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Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas: Toward a Global History

Indias Ocidentales, 1601 (1575)

"Descripcion de las Yndias del occidentals." Madrid, 1601, in Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas i Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano escrita por Antonio de Herrera coronista mayor de Su Md: de las Indias y su coronista de Castilla ... Decada primera" Map of the western hemisphere with the northwestern part of North America unfinished and showing part of western Iberian pennisula and Africa, part of China, Japan, part of New Guinea, and some of the Solomon islands. Includes the Line of Demarkation. Only four known surviving examples.

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2. Hennepin's Nouvelle France, 1783 Louis Hennepin, 1783. Map of North America and the northern part of South America from New France to New Spain. Cartographic elements include Indian settlements, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, part of the Mississippi River, locations of missions and forts, sea banks or shoals, and lines of latitude and longitude. Decorative cartouche includes allegorical figures. An angel holding a shield with a cross smites a fallen man who holds snakes. At right, a redeemed man and woman rise up toward cross and the triumph of Louisiana. One female figure holds the royal French coat of arms, another holds a banner with "Louis." John Carter Brown Library
3. Indias Ocidentales, 1601 (1575) "Descripcion de las Yndias del occidentals." Madrid, 1601, in Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas i Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano escrita por Antonio de Herrera coronista mayor de Su Md: de las Indias y su coronista de Castilla ... Decada primera" Map of the western hemisphere with the northwestern part of North America unfinished and showing part of western Iberian pennisula and Africa, part of China, Japan, part of New Guinea, and some of the Solomon islands. Includes the Line of Demarkation. Only four known surviving examples.
5. Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas — Sangley Details Detail of Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas (1734), by Pedro Murillo Velarde. The Philippines was a vital part of the Spanish Empire, and the map shows the maritime routes from Manila to Spain and to New Spain. There are twelve engravings on the sides depicting different ethnic groups living in the archipelago and cartographic descriptions of particular cities or islands. From the National Library of Spain.
6. Merchants Eating In a Boat
7. The Life of St. Francis Xavier : Apostle of the Indies and Japan by Daniello Bartoli, 1608-1685. Bartoli, a 17th century Italian Jesuit writer, zealously describes St. Francis Xavier's travels to the Indies and Japan on galleons on a mission to convert foreigners to Catholicism. A description of St.Francis Xavier's 1549 voyage to Japan begins on page 326, Book the Third. Here, Bartoli refers to letters sent by St.Francis while in Japan and his ultimately successful efforts to spread Catholicism there. Bartoli writes on the saint's humility, skill with learning foreign languages (a skill he attributes to God) and the positive responses he received while preaching christianity. Translation of his Vita di S. Francesco Saverio della Compagnia di Gesù apostolo delle Indie.
8. 1634 Japanese Red Seal Ship As the Japanese increasingly ventured on voyages for trading purposes nearing the seventeenth century, Red Seal ships became more common. Red Seal ships were military merchant sailing ships that were armed and carried red-sealed permits from Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Japanese ruler of the time. The seals allowed for a controlled system of foreign trade as well as protection against pirates. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.
12. Sangley Rebellion "Rare first edition of an important relation describing the 1639-40 revolt of ethnic Chinese Filipinos (Sangleyes) against Spanish colonial powers at the port of Calamba, located some 55 kilometers south of Manila. This organized conspiracy, sometimes called the Second Chinese Insurrection (the first Sangley rebellion occurred in 1603), had been coordinated to begin on Christmas Eve of 1639: Sangley insurgents (some 45,000 Sangleys lived in and around Manila at the time) corresponded with a Chinese pirate named Yquan Sanglus, agreeing that he should surprise the Spanish colonists and capture their galleons arriving from New Spain. Governor Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera’s (d. 1660) soldiers, supported by two companies of Sangley mestizos, one company of Japanese troops and additional fighters from among the indigenous and free black population, easily put down the revolt during January and February of 1640. The present document is rich with details and records that 5 million pesos worth of damage had been done in the rebellion, that the Spanish sank 11 of 20 Sangley ships, killed 650 Sangley sailors in the initial skirmish and several thousand infantrymen in the weeks that followed. Sangley prisoners questioned by the Spaniards confessed that their leader had offered large rewards, including a Spanish woman as a wife, to any who should bring him a Spanish head. A total of 7783 Sangley fighters surrendered to colonial authorities on 24 February 1640, the peace largely brokered by Jesuits and Augustinians, some of whom had themselves participated in the battle. "
15. Francisco Felipe Faxicura Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga was baptized as Francisco Felipe Faxicura on February 17, 1615 in Spain by King Philip III's personal chaplain. Shown in the top right is Hasekura's coat of arms: a crowned shield depicting a Buddhist swastika overlapping two intersecting arrows on an orange background. His coat of arms is seen in various places, including on his ship, San Juan Bautista. This image found in a German translation of: Historia del regno di Voxu del Giapone, first published Rome, 1615, found in the John Carter Brown Library or online at https://archive.org/details/relationvndgrndt00amat .
