Page 40 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Fig. 1.1.2.4 Puerto de Veracruz nueva con la
fuerça de San Ju° de Ulua, en el reino de la
nueva España en el mar del norte
A. Boot, 1628
Pen, brown ink and watercolour on paper,
42cm x 55cm
Bibliotéque Nationale de France, Paris
(acc. no. VD-31 (2) – FT4, Gaignières, 6468)

52 The trade in Chinese silk from Manila to the Spanish the colony in the Philippines. The Manila Galleon trade was primarily based on the
colonies in the New World will be discussed in section exchange of Chinese silk, for Mexican and Peruvian silver. New Spain, positioned
53
52
2.1.4 of Chapter II.
53 Vast supplies of silver became available following at the international crossroads of both trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade routes,
the Spanish conquest of the New World and the facilitated the exchange and circulation of large quantities of Chinese and Japanese
subsequent discovery of rich mines in the viceroyalties
of New Spain and Peru in 1546. The majority of the manufactured goods in both the New World and the Iberian Peninsula. After the
54
silver was mined from Potosí in Peru (present-day
Bolivia). Productive silver mining was also obtained Manila Galleon reached Acapulco in November or December, the imported Chinese
from Zacatecas, located 300 miles northwest of silk, porcelain and other Asian manufactured goods were sold in the Feria de Acapulco
Mexico City. Silver from these mines flowed into
international circulation almost immediately, but it (Acapulco Fair), a wholesale and retail fair that was held in January. Merchants from
was not until the mercury amalgamation process of
refining was disseminated throughout the Spanish all the Spanish viceroyalties attended (Fig. 1.1.2.2). Most of the cargo was intended
colonies in the New World after about 1550 that the for consumption in New Spain, and was carried inland by mule train on an arduous
production soared. Silver was introduced in Manila
shaped in coins (reales de a ocho or peso) or in bars. journey over the mountains to the viceroyalty’s capital, Mexico City, formerly the
For a discussion on the importance of the trade of
American silver for silk, see Katharine Bjork, ‘The Link ancient Mexica city of Tenochtitlán. There it was sold in the city market (Parián) of
That Kept the Philippines Spanish: Mexican Merchant the Plaza Mayor (present-day Zócalo area) (Fig. 1.1.2.3). The Spanish Bernardo de
Interests and the Manila Trade, 1571–1815’, Journal of
World History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Spring 1998), pp. 25–50. Balbuena (1562?–1627) in his poem Grandeza Mexicana, published in 1604, mentions
54 This eastward route became part of the first global among other Asian goods that were imported from Spain, the rest of Europe, and
trade route in history, which stretched from Manila
to Seville crossing two oceans and linking three Manila, ‘the fine porcelain of the Sangley medroso’. In 1625, the English Dominican
55
continents regularly until 1815. It connected Manila
with Acapulco across the Pacific, Acapulco with Thomas Gage, who travelled through the viceroyalty of New Spain and Guatemala
Mexico City overland and finally Veracruz with until 1637, was quite impressed by the centrality of New Spain. Upon his arrival in
Seville (later Cadiz) across the Atlantic. For a recent
discussion on the Manila Galleon trade and the global Veracruz that year, in 1625, Gage regaled his readers with a lengthy inventory of the
trade that emerged in the late sixteenth century, see
Arturo Giraldez, The Age of Trade: Manila Galleons regions connected to the colonial New Spain. All of which, the traveller wrote ‘The
and the Dawn of the Global Economy, Lanham, great trading from Mexico, and by Mexico from the East Indies, from Spain, from
Boulder, New York and London, 2015.
Fig. 1.1.2.3 Map of Mexico City from the city 55 The transcription of the original text in Spanish Cuba, Santo Domingo, Yucatán, and by Portobello from Peru, from Cartagena, and all
atlas Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1572 reads: ‘La fina loza del Sangley medroso’. Bernardo the islands lying upon the North Sea, and by the River Alvarado going up to Zapotecas,
de Balbuena, Grandeza Mexicana, Sociedad de
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg (Attributed
Bibliotecas Mexicanas, Mexico, 1604, Chapter 3, p. San Idelfonso, and towards Oaxaca, and by the river Grijalva, running up to Tabasco,
to Antoine Du Pinet, 1564; after a plan in B.
77. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. http://
Bordone, Isolario, 1528) www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmcjx073. Los Zoques, and Chiapa de Indions, maketh this little town very rich and to abound
Coloured engraving Accessed June 2014. with all the commodities of the continent land, and of all the East and West Indies’
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem & The 56 J. Eric Thompson (ed.), Thomas Gage’s Travels in the
56
Jewish National & University Library New World, Norman, 1958, pp. 35–36. treasures’. A small quantity of the Asian goods imported into Acapulco was then

38 Historical background 39