and
the accusation of the Catholic intolerance as cause of the American demographic
collapse. Additionally, Robertson stresses the positive role played by the Spanish
Crown in the past, by relentlessly legislating to protect its American native subjects,
but also in the present, by launching reforms that seem to rectify the old mistakes,
and to seal the inclusion of Spain within the elite club of the civilized nations.19
On the other hand, though, it is clear to everyone that, in line with Adam Smith,
Robertson points out that the historical presence of Spain in America is based on
wrong economic principles, with serious consequences that help explain its present
decline: the abundance of precious metals leads to a mercantilist policy, to the
abandonment of the real means of generating wealth –agriculture, manufacture,
trade–, to a monopolistic colonial model with strict regulations and heavy taxes, that
all together restrict the general wealth flow.20 To the Spanish enlightened elite,
though, this criticism is extremely enriching, since it helps to confront the challenge of
reforming the empire, and its acceptance is by no means inconsistent with their will to
answer back to Europe on the New World controversy. That is why the eminent
Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes wanted “don Guillermo Robertson” as a member
of the Spanish Royal Academy of History, in September 1777, and gave his full
support to the History of America translation into Castilian.21
But the Spanish publication of Robertson’s History is interrupted as quickly and
unexpectedly as it had been decided.22 There are many reasons for this outcome.
First of all, international interests and alliances keep Spain close to France and
17
Batllori, op. cit. XXV-XXVIII.
Adamson, op. cit. 2, 5.
19
A. Mayagoitia. “La bula alejandrina y las reflexiones imparciales del padre Nuix: Algunas notas.”
Anuario Mexicano de Historia del Derecho 5 (1993): 201-236. 25-06-2012: http://www.juridicas.unam
.mx/publica/librev/rev/hisder/cont/5/est/est9.pdf: 214-215.
20
F. Lopez, op. cit. 323-326, 332-333; Fradera, op. cit. 219-222.
21
A. E. de Pedro Robles. “Dos miradas, un pasado: La cuestión de las antigüedades mexicanas.”
Revista de Antropología Experimental 6 (2006): 311-338. 25-06-2012: www.ujaen.es/huesped/rae/
articulos2006/depedro06.pdf: 317, 322; J. Sarrailh. La España ilustrada de la segunda mitad del siglo
XVIII. 1954. México D. F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1974: 544-572; C. Fernández Duro. “D. Juan
Bautista Muñoz. Censura por la Academia de su "Historia del Nuevo Mundo".” Alicante : Biblioteca
Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2007. Edición digital a partir de Boletín de la Real Academia de la
Historia, t. 42 (1903): 5-59. 25-06-2012: http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/d-juan-bautista-muozcensura-por-la-academia-de-su-historia-del-nuevo-mundo-0/: 5-15.
22
By the end of 1778 the Spanish government bans the circulation of Robertson’s History of America
in all Spanish territories –next year the same applies to any book directly or indirectly concerning the
history of the New World–; in 1782 the French translation is also prohibited and in 1790 the whole of
Robertson’s work is included on the Inquisition Index of prohibited books, Esponera, op. cit. 315-316.
18
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hostile to England in Europe, for Gibraltar, and America, in the context of the British
colonies of America attempt to gain independence. Very soon it is decided that the
publishing with official support of a treatise criticising the Spanish conquest and
colonization of America would be, at best, inappropriate and unwise.23
In addition to this, Robertson’s History has never been unanimously welcomed in
Spain or Spanish America. In spite of all appearances, there is a considerable
discomfort with leaving the history of the New World in a foreigner’s hands, moreover
if he is a dignified representative of the rival English empire, who criticises the
Spanish colonial system, makes its comparison to the advantage of the French or
English colonial systems, and shows disdain towards the Americans as a whole,
either native, half-blood or of Spanish origin. And at a time of political and cultural
struggle within the Spanish elite, Campomanes’ support to Robertson will prove to be
a weapon to throw.24
The interest quickly shifts towards the publication of a soundly documented
Spanish history of America, not limited to domestic readers, to entirely rebut all the
detractors of the Iberian presence in the New World, and to correct all Robertson’s
mistakes regarding Spain –and only Spain, not the ones regarding America. In 1779,
Juan Bautista Muñoz (1745-1799) is the member of the Spanish enlightened elite
chosen by King Carlos III to compose a History of the New World. This attempt fails,
too, but for less worthy motives than those seen in Robertson’s specific case.25 With
a long experience on the American ground and deep scholar knowledge of its
historiography, the Jesuits will finally bear the burden of the debate over the New
World, and shift it to Italy, were they have taken shelter after being expelled of all
Spanish territories by Carlos III.26
Despite the turnaround in the fortunes of Robertson’s ideas, his writings –as well
as Adam Smith’s and so many other European enlightened minds– have a significant
presence in the private libraries of his Spanish equals, like Campomanes or
Jovellanos.27 And Robertson’s influence in Spain is also evidenced by a new interest
for a better knowledge and understanding of pre-Columbian America, which is
related to the Scottish’s admiration for the “ancient Indian” –that runs parallel to a
23
Bas, op. cit. 256; Guerrero, op. cit. 56-89.
