I am a researcher at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociais in Lisbon and a former research fellow at St. John's College, University of Cambridge. I specialise in the history of early modern Southeast Asia, with a focus on the contested nature of colonisation in the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos. My first book, Incomplete Conquests - published by Cornell University Press in 2023 - uncovers the limitations of Spanish empire in the Philippines, unearthing histories of resistance, flight, evasion, conflict, and warfare from across the breadth of the Philippine archipelago during the seventeenth century. Supervisors: Sujit Sivasundaram
In Incomplete Conquests, Stephanie Joy Mawson uncovers the limitations of Spanish empire in the P... more In Incomplete Conquests, Stephanie Joy Mawson uncovers the limitations of Spanish empire in the Philippines, unearthing histories of resistance, flight, evasion, conflict, and warfare from across the breadth of the Philippine archipelago during the seventeenth century. The Spanish colonization of the Philippines that began in 1565 has long been seen as heralding a new era of globalization, drawing together a multiethnic world of merchants, soldiers, sailors, and missionaries. Colonists sent reports back to Madrid boasting of the extraordinary number of souls converted to Christianity and the number of people paying tribute to the Spanish Crown. Such claims constructed an imagined imperial sovereignty and were not accompanied by effective consolidation of colonial control in many of the regions where conversion and tribute collection were imposed. Incomplete Conquests foregrounds the experiences of indigenous, Chinese, and Moro communities and their responses to colonial agents, weaving together stories that take into account the rich cultural and environmental diversity of this island world.
While studies of commerce and trade in Manila's ‘Golden Age’ are common, the impact of the city's... more While studies of commerce and trade in Manila's ‘Golden Age’ are common, the impact of the city's multiethnic society on the daily lives of its inhabitants has often been harder to gauge. Based on 98 Inquisition cases, this article examines the widespread use of folk magic in colonial Manila, offering new insights into cultural interactions and inviting new reflections on the nature and extent of colonial domination. Folk magic—also known as hechicería—was an important part of cultural life within Spanish communities across the empire in the early modern period. Encompassing a variety of different practices, including the use of love charms, luck charms, spell-casting, and divination, it offered individuals opportunities to mediate their relationships, particularly with members of the opposite sex. These practices connected European folk traditions with Asian knowledge of botany, medicine, and spirituality to fulfil the needs of the Spanish community for magic. At the same time, this blending of Spanish and Asian cultures was subversive of colonial authority. Folk magic practices challenged the progression of ‘pious imperialism’ that pitted Christianity against indigenous traditions, creating spaces of cultural exchange where the balance of power between cultures was more evenly felt than often assumed.
Human occupation of Australia dates back to at least 65,000 years. Aboriginal ontologies incorpor... more Human occupation of Australia dates back to at least 65,000 years. Aboriginal ontologies incorporate deep memories of this past, at times accompanied by a conviction that Aboriginal people have always been there. This poses a problem for historians and archaeologists: how to construct meaningful histories that extend across such a long duration of space and time. While earlier generations of scholars interpreted pre-colonial Aboriginal history as static and unchanging, marked by isolation and cultural conservatism, recent historical scholarship presents Australia's deep past as dynamic and often at the cutting-edge of human technological innovation. This historiographical shift places Aboriginal people at the centre of pre-colonial history by incorporating Aboriginal oral histories and material culture, as well as ethnographic and anthropological accounts. This review considers some of the debates within this expansive and expanding field, focusing in particular on questions rel...
This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place wit... more This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place within the history of science. We argue that Indo-Pacific islands present a remarkable combination of social, political and spatial circumstances, which speak to themes that are central to the history of science. Having driven movements of people and represented staging grounds for explorations, expansions and cross-cultural exchanges, these spaces have been at the forefront of historical change. The historiographies of the two oceans have traditionally emphasized indigenous agency while downplaying European historical trajectories, and therefore they provide historians of science with materials and methodologies that promise nuanced portrayals of knowledge production in cross-cultural settings. Rather than unifying the oceans into a cohesive narrative, we seek to uncover the many horizons of Indo-Pacific worlds and pluralize the spaces within which knowledge travelled at specific times, but not at others. Offering a middle plane between the globe and the region, islands are particularly productive sites for such analyses, as they bring to attention both localized kinds of agency and the impacts of colonialism and globalization. This special issue investigates what happens to knowledge within island spaces and demonstrates that even as small strips of land, islands can significantly enhance our understanding of the practices of knowledge making within the broader contours of world history. In bringing to the fore the contributions of actors from across the wider social spectrum and, especially, the interacting roles of indigenous agents and their traditions, Indo-Pacific worlds thus offer exciting new directions for a field which has often been dominated by a focus on European institutions.
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2018
This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place wit... more This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place within the history of science. We argue that Indo-Pacific islands present a remarkable combination of social, political and spatial circumstances, which speak to themes that are central to the history of science. Having driven movements of people and represented staging grounds for explorations, expansions and cross-cultural exchanges, these spaces have been at the forefront of historical change. The historiographies of the two oceans have traditionally emphasized indigenous agency while downplaying European historical trajectories, and therefore they provide historians of science with materials and methodologies that promise nuanced portrayals of knowledge production in cross-cultural settings. Rather than unifying the oceans into a cohesive narrative, we seek to uncover the many horizons of Indo-Pacific worlds and pluralize the spaces within which knowledge travelled at specific times, bu...
In 1565 a conquering party led by Miguel López de Legazpi sailed across the Pacific to establish ... more In 1565 a conquering party led by Miguel López de Legazpi sailed across the Pacific to establish a permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines.1 Ever afterwards, the history of the archipelago was defined by its orientation towards the Pacific. More than thirteen thousand kilometres of ocean separated the islands from the nearest outpost of the Spanish empire, the viceroyalty of New Spain (modern-day Mexico). Yet the Pacific crossing was enduring. Galleons plied Pacific waters between Manila and Acapulco for two hundred and fifty years, transporting cargoes of Chinese silks to New Spain and bringing back to Manila boatloads of soldiers, missionaries, silver and much needed supplies.2 Spanish territorial control eventually settled across most of the Visayas, Luzon and parts of Micronesia, with brief Spanish settlements in the seventeenth century in the Moluccas, Mindanao, Taiwan and the Celebes (see Map).3
Yet, within a historiography that lauds the transpacific galleon trade and charts the exploitation of indigenous Filipinos in the lead-up to the revolutionary nineteenth century, very little has been written about the ordinary soldiers who acted as the agents of empire in this arena. Soldiers were nonetheless integral to the spread of Spanish control in the Pacific. They manned the galleons that patrolled the archipelago and transported silver and Chinese silks between Acapulco and Manila. They defended the islands against attacks by Dutch and Moro raiders, and they were essential for furthering the evangelization and colonization of indigenous peoples.4 Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines by seven to one, with approximately 15,600 soldiers making the Pacific crossing in the seventeenth century alone.5 Their presence within the archipelago has left a lasting impact on the Philippines and helps to account for the high levels of cultural and racial mingling between Spaniards and indigenous populations.
Philippine indios served in the Spanish armies in the thousands in expeditions of conquest and de... more Philippine indios served in the Spanish armies in the thousands in expeditions of conquest and defense across Spain’s Pacific possessions, often significantly outnumbering their Spanish counterparts. Based on detailed archival evidence presented for the first time, this article extends the previously limited nature of our understanding of indigenous soldiers in the Spanish Pacific, focusing in particular on the problem of what motivated indigenous people to join the Spanish military. The existing historiography of reward structures among indigenous elites is here coupled with an analysis of the way in which military service intersected with other forms of coerced labor among nonelite Philippine indios. An understanding of pre-Hispanic cultures of warfare and debt servitude helps make the case that many indigenous soldiers were pushed into military service as a way of paying off debts or to avoid other forms of forced labor. Thus indigenous participation in the empire was always tenuous and on the brink of breaking down.
