Transimperial Eyes: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Colonial Narratives about the Dutch Expedition to Southern Chile (1643)

Abstract

The review of historical archives that allow us to know the observations and experiences of those who recorded scarcely explored territories in the past, especially in the context of European colonization of vast areas of the world in the seventeenth century is crucial for heritage studies. The following article analyzes how the Dutch expedition to southern Chile during the 17th century (1642–1643) was narrated, both in Dutch and in its translations into German, English, and Spanish, considering the interests of empires and the discursive differences that translational variations reveal. This transdisciplinary analysis, combining historiography, translation studies, and historical geography, consists of a critical reading of the original narration and a comparative reading of the aforementioned translations, and within them ethnographic representations made about the Mapuche-Huilliche people and the city of Valdivia and changes introduced by different translations are identified. These changes are then related to imperial contexts and discourses that shape these translations. In terms of our findings, we note that, in general, Chilean translations tend to exaggerate the representations of indigenous people as barbaric, inferior, and uncivilized. These representations are present in the European versions, but the shifts that we identified indicate an intensification of this discourse.

1. Introduction

A central part of cultural heritage studies is the review of historical archives that allow us to know the observations and experiences of those who recorded scarcely explored territories in the past, especially in the context of European colonization of vast areas of the world in the seventeenth century is crucial for heritage studies. The episode of the Dutch expedition to southern Chile (1642–1643) during the colonial period marks a turning point for the Spanish Crown in South America, as it spurred the reconquest of this vast territory that the Spaniards had lost to indigenous peoples starting in 1598. So far, the academic approach to this Dutch expedition has primarily relied on Spanish translations carried out by Medina. As we will explain later with more details, Medina published a translation based on a previous English translation of the diary (1923) and he reprinted a previous one based on the Dutch original (1924). Medina was one of the leading Chilean intellectuals at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. However, the original source itself has not undergone a comprehensive study; rather, it has been cited superficially and without in-depth analysis. The lack of a thorough examination of the original source has led to the notable discrepancies among various translations going unnoticed. The primary aim of this study is to shed light on the true perspective provided by the Dutch source regarding the expedition and to identify and explain possible distortions introduced in the translations. Furthermore, our goal is to fill gaps in knowledge about an era marked by the absence of Spanish colonial accounts due to the reconquest by indigenous peoples in southern Chile. The journal of the Dutch expedition represents an opportunity to gain insight, through the eyes of a different empire than the Spanish, into the state of the territories held by indigenous groups during the colonial period.

Despite the importance of the travel diary in question (Journael ende historis verhael van de Reyse gedaen bij Costen de Straet Le Maire naer de Custen van Chili), which lies in the fact that it presents a significantly different panorama than that presented by Chilean historiography regarding the state of affairs in the city of Valdivia and its inhabitants during the period of this expedition, it has been insufficiently studied [1].

To counteract this knowledge gap about such an important work, we created a genealogical account of the target texts that the different empires published from the source narrative of Brouwer’s expedition to Chile, systematically analyzed the colonial elements of discourse present in the different versions of Brouwer’s expedition diary and we identified how the encounter between the Dutch and the Mapuche was narrated in Dutch, German, English and Spanish. We explored the differences in these narratives and how they relate to imperial contexts and the intentions of the narrators. We will refer to this critical triangulation1 of texts as an analysis of transimperial eyes. Our hypothesis is that the translations made in Spanish in Chile would exacerbate the cultural differences within the framework of the civilization-barbarism discourse prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

1.1. A War between Spain and Netherlands in Chilean Lands

During the 17th century, the colonization of South America progressed within the context of the expansion of European empires worldwide. Castile and Portugal divided a significant portion of the continent [2], while the Netherlands, France, and England made incursions to occupy strategic positions in the territory to exploit raw materials and control trade routes. In the context of the “Eighty Years’ War” between the Netherlands and the Spanish Empire, also known as the War of Flanders (1568–1648), Flanders had expanded institutionally, politically, militarily, and economically across the world through the East and West India Companies [3,4]. It is important to remember that Flanders was part of the Habsburg patrimonial heritage, but that the revolt eventually led to the Act of Abjuration in 1581 by the Prince of Orange. The Dutch used espionage and intelligence strategies to obtain maps of the Americas held by the Portuguese and Spanish. By the early 17th century, they were present in Pernambuco (Brazil), Guyana, the Northamerican east coast, and had occupied and attacked strategic positions in the Caribbean, such as Puerto Rico (1625). As part of the Dutch-Portuguese War, an extension of the Eighty Years’ War against the Habsburgs, Dutch expeditions led by Cordes (1599), van Noort (1599), and van Spilbergen (1615) allowed them to assess the state of Spanish positions in the southern part of the Viceroyalty of Peru [5] (pp. 4–70). Throughout this time, the Dutch developed a “particular fascination” with Chile, imagining alliances with the fierce natives against the Habsburgs [6]. Van Noort, a merchant and pirate who led a Dutch expedition to South America between 1598 and 1601, wrote: “The brave warriors” (…) “glorious victory” (…) “the revenge for the tyranny and slavery that the Spaniards made them suffer” (…) “destroyed papist idols, saying ‘now we have put an end to the Spanish God’”. Between 1620 and 1643, the Dutch carried out three Chilean expeditions in order to establish their fleet in the Pacific, control the passage through Cape Horn [7] and the Strait of Magellan, form alliances with the Indigenous People inhabitants of Chile or “Chileans”, and seize the gold and silver being extracted and traded through the Pacific: L’Hermite (1624), Aventroot (1626), and Brouwer (1643). However, all these attempts failed to achieve their objectives. Unlike previous Dutch expeditions, the Brouwer expedition sought to consolidate a long-lasting Dutch settlement on Chilean soil.

In this context, a Dutch fleet entered through Cape Horn in 1642 en route to Chile, the southernmost position of the Spanish Crown in America [5] (pp. 71–88) and [8] (pp. 124–128). When the Dutch arrived in the former Spanish city of Valdivia in 1643, this territory had been under indigenous control for 45 years. The Dutch witnessed the state of the city and its surroundings, made contact with the main indigenous leaders, and planned a colonization attempt to exploit gold mines [6].

Father Alonso de Ovalle stated during the contemporaneous period of the expeditions: “The Dutch enemy is well aware of the quality of this river and port, and for many years, they have set their eyes on it and made efforts to obtain it” [9] (p. 26, our translation). Brouwer (who died on the way to Valdivia and was buried there) and Herckmans (who assumed command of the expedition) managed to establish themselves in the city for a little over two months, engaging in negotiations with various caciques (indigenous chiefs) from different parts of southern Chile. The Dutch sought military alliance with the Mapuche-Huilliche against the Spaniards, the spread of Calvinism among the population that had shown an “anti-Catholic” sentiment, control of trade routes through the South Pacific, and the exploitation of the now legendary gold deposits surrounding Valdivia. Initially, the Dutch, seeing the availability of the Mapuche-Huilliche, sent one of the ships to Pernambuco, or Dutch Brazil at that moment, in search of more men and weapons to begin conquest and colonization. However, Herckmans decided to abandon the city on 28 October 1643, due to the refusal of the Mapuche-Huilliche to supply them with food and the indigenous population’s unwillingness to reveal the location of the gold deposits. De Ovalle [9] suggests that the indigenous leaders may have adhered to the terms established in the Treaty of Quillín or Peace of Quillin, which they had signed with the Spanish in 1641. In 1645, the Marquis of Mancera once again took Valdivia with the largest Spanish royal navy ever seen in southern America. The city was occupied, its surroundings were fortified, the Mapuche-Huilliche who had negotiated with the Dutch were punished, and the indigenous population returned to Spanish subjugation through encomienda (forced labor system) and captivity.