J. Yagüe Bosch. “Aspectos de la visión de América en los ilustrados.” Cauce 14-15 (1992): 639668. Centro Virtual Cervantes. 25-06-2012: cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/cauce/pdf/cauce14-15/cauce
14-15_35.pdf: 654-655; Bolufer, “Civilización”, op. cit. 3; Pedro Robles, op. cit. 316-317; Esponera, op.
cit. 305-314; Batllori, op. cit. XXVII-XXVIII; Juan Sempere y Guarinos (1754-1830). Ensayo de una
biblioteca española de los mejores escritores del reinado de Carlos III. Tomo 2. Edición digital:
Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2000. Edición digital basada en la de Madrid,
Imprenta Real, 1789. Edición facsímil: Madrid, Gredos, 1969. 25-06-2012: http://bib.cervantes
virtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/03696107600381662979079/p0000001.htm#3).
25
Bas, op. cit. 248; Fernández Duro, op. cit. 18-59; Pedro Robles 317-319.
26
Batllori, op. cit. XXVIII; F. Lopez, op. cit. 333-334; Mayagoitia, op. cit. 201-236.
27
Pérez Berenguel, op. cit. 105-112; Sarrailh, op. cit. 306-321; J.-P. Clément. Las lecturas de
Jovellanos (Ensayo de reconstitución de su biblioteca). Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Asturianos,
1980, pássim; John H. R. Polt. Jovellanos and His English Sources: Economic, Philosophical and
Political Writings. 1964. Alacant: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2005. On line:
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/jovellanos-and-his-english-sources---economic-philosophi
cal-and-political-writtings-0/html/.
24
7
despise for the “new Indian”, a feeling apparently quite common among the
European cultivated strata.28
3. Spain in Europe and the Enlightened Traveller
The image of Spain that really spreads in 18th century Europe is not the one of the
enlightened debate, but the one cultivated by travellers’ tales which, to a greater or
lesser extent, reflect the concerns of the Age of Enlightenment. Besides the scientific
expeditions and the discoveries, there is an increased movement of individuals, quite
often motivated by pedagogical reasons, and there is an increased demand among
the European readers of the corresponding stories, of either utilitarian or fictional
nature.29 To name but a few well-known examples: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
(1719), Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721), Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
(1726), José Cadalso’s Moroccan Letters (1788-1789) or Juan Meléndez Valdés
Turkish Letters (1787-1788).
Most of the many travellers arriving to the Spain are French, since for the English
it falls beyond what they call “Grand Tour”. This marginal situation as a potential
“tourist” destination generates an important lack of updated primary sources in the
English speaking world, which reacts by constantly re-issuing all kinds of writings,
usually highly contaminated by fictional images from both the English and Spanish
Golden Age literature or from adventurous tales of 17th century travellers, either real
or imaginary –the most popular and influential book will be, for more than a century,
Madame d’Aulnoy’s fictional Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691), translated in
1692 as The Lady’s Travels into Spain. This circumstance perpetuates an archaic
image of Spain, steeped in old negative clichés.30
Gradually the cultivated English elite becomes aware of this inadequacy of the
bibliographical sources; as the Scottish physician William Alexander says, in spite of
the proximity of Spain, too little is known about it.31 This new conscience coincides
with an increased archaeological interest for any expression of the classic world, and
also with the first signs of a new attitude, sensitive to “authenticity” and “difference”.
Towards the middle of the 18th century, the number of English speaking travellers
exceeds the number of the French.32
Eventually, the letters, diaries and essays that collect the Iberian experience of
those travellers seems to show that more than a few of them are infused with Adam
Smith’s economic ideas, which they use to judge the Spanish reality. All their
accounts concur with the idea of the decay of Spain, in a distant past the one and
28
Adamson, op. cit. 5; Pedro Robles, op. cit. 313, 315, 321.