Journal of Pacific History, Volume 50, Issue 2, (2015), 128-148, Jun 2015
The fledgling Spanish colony in the Marianas was rocked by seven episodes of mutiny in the 1680s,... more The fledgling Spanish colony in the Marianas was rocked by seven episodes of mutiny in the 1680s, culminating in the successful takeover of the island of Guam in 1688 by a group of mutineers led by a convict captain. In the context of ongoing campaigns of Indigenous resistance to Spanish colonisation, the actions of these mutinous soldiers placed the project of empire-building in the Marianas in serious peril. The events surrounding these mutinies have often been underplayed within a historiography that focuses on the violent nature of the Spanish presence in the Marianas. Nevertheless the soldiers’ mutinies of the 1680s add another perspective to this turbulent history. The experience of mutiny raises considerable questions about the nature of loyalty among ordinary soldiers to the project of empire-building in the Pacific. It demonstrates that Spanish soldiers – and often their Filipino counterparts – had the capacity to destabilise the imperial project from within.
Revista de Indias, Vol. LXXIII, No. 259, pp. 693-730, Dec 2013
This article examines the phenomenon of convict transportation between Mexico and the Philippines... more This article examines the phenomenon of convict transportation between Mexico and the Philippines during the 17th century. Utilising sources located within the Archivo General de la Nación (México) and the Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla), I argue that was this convict transportation both helped the Spanish extend their power within the Pacific and functioned as a criminal justice measure in response to the emergence of an unruly and disobedient plebeian underclass in the cities and along the highways of New Spain.
LABOUR HISTORY A Journal of Labour and Social …, Jan 1, 2011
When a group of 220 Australian colonists set sail for Paraguay in 1893 to found New Australia, th... more When a group of 220 Australian colonists set sail for Paraguay in 1893 to found New Australia, they took with them many of the idiomatic beliefs associated with the late nineteenth century Australian working class, including an ideological belief in the racial superiority of ‘Teutonic Australian bushman’. The radically unfamiliar environment of Paraguay, however, caused many of the colonists to confront the racist ideological underpinnings of the New Australia movement. The importance of race in shaping the colonists’ experiences of Paraguay and the Paraguayan population has often been overlooked in what is otherwise a well-studied episode in the history of utopian socialism. By carefully examining the role that racial ideology played in defining the New Australia movement, it is possible to reassess in a new light the tensions that ultimately led to the failure of the utopian ideal.
This paper will re-examine the nature of Christian conversion in the first century of the Spanish... more This paper will re-examine the nature of Christian conversion in the first century of the Spanish presence in the Philippines. Far from the rapid and peaceful conversion painted in so much of the historiography, the archival records portray a very partial, inconsistent and complex conversion by the end of the seventeenth century. Philippine communities responded to the evangelising efforts of missionaries through a mixture of flight and periodic rebellion – the latter often led by native priests who provided a counter-balance to Spanish missionaries. Thus, missionaries were in turn forced to adopt and adapt pre-existing indigenous spiritual beliefs, leading to a religious syncretism that we witness in the archipelago four centuries later. The conflicts that conversion engendered ultimately allowed this syncretism to take place. The way that Filipinos chose to respond to missionaries gave them agency in their own conversion process, allowing them to choose the elements of Christianity that suited them and integrating these elements with their own pre-existing ideas about the world.
The social structure of pre-colonial Maritime Southeast Asia was intrinsically associated with bo... more The social structure of pre-colonial Maritime Southeast Asia was intrinsically associated with both debt-servitude and slave raiding. This paper will consider how these pre-existing social phenomena impacted on Spanish colonisation in the Philippines. In particular, I will argue that indigenous traditions of slave raiding formed an integral part of the resistance strategies of communities in the southern parts of the archipelago. When the Spanish began to settle permanently in the Philippines after 1565, they faced considerable resistance from slave raiding societies in particular. The unconquered Moro communities that inhabited Mindanao and Jolo were openly hostile to the Spanish presence in the region. I argue that their use of slave raiding against Spanish territories was a means of defending against potential conquest by generating a fearsome image of unassailable power and invincibility. Yet, slave raiding was also an effective means of destabilising local communities and promoting rebellion against the Spanish. Moro leaders used slave raids consciously and deliberately to undermine Spanish control in the Visayas. At particular moments, Moro leaders could encourage the indigenous leaders serving under Spanish rule to defect and rise up against them. Particularly in the first decades of the century, Spanish authority in the Visayas was threatened by their inability to put an end to Moro raids. Seeing that they could not rely on the Spanish to defend them, many Visayan communities rebelled and abandoned Spanish controlled towns, forming autonomous settlements within the upland areas of their islands where they could maintain independence from both slave raiders and Spanish colonisers.
The Spanish colonisation of the Philippines brought with it new systems of forced labour and trib... more The Spanish colonisation of the Philippines brought with it new systems of forced labour and tribute. The exploitative nature of these systems in turn evoked both rebellion and a rejection of Spanish society by different Philippine communities. The pattern of rebellions in the seventeenth century demonstrates that Philippine indios oscillated between integration within and resistance to imperial control. Thus, while soldiers and friars spread out across the Philippines over the course of the seventeenth century, the territory that they claimed to control was always in contestation. This point is revealed all the more clearly when considering the vast population areas that resisted colonisation altogether. Fleeing Spanish occupation, thousands chose to live autonomously in independent mountain communities. The Spanish term for these communities was ‘cimarrones’, which translates as maroons and references other renegade communities comprised principally of runaway slaves elsewhere in the Spanish empire.
These maroon populations had their origins in communities that had successfully refused to be incorporated into the Spanish sphere, yet they also continuously attracted a steady stream of refugees from Spanish towns and became a hub of resistance to the Spanish presence in the islands. This paper will consider the relationship between Spanish forced labour and tribute systems and the expanding phenomenon of maroonage across the Philippine archipelago. The history of specific maroon communities in the Philippines suggests that they indeed provided individuals with the option of escaping Spanish colonisation. Yet, more than this, individuals appear to have moved between maroon communities and Spanish towns many times in one lifetime, proving the point that Filipinos frequently oscillated between loyalty and disobedience, between integration and active rebellion. I will argue that the existence of maroon communities formed part of a constant and effective contestation of empire, limiting the scope of Spanish domination in the East Indies.
This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico, Guam and the United States undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and forms the basis for a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
The histories of Mexico and the Philippines were united for more than two hundred and fifty years... more The histories of Mexico and the Philippines were united for more than two hundred and fifty years by the galleons that made the annual Pacific crossing, laden with silk and silver. Yet, within this known story of trans-Pacific trade lies a largely unknown history of unfree migration. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Spanish colony in the Philippines relied on the yearly transportation of convicts from New Spain to support their military aims in Maritime Southeast Asia. Drawn from the plebeian underclass of large urban centres like Mexico City and Puebla and from an itinerant population that roamed the highways of New Spain, convicts were rounded up on an annual basis and forced to endure the perilous Pacific crossing to serve as forzados – indentured soldiers – on the other side of the world.
This paper will explore the history of the forzado system between Mexico and the Philippines during the seventeenth century; it will detail the course and extent of this unfree migration, while also arguing that as a criminal justice measure it was designed to purge New Spain of its most unruly elements, putting them to work on the colonial frontier. However, the disobedient nature of these colonial subjects ensured an instability in the military ambitions of the Spanish empire, with many convicts continuing to engage in rebellious and criminal behaviour once in the Philippines. Convicts were known to escape and turn fugitive amongst indigenous communities, and to sow the seeds of mutiny once they arrived. Thus, the history of unfree migration in the seventeenth century Pacific is also one of transoceanic unruliness amongst a burgeoning New World plebeian underclass.
