Pedro de Alfaro and the Struggle for Power in the Globalized Pacific, 1565–1644 1793618593, 9781793618597

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Pedro de Alfaro and the Struggle for Power in the Globalized Pacific, 1565–1644

Pedro de Alfaro and the Struggle for Power in the Globalized Pacific, 1565–1644 Ashleigh Dean Ikemoto

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2023 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ikemoto, Ashleigh Dean, 1984– author. Title: Pedro de Alfaro and the struggle for power in the globalized Pacific, 1565–1644 / Ashleigh Dean Ikemoto. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “This book examines the career of Pedro de Alfaro, a Spanish Franciscan whose 1579 mission to China collapsed amid accusations of illegal entry and espionage. The author analyzes his remarkable assessment of China’s military and civil infrastructure, which had the effect of permanently changing Spanish plans for a conquest of China”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023007877 (print) | LCCN 2023007878 (ebook) | ISBN 9781793618597 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793618603 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: De Alfaro, Pedro, approximately 1525–1580. | Missionaries—China— Biography. | Missions, Spanish—China. | Franciscans—Missions—China. | Catholic Church—China—History—16th century. | Christianity and politics—Spain. | Spain— Foreign relations—China. | China—Foreign relations—Spain. | Spain—Politics and government—1516–1700. | China—Politics and government—1368–1644. Classification: LCC BV3427.D3435 I54 I2023  (print) | LCC BV3427.D3435  (ebook) | DDC 266/.20951—dc23/eng/20230405 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023007877 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023007878 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii ‌‌Introduction: “Not Worth Anything to a Historian”: The Search for Pedro de Alfaro‌‌‌‌ Chapter 1: “We Did Nothing But Dream of China”: Pedro de Alfaro’s Historical Context Chapter 2: “Bouquets of Silver”: The Spanish Philippines

1 15



41

Chapter 3: “The Spirit of the Lord Is Never Idle”: The Mission to China 61 Chapter 4: “They Can Put Us All to the Knife If They Wish”: The End of the Conquest Dream

95

Chapter 5: “King of the Ocean Sea”?‌‌‌‌‌‌: 1580 as Catalyst for the Pacific World

115

Conclusion: “Such Burdensome Labors and Sorrows”: The World After Pedro de Alfaro

133

‌‌Appendix: Timeline of Events

147

Bibliography Index



151

163

About the Author



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v

Acknowledgments

I have had the extraordinary luck to know many individuals and institutions who provided me with intellectual, financial, and moral support over the course of writing this book, a process that had many false starts and long pauses and that began in its earliest form as far back as 2009. First and foremost among them must rank my doctoral advisor and dear friend, Tonio Andrade, who has been my fiercest advocate, my sharpest critic, and my wisest counsel. His steadfast support and irreverent humor kept me sane from coursework to publication. He has my sincere gratitude, admiration, and friendship. Mark Ravina also provided criticism, humor, guidance, and friendship whenever I needed it—a groisen dank! And long before I even knew who Pedro de Alfaro was, J. Michael Francis gave me extraordinary advice and encouragement that set me on the path to writing this book. I would also like to give heartfelt thanks to Yanna Yannakakis, Matthew Payne, Karen Stolley, and many others at Emory University who provided intellectual support and guidance from the earliest stages of this project. Finally, my colleagues at Emory’s Laney Graduate School, Monmouth University, Gordon State College, Georgia College and State University, and beyond provided the engagement and camaraderie that is essential for any academic. Over the course of this project, I received significant assistance from many generous organizations. The history departments and graduate schools of both the University of North Florida and Emory University provided generous research funding for the preliminary stages of this project, as did the Lilly Library at Indiana University, the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, and Georgia College and State University. My research travels were extensive, but everywhere I went I met with caring, knowledgeable staff whose advice and assistance were invaluable. I would like to thank the staff of the following institutions for their efforts on my behalf: the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City), the Archivo vii

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Historico Nacional (Madrid), the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, the Bibliotheqúe National de France, the First National Archives of China (中国第一历史档 案馆), the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, the Arquivo Historico de Macau (澳門檔案館), and the University of Santo Tomas Archives. I would particularly like to thank the archivists and staff at the Archivo General de Indias and the National Archive of the Philippines Spanish Reading Room for their significant assistance in helping me develop this project. Finally, I would like to thank the editorial staff at Lexington Books and the reviewers whose careful work shaped this book in its final stages. As with all of those who helped and guided me through this project, any errors of fact or judgment are entirely my own. I would also like to thank the friends and loved ones who provided continuous support during this process—indeed, there are so many that I cannot possibly list them all here. Nikolas Dean, Mandie Dean, Marleigh Hunt, Michelle and Buddy Dean, Richard Degner, Mattie Legette, Glenn and Suzanne Ikemoto, Lindsay Hood, Emma Meyer, Jamie Holeman, Jonathyne Briggs, Ben Nobbs-Thiessen and the rest of the Atlanta crew, Artie Mondello, Terran McKanna, the entire intimitable Evilsizor clan, all of Dr. Francis’s “misfits”—thank you to each and every one of you, and to everyone else who provided me with love and friendship. Most importantly, my husband, Jim Ikemoto, has provided the loving home and partnership that proved to be essential in the completion of this book, and it is to him that I dedicate this work. He has been my steadfast supporter and advocate as well as my most trusted critic during a long process in which he often believed in my abilities more than I did. I could never overstate his unseen contributions to this project, and can never thank him enough for allowing Pedro to become an invisible member of our household, so much so that we are both on a first-name basis with him. One last acknowledgment, for someone who will never read this and in any case would probably not care to have my gratitude. I am thankful for the chance that led me to Pedro de Alfaro, a complex, irksome, devout, brave, and deeply flawed individual whose peregrinations I have followed literally and figuratively over three continents. Where Alfaro is today is unknown, but whether he was burned at the bier along some anonymous beach, buried in an unmarked grave, or stashed ignominiously in a catacomb, it is my fervent hope that, wherever he is, he has found a final peace.

‌‌Introduction “Not Worth Anything to a Historian”: The Search for Pedro de Alfaro‌‌‌‌

The survivors of the shipwreck staggered onshore slowly and painfully; some not daring to let go of the pieces of ship’s timber that had saved their lives, others swimming, and still others floating gently onto the beach, coughing and sputtering weakly. They crept toward each other in the hot tropical sun, rejoicing to see each other and cursing the foolhardy captain who had steered the ship too close to the shores of the Vịnh Bắc Bộ (modern Gulf of Tonkin), somewhere near the borders of Ming China and Đại Việt, that June day in 1580. It had been a terrifying moment, hearing the sickening snap of the ship’s boards on the reefs, seeing the color drain from the captain’s face, knowing that they were too far from land to hope for a quick rescue from the people of Đại Việt. As the ship began to take on water, Father Pedro had gathered them all to him, quickly hearing as many confessions as he could before making his own peace with God quietly, to himself. They had seen the waters close in over him, but the waters had closed over all who now trudged up the wet sand that day, receiving food and comfort from the local people who had run to the beach as soon as they knew what was happening. Father Pedro was surely among them. Perhaps he had already been whisked away and given nourishing food and dry clothes. Or perhaps the lone figure on the beach, kneeling in prayer, was the good friar who had soothed so many that day and eased the journey into the next world for so many more. The survivors ran toward the kneeling figure. As they approached, they could see it was indeed Father Pedro. His rough brown Franciscan habit was soaked through and spattered with sand, but the posture was the same. Besides, they could see 1

2

Introduction

his face and his eyes, tilted reverently toward Heaven, as if to thank God for his providence in saving them all. They approached him with joy, relieved and delighted to know that their spiritual protector had survived the disaster. But as they drew closer, they realized that the kneeling, the clasped hands, the eyes turned to the sky—there was something terribly wrong about it all. Father Pedro was dead. Pedro de Alfaro of the Order of the Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscan order, born some decades previously in Seville, had not survived the shipwreck that June day. He had been the custodio of the Franciscans in Manila (custodio, the term always used to describe Alfaro, is the Spanish equivalent of the Latin word custos, referring to a head of a provincial or sub-provincial order) before a secret journey to China that set in motion the chain of events that would end with his death at sea. His body was later reported by his friends and fellow Franciscans to have remained on the beach incorrupt for four days, but the earliest sources, from his mostly-Portuguese shipmates, reported that he was found immediately. They wept, and asked the locals of Đại Việt if his body could be buried there or over the nearby Ming frontier, in the land he had dreamed for so long of making his permanent home. But the locals, as eager as the Europeans to publicly mourn this man who had spent his last moments serving others and whose death had at least a tinge of the miraculous, insisted on following their own customs. Alfaro was cremated onshore that very day, in defiance of Christian ritual, and his ashes were “placed into glass bottles for veneration.”1 Other sources, written years later and garbled from hearsay, omitted the cremation and asserted that his body had been laid on display for the instruction of the faithful and then given a Christian burial in Đại Việt or returned to Macau. While that is unlikely, it is comforting to think that perhaps some of those glass bottles containing his ashes were brought out of Đại Việt by the faithful and placed in a crypt somewhere, to rest with the bones of other Franciscans. In death, as so often happens, Alfaro occasioned a feeling of bittersweet harmony and an outpouring of love that he did not generally inspire in life. Before his corpse knelt on the shores of Đại Việt, he had fled Manila in secret, been escorted bodily out of China, and was, at the time of his death, in the process of being expelled from Macau and was en route to a hearing in Goa on charges of espionage or something very like it. Two successive governors of the Philippines, the Captain-General of Macau, the Viceroy of New Spain, countless Chinese magistrates, and the mighty Philip II of Spain himself had all picked up their pens at some point to report on his doings, expressing sometimes their admiration for his bravery and determination, but more often an irritation and perplexity at his continual defiance of the laws of not only his own country, but those of Portugal and China as well.

Introduction

3

The primary goal of this work is to provide a full-length narrative of Alfaro’s journey, and to contextualize its importance in the larger emergent Pacific World. Alfaro had left his post in the Philippines, along with three other friars and a trio of soldiers, to embark on a clandestine mission to Ming China in order to convert its people to Christianity. On their arrival, they spent six months traveling back and forth from magistrate to magistrate, up and down the Zhujiang (珠江, Pearl River) and its tributaries, until finally being expelled. Alfaro took refuge in the Portuguese enclave of Macau, where he spent a few months before being expelled from there too. Before he died, he left a remarkable letter—the first eyewitness account from a Spaniard of education and prominence who had spent more than two months in China. This letter helped clarify the true extent of Ming power and contributed to the development of a discrete, stable trans-Pacific world in which China and Spain maintained a delicate, lopsided balance of power that endured in some form for centuries afterward. As with all human beings, no matter their time and place, Pedro de Alfaro did not operate alone. He was a product of his unique historical context, and that context was one in which his homeland was reaching the apex of its military power and hoped to push it further into China. My examination of Alfaro’s remarkable career found that his significance lies in three main areas. First, his short-lived career as an unofficial spy in the service of Spain places the unpreparedness of Philip II and his Council on full display— Spain’s attempts to expand its territorial sway past the Philippines into China culminated in Alfaro’s mission to collect information on Chinese military infrastructure, the indisputable results of which effectively barred Spain from realizing their largest-scale ambitions for Asian expansion. In turn, Alfaro’s inability to deliver an assessment amenable to Spanish military interests illuminates a second point, that Ming China was explicitly recognized as the world’s foremost military and economic power by no less an entity than Spanish Empire at the height of its glory. Finally, the thwarted clash of these two powers helped clarify the balance of power in the newly emergent Pacific World, a region that was a major aspect of the development of global trade and cultural exchange networks. This vast maritime region was balanced (albeit quite unequally) by the powerful Ming to the west and the aggressive, expansionist Spanish Empire to the east, united in this early period by the slender threads that were the annual Manila Galleon and a network of private, unofficial Chinese trading routes. Alfaro’s travels, undertaken between 1577 and 1580, would prove to be pivotal when placed in the context of these and other major contemporaneous domestic and global events. There was a precise, magical moment, for the Spanish at least, when a Spanish conquest of China was deemed feasible, and the fact that this moment happened to take place more or less simultaneously with the rise of the Manila Galleon as the

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Introduction

first major transoceanic trade route meant that once conquest was deemed unlikely, Spain was able to almost immediately profit from a newly tradefocused, though unofficial, relationship with China. This work presents the first large-scale examination of the Alfaro mission in English since Robert Parke translated Juan González de Mendoza’s Historia de las cosas mas notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China as Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China and the Situation Thereof in 1588, and the first to cover the entirety of what is known of his life and career. This story—the story of Alfaro’s arrival in China, penned by one of his companions, his report to Spain on the feasibility of conquest, his death at sea in 1580, and his subsequent fade from the historiography—is one of humbling and of thwarted ambition. In 1577, when Alfaro left Spain for the Philippines, he believed not only in the possibility of a Catholic China under the banner of Rome, but that he himself would be the one to begin the process as the head of a thriving Franciscan mission in China. His time in China was read about with interest by Philip II, who along with many other Spaniards, believed in and hoped for the even more unlikely dream of a full military conquest of China. Alfaro’s six-month sojourn in Guangzhou shattered both of these dreams, both personally and to his contemporaries—and consequently changed the course of Sino-Spanish relations in a pivotal moment in the development of a globalized Pacific zone. This thwarted ambition on dual fronts, and the entirety of his career in general, proved to be a symbol of the humbling of Catholic Spain in the face of the infinitely more powerful Ming China. Alfaro’s mission makes for intriguing reading, with its narrative of world travel in a precarious age, cultural clashes played out on a global scale, espionage, and trans-Pacific squabbling. Given its insights into trans-imperial and intercolonial relations between major powers in the emerging global era, it is quite historically relevant as well. However, it has gone somewhat under-examined by historians, despite a range of accessible primary sources. Little to nothing about Alfaro’s life before the monastery at Alcalá de Henares remains extant or available, but the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and the National Archive of the Philippines both contain significant information on his career outside of Spain, with smaller holdings in archives and libraries elsewhere in Spain and in Mexico, Italy, the United States, Macau, and Portugal. These sources have been invaluable in this research. Despite having some irregularities regarding dates and other details, I have also made careful use of Mendoza’s Historia de las cosas . . . , a papally commissioned compendium of the sum of sixteenth-century European knowledge of China that uses contemporary accounts of Alfaro’s mission as a major source, as well as Robert Parke’s 1588 translation of the same. The Necrologium of the Franciscans in China, as well as several official Franciscan records found

Introduction

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in Rome also discuss Alfaro briefly; overall, however, the Vatican seems to have generally left him out, as have the main Chinese archives. While there is some mention of him in the Chinese archives, it is limited to general statements about his mission’s overall existence, unlike the much more detailed information available in the Spanish archives. Most of the primary sources for Alfaro’s life and career are letters written by Alfaro himself, his fellow Franciscans, and the various officials and authorities who were in one way or another inconvenienced, fascinated, embarrassed, or disappointed by his actions and reports. Alfaro himself wrote at least four letters that survive in the original, including at least one written in China concerning the feasibility of conquest (“Carta del franciscano Pablo de Jesús sobre predicación en China y Filipinas”). Pablo de Jesús, his successor in both the office of custodio of the Manila Franciscans and in haughty, dramatic spirit, wrote even more, and Alfaro’s companion on the ill-fated China mission, Agustín de Tordesillas, the mission’s designated scribe, wrote the forty-page “Relación del viaje a China de Pedro de Alfaro y religiosos” that became the basis for Mendoza’s work. These letters are heavily supplemented by the outraged missives of two Philippines governors, Francisco de Sande and Gonzalo de Ronquillo, both of whom saw their authority flouted and their carefully constructed plans for further enrichment of the Spanish crown and their own coffers endangered by the friars. Philip II of Spain (and, after 1580, Portugal), the first bishops of Macau and the Philippines, respectively, and several other Iberians based in Manila and Macau also wrote directly about Alfaro and his mission. Other historians have used these letters in the context of mission history or, more rarely, in the history of European conceptions of China, but my work situates them in a global diplomatic (or rather, quasidiplomatic) context, and I focus on their applicability to the development of a discrete Pacific World and to the historiography of Sino-Spanish relations. For the portions of this work relating to transimperial relations, I used sources from the Mexican, Filipino, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Portuguese national archives and libraries, as well as from smaller repositories in the United States, Italy, Spain, and Macau. The secondary record, however, is more complicated. Alfaro himself, writing in 1579, closed a letter to a fellow Franciscan by ruefully claiming that he was “not worth anything to a historian” and thus would cease his missive, a prediction no doubt meant ironically at the time but one that would, for awhile at least, hold true. Alfaro’s large-scale presence in the secondary record essentially begins with this work—he, and many of the historiographical topics his career touches upon, has taken a path in the historiography as long and convoluted as the sea voyages that eventually cost him his life. Few modern secondary sources in either English or Spanish discuss Alfaro’s mission in any significant detail. In the long and fruitful historiography of

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Introduction

Christianity in China, his brief attempt at evangelization is of little importance, despite the fact that he was the first Franciscan missionary to visit for over two centuries. He was only in China for about six months, cultivated no known positive relationships with Ming officials, and counted no converts whose faith outlasted his physical presence there. As a missionary, he was an abject failure, which he attributed spitefully to the machinations of the Portuguese and Chinese alike but was in reality the result of both a lack of interest from the Chinese and his own utter lack of preparation or understanding of the local population and his relationship with them. Alfaro’s capacity as the first head of the Franciscan order in the Philippines earned him some brief mention in Félix de Huerta’s nineteenth-century study Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica provincia de S. Gregorio Magno . . . , as well as a few other nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works centered on mission history.2 One of the first modern mission histories to discuss him in more than a sentence or two is J. ‌‌‌‌‌S. Cummins’ 1986 book, Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish Expansion to the East, which examines Alfaro’s intense longing to save souls in China without exploring much of his mission beyond that—an important aspect of his career, certainly, but one that does not examine his pivotal role as an unofficial emissary on behalf of the Spanish. More recently, Birgit TremmlWerner’s 2012 dissertation, “When Political Economies Meet: Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644,” discusses Alfaro briefly several times, always in the context of the larger Spanish mission efforts in the Philippines and Asia (he is, however, absent from the subsequent monograph published in 2015).3 Perhaps the most interesting recent take on Alfaro’s historical impact is that of the Catalan historian Dolors Folch i Fornesa, who devoted a few lines of a 2010 article on the historiographical rehabilitation of sixteenthcentury Spanish views of Chinese language and scholarship to assessing Alfaro as a person and as a missionary: He was a Franciscan consumed by his religious zeal, more impressed by the fact that the Chinese were pagans than by their history and culture. Nobody invited him to go to China—he entered illegally—and from the outset he was a problem that the Chinese wanted to get rid of. His experience is interesting because he paid much less [attention to] official channels than his predecessors but his view is much more limited.4

Folch is quite correct in her judgment of Alfaro’s attitude toward the Chinese and his zealotry, which become more apparent in subsequent chapters. And she is also correct that he was a thorn in the side of the Chinese, that he had entered Ming territory illegally, and that he disregarded “official channels.” This work, however, argues that Alfaro’s view of China, once he was

Introduction

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able to see it for himself, was not limited—rather, that he was sufficiently clear-headed and sharp-eyed enough to pen a report on the fortifications, armaments, defenses, and population of Guangzhou that was so devastating to Spanish interests in its accuracy that it helped prompt a major shift in Sino-Spanish relations. His intolerance and unpreparedness, obvious as it is to even the most casual reader of his letters, did not prevent him from having a keen eye for the kind of information the Spanish needed to assess the feasibility of conquest. In recent years, both Ubaldo Iacarrino and Liam Brockey have written article-length works discussing the Alfaro mission in whole or part. Iaccarino’s excellent 2022 article “Early Spanish Intruders in China: The 1579 Mission of Pedro de Alfaro, O.F.M., Reconsidered” frames Alfaro’s mission primarily as a continuation of the 1575 Martín de Rada mission, the first official Spanish embassy (of sorts) to China, examined in more detail in chapter 2. Liam Brockey, writing “Conquests of Memory: Franciscan Chronicles of the East Asian Church in the Early Modern Period” in 2016, situates the Alfaro mission as part of a larger Franciscan attempt to re-imagine their lackluster early ventures into Ming China as a grander narrative of virtuousness. My work builds on and expands both of these interpretations, acknowledging both the debt owed by Alfaro to de Rada and Alfaro’s role in Franciscan memory while emphasizing Alfaro’s major long-term importance in the area of trans-imperial interactions (for a more in-depth discussion of these two works, see chapter 4). The reasons for Pedro de Alfaro’s relatively minor role in the historiography are complex and reflect not only the rapid pace by which Europeans acquired firsthand knowledge of China in the early modern era, but also the shifting priorities of later historians regarding mission work, diplomatic and institutional history, and maritime history. An observer in the early 1580s might be forgiven for thinking that Alfaro’s place in history was assured. Surely the feat of being the first Spanish Franciscan in Ming China was worthy of remembrance in and of itself, much less a Spanish Franciscan who had been in some way responsible for directing the ambitions of Philip II away from a conquest of China and whose voyages had recently been published by Mendoza to the acclaim of educated Europe! However, it was not to be. Within just a few decades of Alfaro’s death, his place in the pantheon of important European travelers to Asia was eliminated by major global developments. The Franciscan martyrdoms in Japan, the rise of the Jesuits in China, the Chinese Rites Controversy, and the arrival of the Dutch as Spain’s new rivals in Asia and the Pacific all contributed to make Alfaro seem less relevant in the years following his mission, meaning that when mission history became an important field of historical inquiry in the nineteenth century,

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Introduction

Alfaro had already been minimized in the existing record. Indeed, as recently as a generation ago the reader could still find new works on early modern Catholic missions to Asia that described the Jesuits as the “only missionaries in China” until the 1630s.5 Having already missed the opportunity, as it were, to feature prominently in the institutional histories of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, the restless spirit of Pedro de Alfaro failed to find redemption with the cultural turn as well. When the historical profession moved toward cultural history and related subfields in the mid to late twentieth century, a study of the career of a representative of the Spanish Empire and the Franciscan order who made important contributions to the history of diplomatic relations was not necessarily in high demand. The marginalization that began in the late sixteenth century carried over into the modern era, and it has only been with the rise of global history that Alfaro has had a chance to receive his historiographical due. My research is the first in the English language to explicitly focus on the revival of Alfaro in the historiography. There is compelling evidence to suggest that Alfaro’s mission marked a turning point in nascent Sino-Spanish interactions. Following the reports made by Alfaro concerning Chinese manpower and naval possessions, Spain implicitly backed away from serious discussions of an invasion of the Chinese mainland, something that had been proposed multiple times and had been under active consideration by Philip II. Most of these plans were focused on what Manel Ollé refers to as the conquista de china a la mexicana, a conquest modeled after that of Mexico and Peru in which a small number of Spanish soldiers (sometimes as few as fifty) facilitated local uprisings to help topple a central empire vastly outnumbering them. After Alfaro, these proposals increasingly either came from figures with no direct experience in Asia, featured larger armies numbering into the thousands, or were never considered at the highest levels of Philip II’s administration. There is relatively little current scholarship in English specifically focused on interactions between Spain and China in this period.6 Broadly speaking, the historiography of this particular topic can be divided linguistically rather than by argument—English-language scholarship has generally been concerned primarily with examining the rise of the silver trade and noting that Spain had initially hoped to conquer China, while the Spanish-language academy has concerned itself with assessing the particular timing of Spain’s rejection of China as a potential new colony. Currently, Manel Ollé’s excellent and provocative La Empresa de China: De la Armada Invencible‌‌‌‌‌ al Galeón de Manila is the foremost work in the latter “school.” He argues, with verve and skill, that the pivotal moment that made China a trade partner of Spain and not a new colony was the devastating blow to Spanish naval infrastructure represented by the destruction of the Grande y Felicísima Armada by the

Introduction

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English in 1588.7 However, I argue in this work that the date for Spain’s rejection of a conquest of China should be pushed back to the early 1580s, as soon as Pedro de Alfaro’s report on the military prowess of China vis-a-vis Spain had reached both Viceroy and King, and that subsequent statements about the ease of conquering China are part of a tradition of militaristic bravado rather than serious plans for an invasion. In terms of the ongoing Great Divergence literature, my work joins an ongoing wave of scholarship rather than presenting a completely novel argument. European conquest and colonialism has taken a blow in the historiography in recent decades. Historians writing prior to the mid-twentieth century often celebrated the rise of global European exploration while vastly inflating the wealth and power of Europe relative to China, writing narratives of the “great encounter” that portrayed Europeans as forces of modernity awakening a sleeping China. This concept was known as the “impact and response” thesis, and while it still has some influence in popular history, it has fallen out of favor in the past half century.8 While not all of these works actively promoted this viewpoint (always more dominant in popular history than in the profession), a cursory look at the book titles of previous generations illustrates this tendency—To Change China, Generation of Giants, the innumerable textbooks and monographs containing some combination of tradition versus transformation, implying heavily that Western influence was the catalyst in the latter.9 The past few decades of historical research have significantly eroded this image of active, dynamic early modern Europeans forcing their way through the seas to impose themselves upon a passive China, with the “great divergence” in Western and Asian power and wealth now considered to have occurred much later, in the nineteenth century—for many historians, at precisely the time Napoleon made his famous remark, beloved of contemporary foreign policy think pieces: “when China awakens, the world will shake.”10 It thus transpired that China, far from being in the midst of a centuries-long hibernation in 1800, had in fact just settled down to sleep. This work continues in this vein—it is, essentially, about the realization of sixteenth-century Europeans that Spain was no match for China and that the “great encounter” was not especially momentous for either party. This work’s historiographical background reflects this shift in perception, focusing primarily on areas that have been neglected by historians as outlooks and interpretations changed. Indeed, in this research, as with many other contemporary works, it is China that changes and transforms Spain, rather than the other way around. It was Chinese power that halted the advance of the Habsburg crown across the Pacific, and the Chinese demand for silver that powered a large proportion of Spanish finances from the 1580s to the chaos of the Ming-Qing cataclysm.

10

Introduction

Over the course of the past several decades, historians have increasingly begun to examine early modern history not in the context of continents or proto-nation-states, but in the context of maritime regions. This approach allows historians to examine interactions and developments as part of a larger whole connected by trade, travel, and cultural encounters with a particular ocean as the axis, rather than viewing them through the lens of one particular land area. However, the concept of a Pacific World has lagged behind those of the Indian and especially Atlantic Worlds, at least in the context of historiography. While Chinese-Philippine interactions in the South China Sea have often been considered part of the larger Indian Ocean World, they can also be placed in the larger Pacific zone given their connections to Japan, Spanish America, and the complex network of piracy that stretched along the coasts and major trade routes. And yet all the criteria that historians demand for the clarification of a maritime zone exist for the Pacific in the early modern period—permanent trade links that made a major impact on the areas involved, long-term migration, exchanges of flora, fauna, and natural resources between shores, sustained and permanent communication across the ocean—are there, albeit in a smaller-scale, thinner form. This work contributes to the development of a historiography of the Pacific World by showing effectively that the balance of power in the region between the two major powers had more or less stabilized, albeit uneasily, by the 1580s—that Spanish expansion had boundaries, that China was and would continue to be the dominant power in the Western Pacific, and that Spain, whether it openly admitted it or not, had a vested interest in the continued undisturbed functioning of the Ming economy, at least for a few decades. Alfaro and his mission are of historical importance, although that is as yet unreflected in the historiography—rather, this work is part of an ongoing wave of historical works emphasizing the importance of the Pacific Ocean as a distinct historical zone, itself part of the larger global history movement. Alfaro’s mission, though brief and unsuccessful, reverberated throughout a sizable portion of the early modern world. Spain, Portugal, China, New Spain, and the Philippines all found themselves scrambling to soothe their allies and assert their respective authorities in the face of an incident that was embarrassing and infuriating to many of the parties concerned. The flurry of correspondence between these respective territories in East Asia and the Americas suggests that a Pacific-centric geographical approach is more relevant to understanding this aspect of global history than more traditional Eurasian approaches or even that of the Indian Ocean World, relying implicitly as it does on the Eurasian landmass as an anchor of sorts. The historiography of Sino-Western encounters, for example, is long and rich, and has benefited enormously from the rise of global history as a major subfield. However, while many historians do emphasize the importance of the Pacific,

Introduction

11

a significant proportion of these works (particularly older ones) are presented from a Eurasian standpoint. In these works, the Dutch and Portuguese arrive in Asia via Africa and the Indian Ocean, and until recently Manila was often presented as relevant only as a link to faraway Spain. In the context of Alfaro’s mission, however, we see that the Pacific, not Eurasia, was the geographical nexus that mattered. This perspective serves to not only reorient the focus of global history away from the European powers somewhat, to bring the Philippines into greater focus as a place of vital strategic and economic importance, and to demonstrate the importance of Asia in the colonial Spanish political and economic world. Pedro de Alfaro was by no means a hero, in any real sense of the phrase. He certainly had admirable qualities—he was a person of indomitable spirit and fervor, and his sharp tongue and sharper pen make enjoyable reading centuries later. But he was not a hero, and was a pioneer only through an accident of timing. If he had not been selected to lead the first Franciscan mission to the Philippines and then in turn had the opportunity to appraise the feasibility of a Spanish conquest of China, someone else would have taken that place. However, he was asked, and the timing that allowed him to be the first Franciscan to enter Ming China also made him the person whose firsthand reports of Chinese wealth and power convinced the Spanish to permanently retire any real hopes of a conquest of China. It is this coincidence of timing, more than any of his own personal attributes, that makes Alfaro’s life and career deserving of historiographical rehabilitation. I specify that Alfaro was the first Franciscan to enter Ming China because he was one of many European travelers, with varying degrees of official license, to arrive in medieval and early modern China (see the appendix‌‌‌‌‌ for a fuller list and general chronology). The Franciscans famously evangelized in China during the Yuan Dynasty as early as 1253, when William of Rubruck arrived in the Mongol Empire, and included the career of Marco Polo’s contemporary John of Montecorvino, who became China’s first Catholic archbishop. After the fall of the Yuan and the rise of the less-welcoming Ming ended these medieval missions, there was, with the exception of Portugal’s lease of Macau, a gap of over two centuries until the Jesuit Francis Xavier died immediately before his entry into mainland China in 1552, followed closely by the month-long mission to Guangzhou of the Portuguese Dominican Gaspar da Cruz in 1556. Martín de Rada, an Augustinian, managed to reach Ming territory in 1575, while the Jesuits finally arrived in 1582, when Michele Ruggieri received permission to settle in Zhaoqing (肇庆). The Jesuits achieved their ultimate triumph with the 1601 arrival of Matteo Ricci at the imperial court in Beijing, following nearly twenty years of service and travels throughout southern China. Next to these luminaries, Alfaro’s career has suffered in the historiography, despite having spent the longest time in

12

Introduction

Ming China of any of these men until the arrival of Ricci and Ruggieri, and despite having a critical impact on trans-imperial relations. This work consists of five chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion, focusing primarily on approximately thirty-five crucial years of Sino-Spanish interactions across the Pacific Ocean. The first chapter establishes the historiography and historical context of the world in which Pedro de Alfaro operated—a world where China was a potent yet abstract symbol for educated Europeans and a prospective venue for the Spanish Empire’s conquest ambitions. The following chapter establishes the complex situation of the Philippines vis-a-vis Spain, Mexico, China, and the larger Pacific region, beginning with the large-scale attack by the pirate Lin Feng (林鳳, also known as Limahong) in 1574 and ending with the 1575 Martín de Rada mission to China, the first official interaction between Spain and China on Ming soil. Chapter 3 details Alfaro’s mission to China, its early triumphs, disastrous conclusion, and the sundering of the mission group, with Alfaro en route to Macau and the others returned to the Philippines, while chapter 4 follows Alfaro to his death and examines his assessment of Chinese power in the context of Spanish ambitions. Finally, the last chapter and the conclusion place this brief, failed mission in its proper historical context: as part of a larger catalyst marking a shift in Sino-Spanish relations that set the tone for an uneasy balance in the newly articulated Pacific world. A note on the terminology and conventions used in this book: wherever possible, I have strived for clarity for the modern reader without sacrificing historical accuracy. In this work, a sangley is, as it was in the sixteenth century, a person of Chinese descent permanently residing in the Philippines, whereas a chino is a person of both Chinese descent and whose primary place of residence was China. I have also generally preferred the use of “Mexico” over “New Spain” for clarity’s sake, despite the fact that the Viceroyalty of New Spain encompassed territory far larger than the modern nation, as well as to highlight the semi-autonomy of the colony from Spain in regards to administration of the Philippines. For surnames, I have followed established historical conventions whenever possible. Pedro de Alfaro is routinely referred to as simply “Alfaro” in the secondary literature and thus he is “Alfaro” here. All Chinese-language terms are transliterated using pinyin and the traditional character rendering is provided in parentheses. As the majority of the primary sources I used from the Spanish archives are available digitally, I have chosen to present direct quotes from these sources in English translation only. All translations are mine unless otherwise stated. Chinese dates are rendered according to the modern Western formula. Spain used two different calendars during the late sixteenth century: the Julian calendar (Old Style) was in use until October 4, 1582, whereupon the calendar skipped ahead a week and a half to switch to the Gregorian system (New Style), making the next day

Introduction

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October 15. All Western dates are rendered in their original format, with New Style implied for all dates following October 15, 1582. As the precise timeline of Alfaro’s journeys is the subject of debate, I have chosen to privilege his own communications first regarding timing, followed by Spanish administrative records, followed finally by other contemporaries. NOTES 1. This account of Alfaro’s death is adapted from Manuel Teixeira, “Os Franciscanos Em Macau,” Archivo Ibero-Americano 38, 149–152 (1978): 319–20. Although Teixeira was not an academically-trained historian, his work provides some of the best narratives of the early Catholic Church in Macau. 2. Félix de Huerta, Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica provincia de S. Gregorio Magno . . . (Manila: 1855), 8, 42. 3. Birgit Tremml-Warner, “When Political Economies Meet: Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644,” PhD diss., (University of Vienna, 2012), 111, 179, 222, 231. 4. Dolors Folch i Fornesa, “¿Todos los chinos sabían leer y escribir? . . . ” In Lenguas de Asia Oriental, Montaner et al, eds. (Valencia: Valencia, 2010), 72. 5. George S.J. Minamiki, The Chinese Rites Controversy: From Its Beginning to Modern Times. (Chicago: Loyola, 1985), 25. 6. Spain as a national entity is not known to have established formal diplomatic relations of any kind with China until the mid-nineteenth century, when it was one of many Western powers to enact the infamous “unequal treaties.” 7. Manel Ollé, La Empresa de China: De la armada invencible al Galeón de Manila. (Madrid: El Acantilado, 2002), 5. 8. D. E. Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800. (New York: Rowman, 3rd ed. 2009), 2. 9. Respectively, Jonathan Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960 (Boston: Little, 1969); George H. Dunne, Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (Notre Dame: Notre Dame, 1962). 10. For an examination of Great Divergence historiography as it stood at the end of the twentieth century, see Patrick O’Brien, review of Ten Years of Debate on the Origins of the Great Divergence, (review no. 1008, 2000) https:​//​reviews​.history​.ac​ .uk​/review​/1008. For a detailed examination of the military parity of China and the West, see Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).

Chapter 1

“We Did Nothing But Dream of China” Pedro de Alfaro’s Historical Context

Juan Francisco de San Antonio’s Crónicas de la Provincia de San Gregorio . . . written between 1738 and 1744, laid out a history of the establishment of the Fransican order in the Philippines to that date. In the course of describing the first Franciscans to arrive in the islands, he ascribed a strange vision to Pedro de Alfaro. In the Crónicas, Alfaro falls into dreaming and beholds two women, each holding a child to her breast. One woman, “rheumy and ugly,” represents New Spain. The other, “a very beautiful woman of singular pleasure, with her child in her arms, tender and smiling,” stands across a river, reaching toward Martín de Valencia, the leader of “The Twelve Apostles of Mexico,” the first mendicants to arrive there in 1524. Valencia had been promised a berth on a ship to the Far East, but that trip never materialized and he died in Tlalmanalco in 1534. This beautiful woman represented the unfulfilled past of Valencia and the future of Alfaro—and “more particularly, Greater China, prone and capable of receiving the lights of the Gospel, more so than New Spain.”1 It was to the fulfillment of this sensual vision, full of promise, that Pedro de Alfaro would dedicate his life and career. In this fixation with China, he was hardly a pioneer, but rather very much a man of his time. China was an obsession for educated Europeans of the day, regardless of an individual person’s particular area of interest—statesmen, courtiers, merchants, clergy, philosophers, naturalists, and virtually any other prominent profession evinced a deep fascination with “Cathay” and its almost endless list of wonders.2 Since at least the days of Marco Polo, China had occupied a special place in the collective European consciousness that often represented a strange foretaste of our own contemporary Western fascination and ill-ease with China. China was all at once an exotic symbol of wealth and a vaguely 15

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articulated threat, an object of intense curiosity that invited scorn nearly as often as it produced fascination. It represented endless possibilities for sixteenth-century Western Europeans. Spain in particular has a long and complex history of these dual feelings regarding China that has not found nearly as much place in the English-language historiography as the similar experiences of the English much later. Indeed, the extraordinary distances required for travel between Spain and China, longer even than the Africa-Asia route taken by the Portuguese, has often led observers to underestimate Spain’s interest in the Chinese.3 In the absence of regular firsthand reports, China could, in the imaginations of early modern Europeans, become almost anything they wanted it to be. China was at once the repository of unimaginable luxury and a land of infidels, a vaguely proto-Orientalist avatar upon which intellectuals, religious orders, and military leaders alike could fasten their hopes and fears. “Proto-Orientialist” indeed may not be sufficient to describe the treatment of China in sixteenth-century European thought—while Edward Said in his pioneering work situates the eighteenth century as an effective starting point for the development of Orientalist thought in Europe, much early modern commentary on China in particular has a distinct Orientalist flavor that reminds the reader of imperialist writings penned centuries later.4 This paradoxical view of China, in which European perceptions of the Middle Kingdom were the object of intense curiosity and yet had more to do with Western attitudes than any cogent reality of Chinese society, was the product of a world in which China was constantly on the periphery of the collective European understanding but firsthand knowledge was still very difficult to come by. When Alfaro was issued his East Indies passage permit, Europeans had been in direct contact with the Ming for sixty years via the Portuguese, who had launched the first European embassy to Ming China in 1517 and from there were eventually able to establish a long-lasting lease at Macau.5 Sixty years is a long time, but it was not long enough to sate the Western appetite for information of China, particularly since, from the European point of view, the Ming seemed strangely reluctant to allow unlimited numbers of Portuguese to pour into the country. The fortunes of the Portuguese in China swung back and forth throughout the century, but the overall number of Westerners permitted in mainland China remained very low until the years immediately following Alfaro’s death, when the Jesuits were able to establish themselves as missionaries in the final decades of the Ming Dynasty. This meant that, while the medieval reports on “Cathay” could be somewhat expanded upon and corrected by contemporary visitors, access to regular, factual firsthand accounts of China remained tantalizingly out of reach, even as Portugal was launching a profitable, if shaky, trade agreement with the Ming that allowed them to establish their base at Macau.6

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In 1578, the renowned Afro-Portuguese doctor and natural historian Cristobal Acosta wrote that “as for the greatness of this kingdom, the size of the population, the excellence of policy and possessions and riches and government this China exceeds all the other kingdoms of the world.”7 This was taken as basic knowledge by many educated Europeans at the time, despite the fact that relatively few Europeans had actually entered Chinese territory at this point and almost none of them had written extensively about China. Alfaro probably never got a chance to read Acosta himself, but there is little doubt that he would have agreed with Acosta’s outsize praise of China, with some reservations about the “pagan” faith of its subjects. As a Franciscan, China retained a special place in Alfaro’s dreams—the order had been instrumental in shaping European knowledge of China in the medieval era. They had established successful missions over the course of a century in the latter half of the Yuan Dynasty, and, while they had been depleted considerably during the Black Death and then driven out during the rise of the Ming, the historical memory was a powerful motivating factor in the motivations of their sixteenth-century heirs.8 Later, the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas in Asia reignited Franciscan fascination with their own history in China—now that Asia had been carved up by the Catholic Church, as it were, it was time to feast.9 Alfaro, like many mendicants of his era, nourished the pious dream of reestablishing his order in China. He was indeed far more interested in China than he had ever been in the Philippines—he hoped to at the very least converse with some of the Chinese residents of Manila, if not actually visit China himself. The Mongol-era Franciscan experiences loom large in the historiography of Christianity in China—indeed, virtually every available historical overview originating from the contemporary Order of Friars Minor devotes a tremendous amount of space to these early missionaries, followed by a relative gap in the early modern period before expanding again in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when the tottering Qing Dynasty was host to an influx of missionaries of all (Christian) stripes. This dearth of information for the early modern period in Franciscan sources is a reflection of the comparatively poor performance of the Franciscans in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties—the Jesuit order was able to establish a longer and more influential presence in China than the Franciscans, and the tendency of the Friars Minor to focus on periods of comparative glory in their own chronicles instead is quite understandable.10 This shift in popular attention to the Jesuits was noticed by the Franciscans at the time and remarked upon bitterly.11 Indeed, Federico Palomo argued in 2016 that Franciscans occupy “a position of subalternity” in early modern Asian mission historiography, pointing out that the order was inextricably linked with the development of imperial Iberian power and with some of the best European descriptions of indigenous life and languages. However,

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he also points out that there are more Jesuit records to begin with, and that Jesuit sources tend to be more accessible in terms of both comprehensibility and ease of location.12 In mainstream academic history, however, the order of priorities has reversed in recent decades—the medieval Franciscan missions to China have receded into the background of Sino-Western encounter historiography with the relative decline of medieval history as a subfield and the recent explosion in early modern history. This is unfortunate—at the very least, these Yuan Dynasty missions had a significant impact on the dreams and visions of those Franciscans who arrived in Asia over two centuries later, as Pedro de Alfaro’s career suggests. Pedro de Alfaro’s early fade from much of the historiography has spared his biography from being embellished with the kind of pious hagiography beloved by chroniclers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The researcher will find no tale of a young Alfaro defying his antagonistic father to join a religious order in the mold of Matteo Ricci, much less anything more extravagant.13 His life prior to his departure from Spain is indeed largely a matter of conjecture. Nothing of significance is known of his early life, except that he was most likely a native of Seville.14 In an era when reform-minded mendicants often re-christened themselves with new names reflecting their commitment to God and servitude—for example, two of Alfaro’s contemporaries in the Philippines called themselves “Pablo de Jesús” and “Juan Pobre”—this silence concerning his early life is not particularly unusual, even if Alfaro did not actually change his name. Alfaro, after his vows, was a new man, a man dedicated to God. The Franciscan order represented a wide array of possibilities for the devout young man of God. In addition to orders for women and laypeople and their respective branches, the men’s First Order‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ consisted (and still consists) of three main branches—the Friars Minor, the Friars Minor Conventual, and the Capuchins, each with their own approach to spiritual poverty and religious devotion. At the time the young Pedro de Alfaro would have been entering religious life, Spain was in the throes of both the Counter-Reformation and the ongoing Inquisition, offering dozens of options for public displays of fervency and piety. The religious order he chose was the Discalced Franciscans, part of the Friars Minor, known as Alcantarines in Spain and referred to colloquially (and in these sources almost universally) as simply los descalzos, “the barefoot.” In sixteenth-century Spain, they represented a vigorous new reformed Franciscan spirituality, emphasizing preaching, the frequent and sincere repetition of the sacrament of confession, and eremitism, manifested in outward shows of what many contemporaries considered ostentatious poverty, most famously in their total refusal to wear footwear of any kind. Alfaro was undoubtedly a man of zealous devotion, and it is not difficult to see why the descalzos appealed to him—they were spiritual, outspoken, and dedicated

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wholly to reforming the spiritual lives of the Franciscan order they felt had become corrupted over time.15 He professed his religious vows in Santiago, and became custodio of a convent in Galicia before arriving at Alcalá de Henares, first to serve as master of the novices and then rising to become custodio once again.16 He probably received at least part of a university education—many of his religious contemporaries did (his contemporary and fellow voyager to China Martín de Rada was proud to have studied at Paris briefly), and the monastery he served at prior to his departure for the East Indies was located very near and collaborated closely with the famous University of Alcalá. His hand is unusually clear by the standards of the time, reflecting perhaps long practice or an innate tidiness, and his writing shows a great deal of wit and intelligence. Additionally, Agustín de Tordesillas, the official scribe of the journey to China, quoted him as claiming to have visited Italy and Flanders.17 While direct evidence for his early life is now in all probability lost, it is likely, if not provable, that he was well-educated and well-connected to the powerful people of his day. His year of birth is equally difficult to pin down. In the 1570s he was presumably hale and hearty enough to easily withstand the difficult journey from Spain to the Philippines, and yet had the age and experience to have been made the custodio at the Franciscan monastery of Alcalá de Henares by the time of his appointment to the Philippines in 1577. And of course, advanced age was not an impediment to a major appointment in this era. Martín Enríquez de Almanza, the viceroy of New Spain at the time of Alfaro’s voyage, could frankly be described as desiccated, and he ended his career with a major promotion to the viceroyalty of Peru when he is believed to have been at least seventy. Moreover, when it was convenient for him to do so, Alfaro had no problem asserting that he was simply too old for whatever undertaking he was being asked to perform. At the same time, Alfaro’s companions never described him as being particularly old, and Alfaro himself referenced some of his contemporaries as being his elders. Presumably then Alfaro was old enough to be at the prime of his career, a man who could be trusted to carry out a difficult mission with both the tenacity and verve of youth and the wisdom and experience of age, and yet young enough to still have active companions from his parents’ generation. It seems correct then, if not precisely accurate, to place his age anywhere from approximately his mid-forties to late fifties at the start of his great adventure in early 1577, with a notional birthdate of approximately 1525.18 This adventure began with the issuing of a passage permit to the Indies on May 31, 1577.19 These permits were issued by La Casa y Audiencia de Indias, known to history as the Casa de Contratación, a state agency that, theoretically at least, controlled the entirety of Spanish travel and exploration worldwide.

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Established in 1503 and in operation until the end of the eighteenth century, the Casa de Contratación, among other duties, issued passage permits to all Spaniards seeking to travel overseas, collected taxes and duties, administered commercial maritime law, and maintained and kept the secret navigational maps that were essential to long-distance travel in the early modern era. Of course, these goals proved to be almost impossible to carry out completely, and clandestine travel in particular is a major feature of both Alfaro’s career and Spanish maritime history in general.20 The permit provided for entry into Mexico and, from there, across the Pacific to the newly established colony on the Philippine Islands, and was issued in order for him to become the first custodio of the Franciscan order in Manila, acting as both head of his order there and as chief assistant to the Augustinian order, at the time the only other order in the islands. The establishment of the Franciscan order in Spain’s newest colony was a major collaborative effort in which the Vatican, the Council of the Indies, and the order ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌itself were all heavily involved. Alfaro’s appointment was the joint enterprise of the Governor of the Philippines, Guido de Lavezaris, Pope Gregory XIII, and Philip II, having stemmed from two 1573 requests—one from Lavezaris asking for Franciscans for his struggling colony, and another from Antonio de San Gregorio, a friar in Peru who had wanted Franciscans for what is now New Guinea but had to content himself with the knowledge that they would instead be headed to Manila.21 The Philippines were a higher priority, both strategically and spiritually, with calls for more religious for the archipelago being a regular feature of transoceanic correspondence. The most recent request had been sent to Phillip II from Lavezaris’s successor Francisco de Sande in 1575, who asked specifically for Franciscans, citing their cheaper lifestyles as a plus for the administration, who would not need to pay for their board or housing. (After the request had been fulfilled, Sande, taking an intense dislike to Alfaro, would eventually regret his parsimony.)22 So it was that Pedro de Alfaro took the first steps toward what he thought would eventually be the culmination of his dreams. China would be within reach at last, to say nothing of the souls to be won for Christ in the Philippines. Becoming custodio could potentially be merely the first step in a glorious future where all of Asia knelt before the crucifix, a future in which even his potential martyrdom was a thing to be joyfully anticipated. Between his monastic cell in Spain and this felicitous vision, there remained only the journey across the seas. Alfaro was proud of the friars he had selected to accompany him.23 The number of religious who accompanied him on board that day in 1577 is a matter of debate. The actual passage permit specifies a total of twenty-three including Alfaro, but only lists sixteen by name, while other early modern sources list eighteen total. But regardless of their actual number, to him,

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they represented a special combination of verve and piety, zeal and intellect, sacrifice and acumen, that would be essential in their new lives on the frontiers of the Spanish Empire. The journey was nightmarishly long, the possibility of never seeing Spain again more than likely, and the infrastructure of Manila in the 1570s lacked many of the comforts considered essential by a sixteenth-century friar (already fairly primitive by many of the standards of the time), but regardless of these drawbacks Alfaro had no problem finding volunteers. The lure was not so much the actual appointment in the Philippines, however, but the islands’ proximity to China—a contemporary fixation that crops up again and again in the primary sources. With a joyful countenance, Alfaro left his monastery and, barefoot, traveled the 317 miles between Alcalá de Henares and the Franciscan monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas on the Isla de la Cartuja in Seville, where Christopher Columbus had stayed while planning his first voyage to the Americas and where many early modern Spaniards embarked for journey to the New World until the rise of Cádiz as the preferred departure point in the eighteenth century.24 Alfaro slept in the same monastery Columbus had and prayed at the same chapel before his departure for the Indies in mid-autumn, no doubt trembling with excitement at the prospect of traveling to Asia.25 The voyage proved to be the friars’ first major trial—they all became extremely ill with what seemed to be food poisoning and six of them were buried at sea without ever setting foot on Asian soil.26 The dead brethren were replaced with mechanical accuracy with six new friars while in Mexico.27 While there, Alfaro would meet the viceroy, in all likelihood a pivotal moment in his life. Martín Enríquez de Almanza y Ulloa was the fourth viceroy of New Spain. He was in his late sixties and had been in office for nearly a decade when Alfaro arrived in late 1577. A thin, gaunt man with a distinctly sickly visage that even the obligatory equestrian portraits could not quite disguise, he was in declining health but was still a capable and competent viceroy. (His wretched physical condition became one of his more salient characteristics as time went on; three years later, his new subjects in the viceroyalty of Peru would dub him El Gotoso, “The Gouty,” a nickname probably bestowed in light of his general terrible health rather than any specific diagnosis, as his emaciated appearance makes it unlikely he actually suffered from the disease). His time in office had been one of repeated success from the point of view of the Crown, if not always his subjects and the indigenous groups that remained outside the sway of direct Spanish control. He had organized successful military campaigns against the Chichimecas, established the Inquisition in Mexico, and provided medical facilities that were widely credited with halting a terrible epidemic of chickenpox that killed thousands of indigenous people in 1576.28 Almanza was an able administrator and, most

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importantly for the perspective of this work, a person who had demonstrated a distinct knack for anticipating the interests of Spain and acting upon them quickly and decisively. He was particularly interested in China. To him, China represented a significant global power that could potentially become part of the Spanish crown, and moreover represented a superb opportunity for him to cement his legacy by becoming one of the architects of this prospective conquest or trade-related agreement—he was open to both options. Indeed, he had already shown interest in a Spanish conquest of China prior to Alfaro’s arrival. In 1573, writing to Philip II, he informed the king that from henceforth, all Spanish ships leaving Manila Bay would “reconnoiter the coast of China on the way in order that more information of the land and its commerce might be obtained.” Guido de Lavezaris, then-governor of the Philippines, disliked the idea, protesting that it was dangerous, but Almanza, safe and secure in the Palacio del Virrey thousands of miles away, bravely declared that “nothing of importance can be done without danger.” Philip II had the final say on the matter, affirming his assent to the idea by simply noting and filing the letter without correcting or amending any of Almanza’s recommendations. (This was a common timesaving tactic for the king, and one his subjects were well aware of—in the same letter, Almanza wrote that since Philip hadn’t responded to an earlier query about whether to confiscate without recompense private cargoes of spices found in Mexican harbors, he had simply paid the cinnamon merchants the market rate rather than seizing the items.)29 Alfaro’s hopes of returning the Franciscans to China could be combined beautifully—from the Spanish point of view—with Almanza’s ambition for Spain while the friar visited the viceroy in Mexico City. While reporting on their arrival in Mexico, Alfaro mentioned that they “did nothing but dream of China,” and it is likely this interest reached the ears of the viceroy. They had at least one conversation there, the details of which remain obscure other than that the viceroy gave the friars two indigenous-made sacred treasures—a beautiful black jasper altar stone, and an image of Mary Magdalene rendered in feathers instead of paint. Beyond the gift-giving, however, it seems probable, if not provable, that Almanza at least hinted heavily to the friars that a clandestine entry into China would be amenable to Spanish interests. This scenario fits all too well with the known accounts of the Alfaro mission, Almanza’s ambition, Alfaro’s fixation on China, and the future anger of the Manila governors at having what they perceived to be their authority in Asia undermined. Almanza, an old man in wretched health, knew that he was nearing the end of his life, and perhaps he hoped to accomplish something truly lasting, something that would outshine all his previous efforts on behalf of the crown and perhaps reap significant rewards for himself and his family. The

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possibility of becoming the mastermind behind the first step in an eventual conquest of China was a perfect opportunity.30 For Spaniards of Almanza’s day, the conquest of China was no crackpot scheme but a central point of the Crown’s Asian policies—while not a particularly prominent aspect in the English-language historiography, the possibility of extending Spanish power into China had been a serious part of Philip II’s agenda since the founding of the Spanish colony in the Philippines in 1565.31 Access to China, along with India and the East Indies, had been the raison d’être for what historians knew in decades past as the Age of Exploration in the first place, and that fixation with Asian wealth and luxury products such as silk and spices had continued after Spain and Portugal had established themselves as colonial powers in the Americas.32 If the Spanish were able to establish a permanent base in East Asia, like that leased by the Portuguese in Macau, Spain could at the very least profit from close proximity to the Chinese luxuries market—and at the very most, if their luck overseas continued, they could fully integrate China into the sprawling Spanish Empire by force. The whole notion of a Spanish conquest of China seems frankly preposterous to the modern reader, albeit, of course, not to the officials concerned in planning it. But the modern reader can be forgiven for asking incredulously how Spain could possibly conquer China. Were they seriously planning to slowly ferry soldiers across the Pacific by the shipful until enough had gathered to mount a successful conquest (or pacificación, as such military events were euphemistically termed)? Or perhaps did king and viceroy alike dream of a pacificación in the mold of Hernán Cortés, who had won dubious fame throughout the Western world for his seizure of the Aztec seat of power using only a few Spaniards but taking skillful advantage of local discontent to gather indigenous armies against Montezuma II?33 Were the Spanish so unaware of basic facts about China that they formed these plans without considering the huge population of China and its global reputation? The answer to all of these questions is, with some qualifications, yes, although the actual players involved disagreed on the specific details, developing these plans to the point of near ubiquity.34 Plans to conquer China took various forms throughout the 1560s and 1570s, but they generally followed a set narrative: a core force of Spanish soldiers would gather in the Philippines, their numbers strengthened somewhat by indigenous Tagalogs or Ilocanos or sometimes even Japanese mercenaries, and proceed across the South China Sea to seize Macau, and from there pour into China proper, where they would no doubt be joined by discontented locals—a concept historian Manel Ollé refers to as conquista de China a la mexicana.35 While the premise that the conquest of Mexico could be repeated elsewhere is not unreasonable from the point of view of a sixteenth-century Spanish official, they were basing

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this premise on incomplete and sometimes outright false notions of Chinese power. Nevertheless, ideas for conquest following this narrative or one very similar to it were repeatedly floated by, among many others, the first three governors-general of the Philippines (Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, Guido de Lavezaris, and Francisco de Sande) and seriously entertained by Philip II. This 1570 plan, drawn up by Lavezaris and sent to the royal court where it was read with interest by the king’s council, is a typical one: If Your Majesty intends to take China, which we know to be very large, rich, and well-policed, and which has cities that are stronger and better-walled than those in Europe, [we] must first establish a seat among these islands [the Philippines], because we could not successfully pass among these islands and shoals [without doing so first]. The other reason is that to conquer such a great many people on land it is necessary to close relief from the enemy host in case of any attack from there, although the people of China are not warlike. By God’s will we can do so easily and without too many people.36

Interestingly, this plan immediately admits that Chinese military infrastructure, at least when it came to city walls, was superior to that of Europe. While sixteenth-century knowledge of China was spotty at best, enough information had trickled into Spanish consciousness for them to reasonably (and correctly) conclude that China represented a major adversary. Indeed, Lavezaris and his fellow administrators in the Philippines represented the cutting edge of Spanish knowledge of China at the time, particularly in an era when constant hostility and suspicion of the Portuguese may have made the latter’s closer connections to China seem somewhat suspect. In 1570, no Spaniard had entered Ming territory as an official representative of the interests of Spain, either religious or temporal, but enough was known via contemporary Portuguese accounts to at least accurately assess China as a power exceeding their own. Lavezaris was of course completely wrong about the Chinese lacking bellicosity, and as a man who would, by the time of his death, spend nearly four decades in Asia he ought to have known better than to write that. He was not the only one to fall under this misconception—Mendoza repeated a contemporary belief that the Chinese were actually forbidden by law from going to war.37 It was true that China had indeed just concluded a century of relative peace, but there had also been two Chinese-led massacres of the Portuguese during Lavezaris’s tenure in the East Indies, which ought to have given him pause.38 Lavezaris was not just writing to himself, as it were, either—his plan and the others like it received tacit interest from both Philip II and the successive viceroys that had overseen the first expeditions into the Pacific. Indeed, Martín Enríquez de Almanza echoed Lavezaris’s poor assessment of Chinese

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military might in 1574, when he claimed in a letter to Philip II that “the Chinese, in terms of arms and artillery, have little more than the Indians.”39 This plan was no pet project and no fringe fantasy—the conquest of China was a common proposal that was taken extremely seriously at the time, both in the Philippines, Spanish America, and Spain. These plans ranged from the meticulous to the fanciful, including one that proposed that Spain would only have to send about fifty or sixty soldiers to take the entire province of Fujian, with virtually all of these falling in some way into the Mexican mold.40 Indeed, the successful and relatively quick conquest of Luzon added more hope that these conquests could be accomplished, hope that was, ultimately, quite mistaken. Another plan was drawn up by Lavezaris’s successor to the governorship, Francisco de Sande, in 1575. This one called for “six thousand men with lances and arquebuses,” along with Japanese pirates brought on as mercenaries (Sande did not detail how this was to be achieved), who would seize either Guangdong or Fujian, where they would doubtless be joined by hordes of discontented Chinese and from there seize the rest of the empire.41 This, Sande reassured Philip II, would keep costs down, particularly since all the Spaniards involved would happily forego pay and provide their own arms, since taking China would be the “greatest service to god.”‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ It is reasonable to presume that a newly arrived governor of the Philippines was not actually fully enmeshed with the domestic troubles of the Ming Dynasty, but nevertheless Sande delivered his own interpretation of why they could not only justify this conquest in legal terms, but count on internal Chinese support of the type that had made the conquest of Mexico possible: The war with this nation is most just, for it gives freedom to poor, wretched people who are killed, whose children are ravished by strangers, and whom judges, rulers, and king treat with unheard-of tyranny. Each speaks ill of his neighbor; and almost all of them are pirates, when any occasion arises, so none are faithful to their king. Moreover, a war could be waged against them because they prohibit people from entering their country. Besides, I do not know, nor have I heard of, any wickedness that they do not practice; for they are idolators, sodomites, robbers, and pirates, both by land and by sea. And in fact, the sea, which ought to be free according to the law of nations, is not so, as far as the Chinese are concerned; for whosoever navigates within their reach is killed and robbed, if they can do it. . . . It is safe to say that, no matter what good we might do them, they will always give us daily a thousand causes for a just war. . . . if they are able they will kill me, and are seeking occasion for it.42

In reading this argument, one suspects Sande of piling on every justification he could conjure up, in hopes that at least one would pique the king’s interest. Indeed, the “pirates” referred to here were equally a plague to the Ming and

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certainly not acting at their behest. If Philip was not moved by the thought of striking a blow for the noble causes of freeing the poor and enforcing Catholic morality, surely the prospect of losing his new governor-general to the Chinese who were seeking to murder him would prompt some action. Sande even conjured up a nightmare scenario for the king—what if the unceasing rivalry between Spain and Portugal was transplanted onto Ming territory by Madrid’s wily Iberian neighbors? The governor related a chilling anecdote in which “a Chinese sold me a Portuguese broadsword,” warning that this could be an indication that the Portuguese were training the Chinese in Western military methods. In a line that reads simultaneously as deeply truthful and as though he composed it while practicing strokes with his new broadsword in mock battle, he wrote, “I offer myself to serve Your Majesty in this expedition, which I desire so much I cannot overstate it.”43 This plan as well drew on prior Spanish experiences in the Americas, although Sande’s argument—that the Chinese were rapacious and violent and thus deserved to be attacked—contradicts Lavezaris’s picture of a country that, though well-defended, would not put up much of a fight. Indeed, Sande contradicts himself multiple times in this same letter, going on to assert that while the Chinese “are all tyrants, who oppress the poor heavily,” they are simultaneously a people so “cowardly” that they are afraid to ride horses despite having plenty at hand. “In beginning a battle” with such craven people, the governor claimed, “the business would be finished . . . they are a mercenary horde, accustomed to serve foreigners.”44 Why shouldn’t those foreigners be Spanish? It would be an easy battle, even though, according to Sande’s own testimony, there was in 1575 not a single piece of working artillery in the Philippines and the small Spanish population made it “impossible to administer justice, such as execution for murder or whipping a rogue.”45 These inadequately armed, undisciplined men were surely capable of taking down the Ming, which Sande believed to be not nearly as large and populous as the local Chinese in Manila reported. Indeed, he informed the king that China’s population merely “outnumbers that of Germany.” (In 1600, the estimated population of China was approximately 150 million, whereas that of the Holy Roman Empire was about one-fifth the size.46) Sande wasn’t entirely ignorant, however. He had correctly observed that the Ming’s official naval infrastructure, while not nearly as poor as has sometimes been assumed, was no real match for Spanish power. If it came to a sea battle, Sande thought, Spain stood a chance. Having lain out his argument, the governor concluded triumphantly, “Does not Your Majesty think it would be well to hasten this expedition, and to do so at once?” It turned out that, at the moment, Philip II did not think it would be well, although he certainly was not rejecting the idea altogether. In the margins of the letter, he wrote:

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In what relates to the conquest of China, it is not fitting at the present time to discuss this matter. . . . [Sande] must strive for the maintenance of friendship with the Chinese . . . he must advise us of everything, and if, when the whole question is understood better, it shall be suitable to make any innovation later, then he will be given the order and the plan that he must follow therein . . . we shall see to it carefully that he is reinforced . . . men, weapons, ammunition, and everything needed for aid. The viceroy of New Spain will be informed of this, and ordered to attend to it very carefully.47

It was not a yes, but certainly not an outright refusal. The king’s response makes it clear that he was willing to proceed with an invasion of China provided he received more information that would make such a conquest not just feasible, but successful and profitable. In the same letter, he had no qualms about bluntly refusing Sande’s request for an encomienda, so it is unlikely the king was being over-scrupulous about unnecessarily alienating a subordinate. Explaining the course of events to follow if he approved a conquest was surely unnecessary detail for a polite refusal. Overt rejection or not, Sande was unfazed at the lack of approval, insisting at the time that a trade relationship with China was pointless since, according to him, the only thing the Chinese had that Spain wanted was iron, and the only Spanish product the Chinese expressed interest in was velvet. This was absolutely incorrect on both counts, and is almost certainly an exaggeration by Sande, never one to let the truth get in the way of his ambitions.48 Four years later and mere days before Alfaro’s journey to China commenced, he made his case again, explaining that it was an even better idea now, because the Philippines now had two hundred pieces of artillery and an easy foothold into China via the Moluccas, which remained unconquered by Spain but were within the Treaty of Tordesillas’s Spanish demarcation and therefore, he implied, basically Spanish already. Things had improved so much in terms of Sande’s readiness for conquest that Philip need but order the ships from Mexico if he wished China to be Spanish.49 Sande again seemed to barely notice that his proposals were riddled with contradictions, both in terms of other contemporaneous assessments and in his own letters. This is a common feature in China-oriented writing of the late sixteenth century. Another profound example of this doublethink that seemed to possess Spanish administrators when contemplating a conquest of China is that of a royal notary named Hernando Riquel, who argued in 1574 that the Spanish could take China “with less than sixty good Spanish soldiers,” despite also acknowledging that China was “well prepared for war.”50 This in turn illuminates the lack of substantive information about China available to Spain in the years immediately leading up to Pedro de Alfaro’s arrival in Asia in 1578—these plans were drawn up within a few years of

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each other, by administrators physically located in Asia and privy to all official channels of information available in the Philippines. There certainly was information available on China, as Manila was host to not only a large population of Chinese, but also intermittently to Portuguese arrivals from Macau, but this information was garbled, contradictory, and, perhaps most importantly, not coming from sources attuned to Spanish interests in Asia. Therefore, in the absence of the kind of factual, measurable data (or at least its sixteenth-century equivalent) that would force them to turn away from this plan, the Spanish took these plans seriously. Why was Spain taking this seriously, considering that they already had some idea of the extent of Chinese power? Part of the answer is lack of substantial, trustworthy information. Enough was known about China for the Spanish to be aware of some of their basic infrastructure, but anything more detailed was largely confined to the realms of rumor and conjecture. The coastal towns in Guangdong and Fujian, the regions of China Europeans were familiar with at the time, were known to be populous, wealthy, and welldefended by Spanish contemporaries in the Philippines, but what lay beyond that was more or less a mystery. From the Spanish point of view, it was entirely possible that this coastal region represented the apex of Chinese might, and that the rest of Ming territory was some kind of sparsely populated, poorly governed backwater with local animosities toward the capital (wherever that was) that could be used to Spain’s advantage. It might seem that, with the proximity of the Portuguese in Macau, the Spanish had a handy resource for firsthand knowledge of China, but contemporary Spaniards often rejected Portuguese information as inaccurate and perhaps even deliberately false. The tales told by Chinese merchants in the Philippines were little better from the Spanish point of view—the Spanish wanted eyewitness reports from their own people. For example, in 1572, a Captain Juan de la Isla was instructed by the viceroy to attempt a “discovery” of China, meaning a discovery of China by Spaniards, and three years later Martín de Rada proudly prefaced his account of his journey to China with the satisfied reflection that he could now lay to rest the confusion caused by Marco Polo’s accounts, by that point over 250 years old.51 And in 1583, Bishop of Manila Domingo de Salazar, investigating “impediments” to preaching in China, was specifically tasked with finding Spaniards who had physically visited China.52 These accounts make it clear that the Spanish view was strongly preferred to any other when it came to gathering information about China, but direct Spanish accounts of China were almost nonexistent in the early 1570s. The Spanish therefore were pinning their hopes of conquest on information that was, in most cases, shockingly outdated or woefully incomplete. Another, somewhat more disturbing reason the Spanish held out hope for a conquest of China is that, by the middle of the sixteenth century, the

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Spanish were well aware of the tragic consequences of their arrival in the Americas—namely, the hideous spread of Eurasian diseases that, when introduced to indigenous groups with no immunity, wreaked nightmarish havoc on the population.53 As early as 1548, Spanish estimates of the death toll from disease topped one million souls in some localities, and while many contemporary Spanish observers were horrified, others no doubt saw an opportunity for the expansion of the Empire if such horrors (or was the decimation of the opponents of Spanish power a sign from God?) could be repeated among the Chinese.54 Indeed, the indigenous Tagalogs and Ilokanos in the Philippines were already taking ill en masse by the 1570s, giving twisted hope to the supporters of this Mexican conquest strategy in China.55 As widespread death and disease had followed the actual conquest of Mexico, so it could in China as well, making the job of pacificación considerably easier. This is not to accuse these administrators of actively planning something akin to primitive biological warfare, but the Spanish awareness of both the toll taken by disease as well as the opportunities rendered by it was already well-documented, and it is not unreasonable to suspect that the same thought processes that went through the minds of some colonial administrators in Mexico and Peru were repeated in regards to China. However, the main reason why Spain devoted so much time to the unfeasible plan of conquering China was something very much akin to hubris writ large on a worldwide scale. It is no accident that the conquest plans were a la mexicana—the extraordinary career of Cortés loomed large in the sixteenth-century Spanish imagination, as yet untroubled by the rise of “ambivalent conquest” historiography and the concept of alternative forms of resistance. If the model of a small Spanish core of soldiers strengthened by local armies toppling the existing political system could be done in Mexico, and then repeated in Peru, why couldn’t it be transported across the Pacific to China? So the reasoning went, and in the proper historical context it wasn’t a completely outrageous idea—Spain was the military wonder of the Western world for precisely that reason, after all. To live in the midst of the era described by Geoffrey Parker as the meteoric rise of the “Western way of war” and its dizzying successes not just in Europe but elsewhere would certainly give hope to a contemporary Spanish observer.56 Why shouldn’t the Spanish Empire be able to, once again, send a small core force to an unknown land across the ocean and take it with ease and quickness? And yet it was hubris nonetheless—hubris was behind the notion that the Ming were likely comparable militarily with the Aztec and Inca Empires, despite a total lack of evidence indicating that this was so and indeed direct evidence from the Portuguese in Macau that would indicate that the Ming were a mighty foe indeed. And it was hubris that made the Spanish write as though the distances involved in traversing the Pacific were comparable to those of the Atlantic

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and would present no real additional difficulty in terms of communication and transportation.57 Had the conquest plan ever actually been implemented, the would-be Corteses would most likely have been quickly and bloodily routed. As for the idea of pestilence following the Spanish into mainland Asia and facilitating their conquest plans, this too was fantasy, though a completely reasonable one, as early modern Europeans were quite unaware of germ theory and the concept of a common Eurasian immunity outlined by Jared Diamond among others.58 This series of proposals for a Spanish conquest of China has not featured prominently in the historiography until the twenty-first century, perhaps crowded out by the emphasis on more successful examples of European expansion or the replacement of the United States in Spain’s Asian territories in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These plans were part of active Spanish policy in Asia for only a few years and were never actually implemented, and by the middle of the seventeenth century, even references to it had died away, resulting in their historical importance being downplayed or ignored altogether by earlier historians. When these plans do appear, the focus of historical work on the subject has been primarily concerned with pointing out and elaborating upon their existence in general, rather than examining them in a global or trans-regional context. However briefly these plans may have flourished, they represent an important aspect of the historiography of the Spanish Empire—the natural final step in a long road of Spanish expansionism that began long before the Empire itself was established. The history of Spanish conquest and colonialism can be divided into three geographic and chronological periods. The first is the combined history of the reconquista and the forcible absorption of the other Iberian kingdoms under the Castilian banner, a process that spanned eight hundred years from the establishment of the Christian kingdom of Asturias in the eighth century to the annexation of Spanish Navarre, the last independent Iberian kingdom besides Portugal, in 1515.59 These two long-term endeavors, undertaken by various Spanish kingdoms in various forms over the course of centuries, represent the first and longest phase of Spanish expansionism and include the Mediterranean incursions outlined by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229–1492 as representing the first heralds of Spanish overseas militarism.60 The second phase is the conquest of Spanish America, dominating Spain’s early modern history and marking the start of Spain’s brief status as a major global power. Finally, Spain’s entry into Asia via the Philippines and its attempts in the mid to late sixteenth century to expand their control of Iberia and much of the Americas into China represent the third phase, described by Serge Gruzinski as the moment when “both the Aztec Eagle and the Chinese Dragon” experienced “the first consequences of a European immoderation.”61

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Historiographically, the links between the first and second phases have been given scant attention until recently—even fifteen years after Fernández-Armesto’s groundbreaking work, Josep M. Fradera’s historiographical research identified the links between these two phases as being “imprecisely defined,” a fair argument given the overwhelming focus on the early modern period in Spanish historiography, to the detriment of the late medieval era that laid the foundations for Spain’s rapid expansion in the sixteenth century.62 Similarly, Jose Antonio Cervera Jiménez outlines a threephase expansion period divided geographically as an Africa-America-Asia sequence.63 My contribution to the historiography of the Spanish Empire and its overseas expansion is to not only elaborate these three phases further, but to make a distinction between the second and third phases, despite their chronological overlap. The conquest of the Philippines and the proposed conquest of China not only mark the culmination of Spain’s global ambitions but, within a few years, also marked the halting of those ambitions as the Spanish realized that China was too strong an adversary and their effective power base would therefore remain in the Americas and in the metropole, despite Spain’s successful conquest of the Marianas, Taiwan, and other island possessions and their campaigns in Cambodia and Borneo. The reconquista and the annexation of the Iberian kingdoms represent the development of the conceptualization of Spain as a world power, the conquest of Spanish America its greatest extent, and the attempt to expand into China its eventual failure and decline. Expansion into Asia represents a new and distinct phase in Spanish history not because the Spanish were able to repeat their successes in the Americas, but because it curtailed that expansion and forced the Spanish to not only eventually focus primarily on trade-based relationships with China rather than conquest, but to acknowledge, at least implicitly, that their colonies in the Americas represented the effective extent of their global power. This third phase, and in particular the proposed conquest of China, has not spawned any particularly flourishing historiographical debates in the Anglophone academy. Whether or not this conquest was a serious plan is not a topic of any particular dispute (it is generally agreed that it was at the very least under serious consideration by the Crown itself), nor is the question of whether or not the conquest of the Philippines was a deliberate prelude to the conquest of China (the primary sources are unambiguous on this matter). What is up for debate, and what comprises a major argument in this work, is the question of when precisely Spain turned away from seriously planning a conquest of China, an argument fully articulated in chapter 5. And what of China itself in this flurry of Spanish plans? We know quite a lot about what the Spanish thought of China in the sixteenth century, but what the Chinese thought of Spain is somewhat more elusive. This is not

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due to the old misconception that the Chinese cared only about their own culture and their own innovations, shunning and disdaining outside products and ideas. Travel ethnographies were a popular genre during the Ming, with youji wenxue (遊記文學), usually focused on the natural world and written in a narrative style, being particularly in demand. Other works sought to entertain and educate the reader about foreign peoples, such as the Dongyi tushuo ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ (東夷圖說, Images and Descriptions of Southeastern Barbarians), published in 1586 and including classic works depicting Javanese and Malay peoples, alongside some fascinating new plates featuring the red-bearded, red-faced Portuguese. These works could be of very high quality indeed, using empirical evidence and eyewitness accounts in an effort to provide accurate depictions of China’s ethnic minorities and neighbors.64 While the Chinese professed a deep fascination with foreign peoples, their dress, their customs, and their objets d’art, Spain does not seem to have made the cut in this early era, although they would appear later in the 1617 Dongxi yangkao (东西洋考). In the sixteenth century, however, their similarity to the Portuguese, already so well-known to the Ming, and their irritating snatching of the Philippines from right under China’s doorstep, seems to have sapped what little interest the Chinese may have had in learning more about Spain.65 When it came to trade, the Ming preferred to concentrate on domestic commerce and on those nations with whom they had already drawn up established trade relationships. Private overseas trade was considered a risk to security and stability, although in practice it was a vital part of the Ming economy. What appeared to be, from the European point of view, an unambitious inward-facing adherence to tradition was, in reality, a lack of perceived need to move beyond the boundaries of their already-profitable patterns, namely their thriving tributary system.66 The Ming tributary system (chaogong 朝貢) was a complex set of rules that governed both diplomatic relations and trade agreements with other states and territories in Asia. The rhetoric of the system, deeply influenced by Confucian philosophy, on its surface emphasized the centrality of China and the comparative humbleness of other powers in a system that to many European observers appeared stiff and obstinate. In reality, the chaogong allowed for far greater flexibility and recognition of other Asian powers than these Western observers supposed, and while the centrality of symbolic giftgiving offered to the emperor by a would-be tributary state was generally consistent, the real importance lay with the trade agreements that could be made later.67 This system, despite having roots as far back as the Han Dynasty, underwent multiple changes and revisions during the late Ming in response to the changing reality of the political and economic landscape—a reality the Ming were willing to embrace, but not necessarily in response to every event or every newcomer to the scene.68

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The historiography of the early modern Chinese tributary and trade system has historically been dominated by two events that have been subject to the deepest Orientalism by both the academy and by popular history: the Zheng He (鄭和) voyages of the early fifteenth century, and the infamous Macartney mission of 1793. The expeditions of Zheng He, in which the Yongle Emperor (永樂) sent forth “treasure voyages” (Zhenghe xiaxiyang, 鄭和下西洋) to project Chinese power beyond its borders and bring back envoys to be integrated into the tribute system, have been traditionally viewed as a missed opportunity, wherein a shortsighted China opted to ban all subsequent naval activity (the famous haijin 海禁 order, variously implemented, rescinded, and re-implemented throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties) rather than expand their knowledge of the outside world.69 The Qing-era Macartney mission as well long dominated much of the historiography of Chinese foreign relations in the traditional period, with its narrative of inward-looking Chinese scorning sound British proposals for freer trade (that is, trade agreements that benefited Britain more than they did China), all because the British were displeased at the notion of kowtowing to the Qianlong Emperor or explicitly recognizing their “inferior” status as demanded by Chinese diplomatic custom. This set the tone for decades of historiography, which presented Eurocentric views of China as a slow, languid place, static in time, without any real interest in anything not set forth by their own philosophers—a place stubbornly existing in defiance of all modernity that was destined to quickly founder when the West imposed modernity upon it.70 However, the reality of the Ming tributary system and overseas trade in the late sixteenth century was quite different, and recent revisionist historiography has illuminated much of what is now known to be a dynamic system of trade and diplomatic interactions between China and European powers in particular that allowed for considerably more flexibility than earlier works suggest. This is due in large part to scholarship in the past decade that approaches China not as a land-based power as it has traditionally been viewed, but in the context of maritime zones—primarily the South China Sea and the East China Sea, but increasingly the entire Pacific Ocean as well, a shift that my work builds upon and furthers.71 This revived Braudelian approach, emphasizing the importance of the sea itself as a conduit for the development of exchange and communication networks, has been termed the “new thalassology” by Kären Wigen in her 2006 article “Introduction: Oceans of History.”72 In the context of the history of China’s foreign relations, this school and other similar approaches open ups and illuminates what Mark Ravina terms “officially unofficial” trade relationships between China and other powers—trade that flourished and was discussed at “the highest levels” of the Chinese state despite the lack of a formal tributary relationship.73 This situation also eventually existed for Ming China and Spain—without ever

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becoming a tributary state itself, although it benefited from the tributary state status bestowed upon Luzon in the fifteenth century. Spain was able to enjoy a long and thriving trade with China, an aspect of the historiography that had been neglected until the rise of global history illuminated the importance of the trans-Pacific silver trade. These revisionist approaches to Chinese diplomatic and trade history, emphasizing maritime links and relationships outside the traditional scope of the tributary system, represent a further contribution to recent decades of research emphasizing the relative “openness” of China in the early modern period. The research of Timothy Brook, Dennis Flynn, and Richard von Glahn, among others, have positioned China as a state that participated in larger Asian and maritime networks, acted as imperialist powers in their own right, and reinterpreted reluctance to allow unfettered Western access to China as growing out of concern for European expansionism rather than a sense of cultural superiority. My contribution to this growing body of work is to further illuminate both the interest of China in conducting a thriving trade relationship with the Spanish Philippines outside the context of the tributary system and to point out once again China’s unrivaled place as the dominant power in a maritime zone in which it was an active participant. It was into this complex network of trade, tribute, and territorial ambition that the Spanish hoped to make a permanent mark. In the meantime, comfortably ensconced in his viceregal palace in Mexico City, Viceroy Almanza was protected by ignorance from the distressing knowledge that a conquest of China was unfeasible, and thus it is perfectly plausible that he imparted a request (or was it an order?) to Alfaro with high hopes. If this is in fact what happened, Alfaro most likely accepted the commission with delight, as it dovetailed beautifully with his ongoing fascination with China. As it turned out, he and the viceroy appeared to get along famously—when it was time for them to depart for the final leg of their journey, Almanza arranged for the friars to travel in grand style across Mexico in what J. S.‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ Cummins described as a “triumphal progress.”74 This progress carried them the 230 miles from the Zocalo in Mexico City to the port at Acapulco from which the Manila Galleons sailed. They were fêted in every town, meeting the officials and conversing with their fellow Franciscans whenever possible, who they fired up with their new approaches to preaching and their zeal for reform—they were in fact also the first descalzados to enter New Spain as well.75 They arrived in Acapulco in the first week of March 1578, entering the city in triumph and avidly curious to see the ship that would take them to Manila. Their feelings of victory upon arrival were not misplaced, though they may have been preliminary—Spain was at the height of its wealth and power, with gold and silver pouring in from across the Americas and with direct rule over a large part of continental Europe. The establishment of a Spanish Franciscan

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order in Manila, on the other side of the world, on the very doorstep of China, was but one more manifestation of this power, and Alfaro and his friars felt it keenly. Manila itself was a new world, a very recent addition to the Spanish crown, and as excited about China as they all were, they were scarcely less impatient to see the Philippines. NOTES 1. Juan Francisco de San Antonio, Chronicas de la Apostolica Provincia de S. Gregorio, Papa, el Magno, Doctor de la Iglesia, de Religiosos Descalzos de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las Islas Philipinas, China, Japón &c, (Manila: Imprenta de San Gregorio, 1738–1741) Lilly Library, 17. 2. Both the terms Cathay and China were in use in the sixteenth century, although Martín de Rada provided the final identification of the two as referring to the same country in his 1575 mission. Jose Antonio Cervera Jiménez, Tras el Sueño de China: Agustínos y dominicos en Asia oriental a finales del siglo XVI, (Madrid: Plaza y Valdes, 2013), 194. 3. Robert Richmond Ellis, They Need Nothing: Hispanic-Asian Encounters of the Colonial Period, (Toronto: Toronto, 2012), 67. 4. Edward Said, Orientalism. (New York: Vintage, 1994), 3. See Ellis, They Need Nothing, 71 for “early Orientalism” in the context of China. 5. A. J. R.‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ Russell-Wood, The Portuguese Empire, 1415–1808: A World on the Move, (Baltimore: Hopkins, 1992), 22. 6. Russell-Wood, The Portuguese Empire, 18, 44. 7. Cristobal Acosta, Tractado de las Drogas. . . . (Burgos, 1578), 250. 8. Nicholas Standaert, et al, eds. The Handbook of Christianity in China, Vol 1. (Leiden: Brill, 2000), ix. 9. Jonathan Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds, (New York: Norton, 1998), 19–20. 10. For an excellent overview of the topic, see Paul A. Rule, “The Chinese Rites Controversy: A Long-Lasting Controversy in Sino-Western Cultural History,” Pacific Rim Report, No. 32 (Feb 2004), n.p. 11. Liam Brockey, “Conquests of Memory: Franciscan Chronicles of the East Asian Church in the Early Modern Period.” Culture &Amp; History Digital Journal, 5(2), e015 (2016). https:​//​doi​.org​/10​.3989​/chdj​.2016​.015, 2–3. 12. Federico Palomo, “Written Empires: Franciscans, Texts, and the Making of Modern Iberian Empires,” Culture and History Digital Journal Vol. 5, No. 2 (2016): 1–3. 13. Joseph Needham, Civilization in China Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1959), 170. 14. His companion Agustín de Tordesillas described him as a Sevillano in his account of the journey. AGI, Patronato, 46, R.11.

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15. Stephen Turley, Franciscan Spirituality and Mission In New Spain, 1524–1599: Conflict Beneath the Sycamore Tree (New York: Ashgate, 2014), 63, 152–53. 16. Eusebio Gómez Platero, Catalogo Biografico de los Religiosos Franciscanos de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Filipinas desde 1577 en que llegaron los primeros hasta las de nuestras días, (Biblioteca Digital Hispanía, 1880), Ebook. 17. AGI, Patronato, 46, R.11. 18. The extensive online genealogical databases operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FamilySearch) lists several men named “Pedro de Alfaro” with birth dates of 1513, 1516, 1522, 1523, and 1524. While there is no conclusive proof to link any of these men with our Pedro de Alfaro (the full baptismal records both in FamilySearch and in Spain being unavailable at the time of research), it suggests that the age range proposed here may be roughly accurate. 19. Luis Romera Iruela and Maria del Carmen Galbis Díez, eds, Catálogo de pasajeros a Indias durante los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII, Vol. V, (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1980), 676. 20. Evonne Levy et al, Lexikon of the Hispanic Baroque: Transatlantic Exchange and Transformation, (Austin: Texas, 2014), 24–26. 21. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4. 22. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4. 23. For a stated total count of 23 and a real total count of 16: Romero and Díez, Catálogo de pasajeros. . . . 1577, p. 676. For a total count of 18: “Entrada de la Seráphica Religión de Nuestro P.S. Francisco en las Islas Filipinas,” in Archivo del Bibliófilo Filipino, ed. W.E. Retana (Madrid, 1895), 24. 24. Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables, ritos, y costumbres del gran Reyno de la China . . . (Rome: Grassi, 1585), n.p. Regarding his travel from Madrid to Seville: he may have traveled by barge or horseback part of the way, but such long barefoot journeys were a common show of piety for contemporary Franciscans. Turley, 23. 25. Mendoza, n.p. 26. “Entrada . . . ,” 25. 27. “Entrada . . . ,” 25. 28. Alejandro Caneque, The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Mexico. (New York: Routledge, 2004), 54–56. 29. “Letter from the Viceroy of New Spain to Felipe II,” BRPI Vol 3. 30. J.S. Cummins, “Two Missionary Methods in China: Mendicants and Jesuits,” Archivo Ibero-Americano Madrid (1978, Vol 38, Num 149–52) pp. 33–108. Almanza was indeed rewarded for a job well done, though not because he was the successful architect of a conquest of China—he died at the head of the wealthier Viceroyalty of Peru. Caneque, 31. 31. Ollé, Empresa, 7–8. 32. Ellis, They Need Nothing, 68. 33. The ultimate ambivalence of Cortés’s career in Mexico, while a significant aspect of Latin American historiography, is not really relevant in this context—what is important here is that Mexico was formally integrated into the Spanish Empire. 34. Ellis, They Need Nothing, 67–68.

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35. Ollé, Empresa . . . , 42. 36. AGI, Filipinas, 79, R.1. 37. Mendoza, n.p. 38. Chinese peace: Andrade, Gunpowder Age, 5; Portuguese attacks: Russell-Wood, 79. The survivors of these two massacres, at Ningbo in 1542 and Quanzhou in 1549 respectively, were among the founders of the Portuguese settlement at Macau. 39. AGI, México, 19, N.142. 40. John Headley, “Spain’s Asian Presence, 1565–1590: Structures and Aspirations.” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Nov., 1995): 637. 41. Serge Gruzinski, The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century. (Cambridge: Polity, 2014), 220. From AGI, Filipinas, 6, R.3, N.31. 42. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4. Also in Gruzinski, Eagle and the Dragon, 220. When referring to “pirates,” Sande is actually referring to wokou piracy, which was emphatically not part of the Ming system and was indeed beyond Ming control at the time. 43. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4. 44. “Relation . . . ,” BRPI Vol. 4. The foreigners Sande refers to here are probably the previous Mongol Dynasty, as a large part of the letter was devoted to explaining the difference between the Yuan and Ming. 45. “Relation . . . ,” BRPI Vol. 4. 46. Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census, (New York: Edwin Meller, 1987), 280. 47. “Relation . . . ,” BRPI Vol. 4. 48. “Relation . . . ,” BRPI Vol. 4. 49. “Letter from Francisco de Sande to Felipe II,” BRPI Vol 4. 50. Ubaldo Iaccarino, “Conquistadors of the Celestial Empire: Spanish Policy Towards China at the end of the Sixteenth Century” in Robert J. Antony and Angela Schottenhammer, eds, Beyond the Silk Roads: New Discourses on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime History (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017), 82–83. 51. AGI, Patronato, 24, R.4. The use of the word “discovery” should not be taken to mean that the Spanish literally believed that no one else had been to China. See also BNF, Fonds Espagnol 325.9. 52. AGI, Patronato, 25, R. 8. 53. Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, (Westport: Praeger, 2003 ed), 37–38. 54. Crosby, 45. The estimate of one million deaths in this instance is for Santo Domingo. 55. Linda Newson, Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines, (Honolulu: Hawaii, 2009), 22. 56. Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800, (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1996), 2–4. 57. This is not meant to imply that the Aztec and Inca were “backwards” in any way; only to point out that the relative size and power of the American empires was easily dwarfed by that of the Ming.

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58. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, (New York: Norton, 1997), 195–201. 59. John Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469–1716, (New York: Penguin, rev. 2nd ed, 2002), 2, 9. The concept of a reconquista has rightly come under scrutiny by historians, I retain the term here to illustrate Spain’s ambitions for expansion. 60. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229–1492. (Philadelphia: Penn, 1987), 3. 61. Gruzinski, The Eagle . . . , 1. 62. Josep M. Fradera, “Spanish Colonial Historiography: Everyone in Their Place.” Social History Vol. 29 No. 3 (August 2004): 369. 63. Jose Antonio Cervera Jiménez, Tras el Sueño de China: Agustínos y dominicos en Asia oriental a finales del siglo XVI, (Madrid: Plaza y Valdes, 2013), 57. 64. Joan-Pau Rubiés and Manel Ollé, “The Comparative History of a Genre: The Production and Circulation of Books on Travel and Ethnographies in Early Modern Europe and China,” Modern Asian Studies (Aug 2015): 2–3, 20, 42. 65. Aibek Yesbolov, “Relations Between Ming China and Spain during the Spanish Colonial Period in the Philippines: An Analysis of Berthold Laufer’s The Relations of the Chinese to the Philippine Islands,” IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 20:4 Ver. IV (Apr. 2015): 82. 66. Birgit Tremml-Werner, Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644: Local Comparisons and Global Connections (Chicago: Chicago, 2015), 57–63. 67. Yuan-kang Wang, “Explaining the Tributary System: Power, Confucianism, and War in Medieval East Asia,” Journal of East Asian Studies 13 (2013), 209–11. 68. John E. Wills, ed, Past and Present in China’s Foreign Policy: From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise,” (Portland: Merwin Asia, 2010), xi. 69. John Fairbank, “Tributary Trade and China’s Relations with the West,” Far Eastern Quarterly 1:2 (1942), 141–42, is representative of this viewpoint, calling Zheng He’s journeys the “high point” of Chinese overseas interactions. Other twentieth-century historians who supported this interpretation include Fairbank’s collaborator S.Y. Teng, Owen Lattimore, and William Woodville Rockhill. 70. This is of course a very simplified version of the events of the Macartney embassy, but it is this simplification that has been handed down in not only the historiography of Sino-Western interactions, but in popular conceptions and pedagogy on the subject as well. For more information on the Macartney mission and its outsize influence on the historiography of China’s interactions with the West, see James L. Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793, (Durham: Duke, 1995), especially 84–110, 226–44. 71. Harriet Zurndorfer, “Oceans of History, Seas of Change . . .” International Journal of Asian Studies, 13, 1 (2016), 61–94, n.p. 72. Kären Wigen, “Introduction: Oceans of History.” American Historical Review 111.3 (2006), 718. 73. Mark Ravina, “Japan in the Chinese Tributary System.” In Tonio Andrade and Xing Hang, eds, Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550–1700. (Hawaii: Honolulu, 2016), 359.

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74. J. S.‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ Cummins, “Two Missionary Methods in China: Mendicants and Jesuits,” Archivo Ibero-Americano Madrid 1978, Vol 38, Num 149–52, pp. 33–108, 41. 75. Turley, 154.

Chapter 2

“Bouquets of Silver” The Spanish Philippines

It is tempting to think that Pedro de Alfaro and his companions were perhaps a bit disappointed upon their arrival in Manila. In the 1570s, Manila was a settlement of bamboo, wood, and thatched roofs made of cane palms, with ethnic demarcations designating where Spaniards could live and very few of the familiar sights or comforts of Spanish or even Mexican towns and cities— a classic frontier town. But they may well have been thrilled at their new home, for Spaniards and indigenous people were not the only residents of Manila in the 1570s. Also present were Chinese traders from Fujian, known to the Spanish as sangleyes.1 In time, all Chinese residents in the Philippines became known as sangleyes to the Spanish, with the term mestizos de sangley designating persons of mixed indigenous and Chinese ancestry. With the establishment of the Spanish in Cebú and then in what quickly became the settlement of Manila, large numbers of sangley traders arrived, keen to trade with the Spanish, an enthusiasm that was shared by the colonial officials, at least in the beginning.2 These Fujianese quickly outpaced the Spanish population of the islands—Lucille Chia estimates that by the end of the sixteenth century, over twenty thousand Chinese traders and immigrants dwelled in Luzon, ten times the Spanish population. (These Chinese were, after 1581, confined to a specific area of Manila known as the Parián, which would, in time, become the world’s first Chinatown.)3 The sangleyes would, from the Spanish point of view, alternate between being valued trade partners and dangerous enemies, culminating in the famous Sangley Rebellion of 1603 in which, according to popular accounts, twenty thousand Chinese were killed by a mixed force of Spanish, Japanese, and indigenous troops.4 This ethnically heterogenous view of sixteenth-century Manila has not, until recently, been well-represented in the historiography. In reading early to mid twentieth-century works on the Philippines, particularly ones published by authors outside the country, the reader could sometimes be forgiven for 41

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not realizing that there was a Chinese population in Manila at all, so heavily did the research focus on the Spanish and, to a lesser degree, the indigenous populations. This was partially the result of Eurocentric bias and, as Lucille Chia among others points out, the result of difficulties in the primary source material. The Chinese did not formally recognize overseas immigration in this period, and Spanish sources were so recalcitrant about informal trade activities and rendered Chinese names so poorly that gleaning information was difficult.5 For example, the groundbreaking work of Pierre Chaunu, quantifying Spanish trade in the Philippines and across the Pacific into Mexico, leaves out this aspect of trade as he was reliant on official records, although the work of Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel and others builds upon it.6 As so often in the case with historiographical subjects in this work, the rise of global history proved helpful. Placed in the context of the history of globalization, this Chinese population has become the focus of significant new works by Ubaldo Iaccarrino, Birgit Tremml-Werner, and Ryan Crewe, among others.7 These works emphasize not only the importance of the Chinese emigrant community in Manila to Spanish trade in the years before (and indeed during) the rise of the trans-Pacific silver trade, but situate this Chinese population as crucial players in the development of permanent global trade and cultural links across the Pacific and into East Asia. Until Alfaro’s arrival, the sole representatives of the Catholic Church were the Augustinians, and, despite the tightening grip of Spanish authority and the beginning of waves of epidemics among the indigenous populations, temporal control over the area beyond Cebú and Manila Bay was nebulous at best. Indeed, Fidel Villaroel dates the effective Spanish sovereignty of the territory to 1599, when a Royal Cedula (decree) provided for restitution from earlier abuses that resulted in several major indigenous groups agreeing to formally recognize Spanish power.8 However, many outlying islands and the interior areas of major islands resisted or simply never encountered colonial control—even today there are parts of the country (especially in Mindanao) that have successively ignored the territorial claims of Spain, Britain, the United States, Japan, and the contemporary independent government. When Alfaro arrived, predating the 1599 decree by over two decades, colonial authority was at once the source of terrible abuses, and yet had only a slender grasp of effective authority. The first decade of permanent Spanish presence in the Philippines, in the mold of many new colonies, had been marked by violence and instability, and would indeed continue to be throughout the colonial period as virtually every power in the region attacked or seriously threatened the islands.9 In fact, Pedro de Alfaro would, upon his arrival, be greeted by a newly fortified city as a result of these dangers. Manila was still a town made mostly out of wood and palm, but in the mid 1570s the colonial administration ordered the

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construction of a thicker stone wall as well as additional guardhouses and earthen breastworks about the Intramuros section where the small Spanish population lived. This flurry of fortification had been conducted after a terrifying attack and besieging of Manila by the pirate Lin Feng (林鳳), known in Spanish as Limahong or Limajon, in 1574.10 Lin Feng was a notorious pirate whose predations along the South China Sea had made him feared throughout the region.11 Before his 1574 attack, he had had a price put on his head by two successive Chinese emperors after years of notorious violence and plunder in his repeated raids of ports in Guangdong and Fujian, and as a result had fled to a remote area of Luzon. In the 1570s this part of the island was not yet under Spanish control, and he holed up there with a fleet of nearly one hundred ships and three thousand men. A chance capture of a pair of unlucky Chinese merchant ships led to the tantalizing information that Manila, primitive though its urban development was, was not only the destination of many ships laden with silks and other luxuries, but was very poorly protected indeed, certainly by Chinese standards at least. Lin Feng, ever resourceful, set off at once for Intramuros. In a fascinating anecdote, the pirate’s forces first encountered the home of the maestre de campo Martín de Goiti, located outside of Intramuros as part of the watch. The Basque-born Goiti, who had been one of the more prominent conquistadores in the Spanish seizure of Luzon, was in his forties at the time and was already the proud grandfather of a Tagalog “prince,” born to his daughter and her husband, the heir of the last paramount chief of Tonda. On this day Goiti was considerably less impressive, as he was lying in bed ill when he heard the terrified shouts of the locals. When told the Chinese were coming, he brushed them off, accusing them of drunkenness, a decision he would have little time to regret. His unnamed Mexica wife was more astute. She leapt up, put on a “child’s helmet,” and leaned out the window. Seeing Lin Feng’s men approaching her home, she shrieked at them in Spanish that they were “dogs” who “would all be killed.” In a rage, the men hurled firebombs at the little wooden house, setting the palm-thatch roof ablaze instantly. Goiti, too ill to react quickly, waited too long to save himself from the flames by jumping out of the window, whereupon he was attacked and killed by the pirates. His wife ran out immediately, but was seized and ordered to hand over her jewelry. When she hesitated, the men stripped her and forcibly pulled off her ring and necklace before stabbing her savagely in the neck. Though stricken, she maintained that same presence of mind that had alerted her to the danger in the first place, and was able to save her life by fleeing into some tall grass. Governor Guido de Lavezaris declared in a letter to the king that her actions, by drawing the pirates to the house and thus delaying them, had allowed the Spanish to muster in time enough to fight back and force the pirates into retreat.12 Their victory did not last long. An unnamed

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chino hastened to the governor’s house to inform him that the pirate was just as unwelcome in China as he was in Manila, and to warn the Spanish that Lin Feng would most likely return within days. In the meantime, they should not only prepare their weapons, but remove all the nipa palm thatch from their roofs to avoid the firebombs that had destroyed the Goiti home.13 The chino’s advice proved to be valuable indeed, so much so that Sande mentioned it in his dispatch to Philip II and gave the man credit for providing the intelligence that would prove essential in repulsing the pirate attack. Lin Feng’s men were repulsed immediately outside the city at Parañaque by the combined forces of the Spaniard Juan de Salcedo (Legazpi’s young grandson), and a Tagalog convert named Galo, who for his efforts was proclaimed a don and today has a barangay in Parañaque named after him.14 However, Lin Feng managed to set much of the town ablaze before being forced back into the bay. Lin Feng was retreating with the Spanish in full pursuit when the Ming Admiral Wang Wanggao (王望高) arrived at Manila Bay with a force of thousands in order to capture the pirate by order of the Wanli Emperor (萬 曆).15 Upon beholding the carnage in and around Manila, he diverted his forces to assisting the Spanish treat their casualties and flush the remaining pirate forces out, and in return the Spanish promised him that Lin Feng, when captured (as he surely would be by the Spaniards who were in hot pursuit), would be immediately conducted to Macau and surrendered to the Chinese authorities.16 The first official contact between Chinese and Spanish authorities was thus concluded on the most amicable of terms, to the delight of the ever-ambitious governor of the Philippines. The only thing that marred this felicitous first meeting was the fact that Lin Feng proved as elusive as ever, evading both the Spanish and Chinese forces and managing to establish himself at a hidden base in Pangasinan, 120 miles overland from Manila on the other side of Luzon. He proved impossible to dislodge for the time being, but at least this new base was less strategically located than previous hiding places and there was hope that he would be unable to launch attacks from there.17 In this felicitous atmosphere of compromise and assistance, the time therefore seemed ripe to develop this potential relationship with China even further, so at the end of 1574, Governor-General Lavezaris, flush with the recent victory over Lin Feng and confident in the support of the Chinese who had helped drive the pirate’s fleet away from Manila, asked the venerable Augustinian friar Alfonso de Alvarado, head of the order in Manila and one of the first Europeans to set foot on New Guinea, to select the men who would embark on the first Spanish mission to China.18 This mission would be for the purpose of both establishing a direct line of communication between

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representatives of the Ming and Habsburg monarchs, and setting the groundwork for a future permanent religious mission in Ming territory.19 This does not mean that the conquest plans had been disposed of—far from it. Throughout the 1560s and 1570s, the Spanish Empire had repeatedly indicated interest in a full-scale conquest of China a la mexicana (that is, using the model of Cortés’s seizure of the Aztec seat of power by a small group of Spanish soldiers). However, the conquest idea, while taken quite seriously, was by no means the only plan Philip II and other Spanish administrators had in regards to China. El Prudente, as he was becoming increasingly known in Europe, was also personally involved in active plans to establish a formal embassy to negotiate a trade relationship with China, as the Portuguese had done earlier in the century. By 1578, the Portuguese had had direct contact with China for over sixty years and had established formal trade relations with the Ming following a pattern set by Java, Sri Lanka, and other Asian powers. This was a rocky relationship that had seen large-scale Chinese-led massacres of Portuguese traders and Portuguese military assaults on China; the Spanish were not the only bellicose Iberian power in the region.20 The Spanish, on the other hand, had no real relationship with the central Ming authorities, other than the fact that the Chinese simply accepted them as the successor state of the independent kingdom of Luzon, grandfathering them in as a tributary state, a state of affairs that, given his actions, presumably bothered Philip II, particularly in light of the rapid expansion of Spanish control over much of Europe and the Americas.21 To remedy this, the Spanish crown, or administrators acting on its behalf, would attempt to send embassies a total of four times in the sixteenth century, not including Alfaro’s clandestine mission, all of which failed to achieve any kind of agreement or formalized relationship with the Ming and two of which never actually entered Chinese territory. Eventually, the demands of the Eighty Years’ War on Spanish concerns, the rise of a brisk trade in American silver with the Ming despite a lack of official relations, the beginning of the decline of Ming power, and the dynastic union with Portugal combined to make the establishment of a formal embassy between the two powers superfluous, but in the 1570s it was a major facet of Spain’s plans.22 Whatever lay in the future for Sino-Spanish relations, in 1574, the Spanish Empire’s attitudes toward opening a direct line of communication with the Ming were quite different—this was something that rivaled conquest as a primary motivating factor in their dealings with the Chinese. Trade with China and its burgeoning luxury market was always a point of anxious concern for the Spanish, and the Spanish hoped that there would be even greater rewards following Beijing’s acceptance of a proposed formal embassy that could, perhaps, lay the groundwork for a military conquest once the Spanish had gotten a clearer understanding of China’s infrastructure. The Eighty Years’ War, at

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that point merely an eight years’ war, was proving to be significantly expensive, but by the middle of the decade the tide was beginning to turn (albeit temporarily) in Philip II’s favor, brightening the empire’s global prospects. China was naturally still the dominant power in the region, but the fact that they had recently come to the aid of the Spaniards in ejecting Lin Feng was taken as a positive sign that perhaps the Spanish could enjoy a profitable trade relationship with the Chinese in the near future. It remained to be seen whether or not the Chinese would be even slightly interested in this plan. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Ming Dynasty had developed a complex diplomatic and trade system with other regional powers, and arguably Spain did not represent a particularly attractive proposal for them in the 1570s, when silver was not in extraordinarily high demand throughout the empire and the Portuguese were already established in Asia.23 As the major power in the region, whether or not Spain would be successful in establishing themselves in some kind of sustained trade or diplomatic relationship with the Chinese was entirely dependent on Ming interest in the project. Guido de Lavezaris, meanwhile, was not motivated solely by a desire to see Spain and China as diplomatic brethren, or even to gather the rich pickings customarily awarded to those who helped grease the wheels of diplomacy when making preparations for his mission. Lavezaris was interested in a conquest of China, and this mission is best seen in the dual lights of the potential windfalls of a formal trade relationship and as a means to begin the process of conquest. Direct contact with China was essential in laying out a plan of attack, as Spain, for all its enthusiasm for information on China, had yet to send a formal representative there and therefore had no significant firsthand information on Chinese infrastructure, aside from the reports of the Portuguese in Macau, who were naturally not attuned to the long-term interests of the Spanish crown and were to be viewed with suspicion anyway, being Portuguese.24 The Spanish were very clear about the importance of having Spanish feet on the ground in China—Mendoza is quite explicit about it in his narrative of this mission.25 This mission was therefore Lavezaris’s chance to be the one to set in motion the events that could—would!—culminate in the great Ming Empire prostrated under the banner of Philip II, as the sickly Almanza similarly hoped in faraway Mexico. Lavezaris had a man he could trust in Alvarado, who was wise and experienced with tricky foreign missions, having spent decades dealing with the Portuguese as well as the disparate kingdoms of what is now Indonesia, and he had the trust and goodwill of Wang Wanggao. The situation looked promising. The elderly Alvarado, overcome with excitement upon being asked to coordinate this important mission, the first to send Spaniards in an official capacity to Ming China, personally begged Lavezaris for the chance to head

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the mission himself, but, in one of the more tender scenes in Mendoza’s narrative, the governor gently remonstrated with him, pointing out the great need for the old man’s expertise in Manila and reminding him of the extraordinary services he had already rendered the Crown.26 A younger man was needed, one who could take the imparted wisdom of Alvarado’s experiences and combine them with his own abilities to win the favor of the Chinese and keep a sharp eye out for information that might become useful to the Spanish later on. So Alvarado bowed to the inevitable and duly selected two Augustinian friars, Jerónimo Marín, a Spaniard born in Mexico renowned for his piety and learning, and the spirited Navarrese linguist Martín de Rada, a man whose longing to travel to China was so desperate that he had once offered to become the slave of some Fujianese traders in order to enter the country (to his eternal disappointment, they firmly rejected his selfless offer).27 De Rada, perhaps one of the more admirable and personally pleasant characters in this narrative, was in his early forties, an Augustinian who had been a member of Governor Miguel López de Legazpi’s expedition and in the ensuing years had been trusted with nearly every major Spanish dispatch to various Tagalog and Malay kingdoms in the area. He had also devoted the past decade to steadfastly protecting the indigenous people from abuse by the Spanish, which culminated in his 1575 authorship of a lengthy exposé claiming that not a single one of the islands under Spanish control had been acquired legitimately, and that conversions had been carried out by force rather than genuine spiritual desire. While the Spanish response to his accusations was minimal, it was followed by centuries of posthumous honor as the “Bartolomé de las Casas of the Philippines.”28 When he was not reporting the cruelties of encomenderos to Lavezaris and demanding that something tangible be done about it, he worked on expanding his extraordinary linguistic talents—in his short tenure on the islands he had already mastered Tagalog, Cebuano, and enough Chinese to serve as the translator for Wang Wanggao.29 He was an extraordinarily intelligent and insightful person, and he is routinely listed as one of the potential anonymous compilers of the famous Boxer Codex.30 Lavezaris approved wholeheartedly of Alvarado’s choice—de Rada had a brilliant mind, a sharp eye, diplomatic experience, a fascination with China, and, as Lavezaris knew well from what he considered to be de Rada’s incessant do-gooding, he was excellent at spotting weaknesses and lies. In short, he was the perfect man to scout out China and see if a formal mission, and perhaps one day even a conquest, could be established. In addition, de Rada, as a devout Augustinian, would attempt to evangelize among the Chinese and turn them away from the “idolatry” that distressed the friar so in his writings about China.31 This dual mission—conversion on one hand, state affairs on the other—was not seen as having contradictory goals at the time, nor was

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there concern expressed over whether or not attempts to spread Christianity might hobble efforts to establish a trade relationship or gather intelligence. In early modern Catholic Europe, the roles of devout cleric and state ambassador (or would-be ambassador) were very commonly merged; nowhere was this more evident than in Spain’s sixteenth-century attempts to forge some kind of relationship with China or gather intelligence on it. Of the three missions to actually enter China that could be said to have a direct order regarding the interests of the Spanish Empire (the de Rada mission, that of Pedro de Alfaro, and an ambiguously recorded 1581 mission), all were staffed entirely by Augustinian or Franciscan friars, charged with both spreading the word of God and securing the much more worldly goals of the Spanish state. Unfortunately, this connection is not readily apparent in the historiographies of early modern European diplomacy or of religious missions to China—the former has seen some excellent research on embassies in cultural history but is often quiet regarding religion, the latter tends to focus primarily on evangelization attempts.32 Nor does the historiography of the clerical-secular state in the Philippines focus on this aspect of diplomacy that so closely combines the two aspects of Philippines administration—a lapse that should eventually be corrected with the rise of both studies of the Philippines and of the Pacific in the field of global history. They were to be accompanied by three soldiers, the most notable of whom was Miguel de Loarca, who was thirty-five at the time of the mission and had already done a tour of duty in Florida before becoming one of the first encomenderos in the Philippines. As intelligent as de Rada in a very different way, he penned the only major Spanish work on Ming China authored by a layman,33 although he and de Rada clearly collaborated on their works, as they have nearly identical structures. With Loarca and his men came a selection of suitable gifts personally selected by Lavezaris, and, significantly, every Chinese slave taken from Lin Feng by the Spanish earlier that year, to be returned home as free people as a gesture of goodwill from the Spanish governor.34 The return of these slaves was to be a highlight of the mission, of course—a magnanimous display of Spanish power and civility, the unselfish kindness of an empire that could surely therefore be trusted enough to enter into some kind of permanent relationship, lease, or trade agreement. That was about the extent of the planning that went into this mission, however—the gifts and slaves were simply to be presented to whatever high officials de Rada and Marín happened to meet. This was left as much up to chance as a diplomatic mission could be, as Lavezaris, like all Europeans of the time, really had very little accurate idea of how Chinese bureaucracy and government functioned. One of Wang’s captains would be accompanying them, but other than that they had no guidance and no real idea as to what kind of customs and requirements they would be encountering.35

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Lavezaris asked neither the permission of the viceroy of New Spain nor that of the Crown for this mission, judging that the timing was too good to risk losing it by the long turnaround time for correspondence (nearly two years round trip between Manila and Madrid) and that he had been given the authority to make diplomatic and military decisions on behalf of Philip II. While this authority was more nebulous than Lavezaris may have assumed, he had already proven himself to be an extremely capable governor, and he felt little fear of either remonstration or erosion of his authority from his superiors. Indeed, the expectation in this period, not just for the Philippines but for all colonial administrators, was that he and others like him would show some level of independent operation—the Crown certainly wanted to be kept apprised of the situation, but neither Lavezaris, nor the viceroy, nor the king expected him (Lavezaris) to simply wait for permission if an opportunity to further the interests of Spain presented itself.36 Meanwhile, the two friars, loaded down with gifts and accompanied by a long train of the former slaves, arrived in Fujian in July 1575 in the company of one of Wang’s captains, whose name is unrecorded but who had distinguished himself in assisting Lavezaris’s repulsion of Lin Feng (who was now, unbeknownst to the Spanish, holed up in his new base on the northern part of the Luzon island group and busily building a secret fleet of ships). This captain’s commission was located in Zhangzhou prefecture (漳州, Fujian), and it was to the magistrate of Longxi (龙溪) County within this prefecture that they were led after their arrival, via a palanquin journey that Loarca thoroughly enjoyed.37 Unfortunately for the grand humanitarian designs of the Spanish, the freed slaves, eighty all told, scattered almost immediately, proving to be of little use as a goodwill gesture.38 Nevertheless, the magistrate received them with obvious interest, giving both men “bouquets of silver” and lengths of beautiful silk and asking to see their manner of writing. De Rada happily demonstrated by carefully writing out the Lord’s Prayer, using it at an excuse to begin telling the man all about Christianity. Marín was gravely polite and followed de Rada’s lead in everything, down to writing out the same prayer for the mandarin’s edification and imitating de Rada’s clever impulse to use his new silks to fashion a wrap around his torso similar to the waistcoat of the hanfu (漢服). Unfortunately for the would-be ambassadors, the official’s interest was in all probability merely sparked by novelty and curiosity, rather than by any genuine diplomatic interest in their proposals, which were frankly vague and consisted of little more than a request for permission to found a mission house and a general request for a trade agreement.39 Perhaps de Rada, an intelligent man, picked up on this lack of real interest—he commented later in his account of the mission that the Chinese “weary one at times with so many compliments and ceremonies.”40

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Upon questioning de Rada and learning that Guido de Lavezaris was a mere lieutenant governor of the upstart new Philippines colony and not a king or anything similarly impressive, the magistrate blandly told de Rada and Marín that in that case, he would need to apply directly to the Wanli Emperor in Beijing, in 1575 a mere boy of eleven (Sande, writing at the same time, incorrectly reported his age to be thirteen) whose government was handled by the powerful Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng (張居正). The requirement that an applicant for a foreign audience with the emperor be the representative of a king was not a regular feature of Ming diplomacy—a further indication that the magistrate had no intention of actually facilitating the friars’ meeting with anyone higher-ranking than he himself. Having made it clear that they would get no further at his court, he then politely invited the two friars to stay for awhile as his guests or return with an escort to Manila to await the emperor’s reply.41 Martín de Rada, finding this a much better option for exploring China than as a slave on a merchant ship, naturally opted for the former, and the pair spent an enjoyable few weeks sightseeing around Longxi, escorted by a small retinue of officials, as was the norm for Westerners in China at the time. The friars took particular delight in a temple, which contained several carvings that to them were strongly reminiscent of Catholic iconography. Ever the optimist, de Rada took these carvings as a sign of the Chinese people’s unconscious willingness to convert.42 De Rada was generally very fond of finding similarities between China and the West; he even described women’s fashions in Zhangzhou as being akin to those in Spain and Genoa, although he did take careful note of the practice of footbinding.43 He loved the elaborate hairstyles worn by both men and women, and was fascinated by the men’s long fingernails. He noted the politeness of the Chinese, being particularly surprised at being offered a package of leftovers to take back with him after a banquet. The infants and children of China delighted him too—he found them much more adorable and beautiful than Spanish children of similar ages, although he confessed that he found the adult Chinese to be quite ugly. He spent hours wandering in and out of shops and night markets, drinking tea in the street and tasting all manner of new and exciting foods. De Rada also paid special attention to the intellectual and scientific offerings available to him. He spent most of the pocket money given by the magistrate on books, filling his quarters on the ship with what was without doubt the first significant Chinese literary collection in Spanish hands. He bought compasses and astrolabes, although he found their quality to be less than those of European make. And he watched everyone and everything, learning to quickly tell the difference between Daoist and Buddhist temples on sight and noticing that the upper-classes spoke a slightly different language than did the commoners (wenyan 文言, literary Chinese). He could scarcely

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get all the information down on his Chinese-purchased paper, so beset with wonders was he. Loarca, meanwhile, was having a similarly excellent time. He strode through the streets as the friars did, sampling food and rice wine and drinking in the sights around him, so different from the muggy swamps of Florida or the equally muggy outpost of Manila. He had an exciting moment when, walking down the street, a man hailed him from a house and asked if he could please come inside the courtyard. The man’s wife and concubines had spotted him from a window and were eager for a closer look. Being high-born Ming women, they could not appear in front of a strange man, but they were delighted to have the opportunity to observe Loarca more closely from behind a screen, while he drank tea and chatted with the man of the house via interpreter. Later, his curiosity about Chinese women perhaps piqued by the encounter, he visited a brothel and pronounced himself pleased with the services on offer. Martín de Rada did not forget about the promise to send a message to the Emperor and asked repeatedly if word had arrived yet, only to be put off again and again with the excuse that the distances involved and the burdens of ruling such a large empire meant that the response was again delayed, and wouldn’t the friars be more comfortable waiting at their own homes in Manila in the meantime? It is frankly doubtful that the imperial government was ever actually consulted; available Chinese records do not record it and the officials’ repeated polite remarks to the friars about the ease of simply returning to Manila to await an answer there give the distinct impression that they were being stalled and that the Chinese didn’t really know quite what to do with them.44 The only bright spot for the friars was that the tours of Longxi continued, but even that privilege was soon stripped from them. It transpired that one day de Rada and Marín went on a visit to the Longxi gates and were seen by their escorts closely inspecting its many doors and guardhouses and other features—these gates were an extremely important aspect of Chinese urban fortifications and were far more complex than European city gates.45 Indeed, Mendoza reported that the Chinese had the best walls “in the world,” comparing them to those of Rome, and also recorded that the Iberians were impressed by Chinese artillery and moreover knew that China had developed that technology first.46 Whether they inspected the fortifications out of a desire to report any perceived military weaknesses to Lavezaris or out of simple curiosity is unknown, but the Chinese certainly interpreted their intentions as malicious. Indeed, the list of information de Rada compiled that eventually made its way into Mendoza’s account was certainly enough to raise suspicion:

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All their cities for the most part are situated on those rivers that are navigable; the cities are moated round, which makes them very strong. Not only cities but towns also are walled with high and strong walls of stone one fathom high with all the rest brick, but brick so strong it cannot be broken with a pickaxe . . . they are garnished with with many bulwarks and towers . . . and between the wall and the moat a space so broad six horsemen may ride together . . . Their walls are kept in such good repair through their great care and diligence that they seem to be newly made, but in some cities there are records of [it being] two thousand years since the foundation was laid.47

De Rada even compiled a list of all the Chinese provinces and the number of cities and towns in each, suggesting that he had been asking quite a few people quite a few questions that could have been perceived as threatening by the Chinese.48 De Rada was of course relying entirely on hearsay conversations conducted with his non-fluent Chinese language skills for his list, but his figures for “Canton” and “Foquien” provinces (approximately modern Guanggdong and Fujian), the provinces closest to Manila and the most probable sites of any proposed Spanish attack, should have given the Spanish some pause. He listed a combined 70 cities and 289 towns for the two, while taking care to point out that there were many municipalities that were designated villages but surpassed towns in size. After this incident reached the ears of the magistrate, the friars continued to be well-treated but were no longer permitted outside their guesthouse as often, and the number of escorts was increased. This had gone on long enough, the Chinese felt, and preparations began to be made for a farewell banquet. De Rada attempted to plead his case to be allowed to remain roaming the prefecture until he heard back from the emperor, only to be told blandly that the laws of China did not permit strangers to wander about at will and that he would surely be delighted by the banquet.49 After a few more weeks of polite semi-confinement indoors, the two friars were summoned and told that at long last there had been a reply from the Forbidden City. The Wanli Emperor would certainly consider their request for a formal audience—on the condition that the pirate Lin Feng was captured by the Spanish and presented to Chinese officials, dead or alive.50 This request being well beyond the immediate capabilities of two middle-aged friars, the pair reluctantly agreed to terminate the mission and return to Manila to deliver this message to Lavezaris, their offer to send the soldiers with the message while remaining in China having been politely rejected. However, they were fêted marvelously at their farewell banquet, and they were loaded down with even more gifts for themselves and for Lavezaris as a token of Chinese friendship and goodwill. The same captain in Wang Wanggao’s retinue who had escorted them from Manila was now entrusted to bring them

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back to their post, and they returned home in late August 1575, having spent a little over six weeks in China.51 Upon their return, the friars were aghast to discover that Lin Feng had made a daring escape from his latest stronghold in Pangasinan, foiling not only a Chinese blockade, but a clever Spanish attempt to destroy his fleet by impaling it on hidden stakes in the water. The ultimate fate of Lin Feng is a matter of speculation, but in the meantime he fled to the island of Mindoro, on the other side of the archipelago and quite beyond the bounds of Spanish control at the time.52 With Lin Feng out of reach on Mindoro, the Chinese terms were now impossible to fulfill, to the extent that they were ever seriously issued, and Lavezaris’s mission to China, the first official attempt at an embassy from Spain, ended ingloriously with the unnamed Chinese captain assuring the governor before his return home that he (the captain) would certainly consider converting to Christianity in the future if his career circumstances were ever different. This polite fiction, along with the captain’s equally courteous remark that the people of China would probably be very interested in Catholicism if it was ever permitted to take hold there, was all Lavezaris had to show for his lovingly crafted embassy, at least until de Rada visited him and gave Lavezaris the “bouquets of silver” he had received in Zhangzhou. The governor’s report, laden with figures about China and containing a recommendation for conquest, arrived in Spain in 1577.53 Lavezaris’s term as governor ended almost simultaneously with the return of his embassy when his replacement Francisco de Sande arrived from Mexico on the Manila Galleon, and the former governor retired to his encomienda in the fall of 1575.54 The new governor, a man of equally fierce martial ambitions, was just as interested in China, but for the time being he temporarily turned his attentions to the ultimately unsuccessful subjugation of Borneo for Spain while simultaneously soaking any Chinese and Portuguese visitors to Manila for any available information on Ming government and diplomatic customs.55 This Borneo attempt, just as ill-fated as the embassy to China, cost poor Martín de Rada his life when he died of a “sea pestilence” en route in 1578.56 However, he used the short time remaining to him to excellent advantage—having already learned enough Chinese in Manila to serve as a translator during Lin Feng’s 1574 attack, he spent his spare time compiling a now-lost dictionary of Chinese characters and after his return wrote a treatise of his time in China, the scope of which is considerably wider than the length and geographical limitations of his stay in China would indicate.57 Thus ended the first attempt at a formal relationship between Spain and China. While certainly not a total disaster as diplomatic missions go—de Rada felt that he had done a rather good job at patching up the affair of the city gate and that perhaps the reassurances of the captain could be taken at

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face value—Lavezaris and his successor Sande (who took a keen interest in this mission) had nothing of particular import to report to either the viceroy or the king. Worse, the governors were little more informed of Chinese political and diplomatic customs than he had been before, de Rada having aggravatingly concentrated on his linguistic work and book-buying rather than using his existing Chinese skills to gather information of interest to Spanish martial concerns, although he did observe a “very ill-wrought piece of artillery of great antiquity,” supposedly used for executing criminals, which he supplemented with the disquieting intelligence that he had been informed that “excellent good” weapons were to be found elsewhere in the kingdom.58 However, such information was vague and based almost entirely on hearsay—indeed, it is not difficult to imagine Martín de Rada’s hosts deliberately feeding him misleading information on China’s military and civil infrastructure, and perhaps the same thought occurred to Lavezaris and Sande. Of course, China had a long history and a vast array of guns and gunpowder weapons at their disposal, some with fanciful names such as “orifice-penetrating flying sand magic mist tube,” but de Rada was obviously not privy to this information in any significant way.59 On a more positive note, the mission had not particularly damaged the nascent relationship between the two countries, nor had it shown that the Chinese were completely unwilling to cooperate with Spain and allow Spaniards to visit—information Sande stored up for the future. Carmen Hsu, in her excellent article on gift-giving as an aspect of Christian kingship, assesses this mission as a success, noting that the friars were fêted and treated with honor by the Chinese officials.60 But was it? I argue that the Martín de Rada mission was at its best possible interpretation a neutral event in the history of Sino-Spanish relations—it did little to nothing to advance the cause of Spain vis-a-vis China, either in terms of prompting Macau-like agreement or allowing the participants to gather information that could be used in ongoing conquest plans. Indeed, the incident of the city gate probably confirmed Chinese suspicions of Western motivations, as, of the two other Spanish missions in the next ten years to actually enter China, both were at some point detained on suspicion of espionage, and for one of them it was also an examination of fortifications that prompted their arrests (see chapter 5).61 I would argue instead that the banquets and gifts, however lavish and courteously given they may have been, belong to the diplomatic tradition of firm, unassailable politeness regardless of the actual level of interest in the emissary’s proposals, rather than any sign of real diplomatic success. This is not to accuse de Rada and Marín of any ineptitude—their behavior was rather exemplary given the context. But the main stumbling block, one that proved impossible for them to overcome no matter how well they handled a difficult

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situation, was what must be described as China’s total lack of interest in the friars’ proposals. China already had a lease of Macau with attendant trade privileges with one Western country (Portugal), and in the years before the rapid expansion of the silver trade made Spain an attractive economic partner, an additional agreement with Spain beyond their inherited tribute status from the previous kingdom of Luzon probably seemed more than a little superfluous. As for the request to allow a religious mission to be founded on Ming soil, this was something that frankly had little benefit to the Chinese and would not in fact be permitted on a large scale until several years later. Finally, it must be pointed out that, while China was a subject of obsessive fascination for Westerners at the time, Chinese interest in the West and in Westerners did not rise to the same degree. There was of course a great deal of curiosity and economic interest from the Chinese (as well as suspicion), as the de Rada mission amply illustrates, but this curiosity was not joined by a longstanding fixation with Spanish luxury products or a burgeoning interest in a military conquest of Spanish territory. Overall, China’s interest in Spain was neither as strong as Spain’s interest in China, nor founded on the same militaristic goals the Spanish harbored—an important distinction when assessing the success of the de Rada mission. The mission was a landmark event in Spanish history—after all, successful or not, it was still the very first official embassy they sent to China—but it barely registered in the annals of the Chinese, to whom it was just a curious visit from some foreigners who, ultimately, had nothing to offer the Ming. The Chinese seem to have viewed the whole affair as simply a minor overture from a minor tributary country that, while “inclined to righteousness,” was nevertheless not especially important in the long run. The gifts the friars had presented so proudly would simply be marked as “proxy tribute” (daijin 代進) and placed in the appropriate spot in the treasury. Indeed, the mission’s brief one-sentence appearance in the imperial annals of the Ming Dynasty (Ming Shilu, 明實錄) is bookended by more lengthy descriptions of Lin Feng’s doings.62 A year later, Sande remarked that the Chinese had felt that he, Sande, was ignorant of the basic niceties of the entire tributary system.63 In my introductory text, I qualified Pedro de Alfaro’s journey to China, pointing out that he was the first Spanish Franciscan, not the first Spaniard or the first friar to enter Ming China. De Rada has the honor of heading the first Spanish mission to Ming China, religious or secular (or both, as it was in his case). However, while de Rada had distinguished himself on this mission, he was not in a situation to significantly inform Spanish officials interested in a conquest of China. Zhangzhou Prefecture was no backwater—despite its relatively low population density by Chinese standards, in fact it was a major center for silk production from the beginning of the Ming through the end of the Qing dynasty—but it was not one of the premier cities of Ming China.

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Martín de Rada’s information on military and defensive infrastructure, such as he provided, was insufficient for the needs of Spain. For all de Rada’s hard work on Chinese language and customs—he enjoyed the same posthumous acclaim as Alfaro with the publication of Mendoza’s compendium—his mission simply did not have any tangible significance to either Spanish or Chinese history. At the close of the year 1575, Spain’s relationship with Ming China was arguably in much the same place it had been upon the permanent arrival of Spaniards in Asia ten years previously—a vaguely articulated geographical coexistence, alternately quasi-friendly (as when the Chinese and Spanish banded together to drive back Lin Feng) and imbued with threat, but, most importantly, with Spain’s ultimate plans regarding China still unknown, for all the careful planning of Lavezaris and other administrators. What de Rada’s mission does illustrate, however, is the sheer complexity of Sino-Spanish relations in the late sixteenth century. The Spanish were avidly interested in conquering the Ming, but they were also open to negotiating a trade relationship with them the way the Portuguese had done. In the 1570s, the ultimate long-term place of the Spanish in the Western Pacific was unknown, and in keeping with the legendary prudence of Philip II, both peaceful economic partnership with China (or would it have been an intense rivalry?) and the violent toppling of the Ming Dynasty by Spanish forces were equally pursued in both councils and, in some form or another, on the ground in the Philippines and China.64 Nor was this dual pursuit considered paradoxical—they could easily feed into each other, and there was not necessarily a need to articulate any kind of formal policy in regards to China. The successful establishment of a significant trade agreement might very well, from the early modern Spanish point of view, have paved the way for conquest, and ultimate victory over the Ming would of course lead to rich pickings for Spain in what had once been the wealthiest nation on earth. Upon Alfaro’s arrival, then, the Spanish had sent a total of two official representatives to China at the sole behest of a governor working without the knowledge of senior officials in either Mexico or Spain. These two would-be ambassadors had spent mere weeks in a city that, while important regionally, was not a major metropolis. Indeed, for half the time they were in China their activities had been curtailed after the affair of the city gates. Alfaro’s mission would last nearly three times as long as de Rada’s and take place primarily in Guangzhou, a city of greater strategic and economic importance in Ming China. This difference in scale, in both time and location, would have a proportionate effect on the long-term historical importance of the Alfaro mission. When Pedro de Alfaro landed at Manila Bay in 1578, no Spaniard in the service of the Empire had spent more than two months in Ming China, and none had entered a truly major city or had the chance to observe major military and defensive infrastructure of the Ming Empire. For all Martín de

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Rada’s beautifully written descriptions of temples and exotic Chinese dress (of historical significance in their own right, of course), his reports nevertheless could not provide the vital information Spain needed to assess the feasibility of their longstanding conquest plans. It would fall to Alfaro to provide this information, and the outcome of his mission would spark a major shift in Sino-Spanish relations. NOTES 1. Ryan Crewe, “Pacific Purgatory: Spanish Dominicans, Chinese Sangleys, and the Entanglement of Mission and Commerce in Manila, 1580-1640.” Accessed March 3, 2016. http:​//​www​.academia​.edu​/17622796​/Pacific​_Purgatory​_Spanish​_Dominicans​ _Chinese​_Sangleys​_and​_the​_Entanglement​_of​_Mission​_and​_Commerce​_in​_Manila​ _1580​-1640. 2. Ubaldo Iaccarino, “Manila as an International Entrepôt: Chinese and Japanese Trade with the Spanish Philippines at the Close of the 16th Century,” Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, vol. 16, (2008), 75. 3. Lucille Chia. “The Butcher, the Baker, and the Carpenter: Chinese Sojourners in the Spanish Philippines and their Impact on Southern Fujian.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 49, No. 4, (2006), 515. 4. José Eugenio Borao Mateo, “The massacre of 1603: Chinese Perception of the Spaniards in the Philippines.” Itinerario, vol. 23, No. 1, (1998) 22. 5. Chia, 510–13. 6. Chia, 513, and Pierre Chaunu, Les Philippines et le Pacifique des Ibériques (XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe siècles); introduction méthodologique et indices d ̓activité, (Paris: Sevpen, 1960), 27–40. 7. Crewe, “Pacific Purgatory . . .” 8. Fidel Villaroel, “Philip II and the ‘Philippine Referendum’ of 1599,” in Reshaping the World: Philip II and his Time, (Manila: Ateno de Manila, 2009), 120–33. 9. In the three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule, the list of aggressors included not only various indigenous or Malay Filipino kingdoms and tribes, but the Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, and British, finally culminating in the seizure of the country by the United States in 1902 following the forcible dissolution of the First Philippine Republic. Patricio Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), xvii. 10. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15. 11. The contemporary term wokou is a common descriptor for pirates in the Western Pacific in this period; I opt not to use it for Lin Feng because of its Japanese connotations. Wokou piracy, and indeed piracy in general, was such a prevalent part of life in the early modern Pacific that no research on the subject can fail to discuss it. Unfortunately a proper examination of its effects on maritime history of the region is beyond the scope of this work. 12. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15.

