Prof Pilar Viviente

The voyages of the feat of Magellan-Elcano, the Manila galleon and the Silk Road

The Manila Galleon

and the Maritime Silk Road

A travelling exhibition in Alicante, Castellon and Valencia by the Silk Spain Institute. Prof. Pilar Viviente

Ah, blues of the sea! Paint me blue

Of your confines I am prisoner

Ah, blues of the seas! Paint me of eternity

Of your unexplored vastness I am prisoner

A prisoner of freedom In the routes of peace

A traveller

An explorer Of oceans

The Manila Galleon, also called the Galleon of Acapulco and Nao of China, was the name by which ships that crossed the Pacific Ocean once or twice a year between Manila (Philippines) and the ports of New Spain in America, mainly Acapulco, were known.

The Exhibition: "The Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road in the wake of the Nao Victoria" (El Galeón de Manila y la Ruta Marítima de la Seda en la estela de la Nao Victoria) was opened on December 16 2021 with the sponsorship of the National Commission of the V Centenary of the Magellan and Elcano' First Trip Around the World.

On December 10, 1520, an expedition led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano crossed what is now the Straits of Magellan, bringing it to the brink of the unexplored vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

The Silk Spain Institute (Instituto Seda España) presents this exhibition within the project selected by the Commission of the V Centenary, one of the five chosen among those who opted from all over Spain to celebrate the fifth centenary of what was the first journey around the world.

The project consists of holding three conferences or round tables in each of the provinces of the Valencian Community and the Exhibition "The Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road in the wake of the Nao Victoria" that itinerantly began its tour by opening the exhibition at the Naval Command in Alicante on December 16 2021, it will continue at the Moruno Building in the Grau of Castellon from February 1st 2022, and it will end at the Museum of the Higher Silk Art College in Valencia from March 24th. Levante" in the centre of the city that has made its facilities available to all Alicante and visitors completing with all its flavour of authenticity and its collaboration this naval, historical, playful and enriching exhibition.

Silk Spain Institute held a Round table/ Conference once 2022 began, commemorating in that year the completion of the first circumnavigation of the world, entitled "The Manila Galleon and the Maritime Silk Road in the wake of the Nao Victoria” History, Present and Future, where in addition to the historical theme, the Silk Spain Institute presented and looked forward to an initiative on the Public Network of Bio-Ports and Coastal Municipalities, which has the Galleon as a symbol of cleaning ports, beaches, seas and oceans. A good way to keep the spirit of the Galleon and its values alive.

For 250 years the route opened by Spanish explorers between America and the Philippines was crossed by hundreds of galleons that, loaded with products and passengers, definitively turned the Pacific Ocean into a communication route between two continents.

The Manila Galleon crosses the Pacific Ocean annually loaded with the greatest treasures of two continents and turns the ports of Manila and Acapulco into distribution centres of an international trade that ends up affecting the entire world. While the piece of eight Hispanic Americans (the Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight. Spanish: Real de a ocho, Dólar or Peso) become a bargaining chip throughout the Asian continent, silks and oriental luxury items are scattered from Acapulco throughout America, reach Europe through Seville and condition the fashions and tastes of the elites of half the world.

The framework where the Exhibition is held for the first time, could not be more appropriate, the Naval Command of Alicante in the "Muelle de The first circumnavigation or round-the-world tour began in 1519 and ended in 1522. We are celebrating the V Centenary of this feat.

According to the Silk Spain Institute, this event can be considered as the beginning of the direct connection with the Maritime Silk Road and the completion of the "Tornaviaje", origin of the Manila Galleon Route. What in fact meant the first mercantile, economic It is the intention of this exhibition "The Maritime Silk Route and the Manila Galleon in the wake of the Nao Victoria" to highlight the fundamental participation of Spain in

Still taken from the video ‘Inauguración en la casa dels caragols en Castellón de la Exposición: ”El Galeón de Manila y la Ruta Marítima de la Seda en la estela de la Nao Victoria’ by Silk Spain Instutute.

the development of the Maritime Silk Route. As the Silk Spain Institute points out: We reflect this from the Silk Spain Institute responsible for the exhibition with the collaboration of UNESCO Silk Road Platform, and the support and sponsorship of the National Commission for the V Centenary of the First Around the World (National Commission for the commemoration of the First Round the World of Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián

Elcano, “Comisión Nacional para la conmemoración de la Primera Vuelta al Mundo de Fernando de Magallanes y Juan Sebastián Elcano”).

