The Archaeological Remains of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism on Guam and Their Implications

Using a late seventeenth century map of Jesuit religious structures and native Chamorro communities on Guam, this chapter explores the possible impacts of early Spanish colonialism, in the period just prior to La Reduccion, on the island as reflected in the rather sparse record of Contact Period archaeological remains at these same communities. Is this a manifestation of the low level of colonial investment from Spain in Guam, the amalgamation of Chamorro and Spanish material culture, or the lack of archaeological attention to these possible sites?

Spain in the Mariana Islands, 1521–1898

Located about 1500 miles northeast of the Philippines and 1500 miles southwest of Japan, the Mariana Islands lie astride the north equatorial trade-wind that crosses from the Americas to East Asia. It’s the Islands’ location that led to contact between the Spanish and the indigenous Chamorro people in 1521. Their initial contact was followed by more than a century of intermittent trade and cultural interaction, culminating in a Jesuit-inspired colonization by the late seventeenth century. As a result of their homeland’s geostrategic location, the Chamorros became the first Pacific Island people to experience sustained Western contact, especially Christian conversion and European colonization. The Spanish-Chamorro interaction during this continuum offers a unique example of early modern colonialism in the Asia-Pacific region, since it reflects the cross-cultural encounter of imperial objectives and indigenous agency that generated an ethnogenesis and recreated the Chamorro society, culture, and identity.

From First Encounters to Sustained Engagement and Alienation

This chapter outlines an ongoing research program which investigates the evolving engagements between ni-Vanuatu and Europeans in the Port Sandwich region (in southern Malakula, Vanuatu) during the period from 1774 to 1915. The research has drawn on a multiplicity of sources—including oral traditions, historic documents, and archaeological surveys and excavations—in an attempt to provide new insights into the process of colonization from both an indigenous and European perspective. For instance, James Cook visited the ‘ideal’ harbour in 1774. Following his positive report of the location, almost all foreign vessels visiting northern Vanuatu over the next 100 years would use Port Sandwich as a base. It became an early focus for sustained European settlement. Although Vanuatu (or the New Hebrides, as it was then known) became a formalized colony in 1906, land purchases in Port Sandwich began as early as the 1870s. Moreover, a French military camp was established earlier, in 1886, and Catholic missionaries arrived two years later. Increasing tensions developed and conflict inevitably erupted. Indigenous resistance continued for decades, and, by 1913, as evidence suggests there was massive depopulation.

Introduction

We briefly review the topics that our case studies in Vanuatu, Marianas, the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and Japan highlight, and note the value of these studies in framing a comparative approach to colonialism in the Asia-Pacific region. Each case study highlights different aspects in the colonial relationship. The chapters have been grouped following a geographical criterion, and the imbalance reflects the fact that some areas have been better studied than others (e.g. for Marianas), albeit with different perspectives. We express our hope that the book has gathered some previously little systematic or accessible evidence, offered comprehensive histories of some of the areas, and raised questions for the future.

Encountering the Wider World before the Transition to History

Because the historical archaeology of Taiwan has, since the seventeenth century, focused on either Dutch and Spanish occupations or Chinese immigration, it hasremained unconcerned by earlier, proto-historic encounters with the outside world. Based on foreign ceramics, particularly those originating from China, this chapter explores the exchanges between Taiwan and other regions from the tenth to sixteenth centuries. Although the archaeological record suggests that the island of Taiwan was visited by the Chinese, the two major trade routes of the time (one from Fuzhou or Quanzhou to Ryukyu and the other connecting Quanzhou and Luzon through the Penghu Islands) may have simply skimmed past Taiwan’s coasts. The lack of desired products which might have met the demands of Chinese markets restricted Taiwan’s share of the growing maritime commerce. The “Austronesian Routes” —the multi-dimensional and complicated communication and exchange networks that prehistoric aboriginals of Taiwan had long actively participated in—were steadily fragmented during the process of expansion of the South China ceramic trade, and they were eventually segregated from world commerce systems. It is this long-term process that generates the “backwardness” of Taiwan's aboriginal societies as portrayed not only in early Chinese texts but also in Dutch and Spanish documents.

