El enemigo de todas partes. Discursos de alteridad y estrategias de dominación en la Monarquía Hispánica (entre Acapulco y Manila, 1584-1614)

Abstract

Between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, Asia presented a limit to the territorial expansion of the Hispanic Monarchy. On the shores of the Pacific, other regional and European powers prevailed. In Manila, the cohabitation with these others, identified as the Catholic king’s enemies, crashed into the perception of the Spanish Crown’s estrangement. The circulation of alterity discourses permitted the royal agents to bridge cultural distances with indigenous and foreigners in the archipelago, as well as geographical distances with Monarchy authorities. The analysis and cross-referencing of the opinions of officials, religious and the king himself on the state of the Philippines and the feasible solutions for their problems allows for reflection on the diverse frames of reference of the subjects whose interoceanic mobility activated the globalizing dynamics of the Early Modern Period.