Building upon Dr Crossley's 2011 book ('Hernando de los Ríos Coronel and the Spanish Philippines in the Golden Age') this new work further expands our understanding of the Spanish Philippines by looking at Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas and his son Luis, successive governors from 1589. Drawing upon a rich selection of documents from the official Spanish archives (principally the Archivo General de Indias, Seville) and earlier histories, the book also utilizes an unpublished 628 page manuscript in the Lilly Library at Indiana University to provide many details not available elsewhere. In so doing the book reveals the complex situation that existed in the Philippines and how the two governors (and the people around them) threw out, and responded to, challenges from a variety of different cultures. Born into a rich family in north-western Spain about 1539, Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas had a distinguished career in Spain before being selected in 1588, to become the new governor of the Philippines. A devout Christian intent on converting the new country in which he found himself, Dasmariñas epitomised the Spanish state's increasing emphasis on its missionary role. He departed Spain with clear instructions from the king, which had been drawn up in response to requests from the Philippines, asking for a better governor and one of higher moral standards than they had previously enjoyed. From the evidence found in his sources, John Newsome Crossley argues that Dasmariñas largely measured up to these requirements. Killed in an attempt to capture the fort at Ternate in the Moluccas in 1593, Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas was succeeded by his son Luis. After being replaced himself as governor in 1596, Luis remained in the Philippines until his death in the Chinese rebellion of 1603 in Manila. In revealing the story of the two Dasmariñas governors, this book further illuminates the history of the Spanish Philippines and its relationship both with the wider Spanish empire, and the regional powers including China, Japan, Siam and Cambodia.

Soldier, priest, diplomat, explorer, naval pilot and scientist, Hernando de los Rios Coronel was a fascinating figure who played a pivotal role in Spanish efforts to establish a thriving colony in the Philippines. Telling the story of this extraordinary individual, this book provides an introduction to the early history of the Spanish Philippines.

During the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the transpacific treasure galleons sailed annually from Manila to Acapulco. In Manila, the vessel was loaded with the scented spices of the East, luxurious silks from China, exquisite hand crafted lacquerware from Japan and a multitude of Oriental goods that the Spaniards of New Spain longed to own. The returning galleon from Acapulco to Manila, carried as much as 2.5 million silver pesos in payment of the goods sent to the New Spain in the previous year, as well as a yearly silver subsidy of 250,000 reales for the maintenance of the colonial government in the Philippines. But while the galleons mainly sailed alone and unaccompanied from Manila to Acapulco and vice versa, they were vulnerable to a host of calamities and misfortunes. A fire on board the vessel or a terrifying storm could end the voyage and the lives of every one on the ship even before the galleon was able to reach land. Additionally, the commanders of the galleons were always threatened by lurking pirates and privateers who preyed on the vessels and coveted the treasures they carried. The book describes in detail how the galleons were attacked at sea and how they fought against enemy vessels, as well as how many of the ships sank or were shipwrecked over the years. It also covers their management, construction, manning, weaponry, navigation, daily life on the ship, provisions, cargoes and voyages. The book contains an annotated list of the galleons sailing between the Philippines and Mexico from 1565 to 1815. This informative book is the first of its kind to cover such an expansive history of the Pacific galleons which up to this point had remained largely untold.

Beneath the clear waters of the Philippines lie vast treasures from at least 15 Manila Galleons yet to be discovered. During World War II, Yamashita Treasure was meant to be deliberately sunk in Japanese ships, with the intention of recovery after the War. Read this book to find out more. This book is issued with a word of warning. There are grave an unexpected dangers associated with treasure hunting in the Philippines. This is an easy to read history book, well researched and full of information that you will not find in anywhere else.

Scholars have long assumed that Spanish colonial rule had only a limited demographic impact on the Philippines. Filipinos, they believed, had acquired immunity to Old World diseases prior to Spanish arrival; conquest was thought to have been more benign than what took place in the Americas because of more enlightened colonial policies introduced by Philip II. Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines illuminates the demographic history of the Spanish Philippines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and, in the process, challenges these assumptions. In this provocative new work, Linda Newson convincingly demonstrates that the Filipino population suffered a significant decline in the early colonial period. Newson argues that the sparse population of the islands meant that Old World diseases could not become endemic in pre-Spanish times. She also shows that the initial conquest of the Philippines was far bloodier than has often been supposed and that subsequent Spanish demands for tribute, labor, and land brought socioeconomic transformations and depopulation that were prolonged beyond the early conquest years. Comparisons are made with the impact of Spanish colonial rule in the Americas. Newson adopts a regional approach and examines critically each major area in Luzon and the Visayas in turn. Building on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, she proposes a new estimate for the population of the Visayas and Luzon of 1.57 million in 1565—slightly higher than that suggested by previous studies—and calculates that by the mid-seventeenth century this figure may have fallen by about two-thirds. Based on extensive archival research conducted in secular and missionary archives in the Philippines, Spain, and elsewhere, Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines is an exemplary contribution to our understanding of the formative influences on demographic change in premodern Southeast Asian society and the history of the early Spanish Philippines.