The Exhibition therefore tries to reflect that the adventure of Columbus' arrival in the new continent – what he believed the Indies looking for the land of spices, that is, the Maritime Silk Road always sailing west convinced of the roundness of the earth, gave rise to the First Circumnavigation of the Globe started by Magellan and completed by

Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Managing to find a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and reaching the Moluccas Islands, the Philippines (in honour of King Felipe) and the so-called Spice Route and the Maritime Silk Road, returning to Spain through the Indian Ocean, doubling Cape of 'Buena Esperanza' (Good Hope) and going up the African Continent to arrive in Spain. Achieving the first circumnavigation of the world demonstrating the sphericity of the

This gave rise years after the hand of Andrés de Urdaneta and López de Legazpi to the "Tornaviaje", that is, the return from the Philippines to New Spain (both at that time Spanish possessions). Launching the Manila Galleon Route was considered the first global route in history since it linked Asia with America and Europe. Linking the Maritime Silk Road from Manila with Acapulco and by land Acapulco with Veracruz and from here with the Fleet of the Indies to reach Cádiz and Seville. Route that lasted 250 years.

It was the trade and the tenacity of the navigators, explorers, missionaries and the interest of the charts, drawings of the time, models of caravels, galleons, xebecs (jabeques), ships of those glorious and hard-working years. In addition, spices, porcelain, clothing, silks, chasubles, and objects that were traded in the past are exhibited, as well as letters and charts from merchants, a facsimile of the diary of the explorer and geographer Antonio Pigaffeta and a portulan map of Juan Vespucci. Moreover, we must highlight a cardboard tapestry from the Royal Tapestry Factory for this exhibition, which is exhibited to the public for the first time. Is this an honour that gives more value to the exhibition.

The Cardboard for Tapestry ceded by the Royal Tapestry Factory stands out in this exhibition. The cardboard is part of the "Triptych of the Discovery of America", where Christopher Columbus appears in different scenes with the

Catholic Monarchs. This fragment corresponds to the left side of the triptych, in which Christopher

Columbus appears kneeling before Queen Isabella the Catholic, with a chest in his hands full of jewels.

Cardboard for Tapestry, corresponds to the left side of the triptych, in which Christopher Columbus appears kneeling before Queen Isabella the Catholic, with a chest full of jewels in his hands (Source: Royal Tapestry Factory).

Spanish Crown, who managed to pursue new routes within the reach of Europeans. These feats were achieved by Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Magellan, Elcano, Urdaneta, López de Legázpi and many other fellow travellers. The beginning of the route between SpainAmerica-Asia was a consequence of Columbus' voyages across the Atlantic to reach the Indies; the discovery of the South Sea (Pacific Ocean)

by Vasco Núñez de Balboa; of the first return to the Earth carried out by the Magallanes-Elcano expedition and of the conquest of Mexico -New Spain- by Hernán Cortés, as the Naval Museum points out in a previous exhibition (The Manila Galleon. The Spanish route that linked three continents, 2016).

The beginning, development and disappearance of the commercial route that for 250 years (15651815) united three continents requires more space. Just highlight that once the return route was found (1565), the Manila Galleon became the first commercial line that linked Asia, America and Europe with its base ports in Manila, Acapulco and Seville or Cádiz. The ship was due to leave at the end of June, the first week of July – the monsoon season – from the port of Cavite, in Manila Bay, and to reach its destination port in the last week of December. On the return trip, it sailed from Acapulco in March or April and docked at the Philippine anchorage around June or July.

