ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a transnational approach to the literary history of Latin America and the Caribbean by investigating Walter Raleigh’s dialogs with the Spanish historiography of the conquest of America in his The Discovery of Guiana (1596). In particular, the chapter places Raleigh’s attempt to legitimate the idea of an English “discovery” of and claim to America in the dual context of the “Black Legend” of the alleged cruelty and illegitimacy of the Spanish conquest and the “Gold Legend” of El Dorado. By drawing on an eclectic array of Spanish oral and print sources, Raleigh’s Discoverie brings into connection the idea of an English discovery of El Dorado with the Inca prophetic tradition of pachacuti, foretelling the overthrow of Spanish hegemony in South America and the restoration of Inca rule.