J. C. Martínez García. “El viaje a Utopía en la literatura española del siglo XVIII.” Espéculo. Revista
de estudios literarios 40 (2008). UCM. 25-06-2012: www.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero40/viutopia
.html: 1-5; Uzcanga, op. cit. 221-222, 225.
30
C. Freixá. Edición electrónica de trabajos publicados sobre geografía y ciencias sociales. España
en las geografías británicas del siglo XVIII. 25-06-2012 http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sv-60.htm: 8-9.
31
Bolufer, “Civilización”, op. cit. 3.
32
Diz, op. cit. 384-385.
29
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only great power in Europe and America, all of them trying to determine the causes
of that situation, and all of them concur, once again, with the diagnosis and the
therapy: England has taken the right path to achieving economic growth and
prosperity, the Spanish Grasshopper ought to adopt the English Ant model and stick
to its formulas in order to overcome its general backwardness.33
On the other side of the balance, and generally speaking, those travellers are not
eminent personalities, they do not speak Spanish, usually do not make contact with
Spaniards, spend little time in the country and have no precise pedagogical itinerary,
since their sojourn has specific professional motivations –military, diplomatic,
commercial– and always depends on the fluctuating relations between London and
Madrid. In addition, they are “literalized travellers”, i.e. they travel looking forward to
finding what they have previously read in other travellers’ tales and old sources, and
they usually find it in their way.34
Alexander Jardine (¿1739?-1799) is a remarkable example of the referred tension
between enlightened background, field experience and literary imagination. English
officer, diplomat and spy, he is the anonymous author of Letters from Barbary,
France, Spain, and Portugal (London, 1788), the core of which are 35 letters written
in Spain from 1778 to 1779, except for a few ones dating back to his 1766 to 1771
stay in the country. According to the specialists, his contribution is one of the most
original and interesting among the many written by European travellers to Spain, and
the unique work of an enlightened mind inspired and influenced by Montesquieu,
Campomanes, William Robertson and Adam Smith.35
A child of his times, Jardine considers that the flaws of the Spanish “national
character” are determined by Nature: the Mediterranean climate and geography
together with the proximity to Africa are the causes of the Spaniards’ lack of moral
and civil moderation, of their predisposition to laziness, passion excess, misoneism
and despotism. The past atrocities and the present decay, though, receive a cultural
explanation: in Spain, the Middle Ages were Islamic, oriental and African, not
European; and in modern times the Iberian country experiences a long
institutionalized absence of liberty in all areas –politics, economy, religion, thought–
owing to a “foreign bad government” and its entourage, i.e. despotic monarchy of the
Habsburgs, greedy and intolerant Catholic Church, unproductive and apathetic
nobility.36
33
I. Robertson. Los curiosos impertinentes: Viajeros ingleses por España desde la accesión de Carlos
III hasta 1855. Madrid: Ediciones del Serbal-CSIC, 1988, 11-25; J. García Mercadal. Introducción.
Viajes de extranjeros por España y Portugal: Desde los tiempos más remotos hasta comienzos del
siglo XX. Recopilación, traducción e introducción al siglo XVIII y notas de J. García Mercadal. Tomo
IV. Consejería de Educación y Cultura-Junta de Castilla y León, 1999, 411-429; J. Mª Diez Borque. La
vida española en el siglo de oro según los extranjeros. Barcelona: Ediciones del Serbal, 1990, 11-37.
34
Maczak. Viajes y viajeros en la Europa moderna. Barcelona: Omega, 1996, 395-419.
35
M. Bolufer Peruga. “Relatos de frontera: Alexander Jardine en España y Berbería (1788).” Michel
e
Bertrand et Natividad Planas (éd.) Les sociétés de frontière. De la Méditerranée à l’Atlantique (XVI –
e
XVIII siècle). Collection de la Casa Velázquez 122 (2011): 283-298. 25-06-12: http://www.uv.es
/iued/somos/bolufer-art/Jardine.pdf: 286; Guerrero, op. cit. 111-134, 143; Pérez Berenguel, op. cit.
105, 115-116, 126-137.
36
Bolufer, “Relatos”, op. cit. 284-285, 292-293; Guerrero, op. cit. 351-354.