The Spanish presence in the Pacific relied on the mobilisation of indigenous labour. Indigenous s... more The Spanish presence in the Pacific relied on the mobilisation of indigenous labour. Indigenous soldiers were present in the majority of Spanish presidios throughout the Pacific, participating in the colonial project as defenders, labourers, pacifiers and conquerors of other indigenous peoples. This paper will detail the extent of indigenous involvement in the Spanish military during the seventeenth century while also reflecting on the way in which military service intersected with other forms of indigenous labour, including the labour provided within the tribute system. I will argue that the Spanish were able to effectively mobilise pre-Hispanic customs of debt-servitude and military valour in order to create a system of military recruitment amongst indigenous people.
Philippine historiography has tended to emphasise the conqueror-conquered dichotomy. Driven by narratives of modern nation-building, this historiography ignores the internal contradictions inherent in empire construction, including the presence of loyal Indians and disloyal Spanish soldiers within the context of widespread resistance to colonisation. This paper provides a new insight into the way in which Spanish colonialism mobilised pre-Hispanic traditions in the service of the construction of empire. At the same time, the contradictions entailed in the use of rebellious subjects within the military reveal how tenuous the Spanish presence in the Pacific was. This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico and Guam undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and will form the basis of a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
The Spanish conquest and settlement of the Philippines in the late sixteenth century opened up a ... more The Spanish conquest and settlement of the Philippines in the late sixteenth century opened up a Pacific connection between Southeast Asia, Mexico and Europe that had significant repercussions for global history. While historians are well aware of the impact of the galleon trade on regional and global economies, little is known about the people who traversed the Pacific and how their experiences defined the history of Spanish colonisation in Southeast Asia. This paper will examine the social history of the ordinary soldiers that migrated from New Spain to the Philippines during the seventeenth century. Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines seven-to-one, with approximately 15,600 soldiers making the Pacific crossing during the course of the seventeenth century. These soldiers played a critical role in the furthering of Spanish imperialism; they manned the galleons that patrolled the archipelago and transported silver and Chinese silks between Acapulco and Manila. They defended the islands against attacks by Dutch and Moro raiders, and they were essential for furthering the evangelisation and colonisation of indigenous peoples. Yet, their presence within the archipelago has also left a lasting impact on the Philippines and helps to account for the high levels of cultural and racial mingling between Spaniards and indigenous populations during the colonial period. Despite this, soldiers appear only as murky figures within the historiography of the early colonial Philippines, often presented as pawns of their military leaders and as complicit and active participants in conquest.
This paper will present new research that utilises archival records from Spain, Mexico and Guam relating to the migration of soldiers across the Pacific during the seventeenth century. By examining the social composition of the Spanish infantry stationed in the Spanish presidios in the Pacific and the conditions that they experienced during their service, I argue that the experience of soldiers bore little relation to the archetype of the quixotic conquistador. Far from the image of adventuring, fortune-seeking professional soldiers of pure Spanish ethnicity, the archival evidence paints a compelling case that the companies of soldiers stationed across the Pacific were largely comprised of half-starved, under-clothed and unpaid recruits, many of whom were in fact convicts transported across the Pacific against their will, and were more likely to be Mexican mestizos than pure-blood Spaniards. Thus, from the very outset loyalty amongst Spanish soldiers in the Philippines was problematic. Furthermore, the conditions experienced within Spain’s Pacific presidios were also catalysts for disaffection and soldiers were prone to desertion, vagabondage and criminality. Mutinies also periodically shook the presidios. Faced by disloyalty and shortages amongst their own forces, the Spanish in Manila came to rely increasingly on the recruitment of indigenous Filipinos as soldiers in the service of the Crown. These findings help to shift our understanding of empire construction in the Pacific, challenging the idea of hegemonic imperialism which inexorably divided conquered from conqueror.
A great deal can be learnt about the nature of Spanish rule within the Pacific by studying the hi... more A great deal can be learnt about the nature of Spanish rule within the Pacific by studying the history of colonisation from the point of view of the ordinary soldiers and sailors who drove it. Despite this, the social history of Spanish colonisation in the Pacific during the seventeenth century is for the most part yet to be written. The presence within the region of non-indigenous lower-class subjects has never been considered a worthy subject of investigation in its own right. Soldiers and sailors have been incorporated within the Pacific world as largely unexamined pawns within grand narratives of discovery, inter-imperial rivalry and commerce on board the galleons or within the coloniser-colonised dichotomies of post-colonial historiography. Furthermore, this early colonial history of the Pacific suffers from excessive localisation, where individual colonies such as the Philippines, Guam and the Moluccas are rarely considered within the context of their connection to one another, let alone to the colony of New Spain on the other side of the Pacific, and to Spain and the rest of its empire beyond that. As the empires most mobile subjects, soldiers and sailors can help us to uncover the way that this Pacific world worked. These subjects allow for a unique investigation of the Spanish Pacific as a whole, as they represent a multiplicity of racial and ethnic backgrounds with unique individual histories that at times encompassed vast swathes of the Spanish empire. Their histories reveal to us a Pacific World – encompassing not only the islands of the Spanish Pacific, but also Mexico, South East Asia and China and Europe beyond – connected by the people who traversed this oceanic expanse.
Issues of race and class have also been largely simplified within the coloniser-colonised dichotomy that besets Philippine colonial history. Outside of the officer ranks, the vast majority of military and naval personnel were recruited from amongst the poor and itinerant populations of Mexico and Spain. Methods of coercive recruitment were common, as were criminal sentences to convict servitude in the islands. Yet, the historiography reflects an assumption that Spanish soldiers’ and sailors’ interests were the same as those of the Crown – in other words, that they were merely ruthless and brutal conquistadores. This simplistic analysis lacks a consideration for the actual motivations of ordinary soldiers and sailors when making the Pacific crossing. It denies these subjects their own individual agency when confronted by oppressive and violent situations, not to mention their own conditions of unfreedom. For this reason, details of wage disputes, desertion, vagabondage and mutiny amongst soldiers and sailors have been largely left out of the existing historiography.
The paper that I propose to present at this masterclass will deal with these themes by looking at the experiences of soldiers and sailors in the service of the Spanish empire as a labour history. I believe that such a study sheds new light on the Pacific as a regional system. Spanish soldiers and sailors offer us the most ready entry point into a mobile Pacific World; by examining their histories we also come into contact with a variety of other mobile subjects including Chinese merchants, Islamic pirates and Moro freedom-fighters, Mexican convicts, religious missionaries, representatives of the Dutch and Portuguese empires, British pirates, and a floating maritime world which encompassed peoples of all colours and stripes from across the globe. The extensive presence of all of these people is exemplary of the fact that the Pacific connected all corners of the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Asia and onwards to the Middle East. As the last ocean to be discovered and navigated, the Pacific is the ocean which joined the world at the seams. It is here that we find mobile representatives of all corners of the globe interacting with one another. Furthermore, there is a great deal of commonality to be found between the forgotten histories of the mobile subaltern of the early modern Pacific and the unseen global labouring class of the modern day, which, led by the migrant Filipinos, dominates maritime work and domestic service across the world. While these are still thoughts that I wish to develop, it is my feeling that these often neglected, marginalised subjects of the Pacific have played a significant role in defining our modern world.
In Incomplete Conquests, Stephanie Joy Mawson uncovers the limitations of Spanish empire in the P... more In Incomplete Conquests, Stephanie Joy Mawson uncovers the limitations of Spanish empire in the Philippines, unearthing histories of resistance, flight, evasion, conflict, and warfare from across the breadth of the Philippine archipelago during the seventeenth century. The Spanish colonization of the Philippines that began in 1565 has long been seen as heralding a new era of globalization, drawing together a multiethnic world of merchants, soldiers, sailors, and missionaries. Colonists sent reports back to Madrid boasting of the extraordinary number of souls converted to Christianity and the number of people paying tribute to the Spanish Crown. Such claims constructed an imagined imperial sovereignty and were not accompanied by effective consolidation of colonial control in many of the regions where conversion and tribute collection were imposed. Incomplete Conquests foregrounds the experiences of indigenous, Chinese, and Moro communities and their responses to colonial agents, weaving together stories that take into account the rich cultural and environmental diversity of this island world.