Figure 1 constitutes one of the earliest published pictorial representations of the indigenous population of Chile, and in this case, it holds significant value as it is not from a Spanish source. In this image, the way in which the indigenous people are dressed stands out (the woman is depicted with her breasts exposed), the weapons they possess, a llama, and the landscape in which they live, featuring hills and forests. Of equal importance is the llama in this figure, which is called “camel-sheep” in the Dutch and in the German texts. The relevance of this animal lies in the fact, as we will see during the analysis, that the indigenous people used it as a currency or high value exchange object with the Dutch and most certainly among themselves, too. Other documents generated during this expedition show a couple of indigenous individuals, some plants found in the area, translations of words from the Mapuche language, and maps of the cities of Castro and Valdivia (see Figure 2).

There are at least three Spanish sources that recount the Dutch expedition to Valdivia, and that are not based on any of the versions of the Dutch’s expedition diary analyzed here. The first is by De Aguirre [10], who notes that the Dutch expedition brought a letter from the Prince of Orange, which was presented to the indigenous chiefs, especially Manquipillian (possibly the Mapuche leader Manqueante, lord of the Mariquina valley). According to De Aguirre’s account, the Dutch promised to return the following year with ten to twelve ships and two thousand men. Additionally, the author mentions the Dutch commitment to bring five thousand weapons, ammunition, provisions for three years, clothing, and hostages to repopulate and fortify Valdivia. It is important to note the promise to bring a thousand Black men to relieve the “Indians’’ from personal service. The source of this information is four Dutch soldiers who remained in Valdivia, and the testimony of the cacique Manqueante himself given to the Spaniards [10] (num. CII). Manqueante at this point had turned into a key ally of the Spaniards and the four Dutchmen had abandoned the expedition because of the food scarcity and can be considered prisoners. In the same chronicle, it is possible to identify an episode in which the indigenous ambassadors of Manqueante who attend negotiations with the Spaniards are armed with Dutch breastplates, swords, and steel helmets [10] (num. CLXV).

The second source is Father Diego de Rosales [11], written in 1674, but only published in 1878. He derives his account from a prisoner who is interrogated by a Jesuit priest. Rosales’ text confuses the Dutch with the English in some paragraphs but is clear in stating that the expedition departed from Amsterdam under the command of Henry Braut (deformation of Brouwer). According to the interrogated prisoner, the Dutch mission was to populate the city of Valdivia, and for this purpose, they brought tools, six hundred soldiers, officers, and sailors. Rosales notes Braut’s death and his replacement by Elias Erquemans (deformation of Herckmanns). Subsequently, based on a report from a Spanish soldier to the Marquess, Rosales mentions that the “English’’ had fortified Valdivia and, although they were suffering from hunger, had formed alliances with the indigenous people of Mariquina, Osorno, and Villarrica. The Dutch had promised to expel the Spaniards, recording their victory over them in Chiloé. De Rosales mentions that the Dutch stated that they were coming to aid the indigenous people and were willing to advance toward Arauco and Yumbel. Based on another letter sent to the Marquess by another Spanish soldier, it is mentioned that the Dutch sailed up a river (likely the Cruces River) to speak with Chief Manqueante. Rosales recounts that there were exchanges of goods between the indigenous people and the “English”, and the latter provided them with weapons to fight against the Spaniards. Rosales presents a letter that Elias Erquemans allegedly sent to Manqueante, stating that they were withdrawing due to lack of supplies [11] (p. 228). In the following years, reports arrived from Dutch soldiers who had remained or had been captured, indicating that the Spaniards had occupied Valdivia, the fortification built by the Dutch, and had unearthed Captain Braut.

The third source is Alcedo y Herrera [12], who records in his chronicle that the Dutch expedition took place in 1633, changing the name from Brouwer to Henrique Beaut. The Dutch objective was to take Valdivia, establish a colony in the South Sea, and fortify it. In their version, the Spanish governor, with a troop of garrison soldiers and the assistance of “allied Indians”, forcibly drove out the Dutch, compelling them to retreat by force [12] (pp. 148–149).

As can be observed, the visit of “foreigners”, enemies of Spain, is mentioned in the two most significant contemporary Spanish sources about the Dutch expedition. The presence of the Dutch aroused the greatest concerns of the colonial Spanish government, which had long feared the arrival of the “European enemy” on the Chilean shores, particularly in the southern territories that indigenous groups had reconquered since 1598 [13] (p. 258). In this context, the initial Dutch and German accounts of the Dutch expedition were published, thereby rendering visible, for the first time, the existence of former Spanish territories currently under indigenous control, primed for potential conquest.

1.2. Colonial Narratives: Transimperial Eyes

The study of colonial narratives requires interdisciplinary work to decolonize knowledge and to evaluate the historical and cultural heritage of colonization areas. Anthropology, history, geography, literary studies, translation studies, and cultural studies, among others, have been developing systematic reflections on the production of Eurocentric discourses and material practices that narrated, imagined, and acted upon Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, identified as “the rest of the world”, since the late 1970s [14]. Chronicles have been incorporated into the field of travel narratives analysis [15,16,17,18], which opens up the opportunity to interpret the accounts of chroniclers in light of what the social sciences and humanities have developed regarding how hegemonic or dominant positions materially produce and/or discursively construct colonized territories. These colonial narratives extend beyond the temporal limits of when they were written [19], transforming into a male, white, Christian, heterosexual, and socio-economic political project that simplifies the ontological complexities of different world [20] into a simplified narrative of barbarism versus civilization, natural resources, or virgin lands where history is inscribed from the metropolis [21]. Moreover, they share similarities with “patchwork quilts” as they consist of fragments from various earlier texts, expertly or less expertly arranged by the compiler.

Hulme [22] argues that colonial narrative is a set of linguistic practices, colonial relationships, bureaucratic documents, and romanticized accounts through which the non-European world is produced. The colonial narrative is deeply related to military strategies, political orders, social reforms, mixed with memory and personal experiences, reflecting geographic, ideological, national, and religious projects. Colonial narratives justify the processes of occupying indigenous territories and the dispossession of lifeworlds, mobilizing ideas of civilization and barbarism. An important part of this discourse in the Americas is constituted by the Caribbean and cannibalism [22], the tropics and diseases [23], the Amazon as the Garden of Eden [24], the remoteness and vastness of Patagonia [25,26,27]. In these narratives, the physical borders of the territories are not important, but rather historically constructed entities with movable and fluid boundaries, socially constructed and materially produced from hegemonic positions.

The field of colonial narrative studies can be divided into three main groups: firstly, there is the criticism of the colonial from Marxist positions, where the concepts of discourse and ideology are strongly inspired by Gramsci and Althusser, and where the production of colonial narratives is directly related to how imperial powers are being deployed in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Perspectives belonging to this tradition include Said [28], also influenced by Foucault, Hulme [22], Pratt [29], and Bhabha [30], among others. In Pratt’s seminal work [29], a series of concepts such as “contact zone” are mobilized to identify spaces of colonial encounters, where people who are geographically, historically, and linguistically separated enter into relationships of coercion, inequality, and conflict. Another conceptual contribution is the “anti-conquest” strategy of representation, where narrators become innocent witnesses whose imperial eyes observe the events happening around them. Pratt’s work focuses on the narratives of the 18th century and criticizes how bourgeois forms of subjectivity and power inaugurate a new territorial phase of capitalism, seeking raw materials, expanding trade, and rivaling with other European powers. More recent currents of travel narrative studies have sought to subvert colonial narratives by discrediting European versions, for example, by questioning the true quality of “discoveries” and showing how narrators have altered certain findings to fit within the European ontology [16]. For instance, ancient society ruins are portrayed as abandoned, disregarding any potential use that the groups inhabiting the territories at the time of the narrator’s visit could have given them.

