Between Loyalty and Disobedience: The Limits of Spanish Domination in the Seventeenth Century Pacific

Abstract

This thesis retells the history of the Spanish project of empire in the Pacific in the seventeenth century from the perspective of the agents of empire – principally Spanish and indigenous soldiers responsible for consolidating Spanish control over indigenous populations. Refocusing on who laboured for empire and what motivated them challenges many of the most prevalent assumptions about the nature of Spanish imperialism in the Pacific. Drawn from the multiethnic lower classes of the empire, ordinary soldiers serving in the presidios of the Philippines are shown to be for the most part unfree and unwilling participants in empire construction. A focus on the widespread participation of indigenous Filipinos in projects of conquest and defence challenges the traditional myths of the conquered-conqueror dichotomy which are still hallmarks of nationalist Filipino historiography.

The prism of loyalty and disobedience helps show how both Spanish and Filipino communities oscillated between integration and resistance to empire. Although indigenous loyalty was essential to the ongoing survival of the Spanish presence in the region, the process of expanding Spanish power was curtailed by almost constant rebellion, resistance and contestation across the breadth of the archipelago. Meanwhile, conditions of deprivation, isolation and unfreedom drove Spanish soldiers to desertion and mutiny, destabilising the project of empire in their own way.

A major conclusion of this thesis is that the Spanish presence in the seventeenth century Pacific was highly precarious; it was tenuous rather than hegemonic, facing almost constant conflict and contestation from both within and without. This conclusion deviates from the traditional depiction of a hegemonic empire. Extensive new archival research helps to retell this history of empire, focussing in particular on breaking down the barriers that have traditionally separated Filipinos and Spaniards within their own histories of empire.