On Dryden’s “Indian” Plays

November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this continent. I’m marking the occasion with a series of daily posts related to the history of the Native Americans and their interactions with encroaching Europeans. Some will have to do with pop culture; others will be weightier. This series is dedicated to Sterling and Samantha.

Today’s entry is a companion piece to our post on Hogarth, suggested by the painting above, to which we shall return.

It may come as something of a shock to learn that as early as 1664 (360 years ago), London audiences were flocking to plays with American settings, with Native American characters. Yes, we all know Shakespeare’sTempest is set on a fictionalized Bermuda, and that Caliban is in some respects depicted as a “native”, but we turn our attention now to some works that get quite specific in their delineation. One of John Dryden’s first works for the stage, in collaboration with Sir Robert Howard, was the 1664 tragedy The Indian Queen, set in the courts of Mexico and Peru prior to the arrival of Europeans! Basically it depicts political, military and romantic machinations betwixt the Incas and Aztecs. Dryden’s sequel of the following year The Indian Emperor, or the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards depicts the arrival of Cortes and the showdown between him and Montezuma. This seems early, yet it was nearly 150 years after the actual events. It was largely based on Sir William Davenant’s 1658 masque The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru.

If the topics and their heroic treatment seem enlightened, it must be remembered that the English were still in competition with the Spanish for world domination, and the latter work especially was anti-Spanish propaganda. The English were yet very early in their own colonal conquests in North America — King Philip’s War was still a decade away, and they were only just then acquiring the Dutch possessions that still divided New England from Virginia, which would soon become New York and New Jersey.

These two plays were quite popular in their day and a good while thereafter. Henry Purcell created musical setting for The Indian Queen in 1696, turning it into a semi-opera. Voltaire based his play Alzire, ou les Américains (1736) on The Indian Emperor, which then became the inspiration for Verdi’s 1845 opera Alizia.

As for Hogarth’s painting above, it depicts 1732 children’s amateur performance of The Indian Emperor, at the home of Britain’s master of the mint John Conduitt. The choice of the play indicates its lingering prominence in English culture at the time. I love the detail in his rendering, in particular the notable aspect that the kids are not wearing costumes, making their presentation likely more along the lines of a recitation, privileging dignity over realism of character. It is said that the original Drury Lane production featured a genuine feathered cloak brought back to England from Surinam by Aphra Behn from her far-flung wanderings. Which would of course be no more accurate than no costume at all, but would at least add a splash of exoticism!