Admixture dynamics in colonial Mexico and the genetic legacy of the Manila Galleon

Mexico has considerable population substructure due to pre-Columbian diversity and subsequent variation in admixture levels from trans-oceanic migrations, primarily from Europe and Africa, but also, to a lesser extent, from Asia. Detailed analyses exploring sub-continental structure remain limited and post-Columbian demographic dynamics within Mexico have not been inferred with genomic data. We analyze the distribution of ancestry tracts to infer the timing and number of pulses of admixture in ten regions across Mexico, observing older admixture timings in the first colonial cities and more recent timings moving outward into southern and southeastern Mexico. We characterize the specific origin of the heterogeneous Native American ancestry in Mexico: a widespread western-central Native Mesoamerican component in northern Aridoamerican states and a central-eastern Nahua contribution in Guerrero (southern Mexico) and Veracruz to its north. Yucatan shows lowland Mayan ancestry, while Sonora exhibits a unique northwestern native Mexican ancestry matching no sampled reference, each consistent with localized indigenous cultures. Finally, in Acapulco, Guerrero a notable proportion of East Asian ancestry was observed, an understudied heritage in Mexico. We identified the source of this ancestry within Southeast Asia--specifically western Indonesian and non-Negrito Filipino--and dated its arrival to approximately thirteen generations ago (1620 CE). This points to a genetic legacy from the 17th century Manila Galleon trade between the colonial Spanish Philippines and the Pacific port of Acapulco in Spanish Mexico. Although this piece of the colonial Spanish trade route from China to Europe appears in historical records, it has been largely ignored as a source of genetic ancestry in Mexico, neglected due to slavery, assimilation as "Indios" and incomplete historical records.

The nexus of nationalism and internationalism: the journey of a “diplomat” after the galleons

After the galleons, Benito J. Legarda’s masterpiece on socioeconomic transformation after the galleon trade, has enriched our knowledge of the semi-open colonial economy in the 19th-century Philippine Islands, which witnessed the rise of nationalism at the end of that century. In this paper, I shed new light on the nature of the Ilustrados’ nationalism and their international activism by revisiting the life of the country’s “first diplomat”, Felipe Agoncillo, who battled in vain to achieve independence through a diplomatic channel. While class politics tends to be a focal point of the scholarly debate over the Ilustrados’ nationalism, this paper highlights the international dimensions of their advocacy. Agoncillo’s mission in the United States and Europe seems a reasonable option from our perspective, which has been shaped by the norm of modern diplomacy, but it was a risky adventure considering the overwhelming influence of imperialism. Why did Agoncillo conclude they had to send a mission? What kinds of negotiation strategies did they have? Combining Legarda’s global insights on the Philippines’ colonial economy with Agoncillo’s ideational and actual travel, this paper reveals how Philippine nationalism and internationalism created a nexus whose legacy exists in current Philippine diplomacy, one of whose achievements was the award of the arbitration case over the South China Sea in 2016.

Underwater Cultural Heritage in the Pacific: Themes and Future Directions

This article focuses on the underwater cultural heritage (UCH) located across the Pacific Ocean by sampling three temporal themes: living heritage and traditional indigenous cultural heritage, the global connections of the Manila Galleon trade, and the modern warfare of World War II (WWII). Many of the traditional cultural practices (living heritage) and tangible cultural heritage related to indigenous people of the Pacific are coastal and sea related. Their world encompasses the sea, which was not seen as a barrier as but a much-used connection to people occupying the thousands of islands. The Pacific contains an extensive maritime cultural heritage, including UCH, which reflects the cultural identity of people living in the region. From the 16th to 18th centuries, the Spanish Empire prospered through an elaborate Asia-Pacific trade network. The Manila Galleon trade between Manila, Philippines, and Acapulco, Mexico, connected into the existing Atlantic trade transporting commodities such as porcelain, silver, spices and textiles from Asia to the Americas and Spain. Of the 400 known voyages between 1565 and 1815, approximately 59 shipwrecks occurred, of which only a handful of galleons have been investigated. The scale of WWII heritage in the Pacific region reflects the intensity and impacts of global conflicts fought across the world’s largest ocean. Associated UCH includes near shore defensive infrastructure, landing and amphibious assault craft, submerged aircraft, and a wide range of ships and submarines, auxiliary, combatant and non-military casualties alike. Twentieth century warfare involved massive losses of material. The legacy of submerged battlefields in the Pacific is complex. Interest is high in the discovery of naval UCH, but critical aspects are often intertwined. Archaeology, history, reuse, memorialisation (gravesites), tourism, unexploded ordnance, environmental threat (fuel oil), ownership and salvage all shape what we can learn from this resource.

