ABSTRACT
Using the transatlantic relación of Diego Portichuelo de Ribadeneyra (1657) as an example, this chapter tracks some of the ways in which several religious passengers narrated their experience crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the Spanish West Indies fleets during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Of particular importance here are the ways in which Portichuelo de Ribadeneyra manipulates time in order to achieve different aesthetic effects. By playing with and disturbing chronology while simultaneously modulating the narrative voice, the writer manages to swerve the discourse of his narrative away from bare historical facts in favor of a more subjective expression of the travails and potential catastrophes of early modern saltwater sailing. By altering temporalities in this way, Portichuelo de Ribadeneyra creates a text that is much more than an explanation of ‘what went wrong’ on his maritime voyage from Peru to Spain.