Island Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century

This chapter opens with a historical setting for the sixteenth and seventeenth century development of the main island of Taiwan and its offshore islands. Attention is paid to the settlement patterns of the Austronesian speaking indigenes, the arrival of Chinese migrants, and the European presence of the Spanish and Dutch. Its main thrust is to situate this history within the broader time frame of the age of discovery and European overseas expansion history from a transnational perspective. This perspective is primarily established through an overview of the academic traditions and directions in research topics that feature the seventeenth century history of Taiwan. Sourcing the indigenous past alludes to post-event Eurocentric interpretations and legacies of intercultural contact. Furthermore, the chapter provides a brief discussion of the current accessible historical materials and its geographical localizations.

When “Early” Modern Colonialism Comes Late

The Early Modern Period of world history is framed in terms of centuries1400–1800 CE. A host of major transformations occurred within global environments, economies, religions, and societies. Yet, these broad trends are countered by evidence for local dynamics that diverge from the grander sweep of history. This was true in Remote Oceania, where colonial encounters were few and far between prior to the later part of the eighteenth century. While acknowledging that there is a use for abstract periods and themes, archaeological materials provide a counterpoint to the stories that grow out of histories penned in broad strokes. The Melanesian archipelago of Vanuatu provides a valuable case in point. Evidence from ethnohistory and archaeology counters the idea that early modern transitions were results of European cultural expansion. Local perspectives emphasize the centrality of Melanesian islanders in local and regional colonial history, especially in the adoption and adaptation of Christianity. The part of Vanuatu’s history that might be referred to as early modernity goes past the usual temporal boundaries of this period, since it was not until the early twentieth century that a formal” colonial regime was established in New Hebrides (as Vanuatu was called before its independence in 1980).

Historiographical Absences and Archaeological Consequences

This chapter argues that traditional historiography has overlooked the extent of early encounters between indigenous populations and Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By emphasizing only the eighteenth century as the time of the first relevant European presence in the Pacific, traditional historiography ignores the potential consequences of earlier encounters on local peoples. This historiographical absence is the result of several factors, and it has serious implications for the anthropological, archaeological, and historical understanding of the Pacific.

The Abandonment of Alofi Island (Western Polynesia) before Missionary Times

Although early contact in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between Europeans and Pacific Islanders have been well documented from historical data, the possible local impacts on Oceanians have rarely been analyzed in any detail. Indigenous oral traditions and archaeology appear today as primary sources that complement the information from written records related to “discovery” expeditions and missionary-colonial testimonies. This chapter proposes to synthesize the data at hand on the Island of Alofi. Facing Futuna in Western Polynesia and known to have experienced a multi-millennia human settlement, the Island of Alofi was devoid of permanent occupation at the arrival of the French Missionaries in 1837. Relying on different sources, I will make the case of a probable first early-population collapse due primarily to the consequences of their first encounter, in 1616, with the Dutch expedition of Le Maire and Schouten. An alternative scenario of the recent History of the Archipelago will be proposed, revising the orthodox mainstream publications on the subject. The regional as well as global outcomes of this proposal are far-reaching as they impact our understanding of political changes in the Fiji-West Polynesian triangle as well as question the relevance of anthropological categories used in social reconstructions.

Jesuit Missionary Work in the Mariana Islands (1668–1769)

Placing the Jesuit missions into a global phenomenon that emphasizes economic and cultural relations between Europe and the East, this chapter analyzes the possibilities and limitations of religious conversion in the Micronesian islands of Guam and the Marianas. With the establishment of these strategic missions placed at the route of the Manila’s Galleon, Guam and the Marianas were drawn politically, ideologically, and economically into the larger Spanish colonial world. This chapter contributes to understanding both the role of the Jesuits’ global mission and the origins of global consciousness in the “Pacific world” from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. An understanding of the “Pacific world,” one of great diversity and territorial dispersion, will, as Professor John H. Elliot has argued, allow us to transcend anachronistic national and regional boundaries and write a transnational history on one of the most dynamic regions of the Hispaniarum Rex. In doing so, this chapter focuses not only on the archival research but also on the profiting of archaeological excavations—stone forts, churches, and shipwrecks—and cultural anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach helps us analyze and understand the effects of the evangelization process in the age of European colonial expansion and commercial capitalism.