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13. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol 4. 14. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15. For Don Galo’s barangay, see Parañaque City Government, https://paranaquecity.gov.ph/?page_id=705. 15. Hsu, 326. Admiral Wang’s name is variously given as Wang Wanggao, Wen Kao, Homocon, Omocón, and Wang Gao, making him difficult to track down in the sources—a common problem in early modern Spanish writing in Asia. 16. Hsu, 325 and Cesar V. Callanta, The Limahong Invasions, (Manila: Self published, 1979), 35–48. Lin Feng is a figure who is in need of updating in the historiography. 17. Callanta, 48–49. 18. The narrative for the 1575 mission is taken, with reserve, from Mendoza’s Historia de las cosas . . . and Martín de Rada’s 1576 letter, “Carta del agustino Martín de Rada sobre su viaje a China . . .” AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.5, later published in translation as Charles Boxer, ed. South China in the Sixteenth Century: Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar de Cruz, and Fr. Martín de Rada (London: Hakluyt, 1956). Mendoza indeed names Francisco de Sande, who would not arrive in the Philippines until August 1575, as the motivator behind this mission. 19. Donald Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe Vol I, (Chicago: Chicago, 1979), 749. 20. For massacres, Charles Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825, (New York: Knopf, 1969), 110. For a Portuguese plan to conquer China, see Andrade, Gunpowder Age, 119–23. This plan was a more “traditional” invasion rather than the mexicana model beloved of Spaniards—fertile ground for a future comparative study. See also chapter 1 for a more thorough discussion of Spanish plans in comparison. 21. Philip II began his reign with the declaration “I would very much like to justify my actions to the whole world and show that I do not lay claim to other states,” but throughout the 1560s to the 1580s, he showed a persistent interest in, alternatively, conquering or entering into a formal relationship with China. Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II. (Yale: New Haven, 2000), 4, 8, 95, 189. 22. More on these factors and their effect on Sino-Spanish relations in chapter 5. 23. For recent research on Sino-Portuguese relations in this period, see the works of Zoltán Biedermann, Lucio de Sousa, and Antonio Vasconcelos de Saldanha. 24. Boxer, “Portuguese and Spanish . . . ,” 221. 25. Mendoza, n.p. 26. Mendoza, n.p. 27. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.5. 28. He also shares this honor with Bishop Domingo de Salazar, his contemporary, who spearheaded his efforts to secure justice for the indigenous Filipino people. Jon Malek, “From Conquest to Colony: The Legitimation of Spanish Power in the Philippines.” Online article, accessed Feb 20 2016. http:​//​www​.academia​.edu​ /3377446​/From​_Conquest​_to​_Colony​_The​_Legitimation​_of​_Spanish​_Empire​_in​ _the​_Philippines, 3. 29. Boxer, South China in the Sixteenth Century, 2–6. 30. Loreto Romero, “The Likely Origins of the Boxer Codex: Martín de Rada and the Zhigong Tu,” eHumanista 40 (2018): 118.

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31. For a representative sample of Martín de Rada’s very real concern of the state of Chinese souls, see Boxer, South China . . . , 257, in which de Rada claimed to have pushed over an “idol” in a temple because he was so upset at the site of the locals worshiping a “false” god who would ensure their damnation. Whether or not this actually happened is unknown; certainly the friar never recorded any non-immediate reaction to his behavior on the part of the Chinese. 32. For an overview of the historiography of diplomacy and culture, primarily in England, see Robyn Adams et al, eds, Diplomacy in Early Modern Culture, (New York: Palgrave, 2011). 33. Ellis, They Need Nothing . . . , 68, 71–80. 34. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.5. 35. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.5. 36. Abinales et al, 97–98. 37. Two notes on terminology: The term used for Zhangzhou in these sources is “Chincheo” when used in the early modern period; confusingly, it can also refer to Quanzhou, another Fujianese prefecture (and city). It is almost certainly Zhangzhou in this case. For a thorough discussion of the various meanings of “Chincheo,” see Armando Cortesão, The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires, vol. 1 (London: Hakluyt, 1944), 119, footnote 2, and Appendix 3 of Boxer, South China. . . . , 311–15. 38. What became of the formerly enslaved passengers is unknown. 39. This embassy is briefly mentioned in the following Chinese annals: the Ming Shen Zong Shi Lu (明神宗实录), Guo Que (国榷), and Quan Zhou Fu Zhi (泉州 府志). However, this chapter relies on Spanish sources, as the Chinese sources are confined to recording the mission’s existence and do not go into significant detail. These Spanish sources—de Rada’s letters and Mendoza’s work—are confusing and contradictory; for example, Mendoza claims that the friars went on a tour of sorts, visiting several different Fujianese cities. De Rada’s own testimony contradicts this, but Mendoza’s version has passed into the secondary sources. 40. Boxer, South China . . . , 245. 41. Mendoza, n.p. 42. This may have been a reach; de Rada counted one hundred and eleven carvings, three of which reminded him of Catholic images. Mendoza, n.p. 43. Mendoza, n.p. 44. Hsu, 330, although Hsu interprets this as interest and not stalling. 45. Andrade, Gunpowder Age, 70. 46. Mendoza, n.p. 47. Mendoza, n.p. 48. For the full list see Mendoza. The actual population of China in this period is a subject of debate as historians shift from relying on Ming censuses to using gazetteers; for an overview of research on the population of China during the Ming Dynasty, see Wenxian Zhang, “The Yellow Register Archives of Imperial Ming China,” Libraries & the Cultural Record, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2008), pp. 148–75. 49. AGI, Filipinas 84, N.5. 50. AGI, Filipinas 84, N.5.

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51. AGI, Filipinas 84, N.5. In addition to de Rada’s own account, Loarca’s account, and their adaptations in Mendoza, I am indebted to Dolors Folch’s online educational presentation, “The European Discovery of China,” for initially drawing my attention to some of the more compelling anecdotes related to this mission: https://www.upf. edu/web/european-discovery-of-china. 52. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15. 53. Lach, 746, and Gruzinski, 218–19. 54. He died in 1581 at the age of approximately 83. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15. 55. AGI, Filipinas 6, R.3, N.36. 56. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15. The death of Martín de Rada is an excellent example of the difficulty of trusting Mendoza’s accounts. In Historia . . . , Martín de Rada dies peacefully in the Philippines in 1577, following a distressing episode in which he was “stripped of everything and left naked” by pirates on an island in the northern Philippines before being rescued by a passing Spanish ship. Whether or not this actually happened is unknown; Mendoza alone cites it. 57. The dictionary is no longer extant and seems to have disappeared before ever reaching Europe, meaning that the first publication there with Chinese characters was Mendoza’s own second- and third-hand compendium, which contains very few characters, many of which are incorrectly rendered. Martín de Rada’s treatise, however, survived and is the primary source for the first book of Historia. . . . Boxer, South China . . . , xi. 58. Boxer, South China . . . , 130. 59. Andrade, Gunpowder Age, 52. 60. Hsu, 330. 61. These two missions, that of Alfaro and of Philip II’s planned 1581 mission, are discussed in chapters 3, 4, and 5, respectively. 62. Geoff Wade, trans, Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: an open access resource, Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, http:​//​www​.epress​.nus​.edu​.sg​/msl​/reign​/wan​-li​/year​-4​-month​-1​-day​-25. Accessed June 20, 2018. 63. Iaccarino, “Conquistadors,” 85. 64. Gruzinski, 222.

Chapter 3

“The Spirit of the Lord Is Never Idle” The Mission to China

The San Juanillo dropped anchor at the mouth of the Pasig River on July 2, 1578, bearing Pedro de Alfaro and his companions to dry land at last after a journey of about four months.1 There is some confusion over the friars’ actual date of arrival, with some sources stating that Alfaro arrived in Manila in 1578 and others asserting that it was a year earlier, in 1577. Blair and Robertson, writing in the early twentieth century, noted that the arrival would have to have been in 1577 in their translation of one of Pablo de Jesús’s letters, as have many others.2 However, Alfaro himself noted in a letter to Philip II dated July 25, 1578, that “In the month of December in this past year of 1577, I wrote to Your Majesty giving an account of our successful journey to New Spain . . . now I inform Your Majesty of our arrival in this city of Manila.”3 This is conclusive evidence that Alfaro and company could not have been in the Philippines any earlier than the summer of 1578. In a similar vein, the number of companions on board with Alfaro that summer day is also variously recorded, with a headcount as low as fourteen and as high as eighteen listed among the sources, another reflection of the partial and contradictory nature of documentation for the early Galleon voyages.4 Regardless of the timing of the voyage, the friars were spared the horrors of their journey across the Atlantic. No one died, and if anyone fell violently ill it went unmentioned by his companions. Additionally, the San Juanillo was new, large, and sturdy, one of several commissioned for Galleon service to replace the “miserable little vessels” that had braved the seas for the first few years of the route’s existence, so the journey may well have been fairly comfortable by the standards of the time.5 Yet even the easiest sea voyage in the sixteenth century was fraught with danger. The Galleon route was a treacherous one, with the unpredictable winds and weather in the San Bernardino 61

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Strait at the end of the journey to Manila claiming a disproportionate share of ships. The very language used by contemporaries illustrated the dangers involved—naufragios (shipwrecks) were described as though they were natural disasters on par with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, terrible calamities that humans could neither reliably predict nor realistically protect against.6 The San Juanillo itself would sink off the coast of Baja California later that year, where, in a strange echo of Alfaro’s eventual fate, it remained at the bottom of the sea, neglected and unaccounted for, until its recent rediscovery.7 But the pious men coming ashore in the oppressive heat of a Manila summer had no idea that theirs was the last voyage the San Juanillo would successfully complete. They could, for the time being, leave the terror of the open sea behind them. Their thoughts were focused elsewhere. Alfaro and his companions were lodged in a “cane house,” the bamboo cells of the San Agustín church and monastery, where they endured with discomfort the high point of the intense southwest monsoon season.8 Though it was the first established Christian institution in the Philippines, the monastery the descalzos arrived at was actually a new structure, having been reconstructed after the original burned during Lin Feng’s incursion. The current San Agustín, a beautiful and imposing early Baroque edifice with high stone walls that dominates the old Manila city center, would have been completely unfamiliar to Alfaro—it was completed in 1607, years after his death. The building he knew, like the other structures in the fledgling city, was made of bamboo and nipa palm, densely thatched to provide protection from the summer rains. Stone structures would not feature in Manila’s cityscape until the 1580s—except, of course, for the wall that ringed the 146-acre district of Intramuros that was, in name at least, the exclusive residential province of Spanish colonial administrators and the seat of power in the new colony. Alfaro, as a member of a mendicant order, did not view the walls as a hard boundary or as a confinement, nor would he have considered himself bound to the Spanish district had he been a layperson and not a Franciscan. Intramuros might have been the only area officially designated as Manila (and would remain so for centuries), but the Spanish were but one of the peoples living in the area. Adjoining Intramuros was the Párian, where the Chinese population lived, and surrounding both and stretching into the horizon were the barangays that were home to tens of thousands of indigenous peoples, in addition to Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, and other populations. It was to the former two peoples that the descalzos were drawn, to the near-exclusion of life in the cane houses of Intramuros. In reading the letters of Alfaro and his companions, their irritation toward and near-disdain for their own countrymen is noticeable. Other Europeans in these letters, including on occasion even the king himself, seemed to exist primarily as annoyances or frustrating bureaucratic obstacles to be overcome. To these friars, the colonial administrative

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system and its representatives were entities to be evaded or even disregarded, despite the long history of Franciscans as agents of Spanish colonial development.9 Their ambitions and interests were focused almost entirely on the indigenous and the Chinese. The friars had gotten their first taste of island life en route to Manila, when the San Juanillo stopped at the Mariana Islands in the final stages of the journey. There, some of the friars begged to be permitted to stay and convert the Chamorro people, only to be turned down by Alfaro, who feared for the men’s safety in the isolated and unprotected islands.10 Tearing themselves away from the Chamorros, whose ignorance of the Gospel moved them to pity, they continued on to the Philippines and immediately threw themselves wholeheartedly into the difficult work of conversion among a range of peoples in a dangerous territory, still reeling from the destruction caused by Lin Feng’s attack four years previously. Alfaro’s first task was to scatter his friars throughout the extent of Spanish territory, “taking the Indians out of the hills and the mountains and removing them to the villages” in order to both ease the task of conversion and introduce the people to Spanish life—by persuasion ideally, but by coercion if absolutely necessary. This he did with the gusto and zeal that characterized his career, establishing a network of religious crisscrossing the encomiendas of Luzon.11 This was, of course, Alfaro’s job, and he did it with the concentration and intensity the position demanded. Both Agustín de Tordesillas and Mendoza claimed that the Augustinians had already “baptized more than one hundred thousand, with the rest [of the indigenous people] prepared and catechized to receive the like” by the time Alfaro arrived, and Alfaro’s efforts were in a similar vein.12 Even if these numbers were grossly exaggerated, the conversion of the indigenous Tagalogs and Ilokanos was a large-scale effort designed to spiritually colonize the people as surely as the walls and guns of Intramuros were designed to physically colonize them. Moreover, Alfaro and his companions had learned from their brothers’ work in Mexico—as J. S.‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ Cummins wrote, they had “lost the apocalyptic spirit which had driven them into haste in New Spain” and were now, as the career of de Rada exemplified, interested not only in converting the local peoples, but in protecting them from the excesses of the friars’ secular superiors.13 Alfaro was an active participant in these efforts, but they were not the true focus of his inner ambitions, both in terms of his personal career and of his faith. He could look on with satisfaction at the efforts of his own Franciscans and their Augustinian brothers, but his real interest lay maddeningly close but as yet inaccessible, across the South China Sea. It was the proximity to China that drew the Spanish to the Philippines in the first place, and access to China was no less a spiritual goal than it was a secular one. In the Philippines, Alfaro could visit and converse with Chinese

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merchants and monks within a half-hour’s walk of San Agustín. He took full advantage of this opportunity, as all the friars did. Alfaro would have known what everyone in Manila knew—Intramuros might be where the Spanish lived and where their power was consolidated, but the real power in terms of population and economic connections lay through the gates and outside the walls, in the Párian. Paradoxically, the Párian was designed as a place of restriction, a zone for the Chinese to dwell and work in, away from the Spanish elites. In reality, the Chinese in the area predated, outnumbered, and out-earned Intramuros, and the gates and walls separating the two districts were more fluid than the secondary sources often suggested. For the descalzos, as for other religious of the era, the economic connections were secondary to the cultural attractions provided by the inhabitants of the Párian. There, they could see firsthand what it meant to be Chinese, hear fantastical descriptions of life in the Ming Empire, and even begin to learn how to speak different Chinese dialects themselves. Alfaro drank this all in, his preexisting fascination with China becoming yet more of an obsession with every visit. Every story told to him of the millions of richly garbed Chinese walking the glorious cities of the Middle Kingdom, souls weighed down in sorrow through lack of the Lord, fired him up further. He heard tales of devilish pagan temples soaring higher than any cathedral, of Muslim traders snatching away the heathen souls that rightfully belonged to Christ, of a nation where even the poorest and most downtrodden wore silk garments and yet did not know the first word of the catechism. Frantic at the thought of “the infinite number of souls which the devil had deceived and brought unto his service with false idolatry” in China, Alfaro and the most fervent of the Franciscans resolved to leave at the first opportunity.14 All he needed, Alfaro reasoned, was the permission of the governor-general of the Philippines, Doctor Francisco de Sande Picón. If Sande was willing, all the other obstacles—the hiring of a ship, the securing of consent from both the Portuguese in Macau and the Chinese on the mainland—could be overcome. It was but a simple matter of asking the governor, Alfaro thought. When Alfaro arrived, Sande was thirty-eight years old and had been governor for almost exactly three years. A native of Cáceres, he had begun his career as a lawyer in Mexico, rising to oidor before being appointed governor-general in the aftermath of the Lin Feng attacks. He never forgot the experience of sailing up the Pasig in August 1575 to find a city nearly destroyed.15 It was he who had received de Rada after his brief sojourn in China, and he who had sent “The Bartolomé De Las Casas of the Philippines” on the expedition to Borneo that would cost the friar his life a mere three weeks before Alfaro’s arrival in Luzon. A man of martial ambition and a lawyer’s willingness to mold the truth to fit his own needs (he once told Philip II “I have grown old in Your Majesty’s service” when he was only thirty-five,

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an exaggeration even if he merely meant that he had exhausted himself), he exemplified what his contemporaries admiringly termed “Extremaduran bellicosity.”16 As a youth, he had been raised on swashbuckling tales of the men who had left the rugged mountain towns of his home province to find fame and fortune as conquistadores, and he was likely mentored by his relative, the famous warrior Álvaro de Sande, who had fought the Ottomans in open battle in 1565 at the age of seventy-six and lived to become governor of the Duchy of Milan.17 As an adult, accusations of corruption and “governmental malpractice” followed Francisco de Sande throughout his career, with not even the king himself immune to his scheming, and yet he evaded significant punishment and ended his career with a comfortable office in the Audiencia of Mexico.18 In short, he was not the sort to be overruled, nor was he the sort who compromised his own visions to help those of others reach fruition. As one of the 1570’s most vocal advocates of the Mexican strategy of conquest, the governor viewed Alfaro’s dreams of evangelization as a threat to Sande’s visions of military leadership in China and the riches such a conquest would bring him. Additionally, Sande was contemptuous of missionary journeys in general, writing years later that they incurred “useless expenses,” and often served only to provoke confrontations.19 The answer, therefore, was no. This query was repeated several times throughout the latter half of 1578 and the first part of 1579. The friar would ask, then cajole, then outright beg, and the governor, increasingly irritated, would refuse every time. By any reasonable measure, Sande was absolutely justified in refusing these requests. Alfaro was needed in the Philippines, where there were only about thirty friars. Alfaro himself wrote in a letter to Philip II that there were simply not enough friars to carry on their work in the Philippines, although he seems not to have been particularly worried about what would happen if he himself left his post.20 Additionally, part of Sande’s job as governor-general was to maintain Spanish control over what territory they already possessed, and to expand it further as the opportunity arose. What the friars wanted to do stood a very good chance of causing problems with both the Chinese and the Portuguese, and while Sande certainly welcomed conflict in general, he wanted it to happen on Spanish terms and in a manner advantageous to himself and to Spain. He reminded the friars again and again that Spain’s relationship with China was “very small,” and that de Rada had been “mocked” and “deceived” by the Chinese, and that the Chinese had always been more interested in the Spaniards’ ability to capture Lin Feng than in listening to gospel stories.21 Alfaro, however, was not inclined to be reasonable and therefore spent a few months denouncing Sande for his refusal to help his cause. This “blindness” perplexed Alfaro, as he had even been thoughtful enough to assure the governor that the expedition would cost him nothing, as the friars planned to “offer themselves as slaves” to Chinese merchant ships “that were already in

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port.” He then attempted to circumvent the governor by asking the merchants themselves if they had a need for his services, only to be rebuffed. By the time the humid, sticky Manila spring began, Alfaro had brooded about this desire to go to China for over six months. His talks with local Chinese increased, and he and his brother friars exchanged stories and began to plan. They had found the Chinese in Manila to be “people of great ability and discretion, and of very good judgements.” Surely, then, their countrymen within the Ming Empire would therefore be easy to convert, and their quick success would erase any ill-feeling on the part of Sande. So he prayed to God, kneeling on the floor of the cane house and asking the Lord to “direct” him onto a path to China. And to his joy, God soon answered his prayers. The answer came to Alfaro in the form of a chino, newly arrived in Manila. This was a young “priest,” perhaps a Daoist or Buddhist, who arrived with some merchants and, curious about these newcomers to his part of the world, visited San Agustín to talk with the friars via interpreter. He became a regular visitor to the cane house, talking of philosophy and religion and, most tellingly, “the mightiness and the secrets of China,” convincing Alfaro even further that his destiny was to go to China himself. Within several days of his first visit, the chino asked for and received the sacrament of baptism, which according to Mendoza was an occasion for celebration throughout Intramuros. The “good chino” was even permitted to dwell within the monastery with the friars, outperforming them all in piety by subsisting on nothing but bitter herbs and spending all night in prayer instead of merely rising at midnight for matins. Alfaro, witnessing these further miracles, became convinced that this was proof that his desire to go to China had divine favor, regardless of whether or not he had permission. This tale of the penitent chino appears most prominently in Mendoza and in Parke’s translation of the same, and is referenced with much less detail everywhere else. It is of course entirely possible that this event or something very like it actually occurred, and it is even more possible that Alfaro, whatever the actual sequence of events, genuinely believed that his mission to China was divinely ordained. It was hardly a stretch for a devout man to believe that a conversion mission had divine favor, after all. Moreover, by the time Alfaro arrived in Asia, the Spanish had come to believe that the Chinese were unreliable and that genuine conversion was rare and miraculous.22 In this context, it is quite believable that a zealous Chinese convert would be viewed as special and as a cause for celebration. In all other aspects the story is unlikely to have actually happened as the friars described. Not only do the full details of the chino’s conversion appear only years later, the story bears a striking resemblance to the kind of propagandistic conversion tales that the Spanish had promulgated in the Americas earlier in the century, of “good indios” immediately taking to the gospel and performing exaggerated

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feats of piety, in contrast to their ungrateful brethren. This “good chino” simply stepped into the place formerly occupied by the “good indio” of the Americas, and Pedro de Alfaro had his justification.23 Following the chino’s display of fervency, Alfaro began to “secretly procure by all means possible to attempt the journey, although it was without the order and consent of the Governor.” He was not alone. His earliest counsels were held with another friar, Esteban Ortiz, who had learned conversational Chinese, and a soldier, Juan Díaz Pardo. Díaz was known for his extraordinary devotion, and had often spoken of his desire to “do a great service for God.” He found his purpose “in that instant” when Alfaro approached him, and immediately swore that he would stand by the friar even unto death. The three then sought out a Chinese captain who had often stopped by the Augustinian house for a chat with the friars, enjoying their discussions of religion in much the same way the “good chino” had. To their delight, the captain expressed a willingness to bear them to China when his ship next left port, provided he received enough valuables to bribe his sailors as well, and so Díaz gave him earnest money in the form of silver reales. The plan was set. The captain would pretend to sail home from Manila Bay, the “good chino” in tow, but would actually turn west out of the bay and make for a smaller port, hidden from the sharp eyes of Governor Sande. There he would wait until the friars and Díaz met them there, whereupon Díaz, as the only one not under a vow of poverty, would pay the remainder of the deposit and the trio would set sail for the Middle Kingdom and the culmination of all their dreams. But as fervent as the men were, they soon found that the reality of secular life had its own influence on their destiny as well. When they arrived at port, they found the captain “in another mind,” having reflected during his wait that being caught smuggling foreigners into China could very well cost him not only his cargo, but his life. In vain, Díaz attempted to raise the offer, adding more gifts and more prayerful entreaties. The “good chino” added his own tears to the scene, but the captain remained firm. If the men were ever to go to China, it would not be on his ship. He returned the earnest money, wished them well, and sailed away, bearing the “good chino” with him into the horizon and out of the records. (Later, the accounts of the mission claimed that this chino had really intended to rob the friars of their money while at sea and then toss them overboard, but this seems unlikely given that it would have been an easy matter to at least keep their earnest money if the chino and the captain had truly been in league with one another.)24 Dejected, the trio returned to Intramuros and consigned themselves to waiting for yet another sign from God. But, as a later Franciscan chronicler of the Alfaro mission wrote seventy years later, “the spirit of the Lord is never

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idle . . . it throws flames from different places but they are always straightened to their destiny.”25 A new opportunity came about mere weeks after their return. This time, the sign came from that unlikeliest of corners, from Francisco de Sande himself. The governor, seemingly unaware of the friar’s recent attempted escape, called for Alfaro and asked him to send a friar to the Cagayan River in the north of Luzon, where the governor had recently sent a skeleton crew of soldiers to establish a settlement. This was a dangerous task, as the area was not only far from the center of Spanish power, but was a frequent destination for wokou piracy as well. Sande therefore promised to send the appointed friar in a “reasonable frigate” and to allow him two soldiers as a personal guard, arrangements that were made with a member of the cabildo, Rodrigo de Frías Albónoz, who was sympathetic to the friars’ goals and prepared the vessel for a longer voyage without informing Sande. Alfaro, upon hearing of soldiers, thought quickly, and asked if one of the two men could be his dear friend Díaz. Sande having agreed, Alfaro said that he himself would accompany the selected friar as far as Ilocos. The governor bade Alfaro farewell, perhaps reflecting that at last he had found a distraction for the troublesome, China-obsessed friar. Later, realizing how he had been deceived, he would ruefully write to Philip II that he had been “so quick to give [Alfaro] a ship and soldiers.”26 It is easy to imagine the delight with which Alfaro sought out Díaz and told him the good news. They had a ship and they had the governor’s permission to leave Manila. Surely, they reflected, everything else would follow. Díaz recommended that the second soldier be his friend Francisco de Dueñas, a man of similar bravery and devotion, and he was quickly added to the company. Alfaro then hastened to collect his own friend, the fifty-year-old Agustín de Tordesillas (Ortiz presumably being unavailable), a fellow Franciscan who had not been part of the earlier plot but had been privy to all the friars’ many discussions of the need to hasten to China as soon as possible. The four of them arrived in Ilocos on June 4, 1579, accompanied, presumably, by the friar actually selected for the Cagayan appointment. At Ilocos, they met two more Franciscans, Juan Baptista (born Giovanni Battista Lucarelli da Pesaro) and Sebastian de San Francisco de Baeza. These men were known to Alfaro, having been on the original journey from Spain. They quickly renewed their acquaintance and, the two admitting that teaching the catechism in Ilocos was an unsatisfying substitute for evangelizing in China, Alfaro brought them into their confidence. Now numbering six, the conspirators swore together that they would “go to China and convert, or perish in the quarrel.” This talk of perishing having perhaps brought to mind the dangers involved, they then decided to add a third soldier, Pedro de Villarroel. He was not initially told of the true purpose of the journey in order to maintain the secrecy of their pact, but was instead asked if he would be

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interested in accompanying his fellow soldiers on a “business of great honor and holiness.” He was a man of the sixteenth century and a Spaniard to boot, so naturally, he immediately swore to stay by their sides even if it cost him his life, without actually clarifying what, exactly, was the nature of the cause he had just pledged his life to. Having already given his oath, he stood by his word when the others filled him in. The secrecy of the mission was continually emphasized in all the sources. It was a dangerous venture, after all. Not only did they lack Sande’s permission to leave the Philippines, there was further danger from the Portuguese, who jealously guarded their special status in Macau and were empowered to arrest anyone who landed there without permission. For example, the Portuguese, Iberian rivals who jealously guarded their special status in Macau, were empowered to arrest anyone who landed there without permission.27 Furthermore, by entering the Chinese mainland illegally, without the permissions required, they ran the risk of being arrested and imprisoned upon arrival, as other trespassers had before and would in the years since. They may have considered more permanent consequences as well. While there is no verifiable record of the Chinese executing would-be missionaries in this era, the fears expressed by the captain who had reneged on their agreement were not imaginary either. However, these very real threats had little power to dissuade the friars. Indeed, from 1552 to 1583, approximately fifty Christian missionaries would attempt to enter China without official permission.28 Alfaro would have liked to bring more than three other friars with him, but the dual threat of his mission being betrayed and of the Philippines being left without spiritual guidance swayed him, and he did not attempt to increase his numbers further. The four friars and three soldiers returned to their ship, where they put the Cagayan friar, a Spanish servant, and some local people in attendance on shore to continue the journey by other means. The remaining sailors were “not very expert,” and no sources explain how exactly they were filled in about their new assignment, although presumably Frías had spoken to them beforehand and undoubtedly Díaz still had his reales ready for distribution. They resolved to sail that very day, and put out to sea on Friday, June 12, with “great joy.” However, the journey would not begin that day. The sea was too rough in the port, and they feared that the small ship would run aground. So they retreated back into port, and spent the following day and night on board, no doubt simmering with excitement and frustration. The seven conspirators passed the time praying, saying masses, and presumably getting to know one another better. Alfaro had known all the friars for at least two years, as they had all sailed from Spain with him. Tordesillas, as his name implied, hailed from Valladolid, had professed at the age of thirty, and had been at a monastery in that same province before his departure from Seville. He was

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chosen to be the mission’s official scribe, despite having considerably worse penmanship than most of his companions, and would become the author of the forty-page “Relación del viaje a China de Pedro de Alfaro y religiosos,” which formed the basis for Mendoza’s narrative and is now at the Archivo General de Indias in Spain. Baeza was, like Alfaro himself, Andalusian, and had been at the Monasterio de Paracuellos with Alfaro’s eventual successor, Pablo de Jesús. Baptista, the lone non-Spaniard among the friars, was Italian but had lived in Spain for long enough to not be listed as a foreigner in the initial passage permits. These were the men with whom Alfaro would conquer China for Christ. Alfaro, having picked out the initial twenty-two who left Spain with him and having selected the six replacements in Mexico, had presumably further chosen these men for their devotion, tenacity, and aptitude at secrecy—the best of the best for this clandestine mission. However, none of them could speak Chinese, and none of them had any known, direct experience in converting non-Christians and non-Spanish-speakers beyond the eleven and a half months they had all been in the Philippines together. Perhaps unsurprisingly given this context, some of the most intelligent and insightful information about the ill-fated mission came from their secular companions. Díaz, hailing from the Andalusian seaside town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, was “an old encomendero” who eventually took Franciscan vows himself, whereas Dueñas was the alcalde mayor in Bulacan and had been in the Philippines for nearly a decade.29 Villarroel, from Mexico City, lacked the relative prestige of his colleagues, but his faithfulness toward the men he had sworn to protect was admirable by the standards of the time. In addition to these seven, the ship was crewed by a mix of sangley and indigenous sailors. There was also one more passenger: a Chinese youth named Juanillo (or Juanico), who had been enslaved by Lin Feng, freed by the Spanish (opting to stay rather than return with de Rada), and was now returning to his homeland at last to serve as a translator for the friars. The weekend having presumably been spent in prayer and camaraderie, the seas and skies cleared on Sunday night, and on the morning of Monday June 15, 1579, Pedro de Alfaro and his companions set sail for China at long last. The journey that had begun over two years previously in Spain was now reaching its culmination. Their hopes were high—how could they not be? Everyone whose words they had heeded, the “good chino,” their fellow friars, the sangleyes in Manila who assured them that China was ripe for conversion, had convinced them that their mission would be a success. As for those whose words they had not heeded, Francisco de Sande chief among them? It was difficult to give them credence on that summer day, as the frigate sailed smoothly across the sea and toward the mighty Ming Empire. God himself was on their side.

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The calm seas did not last long. The evening of their first day at sea, the wind changed abruptly and began blowing to the north, a dangerous situation as they were still close to the shore and there was a substantial risk that the little frigate would run aground or sink. Worse, remaining in sight of the shore could subject them to “another, much greater fear”: Sande would be able to pursue them and forcibly return them to Manila if they became trapped there. Between the two evils, they reasoned, it was better for the ship to lie at the bottom of the sea than for Sande to thwart them once again, and so they turned toward the open seas and left sight of Spanish lands. Indeed, their fears persisted for awhile after landing—weeks after they arrived in China, Alfaro wrote to a fellow Franciscan in Manila (sent via messenger to Macau first), wherein he explained that “I do not want to write to each of my brothers, not for lack of desire, but to avoid embarrassment and suspicion,” should Sande notice that many of them were receiving “letters from China.”30 They would quickly lose this anxiety concerning the governor, as greater villains—as they saw it—crowded in during their sojourn in China. The account of their journey to China was one of extremes—they were being flung hither and thither by terrible storms, followed by God correcting course and causing the sun to shine and the seas to calm in response to their prayers, only to be followed once again by foul weather and mortal danger. None of their other, much longer voyages were described in quite so dramatic a manner, not even the trip across the Atlantic that had killed six of their comrades. While it is true that that part of the South China Sea is particularly dangerous, it seems probable that the danger was exaggerated, whether for dramatic effect, the result of nerves, or both. Regardless, Tordesillas described scenes of fraught danger and terror, with the friars in tears and the sailors having to bind themselves to the deck and the ship tossing back and forth as though “a whole legion of devils had taken hold of the ship.” Regardless of the true level of danger Alfaro and his companions were actually exposed to, the ship was undisputedly blown off course. In the sixteenth century, the journey from Manila to Southern China generally took fifteen to twenty days in this period and required the services of a skilled pilot, as the sea passage was difficult to navigate once a ship approached the coasts of either Fujian or Guangdong.31 They took a little over the average maximum time to reach China, and both Alfaro and Tordesillas, in separate documents, asserted that their plan all along had been to make for the same “Chincheo” (Zhangzhou prefecture) that had received Martín de Rada several years previously.32 They never made it there, landing first at an unnamed small island off the coast of Guangzhou some three hundred miles southwest of their planned destination. There, they attempted to ask the other ships in port where exactly they were, only to have them flee on sight. Giving up on the island port, they dropped anchor in a small cove and rested there with three other vessels

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overnight. To their immense frustration, the crews of these ships also would not tell them where they were, and added insult to injury by simply exchanging amused glances with each other and giving “great laughter” at the sight of Alfaro and his men. Their laughter at the query was quite justified, for they were merely ten miles or so from the mainland. The next morning, their little frigate left the cove and soon found itself in the midst of the busy Zhu Estuary, full of islands and small straits and above all, hundreds upon hundreds of ships. Fishing ships, houseboats (“boat dwellers more numerous than the gypsies of Seville”), large junks under sail, still others at anchor—the sight must have been dazzling even to these men who had so recently sailed through the greatest ports of Spain and Mexico. Beyond the teeming estuary lay the city of Guangzhou itself, barely visible in the distance. While Guangzhou would grow significantly in importance later during the Qing Dynasty, it was still a major cosmopolitan city when Alfaro and his companions arrived. Its winding alleys and narrow streets gave an impression of endless bustle and energy, while the recent expansion of the mighty city walls in 1565 gave witness to its increasing wealth and prestige. At a population of about 170,000 in 1575, it was over 50 percent larger than Alfaro’s hometown of Seville, itself one of the finest port cities in Europe at the time, and over twice the population of Rome. Gazing at the city in the distance, glittering with wealth and power, Alfaro and his men would have been stunned to discover that Guangzhou’s population was less than a quarter as large as that of Beijing, the faraway northern capital no Spaniard had yet seen.33 Most impressive of all to the awestruck travelers was the maritime watch and ward, which according to Tordesillas consisted of eighty warships crammed into a quarter-league-wide strait along the mainland, sitting stern guard over the city and its port. Even if the strait had been twice as wide and contained only half the ships, it is unlikely that they were quite as large and majestic as the famous Fujian warships (Fu chuan 福船) of the Zheng He voyages measuring north of thirty meters long, but they were certainly impressive nonetheless. Their square-shaped sails stood out dramatically against the city behind them, their decks loaded down with “Frankish” breech-loading guns (folangji, 佛郎機, so-called because they were adapted from older Portuguese models), all manner of arquebuses and muskets, and perhaps even firebombs capable of destroying the friars’ little frigate and all within it in an instant.34 Tordesillas gives two incredible claims at this juncture—one, that they navigated this estuary with no pilot, the other that they sailed into the midst of the guard and remained completely undetected. Regardless of the veracity of Tordesillas’ account of their entry, their invisibility was of short duration, for after they had left the strait they followed a group of ships into the

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mouth of the Zhujiang. Overtaking one of them, the boy Juanillo shouted at them asking what port they were about to enter. The captain of one of the ships, a salt merchant, explained that they were in Guangzhou and offered to come aboard and point them toward the best way to approach the city before nightfall. Having seen only Juanillo and the crew until he boarded, he was shocked to see the rest of the passengers, whose “apparel and speech was strange to him.” Sensing that something was perhaps not quite right and not quite legal, the salt merchant demanded to know who they were, what they were doing there, and how they had evaded the watch. Juanillo, thrust into an on-the-spot test of the delicate art of interpretation, told the truth: that they were Spaniards out of the Philippines and that they had arrived in China without license in order to preach the gospel. They had seen the watch, but had not been stopped or even noticed by them. The merchant departed immediately upon hearing this, and Juanillo presumably judged that it was best to drop the matter. The Spaniards did not, and by their account reached an agreement with the retreating captain “by signs” that he would conduct them into the port. Whether or not their belief that he had agreed to help them was true, he immediately turned the salt ship around and “cast out to sea,” sailing off so quickly that he disappeared from sight before Alfaro could gather his wits. They had a similar reaction from a group of houseboat residents, who shrieked so loudly at the sight of them that Tordesillas thought it was somewhat excessive—they were shouting, he wrote, as though they feared the mere presence of the Spanish would set them on fire. Unwilling to draw attention to themselves or frighten the boat-dwellers further, they sailed a little ways out into the middle of the estuary and dropped anchor for the night. The next day, they gave up on obtaining personal conduct into port and simply sailed further up the Zhujiang, even at this point “a place of such great width that it seemed to be a sea.” Juanillo was again set to the task of shouting at all the neighboring ships, asking the best way to the port, only to be met once again with laughter instead of replies. Their habits seem to have been the focus of this mirth—Europeans were common enough in the seas surrounding Macau and Guangzhou that the mere sight of Iberian garb or even of the black habits worn by de Rada would have been an unlikely cause of such extreme laughter. But the rough, ostentatiously poor brown robes of the Discalced Franciscans, to say nothing of their unshod feet and long beards, was another matter, noticeable and comical by the standards of the time and place. Bearing this mockery with good grace, the friars continued on, Juanillo shouting all the way, until they came to a “strong and gallant edifice”—the port tower and gates. Next to the tower, on the shore, there was a large crane for winching cargo off ships. Upon beholding this sight, the friars, fearful that they would be shot at from the tower, shook their sails in the manner of peaceful visitors to Spanish ports wishing to signal their friendship. This

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being a Chinese port, the sign went unnoticed, and after awhile the little frigate simply set its sails and followed all the other ships into port. They stepped onto Chinese soil at long last, and immediately sang a Te Deum. This finally attracted some attention, and by the time they had walked up to the gate itself, “four shots of an arquebus away,” they were followed by a mirthful troop of people, curious to see who these men were and what they had come for. The guards ignored them and they were permitted to enter the great city of Guangzhou. This whole tale of evasion at multiple stages seems rather unlikely—how could they elude not only the warships at the harbor, but the guards at the gates to the city? Perhaps they were overstating the fearsomeness of the Chinese; after all, de Rada had been able to enter Zhangzhou prefecture unmolested just a few years before, and, while Portuguese traders were not allowed to settle permanently in Guangzhou, they were permitted to arrive regularly from Macau for stays of short duration. It is therefore perhaps not too improbable that they were able to simply sail into the port and walk through the gates, noticed but dismissed as unimportant, particularly as they arrived during the day. Mendoza’s version of events asserts that the captains of every ship that was found to have known of Alfaro’s entrance was duly arrested and imprisoned, with all their goods confiscated, but there is no further evidence for this, marking it a likely case of dramatic license. Equally as unlikely is their successful navigation of the Zhu Estuary without a pilot—after all, it was not the friars or Juanillo who was sailing their ship, but the sailors who had taken them on from Manila and about whom Alfaro and his fellow friars were suspiciously silent after their departure. The entrance into Guangzhou was extremely difficult in this period, requiring the services of a skilled pilot to avoid both running aground and running into legal trouble. Perhaps they omitted this detail out of a desire to present this voyage to China as a miracle ordained by God, rather than a somewhat more worldly venture driven by ambition. This is actually the viewpoint of Robert Parke, Mendoza’s contemporary English translator, who prefaced his work with a warning that his Protestant readers might be shocked to read about the “falsely reported miracles” and “the zeal of certain Spanish friars.” He pointed out that “the Spaniards, following their ambitious affections, do usually in all their writings extoll their own actions, even to the setting forth of many untruths and incredible things, as in their descriptions of the conquests of the East and West Indies.”35 Xenophobic as this statement was, it is quite possibly the truth when it comes to Alfaro’s entry into Guangzhou. Given their duplicitous departure from the Philippines and the eventual disastrous end to their mission, they certainly had the motivation to cast their arrival in the best possible light. At the same time, Alfaro, Tordesillas, and the others may have genuinely believed in the presence of devils and enchantments

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influencing their entry into Guangzhou, but given the suspicions of the Chinese toward Westerners and the importance of Chinese military and naval infrastructure to this work, it is well worth examining the practicalities of exactly how he managed to enter the city. Alas for Alfaro, this evasion could not last. The laughing crowd surrounding them attracted the attention of the guards, who, racing after them, gently escorted them back to the shore, where they were met by a local man who spoke to them in fluent Portuguese, having been converted in Macau many years before. This man, whose Christian name was Simão Rodrigues and who was known to the Spaniards as Simón, informed them where they were and that the laws of Guangzhou required all foreigners to have an official license from one of the two county magistrates to enter the city. He brought them back to their ship, promising to arrange for their appearance before the magistrate to get the necessary permits. They stayed on their ship for over a day, stewing in the “great heat” of the port, until finally Simón came to fetch them for their first official appearance before Chinese authorities. Their first taste of Chinese pomp and ritual proved to be almost overwhelming—so much so that the friars had trouble believing that this was an ordinary county magistrate and not the governor of the province or even a prince of some kind. The magistrate sat in a grand chair, richly decorated with ornate carvings. The hem of his silk gongfu (公服) reached almost to his feet, and the brocade embroidery of the buzi (補子) cloth square that denoted his office shone as if it was made of metal. The magistrate’s wide sleeves, embroidered girdle, and above all the zhanchi futou (展翅襆頭) on his head, shining with badges “like a bishop’s miter” further impressed Alfaro, Tordesillas, Baeza, and Baptista. In front of the magistrate stood a table with stacks of paper and fine inkstones, and flanking both magistrate and table was a line of men who appeared to be guards, bearing staffs of wood and each wearing a leather cap with peacock feathers for plumes. Such luxury would have been the object of envy at the Alcázar de Madrid, and it must have been blinding to the descalzos. When bade to kneel before this awesome sight, the friars did so without hesitation, although Alfaro admitted later that he “could not suffer” the requirement not to look at the magistrate directly.36 The magistrate asked the friars to explain who they were, what their business was in China, and who had borne them there. Alfaro announced grandly that they were Spaniards, subjects of the mighty Philip II, and that they had come to Guangzhou to preach and to turn the hearts and souls of the people away from the false idols they had heretofore worshiped. As for how they had arrived, who else could have been their guide, but God himself? One can imagine Simón’s horror and frustration at such a response. It was unlikely that a Ming magistrate would have listened cheerfully to such a tale and then permitted its tellers to go forth into the country with such an objective.

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Leaving aside the insults to Chinese spirituality, Alfaro’s statement of loyalty to El Prudente could have legal or diplomatic repercussions—and any such repercussions could fall on the man who had brought them to the court and had agreed to represent them as an interpreter. No, Simón reasoned, it would not do to translate Alfaro’s words accurately. The interpreter, frankly, demonstrated far more acumen and tact than any of the friars would while in Ming territory. While the friars would go on to excoriate him for what they saw as outrageous perfidy, Simón was more than likely simply balancing the needs of his clients with the needs of the magistrates, who were, after all, the ones really in charge. This was a balancing act required of all Chinese interpreters in the service of European visitors, particularly in the sixteenth century when it was rare indeed for a Westerner to possess conversational fluency in any Chinese language.37 So in the age-old tradition of diplomacy, he lied, allowing the magistrate to believe that the friars were members of a harmless religious sect, possibly similar to Daoism, even pointing out that Alfaro and his men raised their eyes to tian (天) when they prayed, in the manner of Daoist and Confucian religious—shades of the future Rites Controversy! These poor monks, according to Simón, had been blown off course en route to Ilocos and had been forced to swim for their lives, finding refuge on a lifeboat and simply following other ships into Guangzhou by accident, without knowing where they were. The magistrate, no fool, immediately asked how, then, they had come to have a Chinese boy in their service as an interpreter. This Simón explained with somewhat less acumen, telling a wild tale of the friars finding Juanillo trapped on a deserted island, Robinson Crusoe-style, and taking the boy with them out of pity upon hearing his woeful report of eight years’ enslavement and abandonment on the island after a shipwreck. The magistrate, perhaps nonplussed by this story, changed tactics and asked to see the items the friars had brought to China with them. Their chest of books and religious paraphernalia was duly brought forth, and he sifted through it with deep interest, bidding the friars to remove each item individually for his careful inspection. There were not only catechisms and missals covered in strange writing to flip through, but beautiful and exotic items as well. The friars, for all their vows of poverty, still maintained the proper items for ecclesiastically valid masses, baptisms, and other rites. They had a beautiful black jasper altar stone, of Michoacano make and so shiny that one could use it as a mirror, as well as two silver chalices valued at fourteen Venetian ducats each, embroidered altar-cloths, an image of Mary Magdalene “wrought of feathers out of Mexico,” and other treasures. The friars watched as the magistrate gently inspected each, perhaps pleased to see his keen interest in the sacred items of their faith.