The second group of perspectives has developed in light of Derrida and Foucault, placing special emphasis on how regimes of truth and domains of knowledge have been produced. Works such as Chatwin’s “In Patagonia” [26] and feminist studies like Mills’ “Discourses of Difference” [31] analyze how colonial narratives have been produced by white men, soldiers, explorers, priests, or scholars who freely moved within the public sphere. These perspectives engage in textual analysis that deconstructs racial and gender colonial relationships, with a particular focus on translation studies, which involve not only translating languages but also discourses and cultures. Bassnett [32] argues that narratives like “The Odyssey” or “The Iliad” established women as objects of desire or destinations, rather than co-travelers, and that this was further intensified with the idea of the New World associated with the search for fortune, risk, and heroic explorations. In his analysis of colonial discourse, Spurr [19] also points out the radicalization of racial and ethnic differences, which tend to lead to inferiorization and conceive people as extensions of the landscape. The colonizer establishes their authority by demarcating identity and difference from the savage other, but this is an ongoing process. Far from being univocal, colonial discourse is ambivalent and employs different strategies to establish power relations.

The third perspective corresponds to what is known as the “decolonial turn”, which aims precisely at how oppression is based on the naturalization of the inferiorization of the voices, knowledge, and actions of the “others”. This intersectionality with processes of coloniality, understood as a fundamental part of modernity [33,34], implies that the “other” is conceived through the naturalization of territorial, racial, cultural, and epistemic hierarchies that enable the reproduction of domination. Together, these hierarchies constitute the “dark side” of modernity and are sustained by a pattern of colonial power through the coloniality of being, knowing, and power [35,36], embodying the “hybris of point zero”, meant from which Eurocentric epistemic universalisms have been posited [33].

Besides the important decolonial approach, we have to insert this study within a specific field of the history of science and knowledge. A key element of this current is to analyze any text within its historical circumstances and not from a present point of view [37] (p. 60). María Portuondo [38] has shown how important the acquisition of scientific knowledge concerning the Americas was to the Spanish administration and the great care they took to keep this knowledge to themselves. Arndt Brendecke [39] emphasizes the relevance of empirical data obtained in situ in case of the Spanish Monarchy, which lead to the famous geographic accounts, an inquiry carried out during the final quarter of the 16th century, in order to gain more specific information about the recently conquered and incorporated territories. The expedition that produced our diary was still part of what Benjamin Schmidt [40] (p. 1) has called “the Dutch discovery of America”. America had come to the Netherlands long before, but it was at the beginning of the 17th century when the Dutch started to go there themselves [41] (pp. 5–6).

Translations also played a decisive role in the distribution of knowledge in Early Modern time. Research on Early Modern translations has increased in the last two decades and has helped us to understand the various motivations and practices carried out around the art of translation [41,42,43]. One of those practices that becomes relevant to this study is second hand translations, when one does not translate from the original, but from a translation made into another language already. For example, in Early Modern times, French versions of Spanish texts were often made from the already existing Italian translation [44] (p. 112). Concerning the English, in those days, they rarely mastered the Dutch language and it was quite common that they translated from other languages [45] (p. 43). It was also quite normal to alter the original within specific interests [46] (pp. 226–238). Both those aspects will be very relevant within this study.

Following a decolonial approach we aim to unveil and contrast the colonial/imperial discourses behind the Dutch, German, English and Spanish translated versions of the source narrative because “in the transformations that occur in the translation processes, as well as in the circumstances that surround them and the personal intentions that influence them, one can understand the representations that a group forms about the familiar and the foreign” [47] (p. 85). Through a critical reading of the source narration and a comparative reading of the previously mentioned translated versions we aim to identify the historical and cultural heritage of this territory. This critical reading consists of the identification of ethnographical representations of the Mapuche-Huilliche People and of the city of Valdivia and shifts in terms of the way in which these versions communicate these representations. Then we proceeded to link these shifts to the imperial discourses/contexts that generated the versions.

2. Materials and Methods

Translation of Colonial Texts

For heritage research, the study of the translation of colonial texts involves a variety of approaches and considerations. There are some current approaches within translation studies that may be relevant when working with colonial texts. These approaches focus on aspects such as historical accuracy, cultural understanding and representation, and linguistic adaptation. Some of the most relevant currents regarding translation methodologies of colonial texts include historical translation, which aims to capture the historical and cultural authenticity of the original text by preserving linguistic and cultural features of the colonial period in the translation, even if it means retaining archaisms or obsolete grammatical structures [48,49,50]. There is also a body of work focused on culturally sensitive translation, which aims to convey cultural meaning and connotations in the target language, maintaining cultural fidelity and adapting cultural elements to be understandable and appropriate for a contemporary audience [21,51].

In terms of the methodological approaches most commonly applied to the study of the translation of colonial texts, we can find historiography and postcolonial critique, influenced by critical and theoretical approaches that focus on the political, social, and cultural implications of colonization and address complexities of power, identity, and representation in translation [52,53]. Finally, there is a collaborative and interdisciplinary translation approach that, given the complexity of colonial texts, involves collaboration between experts in various disciplines, such as linguists, historians, anthropologists, and experts in cultural studies, which enriches the understanding and accuracy of translation [54,55].

Within this last approach in this article we have developed a triangulation aimed to unveil and contrast the colonial/imperial discourses behind the Dutch, German, English and Spanish texts, because “in the transformations that occur in the translation processes, as well as in the circumstances that surround them and the personal intentions that influence them, one can understand the representations that a group forms about the familiar and the foreign” [47] (p. 85). Through a critical reading of the source narration and a comparative reading of the previously mentioned translated versions we aim to identify ethnographical representations of the Mapuche-Huilliche and of the city of Valdivia and shifts in terms of the way in which these versions communicate these representations in order to link these shifts to the imperial discourses/contexts that generated the versions.

The translation of colonial documents can be a challenge due to the linguistic, cultural, and contextual differences between the colonial era and the present day. Colonial documents often contain words in indigenous languages or archaic forms of the colonial language. Four main elements must be taken into consideration: (A) understanding the historical, social, and cultural context of the colonial era to ensure that translations are accurate and contextually appropriate. (B) using an approach that captures the meaning and historical tone of the expressions and terms used in the documents, paying attention to historical equivalents in the target language that reflect the connotations and nuances of the era. (C) conducting a thorough analysis of the document to understand its structure, context, and purpose. (D) considering cultural and political sensitivities when translating colonial documents, especially those that may contain controversial or problematic content from a contemporary perspective.

Methodologically, we developed an interdisciplinary triangulation: first we conducted a review of chronicles, documents, and historical cartography (ethnohistory, environmental history, and historical geography) related to the Dutch expeditions to southern Chile, which remains understudied. During this literature review, we encountered two Spanish versions of this Dutch exploration that were both published by José Toribio Medina, one of the most important Chilean historians of the early twentieth century. After reviewing and comparing these two versions, we realized that they contained important differences in terms of how they narrated certain passages of the expedition, which we will present in the following section. Subsequently we conducted fieldwork in the National Library in Santiago de Chile and in online archives looking for more information about the expedition and we realized that there were several Dutch texts that narrated the expedition (Table 1) and other translations of the same text in other languages, which we present in Table 2.

Table 1. Dutch sources on the Valdivia expedition.

Title	Author & Publication Year
Een corte Beschrijvinge vant Leven, Seden ende Manieren der Chilesen (Manuskriptt)	1643 [56].
Journael ende historis verhael van de Reyse gedaen bij Costen de Straet Le Maire naer de Custen van Chili	1646 [57].
Hendrick Brouwer’s Voyagie gedaen by oosten de Strate le Maire, naer de Custen van Chili.	1646 [58].
Journal van de expeditie naar Chili, 1642–1643, published in Goud en Indianen. Het journaal van Hendrick Brouwers expeditie naar Chili in 1643, edited by Henk den Heijer	Henk den Heijer, 2015 [59].

Table 1. Dutch sources on the Valdivia expedition.

Title	Author & Publication Year
Een corte Beschrijvinge vant Leven, Seden ende Manieren der Chilesen (Manuskriptt)	1643 [56].
Journael ende historis verhael van de Reyse gedaen bij Costen de Straet Le Maire naer de Custen van Chili	1646 [57].
Hendrick Brouwer’s Voyagie gedaen by oosten de Strate le Maire, naer de Custen van Chili.	1646 [58].
Journal van de expeditie naar Chili, 1642–1643, published in Goud en Indianen. Het journaal van Hendrick Brouwers expeditie naar Chili in 1643, edited by Henk den Heijer	Henk den Heijer, 2015 [59].

