Representations of the Inca in the English Restoration theatre

Abstract

The Comentarios Reales were first known outside Spain through Samuel Purchas's partial English translation (1625). Purchas's work fostered popular interest in Peruvian antiquities; a theme that was later used for anti-Hispanic propaganda on the English stage, in the works by William D'Avenant, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659), and John Dryden's The Indian Emperour (1665). In this article I will analyze the representations of the Incas in the plays by D'Avenant and Dryden. These plays were performed while monarchy was restored in England after the return of Charles II. As I show in this essay, the plays supported English imperial ambitions, which assumed that the English would recover the Spanish territories in America and save their indigenous inhabitants from the Spaniards' cruelties.