1 - Accidental Crossings, World Orders and the “Iberian Archive” in the Seventeenth-Century China Sea

Summary

Introduction

The vast space stretching from the Straits of Malacca to the Sea of Japan can be understood in the early modern era as a “shared world.” It was an area of intense maritime circulation and (not necessarily harmonious) exchange, encompassing several port cities, political formations, belief systems, ethnic identities, mercantile communities and seafaring groups; harbours and crew ships often mirrored such diversity. This world was further enriched by a European layer—one of conflict and violence, but also of accommodation and entanglement—since the mid-sixteenth century: founded circa 1557, “Portuguese Macau” was followed by the creation of “Spanish Manila” and “Jesuit Nagasaki” in the 1570s, with “Dutch Jakarta” (Batavia) closing the circle in 1619. Many of those who inhabited and traversed this space prior to the 1550s were now exposed to systematic contact with diverse Europeans, which paved the way for all sorts of combinations. People were attracted by new port cities and started to move around according to novel imperial and religious geographies. Unusual groups and individuals came into their lives. Complex, plural identities sprouted. Local and regional connections became wider, if not global.

This essay seeks to study a few seventeenth-century fragments of this world by focusing on a quadrilateral formed by Manila, Macau, Taiwan, and Nagasaki, and exploring concrete episodes and individuals. One will successively deal with three Ming officials openly exerting authority in Manila and the local Spaniards’ reactions to a menacing Chinese World Order (1603–1605); a Catholic Chinese man from Macau who went on a business trip to Manila and ended up trapped in the “Dutch China Sea” (1622–26); twelve Japanese castaways who landed in Macau and were perceived by the Portuguese as a convenient “commodity” to relaunch the city's commercial ties with Nagasaki (1685). As we will see, several threads bind these apparently disconnected stories.

Three Chinese Mandarins arrive in Manila and Two World Orders Clash (1603–1605)

On 23 May 1603, three Chinese officials from Fujian landed in Manila. They travelled aboard one of the fourteen ships that came that year from China to conduct trade in the Spanish city. A few days before their arrival, while still at sea, the principal official sent a letter to the Spanish governor of the Philippines, Don Pedro de Acuna (gov. 1602–1606).