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Suddenly the magistrate looked up. How, he asked, could books and feathers and cloth have been salvaged from a shipwreck and yet show no signs of seawater? The perfect condition of the items seemed to show that their tale could not possibly be true. Surrounded by his peacock-plumed guards, the magistrate demanded to know if they had lied to him. Simón stammered and hesitated before coming up with an answer considerably more masterful than his explanation for Juanillo’s presence. Surely, he reasoned with the magistrate, any merchant knew that one’s first task in a shipwreck was to save the most valuable cargo? The friars had done the same, sacrificing all their other goods to save their prized possessions. Mollified, the magistrate then asked if the men had brought any weapons or money. Simón explained that carrying either was forbidden to them. After a physical inspection of the ship to ensure that there were no stores of weapons or bullion on board, the magistrate told the men to stay on the frigate for the time being and set a guard to protect them from robbers or xenophobic Chinese inclined to attack foreigners. The guard was only for their physical protection—they did not prevent curious locals from crowding the ship to look at the friars and point at their beards. Alfaro and his men happily showed off their books and possessions to the onlookers, confident that in due time the curiosity shown by the people would be transformed into religious conviction. Díaz, Dueñas, and Villarroel stood by watching with similar hopes, seemingly unconcerned that the economic value of the items might be a greater lure than their spiritual importance. They received another visit the next day, from a different magistrate who was, as Tordesillas put it, “a person of less dignity” than the previous magistrate, despite announcing himself as a representative of the prefectural magistrate. This official searched the ship high and low, searching for contraband, but had to content himself with perusing the same chest of religious items his colleague had rifled through previously. He pulled out a book from the chest and handed it to the friars, asking them to read from it and also to write out passages from it as proof of both their literacy and their truthfulness about the books’ content. Alfaro, seemingly pleased at a chance to show off his abilities, wrote out passages in several European languages and even wrote out a character or two in Chinese, presumably picked up from Juanillo or from one of his sangley contacts in Manila. The magistrate was quite impressed, and, according to Tordesillas, announced that the men did not seem to be barbarians, and thus his recommendation was to grant them a temporary license. This paper duly arrived later that day, announcing to one and all that Alfaro and his companions were free to enter Guangzhou at their will and would be provided with board, provided they returned to their boat each night. The friars’ first order of business was to visit Simón at home, where they met his wife and children. As yet unaware of his creative approach

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to translation, they asked him for advice about how to go about with their preaching. The man replied that the best thing to do would be to hold off on any conversions until they spoke Chinese fluently and did not need to rely on him or on Juanillo. Tordesillas, ever suspicious, attributed this to Simón’s desire to obtain money and goods from them, but the interpreter may well have just been cautious and fearful, having seen the difficulty the Portuguese were having in converting the nearby people of Macau and knowing perfectly well that his championing of the friars’ cause could put him in danger. For the time being, however, the friars dined with Simón that day, enjoying for the first time in nearly a month the hospitality of a Christian family and the warmth of a household meal. On June 24, they were once again called before a magistrate, and once again Simón served as their interpreter. After repeating the same questions the previous magistrates had asked, Simón retold the story of their shipwreck and explained that since they had no pilot to navigate home, the friars would be honored to stay in Guangzhou and attend the sick and bury the dead out of gratitude for the hospitality of the Chinese. This impressed him even more, and he, too, asked to see the chest of books and sacramental items, asking the friars to please give him two of their images of saints, as a token of their goodwill toward him. Based on the repeated references to the thievery and greed of the Chinese peppered throughout the sources thereafter, this seems to be the first sign of the friars’ disenchantment with China and the cause of their reassessing Simón and the “good chino” of Manila when compiling their records later on. But at the time, the friars gave no sign that they found this request upsetting or uncouth, and the magistrate’s reaction should have been an indication that this giving of gifts was a normal part of Chinese interactions, social and official alike, European notions of etiquette notwithstanding. Once the images were handed over, the magistrate praised them effusively, asked them to rise from their positions on the floor, and even drank tea with them (Parke described the new beverage as “a comfortable thing for the heart”).38 This wholesome moment was shattered when a Cantonese local burst into the room, covered in blood and shouting that he had been attacked without provocation. Kowtowing before the magistrate, he explained that he had been beaten in the course of an ordinary disagreement. In a fury, the magistrate ordered his guards to find the perpetrators, and “in a trice” they returned with three laborers whom the bloodied man identified as being his attackers. The magistrate immediately sentenced them to twenty strokes with a cane on the back of the legs, his guards hurling the men down onto their bellies and beating them with the same staffs of wood the friars recognized from their audience with the other magistrate. Horrified, Alfaro and his men fell at his feet and begged him to stop the beating. Amazed at their mercy, he commuted

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their sentences on the spot and, according to Tordesillas and Mendoza, immediately reasoned that their goodness and humanity must mean that they had divine favor, which would give the additional benefit of explaining how they had evaded the watch. Therefore, the magistrate said, he would immediately notify his superiors and advocate for permission for them to remain indefinitely. Despite some difficulties, the friars could say that the first few days of their sojourn in China had gone well. They had not been arrested, nor sent back to Manila and the wrath of Sande. They had received permission to stay and had an ally in the magistrate, who was clearly impressed by their fervor. The situation was improving. The ax fell later that day. Having returned to their frigate to take the sacrament, they were surprised to have a visit from Simón and several of the guards who had protected the ship. The interpreter dramatically announced that he had lied to the magistrates on their behalf, and at great personal risk to himself and his family, who by Ming law would have shared in his punishment. The friars were horrified to discover that Simón had been untruthful about their purpose in China—they had believed that their holy mission was why they had been permitted to stay, not because the magistrates deemed them harmless vagabonds worthy of official pity. Alfaro, suddenly a stickler for the truth, was furious, but Simón was not yet finished. Their board, he claimed, was coming out of his own purse, and the cost was beggaring him to the point that he would soon be forced to sell his own son to pay for the Spaniards’ food. He and the guards would need to be reimbursed for their assistance, immediately. Alfaro was a man of God, but he was a practical sort as well. Fearing that Simón would claim that they were a party to his statements before the magistrates, and knowing that their own plain dress and personal items would never satisfy their interpreter, he handed over one of the silver chalices, begging Simón as a Christian to remember that this was a vessel consecrated for the blood of Christ. Simón was pleased with the chalice, but nevertheless pulled Juanillo aside to inquire if there were any jewels or gold or silver secreted within the ship. Juanillo pointed out that the friars were Discalced Franciscans—surely Simón knew that all they had were books and habits. Disappointed, Simón immediately asked for the other silver chalice, and when Alfaro hotly retorted that he had already given him more than he deserved, the interpreter snapped that if they didn’t have any way to pay the people who were helping them, they should go beg in the streets or else bind themselves to enslavement in order to pay him. Shocked by this reply, Alfaro immediately entrusted the care and safekeeping of the remaining chalice to Juanillo. In a letter to a fellow friar in Manila, Alfaro let forth his fury, calling the interpreter “an apostate and a renegade” and “the traitor Simón our interpreter.” Of all the dangers and humiliations they had encountered thus

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far, “nothing gave us so much pain and embarrassment as the [loss of the] silver,” he wrote, blaming Simón once again for this dreadful turn of events.39 In Tordesillas and Mendoza, this is presented as an overt extortion. But was it? Alfaro’s growing disenchantment with China and the Chinese was becoming more obvious. He had not been greeted as the proud representative of both a powerful empire and the only true faith—quite the contrary. Alfaro was rapidly learning that the Chinese were not impressed and awed by his person, his faith, or by the empire he represented. Indeed, Tordesillas recounted with irritation that he and his fellow Franciscans were regularly mocked for their long beards, aquiline noses, and rounded, catlike eyes. In one of his more memorable remarks, Alfaro forlornly observed in a letter to fellow Franciscan Juan de Ayora that the Chinese “look upon us as we look upon indios”—an expression of ethnocentric surprise and irritation that remains sadly familiar to the modern reader.40 The only way Alfaro could get the group of alleged extortionists to leave them alone for the time being was to promise to write to Melchior Carneiro Leitão, Bishop of Macau, and ask him for alms, entrusting Simón to send a messenger to Macau with the letter. Alfaro promised to hasten to Macau as soon as possible, not just to kiss the hands of the man who was the nominal head of all Christians in East Asia, but to show himself to the Portuguese community there. The distance between Macau and Guangzhou was a small one, easily cleared in less than a day by relay, horseback, or boat, and already the Portuguese were grumbling about this band of Spaniards who had appeared out of nowhere. The four friars and three soldiers had already violated any number of Chinese laws, and the Portuguese feared that their hard-won agreements with the Ming were in danger. Indeed, Mendoza writes, the Portuguese weren’t even sure that these men were friars at all, suspecting them of coming in counterfeit habits to spy upon their trade secrets and even act as advance scouts for a Spanish army bent on conquering China (which the Ming would, of course, blame on the Portuguese). Carneiro’s response came with some alms as well as some medicines. The latter were well-received, for between Simón’s distressing confrontation and the receipt of the bishop’s packet, Sebastian de San Francisco Baeza had fallen desperately ill. The friar had contracted a tropical fever of some sort, and lay on his bunk in the ship sweating and shivering and expressing the desire to recover so that he could suffer martyrdom for Christ. The others nursed him and prayed heartily for his recovery, but it was not to be. He died a few days later, having been cheated out of not only the wonders he had hoped to accomplish in China but the martyrdom he sought at the end. His body, like that of all Westerners who died in Ming China with the exception of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, was borne to Macau, where it was most likely buried at

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the São Lázaro church (望德聖母堂), the only Franciscan-affiliated structure in the city at that time.41 Alfaro, Tordesillas, and Baptista barely had time to mourn their lost companion, for almost immediately after they were asked to appear before yet another magistrate, this time based in the city of “Aucheo,” which Mendoza identified as being the same that de Rada had visited but which Charles Boxer argued is more likely to be Wuzhou (梧州).42 It cannot be either, as this “Aucheo” is explicitly described as both the seat of the government of Canton province, and as being four days’ travel up the Zhujiang delta. Ubaldo Iaccarino’s identification of it as Zhaoqing (肇庆) is therefore almost certainly correct.43 Regardless of the real identity of their destination, in August they were brought forth before Liu Yaohui (劉堯誨), Supreme Commander (zongdu 總督) of the Liangguang (兩廣 Guangdong and Guangxi provinces), inevitably referred to in Spanish sources as “the viceroy.” Ubaldo Iaccarino plausibly identifies Liu as the same administrator who had met Martín de Rada several years previously in Zhangzhou prefecture, but Alfaro and Tordesillas did not make the connection.44 They were buoyed up by the kindness of the preparations taken on their behalf—for example, when they expressed concern about the safety of their ship and its contents, asking to leave two of the sangley crew behind to protect it, the Guangzhou magistrates set another guard upon the frigate and moreover pasted it over with paper seals to ensure that any burgling would be immediately detected. Alfaro, Tordesillas, Baptista, the three soldiers, and presumably also Juanillo and the crew were installed in “very gallant” barges with comfortable galleys for their journey, which took place mainly at night to avoid the heat. When they arrived after nightfall, they found that dinner and bedding had been set up for all of them at a house outside the city. The next morning, they walked along what they thought was the breadth of the entire city, only to find once they arrived at the palace that they had merely strolled through the suburbs. As they approached the gate, Alfaro exclaimed, “I have been in all the principal cities of Flanders and Italy, and in all of them I have not seen such curiosities and riches as in this street alone.” When it was time for the magistrate to receive them, the gate opened with the sounding of trumpets and a “great noise” of artillery, so loud that Tordesillas feared the city might sink into the soft earth of the Zhujiang delta. Liu Yaohui had his own guard just as the first magistrate they met had, only his were two thousand strong, armed with arquebuses in superb condition, and had finer clothes and “gallanter dispositions” than the guards they had encountered before. The friars were fascinated to discover that all the guards were Turkic or Mongol, not Han Chinese. But before they could get an explanation for this anomaly, they were summoned. Supreme Commander Liu sat on a chair decorated with ivory and gold, under cloth of gold embroidered

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with dragons (although not, of course, the five-clawed dragon that was the exclusive symbol of the Emperor). Opposite him was a wall of pure white, with a fierce dragon emblem painted on it, breathing fire and with bright eyes that seemed to follow the men around the room. If the friars had been impressed by the Guangzhou magistrate, they must have been dazzled indeed by the splendor surrounding Supreme Commander Liu. Liu politely asked them the same questions they had already been subject to before concerning their identity and why they had come to China, and in addition asked them to explain how they as Spaniards were different from the Portuguese they had already come to know and why they had been seen begging for alms on the streets of Guangzhou. Alfaro answered each question through an interpreter whose identity is unclear but who presumably relayed the answers accurately (and may therefore have been Juanillo, who had been notably honest in all his translations). They had come to preach the Gospel, Spaniards were “very near kin” to the Portuguese, with the same customs but different kings, and they had been forced to beg due to the demands of their interpreter and guards. Liu accepted their answers, and, like those before him, asked to see the items they had brought, as well as the license they had received in Guangzhou. To Alfaro’s increasing disquiet, he, too, lingered on each of their books and sacramental items one by one, showing special interest in the beautiful black jasper altar stone. Abruptly, Liu ended the meeting, bidding them a good evening and asking them to meet with his deputy in the adjoining hall. They found the deputy ensconced in only a little less splendor than the Supreme Commander had been. He, too, wished to see all the items and examined each one individually, asking questions all the way. The deputy was particularly interested in their crucifix, laughing out loud at the explanation Alfaro gave him, and then proceeded to grasp each of their habits in his hands in order to feel the rough, coarse cloth. As startling and offensive as this behavior must have been, Alfaro recognized that there was an affability beneath it, and sensed an opportunity. He asked the deputy if he would speak to Liu on their behalf, explaining that he and his men meant no harm and would be happy to go anywhere in China they wished, helping the poor and healing them, body and soul. Alfaro’s judgment was correct—the deputy readily and freely answered that the friars would not be sent away, at least not for several months until the weather permitted a return to Luzon. In the meantime, he would see to it that the friars were given a house in Guangzhou for the duration of their wait, as well as resources to learn Chinese and pocket money for their daily expenses. After weeks of worry and repeated court appearances, the friars’ relief can only be imagined. Thanking the deputy and Liu Yaohui profusely, they returned to their beds in the suburbs and sang another Te Deum, this time for the blessing that had secured, temporarily at least, their stay in China.

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Tordesillas, reflecting on this joyful moment, realized that, as furious as they remained over the lies Simón had told, had he been truthful they might have been expelled from the country on sight and sent back to Manila in the most dangerous weather of the year. It seemed, once again, that God was on their side. They remained in Zhaoqing for awhile longer while they waited for the final confirmation of their license, touring the city and making the acquaintance of some of the important officials who dined with Liu and were curious about this ragtag troop of Spaniards who had made such an impression on the deputy. One of these new friends was a military captain who called for the friars again and again, asking them to sit at the table with him and tell him all about Spain and Catholicism and, above all, about the beautiful and exotic goods they had brought with them. At first believing they had found their first convert, Alfaro and the other friars quickly realized that he had no intention of changing his religion, but instead merely coveted the black jasper altar stone. The captain offered to buy it from them at any price, but upon being told that descalzos did not engage in any sort of commerce and even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t sell a consecrated object, he switched tactics to outright asking for it as a gift, promising to do them favors in exchange. The first time this happened, Alfaro was able to metaphorically “pry it out of his hands, which was no small undertaking.” The second time Alfaro heeded the man’s request to bring the altar stone, the captain dared to lay his hands upon it, a forbidden act from a nonbeliever. Horrified, Alfaro begged him not to touch it, and the captain acquiesced but asked them to please leave the stone with him overnight so he could show it to his friends. Alfaro felt that he had no choice, and left the stone with him. Coming back the next day to fetch the stone, the captain proposed that it instead be left in his custody permanently, until the friars had succeeded in building a church in Zhaoqing, whereupon it would remain forever, a testament to Alfaro’s devotion and to the bond between China and Spain. Alfaro responded that he was willing to promise that the stone would be destined for this church as soon as it was built, but in the meantime he and the friars needed the jasper stone to say Mass. The captain pressed and pressed, and spoke more and more rapidly, until the beleaguered friar felt that if he did not yield both the stone and the Mary Magdalene wrought in feathers, his mission and perhaps his very life would be in danger. So he left two of his greatest treasures, consecrated objects that had been gifts of the viceroy of Mexico, behind in the captain’s house, taking little comfort in Juanillo’s opinion that the captain would then feel obligated, by the rules of Chinese etiquette, to do something of similar value for him. Juanillo was quite possibly correct, as the captain had immediately brought forth rich Chinese damasks and attempted to force Alfaro to take them with him. In the absence of a successful material

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exchange, he may well have felt bound to perform some intercessory task on the friars’ behalf. The loss of the beautiful black jasper stone and the Magdalene of feathers was a sore blow to all of them, but Alfaro in particular brooded about it. This was the second time that he had been misled by Chinese offering friendship but instead coveting what little material goods he had—material goods that were not only valuable, but holy. What did this mean for the ultimate success of his ambitions? Were the Chinese, perhaps, not quite as ripe and ready for the Word as he had been led to believe in Manila? Was God truly in favor of this mission? In desperation, he prayed to St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost items and lost souls alike. And again, at least according to the friars, God showed himself to be Alfaro’s friend. The captain, according to Mendoza, realized that the jasper stone and feathered portrait were so well-known in the area that everyone would know immediately who he had received them from, and that Liu would understand that the items had been taken by duress. So he returned their treasure to them a few days later, and again the friars rejoiced and basked in God’s goodwill. The day after the drama of the black jasper altar stone was concluded, Liu’s deputy called for them again and informed them that they were free to return to Guangzhou whenever they wished, and that their license to remain in China indefinitely had been approved. This, once again, was proof of God’s favor toward them—how could it not be? Alone of all the missionaries who had thus far entered or attempted to enter Ming China, they were the only ones who had been permitted to stay outside of the Portuguese enclave. Not even the brilliant and saintly Martín de Rada, in his fine black robes, could boast of such favor. They were doing what no Franciscan had done since the days when Mongol khans ruled China. They therefore sailed back down the Zhujiang with light hearts and high expectations, stopping immediately at the magistrate’s hall in Guangzhou to give him the papers Liu had issued them. His hall by now must have seemed, if not downright shabby, then a pale shadow of what they had seen in the Supreme Commander of the Liangguang’s palace. When they arrived, the magistrate greeted them gladly, reading over their papers and expressing his happiness that they had found such favor with Supreme Commander Liu. He immediately directed the three friars, the three soldiers, and the boy Juanillo to the house that was to be their dwelling. The sailors presumably returned to the ship to keep it seaworthy. Upon beholding the house, the friars were shocked. They did not expect luxuries, but they did hope to be put somewhere that could be expanded into a church and monastery. The house on the outskirts of town, in dilapidated condition with “half fallen down” floors and ceilings, was no potential monastery, nor were they

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permitted to turn it into one. The friars and soldiers puzzled over this, until Juanillo clarified something that he felt they ought to know. Their permit did not actually allow them to remain in China indefinitely as missionaries. They could stay as long as the winds to Manila were unfavorable, and no longer. In both Mendoza and Tordesillas, Juanillo explained this as an interpreters’ conspiracy, but it seems more likely that it was merely the result of language barriers—the friars, non-native Portuguese speakers, were speaking Portuguese to a series of yet more non-native Portuguese speakers, who were relaying their words into Mandarin (which they may not have been fluent in) and then back to the friars in Portuguese. It is difficult to imagine this system working perfectly smoothly over the course of several months. Added to this, the friars had already heard that one of the possibilities open to them was a permit to stay until the conditions for return were safer. This turn of events could not have truly come out of the blue for them. At this point, Alfaro called his two remaining friars and his three soldiers together for yet another council. Something had to be done to keep the beleaguered mission afloat. Their first choice was to find a new interpreter, one who could combine the status and boldness of Simón with the honesty of Juanillo. This new interpreter could make their needs and wishes plainly known to the magistrates and to Liu, whereupon the latter would realize his mistake and extend their permit indefinitely. Juanillo had proved to be an honest and faithful companion, but his age, inexperience, and possibly even his status as a former slave kept him quiet at important junctures. Peering through the documents, the reader is struck by Juanillo’s constant absences during important conversations, even as the friars were constantly bedeviled by, as they saw it, “traitor interpreters.” The youth seems to have spent most of the trip back on the ship with the sailors, whether by personal preference or by order. On a similarly speculative note, it may well be that Juanillo was only fluent in Fujianese or possibly Cantonese, and thus was of limited usefulness in the great halls of the Mandarin-speaking magistrates. Regardless, Juanillo, for whatever reason, was not considered a suitable choice. Nor, of course, was Simón acceptable. His wife’s home-cooked meals were a comfort and a blessing, but the man himself, Alfaro felt, left much to be desired in terms of honesty and Christian charity. Unfortunately, the quest to replace them with the interpreter of their dreams faltered due to lack of available candidates, and so they decided to abandon the plan of appealing their permit. The men soon realized that they had only two realistic options. One, championed by Alfaro himself and echoed by Baptista, was that they should hasten to Macau and resume the mission there.‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌The advantages would be substantial, Alfaro argued. Bishop Carneiro had already shown himself to be a friend, and his status as head of all of East Asian Christendom could be essential in getting the friars the connections they needed to achieve their dreams, which

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were, after all, also the will of God. In Macau, they could work with an established Chinese Christian community and perhaps even build their own church, a place for the beautiful black jasper altar stone to finally find a permanent home. The Portuguese would be much more likely than the Chinese to permit them to stay long-term, and in Macau they could not only preach safely without fear of expulsion, but they would have access to Portuguesespeaking Chinese Christians who could teach them the Chinese language. And once they learned it fluently, they need never fear being victimized by opportunistic or craven interpreters ever again. Finally, the rumors that had flown through Macau on their arrival—that this was no band of humble descalzos, but a spy ring that could endanger the very existence of the Portuguese enclave—had only strengthened in months since, with the friars crisscrossing the Zhujiang delta to confer with all manner of officials seeming to prove these dark suspicions. Showing themselves in Macau would have the immediate benefit of making their status as poor friars obvious to all. A sojourn in Macau would therefore combine the splendors of China with the freedoms of Manila, and would soothe their relationships with not only the Chinese, but the Portuguese as well. Alfaro urged them to consider the possibilities and benefits of this decision. Tordesillas, backed by the three soldiers, disagreed. They should obey both the letter and the spirit of their permit, and return back to the cane house in Manila as soon as the winds became favorable again. Tordesillas pointed out that if it was souls Alfaro wanted, why not go back and minister to the ones in Luzon, whom they had all promised to look after upon their departure from Spain? Díaz, Dueñas, and Villarroel were even more forceful. They had sworn a holy oath to accompany the friars to “plant the faith of Christ” in China, even though by doing so they risked not only their lives in dealing with the dangerous and unpredictable Chinese, but their livelihoods and careers in the Philippines by deliberately disobeying Governor Sande. Now that “the judgment of God shows plainly that we cannot put this into execution,” the right and moral thing to do would be to return to Manila, beg the governor’s forgiveness, and take up their previous work. While the urgent need to convert the Chinese had temporarily trumped their previous oaths of service to Sande, the failure of the mission returned those older oaths to their full force. Tordesillas concurred, and pointed out that Alfaro’s argument about alleviating the fears of the Portuguese by appearing in Macau was likely to backfire. Instead of the Portuguese being soothed by their arrival, it was likely to not only confirm their suspicions of the friars’ perfidy, but cause Alfaro and the others to appear to be traitors to Philip II by showing up in foreign territory and refusing to return to their rightful Spanish posts. They needed to go home. The six men resolved to pray to “resolve their differences.” This took so long that they missed the first several opportunities to depart in early fall,

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but were luckily unmolested by the Chinese officials because of the distraction caused by the administration of the imperial exam system (keju 科舉). While the exams were being administered and counted, no one would have time to spare to make sure that the dilapidated house on the outskirts of town was denuded of friars. Happily for the Spaniards, they did eventually come to a prayerful decision about how to solve their impasse. Alfaro and Baptista would go on to Macau, while Tordesillas and the soldiers would take the ship and go back to Manila. It was the labor of nearly a month’s debate, but the plan was now complete. Alfaro commenced the journey to Macau by writing once again to Bishop Carneiro, alerting him of their intention to visit and “tarry awhile,” for which the two friars would, naturally, need alms. According to Mendoza, the letter was seized by the Captain-Major of Macau Leonel de Brito, who had heard of these friars and was deeply suspicious of their motivations. Brito, “in a great choler,” threatened to banish the Chinese messenger who had delivered the letter and furthermore demanded that Carneiro not only forbid them from arriving, but to refuse all further communications with Alfaro and Baptista. Brito fully believed the rumors of espionage and none of Carneiro’s assurances that they were truly just descalzos calmed him. Mendoza and Tordesillas attributed this to stubbornness and a certain maliciousness, even accusing Brito of being privy to one of the endless interpreter’s conspiracies that the friars believed were behind all their failures. However, Brito was, if not right, then at least acting reasonably in his caution toward granting Alfaro and Baptista entry. These men had broken their oaths to serve in the Philippines, openly lied to Sande, knowingly defied Chinese laws of entry, and had shown a disquieting lack of insight into their own role in the collapse of the mission. Given the precariousness of the Portuguese enclave, it was fair to assume that even if they were not actually spies in the literal sense, they had the capacity to knowingly or unknowingly do a great deal of damage. Alfaro’s constant public applications to Sande had been an irritation. The same technique, repeated on Brito within easy eyesight and earshot of Chinese authorities and their spies, could lead to disaster if the Chinese believed that Brito was harboring a foreigner who had already been expelled once. This was just one of the nightmare scenarios that Brito may have considered in his discussions with Carneiro. However, the Captain-Major was eventually soothed into, if not friendship with Alfaro and Baptista, then acceptance of the inevitability of their arrival. Brito may have been the temporal authority in Macau, but Carneiro was the head of all that was sacred. Faced with the support of the bishop and of the other Franciscans in Macau, Brito gracefully stepped aside, swallowing his suspicions as best he could.

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Meanwhile, the exam period having ended, the magistrates were open again for petitions, and thus the three friars and three soldiers went forth all together for the last time to seek a partial amendment to the exit permit so that Alfaro and Baptista could continue on to Macau. For this last formal appearance in Ming China, the men knelt down a full twenty paces before the magistrate’s table, creeping on their hands and knees until they reached speaking distance. The magistrate read their petition and peered at them, asking which of them were to go to Macau and which were to return to Manila. In one of the few clues to Alfaro’s age, he indicated himself and Baptista, and explained that the pair were simply “too old and timorous” to brave another sea journey, and thus Macau was their best option. Of course, they were not being strictly truthful. If their ages had ever been a factor in any of their previous decisions, evidence of it no longer survives. This explanation merely indicates that the two were visibly older than the others and thus the magistrate would be inclined to lend credence to their argument. He did find himself so inclined, and agreed to the permits. Before dismissing them, he asked to see all the wondrous items the friars had brought to China, asking as others had to explain the purpose and history of each of their possessions, and bidding Alfaro to read once more from his books. This magistrate seemed to be more delighted with the Latin alphabet than had the others, asking over and over again to have the writing style and individual letters pointed out to him. After a good while of this new pastime, the judge asked Alfaro and Baptista to stand together on one side of the room, with Tordesillas, Díaz, Dueñas, and Villarroel on the other. He looked at each group long and, in Mendoza’s words, “lovingly,” and explained that he would need about ten days to receive approval to change the permits. After that, Alfaro and Baptista could leave immediately for Macau, while the others would be placed on the “first ship laden with merchandise” bound for Manila. In the meantime, the magistrate supplemented their existing board with a live pig, rice, and other foodstuffs. So they went back to their assigned house to wait out their last days in the magnificent Ming Empire. These last days turned out to be somewhat longer than the ten the magistrate had promised. The city officials were preoccupied again, this time with military drills in the fields surrounding Guangzhou. Díaz, Dueñas, and Villarroel, soldiers all, watched with fascination as the Ming soldiers shot arrows and arquebuses, marched in formation, practiced cavalry maneuvers, and hurled pikes at imaginary enemies. The friars, having committed to avoiding the arts of war, were more interested in the arrival of some Portuguese merchants who gave them alms and assured them that the good Christians of Macau had never given heed to the rumors surrounding them. The wait proved to be well worth it, however. Supreme Commander Liu had remembered them and was quite generous with the provisions of the new permit. Both groups

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were to travel under the care of a Chinese captain until they left the Ming borders—not as prisoners, they were assured, but as cherished and carefully protected friends in need of assistance home. The captain escorting Alfaro and Baptista to Macau was ordered to allow five days for an on-foot journey that typically only took three, in consideration of the friars’ aged bodies (perhaps Alfaro had done too good a job convincing the magistrate of his frailty). Tordesillas and the soldiers were similarly given victuals for a forty-day journey, although the trip to Manila was expected to take only twenty days at most. The little frigate, meanwhile, was to be sold and the profits given to the friars to distribute to the poor. Once all this was accomplished, the six companions realized that their adventure together was really and truly over, and they wept as they bade each other farewell. Six months after they had landed in China, illegal and unnoticed, Tordesillas, Díaz and Dueñas departed the great city of Guangzhou in luxury, escorted by a Ming captain onto a fine barge, as splendidly decorated as the one that had borne them to Zhaoqing, but larger and with more passengers. Pedro de Villarroel, presumably an impulsive type, was not with them. At the last minute, he had decided that his destiny lay with Alfaro in Macau and went off with them instead of with Tordesillas, simply putting on Portuguese-style clothes and hoping that no one would notice that he wasn’t on the permit list. This presumably worked, as nobody appears to have expressed concern that there was an additional passenger bound for Macau and only three leaving for Manila. Tordesillas and his two remaining soldiers were treated as guests of honor, fussed over and made much of by the ship’s captain and the rest of the passengers on board. Their first destination was Zhangzhou prefecture, the “Chincheo” that had been their original destination back in June. Their journey was a complex one and one that is difficult to reconcile with the geography of the area—four days by boat, horseback another two days, followed by five more days via river barge, and finally another four days overland to arrive in Zhangzhou. Based on this somewhat puzzling itinerary, their first stop was probably the present-day Dongguan area (东莞), followed by a trip up the river Dongjiang (東江) and then east to their final destination, although even this does not quite fit maps of the area. Whatever their actual route, this last chance to see more of China was eagerly appreciated by the travelers, who drank in the sights and described them in such detail that Mendoza actually truncates Tordesillas, referring the reader back to his account of the de Rada mission. For the three Spaniards peering from the windows of their cabins as the barge pushed upriver, the landscape seemed to be all one large and magnificent city. They saw city walls greater and stronger than those of Seville, beautiful palaces, soaring temples, and the seemingly endless small dwellings of

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the people. Even when they commenced their second river journey in a more rural setting, surrounded by “mighty trees” so large and thick with leaves that they could barely discern sunlight, they still saw between the trunks and branches “infinite towns and villages.” It was all extraordinarily impressive, as well as extraordinarily exhausting. For the three Spaniards were finding that, the further they went from the Portuguese enclave and its surrounding areas, the more novel a sight they became to the curious locals. At Dongguan, they were so besieged by fascinated townspeople that the one-mile journey to the inn took several hours and gave them a distinct feeling of near-suffocation. Later, when they arrived at an unnamed smaller city, possibly Huizhou (惠州), thirty miles upriver, their beleaguered host, a local dignitary who had opened his home to the travelers and their escort, had to ask them to please camp in an orchard nearby instead, as the locals were destroying his gates and alarming his family by peering into the windows to catch a glimpse of the foreigners. Tordesillas readily agreed, feeling pity for the man whose home had been damaged on their account, and the three men spent the night on display in the orchard, to the delight of the locals. Their role as unwilling actors in a public display became even more pronounced the following day, when they happened to walk past a play being performed on the street while en route to the local magistrate to show him their permit and obtain more supplies. The sight of these men, with their striking eyes and strange clothes, Tordesillas bearded and barefoot, intrigued the audience so much that “they left the players all alone” and followed the Spaniards to their meeting. That night, the men were surrounded by so many people that they “scarcely slept,” and had to leave for Zhangzhou prefecture much earlier than planned to escape the crowds. The early departure proved to be useless, as the crowds followed them with such zeal that the men were obliged to seek shelter in a small river barge and hide in an isolated curve of the river surrounded by trees, with their food being delivered by the crew. According to Tordesillas, it was only the threat of sinking the boat that prevented the crowd from clambering onboard to join them. Virtual prisoners, they were forced to send their travel permits to the local officials by proxy. The Zhangzhou magistrate responded in kind, telling them that because of the disruption caused by the crowds, he would regretfully suspend the requirement for an in-person audience and give them permission to continue on to the port, where the next available ship to Manila would receive them by his express order. The men were disappointed to miss seeing “the mightiness” of the prefecture up close, but were buoyed up by the thought that their return home was imminent. They duly arrived at the nearby Yuegang (月港) seaport, official departure point for Chinese commerce from Fujian since the repeal of the Ming maritime ban in 1567 (although, of course, the great bulk of Chinese trade

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was private), and were received by the captain of the ship designated to bear them home.45 This captain gave them a tour of the ship, showed them their quarters, and provided a welcoming banquet on board, promising to depart in ten days’ time. Ten days turned to fifteen, and the friars grew uneasy. Were they being misled again? Was the captain plotting some evil against them? It was now late December, and the weather grew chilly and damp. They wanted to be back in Manila, and they were frustrated to see that their ship remained in port with no plans for departure while others prepared to set sail for Luzon immediately. Having finally learned something of Chinese customs, they visited the magistrate and announced “in a loud voice, as all use here” that they had not departed at the promised time, and were duly transferred to a Luzon-bound ship, traveling with two other vessels and with an imminent departure plan. And so finally, on January 2, 1580, a blustery and chilly day, the Spaniards at last left Chinese soil, the bow of their new ship pointed firmly toward Manila. Tordesillas, in all probability, looked forward to reuniting with his friends in the cane house in Intramuros, while the two soldiers similarly longed to return to their families and encomiendas. Not even a four-day storm that immediately blew one of the three ships fifty leagues off course and forced them all to stop and spend several days repairing their sails could dampen their enthusiasm. They were more affected, however, by a disturbing incident wherein the Chinese sailors, frightened by a second storm that threatened to snap the hull in half, attempted to contact what Tordesillas assumed was a demonic spirit to speak through one of the crew (chosen by lot) and deliver them from certain death. Tordesillas, horrified, intervened, stopping the demon from speaking through his chosen medium, but “the devil” was too wily. Sending a stick sailing through the air, the demon scrawled out a message in grains of rice that had fallen from a sack on the deck, upon which the sailors crouched down, studied the spilled grains, and triumphantly announced that they would be at port in three days’ time. The friar, crossing himself repeatedly, nonetheless professed himself amazed that not only could Chinese demons write, but the ordinary Chinese sailors crewing the ship were literate. This final proof of the comparative superiority of China impressed him enough to show through his pious shock and horror at the sailors’ behavior, although he was still obviously profoundly upset by the incident. He may have been further bothered by the recollection that Martín de Rada had reported that the sailors on his ship had attempted a similar maneuver but had drawn back of their own accord upon reflecting on de Rada’s saintly and reassuring presence, a better safeguard than any spirit.46 Tordesillas clearly did not radiate such calming self-possession, and it may have been yet another reminder of their failure to at least inspire admiration from the Chinese. But as distressing as

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this must have been at the time, all was forgotten the moment the three ships sailed into Manila Bay on February 2, 1580—four days after the arrival date “the devil” had predicted. In Tordesillas’s account, their arrival, brought about by “the favor of almighty God,” was the occasion of joy and celebration. Díaz and Dueñas fell into the arms of their friends and loved ones, and the Franciscans came out in full force to greet their returning brother, who alone of all of them had walked the streets of the cities of the great Ming Empire. Even Sande himself came to see them almost immediately, pardoning them on the spot for their disobedience—again, according to Tordesillas. A more truthful note was perhaps struck in one of Sande’s first questions for Tordesillas, a query which he already knew the answer to and that likely expressed barely concealed rage. Where, the governor asked, was Pedro de Alfaro? NOTES 1. Bruce Cruikshank, “Manila Galleon Listing: 1565 through 1600,” Manila Galleon Listing, Mar. 13, 2022. https:​//​sites​.google​.com​/site​/manilagalleonlisting​/16th​ -century. 2. “Letter from Pablo de Jesús to Gregory XIII,” BRPI Vol. 36. 3. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.11. 4. Refer to chapter 1 for a full discussion of Alfaro’s companions and their precise number. 5. Edward P. van der Porten, Ghost Galleon: The Discovery and Archaeology of the San Juanillo on the Shores of Baja California (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2019), 93. 6. Efren B. Isorena, “Maritime Disasters in Spanish Philippines: The Manila-Acapulco Galleons, 1565–1815,” International Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies Vol. 11, no. 1 (2015): 54–55. Despite this language, captains of ships judged to have wrecked due to human error were punished severely, if they survived. 7. Van der Porten, 93. 8. “Entrada de la Seráphica Religión de Nuestro P.S. Francisco en las Islas Filipinas,” in Archivo del Bibliófilo Filipino, ed. W. E.‌‌‌‌‌‌ Retana (Madrid, 1895), 25. 9. Federico Palomo, “Written Empires: Franciscans, Texts, and the Making of Modern Iberian Empires,” Culture and History Digital Journal Vol. 5, No. 2 (2016), 3. 10. “Letter from Pablo . . . ,” BRPI Vol. 36. 11. “Entrada de la Seráphica . . . ,” 25–27. 12. The quote appears in Mendoza and is also found in nearly identical wording in AGI, Patronato, 46, R. 11. 13. Cummins, 75. 14. Robert Parke, Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China, (London: Hakluyt Society, 1857, reprint of 1588 edition), 126–27. 15. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4.

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16. Elliott, 120, and “Letter to Felipe II by Francisco de Sande,” BRPI Vol. 3. 17. Elliott, 119–21. 18. Juan Camilo Rojas, “Quejas y acusaciones por malas prácticas de gobierno contra Francisco de Sande, Gobernador y Capitán General de las Islas Filipinas, 1575–1580,” Historia y Memoria 19 (2019): 28–47. See Chapter Five for Sande’s efforts to scuttle Philip II’s plans in China. 19. AGN, Indiferente Virreinal, Reales Cédulas Originales y Duplicados, 34. 20. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.11. 21. Mendoza and AGI, Patronato, 46, R.11. For the remainder of the narrative of Alfaro’s journey to China, all quotes and statements are from these two sources, unless otherwise specified. I have prioritized Tordesillas here; however, Cui Weixiao’s Ming Qing zhi ji Xibanya fang ji hui zai hua chuan jiao yan jiu, 1579–1732 明清之际西 班牙方济会在华传教研究, 1579–1732 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006) asserts that Chinese authors prefer to use the much less thorough letters of Alfaro himself, 63–64. 22. Christina H. Lee, “The Chinese Problem in the Early Modern Missionary Project of the Spanish Philippines,” Laberinto Journal 9 (2016), 9. 23. Nicholas Cull et al, Propaganda and Mass Persuasion, (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2003), 223. 24. AGI, Patronato, 46, R. 11. 25. “Entrada de la Seráphica . . . ,” 31. 26. AGI, Filipinas, 6, R.3, N.38. 27. Vladimír Liščák, “Franciscan Missions to China and the Czech Crown Lands (from the 16th to the 18th century)” Archiv Orientální 82.3 (2014), 530. 28. Liščák, 529. 29. Ubaldo Iaccarino, “Early Spanish Intruders in China: The 1579 Mission of Pedro de Alfaro, O.F.M., Reconsidered,” Journal of Jesuit Studies (2022): Online, n.p. 30. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N.12. 31. Cui, Ming Qing . . . (明清 . . . ), 35. 32. AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.5 and AGI, Patronato, 46, R. 11. 33. Chandler, 288–95. 34. Andrade, Gunpowder Age, 125–38. 35. Parke, 6. 36. AGI Filipinas 84 N. 12 37. Victoria Béguilin-Argimón, “The Image of the Interpreter in the First Sino-Spanish Contacts (16th Century),” Sinologia Hispanica, China Studies Review, 8, No. 1 (2019), 27–28. 38. Parke, 261. 39. AGI, Filipinas, 84 N. 12. 40. AGI, Filipinas. 84 N. 12. 41. Rachana Sadchev, ed., Encountering China: Early Modern European Responses (Lewisburg: Bucknell, 2012), 134. 42. Boxer, South China, 327. 43. Iaccarino, “Early Spanish,” n.p. 44. Iaccarino, “Early Spanish,” n.p.

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45. Timothy Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China, (Berkeley: Berkeley, 1998), 205. 46. Boxer, South China, 244.