9
By backing Hume more than Montesquieu,37 Jardine suggests that the Spanish
prostration is not irreversible, but the absolutism of the Bourbons perpetuates the
blunders and the Spanish reformers seem to be unaware of this circumstance, or not
at all worried about it; and ignorant of Adam Smith’s theories and of the English
system benefits, their “frenchified” measures for Spain and America are unable to
stop their decline.38
But Jardine is not just an enlightened mind, and presents other remarkable
features, related to his condition of traveller. Although his analysis of the Spanish
history is explicitly based on Robertson, he does not hesitate to point to the scholar’s
lack of field experience, since he has never been to Spain, as direct cause of some
significant judgemental mistakes.39 At the same time, Jardine’s writings present
Spain as a European nation, but in the special category as a “transition area” to
Africa: owing to its natural and cultural proximity, Spain is an idoneous reference
framework to establish contrasts, and similarities too with that otherness. Last, but
not least, on his Letters Jardine evokes the beauty of the landscape, the emotions a
distant and exotic country arouses in the traveller, and the great admiration he feels
for the Spanish women, going far beyond the sophisticated reflections on the role the
fair sex ought to play in society and civilization, and penetrating deep along the path
towards the myth of the Southern countries.40 All in all, the enlightened and
seasoned, but also “literalized” English traveller heralds –and he is not alone–41 the
metamorphosis of Spain into a Romantic otherness.
4. Through the Spanish Looking-Glass, and What Civilization Found There
The concept of civilization might not be univocal for the 18th century enlightened
minds, but there was kind of a consensus regarding Spain: its European condition
and the importance of its role in the family of the European nations were widely
acknowledged. This inclusion was not without reservations, though. Too many
imperfections made Spain look like some kind of internal anomaly, an inverted mirror
image of its more civilized and advanced neighbours. Furthermore, the Iberian
country was a main gate to the New World, and an essential key to interpreting the
Americas external otherness.
By the second half of the 18th century, some contributions of the Scottish
Enlightenment –Robertson, Smith– and its fellow travellers –Jardine– consolidate the
image of Spain and its colonies as the antithesis of the “English miracle” of economic
37
David Hume. The Philosophical Works. Edited by Thomas Hill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose.
Vol. 3: Essays. Moral, Political and Literary. Vol. I. London: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1964. (Reprint of
the new edition, London 1882.): 244-258. See also Benito Jerónimo Feijoo. “Mapa intelectual y cotejo
de naciones. (Discurso XV)” Teatro crítico universal o Discursos varios en todo género de materias,
para desengaño de errores comunes. Ed. de Giovanni Stiffoni. Madrid: Castalia, 1986, 175-198.
38
Guerrero, op. cit. 188-207, 225-235, 275-276, 306-307, 343-347.
39
Pérez Berenguel, op. cit. 83-93.
40
Bolufer, “Relatos”, op. cit. 292-295.
41
Guerrero, op. cit. 398-419.
10
growth and prosperity, leaving the constantly lectured country in a quite ambiguous
situation, halfway between inclusion and otherness. This perception is never
challenged by its own authors; on the contrary, it justifies the importance of Spain as
a case worth studying, but always in the same terms. It will not be very long before all
this mental construal contributes to support a new image of Spain, equally twisted:
the one of the Age of Romanticism, with a remarkable success in the English
speaking world,42 by which the identity of the Iberian country finally becomes an
otherness to the eyes of the Western world.
