Forced witnessing of pain and horror in the context of colonial and religious massacres

NICOLÁS KWIATKOWSKI

The hurt(ful) body. Performing and beholding pain, 1600?1800

Manchester University Press

Lugar: Manchester; Año: 2017; p. 202 - 219

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Seventeenth Century Britain were determinant for the development of the English Revolution of 1640-1660, and they have received thorough attention by recent historiography. The conflict was particularly violent during the Irish Rebellion, between 1641 and 1653, something that could be explained by the combination of religious, colonial, political and economic factors. The consequence of these radical oppositions was the perpetration of massacres and deportations, of Protestants first and later of Catholics, which were exceptional in comparison to contemporary clashes in England and Scotland. Soon, depositions, books, engravings and pamphlets represented those violent events. Kwiatkowski's contribution examines the afore-mentioned sources, following their focus on the torments inflicted upon the victims and on the fact that those horrors were performed ?in sight? of their families. It will also consider various visual and textual references to other violent religious and colonial conflicts, such as the French Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years War and the Spanish conquest of America. This comparative approach could allow for a better understanding of early modern forms of representing violence, pain, suffering and the witnessing of atrocity in the context of historical massacres.