The Spanish build their empire.

The chapter summarizes the Spanish conquests and navigation. It also provides a brief summary of how Ferdinand Magellan found another route to the Pacific and the Moluccas, which led to the signing of Treaty of Tordesillas. This divided any newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal along a Meridian west of the Cape Verde Islands, but no line of demarcation had been set on the other side of the world. This meant that both countries could lay claim to the Spice Islands, as long as Portugal travelled there from the east and Spain from the west. After Magellan's conquest, the Spanish explore the Pacific, which gave them control over the Pacific countries including the Philippines. The chapter also discusses how the charting of 'Urdaneta's Route' made possible a trans-Pacific galleon trade and the profitable colonization of the Philippines and other Latin American countries. Soon ships were travelling regularly from Manila to New Spain. A complex trade network evolved that was truly global in nature. Into Manila would flow spices from the Moluccas and silk and porcelain from China. These would be shipped across the Pacific by the Spanish to Acapulco, a journey of four to six months. The silver came from Potosí, Bolivia where hundreds of thousands of enslaved Incan lives were sacrificed by the Spanish to extract that silver from the bowels of the earth. The mines became the centre of Spanish wealth and were the reason Spain remained powerful during the colonial period. From 1556 to 1783, they extracted some 45,000 tons of silver from these mines. Aside from these, is the silk production as New Spain had a native mulberry tree called the Morera criolla. The Spanish finished their conquest by 1521 and by 1523, the first silkworm eggs had been exported to Mexico. Finally, the chapter closes how England, by means of American privateers, fought off Portugal and Spain.

The Philippines

Since the colonization of the Philippines by Spain in the sixteenth century, the island chain has been at the center of global trade flows, imperial rivalries, and the globalization process. From its role as the main base of Spain’s Pacific Galleon trade to its conquest centuries later by the United States and Japan, the Philippines has been a focal point of economic and military rivalry. Decolonized in 1946, the Philippines is growing economically after years of stagnation, is ruled today by a modern populist, President Rodrigo Duterte, and is embroiled in disputes with the East Asia region’s rising superpower, China. In The Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Steven Rood draws from more than 30 years of residence in and study of the Philippines in order to provide a concise overview of the nation. Arranged in a question-and-answer format, this guide shares concise, nuanced analysis and helps readers find exactly what they seek to learn about Filipino geography and geology, history, culture, economy, politics through the ages, and prospects for the future. This book is an ideal primer on an enormously diverse country that has been and will likely remain a key site in world affairs.

Spanish Manila

This essay depicts the beginning of the Spanish Empire in the Asia-Pacific in the mid-sixteenth century (Ming dynasty), when Spaniard Miguel de Legazpi from Mexico in the Americas colonized the Philippines and established Manila as an extension of Spain’s American colony of New Spain. Sustaining this trans-Pacific relationship for 250 year was the Manila Galleon Trade between Acapulco, Mexico and Manila, trading American silver for Chinese silk, porcelain and other fine goods. The large community (twenty to thirty thousand) of Hokkien-speaking migrants from South Fujian (Minnan) which quickly arose and confined to ethnic neighbourhood outside the Manila city wall, became indispensable to the galleon trade by transporting from China all the luxury goods for the galleons, while resident artisans and labourers provided all the everyday consumer items, food, and services to the small Spanish population in Manila city. This first American “Chinatown” was the first large and permanent overseas Chinese community of Southeast Asia/Nanyang, which launched the worldwide Chinese diasporic movement that continues to this day, stretching all over the Americas, Europe and Africa.