Beyond the sea: the construction of the Spanish Pacific, XVI-XVII centuries

Abstract

In this article he examines the Spanish expansions between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries towards the "east" that resulted in the conquest and colonization of the Mariana Islands (1668-1676) as an example of the construction of what has been tried to be called among the scholars of the period and the process as "The Spanish Pacific" in clear reference to the "Roman Mediterranean" the narrative focuses on advances mainly of a religious nature, which corresponds to the logic that was followed in the period of study, it is interesting to explore the dynamics that followed the construction of the Catholic frontier in the Spanish possessions of the Pacific.

One of the objectives is to analyze what were the cultural changes that occurred from the mechanisms used by the Jesuit missionaries to convert the Mariana Islands to Catholicism. It is known that in parallel the first martyrs —Diego Luis de San Vitor, Luis de Medina and Sebastian de Monroy, SJ, among others— were widely documented here and in the global collection, new technologies allow access to a mass of information. However, the article is based largely on original documents that, although sometimes are in digital repositories, is not the case for those consulted on this occasion.