2019 marks the 170th anniversary of Chinese immigrants’ arrival in Peru. On April 17, the New Buds Salon held its fourth session, “China and Peru: Cross-Pacific Communication in the 16th Century.” Renowned Peruvian writer, historian and cultural activist Fernando Iwasaki was invited as the keynote speaker. Prof. Dong Jingsheng at PKU’s Department of History acted as a commentator. The salon was moderated by Yu Shiyang, a lecturer at PKU’s School of Foreign Languages. Guests from the Peruvian Embassy to China as well as faculty members and students from PKU’s School of Foreign Languages attended the talk.
Fernando Iwasaki admitted that researching the history of New World colonies is a complicated task that is both exciting and exhausting at the same time, and is yet to be finished to this day. In many cases, we should not limit our view to a single Spanish overseas colony. Various phenomena that we consider to be intrinsic to a specific area also exist in other areas, but the geographical distance between them makes it difficult to establish connections. Therefore, few could have imagined that Peru started to have communications with two far-off countries, China and Japan, since the 16th century.
Chinese merchandise could be seen in various places in the newly established city of Lima. Books telling stories of travels in the East were popular. The wealth of the Philippines was frequently advertised by ships entering harbor. In the meantime, missionaries extolled the virtue of self-sacrifice in Japan, religious groups with rich experience in missionary work started to arrive in the East and settle down, and the names of the first Peruvians in China and Japan began to appear in records of local censuses. Thus, we know that the East, lying at the end of the world, was not absent from the ambitions and dreams of Peru, a greedy society in which corruption and divergence could be found.
In the meantime, silver coins made in the mints of Lima and Potosi circulated widely in Manila, were confiscated by the Portuguese authorities in Macau, appeared in the safe of the Society of Jesus in Nagasaki, and were treasured and collected by the literati in China. Chinese and Japanese soldiers knew very well the wealth of Peru. They could still vividly remember how the Inca Empire offered their treasures to the Spanish in the hope of persuading the Spanish religious personnel and ambassadors to abandon their plans to conquer the empire. Four centuries later, the two coasts of the Pacific still retain their special intrinsic ties.
Between 1985 and 1991, Fernando Iwasaki spent a huge amount of time in the General Archive of the Indies searching and browsing relevant archival documents. Most Peruvian historians have never consulted these files, for researchers who came and stayed here for only several weeks or months did not have sufficient time or resources to delve into documents irrelevant to their research topics. Fernando Iwasaki, however, immersed himself in the records of audiencias in the Philippines and buried himself in the letters of missionaries working in Asia. He especially enjoyed reading the governors’ and the Mexican merchants’ accusations as well as the complaints of the Jesuits in China and Japan. They revealed that collusion between religious groups and colonialist regimes was a fact, and they of all were more than happy to facilitate illegal behavior.
In 1992, Fernando Iwasaki publicized his findings in his work published by Fundación Mapfre, The Far East and Peru in the 16th Century, which sheds light on the smuggling journeys that violated the ban on cross-Pacific trade. As relevant information in the archival documents is fragmentary and scattered everywhere, rebuilding the trade routes of the black market has not been easy. Nevertheless, browsing for information enabled Fernando Iwasaki to travel across the frontiers of ancient countries in his research trips and stays in the libraries and archives in Seville, Madrid, Rome, Tokyo, Lisbon, and London.
In his talk, Prof. Iwasaki shared stories revolving around the first transoceanic communications between China and Peru such as “Cannons in between Porcelains and Silk,” Juan González de Mendoza and his Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China, and “Peruvian Silver Coins circulated in China, India, and Japan.” He pointed out that despite the geographical distances and inconvenient communication technologies, the world then was already an integrated entity. Area studies tends to ignore the global impact of single events because it analyzes only one area and thus loses sight of the global perspective. To rebuild this period of time in history, Prof. Iwasaki did extensive research and gathered an enormous amount of data in various languages from different archives through all kinds of channels. Without this research, it would have been impossible to showcase the influence of Peru on the Pacific in the 16th century in its entirety.
Prof. Iwasaki also engaged in discussions on the topics above with representatives from the Peruvian Embassy and students at PKU’s School of Foreign Languages that attended the event.
