Under the Southern Cross : A tale of the New World by Deborah Alcock
"Sultane française au Maroc" by Noël Amaudru is a historical novel written in the early 20th century. The work likely explores faith, power, and cultural collision through a vividly drawn colonial setting, following a European cleric whose calling brings him into fraught contact with an indigenous world. Its focus appears to be a morally torn friar and the Inca child he rescues, set against the violence and injustice of conquest, with themes
of devotion, identity, and resistance. The opening of the story follows a Franciscan, Fray Fernando, sent in the 16th century to a bleak Andean gold mine at Cerro Blanco, where he tends enslaved Africans and clashes with a hard overseer. A band of Spaniards arrives with a captive Indian boy; Fernando barters a prized relic (St. Joseph’s tooth) to save him, baptizing the child José and forming a deep, healing bond that softens his own tormented spirit. Through José’s illness, recovery in the sun, and his legends of the Incas—especially the just ruler Viracocha and hints of a higher Creator—the narrative contrasts native memory and Spanish faith. Years later José leaves to visit his people and returns transformed, in native dress and voice, condemning tribute, forced labor (the mita), and the ruin of roads and aqueducts, while Fernando, already at odds with the mine’s cruelty, is shaken by the young man’s fierce indictment of Spanish oppression. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Alcock, Deborah, 1835-1913 |
|---|---|
| Title | Under the Southern Cross : A tale of the New World |
| Original Publication | London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1900. |
| Credits | Richard Hulse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | Peru -- History -- 1548-1820 -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77308 |
| Release Date | Nov 23, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 351 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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