19. The Pacific Ocean with Flying Fish
20. Descripcion de las Yndias del Ocidentales by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas
21. The Parían Market, from Itinerario
22. Linschoten's Map of the World
23. Manila Bay, 1685
24. Chinese Merchants
25. Planta de las Islas Filipinas, 1699
27. Historia general, 1601
28. Signature of Luis de Encio
29. 1618 Chinese Map of the Philippines Dong Xi yang kao 東西洋考 (On the eastern and western oceans), 1618, by Zhang Xie 張燮, 1574-1640. "...is the most comprehensive Ming description of the countries of Southeast Asia." ( Wilkinson, Chinese History, a Manual, p. 747. "...a maritime geography of south Asia...deals with the history, topography, products, and trade of the lands of southeast Asia, including the Philippines, the Moluccas, Brunei (on the north coast of Borneo), ...Indo-China, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, southwest coast of Borneo, a total of thirty-eight countries; discusses China's relations with Japan and the Dutch 紅毛番 ...revenue, navigation (with compass directions and distances and rhymed rules for weather prediction), and to a certain eunuch revenue collector Gao Cai, who exacted tribute from merchants...until his recall to Peking in 1615....documents and official communications between the Chinese court and various countries including Japan" -- Cf. Dictionary of Ming Biography: 77-78 (courtesy of The Ricci Institute Library). Nineteenth-century Chinese facsimile of the first edition from Brown University Libraries, The Gardner Collection.
32. Large Map of Asia "This... map embraces all of Asia. The Middle East is very well formed, although the Caspian Sea has the egg-like form it maintained on maps until the 1730s. The Arabian Peninsula is well defined, based on Portuguese sources, and India takes its form after the maps of the Dutch adventurer, Jan Hugyen van Linschoten (1596), which, in turn, borrowed from Portuguese sources. Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Archipelago are derived from charts made for the Dutch East India Company (the VOC), while China is derived from Jesuit sources, although Korea is an oddly elongated peninsula. The geography of the region would remain an enigma to Europeans until the early 18th Century. Japan's Honshu and Kyushu are recognizable, although the area further to the northeast remains a vast mystery. True to the ‘Carte à Figures’ style, which was the hallmark of the great contemporary period of Dutch Baroque cartography, the map is surrounded on three sides by registers of fine vignettes. Along the top of the map are views of Farmagusta (Cyprus), Rhodes (Greece), Damascus, Jerusalem, Aden and Hormuz (Persia). Along the left side of the map are depictions of people in local costume including Syrians, Arabs, Armenians & Persians, Indians, and Sumatrans. On the left side are depictions that include Javanese, Moluccans & Bandans, Chinese, Russians and Tartars. The map is further embellished by a fine title cartouche and ships and sea monsters in the seas. The map was originally conceived by Jodocus Hondius the Younger, as a part of an exceedingly rare Appendix to the Hondius-Mercator Atlas (1630), of which this edition included an extra panel of text at the bottom. The present edition was issued by Hondius’s brother-in-law, Jan Jansson, as part of Atlas Novus (1638). The Jansson edition is distinguishable by the appearance of Jansson’s imprint, within a cartouche, to the upper right, and the removal of the bottom text panel, which was considered to be too cumbersome for inclusion in a folio atlas. The map was originally conceived by Jodocus Hondius the Younger (1594-1629), whose eponymous father played a large part in the rise of Amsterdam as the dominant cartographic production center in the 17th Century. The present edition of the map is by Jan Jansson (1588-1664), who married Jodocus the Younger’s sister Elizabeth. He transformed the Hondius firm into a powerhouse of geographical publications. Jansson most notably published the Atlas Novus (1638), and the Atlas Major (1660), the 11 volumes of which included a town atlas, a hydrographic atlas, an atlas of the ancient world, and Andreas Cellarius’s incomparable celestial atlas. Jansson’s works were rivaled only by those of his arch-nemesis Joan Blaeu. The present map is one of the finest depictions of Asia from the apogee of Dutch cartography. It is also scarce, appearing on the market infrequently." From The Barry Ruderman Antique Maps, co.
