Pedro de León Portocarrero’s Descripción del Virreinato del Perú (c.1620): A New Christian Between Spain and Netherlands in Colonial Latin America

Abstract

This essay explores the Descripción del Virreinato del Perú (c.1620), an anonymously authored account of viceregal Peru attributed to Pedro de León Portocarrero (c.1576–c.1620)—a Spanish New Christian merchant likely of Portuguese background. The analysis reveals that Portocarrero’s text undermines Spanish colonial authority not just by supplying secret commercial and military intelligence to Dutch officials but also by subtly critiquing Spain’s colonial enterprise on a symbolic discursive level. Consequently, the work offers an alternative, non-triumphalist, and dissident perspective on the Spanish colonization of Peru.

1. Introduction

On 22 July 1615, a Dutch fleet consisting of five ships and eight hundred men, led by Admiral Joris Van Spilbergen, launched an unsuccessful attack on Callao, the port of Lima, the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Crespo 1962; Salmoral 1994, pp. 128–29). A contemporary resident of Lima, of Spanish and Portuguese background, documented the events anonymously. Taking care not to mention the Dutch admiral’s (or pirate’s) name, referring to him only as “el contrario” (i.e., opponent, or enemy), this observer describes the dramatic event:

I found myself on this beach and port of Callao in the year one thousand six hundred and fifteen, on the twenty-second day of July, Day of Magdalena, because five ships from these lands entered through the Strait of Magellan, after they fought with the royal fleet of Peru next to the town of Cañete, which is located twenty-four leagues from Lima. And the five ships launched the admiral, which was a powerful ship and had Admiral Pedro de Pulgar on board. And the enemy admiral told him to watch that he and all those who were on his ship were going down, that [if] they wanted to save the lives on his ship, that he gave them the word to put them all on land safe and without harming them in any way. Admiral Pedro Pulgar responded that God would not want him to abandon the ship of which his king had entrusted him as admiral; and so, the ship sank and everyone on board drowned, which was five hundred people. Don Rodrigo de Mendoza, general of Callao, fled with the captain and a frigate and entered the port of Callao. The entire City of Kings [Lima] was in an uproar as if the opponent had already entered it and was plundering it. All the people then went to Callao to defend the entrance to the enemy, who on the Day of Magdalena emerged in the port with his five ships, in front of the Callao. And all of us were standing on the beach with weapons in our hands and under the menace of the death penalty that no one should move from his position, waiting when the restrained enemy would begin to fire his artillery and dispatch us to the other world. He was courteous and shot two pieces high. One bullet hit the corner of San Francisco and knocked down some adobes, and the other missed the houses. And without doing any further damage, he cast anchors and raised the sails and left, saying that he was not going to kill or rob the king’s vassals, but that he was going to make his journey to India, and so he left. So, in Lima there were more celebrations and joys than in Rome when Pompeo the Great triumphed over the three bands of the world and the corsairs of the Levant Sea.

(Descripción 66–67)1

The account of the attack on the Peruvian coast led by Joris Van Spilbergen appears in a 256-folio manuscript titled Descripción del Virreinato del Perú, en particular de Lima (Description of the Viceroyalty of Peru, hereinafter Descripción). This work, written around 1620, is attributed to Pedro de León Portocarrero (1576-c.1620), a New Christian of Portuguese origin. It is regarded as one of the most picturesque and detailed chronicles of the Viceroyalty of Peru from the early 17th century (Riva-Agüero 1914, p. 347). The Descripción is also considered a document of extraordinary quality, written in an extremely spontaneous tone by someone who had genuine affection for the Peruvian land (Villena 1970, pp. 315, 316, 319). Additionally, it stands out as the only known source of information about colonial Peru written by a Jewish descendant residing in that region (Böhm 2001, Crypto-Jews and New Christians p. 209).2

In addition to offering a detailed description of the geography, climate, natural resources, commercial products, land and sea routes, and the human landscape of the Viceroyalty of Peru, this anonymous chronicle—written in Spanish and permeated with Lusitanisms—also includes autobiographical elements spontaneously inserted throughout the text.3 In this regard, the work is akin to the writings of other colonial Portuguese travelers of Jewish background, such as Garcia de Orta (1501–1568), Fernão Mendes Pinto (1509–1583), and Ambrósio Fernandes Brandão (1555–1618?) (see Mordoch 2016, 2017a, 2017b). Moreover, the text attributed to Portocarrero addresses historical events, such as the famous Dutch attack on the Peruvian coast, in an irreverent manner, disregarding protocol and decorum. Simultaneously, the chronicle divulges extremely confidential commercial, military, and strategic information, which certainly did not favor the colony’s official governmental apparatus as it revealed to the world details that could be exploited by Spain’s maritime adversaries, particularly the Netherlands. It is worth noting that the Descripción was written around 1620, during a period when Lima was one of the world’s commercial capitals, and Potosí, with its thriving silver mines, was one of the most populous cities globally, boasting around 130,000 inhabitants. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Descripción was authored anonymously.4

