Strangers and Kinsmen: Portuguese Immigrants and the Spanish Caribbean, 1492-1650 (New Hispanisms: Cultural and Literary Studies)

Within the global Spanish empire of the early modern era, the signifier portugués carried an expansive variety of associations.It could mean, depending on the observer, being either Spanish or foreign, Catholic or Jewish, useful or deleterious, loyal or treasonous.In Strangers and Kinsmen, historian Brian Hamm argues that discursive debates about what it meant to be "Portuguese," to which Spaniards and Portuguese alike contributed, opened a wide range of Lusitanian potentialities that could either accelerate or hinder Portuguese integration within the Spanish Atlantic world.As a result, uncertainty followed Portuguese immigrants across the Atlantic and plagued Spanish officials who had to decide how to respond to an ever-increasing number of Portuguese arrivals.To find convincing answers, as Hamm shows, the Portuguese and Spanish looked to public behavior and personal reputation.The most convincing proof of Portuguese loyalty, piety, and utility came from consistent performances of vir