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Living Between Empires: Diplomacy and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Mosquitia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Caroline A. Williams
Caroline A. Williams*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K.
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Extract

In June 1787, Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel de Hervías, on behalf of the Spanish crown, took possession from Major James Lawrie of the small British settlement of Black River (Río Tinto), marking the formal end of three decades of diplomatic wrangling over the existence of the British Superintendency over the Mosquito Shore (1748 to 1787). Within three years of Lawrie's departure, along with that of 537 British settlers and 1,677 slaves, the narrow stretch of territory extending along the Atlantic coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua and known to the Spanish as costa de mosquitos was engulfed in violent conflicts between leaders of the Miskitu peoples and their followers. The first outbreak of intra-Miskitu hostilities pitted the Indian governor Colville Briton against other prominent chiefs, including his nephew Admiral Alparis Dilson; a second pitted Admiral Dilson and his brother Major Hewlett against the Afro-Indian or “Zambo” King George II. By the time the conflicts had come to an end, both Briton and Dilson had been executed, Hewlett had escaped the region for the safety of the Panamanian coast, and George had asserted his ascendancy over rival chiefs and their people.

Type
Tibesar Lecture
Information
The Americas , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 237 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2013 

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References

I would like to thank Karl Offen, Kirsty Reid, Christine Macleod, and the two anonymous reviewers for The Americas for invaluable comments that have helped improve this analysis.

1. Sorsby, William Shuman, “The British Superintendency of the Mosquito Shore, 1749–1787,” (Ph.D. diss., University College London, 1969), pp. 321–22;Google Scholar Dawson, Frank Griffith, “William Pitt’s Settlement at Black River on the Mosquito Shore: A Challenge to Spain in Central America, 1732–87,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63:4 (November 1983), pp. 704–703;Google Scholar and Dawson, Frank Griffith, “The Evacuation of the Mosquito Shore and the English Who Stayed Stayed Behind, 1786–1800,” The Americas 55:1 (July 1998), pp. 67–68.Google Scholar

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3. Hodgson to Troncoso, Bluefields, September 6, 1790, Archivo General de Simancas, Secretaría del Despacho de Guerra [hereafter AGS SGU] 6949, 21; Troncoso to Conde del Campo de Alange, Guatemala, January 1,1792, AGS SGU 6950,1; Troncoso to Conde del Campo de Alange, Guatemala, October 9,1792, AGS SGU 6934, 50; “Diario que han llevado Don Francisco Meani Vecino de Rio Tinto y Don Juan Sivelly Subteniente del Real Cuerpo de Artillería … ,” June 12, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

4. Hewlett was known to the Spanish as Sulera or Solera. José del Río, “Disertación del viaje … a las islas de San Andrés, Santa Catalina, Providencia y Manglés, en la Costa de Mosquitos,” Trujillo, August 25, 1793, AGS SGU 6950,4.

5. Sproat to Bassett, Belize, September 27, 1800, The National Archives, London, Colonial Office [hereafter TNA CO] 137/105, f. 21; Sorsby, William S., “Spanish Colonization of the Mosquito Coast, 1787–1800,” Revista de Historia de America 73–74 (January-December 1972), p. 151;Google Scholar and Dawson, “The Evacuation,” p. 87.

6. According to the Moravian missionary Heinrich Ziock, who recorded the oral testimony of a Zambo elder in 1893, the violence was devastating for the Indian Miskitu. The elder also claimed that after the deaths of Dilson and Hewlett, George ordered the destruction of all the Indian villages and all their people, and relented only on the advice of a prominent chief that he should keep “part of the tribe alive to act as tribu¬taries and slaves.” For a translation and analysis of Ziock’s account, see Offen, Karl H., “The Sambo and Tawira Miskitu: The Colonial Origins and Geography of Intra-Miskitu Differentiation in Eastern Nicaragua and Hon¬duras,” Ethnohistory 49:2 (Spring 2002), pp. 324–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. The most detailed analysis of Miskitu identity politics during the period of the British Superinten-dency can be found in Offen, “The Sambo and Tawira Miskitu,” pp. 319–372. Offen also discusses relations between Indians and Afro-Indians in “Race and Place,” pp. 92–129. See also Douglas Arthur Tompson, “Frontiers of Identity: The Atlantic Coast and the Formation of Honduras and Nicaragua, 1786–1894,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 2001), pp. 49–53.

