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23. Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.” See also Sharp, Adventurous Armada, 131–32.
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24. Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.” See also Legazpi, “Relación muy circunstanciada de lo ocurrido en el real”; and Sharp, Adventurous Armada, 133–35.
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25. All the quotes are from Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.” See also Legazpi, “Relación muy circunstanciada de lo ocurrido en el real”; and Sharp, Adventurous Armada, 134–35. Counter-plotter Marcos de Cubillas left additional records that confirm the overall story but do not add any significant details. See “Memorial de Marcos de Cubillas,” Mexico City, January 13, 1568, AGI, Audiencia de Filipinas 34, N. 10.
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26. Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco”; and Legazpi, “Relación muy circunstanciada de lo ocurrido en el real.”
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27. All the quotes are from Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.” See also Legazpi, “Relación muy circunstanciada de lo ocurrido en el real”; and Sharp, Adventurous Armada, 136–37.
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28. Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco”; also Legazpi, “Relación muy circunstanciada de lo ocurrido en el real”; and Sharp, Adventurous Armada, 136–41.
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12. At the Spanish Court
1. The first two quotes are from San Agustín, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 1565–1615, 364–65; the last quote is from “Copia de una carta venida de Sevilla a Miguel Salvador de Valencia, la cual narra el venturoso descubrimiento,” passim. Legazpi had reportedly sent a gift for the Spanish king consisting of a “painted stick with two ears of gold and two painted textiles.” Antonio García-Abasolo, “Compañeros y continuadores de Urdaneta,” in Truchuelo García, Andrés de Urdaneta, 460.
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2. The quote is from Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.” Urdaneta set out to travel with fellow friar Andrés de Aguirre, who had also returned from the Philippines, and Legazpi’s son Melchor de Legazpi, who had stayed in Mexico City to represent his father and was eager to continue to do so in Spain. For Urdaneta’s movements during this time, see Cuevas, Monje y marino, 278–79; Arteche, Urdaneta (el dominador de los espacios del Océano Pacífico), 195; and Uncilla, Urdaneta y la conquista de Filipinas, chap. 13. It is unclear when exactly Don Alonso left for Spain. We know that he was already engaged in preparations for his voyage on November 11, 1565. See also San Agustín, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 366–67.
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3. María del Pilar Cuesta Domingo, Pedro de Medina en la ciencia y en la historia (Madrid: Fundación Ignacio Larramendi, 2016), 11–12. For a brief sketch of Alonso de Santa Cruz, see María M. Portuondo, Secret Science: Spanish Cosmography and the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 68–79.
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4. Consultation of the Council of the Indies and Philip II’s reply, Madrid, July 5, 1566, AGI, Indiferente, 738, N. 82. See also Geoffrey Parker, “Maps and Ministers: The Spanish Habsburgs,” in Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Buisseret (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 124–52.
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5. The literature on this issue is copious. For a good discussion, see Rossfelder, In Pursuit of Longitude, chap. 1. Incidentally, Urdaneta was in the Spice Islands in 1529, when Spain agreed to the Treaty of Zaragoza. See Rodríguez, “Andrés de Urdaneta, agustino, 500 años del descubridor del tornaviaje,” 194.
