Trade, war and industrial policy in Southeast Asia: Spanish shipbuilding outside the Philippine Islands (1619-1753)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to understand a specific variant of the Spanish shipbuilding policies in Asia during the early Modern period: the attempts to transfer the shipbuilding industry from the Philippines, where it was based since almost the beginning of the Spanish occupation of that Archipelago, to different foreign maritime regions in the Southern Pacific. Important studies on the Spanish presence in the Philippines have mentioned a few of these episodes, but their significance for the Spanish shipbuilding industry in that region, and for the Spanish Pacific system as a whole, remains undiscussed. It demonstrates that the motivation behind these policies did not obey a single cause, but rather reflected specific strategic mercantile and military contexts, among which State-intervention, private interest, and violent social unrest played a prominent role. This interpretation is based on existing historiography and the examination of first-hand sources still unused to this day.