Crossroads Research

Lecture Series: Refugee, Diamond, Commander, Ethics, Empire: Spanish Drift Ship in 1753 by Cheng-Heng Lu

June 28, 2021: 12:00 MET/CEST via Zoom.

Abstract

By using Chinese, Manchu, and Spanish sources, this talk examines a drifting ship event in 1753 from Pangasinan to Wenzhou, Zhejiang. The main characters of this event were an alcaldia mayor of Pangasinan of the Philippine of the Spanish Empire, Juan Manuel de Arza y Urrutia, and a commander from a naval admiral family of the Qing Empire, Shi Tingzhuan. Juan Manuel was accidently drifted to Wenzhou in 1753. Based on the idea of the celestial empire, the Zhejiang government helped the Spaniards. Spaniards were lodged within Wenzhou city, so local people were able to observe them with an exotic thoughts. Meanwhile, the Zhejiang government detailed Spaniards’ appearance and dress style due to an imperial task, which was editing Huang Qing Zhi Gong Tu, which was representing the Qing’s features as a universal empire. However, when the Spaniards were transferred to Xiamen, the Fujian government treated them differently and carefully because the Spain’s foe, Sulu, sent envoys to Xiamen and the ban of Catholics just occurred in Fujian. Under the situation in Fujian, Shi Tingzuan was sued to receive gifts from Spaniards, so this unacceptable event made Fujian officials angry. Finally, Shi Tingzuan was fired; Juan Manuel never served as a colonial official anymore due to the unexpected accident. This accident results in the life of two imperial officials, and it offers an opportunity to understand how the local displayed different Qing’s imperial characters due to the different situations through an event of a European drift ship in 1753.

Cheng-Heng Lu is Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.

To register for the talk, please send us an e-mail.

 

You May Also Like

Lecture Series: Drift and Rumor: Unraveling the Tale of a Murdered Ryukyu Prince in Early Modern Korea and the Hidden Facts Behind the Rumor, by Jeanhyoung Soh

June 29, 2023, 15:00 CET. Hybrid: In person at KU Leuven, Erasmushuis, LETT 5.15 and online via Zoom. From the 17th to the early 20th…

Lecture Series: An archaeology of early modern colonialism in the Pacific: preliminary investigations on Rota (CNMI), by María Cruz Berrocal

April 28, 2023, 10:00 AM CEST The early modern European presence in the Pacific has received scarce attention compared to the later Anglo-American colonial process. In…

Lecture Series: Configurations of Spanish and Portuguese America in Jesuit Cartographic Works in the Late Ming Period (17th century), by Ana Carolina Hosne

March 24 2023, 15:00 CET. Hybrid: In person at KU Leuven, Erasmushuis, LET 5.15 and online via Zoom. It is a well-known fact that Jesuit…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *