Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic (review)

Abstract

Empires of God: Religious Encounters in the Early Modern Atlantic. Edited by Linda Greger son and Susan Juster (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2011. Pp. 334. $59.95. ISBN 978-0-812-24289-8.). This interdisciplinary collection of essays provides fertile ground for scholarly inquiry on the colonial history of this hemisphere. The twelve chapters and Final Reflections offer readers a balanced approach and a wealth of information with which to understand this transatlantic encounter that often involved contradictory objectives - religion and compassion pitted against self-interest and conquest. As the editors point out, European colonization of the New World must be understood in its entire complexity; England's colonizing efforts perhaps owe more to Spain that previously thought. This approach, using historiography and literary analysis, gives rise to Atlantic studies in an assessment of religious conflict among Europeans, not just violence to native peoples; accusations of cruelty abound while lands inhabited by non-Christian natives were even deemed empty or vacuum domicilium (Carla Gardina Pestana), thus justifying imperial expansion. The editors wisely arrange essays by topic into three parts: I, Launching Imperial Projects; II, Colonial Accommodations; and III, Violent Encounters. Each essay addresses a common set of questions on the interaction between religion and empire. Legal, literary, and archival documents are all brought to bear concerning ways in which Europeans sought to establish and maintain their colonies and manage the Christianization of native inhabitants. In part I Rolena Adorno goes a stage further regarding the well-known debate in Valladolid between the royal chronicler Sepulveda and the Dominican friar Las Casas, whom she sees primarily as a legal scholar; the encomenderos still managed to repeal New Laws he espoused for indigenous rights. Barbara Fuchs considers literary models and the picaresque in captive narratives. Linda Gregerson examines the challenges of the New England Company to bring the Gospel to a people with no tradition of writing. Part II largely involves missionary efforts and devotional practices both in Catholic and Protestant traditions. Cornelius Conover focuses on St. Philip of Jesus, the Discalced Franciscan martyred in Japan in 1597. Politics and religion intertwine regarding intercessional powers of local patron saints. St. Philip with very human defects begins the tradition of Creole saints, including the Virgin of Guadalupe and even St. Teresa of Avila who wrote on the Christianization of these new lands. Father Chaumonot's autobiography exemplifies the struggles of a Jesuit missionary who often lost his native French language. …