While studies of commerce and trade in Manila's ‘Golden Age’ are common, the impact of the city's... more While studies of commerce and trade in Manila's ‘Golden Age’ are common, the impact of the city's multiethnic society on the daily lives of its inhabitants has often been harder to gauge. Based on 98 Inquisition cases, this article examines the widespread use of folk magic in colonial Manila, offering new insights into cultural interactions and inviting new reflections on the nature and extent of colonial domination. Folk magic—also known as hechicería—was an important part of cultural life within Spanish communities across the empire in the early modern period. Encompassing a variety of different practices, including the use of love charms, luck charms, spell-casting, and divination, it offered individuals opportunities to mediate their relationships, particularly with members of the opposite sex. These practices connected European folk traditions with Asian knowledge of botany, medicine, and spirituality to fulfil the needs of the Spanish community for magic. At the same time, this blending of Spanish and Asian cultures was subversive of colonial authority. Folk magic practices challenged the progression of ‘pious imperialism’ that pitted Christianity against indigenous traditions, creating spaces of cultural exchange where the balance of power between cultures was more evenly felt than often assumed.
Human occupation of Australia dates back to at least 65,000 years. Aboriginal ontologies incorpor... more Human occupation of Australia dates back to at least 65,000 years. Aboriginal ontologies incorporate deep memories of this past, at times accompanied by a conviction that Aboriginal people have always been there. This poses a problem for historians and archaeologists: how to construct meaningful histories that extend across such a long duration of space and time. While earlier generations of scholars interpreted pre-colonial Aboriginal history as static and unchanging, marked by isolation and cultural conservatism, recent historical scholarship presents Australia's deep past as dynamic and often at the cutting-edge of human technological innovation. This historiographical shift places Aboriginal people at the centre of pre-colonial history by incorporating Aboriginal oral histories and material culture, as well as ethnographic and anthropological accounts. This review considers some of the debates within this expansive and expanding field, focusing in particular on questions rel...
This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place wit... more This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place within the history of science. We argue that Indo-Pacific islands present a remarkable combination of social, political and spatial circumstances, which speak to themes that are central to the history of science. Having driven movements of people and represented staging grounds for explorations, expansions and cross-cultural exchanges, these spaces have been at the forefront of historical change. The historiographies of the two oceans have traditionally emphasized indigenous agency while downplaying European historical trajectories, and therefore they provide historians of science with materials and methodologies that promise nuanced portrayals of knowledge production in cross-cultural settings. Rather than unifying the oceans into a cohesive narrative, we seek to uncover the many horizons of Indo-Pacific worlds and pluralize the spaces within which knowledge travelled at specific times, but not at others. Offering a middle plane between the globe and the region, islands are particularly productive sites for such analyses, as they bring to attention both localized kinds of agency and the impacts of colonialism and globalization. This special issue investigates what happens to knowledge within island spaces and demonstrates that even as small strips of land, islands can significantly enhance our understanding of the practices of knowledge making within the broader contours of world history. In bringing to the fore the contributions of actors from across the wider social spectrum and, especially, the interacting roles of indigenous agents and their traditions, Indo-Pacific worlds thus offer exciting new directions for a field which has often been dominated by a focus on European institutions.
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2018
This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place wit... more This Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place within the history of science. We argue that Indo-Pacific islands present a remarkable combination of social, political and spatial circumstances, which speak to themes that are central to the history of science. Having driven movements of people and represented staging grounds for explorations, expansions and cross-cultural exchanges, these spaces have been at the forefront of historical change. The historiographies of the two oceans have traditionally emphasized indigenous agency while downplaying European historical trajectories, and therefore they provide historians of science with materials and methodologies that promise nuanced portrayals of knowledge production in cross-cultural settings. Rather than unifying the oceans into a cohesive narrative, we seek to uncover the many horizons of Indo-Pacific worlds and pluralize the spaces within which knowledge travelled at specific times, bu...
In 1565 a conquering party led by Miguel López de Legazpi sailed across the Pacific to establish ... more In 1565 a conquering party led by Miguel López de Legazpi sailed across the Pacific to establish a permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines.1 Ever afterwards, the history of the archipelago was defined by its orientation towards the Pacific. More than thirteen thousand kilometres of ocean separated the islands from the nearest outpost of the Spanish empire, the viceroyalty of New Spain (modern-day Mexico). Yet the Pacific crossing was enduring. Galleons plied Pacific waters between Manila and Acapulco for two hundred and fifty years, transporting cargoes of Chinese silks to New Spain and bringing back to Manila boatloads of soldiers, missionaries, silver and much needed supplies.2 Spanish territorial control eventually settled across most of the Visayas, Luzon and parts of Micronesia, with brief Spanish settlements in the seventeenth century in the Moluccas, Mindanao, Taiwan and the Celebes (see Map).3
Yet, within a historiography that lauds the transpacific galleon trade and charts the exploitation of indigenous Filipinos in the lead-up to the revolutionary nineteenth century, very little has been written about the ordinary soldiers who acted as the agents of empire in this arena. Soldiers were nonetheless integral to the spread of Spanish control in the Pacific. They manned the galleons that patrolled the archipelago and transported silver and Chinese silks between Acapulco and Manila. They defended the islands against attacks by Dutch and Moro raiders, and they were essential for furthering the evangelization and colonization of indigenous peoples.4 Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines by seven to one, with approximately 15,600 soldiers making the Pacific crossing in the seventeenth century alone.5 Their presence within the archipelago has left a lasting impact on the Philippines and helps to account for the high levels of cultural and racial mingling between Spaniards and indigenous populations.
Philippine indios served in the Spanish armies in the thousands in expeditions of conquest and de... more Philippine indios served in the Spanish armies in the thousands in expeditions of conquest and defense across Spain’s Pacific possessions, often significantly outnumbering their Spanish counterparts. Based on detailed archival evidence presented for the first time, this article extends the previously limited nature of our understanding of indigenous soldiers in the Spanish Pacific, focusing in particular on the problem of what motivated indigenous people to join the Spanish military. The existing historiography of reward structures among indigenous elites is here coupled with an analysis of the way in which military service intersected with other forms of coerced labor among nonelite Philippine indios. An understanding of pre-Hispanic cultures of warfare and debt servitude helps make the case that many indigenous soldiers were pushed into military service as a way of paying off debts or to avoid other forms of forced labor. Thus indigenous participation in the empire was always tenuous and on the brink of breaking down.
Journal of Pacific History, Volume 50, Issue 2, (2015), 128-148, Jun 2015
The fledgling Spanish colony in the Marianas was rocked by seven episodes of mutiny in the 1680s,... more The fledgling Spanish colony in the Marianas was rocked by seven episodes of mutiny in the 1680s, culminating in the successful takeover of the island of Guam in 1688 by a group of mutineers led by a convict captain. In the context of ongoing campaigns of Indigenous resistance to Spanish colonisation, the actions of these mutinous soldiers placed the project of empire-building in the Marianas in serious peril. The events surrounding these mutinies have often been underplayed within a historiography that focuses on the violent nature of the Spanish presence in the Marianas. Nevertheless the soldiers’ mutinies of the 1680s add another perspective to this turbulent history. The experience of mutiny raises considerable questions about the nature of loyalty among ordinary soldiers to the project of empire-building in the Pacific. It demonstrates that Spanish soldiers – and often their Filipino counterparts – had the capacity to destabilise the imperial project from within.
Revista de Indias, Vol. LXXIII, No. 259, pp. 693-730, Dec 2013
This article examines the phenomenon of convict transportation between Mexico and the Philippines... more This article examines the phenomenon of convict transportation between Mexico and the Philippines during the 17th century. Utilising sources located within the Archivo General de la Nación (México) and the Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla), I argue that was this convict transportation both helped the Spanish extend their power within the Pacific and functioned as a criminal justice measure in response to the emergence of an unruly and disobedient plebeian underclass in the cities and along the highways of New Spain.
LABOUR HISTORY A Journal of Labour and Social …, Jan 1, 2011
When a group of 220 Australian colonists set sail for Paraguay in 1893 to found New Australia, th... more When a group of 220 Australian colonists set sail for Paraguay in 1893 to found New Australia, they took with them many of the idiomatic beliefs associated with the late nineteenth century Australian working class, including an ideological belief in the racial superiority of ‘Teutonic Australian bushman’. The radically unfamiliar environment of Paraguay, however, caused many of the colonists to confront the racist ideological underpinnings of the New Australia movement. The importance of race in shaping the colonists’ experiences of Paraguay and the Paraguayan population has often been overlooked in what is otherwise a well-studied episode in the history of utopian socialism. By carefully examining the role that racial ideology played in defining the New Australia movement, it is possible to reassess in a new light the tensions that ultimately led to the failure of the utopian ideal.
This paper will re-examine the nature of Christian conversion in the first century of the Spanish... more This paper will re-examine the nature of Christian conversion in the first century of the Spanish presence in the Philippines. Far from the rapid and peaceful conversion painted in so much of the historiography, the archival records portray a very partial, inconsistent and complex conversion by the end of the seventeenth century. Philippine communities responded to the evangelising efforts of missionaries through a mixture of flight and periodic rebellion – the latter often led by native priests who provided a counter-balance to Spanish missionaries. Thus, missionaries were in turn forced to adopt and adapt pre-existing indigenous spiritual beliefs, leading to a religious syncretism that we witness in the archipelago four centuries later. The conflicts that conversion engendered ultimately allowed this syncretism to take place. The way that Filipinos chose to respond to missionaries gave them agency in their own conversion process, allowing them to choose the elements of Christianity that suited them and integrating these elements with their own pre-existing ideas about the world.
The social structure of pre-colonial Maritime Southeast Asia was intrinsically associated with bo... more The social structure of pre-colonial Maritime Southeast Asia was intrinsically associated with both debt-servitude and slave raiding. This paper will consider how these pre-existing social phenomena impacted on Spanish colonisation in the Philippines. In particular, I will argue that indigenous traditions of slave raiding formed an integral part of the resistance strategies of communities in the southern parts of the archipelago. When the Spanish began to settle permanently in the Philippines after 1565, they faced considerable resistance from slave raiding societies in particular. The unconquered Moro communities that inhabited Mindanao and Jolo were openly hostile to the Spanish presence in the region. I argue that their use of slave raiding against Spanish territories was a means of defending against potential conquest by generating a fearsome image of unassailable power and invincibility. Yet, slave raiding was also an effective means of destabilising local communities and promoting rebellion against the Spanish. Moro leaders used slave raids consciously and deliberately to undermine Spanish control in the Visayas. At particular moments, Moro leaders could encourage the indigenous leaders serving under Spanish rule to defect and rise up against them. Particularly in the first decades of the century, Spanish authority in the Visayas was threatened by their inability to put an end to Moro raids. Seeing that they could not rely on the Spanish to defend them, many Visayan communities rebelled and abandoned Spanish controlled towns, forming autonomous settlements within the upland areas of their islands where they could maintain independence from both slave raiders and Spanish colonisers.
The Spanish colonisation of the Philippines brought with it new systems of forced labour and trib... more The Spanish colonisation of the Philippines brought with it new systems of forced labour and tribute. The exploitative nature of these systems in turn evoked both rebellion and a rejection of Spanish society by different Philippine communities. The pattern of rebellions in the seventeenth century demonstrates that Philippine indios oscillated between integration within and resistance to imperial control. Thus, while soldiers and friars spread out across the Philippines over the course of the seventeenth century, the territory that they claimed to control was always in contestation. This point is revealed all the more clearly when considering the vast population areas that resisted colonisation altogether. Fleeing Spanish occupation, thousands chose to live autonomously in independent mountain communities. The Spanish term for these communities was ‘cimarrones’, which translates as maroons and references other renegade communities comprised principally of runaway slaves elsewhere in the Spanish empire.
These maroon populations had their origins in communities that had successfully refused to be incorporated into the Spanish sphere, yet they also continuously attracted a steady stream of refugees from Spanish towns and became a hub of resistance to the Spanish presence in the islands. This paper will consider the relationship between Spanish forced labour and tribute systems and the expanding phenomenon of maroonage across the Philippine archipelago. The history of specific maroon communities in the Philippines suggests that they indeed provided individuals with the option of escaping Spanish colonisation. Yet, more than this, individuals appear to have moved between maroon communities and Spanish towns many times in one lifetime, proving the point that Filipinos frequently oscillated between loyalty and disobedience, between integration and active rebellion. I will argue that the existence of maroon communities formed part of a constant and effective contestation of empire, limiting the scope of Spanish domination in the East Indies.
This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico, Guam and the United States undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and forms the basis for a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
The histories of Mexico and the Philippines were united for more than two hundred and fifty years... more The histories of Mexico and the Philippines were united for more than two hundred and fifty years by the galleons that made the annual Pacific crossing, laden with silk and silver. Yet, within this known story of trans-Pacific trade lies a largely unknown history of unfree migration. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Spanish colony in the Philippines relied on the yearly transportation of convicts from New Spain to support their military aims in Maritime Southeast Asia. Drawn from the plebeian underclass of large urban centres like Mexico City and Puebla and from an itinerant population that roamed the highways of New Spain, convicts were rounded up on an annual basis and forced to endure the perilous Pacific crossing to serve as forzados – indentured soldiers – on the other side of the world.
This paper will explore the history of the forzado system between Mexico and the Philippines during the seventeenth century; it will detail the course and extent of this unfree migration, while also arguing that as a criminal justice measure it was designed to purge New Spain of its most unruly elements, putting them to work on the colonial frontier. However, the disobedient nature of these colonial subjects ensured an instability in the military ambitions of the Spanish empire, with many convicts continuing to engage in rebellious and criminal behaviour once in the Philippines. Convicts were known to escape and turn fugitive amongst indigenous communities, and to sow the seeds of mutiny once they arrived. Thus, the history of unfree migration in the seventeenth century Pacific is also one of transoceanic unruliness amongst a burgeoning New World plebeian underclass.
The Spanish presence in the Pacific relied on the mobilisation of indigenous labour. Indigenous s... more The Spanish presence in the Pacific relied on the mobilisation of indigenous labour. Indigenous soldiers were present in the majority of Spanish presidios throughout the Pacific, participating in the colonial project as defenders, labourers, pacifiers and conquerors of other indigenous peoples. This paper will detail the extent of indigenous involvement in the Spanish military during the seventeenth century while also reflecting on the way in which military service intersected with other forms of indigenous labour, including the labour provided within the tribute system. I will argue that the Spanish were able to effectively mobilise pre-Hispanic customs of debt-servitude and military valour in order to create a system of military recruitment amongst indigenous people.
Philippine historiography has tended to emphasise the conqueror-conquered dichotomy. Driven by narratives of modern nation-building, this historiography ignores the internal contradictions inherent in empire construction, including the presence of loyal Indians and disloyal Spanish soldiers within the context of widespread resistance to colonisation. This paper provides a new insight into the way in which Spanish colonialism mobilised pre-Hispanic traditions in the service of the construction of empire. At the same time, the contradictions entailed in the use of rebellious subjects within the military reveal how tenuous the Spanish presence in the Pacific was. This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico and Guam undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and will form the basis of a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
The Spanish conquest and settlement of the Philippines in the late sixteenth century opened up a ... more The Spanish conquest and settlement of the Philippines in the late sixteenth century opened up a Pacific connection between Southeast Asia, Mexico and Europe that had significant repercussions for global history. While historians are well aware of the impact of the galleon trade on regional and global economies, little is known about the people who traversed the Pacific and how their experiences defined the history of Spanish colonisation in Southeast Asia. This paper will examine the social history of the ordinary soldiers that migrated from New Spain to the Philippines during the seventeenth century. Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines seven-to-one, with approximately 15,600 soldiers making the Pacific crossing during the course of the seventeenth century. These soldiers played a critical role in the furthering of Spanish imperialism; they manned the galleons that patrolled the archipelago and transported silver and Chinese silks between Acapulco and Manila. They defended the islands against attacks by Dutch and Moro raiders, and they were essential for furthering the evangelisation and colonisation of indigenous peoples. Yet, their presence within the archipelago has also left a lasting impact on the Philippines and helps to account for the high levels of cultural and racial mingling between Spaniards and indigenous populations during the colonial period. Despite this, soldiers appear only as murky figures within the historiography of the early colonial Philippines, often presented as pawns of their military leaders and as complicit and active participants in conquest.
This paper will present new research that utilises archival records from Spain, Mexico and Guam relating to the migration of soldiers across the Pacific during the seventeenth century. By examining the social composition of the Spanish infantry stationed in the Spanish presidios in the Pacific and the conditions that they experienced during their service, I argue that the experience of soldiers bore little relation to the archetype of the quixotic conquistador. Far from the image of adventuring, fortune-seeking professional soldiers of pure Spanish ethnicity, the archival evidence paints a compelling case that the companies of soldiers stationed across the Pacific were largely comprised of half-starved, under-clothed and unpaid recruits, many of whom were in fact convicts transported across the Pacific against their will, and were more likely to be Mexican mestizos than pure-blood Spaniards. Thus, from the very outset loyalty amongst Spanish soldiers in the Philippines was problematic. Furthermore, the conditions experienced within Spain’s Pacific presidios were also catalysts for disaffection and soldiers were prone to desertion, vagabondage and criminality. Mutinies also periodically shook the presidios. Faced by disloyalty and shortages amongst their own forces, the Spanish in Manila came to rely increasingly on the recruitment of indigenous Filipinos as soldiers in the service of the Crown. These findings help to shift our understanding of empire construction in the Pacific, challenging the idea of hegemonic imperialism which inexorably divided conquered from conqueror.
A great deal can be learnt about the nature of Spanish rule within the Pacific by studying the hi... more A great deal can be learnt about the nature of Spanish rule within the Pacific by studying the history of colonisation from the point of view of the ordinary soldiers and sailors who drove it. Despite this, the social history of Spanish colonisation in the Pacific during the seventeenth century is for the most part yet to be written. The presence within the region of non-indigenous lower-class subjects has never been considered a worthy subject of investigation in its own right. Soldiers and sailors have been incorporated within the Pacific world as largely unexamined pawns within grand narratives of discovery, inter-imperial rivalry and commerce on board the galleons or within the coloniser-colonised dichotomies of post-colonial historiography. Furthermore, this early colonial history of the Pacific suffers from excessive localisation, where individual colonies such as the Philippines, Guam and the Moluccas are rarely considered within the context of their connection to one another, let alone to the colony of New Spain on the other side of the Pacific, and to Spain and the rest of its empire beyond that. As the empires most mobile subjects, soldiers and sailors can help us to uncover the way that this Pacific world worked. These subjects allow for a unique investigation of the Spanish Pacific as a whole, as they represent a multiplicity of racial and ethnic backgrounds with unique individual histories that at times encompassed vast swathes of the Spanish empire. Their histories reveal to us a Pacific World – encompassing not only the islands of the Spanish Pacific, but also Mexico, South East Asia and China and Europe beyond – connected by the people who traversed this oceanic expanse.
Issues of race and class have also been largely simplified within the coloniser-colonised dichotomy that besets Philippine colonial history. Outside of the officer ranks, the vast majority of military and naval personnel were recruited from amongst the poor and itinerant populations of Mexico and Spain. Methods of coercive recruitment were common, as were criminal sentences to convict servitude in the islands. Yet, the historiography reflects an assumption that Spanish soldiers’ and sailors’ interests were the same as those of the Crown – in other words, that they were merely ruthless and brutal conquistadores. This simplistic analysis lacks a consideration for the actual motivations of ordinary soldiers and sailors when making the Pacific crossing. It denies these subjects their own individual agency when confronted by oppressive and violent situations, not to mention their own conditions of unfreedom. For this reason, details of wage disputes, desertion, vagabondage and mutiny amongst soldiers and sailors have been largely left out of the existing historiography.
The paper that I propose to present at this masterclass will deal with these themes by looking at the experiences of soldiers and sailors in the service of the Spanish empire as a labour history. I believe that such a study sheds new light on the Pacific as a regional system. Spanish soldiers and sailors offer us the most ready entry point into a mobile Pacific World; by examining their histories we also come into contact with a variety of other mobile subjects including Chinese merchants, Islamic pirates and Moro freedom-fighters, Mexican convicts, religious missionaries, representatives of the Dutch and Portuguese empires, British pirates, and a floating maritime world which encompassed peoples of all colours and stripes from across the globe. The extensive presence of all of these people is exemplary of the fact that the Pacific connected all corners of the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Asia and onwards to the Middle East. As the last ocean to be discovered and navigated, the Pacific is the ocean which joined the world at the seams. It is here that we find mobile representatives of all corners of the globe interacting with one another. Furthermore, there is a great deal of commonality to be found between the forgotten histories of the mobile subaltern of the early modern Pacific and the unseen global labouring class of the modern day, which, led by the migrant Filipinos, dominates maritime work and domestic service across the world. While these are still thoughts that I wish to develop, it is my feeling that these often neglected, marginalised subjects of the Pacific have played a significant role in defining our modern world.
Throughout the 17th century, the viceregal authorities of New Spain utilised forced labour as a c... more Throughout the 17th century, the viceregal authorities of New Spain utilised forced labour as a core judicial response to acts of criminality and disobedience amongst the colonial plebe. This paper will examine one facet of the system of forzado labour – the forced conscription of military recruits for the yearly levy of the Philippines which occurred within the auspices of the viceregal criminal justice system. By examining the various plebeian sites of forced recruitment, I will argue that the forzado system was a criminal justice measure adopted by the viceroyalty in response to a burgeoning culture of disobedience amongst the multiracial plebe in the urban centres and along the highways of New Spain. As such, this paper will destabilise the myth of a quiet 17th century in New Spain and challenge dominant notions of plebeian subordination in the early modern era. At the same time, this focus on the activities of marginalised subjects in the early modern period should prove instructive to scholars of later eras who are interested in tracing the cultural origins of plebeian rebelliousness that manifested itself in the Independence Wars. This paper is based on extensive archival research conducted at the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City) and in the digitalised archives of the Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla).
CALL FOR PAPERS: Science and Islands in the Indo-Pacific World
Cambridge, 15-16 September 2016
K... more CALL FOR PAPERS: Science and Islands in the Indo-Pacific World Cambridge, 15-16 September 2016
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: SUJIT SIVASUNDARAM (CAMBRIDGE)
Within World History, the Indo-Pacific has played an important role in the production and development of scientific and cultural knowledge. Focusing on islands in the Indo-Pacific in particular, this two-day conference will explore their spatial and temporal role within the history of scientific knowledge production. Across these two disparate oceanic regions, islands acted as spaces of transit – which linked origin and destination for travellers, explorers and merchants – and also served as a home for indigenous communities. Bringing together historians from the early modern to the modern period, this conference seeks to explore knowledge production across geopolitical, social and cultural contexts.