8. See for example White, Richard, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011);Google Scholar DuVal, Kathleen, The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006);CrossRefGoogle Scholar MacLeitch, Gail D., Imperial Entanglements: Iroquois Change and Persistence on the Frontiers of Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Aron, Stephen, American Conflu¬ence: The Missouri Frontier from Borderland to Border State (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Univer¬sity Press, 2009);Google Scholar Weber, David J., Bárbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2005);Google Scholar and Saunt, Claudio,“Our Indians’: European Empires and the History of the Native American South,” in The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000, Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge and Seeman, Erik R., eds. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentke Hall, 2007), pp. 61–75.Google Scholar See also Adelman, Jeremy and Aron, Stephen, “From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History,” American Historical Review 104:3 (June 1999), pp. 814–841;Google Scholar Hàmàlàinen, Pekka and Truett, Samuel, “On Borderlands,” The Journal of American History 98:2 (September 2011), pp. 338–361;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gould, Eliga H., “Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery,” American Historical Review 112:3 (June 2007), pp. 764–786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), p. xviii.Google Scholar

10. The question of how to incorporate the complexity and sheer diversity of indigenous experience into Atlantic narratives has most recently been debated by the contributors to the Ethnogencsis forum in The William and Mary Quarterly 68:2 (April 2011). See especially Sidbury, James and Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, “Mapping Ethnogenesis in the Early Modern Atlantic,” pp. 181–208,Google Scholar and “On the Genesis of Destruction, and Other Missing Subjects,” pp. 240–246; Hàmàlàinen, Pekka, “Lost in Transitions: Suffering, Survival, and Belonging in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” pp. 219–223;Google Scholar and Saunt, Claudio, “The Indians’ Old World,” pp. 215–218.Google Scholar On the place of indigenous peoples in Atlantic historiography, see Cohen, Paul, “Was there an Amerindian Atlantic? Reflection on the Limits of a Historiographical Concept,” History of European Ideas, 34:4 (2008), pp. 388–10;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bushnell, Amy Turner, “Indigenous America and the Limits of the Atlantic World, 1493-1825,” in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal, Green, Jack P. and Morgan, Philip D., eds. (Oxford, U.K., and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 191–222.Google Scholar

11. Dawson, “The Evacuation,” p. 83; Olien, Michael D., ”General, Governor, and Admiral: Three Miskito Lines of Succession,” Ethnohistory 45:2 (Spring 1998), pp. 300–301,CrossRefGoogle Scholar 306–307; Rogers, Nicholas, “Caribbean Borderland: Empire, Ethnicity, and the Exotic on the Mosquito Coast,” Eighteenth-Century Life 26:3 (Fall 2002), pp. 134–135;Google Scholar García, Claudia, “Interacción étnica y diplomacia de fronteras en el reino miskitu a fines del siglo XVIII,” Anuario de Estudios Americano 56:1 (1999), pp. 113,CrossRefGoogle Scholar 115, 117–118; García, , “Hibri¬dación, interacción social y adaptación cultural en la Costa de Mosquitos, siglos XVII y XVIII,” Anuario de Estu¬dios Americanos 59:2 (2002), pp. 460–462;Google Scholar García, , Etnogénesis, hibridación y consolidación de la identidad del pueblo miskitu (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2007), pp. 81–82,Google Scholar 89–94; Floyd, Troy, The Anglo-Spanish Struggle for Mosguitia (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967), pp. 172–182;Google Scholar and Naylor, Robert A., Penny Ante Imperialism: The Mosquito Shore and the Bay of Honduras, 1600-1914 (Ruther¬ford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989), p. 71. See also Weber, Bárbaros, 242-243.Google Scholar

