Meet the Speakers

Part I

THE RELIGIOUS AND GEO-POLITICAL IMPACT OF EXPEDITION

Abstract

FRAY MARTIN DE RADA AND THE DEMARCATION DISPUTE BETWEEN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL IN THE PHILIPPINES

Fr. Dedert Duarte

The conflict brought by the Magellan expedition between Spain and Portugal was solved by the signing of the Treaty of Zaragosa in 1529. However, the arrival of the Spanish fleet in the island of Cebu, Philippines in 1565 sparked anew this long running maritime dispute in Southeast Asia. The Spaniards attempted to settle and claim ownership of the Philippine islands despite the provisions under the said treaty. This conflict, according to many historians, was later resolved in 1850 after the unification of the two kingdoms during the reign of the Spanish King Philip II. Prior to this concord under the Hapsburg crown, the intense confrontation in Cebu in 1568, between the Spanish adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and the Lusitanian captain Gonzalo Pereira, is believed to have been settled through the intervention of the Augustinian cosmographer Fray Martin de Rada. Through primary and secondary sources, this paper revisits this defining episode in the history of the Spanish conquest of the Philippines and discusses the role of the Navarrese cosmographer in negotiating and resolving the demarcation issue.

Fr. Dedert Duarte is currently writing his dissertation at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Münster, Germany, under Prof. Dr. Norbert Hintersteiner. Investigating the First Provincial Council of Manila in 1907 and its reforms for the Catholic Church in the Philippines, his scholarly interests include the history of reforms, church and mission history (particularly on Augustinian missions in Panay), and topics on de-coloniality and world Christianity. He is under the Albertus Magnus Scholarship Program and is supported by the Institute of Missiology (MWI, Missio-Aachen). He is ordained priest in 2013 for the Archdiocese of Capiz, Philippines.

Abstract

THE FIRST MASS SITE DEBATE SEEN FROM CARTOGRAPHIC SOURCES (16th Century)

Miguel Rodrigues Lourenço, Ph.D.

The First Mass Site – Limasawa or Butuan – has long been the subject of intense debate. Historians have looked to the accounts of Magellan’s expedition and discussed the merits of the extant documents and of the textual divergences of each version. A comprehensive study of cartographic sources is yet to be undertaken in order to understand their usefulness to either relaunch or settle the debate. In this presentation I aim to review extant Portuguese, Spanish and other European cartographic sources produced in the 16th century with the purpose of discussing the merits of each site. I will endeavor to provide a genealogy of cartographic information on the elusive toponym “Maçagua” and its variations since the very first cartographic depictions of the archipelago until the early 1580s.

Professor Lourenço is a researcher at Centro Historia de Alem-Mar, Humanities Center in the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Center of Religious History Studies in the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and of the Chair of Sephardic Studies Alberto Benveniste in the Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa. He is also the Executive Editor of the journal Orientis Aura published by the Faculty of Religious Studies of University of Saint Joseph (Macau). He is also part of the editorial board for the journal Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas and the coordinator of Série Goana of Colecção Usque, both published by the Chair of Sephardic Studies Alberto Benveniste. He specializes in the history of Macau and the Philippines in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, especially on the institutional representation of the Inquisition in these territories and on the cartography of Southeast Asia. He is the author of Articulação da Periferia. Macau e a Inquisição de Goa (c. 1582-c. 1650) (Lisbon and Macao, 2016) and co-editor with Jaqueline Vassallo and Susana Bastos Mateus of Inquisiciones: Dimensiones Comparadas (siglos XVI-XIX) (Córdoba, 2017).

Part II

THE NATIVE WORLD DURING THE MAGELLAN LANDFALL

Abstract

BEYOND PIGAFETTA IN HUMUNU AND MAZAUA

Rolando Borrinaga, Ph.D.

The events that transpired during the first circumnavigation of the world from 1519-1522 is best known to global historiography through the account of Italian chronicler Antonio Pigafetta. Pigafetta’s narrative remains the classic account from which all subsequent writings on the voyage were built on. This presentation focuses on the Humunu and Mazaua episodes of the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation. It explores some of the alternative sources that might help shed light on that world-shaping event from a more local perspective. It suggests that our contemporary knowledge of the voyage can be enriched by utilizing geographic, linguistic, ethnographic and archaeological sources that complement the Pigafetta account. Among others, this lecture explains and provides the related cultural context behind the Humunu (Homonhon) name, and presents the rediscovered Magellan’s Rock, the discovered Magellan Son’s Rock in Homonhon, and the western Mazaua (Limasawa) context and circumstances of the First Easter Sunday Mass on March 31, 1521.

Professor Borrinaga is the author of a number of books such as Leyte-Samar Shadows: Essays on the History of Eastern Visayas; The Balangiga Conflict Revisited, which was finalist for the 2003 National Book Award in History; and co-translator/co-editor (with Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM) of The Colonial Odyssey of Leyte (1521-1914), declared winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Translation. These three books were published by New Day Publishers. He is a lifetime member of the Philippine National Historical Society (PNHS), where he is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of The Journal of History and has edited a number of recent issues of the journal. Currently serving as Visayas Representative (for 2014-2016 and 2017-2019) in the National Committee on Historical Research of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCHR-NCCA), he also functioned as secretary of the NCHR Executive Council. He is Full Professor at the School of Health Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila, in Palo, Leyte.

Abstract

THE 16TH CENTURY VISAYAN WARRIOR AND HIS WEAPONS

Felice Noelle Rodriguez, Ph.D.