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6. “Opinion of Friar Andrés de Urdaneta,” Madrid, October 8, 1566, AGI, Patronato, 49, R. 12. See other opinions by Alonso de Santa Cruz, Francisco Faleiro, Jerónimo de Chaves, and Sancho Gutiérrez. These opinions were written around the same time although not necessarily on the same day. See also Rumeu de Armas, El Tratado de Tordesillas, 233–36; and Juan Gil, Mitos y Utopías del descubrimiento, 3 vols. (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1989), 2:90–93. For Urdaneta, the stakes could not have been any higher nor his position any more contradictory. In his youth he had traveled through the Philippines and the Spice Islands. Therefore he was well aware of the relative position of these two archipelagos and knew that the Philippines lay directly north of the Spice Islands, both at roughly the same longitude and therefore both necessarily included in the “pawned territories.” This is why, during the run-up to the Navidad expedition of 1564, the friar-mariner had opposed going to the Philippines, proposing New Guinea instead. His position had been so fixed that the expedition planners had secured his participation only by misleading him into believing that the expedition was going to New Guinea, only to change the destination to the Philippines in the middle of the ocean. Nevertheless, Urdaneta had overcome this initial betrayal and gone along with the new plan to establish a Spanish base in the Philippines. In the end, Commander Legazpi had nothing but praise for the friar-mariner. “The merit and service provided by Father Andrés de Urdaneta is very great and worthy of your consideration,” he had written from his encampment to the Spanish king. Whether he liked it or not, Urdaneta’s lifelong work and legacy were now inextricably tied to the controversial archipelago, where dozens of Spaniards along with Legazpi had remained and now depended on his lobbying at the Spanish court for their continued survival. Legazpi to King Philip II, Cebu, June 1, 1565, transcribed in Rodríguez, “Andrés de Urdaneta, agustino, 500 años del descubridor del tornaviaje,” 219–20.
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7. “Opinion of Friar Andrés de Urdaneta,” Madrid, October 8, 1566. See also José Antonio Cervera Jiménez, “El trabajo científico de Andrés de Urdaneta y el problema de la longitud geográfica,” in Truchuelo García, Andrés de Urdaneta, 507–53. Ferdinand Columbus, Christopher’s son, offered his opinion about the difficulties of measuring Earth in 1524. He said that there were only two methods available. One was to use “a string” and literally go around the planet to arrive at a final circumference. Ferdinand Columbus stated that this would be “very difficult.” The second method was astronomical, but, as he noted, “many wise men have offered a great variety of proofs and demonstrations.” At least Ferdinand went on to support his father’s assertion that in the parlance of seamen, a legua was equivalent to four Roman miles. See “Dictámen de don Fernando Colón,” Badajoz, April 13, 1524, in Colección general de documentos relativos a las Islas Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla, vol. 4, document 185.
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8. As early as 1514, the Nuremberg mathematician and astronomer Johannes Werner proposed such an elegant astronomical solution to the problem of longitude: Given that the Moon is much closer to Earth than the background stars, its movement appears faster to us and can thus be used as an absolute clock of sorts. Every two hours, the Moon moves about one degree with respect to the background stars. The angle formed between the Moon and any given reference star—even the Sun—represents absolute time because it is the same wherever it is visible on Earth. Therefore, by comparing this absolute observation with local time, it is possible to derive longitude. On paper, this solution was impeccable; in practice, however, this was beyond the capabilities of sixteenth-century instrument makers. See the discussion in Costa Canas, “Longitude,” 1:653–55. Rada could have also used a lunar eclipse to obtain longitude. Just a few years later, this was exactly the method attempted to measure longitude in different parts of the empire. See Manuel Morato-Moreno, “La medición de un imper
io: Reconstrucción de los instrumentos utilizados en el proyecto de López de Velasco para la determinación de la longitud,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 73, no. 2 (July–December 2016): 597–621. Regardless of the method used, Urdaneta’s report of Rada’s measurements is intriguing. “From the meridian line of the said city of Toledo to that of Cebu,” the friar-mariner stated, “there are 215 degrees and 15 minutes according to Copernicus’s tables.” Translating these values to our current system of longitude, we find that Cebu would have been about seven degrees to the east of the antimeridian. Interestingly, Rada also computed the longitude difference between Toledo and Cebu using the tables of King Alfonso el Sabio, a set of medieval astronomical tables made in Toledo in 1263–1272. See “Opinion of Friar Andrés de Urdaneta,” Madrid, October 8, 1566. For a discussion of Rada’s method, see also Cervera Jiménez, “El trabajo científico de Andrés de Urdaneta y el problema de la longitud geográfica,” 545–53. In 1575 Rada would go on to travel to China and write a very insightful chronicle of his experiences there. See Charles Ralph Boxer, ed., South China in the Sixteenth Century: Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar de Cruz, O.P., and Fr. Martín de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550–1575) (Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2004), 243–310.