12. Dawson, “The Evacuation,” pp. 71–86; Tompson, Doug, “The Establecimientos Costeros of Bour¬bon Central America, 1787–1800: Problems and Paradox in Spain’s Occupation of the Atlantic Coast,” in Politics, Economy, and Society in Bourbon Central America, 1759–1821, Dym, Jordana and Belaubre, Christophe, eds. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2007), pp. 165–179.Google Scholar

13. See Offen, “Sambo and Tawira” Offen, “Race and Place”; and Offen, “Creating Mosquitia: Map¬ping Amerindian Spatial Practices in Eastern Central America, 1629–1779,” Journal of Historical Geography 33:2 (April 2007), pp. 254–282.

14. For a discussion of Anglo-Spanish diplomatic negotiations, see Sorsby, William S., “British Superin-tendency,” pp. 291–322.Google Scholar

15. Offen, “Race and Place,” p. 93; Offen, “Creating Mosquitia,” pp. 260–263.

16. Offen, Karl H., “The Miskitu Kingdom: Landscape and the Emergence of a Miskitu Ethnic Iden¬tity, Northeastern Nicaragua and Honduras, 1600–1800” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1999);Google Scholar Offen, “Creating Mosquitia,” pp. 254–282; Offen, “Sambo and Tawira Miskitu,” pp. 320–372; Offen, “Race and Place,” pp. 92–129; Nicholas Rogers, “Caribbean Borderland,” pp. 117–138; Vargas, Germán Romero, Las sociedades del Atlàntico de Nicaragua en los sighs XVII y XVIII (Managua: Fondo de Promoción Cultural-BANIC, 1995);Google Scholar Olien, Michael D., “The Miskito Kings and the Line ofSuccession,” Journal of Anthropolog¬ical Research 39:2 (Summer 1983), pp. 198–241;Google Scholar Dennis, Philip A. and Olien, Michael D., “Kingship among the Miskito,” American Ethnologist 11:4 (November 1984), pp. 718–737;Google Scholar Olien, “General, Governor, and Admiral,” pp. 277–318; Mary Helms, “Miskito Slaving and Culture Contact: Ethnicity and Opportunity in an Expanding Population,” Journal of Anthropological Research 39:2 (Summer 1983), pp. 179-187; and Helms, “Of Kings and Contexts: Ethnohistorical Interpretations of Miskito Political Structure and Function,” American Ethnologist 13:3 (August 1986), pp. 506–523.

17. Offen, “Miskitu Kingdom,” especially chapt. 5. See also Olien, “Miskito Kings,” pp. 198–241; Olien, “General, Governor, and Admiral,“ pp. 277–318; and Dennis and Olien, “Kingship among the Miskito,” pp. 718–737.

18. Offen, “The Miskitu Kingdom,” especially pp. 191–210.

19. Olien, “General, Governor, and Admiral,” pp. 277–318; Olien, “Miskito Kings,” pp. 198–241; and Dennis and Olien, “Kingship among the Miskito,” pp. 718–737.

20. Helms, , “Of Kings and Contexts,” pp. 506–523.Google Scholar See also Tompson, , “Frontiers of Identity,” pp. 54–56.Google Scholar

21. Hooker, Juliet, “Race and the Space of Citizenship: The Mosquito Coast and the Place of Blackness and Indigeneity in Nicaragua,” in Blacks and Blackness, Gudmundson and Wolfe, pp. 246–277.Google Scholar

22. Sorsby, “British Superintendency,” pp. 156–197.

23. “Extracto general y sucinto de lo ocurrido con … Roberto Hodgson … desde su prisión,” AGS SGU 6945, 1.

