Bataves de l’Ancien Monde et du Nouveau : usages de l’histoire en Espagne dans les débats sur la guerre et la paix dans les Pays-Bas et au Chili colonial

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which the Spanish used models from classical history to characterize their rebellious enemies. Within the Spanish Tacitist tradition, the Batavian model was employed to represent the Dutch as opponents, and accordingly to conceive of suitable policies in the war in de Netherlands. Moreover, I show how the model was transported across the Atlantic and used to characterize the Mapuche, indigenous inhabitants of central-south Chile, where the Spanish were involved in a protracted conflict roughly simultaneous to the Eighty Years’ War. In this Arauco War, or ‘American Flanders’, the Mapuche were represented as Batavians of the New World: indomitable warriors with a great love of liberty and independence. Tracing the ways in which the Batavian model was inverted outside the Dutch republican context, this article demonstrates the versatility of classical models and their ability to help conceive and turn into practice, countering rebellion and preserving monarchical traditions in the seventeenth-century world.

Keywords

• monarchy
• classical models
• Batavian Myth
• Dutch Revolt
• Eighty Years’ War
• Arauco War