Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- A Note on the Texts
- Chronology
- PART ONE THE MAJOR TEXTS
- PART TWO CONTEXTS: EUROPE, AMERICA, AND AFRICA
- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
- Democrates Secundus
- “Of the Cannibals” and “Of Coaches”
- On Spreading the Gospel Among the Savages
- The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land
- A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
- The History of Sir Francis Drake
- Voyage de la France Equinoxiale en l'Isle de Cayenne
- An Exact Relation of the Most Execrable Attempts of John Allin
- The History of the Caribby-Islands
- Histoire Generale des Antilles Habitées par les François
- An Impartial Description of Surinam
- Great Newes from the Barbadoes
- The Negro's and Indians Advocate
- Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen Planters of the East and West Indies
- DISCUSSIONS OF COLONIALISM
- Bibliography
- Index
The History of the Caribby-Islands
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- A Note on the Texts
- Chronology
- PART ONE THE MAJOR TEXTS
- PART TWO CONTEXTS: EUROPE, AMERICA, AND AFRICA
- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
- Democrates Secundus
- “Of the Cannibals” and “Of Coaches”
- On Spreading the Gospel Among the Savages
- The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land
- A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
- The History of Sir Francis Drake
- Voyage de la France Equinoxiale en l'Isle de Cayenne
- An Exact Relation of the Most Execrable Attempts of John Allin
- The History of the Caribby-Islands
- Histoire Generale des Antilles Habitées par les François
- An Impartial Description of Surinam
- Great Newes from the Barbadoes
- The Negro's and Indians Advocate
- Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen Planters of the East and West Indies
- DISCUSSIONS OF COLONIALISM
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Charles de rochefort (d. 1690) was a French Huguenot resident of Holland. His work is criticized by the Catholic missionary writer Du Tertre, who accuses him of plagiarism and of mocking the church. Du Tertre, for instance, disputes Rochefort's account of a noble Carib who converted to Christianity in Paris and reverted to his old ways on returning home. Certainly, Rochefort's viewpoint is more secular than that of Du Tertre or Biet. He claims that he wants “to make a certain parallel between the Morality of our Caribians, and that of divers other yet Barbarous Nations” (sig. [A4]), and there is a great deal of cultural relativism in the work, refusing the Caribs the simple status of Other. For example, Rochefort discusses the differing cultural norms of beauty and differing cultural attitudes toward nakedness. After deploring the cannibalism of the Native Americans, he points out that they are, relatively speaking, restrained in their use of the practice. He does not, in fact, confine himself to comparing the Caribs with other “Barbarous Nations,” but occasionally brings European cultural or religious norms into question; indeed, he claims that the Caribs have been corrupted by the example of the Europeans, who break promises, burn and pillage their houses, and ravish their wives and daughters (270). In the Caribbean (as in Europe) women stay at home and do the housework, but this was not the practice in Peru or ancient Egypt (295).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Versions of BlacknessKey Texts on Slavery from the Seventeenth Century, pp. 322 - 326Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007