Reporting on the Marianas and Their Inhabitants in Early 18th-century Germany

The Jesuit ‘Neue Welt-Bott’ (New World Messenger) as a Source of Knowledge and Colonial Fantasy

By Dr. Ulrike Strasser, University of California San Francisco

Abstract

Although very few Germans in the early 18th century knew much if anything at all about the Marianas, reports from the Pacific islands on the other side of the world came to fill the front pages of Germany’s most important serial missionary publication. Launched by the Jesuit Joseph Stoecklein in 1726, “Der Neue Welt-Bott” (New World Messenger) appeared in forty issues and targeted a broad educated audience. The massive collection featured information from all around the world, from missionary letters and travel reports to maps and various types of cultural commentary. Given the careful assemblage of the materials presented in “Der Neue Welt-Bott”, the editor obviously made a conscious choice to open the first (and subsequent issues) with reports about the Marianas and their inhabitants. What prompted Joseph Stoecklein to give the Marianas such centrality in his publication? What knowledge about and what image of the islands and their inhabitants did the chosen texts convey to German readers? And what, if any, information can we glean from these European reports about island society under Spanish and Jesuit rule? This paper discusses the prominence, function, and content of the Marianas reports in “Der Neue Welt-Bott”, including a 1684 map of the islands.