After collecting these source and target texts in Table 1, we conducted a comparative reading analysis of the Dutch, German, English and Spanish versions of the Journael ende historis verhael van de Reyse gedaen bij Costen de Straet Le Maire naer de Custen van Chili. During this review we took a closer look at the contents of the target texts and we realized that they contained important supplementary information which helped us to detangle the translation trajectory of the source narrative and to identify the different empires behind them. Since literature is never isolated from its surroundings, it’s crucial to examine all the supplementary contextual factors that encompass a text and assess how these factors connect and engage with it, ultimately shaping the interpretation that readers derive from it and how it is fixed in the historical memory of the countries involved. Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the features that frame the texts, which encompass various aspects such as how the text is structured (e.g., sections division and used typography), details about the authors’ and the historical figures lives, the historical context in which they lived and wrote, and supplementary sources that offer essential background information on the historical events described.2 All of these components exist in what literary critic Gérard Genette has termed “the paratext”, a “zone between the text and [the] off-text, a zone not only of transition but also of transaction…” [60] (p. 2).

The following chart contains important genealogical information about the aforementioned translations and retranslations of the Dutch Brouwer’s expedition diary, which traces the retranslations back to the source texts from which they were created. The tracing work that we undertook is important because it allows us to trace, through transimperial eyes, the origins of the dominant and lasting representations of the territory that we currently inhabit and of its indigenous inhabitants and it uncovers discursive imperial relationships that translate into the fixed national and transnational representations that prevail today. These representations are the only non-Spanish written testimony that we have access to until today, and they come from the colonial gaze of the Dutch, German and English empires. Thus, the narrative of the Dutch expedition that we came to know in Spanish has been intervened through translation, including omissions, additions and translation shifts, by these imperial perspectives, which include modern translations such as the more recent by Meuwese [61].

Table 2. Translations from the Journal van de expeditie naar Chili, 1642–1643.

Source Text (ST)	Target Text (TT)	Title	Author/Editor & Year
Dutch (NLD)	Latin	Rerum per octenium in Brasilia et al.ibi (gestarum sub prefectura Mauritii Nasovi comittis, historia	Gaspar van Baerle (Barlaeus), 1648 [62].
NLD	German (DE)	Hiſtoriſche beſchreibung der Reyſe ſo vom Herren General Henrich Brawer nach den Cuſten von Chili wegen der Weſt-Jndiſchen Compania in dem 1642. vnd folgendem Jahr verrichtet worden	Levinus Hulsius (editor), 1649 [63].
DE	English (EN)	A Voyage to the Kingdom of Chili… In A Collection of voyages and travels	John Churchill & Awnsham Churchill, 1704 [64]. (1st edition)
DE	EN	A Voyage to the Kingdom of Chili	Churchill & Churchill, 1732 [65]. (2nd edition)
DE	EN	A Collection of Voyages and Travels, some now first printed from original MSS., others translated out of foreign languages and now first published in English; in four volumes, with an original preface giving an account of the progress of navigation, &c.,	Churchill & Churchill, 1744–1746 [66]. (3rd edition)
EN	EN	A Chronological history of the discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean (Part III, pp. 113–145)	Burney, 1813 [67].
NLD	Spanish (SPA)	Viaje de Enrique Brouwer a las costas de Chile. En Documentos para la historia de la náutica en Chile	José Roehner, 1892 [68].
EN	SPA	Nota bibliográfica. Sobre el viaje de Enrique Brouwer a Chile. Colección de Historiadores de Chile y documentos relativos a la historia Nacional. Tomo XLV. Los holandeses en Chile. Santiago de Chile	Medina, 1923 [69].
SPA	SPA	En Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografía, No 52	Medina, 1926 [70].
NLD	EN	To the Shores of Chile: The Journal and History of the Brouwer Expedition to…	Meuwese, 2019 [61].

Table 2. Translations from the Journal van de expeditie naar Chili, 1642–1643.

Source Text (ST)	Target Text (TT)	Title	Author/Editor & Year
Dutch (NLD)	Latin	Rerum per octenium in Brasilia et al.ibi (gestarum sub prefectura Mauritii Nasovi comittis, historia	Gaspar van Baerle (Barlaeus), 1648 [62].
NLD	German (DE)	Hiſtoriſche beſchreibung der Reyſe ſo vom Herren General Henrich Brawer nach den Cuſten von Chili wegen der Weſt-Jndiſchen Compania in dem 1642. vnd folgendem Jahr verrichtet worden	Levinus Hulsius (editor), 1649 [63].
DE	English (EN)	A Voyage to the Kingdom of Chili… In A Collection of voyages and travels	John Churchill & Awnsham Churchill, 1704 [64]. (1st edition)
DE	EN	A Voyage to the Kingdom of Chili	Churchill & Churchill, 1732 [65]. (2nd edition)
DE	EN	A Collection of Voyages and Travels, some now first printed from original MSS., others translated out of foreign languages and now first published in English; in four volumes, with an original preface giving an account of the progress of navigation, &c.,	Churchill & Churchill, 1744–1746 [66]. (3rd edition)
EN	EN	A Chronological history of the discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean (Part III, pp. 113–145)	Burney, 1813 [67].
NLD	Spanish (SPA)	Viaje de Enrique Brouwer a las costas de Chile. En Documentos para la historia de la náutica en Chile	José Roehner, 1892 [68].
EN	SPA	Nota bibliográfica. Sobre el viaje de Enrique Brouwer a Chile. Colección de Historiadores de Chile y documentos relativos a la historia Nacional. Tomo XLV. Los holandeses en Chile. Santiago de Chile	Medina, 1923 [69].
SPA	SPA	En Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografía, No 52	Medina, 1926 [70].
NLD	EN	To the Shores of Chile: The Journal and History of the Brouwer Expedition to…	Meuwese, 2019 [61].

As we can see in Table 2, there is a general knowledge about the existence of several versions in several languages. Nevertheless, there hasn’t been so far an analysis that goes beyond stating their existence and that establishes the relationships between those versions. Henk den Heijer in his introduction to the new 2015 edition of the original Dutch version mentions the existence of a German version from 1649 and the English one by the Churchill brothers. Furthermore, he refers to “two Spanish translations of the seventeenth-century Dutch edition of Broer Jansz”, that is, the 1646 original version, made in 1892 and 1923. Mark Meuwese, in his 2019 introduction to the new English translation mentions “an abbreviated German edition in 1649 and an abbreviated English edition in 1704”. Of the Spanish publications, he only refers to the first translation done in 1892, while no mentions are made to the two Medina publishings in 1923 and 1926 [61] (p. XVII).

These versions, nevertheless, are much more connected and much less independent than it would seem according to these authors. Obviously, the 1649 German has to rely on the original Dutch one, since there were no other versions at that time. But the German translation is not only abbreviated, as Heijer and Meuwese state, but it includes significant changes, which means that there are parts that were left out and that the whole writing is modified. This can be noted at the very opening of the two texts.

As is apparent in Table 3, the German version omits the opening references to the Dutch liberties and instead enters directly the subject at hand with a sentence that does not appear this way in the original text. In this context, it might be important to consider that the Dutch-Spanish war had been concluded in 1648 as part of the Westphalian Peace Treaty with the recognition of the independence of the Dutch Republic. Besides this, the German version omits mainly the parts where the Dutch expedition is traveling and has no direct interaction with other people. Now, Churchill in 1704 begins his English translation as follows: “In the year 1642 it was resolved in a court of directors of the West India Company in Holland, to send some ships to the coast of Chili, a country of America bordering upon the kingdom of Peru” [58] (p. 387). The similarities to the German version are obvious, which makes it very likely that Churchill actually translated from German instead of from the original Dutch source text. This conclusion becomes even more evident considering that in the frontispiece the following reference appears: “Translated from the High-Dutch Original, printed at Frankfurt upon the Maine, 1649”, which is the precise translation data that we can find in the German translation. We have to take into account as well that the term “Dutch” used to have the meaning of German (a corruption of deitsch) and only in time it got the present meaning of the language of the Netherlands [71] (p. 231). Regarding the specific moment, Churchill wrote his translation, it is important to take into account the Spanish War of Succession (1700–1715), in which England hoped to gain commercial access to the Spanish American territories, as they actually did eventually as part of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714 [72].

