This groundbreaking book presents the first full history of the Manila galleons, which marked the true beginning of a global economy. Arturo Giraldez, the world’s leading scholar of the galleons, traces the rise of the maritime route, which began with the founding of the city of Manila in 1571 and ended in 1815 when the last galleon left the port of Acapulco in New Spain (Mexico) for the Philippines, establishing a permanent connection between the Spanish empire in America with Asian countries, most importantly China, the main supplier of commodities during that era. Throughout the two-and-a-half-century history of the Manila galleons, the strategic commodity fuelling global networks was always silver. Giraldez shows how this most important of precious metals shaped world history, with influences that stretch to the present.

Studies of the trade between the Atlantic World and Asia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries typically focus on the exchanges between Atlantic European countries – especially Portugal, the Netherlands and England – and Asia across the Cape route. In The Atlantic World and the Manila Galleons. Circulation, Market, and Consumption of Asian Goods in the Spanish Empire, 1565-1650, José L. Gasch-Tomás offers a new approach to understanding the connections between the Atlantic World and Asia. By drawing attention to the trans-Pacific trade between the Americas and the Philippines, the re-exportation of Asian goods from New Spain to Castile, and the consumption of Chinese silk, Chinese porcelain and Japanese furnishings in New Spain and Seville, this book discloses how New Spanish cities and elites were main components of the spread of taste for Asian goods in the Spanish Empire. This book reveals how New Spanish family and commercial networks channelled the market formation of Asian goods in the Atlantic World around 1600.

Villamar examines the role of Portuguese merchants in the formation of the Manila Galleon as a system of trade founded at the end of the sixteenth century. The rise of Manila as a crucial transshipment port was not a spontaneous incident. Instead, it came about through a complex combination of circumstances and interconnections that nurtured the establishment of the Manila Galleon system, a trading mechanism that lasted two and half centuries from 1565 until 1815. Villamar analyses the establishment of the regulatory framework of the trade across the Pacific Ocean as a whole setting that provided legality to the transactions, predictability to the transportation and security to the stakeholders. He looks both at the Spanish crown strategy in Asia, and the emergence of a network of Portuguese merchants located in Manila and active in the long-distance trade. This informal community of merchants participated from the inception of the trading system across the Pacific, with connections between Europe, ports in Asia under the control of Portugal, the Spanish colonies in America, and the city of Manila. From its inception, the newly-founded capital of the Philippines became a hub of connections, attracting part of the trade that already existed in Asia. Surveying the Portuguese commercial networks from the ‘Estado da Índia’ across the ‘Spanish lake,’ this book sheds light on the early modern globalization from a truly comprehensive Iberian perspective. This is a valuable resource for scholars of Pacific and Iberian trade history and the maritime history of Asia.

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.

This book focuses on the archaeological and historical research on the seaport heritage of galleon navigation in Asia-Pacific region. It reconstructs the Manila Galleons’ era of early maritime globalization, established and operated by Spanish navigators from the 16th to 19th centuries. The galleons sailed across the Pacific via the hub seaports and trade centers of Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico, forming a prosperous sea route connecting eastern Asia and New Spain on the American continent for more than 250 years. This pioneering navigation of the pan-Pacific regions promoted early global maritime trade along the new Maritime Silk Road between the East and the West. Written by archaeologists and cultural historians from America, Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it presents the latest investigations and research on the galleon-affiliated seaports, including Acapulco and San Blas in Mexico, Guam, Manila in Philippines, Yuegang (Crescent Harbor), Xiamen (Amoy), Keelung and Macao in China, Nagasaki in Japan. This joint research sheds new light on the history of navigation and maritime trade between galleon-affiliated harbors; the origin, production, transport and trade of the galleon cargo; social cultural exchange along the new Maritime Silk Road in the pan-Pacific region; and the history of maritime globalization in last 500 years. It offers a new perspective on maritime archaeology and traces the different stages of the galleon trade and affiliated maritime history, including "Yuegang Outbound", "Manila Entrepotting" and "Bound for Acapulco", presenting a panoramagram of Spanish pan-Pacific trade and early maritime globalization.

"The Filipino diaspora is at least 400 years old. Since the sixteenth century, Filipinos have been going to foreign lands to find their place in the sun. In the beginning they were known as the Manila Men. It was only in the nineteenth century that they assumed their present identity as Filipinos." "For two-and-a-half centuries, Filipinos by the hundreds traveled yearly to Mexico and the Americas, with many electing to stay and find a new life. The chief means for migration was the Manila galleon, also known as nao de China, that sailed between the Philippines and Mexico to carry on a lively trade in Asian goods in exchange for silver from the Americas and the trappings of civilization from the West." "The end of the galleon trade in 1815 did not stop the exodus of Filipinos to foreign lands as they began to discover the lure of other exotic ports in Asia and Europe. This book attempts to answer the question often asked: What happened to those Filipinos who started the diaspora? The answers are important because they fill a gap in the long history of this adventurous race."--BOOK JACKET.