The Manila galleon trade route was a Spanish trade route linking the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies to Mexico (New Spain), across the Pacific Ocean, in use from 1565 to 1815. This route was plied by sailing ships or galleons i.e. the Manila galleons (; ) that made one or two round-trip voyages per year between Manila and Acapulco.
The route was inaugurated in 1565 after the Augustinian friar and navigator Andrés de Urdaneta pioneered the tornaviaje or return route from the Philippines to Mexico. Urdaneta and Alonso de Arellano made the first successful round trips that year, by taking advantage of the Kuroshio Current. The galleons set sail from Cavite, in Manila Bay, at the end of June or the first week of July, sailing through the northern Pacific and reaching Acapulco in March to April of the next calendar year. The return route from Acapulco passes through lower latitudes closer to the equator, stopping over in the Marianas, then sailing onwards through the San Bernardino Strait off Cape Espiritu Santo in Samar and then to Manila Bay and anchoring again off Cavite by June or July. The trade using "Urdaneta's route" lasted until 1815, when the Mexican War of Independence broke out. The majority of these galleons were built and loaded in shipyards in Cavite, utilizing native hardwoods like the Philippine teak, with sails produced in Ilocos, and with the rigging and cordage made from salt-resistant Manila hemp. The vast majority of the galleon's crew consisted of Filipino natives; many of whom were farmers, street children, or vagrants press-ganged into service as sailors. The officers and other skilled crew were usually Spaniards (a high percentage of whom were of Basque descent). The galleons were state vessels and thus the cost of their construction and upkeep was borne by the Spanish Crown.
The galleons mostly carried cargoes of Chinese and other Asian luxury goods in exchange for New World silver. Silver prices in Asia were substantially higher than in America, leading to an arbitrage opportunity for the Manila galleon. Every space of the galleons was packed tightly with cargo, even spaces outside the holds like the decks, cabins, and magazines. In extreme cases, they towed barges filled with more goods. While this resulted in slow passage (which sometimes resulted in shipwrecks or turning back), the profit margins were so high that it was commonly practiced. These goods included Indian ivory and precious stones, Chinese silk and porcelain, cloves from the Moluccas islands, cinnamon, ginger, lacquers, tapestries and perfumes from all over Asia. In addition, slaves (collectively known as "") from various parts of Asia (mainly slaves bought from the Portuguese slave markets and Muslim captives from the Spanish–Moro conflict) were also transported from the Manila slave markets to Mexico. Free indigenous Filipinos also migrated to Mexico via the galleons (including galleon crew that jumped ship), comprising the majority of free Asian settlers ("") in Mexico, particularly in regions near the terminal ports of the Manila galleons. The route also fostered cultural exchanges that shaped the identities and the culture of the countries involved.
The Manila galleons were also known colloquially in New Spain as ("The China Ship") because they carried mostly Chinese goods shipped from Manila.Bernabéu Albert, Salvador, ed. (2013). La Nao de China, 1565-1815. Navegación, comercio e intercambios culturales. Universidad de Sevilla. ISBN 8447215377, 9788447215379. The Manila Galleon route was an early instance of globalization, representing a trade route from Asia that crossed to the Americas, thereby connecting all the world's continents in global silver trade.Flynn, Dennis O.; Arturo Giráldez (2010). China and the Birth of Globalization in the 16th Century. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
In 2015, the Philippines and Mexico began preparations for the nomination of the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade Route in the UNESCO World Heritage List with backing from Spain, which has also suggested the tri-national nomination of the archives on the Manila–Acapulco Galleons in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
History
Discovery of the route
Spain's presence in the Philippines came from a desire to compete with Portugal for control of the spice trade. Between 1500 and 1530, the Portuguese crown worked to replace Middle Eastern and Venetian traders as the principal transporter of lucrative spices, conquering Goa in 1510 and making contact with the Maluku Islands in modern Indonesia in 1515. In 1521, a Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan sailed west across the Pacific using the westward trade winds. The expedition discovered the Mariana Islands and the Philippines and claimed them for Spain. Although Magellan was killed by natives commanded by Lapulapu during the battle of Mactan in the Philippines, one of his ships, the Victoria, made it back to Spain by continuing westward.
To settle and trade with these islands from the Americas, an eastward maritime return path was necessary. The , which tried this a few years later, failed. In 1529, Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón also tried sailing east from the Philippines, but could not find "westerlies" across the Pacific. In 1543, Bernardo de la Torre also failed. In 1542, however, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo helped pave the way by sailing north from Mexico to explore the Pacific coast, reaching just north of the 38th parallel at the Russian River. The frustration of these failures is shown in a letter sent in 1552 from Portuguese Goa by the Spanish missionary Francis Xavier to Simão Rodrigues asking that no more fleets attempt the New Spain–East Asia route, lest they be lost.The letter is referenced as
Despite prior failures navigator Andrés de Urdaneta effectively persuaded Spanish officials in New Spain that a Philippines–Mexico trade route was preferable to other alternatives. He argued against direct trade between Spain and the Philippines through the Strait of Magellan on the basis that climate would make passage through the strait possible only during summer and that therefore ships would need to stay the winter in a more northern port. His preference for Mexico rather than for the shorter overland route through Darién is thought to have been due to his links to Pedro de Alvarado.
