Beyond the Atlantic: Critical approaches to the economic, political and cultural entanglements between Europe, America and Asia in the first colonial expansion (Double Panel) Part 1

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E Global History and Decoloniality

Beyond the Atlantic: Critical approaches to the economic, political and cultural entanglements between Europe, America and Asia in the first colonial expansion (Double Panel) Part 1

Event Details

Date

III. Thursday, 11th September, 11:00-13:00
Location
M1050
Theme
E Global History and Decoloniality

Convenor

Markéta Křížová (Charles University)

Chair

Markéta Křížová (Charles University)

Commentator

Birgit Tremml-Werner (Stockholm University)

Panelists

Bernd Hausberger (El Colegio de México)
Carlos Gonzalez Balderas (KU Leuven)
Antonio Ibarra (Universidad Nacional de Mexico)
Manuel Perez-Garcia (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
Angélica Morales Sarabia (Universidad Nacional de Mexico)
Dondy Pepito Ramos (University of the Philippines)

Papers

Bernd Hausberger

What really happened with American silver, 16th – 18th century

What really happened with American silver, 16th – 18th century

This paper will summarize some aspects of how between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries American silver entered transregional and transcontinental circuits and was distributed around the globe. I will make intensive use of the quantitative information that the research of the last decades has made available to us, both on the production and circulation of silver. I will compare the different calculations and estimates, and in this way, with all the uncertainties, divergences and contradictions that they entail, I hope to be able to formulate more certain conclusions about the global distribution of silver flows, in particular on two aspects: the circulation of metals in the territories of production, that is, in Spanish America, before leaving for the transcontinental circuits and the actual arrival of silver in China.
Carlos Gonzalez Balderas

What a Testament Reveals: Asian Textiles, Smuggling, and Global Consumption in Colonial Peru

What a Testament Reveals: Asian Textiles, Smuggling, and Global Consumption in Colonial Peru

The trade of Asian textiles in Spanish America during early modern times occurred aboard the Manila galleon route. These sought-after products were addressed to be sold exclusively in New Spain. However, any trade prohibition dictated by the Spanish colonial administration impeded the leaking of these products beyond legal boundaries. This presentation aims to comprehensively explore the illicit paths undertaken by Asian textiles to Peru through the compelling case study of Joseph de Axcaray, a notable Basque crew member of the ship Saint Joseph (1696), which passed away aboard the Manila Galleon route. By means of analysing Axcaray’s list of assets, this study seeks to shed more light on the actual desire for Asian textiles in Peru at the end of the 17th century. Furthermore, in order to ascertain the global demand for Asian textiles in Peru, this analysis compares the articles transported by Axcaray with a selection of testaments, dowry contracts, inventories, and an auction in Lima in 1700.
Antonio Ibarra

Navigations and connections in global/cal America. Calcutta,Canton and Buenos Aires

Navigations and connections in global/cal America. Calcutta,Canton and Buenos Aires

The paper focuses on the Spanish colonial trade mainly in the 18th century. It extends the analysis of the repertoire of goods brought to the port of the River Plate (Buenos Aires), in a context of imperial wars. It examines the routes, turns and returns of navigations, contrasting them to the explorations of routes, diagnoses of dangers and business of the Royal Company of the Philippines.
Manuel Perez-Garcia

Global History and the Pacific Frontier: State Capacity and the “power paradox theory” in Qinq China and imperial Spain

Global History and the Pacific Frontier: State Capacity and the “power paradox theory” in Qinq China and imperial Spain

This presentation focuses on a crucial period in the history of China to study its interactions with the West and imperial Spain from a global and comparative perspective, in line of the historiographical paradigms of the so-called “new global history” which aims to deconstruct and challenge the Eurocentric and Sino-centric views, as well as the current reversal to national history(ies) in European, Chinese and Latin American academic circles. Thus, concepts such as “global history with Chinese characteristics” and China’s “New Silk Road” policy are analysed in detail. This research presents an analysis of China’s feeble state capacity during the Qing dynasty by questioning the so-called “High Qing” (shèng qīng 盛清) or era of economic prosperity, as China’s political and socio-economic system plunged into an involution and stagnation that is explained by the “power paradox-theory”. This is a new thesis introduced in this research that demonstrates the negative effect on the social and economic sphere and weak governance by interventionist states whose main objective is the accumulation and centralisation of power. The economic axes Macao-Canton and Manila-Acapulco-Lima, as a new case study, aims to compare the markets of the Spanish America colonies and southern China. Such comparison offers new insights to study the development of informal institutions through trade networks (paying special attention the Chinese sangleyes of Manila), financial corporations, clans and lineages, smuggling activities and illegal groups that emerged as a consequence of the interventionist impulses of autocratic states.
Angélica Morales Sarabia

