The Manila galleon (; ), originally known as La Nao de China, and Galeón de Acapulco, refers to the Spanish trading ships that linked the Spanish Crown's Viceroyalty of New Spain, based in Mexico City, with its Asian territories, collectively known as the Spanish East Indies, across the Pacific Ocean. The ships made one or two round-trip voyages per year between the ports of Acapulco and Manila from the late 16th to early 19th century. The name of the galleon changed to reflect from which city the ship sailed, setting sail from Cavite, in Manila Bay, at the end of June or first week of July, starting the return journey (tornaviaje) from Acapulco in March–April of the next calendar year, and returning to Manila in June–July.
The term Manila galleon can also refer to the trade route itself between Acapulco and Manila that was operational from 1565 to 1815.
The galleons sailed the Pacific, bringing to the Americas cargoes of Chinese and other Asian luxury goods such as spices and porcelain in exchange for New World silver. In addition, Filipino slaves known as "chinos esclavos" ("Chinese slaves") came across the Pacific to Mexico in what is known as the trans-Pacific slave trade. The route also fostered cultural exchanges that shaped the identities and the culture of the countries involved.
The Manila galleons were known in New Spain as La Nao de China ("The China Ship") on their voyages from the Spanish East Indies because they carried mostly Chinese goods shipped from Manila. The Manila Galleon route was the first instance of globalization, as it marked the earliest period in history when a trade route from Asia crossed to the Americas, thereby connecting all the world's continents in one global silver trade.
The Spanish inaugurated the Manila galleon trade route in 1565 after the Augustinian friar and navigator Andrés de Urdaneta pioneered the tornaviaje or return route from the Philippines to Mexico. Urdaneta and Alonso de Arellano made the first successful round trips that year. The trade using "Urdaneta's route" lasted until 1815, when the Mexican War of Independence broke out.
In 2015, the Philippines and Mexico began preparations for the nomination of the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade Route in the UNESCO World Heritage List with backing from Spain, which has also suggested the tri-national nomination of the archives on the Manila–Acapulco Galleons in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
History
Discovery of the route
In 1521, a Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan sailed west across the Pacific using the westward trade winds. The expedition discovered the Mariana Islands and the Philippines and claimed them for Spain. Although Magellan was killed by natives commanded by Lapulapu during the battle of Mactan, one of his ships, the Victoria, made it back to Spain by continuing westward.
To settle and trade with these islands from the Americas, an eastward maritime return path was necessary. The Trinidad, which tried this a few years later, failed. In 1529, Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón also tried sailing east from the Philippines, but could not find the eastward-blowing winds (the "westerlies") across the Pacific. In 1543, Bernardo de la Torre also failed. In 1542, however, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo helped pave the way by sailing north from Mexico to explore the Pacific coast, reaching as far north as the Russian River, just north of the 38th parallel. The frustration of these failures is shown in a letter sent in 1552 from Portuguese Goa by the Spanish missionary Francis Xavier to Simão Rodrigues asking that no more fleets attempt the New Spain–East Asia route, lest they be lost.
The Manila–Acapulco galleon trade finally began when Spanish navigators Alonso de Arellano and Andrés de Urdaneta discovered the eastward return route in 1565. Sailing as part of the expedition commanded by Miguel López de Legazpi to conquer the Philippines in 1564, Urdaneta was given the task of finding a return route. Reasoning that the trade winds of the Pacific might move in a gyre as the Atlantic winds did, they sailed north, going all the way to the 38th parallel north, off the east coast of Japan, before catching the westerlies that would take them back across the Pacific. He commanded a vessel which completed the eastward voyage in 129 days; this marked the opening of the Manila galleon trade.