Ongoing mobilities and the deserving self: the case of Don Rodrigo de Vivero

Abstract

ABSTRACT Few sixteenth- and seventeenth-century creoles lived a life as mobile as don Rodrigo de Vivero y Aberruza. Born in Tecamachalco (Puebla) in 1564, he travelled to the Spanish court at the age of twelve. After his return to New Spain in 1580, he fought against the Chichimeca in New Mexico and against English pirates in Acapulco, served as interim governor in Manila and spent a year in Japan after having shipwrecked on its coasts. After another stay in Spain, he served as governor in Panama from 1621 to 1627 before returning to New Spain, where he received another office in Veracruz. Such movements played a crucial role in the identity that Vivero and other men fashioned for themselves. In his interactions with the Crown, Vivero produced a self-image that tied his worthiness of the king’s favour to his mobility. This paper explores how the relationship between mobility and the distribution of royal grace affected the movements within the Spanish empire and the writings of those petitioning the Spanish Crown for royal favor. I argue that over time Vivero revised his stories, left movements unmentioned, or recalibrated the balance between mobility and rootedness while fashioning various images of a deserving self.