Pearls on the Jesuit Road through Old California

Pearls on the Jesuit Road through Old California

Pearls on the coasts of the California peninsula of New Spain were integrated into a global market from the 18th century onwards. The Jesuits incorporated pearls into their medical materials, used them as diplomatic gifts and, to some extent, participated on a small scale in the business of buying and selling this mineral. In this paper I will explore how the Society of Jesus participated in the construction of pearls as a globalized medicine and what was its participation in the exploitation of this mineral on the coasts of California.
Dondy Pepito Ramos

Memorializing Early Modern Maritime Empires: The Dutch East india Company, the Spanish Empire and the re-Imagination of European Foundations beyond the Atlantic World

Memorializing Early Modern Maritime Empires: The Dutch East india Company, the Spanish Empire and the re-Imagination of European Foundations beyond the Atlantic World

This paper explores the memory sites associated with the Spanish Empire in the Philippines and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Australia through a comparative lens. Memory sites such as memorials, monuments, and material collections serve as focal points for understanding colonial legacies and their contemporary implications. In the Philippines, the Magellan and his voyage is of the most widely commemorated figures symbolising the Spanish Empire. He was commemorated through memorials, obelisks, and monuments. Memory sites dedicated to Magellan’s Voyage reveal a complex memory landscape shaped by both celebration and critique of colonialism. This reflects an ongoing contestation and negotiation of identity and heritage in a post-colonial society. Meanwhile, the commemorations of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) are much less evident in Australia since it was not a colonising power in the continent. This reflects a different colonial experience than the Philippines. The VOC’s role in Australian history is limited to exploration, mapping, and involvement in some early and violent encounters with the Aboriginal. This comparative analysis highlights trends of challenges to, appropriation of, and contestation within memory sites across two vastly unique colonial experiences, distinctive culture, government systems, and social contexts within the Asia-Pacific Region. By situating the Spanish Empire and the VOC in a broader framework of colonial memory, this study highlights how historical narratives formed through memory sites shape contemporary social and political attitudes towards these maritime empires. Finally, this paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on the discourses of post-coloniality, maritime studies, memory studies, and heritage discourses.

Abstract

The panel responds to the recent as well as long-term debates regarding the ambiguous, challenging concept of the “Atlantic”, cherished by historians as an analytic construct to make possible the analyses of the crucial developments of the early modern era, outside of the prism of nationalist historiographies, modern political borders and Eurocentric approach. The more so, because it seemed to embody the complex demographic, economic, social, cultural, and other entanglements among and within Europe, Africa and the Americas. Yet the Atlantic frame of reference had also become constraining. There were refusals of the “exceptionalism” of the Atlantic, and calls for expanding the study of the first globalization beyond the Atlantic basin proper, to include not just the Asian continent, but the whole expanse of the Pacific and Indian oceans; andalso, to the “backwaters” of the colonial empires, reaching far into the interiors of Europe and other continents. Some authors manifested their dissatisfaction with what they consider to be forceful homogenization imposed by historical analyses upon a fundamentally diverse and fragmented world. This led to the conceptualization of “Atlantics” in plural. In spite of these criticisms, however, the core assumption that brought the “Atlantic” into existence remain unchallenged –namely, that it is not possible to understand the principal historical events and processes of the 15th to the 20th centuries without paying attention to the transnational entanglements, the constant crossing of frontiers, the multilateral economic and cultural connections. Starting from this premise, the contributors to the panel aim to re-evaluate assumptions that have marked the historical research of the first globalization (roughly, 16th to 18th century). In order to fulfill this objective, the papers should offer methodological instigations and reflect on possibilities for comparison rather than merely present case-studies. They should accentuate the multiple connections interlinking the various areas of colonial expansion of Europe with the equally numerous European regions drawn into the colonial interchange. The combination of approaches and themes would demonstrate the intensity of communication and mutual influencing that went across political as well as confessional borders and connected the fields of economy, politics, religion, culture and military expansion.