Table 3. Diary’s opening in Dutch and German.

Dutch 1646

German 1649

Gelijck de Voghels om in de lucht, ende de Visschen in’t water te swemen, voort ghebracht; also schijnen de Nederlanders om hare oude Vinheden te beschermen, ghebooren te zijn [57] (p. 3). Just as the birds were created to roam the sky and the fish to swim in the water so it appears that the Netherlanders have been created to defend their ancient freedoms. (Translation by Meuwese 2019 [61] (p. 29)

Im Jahr 1642. Wurde bey der Weſt-Jn- diſchen Compania in Holland fuͤr gut erkandt vnd beſchloſſen/etliche Schiffe nach Chili, einem Land in Weſt- Indien neben Peru gelegen zu ſenden [63] (p. 1). In the year 1642 the West India Company in Holland found it good and decided to send several ships to Chile, a country in the West Indies next to Peru. (Our translation)

Table 3. Diary’s opening in Dutch and German.

Dutch 1646

German 1649

Gelijck de Voghels om in de lucht, ende de Visschen in’t water te swemen, voort ghebracht; also schijnen de Nederlanders om hare oude Vinheden te beschermen, ghebooren te zijn [57] (p. 3). Just as the birds were created to roam the sky and the fish to swim in the water so it appears that the Netherlanders have been created to defend their ancient freedoms. (Translation by Meuwese 2019 [61] (p. 29)

Im Jahr 1642. Wurde bey der Weſt-Jn- diſchen Compania in Holland fuͤr gut erkandt vnd beſchloſſen/etliche Schiffe nach Chili, einem Land in Weſt- Indien neben Peru gelegen zu ſenden [63] (p. 1). In the year 1642 the West India Company in Holland found it good and decided to send several ships to Chile, a country in the West Indies next to Peru. (Our translation)

As we already mentioned, the first Spanish translation appears in 1892 and it was undertaken by the German José Roehner, who lived in Chile since the 1860’s, first in the south and later in Santiago, where he taught at the German school and the Instituto Nacional. His translation starts as follows: “Así como las aves han sido creadas para encumbrarse en el aire i los peces para nadar en el agua, del mismo modo parecen haber nacido los habitantes de los Países Bajos para defender sus antiguas libertades”. This is a very faithful translation of the Dutch version, so unlike Churchill, Roehner actually got back to the original. This is actually very coherent, since Francisco Vidal Gormaz [68] (pp. 4–5) in his prologue explains that he asked Roehner for this translation, given that the German, the English and even a French translation were incomplete and abbreviated. Besides the fact that Roehner had been asked to do this translation, we have to take into consideration that it was very shortly after the military conquest and forced incorporation of the indigenous territory into the Chilean state during the 1880′s. Also, around those years, historians like Barros Arana wrote their extensive works on Chilean history in order to contribute to the forging of the young Chilean nation.

In 1923 and 1926, José Toribio Medina published two additional Spanish translations of the Journal. The first one isn’t actually a new translation, but, as Medina [69] (p. 124) himself states, it is the very same Roehner translation which is included in this collection of documents and so it is not surprising that it opens with the reference to birds, fish and the Dutch liberties [69] (p. 129). The second Spanish version was published by Medina in 1926 and also included in the document collection by Guillermo Feliu in 1928. In his prologue, Medina [70] (p. 80) says that this translation is actually of his own, but also that it is made from the English version by Churchill, from whom he even translates the advertisement to the reader. Therefore it is no surprise that this Spanish version initiates very different from the other one and very alike to the German and English ones: “En el año de 1642 resolvió en un consejo de los Directores de la Compañía de las Indias Occidentales de Holanda despachar algunos buques a la costa de Chile, país conlindante con el reino del Perú” [73] (p. 83)). It is possible that Medina in 1923 was unaware of the fact that the English version was actually the same document already available in Spanish since 1892, given the very different beginning of the versions.

In this sense, we can see that every translator responds also to specific circumstances and interests of his own time, which at the same time motivate the very elaboration of the translation and impacts in its content and modifications. Translators, so to say, do not act outside their own time and space conditions, but are very much influenced by them, as we will see during the analysis. This consideration will be important to understand the variations we show along this study.

Once the textual and paratextual information of the translations had been clarified, we proceeded to conduct sessions of comparative reading with an interdisciplinary team. The professionals who participated in these sessions are trained in translation, history, and geography; therefore, each one contributed from their field of expertise regarding the information and content presented in the translations. The comparative reading revealed the differences between the narratives. Samples of paragraphs that made the differences evident were selected. Subsequently, the chosen paragraphs were placed on a chart to better illustrate the differences among the versions in terms of translation, content, and the emphasis placed on the same passages in the different texts. These paragraphs were thoroughly discussed by the research team, and it is precisely these analyses that will be presented next.

3. Results

Transimperial Eyes: Narrating Brouwer’s Exploration

Before reaching Valdivia, the Dutch expedition in 1643 passed through the Island of Chiloé, the southernmost Spanish settlement that the Spanish Crown managed to maintain in southern Chile, even eight years after the end of the war of independence. It is precisely this episode from Brouwer’s expedition diary that presents significant inconsistencies among the translations that we reviewed.

Throughout our analysis of Table 4, the changing of the inhabitants’ name did not draw attention, especially in the Roehner version, which was later translated into the current Spanish as “Medina”. As we will see later on, the versions in Dutch, German, and English use the word “Chileans” to refer to the indigenous inhabitants of this territory. However, in the Spanish versions, “Chileans” is generally replaced, which we have interpreted as an attempt to differentiate, within the text, between the indigenous inhabitants and what will be recognized from the 19th century onwards as the name for the inhabitants of Chile, that is, “Chileans”.

Table 4. Population.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
Dese Chilesen van Chilove, zijn in’t general nitt hohen de twee dunsent sterck, door dien inden Jaren 1637 ende 38 onstrent een derde-part door een pestilentiale sieckte ghestorven zijn [57] (p. 64).	These chileans of Chiloé do not number more than two thousand because in the years 1637 and 1638 about one third died from a pestilential disease [61] (p. 90).	El número de los habitantes de Chiloé no asciende en total a más de 2000, habiendo muerto cerca de la tercera parte en 1637 y 38, con motivo de una epidemia [68] (pp. 60–61).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Diese Chileser von Chilove seine ins gemein nicht uber 200 strack, weil in den Jahren 1637 und 38 woll der dritter theil der menschen an der Pestilens umbkommen [63] (p. 19).	The inhabitants of Chilova it felt were then not above two hundred in number, because a few years before, to wit in the years 1637 and 1638, two thirds of them had been swept away by the plague [64] (p. 397).	Los habitantes de Chilova, (19) propiamente dichos, no excedían en realidad de unos doscientos, a causa de que pocos años antes, o sea en los de 1637 y 1638, dos tercios de ellos habían perecido en una epidemia [70] (p. 109).