The galleon shipping line brought prosperity to the markets of Manila and Acapulco. Asian products from the Moluccas, China, Japan, Formosa, Siam and Indica arrived at the port of Manila. Arriving from the Pacific at the Acapulco pier in New Spain, they unloaded silks, tea, toys, screens and Japanese lacquer ware, porcelain, jade, ivory, furniture, spices (cloves, cinnamon, pepper), textiles from the province of Ilocos... Subsequently, this merchandise was transferred by land to the port of Veracruz, on the Atlantic coast, where it was loaded again on the ships of the Fleet of the Indies with final destination in the docks of Seville and Cádiz.

In words of Enrique Gaspar Rodríguez, curator of this exhibition: "I trust that you will enjoy this modest exhibition and help to know something more about how the events were, what merchandise was transported, what spices were sought, what ships were used, that is, an approximation to the world of XVI to XIX centuries, from points of view that will allow us to know a little more where we come from and who we are.”

That extraordinary epic of multiculturalism and exchange that our ancestors put before history deserves to be known: the extraordinary reality of discoveries, interculturality and globalization that the Spanish Empire and what were then known as "the Spains" supposed. It is time to put an end to the widespread lack of knowledge, along with the over-abundance of misinformation and prejudice that exists about this topic. Actually, globalization began when the Old World connected directly to the Americas through Manila.

Despite in Mexico are used to considering Acapulco as the start of the route, in reality, the galleons departed from Manila, as pointed out the Mexican José Antonio Cervera Jiménez (2020) in his article "The Manila Galleon: Commodities, People and Ideas traveling across the Pacific (1565-1815)".

According to Cervera Jiménez, the route of China's Nao cannot be explained without reference to Manila's large Chinese community. The Philippine capital became the meeting place or bridge between New Spain and the Empire of the Ming Dynasty. Legazpi, on his way to Manila, found several captive Chinese and freed them. Several of these captives returned to their land and subsequently went to Manila to sell their products. Trade between Spaniards and Chinese grew in the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth to expected limits. Thus, the route of the ManilaAcapulco Galleon or China's Nao was born.

For two and a half centuries European ideas crossed the Pacific, shaped the reality of countries like the Philippines and influenced others like China and Japan. But this transfer of ideas, of

culture, of science, did not take place only in the direction of Asia. The hundreds who crossed the ocean from Manila to Acapulco influenced both the New Spanish vice-royalty and Europe.

Religious and secular chronicles, letters and relations, made China and other Asian countries known to authorities, men of the Church and intellectuals of the countries of Spanish America and also European, developing a profoundly positive vision of countries such as China. Beyond the religious controversies, the Asian reality in America and Europe became known, which made this route one of the first that gave rise to a "global" intellectual and religious environment, in the broadest sense of the word.

During the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, the central period of operation of the trans-Pacific route, there was great regularity in the departures and arrivals of ships to ports. From the end of the seventeenth century, many European merchants - mainly English and Dutch, but also French, Portuguese, Swedish and Danish, came to Manila to benefit from the trade of Asian goods. While in the first decades, most of the products came from China, at the end of the period, already in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, goods from India were transported with a value similar to those from China.

With the Bourbon reforms of Charles III, the monopoly of Manila was consolidated with the creation of the Royal Company of the Philippines in 1795, which made it possible for ships to arrive from Spain directly to the Philippine archipelago, along the route of the Cape of 'Buena Esperanza' (Good Hope). In March 1815 the last galleon, with the symbolic name of Magallanes, left Acapulco for Manila. No one can deny today the importance of this sixteenth-century trans-Pacific route, to establish a commercial and cultural relationship with Asia. Since the seventies of the last century, the work of several economists revealed the complexity of the commercial financial mechanism of the Galleon Route. It has been said that the founding of Manila was the trigger for the first globalization of the world economy.

