Making The Exotic Mundane: The Manila Galleon, The Flota, And Globalization

Summary

For two and one half centuries from 1565-1815 the Manila Galleons navigated the vast expanses of the Pacific laden with the highly desired exotica of Asia- spices, fine textiles, and glistening porcelains. Acapulco, while the terminal port for the eastward-bound vessels was in reality the starting point for the distribution of their cargoes to the Iberian motherland and to the farthest corners of their colonial New World empire.   These commodities not only captivated the imagination of Spain’s elites through conspicuous consumption but they also would share in the transformation of peoples of all social standings into participants in the nascent global economy. To illustrate these transformation this diachronic presentation draws on archaeological and documentary evidence from both shipwreck and terrestrial sites in California, Texas, Florida, Mexico, the Philippines and the waters of the Atlantic dating from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Manila Galleon Archaeology in the American Continent   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 406