We seek to address the following questions: What roles did Indo-Pacific islands play in different historical periods, and how did this change over time? How were Indo-Pacific islands connected to or disconnected from each other and from continental societies? How were islands explored and how was knowledge about them transmitted? How did islanders interact with Europeans and what impact did indigenous knowledge have on knowledge production?
We invite proposals for INDIVIDUAL 20-MINUTES PAPERS concerned with the following and beyond: - insularity, connectedness and disconnectedness - natural history, zoology, botany, agriculture and environment - medicine and health - astronomy, mathematics and physics - geology, geography, cartography and navigation - ethnography, anthropology and indigenous knowledge - architecture, urban spaces and landscapes - material and cultural exchanges
We encourage submissions from students and early career researchers in particular. Proposals concerned with the early modern period are especially welcome.
Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and a brief description of your academic affiliation and disciplinary background to BSHS.IndoPacific@gmail.com by 15 May, 2016.
Uploads
Yet, within a historiography that lauds the transpacific galleon trade and charts the exploitation of indigenous Filipinos in the lead-up to the revolutionary nineteenth century, very little has been written about the ordinary soldiers who acted as the agents of empire in this arena. Soldiers were nonetheless integral to the spread of Spanish control in the Pacific. They manned the galleons that patrolled the archipelago and transported silver and Chinese silks between Acapulco and Manila. They defended the islands against attacks by Dutch and Moro raiders, and they were essential for furthering the evangelization and colonization of indigenous peoples.4 Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines by seven to one, with approximately 15,600 soldiers making the Pacific crossing in the seventeenth century alone.5 Their presence within the archipelago has left a lasting impact on the Philippines and helps to account for the high levels of cultural and racial mingling between Spaniards and indigenous populations.
These maroon populations had their origins in communities that had successfully refused to be incorporated into the Spanish sphere, yet they also continuously attracted a steady stream of refugees from Spanish towns and became a hub of resistance to the Spanish presence in the islands. This paper will consider the relationship between Spanish forced labour and tribute systems and the expanding phenomenon of maroonage across the Philippine archipelago. The history of specific maroon communities in the Philippines suggests that they indeed provided individuals with the option of escaping Spanish colonisation. Yet, more than this, individuals appear to have moved between maroon communities and Spanish towns many times in one lifetime, proving the point that Filipinos frequently oscillated between loyalty and disobedience, between integration and active rebellion. I will argue that the existence of maroon communities formed part of a constant and effective contestation of empire, limiting the scope of Spanish domination in the East Indies.
This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico, Guam and the United States undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and forms the basis for a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
This paper will explore the history of the forzado system between Mexico and the Philippines during the seventeenth century; it will detail the course and extent of this unfree migration, while also arguing that as a criminal justice measure it was designed to purge New Spain of its most unruly elements, putting them to work on the colonial frontier. However, the disobedient nature of these colonial subjects ensured an instability in the military ambitions of the Spanish empire, with many convicts continuing to engage in rebellious and criminal behaviour once in the Philippines. Convicts were known to escape and turn fugitive amongst indigenous communities, and to sow the seeds of mutiny once they arrived. Thus, the history of unfree migration in the seventeenth century Pacific is also one of transoceanic unruliness amongst a burgeoning New World plebeian underclass.
Philippine historiography has tended to emphasise the conqueror-conquered dichotomy. Driven by narratives of modern nation-building, this historiography ignores the internal contradictions inherent in empire construction, including the presence of loyal Indians and disloyal Spanish soldiers within the context of widespread resistance to colonisation. This paper provides a new insight into the way in which Spanish colonialism mobilised pre-Hispanic traditions in the service of the construction of empire. At the same time, the contradictions entailed in the use of rebellious subjects within the military reveal how tenuous the Spanish presence in the Pacific was. This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico and Guam undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and will form the basis of a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
This paper will present new research that utilises archival records from Spain, Mexico and Guam relating to the migration of soldiers across the Pacific during the seventeenth century. By examining the social composition of the Spanish infantry stationed in the Spanish presidios in the Pacific and the conditions that they experienced during their service, I argue that the experience of soldiers bore little relation to the archetype of the quixotic conquistador. Far from the image of adventuring, fortune-seeking professional soldiers of pure Spanish ethnicity, the archival evidence paints a compelling case that the companies of soldiers stationed across the Pacific were largely comprised of half-starved, under-clothed and unpaid recruits, many of whom were in fact convicts transported across the Pacific against their will, and were more likely to be Mexican mestizos than pure-blood Spaniards. Thus, from the very outset loyalty amongst Spanish soldiers in the Philippines was problematic. Furthermore, the conditions experienced within Spain’s Pacific presidios were also catalysts for disaffection and soldiers were prone to desertion, vagabondage and criminality. Mutinies also periodically shook the presidios. Faced by disloyalty and shortages amongst their own forces, the Spanish in Manila came to rely increasingly on the recruitment of indigenous Filipinos as soldiers in the service of the Crown. These findings help to shift our understanding of empire construction in the Pacific, challenging the idea of hegemonic imperialism which inexorably divided conquered from conqueror.
Issues of race and class have also been largely simplified within the coloniser-colonised dichotomy that besets Philippine colonial history. Outside of the officer ranks, the vast majority of military and naval personnel were recruited from amongst the poor and itinerant populations of Mexico and Spain. Methods of coercive recruitment were common, as were criminal sentences to convict servitude in the islands. Yet, the historiography reflects an assumption that Spanish soldiers’ and sailors’ interests were the same as those of the Crown – in other words, that they were merely ruthless and brutal conquistadores. This simplistic analysis lacks a consideration for the actual motivations of ordinary soldiers and sailors when making the Pacific crossing. It denies these subjects their own individual agency when confronted by oppressive and violent situations, not to mention their own conditions of unfreedom. For this reason, details of wage disputes, desertion, vagabondage and mutiny amongst soldiers and sailors have been largely left out of the existing historiography.
The paper that I propose to present at this masterclass will deal with these themes by looking at the experiences of soldiers and sailors in the service of the Spanish empire as a labour history. I believe that such a study sheds new light on the Pacific as a regional system. Spanish soldiers and sailors offer us the most ready entry point into a mobile Pacific World; by examining their histories we also come into contact with a variety of other mobile subjects including Chinese merchants, Islamic pirates and Moro freedom-fighters, Mexican convicts, religious missionaries, representatives of the Dutch and Portuguese empires, British pirates, and a floating maritime world which encompassed peoples of all colours and stripes from across the globe. The extensive presence of all of these people is exemplary of the fact that the Pacific connected all corners of the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Asia and onwards to the Middle East. As the last ocean to be discovered and navigated, the Pacific is the ocean which joined the world at the seams. It is here that we find mobile representatives of all corners of the globe interacting with one another. Furthermore, there is a great deal of commonality to be found between the forgotten histories of the mobile subaltern of the early modern Pacific and the unseen global labouring class of the modern day, which, led by the migrant Filipinos, dominates maritime work and domestic service across the world. While these are still thoughts that I wish to develop, it is my feeling that these often neglected, marginalised subjects of the Pacific have played a significant role in defining our modern world.