24. Caballero y Góngora to Marqués de Sonora, Cartagena, March 6, 1787, in “Extracto general y sucinto”; Hodgson to Caballero y Góngora, Black River, April 7, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 32; and Hodgson to Marqués de Sonora, Cartagena, March 5, 1787, AGS SGU 6946, 9. A copy of the commission may be found in AGS SGU 6948, 32. See also Tompson, , “Establecimientos Costeros” pp. 157–158,Google Scholar 166–167.

25. John Pitt died before the first of the shipments from London was made. See Kaye to Gordon, Rio Tinto, July 8, 1788, in “Testimonio … sobre la llegada … de … Roberto Kaye,” AGS SGU 6948, 15, f. 6; and Hervías to Estachería, Río Tinto, September 20, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 14.

26. Marqués del Campo to Floridablanca, London, August 20, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 20; Troncoso to Conde de Alange, Guatemala, December 28, 1790, AGS SGU 6950, 3.

27. Caballero y Góngora to Gil y Lemos, Turbaco, February 26, 1789, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid [hereafter AHN], Diversos-Colecciones, 32, 36; Ezpeleta to Valdés, Santa Fe, May 19, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 5.

28. Quesada to Estachería, Río Tinto, April 29, 1787, AGS SGU 6947, 2.

29. Quesada to Estachería, Río Tinto, April 21, 1787, ibid.

30. Quesada to Estachería, Río Tinto, April 29, 1787, ibid.

31. Estachería to Marqués de Sonora, Guatemala, June 15, 1782, ibid.

32. Hervías, et al. to Estachería, Río Tinto, May 2, 1787, ibid.Google Scholar

33. Hervías, to Estachería, , Trujillo, May 3, 1787;Google Scholar Estachería, to de Sonora, Marqués, Amatitlán, May 15, 1787;Google Scholar and Hervías et al. to Estachería, Río Tinto, May 2, 1787, ibid.

34. Hervías, to Estachería, , Trujillo, May 3, 1787;Google Scholar Estachería to Quesada, Amatitlán, May 11, 1787; and Estachería to Marqués de Sonora, Guatemala, May 15 and June 15, 1787, ibid.

35. For example, Marqués del Campo to Floridablanca, London, July 13 and September 8, 1787, AGS SGU 6946, 4.

36. Dawson, , “The Evacuation,” pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

37. Indeed, as late as 1798 the Spanish themselves referred to Rio Tinto (rather than the Mosquitia) as “in colonia” implying that they understood its status to be that of a Spanish settlement within territory deemed to be Miskitu. Echeverría to Domás, Río Tinto, September 17, 1798, in “Testimonio del Cuaderno 7 sobre la llegada del nombrado Príncipe Esteban al establecimiento de los Zambos . . . ,” AGS SGU 6951, 3, f. 118. Offen has characterized the Miskitu polity as one that “overlapped in space but was independent from the British Supcrintendency. See “Race and Place,” p. 93. See also Goett, Jennifer Allan, “Diasporic Iden¬tities, Autochthonous Rights: Race, Gender, and the Cultural Politics of Creole Land Rights in Nicaragua,” (Ph.D. diss.: University of Texas at Austin, 2006), pp. 110–111, 118-120.Google Scholar

38. Olien, “Miskito Kings,” pp. 200–209.

39. “Diario formado por el Doctor Sproat,” Río Tinto, August 31, 1798, in “Testimonio … sobre la llegada del … Principe Esteban,” AGS SGU 6951, 3, f. 93. See also Caroline A Williams, “‘If You Want Slaves Go to Guinea’: Civilisation and Savagery in the ‘Spanish’ Mosquitia, 1787–1800,” Slavery and Abolition, forthcoming.

40. Offen, “Creating Mosquitia,” especially pp. 272–273; Offen, “Race and Place,” pp. 109–112.

41. Caballero y Góngora to Gil y Lemos, Turbaco, February 26, 1789, AHN, Diversos-Colecciones, 32, 36.

42. Caballero y Góngora to Valdés y Bazan, Turbaco, October 16,1788, AGS SGU 6948, 32; Marqués del Campo to Floridablanca, London, February 7, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 15; and Troncoso to Conde del Campo de Alange, Guatemala, December 28, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 17.

