ABSTRACT
Puritans and Spanish Catholics conceptualized the Devil and his actions in the New World in remarkably similar terms and with similar consequences for colonization. The demonology of the Puritan and the Spanish clergies was remarkably similar. The chapter explores the discourse of demonology and spiritual gardening and argues that Anglo-American Puritans and Spanish American Catholics saw the world of colonization in strikingly similar terms. The association of Amerindian cannibalism with the Devil's control over the continent is another good example of how both the Puritan and the Spanish clergies saw eye to eye. Puritans likewise used the discourse of the demonic and the cannibal to castigate dissenters and atheists. The struggle to maintain colonial settlements in the New World was thus seen as a monumental effort in which colonists were pitted against poisons; treacherous, monstrous animals; satanic landscapes; Indian revolts; European enemies; tyrannous metropolitan officials; heretics; and internal rivalries.
