"Crossing the Spanish Pacific: Early Chinese Cartographic Knowledge and Epistemic Encounters in Manila."

Abstract: Beginning with Legazpi’s establishment of Manila and his earliest interactions with the Chinese community, this article examines early Sino–Spanish cartographic exchanges as foundational to the epistemic construction of the Spanish Pacific and its broader transoceanic geography. I highlight two key moments in which Chinese individuals provided critical geographical knowledge to Spanish officials, moments that reveal how local knowledge entered the Spanish imperial imagination. I underscore both the circulation of maps and the collaborative dynamics through which Chinese merchants and Spanish officials negotiated, translated, and contextualized cartographic information. These exchanges yielded the first annotated Spanish–Chinese map, offering unprecedented insights into the geography of China and a wider constellation of Asian territories. Ultimately, I stress the importance of Manila’s role as a crucial site of epistemic exchange and underscore colonial Mexico’s function as the channel through which this knowledge was both absorbed and disseminated across the empire. The maps obtained in Manila did not remain confined to Asia; they moved along the Manila–Acapulco route, entered the viceregal court of New Spain, and from there reached the royal court in Spain—one delivered to the viceroy in Mexico and the other forwarded to King Philip II.

 

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