Page 219 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

Chapter 12
Clues to Internationalism in the Manila
Galleon Wreck of the Late 1570s in Baja
California

Edward Von der Porten

Mexican–American expeditions have been investigating a Manila galleon ship-
wreck on the western shore of the Baja California peninsula since 1999. The ship
most likely is the San Juanillo of 1578. The remains of the ship’s hull, cargo,
weaponry, and personal possessions provide insights into the sources of the
material remains and the trade patterns which brought them together at that very
early period of the Manila galleon trade.

12.1 Introduction

Our shipwreck expeditions began in an international way. Japanese–American
scholar George Kuwayama, curator of Asian Art at the Los Angeles Museum of
Art, wrote the book Chinese Ceramics in Colonial Mexico (1997), which describes
Chinese porcelains which went from the Fair at Acapulco, Mexico, to many
Spanish sites in the New World. In his book, which was published in the summer
of 1997, are four pages of !gures of porcelain sherds with the attribution,
“Excavated from an unpublished site off the California Coast” (Fig. 12.1). These
!gures led us to the !nders, a group of Alta California beachcombers, and, through
them, to the site of the wreck. Judging from the porcelain !gures, these !nds
marked the remains of an eastbound Manila galleon dated to the late sixteenth
century.
An American scholar of sixteenth-century ship construction, Raymond Aker,
1
provided us with the best reconstruction of such a galleon (Fig. 12.2). She was

1
Raymond Aker’s plans were published in Von der Porten (2008).
E. Von der Porten (&)
San Francisco, USA
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 191
C. Wu et al. (eds.), Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaports and Early Maritime
Globalization, The Archaeology of Asia-Paci!c Navigation 2,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9248-2_12