This collection of 12 essays aims to re-entangle the histories of Iberian and Anglo empires in the Americas, continuing Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra's important work of decentering the North Atlantic narrative as normative in the Western Hemisphere. On the contrary, as he has done in his previous works, he demonstrates in these essays both the entanglement that British colonists and leaders had with the pre-existing Spanish imperial structures and ideologies, as well as their direct and purposeful imitation of the theoretical framework and on-the-ground practices of their Iberian co-imperialists. The retelling of this history as entangled, and the creation of a new historiography of the Americas, serves as a very necessary corrective to the United States’ ongoing marginalization of Latino populations as “minority” or “multicultural” contributors to this country's history. The contributors highlight the brokering of trade and knowledge as they seek to rewrite the purposeful efforts to disentangle this narrative. The re-entanglement case studies presented here highlight the political and economic context for the biographies of certain individual actors who frequently bridged both empires, including Jews and conversos, African slaves, Irish soldiers, and individuals who moved between both England and Spain, caught up in the rapidly shifting religions of the sixteenth century.
The first section presents essays on the theme of “Severed Histories.” The Reformation offers the background for the first essay by Mark Sheaves, on networks of traders. As noted in Cañizares-Esguerra's introduction, the confessional divide created separate archives that shaped perceptions of separate or even opposing histories. But in this era, observers noted that it was possible to confuse a Spaniard with an Englishman and vice versa. Michael Guasco's essay discusses how the English gradually, but not at first, perceived enslaved African allies as valuable agents of empire, who contributed to Spain's wealth and prosperity. Benjamin Breen treats the trade in drugs, including tea, as an impetus to the centuries-long alliance between the Portuguese and the English.
In the second section, “Brokers and Translators,” Christopher Heaney focuses on the writings of Richard Eden, who helped circulate knowledge about the unrealized utopian dream among the English of finding their own Peru, in the context of the marriage alliance between Queen Mary and Philip II. Holly Snyder explores the Jewish merchants who walked the tightrope between the two states. They faced suspicion in Spain and England, the latter due ironically to their affiliation with Spain. Christopher Schmidt-Nowara contributed to this section with his essay on the “Entangled Irishman” George Dawson Flinter in the context of nineteenth-century insurgency, when numerous Irish military men found opportunities in the Americas both as patriots and royalists, following a long tradition of serving Spain.
On a very sad note, Schmidt-Nowara passed away before this book was published, and it is dedicated to his memory. Interestingly, Flinter's own writings portray Simón Bolívar's actions with a very gothic tone. Continuing in the study of fascinating brokers across imperial divides, Cameron B. Strang's essay discusses George J. F. Clarke, an elite Florida patriot who was strongly loyal to Spanish understandings of race and miscegenation. Although Clarke probably did not marry their freedwoman mother, he had sons who served as free-colored militiamen.
Part three includes essays by Cañizares-Esguerra and Bradley Dixon on the themes of possession, sovereignty, and legitimacy. Cañizares-Esguerra writes on Calvinists’ simultaneous rejection of the Spanish conquest and their rhetorical imitation of Spanish claims to access to indigenous territory via religious proselytization and a belief in the imminent end of time. Dixon highlights how indigenous leaders in South Carolina worked within the Spanish system of indirect rule, even as Anglo imperialism changed it.
The final part of the book includes essays on the themes of trade and war. April Lee Hatfield discusses the diplomatic interactions between the British and Spanish empires after the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, which gave Spanish viceroys and other officials more continuing clout in the Caribbean. Ernesto Bassi's essay looks at contraband in cloth and other popular items in the late-eighteenth century context of changing regulations regarding trade, suggesting the creation of a “transimperial Greater Caribbean space” (235). The final essay by Kristie Patricia Flannery transfers the concept of British and Spanish entanglement to the east in the greater Indian Ocean world.
These essays could function very well in an undergraduate class that takes an innovative approach to Anglo-American history, opening students’ eyes to the many and multifaceted complexities of imperial entanglement. If applied in our classrooms, this work could drastically change pre-existing views on the United States’ exceptionalism. The overall theme is a very welcome corrective to North Atlantic-centered historical understandings.
