“Turpitudinem uxoris fratris tui non revelavit”: John Stokesley and the Divorce Question

Abstract

Mercedes Maroto Camino, Exploring the Explorers: Spaniards in Oceania, 1519-1794, Manchester & New York, Manchester University Press, 2008, pp. xi + 243, h/b. £60.00, ISBN: 978-0-7190-7779-1After its 'discovery' by Balboa in 1513, the Spanish saw the Pacific as their ocean. Yet, the stories and analysis of these explorers are still in the shadow of the more widely known voyages of Captain Cook and those of other explorers such as Bougainville and Wallis. Camino's book works to bring together the various Spanish voyages. Her work, going beyond the flag-planting and ceremonial land claiming for the Spanish Crown, highlights what she calls the 'cross-cultural engagement' between the explorers and the islanders, and what this can show us about the explorers themselves. As she explains, the sources themselves (usually the journals kept by leading members of the expeditions) have their clear limitations in creating a complete picture of the South Pacific and of the experience of the voyages. Regardless, Camino succeeds in bringing together the existing source material, thus shedding light on the Spanish experience of Pacific exploration.The book opens with an introduction to the presence of Europeans in the Pacific with Magellan and other early European explorers. Here the author discusses some of the logistical difficulties of navigating the Pacific (the question of longitude as well as the unfamiliar trade winds and currents). The main focus of the book, however, is on two major periods of exploration by the Spanish: 1567-1606 and 1770-1794. Filling the void between these periods is a brief description of the Dutch, French and English/ British explorations, complemented with other factors and developments that influenced the nature of the second round of exploration. An insightful look at the visual representation of the islands and islanders created by the explorers forms the final chapter, investigating what these artefacts communicate about the explorers' attitudes and the images they wished to present to their fellow Europeans.For scholars of the seventeenth century, this work provides a fascinating summary and discussion of the voyage of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros to Vanuatu in 1606. However, the strength of this work is its ability to present the different attitudes, resulting relationships and impressions that Spanish and Spanish American explorers developed over the nearly three hundred years covered.Gift-giving and bartering often formed the nexus of the relationship between the explorers and islanders. This custom revealed to the explorers the complexity of social relations and hierarchy in the islands they explored. …