This paper focuses on the construction of relationships between representatives of the Japanese colonial government and Catholic missionaries, mostly Spanish, based in Taiwan at the end of the 19th century. Their interaction arises, on the one hand, from the newly established Japanese colonial government's need to assert control over the southern and central regions of Taiwan. On the other hand, it stems from the tension generated by the missionaries, who were confronted with the arrival of a colonial power that did not fit within the Eurocentric conceptions they held (Borao 2009, San Román 2019). Due to the extreme weakness of the Spanish Empire in Asia at the end of the 19th century, and the assumption that, following its collapse in 1898, its colonial representatives would automatically disappear, there has been very little interest in the missionaries, commercial agents, and other representatives who stayed on in the Asian context during this period. However, certain figures such as missionaries managed to adapt and found themselves in a state of continuous renegotiation with both local leaders and representatives of emerging powers. Drawing on Spanish and Japanese sources, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the unexpected connections and disconnections between border agents and representatives of colonial governments in Southeast Asia. Additionally, it seeks to clarify how an emerging power like Japan, in what Osterhammel (2009) describes as "secondary empire building," interacted with imperial powers or Western powers that had become minor players on the global stage, such as Spain

This paper examines the use of elephants in social spaces by people from Europe, particularly high-ranking officers of the British East India Company (EIC). The EIC began to expand its presence in Bengal in the mid-eighteenth century and developed a consolidated ruling system in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. European officers of the EIC engaged in various activities not only in commerce, but also in governance, scientific research, and social meetings. They adopted the elephant-use practices of India’s ruling class, which resulted in the reconstruction of the local tradition. First, the Governor-General of Bengal used elephants to symbolise his sovereignty. Following the example of former Indian rulers, he kept elephant guards. Elephant parades were regularly held at the villa of the Governor-General of Bengal in Barrackpore, located upstream of Calcutta. Elephants were also used for receptions in the diplomatic arena. Second, elephants contributed to advances in zoological science. Richard Wellesley, the Governor-General of Bengal from 1798 to 1805, established a facility called Menagerie at a villa in Barrackpore to collect Asian animals, enabling natural historians to observe elephants on site, record their behaviors, and make drawings. In addition, local knowledge of elephants was collected by EIC officers.

In 1714, the Danish trading lodge of Dannemarksnagore, in the trading port of Serampore on the Ganges River in Bengal, was attacked several times by Ramkrishna, the local Mughal karori. In response the Danish commander Erasmus Hansen Attrup seized the Mughal trading vessel Fakirmony on the Ganges River, causing a diplomatic and military stand-off that involved several layers of Mughal diplomacy, in addition to the other European traders in Bengal, chiefly the French and the British. The stand-off was the final confrontation in a Danish-Mughal conflict that had taken place throughout the Bay of Bengal since 1640, yet which had formally been ended in 1698, with a peace that allowed the establishment of Dannemarksnagore. Just 16 years later, war erupted again. The purpose of this paper is to look at this short-lived Danish presence in Bengal as an example of the entwinement of trade and violence in the Asian trading world of the early 18th century. The conflict involved both land-based Mughal assaults on the Danish trading lodge, and the water-based Danish seizure of the Fakirmony, allowing the observation of how both sides saw violence as a means to achieve their commercial and diplomatic goals, as well as how both justified it within their own diplomatic and political framework.

In the early 1580s, the Spaniards gathered the first reliable information about Taiwan and its inhabitants. “Isla Hermosa” was described as a wild land of no particular interest to them. In less than a decade, however, things changed abruptly, when the threat posed by the government of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the growing presence of piracy in East Asian waters became a major concern for Manila. A 1591 letter from Hideyoshi to the governor of the Philippines demanding recognition and the payment of a tribute caused the Spaniards to batten down the hatches and put the occupation of Taiwan on the agenda. This paper examines the Spanish plans for Taiwan prior to the establishment of the Dutch settlement at Tayouan (1624), providing new insights into the role of Isla Hermosa in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Hispano-Japanese relations and Japan’s perception of its southern maritime frontier.

For about a century, the ruling elite of the island Siau in northern Sulawesi and the Spanish colonial government in Manila engaged in diplomatic relations including the exchange of letters and embassies and mutual military support. Their alliance has been interpreted as part of the Spanish attempt to establish a stronghold in Ternate in the Moluccas under the impact of the ongoing Spice Wars (Mostert 2023) and Iberian endeavors to establish a Catholic stronghold against expanding sultanates. As both initiatives ultimately failed, historians have either ignored or misinterpreted the sophisticated diplomatic agencies of both Siau and Spanish stakeholders. Taking the Spanish and Dutch colonial archives as a point of departure, the paper traces indigenous Siau diplomatic agency and problematizes the way it has been recorded and consequently given way to nationalist tropes along the lines of a “last Spanish presence in Indonesia” (Rey Salgado, Campo López and Iriyanto 2024).This paper revisits Siao-Philippines diplomatic encounters and has two aims: first, to emphasize the diplomatic practices of the Siau rulers and how Spanish and Siau stakeholders negotiated diplomatic space; second, to shed light on the political geography of the Sulawesi-Mindanao region as space of global diplomacy. Until far into the nineteenth century, European colonizers (and other hegemonic forces) were marginalized in the politics of the region, and constantly needed to renegotiate their positions. Such fragmentary colonial dominion and European rivalry helped indigenous rulers to develop their own diplomatic repertoires including forging alliances, writing petitions, outfitting embassies, and investing in communication skills for direct negotiations. Focusing on the diplomatic practices from the vantage point of maritime southeast Asia rather than through the lens of failure or commercial expansion, this paper contributes to a nuanced understanding of global diplomacy.

The Southern European missionaries who arrived in Japan in the middle of the sixteenth century adapted to Japanese society and way of life in many different manners: etiquette, dietary habits, church architecture, language, etc., in a process that has been termed “cultural accommodation.” However, the Europeans who settled in various “New Worlds” also had to adapt to new natural environments. While in some places, like tropical Africa, this adaptation proved almost impossible, in others, like Mesoamerica, the mildness of the climate facilitated European penetration. Japan occupied an intermediate position. Although the newcomers had to face more extreme weather and frequent natural disasters, the course of the seasons was not dissimilar to that of Europe. The absence of new pathogens also facilitated the settlement of the missionaries. Nevertheless, we can observe an evolution in the discourse on the Japanese environment that parallels, on one hand, the advances in missionary work, and on the other hand, the pacification of the country. In this way, the harshness of the Japanese environment is emphasized in the first decades of the mission, while by the end of the century, the missionaries seem to have “tamed” the nature in Japan. They feel more comfortable and convey a softer vision of its environment, a vision that aligns with a more assertive position after decades of missionary work and accumulation of knowledge.