43. Caballero y Góngora to Marqués de Sonora, Turbaco, November 20, 1722, AGS SGU 6945, 1.

44. For example Kaye to Marqués del Campo, London, October 9, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 15; and Kaye to Marqués del Campo, Honduras, June 3, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 20.

45. Hodgson, to Troncoso, , Chagre, November 17, 1790,Google Scholar AGS SGU 6948, 21; “Diario” (Meany-Siv-elly), AGS SGU 6950, 6. See also Goett, “Disaporic Identities,” pp. 101–105.

46. Meany, to Troncoso, , Guatemala, August 25, 1792, AGS SGU 6950, 8, fs. 32–3.Google Scholar

47. Hodgson to Estachería, Trujillo, April 17, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 32; Hodgson to Marqués de Sonora, Cartagena, March 5,1787, AGS SGU 6946, 9. There was no implication of submission in native peo¬ples' acceptance of formulations of this kind. They were, rather, commonly used devices to make the mon¬archi of allied European nations provide for their needs. See for example MacLeitch, , Imperial Entanglements, pp. 32, 40;Google Scholar DuVal, Native Ground, pp. 137, 181; White, Middle Ground, pp. 271, 275; Weber, Bárbaros, pp. 215–216; and Aron, American Confluence, p. 56.

48. Hodgson to Caballero y Góngora, η.p., n.d., AGS SGU 6945, 1; Hodgson to Marqués de Sonora, Cartagena, March 5, 1787, AGS SGU 6946, 9.

49. “Diary (Robert Hodgson),” June 1 and 23, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29; Hodgson to Caballero y Góngora, Boca Chica, June 2, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 31.

50. Hodgson, to Fuertes, , Punta Gorda, September 25,1787,Google Scholar AGS SGU 6945,1 ; Hodgson to Caballero y Góngora, Boca Chica, June 2, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 31; and Caballero y Góngora to Gil y Lemos, Tur¬baco, February 26, 1789, AHN, Diversos-Colecciones, 32, 36.

51. “Diary” (Hodgson), especially the entries for June 14 and 18 and September 14, 22, 23, 24, and 27, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29.

52. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), June 12 and 21, July 8, and August 8 and 10, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

53. Ibid., June 14, 1791. Although Meany and Sivelly referred to Eugene as the king’s uncle, Offen considered that he was either cousin or brother to George II. Offen, “Sambo and Tawira,” p. 351.

54. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), June 22, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

55. See for example Olien, , “General, Governor, and Admiral,” pp. 282–283.Google Scholar

56. “Estado que manifiesta los Regalos que se han calculado para los Gefes y Capitanes,” Comayagua, September 20, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 21.

57. Ibid.

58. Hervías, to Estachería, , Rio Tinto, September 20, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 14.Google Scholar

59. Ayssa to Estachería, León, January 23, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 17.

60. Porta y Costas to Troncoso, Guatemala, September 22, 1792, AGS SGU 6950, 8. On the adoption of British uniforms and other emblems of authority, see also Offen, “Creating Mosquitia,” pp. 272–277.

61. Offen, “Miskitu Kingdom,” pp. 167-169.

62. Offen, “Creating Mosquitia,” p. 263.

63. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), June 12 and 20, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

64. See, for example, “Relación del Reconocimiento … Antonio Porta y Costas,” AGS SGU 6949,17; and “Proceedings at a General Congress,” TNA CO 137/79, fs. 164‣67.

65. Caballero y Góngora to Valdés y Bazán, Cartagena, November 5, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29.