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9. “Opinion of Friar Andrés de Urdaneta,” Madrid, October 8, 1566. See also Cervera Jiménez, “El trabajo científico de Andrés de Urdaneta y el problema de la longitud geográfica,” 545–53. A navigator who returned from the Philippines with Urdaneta in 1565 was so convinced that the Philippines and the Spice Islands were on the Spanish side of the world according to the original antimeridian that he was of the opinion that it would be well worthwhile for the Spanish king to return the money to Portugal for the “pawned territories.” Possibly Juan de la Isla, “Relación de las Islas del Poniente y del camino que a ella se hizo desde la Nueva España.”
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10. As Cuevas notes, royal audiences are usually grand affairs widely reported, and there is no evidence of such an event in the case of Urdaneta. Cuevas, Monje y marino, 280. Similarly, the Council of the Indies gave Urdaneta and his companion Aguirre a stipend of three reales per day. Rodríguez, “Andrés de Urdaneta, agustino, 500 años del descubridor del tornaviaje,” 224. Urdaneta’s opinion was added to those of the other cosmographers to elaborate a parecer conjunto, or collective opinion, brought before the king. The collective opinion was that the Philippines were included in the territories pawned to Portugal in 1529 but were nonetheless on the Spanish side with respect to the Tordesillas line. It was therefore up to the lawyers to decide how to proceed. Rumeu de Armas, El Tratado de Tordesillas, 133–36; Pedro Insua Rodríguez, “China y la fundación de Manila,” El Catoblepas 82 (December 2008): 1–27.
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11. The quote is from San Agustín, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 366–67. Henry Wagner was among the first to note that “there is no record that he [Arellano] received any punishment.” Wagner, Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth Century, 112.
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12. The quote is from the entry for January 8, 1565, Arellano, in “Relación mui circunstanciada.” See Charles E. Nowell, “Arellano Versus Urdaneta,” Pacific Historical Review 31, no. 2 (May 1962): 114; and Erik W. Dahlgren, Were the Hawaiian Islands Visited by the Spaniards Before Their Discovery by Captain Cook in 1778? A Contribution to the Geographical History of the North Pacific Ocean Especially of the Relations Between America and Asia in the Spanish Period (Tucson: AMS Press, 1977), 161. Other maps list the same islands visited by the San Lucas. A map of the Pacific Ocean drawn by Gabriel Tatton around 1575, engraved by Benjamin Wright, and published in London in 1600, features the “I. de don Alonso de Arellano,” “Dos Vezinos,” “Nadadores,” and “Miracomo Vaz.” See “Maris Pacifici quod vulgo mar del zur,” John Carter Brown Map Collection, accession no. 30537a, Providence, RI.
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13. Friar Gaspar de San Agustín writes that Don Alonso returned to New Spain and, on hearing about Legazpi’s death, went to the Philippines in 1577. San Agustín, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 366–67. Once again, this cannot be corroborated. In a brief biographical note about Arellano, Martín Fernández de Navarrete repeats San Agustín’s version but also citing a letter that Don Alonso supposedly wrote to Philip II from Mexico City on March 31, 1575. Navarrete, however, provides no concrete citation. Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Biblioteca marítima española, 2 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta de la Viuda de Calero, 1851), 1:9–10. Henry Wagner cites the same letter (although in his case addressed to the president of the Council of the Indies rather than to the king), but as Wagner himself notes, there is doubt about this being the same Arellano. Wagner, “Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast in the Sixteenth Century,” 112. A search of the Spanish archives through PARES reveals that there were indeed multiple individuals named Alonso de Arellano in the 1560s–1570s. I was not able to find the letter cited by Navarrete and Wagner but did find multiple documents of an individual named Alonso de Arellano traveling to Mexico in 1575 but who was clearly a different person.
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14. The quotes are from San Agustín, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 376–77. See also Cuevas, Monje y marino, 280–84; Uncilla, Urdaneta y la conquista de Filipinas, 247–48; and Rodríguez, “Andrés de Urdaneta, agustino, 500 años del descubridor del tornaviaje,” 224–25.
