Japan and New Spain, centered in Mexico, maintained a strained diplomacy during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, after the first contacts between Spain and Asia in the 1520s. The first interaction was spurred by King Carlos I of Spain’s decision to send voyagers to explore the Pacific Ocean. This led to steady trading between China and Spanish Manila, an interaction that resulted in Japan becoming a necessary layover. The inevitable diplomacy between Japan and Mexico was brackish due to a difference in priorities. Japan sought to expand transpacific trade and commerce, while Spain sought to spread Christianity globally. Spain successfully converted thousands of Japanese to Christianity, though not without opposition. Japan saw its first Catholic executions in Nagasaki Harbor in 1597.

Two Japanese men, Luis de Encío and Juan de Páez, thrived in Guadalajara, Mexico In the seventeenth century and their history serves as a window into the little-known role of Japanese in Mexican society. The two men were born in Japan amidst political turmoil, when Tokugawa Ieyasu fought for and ultimately seized his position as Emperor of Japan. After their separate arrivals in Mexico, the two men became legal family. Páez was the son-in-law of Encio. Encio prospered as a merchant and businessman and Páez,  an appointed executor of wills. Understanding their journeys to and within Mexico provides a more precise understanding of the interactions between Japan and New Spain as well as the extent of transpacific migration in this early period.

This paper was first presented at Brown University at the workshop series on “Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas,” December 2-3, 2010.  It was published in Revista Iberoamericana (Seoul, South Korea), vol. 22, no. 2, 2011, pp. 191-127.  The version reproduced here is an edited and abridged version; all images have been added.