Dragooned! Ten Traces of
|
||
Riffs William Gibson, USN Augustus Ely Silliman |
10 NUMBER TEN invites a closer look at Gansevoort Melville's reading notes, as preserved in his 1837 Index Rerum now at the Berkshire Athenæum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In our introductory peek, we noticed a passion for Indians and westward orientation. Now we have also to notice more than a dozen entries on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico from William Robertson’s History of America. From a monumental study in four volumes, Gansevoort transcribed a cluster of narrowly focused notes and brief quotations, mainly devoted to Cortez and Pizarro as romantic new-world heroes. Cortez exemplified “Courage”; “Enterprise”; “Genius”; “Magnanimity”; “Resolution”; and “Sensibility;” Pizarro was a model of “Fortitude” and “patience.” Notorious for their “Cruelty,” the Spaniards in Mexico are nonetheless celebrated in Robertson’s History and Gansevoort’s Index for “their insuperable perseverance & fortitude in the 16th century.” Gansevoort and his brother Herman shared the “American Hispanism” (as Frederick S. Stimson termed it) of their generation. Herman Melville's lifelong appreciation of the Spanish Conquest as Romance is clearly reflected in the 1876 epic Clarel, when the Holy Land pilgrims communally lament that “Columbus ended earth’s romance: / No New World to mankind remains!” (4.21: 158-9). In their Berkshire days, Melville once dressed in the mode of a cavalier and greeted his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne in Spanish (Buenos Dias, Amigo! or something like that). The roots of Melville’s Spanish streak go back to the “romantic displays” of heroism recorded in Robertson’s America, by 1837 available to Herman in the library of the Albany Young Men’s Association and through excerpts in his brother’s Index Rerum. Now let us turn to the sixth installment of “Scenes Beyond the Western Border” in the May 1852 Southern Literary Messenger (313).
Bored by the unvarying prairie, the Captain indulges in a daydream of Spanish glory. Our narrator’s interest in Cortez and the romance of New World conquest closely parallels the selective emphasis in Gansevoort’s Index on the conquistadors as human emblems of heroic virtue. Following Robertson, both the Index and the Captain’s daydream focus on Cortez, highlighting his defeat of Narvaez. Even more striking is the Captain’s historically inaccurate portrayal of Cortez as a member of the underclass. Robertson had characterized Cortez as well born, “of noble blood” though “moderate fortune.” Where then did the Captain get his idea of Cortez as a product of the “low classes,” an inspiring example of relentless upward mobility? A lingering memory, powerful but imperfect, of Gansevoort’s 1837 Index would explain the error. The Index holds up Pizarro, “originally a bastard & a swineherd,” not Cortez, as the true exemplar of upward mobility fueled by “Genius.” Even the vocabulary matches: for Gansevoort and Herman, ambitious sons of a now deceased bankrupt, Pizarro illustrated the power of Genius to “force its way”; the daydreaming Captain of U. S. Dragoons unhistorically imagines Cortez as a peasant who “forced his way” to the pinnacle of Spanish aristocracy (emphasis mine). Gansevoort’s Index proceeds alphabetically from the laudable “foresight, courage, etc.” of Cortez as a great “General” to the “Genius” of Pizarro (emphasis mine). Under the “Genius” heading, the Index records the extraordinary perseverance of the socially and economically disadvantaged Pizarro (“a swineherd”). The “Genius” entry falls below the entry under “General” in which the triumph over Narvaez by Cortez is memorialized as the supreme illustration of his military greatness.