Among the products that crossed the Pacific, there were fabrics of all kinds, especially silk. Amid the silk testimonies in this show of the first continuous and determined approach of populations from three continents, Europe, America and Asia, is the Manila Shawl. They were also luxury goods exported via the Manila galleons to Nueva España and Europe, sometimes as gifts to royalty.

Silk, though attempted numerous times, never became an established industry in the Philippines. Silk fabrics remained a Chinese monopoly. Capitalizing on this new demand, Chinese factories in Canton (modern Guangzhou) and Macau started producing large quantities of painted or embroidered silk in the 18th century, for the sole purpose of exporting them to the Philippines and from there to further Spanish colonies and to Europe.

Silk in domestic Chinese markets were usually reserved for clothing, and the designs had symbolic significance based on social status. But these silk exports by China during the 17th to 19th centuries were non-traditional items tailored to the tastes of the European market. In particular, they mass-produced religious vestments for the Catholic clergy, tapestries, and pañuelo-style shawls. Although these early Chinese-made shawls typically featured Chinese motifs in the embroidery, like dragons, birds, butterflies, toads, lotus, flowers, and Chinese people and scenes, they also adapted non-Chinese conventions like the fringes that the Chinese observed from the Philippines.

the April Fair in Seville, most of the women in Gypsy dress (flamenco dress) use the shawl as an accessory. The Manila shawl is also used by female flamenco dancers during their dance, as it is a great dance enhancer and adds drama when the flamenco dancer twirls it around her body and in the air.

Manila Shawl exhibited in Castellón. Courtesy of the Silk Spain Institute.

These silk shawls became immensely popular in the Philippines and were quickly adopted into the local fashions of upper class Luzon women in the 18th and 19th centuries. Similarly, they became highly sought-after luxury exports shortly after arriving in the Americas. They are believed to have influenced later designs of the rebozo of Latin America.

Their popularity in Spain increased after Mexico's independence in 1815. The trade ships from Manila, which previously had to stop over in Acapulco, now had direct routes to Seville. During part of the 19th century, romanticism took over and Parisian fashions dictated that the shoulders of women should be left uncovered. Spanish women copied the fashion and they found that the Manila shawl was a very good thing to wear with these dresses. Besides dresses, it was also used to decorate pianos and sofas in elegant houses. Many Spanish houses today still use the Manila shawls to decorate pianos and sofas.

Today, the Manila shawls are still very popular in Andalusia for festive occasions. Women use the shawls for dressing up and going to parties. During the Festival of the Crosses of May in Cordoba, balconies are dressed up with the shawl that add a bright look to the plazas. During The Manila shawl is an integral part of Spanish culture today. My mother wore the one given to her by my father's mother. I remember my grandmother often singing the famous habanera "¿Dónde vas con mantón de manila? (Where are you going with manila shawl?), from "La verbena de la Paloma" (The verbena of the Dove), 1894. I have also heard my father singing this habanera at home.

The zarzuela or operetta of Tomás Bretón, "La Verbena de la Paloma" or "El boticario, las chulapas y celos mal reprimidos" (The apothecary, the chulapas and jealousy badly repressed) (1894), is considered as the queen of zarzuelas, the genre chico (of short duration). My paternal grandfather played it with the violin in the orchestra of the Zarzuela de Madrid, in which she joined as a teenager and of which she was a member for several years.

To end, let's remember how this habanera begins:

¿Dónde vas con mantón de manila? ¿Dónde vas con vestido chinés?

Where do you go with a manila shawl? Where do you go in a Chinese dress?

At that time, everything that came from Asia was called Chinese, from objects to people. It is important to note that this designation was not derogatory and even some genres were so appreciated, such as silk and porcelain, that it was a source of pride to say that you had a product from China.

Still taken from the video ‘Inauguración en la casa dels caragols en Castellón de la Exposición: ”El Galeón de Manila y la Ruta Marítima de la Seda en la estela de la Nao Victoria’ by Silk Spain Instutute.