Table 4. Population.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
Dese Chilesen van Chilove, zijn in’t general nitt hohen de twee dunsent sterck, door dien inden Jaren 1637 ende 38 onstrent een derde-part door een pestilentiale sieckte ghestorven zijn [57] (p. 64).	These chileans of Chiloé do not number more than two thousand because in the years 1637 and 1638 about one third died from a pestilential disease [61] (p. 90).	El número de los habitantes de Chiloé no asciende en total a más de 2000, habiendo muerto cerca de la tercera parte en 1637 y 38, con motivo de una epidemia [68] (pp. 60–61).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Diese Chileser von Chilove seine ins gemein nicht uber 200 strack, weil in den Jahren 1637 und 38 woll der dritter theil der menschen an der Pestilens umbkommen [63] (p. 19).	The inhabitants of Chilova it felt were then not above two hundred in number, because a few years before, to wit in the years 1637 and 1638, two thirds of them had been swept away by the plague [64] (p. 397).	Los habitantes de Chilova, (19) propiamente dichos, no excedían en realidad de unos doscientos, a causa de que pocos años antes, o sea en los de 1637 y 1638, dos tercios de ellos habían perecido en una epidemia [70] (p. 109).

However, what we want to emphasize most in this example is how the population number changes from two thousand in the translations that come from Dutch, therefore, more faithful to the original, compared to those that come from the German translation, which state that the inhabitants of Chiloé do not exceed two hundred people. Similarly, the Dutch version mentions that this number is due to a pestilential disease, translated in Spanish as an epidemic. The German version says that a third of the population died from the pestilential disease; however, Churchill’s version raises this percentage up to two-thirds of the population, which would have been victims of the plague. As can be seen, this poses an issue of information regarding the territory and the population being discussed, which must have had implications in the representation of Chiloé that has been constructed in written history. A Hispanic colonial settlement of over two thousand people in the 17th century, at 42°30′ south latitude, must have entailed a series of efforts in terms of supply, communication, and governance for the Viceroyalty of Peru at that time, especially considering that the Spanish had lost an important territory in southern Chile starting in 1598, which was under the control of the indigenous people. It is not a minor detail, in terms of authorized historical discourse, to point out that the Island of Chiloé had slightly fewer than two hundred inhabitants and that they would be part of the 2/3 survivors of the plague. The emphasis of the interpretation changes, from a colonial city to nothing more than a small town.

After their passage through Chiloé, where the city of Castro is attacked and plundered, and having attacked the Spanish fort of Carulmapu, the Dutch expedition arrived at Valdivia. This city had been attacked by the Mapuche-Huilliche indigenous people in 1598. The “destruction” of Valdivia has been recorded in Chile’s official history as part of a larger episode called the “destruction of the seven cities”, referring to the urban settlements that the Spaniards had in southern Chile and that they lost at the hands of the indigenous people, with the exception of Valdivia, which the Spaniards never recovered.

Let’s see how the episode is narrated in different translations:

The translations in Table 5 that come from Dutch indicate that the city of Valdivia was “verwoest”, which can mean destroyed, but also “made chaotic” (similar to devastated). However, the German translation from 1649 used “verstöreten” and Roehner chose this translation. Roehner’s translation, in addition to removing the word “Chileans”, also excludes the governor’s assassination, and adds “fueron muertos a palos todos los españoles” (All the Spaniards were killed by beating). Regarding the translations that come from German, Churchill omits that the city was plundered and also replaces “verstöreten” (destroyed) with “burnt”, which is also adopted by Medina. This has a direct impact on the history of the city of Valdivia, as it has popularized the version that the city was burned and all its inhabitants were killed.

Table 5. On the abandonment of Valdivia in 1599.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
(Valdivia) zijnde voor desen op de Castilianen geboutht, ende is haer door de Chilesen inden Jare 1599 afhandigh gemaeckt, verwoest, ende alle de Spanjaerden, behalven den Gouverneur, doot gheslagen [57] (p. 68).	This city was built by Castillians and was wrested from them by the Chileans in 1599, destroyed, and all the Spaniards killed, except the governor… [61] (p. 93).	La ciudad fue construida por los españoles y tomada más tarde y destruída por los indígenas en 1599. Fueron muertos a palos todos los españoles… [68] (p. 65).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Die Statt ist vorzeiten von Castilianern gebauet und Anno 1599 Jahren von den Chilesern abhendig gemacht worden, die sie verstöreten und alle Spanier totschlugen [63] (p. 20).	This city was inhabited by the Castilians till the year 1599, when the Chilefes chased them form thence, burnt the town, and killed all the Spaniards [64] (p. 397).	Esta ciudad estuvo habitada de los castellanos hasta el año 1599, en que los chilenos los expulsaron, quemaron el pueblo y mataron a todos los españoles [70] (p. 111).

Table 5. On the abandonment of Valdivia in 1599.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
(Valdivia) zijnde voor desen op de Castilianen geboutht, ende is haer door de Chilesen inden Jare 1599 afhandigh gemaeckt, verwoest, ende alle de Spanjaerden, behalven den Gouverneur, doot gheslagen [57] (p. 68).	This city was built by Castillians and was wrested from them by the Chileans in 1599, destroyed, and all the Spaniards killed, except the governor… [61] (p. 93).	La ciudad fue construida por los españoles y tomada más tarde y destruída por los indígenas en 1599. Fueron muertos a palos todos los españoles… [68] (p. 65).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Die Statt ist vorzeiten von Castilianern gebauet und Anno 1599 Jahren von den Chilesern abhendig gemacht worden, die sie verstöreten und alle Spanier totschlugen [63] (p. 20).	This city was inhabited by the Castilians till the year 1599, when the Chilefes chased them form thence, burnt the town, and killed all the Spaniards [64] (p. 397).	Esta ciudad estuvo habitada de los castellanos hasta el año 1599, en que los chilenos los expulsaron, quemaron el pueblo y mataron a todos los españoles [70] (p. 111).

The analysis of this episode contributes to a decolonial reading of the history of southern Chile. The attack by indigenous people on the cities by the Mapuche-Huilliche can be interpreted as a significant event within the so-called Arauco War. It marked a shift in power dynamics between the Spanish and the indigenous populations, leading to the capture and incorporation of a large number of Hispanic individuals into the Mapuche world. This event not only resulted in an increase in mestizaje (mixed heritage) but also led the Mapuche-Huilliche to adopt a range of Spanish technologies for land cultivation. This encompassed tools as well as animal and plant species, which played a role in transforming the indigenous way of life that had remained apart from the colonization seen in the rest of Chile. Assuming that the indigenous action merely involved burning and killing has contributed to racialized narratives that continue to portray indigenous people as savages.

The following example reinforces this idea of how transimperial eyes created powerful and enduring representations of colonial territories.

The translations in

Table 6. Current situation of Valdivia.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
Van dese verdestrueerde Stadt stondt nogh veel groote ende stercke muragien ober eunde, ende heeft behoutne ghewerst met onttrent 450 Huhsen, hebbende diversche Straten ende krups-weghen, nebens twee groote Marckten, wesende een ser schoone situatie, doch tent nu soo wilde, met Boomen ende rupchten bewassen, dat het gheen Stadt ghelijckt [57] (p. 69).	Of this destroyed city many large and strong walls were still standing. It had about 450 houses, several streets and crossroads, in addition two large market squares; it being a very nice location, but now it is so wild, covered with wild trees and weeds that it no longer resembles a city [61] (p. 93).	De esa ciudad destruida se encontraron aún muchos grandes y fuertes muros; contenía cerca de 450 casas, con varias calles y caminos cruzados, y además dos mercados extensos; ha sido una hermosa población, pero hoy está muy arruinada, llena de árboles y de plantas silvestres, de manera que no se parece a una ciudad [68] (p. 65).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Viel grosse und starcke Mauren waren noch alda zusehen, es hatte alda ben 450 Heuser gehabt, underschiedliche Gassen und Kreuzwege, zween grosser Mercke, und ware eine schöne Gelegenheit, aber nun lage es gar wild und mit gestreuch bewachsen, dass sie keiner Statt gleich habe [63] (p. 20).	There were as yet remaining some ruins of their ancient gates, which appeared to be very high and strong. it had contained formerly about four hundred and fifty large houses, was divided into several large streets, besides lanes, and had two stately market places; but when we faw it, it was quite desolate, full of bushes and weeds, resembling more a wilderness tan a city [64] (p. 397).	Quedaban aún en pie algunos restos de sus puertas de entrada, que mostraban haber sido muy altas y fuertes; encerraba antes cerca de 450 casas grandes, estaba dividida en varias calles, fuera de las callejuelas, y contaba con dos plazas de abasto; pero cuando la vimos, se hallaba completamente desolada, cubierta de arbustos y malezas, semejando más un desierto que una ciudad [70] (p. 111).

that come from Dutch indicate that the destroyed city had “many large and strong walls”. The translation into German speaks of large and strong walls as well. However, Churchill’s translation speaks of “some ruins”, which once again downplays the original Dutch account and fuels the idea that the city of Valdivia was burned and in ruins. It’s interesting to observe how the translation by Roehner/Medina adds the following: “It used to be a beautiful town, but today it’s very ruined, full of trees and wild plants, so it doesn’t resemble a city”. In this way, those of us who study these topics are given the impression of a burned, ruined, and devastated city.