Cortez, Columbus, and the “Romance” of Spanish Conquest May 1852 But the prairie does not always charm the eye or the imagination: often its sameness and the monotony of slow motion, lull us to dreamy thought, then, happily, we create a solitude, a world of our own; or people it with the loved absent, or the long dead. To-day, by an easy association, I dreamed of the old warrior explorers from Spain—ere her glory died—of De Soto, Cortez, and others. Hernando Cortez! What a name is there! What hero of antiquity excelled him? None but Cæsar. His military genius resembled Alexander’s; but—as in the comparison of our Washington with the world’s captains—with an allowance for the scale of action and of means. (His passage of the Delaware, and subsequent campaigns, gave indications of what he might have done?) The master-stroke of the career of Cortez, was his desperate march to Vera Cruz, his attack and defeat of the braggart Narvaez and his vastly superior numbers. Truly, his were enthusiastic genius, energy, and constancy, beyond all proportion to what Providence implants or requires in man in ordinary times. In the world’s story, among all wondrous events, in Mexico alone History and Romance form an unity. And Cortez, like Columbus, was self-made; he forced his way over great obstacles, with which that age heaped the paths of aspirants from the low classes. [“Scenes Beyond the Western Border” by A Captain of U. S. Dragoons. Southern Literary Messenger 18 (May 1852): 313. Reprinted in Scenes and Adventures in the Army at 294-295.] August 1852 “. . . a blind heroism of credulity! Ay, a heroism of policy—like that of the great Cortez, who burnt, unread, the proofs of a conspiracy, rather than embrace damning doubt.” Southern Literary Messenger 18 (August 1852): 508; revised in Scenes and Adventures in the Army as follows: “the great Cortez, who burnt the proofs of a conspiracy, rather than foster damning doubt” (356).
Columbus
ended earth's romance: Clarel 4.21 (158-9)
Cortez and other Spanish Explorers in Gansevoort Melville’s 1837 Index Rerum (Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts)
Adventurers Cortes
Courage Cruelty
Enterprise
General Genius Magnanimity Pizarro
his fortitude & patience under distress & difficulty exceeds anything recorded in the history of the New World—Do sec 9 /p.46 assisted by Cortes—Do sec 12, p217 Military Resolution Sensibility Spaniards
William Robertson on Pizarro (History of America, Book 6): Pizarro was the natural son of a gentleman of an honourable family by a very low woman, and, according to the cruel fate which often attends the offspring of unlawful love, had been so totally neglected in his youth by the author of his birth, that he seems to have destined him never to rise beyond the condition of his mother. . . . By engaging early in active life, without any resource but his own talents and industry, and by depending on himself alone in his struggles to emerge from obscurity, he acquired such a thorough knowledge of affairs, and of men, that he was fitted to assume a superior part in conducting the former, and in governing the latter. . . . . . . No adventurer of the age suffered hardships or encountered dangers which equal those to which he [Pizarro] was exposed during this long period. The patience with which he endured the one, and the fortitude with which he surmounted the other, exceed whatever is recorded in the history of the New World, where so many romantic displays of those virtues occur. On “Fernando Cortes” (Book 5): . . . descended from a family of noble blood, but of very moderate fortune. . . . The impetuosity of his temper, when he came to act with his equals, insensibly abated, by being kept under restraint, and mellowed into a cordial soldierly frankness. These qualities were accompanied with calm prudence in concerting his schemes, with persevering vigour in executing them, and with, what is peculiar to superior genius, the art of gaining the confidence and governing the minds of men. On Narvaez (Book 5): [Narvaez] by a public proclamation denounced Cortes and his adherents rebels and enemies to their country. Cortes, it is probable, was not much surprised at the untractable arrogance of Narvaez. . . . Thus, by a series of events no less fortunate than uncommon, Cortes not only escaped from perdition which seemed inevitable, but when he had least reason to expect it, was placed at the head of a thousand Spaniards, ready to follow wherever he should lead them.
Who's "the braggart"? (March 1852): “There is an omission, page 3. of the name of the Spanish Commdr. who went to Vera Cruz with a very large force commissioned to supercede Cortez; you, or Jno. T[hompson] can supply the name:— I have not a book to refer to. I suppose he was a ‘braggart’? ―” [Philip St. George Cooke to John Esten Cooke, 14 March 1852; Letters in the Cooke papers, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Durham, North Carolina.]
In March 1852, when submitting the May installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" to the Southern Literary Messenger, Philip St. George Cooke requested editorial help with identifying "the braggart” who opposed Cortez. The manuscript text before him lacked the name of Narvaez, prompting the putative author to ask that his nephew John Esten Cooke or editor John Thompson consult a reference work and supply the missing information. Philip St. George Cooke is obviously puzzled by the omission and questions the aptness of the epithet braggart. In Melville’s mind, however, the word braggart was associated with victory over a formidable enemy and could be used to implicitly designate a hero's mighty foe without more specifically mentioning the foe's name. In chapter 39 of Mardi, Melville alludes in just this way to Goliath as “the great braggart of Gath.”
|
|