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Epilogue
1. Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.”
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2. Martínez, “Relación detallada de los sucesos ocurridos durante el viaje de la nao San Jerónimo que salió de Acapulco.”
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3. This episode is reported in the Historia del descubrimiento de las regiones australes hecho por el general Pedro Fernández de Quirós, ed. Don Justo Zaragoza, 3 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta de Manuel Hernández, 1876), 1:185. For an English translation, see The Voyages of Pedro Fernández de Quirós, 1595–1606, ed. Sir Clements Markham, 2 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1904), 1:138–39. See also Sánchez Masiá, “La dramática aventura del ‘San Jerónimo,’ ” 529; and Francis X. Hezel, SJ, The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-Colonial Days, 1521–1885 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1983), 33.
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4. Justo Zaragoza, Historia del descubrimiento de las regiones australes hecho por el general Pedro Fernández de Quirós, 1:298. See also Markham, The Voyages of Pedro Fernández de Quirós, 1595–1606, 2:237.
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5. Father Juan Antonio Cantova, Lettre édifiantes, cited in Francis X. Hezel and Maria Teresa del Valle, “Early European Contact with the Western Carolines: 1525–1750,” Journal of Pacific History 7 (1972): 43.
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6. The quotes are from San Agustín, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 1565–1615, 364–65; Pierre Chaunu, “Le galion de Manille,” Annales Économies Sociétés Civilisations 6, no. 4 (October–December 1951): 452; and Landín Carrasco and Sánchez Masiá, “Urdaneta y la vuelta de poniente,” 512. José Antonio Cervera Jiménez shares this last opinion. Cervera Jiménez, “El trabajo científico de Andrés de Urdaneta y el problema de la longitud geográfica,” 523–25. See also Nowell, “Arellano Versus Urdaneta,” 111–20; and Wagner, “Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast in the Sixteenth Century,” 112. There is even a screenplay based on Urdaneta’s life. See José María de Quintana García, “La ruta de Urdaneta: Argumento para guión cinematográfico” (Madrid: Imp. Multihispano, 1949), transcribed in Hidalgo Nuchera, “La figura de Andrés de Urdaneta en la historiografía indiana, conventual, documental y moderna,” app. 1, 71–76. As I mentioned earlier, the Australian historian O.H.K. Spate was among the doubters, noting that “porpoises as big as cows present no difficulty, but it is unlikely that cooking oil would freeze in midsummer.” Spate, The Spanish Lake, 101.
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7. Ping-ti Ho, “The Introduction of American Food Plants into China,” in Agriculture and Rural Connections in the Pacific, 1500–1900, ed. James Gerber and Lei Guang (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 1–11; and Sucheta Mazumdar, “The Impact of New World Food Crops on the Diet and Economy of China and India, 1600–1900,” in Food in History, ed. Raymond Grew (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 58–78.
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8. Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giráldez, “Arbitrage, China, and World Trade in the Early Modern Period,” in European Entry into the Pacific: Spain and the Aca-pulco-Manila Galleons, ed. Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giráldez (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 261–80; Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), passim; Arturo Giráldez, The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), passim; and Kris Lane, Potosí: The Silver City That Changed the World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019), xiv–xv, among others.
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Analytical Index
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Page numbers in italics refer to figures.
A
Acosta, Joseph de, 161, 258 n22
Aguirre, Andrés de, 267 n2
Aguirre, Lope de, 62, 181, 266 n17
Ailly, Pierre d,’ 25
Ailuk Atoll, 104, 118
Alemán, Francisco, 235 n7
Alexander VI (pope), 20
Alvarado, Pedro de, 46, 224 n42, 226 n1, 229 n13, 245 n12
Alvarez, Walter, 7
Alzola, Juanes de, 235 n7
Angle, Rodrigo del, 179, 184–87
archipiélago de San Lázaro. See Philippines
Arellano, Alonso de, 262 n11
account of Legazpi expedition, 261 n9
Conquering the Pacific Page 30