The Manila–Acapulco galleon trade finally began when Spanish navigators Alonso de Arellano and Andrés de Urdaneta discovered the eastward return route in 1565. Sailing as part of the expedition commanded by Miguel López de Legazpi to conquer the Philippines in 1564, Urdaneta was given the task of finding a return route. Reasoning that the trade winds of the Pacific might move in a gyre as the Atlantic winds did, they sailed north, going all the way to the 38th parallel north, off the east coast of Japan, before catching the westerlies that would take them back across the Pacific. He commanded a vessel which completed the eastward voyage in 129 days; this marked the opening of the Manila galleon trade.
Reaching the west coast of North America, Urdaneta's ship, the San Pedro, hit the coast near Santa Catalina Island, California, then followed the shoreline south to San Blas and later to Acapulco, arriving on October 8, 1565. Most of his crew died on the long initial voyage, for which they had not sufficiently provisioned. Arellano, who had taken a more southerly route, had already arrived.
The English privateer Francis Drake also reached the California coast, in 1579. After capturing a Spanish ship heading for Manila, Drake turned north, hoping to meet another Spanish treasure ship coming south on its return from Manila to Acapulco. He failed in that regard, but staked an English claim somewhere on the northern California coast. Although the ship's log and other records were lost, the officially accepted location is now called Drakes Bay, on Point Reyes south of Cape Mendocino.
By the 18th century, it was understood that a less northerly track was sufficient when nearing the North American coast, and galleon navigators steered well clear of the rocky and often fogbound northern and central California coast. According to historian William Lytle Schurz, "They generally made their landfall well down the coast, somewhere between Point Conception and Cape San Lucas ... After all, these were preeminently merchant ships, and the business of exploration lay outside their field, though chance discoveries were welcomed".Schurz 1917, p.107-108
The first motivation for land exploration of present-day California was to scout out possible way stations for the seaworn Manila galleons on the last leg of their journey. Early proposals came to little, but in 1769, the Portola expedition established ports at San Diego and Monterey (which became the administrative center of Alta California), providing safe harbors for returning Manila galleons.
The Manila galleon and California
Despite annual galleons sailing along the coast from 1565-1769, no ships discovered the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay, due to factors such as fog, ships avoiding sailing close to shore, and hills making the coast look continuous from a distance.
In 1587 Spaniards discovered Morro Bay, far south of San Francisco. In 1594 they discovered Drake's Bay north of San Francisco and Monterey Bay south of it. Galleons stopped in Monterey prior to California's Spanish settlement in 1769; however, visits became regular between 1777 and 1794 because the Crown ordered the galleon to stop in Monterey. Monterey was about two months and three weeks out from Manila in the 18th century, and the galleon tended to stop there 40 days before arriving in Acapulco.
Trade
Trade with Ming China via Manila served as a major source of revenue for the Spanish Empire and as a fundamental source of income for Spanish colonists in the Philippine Islands. Galleons used for the trade between East and West were crafted by Filipino artisans. Until 1593, two or more ships would set sail annually from each port.Schurz, William Lytle (1939). The Manila Galleon, p. 193. The Manila trade became so lucrative that Seville merchants petitioned king Philip II of Spain to protect the monopoly of the Casa de Contratación based in Seville. This led to the passing of a decree in 1593 that set a limit of two ships sailing each year from either port, with one kept in reserve in Acapulco and one in Manila. An "armada", or armed escort of galleons, was also approved. Due to official attempts to control the galleon trade, contraband and understating of ships' cargoes became widespread.
The galleon trade was supplied by merchants largely from port areas of Fujian, such as Quanzhou, as depicted in the Selden Map, and Yuegang (the old port of Haicheng in Zhangzhou, Fujian), who traveled to Manila to sell the Spaniards spices, porcelain, ivory, lacquerware, processed silk cloth and other valuable commodities. Cargoes varied from one voyage to another but often included goods from all over Asia: jade, wax, gunpowder and silk from China; amber, cotton and rugs from India; spices from Indonesia and Malaysia; and a variety of goods from Japan, the Spanish part of the so-called Nanban trade, including Japanese fans, chests, screens, porcelain and lacquerware.
In addition, slaves of various origins, including East Africa, Portuguese India, the Muslim sultanates of Southeast Asia, and the Spanish Philippines, were transported from Manila and sold in New Spain. African slaves were categorized as negros or cafres while all slaves of Asian origin were called chinos. The lack of detailed records makes it difficult to estimate the total number of slaves transported or the proportions of slaves from each region.