36. Ships Near Port
37. Image of a Port
39. Chinese Merchants
41. Image of Ships on the Pacific Ocean
42. Port in Acapulco "The beautiful " birds- eye- view" of Mexico City by Juan Gómez de Trasmonte is extremely well -known as almost the only surviving representation of the city in the seventeenth -century . The origin , intentions and history of esta map are , however , less well- known. In fact , classical texts on the subject are inaccurate or incomplete mostly . Incorporating new cartobibliographic evidence , this article reinterprets Trasmonte 's plan from the point of view of four methodological statements : i ) The map is the territory . ii ) The map is not the territory . iii ) Territories are maps and iv ) The maps is the map . Hopefully , This analysis Contributes some innovative methodological principles for studying historical urban cartography ." From "The map is the City?. A new look at the bird's eye view of Mexico City in 1628 by Juan Gómez de Trasmonte"
43. Parían Market " Market Manila, called the Parian . Juan Francisco de Ravenet and Bunel . Collection of drawings and prints of the Malaspina Expedition 1789-1794 . MN This is the only known drawing of Chinatown Manila, shortly before its demolition was ordered . Many of the characters depicted were the subject of a portrait by the same artist. " Known Drawing, 1521 1898 , Little Manila , Philippines 1521 , Single Drawing, Drawings , Spanish Philippines , Manila , Manila Call
47. Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas — Mestizo Details Detail of Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas (1734), by Pedro Murillo Velarde. The Philippines was a vital part of the Spanish Empire, and the map shows the maritime routes from Manila to Spain and to New Spain. There are twelve engravings on the sides depicting different ethnic groups living in the archipelago and cartographic descriptions of particular cities or islands. From the National Library of Spain
48. The San Juan Bautista Originally owned by Date Masamune, an influential feudal lord in the Tokugawa court, the San Juan Bautista carried Hasekura Tsunenaga Rokuyemon, a samurai who led Masamune’s embassy to Spain and Italy, and Sebastián Vizcaíno, a Mexican diplomat. Vizcaíno was demoted to a simple passenger on the San Juan Bautista as Haskeura’s embassy sailed the ocean. A replica of the ship is shown here and found in Ishinomaki, Japan.
49. Schurman Commission Document, 1900 The Schurman Commission, also known as the First Philippine Commission, was formed by President William McKinley on January 20, 1899. The commission was tasked with studying the political climate of the country and make policy recommendations. While the report acknowledged Filipino aspirations for independence, the commission reported that the country was not ready for self-governance. From the University of Michigan Library.
50. Conquest of the Philippines, 1698
52. Map depicting the bay of Acapulco in 1632, detailing Japanese ship Spanish captain Nicolás de Cardona sailed to Acapulco in 1614, the same year as Hasekura. He draws his then surroundings on the map and supplies a legend in his 1632 book, "Descripciones geográphicas e hydrográphicas de muchas tierras y mares del Norte y Sur en las Indias, en especial del descubrimiento del Reino de la California,"or "Geographic and hydrographic descriptions of many northern and southern lands and seas in the Indies, specifically the discovery of the kingdom of California.” The book is written in 1632, but the drawings on the map represent Cardona's catalogue of his surroundings during his 1614 expedition. He depicts a Japanese ship on the bay of Acapulco, believed to be the San Juan Bautista. Takashi Gonoi explains this likeliness in page 53 of "Hasekura Tsunenaga" 支倉常長, Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2003.
53. Wong Kim Ark’s Departure Statement, 1894
54. Potosi Forma de los ingenios enquese muelen los metales de plata en la Ribera de Potosi el vno de dos Cabeças yelostro de una. Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela, Bartolomé, 1676-1736 (creator); leaf 91 from Historia de la villa imperial de Potosí by Bartholome Arzans de Orzua y Vela. This is a detailed manuscript account, published by Brown University in 1965, of “that mining center where the wealth and poverty, avarice and generosity, religiosity and bitter hatreds, cruelty and intrigues all flourished” (John Phelan, The Hispanic Historical Review 47:4, Nov. 1967).
