Carlos Enriques Clerque as crypto-Jewish confidence man in Francisco de Seyxas y Lovera's Piratas y contrabandistas (1693)

This article considers the story of Carlos Enriques Clerque, the enigmatic instigator of the 1669–1671 John Narborough expedition to Chile, as presented in Francisco de Seyxas y Lovera's Piratas y contrabandistas, a history of piracy from 1693, first published in 2011. Locating Seyxas's account in the context of related print and archival sources, this study demonstrates how the author develops a new and singularly complete picture of Enriques Clerque's South American adventure. At the same time, this article examines how Seyxas's version of the Enriques Clerque story exemplifies a uniquely Spanish vision of piracy specific to the final years of the seventeenth century. Setting aside the violent predators featured in Northern European texts on piracy from the period, Seyxas focuses on a category of sophisticated confidence men who deploy linguistic ability and cultural knowledge to undermine Spain's commercial system overseas.