Chapter 4

“They Can Put Us All to the Knife If They Wish” The End of the Conquest Dream

Pedro de Alfaro, Juan Baptista, and Pedro de Villarroel walked out of Guangzhou on November 11, 1579, accompanied by an armed escort. They had spent over five months in China, months of alternating joy and frustration, culminating finally in an ignominious and highly-bureaucratized departure, not as beloved heralds of Christ retiring having done their duty, but as poor vagabonds, little better than prisoners, given charity by the sympathetic Chinese until the weather permitted their departure. In Macau, they could do the missionary work that had been denied them in Guangzhou, but Macau already had established Catholic churches and missions, even Franciscan ones. They would never have the glory of being the first. It was at best, Alfaro undoubtedly felt, a consolation prize. This is borne out by Alfaro’s first communication from Macau, written on November 20, five days after his arrival. The letter was given to André Coutinho, a Portuguese friar, who presumably copied it out and sent it forth to Manila to await Agustín de Tordesillas’s arrival.1 In this letter, Alfaro described his warm reception by Carneiro and Coutinho, who hastened to provide a house for he and Baptista to dwell in and make into a monastery, and also claimed that Brito had come around at last and was now the friars’ ardent supporter. However, the bulk of the letter was given over to anticipating the day when he would be able to speak to potential converts in Chinese, and most of all in describing the fabulous new opportunity to travel to Đại Việt, where he could, as part of the new Portuguese trade outpost there, become an official and invited missionary with all the rights and responsibilities that entailed. There awaited in there a vast harvest of souls, much more amenable to conversion than the Chinese ever were. There is an element of 95

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sour grapes to this letter, particularly in his bitter comment that “the devil has not put so many words against the gospel there as in China.” It is possible that Alfaro spoke of his bitterness with his brothers and friends in Macau. Three years later, the Bishop of Manila, Domingo de Salazar, tasked by Sande’s eventual successor with determining the feasibility of a new religious mission to China, claimed that the Portuguese in Macau asserted that Alfaro was in imminent danger of death or enslavement at the hands of the Chinese, and that he had to be rescued by the Portuguese at great expense. Salazar even produced a quintet of soldiers who all agreed, in unison, that Alfaro had been mistreated so badly in China and was in such imminent danger that the combined forces of Brito and Carneiro had had to pay at least three thousand Portuguese cruzados to save him. One of them, Pedro Sibal, even claimed to have been an eyewitness, whereas another, Gaspar Fernandes de Medeiros, claimed that Alfaro was “without a doubt” at least threatened with imprisonment and torture. This was flatly denied in the same document by Francisco de Dueñas, who was not present but arguably had better knowledge of the situation, although even he nonetheless conceded that “a lot of money” changed hands when Alfaro left Chinese custody and entered Macau.2 The firsthand sources all agree that Alfaro was at no point truly imprisoned by the Chinese, although he was required to stay nights on the ship and later in the dilapidated house in Guangzhou and his ability to preach was highly circumscribed. Neither Tordesillas nor Alfaro mentioned having to bribe or otherwise pay the Chinese for a safe departure out of Ming territory, but given their inability to use money themselves and the continual presence of at least one of their three loyal soldiers willing to handle such unpleasant tasks, it seems more than likely that there was an exchange, and it was handled so deftly at the time that the friars took no notice of it. Or, perhaps, they did and chose not to commit their debt to the Portuguese in writing. To offer further conjecture, it may also be that the Spanish bishop, a man reported by the governor to be widely disliked “on account of the austerity of his disposition and his wish to dominate,” had either difficulty finding accurate sources due to his approach, or did not hesitate to mold the sources to fit his needs.3 At the beginning of Alfaro and Baptista’s stay in Macau, the situation improved dramatically from their time in China, and the two were able to establish a Discalced house in the little dwelling Carneiro had provided, the first Discalced house in the city. Construction on the new convento began on November 23, 1579, eight days after the friars arrived—certainly the Portuguese were much more willing to approve their requests than the Chinese. The existing house was modified for religious use, and the well behind it provided ample fresh water, ready to be consecrated. The building was completed quickly, and on February 2, 1580—the same day Tordesillas

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sailed into Manila Bay—the altar (perhaps featuring the beautiful black jasper altar stone) was consecrated and dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels. André Coutinho was present at the first mass the friars celebrated there, a joyous event to which the entire religious community of Macau seemed to be invited:‌‌‌‌‌‌ “Mass was sung, with a lot of music and ringing of bells. The Lord Bishop gave the first chorus, and then the Father Rector of the Society of Jesus and many other priests, as well as clerics and members of the Company and many other people from the town, with such joy and contentment that it was a wonderful thing to behold.”4 A few months later, Baptista, overcome with gratitude toward both the divine and his new hosts, built a small chapel next to the monastery, dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. The two friars, Baptista in particular, became known for their piety and devotion. The wonderfully named Jacinto de Deus, a fellow Franciscan, said that the two preached with such zeal that “even those who were ignorant of the Castilian language were moved to action”— an indication of both their skill as speakers and their limitations in linguistics.5 Their staging of a marvelous feast in honor of St. Francis’s Day later that spring was judged to be particularly impressive, a sign that these men, whatever the state of affairs that had brought them into Macau, were deeply devoted and motivated by God. St. Francis’s Day would prove to be the high point of Alfaro’s brief career as a missionary in Macau. By June, the old suspicions against him had risen up again. Alfaro, as he often did, wrote a letter back to his old companions in Manila, probably to Tordesillas, Pablo de Jesús, or Juan de Ayora, sending it via one of the Chinese merchant ships that routinely made the Macau-Manila route. This letter, which is presumably no longer extant, was intercepted through unknown means. Perhaps it was by pure chance that the parcel containing the letter was intercepted. Perhaps the Chinese merchants themselves, concerned about getting involved in matters beyond the scope of their business, handed the correspondence over. Perhaps the friar had been under suspicion since his arrival and entrusting Coutinho to deliver his mail to the waiting ships was an unwise move. Regardless of how the letter was seized, its contents enraged Brito, who immediately sent for Alfaro and demanded an explanation. What was so terrible about this letter? Apparently, Alfaro had written that his brothers in Manila should avoid interacting with the Portuguese, because the latter were always ready to defame the Spanish. This, while insulting, was not exactly inaccurate. Portuguese and Spanish alike in this era (and long after) routinely sniped at each other verbally, and sometimes literally, and Alfaro knew firsthand how damaging rumors from the Portuguese could be. Regardless of the veracity of the charges, the Portuguese, who had so recently given Alfaro a home and a vocation and had listened spellbound to

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his preaching mere weeks previously, were furious. They demanded not only his immediate expulsion, but that he depart immediately for Goa, to appear before Luís de Ataíde, the Portuguese viceroy of India. There, he would face questioning for his behavior in China and the potential that he was working as a secret spy. As serious as this sounded, and as committed the Portuguese were to getting Alfaro to Goa, there is no indication in the sources that the friar was facing anything more than a stern questioning. Compared to the panicked pronouncements that they were in repeated danger of death or imprisonment from the Chinese, the lack of concern over Alfaro’s actual expulsion from the Portuguese seemed to reflect a widespread belief that Alfaro would remain unmolested. Indeed, Alfaro expressed interest in learning Chinese while in Goa, hardly a topic someone frightened of serious punishment would spend much time contemplating. Manuel Teixeira attributed this otherwise-disproportionate reaction to the letter to the Portuguese’s old fears that the Spanish were angling for the increase of their trade and recognition from China at the expense of Portugal’s, an explanation that, despite lack of concrete evidence, fits all too well with the known suspicions between the two nations.6 The Portuguese were well-aware of how uneasy their agreement with the Chinese really was, and were continually wary of any threat to the fragile harmony they had patched together with the Ming. If not precisely true in the sense that Alfaro had literally damaged their relationship, it was certainly plausible that Alfaro’s behavior could be perceived in that light. Sande assessed the situation similarly in a letter to the king that summer, in which Pedro de Alfaro received the biggest single item. He had just received word from his Portuguese counterpart, Brito, that the friars “did all the evil they could” and that Macau had informed the Chinese that Alfaro and his men were spies. Sande claimed that the Portuguese believed that Alfaro was the unassuming herald of a Spanish army set to invade Macau in retaliation for a Portuguese incursion at Cebú several years previously. He offered no real analysis of these charges, simply attributing them to ordinary Portuguese shenanigans. The expulsion was coordinated with amazing speed—by the time Francisco de Sande wrote Brito back, apologizing for Alfaro’s “escape” from Manila and seizing the opportunity to ask for a visit from Brito so the two could discuss China, Alfaro’s passage on what would prove to be his final journey had already been prepared.7 Alfaro’s expulsion prompted the almost immediate collapse of his new convento. Baptista, perhaps in recognition of his superior preaching, was not expelled from Macau himself until over a year later, but he was not permitted to take charge of the house he had lovingly consecrated just a few months previously. Instead, after the local Jesuits begged Carneiro to not let the new house disband so soon, a young novice of a mere five months’ experience

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was installed in the house, and after a few years, the convento gradually faded from memory, eventually becoming absorbed into the larger Franciscan church in Macau. Alfaro himself had other interests than the long-term viability of the monastery he had at last built on the continent of Asia. If he was worried about his audience with the viceroy, no evidence survives to attest to it. He and the other friars seem to have treated this almost as an irritating formality, with Alfaro once again expressing more interest in preaching in Đại Việt and in seizing the opportunity to learn Chinese at last while in Goa. Either option would be preferable to staying in Macau, preaching to mostly other Europeans, with China right down the road and yet maddeningly inaccessible, and the whispers about his credentials and motives following him everywhere. So he walked up the gangway to the ship with a lighter heart than the occasion perhaps warranted, taking his leave of Baptista and the Portuguese brothers he had maligned. He was accompanied by another young novice, who remained unnamed in the sources, and the ship itself carried additional passengers and cargo. Jacinto de Deus, standing on the dock that day, murmured that the ship did not seem up to the long journey ahead through the Bay of Bengal and around the tip of India, but nobody else commented on the vessel’s seaworthiness.8 Jacinto de Deus was right about the ship. It had barely made it a tenth of the way to Goa before the captain, “more daring than practical,” ran the ship aground somewhere between the island of Hainan and the northern coast of Đại Việt. Survivors and corpses alike, Alfaro’s included, washed up onto the shore, where the friar was mourned by the passengers who remembered his bravery at the end and venerated by the locals, who cremated him after their own customs. The journey that had begun in Seville three years prior had now ended quietly and tragically on an anonymous Vietnamese beach. In between, Alfaro had done so much more than what might have been expected of him as a young novice taking vows in Galicia. He had become a prominent custodio in Spain, sailed across the Atlantic, supped with the powerful viceroy of Mexico, been the first Franciscan to set foot in the Philippines, and, most importantly of all, had been the first Spanish Franciscan to see the mighty Ming Empire with his own eyes. Perhaps as he sunk beneath the waves, he remembered the miraculous entrance into the Zhujiang Estuary, the wonders of the streets of Guangzhou, the peacock plumes on the helmets of the magistrate’s guard, the majesty of Supreme Commander Liu’s palace. Or perhaps he remembered the shock of Simón’s treachery, the sickening temporary loss of the altar stone, the dilapidated house on the outskirts of Guangzhou, the departure under guard.

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What to make of this strange, complex mission? Ubaldo Iaccarino, writing in 2022, characterizes it essentially as an explicit attempt to continue with de Rada’s mission, down to seeking out the same destination and the same personnel.9 This is certainly a distinct possibility, although not one the friars raised themselves to any large extent—there is no way they could not have known all the details about what was, at the time, the only other Spanish entry into Ming China, and there is no way they could not have been buoyed up with hope about the polite fictions given to Martín de Rada when he left Zhangzhou. However, their lack of preparation and, above all, their lack of permission meant that they never stood a chance of even matching de Rada’s relative successes of 1575, much less continuing them. Liam Brockey centers the Alfaro mission not on its results or lack thereof, but on its value as an essential insight into the Franciscan worldview, one in which even the failures of the order were recast as “episodes of exemplary virtue, of virtue thwarted by evil, or of the supreme virtue of self-sacrifice.” Alarmed by the successes of the Jesuits and still more by the disproportionate amount of attention paid to them, Franciscans in the late sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries hastened to promote themselves and their order, propping up Alfaro as a tragic hero destroyed not by his own hubris, but by the cruel machinations of their interpreters and of the Portuguese. Sometimes this stretched into outright falsehood, as when the Franciscan Jacinto de Deus claimed that Alfaro had been the first monk of any order to penetrate the interior of Ming China.10 As for the charge that Alfaro and his men were spies, so routinely dismissed out of hand, what were they exactly, if not spies? They had snuck into a foreign land and would eventually send detailed analyses of not only that land’s infrastructure, but the feasibility of its conquest. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which that does not qualify as espionage, even if the specific charges of the Portuguese were incorrect. Their placement in the historiography as not just missionaries, but would-be ambassadors and spies, is a correct and reasonable one. However, I argue that its true impact lies not just in the fact that it was the first Franciscan mission to Ming China, but that it was the first time that the Spanish had been able to penetrate Ming territory for longer than a month or two—and therefore the first time that extensive eyewitness accounts of China attuned to Spanish interests were available to Philip II and his council. As Alfaro paced back and forth in his little convento in Macau, he reflected bitterly on what had transpired and what he had discovered in his time in Guangdong. The Ming were much more powerful, numerous, and cultivated than he or any other Spaniard had suspected—a spiritual conquest, with organized missions established in tandem with a military conquest, was definitely off

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the table in Alfaro’s assessment. Worse, the Chinese seemed strangely uninterested in the mysteries of the Mass, unlike the indios of the Americas, who, Alfaro had been assured while in Mexico, were positively hungry for the word and the wafer. These potential converts (all “heathens” were potential converts) would of course only grow in their “wicked inconstancy” if they were allowed to continue on their godless path, and Alfaro, whose concern for the souls of unbelievers was quite genuine, brooded about this terrible possibility.11 And to further his unease, the possibility of being a pioneer in the great missionary field of China was rapidly shrinking. The crowd of prospective missionaries to China was growing, with the Jesuits in particular making considerable strides in learning the language, establishing guidelines for their religious to follow in order to foster success and win converts, and making the connections necessary for a legitimate entry into China. Alfaro, always one to help foster a rivalry, was deeply concerned about the prospect of a Jesuit snatching the acclaim and conversions he had hoped would be his in 1579. (The famous rivalry between the Jesuits and the Mendicant orders, to which the Franciscans belonged, was a feature of religious life long before the Rites Controversy, stretching back to the founding of the Society of Jesus when the two groups found themselves on opposite sides of Counter-Reformation spiritual reform debates. Alfaro as a Discalced Franciscan railed against both the traditional Franciscan worldview and that of the upstart Jesuits.12) When this assessment was spread beyond Alfaro’s pen and to Manila and the court of Spain, it prompted changes in the Spanish approach to China. But meanwhile, as news trickled forth about Alfaro’s death, those who loved him mourned, while those who did not focused their anger on his memory. Francisco de Dueñas, writing to the king in 1582 to ask for a monetary grant in recognition of his services to the Crown, did not hesitate to pronounce Alfaro a near-martyr to the cause of Christ. Indeed, his clandestine service to Alfaro was the centerpiece of his request, framing the mission as a daring and holy undertaking done in the service of Spain. Alfaro’s ashes having most likely been scattered and lost, and his memory having faded from much of history, this brief and mournful tribute from a true friend remains the best epitaph Pedro de Alfaro has received, and the one he would likely have appreciated the most.13 His other contemporaries were much less kind to his memory. While Alfaro had been saying mass in Macau, Sande’s term as governor had officially ended, although the new governor would not take office until he physically arrived in Manila some time later. Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa was remarkably like Sande in terms of attitude and unwillingness to compromise his ambitions, but this similarity did not breed friendship—far from it. In one of his first official reports to the king, Ronquillo complained of having to deal with “false accounts and petty information” from Sande’s allies, and

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expressed his sadness that Sande had been promoted to the viceregal courts in Mexico: “as a consequence, persons with grievances may well lose hope of obtaining justice.”14 He was deeply conscious of his dignity and jealous of any affront to his power, eventually being confined to house arrest after attempting to declare himself “Governor-General for life.” Once he discovered that Alfaro had deliberately flouted an order from a governor-general, even if said governor had been his predecessor and a man he hated, Ronquillo took an immediate dislike to the friar and indeed to all the descalzos. Upon receiving a ship laden with eighteen descalzos in his first year as governor, he immediately sent them on to Macau and Đại Việt instead of welcoming them to their new posts in the Philippines, fearing that they would flee for the first opportunity to preach in China as the others had.15 When Pablo de Jesús himself fled for China in 1582, Ronquillo’s rage knew no bounds. The governor wrote a letter to the king reporting the incident, comparing it directly with Alfaro’s “identical” voyage three years previously and expressing the desire to go after them personally and bring them bodily back to Manila. He pointed out to the king with acid politeness that “it is not possible to check them if their superiors do not remedy the affair,” explaining that de Jesús was already causing “embarrassments” just as Alfaro had.16 Not content with complaining privately to Philip II, he issued a public proclamation on March 2, 1582, and reported it to Madrid as follows: At the city of Manila, in the Philippines, East Indies, on the second day of the month of March of the year 1582, the most illustrious Don Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa, governor and captain-general for his Majesty of these said islands, said that, inasmuch as he had been informed that about three years ago Fray Pedro de Alfaro, custodian of the Descalced Religious of the Order of St. Francis, had left these islands secretly, taking with him other religious, and that he went without order or license from his Majesty or the governor, to the kingdom of China, where he now is [sic]; and inasmuch as Fray Pablo de Jesús and other religious did the same thing a few days ago, causing thereby much scandal and talk in this commonwealth: in order to correct the aforesaid as is very necessary and to inform your Majesty thereof, he declared that he was ordering (and he did so order) that it be publicly proclaimed in this city that no person of any quality or condition whatsoever should dare to leave this said city or any other places where said religious may be, accompanied by any persons whatsoever, by land or sea, or in any other manner whatsoever, except with express permission from the governor and captain-general of these islands. This shall be under penalty of incurring confiscation of all property by the exchequer of his Majesty, and proclamation as a traitor and rebel against the royal crown. Moreover, proceedings will be instituted against such persons with all due severity. Thus he provided; and, under the said penalties, no one shall dare to give such persons ships or conveyance by which they may leave, without said permission.17

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This fascinating document illuminates much of Ronquillo’s mindset. Alfaro played an outsize role in the text, despite having been dead for nearly two years when it was written. De Jesús’s copycat departure received comparatively less space, likely reflecting a comparative lack of anger. The reader gets the impression that de Jesús’s crime had more to do with stirring memories of Alfaro’s insult than it had to do with any real “scandal” it had caused—an interpretation borne out by the sources, which have very little to say about de Jesús’s adventure. This ordinance was doomed to failure. Whatever Alfaro’s tragic experiences in China and Macau had been, it didn’t stop other monks and friars from attempting the same. Over and over again, religious would try to enter China, with varying degrees of success. It was perhaps easy for other friars to look at Alfaro’s experiences and to hope for as good or better—a stay of nearly six months in China followed by the granting of a monastery in Macau was certainly more glamorous than teaching the catechism in some remote encomienda in Luzon. But their temporal superiors in Spain took a much different lesson from the Alfaro mission. Instead of opening potential opportunities in China, it gradually closed them, one by one. Pedro de Alfaro’s impact on Spanish decision-making did not end with his sad death at sea in June 1580. As Governor Ronquillo’s reaction amply demonstrates, his ghost had the power to haunt those who had known of him, long after his body had been burnt to ash on the shores of Đại Việt. The true miracle of Pedro de Alfaro was not the tale of the incorrupt body, frozen in a posture of prayer, spread by Franciscans anxious to increase the standing of their order. It was, instead, in his assessment of Chinese power vis-a-vis that of Spain, which slowly spread across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the months and years after his death, becoming one of several historical factors that prompted a quiet, almost-imperceptible shift in Spain’s approach to the China question. When Pedro de Alfaro appears in the historiography, it is typically through the work of Juan González de Mendoza, whose compendium of contemporary knowledge of China was the definitive work on the subject in the late sixteenth century, or of the mission’s designated scribe, Agustín de Tordesillas. Both are essential sources to understanding both the Alfaro mission and the sixteenth-century European understanding of the Ming. But Alfaro’s own writings are equally as important. As the mission’s leader, he was not given the duty of recording the friars’ actions and impressions, so he never wrote a large-scale, organized account of his doings, and he certainly never wrote anything intended for publication. What does survive, however, is excellent— witty, pointed, and far more intelligent than reading the two major accounts of the mission would lead one to suspect. He was sharp-tongued, inclined to be irritable, and given to dramatic declarations, at one point announcing to

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Francisco de Sande that, rather than leave China and return to Manila, “we will die here if God demands it.”18 In all, he wrote at least four letters that survive in the original, all located in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, although copies of these and other letters exist there and in other archives in Spain, France, and the Philippines.19 One letter in particular had a secret life that long surpassed that of its writer, the “Carta del franciscano Pedro de Alfaro sobre China.” Dated October 13, 1579, from Guangzhou, in the midst of their agonized decision to split the group in two, it was written to Juan de Ayora, a fellow Franciscan who had been left in Manila while Alfaro searched for the fame and glory he had hoped to find in China and was instead coming to the realization that he would find neither. He was an interesting choice of recipient. Ayora was neither Alfaro’s interim replacement as custodio, an honor that went to one Juan de Plasencia, nor his eventual successor, Pablo de Jesús. He must therefore have been not only a close personal friend, but a trustworthy and intelligent fellow, one who could be trusted to understand the content of the letter and discreetly distribute its contents to those who needed to know about it. Ayora was one of the replacement friars who joined Alfaro in Mexico after six of the original group of descalzos died during the Atlantic voyage. He was, like so many Franciscans of his era and unlike Pedro de Alfaro himself, an accomplished linguist, having spent his time in Mexico learning Nahuatl and Purépecha to fluency, even to the point of allegedly declining a bishopric in favor of continuing his studies. If he is to be identified with the “Johan van der Auwera” who was also active in Mexico at the same time and focusing on the same linguistic areas, he was originally from Flanders and was in at least his late seventies at the time he received Alfaro’s letter, which had presumably been delivered by the same Chinese merchants to whom Alfaro entrusted the rest of his correspondence while in Macau.20 Ayora must have been excited to receive this clandestine letter from his friend in the mighty Ming Empire. While everyone in Manila certainly knew that Alfaro, Tordesillas, Baptista, the late Baeza, and the soldiers had left for China, whether they had truly landed there and what they were up to was as yet unconfirmed other than a few scattered rumors from the unreliable (to their minds) Portuguese. Alfaro himself mentioned that the letter was intended to be secret—he wrote of his desire to write to each and every one of his brothers in Manila, but due to both time and his fear of “embarrassing” them by being too obvious, a note to Ayora would have to do. Seven pages long, it was an expressive cri de coeur about not only the death of Pedro de Alfaro’s dreams, but of those of Spain and the Church itself. In short, Alfaro was warning his brother Franciscan in no uncertain terms that a conquest of China, spiritual or temporal, was not an option.21

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Alfaro began the letter by expressing his sorrow at how the mission had, instead of bringing glory to God, Spain, and himself, done little more than angered and perplexed virtually all the major entities of South China and the Philippines. Sande, Alfaro knew perfectly well, was furious and would need to be sent a humble request for pardon as soon as possible. This was done the very same day in a separate letter, but Alfaro, like Sande, did not really know how to express humility and, while Sande’s reaction to the letter is unknown, it is doubtful that a letter that insisted that God himself had sent him to China and that he had no intention of returning to Manila would have moved him to pity or put him in a forgiving mood.22 The Chinese too, even those like Liu Yaohui’s deputy who seemed to like the friars, were at best puzzled by these new arrivals, most charitably seeing them as intriguing novelties and not as the heralds of a mighty Church and equally mighty empire. The Portuguese were perhaps the most furious of all, giving vent to their belief that Alfaro and his men were dangerous bumblers at best and spies at worst. He knew everyone was angry with him, but in his wonderfully expressive way, there was little to be done about it, because “we have already put our hands into the dough” and there was, therefore, no going back. He might be in the process of being expelled from Ming China, but what was done was done, and his future lay not in the cane house in Manila, but in the larger Chinese sphere of influence—in Macau. By October, it was obvious to Alfaro that he would never be allowed to preach in China and that his tenure on Ming soil was rapidly running out. It was time to begin compiling his assessment of his experiences and communicating what he saw as dire warnings to those who sought to follow his path. The Chinese people came in for some deeply harsh criticism here—there was none of Martín de Rada’s gushing over cute babies or happy shopping sprees at booksellers in this letter. Alfaro bluntly told Ayora that he should “never trust the Chinese.” It didn’t matter if they appeared to be friendly, or asked questions about Christianity, or even seemed to shine from within with the light of the Gospel. “They all cheat and lie like Italians,” he wrote, surely thinking of Simón’s demand for the silver chalice and the captain at Zhaoqing who had tried to keep the black jasper altar stone and the feathered Mary Magdalene. It did not occur to Alfaro that this quid pro quo approach to gifting and favors was more than likely just ordinary Chinese etiquette and not a targeted attempt to scam himself and his fellow friars, nor did it matter to him. The only explanation for what had happened to Alfaro was that the whole nation must be inherently untrustworthy. Alfaro told Ayora that this judgment included those who were professed Christians, and that Chinese conversions were to be considered suspect until repeatedly proven otherwise. And any future man of God who entered the country, as unlikely as that was increasingly appearing to be, should take care to bring chalices of a cheaper

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and less attention-grabbing material than silver, lest he find himself unable to take the sacrament due to theft. This was surprising advice, given that Catholic chalices were supposed to be made of precious metals whenever possible, and therefore an indication of the depth of Alfaro’s feelings about what had happened to his consecrated paraphernalia in China. Alfaro’s impact on Tordesillas and, therefore, on Mendoza is easy to see here. While Tordesillas clearly shared his viewpoints, Alfaro’s mark as the leader of the mission is clear in Tordesillas’s descriptions of the Chinese. It is particularly obvious in Tordesillas’s retroactive judgment of the “good chino” in Manila, who went from a holy and devoted living sign from God to potential attempted murderer over the course of his relación.23 Their slow disillusionment with the Chinese as people—discovering that they were human beings with the capacity to lie and dissemble like any other and not merely exotic potential Christians—is most marked in Tordesillas. In Alfaro’s letter, the process had already been completed. He then moved on to describing the population and physical infrastructure of China. As with all foreign observers in China in this period (and well after), Alfaro was stunned at the sheer number of human beings he saw. There were so many people there that he viewed it as all one enormous city, with the only thing marking boundaries being the periodic insertion of walls. Otherwise, Alfaro could not really discern the difference between urban, suburban, and village life. Having gone further inland within the Ming Empire than any other Spaniard had before, he could confirm that it was not just the port cities that were populous beyond belief. It was the same endless wall of humanity all the way up to Zhaoqing, he claimed (although there were in fact sparsely populated frontier regions in the area—Alfaro either never saw them, or discounted them in his narrative). Tordesillas, too, could confirm that the population was just as huge across the northwest Zhujiang delta and into Fujian, representing millions of people personally seen with Spanish eyes. And this was only a small part of two provinces. Who could say what lay further inland, toward the two great Ming capitals that none of them had yet seen? What wonders and terrors awaited any future Spanish incursions there? The already-faint possibility that the Zhujiang Delta represented the apex of China’s population was now less likely than ever. In terms of population alone, there were obviously multiple able-bodied adult Chinese men for every single Spaniard from birth to old age—and this was without reckoning with Nanjing, Beijing, or the mighty Yangzi Delta region, the true population centers of China in this era. Obviously, a large population does not necessarily equal military prowess, but an ability to muster a large force immediately, whereas the hypothetical Spanish invaders would need to either resupply through Mexico over a process of months or hope for a local alliance that showed no signs of materializing, placed the Ming at a significant advantage.

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In an equal fight, the Chinese would conquer through sheer numbers before any military technology even came into play. However, as Alfaro wrote, it was not an equal fight. China’s military and defense far surpassed that of Spain. He was amazed at the city walls he saw, describing them as three times as thick as those of his hometown of Seville, whose walls were renowned in Europe. The gates themselves were also worthy of note, having elaborate locks and multiple doors through which intruders could be trapped and contained for easy despatch to the hereafter by the well-armed guards. These wall complexes ensured that, according to Alfaro, “all of China is locked up tighter than a convent of nuns.” Just as a lusty man prowling the countryside could not hope to get into one of the great convents holding Spain’s most noble and devoted holy women, so, too, could an invading army never breach the gates of even a minor Chinese city. Of course, these walls were not, from the Chinese point of view, meant to be solely protective or demarcated boundaries, just as a convent’s walls were not really meant to protect the chastity of its nuns. As Si-yen Fei argued in 2010’s Negotiating Urban Space: Late Ming Urbanization and Nanjing, their primary purpose was to contain the population as a means of social control and to be a physical embodiment of a city’s status as a formal township.24 But Pedro de Alfaro was unaware of this, and in any case the walls’ true purposes were besides the point when it came to a Spanish assessment of Chinese defenses. He then described a night guard seen en route to Supreme Commander Liu’s palace, telling Ayora how he had watched the well-organized guard march to and fro around the gates, using a system of bells to mark the watch and to alert each other of any intruders. Each of these guardsmen bore an arquebus, and each was fearsome in his countenance as well as in his tidy and severe uniform. While Alfaro didn’t mention the massive guard around Liu or the peacock-plumed pikesmen surrounding the first magistrate they met, he was undoubtedly thinking of them as he wrote the letter. He had brought the soldiers Dueñas, Díaz, and Villarroel with them for protection, but they were as useless as the friars themselves were against even the meanest and humblest official they encountered. De Rada had also described military infrastructure, but he had not traveled so far within China, nor had he stayed for so long. This was a unique moment in Sino-Spanish history, the first time a Spaniard with connections had traveled to multiple cities across the Zhujiang delta over a protracted period. Alfaro recognized his unique perspective and was quite blunt about his overall assessment. It was a pity, Alfaro wrote, that the architects of these wonders were not nearly as stout and trustworthy as the walls and gates that surrounded them. But the focus of the letter was not really his complaints, nor was it a list of the wonders he had seen. This was no travel work or venting exercise. The main point that Alfaro was trying to make was simple: a conquest of China,

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no matter the method, was not going to happen. He reiterated this point to Ayora no less than four times in a letter less than seven pages long, repeating his argument in pointed and colorful ways, doubtlessly both an attempt to hammer the point home and an expression of his deep disillusionment. He did not mince words in his assessments. “I do not believe that by human means, good or bad, on this earth, you can enter China to preach or to fight,” he told Ayora, neatly clarifying that he was not speaking only of spiritual matters, nor was he using the conquest analogy to describe a large-scale conversion attempt. In this letter, he was speaking of both the Catholic goal of converting China en masse and of the more worldly goals of the Spanish, who had hoped for so long to expand their ocean-spanning empire into China as well. He was not speaking metaphorically, but literally about both of the planned ways in which China could potentially be brought into the larger Spanish sphere of influence. Indeed, conquest and conversion had always gone more or less hand-in-hand in previous Spanish incursions in the Americas and, more recently, in the Philippines. It would make sense for the two to be viewed as intertwined in China as well. (The Archivo General de Indias, in their summarization and categorization of the letter, agreed that military conquest was one of the subjects, describing his words as “he advises two things: that they do not insist on conquering China, because it is impossible, and that they do not trust the Chinese.”)25 Whether or not Alfaro was making this assessment on his own initiative or on the hints or outright requests of administrators in Mexico or the Philippines is no longer known, but regardless, he had made a judgment on the ultimate feasibility of conquest and was now delivering it. What Almanza had wanted in the viceregal palace of Mexico, what Lavezaris had insisted upon in his wooden house in the Philippines while clutching the broadsword the Chinese merchant had sold him, what Philip had contemplated in the Alcázar at Madrid amid mountains of paperwork, was not going to happen. In Alfaro’s own words, “it is impossible to be done.” He had seen what the others had not, that regardless of whether or not a war with China would be just according to the laws and customs of Spain (as Martín de Rada had opined and what Alfaro probably agreed with in principle), whether it was actually a realistic possibility was quite another matter entirely. There was nothing in the Philippines, nothing in Mexico, and most cogently of all, nothing in Spain itself that could hope to match the might of China. It didn’t matter what kind of plan was devised, “with or without soldiers, wanting to take China is like trying to grasp the moon with your hands.” This poetic turn of phrase was followed by the more prosaic comment that “everything I say has been proven by the Portuguese.” Despite the constant rivalry between the two, and despite Alfaro’s own dislike of the meddling Portuguese, Spain had been wrong to dismiss Portuguese assessments of China. While their Iberian neighbors were

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not going to be quite as attuned to the needs of Spain, and while it would still be unwise to take their advice in general, their reports of China’s might and power were not exaggerated or feigned in any way. His last warning was very much to the point, literally: “They can put us all to the knife if they wish, without difficulty.” When Spain interacted with China, according to Alfaro, it was at the pleasure of the Chinese, who could easily massacre all the Spanish in the Philippines and handle any reinforcements from Mexico as well. Conquest, spiritual or military, was not going to be a feasible option. While the reports of Alfaro’s alleged mistreatment gathered by Salazar were grossly exaggerated, if the Chinese had felt so inclined, the friars and their soldiers would have been killed immediately. Had Sande or anyone else set out to avenge their deaths, they would have joined the friars in purgatory instantly. That none of these dreadful things had happened was not because China was impressed by the might of Spain or the power of the Christian God, but because the Chinese had simply not wanted to kill them. There would be no conquest, at least not a successful one. Was Alfaro right? Time would soon prove that he was wrong about interest in accepting missionaries. While he had told Ayora, “don’t worry anymore about coming to China,” it turned out that the Ming actually were willing to accept Christian missionaries into China within just a few years, provided they arrived with permission and had learned or were actively learning how to speak Chinese. The successful entry of the Jesuits into China in 1582 rankled Franciscan and Dominican observers, but it was incontrovertible proof that the Ming was not completely opposed to receiving Christian missionaries and even providing them with goods and resources they needed to evangelize. However, Alfaro’s assessment of Chinese military power was quite correct. The arsenals of China put to shame those of Europe, and even where European technology was superior (for example, their warships), the sheer population of China would likely overwhelm them in open battle. Nor did the Chinese seem like they might want to join in with a small Spanish force in the mold of Cortés, despite Sande’s assertion that the people were horribly oppressed and longed for liberation. China was a superior adversary, and one that they should not attempt to engage. For many years, the notion of Ming China being significantly militarily superior to Spain at the height of its glory would not necessarily have been accepted by historians. In traditional historiography, the Chinese were supposed to have entered a protracted period of decline while Spain was rapidly increasing in power and influence—the “great encounter” was a narrative of active Western powers on the rise imposing their (implicitly superior) military and economic might on the passive Chinese sphere of influence. What Alfaro found, and what modern historians have found as well, is that this encounter was not anything particularly great, and that Chinese power on a global scale

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far outstripped any European state in the sixteenth century.26 However, the belief in the Ming as a period of decline vis-a-vis the West has been difficult to counteract in pedagogy and popular culture. In this context of a (albeit no longer pervasive) belief in sixteenth-century Chinese decline that remains common outside of the academy, as well as the long period of relative peace within and without China’s borders at the time, it is worth asking the question: was China really a military power superior to Spain in this period? Chapter 1 detailed Guido de Lavezaris’s assessment of the Chinese as an inherently peaceful people who lacked the bellicosity required to stave off a Spanish invasion. While the Chinese were by no means strangers to war, Lavezaris can perhaps be forgiven for his characterization—he was writing from the perspective of an outside observer who happened to find himself in Asia at the precise time when China was slowly concluding a century-long period of relative peace, at the same time that Europe was experiencing a century of increased warfare.27 Spain almost certainly did not know the full chronological scope of this long stretch of peace, but the information available to them concerning Chinese military prowess probably reflected this peaceful period, if only implicitly. This coincidence distorted the apparent military prowess of China to Spanish observers, leading them to conclude, wrongly, that China could be integrated into the expanding fold of the Spanish Empire, despite the Chinese defeats of Portuguese forces at the engagements of Tunmen (屯門) and Xicaowan (西草灣) earlier in the sixteenth century. While the Spanish certainly knew about these clashes, as they had taken place half a century earlier, they were not taken at the time as evidence of what might happen in an actual battle between the Spanish and Ming. China, however, had more military might than the newly arrived Spanish gave them credit for, despite the Ming’s political and administrative decline in this same period. The population alone was a significant military asset from the point of view of a power whose conquest hopes were pinned on the ability of a small force to seize control—every European observer in this period commented on the vast amounts of people they observed in China. Population estimates for the late Ming period are difficult to come by, but range as high as 150 million, representing a tremendous pool of potential soldiers, as Alfaro alluded to in his report.28 Of course, China’s vast population would fail to preserve the Ming mere decades later, when the Manchus successfully toppled the last native Han Dynasty, but the Manchus, upstarts though they may have been in the eyes of the Ming, were far more attuned with and connected to internal Chinese military and political issues than the Spanish could ever hope to be, and in any case the very provinces the Spanish hoped to invade first actually took the Manchus decades to conquer, holding out into the 1680s, long after the northern capital had fallen to the new Qing Dynasty. Moreover, it is clear that, despite China’s population not being a

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barrier to conquest in practice, the Spanish were obviously cowed by the vast numbers of people, more than they had ever expected to find. In addition to this, the late Ming military made extensive use of guns and cannons (in a far more innovative context than Westerners have historically given them credit for, considering the long-held popular belief that the Chinese used gunpowder primarily for fireworks displays), and, as the dazzled friars discovered, their fortifications were far more imposing than anything European cities at the time could boast. When Alfaro wrote that the gates of Guangzhou were “thrice as thick and sturdy as those of Seville,” it was almost certainly an understatement. The Seville city gates that remain extant are certainly impressive with their menacing guard towers and sloped walls, but they are no comparison to Chinese gates from the same period. These could rise to one hundred feet in height and were really large complexes in which prospective entrants had to traverse several entrances and outworks before gaining access to the city—hence Alfaro’s pride in the easy entrance no doubt openly permitted by the guards at Guangzhou.29 In short, Alfaro had never seen the like, and it was instantly obvious that contemporary Spanish might could never batter down those fortifications. What precise steps Ayora took with his letter is unknown, as he died within a year of receiving it. Sande was a meticulous observer of communication to and from Manila, and it is possible that he confiscated the letter and sent it on to Spain. It is also possible that Ayora passed it along to contacts in Manila or in Mexico, who in turn placed it on the next ship leaving Mexico. Whatever path the letter took, it appeared in the possession of the Council of the Indies in Madrid within a few years of its creation.30 There, some unknown clerk (not Philip II himself, whose spidery handwriting is instantly recognizable) wrote a few notes in the margins. Remarks like “no one can live in this kingdom,” “less so if this is,” and “what do we want here” are maddeningly imprecise, but they seem to indicate a general concern over the letter’s contents and a puzzlement over what to do next. What Alfaro witnessed during his months in and around Guangzhou was the everyday functioning of an important city in the world’s most powerful nation—there was no ongoing mobilization when he visited, no threat of attack, simply business as usual in a city that, though splendid, was by no means China’s greatest metropolis. This glimpse into Chinese power, however, was completely sufficient for him to fully internalize the impossibility of a Spanish conquest of China, much less in the small-scale a la mexicana model favored at the time. And when his report reached the Council though whatever means it took, they, too, showed through their actions (or lack thereof) that they were, to a certain degree, convinced as well. Such was the might of Ming China—a depth of power that, once perceived, was so profoundly obvious that those who had access to firsthand knowledge doubted

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the weakness of China no more. The consequences of his report, and above all its fortuitous timing, would prove to be pivotal in the development of a distinct Pacific World. NOTES 1. AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.8. Subsequent quotes in this paragraph are from this document. 2. AGI, Filipinas, 74, N.25 and AGI, Patronato, 25, R.8. 3. “Letter from Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa to Felipe II,” BRPI Vol. 4. This portrayal is counterbalanced by Salazar’s spirited defense of the indigenous people of the Philippines. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N. 36. 4. Teixeira, 311. This narrative of Alfaro’s last months is adapted from Teixeira’s work. 5. Teixeira, 314. 6. Teixeira, 317–18. Teixeira asserts that the letter also went on to dissuade friars from leaving the sure conversions of the Philippines for the uncertainty of China, which does not match any letters available in the Portuguese archives. When crossreferenced with known copies of Alfaro’s letters in the Spanish archives, the letter could be wholly or in part the letters located in AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.5; AGI, Filipinas, 79, N. 16; and AGI, Filipinas, 84, N. 15, but none of these are exact matches. 7. AGI, Filipinas, 6 R.3, N.40. Brito’s letter to Sande appears to be no longer extant. 8. Teixeira, 311. 9. Iaccarino, “Early Spanish,” n.p. 10. Brockey, “Conquest . . . ,” 6, 9–10. 11. Mendoza, n.p. 12. Piotr Stolarski, Friars on the Frontier, (New York: Ashgate, 2013), 37–39. 13. AGI, Filipinas, 34, N. 38. 14. “Letter from Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa to Felipe II,” BRPI Vol 4. 15. “Letter from Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa to Felipe II,” BRPI Vol 4. 16. AGI, Filipinas, 6 R. 4, N. 49. 17. “Ordinance Restricting Departure from the Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4. Also in AGI, Filipinas, 6, R.4, N.47. I have made minor edits to the spelling and punctuation of Blair and Robertson’s translation. 18. AGI, Filipinas, 79 N.8. 19. The original letters are: AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.4; 84, N.11; 79, N.5; and 84, N.7. All other Alfaro letters referenced in this work are contemporaneous copies. 20. Platero, Catalogo Biografico . . . , n.p. 21. AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.5. All quotes and information in the next several pages refer back to this source unless otherwise noted. 22. AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.8. 23. AGI, Patronato, 46, R.11. 24. Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Late Ming Urbanization and Nanjing (Cambridge: Harvard, 2010), 76–123.

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25. AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.5. 26. A large-scale discussion of the Great Divergence historiography is outside the scope of this work and has moreover been done repeatedly by many other historians, notably Kenneth Pomeranz, Andre Gunder Frank, Jared Diamond, Geoffrey Parker, etc. 27. For databases showing a rough tabulation of the frequency of warfare in both China and Europe in the sixteenth century, see Appendix 2 of Andrade, Gunpowder Age, 312–15. 28. Tim Brook et al, Geographic Sources of Ming-Qing History, (Ann Arbor: Michigan, 1988), 44. 29. Andrade, Gunpowder Age . . . , 2–3, 70–71. 30. AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.5.

