Southeast Asia Archives - Not Even Past

Review of Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World, by Kristie Flannery (2024)

Banner for review of Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World

Kristie Flannery’s groundbreaking first book, Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World is not only about how Spanish colonial rule worked in the Philippine Islands. Rather, Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World analyzes how colonialism, forms of capitalism, and religion forged political, economic, and religious alliances across Asia, the Americas, and Europe. This research reveals that colonialism in the Philippines was a process that went beyond the boundaries of the islands. The book shows that globalization and European imperial expansion influenced how ideas and actions traveled through the Spanish Empire in specific places or vast spaces such as the Pacific Ocean.

Flannery invites readers to explore the ways in which societies are structured. The book recovers forgotten stories of Indigenous soldiers and migrants who struggled to restore their identities when they were arbitrarily and constantly changed. Piracy serves as the central theme in the book and functions as the axis from which the real or imaginary fears that threatened the loyalties established between the inhabitants of the Philippines and the Spanish empire in Asia revolve. Piracy works as a driver of alliances between social groups and as an excuse to impose a regime of violence and genocide on an unwanted migrant population. This book examines how violence, piracy, imperial loyalties, and concepts of identity shifted and remained ambivalent, shaped by the actions of people and the fears—both real and imagined—that arose in a globalized imperial world.

Map of Philippines created in 1734 — *Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de la Yslas Filipinas MANILA, 1734. Source: Wikimedia Commons*

Much of the conceptual support of this book revolves around key notions such as loyalty, identity, and violence. These categories of analysis are fundamental to understanding how subjects were classified in the colonial system using terms that were incorporated so deeply that they survived even the disappearance of the Spanish empire. In other words, this conceptual framework sheds light on why it is relevant to understand the motivations that compelled people to exercise acts of discrimination and violence against Muslim and Filipino subjects. Some policies of discrimination witnessed and exercised during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could be interpreted as political strategies to exploit and segregate people from China, creating a system of social control that was both tangible and intangible– or in the words of the author, both real and imaginary.

The methodological challenge of this book is contained in the possibility of archival research also of a global order. Kristie Flannery draws from Asian, Latin American, and Spanish archives in cities such as Manila, Seville, Mexico, and London among others, and integrates an extensive multilingual corpus of documents. By intersecting sources and exploring seemingly disconnected materials, the methodology expands into a spatial and scalar approach. This approach enables an ambitious exploration of riverine, maritime, and land connections, as well as the barriers between them. Each chapter begins with the departure or arrival of a ship that also represents a way of venturing into history in a fluid way to read a historical moment where real and imaginary piracy contributed to the Spanish colonial order in the Philippines.

Depiction of the Manila Gallon arriving to the Ladrones Island. 7 smaller ships around it. — Reception of the Manila Galleon by the Chamorro in the Ladrones Islands, ca. 1590.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The book is composed of five chapters, an introduction, and an epilogue. Chapter 1, set in the eighteenth century, explores how the ideas of Muslims and Islam from the Mediterranean shaped Spanish strategies in the Americas and the Philippines, influencing defense strategies against Moorish piracy and later creating alliances between various actors according to their notions of religion and loyalty. This is a fascinating chapter in which identity and loyalty are central to understanding that the Spanish empire did not always reach all corners in the same ways.

Chapter 2 explores how the fluctuating threats of Mora piracy impacted the transient Chinese population, who settled far beyond the shores of Manila. The threats of pirate fleets reveal how the massacres of the Chinese population in 1603, 1639, and 1662 in the Philippines created an environment where religion was the engine of waves of violence and that ended up pushing alliances of the Sangleyes (referring to the Chinese migrants in the Philippines) in Manila as faithful vassals.

Chapters 3 and 4 delve into the invasions of Manila during the eighteenth century, showing how indigenous Filipinos challenged loyalties to face the arrival of the British by showing strong local opposition. And then Flannery analyzes how Spanish rule was restored by confronting the British invasions and also the local insurgents. Finally, Chapter 5 shows how migrants born in China after the war were collectively expelled from Manila and the forms of resistance these migrants used to confront an expulsion.

