Manila and their agents in the court: long-distance political communication and imperial configuration in the seventeenth-century Spanish monarchy

ABSTRACT

The first ‘globalization’, which from the sixteenth century united the four parts (or continents) of the world, was first of all accomplished in terms of distance and time. There was extreme tension between the Philippines, the last circle of the Hispanic Empire, and its centre, Madrid. Here, information and instructions took three to five years, round trip. Contemporaries were aware of such tension and the complexities it entailed. For this, the Philippine authorities relied on the so-called procuradores (procurators), a group of deputies entrusted with power of attorney, who travelled across the globe, facing constant dangers, unforeseen difficulties and often long delays. Procuradores travelled a variety of routes, including going directly to Spain (‘La carrera de España’), travelling through the viceroyalty of New Spain and its capital Mexico City or crossing the Indian Ocean. In a global empire like the Spanish Catholic monarchy, authorities had to rely on individuals entrusted with producing and transmitting information, which they had to physically submit in the form of pleas and reports at court. In essence, the monarchs’ decision-making process in the Iberian Peninsula relied on information from the Empire’s local communities. Imperial policy is not therefore developed in one centre or in several centres, but in multilateral exchanges on different scales. This essay highlights three interconnected issues: first, the role of information as resource and crucial asset in the relationship between the King, his agents and his distant subjects; second, the importance of travel and physical presence at the Spanish Court for submitting pleas that, theoretically, could have been sent via letter; finally, the interconnection of religious, political and economic interests in the management of the monarchy’s affairs. The authors conclude with two case studies describing the religious experience of displacement and supplication: the journeys of Diego de Guevara to Fernando Moraga.

KEYWORDS:

• Representation
• Spanish empire
• communication
• Phipppines
• procurators
• mobility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Letter from the Governor of the Philippines, Miguel de Legazpi, to the Viceroy of New Spain, 1572-8-11, published in Hidalgo Nuchera, Los primeros de Filipinas, 307.

2. Ordinances of the City of Manila, 28 June 1571, published in Alva Rodríguez, “Legazpi, fundador de ciudades,” 103.

3. Gaudin, “Un acercamiento.”

4. In his work, Gestores de la Real Justicia, Mazin has demonstrated that in the West Indies cathedral chapters had significant experience in sending procurators (or gestores) to the Spanish court. However, in the Philippines, bishoprics were poor, and religious orders took the lead in organizing ‘embassies’ to Spain, alongside the procuradores of cities and mercantile groups.

5. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies”; Cardim et al., Polycentric Monarchies. Thus, the concept of periphery in this context must be nuanced. In current historiography it is controversial. If in geographical, distance or cultural terms it is justified, it turns out to be less obvious politically, all the kingdoms of the Indies being equal. For an argumentative justification of the use of the concept of periphery, see Sellers-García, Distance and Documents, 3–5. On the polycentrism of the Hispanic monarchy and the role of the urban republics in the imperial structure, see Herrero Sánchez, Repúblicas y republicanismo.

6. Captain Juan de la Isla, one of the first Philippines’ representatives, travelled twice to the Madrid Court and presented various descriptions of the archipelago. See Gaudin, “Movilidad y rugosidad” and “Parecer sobre las dudas.” On the role of distance in the government of the Spanish Empire see Parker, The Grand Strategy, 47–75 and Gaudin and Stumpf, Las distancias. About information and knowledge, Brendecke, Imperio e Información.

7. Letter from the Manila Audiencia to the Council of the Indies, Manila, 1586-5-26, AGI, Filipinas, 18A, R. 4, N. 24. [All translations by authors unless otherwise specified].

8. Masters, “A Thousand Invisible Architects.”

9. In Spanish, ‘Indiano’ not refers to India, but the West Indies.

10. Memorandum by Cristóbal Azcueta presented to the Viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velasco, in the name of the city of Manila, Mexico City, 19 December 1594: appointment of the new governor following the death of Dasmariñas; re-establishment of the Audiencia, with an analysis of its advantages; request for relief to fight the kings of Japan, Ternate, Mindanao and Brunei who are uniting; relief must leave early; qualities of the people of war for relief; licences for trade. AGI, Patronato, 25, R. 53.

11. According to the Diccionario de Autoridades (1726), an agente de negocios is a person ‘who requests, manages, and gain the affairs of another [actor]’ (Lat. Negotiorum procurator. ARGENS. Maluc. liv. 4. fol.162).

12. Father Alonso Sanchez transfers in solidum his powers as procurador general of the Philippines to Gaspar de Esquiñas, procurador del numero at the Court, Madrid, 19 January 1588; Colin, Labor evangélica, I, 347.

13. Memorandum by Baltasar Romero in the name of the vecinos of the Philippine Islands requesting the suspension of a real cedula on Indian tribute, Madrid, 1592, AGI, Filipinas, 27, N. 31, f. 174–175. On this occasion, Baltasar Romero also acted on behalf of Gabriel de Ribera and Don Juan de Gúzman.

14. Crossley, Ríos Coronel.

15. AGI, Filipinas, 339, L. 1, f. 121 v (2a fol°).

16. AGI, Mexico, 117, R. 1, N. 9.

17. A thorough investigation of Madrid’s notarial deeds and of the informaciones de méritos brought to the imperial capital would indeed allow us to reconstruct a rich Madrid indiano.

18. Ollé, La empresa de China, 135–64; Li, “A vos el poderoso”; and Hsu, “Writing on Behalf of a Christian Empire.”

19. Busquets Alemany, “Huellas de Japón,” 170; Memorandum by Fray Martías de Salvanes presented to the Council of the Indies, Madrid, 1600-5-25, AGI, Filipinas, 84, n. 91. Consulta of the Council of the Indies, Madrid, 1600-6-3, AGI, Filipinas, 1, N. 25; and Gómez Platero, Catálogo Biográfico, 102.

20. Ollé, La empresa de China, 228–9.

21. The procurators and visitors of the Society of Jesus are undoubtedly the best studied in their activities and the regulations that frame them since Zubillaga, El procurador de las Indias. See also Brockey, The Visitor, and McCoog, ed., With Eyes and Ears Open.

22. 23 AGI, Filipinas, 6, R. 7, N. 80.

23. AGI, Filipinas, 27, N. 15.

24. Ollé, La empresa de China, 184–8.

25. On this point, see Fabre, “Saggio di geopolitica.” Something similar happened in the late 1660s, on occasion of the Jesuit evangelization of the Marianas, when two procurators (one from the Philippine province, the other from the Marianas themselves) clashed in Mexico City (Coello de la Rosa, “El peso de la salvación”).

26. Valignano, Les Jésuites, 223.

27. AGI, Filipinas, 82, N. 19. Initially, Fray Garcia Racimo had obtained 40 missionaries (AGI, Filipinas, 82, N. 37).

28. AGI, Filipinas, N. 20 and N. 21.

29. Archivo Histórico Nacional, Diversos-Colecciones, 27, N. 43.

30. On the expedition, see Machuca, “El sueño de un gran Pacífico.” De Jaque de los Ríos, Viaje de las Indias, 64.

31. Ibid., 64–5.

32. AGI, Filipinas, 65, N. 1, letter to the King of 1651-7-10, fol. 2 v-3 r.

33. On this journey, see Berthe and García de los Arcos, “Las islas Filipinas ‘tercer mundo’.” Travellers from other countries felt this combination of strangeness and pride. In 1643, on his way back from Macau to Lisbon the Portuguese Antonio Fialho Ferreira wrote to his sovereign that he was returning from “the most distant land where your Majesty keeps subjects, [a land] that for being so distant (from this Court) can be considered as another world and, as a result, I can say that I come from another world” (Boxer, Macau na época da restaurão, II, 105) [Italics ours].

34. AGI, Filipinas, 27, N. 142, letter from the Municipality of 1629-7-17.

35. AGI, Filipinas, 27, N. 235, Memorandum to the King, Por la necesidad que las dichas islas tienen de que se tome resolución en algunas materias y puntos de mucha importancia y gravedad que tocan a su comercio, printed, undated [1637], item no. 14.

36. AGI, Filipinas, 28, N. 39.

37. AGI, Mexico, 32, L. 1, fol. 66 v.

38. In the archives, the trace of such a character is notable. He is one of those individuals in the background who reveal how the wheels of the machine turn.

39. Xavier and de Meneses, História de Portugal, 2, 103–5.

40. Boxer, Macau, 2, 145–7; Boxer, O grande navio de Amacau, 218–23; and Cardim and Krause, “A Comunicação Entre a Câmara.”

41. The Spanish sentence is “poner una pica en Flandes.”

42. Information about this individual comes from two chronicles: the Historia de los sucesos, 182 ff, which was written at around 1630 by a religious, Juan de Medina, who arrived in Manila in 1610 alongside Fray Diego; and the chronicle Conquista de las islas Filipinas. Segunda parte by Casimiro Díaz (Fray Gaspar de San Agustín), which was written about a century later.