Several hundred warriors arrayed for battle along the shores of Sugbu faced the Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565. “Be it so! Come on! We await you here.” They broke into loud cries, covering themselves with their shields and brandishing their lances. This is one of many narrations that serve as a window into the world of the Visayan warrior. This paper shall look into these descriptions and expound on the implements and actions used by looking into texts and images. Francisco Ignacio Alcina and Mateo Sanchez were Jesuit missionaries based in the Bisayan islands of Samar, Leyte and Cebu in the early years of colonization. Alcina lived in Samar and Leyte for more than thirty years. His work entitled Historia de las Islas e Indios de las Bisayas (1668) offers us a detailed account of warfare in two chapters of his monumental work on Bisayan pre-colonial ethnography. It is more than a glimpse into native society. Based on his descriptions of war and their implements we begin to understand native action when faced with the colonial ruler. It is through understanding this native form of warfare that we understand and look into meanings of native action during the time of encounter. It offers us then a way of having a deeper understanding of native life as we sift through Spanish chronicles. Mateo Sanchez arrived in Manila in 1595, later assigned to Cebu. He wrote a Bisayan-Tagalog dictionary which articulate descriptions set by Alcina, Miguel de Loarca, (1582), the anonymous 16th century Boxer Codex, and other documents from Spain’s early encounters with the native in the Visayan waters. The paper hopes to piece together the Visayan warrior in action with his weapons.

Dr. Felice Noelle Rodriguez is Visiting Scholar at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University. Former chair (2000-2003) and associate professor of the Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, she holds masters and doctoral degrees in History from the University of the Philippines. She published works on warfare, the early Christian missions, nationalism and urbanization. She has curated exhibits tracing diverse historical concerns: Revolutionary press, Philippine postcards and the history of Zamboanga. She continues her research on the Malay World, Global Trade Systems, Warfare and Connections in the Nusantara region. She is currently working on a Visual History of Zamboanga.

Part III

SOURCES OF THE MAGELLAN NARRATIVES

Abstract

The Enigma of Antonio Pigafetta,

Chronicler of the Magellan Expedition

Danilo Gerona, Ph.D.

The Italian who earned global fame as the author of the first detailed eyewitness narrati, ve of the Magellan expedition, Antonio Pigafetta, remains an enigma even to modern historians. Except in his own narrative, the name Antonio Pigafetta was not mentioned in any document, even in the official list of the members of the expedition nor in the memoir written by some of the crew. Historians however identified Pigafetta with a listed name, Antonio Lombardo, whose personal details seemed different from what is popularly known about him. These “anomalies” raise questions critical in the history of the expedition. Did Pigafetta deliberately conceal his identity and why? Who was he really and how reliable was his account of the expedition? Unless such questions are adequately answered, the whole narrative of the Magellan expedition will be seriously put to question. Relying heavily on few primary documents kept in the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian archives, as well as current researches undertaken by scholars on this subject, this lecture attempts to explore this “mystery” and provide definitive answers to unravel the enigma of this great chronicler.

Specializing in the early Spanish colonial history of the Philippines, Dr. Gerona spent many years of graduate and post-graduate research in various archives in the Philippines and in Europe, particularly in Spain, Portugal, and Italy where he also delivered lectures in prestigious gatherings of scholars.

As a prolific scholar he published books and numerous monographs on various topics in Bicol and Philippine history, the most important of these is Ferdinand Magellan Armada de Maluco and the European Discovery of the Philippines, the first comprehensive and fully documented book on the subject written by a Filipino historian.

Dr. Gerona is currently the Director of the Partido Studies Center and the newly created Magellan-Elcano Studies Center at the Partido State University in Camarines Sur and the convener of this Magellan on-line conference.

Abstract

Food in Magellan’s Expedition.

Primary Sources in the Archive of the Indies

Antonio Sanchez De Mora, Ph.D.

In 2021 we will be commemorating the 500 years of the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan and his crew in the Philippines, in the context of the 1st Circumnavigation. This historical milestone implied the first encounter of the Spanish and Filipino people and the beginning of a cultural exchange process, which has a special relevance from the gastronomic point of view. This presentation will analyze the manuscripts preserved in the Archive of the Indies in Seville regarding Magellan’s voyage, mainly from the perspective of food history. To this end, the on line website of Spanish Archives (PARES) will be shown, helping users to research in them. Official reports (Informes), accounts, letters or royal orders show among other references of the food on board, and indicting the importance of documents as informative source. There is no reference, however, about Philippine food in those manuscripts, but other contemporary sources provide context and help us understand the cultural and gastronomic exchanges that took place in the Philippines during the succeeding centuries.

Dr. Sanchez de Mora, from Huelva (Spain) is an archivist and historian. He holds a doctorate in Medieval History from the Universidad de Sevilla. He is currently the Archivist at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and Head of Reference Service.

A specialist in Spanish medieval history, archives and archival history, dissemination of cultural and documentary heritage and recently, the history of gastronomy in the early modern times in the Hispanic world, he has undertaken extensive research on Spanish and Philippine cultural and gastronomic heritage during the Hispanic times particularly in the context of the 1st Circumnavigation. He recently published his book Las viandas de la mayor aventura: El viaje de Magallanes y Elcano which presents incisive analysis of the food on board the Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition through different chronicle and primary sources.

He delivers numerous lectures such as at the National Museum of the Philippines on digitized documents in the Archive of the Indies, and at the ICARUS Meeting on "The Age of Technology: Documents, Archives and Society," in Madrid. He curated exhibits such as "Pacifico: Spain and the Adventure of the South Sea," organized by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport and Acción Cultural Española. others were those held in the Archive of the Indies and the National Museum of the Philippines entitled "Flavors that sail across the seas," organized by Spanish Agency for International Development and Cooperation and Spanish Embassy in the Philippines.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse