Introduction; 1. Catarina de San Juan: China slave and popular saint; 2. The diversity and reach of the Manila slave market; 3. The rise and fall of the transpacific slave trade; 4. Chinos in Mexico City: slave labor and liberty; 5. Joining the republic of Indians: free Filipinos and freed chinos; 6. The Church on chino slaves versus Indian chinos; 7. The end of chino slavery; Final conclusion.
This book is a history of Asian slaves in colonial Mexico and their journey from bondage to freedom.
Tatiana Seijas is Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University.
'This important and enjoyable new addition to the venerable
Cambridge Latin American Studies book series makes a resoundingly
original contribution to the field. Seijas skillfully deploys
archival sources on both the Philippines and Colonial Mexico,
placing their analysis within a single, coherent framework. The
result is fascinating; as the study unfolds, it effectively shifts
our views of Asian slavery in Spanish America, of identity terms
like chino, and indeed of race and ethnicity in early colonial
Mexico.' Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin
American History, Pennsylvania State University
'Well-established forms of Filipino intertribal slave raiding along
with swells of captives from the Indian Ocean and the wars against
Islam in Mindanao transformed Manila into a bustling slave entrepôt
by the mid-sixteenth century. For some 150 years, thousands of
these 'chino' slaves left the Philippines for Mexico, where they
became urban servants, artisan slaves-for-hire, pious beatas, and
ultimately free Mexican 'Indian' vassals in the eyes of both civil
and ecclesiastical courts. Paradoxically, the abolition of the
Filipino slave trade by the late seventeenth century led to the
ideological consolidation of African slavery, for the black body
became the only sure legal marker to distinguish the true 'captive
foreigner' in the body polity. This is a brilliant study of the
rise and fall of the forgotten transpacific slave trade.' Jorge
Cañizares-Esguerra, Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History,
University of Texas, Austin
'Focused on the trans-Pacific trade, Asian Slaves in Colonial
Mexico illustrates the commercial and cultural linkages that tied
New Spain to the global economy of the early modern world. By
making chinos the subjects of this history, Tatiana Seijas rivets
our attention on the human cargoes of the Manila galleon in their
transit from the Philippines to New Spain and their gradual
integration into colonial Mexican society. Built on a solid
foundation of archival research, this innovative study examines
anew the entwined themes of human bondage and the ambiguities of
ethnic labeling through the pathways to freedom that were opened to
enslaved persons in the far-flung imperial networks of the Iberian
world.' Cynthia Radding, Gussenhoven Distinguished Professor,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
'Tatiana Seijas's book is long overdue. It is truly global in focus
and comparative in reach. Steeped in archival sources, its study of
early modern trans-Pacific slavery provokes comparisons with the
trans-Atlantic traffic in humans during a contemporaneous and later
period. Tracing the fate of 'Asian slaves' between Spain's two
colonial spheres, the Philippines and colonial Mexico, this book is
well-placed to contribute to a wide variety of fields, including
comparative imperial formations and the growing historiography on
slavery in East and Southeast Asian, Latin America and China. Its
meticulous tracing of the lives of Asian slaves is a model for
doing the social history of subaltern groups compelled to negotiate
with colonial law, religious sanctions and permeable racial
identities as they seek to move out of bondage and into
emancipation prior to abolition.' Vicente L. Rafael, University of
Washington, Seattle
'A short review cannot do justice to the many complex issues
discussed in this superb and carefully researched early modern
globalization case study. Students and scholars alike will benefit
from the author's painstaking efforts to both track down traces of
chino lives in archival documents and to contextualize their
history within the expansive historiography of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century understandings on race and slavery.' Nicole von
Germeten, The American Historical Review
'Seijas has provided an illuminating history from below of
worldwide slavery and the Mexican caste system. The extensive
archival research undergirding her study both strengthens its
arguments and makes for a compelling read … This monograph is
exemplary for anyone seeking to examine a regional issue within a
wider historical context, for it shows early modern Mexico as the
global crossroad that it was.' Ronald J. Morgan, Hispanic American
Historical Review
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