In this essay, I argue that the Descripción represents a dissenting voice in the context of the official Iberian narrative, serving as a gesture of expression for an alternative to the Catholic-Spanish hegemonic discourse. Both the text and its context allow us to suggest that this dissent is articulated through a pro-Dutch perspective on colonial Peru. By presenting a “softened image” (Garcia 14) of the pirate Van Spilbergen—who is depicted in the Descripción as “restrained” and “courteous”—Portocarrero’s text leans towards a Dutch-oriented discourse. Indeed, the description of Van Spilbergen’s attempt to invade Lima is so transgressive that it has even been argued to express “a certain philosophical resignation by the Portuguese Jew, not without a dose of black humor” (Villena 1970, p. 326). In religious terms, the Descripción exhibits indifference or disregard for the propagation of the Catholic faith in the New World. Conversely, the text does not contain explicit allusions to Judaism, aside from elements common to Jewish culture and the Christian reformism prevalent in the Netherlands at the time. Thus, despite inquisitorial documentation suggesting Pedro de León Portocarrero’s crypto-Jewish identity, or identification with a crypto-Jewish viewpoint, the religious discourse in the Descripción cannot be definitively categorized as a Jewish discourse.5

Despite being written anonymously, the Descripción offers autobiographical glimpses. Based on these autobiographical excerpts, commercial documents, and inquisitorial sources such as the relaciones de causas despachadas en el santo offiçcio de la Inquisiçion de Sevilla, Villena (1970) was able to identify the authorship of the Descripción, attributing it with a good deal of certainty to the “Portuguese Jew and active propagandist” (Villena 1970, p. 378), Pedro de León Portocarrero.

In regard to the historical context, it is worth noting that one of the most significant events to explain the exodus of the descendants of Portuguese Jews was the annexation of the Portuguese throne by the Spanish monarchy. The historical period in which the Spanish monarchy annexed the Portuguese throne lasted sixty years (1580–1640) and became known, among other names, as the “Iberian Union”. The Spanish annexation of the Portuguese throne occurred after the disappearance of the king of Portugal, Dom Sebastião (1554–1578), in the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578 and the subsequent death of his uncle and successor, Cardinal Dom Henrique I (1512–1580), the last monarch of the House of Avis. Such events allowed another uncle of Dom Sebastião, Felipe II (1527–1598), king of Spain, to also assume the Portuguese throne in 1580 (in this way Felipe II of Spain also came to be known as Felipe I of Portugal). The annexation of the Portuguese throne by the Spanish monarch provided greater freedom of movement for Portuguese New Christians due to the virtual disappearance of the borders between the two nations. Furthermore, the economic crisis in Portugal, as well as the increase in Portuguese inquisitorial activities (Israel 2002, p. 315), motivated Portuguese New Christians to emigrate in large numbers, including to Spain, where inquisitorial activity had declined (Yerushalmi 1981, pp. 8–9). In addition to inquisitorial activity and economic factors, another motivation for the Portuguese New Christians to leave the Iberian Peninsula was the discrimination imposed by the limpieza de sangre statutes, implemented in Spain in the mid-15th century (and later in Portugal) with the purpose of “limiting or eliminating any participation of Jewish Christians in different communities, both religious and secular” (Sicroff 1985, p. 43).

2. The Man Behind the Text

Indeed, the advent of the “Iberian Union” coincides approximately with the birth of the probable author of the Descripción. Born around 1576 in Vinhais, in the current province of Trás-os-Montes in northern Portugal, Pedro de León Portocarrero moved to Spain as a child, probably in the 1580s. This migration was part of the larger wave of Portuguese New Christians relocating to Spain following the annexation of the Portuguese throne by Felipe II of Spain. In 1596, when Portocarrero was around 20 years old, he was imprisoned by the Toledo Inquisition and sentenced in an auto-da-fé in 1599 “with sambenito for having been a Jew and keeping the law of Moisen [sic]” (192).6 Portocarrero obtained freedom from the Toledo Inquisition under circumstances that remain unknown and arrived in the Viceroyalty of Peru around 1600, where he would remain until 1615, working as a merchant. During his approximately fifteen years in Peru, Portocarrero was denounced to the Inquisition on at least two occasions, in 1609 and 1611.7 Although the accusations against him did not lead to imprisonment by the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Lima, they may have influenced his decision to leave the Viceroyalty. Additionally, a decline in commercial activity and financial setbacks that he experienced from 1613 onwards could have also played a role in his departure (Villena 1970, pp. 370–71, 376). In 1615, Portocarrero crossed the Atlantic Ocean again toward Spain, where he was imprisoned by the Inquisition, probably in 1617, this time in Seville. In 1619, he was acquitted by the Sevillian Inquisition upon payment of three hundred ducats. His whereabouts after this are unknown; however, the reference to Spilbergen’s fleet as “ships from these lands” (66) suggests the possibility that the Descripción was written in the Netherlands. This allows room for speculation that after being released from the Seville prison, Portocarrero went to the Netherlands and, once there, put the knowledge acquired in Peru at the service of the Dutch authorities (García 2013, p. 13).8 Nonetheless, there is no documented evidence confirming his presence in the Netherlands, nor do we have proof that the Netherlands or other enemies of Spain used the information provided in the Descripción. Indeed, we know almost nothing about the impact, reception, and circulation of the text during the 17th century. On the other hand, there is speculation that the Descripción certainly received in the Netherlands the attention it deserved (Böhm 1996, Una descripción del reino de Chile p. 24), and that the information it provided, as well as that of many other travelers of Jewish origin, could have served to increase the ambition of Dutch privateers such as Jacques L’Hermite [1582–1624] and others (Reluz 2009, p. 111).9

Despite the undeniable and legitimate historical value of the documentation produced by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, the complex and challenging nature of these materials prevents us from considering them as absolute parameters for defining the religious biases of the accused. As Ana E. Schaposchnik states, “to argue that the crypto-Judaism of the prisoners was real or an artifact created by the Inquisition, and whether it represented a coherent Jewish practice or an incoherent array of fragments combined with Christian elements, leads to dead ends. The people accused of crypto-Judaism in colonial Lima were diverse and inconsistent among themselves” (129). Since these documents were produced within a specific system of values and references, they may have served to reinforce the trope that equated Portuguese with Jews. By attributing to Portocarrero, in a categorical and uncritical manner, the identity of “contumacious judaizer and active propagandist” of the Mosaic faith, Lohmann Villena perpetuates, even in the mid-20th century, an imperial and homogenizing rhetorical approach characteristic of the colonial period when discussing deviant, anti-Spanish, non-Catholic discourse. However, an examination of the Descripción suggests that both the Jewish and Portuguese identities of its author are not so clear-cut. It is necessary to compare the inquisitorial documentation on Portocarrero with other documents related to him. For instance, the document attesting to Portocarrero’s participation as a witness to the baptism of a daughter of Lázaro Rodríguez de Escobar and Ana de Burgos held in the parish of San Marcelo de Lima in 1613.10 Does Portocarrero’s presence in the church indicate that many, if not most, of New Christians experienced genuine tension between two worlds—the Jewish and the Catholic—or, as Villena suggests, is this another example of “double behavior” (378) aimed at removing suspicion regarding his “true” Jewish religious inclinations? Indeed, early modern conversos and their descendants had varied connections with Old Christians. Attending a baptism could have been to simulate a more Christian position, yet also, Portocarrero certainly had personal friends or connected through business with the family having the baptism. In any case, all New Christians were expected to attend church as they were, after all, baptized Catholics (or descendants of baptized Catholics). Finally, it is necessary to establish limits between the text—in this case, the Descripción—and its probable author, Pedro de León Portocarrero, recognizing that there is always a certain level of autonomy of the text in relation to its author.

3. The Dutch Connection

We do not know whether Pedro de León Portocarrero immigrated to the Netherlands after being released by the Court of the Inquisition of Seville in 1619. In any case, the Descripción attributed to Portocarrero cannot be fully understood if we do not consider the imperial conflicts and the war for information fought between Spain and the emerging Dutch empire. In this context, it is noteworthy that the text attributed to Portocarrero concludes with praise “to the honor and glory of the Lord of the World and service of Your Gentlemen (Vuestras Señorías)” (113, 123), which is a clear allusion to the Dutch authorities (Riva-Agüero 1914, p. 348; Lewin [1620] 1958, p. 12).11 Both these final dedications and the negative portrayal of the colonists and the Spanish Empire throughout the Descripción suggest that it is a text aimed at favoring the Dutch authorities in their efforts to undermine Spain’s commercial and cultural (and perhaps political) hegemony in the Peru region (Reluz 2009, p. 102). By the time the Descripción was written, the Netherlands had already gained independence from Spanish rule and emerged as a maritime power that seriously threatened Iberian commercial dominance on the seas. Works like Mare Liberum (Freedom of the Seas), released in 1609 by the jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) contested not only the Portuguese maritime monopoly in the Indian Ocean, but also, by extension, the Iberian commercial monopoly in any ocean: “every nation is free to travel to every other nation, and to trade with it” (7) (Grotius [1609] 1916). It is interesting to note that Grotius’s thesis was not new, but a reworking of treatises on trade in the seas written precisely by Spanish authors (!) such as Francisco de Victoria (c.1483–1546) and Francisco Vásquez de Menchaca (Crespo 1962, p. 266).12 Texts like Arte da Guerra do Mar (Art of the Sea War), released in Coimbra in 1555 by the Portuguese (former-)Dominican Fernando Oliveira (1507–c.1581), also sought to regulate the dynamics of international relations on the high seas, including the trade in black African slaves (Oliveira [1555] 2008).13 The advent of the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609–1621) between the Netherlands and Spain represented an additional victory for the Dutch, as the States General of the Netherlands obtained the right to establish trade with Spanish-controlled territories (Israel 1989, pp. 86–87; 1995, pp. 399–410).

4. Portuguese Subjects in Colonial Peru

In addition to the Dutch connection, the Descripción cannot be fully understood without considering the context of the Portuguese presence in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The advent of the Iberian Union in 1580 provided legal administrative opportunities for Portuguese subjects to immigrate to Spanish America—such as letters of naturalization or employment in the naval industry. Nevertheless, many Portuguese subjects established themselves in the Viceroyalty of Peru without official permission, significantly influencing the socio-economic sphere of the colony (Cross 1978, p. 153; Hanke 1961; Liebman 1974; Reparaz 1976; Canabrava 1984; Schwartz 1992; Ventura 2005; Brunke 2013).

It is well known that many of the Portuguese living in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the period in question were New Christians who sought commercial opportunities in the region and/or an environment far from the Inquisitorial courts established in the Peninsula. Alice (Canabrava 1984) and other researchers showed that Spanish colonial authorities equated the Portuguese with Jews and consequently enemies of the Catholic faith, to the point that, in Spanish America, the fact of being Portuguese meant, in the popular view, to be Jewish (Canabrava 1984, p. 157).14 The fact that many of the Portuguese merchants in the region were New Christians gave rise to the emergence of a theological-political discourse that posited that Portuguese New Christians residing in the Viceroyalty of Peru represented a threat to Spain’s religious, commercial, administrative, and military hegemony in the region.15 The colonial discourse that associated Portuguese with Jews in the context of colonial Peru reached its zenith during the event known as the “Great Complicity” (1635–1639). This historical event culminated in an auto-da-fé performed in Lima in January 1639, in which eleven men, most of them part of a network of traders of Portuguese origin, lost their lives (Schaposchnik 2015, p. 3). Among these men were the African slave trader and smuggler Manuel Bautista Perez (1590–1639) and the Tucuman surgeon Francisco Maldonado da Silva (1592–1639), individuals who have been extensively studied by scholars.16

Most of the critical apparatus surrounding the Descripción has focused precisely on the intersection between the author’s Luso-Jewish identity and the probable collaboration with the Netherlands (Riva-Agüero 1914; Lewin [1620] 1958; Villena 1970; Böhm 2001; Álvarez 2009; Reluz 2009; García 2013). In general, critics investigating this intersection have tended to reproduce the same colonial discourse that, as early as the 16th century, established an automatic connection among Portuguese identity, crypto-Judaism, and espionage in favor of the Dutch enemy. Contrary to this trend, this essay argues for a more nuanced approach to Portocarrero’s text and the documentation about his person. My perspective aligns with Margarita Eva Rodríguez García’s hypothesis that the identification of the author of Descripción with Judaism and his possible collaboration with Dutch authorities should not be seen as an endpoint but rather as a starting point for engaging with the text (García 2013, p. 14). My argument in favor of a more careful approach to the discourse of Descripción and the religious identity of its author also resonates with Ana E. Schaposchnik’s conclusion that the varied reasons and circumstances behind the presence of Portuguese New Christians in the Iberian colonies, along with their diverse social statuses and degrees of alleged religious affiliation, do not allow this ethno-religious minority to be classified “under a single label” (128). In seeking more subtle and non-essentialist models for understanding New Christian identities in the early modern transoceanic context, David Graizbord proposed that “the variable interplay of ethnicity, religion, the construction of race, and economic behavior in the lives of ‘Men of the Nation’ challenges totalizing models of these subjects’ Jewishness and ‘Ibero-Atlanticity’, arguing for a more nuanced approach to Jews and judeoconverso identity” (Graizbord 2013, p. 18). Similarly, Doris Sommer (1999) advises caution when studying literature written by social minorities in the Americas. In any case, the Descripción does indeed convey a notably negative image of the Spanish presence in Peru. The absence of a Catholic devotional discourse in the Descripción is exemplified, among other things, by the disregard for the figure of Mary Magdalene in the excerpt relating to the pirate Spilbergen cited at the beginning of this essay (Descripción 66–67). The absence of positive allusions to the expansion of Christianity aligns the text attributed to Portocarrero with those of other early modern New Christian travelers such as Garcia d’Orta and Ambrósio Fernandes Brandão, author of the Diálogos das grandezas do Brasil (Brandão [1618] 1966).

One of the most interesting and less noticed yet not surprising aspects of the Descripción is the metaphorical association between the Spanish-Catholic Empire and the ancient pagan Roman Empire. By establishing this association, the Descripción inverts the official Iberian discourse of faith and empire expansion (Propaganda Fide), portraying Spanish imperial action in opposition to religious and civilizing values. The outcome of Van Spilbergen’s attack on the port of Callao, as quoted at the beginning of this essay, exemplifies this discursive tendency. The text associates the happiness of Lima’s population at the foiled Dutch attack with the festivities in Rome after the expulsion of Levantine corsairs repelled by Pompeius Magnus (106–148 B.C.), also known as Pompey—a Roman military commander who, in addition to participating in campaigns against pirates, was involved in the destruction of Jerusalem, which from the Jewish historical perspective was perceived as a symbol of Roman-pagan action against the Mosaic faith (most early modern Spaniards, the Roman sack of Jerusalem was divine punishment against the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth). In fact, this parallelism between Rome and the Spanish Empire is also explored by Dutch colonial discourse (Schmidt 2001, pp. 220–22), and even within Iberia itself, as it was a common rhetorical practice among Spanish writers, including some who used Roman history to criticize Spanish imperial practices, with Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566) as the most famous example. Moreover, the allusion to Pompey in the context of Sixteenth-Century Spanish America was far from unique to the Description, as shown by Lupher (2003).

The Descripción thus operates not only in the practical dimensions of mercantile and military competition between Spain and the Netherlands but also on a discursive-ideological level. Before we analyze some excerpts that attest to the alternative character of the Descripción, its deviant religious discourse, its break with the Spanish triumphalist narrative, and its affinity with the Netherlands, it is worth briefly discussing some of the general characteristics of the work.

5. The Descripción: A Chronicle on the Road

Following the protocol of land information reports, the Descripción begins with a general presentation of the geography, dimensions, climate, natural resources, commercial products, and human landscape of the Viceroyalty of Peru (19–21). It proceeds to describe the entry into South America via the Panama region and subsequently details one of the land routes between Guayaquil and Lima (21–32).17 Next, the chronicle focuses on the characteristics of Lima, covering the city’s urban plan, administrative, political, religious, and military institutions (32–36). It includes sections dedicated specifically to the Plaza Mayor and its surroundings, the port of Callao (36–41), the human landscape and ethnic composition of the city (41–43), as well as the climate and harvest times in Lima (43–45). The text also discusses fruits and other products grown in Peru before the arrival of the Spaniards (45–55). Returning to Lima, the Descripción provides details on the eight streets adjacent to Plaza Mayor (55–62), with a subsection dedicated to four additional streets in the city (62–64). The text then offers a detailed description of Callao, the port of Lima (64–77). Following this, the Descripción gets back “on the road”, describing the main route between Lima and Cusco (77–91), including a subsection devoted to the Apurima River bridge (88–91). The narrative continues with descriptions of Cusco (91–96), the connecting route between Cusco and Potosí (96–99), and the city of Potosí itself, along with its silver mines (99–101). After describing Potosí, the Descripción briefly reverses its direction to describe the itinerary connecting Buenos Aires to Potosí via Tucumán, giving special attention to the city of Córdoba (101–103). This reversal is not an inconsistency but rather a way to present an alternative arrival itinerary to Potosí, which was already widely used by the Portuguese as an entry point to reach the silver mines.18 The brevity and lack of details in the Buenos Aires–Potosí route description support Lewin’s hypothesis (Lewin [1620] 1958, p. 10) that this section was based on second-hand information rather than personal experience. Subsequently, the Descripción dedicates a section to the Kingdom of Chile (103–115), described as abundant in livestock, wine, and fruit (103). Portocarrero’s chronicle then offers two brief sections on commercial exchanges, routes, and periods of navigation between Peru and Mexico (114–115), thus extending beyond the formal limits of the Viceroyalty of Peru.

The last section of the Descripción focuses on the navigation route between the port of Callao, in Lima, and the Isthmus of Panama (115–123), also known as Tierra Firme. This segment also describes the Panamanian city of Portobello and includes brief descriptions of Cartagena de Indias (on the Caribbean coast of present-day Colombia) and Havana. Despite its brevity, the vividness of the description of Havana suggests that the chronicler visited Cuba. Finally, as a kind of appendix, the Descripción presents a list of indispensable products titled “memória de todos los géneros de mercadurías que son necesarios para el Perú y sin ellas no pueden pasar, porque no se fabrican en la tierra” (124–135). This section enumerates a wide variety of products sold in Peru (but not produced there), sometimes including their places of origin—Spain, Netherlands, England, Levant, Flanders, Italy, India, France, Germany, Ceylon, China, etc. Interestingly, Portugal does not appear on the list. This portion also includes a subsection (134–135) with instructions on the proper procedures for storing goods to prevent damage when shipped abroad.

6. Cracks in the Imperial-Hegemonic Discourse

Informative texts about the Iberian colonies, such as the Descripción, were considered highly sensitive material by the Spanish and Portuguese royal authorities because these texts revealed confidential details and sometimes even challenged the legitimacy of the Spanish and Portuguese imperial project (Studnicki-Gizbert 2007, p. 29). The Descripción challenges this legitimacy in several ways. Focusing on Peru’s commercial potential, the most requested products in the region, and the traditional commercial routes that connect Lima to other commercial outposts, the Descripción does not commit to the Catholic dimension of the Iberian overseas activities. It is, therefore, a unique text within the discursive horizon of Iberian overseas expansion due to its absence of positive allusions to the expansion of Catholicism in the New World, the name of Christ, New Testament literature, or devout Christian expressions (Riva-Agüero 1914, p. 438; Lewin [1620] 1958, p. 13). Thus, Portocarrero’s text radically diverges from works that, inserted in the official discursive universe of the empire, emphasized the close connection between imperial expansion and evangelization in the New World, such as the Crónica Franciscana de las Provincias del Perú (Lima, 1651) by Fray Diego de Córdova Salinas (1591–1654) (Salinas [1651] 1957). Interestingly, this connection was emphasized not just by friars but also by secular subjects such as the Spanish navigator Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (c.1532–1592). In the Relación y derrotero del viaje y descubrimiento del estrecho de la Madre de Dios, antes llamado de Magallanes (c.1580), Gamboa (2005) underscores the connection between his maritime expedition to the extreme south of the American continent and the service of God and the increase and conservation of his Holy Church (131).

The Descripción indeed fosters the notion of an abstract God who created the universe, in line with the Hebrew scripture discourse. This can be seen in the following excerpt: “In these Andes there are brave animals and poisonous snakes. There is a snake called the rattlesnake that kills a man by biting him, and God put this rattle on it so that when the snake is close to the man it hears it and takes care of it” (20). Another example: “And to protect merchandise against water damage God created on this land some leaves called bigan, very large and strong” (117–118). Laudatory expressions such as “There is no famine in Peru, there is always plenty of food, Blessed be God and praised that He gave so much good in those lands” (53), and “Only God is firm, and His things are firm, and His word is true. He directs us in all that is good and separates us from all that is bad, and directs us along the path of Holy Service, Amen.” (76), appear to be based on praise formulas taken from the Hebrew scripture, especially in Psalms and Proverbs.

The indifference of the Descripción towards the evangelizing mission in the New World is evident not only in the preference for references from the Hebrew scripture over exclusively Christian textual tradition but also in passages where Christian dates are mentioned irreverently. We have already noted that the chronicler does not express any devotion to Mary Magdalene, simply stating that the attempted invasion of the port of Callao by a Dutch fleet coincided with the date commemorating one of Jesus’ most famous disciples. This trend is further confirmed in other passages of the Descripción. For example, while discussing Lima’s climate and harvest times, Christmas is mentioned in a way entirely unrelated to religious significance: “Always on the twenty-fifth day of December there are fresh grapes in Lima, because on the twenty-sixth day, second day of Christmas, the viceroy feeds the Audiencia” (44). Similarly, in a section dedicated to the streets of Lima, the Holy Week (referred to as the “week of illnesses” [semana de en doenças]) is mentioned with complete religious indifference (62). Indeed, irreverence towards the saints and even the sacraments was far from unique to the Descripción, but common in early modern Iberia even among loyal Spaniards. As Stuart Schwartz has shown in Schwartz (2008), indifferentist and relativist sentiments were commonplace during this time across the Iberian world; criticism against the Inquisition was frequent.

The heterodox verve of the Descripción manifests itself not only through a lack of Catholic or Christian devotion but also through criticism of the monastic orders established in Lima. When referring to the order of the Augustine friars, for example, the Descripción states that “These are the ones who take most advantage of Peru, these are the ones who—to say it in plain language—know better than anyone how to steal” (35). The text also criticizes the brothers of the order of Saint Cajetan and the nuns and clerics residing in the town of Potosí, stating that “they always come to the smell of silver and where there is a lot of fortune” (99).

When he begins to describe the city of Lima, Portocarrero states: “Here is the Inquisition, so feared and hated by all people” (32). An additional reference to the Inquisition appears in a section about Lima, where Portocarrero mentions a convent and house of Jesuits, stating: “Here, while I was in Lima, Antonio Correa, secretary of the Inquisition, entered with three hundred thousand pesos and established his order; many in Peru swallow these morsels but do not choke, because they have the stomach for everything” (63). Another example is an excerpt in which Portocarrero states that he has seen a sorceress who, with her lies, entangled the most important ladies of Lima, being physically punished in public, as well as sodomites and a captain being burned (73).

As we can see, Portocarrero mentions the Inquisition’s action against witches and sodomites, but not against judaizing New Christians (in fact, the emblematic Inquisitorial actions against Portuguese New Christians in the context of the so-called “great complicity” would only occur in the mid-1630s). Boleslao Lewin argues that the criticism of the monastic orders, especially the Jesuit one, as well as charges against the clergy’s thirst for profit and the disdain towards the Holy Office, do not necessarily indicate a Jewish identity. Lewin notes that these critiques may also suggest an identification with Protestantism (Lewin [1620] 1958, p. 13). At the same time, Lewin affirms that in the case of the author of the Descripción, the criticism and charges, combined with other revelations, confirm his Jewish identity (Lewin, idem). Thus, Lewin recognizes in the Descripción a discourse divided between Judaism and Protestantism but prefers to associate it with Judaism—perhaps because this approach fit well into his research methods. Lewin also states that the Judaism of the author of the Descripción is easily perceptible, even in the absence of formal statements of belonging to the Jewish people or residence in The Netherlands (Lewin [1620] 1958, p. 14).

Indeed, one of the challenges posed by the study of the Descripción is resisting the temptation to impose essentialist or categorical interpretations conditioned by extra-textual elements. Apropos of this kind of temptation, Julio Caro Baroja ([1968] 1983) noted that taking a stand against the Inquisition was not necessarily indicative of Protestant or Jewish identities. As Baroja observed, since the 16th century, there had been systematic detractors of the inquisitorial court even among sincere Catholics (15). That being said, it is important to consider that the anti-inquisitorial and anti-Spanish discourse disseminated throughout the Descripción does not necessarily (or only) derive from the possible identification of its author with Judaism, but also from the critical bias against Spain that permeated both Dutch Protestant discourse and some circles within Spanish and Portuguese societies themselves—for example, the criticism conveyed by the Portuguese Jesuit António Vieira (1608–1697) and the Portuguese diplomat Luís da Cunha (1662–1747). The critique of the Inquisition throughout the Descripción also allows the chronicler to highlight unworthy characteristics of Spanish society. As we saw, even the “the most important ladies of Lima”, or a reputable “captain” are depicted as less than virtuous. The Descripción also refers to the capture of an English ship “which always sailed and was the best ship that existed in its time in that South Sea, and the English were put in the Inquisition and taken out in a public event, some of them with sambenitos” (105). In this passage, the chronicler not only mentions the inquisitorial action against the English, but also takes the opportunity to highlight the power of their ship, “the best ship that existed in its time” in the South Sea (the name of the Pacific Ocean during the era of the first Spanish explorations in America). In this way, the Descripción appears to use the English ship as a rhetorical instrument to insinuate English superiority and, consequently, lower Spanish morale.19 In any case, the criticism of the Descripción regarding the Inquisition makes it clear that Portocarrero’s text is a dissident work.

Portocarrero does not hesitate to criticize the behavior of Spanish colonizers, often echoing the sentiment of the so-called “Leyenda Negra” (Black Legend). This term, coined in the early 20th century, refers to a narrative that emerged in the 16th century and paints Spain and the Spanish Empire in a particularly negative light. It emphasizes allegations of cruelty, exploitation, and other forms of moral and social oppression, especially in the context of Spanish colonial activities in the Americas. The origins of the “Leyenda Negra” lie in the criticism and propaganda produced by Spain’s political and religious adversaries, such as the Dutch and British, during the 16th and 17th centuries. In the passage describing the town of La Barranca, on the outskirts of Lima, for example, the Descripción states: “Along all these rivers, sheltered in the sierra, many Indians live, happy and content, even though the Spanish people oppress them and deprive them from their goods” (30). In another excerpt, about Lima, he asserts: “The Blacks and Indians are more barbarous than they were before they knew Spanish people, because then they didn’t have anyone to misguide them and now, they are superstitious and sorcerers” (73). These excerpts not only exemplify the representation of the Spanish as oppressors, greedy, barbaric, superstitious, and sorcerers—characteristics that contradict basic elements of Judeo-Christian doctrine—but also create a clear separation between the chronicler and the Spaniards. Throughout the Descripción, the term “Spaniards” consistently appears in the third person, clearly demarcating that the chronicler does not identify with this group, even though he is writing in Castilian and has spent most, if not all of his life in Spain or its colonies. Simultaneously, the chronicler never explicitly identifies himself as Portuguese, despite the linguistic Lusitanisms that likely indicate his Portuguese origin.20 The following passage attests not only to the diversity of the nations that inhabited Lima, but also demonstrates that the narrator of the Descripción refers to the Portuguese in the third person: “In Lima and throughout Peru live people from all the best places, cities, and towns in Spain, and there are people from the Portuguese nation, there are Galicians, Asturians, Biscayans, Navarrese, Aragonese, Valencian, Murcian, French, Italian, German and Flemish, Greek and Ragusa [natives of Ragusa, region of southern Sicily], Corsicans, Genoese, Majorcans, Canaries, English, Moorish, people from India and China, and many other mixtures and mixtures” (73). Thus, we note that the national and religious inclinations of the chronicler constitute a complex case that does not allow for essentialist approaches or simplistic conclusions. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the chronicler employs the term “Portuguese nation”, which may have some relation to “homens da nação” [men of the nation], a concept explained by (Yerushalmi 1981, p. 19) as the combination of the terms “cristãos novos” (New Christians) and “homens de nogócios” (men of affairs, or business men).

One of the most transgressive aspects of Descripción is not just the preference for the Hebrew canon and its indifference to post-biblical Christian sources, but also the way the author engages with the Hebrew scripture to draw parallels between contemporary Peruvian history and biblical history. This approach creates an analogy between the enemies of ancient Israel and modern Spain. Along with the excerpt on the Dutch pirate Joris Van Spilbergen (pp. 66–67 of Descripción by Portocarrero) cited at the beginning of this essay, we find at least two more instances of this discursive method throughout the text. In the section describing Callao, the port of Lima, the chronicler equates the “vices and evils” of the ancient Canaanites and Amorites to those he witnessed and experienced in viceregal Peru (72). Interestingly, this comparison between early modern Spain and the Canaanites is reminiscent of a similar analogy made in a Dutch pamphlet concerning a battle in Olinda, Brazil, between the Dutch and the Portuguese—during a period when Portugal was under Spanish rule due to the annexation of the Portuguese throne by the Habsburg dynasty.21 In the same section about Callao, the author of Descripción equates both the secular and ecclesiastical authorities governing Peru to the corruption and greed of ancient Rome. The author concludes that this was the reason why the Jews revolted against the Romans, which ultimately led to the destruction of Jerusalem (p. 72 of Descripción by Portocarrero). Notably, in this excerpt the word Jerusalem appears as “Jerusalaim”—a spelling that deviates from the usual Spanish or Portuguese linguistic norms to reflect the transliteration of the Hebrew word (Yerushalayim = ירושלים). This intriguing linguistic detail can be perceived as an affirmation of a Jewish identity (Lewin [1620] 1958, p. 13), even though no other words or expressions are transliterated from Hebrew throughout the Descripción.22 By choosing a spelling for “Jerusalem” that resembles the original Hebrew, Portocarrero may have aimed to underscore the opposition between Hebrew and Roman cultures. Furthermore, this gesture might express a desire to return directly to canonical biblical sources without intermediaries—an approach characteristic of the Christian reform movement. In any case, this passage illustrates once again the parallelism between the Peruvian government and ancient Rome, the entity responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem. With this parallelism, the Descripción aligns with a Protestant discourse that portrays Catholicism as a corrupt, “Romanized” version of the authentic Christian faith. This viewpoint emphasizes that Catholic Christianity, being subject to the papal hierarchy based in Rome, has deviated from true Christian principles. Indeed, Portocarrero is not the first New Christian to explore such a parallelism between Catholicism and pagan Rome. Luis de Carvajal, the Younger (1567–1596), also drew comparisons between contemporary Spain (and Portugal) and rulers and figures from Roman history who opposed Israel. Carvajal, who was imprisoned by the Mexican Inquisition in 1589, wrote his memoirs and will while incarcerated. In these writings, Carvajal linked the monarchs of Spain and Portugal to Antiochus IV Epiphanes (c.215 BC–164 BC), a king and military leader who played a significant role in the Hellenization/Romanization of Judea. For example, in one excerpt, Carvajal states: “I believe that king Antiochus represents the kings of Spain and Portugal [creo que aquel rey Antíoco…fue figura de los reyes de España y Portugal] (Testamento 416, cited in (Costigan 2017, p. 75)). By linking contemporary Spanish authorities to ancient Roman rulers, Portocarrero aligned himself with a rhetorical tradition that influenced both New Christian discourse and Christian Protestant thought. This further underscores the anti-Spanish character of the Descripción and its ideological alignment with the Netherlands. However, as mentioned before in the present essay, this rhetorical practice was also common among Iberian writers, including the emblematic Spanish clergy Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566).

7. Closing Remarks

The Description of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Descripción del Virreinato del Peru), attributed to Pedro de León Portocarrero, was likely written with the goal of providing information and enhancing collaboration with the Dutch. This hypothesis is based not just on evidence presented throughout this essay—especially the final dedications to Dutch authorities. It is conceivable that Portocarrero aspired to see the relative religious tolerance granted in Amsterdam—where many New Christians began to practice Judaism openly—implemented in Peru. Or, in other words, he may have envisioned Lima being “liberated” from modern Canaanites and Amorites (i.e., Spaniards) by the “measured and courteous” Joris Van Spilbergen. Despite its plausibility, this hypothesis may be challenging to prove, as we do not know to what extent Portocarrero sought to act on a political or religious level. It is perhaps more likely that the motivations behind Portuguese New Christians in colonial Peru collaborating with the Dutch were primarily economic, rather than religious or political, as suggested by Charles Boxer ([1969] 1975, p. 56). Indeed, the Descripción focuses mainly on the commercial opportunities offered by the viceroyalty of Peru. Breaking the Iberian commercial monopoly and establishing honest commerce, described as “good and without grief” (Descripción 59), could be seen as one possible way of honoring God.

Portocarrero differed significantly from European figures like Diogo Álvares “Caramuru”, who lived among native tribes on the American continent as a captive (see Voigt 2009). Nonetheless, the knowledge transfer conducted by certain captive Europeans somewhat parallels the knowledge transfer depicted in the Descripción, this time from Spain to the Netherlands. The negative rhetoric in the Descripción towards Spain suggests that the author felt like a captive among Spaniards. For instance, Portocarrero’s description, “And all of us were standing on the beach with weapons in our hands and under the menace of the death penalty that no one should move from his position, waiting when the restrained enemy would begin to fire his artillery and dispatch us to the other world” (66–67), implies that he fought the Dutch unwillingly, under threat of death. Moreover, considering the inquisitorial documentation presented in this essay, the author of the Descripción can be viewed as a captive of the Holy Office of the Inquisition for approximately seven years, the duration of his imprisonment in Toledo and Seville.

In conclusion, we have seen throughout this essay that Portocarrero’s narrative does not align with the Spanish imperial project. His text represents a dissenting voice within the official Iberian narrative that offers an alternative to the Catholic-Spanish imperial discourse. Despite writing in Castilian, the perspective of the Descripción tends to favor the Dutch. The Spanish, consistently mentioned in the third person, are depicted as a separate group to which the chronicler does not belong. However, it is challenging to precisely determine the extent to which the dissident and alternative nature of Descripción, and its “Dutch perspective” in relation to Peru, stems solely from Portocarrero’s possible crypto-Jewish identification. Although documentary evidence suggests Portocarrero’s crypto-Jewish background, this religious bias is not explicitly manifested in the chronicle. Criticisms of the Inquisition and monastic orders, the prevalent atmosphere of greed, the corrupt conduct of Spaniards, and comparisons with the ancient Romans, discussed throughout this essay, may also be influenced by anticlerical, reformist, and free-trade discourses that circulated in both The Netherlands and Spain. The religious discourse of the Descripción, particularly the absence of allusions to Catholic motives, can be interpreted as both a New Christian discourse and a Protestant discourse. In this sense, it is possible that the chronicler sought a middle ground between a potential identification with (crypto)-Judaism and a Protestant religious perspective. Overall, the Descripción attributed to Portocarrero clearly condemns the triumphalist Ibero-Catholic colonial discourse and practices in the Viceroyalty of Peru.