In general terms, I identify several substantial contributions of this research to the study of imperial colonial historiography and the Spanish Pacific. First, the analysis of the history of piracy in the Spanish Pacific offers an understanding of how Spanish forms of government and colonial authority were adaptable to different contexts. In other words, there is not a single, uniform way of understanding the Spanish empire in the Americas and in the Philippines. Instead, there are intermediate positions, in this case, mediated by alliances, which must also be considered in the historiography. These individuals played active roles in shaping history and provide new perspectives for reinterpreting traditional historical narratives.

Second, forms of violence during this period continue to be fundamental elements in understanding how notions of identity and understanding of the “other” as alien to one’s own materialized. In addition, they were motivated by religious and political discourses that were also transoceanic. That is, ideas and actions also traveled with people. Third, this research carefully highlights how the Spanish empire classified colonial subjects based on race, social status, and religion and created policies of exclusion that were used to subvert an order according to real or imagined motivations that people had. This research shows that forms of social differentiation also can be inherited. Perhaps, this is why it is so important for Flannery to show how colonial and early modern ideas and practices persist and influence the ways we see each other and our world today. This is a carefully structured book with a geographical richness to enjoy. A book that becomes part of the field of colonial studies with a fascinating vision of a space sometimes forgotten by historiography: the Pacific.

Cindia Arango López. Historian, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín. Mg. in Geography, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. Specialist in Environment and Geoinformatics: SIG, Universidad de Antioquia. Currently, PhD student in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, TX-USA. She has been a professor of the undergraduate program in Territorial Development at Universidad de Antioquia, Oriente campus, Colombia. Currently, she is developing her candidacy for her doctoral research on the navigators bogas of the Magdalena River in the 18th century in Colombia.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

A Historian’s Gaze: Women, Law, and the Colonial Archives of Singapore

By Sandy Chang

On the eleventh floor of the National Library of Singapore, I sit with a pile of large, gray boxes stacked high on a trolley. I am hoping to be transported to the island’s past. The boxes are filled with legal documents from the British colonial era, mainly affidavits, writs of summons, bills of costs, and occasionally testimonies from witnesses in the Straits Settlements. The pages are sepia-colored, some speckled with mold – a reminder of the gulf of time that separates me from the people who produced these very documents I now hold in my hands. To be a historian is almost always to be cognizant of the passage of time and the changes that accompany it.

Koh Seow Chuan Donor's Gallery Courtesy of National Library, Singapore

Koh Seow Chuan Donor’s Gallery (via National Library, Singapore).

For historians, archives are portals into the past. They offer tantalizing, if partial, glimpses of a different era; snapshots of those who inhabited a world different from our own. Engaging with primary sources, in the words of historian James Warren, entails the experience of “’passing over’…a crossing over to the standpoint of another culture, another way of life, another human being” and to return with a deeper understanding of the past. Of course, historians know that our sources are not unmediated versions of history nor do they contain self-evident truths about the lived experiences of others. Nonetheless, we search longingly for that one document, one photograph, or one artifact that we hope will bring us closer, back in time, to the worlds we study.

The papers I rifle through are part of the Koh Seow Chuan Collection, named after its donor, a retired Singaporean architect. Koh was one of the founders of DP Architects, a company responsible for the design of the famous Esplanade Theaters by Marina Bay. He also happened to be an avid collector of stamps, art, and historical artifacts. In 2009, he donated 1,714 heritage items to the National Library Board of Singapore, consisting of rare maps and photographs, old letters and envelopes, and legal documents dating back to the early nineteenth century. The legal documents in Koh’s personal collection include records from the Straits Settlements Supreme Courts and District Courts, filling over four hundred boxes. In them, historians can locate the records of many prominent members of the Straits Chinese community, including Lim Boon Keng, Lim Nee Soon, and others.

The_Esplanade,_Theatres_on_the_Bay_(3751455311)

The Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay, Singapore (via Wikimedia Commons).

I am, however, using these documents to search for traces of Chinese migrant women who sailed across the South Seas and settled in British Malaya in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Far from the thrilling adventure I had anticipated, the process feels tediously dull. Combing through the dense law cases and reading the highly formulaic legal rhetoric for evidence of migrant women can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. In the first week, I encountered a gamut of historical characters: planters and traders, merchants and bankers, manufacturers and small shopkeepers, pineapple preservers and cake-makers. While some of their stories offered delightful anecdotes, I could not help but notice the absence of women. It made me wonder, were these documents appropriate sources for my research or did I need to change the questions I was asking altogether?