66. Benavides, , “Declaración,” Cartagena, October 25, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29.Google Scholar

67. Hodgson, to Caballero, y Góngora, Boca Chica, June 2, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 31.Google Scholar

68. Of the two final commands identified, one, “Colonel Caesar’s people,” comprised approximately 50 men in the Pearl Key Lagoon region; the other, “Colonel Jasper Hall’s people,” consisted of 200 men in the Great River region. See Lawrie and Despard to Campbell, Kingston, June 16, 1783, National Army Museum, London, 6807/183-1, f. 15. José del Rio estimated the total population residing between the River San Juan and Cabo Gracias a Dios at between 4,000 and 5,000, when he reported on a tour of inspection of the region in 1793. See del Río, José, “Disertación,” AGS SGU 6950, 4.Google Scholar

69. “Relación” (Porta y Costas), AGS SGU 6949, 17.

70. For example, Kaye to Marqués del Campo, Honduras, June 3, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 20; and “Diary” (Hodgson), June 23 and September 14 and 19, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29.

71. Hodgson to Marqués de Sonora, Cartagena, March 5, 1787, AGS SGU 6946, 9; Caballero y Gón¬gora to Marqués de Sonora, Cartagena, March 6, 1787, AGS SGU 6945, 1.

72. Góngora, Caballero y to Sonora, Marqués de, Cartagena, March 6, 1787, AGS SGU 6945, 1.Google Scholar

73. Caballero y Góngora to Valdés y Bazán, Cartagena, November 5, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29; Hodgson to Caballero y Góngora, Boca Chica, June 2, 1788, Caballero y Góngora to Valdés y Bazán, Tur¬baco, May 28, 1788, Caballero y Góngora to Valdés y Bazán, Turbaco, June 11, 1788, and “Lista de los Pasajeros,” in AGS SGU 6948, 31; “Cuenta del Coronel … Hodgson,” AGS SGU 6949, 21; and Gil y Lemos to Valdés, Santa Fe, May 15, 1789, AGS SGU 6949, 5.

74. Ibid.; Gil y Lemos to Hodgson, May 15, 1789, AGS SGU 6949, 21.

75. Vargas, Romero, Las sociedades del Atlántico, especially chapt. 8; Offen, “Sambo and Tawira,” pp. 346–354; Rogers, , “Caribbean Borderland,” pp. 129–130; Olien, “General, Governor, and Admiral,” pp. 288–291, 297–298; and Sorsby, “British Superintendency,” especially chapts. 7 to 10.Google Scholar

76. See for example Val, Du, Native Ground, pp. 130–134; and MacLeitch, Imperial Entanglements,p. 89.Google Scholar

77. Caballero y Góngora to Valdés y Bazán, Cartagena, November 5, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29.

78. “Pasaporte,” Turbaco, July 26, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

79. Góngora, Caballero y to Bazán, Valdés y, Turbaco, May 28, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 31.Google Scholar

80. Ayssa, to Bazán, Valdés y, León, December 23, 1788,Google Scholar AGS SGU 6948, 24; Estachería to Valdés, Guatemala, January 5, 1789, in “Extracto de la Representación que el Presidente de Guatemala dirige a S. M …,” AGS SGU 6948, 8.

81. Barrueta to Ayssa, Alabará de Mosquitos, February 28, 1789, and Barrueta to Ayssa, Tubapi, April 26, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

82. Offen, “Race and Place,” pp. 93, 101, 104; Offen, “Creating Mosquitia,” pp. 262, 272–274, 278.

83. This is not to suggest, however, that the Miskitu-British relationship was free of tension. See for example Sorsby, “British Superintendency”; and Romero Vargas, Las sociedades.

84. Sorsby, British Superintendency,” pp. 325–329.

85. On visiting León in 1788, Admiral Sambo similarly “complained with bitterness that the English had left them in ignorance, to the extent that they neither instructed them in the repair of their tools, nor pro¬vided the most rudimentary knowledge of [any] other trade.” Ayssa to Estachería, León, December 23, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 8; Ayssa to Estachería, León, January 23, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 17; and “Testimonio de lo consultado,” AGS SGU 6948, 8, f. 12. Ironically, as Rogers has shown, this was the same accusation that the British made against the Miskitu. Rogers, “Caribbean Borderland,” pp. 129–130.