Chapter 5

“King of the Ocean Sea”?‌‌‌‌‌‌ 1580 as Catalyst for the Pacific World

About midway through their frustrating mission attempt in Ming China, Agustín de Tordesillas wrote in foreboding terms of a prophecy that was haunting he and his fellow friars in China. Stung and distressed by the constant lying (as he saw it), the laughter that surrounded them everywhere they went, the bureaucratic torment they had been subjected to since their arrival, he opined that there was a reason for all of this otherwise-inexplicable cruelty. The Chinese, he announced, must have a pagan prophecy that one day their land would be conquered by men with rounded eyes and long noses, and thus they must be endeavoring to make the friars’ lives miserable in an effort to drive them away. Otherwise, the locals’ resistance to their holy message and their unwillingness to accept that Alfaro and his companions were unarmed was inexplicable.1 This strange callback to the Incan Viracocha myth and the Nahuatl Quetzalcoatl legend was no doubt a deliberate one—for, just as the Spanish had manipulated indigenous Latin American tales to fit a pre-set narrative of fair-skinned, bearded men returning from across the sea, Tordesillas was, consciously or not, manipulating his situation to fit a pre-set narrative as well. In his idealized version of events, it was not the friars’ ineptitude and lack of preparation that doomed their mission, but a prophecy that chilled the blood of the Chinese and compelled them to use every weapon in the vast Ming bureaucratic arsenal to stop them. And, just as the Spanish were obligated by divine forces beyond their control to fulfill the Inca and Aztec prophecies they themselves had concocted, so they had a similar obligation to topple China as well.2 But this prophecy would never be fulfilled, and not just because it was nonexistent. It was because the Spanish were finally beginning to realize that the idea of conquering China was not just unfeasible, but unpalatable as well. Alfaro’s letter, whatever route it took to get to the Council of the Indies, marked a subtle turning point in Spanish assessments of China. For the first 115

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time, a Spaniard of education and prominence had entered multiple Ming cities for more than just a few weeks. Given the interest in China in general at the time, and the emphasis placed on the value of specifically Spanish assessments, it is quite likely that this letter was read with deep interest by not just the Council, but also by Philip II himself. While his specific reaction to Alfaro, if any, is no longer extant, he almost certainly knew about the friar’s journey and about his interest in China, and he was continually bombarded with plans regarding Spain’s future interactions with China. It seems unlikely that Alfaro’s letter would have escaped his attention. The king was a classic micromanager, insisting on seeing virtually every document delivered to the Council, sometimes to the detriment of larger concerns.3 Whether or not he made any specific plans or orders as a direct result of the letter, it is unlikely it passed him by entirely, a conjecture borne out by the clear shift in Spanish attitudes toward a Chinese conquest over the course of the 1580s. While no real physical attempt was ever made to seize China, historians disagree as to when exactly the plan was abandoned for good, with the date being gradually pushed back earlier in time as the historiography became more and more oriented toward global history and integrated more Asian sources. Charles Boxer, writing in 1969, placed the end of the conquest dream in the early seventeenth century, arguing that the arrival of the Dutch complicated the balance of power in Southeast Asia so much so that Spain was forced to turn away from their Chinese ambitions.4 In 1995, John M. Headley asserted that Philip II’s 1598 death ended the plan, as his son and successor Philip III was unable to devote the proper time and attention to a military and spiritual conquest of China.5 And in 2002, Manel Ollé’s groundbreaking La Empresa de China: De la Armada Invencible al Galeón de Manila argued that the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588 robbed Philip II of the naval infrastructure that had been slated to be used in the conquest of China, a point echoed by José Antonio Cervera Jiménez in his 2013 article “Los planes españoles para conquistar China a través de Nueva España y Centroamérica en el siglo XVI.”6 Serge Gruzinski, writing in 2014, attributes this shift away from conquest not to any specific event, but to three thematic factors: the extraordinary distances involved, the inability of the newly united Spanish and Portuguese to coordinate efforts, and the friendly reception the Ming gave to the Jesuits beginning in the 1580s.7 Ubaldo Iaccarino similarly gives a three-pronged explanation for Spain’s failure to not only attempt a conquest, but to establish a Portuguese-style trade relationship: first, the Spanish didn’t quite understand the complexity of the tributary system and the role gifts played in it, second, that their evasion of the Chinese trade bans both hampered official efforts from the Chinese view and rendered them essentially moot, and finally, that the comparative lack of importance placed by the Spanish on language and translation gave the Chinese the impression that

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they lacked wen (文, civility) and were thus unworthy of full recognition.8 Both of these views place the withdrawal of the conquest idea at approximately the same time as Ollé’s work, in the late 1580s. This work argues that these interpretations represent only a partial picture of the shift away from conquest. Undoubtedly all the factors mentioned above played a role—this was a complex issue and no individual letter or event was going to make it or break it. This is borne out by the fact that plans for conquest were presented to the council throughout the 1580s and into the 1590s—well after the cutoff dates proposed by recent historians—and possibly later as well.9 But these timelines for the ultimate rejection of conquest are missing one vital and overlooked piece of evidence—the impact of the first available detailed report from a Spaniard visiting multiple sites in the Ming Empire for an extended period of time. The first major turn away from a conquest of China, particularly the a la mexicana model, should be dated to approximately 1582, the year in which reliable, detailed eyewitness accounts of Chinese military and civil infrastructure written by Spaniards aware of conquest plans would have become available to the king and his council. When Philip II wrote a formal letter to a fellow monarch, the Pope, to another high-ranked personage, or to someone he wanted to impress his might upon, he began with a grand flourish, listing all his most important titles: “Don Felipe, by the grace of God King of Spain, of Portugal, of the Two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, etc., of the Indies, and of the land and the ocean sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, of Brabant and Milan, etc., Count of Habsburg, of Flanders, of Tyrol, etc.”‌‌‌‌‌10 The inclusion of “the ocean sea” is critical here. To be the king of lands stretching across the Atlantic was a good thing. To extend that across the Pacific was even better. The Philippines were, as has been detailed earlier, explicitly hoped for and designed to be only the start of Spanish ambitions in Asia. The giddy plans of the 1570s, expressing the belief that a new Hernán Cortés could extend that range into China itself, are the product of these early ambitions, founded less on facts than on the hope that the Portuguese accounts of China were lies and that what they could see of China was not representative of the entirety of the country. As the realization that this was not the case gradually took hold, the tenor of new plans—and their reception—began to shift. The most noticeable change was a move away from the Mexican model, as Manel Ollé’s work points out. He details one 1583 instance where a Juan Baptista Román, a factor (business agent) living in Macau, eagerly announced that a mere five thousand soldiers, dispatched via Mexico, could easily overrun the Ming defenses in Fujian, as well as a similar plan by the Jesuit Alonso Sánchez.11 Five thousand soldiers was also the estimate given by Francisco de Sande a year later, long after his return to the Americas—so

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much for the a la mexicana plan of a small core of seasoned soldiers dismantling the Ming system. These plans are at first glance difficult to differentiate from the dreams of the 1570s of a Ming China under the sway of Spain—without the context of Alfaro’s report, and the subsequent knowledge that China was considerably more powerful than they had imagined, these newer plans can appear to be simply the latest in a string of ideas to conquer China. I argue that these bouts of saber-rattling have more to do with a tradition of militarized boasting, as it were, than they do with any kind of serious plan to expand Spanish control into China—essentially, that there is a difference between a conquest plan delineated on the assumption that China was in some way comparable to earlier civilizations that had been made part of the Spanish Empire and a conquest plan articulated after it was understood that the Ming was the dominant power in Asia. Indeed, the shift away from the Mexican strategy is an indication of this change—the vastly inflated forces have a ring of braggadocio about them. Those militaristic dreams were, most likely, simply a relic of an era of limited Sino-Spanish interaction, when China functioned as a sort of blank slate for the rapidly expanding Spanish world to project its fears and hopes onto. These post-Alfaro conquest plans bear the obvious mark of his intelligence. Governor Ronquillo, who could hardly have failed to be aware of the friar’s reports, explicitly stated that “it would be a serious error” for Spain to undertake a war with China using the Philippines as their base. While he did go on to elaborate that it might be possible if troops came directly from Mexico and he also reiterated that “it is right that Your Majesty should value [the Philippines] highly, on account of its proximity to China,” it seems obvious that the conquista a la mexicana was definitely off the table.12 Indeed, the plan to approach directly from Mexico has a distinct air of fantasy about it, as do the similar plans of Juan Bautista Román and Alonso Sánchez. Unlike the plans of the 1560s and 1570s, these newer plans represent a much smaller proportion of the overall proposals concerning China—while conquest was never the sole feature of Spanish policy toward China, it was a much more common feature before Alfaro’s journey. The later conquest proposals are dwarfed by the increasing numbers of proposals for trade and military alliances—only four conquest proposals between 1580 and 1600 remain extant in the Spanish archives, while proposals and reports on commerce and relations with China appear nearly every year from 1580 to the Ming Dynasty’s wane in the 1630s.13 While conquest was gradually falling out of favor, however, unofficial embassies to China in the mold of de Rada’s continued to be proposed into the 1580s. While the Spanish continued to propose increasingly unrealistic

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conquest plans, the idea of an actual invasion was now known to be impossible, and, with administrators in the Philippines and Mexico still unaware that Philip II’s armies had effected a de facto annexation of Portugal by summer 1580, the time was ripe for another attempt at a formal embassy to China in pursuit, once again, of that elusive trade agreement (now implicitly recognized to be impossible to use as a launching point for a conquest). Francisco de Sande, who in early 1580 had just received a coveted appointment to return to the Americas, was anxious to cement his legacy as a great governor-general of the Philippines. His five-year term could count some major successes—he had founded the city of Nueva Cáceres (named after his beloved hometown), overseen the development of Manila as the capital and the destination of the Manila Galleon, and expanded tentative Spanish control beyond the Luzon island group. This was not enough for Sande. Spanish military expansion into China had proved to be impossible, his attempt to take Borneo for Spain ended inconclusively at best, and Manila was still primarily a small outpost with many buildings made of grass and bamboo. Something needed to be done to crown his achievements over the past half-decade and overshadow the setbacks he had faced—like nearly all colonial Spanish administrators, Sande knew he could expect to be appointed elsewhere periodically over the course of his career and his successes in one post would determine the prestige of the next. Since the previous attempt at an embassy masterminded by a Philippines governor had foundered, what better legacy than to have overseen the preparations for the embassy that would at last establish a formal relationship with the great Chinese Empire? Sande had written about the possibility of forming a new embassy in late 1578, when he felt assured of having both the support of the viceroy and a good enough knowledge of the Ming diplomatic system to prevent the prevarications of 1575, when Spain’s would-be ambassadors were strung along for weeks without ever having their proposals considered.14 The complexities of administration had put a stop to this idea before it ever reached the planning stages, but Sande felt certain that now, in 1580, he was truly prepared for an embassy and that he would still reap the rewards even if he was in the Americas by the time it took place (and he no doubt remembered that the 1575 mission had concluded with Lavezaris as the recipient of some “rich gifts” from the Zhangzhou officials, not to mention Martín de Rada’s “silver bouquet”).15 Unfortunately for Sande’s ambitions, the same ship that brought him word of his long-coveted new appointment also brought some unwelcome news. Philip II, intrigued by the reports of riches by the 1575 ambassadors and as yet completely unaware that Alfaro had been in China and was at that moment penning the report that would change his China policy forever, had taken the

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initiative to form a new embassy and had chosen the friars who would lead it (with the very Mendoza who would later pen the Historia at their head), along with a long list of proposed gifts for the young Wanli Emperor. This development must have been especially upsetting for Sande as he had just discovered that Alfaro and his fellow friars had, in all likelihood, circumvented his authority in the islands in favor of that of the viceroy—would he never get to play a role in delineating Spain’s relationship with China? However frustrating the situation was, he could not exactly argue that King Philip II was infringing on his authority. But he could remonstrate and caution, and he proceeded to do so after reading the new ambassadors’ instructions and examining the list of gifts meant for the emperor, which included lengths of merino wool, ornamented harnesses, a Flemish clock, bedsteads, and other objets d’art.16 The gift list was an easy target. The Chinese tributary system was quite different from what European monarchs were accustomed to, he claimed, and gifts had a very different context. What was seen as an exchange of gifts as equals in Europe could take on an altogether less equitable meaning in China, and Sande had no qualms about stretching the truth to scuttle this mission. Sande was quick to point out that he had not spent the past several years gathering information on Ming political and diplomatic practices for nothing, and he proceeded to point out that the embassy, as laid out by Philip II, was bound to fail and, perhaps worst of all, bring dishonor upon His Most Catholic Majesty.17 In Europe, lavish gifts were an accepted and essential part of the diplomatic process. Over the course of his reign, Philip would give and receive lengths of cloth of gold, exquisite jewelry, objets d’art, and, on one celebrated occasion, a pair of beautiful white hunting falcons from the ambassadors of Elizabeth I. It was the way diplomacy was conducted in this period, and it was a method that served Philip well while negotiating the precarious system of alliances he encountered over the course of four marriages of state, five bankruptcies, and a dozen or so wars and rebellions—not for nothing was his cognomen El Prudente.18 Unfortunately, El Prudente, ‌‌‌‌‌however able a statesman he was in Europe, was nearly completely ignorant of how the Ming conducted foreign relations, at least according to Sande. In Europe, the diplomatic gift-giving system was generally accompanied by a strict observance of equality between sovereigns (regardless of their actual power differentials and the innate competitiveness of these ventures)—two copies of treaties were often made so that both sovereigns could have the honor of signing first, princesses traveling to marry a foreign prince were ceremonially handed over on neutral territory if possible, and the like. No such expectation existed in China. The tribute system also involved gifts, but they were, in theory at least, the gifts of a supplicant to a superior, and it was in that context that Philip’s gifts to the Wanli Emperor

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would be received, Sande claimed. It would appear that the mighty Emperor Philip II, the most powerful man in the Western world, was offering humble tribute as a supplicant to the young Wanli Emperor. To add to the potential humiliation, it was widely believed among Europeans at the time that the Chinese automatically assumed all foreigners were Muslims—an unacceptable mistake to make on the part of a king who was busily waging a ruinous war against the comparatively mild specter of Protestantism.19 Moreover, Sande wrote, the gifts themselves were unacceptable. Philip’s list, prepared with the intention to dazzle the Chinese and buy their friendship with the wonders of his empire, stood a very good chance of insulting the imperial court, he claimed. Surely the Spanish court at Madrid had seen the incomparable beauty and brightness of Chinese silks and satins? In that case, why would they think that lengths of black merino wool would be well-received? “What is customary in the Kingdom of China,” the governor wrote, “is rich beyond what we have in Spain. Silver is the only thing needed by them.”20 Harnesses and bedsteads and Flemish clocks, he claimed, would deeply insult the Emperor. To send such trinkets, however coveted and valuable they were in Europe, would insult the Chinese, possibly even to the point of open retaliation against Spanish interests in the area, Sande asserted.21 (The clock claim was manifestly untrue, incidentally—they would become popular gifts in future European visits to China, with both Matteo Ricci and the Macartney embassy offering timepieces to the court at Beijing.22) The entire back-and-forth stretched over a period of over a year, as money was authorized to buy the gifts, then ordered to pause while waiting for more intelligence, and finally was stopped altogether in May 1582, with Mendoza’s carefully planned presents being sold at auction in Mexico.23 Sande’s claims were, of course, not quite the truth. While the tributary system was generally arranged on the assumption that other nations were supplicants to Ming power, the Chinese in this period valued and sought out objets d’art and examples of craftsmanship from other countries, and in fact China traded pearls, cotton, and wax from the Spanish in the Philippines as well.24 The offensive clock might indeed have become a treasured sensation at the imperial court, even if the implied inferiority bound up in sending a formal mission might have bothered Philip II, who consistently addressed all Chinese correspondence to “the most powerful King of China.”25 This was not a mistake or a misconception on Sande’s part—as early as 1576 he had written about the tributary system with rather decent accuracy.26 It seems that Sande, ever anxious to maintain control over any Spanish mission to China, was deliberately trying to scuttle this latest attempt in order to maintain control of any subsequent mission. The stakes were higher for him personally now that the possibility of conquest was no longer an option—a trade agreement would be more likely to enrich him, even after his return to

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the Americas, more quickly and effectively than a long, drawn-out military campaign in which, as former governor of the Philippines, he would not be able to participate in personally. Whatever Sande’s quarrels with the viceroy, his expertise on matters relating to China was valued by Philip II (even if it, as in this case, was blatantly self-serving), and when he returned to Mexico that year to take up his new post, he was told that the embassy would be canceled, terminating the planned second formal mission to China before it even started.27 The new Portuguese members of Philip II’s Cortes had some knowledgeable about China as well and could have advised him on this matter, but it seems that the king followed the directives of his own countryman first in this instance. Philip II was a notoriously meticulous administrator, and one well aware of the importance of national origin, as Geoffrey Parker’s recent biography Imprudent King demonstrates by examining an incident in which the king, approving a routine bequest, noticed that the intended recipient had a Milanese name. Concerned that the man’s compatriots would learn about the grant and ask for similar gifts themselves, Philip instructed his administrators to find out if the man was indeed from Milan and, if so, to “give [the money] to him elsewhere.”28 It is entirely possible, though unsupported by available extant documents, that Philip II weighed the testimony of the Spanish Sande and the Portuguese members of the Cortes regarding China and chose to follow the judgment of the Extremaduran governor—a judgment that in this case turned out to be wrong. The brouhaha over the gift list did not prevent Philip II from launching another mission to China in 1582. This mission, unlike its predecessor, did actually arrive in China, at least in part. Due to turmoil in Manila caused by further pirate attacks and more sixteenth-century communication disasters, the mission, led by the Jesuit Alonso Sánchez, was permitted to leave for China without proper guards and translators. The six friars who had been appointed ambassadors spent a month wandering around southern China, at turns being imprisoned, released, interrogated, and even threatened with execution by the local authorities before being sent under guard to Macau to be returned to Manila by the Portuguese, much as Pedro de Alfaro had been two years previously. Thus ended the third mission.29 In 1584, the Spanish would make one more attempt to send an embassy to China, and, like the proposed 1580 mission, this one is known to have ended without a representative of Spain ever setting foot in China. The new governor of the Philippines, Diego Ronquillo, envisioned a continuation of the 1575 embassy. Martín de Rada was long dead, but Gerónimo Marín was alive and thriving in Manila, and more monks and priests with both the education required to present a cultured, diplomatic face to the Chinese and the toughness required to evangelize in a new land (each of these missions, including Alfaro’s, was envisioned as operating in tandem with conversion

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efforts) had arrived in the past few years. Marín was chosen to head the mission, three supporting ambassadors (two Augustinians and a Franciscan) were added, and a list of gifts was compiled (no longer fully extant), but the plan faded away and was never implemented due to the competing concerns of the ongoing Eighty Years’ War, now complicated by the effective independence of the Netherlands. No further embassies would be sent by Spain during the Ming era. Indeed, the closest Philip II or his representatives got to approving anything related to Sino-Spanish interactions was the appointment of the brilliant Dominican Juan Cobo to preach to the Chinese population of Manila beginning in 1588. Cobo’s zeal for and admiration of Chinese culture on its own merits marked him as usually forward-thinking for his time and place, but after the tumultuous visits of de Rada, Alfaro, and their contemporaries, the late 1580s was not deemed a fortuitous time for Cobo to enter China.30 What to make of these final three embassies or planned embassies? Of the three, two never actually entered China, and the only one that did was dogged by disaster from the start. What these three missions, or planned missions, have in common is a lack of real impact. De Rada’s mission may have ultimately been a failure or at best a neutral event in the history of Sino-Spanish relations, but it established formal contact between the two powers on Chinese soil for the first time, and, through de Rada’s linguistic efforts, furthered Spanish knowledge of Chinese culture and society. Alfaro’s mission too failed to achieve its goals, but provided the first detailed description of Ming fortifications and military power in a major city to reach Spain. These final three, failures all as well, did nothing to further Sino-Spanish relations or Western knowledge of China— indeed, after such a disheartening parade of unsuccessful embassy attempts, it is likely that the Spanish simply gave up the idea of formal embassies to China, especially since their “officially unofficial” silver trade with the Ming was beginning to take off by the mid-1580s. In the space of ten years, then, the Spanish crown or its representatives planned four official embassies to Ming China, plus one secret mission—that of Pedro de Alfaro—that likely had some kind of permission in the form hints from the viceroy of New Spain. Of these five, two never actually entered China, two ended with the banishment of its members, and only one—that of Rada—actually achieved some level of diplomatic communication, only to be received with an almost complete lack of interest from the Chinese followed by being bustled back to Manila within two months with no long-term results. In light of the long-standing and very profitable silver trade between Spain and China in this period, to say nothing of Spain’s rapid imperial expansion across the globe, it seems strange that the two empires never established any kind of formal relationship beyond the grandfathering-in of the previous Luzon tributary status. What caused this string of failures?

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From the Chinese point of view, an official relationship with Spain was apparently simply not necessary. Sande’s feigned horror at Philip II’s proposed gifts to the emperor nevertheless underscores the vastly superior wealth and power of the Chinese—mirrors and fine harnesses may have impressed European monarchs, but it was quite believable to the Spanish administrators reading Sande’s critique of their planned embassy that they would be received as insulting toys to a monarch accustomed to the finest luxuries in the world (even if the Ming court would most likely have thoroughly appreciated the gifts). Spain was not a major power in East or Southeast Asia, despite its incursions into Borneo and other islands in and near the South China Sea in this period, and, as Sande astutely pointed out, the only thing China really needed from them was silver. The silver trade with the Spanish colonies was already beginning to thrive without a formal agreement or embassy, so there was no reason for the Chinese to seek one out, particularly if the Spanish representatives were going to be difficult about sending clandestine missions in and out of the country. In his 2002 book La Empresa de China, Ollé argues persuasively that it was the destruction of the 1588 Spanish Armada that permanently ended the dream of a Spanish pacificación of China, and that these proposals of the 1580s represent genuine conquest plans under serious consideration by Philip II. I argue instead that the Spanish had already turned away from this plan as early as 1582, when detailed reports of Ming power seen through trusted Spanish eyes became available. Indeed, as Geoffrey Parker describes, Philip did use the excuse of needing to divert military resources to a conquest of England to scuttle a proposed 1586 invasion. At face value, this seems to be evidence that only the specter of Elizabeth I stood between a Spanish conquest of China in the late 1580s. However, on closer inspection this interpretation is not as convincing. Philip used the same excuse in the same year to reject a plan to build a fort at Mombasa and a plan to improve fortifications in the Caribbean after an attack by Francis Drake. He explained to the Council regarding the rejected improvement proposal, “your plan presents a lot of problems, but the biggest one is lack of money.”31 The lack of money was because of the need to save resources for the projected invasion of England, but there were after all “a lot of problems” in play, not just finances. Might there not have been other issues with the China plan as well, such as a general unfeasibility? In any case, the dream of a Spanish conquest of England never came to fruition either, any more than did the arrogant plans of Sande or the more large-scale conquest plans of the 1580s. The stark reality of the seemingly-infinite power of China put an effective end to conquest as a serious discussion—conquest was an impossible dream for the Spanish, best illustrated by the fact that the actual eventual defeat of the Ming by the Manchus in the seventeenth century took over six decades

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and cost millions of lives.32 Naturally the Spanish and the Manchus had different goals and different approaches to the idea of toppling the Ming, but the former dynasty’s ability  to retain isolated seats of power for years after the fall of Beijing in the very regions Spain was targeting makes it profoundly obvious that any real attempt by Spain would have ended quickly and bloodily. Moreover, the entire context of the Asia-Pacific region Spain that was so anxious to become the major power in had changed at precisely the same moment the Spanish realized that conquering China was never going to be a reality. The implicit (and sometimes explicit) threat represented by the Portuguese presence in Asia had changed character, and, more importantly, an extraordinary new market was about to open up in the Pacific region. Spain, having naturally backed away from the idea of an armed conquest of China, concentrated its subsequent efforts on attempting to expand trade with the Chinese (while maintaining, of course, some of the belligerence that characterized so much of early modern European communication)— essentially, it was a return to the option explored in Martín de Rada’s failed embassy of 1575. A trade agreement with China would not only enrich Spain, it would keep the empire in the loop in the region, opening up opportunities later. However, a major change in the balance of power among Europeans in the Western Pacific meant that the context of establishing a formal trade agreement between Spain and China was somewhat different than it had been during de Rada’s mission—Spain and Portugal were now united under the rule of Philip II. After several years of dynastic maelstrom and civil war following the 1578 disappearance of the young Portuguese king Sebastian I, Philip II had taken the Portuguese crown in 1580.33 While the Iberian Union, being dynastic, did not allow the Spanish direct control over Portuguese affairs (and indeed, a citizen of Portugal was officially a foreigner in all the Spanish territories), it did mean that Spain had an excellent opportunity to profit from the lucrative trade agreements the Portuguese had so painstakingly cultivated, if only indirectly. This in turn meant that the Sino-Portuguese agreements were no longer to be undermined, but protected—unless, of course, Spain could forge some of its own. Philip II, now also Philip I of Portugal, now realized that something needed to be done to placate both China and Portugal in regards to the Alfaro affair. Portugal, which was so important to Spanish concerns that it was widely proposed that the capital of the empire be moved to Lisbon, came first.34 The Portuguese in their letters to Sande in 1579 had expressed deep concerns about the damage Alfaro was capable of in regards to their agreements with China—the sixty-odd year relationship between the two countries had always been rocky, and they feared that any untoward incident could result in their expulsion. One of the earliest Portuguese in Ming China, Simão de

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Andrade, had nearly spoiled Sino-Portuguese relations soon after they began in the 1510s by openly building a fort with enslaved Chinese labor, and as recently as 1545, every Portuguese trader present in Ningbo had been killed by the Chinese.35 By the 1570s, an uneasy peace had been achieved, but the Portuguese were widely treated with contempt and suspicion, and it was (quite reasonably) feared that the Chinese would seize upon any available excuse to cast them out. Despite the leniency with which the Ming authorities had treated Alfaro, there was always the possibility that the affair would be resurrected by the Chinese at an uncomfortable moment. Soothing the Chinese was of paramount importance, as many European observers detected some alarm about the new union from the Ming.36 Philip II sent a conciliatory letter to the Wanli Emperor in his capacity as monarch of both countries. “The Most Powerful and Esteemed King of China” was asked by Philip, “King of the Ocean Sea,” to accept his wish for the Emperor’s “prosperity and increasing good wishes,” and to please accept the Iberian king’s offer to send “tractable Franciscans,” who would commit no evils and would be bound by the laws and governances of China, in order that the people of “so great a kingdom” might partake in the even greater goodness of the Gospel.37 The brief letter is subtle, never alluding directly to Alfaro, but instead choosing to express regret for the dearth of friendly, obedient Franciscans in China—and significantly written after both Sande’s report on the whole affair and the formal annexation of the Portuguese crown. Compared to an earlier letter of Philip’s to the emperor, the difference is subtle. In a letter of 1580, written before Alfaro’s death and before Philip took the Portuguese crown, the king also asked for kindness and leniency toward a group of friars (Augustinians who were ultimately denied entry to Chinese territory beyond Macau), but the tone of excessive solicitude and promises that the prospective friars would not covet Chinese goods or otherwise misbehave found in the later letter are missing.38 The 1580 letter is a letter of a Spanish power unsure of its ultimate plan in regards to China; the 1581 missive one from a monarch who had interests to defend and aims to achieve amid the knowledge that they were unlikely to be successfully achieved by force. For the time being, conciliation was the goal between both Spain and China and the newly united Iberian peninsula. The Iberian Union in Asia is a significant aspect of the historiographies of both nations, and of European expansion into Asia in general, and what is there has been generally well-executed works of scholarship in a much-needed area. Charles Boxer explored the complex world of the early modern Portuguese overseas empire in Asia over the course of a long and fruitful career, but several historians have written specifically on the Iberian Union in Asia in recent years. John Slater, in “The Terrible Embrace of the Incipient Baroque: Textually Enacting the Union of Crowns,” uses the

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Moluccas as a centerpiece in his study of textual remembrances of “(theoretically) boundless monarchy” to good effect, pointing out the unease many contemporaries felt over the union even while enjoying its benefits, while Graça Almeida Borges uses the 1607 capture of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf by Portuguese forces to illustrate the uneasy integration of the Portuguese overseas infrastructure into the larger Spanish system.39 Finally, Kevin Sheehan’s unpublished 2008 dissertation, “Iberian Asia: The Strategies of Spanish and Portuguese Empire Building, 1540–1700,” examines the Moluccas as a symbol of Iberian expansion and interaction in the early modern Pacific.40 In contrast to these, my own work seeks to analyze the Union in the context of Portugal and Spain’s very different relationships with China, as well as in the context of an expanding Pacific World. Another significant shift in the balance of power in the Pacific happened in 1580: the rise of the global silver trade and with it, the transition of Spain and China from potential enemies on the field of battle to long-term, if still informal, trade partners (although, in the grand tradition of early modern trans-imperial relations, the silver trade did not quell all tension between the two). Silver had of course been a major commodity in both China and Spain for decades before 1580. For example, the infamous mines of Potosí had opened in 1545, and the Chinese lust for silver was so legendary that the Portuguese had a saying about it: “When the Chinese smell silver they will bring mountains of merchandise.”41 But in the years 1580 and 1581, a major change in Ming taxation doubled the value of silver almost immediately and changed the face of Spanish finances for decades.42 This expansion of the silver trade was the result of the 1580 promulgation of the Single Whip Reform (yi tiao bian fa一條鞭法) throughout the Ming Empire. This reform consolidated the existing complicated tax system into a single payment, rendered in silver rather than grain or corvee labor, sparking an almost instantaneous increase in the Chinese demand for silver. This was a demand Spain was quite willing to fill, and the trade flourished throughout the remainder of the Ming Dynasty—providing Spain with that lucrative relationship with China they had once hoped to achieve through armed conquest.43 The Single Whip Reform was the culmination of years of internal monetary policy shifts within Ming China. Hyperinflation in the fifteenth century devalued the copper-backed paper currency while Japanese mines were simultaneously increasing silver production, and in response the Ming gradually introduced a silver-based system, which was made the law of the land with the Single Whip Reform.44 In addition to requiring vast amounts of bullion due to the sheer size of the Chinese economy at the time, this new policy also valued silver higher than gold, in contrast to European economies, requiring yet larger amounts of meet the demand on terms favorable to European interests.45

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The Spanish had begun mining significant amounts of silver in the Americas in the mid-sixteenth century, quickly edging out the Central European silver mines that had been dominant in the Western world before then.46 Initially, the majority of the silver went back to the metropole in Spain to pay for the ruinously expensive European wars Philip II was wont to engage in, a state of affairs that seriously hampered the king’s ability to see other projects through.47 However, the Single Whip Reform opened a new opportunity for trade and pulled the maritime axis of the silver trade from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Of course, Spain had dabbled in trade with China before from their earliest days as a permanent presence in the Philippines—as early as 1572 Almanza had written that silver was the only Spanish commodity the Chinese had exhibited any real, intense interest in.48 Spain had such a tremendous amount of silver—Richard von Glahn describes it as “torrents of gold and silver that cascaded around the globe”—that it was able to surpass Japan as China’s primary trading partner in silver.49 That this opportunity for Spain opened up at precisely the same time as the crown turned from the idea of an armed conquest of China is an example of extremely fortuitous timing—it meant that now Spain had a vested interest in the continued functioning of the Ming system. The trans-Pacific silver trade has become a significant historiographical topic in recent years—indeed, it is one of the few areas where Sino-Spanish relations are a major historiographical debate, and it is also a major aspect of the development of Pacific World historiography. The prevailing view among Western historians until the mid-twentieth century was to approach this trade as a European phenomenon, focusing on the silver trade as an aspect of Western history. However, the past few decades of scholarship, particularly the works of Richard von Glahn, Dennis Flynn, Arturo Giráldez, and William Atwell, have emphasized the silver trade as not only a significant aspect of Chinese economic history, but as a landmark event in the development of globalization—what Andre Gunder Frank describes as “the real issue . . . how China, Europe, and the rest of the world were related by a single global economy.” This single global economy, at least in the context of the silver trade, was based in the Pacific maritime zone, establishing the final economic link between all major geographic areas.50 My research contributes to this historiography by building upon and expanding the Pacific-oriented aspect of the silver trade by linking it with Spain’s rejection of a conquest of China based on Pedro de Alfaro’s report, theorizing that the simultaneous commencement of these events established a stable balance of power in the Pacific that allowed for the development of permanent links across the ocean. As outlined earlier, no current research on Sino-Spanish relations places the rejection of the conquest model at the dawn of the trans-Pacific silver trade—a significant

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lapse that represents a missed opportunity to explore why and how the SinoSpanish silver trade developed in the early 1580s. Spain needed China more than China needed Spain, but ultimately the same revelation about the superfluousness of a formal relationship when Luzon was already considered a tributary and the trade was doing so well struck them as well, particularly since the Ming also bought large amounts of silver from Japan and thus was not entirely dependent on maintaining the link with Spain. Moreover, the Eighty Years’ War dominated Spanish financial and political concerns until 1609, when Philip II grudgingly signed a truce with the Dutch Republic “as if it was a sovereign state.”51 During that time, the Spanish state declared bankruptcy on multiple occasions, and suffered several crippling defeats, to say nothing of the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588. A new alliance, perhaps with attendant financial and military costs, could not be considered.52 Moreover, although the separation of Spanish and Portuguese interests post-Iberian Union extended to their colonies as well, Spain was naturally a significant indirect beneficiary of Portugal’s trade agreements with China. By 1600, references to conquests of China had died away in favor of letters of business. In this context of failed embassies, Pedro de Alfaro’s mission takes on a new importance. It had the longest duration in China, visited the most strategic and populous locales, gathered vital military and structural information outside the “wonders of the Middle Kingdom” vein so many European accounts of China confined themselves to at this point, and, unlike the other four missions, actually resulted in a shift in Spanish plans and interactions toward the Chinese. While Spain periodically made militaristic gestures toward China as late as 1592 (though not, incidentally, in Asia or in communication with Asian contacts), these exclamations of military prowess and threat belong to the contemporary Spanish tradition of exaggerated militarism and conquest, not to any legitimate military plans. Alfaro’s detailed reports took an armed conquest by Spain off the table forever and forced Spain to reassess its relationship with the Ming, inadvertently setting into place a stable, discrete Pacific World. NOTES 1. AGI, Patronato, 46, R.11, and Mendoza, n.p. 2. Daniel Arbino and Michael Arnold, “Conquests of the Imagination: The Manipulation of Myth in Iberian Conquest Literatures,” Nomenclatura Vol. 2, No. 4 (2012): 1–2, 7–8. 3. Geoffrey Parker, Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II (New Haven: Yale, 2014), 284, 286–87.

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4. Boxer, “Portuguese . . . ,” 120. 5. Headley, 646. 6. Ollé, 7–8, and José Antonio Cervera Jiménez, “Los planes españoles para conquistar China a través de Nueva España y Centroamérica en el siglo XVI.” Cuadernos Intercambio Año 10, Vol. 10, No. 12 (2013), 230–31. 7. Gruzinski, 235–37. 8. Ubaldo Iaccarino, “Conquistadors of the Celestial Empire: Spanish Policy Toward China at the end of the Sixteenth Century,” in Antony and Schottenhammer, 96. 9. AGI, Filipinas, 19, R.1, N.1. 10. For an example, see AGI, Patronato, 24, R.51. 11. Ollé, 157–58. 12. Ollé, 95. 13. Proposals that plan for both conquest and commerce are counted in both categories. There are too many proposals or reports to list individually, but a complete list can be accessed through the online Portal de Archivos Españoles (PARES). 14. AGI, Filipinas, 34, N.22. 15. “Events in the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 15. 16. AGI, Indiferente, 739, N. 64. 17. Hsu, 325–26. 18. For detailed information on Philip II’s diplomatic gift-giving and gifts in the context of early modern European diplomacy in general, see Parker, Imprudent King, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven: Yale, 2014), and The World Is Not Enough: The Imperial Vision of Philip II of Spain (Baylor: Baylor, 2001); Adams et al, Diplomacy in Early Modern Culture; Elliott, Imperial Spain; Ellis, They Need Nothing; and Hsu, “Writing . . . .” 19. Hsu, p. 326. 20. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol. 4. 21. Hsu, 326. 22. John Wills, ed, China and Maritime Europe: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2010), 63, 244. 23. AGI, Indiferente, I. 739, N. 262; N. 264; N. 42; N. 55. These brief notes trace the entire history of the scuttled gift list. 24. Chinese sources for these additional trade items can be found in the following collections: Wen Xian Tong Kao 文献通考, Dao Yi Zhi Lue岛夷志略, and Ming Shi Lu明实. 25. For an example, see AGI, Filipinas, 339, L.1, F. 201V-202V. 26. “Relation of the Philippine Islands,” BRPI Vol 4. 27. AGI, Mexico, 1064, L.2, F.64.R. 28. Parker, Imprudent King, 66. 29. AHN, Colección Fernández Navarrete, II, fol. 253. 30. AGN, Caja 003, 34–39. For Juan Cobo: Yin Xiao, “Juan Cobo’s Thoughts on Chinese-Occidential Cultural Integration,” Religions 2022, 13(12), online. 31. Parker, Imprudent King, 311.

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32. William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. (Cambridge: Harvard, 2015), 4–6. 33. Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 67. Sebastian is presumed to have been killed during the Battle of Ksar El Kebir in present-day Morocco, but his body was never recovered. Eventually Sebastian became a folk-hero and the basis of a mystic belief system in Portugal and Brazil known as Sebastianismo—the belief that the missing king would return in times of trouble to save Portugal (or Brazil) and lead it into a glorious new era. Jacqueline Hermann, No Reino do Desejado. A construção do sebastianismo em Portugal, séculos XVI e XVII. (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998), pp. iv–v. 34. Anthony Disney, A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, Vol I. (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2009), 198. 35. Disney, 170, 178. 36. Arturo Giráldez, The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleon and the Dawn of the Global Economy (Lanham: Rowman, 2015), 62. 37. AGI, Patronato, 24, R. 54. 38. AGI, Patronato, 24, R. 51. 39. John Slater, “The Terrible Embrace of the Incipient Baroque: Textually Enacting the Union of Crowns,” Ellipsis 12 (2014), 209, and G. A. Borges, “The Iberian Union and the Portuguese Overseas Empire, 1600–1625: Ormuz and the Persian Gulf in the Global Politics of the Hispanic Monarchy,” (e-JPH, Vol. 2, No. 12, Dec 2014), 2. 40. Kevin Sheehan, “Iberian Asia: The Strategies of Spanish and Portuguese Empire Building, 1540–1700.” (PhD diss, University of California Berkeley: 2008), 19. 41. For Potosi: N. David Cook, Demographic Collapse. (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1981), 13. For the Chinese love of silver: Fernand Braudel, Wheels of Commerce: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. II (New York: Harper, 1982), 198. 42. Dennis Flynn, Arturo Giráldez, and Richard von Glahn, Global Connections and Monetary History, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 86. 43. Flynn et al.,‌‌‌‌‌ Global Connections . . . , 84–90. 44. Flynn et al.‌‌‌‌‌, Global Connections . . . , 313–15. For another overview of the Ming fiscal reforms, see William Atwell and Ray Huang’s respective chapters in Dennis Twitchett and Frederick Mote, eds, The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 8: The Ming Dynasty, Part 2: 1368–1644 (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1998). Additionally, Wan Ming describes the Single Whip Reform as being the “key” to understanding the development of Ming society in the late sixteenth century. Wan Ming, “The Monetization of Silver in the Ming (1368–1644),” Ming Qing Yanjiu (2005), 27. 45. Flynn et al.,‌‌‌‌‌ Global Connections . . . , 214. 46. David Brading and Harry Cross, “Colonial Silver Mining: Mexico and Peru,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol 52, No 4 (1972), 545. 47. Parker, Imprudent King, 62. 48. Ubaldo Iaccarino, “The ‘Galleon System’ and Chinese Trade in Manila at the Turn of the 16th Century.” Ming Qing Yanjiu XVI (2011), 109.

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49. Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700. (Berkeley: California, 1996), p. 113. 50. Andre Gunder Frank, “A Review of Richard von Glahn’s Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700.” Accessed April 16, 2016. http:​//​ www​.rrojasdatabank​.info​/agfrank​/von​_glahn​_review​.html. Also of note in this review is Frank’s assertion that “China/Europe comparisons [a la Prazniak, Wong, Pomeranz] enlighten us, but tying them to where and how ‘capitalism’ sprouted is a snare and a delusion,” an argument I find increasingly convincing. Major silver trade works include: von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune, and long-running series of articles by William Atwell and by Dennis Flynn and Arturo Giraldez in collaboration. A significant aspect of the silver trade historiography is the determination of what role, if any, was played by the collapse of the Ming and the decline of Spain as a world power vis-a-vis the silver trade in the mid-seventeenth century; something that is beyond the chronological scope of this work but represents a major aspect of global economic history. 51. Jonathan Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740, (Oxford: Oxford, 1990), 404–5. 52. Israel, 407.

Conclusion “Such Burdensome Labors and Sorrows”: The World After Pedro de Alfaro

What happened to the rest of Pedro de Alfaro’s friends, companions, superiors, and enemies after the mission ended and Alfaro’s body was cremated on the beach that day in 1580? Their eventual fates, as with their lives and careers, further illustrated the increasingly globalized nature of life in the late sixteenth century. As the Chinese and Spanish worlds drew closer together across the vast Pacific Ocean, the lives of the players in the drama that had helped deliver a new maritime zone reflected this new reality. Alfaro had wished for the king to grant “a marquisate” for the soldiers who accompanied him to China as a reward for their brave service to God and to Philip II.1 Of the three soldiers, Francisco de Dueñas was appointed an envoy to a mission to the Moluccas and eventually successfully petitioned Philip II for a reward for his services to the crown—first among the listed efforts, his participation in the Alfaro mission.2 Pedro de Villarroel disappeared from the records after the mission, but Juan Díaz Pardo gave away his encomienda and became a Franciscan friar like his mentor Alfaro, dying in 1616 after a long life of adventurous piety that led him not only to back to China, but to Đại Việt and Japan.3 Of the other friars, Agustín de Tordesillas lived longer than anyone in the narrative, dying of leprosy in 1629 when he must have been in his nineties. Juan Baptista returned to Europe, obtained a papal audience with Clement VIII, and told him of his time in China and Macau. He died in 1604 at the age of sixty-four.4 Pablo de Jesús was expelled from China almost immediately after landing in 1582. He spent a few months in Macau before returning to Manila and opening a hospital. He spent the last year of his life bedridden, dying in Manila in 1610 and describing the cares and woes of the Catholic Church as “such burdensome labors and sorrows.” Juan de Ayora, 133

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to whom Alfaro had addressed his remarkable letter about the feasibility of a Spanish conquest of China, died in Manila in 1581, probably around the age of eighty.5 Of the Spanish administrators, Alfaro’s archenemy Francisco de Sande died in Mexico in 1602, leaving his wife, Ana de Mesa, and their two adult children in very comfortable circumstances. Gonzalo de Ronquillo, who Alfaro had never met but who possibly loathed him more than Sande had, died under house arrest in Manila in 1583, under investigation for attempting to seize power for life. At his funeral, the candles surrounding his body as it lay in the cathedral ignited some drapery, eventually destroying the entire Intramuros section and prompting the rebuilding of Manila as a city of stone. Viceroy Almanza died that same year, having reached the pinnacle of his career as the viceroy of the wealthier Audiencia of Peru.6 As for the rulers whose empires perched on either side of the Pacific, eyeing each other warily, Philip II died of cancer at his retreat of El Escorial in 1598, having outlived four wives, at least seven children, and the hope of a Spanish conquest of China. The last years of his life were spent in agony, confined to a wheelchair or his bed and dependent on the assistance of his only surviving daughter, Isabella Clara Eugenia. The Wanli Emperor, on the other hand, lived on and on, no longer the young boy of Sande’s 1575 report, remaining on the throne for forty-eight years total before dying in 1620. But his reign ended long before that—by 1600, he no longer attended meetings, made official appointments, or acknowledged his responsibilities as emperor in any meaningful way. This helped contribute to an already-ongoing decline in Ming administrative and governing capabilities, and by the time of his death, the Manchus were already pushing across the northern borders. After a long, bloody civil war, the Ming Dynasty officially ended with the suicide of his grandson, the Chongzhen (崇祯) Emperor, in a park outside the palace in 1644, despite the Southern Ming clinging to power in southern China and Taiwan for another few decades.7 Alfaro’s assessment of Chinese power caused him significant personal distress, not only for the loss of his own ambitions, but also for the loss of millions of Chinese souls unwinnable for the Christian faith and the end of any realistic hope that China could become part of the Spanish Empire. His gloomy letter to his friend Juan de Ayora in Manila opined that “with or without soldiers, wanting to get to China is like trying to grasp the moon.” Alfaro’s flair for the poetic was a poor cover for his disappointment. He was right—and I have used his assessment in order to highlight both the immeasurable strength of Ming China and the thwarted hopes of Spain. He would, more than likely, not have been pleased. Alfaro’s failure to establish a permanent mission and the accident of timing that put him on the cutting edge of European thought regarding China

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for only a few short years ensured that this formerly obscure friar, briefly known throughout educated Europe through his appearance in Mendoza’s narrative, sank into obscurity once more within a few decades of his death. As China allowed more and more foreigners to reside within its borders, his information, gathered during a sojourn of mere months, seemed quaint and outdated next to the erudite works of such luminaries as Matteo Ricci or Michele Ruggieri, who could boast of not only years in China but fluency in the language. However, it is that same accident of timing, immediately before the start of the great early modern missionary era, that ensured his real importance. The momentous events of 1580—a watershed year in the history of Sino-Spanish relations that has heretofore gone largely unremarked in the historiography—illuminate the importance of Alfaro’s mission to the development of a distinct Pacific World. Combined with the promulgation of the Single Whip Reform and the Iberian Union, both of which in their different ways made the continued undisturbed functioning of the Ming Empire an object of vested interest for Philip II, Alfaro’s simultaneous assessment of the impossibility of a Spanish conquest of China allowed the Spanish to situate themselves vis-a-vis China not as prospective conquerors but as long-term, though largely unofficial, trade partners. This in turn changed the Pacific Ocean from a vast maritime expanse characterized by two powers isolated from each other on opposite sides of the sea (as Spain and China were in the 1560s and 1570s) to a discrete historical zone with a stable (though wary) balance of power, joined by a thriving permanent trade and cultural network in the form of the Manila Galleon. The connecting points of the Manila Galleon, the Spanish colonies of Mexico and the Philippines, are themselves significant aspects of the development of the Pacific World as well. In this work I have argued that Pedro de Alfaro and his ill-fated (from his point of view) journey to China represent a significant turning point in both global history and historiography. His testimony on the impossibility of a Spanish conquest of China drastically changed Spain’s policies in regards to China, recentering them primarily on trade just in time for Philip II to take advantage of the tremendous demand for silver caused by the promulgation of the yi tiao bian fa and drastically improve the finances of Spain. The title of this work in its original form was “Never Trust the Chinese,” a direct quote from Pedro de Alfaro in his letter to Juan de Ayora, written after the loss of his chalice to the machinations of his interpreter. I had chosen it early on, feeling that it did a good job of both indicating the global aspect of the work and summing up Alfaro’s peevish demeanor. It did not occur to me until I was far along in the writing process that Alfaro had failed to follow his own advice: that he had trusted the Chinese, and moreover that Philip II had in turn trusted Alfaro. The friar trusted the power of China implicitly and without question

