The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy

by Arturo Giráldez

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.

Genres: History, Economics

323 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 16, 2015

Reviews

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite informative, no overly academic, a history book to recommend.

Part of Exploring World History series.

Acknowledgments : " ... I really wrote on the shoulders of giants ... Shirley Fish, Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina, and William Lytle Schurz ... "

(I'm reading Schurz now, and want to next interlibrary loan a Fish. Schurz is outstanding, so I skimmed much of Arturo, wanting to resume Schurz.)

Some quotes - what I'd want to know if I was going through the Philippines on the way to Japan, about 400 to 800 years ago :

"Japan had a 'Christian Century,' in which friars from the Philippines played a fundamental role."

" ... at the time of the Spanish arrival, the total population of the Philippine archipelago was between 1.25 and 1.57 million ... large proportion concentrated in trading centers or areas of intensive wet rice cultivation ..."

"Low birth rates resulted from extended breastfeeding, contraceptive herbs, abortion, and fertility-reducing diseases like malaria ... Upper-class women interrupted their pregnancies to limit their lineage and preserve their heritage, while less affluent women did the same due to poverty. Christian Europeans wrote with surprise about the social acceptance of such practices."

"Before Spain's era of colonization, the majority of the archipelago's inhabitants--identified as Tagalog, a word meaning 'people living along the river'--resided in small, kinship-based, autonomous communities called barangays, a word derived from the boats that brought the Malay to the Philippine Islands." (Considering the submerging of Sunda, following the end of the ice age, refugees probably started coming to the islands about 8000 years ago.)

"Barangays and the Age of Commerce after 1405 ... 1405--the year of the first trade mission under the Chinese Admiral Zheng He--to signal the beginning of Southeast Asia's 'age of commerce.'"

"In the Philippines this upsurge of economic activities resulted in ... an increase in raiding and the consolidation of chiefdoms into larger, more cohesive political entities. Barangays build fortification and acquired guns ... and a class of professional warriors emerged. When the Spaniards conquered Manila, they encountered an artillery foundry and cannons defending the palisade."

"Quite different from the lowland Tagalog were the native groups in the highlands of the islands, who presented many challenges to the colonizers ...

"The Igorots, who were located in gold mining regions, are particularly relevant. Before the conquest, Agoo ... known to the Spaniards as Puerto del Japon (Japan's Port)--was a trading colony in which Chinese and Japanese merchants bartered for gold ... Reports from expeditions are the first descriptions of the Igorots ... between eighteen and twenty thousand people. They practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, and their basic diet consisted of root crops such as taro, camotes, or yams. Rice was cultivated without plows or draft animals ... on the Ifugao terraces of the Cordillera, the stone walls of which extend for more than twenty thousand kilometers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Te...

" ... the natives waited during the typhoon season for the Spaniards to exhaust their provisions, and when the heavy November rains rendered the matchlocks on Spanish guns useless, the natives attacked. The Japanese had had the foresight to add waterproof lacquer covers to their harquebus to protect the burning match during rainstorms and to hide the glowing wick at night, but no such innovation or any equivalent had ever crossed the minds of European gun makers."

"The Spaniards failed to conquer the mountains of northwestern Luzon." (Where I want my time travel chap to have one of his three base camps.)

"Islamized Tagalog were among the largest-scale traders and ship owners ... By the time the Europeans arrived, Islam had already been present for centuries."

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This unique book on an overlooked and important aspect of the Age of Exploration can't seem to pick what it wants to be. Is it an economic history? A political history? Or (least of all) a cultural history? Perhaps Giraldez presupposes a reader with more foreknowledge of the topic than I have, which is fair, but I often found myself lost in the lists of figures and officials. The inclusions of laws was extremely helpful and interesting but their contents were poorly explained. I wanted to read more about the Magellan exchange, revealing my own biases. I wanted to read more about interactions with the Chinese and Filipinos. I wanted more than figures and names, which disrupt the narrative and delay analysis. I think this book is part of a crucial project but for the uninformed reader and perhaps the informed reader as well, it falls short in terms of analytical content.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Manila - Acapulco Galleons were perhaps the first instance of globalization trading Peruvian silver for the goods from China: silk, ceramics, which the Chinese were exporting. It was called the Manila Galleons because the end point was Manila, right close to the ports of China, and it linked Acapulco across the Pacific Ocean.

The Manila galleons took about six months to cross the Pacific and round trip was a year in difficult conditions. There was typically only about one or two galleons per year from the 1580s-1800 when I ended.

This linking of the markets of Peru/Mexico, Spain, and China began a new chapter in human history when the produce of the Americas were carried to China. This study is very detailed and contains much information about the developmen to the Philipines.

Very important for understanding of globalization.

[Juhyundred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid nuts-and-bolts history of the Manila Galleon and general overview of the Spanish Empire in the Philippines + the Pacific. Giraldez does a good job of explaining the fine details of the galleon trade, particularly the monetary aspects tied to the circulation of American silver. Mostly well written, but cumbersome in some sections. Could have given a more thorough summary about the African presence in the Philippines, and the role of slavery in the galleon trade and colonial society. A clearer picture of the galleon trade's impact on the colonial economy of the Americas would have been nice.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

Reviewed by Asian Review of Books