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The Relation Between the Noticias Secretas and the Viaje a la America Meridional*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
IT can be readily understood that before any study can be made regarding the truth of the statement concerning conditions in Peru in the Noticias secretas a detailed examination should first be completed of the Voyage to South America, also written by Ulloa. All of the information contained in the Noticias was gathered while on this trip and such an examination should yield valuable clues concerning the places visited by the two scientists, the people with whom they spoke and the length of time spent in each region. In this way, the student should be able to form an opinion concerning how much of the material in the Noticias is first hand and how much was gathered either from other people by word of mouth or from written reports found in the archives of the various governmental agencies. At the same time, such an examination should yield a list of informants, who are known to have given information to the Spanish travellers.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1957
Footnotes
*
[Editor’s Note: This article was written originally as a chapter of a thesis presented at The Catholic University of America.]
References
1 Ulloa, Jorge Juan y Antonio de. Relación histórica del viaje a la America meridional (4 vols.; Madrid, 1748), I, prólogo v–vi Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Juan y Ulloa, Relación del viaje.
2 Juan, Jorge and Ulloa, Antonio de. A voyage to South America, trs. Adams, John (2 vols.; London, 1806), I, 229–248.Google Scholar
3 Ibid., II, 191.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., I, 107–141.
6 Ibid., I, 19–85.
7 Ibid., I, 294–295; II, 113–114.
8 Thus for example in the second chapter of the second part of the Noticias secretas Ulloa discusses the treatment of the Indians. In this chapter almost all of the observations of the author are based on the personal experiences which he had while taking part in the many visits paid by the scientists to the Quito plateau, the area of South America in which Ulloa spent by far the longest portion of his time.
9 See Whitaker, Arthur P. “Antonio Ulloa,” Hispanic American Historical Review (HAHR), XV (May, 1935), 155–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Juan, and Ulloa,, . A Voyage to South America, I, 19.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., I, 207–208.
12 Ibid., I, 214.
13 Ibid., I, 212.
14 Ibid., I, 214.
15 Ibid., I, 213.
16 Ibid., I, 214.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., I, 223.
21 Ibid., I, 224
22 Ibid., I, 223.
23 Ibid., I, 227.
24 Ibid., II, 3.
25 Ibid., II, 27.
26 Ibid.,,11, 291.
27 Ibid., II, 295.
28 Ibid., II, 191.
29 Ibid., II, 208 ff.
30 Ulloa, Jorge Juan y Antonio. Noticias secretas de América …, ed. David Barry (London, 1826), pp. 294–295, 297 f.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., p. 282.
32 Ibid., pp. 280–281.
33 Juan, and Ulloa,, . A Voyage to South America, II, 208.Google Scholar
34 Ibid.
35 Juan y Ulloa, Noticias secretas, p. 376.
36 Ibid.
37 This document is printed in the Revista de Indias, I (1940), 151–185.
38 Juan y Ulloa, Noticias secretas, p. 361.
39 Ibid., p. 345.
40 Ibid., pp. 282–283.
41 Ibid.
42 Juan, and Ulloa,, . A Voyage to South America, II, 295.Google Scholar
43 Ibid., II, 356.
44 Juan y Ulloa, Relación del viaje, prólogo v-vi.
45 Juan, and Ulloa,, . A Voyage to South Amsrica, II, 113–114 Google Scholar. It is strange that no one up to the present has thought to recognize the limitations described in this chapter which Ulloa freely admits regarding the extent of South America which he examined at first hand. Thus, Frederick Kirkpatrick admits that there is a certain tendency towards exaggeration in the writings of Ulloa and that he also sometimes relied on doubtful sources of information. However, Kirkpatrick is at great pains to demonstrate that the secret report “is not light reading” and that far from being “snappy stuff” it is “a primary source” and he leaves the reader under the impression that the entire contents of the report is eye-witness material, even though he had earlier spoken of the secondary sources used by Ulloa as “untrustworthy.” See Kirkpatrick, Frederick “Noticias Secretas,” HAHR, XV (November, 1955), 413 Google Scholar. Pereyra on the other hand went to the opposite extreme in his attacks on the value of the report of Ulloa. He could not see that any part of the account was that of an eye-witness and states, “if there is anything in the book of Juan and Ulloa it is a concrete proof of the impotence of the laws and of authority in the struggle against customs.” See Pereyra, Carlos “Las Noticias secretas de América y el enigma de su publicación,” Revista de Indias, I (1940), 29 fGoogle Scholar. Pereyra gives no help either to place within its proper limits of time and place what he describes as a “concrete proof of the impotence of the laws.” This is done in this article apparently for the first time.
46 Lavalle, J. A. De. Galería de Retratos de los Gobernadores y Virreyes del Perú: 1532–1824 (Barcelona, 1909), pp. 139–150.Google Scholar
47 Juan y Ulloa, Noticias secretas, p. 457.
48 Ibid., p. 454.
49 Ibid., p. 455.
50 Pereyra, “Las Noticias secretas,” op. cit., p. 30.
51 Juan y Ulloa, Noticias secretas, p. 459.
52 Juan, and Ulloa,, A Voyage to South America, I, 404–405.Google Scholar
53 Juan y Ulloa, Noticias secretas, p. 286.
54 Ibid., pp. 286–287.
55 Ibid., p. 285.
56 Ramón Menéndez Pidal, The Spaniards in their History, trans, with a prefatory essay on the author’s work by Walter Starkie, corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy (New York, 1950), pp. 151, 206. In this connection it is curious to note that when the pen is not fed with emotion and there is no injustice towards the Indian, Ulloa can contemplate the Indian problem with both feet on the ground and his solutions and conclusions can be as realistic as those of any other man. Thus in one passage Ulloa states that the missionary alone does not suffice to restrain the Indian “from returning to the practice of his false rites, his brutal customs, his lazy and nomadic life and abominable vices” (Noticias, p. 382). In this one sentence, Ulloa contradicts all of his former grave charges against the Spaniards and their treatment of the native; for, if the Indian, when left to the care of the missionary alone, can not be “restrained from returning to his lazy and nomadic life,” then it must follow that this kind of life was characteristic of the Indian before the Spaniard arrived on the scene to corrupt him and to kill his initiative as Ulloa had charged. A little later, Ulloa again writes: “The missionaries of the Company, who are those who know what they are talking about in this matter, are of the opinion, that where there are missions there must also be some soldiers” (Ibid., p. 383).
57 Ibid., p. 502.