86. Ayssa to Valdés y Bazán, León, December 23, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 24. For an outline of the Ayssa-Briton negotiations, see Ayón, Tomás, Historia de Nicaragua, 3 vols. (Nicaragua: Fondo de Promoción Cultural Banco de América, 1977), Vol. 3, pp. 209–236.Google Scholar

87. Weber, , Bárbaros, p. 211.Google Scholar

88. Tompson, , “Establecimientos Costeros,” pp. 160–165.Google Scholar

89. Caballero y Góngora advocated good faith, and gradual and peaceful methods. No restrictions, he advised his successor, should be placed on the Miskitu people’s freedom to pursue their economic activities, “industry, or preoccupations.” Caballero y Góngora to Gil y Lemos, Turbaco, February 26, 1789, AHN Diversos-Colecciones 32, 36.

90. See for example Estachería to Caballero y Góngora, Guatemala, May 7, 1788, AGS SGU 6948,17; and Ayssa to Valdés y Bazán, León, February 23, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 24. See also Tompson, , “Establec¬imientos Costeros” pp. 157–179.Google Scholar

91. Ayssa to Barrueta, León, October 6, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

92. Pérez Brito to Salablanca, Cabo de Gracias a Dios, November 11, 1790, AGS SGU 6949, 17.

93. Troncoso to Meany, Guatemala, February 5,1792, “Testimonio de los autos sobre la comisión con¬ferida a Don Miguel Sánchez Pareja,” Cuaderno 5, AGS SGU 6951, 3.

94. Castilla to Ayssa, Alabará, May 15,1789, and Barrueta to Ayssa, Alabará, May 15,1789, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

95. Gil y Lemos to Valdés, Santa Fe, May 15, 1789, AGS SGU 6949, 5.

96. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), July 5 and 10, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

97. Ibid., June 15, 1791.

98. Ibid., September 4, 1791.

99. Ayssa to Valdés y Bazán, León, February 23, 1789, and July 23, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

100. Ayssa to Valdés y Bazán, León, May 23, 1789, ibid.

101. Ayssa to Estachería, León, June 23, 1789, ibid. See also Estachería to Valdés, Guatemala, June 18, 1789, AGS SGU 6948,5.

102. Ayssa to Valdés y Bazán, León, December 23, 1788, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

103. Almost without exception, scholars have emphasized the impact of Briton's baptism and marriage, and his alleged support for missionary efforts to end the Miskitu practice of polygyny. See for example Floyd, , Anglo-Spanish Struggle, p. 174;Google Scholar Olien, , “General, Governor, and Admiral,” pp. 300–301, 307;Google Scholar García, , “Inter¬acción étnica,” pp. 113,Google Scholar 115, 117–118; and Rogers, , “Caribbean Borderland,” p. 135.Google Scholar See also Weber, , Bár¬baros, pp. 242–243.Google Scholar

104. Castilla to Ayssa, Alabará, May 15, 1789, and Barrueta to Ayssa, Alabará, May 15, 1789, AGS SGU 6948, 24.

105. Barrueta to Villegas, Alabará de Mosquitos, May 15, 1789, ibid.

106. Barrueta to Villegas, Laguna de Perlas, June 24, 1789, ibid.

107. “Relación” (Porta y Costas), AGS SGU 6949, 17.

108. Ayssa to Castilla, León, July 9, 1789, Ayssa to Valdés y Bazán, León, July 23, 1789, and “Instruc¬ciones dadas … a Don Manuel Dambrine,” AGS SGU 6948, 24; Estachería to Valdés, Guatemala, Septem¬ber 9, 1789, AGS SGU 6949, 1.

109. Meany and Sivelly to Troncoso, Río Tinto, October 4, 1791, AGS SGU 6951, 3.

110. “Diary” (Hodgson), June 1, 16, 20, and 28, and September 23, 1787, AGS SGU 6948, 29.

