ABSTRACT
Ralegh articulated a binary worldview of nested oppositions, one in which several elements fit together to establish the poles of a complex ideological structure. The system was comprised of an array of juxtaposed elements. Civil and uncivil were opposed, as were literate and illiterate. Spanish adventurers slowly had been making their way, along the coast to the north and the rivers to the south, to the easternmost regions of their southern American domains in the 1570s and 1580s. Carapana and Morequito both made the trip to Trinidad with him; it is not clear at this point whether the two Amerindians thought of themselves as guides or hostages. Ralegh joined the long line of men on the trail of the fabled South American kingdom of gold. What makes him distinctive is that he was the first Englishman to outfit a serious expedition and that he had a conscious policy for dealing with the Indians of Guiana.