The previous example also shows how the word “wilderness” has been introduced as “desert”. William Cronon [21] has developed how the concept of “wilderness” has been mobilized by urban bourgeois elites to imagine what lies beyond the cities. The sense of the word in English is associated with wild nature; however, Medina chooses to translate “resembling more a wilderness than a city” as “Resembling more a desert than a city”.

The following example confirms what we are pointing out:

As we can see in

Table 7. Outside the city.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
Inte Landewaerts naer hare wooninghen vertreckende, alsoo de Stadt onbewoont was…te meer alsoo de Spaensche tale niet en verstonden [57] (p. 71).	They diparted inland for their residenses since the city was uninhabited…It would also have been made difficult since none of them [the Dutch] understood Spanish [61] (p. 94).	Ellos se retiraron al interior, hacia sus habitaciones porque la ciudad estaba invadida… quien supiera hablar el araucano y la lengua española habría sido dificil encontrar alguno a propósito entre los valdivianos, porque ninguno entendía la lengua española [68] (pp. 66–67).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Die Chilesen besser Land wars hienein, dann die Statt unbewohnet war…weiln auch sonderlich niemand der Chileser der Spanischen Sprach kündig ware [63] (p. 21).	After several other discourses, they parted towards the country, (the city being uninhabitable)… there was not one among the Chilefes who understood the Spanish tongue [64] (p. 398).	Después de varios otros discursos, se partieron al interior (pues la ciudad estaba inhabitable)…no habríamos podido jamás llegar a un acuerdo o a tratar con ellos pues ni uno solo de los chilenos había que entendiese el castellano [70] (p. 112).

, the original in Dutch says “uninhabited”, and Roehner changes it to “invaded”. On the other hand, the German version retains “uninhabited”, but Churchill changes it to “uninhabitable”, which Medina also maintains.

However, the Dutch map created during the expedition and published in a manuscript shows a different situation. Using ArcGIS, we have overlaid this map with a current image of the city. The result is that the present-day city of Valdivia is located on top of the city visited by the Dutch. Therefore, we believe it is important to reinterpret these narratives of destruction, burning, and ruin, and consider the possible use that the Mapuche-Huilliche indigenous people made of this space. For instance, the Dutch diary indicates that diplomatic conversations took place in the city’s market. This is the same location where the Spanish had negotiations with the indigenous people the first time they entered the pre-Columbian settlement they had in 1552. In other words, the same public space has been used by the indigenous people for diplomatic conversations with both the Spanish and later the Dutch. Nowadays, that place is the public square of the city of Valdivia.

The expedition journal notes that the indigenous people do not live in the city, but rather have their houses outside of it. The indigenous people come to the city to trade and reach agreements with the Dutch. They bring cows, pigs, and lambs, which they exchange for armor, helmets, swords, and spears. Additionally, the journal points out that the most important chief lives deeper within the territory, where Herckmans moved to negotiate with him. Translations indicate that the indigenous people had trade networks from Valdivia to the south and north, and other cities that are under their control are even mentioned, such as Imperial and Osorno, which we also believe were not destroyed, burned, in ruins, or ruined.

As shown by chart No. 6, there is a minimization of the capacity of the indigenous population. Except for Meuwese’s translation, which is the most recent, all the other translations indicate that the indigenous people did not understand or speak Spanish. However, we know from chronicles and recently published works about a series of agreements and negotiations that the indigenous people established with the Spaniards. Particularly, significant diplomatic conversations took place in the years leading up to the Dutch expedition.

The minimization of the indigenous population is evident in systematically ignoring the achievement of having expelled the Spaniards, having occupied the cities, and maintaining autonomy from the colonial government. The following example shows how Medina’s translation negatively radicalizes the warfare capabilities of the indigenous people.

In Churchill’s translation in

Table 8. Indigenous military requirement.

Dutch (1646)	English (Meuwese, 2019)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina, 1892)
Enighe van de Caciques (ofte Oversten) verfochten aen den heer Crispijnsen, dat alle de Soldaten datelijcken met haer geweer in odere aen’t Landt moghten komen, om van haer ghegroet ende ververwelkomte werden [57] (p. 69).	Some of the caciques (or commanders) asked Lord Crispijnsen if all the soldiers could soon come ashore with their weapons in order to get greeted and welcomed [61] (p. 93).	Algunos de los caciques (o jefes) pidieron al señor Crispijnsen que todos los soldados fuesen a tierra con sus armas i en orden militar para ser en ella acojidos y saludados… [68] (pp. 65–66).
German (1649)	English (Churchill, 1704)	Spanish (Medina, 1923)
Etliche Caciquen begerten an herrn Crispinsen, dass die Soldaten mit ihrem gewehr doch möchten zu Land in Ordnung gestelt werden, weil sie lang auff sie lang auff sie gewartet hetten [63] (p. 20).	…some of the Caciques begged heartily of Mr. Crispinson that the would order his soldiers to be drawn up in order of battle in their presence, to instruct the Chilefes in war like exercises, of which they were altogeher ignorant… [64] (p. 397).	…algunos de los caciques rogaron con instancia a Mr. Crispinssen que diese orden a sus soldados de formarse en orden de batalla en presencia de ellos para que instruyese a los chilenos en los ejercicios bélicos, de que se hallaban del todo ignorantes y por cuya falta no estaban en situación de combatir con los españoles… [70] (p. 111).

, he adds, “to instruct the Chileans in warlike exercises, of which they were altogether ignorant”, and Medina adds, “and due to its absence, they were not able to fight against the Spaniards”.

It is worth noting that the indigenous people, through a military alliance that involved the organization of a multi-ethnic army, had managed to maintain a significant portion of southern Chile as an autonomous region from Spanish colonial rule. This not only entailed political coordination among different territorial identities on both sides of the Andes Mountains but also the maintenance of diplomatic relations with the Spanish to uphold a border for nearly 285 years. During this time, the indigenous population not only prevented the resettlement of the Spanish but also embarked on an unprecedented process of military, territorial, and commercial expansion on both sides of the Andes, which is a significant historical fact in the context of colonization in the Americas. This underscores the agency of the Mapuche people, which persisted even after the formation of the Republics of Chile and Argentina and continued until the late 19th century. What we want to reaffirm is that by the time of the Dutch exploration, the Mapuche people were the most powerful force and those who held power in Southern Chile.

In the 17th century, this Mapuche agency became very evident within the Parlamento tradition, in which Spaniards and indigenous people used to negotiate terms of peace and coexistence. Unlike the view of some scholars which present these meetings as a Spanish institution forced upon the Mapuche people, more recent research claims a continuity from the traditional koyagtun, where indigenous people negotiated with enemies among each other. As Payàs [47] (p. 23) points out, bilingual colonial sources reveal that the term Parlamento never got entrance into the Mapuche language, but that they used coyag instead in order to refer to this institution. Margarita Gascón [74] (pp. 4–6) states that this indigenous meeting originally was to solve inter tribal conflicts, that is, between different indigenous groups, and that the Mapuche people extended this koyagtun into an inter ethnical meeting in order to negotiate with the Spanish. This shows us that the Mapuche people had enough own political traditions to meet and negotiate properly with the Dutch people, as they had been doing with the Spaniards. In fact, only two years before the Dutch arrival, there had been taken place the famous Parlamento general in Quilin, where lots of indigenous chiefs concurred to negotiate with the Spanish governor of Chile, the Marquise of Baides.