111. Mcany and Sivelly to Troncoso, Rio Tinto, October 4, 1791, AGS SGU 6951, 3.

112. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), July 14, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

113. Often, “Miskitu Kingdom,” p. 207. For comparison with other native groups, see for example Saunt, Claudio, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733–1816 (Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 42–45;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Weber, Bár¬baros, p. 191; and Pulsipher, Jenny Hale, “Gaining the Diplomatic Edge: Kinship, Trade, Ritual, and Religion in Amerindian Alliances in Early North America,” in Empires and Indigenes: Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion, and Warfare in the Early Modern World, Lee, Wayne E., ed. (New York and London: New York University Press, 2011 ), p.25.Google Scholar

114. On native gift economies, see also Murray, David, Indian Giving: Economies of Power in Indian-White Exchanges (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000);Google Scholar Axtell, James, Natives and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins of North America (New York and Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001);Google Scholar and Mallios, Seth, The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacán, Roanoke, and Jamestown (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006).Google Scholar

115. “Relación” (Porta y Costas), AGS SGU 6949, 17. See also “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), June 19, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

116. “Relación” (Porta y Costas), AGS SGU 6949, 17.

117. Claudio Saunt has drawn a similar conclusion for the Choctaws of the colonial Southeast. See “Our Indians,” p. 68.

118. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), June 12, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6. See also Major Hewlett’s testimony, in the diary entry for July 14.

119. See also Olien, , “General, Governor, and Admiral,” pp. 280, 304–305.Google Scholar

120. Meany and Sivelly to Troncoso, Rio Tinto, October 4, 1791, AGS SGU 6951, 3.

121. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), July 5 and 6,1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6. Gendered discourse of this kind pervades the sources on intra-Miskitu and Miskitu-Spanish interactions during the period 1787–1800. Gale MacLeitch and Nancy Shoemaker have shown that a similarly gendered language was employed by the Iro¬quois. See MacLeitch, , Imperial Entanglements, pp. 40–41;Google Scholar and Shoemaker, Nancy, A Strange Likeness: Becom¬ing Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 106–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Shoemaker, Nancy, “An Alliance between Men: Gender Metaphors in Eighteenth-Century American Diplomacy East of the Mississipi,” Ethnohistory 46:2 (Spring 1999), pp. 239–263.Google Scholar For a recent con¬tribution to the study of masculinity in the colonial Americas, see the essays in New Men: Manliness in Early America, Thomas E. Foster, ed. (New York and London: New York University Press, 2011).

122. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), August 24, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

123. Ibid., July 10 and August 6, 1791.

124. Ibid., August 6, 1791.

125. Meany and Sivelly to Troncoso, Rio Tinto, October 4, 1791, AGS SGU 6951, 3.

126. “Diario” (Meany-Sivelly), June 9, 1791, AGS SGU 6950, 6.

127. Troncoso to Conde del Campo de Alange, Guatemala, January 1, 1792, AGS SGU 6950, 1.

128. Ibid.

129. See the discussion of the reports submitted by Bernardo Troncoso, in AGS SGU 6950, 2.

130. Sánchez Pareja to Domás, Guanizon, April 11, 1797, AGS SGU 6951, 3.

131. Williams, “‘If You Want Slaves.’”

132. This is the testimony of the Zambo elder, as recorded by the Moravian missionary Heinrich Ziock. Sec Offen, “Sambo and Tawira,” pp. 324—325.

133. See for example Meany to Domás, Río Tinto, August 30, 1798, and “Diario formado por el Dr. Sproat,” in “Testimonio del Cuaderno 7,” AGS SGU 6951, 3, fš. 83, 99.

134. Although difficult to interpret, there may be some significance in the fact that his name was Clemente, the name by which Colville Briton and Robin Lee’s successor as governor of the Indian jurisdic¬tion was also known. Estacherria to Domás y Valle, Río Tinto, September 17, 1798, and “Ingreso de Jorge a la Sabana del Ganado del Rey,” September 28, 1798, in “Testimonio del Cuaderno 7,” AGS SGU 6951, 3, fs. 118, 140.