In the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon’s threat pushes England to make
common cause with its historical enemy in the Iberian Peninsula, and this political
change is complemented by a “cultural diplomacy”. Aiming at the English implication
in the Peninsular War, in 1811 Walter Scott publishes The Vision of Don Roderick, a
poem inspired on a foundational myth of Christian medieval Spain, the Tale of Count
Julian and Florinda, in which Scott “acknowledges the reservations expressed by
Enlightenment historiography (i.e. Voltaire and Gibbon), but deliberately chooses to
minimize these, placing his emphasis, instead, on an ‘universal tradition’ that offers
self-sufficient justification for his poetic theme.”43
On one hand, the image of Spain as “empire” starts to put back by its image as
“peninsula”, but this reshaping does not imply a proportional decreasing of
contradictions in the representations: the “nation in arms” against the French runs
parallel to the idea of the Spanish guerrillas utmost cruelty; the recent discovery of
the national plurality of Spain coexists with a fossilized image made of non European,
but African, oriental and Moorish exotic flair… Admiration and despise alternate and
coexist; the desire of Spain transforming itself in the image and likeness of Europe
blends with the fear of Spain loosing its “authenticity” –made of decay,
underdevelopment and oriental character–; its immutability is contemptible, but it also
works like Dorian Gray’s picture: it allows the observer to become aware of his own
dynamics, to yearn for everything he has sacrificed by choosing the path of progress,
industry and economic efficiency… In short, in Spain you never know whether you
have arrived a century too early, or a century too late, as Henry Swinburne (17431803) discovered around 1775-1776.44
On the other hand, the downturn of the imperial image of Spain does not imply
dissociation with its black legend regarding America, but only a change in the
producer. In the beginning of the 19th century, the North American perception of
Spain is coloured by the black legend popularized, since the 16th century, by Dutch
and English protestants, and is fuelled by two 18th century Scottish scholars: John
Campbell (1708-1775), author of a Concise History of the Spanish America (1741),
and above all William Robertson and his History of America.45
42
Thomson, op. cit. 25-26; Dadson, op. cit. 167; J. Pérez, op. cit. 115, 137; Fradera, op. cit. 223-227.
S. Valladares. “Walter Scott’s vision of Don Roderick (1811): A «Drum and Trumpet
Performance»?” Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo 18 (2012). 25-06-2012: http://revistas.uca.
es/index.php/cir/article/view/1785/1641: 108-111.
44
Guerrero, op. cit. 110.
45
R. Kagan. “El paradigma de Prescott: La historiografía norteamericana y la decadencia de España.”
Manuscrits 16 (1998): 231. 25-06-2012: http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/manuscrits/02132397n16p229.pdf; R.
43
11
A prominent representative of this perception is William Hickling Prescott (17961859), a historian active in Boston, the “American Edinburgh”, who tries to determine
for the umpteenth time the causes of the emergence, rise and fall of empires. Not
very surprisingly, Prescott concludes that Spain is the exact opposite of the United
States of America, and for exactly the same reasons it was the antithesis of England
–i.e. oriental despotism, superstition, feudalism, economic backwardness… The
American native is also considered inferior to the white Anglo-Saxon American and
an obstacle to progress. Thus, the Spanish conquest of the New World had at least
the virtue of releasing the Mexican and Peruvian civilizations of the Aztec and Inca
despotism But now the time has come when the United States shall end what the
Spanish colonization was unable to achieve –the culminating point of this manifest
destiny arrives in 1898, with the presence of Spain in America coming to an abrupt,
definitive end.46
For many scholars, this negative image of Spain cultivated in the United States is
tempered by romantic writers such as Washington Irving (1783-1859), the author of
the Tales of the Alhambra (1832).47 Generally speaking, though, the English
language popular culture reflects a continuity going from the 17th century theatrical
comedies to the 19th century gothic tales in what concerns terrific and fabulous
representations of Spain and the Spaniards.48 And up to the present day, Western
mass culture, monopolized by the English language, constantly provides us with
evidence of the good health of such a trend and images: in the press coverage of
major sporting events, mainly soccer;49 in the best-sellers, such as Dan Brown’s The
Da Vinci Code; in the cinema, for instance on Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The
Golden Age (2007), not to mention a whole literary form as the Far West story,
populated with savage Indians and half-blood Spanish villains, even if, from time to
time Zorro suddenly appears on the horizon.50
Sánchez Mantero. “La mirada americana. La evolución de un estereotipo.” Ismael Saz (ed.), op. cit.
229-236.
46
Quiroz, op. cit. 163-166.
47
Ibid. 162.
48
Guillén, op. cit. 338-339, 353-354.
49
The British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mirror (London) published in June 20, 1996 the article “10
Nasties Spain’s given Europe”: 1) Syphilis, 2) Spanish flu, 3) Carpet bombing, 4) The Inquisition, 5)
Bullfighting, 6) Spanish fly, 7) Paella, 8) Flamenco dancing, 9) Franco, and 10) Eldorado ...”. 25-062012: http://www.whoateallthegoals.com/2012/06/coverage-in-sun-and-daily-mirror-during.html.
50
R. Rodríguez Milán. "La novela popular y la promoción de valores y actitudes sociales durante la
dictadura de Franco: la serie El Coyote de José Mallorquí.” Literatura, cine y prensa. Criterios, valores
y actitudes. Santiago de Compostela: Andavira Editora, 2011, 55-61.
12