WI Spain got Xiamen in 1576?

In 1574, a Chinese pirate named Lin Feng launched a daring surprise raid on Manila, catching the Spanish completely unawares, and nearly captured the city with his flotilla of heavily armed ships. (This is a potential POD in its own right, but not the one I want to explore here).

The incident prompted a rapprochement between the Spanish and the Ming, who agreed to cooperate in order to capture Lin Feng. The naval commander of Fujian Province offered Spain the city of Xiamen (then known as Amoy to Westerners), on the Strait of Formosa, if its forces caught him first. But since Lin evaded capture for the rest of his life, the deal never had to be honored.

The POD, therefore, is that within two years, the Spanish get lucky and catch Lin, whom they hand to the Chinese for execution. By that point, China and Spain were trading partners, the ban on commerce with foreigners having been lifted in 1567 in order to take advantage of imports from the Americas by way of the Philippines. So let's assume the Chinese make good on their word and give Xiamen to the Spanish. What would be the consequences of Spain having its own analog to Portuguese Macau, and a foothold on the Chinese mainland?

Spanish will give up the philippines to dutch if that happens,because of Morro Raids and because the Philippines has been a head ache to spain,Philippines will be provinces of indonesia.....

If philippines was heavily islamized the spanish will give up the philippines earlier then colonize xiamen or another city...
 
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Spanish will give up the philippines to dutch if that happens,because of Morro Raids and because the Philippines has been a head ache to spain,Philippines will be provinces of indonesia.....

If philippines was heavily islamized the spanish will give up the philippines earlier then colonize xiamen or another city...
Honestly, can you make any post without referring to some part of Asia becoming "islamized?" Because that does not seem to be the case. :rolleyes:
 
Very interesting point, Hendryk.

Let's go with the assumption that the Spanish get heavily involved in the Chinese trade and prop up a southern Cantonese Ming state. It seems likely that there will be a fair amount of migration to the Americas by Chineases. So what happens when we get significant chunks of the Pacific Latin American coast populated by Chinese peoples? This will have intriguing effects on language and demographics in New Spain. Also, the limpieza system was still developing at this point, and the introduction of an entirely new racial caste would have substantial ripple effects on the economy and mindset of New Spain...
 

Thande

Donor
Also, the limpieza system was still developing at this point, and the introduction of an entirely new racial caste would have substantial ripple effects on the economy and mindset of New Spain...

That's a very good point. My instinct is that the Chinese would be below peninsulares but otherwise higher than other races - maybe even on the same level as criollos.
 
That's a very good point. My instinct is that the Chinese would be below peninsulares but otherwise higher than other races - maybe even on the same level as criollos.

Especially considering that they'd be traders in many places, as Hendryk said, filling in the vacant role that the Jews would have usually filled.

What would this new caste be referred to as? Maybe simply the chinos or aseanos, but perhaps (in a twist of irony), the occidentales, because the Chineases would be disembarking in places like Lima and San Salvador from the west... ;)
 
Honestly, can you make any post without referring to some part of Asia becoming "islamized?" Because that does not seem to be the case. :rolleyes:

Okay I'll stop talking about islam too much,i know asian history that is why i am saying this....

Very interesting point, Hendryk.

Let's go with the assumption that the Spanish get heavily involved in the Chinese trade and prop up a southern Cantonese Ming state. It seems likely that there will be a fair amount of migration to the Americas by Chineases. So what happens when we get significant chunks of the Pacific Latin American coast populated by Chinese peoples? This will have intriguing effects on language and demographics in New Spain. Also, the limpieza system was still developing at this point, and the introduction of an entirely new racial caste would have substantial ripple effects on the economy and mindset of New Spain...

latin america can get sinified because of this....
 
What would this new caste be referred to as? Maybe simply the chinos or aseanos, but perhaps (in a twist of irony), the occidentales, because the Chineases would be disembarking in places like Lima and San Salvador from the west... ;)

You're a Hispanophone, you tell me what someone from Mangi would be called in Spanish.
 

Thande

Donor
Especially considering that they'd be traders in many places, as Hendryk said, filling in the vacant role that the Jews would have usually filled.

What would this new caste be referred to as? Maybe simply the chinos or aseanos, but perhaps (in a twist of irony), the occidentales, because the Chineases would be disembarking in places like Lima and San Salvador from the west... ;)

Was China known as China to Europeans in this period? I thought it was generally called Cathay or Cathaia (admittedly, that would be from English sources, not Spanish ones).
 
You're a Hispanophone, you tell me what someone from Mangi would be called in Spanish.

Mangiano or manjiense would be my best bet.

If you were to go with the Cathay option (yes, I know, wrong part of China, but would 16th century Latin Americans know the difference?), then it would probably be cateense or something similar.
 
Was China known as China to Europeans in this period? I thought it was generally called Cathay or Cathaia (admittedly, that would be from English sources, not Spanish ones).

I'm not sure in Spanish, but in Portuguese the word "China" was already common in the late 16th century. In 1570 a Dominican missionary, Gaspar da Cruz, had a book named "Tratado das cousas da China" (Treaty of the things of China) published. Other Portuguese traveller, Fernão Mendes Pinto, wrote a book named "Peregrinations" where he describes "the many and strange things seen and heard in the kingdoms of China, Tartaria, Siam, Calaminham, Pegu, Martauão and many other kingdoms and lordships from the Eastern lands...". The book was published only in 1614, but he wrote it between 1569 and 1578.
Also, there is an anonymous book from circa 1550 where a chinese couple is describe, and the author informs that their land is called "China" and their people is the "chinas". Here the page where the chinese couple is described:

china4.PNG
 
My Question is: Would Spain even let the Chinese immigrate to Latin America? In OTL they didn't even let the Aragonese (Officially) immigrate to Latin America! AFAIK the Philippino Islanders never immigrated (or were allowed to Immigrate) in any sizeable numbers...Given these facts I find it doubtful that Spain would allow the Chinese to move to Latin America.

Another thing to consider is that in OTL, around the late 16th century, the merchant community of Seville, distressed at the growing popularity of the Manila-Acapulco Trade put pressure on the Spanish government to limit the number of shipments between Manila and the rest of the Spanish Empire. Philip II agreed and limited the Manila trade to only 2 ships per year leading to the construction of the massive "Manila Galleons".

Given the number of imports from China, I'd wager that something similiar happens in OTL with Seville merchants curtailing the Chinese trade.

Perhaps one knock on effect of this POD could be Mexico siezing Xiamen if it becomes independent, and allowing large scale migration...
 
With a POD in 1576, the butterflies will take care of Mao's existence.
Probably will, not will. If there are infinite universes for every possibility then there is a universe where Mao is still there.
 
If I may add, Peru has over 1 million Chinese descended citizens, and this is with no Spanish version of Macau. They mainly came as laborers but a good deal chose to migrate to Peru. I imagine that many might head that way even earlier, but not have the large migration of Chinese in the 1850s that was experienced because of lack of laborers(to build grueling infrastructure). Just my little snip of info because no one else truly seems to care about butterflies on South America unless it involves Spain. :( Anyway, Peru already has an enormous Chinese minority, I could imagine a 10% minority.
 
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