Also, we have been able to detect the discourse in various passages, in which the different versions mention several times that the indigenous population is lazy or idle, as shown in

Table 9. On the indigenous intellect.

Dutch	English (Meuwese)	Spanish (Roehner/Medina)
Alsoo bevonden dit een Natie gross van verstant te zijn. So veel men ock bemercken konden, soo zijnse seer traegh tot den arbent [57] (p. 76).	We found this to be a nation of simple minds, which should be approached carefully. As far as we could understand, they are also very lazy [61] (p. 98).	…atendiendo a que la nación era inteligente y que merecía ser tratada por medios apacibles. En cuanto pudieron apreciar, los indios eran muy perezosos para el trabajo… [68] (p. 71).
German	English (Churchill)	Spanish (Medina)
Weil es eine grobe Nation ist, die mit allerhand gelinden und fürsichtigen Mitteln muss abgerichtet werden [63] (p. 24).	but knowing them to be barbarous and unpolished people, we thought it not convenient to urge them… [64] (p. 399).	mas, sabiendo que eran unos bárbaros e incultos, decidimos que no era convenientes instarles más sobre el caso… [70] (p. 116).

.

In Table 9 the Dutch text says: “It was found that this was a nation of great intelligence. As much as one could observe, they were very slow in their work”. Meuwese’s [61] translation suggests: “We found this to be a nation of simple minds, which should be approached carefully. As far as we could understand, they are also very lazy”. Meanwhile, the Spanish version by Roehner/Medina maintains: “Considering that the nation was intelligent and deserved to be treated peacefully. As far as they could appreciate, the indigenous people were very lazy when it came to work”. Here, we can observe the use of “simple mind” in Meuwese’s translation, contrary to the “great intelligence” in the Dutch text, and “very lazy” in both the English and Spanish translations instead of “very slow in their work”.

The German translation states that the indigenous people are a “rough nation” that “must be trained with all sorts of gentle and cautious means”. However, Churchill translated it as: “Knowing them to be barbarous and unpolished people, we thought it not convenient to urge them”, a phrase that shares a similar sense with the Spanish translation by Medina, but “unpolished people” is translated as “uncultured” or “uncultivated”. As can be observed in the analysis of this paragraph in its various interpretations, certain meanings or senses are maintained, while others are intensified, as Bassnett [32] and Spurr [19] have theorized.

As we have demonstrated in our analysis of extracts taken from the Dutch source narrative and from the German, English and Spanish versions, through translational shifts the different imperial eyes/gazes have denationalized the Mapuche-huilliche by omitting the adjective “Chileans” and “chilenos/as” in their translated texts, reproduced and radicalized the colonial discourse which categorized them as barbarous, simpleminded, uncultured and lazy, and they have also denied them agency by presenting them as people who when the Dutch expedition took place have been numerically diminished and had reduced material and intellectual resources and conditions to negotiate with the Spaniards and the Dutch. This discourse of barbarism, lack of culture, and laziness has permeated representations of the Mapuche people to this day and is a prevalent part of the relationship that dominant groups in Chile, including the police and the army, have maintained toward the Mapuche People. During the process of colonization in the republican era (1860–1930), this type of discourse contributed to supporting the process of dispossession and abuse by the State against the Mapuche, and it is mobilized by different actors in contemporary times to define interethnic relations with indigenous peoples. For these reasons, we believe that it is crucial that heritage research includes the study of colonial narratives and the type of interdisciplinary research methodology that we have implemented in this piece of work in order to question official narratives and to have a more integral perspective of how transimperial eyes through history have influenced the way in which territories, its inhabitants and the material and immaterial objects of patrimonialization are perceived nowadays.

4. Conclusions

As we have presented through our analysis, the triangulation of texts from translations of the Dutch exploration journal has allowed us to access a text that discusses the southern region of Chile from a non-Spanish source during the colonial era. This is significant for heritage studies primarily because there are few non-Spanish sources from that time, and it enables us to incorporate a different representation into the body of knowledge about the territory we inhabit today. In this case, it is a representation constructed from the Dutch expansion in the context of the war that the Netherlands waged with Spain in Europe for decades, which extended as a backdrop to America, specifically to southern Chile.

Furthermore, interdisciplinary triangulation enriches the textual and paratextual analysis of colonial narratives for heritage research. The inclusion of historical and geographical perspectives has allowed us to compare various historical sources from the studied period, as well as other materials, including historical maps and images produced by the Dutch expedition. This has contributed to gaining a more complex and comprehensive understanding of the Dutch exploration and situating it within a specific historical, political, ethnic, and territorial context that the southern region of Chile traversed.

These colonial narratives have contributed to generating a negative representation of the indigenous population, which has persisted until our days profoundly affecting what is understood as historical and cultural heritage in the south of Chile. For this reason, we believe it is important to carry out this interdisciplinary exercise that discredits the voices constructed from foreign powers, and that have been amplified in certain Chilean historiography. A critical reading of the chronicles makes it clear to us the indigenous agency, their negotiation power, which is why they reject the terms that the Dutch want to impose. What we have aimed to do with this work is to open up historical texts for questioning, and to rescue the history of the territory and its inhabitants, which manages to weave itself into the narratives from transimperial perspectives.

In this context, concerning the two Spanish translations, we conclude that both contain colonial elements, as defined previously in this study, but not necessarily the exact same ones. The 1892 translation from the Dutch original seems primarily concerned about who is Chilean and who is not. In this sense, the most notable alteration is the constant labeling of the indigenous people as “Indians” or “Indigenous”, while in the original text they are usually called “Chileans”. This seems to be relevant to us, given the historical context of this translation, less than a decade after the end of the violent conquest of the Mapuche territory by the Chilean state. Probably still seen as rebels or even enemies, the indigenous people cannot be considered Chileans in the eyes of the coevals, not even in a text from two centuries and a half earlier. By contrast, the Medina translation approximately 30 years later derives from the English translation from the already abbreviated German edition from 1646. Medina, unlike Roehner, doesn’t seem to see any problem in calling the indigenous people from the 17th century as “Chileans”, since he usually respects the source text in that sense. Medina’s alterations go much more along with the goal to make them look inferior or more barbarous in general and especially in comparison to the Europeans. This is something not completely absent in Roehners translation either, but it does not seem to be his main goal or primary preoccupation, contrary to Medina, who does this much more constantly. Medina probably, instead of worrying if the Mapuche are Chileans or not, he is much more concerned with pointing out their cultural inferiority and lack of civilization in his own time, a key aspect that impacts directly in his translation as we have seen.

This negative view of the indigenous people is mainly absent in the original text, despite the fact that the Dutch, too, can be considered outsiders or even a foreign power, and obviously with their own political, or even imperial, agenda. And besides that the Dutch try to win the indigenous people as allies, in which they end up failing, they leave with the intention to come back and try again. This way, it seems logical to us that they are presented in a more positive way and with the potential to be a good ally, given that this kind of impression could be a key in order to convince their authorities to grant money and people for a future second expedition.

Our interdisciplinary transimperial eyes analysis, consisting of an in-depth contrastive systematic textual and contextual analysis, questions the imperial/colonial official histories that we have learned about Chile’s indigenous people and about the territories that they inhabited. This questioning allowed us, and will also allow future academic endeavors, to remove colonial veils in the search for more unbiased information about our past histories.

This study should also be an input for further research on non Spanish sources on 17th century indigenous American people and societies, not that much from translation studies, since most documents, as stated before, are not translated and are often even unpublished. It seems also relevant to take a comparative approach with the almost contemporary case of the English conquest of Jamaica from Spain as part of Cromwell’s famous “Western Design”, a strategy to challenge the Spanish empire on a global scale [75].