Exploring the Explorers: Spaniards in Oceania, 1519-1794 - By Mercedes Maroto Camino (original) (raw)

2012, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Exploring the Explorers studies Spanish exploration of the Pacific Ocean from its discovery in 1513 until the end of the eighteenth century. Maroto Camino chronicles a total of eight separate voyages in the region, beginning with Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe (1519-20) and culminating in the Enlightenment voyages of Mourelle la Rua and Malaspina in the decades after 1770. She considers the rationale behind these expeditions and offers a detailed account of the itineraries, encounters and tribulations that characterised each voyage, focusing in particular on the crosscultural contacts that occurred throughout the exploration process, and on the exchange of goods and knowledge that marked Spanish relations with Pacific islanders. Maroto Camino's work furnishes an illuminating analysis of expeditions that have, to date, received little intensive coverage and which in many cases remain all but unknown to scholars outside the Hispanic world. It complements the more numerous studies of British and French ventures in the region, notably the voyages of Cook and La Pérouse. It also enriches a growing body of literature on scientific expeditions in the Hispanic world, a subject that has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Exploring the Explorers concentrates primarily on the ethnographic aspects of exploration, noting how factors such as complexion, diet, language and rituals inform cross-cultural encounters. Much of this is fascinating. Some observations could, however, be analysed further. For example, Maroto Camino intimates in her introduction that one of the interesting aspects of Spanish Pacific voyages is that many were launched from the Americas-usually Mexico or Peru-and comprised largely American-born personnel, which she suspects may have influenced their attitudes towards the islanders they encountered. This is an intriguing idea and may have some validity. I felt, nevertheless, that it was not addressed as extensively as it could have been in the text itself, for while several tantalising references are made to the presence of African slaves and mixed-race individuals among the crew-and even, on one occasion, to the recruitment of Peruvian Indians as (ineffectual) translators-the broader epistemological impact of these groups is not really discussed in depth. In particular, it would be instructive to think about how conceptions of racial difference were influenced by the experience of living in the multiracial Spanish colonies, and to situate descriptions of Pacific peoples within wider perceptions of race from the colonial period. Did Spaniards/creoles conceptualise race biologically or culturally? Did they view racial categories as fluid or impermeable? And did encounters with Pacific peoples challenge existing hierarchies of and assumptions about race in the Hispanic world? The sources from Maroto Camino's voyages may not consider these issues explicitly, but the author could elucidate the subject by making reference to other contemporary works such as Hipólito Unanue's El clima de Lima (1806), which subverts prevailing European conceptions of the features that denote beauty and intelligence and specifically cites Tahitian women as examples of non-European physical perfection. I also thought, at times, that the largely chronological structure of the book, while helpful in making explicit the events of each voyage, occasionally made the work a little narrative and repetitive. A few more thematic sections comparing and contrasting the various expeditions might have been instructive. The work would have benefited, too, from a more extensive conclusion, making explicit how Spanish expeditions diverged from their British and French equivalents and clarifying whether the intriguing processes of exchange described here typified European voyages elsewhere or were a distinctive feature of Spanish Pacific exploration. I nevertheless enjoyed Exploring the Explorers and believe it to be a valuable and original study that enhances our understanding of cross-cultural 'engagements' in the Pacific.