Introduction & Historical Background

INTRODUCTION Pacific Sea Resources (PSR) was established in 1985 to undertake the archaeological recovery of Spanish galleons sunk in the Pacific during the Manila Galleon trade between the Philippines and America. After the initial research phase in libraries and archives in seven countries, PSR researchers focused on the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, an Acapulco-bound galleon sunk in 1638 off Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. The field program, begun in March 1987 and concluded in July 1988, was carried out by PSR's crew of thirty professionals from seven countries. The company used state-of-the-art equipment to survey and map the 'wreck site. computer systems to image-capture artifacts and record pertinent information, and a wide variety of specialized excavation tools to recover the artifacts. The comprehensive archaeological program was deyeloped and implemented in close cooperation with the Historic Preservation Office of the Commonwealth of the Northern ,,[ariana Islands. This archaeological report describes PSR's archaeological program including historical research activities. site description. SU1"\-ey methods, diving systems, excavation techniques, computer technology, artifact registration and handling, conservation and restoration procedures, environmental monitoring program, and the wrecking process and artifact distribution. The report also outlines the history of the "fani1a Galleon trade and describes the circumstances ofthe Concepcion's loss. Finally, the report provides information on the recovered artifacts, focusing particularly on the Concepcion 'sjewelry and ceramic cargo. The jewelry is catalogued according to type with detailed descriptions, including perceived origins, correlations between the Concepcion pieces and those located in museums and private collections, and the historical significance of the jewelry. This five and a halfyear project has resulted in an assemblage of materials relating to the shipwreck, including all artifacts, paintings, charts and models, now known as the Concepcion Collection. A Japanese resort company, Apex Corporation. currently owns the Collection, and is building a museum on the island of Saipan to display the Collection. In the museum complex the artifacts will be available for further study to supplement the information contained in this report. In addition, Apex intends to donate the Collection to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the year 2030. 1 PACIFIC SEA RESOURCES f I t " >-:~ x t , , 'i, - <:; ~. ~, \ f - PACIFIC SEA RESOURCES 2 THE HISTORY OF THE l.IANILA GALLEON TRADE by Catherine Lugar, Ph.D. * Origins of the Manila Galleon Trade • SjIl!tem of Galleon Trade in the Seventeenth Century * Experiencing :'lanila GaJeon Travel * 'rhe Manila-Acapulco Trade in the Time of Corcuera • The Galleons of 1638 * The Galleon 'Trade in the Eighteenth Century 3 PACIFIC SEA RESOURCES OIllGINS OF THE MANILA GALLEON TRADE Spain's 'L'hina Ships' The Manila galleons served one of the most merchants from Spain, Mexico and Peru com enduring and longest commercial maritime routes. peted for goods to market throughout the colonies }<'or two-and-a-half centuries, between 1565 and and in Europe. The cargoes of the "China Ships" 1815, these legendary s~jps operated under were exchanged for New World treasure in the government auspices, as state-uwned, armed form of silver bullion, bars and coin, the famed vessels of the Spanish crown, instruments of "silver dollars' or pieces of eight destined to official and private communication, transport, and circulate throughout the international commerce commercial enterprise in the distant eastern of the Far East. sector of the Spanish empire. Most impor:antly In the mercantilist age of the 1600s, states the galleons were merchantmen, laden ",ith an provided monopoly benefits to their merchants extraordinary assortment of Chinese silks, cotton and measured their commercial greatness by the textiles and wearing apparel, porcelain, gold size of favorable trade balances and the volume of jewelry, exotic perfumes, and other fme treasures precious metals in the royal vaults. The galleon purchased from Chinese traders at Manila and trade drained silver eastward, which worried the destined for markets throughout the Spanish Spanish government, and made the Crown colonies in America and EUrope. They also sensitive to the position of Spanish merchants at carried commodities oflocal Philippine production, Seville and Cactiz, who complained that Asian including beeswax, various woven cotton textiles merchandise coming through Acapulco eroded (both flne goods and heavier cloths) and gold, their control of the American market. extracted from alluvial deposits in the islands. Consequently, the success of the exchange of The galleons' destination, AcapulcoJ MexicO', was "silks for silver" led to the imposition of a small trade port on the southwest coast of the restrictions which confined a highly lucrative viceroyalty of New Spain which became upon commerce to an arbitrarily fixed maximum, their arrival a great commercial fair, where known as the permiso (permission), including Manila galleon under sail off California coast PAClli'IC SEA RESOURCES 4 limitations on shipping, a cap on the annual value viceroyal capital of Portuguese India. Manila was of the merchandise sent from .Manila, and a larger and mare secure than Macao, the ceiling on the amotmt of the returns in silver Portuguese enclave and enlrepot city on the obtained from the sale of the cargo in New Spain. Chinese coast below Cant.on. The Spanish In reaction, those interested in the trade Philippines were the most substantial and habitually schemed to circumvent the regulations enduring of all European colonial enterprises in order to make their investments pay. In the which developed in the Pacific in the first wave of Spanish empire's commercial system, notorious overseas expansion, in an era preceding 1750, for shortsighted policies which ignored economic when it was said that the sun never set on the rea:ities ar:i made smuggling all but inevitable, Spanish Empire. The sale economic base for the the :\!EL"lila "cJleon trade was one of the more colony was the galleon trade, for 250 years the flourishing sectors of contraband and fraud. 1 pride of :Manila and the envy of all nations. The success of the Spanish in the The Origins of Spanish Trade at Manila Philippines was owed mostly to Manila's location on the eastern rim of the South China Sea. The So near the fabled riches of the Orient, so vast Philippine archipelago lies north of Borneo, far from Spain: The capital of the most distant with its three largest islands and island groups of outpost of the Spanish empire, seventeenth Mindanao in the south, the Visaya" at the center, century Manila was heralded as the "antipodes of and Luzon to the north. Parts of the north coast Seville,' the polar opposite and rival of the city of Luzon are only two days' sail from the Chinese at the heart of Spain's commerce with her mainland. The islands have long been a colcrries. In i:s heyday :Manila eclipsed :'falacca, crossroads of cultural exchange. Centuries' old tr.e interr.at'or.al empor,um oOlalaysia, and made maritime routes brought the products ofthe Spice a bid to become another "Golden Goa," the Islands up from the south, and the luxurious The Pacific Ocean, oy Abraham Ortelius, 1589 5 PACIFIC SEA RESOURCES The bay ofManila in the early 17th Century manufactures of the Chi.:1ese mai:LaJ:d. especially silks and porcelains, ~o its capacious harbor. Spanish men:hants created a trans Pacific trade linking this entrepot, a "magazine for the richest commerce of the world,'" to the colonies in the West Indies. Rich and resilient, Manila was nevertheless deprived of the glory of a viceroyalty. Spanish policy confIned the Philippines to subordinate status as a dependency of New Spain and to a restricted trade that seemed to defy all logic of imperial expansion. Historical circumstances governed Manila's destiny. Some of these were coincidences of time and place which had been operating well before the arrival of Europeans in the Pacific. Others were the consequence of European rivalry in the Far East and jealous and competing interests within the Spanish empire. Prior to the European intrusion the Philippine Islands were relatively thinly populated by a variety of ethnic groups, some closer to the rice'cultivating civilizations ofthe Asian continent, others more dependent on the sea on which they ventured in their swift outrigger craft. Still others were essentially foragers in the hinter lands. These island people were visited by Chinese merchants, sailing 111 accordance with the Chinese and Filipino traders prevailing \.v111ds, known by the Spanish as the PACIFIC SEA RESOURCES 6 brisas, the northeasterly winds which blew from Mediterranean from the late Middle Ages, An the end of October to the end of April, and the even greater premium was placed on the uendavels. the southwesterlies that predominated discovery of a safe detour for the traditional from April to October.' From their junks, ample Mediterranean route after the Ottoman Turks trade ships. the Chinese bartered earthenware, seized the central passage at Constantinople in stoneware. porcelains, silk and cotton textiles, 1453. By the time the Mediterranean and beads. lead. tin, and other items In return for Levantlne trade was restored around 1600, the forest products, such as betel and coconuts, Iberian adventures had produced an un resins. yellow beeswax,

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