56. Ships Near Port
59. Juan Correa, "St. Francis Xavier Baptizing" c. 1700
60. Guadalajara Cathedral

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The Spanish Pacific The essays in this section cover the Spanish incursion into the eastern Pacific beginning in the sixteenth century. The Spanish voyages from Mexico to the Pacific Islands, settling in the Philippines in 1560, forged the first global economy, by directly inserting for the first time the Americas into a European-Asian circuit of goods and ideas.
This image demonstrates that, for the Spanish, the West Indies—Yndias ocidentales— and regions of the entire Pacific Ocean flowed together, all part of a "new world" they controlled. Note the lines of "de marcation" established by the Vatican dividing the globe between the Spanish and the Portuguese empires.
Martín de Rada and his scientific studies of China The first religious order established in Las Filipinas were the Augustinians, who arrived with Legazpi in 1565. The most prominent among them, from the point of view of science, was Martín de Rada. He was born to an aristocratic family in Pamplona on July 20, 1533. At eleven, he was sent to study at the University of Paris, where he read Greek, Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences. Then he returned to Spain to continue his education at the University of Salamanca, renowned as a center for science in Spain, especially in geography and astronomy. Shortly after, young Martín joined the Augustinian order in 1554, and, like many other religious, asked to preach in New Spain; there, he was able to also continue his studies at the Augustinian College of Saint Peter (Colegio de San Pablo), where Father Alonso de la Veracruz had gathered the best European books of his time.
Rada then heeded Legazpi call in 1564 for young religious to accompany him to Asia; by then, he was already considered one of Mexico’s brightest intellectuals. After spending five years in Cebú and Panay, he moved on to the new colonial capital of Manila in 1572, and immediately contacted the growing sangley, or Chinese, trading community there to make plans to advance to China.
The opportunity came shortly, in 1574. That year, the Fujian pirate Spaniards named Limahón (Lin Feng) attacked Manila, attracted by Spanish silver. When Spaniards swarmed around him and his men, the captain named Homoncón (Wang Wanggao) invited a few to visit China. Martín de Rada and his fellow Augustinian Jerónimo Marín, along with two soldiers, Miguel de Loarca and Pedro Sarmiento, were selected. They left Manila on June 12, 1575, and toured several cities in southern Fujian.
From this relatively brief visit of less than two months, Rada wrote a detailed report about the geography, history, policies and religions of the China he saw. The Relación del viage que se hizo a la tierra de la China had enough credibility that his fellow Augustinian friar Juan González de Mendoza, who had himself never visited China, relied upon it to write his best-seller book on the History of the Great Kingdom of China, the definitive source of information about China in Europe for decades.
Rada’s visit to China was important for another reason: he acquired and brought back to Manila many Chinese books, which Augustinians and other missionaries used to write later works about China. (Folch 2008) Scholars believe this was the first collection of Chinese books that introduced important aspects of Chinese culture, political and social organizations to Europeans. (Dunne) Furthermore, Rada’s journey to China was considered the first scientific exploration of the country. (Bernard)
A prodigious writer about science, not only on mathematics and astronomy, his specialties, but on a wide range of topics, shortly after his return from China, Rada reported to his superior in Mexico with great regret that most of his works were lost at sea, along with his own collection of scientific works that he had brought with him. In his letter dated Manila, June 3, 1576, Rada noted: “…I wrote a book de recta hidrographiae ratione, and I also completed a great part of a study on practical geometry in Spanish [not Latin], because I don’t think there is anything interesting in Spanish on this subject; it had seven volumes. I wanted to write
another seven volumes on cosmography and astronomy…I wrote about judicial astrology…I also wrote a book on ways to construct a clock.” He also “wrote a book on navigation and the measures of land and sea. (Rodriguez 1978, vol. 13, p 553). And he had compiled an astronomical table.
Rada further noted his own reference books on science and mathematics, also lost at sea: Euclid and Archimedes on geometry, Ptolemy and Copernicus on astronomy, Villellion on perspective, Hali ben rangel on judicial astrology, and others.
We should remember that Rada was not at a European university at the time, but in the remote western edge of empire, Las Indias Occidentales Some time between June 8 and 15, 1578, Rada died at sea, probably on his way to another scientific expedition.