43. AGI, Filipinas, 65, N. 1, letter from Samaniego to the King of 1651-7-10, fol. 8 r.

44. Pobre de Zamora, “Historia de la pérdida.” See also the detailed report in AGI, Filipinas, 79, N. 28, “Relación del viaje del galeón San Felipe de Su Majestad, arribada que hizo al Japón y su pérdida, y lo que más ha sucedido. Año de 1596” (actually, 1596–1597). Diego de Guevara seems to have survived this martyrdom because he was in secular clothes.

45. Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–98). Díaz [San Agustín], Conquista de las islas Filipinas, 126.

46. Letter of the provincial and definitors of the province of St Augustine, Manila, 1603–12-14, AGI, Filipinas, 84, N. 119.

47. de Medina, Historia de los sucesos, 182–3.

48. AGI, Filipinas, 84, N. 124.

49. Silva, “A carreira da Índias.”

50. Díaz [San Agustín], Conquista de las islas Filipinas, 127.

51. Ibid., 128.

52. His opponents obtained letters patent from the General in Rome limiting the duration of this visit to two years. An appeal to Madrid was necessary to revoke this measure. Letter from the procurator Fray Pedro de Aguirre, undated, AGI, Filipinas, 79, N. 80.

53. Díaz [San Agustín], Conquista de las islas Filipinas, 129. He had already been presented in 1608 and was then ranked first by the Council of the Indies, but the King appointed the second, Pedro de Arce. AGI, Filipinas 1, N. 113.

54. We accept what Mazín writes, ‘[the power] was always dispersed, and the authority of the king, like many others, was not indisputable’: Mazín, Gestores de la real justicia, II, 24. But this very dispersal favours a certain indeterminacy and the intrusion of political-religious adventurers such as Moraga being able to bypass the rules, on the margins of institutions, such as the Council of the Indies.

55. Calvo, Espadas y plumas, 91 and 148.

56. The following is based on Pérez, “De Filipinas a España.” He has partially transcribed the unpublished chronicle of Fray Antonio de la Llave, Crónica de la Provincia de San Gregorio, contemporary with the events.

57. de la Llave, in Pérez, “De Filipinas a España,” 296–7. He dressed like a hermit to be seen as the poor, a victim of the hardship of a very long journey. It is a way of showing his sacrifice and merits. This is not surprising because the religious who came to Madrid to ask the King for a reward used this type of artifice.

58. On these supports (situados), see Calvo, Espadas y Plumas, 77–153.

59. de la Llave, in Pérez, “De Filipinas a España,” 297–8.

60. González de Cellorigo, Memorial de la política necesaria, 22.

61. de la Llave, in Pérez, “De Filipinas a España,” 299. Crossley, the biographer of Ríos Coronel, agrees with this version of the chronicler, Crossley, Ríos Coronel, 150–2.

62. de la Llave, in Pérez, “De Filipinas a España,” 299–301.

63. Ibid., 320.

64. Crossley, Ríos Coronel.

65. Calvo, Espadas y plumas, 124–5.

66. Ibid., 144.

67. When asked by the King about the number of Christians in the archipelago, Moraga replied with an obviously random figure, 100,000; de la Llave, in Pérez, “De Filipinas a España,” 300. Moraga is one of the informant figures that interest Brendecke, Imperio e información: more than news, it brings legitimacy to Power.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the LabEx Structuration des Mondes Sociaux - Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès [ANR-11-LABX-0066].

Notes on contributors

Thomas Calvo

Thomas Calvo (El Colegio de Michoacán A.C.). Calvo’s research focuses on the political and cultural processes that affected the Iberian monarchy in the seventeenth century. His most recent monograph is Espadas y plumas en la monarquía hispana: Alonso de Contreras y otras vidas de soldados (1600–1650) (Casa de Velázquez: Madrid, 2019).

Guillaume Gaudin

Guillaume Gaudin (Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès - Framespa). Gaudin’s research analyses political communication in the Spanish Empire, focusing on the Philippines. He is the author of El imperio de papel de Juan Díez de la Calle: pensar y gobernar el Nuevo Mundo en el siglo XVII (FCE: Zamora, Madrid, 2017) and editor with Roberta Stumpf of Las distancias en el gobierno de los imperios ibéricos: concepciones, experiencias y vínculos (Casa de Velázquez: Madrid, 2022).