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as soon as he had been exposed to its realistic extent in Guangzhou, removed from all the contemporary Spanish rhetoric of wondrous luxuries peddled by a peaceful people ripe for conquest. And as soon as Alfaro’s report reached Spain, the Crown trusted it as well, to its great and almost immediate material advantage. The Dutch would eventually replace the Chinese as Spain’s biggest adversaries in Asia, but in the meantime the Ming and Spanish Empires settled down to a profitable, though very uneasy and never fully openly acknowledged, trade partnership. Alfaro’s implicit trust in the power of Ming China also reflects the mission’s second major contribution to the historiography—the furthering of ongoing revisionist scholarship arguing for the dominance of China as a world power long after the West is traditionally thought to have drawn ahead. The Spanish, once they had been made aware that the population of China was far greater, better armed, and more thoroughly fortified than they had believed, immediately backed down from any serious consideration of a conquest of China—a valuable and significant salute to their would-be rival’s power. Indeed, the power and prominence of the Ming was a surprise to the Spanish only in its real extent—even before the first known Spaniard in the service of the empire had set foot in Ming China it was well-known that the Chinese were extremely formidable adversaries, as Lavezaris’s plan for conquest a la mexicana attests. The Spanish prior to Alfaro did not believe that the Chinese were insignificant or weak, only that there was a distinct possibility, worth taking advantage of, that the southern coast was not representative of the rest of the country and that the Ming were not militaristic and would be unwilling or unable to repel a Spanish offensive. With the withdrawal of the conquest option from Spanish policy, their recognition of China’s place as the dominant power in not only Asia but the world was affirmed, if only implicitly. The combination of these two factors—the removal of the conquest option and Spain’s recognition of Chinese dominance—at a very precise time in global history allowed for the development of a stable, discrete Pacific World sooner than might otherwise have been. What the Spanish would have done if a pacificación of China was still on the table when the yi tiao bian fa was implemented and the Iberian Union was finalized is purely conjectural, but the fact that conquest was removed from realistic consideration at the precise time when China suddenly needed tremendous amounts of silver and the continuation of Portugal’s trade relationship with the Ming became an object of interest to Philip II allowed for a quick stabilization of the two powers based on opposite sides of the Pacific. This is not to imply that the Spanish lived in harmony thereafter with either the Chinese or the Portuguese, of course (conflicts erupted into bloodshed regularly throughout the colonial period), but the timing of all three events—Alfaro’s report, the Single Whip Reform,

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and the Iberian Union—meant that Spain’s rivalry with China was now considerably eased. And it also meant that Spain’s further encroachments into Asia would be of a much smaller scale, and that in turn the Americas came into stronger focus as the center of Spanish overseas empire, rather than the prospective Chinese holdings Philip II had hoped for. Peace, or relative peace, between all major powers is not enough to build a discrete maritime region, of course. Indeed, if that was the main criterion, maritime regions as such probably wouldn’t exist. But the absence of ongoing open conflict between Spain and China opened up avenues of trade at the precise moment when Spain, at long last, had a commodity the Chinese were in great need of. Spain and China had traded before in the Philippines, but that trade had been confined to small-scale luxury goods and such bland necessities as wax and cotton. The silver trade was something quite different in both scope and duration—until the protracted and bloody collapse of the Ming in the mid seventeenth century, the silver trade was arguably the backbone of the Spanish economy, so much so that the Ming-Qing cataclysm arguably plunged Spain into a financial quagmire from which it never really recovered. It marked as well the end of Spanish influence on the mainland of Asia.8 The stability engendered by the effective removal of China as a feasible military rival allowed for this trade to blossom, which in turn strengthened the ties across the Pacific World. With the silver trade came not only an increase in Manila Galleon voyages, but an increase in cultural exchanges across the Pacific. More profit meant more people, and the speed and scope of travel in both directions across the Pacific increased drastically in the decades following the rise of the silver trade. With Spain and China well-established as, respectively, the dominant powers in the Eastern and Western Pacific, the development of permanent, large-scale exchange networks quickly followed. Of course, China, despite its inferior navy, far exceeded Spain’s maritime power—the Spanish only dominated a few small areas of the sea, being possessed of what Rainier Buschmann, Edward Slack, and James Tueller referred to as a horror vacui of the open sea and being quite unable to establish any stronger link across the Pacific than the Manila Galleon.9 But given that the Chinese had placed their sea trade almost entirely into private hands, and in the absence of any other major power in the eastern half of the Pacific, Spain was clearly the dominant maritime empire in the area. Spain and China were not the only powers in this new Pacific World either. Japan’s own silver trade with China (and Europeans) flourished in the same period, powered by the extraordinary Iwami Ginzan mines and making the Tokugawa bakufu a major trade partner in the East Asian maritime world that included the Western Pacific.10 Spain and Japan had a fractious relationship all their own in this era as well, culminating in the infamous crucifixion of a group of Franciscans on the orders of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.11 The Sultanate

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of Brunei, drastically larger than modern Brunei and comprising large swaths of Malaysia and the Philippines, alternately traded and clashed with both the Spanish and Portuguese in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as did the Khmer Empire. In addition to these Southeast Asian powers, the Philippines itself maintained independent or semi-independent kingdoms apart from Spanish rule well into the seventeenth century, fully aside from remote interior regions where no real contact with the Spanish (or any subsequent foreign government) ever occurred.12 And of course Spain was not the only European representative in the vast Pacific maritime region. The Portuguese have been discussed throughout this work, but the Dutch, too, would make their mark as a major regional power upon their arrival at the end of the sixteenth century (arguably they would replace the Chinese as the focus of Spain’s military ambition in the region). Finally, the English, though lacking a permanent base of any kind in the region, pursued Spanish and Portuguese ships—and the rich cargoes they contained—with relish throughout the early modern period, even inadvertently scuttling Gonzalo de Ronquillo’s attempt to have himself named Governor for Life by repeatedly attacking the ship he had personally paid for.13 The predations of Francis Drake in the Eastern Pacific and the multitude of wokou of various Asian ethnicities who roamed the Western Pacific were also part and parcel of the Pacific World. The Pacific in the early modern era was a complex seascape of different empires, kingdoms, pirates, and peoples that interacted with each other and formed permanent links across all major regions of the Pacific. But this region was dominated by the two powers that anchored its eastern and western shores— Ming China, the most powerful state in the world at the time, and the aggressively expansionist Spanish Empire, represented by its American colonies. Nearly a century later, the Kangxi Emperor, in an audience with a foreign ambassador, referred to “the inconsistency of the seas” as a fact of life—one could never be certain of the outcome of a sea voyage.14 This was a poignant and frightening truth for the early modern traveler. The sea route was much faster than going overland through Asia and ultimately was exponentially safer, but it was still beset with danger. Approximately one-fifth of all the Manila Galleons that ever set sail now lie at the bottom of the sea, the victims of foul weather, pirates, or simply the kinds of routine nautical misfortune that have plagued sailors throughout history.15 The Kangxi Emperor was quite right—the seas were certainly inconsistent in the context of guaranteeing a safe, swift passage from one port to another, and would remain so until the advent of modern seafaring techniques. But with the development of permanent economic and cultural exchange networks across the Pacific in the late sixteenth century, the sea became, in many respects, a consistent. Individual Galleons might sink on a basis alarming to the modern reader, but the route itself remained and indeed was in operation for over two centuries until the

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independence of Mexico severed it at last. The centering of these networks on a maritime rather than a continental nexus made the sea an active component of this newly developed historical zone—a constant that continues to this day with the importance of the Pacific Rim region in contemporary economics. Alfaro’s mission did not spark the development of the Pacific in and of itself, any more than Alfaro’s personal qualities were the determinant in Spain rejecting the notion of a conquest of China. But his fortuitous accident of timing allowed for both major Pacific empires to establish a relatively stable, though unequal, balance of power at a moment advantageous to both—had Spain still been focused on a conquest of China, that development could have been rendered considerably more difficult. This lopsided balance of power, despite the occasional flaring of tensions between the two, persisted in some form or another until the collapse of Spain’s American Empire‌‌‌‌ in the nineteenth century. To return to the heady days when Spain still believed in a conquest of China, my pointing out that the Spanish (and perhaps especially Spanish Franciscans) saw Cortés’s conquest of the Aztec Empire as a clear sign that a similar plan could work in China, in the absence of any kind of reliable evidence that China was in any way similar to the societies they had encountered in the Americas, is not a flattering argument from the Spanish point of view, but it is based on sound documentary evidence.16 The idea that successful conquests in the Americas would naturally be followed by successful conquests in China is not necessarily unreasonable at first glance, but a second glance at the distances involved and the population and fortifications of the only part of China well-known to Europeans at the time ought to have been sufficient to halt the idea without actually sending an emissary, secret or otherwise, to scout out Guangzhou’s fortifications. Ultimately, the plan to conquer China was untenable at best and frankly ludicrous at worst. Had it ever been implemented, its total failure would have been almost a certainty, as indicated by the decades of bloodshed it took for the Manchus to finally subdue that area of China. That the idea was seriously considered decades after Europeans had established bases in the greater Chinese sphere of influence is a greater tribute to both the efficacy of Ming security in preventing major Western incursions as well as Spanish mistrust of the Portuguese than it is to the military prowess of Spain. While Spain was certainly the most powerful Western nation at the time, it was also manifestly no match for the Ming. This was so profoundly obvious to Alfaro and his friars that he lost no time in bluntly stating that there was no conceivable way that a Spanish force could take China. It is the collapse of this ambition, more than anything, that set the stage for the development of a permanent Pacific World. With the impossibility of a conquest of China implicitly acknowledged by Spain, the effective boundaries of the respective Chinese

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and Spanish spheres of influence in the Pacific were drawn. They would vary little throughout the next decades, despite the slowly declining fortunes of the Spanish and the Ming as the seventeenth century dawned. Alfaro’s significance lies in the fact that he set foot on Chinese soil at a precise moment. When he arrived in China, Spain still believed in the feasibility of a conquest of China, the Iberian Union was imminent, and the Single Whip Reform was about to significantly expand the worldwide silver trade. His report dashing the hopes of Spain coincided with the near-simultaneous annexation of Portugal and the Ming tax reform laws combined to emphasize the rapidly growing importance of the Pacific Ocean as a distinct historical zone, not simply as an extension of Atlantic-based Spanish power. This is not the influence he set out to make. Alfaro wanted to be remembered as a great missionary, one who paved the way for not only a China that looked toward Rome for spiritual guidance, but a China integrated into the Audiencia system as a colony of Spain as well. His despondency is ample evidence for the despair he felt when that dream was dashed. The uneasy balance of power across the vast Pacific Ocean lived on long after everyone involved in the Alfaro mission was dead. But the world it was forged in, a world where, for Europeans, dreams of China loomed larger than the reality of China, died with Alfaro in the warm seas of Southeast Asia. How do we assess this briefly flourishing world? The New Diplomatic History, a historiographical school championed by John Watkins and others, focused on reassessing the relationships between early modern states by integrating non-state actors into the narrative of global relations, is one approach. It allows for a greater understanding of these early Spanish missions to China, conducted as they were almost entirely without the intervention of state apparatuses and thus tending to be ignored or minimized in the larger historiography of diplomatic history. Nobody involved in the Alfaro mission on the Spanish side had the permission or involvement of any Spanish authority, from Madrid or from any colonial administration. And, although China’s interactions with Alfaro were certainly not clandestine, it is unlikely that they were considered significant enough to become an item of discussion at the imperial court. The Alfaro mission has therefore not generally been considered an item of importance among diplomatic historians. Assessing it as a form of diplomacy conducted wholly or in part by non-state, sometimes clandestine actors illuminates its larger global importance by emphasizing the importance of these non-state actors in the development of early modern global trade and diplomatic networks. This work also touches upon another historiographical school as well, albeit in a very different fashion—the ambivalence of conquest, articulated most notably by Inga Clendinnen in her 1987 work on the Maya in the sixteenth-century Yucatan. Conquests are rarely completed, the argument

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goes, and hidden forms of resistance unseen or misunderstood by the wouldbe conquerors are rife. As a historian, I agree with this assessment. However, the concept of conquista de China a la mexicana hinges entirely on the assumption that the pacificaciónes of Cortés and Pizarro were not only successful, but more or less total for the purposes of the Spanish—otherwise the entire idea collapses and the reader is left questioning why they thought that was a feasible model in the first place. In the sixteenth century, despite the existence of wide swaths of Mexico and Peru that remained unintegrated into their respective viceroyalties (as Almanza knew personally from his battles with the Chichimecas) and the ongoing resistance of indigenous people to the systematic destruction of their cultures, the Spanish were satisfied enough with the Cortés model to apply it repeatedly elsewhere. In this work, I have treated the conquests of Mexico and Peru as though they were essentially unambivalent, taking the Cortés narrative at face value when discussing the plans to conquer China, in order to maintain a historical context vital to the primary arguments of this work. For the purposes of the Spanish Empire in the 1570s, the conquest was complete and unambivalent enough—and that was what mattered. Alfaro’s journey to China also highlights the globalized nature of missions themselves in the early modern period and contributes to ongoing research in what Luke Clossey refers to as “Global Salvific Catholicism”—an approach that emphasizes the global nature of missions and religious orders in history. Catholic missions in this period were not simply dispatched from Rome or a European metropole to a specific location on an individual basis; they were a “macrohistorical phenomenon . . . a single worldspanning enterprise” that played into evangelization and colonization goals on a global scale.17 Even contemporaries recognized the collective missionary orders of the early modern Catholic Church as essentially global institutions, with individual missions often traveling on their own initiative and ignoring secular authorities in both Europe and beyond, as Alfaro certainly did on both counts. While I have chosen to emphasize one particular mission, I did so in a deliberate decision to frame it as part of the development of global networks—Alfaro was part of a system in which is was regarded as quite normal, if not a little infuriating for their secular administrators, as Ronquillo pointed out to Philip II, for a friar to sail halfway around the world to take up a post, only to abandon it for a different calling. This approach emphasizes not only the decentralized nature of mission work, but allows us to view Alfaro’s arrival in China not as a monumental clash between friar and mandarin, but as part of a gradual, much-anticipated global process, even if Alfaro himself, never one to shrink from a confrontation, might have preferred the clash. Translation and mistranslation occur again and again in this work—not just literal translations, but misinterpretations of events and situations by so many

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of the figures featured in this narrative. The most obvious example is the duplicitous interpreter, Simón. His willful mistranslation of the friars’ mission when they were confronted at Guangzhou was interpreted as gross treachery and shocking impiety by the Franciscans, but Simón was undoubtedly acting in the best interests of both the Catholic faith and the Spanish Crown when he told the Guangzhou magistrate that Alfaro and his men were something akin to Daoists and thus no real cause for concern. This moment, for which the man was pilloried in the Spanish sources, illuminates the total lack of preparation Alfaro had made for this journey. He couldn’t speak the language, he had no conception of the social or administrative norms of China, and he as yet had no idea of the true extent of Ming power. Simón was the only person in their orbit to interpret the friars’ situation correctly and the only one to exhibit any real social or political acumen while the group was in China. His interpretation, that the friars were in way over their heads and had no idea what kind of situation they were dealing with, remains the best summation of the mission by any of its participants. In this work, it is the clear-headed Simón who exemplifies the struggles of being in-between, moving as he did between his Chinese origins and his emergent Catholic faith—a complex process of code-switching and cultural translation that appeared again and again as he tried his best to protect the friars against the consequences of their own misinterpretation of Ming legal and social customs and to assert himself in the context of a culture that demanded that good deeds be materially rewarded.18 Indeed, Alfaro’s very presence in China is another example of mistranslation—the Spanish, having misread the strength of the Chinese, had themselves interpreted the situation incorrectly. Whatever Alfaro’s personal fascination with China, the willful misinterpretation of the viable extent of Spanish conquest by himself and others was ultimately responsible for actually bringing him to Ming territory. This misconception was itself a major factor in the initial development of Spanish power in Asia—without the belief in at least the possibility of a Spanish conquest of China, the conquest of the Philippines may have been a very different process, perhaps something more akin to the Portuguese lease at Macau than an actual full-fledged colony. I do not consider this work to be a biography, although it does follow the narrative progress of Alfaro’s life—Alfaro is essentially a microhistorical device in what is a larger work about Sino-Spanish relations and the development of a discrete Pacific World. His story illuminates an area of history that badly needs it. Biography or biographical narration, despite the suspicion with which it is often treated in the academy, can be a useful tool when approaching the often impersonal nature of global history.19 However, in writing this I did consult several works on biography, and I devoted a great deal of thought to my portrayal of Alfaro as a person and my growing fascination

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with him. As I found myself increasingly thinking of Alfaro with resigned, slightly irritable fondness, somewhat reminiscent of a sports fan’s feelings for a losing home team, I reread Leon Edel’s seminal work on biography, Writing Lives: Principia Biographica. He articulates the struggles of the “participantobserver,” the writer who is at once tasked with inhabiting the mind of their subject while at the same time maintaining enough detachment to ensure that the work remains historically accurate.20 This was something I struggled with, particularly given the vagaries of early modern sources in general and the maddening intangibility of diplomacy in particular. For example, was my interpretation of the tale of the penitent Chinese convert as a partial or total fabrication designed to give Alfaro a pious excuse to leave his post a reflection of what actually happened, or a cynical twenty-first-century spin on the sincere beliefs of a devout man? I do believe that my interpretations of Alfaro’s writings reflect the likely course of events as accurately as is possible with sixteenth-century sources, but did this come at the expense of losing that essential early modern insight? I hope I was able to accomplish this balance and that my assessments of Alfaro as a person, as a missionary, and as a spy or something very like it are firmly rooted in an appropriate sixteenthcentury contextualization that leaves room for the practical concerns of the researcher. Translation and temporality make their mark on documents and books, and the historians’ job often becomes a balancing act between capturing the essence of a historical period while ensuring that the research remains accessible to the modern reader. The Catalan historian Dolors Folch i Fornesa wrote in 2010 that Pedro de Alfaro was “not up to the measure” of his contemporary, the saintly and scholarly Martín de Rada, and I agree with that assessment.21 Alfaro was a skilled writer, a man of sharp wit and certainly wise enough in his own right, but the available documentary evidence indicates that he had neither the brilliance, nor the innate tact, nor the social consciousness of the man who had beaten him as the first Spaniard to enter Ming China in some kind of significant capacity by only four years. However, I do not think that Pedro de Alfaro was a fool (after all, he was hardly alone in his belief that a conquest of China was feasible), or that because he had several negative characteristics he must have had many others. I hope that I have balanced my criticisms with both the proper historical perspective and an honest portrayal of his good qualities—his wit, his devotion, and his tenacity, to name a few. If my criticism of Alfaro seems too personal, it is a reflection of the personal nature of his career. In the world Alfaro operated within, the personal was political—he was expected to take direct control of the tasks given to him (or chosen by him) and make major, globe-spanning political assessments based on his personal judgements. The Great Man in History might be dead, but Alfaro’s

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individual mark is important to this analysis of early modern Pacific World relations, even if his selection was simply an accident of historical timing. Alfaro is a fascinating historical character, but his contributions to the missionary effort in China were ultimately minimal, and, while the Jesuits did disproportionately crowd out their contemporaneous Mendicant brothers in the historiography of Catholicism in China, it was in Alfaro’s case a reasonable exclusion—he was manifestly not of the same caliber as someone like Matteo Ricci. He made no real effort to understand the Chinese, except inasmuch as they were useful (or, ultimately, not useful) for Spanish purposes, he only seriously considered learning a Chinese language after he had been expelled from Guangzhou, and his efforts to convert fell apart almost immediately. In terms of mission studies, there is no real reason to remember him except, simply, as the first Franciscan to enter Ming China—certainly an impressive feat in and of itself, but one that he conspicuously failed to back up with any real contribution to the Discalced cause. His true significance lies elsewhere. At the beginning of this book, I cited hubris as the major fault of both Alfaro and the Spanish Empire in general in regards to China—a classic failing and one that marked Alfaro’s career. It was hubris, on both a personal and a global scale, that brought Alfaro to China in the first place and hubris that eventually, though indirectly, cost him his life. I do not scorn Alfaro for his grandiose and ultimately unrealizable ambitions, and I rejoiced only a little at his inevitable humbling. As unfeasible as many of his views were, there was altogether something pitiable about his ultimate failure. I have done my best to redeem Pedro de Alfaro’s historiographical reputation, though I could not reinstate him as the great missionary he once hoped to be. With his sense of grandeur and his genuine piety, it is more than likely that he would have considered being instead credited as one of the many forces that shaped the development of the Pacific World a sorry substitute for the glories he had anticipated while en route to China. Unfortunately for Pedro de Alfaro, he did not get the chance to write his own epitaph. I have taken it up myself in this work, situating him as the person who, through an accident of timing, validated the supreme power of the Chinese in Asia, encouraged Spain to give up the unfeasible idea of conquering China, and thus allowed for the development of a stable, permanent Pacific World sooner than would otherwise have been possible. The historian Ian Steele, participating in a roundtable review of Donald Freeman’s The Pacific, recently pointed out that maritime zones, instrumental as they are for understanding the world beyond the nation-state, are “imaginary communities for which no one ever prayed, fought, or died.”22 To recognize Alfaro’s significance in helping to establish a Pacific World is to recognize that his ultimate significance is something that neither he or anyone

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who walked the earth alongside him would have truly understood or even cared about. It is not only an accidental honor, but one he would not have appreciated in the same way that we, his unexpected twenty-first-century audience, can and do. Nor can we truly appreciate the pain and futility he felt at the thwarting of his plans, or the awe his contemporaries felt at his early and thoroughly holy death in the seas that summer day in 1580. When his ashes were poured into those long-since broken bottles on the shores of Đại Việt, they were poured with an understanding and an ultimate purpose that is long since lost. That is a tragedy from Alfaro’s point of view, as well as a tragedy from ours—an indication that the past is ultimately unknowable, a foreign land with priorities and values radically different from our own. NOTES 1. AGI, Filipinas, 79 N.4. 2. “Letter from Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa to Felipe II,” BRPI, Vol 4 and AGI, Filipinas, 34 N.48. 3. “Cartas a V. Majestad,” NAP, Folio 36, and AGI, Filipinas, 79, N.5. 4. BA Codices manoscritti Vat.lat55.65. 5. “​​​​​​​Letter to Gregory XIII,” BPRI Vol. 34 and Gomez Platero, n.p. 6. Juan Ribaniero, Historia de la Islas del archipiélago filipino y los reinos de la Gran China, Tartaria, Cochinchina, Malaca, Siam, Cambodge, y Japón, (Project Gutenberg EBook), n.p. and Caneque, 223. 7. Parker, Imprudent King, 353–57, and Twitchett, 103–6, 258–70. 8. Flynn, “Born With A Silver Spoon . . . ,” 202. 9. Rainer Buschmann et al, Navigating the Spanish Lake: The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521–1898 (Hawaii: Honolulu, 2014), xi. This remarkable work is of course much broader in scope than this note indicates, and it has had a significant impact on my understanding of the extent of Spanish power in the Pacific world. It argues, among other things, that the primary impact on the Pacific in the colonial period was not Spanish at all, but New Spanish/Mexican. 10. See Angela Schottenhammers overview of the region and Japans place in it in Angela Schottenhammer, ed, The East Asian Maritime World, 1400–1800 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 1–86. 11. Ikuo Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 126. 12. For a good collection of research on Southeast Asia in this era, see Anthony Reid, ed, Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Period: Trade, Power, and Belief (Ithaca: Cornell, 1993). 13. “Letter to Felipe II,” BRPI, Vol. 6. 14. Yangwen Zhang, China on the Sea: How the Maritime World Shaped Modern China (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 59. 15. William Schurz, The Manila Galleon, (New York: Dutton, 1939), 7.

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16. For more information on Franciscans and their close identification with Cortés, see Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. (Oxford: Oxford, 2004), 14–16. 17. Luke Clossey, Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions. (New York: Cambridge, 2008), 1, 3, 238. 18. Nicholas Standaert applies the concept of in-betweenness to Chinese history, using the character jian (間). Standaert, Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy, (Leuven: Leuven, 2014), 5. 19. Bruce Cossart. “‘Global Lives’: Writing Global History With a Biographical Approach,” UPF Journal of World History (J‌‌‌‌une 2013) 1–2, 11–13. 20. Leon Edel, Writing Lives: Principia Biographica. (New York: Norton, 1984), 63–66. 21. Folch, 72. 22. Ian Steele in Rainer Buschmann et al, “Roundtable: Reviews of Donald B. Freemans The Pacific with a Response by Donald B. Freeman,” International Journal of Maritime History (22:283, 2010), 238, 310.

‌‌Appendix Timeline of Events

Note: Exact dates are given for the Alfaro mission only, where available 1253: Franciscan William of Rubruck enters Mongol territory 1294: Franciscan John of Montecorvino arrives in China c.1300: Travels of Marco Polo published 1517: First official Portuguese mission to Ming China c.1525: Approximate birthdate of Pedro de Alfaro 1552: Jesuit Francis Xavier dies immediately before reaching the Chinese mainland 1556: Philip II becomes King of Spain; Dominican Gaspar da Cruz spends a month preaching in Guangzhou 1557: Formal establishment of the Portuguese lease at Macau 1565: Manila established as a Spanish settlement 1568: Martín Enríquez de Almanza becomes viceroy of New Spain 1570: Guido de Lavezaris, governor of the Philippines, proposes a plan for the conquest of China 1573: Lavezaris asks Philip II to send Franciscans to the Philippines 1574: Hernando Riquel proposes a conquest of China 1574: Lin Feng attacks Manila; Wang Wanggao joins the Spanish to repel Lin Feng from Manila Late 1574: Lavezaris proposes a mission to China to Wang, who agrees 1575: Francisco de Sande’s term as governor begins; he asks Philip II to send Franciscans to the Philippines and proposes a plan for the conquest of China Jul 1575: Martín de Rada arrives in Fujian Late Aug 1575: De Rada escorted back to Manila May 31, 1577: Pedro de Alfaro’s passage permit is issued Autumn 1577: Alfaro arrives in Mexico 1578: De Rada dies Mar 1578: Alfaro arrives at the port of Acapulco and departs for Manila 147

148

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Jul 2, 1578: Alfaro arrives in Manila and becomes custodio of the Franciscan order there 1579: Sande proposes the conquest of China to Philip II for the second time Summer 1578–Spring 1579: Alfaro attempts to get permission to travel to China Jun 4, 1579: Alfaro arrives in Ilocos, having deceived Sande as to his intentions Jun 15, 1579: Alfaro leaves for China with Juan Baptista, Sebastian Baeza, Agustín de Tordesillas, Juan Díaz, Francisco de Dueñas, and Pablo Villarroel, as well as the translator Juanillo Jun–Jul 1579: Alfaro and companions arrive in Guangdong; first two appearances before magistrates; temporary license granted; Simón allegedly attempts to extort the friars; Baeza dies Aug 1579: Alfaro and companions journey to Zhongqing to meet Liu Yaohui, who grants them temporary license to stay in Guangzhou. The friars temporarily lose their altar stone to a Zhaoqing official Sept 1579: Alfaro and companions return to Guangzhou and are lodged in a house there. They discover that they cannot remain in China indefinitely and spend the next few weeks debating on their next move Oct 13, 1579: Alfaro writes to Juan de Ayora, informing him that neither a spiritual nor military conquest is possible Nov–Dec 1579: Alfaro, Baptista, and Villarroel leave Guangzhou for Macau. Tordesillas, Díaz, and Dueñas begin a two-week journey to Zhangzhou Nov 23, 1579: Construction begins on Alfaro and Baptista’s mission in Macau 1580: Tordesillas writes his Relación of the Alfaro mission; Sande’s term ends; Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa’s term begins; Almanza’s term ends; Pablo de Jesús becomes the new custodio of the Franciscans in Manila; Philip II plans an embassy to China. Philip II proposes an embassy to China, The Iberian Union begins; the Ming tax code is reformed resulting in a high demand for silver Jan 2, 1580: Tordesillas, Díaz, and Dueñas depart China Feb 2, 1580: Tordesillas, Díaz, and Dueñas arrive in Manila; the Macau mission house is consecrated Jun 1580: Alfaro is accused of defamatory remarks and espionage against the Portuguese and is ordered to report to the Portuguese authorities in Goa Jun 30, 1580: Alfaro dies in a shipwreck en route to Goa 1581: The Chinese population of Manila is formally confined to the Parián; Ayora dies, Legazpi dies, Baptista is expelled from Macau

Appendix

149

1582: Pablo De Jesús secretly leaves for China and is expelled soon after; Philip II’s planned embassy is canceled; Alfaro’s letter to Ayora arrives in Spain; Jesuit Michele Ruggieri receives permission to remain in Guangzhou and build a mission; a brief Spanish mission to China ends in their expulsion Mar 2, 1582: Ronquillo issues a formal order forbidding travel to China, explicitly mentioning Alfaro 1583: Ronquillo arrested for treason; Ronquillo dies; Intramuros burns down after catching fire during Ronquillo’s funeral; Almanza dies; Juan Baptista Román proposes a conquest plan for China; Domingo de Salazar asserts that Pedro de Alfaro was imprisoned and threatened while in China, a claim Francisco de Dueñas denies. 1584: A proposed continuation of the de Rada mission is planned before being canceled 1585: Juan González de Mendoza publishes Historia de las cosas más notables . . . ; a brief Spanish mission to China ends in their expulsion soon after; Alonso Sánchez proposes a conquest plan for China 1588: Robert Parke translates Mendoza’s book into English, Spanish Armada is defeated by England 1598: Philip II dies 1599: Philip III issues a Royal Decree concerning the governing of the Philippines 1600: Last recorded proposal for a conquest of China in the Spanish archives 1601: Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives at the Forbidden City in Beijing 1602: Sande dies 1603: The Sangley Rebellion in Manila 1604: Baptista dies 1610: De Jesús dies 1616: Díaz dies 1620: The Wanli Emperor dies 1629: Tordesillas dies 1644: The Ming Dynasty officially ends 1659: Last Ming forces driven from Southern China 1683: Final defeat of the Ming in Taiwan

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Index

Acapulco-Manila Galleon. See Manila Galleon Africa, 16, 31 Alcalá de Henares, 4, 19, 20, 21 Alfaro, Pedro de: in China, 3–5, 48, 55, 70–89, 95, 100, 102–12, 123, 126, 133–35, 140–45; death of, 1–2, 99, 10, 133, 140, 144–45; early life of, 17–19; in history and historiography, 3–8, 10–11, 56, 100–101, 103–4, 115–19, 123, 127–30, 134–36, 139–45; in Macau, 87–89, 95–99, 100–101, 103; perception of China, 6–7, 15, 64, 66–67, 95–96, 99, 100– 101, 103–12, 115, 134–35, 140–45; in Philippines, 3, 20–21, 34–35, 41, 56, 61–69, 102–3, 105 Alvarado, Alfonso de, 44–47 Andalusia, 18, 21, 69–70, 72, 89, 99, 107, 111 Andrade, Simão de, 126 Anthony of Padua, 84 arquebus, 25, 26, 72, 74, 81, 88, 107 artillery, 25–27, 51, 54, 81, 111 Asturias, 30 Ataíde, Luís de, 98–99 Atlantic Ocean, 128, 140 Augustinians, 42, 48, 62–63, 67, 123, 126

Ayora, Juan de, 71, 80, 97, 104–12, 133–35 Aztecs, 23, 30–31, 43, 104, 115, 139 Baeza, Sebastian San Francisco de, 68–81, 104 Baja California, 62 Baptista, Juan, 68–89, 95–99, 104, 133 Bay of Bengal, 99 Beijing, 45, 50, 72, 106, 121, 125 Borneo, 31, 53, 64, 119, 124 Boxer Codex, 47 Britain. See England Brito, Leonel de, 87, 95–98 Brunei, 137–38 Buddhism, 50, 65 Bulacan, 70 cabildo, 68 Cádiz, 21 Cambodia, 31 Canton. See Guangzhou Cantonese language, 85 Carneiro Leitão, Melchior, 80, 85–87, 95–96, 99 Castile, 30 Cathay (term), 15 Catholicism: in China, 28, 47–48, 53, 69, 72–85, 95–96, 101, 103–9, 163

164

Index

119, 135, 141–42; in Macau, 80–81, 85–87, 95–99, 101, 104–5; in Mexico, 32, 101, 104; in Philippines, 28, 42, 69, 92, 104, 133; in Spain, 17–19, 101, 114, 133; worldwide, 141 Cayagan River, 68–69 Cebú, 41, 47, 98 Chamorros. See Mariana Islands China: administration of, 48, 52, 67, 69, 72–92, 106–9, 134, 142; European perception of, 15–18, 23–24, 28, 66, 79–92, 95–96, 100–101, 103–12, 115–24, 134–36, 139; infrastructure of, 28, 46, 51–57, 72–92, 106–12, 138–40; military power of, 3, 24–26, 31, 51–57, 72, 88, 103, 106–12, 135–40; missionaries in, 3, 11, 28, 49–57, 66, 69, 72–92, 95–96, 101–9, 119–21, 134; perception of Europe, 32–34, 54–56, 95, 101–2, 105; population of, 23, 28, 52, 72, 89–90, 106–7, 110–11; trade with and in, 3, 8, 22–23, 27, 31–34, 45, 49, 83, 89–91, 97–98, 104, 114–18, 134–39; women in, 50–51, 77–78. See also conquest of China; Sino-Spanish relations Chincheo. See Zhangzhou Chinese Rites Controversy, 7, 17–18, 76, 101 Chongzhen Emperor, 134 Clement VIII, 133 Cobo, Juan, 123 Cochinchina. See Vietnam Columbus, Christopher, 21 Confucianism, 32, 76 conquest of China, 3, 8–9, 20, 23–35, 45, 47, 52, 65, 80, 100–101, 103–12, 115–25, 127, 134–41 conquistador, 43, 65, 141 Cortés, Hernán, 23, 29, 109, 139, 141 Counter-Reformation, 101, 121 Coutinho, André, 95, 97 cruzado (currency), 96

Đại Việt. See Vietnam Daoism, 50, 65, 76, 142 Deus, Jacinto de, 97, 99–100 Díaz Pardo, Juan, 67–92, 104, 107, 133 diplomacy, 47–49, 117, 120–21, 123– 24, 126, 140 Discalced Franciscans. See Franciscans disease, 29–30, 80–81 Dominicans, 109, 123 Dongguan, 89–90 Dongjiang, 89–90 Dueñas, Francisco de, 68–92, 96, 101, 104, 107, 133 East China Sea, 33 Eighty Years’ War, 45–46, 123, 128–29 Elizabeth I, 120, 124 encomienda, 27, 47–48, 53, 63, 70, 91, 103, 133 England, 33, 42, 124, 138 Enríquez de Almanza, Martín, 19, 21–23, 25, 27, 34, 46, 49, 83, 108, 120, 134, 141 Eurocentrism, 33–34, 42 Extremadura, 64–65 firebombs, 44–45, 72 Flanders, 19, 81, 104 Florida, 48, 51 Franciscans: administration of, 2, 18–19, 76–77; in China, 6, 11, 17–18, 48, 55, 72–82, 100, 104–9, 123, 126, 133, 139, 144; in Japan, 7, 133, 137; in Latin America, 34, 63, 149; in Macau, 95–100, 102, 133; in Philippines, 20–21, 35, 48, 61–67, 70, 92, 102–4, 133 Frankish guns, 72 Frías Albónoz, Rodrigo de, 68–69 Fujian, 25, 28, 41, 47, 49–57, 71, 106 Fujianese language, 85 Galicia, 99 gift-giving. See diplomacy; tributary system

Index

165

Goa, 98–99 Goiti, Martín de, 43 gold, 128 Great Divergence, 9, 129 Gregory XIII, 20 Guangdong, 25, 28, 52, 71–82, 106–9 Guangxi, 81 Guangzhou, 3, 4, 56, 71–82, 84–89, 95–96, 99, 104–12, 115, 136, 141–42

Liu Yaohui, 81–82, 83–85, 88, 99, 105, 107 Loarca, Miguel de, 48–49, 51 Longxi, 49–57 López de Legazpi, Miguel, 24, 47 Lucarelli da Pesaro, Giovanni Battista. See Baptista, Juan Luzon (island), 63, 68, 82, 86, 103, 119 Luzon (kingdom), 34, 124, 129

haijin order, 33, 42, 90 Hainan, 99 Han Dynasty, 32 Holy Roman Empire, 26 Huizhou, 90

Macartney mission, 33, 121 Macau, 16, 23, 28, 30, 44–46, 54–55, 64, 69, 73–75, 78, 82, 85–89, 95–100, 102, 105, 110, 122, 125– 27, 138, 142 Madrid, 45, 75, 102, 111, 121 Magistrates. See China, administration of Malay peoples, 32, 46–47, 62 Manchus. See Qing Dynasty Mandarin (language), 85 mandarin (officials). See China, administration of Manila (city), 21, 26, 35, 41–44, 61–64, 66, 71, 78–79, 83, 85–92, 95–99, 101–4, 119, 133–34 Manila Galleon, 3, 34–35, 53, 61–63, 119, 135, 138–39 Mariana Islands, 31, 63 Marín, Jeronimo de, 47–57, 122 Maya, 140 Mediterranean Sea, 30 Mendoza, Juan González de, 4, 24, 46–47, 51, 56, 63, 66, 70, 74, 79, 81, 84–85, 87–88, 103, 119, 121, 135 mestizos de sangley. See Philippines, Chinese in Mexico, 15, 19–23, 25, 29, 34–35, 46–47, 63–65, 70, 76, 102, 104, 106, 107–9, 111, 118, 122, 134–35, 141 Michoacán, 76 Ming Dynasty. See China Moluccas, 27, 127, 133 Mombasa, 124 Mongol (people), 81

Iberian Union, 45, 116, 118, 125–27, 129, 135–37, 140 Ilocos, 68 Ilokanos (people), 23, 29, 63 imperial exams, 87–88 India, 98–99 interpreters, 72–80, 85–86, 116, 141–42 Intramuros. See Manila (city); Philippines, administration of Isabella Clara Eugenia, 134 Italy, 19, 70, 81, 105, 122 Iwami Ginzan, 137 Japan, 23, 41–42, 62, 128, 137 Java, 32, 45 Jesuits, 7, 11–12, 17–18, 80, 97, 99–101, 109, 116–17, 144 Jesús, Pablo de, 5, 18, 70, 97, 102–4, 133 Juanillo, 70–76, 83–85 Kangxi Emperor, 138 Lavezaris, Guido de, 20, 22, 24, 43, 46, 48–57, 108, 110, 119, 136 Liangguang, 81, 84 Limahong. See Lin Feng Lin Feng, 43, 48–49, 52–53, 55–56, 63–65, 70

166

Index

musket, 72 Muslims, 120 Nahuatl (language), 104 Nanjing, 106 Navarre, 30, 47 Netherlands, 7, 116, 123, 129, 136, 138 Ningbo, 126 oidor, 64 Order of Friars Minor. See Franciscans Orientalism, 16, 33 Ormuz, 127 Ortiz, Esteban, 67 Ottoman Empire, 65 Pacific Ocean. See Pacific World Pacific World: balance of power in, 3, 23, 31, 46, 56, 105, 111–12, 127–30, 135–40, 143–44; communication in, 49, 103, 111, 133, 135; historiography of, 10–11, 30–31, 33–34; trade in, 3, 34, 42, 45, 127– 30, 135, 137–39. See also silver trade Parián. See Philippines, Chinese in Parke, Robert, 4, 66, 74, 78 Pasig River, 61, 64 Peru, 21, 29–30, 115, 141 Philip II, 3, 22–27, 45, 49, 64–65, 68, 75–76, 86, 100–102, 108, 111, 112, 115–17, 119–21, 123–24, 126, 128, 133, 135–37, 141 Philip III, 116 Philippines: administration of, 20, 22, 23, 25–28, 31, 41–43, 47, 49, 62–65, 69, 96–97, 101–5, 108–9, 120–22; Chinese in, 26, 28, 41–44, 62, 64, 66–67, 70, 104, 143; indigenous people of, 23, 29, 41–44, 47, 62–63, 70; part of Pacific World, 30–31, 42, 49, 62, 135, 138; population of, 41, 62–63; trade in and with, 3, 34, 62, 88–90, 104, 108, 121, 128, 137. See also Manila (city)

piracy, 25–26, 43–44, 48–49, 68, 124, 138 Plasencia, Juan de, 104 Polo, Marco, 28 Portugal (metropole), 16, 23, 26, 30, 32, 82, 89, 125–26, 134–40 Potosí, 127 Purépecha (language), 104 Qianlong Emperor, 33 Qing Dynasty, 17, 33, 55, 72, 110–11, 125, 134, 137, 139 Rada, Martín de, 7, 11, 19, 28, 47–57, 64–65, 70–71, 73–74, 81, 84, 89, 91, 100, 105, 107–8, 119, 122–23, 143 reconquista, 30–31 Ricci, Mateo, 80, 121, 135, 144 Rodrigues, Simão. See Simón Román, Juan Baptista, 117–18 Rome, 72 Ronquillo, Diego, 122 Ronquillo, Gonzalo de, 5, 96, 101–3, 118, 134, 141 Ruggieri, Michele, 135 Salazar, Domingo de, 28, 96, 109 San Bernardino Strait, 61–62 Sánchez, Alonso, 117–18, 122 Sande, Álvaro de, 65 Sande, Francisco de, 5, 20, 24–27, 50, 53–55, 64–71, 79, 86–87, 98, 101–3, 105, 109, 111, 119–21, 124, 134 Sangley. See Philippines, Chinese in Sangley Rebellion, 41 San Juanillo (ship), 61–63 Sebastian I, 125 Seville. See Andalusia silk, 49, 55, 75, 83, 121 silver, 9, 34, 42, 45–46, 49, 53, 79–80, 106, 123–24, 127–30, 137 silver trade. See China, trade with and in; Manila Galleon; Pacific World, trade in; silver Simón, 75–83, 85, 99, 105, 135, 142

Index

Single Whip Reform, 127–30, 135–40 Sino-Spanish Codex. See Boxer Codex Sino-Spanish relations, 3, 8, 22, 28–32, 44–45, 65, 100–103, 105–12, 115– 24, 127–30, 135–40 slavery, 47–49, 79 Society of Jesus. See Jesuits South China Sea, 33, 63, 71 Southern Ming, 110–11, 125, 134 Spain: expansion of, 3, 19–20, 21–25, 28–31, 42–43, 47, 64–67, 104–12, 115–19, 124, 139–41; military power of, 29, 44–45, 109–12, 137–41; trade with China, 4, 45, 116–19, 123–30, 137. See also conquest of China; Sino-Spanish relations Spanish Armada, 116, 124, 129 Spanish East Indies, 31, 124 Spanish Empire. See Spain Sri Lanka, 45 Tagalog, 23, 29, 47 Taiwan, 31, 111, 134 tea, 78 Tlalmanalco, 15 Tokugawa, 137 Tordesillas, Agustín de, 5, 19, 63, 68–92, 95–97, 103–4, 115, 133 Tordesillas, Treaty of, 17, 27 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 137 travel ethnographies (Chinese), 32 tributary system, 32–34, 55, 116–17, 119–21, 124

Tunmen, 110 Turkic peoples, 81 United States, 42 Valladolid, 69 Venetian ducat, 76 Vietnam, 1–2, 95, 99, 102, 133, 145 Villarroel, Pedro de, 68–89, 95, 104, 107, 133 Wang Wanggao, 44, 46–48, 52 Wanli Emperor, 50–52, 119–21, 124, 126, 134 warships, 72, 109 wokou. See piracy Wuzhou, 81 Xicaowan, 110 Yangzi, 106 Yongle Emperor, 33 Yuan Dynasty, 33, 84 Yucatan, 140 Yuegang, 90–91 Zhang Juzheng, 50 Zhangzhou, 49–57, 71, 74, 81, 89–90, 100 Zhaoqing, 81, 83–84, 89, 105–6 Zheng He, 33, 72 Zhujiang, 72–74, 79–81, 84, 86, 99, 106–12

167

About the Author

Ashleigh Dean Ikemoto is a historian specializing in East Asian and global history. Her work focuses on the Pacific Ocean as an emerging historical zone in the early modern era, particularly in regards to Sino-Spanish relations. She received her PhD from Emory University in 2016 and has taught at Monmouth University and Gordon State College. Dr. Ikemoto is currently assistant professor of Asian History at Georgia College and State University, where she teaches courses on Chinese history and global foodways. She lives in Atlanta.

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