With time and patience, the women in these documents gradually became visible to me. At first, their appearances were elusive: a woman sued by her father-in-law for jewelry; a sister embroiled in a legal battle with her half-brother over the administration of their father’s estate; and six women petitioning the court to be legally recognized as the wives of one Chinese man. These were exciting discoveries, but I was baffled by how I would piece together these scraps to construct a coherent narrative of the past. How could I make sense of the “smallness” of these stories within the broader context of a rapidly changing regional maritime economy and of Chinese labor migrations into and around the British Empire in Asia?

Bil of goods - transaction between a trader and opium shopkeeper, 1913 Source: Koh Seow Chuan Collection, National Library, Singapore

Bill of goods; transaction between a trader and opium shopkeeper, 1913 (via Koh Seow Chuan Collection, National Library, Singapore).

The fragments of these women’s stories emerged slowly, but collectively they gathered momentum. A marked pattern became clear: women almost never appeared in colonial Supreme Court records, either as plaintiffs or defendants, unless they were widows. Of course, the colonial records of the Police or District Courts in the Straits Settlements tell a different story. But, in the colonial Supreme Court, women were first and foremost recognized by the state as conjugal subjects. In case after case, the marital statuses of Chinese women were meticulously recorded: “married woman,” “widow,” or “spinster.” Not all women, however, had equal access to legal recourse via the Supreme Court. Lengthy legal battles, expensive civil litigations, and the practical challenges of serving writs of summons to individuals in a highly transient and mobile colonial society meant that only the very wealthy could take their disputes to court. As such, the women in these records were almost always propertied individuals with substantial wealth.

Chinese Lady-in-Waiting Attending to Her Chinese Mistress’ Hair, c.1880s (Courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore).

In Koh Seow Chuan collection, I encountered widows who appealed to the colonial state for maintenance; others who sued for outstanding debts owed to their husbands; some who battled one another for the distribution of the family estate. Their stories reveal a fascinating and complicated relationship between conjugality and wealth, gender and colonial law. Collectively, they demonstrate how migrant Chinese women increasingly utilized colonial legal institutions as one way of resolving transnational family disputes concerning inheritance, succession, and property rights. At the same time, their stories also shed light on their vulnerability within the colonial legal process itself – a process that was in many ways arbitrary and precarious.

Statement of claim by a Chinese widow 1893 Koh Seow Chuan Collection National Library Singapore

Statement of claim by a Chinese widow, 1893 (via Koh Seow Chuan Collection National Library Singapore).

Historians often dream of finding that one treasure trove that will unveil the secrets of the past; that one document from which we could write a whole chapter. Sometimes, we are given four hundred boxes instead. Their contents, which at first appear to be “run-of-the-mill,” require us to scour through them carefully. Only then does the past come momentarily into focus. In the digital age, we are often tempted to shuffle through our sources quickly for relevant finds and discard those that don’t “fit” the scope of our research; there’s a temptation to photograph first and read later. But, practicing patience in the archives and learning to sit still with the sources we are given can yield surprising rewards. It enables us to “pass over” to the other side and to see patterns that arise only when we attend to both the absence and presence of women’s lives in the colonial legal archive.

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LBJ and Vietnam: A Conversation

by Mark Atwood Lawrence

Why did the United States choose to fight a major war in Vietnam? The question has bedeviled scholars almost since President Lyndon Johnson made the decision in 1965.

National Security Advisor and close Kennedy aide, McGeorge "Mac" Bundy, with President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Oval Office, 1967.

The most common answer that historians have offered over the years suggests that LBJ believed he had no real option but to commit U.S. forces. In this view, the president understood that the government of South Vietnam, a strong ally of the United States, would inevitably collapse under the weight of a mounting communist insurgency if Washington did not send troops to help stave off the threat. The president believed, moreover, that such a collapse would amount to a major defeat for the United States in a key part of the world and would imperil U.S. security everywhere by calling into question Washington’s determination to help its allies around the globe. So momentous were the stakes, in short, that LBJ never seriously considered any alternative to escalation. But LBJ was, in this view, certain of another thing too: U.S. troops, once committed, would inevitably succeed in defeating the communist insurgency and bolstering South Vietnam as a pro-U.S. bastion. Johnson was convinced of the necessity of intervening in Vietnam and the certainty of success.

