Page 7 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

Introduction

During the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the Spanish navigators established and
operated the Manila Galleon maritime route which connected East Asia and New
Spain in the American continent. The galleons sailed across the Paci!c via the hub
seaports and trade centers of Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico,
forming a prosperous sea route for more than 250 years. This pioneering navigation
of pan-Paci!c regions promoted early global maritime trade as a new maritime Silk
Road between the East and the West.
The Manila galleon navigation is an important academic theme which had been
investigated and researched by multiple disciplines such as archaeology, history,
anthropology, maritime navigation, and oceanology in last half century. Both
seaport sites and shipwrecks underwater of galleon af!liated are crucial important
cultural heritage contributing to archaeological reconstruction of the Spanish Paci!c
trade history. An international academic workshop of “Early Navigation in the
Asia-Paci!c Region” was carried out at Harvard University in summer of 2013,
focusing on the shipwreck archaeological heritage of galleon remains and estab-
lishing an interaction platform promoting the understanding of maritime history of
early globalization (Wu, C. editor, Early Navigation in the Asia-Paci!c Region: A
Maritime Archaeological Perspective, Springer Press, 2016).
A further dialogue on the galleon trade history and maritime cultural interaction
between the East Asia and New Spain, “The International Academic Workshop on
Archaeology of the Manila Galleon Seaports and the History of Early Maritime
Globalization” was organized by the Center for Maritime Archaeology of Xiamen
University, China, on July 21–23, 2017, which mainly focused on the seaport
archaeological heritage of the galleon af!liated navigation. The archaeologists and
maritime cultural historians from America, Mexico, Japan, Philippines, Mainland
China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan met together again and shared their new
achievements and knowledge of the investigations and researches on the galleon
seaport archaeology. A series of presentations respectively on different galleon
trade af!liated seaports including Acapulco and San Blas in Mexico, Humåtak at
Guam, Manila in Philippines, Yuegang (Crescent Harbor), Xiamen (Amoy),
Macao, Keelung in China, and Nagasaki in Japan opened a new window for the

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