Challenging the pacific Spanish empire : pirates in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1570-1750
This dissertation examines the impact of pirates in the Viceroyalty of Peru, the strongest Spanish presence in the Pacific Rim, between 1570 and 1750. I argue that pirates -as Spanish authorities named to all foreigner, mostly Protestant, who assaulted their possessions- were not merely a disrupting factor, as they frequently attacked populations and ships, but actors that undermined Spanish dominion by aligning with local population, including Indians and escaped black slaves, and opening the Pacific, known as the "Spanish Lake", to other nations. English and Dutch pirates focused their targets on Tierra Firme (the Isthmus of Panama) and the Strait of Magellan (modern-day Chile), as these were the natural 'locks' that protected the access to the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. My dissertation proves that pirates opened the South Sea from the peripheries of the Viceroyalty of Peru, made it an international ocean by the eighteenth century, and challenged the Spanish right over the dominion of the sea. Through this analysis, I seek to contribute to the understanding of the complex phenomenon of piracy and its repercussions in the Spanish empire and the Viceroyalty of Peru, the understanding of the role of peripheries as spaces of negotiation and independence between local populations and outsiders, and the construction of this part of the Pacific as an extension of the Atlantic world
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2014
University of California, Davis, Davis, Calif., 2014