As historians have gained access to secret documentation, however, they have questioned this interpretation. Again and again, newly opened records from the National Archives in Maryland, the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library at UT-Austin, and elsewhere have demonstrated that the president and his advisers recognized reasonable alternatives to intervention and foresaw the many problems that would beset U.S. forces when they were sent into Vietnam. The result of such discoveries has been to paint a new picture of LBJ’s decision-making in 1964 and 1965. Where scholars once saw certainty and confidence, they now see indecision and anxiety.

One of the best pieces of evidence for this newer view of U.S. decision-making is the recording of a conversation between LBJ and his national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, on May 27, 1964. This tape, released by the LBJ Library in 1997, is among the most spectacular of the telephone conversations recorded in the Oval Office during the Johnson presidency. Like other chief executives from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, LBJ frequently recorded conversations and meetings, most likely in order to have a record to refresh his memory but possibly also to help shape the historical record. Whatever the motive, the recordings unquestionably offer historians a remarkable new resource for appreciating the president’s personal opinions much more fully than ever before.

In his conversation with Bundy, LBJ expresses deep anxiety about what would happen if the United States failed to defend South Vietnam from communist takeover – evidence that bolsters the older, conventional view of U.S. motives for escalation. Fearing what historians would later dub the “domino effect,” Johnson suggests that the communist powers – the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China – would be emboldened by a communist victory in South Vietnam and might make trouble elsewhere. The communists, in fact, “may just chase you right into your own kitchen,” the president says in his typical down-home manner. LBJ also provides evidence for the older interpretation by breezily dismissing other powerful Americans who urged him to negotiate a settlement and withdraw U.S. power from South Vietnam. He shows special contempt for Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, charging that the Montana Democrat, a strong advocate of winding down the U.S. role in South Vietnam, had “no spine at all” and took a position that was “just milquetoast as it can be.”

In other parts of the conversation, however, LBJ heaps doubt on the idea that defending South Vietnam was crucial to U.S. security. “What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me?” he asks Bundy. “What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country?” Most chillingly, Johnson shows keen awareness that victory in Vietnam was anything but a sure thing. He worries that full-fledged U.S. intervention in Vietnam would trigger corresponding escalation by communist China, raising the horrifying specter of a direct superpower confrontation, as in Korea a few years earlier, between Chinese and U.S. forces. “I don’t think we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area,” LBJ asserts. Moreover, the United States, once committed to a war, might find it impossible to get out. “It’s damn easy to get into a war, but … it’s going to be awful hard to ever extricate yourself if you get in,” LBJ asserts with remarkable prescience.

Johnson also defies the older interpretation of his outlook by showing openness to a range of opinions about how to proceed in Vietnam. To be sure, he hardly expresses enthusiasm about the idea of cutting American losses and withdrawing from South Vietnam, as Mansfield and prominent journalist Walter Lippmann among others were urging at the time. Neither, however, does he dismiss the possibility out of hand when the subject comes up. On the contrary, he urges consideration of a wide range of opinions and expresses hope that Lippmann might sit down with the hawkish Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to discuss their differences.

Which is the “real” LBJ – the president who dismissed Mansfield as spineless or the president who questioned the real value of an independent, pro-American South Vietnam to the United States? At the end of the day, of course, it’s impossible to say. Both sets of ideas seem to have swirled simultaneously in LBJ’s head as he made fateful decisions. But one thing is certain: simple, rigid interpretations of Johnson’s attitudes to not hold up to the remarkable complexity of the emerging documentary record. To appreciate U.S. decision-making fully will require the release of further sources but also, almost certainly, a willingness to tolerate contradictions, nuance, and ambiguity.

Listen to the conversation (Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam Anguish, May 27, 1964: Conversation with national security advisor McGeorge Bundy. 27 May 1964. History and Politics Out Loud. Ed. Jerry Goldman. 30 Sept. 1999. Northwestern University.)

Transcript of the conversation (Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) Washington, May 27, 1964, 11:24 a.m.. Source: U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-68, Volume XXVII, Mainland Southeast Asia: Regional Affairs, Washington, DC, Document Number 53. Original Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of a telephone conversation between the President and McGeorge Bundy, Tape 64.28 PNO 111. No classification marking. This transcript was prepared by the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume.)

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