Yet, within a historiography that lauds the transpacific galleon trade and charts the exploitation of indigenous Filipinos in the lead-up to the revolutionary nineteenth century, very little has been written about the ordinary soldiers who acted as the agents of empire in this arena. Soldiers were nonetheless integral to the spread of Spanish control in the Pacific. They manned the galleons that patrolled the archipelago and transported silver and Chinese silks between Acapulco and Manila. They defended the islands against attacks by Dutch and Moro raiders, and they were essential for furthering the evangelization and colonization of indigenous peoples.4 Numerically, soldiers outnumbered other Spanish migrants to the Philippines by seven to one, with approximately 15,600 soldiers making the Pacific crossing in the seventeenth century alone.5 Their presence within the archipelago has left a lasting impact on the Philippines and helps to account for the high levels of cultural and racial mingling between Spaniards and indigenous populations.
These maroon populations had their origins in communities that had successfully refused to be incorporated into the Spanish sphere, yet they also continuously attracted a steady stream of refugees from Spanish towns and became a hub of resistance to the Spanish presence in the islands. This paper will consider the relationship between Spanish forced labour and tribute systems and the expanding phenomenon of maroonage across the Philippine archipelago. The history of specific maroon communities in the Philippines suggests that they indeed provided individuals with the option of escaping Spanish colonisation. Yet, more than this, individuals appear to have moved between maroon communities and Spanish towns many times in one lifetime, proving the point that Filipinos frequently oscillated between loyalty and disobedience, between integration and active rebellion. I will argue that the existence of maroon communities formed part of a constant and effective contestation of empire, limiting the scope of Spanish domination in the East Indies.
This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico, Guam and the United States undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and forms the basis for a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
This paper will explore the history of the forzado system between Mexico and the Philippines during the seventeenth century; it will detail the course and extent of this unfree migration, while also arguing that as a criminal justice measure it was designed to purge New Spain of its most unruly elements, putting them to work on the colonial frontier. However, the disobedient nature of these colonial subjects ensured an instability in the military ambitions of the Spanish empire, with many convicts continuing to engage in rebellious and criminal behaviour once in the Philippines. Convicts were known to escape and turn fugitive amongst indigenous communities, and to sow the seeds of mutiny once they arrived. Thus, the history of unfree migration in the seventeenth century Pacific is also one of transoceanic unruliness amongst a burgeoning New World plebeian underclass.
Philippine historiography has tended to emphasise the conqueror-conquered dichotomy. Driven by narratives of modern nation-building, this historiography ignores the internal contradictions inherent in empire construction, including the presence of loyal Indians and disloyal Spanish soldiers within the context of widespread resistance to colonisation. This paper provides a new insight into the way in which Spanish colonialism mobilised pre-Hispanic traditions in the service of the construction of empire. At the same time, the contradictions entailed in the use of rebellious subjects within the military reveal how tenuous the Spanish presence in the Pacific was. This paper is based on research in archives based in Spain, Mexico and Guam undertaken as part of an MPhil at the University of Sydney, and will form the basis of a current PhD at the University of Cambridge focussing on the indigenous history of the seventeenth century Philippines.
This paper will present new research that utilises archival records from Spain, Mexico and Guam relating to the migration of soldiers across the Pacific during the seventeenth century. By examining the social composition of the Spanish infantry stationed in the Spanish presidios in the Pacific and the conditions that they experienced during their service, I argue that the experience of soldiers bore little relation to the archetype of the quixotic conquistador. Far from the image of adventuring, fortune-seeking professional soldiers of pure Spanish ethnicity, the archival evidence paints a compelling case that the companies of soldiers stationed across the Pacific were largely comprised of half-starved, under-clothed and unpaid recruits, many of whom were in fact convicts transported across the Pacific against their will, and were more likely to be Mexican mestizos than pure-blood Spaniards. Thus, from the very outset loyalty amongst Spanish soldiers in the Philippines was problematic. Furthermore, the conditions experienced within Spain’s Pacific presidios were also catalysts for disaffection and soldiers were prone to desertion, vagabondage and criminality. Mutinies also periodically shook the presidios. Faced by disloyalty and shortages amongst their own forces, the Spanish in Manila came to rely increasingly on the recruitment of indigenous Filipinos as soldiers in the service of the Crown. These findings help to shift our understanding of empire construction in the Pacific, challenging the idea of hegemonic imperialism which inexorably divided conquered from conqueror.
Issues of race and class have also been largely simplified within the coloniser-colonised dichotomy that besets Philippine colonial history. Outside of the officer ranks, the vast majority of military and naval personnel were recruited from amongst the poor and itinerant populations of Mexico and Spain. Methods of coercive recruitment were common, as were criminal sentences to convict servitude in the islands. Yet, the historiography reflects an assumption that Spanish soldiers’ and sailors’ interests were the same as those of the Crown – in other words, that they were merely ruthless and brutal conquistadores. This simplistic analysis lacks a consideration for the actual motivations of ordinary soldiers and sailors when making the Pacific crossing. It denies these subjects their own individual agency when confronted by oppressive and violent situations, not to mention their own conditions of unfreedom. For this reason, details of wage disputes, desertion, vagabondage and mutiny amongst soldiers and sailors have been largely left out of the existing historiography.
The paper that I propose to present at this masterclass will deal with these themes by looking at the experiences of soldiers and sailors in the service of the Spanish empire as a labour history. I believe that such a study sheds new light on the Pacific as a regional system. Spanish soldiers and sailors offer us the most ready entry point into a mobile Pacific World; by examining their histories we also come into contact with a variety of other mobile subjects including Chinese merchants, Islamic pirates and Moro freedom-fighters, Mexican convicts, religious missionaries, representatives of the Dutch and Portuguese empires, British pirates, and a floating maritime world which encompassed peoples of all colours and stripes from across the globe. The extensive presence of all of these people is exemplary of the fact that the Pacific connected all corners of the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Asia and onwards to the Middle East. As the last ocean to be discovered and navigated, the Pacific is the ocean which joined the world at the seams. It is here that we find mobile representatives of all corners of the globe interacting with one another. Furthermore, there is a great deal of commonality to be found between the forgotten histories of the mobile subaltern of the early modern Pacific and the unseen global labouring class of the modern day, which, led by the migrant Filipinos, dominates maritime work and domestic service across the world. While these are still thoughts that I wish to develop, it is my feeling that these often neglected, marginalised subjects of the Pacific have played a significant role in defining our modern world.
Cambridge, 15-16 September 2016
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: SUJIT SIVASUNDARAM (CAMBRIDGE)
Within World History, the Indo-Pacific has played an important role in the production and development of scientific and cultural knowledge. Focusing on islands in the Indo-Pacific in particular, this two-day conference will explore their spatial and temporal role within the history of scientific knowledge production. Across these two disparate oceanic regions, islands acted as spaces of transit – which linked origin and destination for travellers, explorers and merchants – and also served as a home for indigenous communities. Bringing together historians from the early modern to the modern period, this conference seeks to explore knowledge production across geopolitical, social and cultural contexts.
We seek to address the following questions: What roles did Indo-Pacific islands play in different historical periods, and how did this change over time? How were Indo-Pacific islands connected to or disconnected from each other and from continental societies? How were islands explored and how was knowledge about them transmitted? How did islanders interact with Europeans and what impact did indigenous knowledge have on knowledge production?
We invite proposals for INDIVIDUAL 20-MINUTES PAPERS concerned with the following and beyond:
- insularity, connectedness and disconnectedness
- natural history, zoology, botany, agriculture and environment
- medicine and health
- astronomy, mathematics and physics
- geology, geography, cartography and navigation
- ethnography, anthropology and indigenous knowledge
- architecture, urban spaces and landscapes
- material and cultural exchanges
We encourage submissions from students and early career researchers in particular. Proposals concerned with the early modern period are especially welcome.
Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and a brief description of your academic affiliation and disciplinary background to BSHS.IndoPacific@gmail.com by 15 May, 2016.
Visit http://www.bshs.org.uk/conferences/other-bshs-meetings, where more information will be available shortly.
Dorit Brixius, Sebestian Kroupa, Stephanie Mawson
Conference Committee