Date of Graduation

7-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Advisor/Mentor

Restrepo, Luis Fernando

Committee Member

Duval, John

Second Committee Member

Austin, Shawn

Keywords

Caciques; Comedias; Conquista; Conquistadores; España; Siglo de Oro

Abstract

This dissertation examines the visual and textual representations of conquistadors and Indigenous leaders in seventeenth-century Spanish teatro indiano, a Baroque dramatic subgenre centered on the Conquest and colonization of the Americas. It investigates how these representations negotiate questions of sovereignty, political legitimacy, and imperial expansion within the Spanish Monarchy. While scholarship on colonial Spanish theater has extensively examined its historical, ideological, and propagandistic dimensions, the contribution of visual culture to the construction of these political representations has received comparatively little attention. This study argues that early modern Spanish playwrights did not simply reproduce existing images but reinterpreted widely circulating visual repertoires to construct dramatic representations of authority, sovereignty, and imperial legitimacy. The dissertation analyzes a corpus of nine plays ––El nuevo mundo descubierto por Colón, El nuevo rey Gallinato, La belígera española, El Arauco domado, Las palabras a los reyes y gloria de los Pizarro, La conquista de México, El gobernador prudente, Los españoles en Chile, and La Aurora en Copacabana––together with seven European visual works produced between the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including engravings, maps, sculptures, and allegorical images. Methodologically, the study combines theories of ekphrasis and intermediality with approaches from art history, iconography, and political history. More specifically, it applies Valérie Robillard's differential model, which identifies descriptive, attributive, and associative relationships between images and texts. The model provides a framework for examining how visual and dramatic texts interact in the construction of political authority through the figures of the conquistador and the cacique. The analysis demonstrates that visuality functions as a structural component of dramatic representation, not simply as an illustrative element. The predominance of associative relationships shows that the plays activate widely recognized European visual repertoires instead of reproducing specific images. They reinterpret visual models drawn from classical mythology, imperial iconography, and historical figures to construct competing representations of sovereignty, and imperial legitimacy. The analysis reveals that, in the Spanish baroque drama, the figures of conquistadors and caciques function as political bodies through which Spanish drama negotiates sovereignty within the imperial order. Conquistadors embody delegated royal authority and the political and religious expansion of the Crown. In contrast, Indigenous leaders are represented through processes of recognition, negotiation, resistance, and incorporation into the Spanish Monarchy. Together, these representations expose the contradictions of imperial expansion by highlighting how political strategies and extreme violence often conflict with official imperial narratives. Rather than presenting the conquest as the occupation of territories without established political organization, the plays acknowledge preexisting Indigenous systems of authority. They also dramatize their transformation under Spanish rule. The study demonstrates that teatro indiano contributed to the symbolic legitimation of the Spanish Monarchy while exposing tensions surrounding sovereignty. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that seventeenth-century Spanish drama transformed visual culture into political discourse, offering a complex reflection on imperial legitimacy, colonial power, and the competing sovereignties that shaped the early modern Atlantic world.

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