Urbaneta - another South Pacific / Mexico connection

Many of us are familiar with the artist Miguel Covarrubias, and his connection with the imagery of the South Pacific. (Covarrubias created the inside cover map of the Book of Tiki)

This always seemed a bit puzzling to me - how did Covarrubias get so interested in the South Pacific? what connection does Mexico have with the South Pacific? One does not usually associate a connection between the two.

I recently read a review from the New York Review of Books, for a book on the early history of exploration (Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration' by Felipe Fernandez Armesto), and learned about a man I had never heard of before - Andres de Urbanata. I learned that it was Urbaneta, and not Magellan, who opened up the Pacific to navigation. Although Magellan's journey was heroic and impressive, it was of little use - it took too long, too slow, and was only one-way.

I will continue, with an excerpt from the above book review ...

" Sailing west down the trade winds from Mexico to the Phillipines was easy enough. The outward voyage lasted from November 1564 to February 1565. Timing the turnaround to take advantage of the summer monsoon was key to a similarly successful return. Heading north from the Phillipines on June 1 with the wind behind him, Urdaneta caught the Japan current and soon reached the zone of prevailing westerlies to make a speedy voyage back to Mexico. The 11,000 miles he crossed made his journey the longest ever undertaken on the open sea without a landfall. It took four months and eight days to get to Acapulco.

Annual voyages between Acapulco and Manila became standard in subsequent decades and American silver started to flow northward to China via the Phillipines at the same time that it flooded eastward to Europe, upsetting prices throughout the entire Old World. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans had both become two-way highways, carrying goods that had a transforming effect throughout the civilized world; and the explorer who opened the Pacific was not Magellan but Urdaneta."

For 250 years - from 1565 to 1815, at least two ships would sail each year from either port. This path between the Phillipines and Acapulco, Mexico became known as Urdaneta's Route. The cargoes from the Phillipines and Southeast Asia were brought to Acapulco, and then transported through Mexico (and Mexico City) to the Caribbean port of Veracruz, where they were then placed on ships to sail for Spain. It was this route that fulfilled Columbus's vision of sailing west to reach the riches of Indies and bring them to Spain.

For more information on this trade route, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Galleon

For those 250 years, there was much movement (trade, sailors, crews, adventurers) between Mexico and the Phillipines, done via the Pacific Ocean. Today, there are 600,000 Mexicans who possess Filipino ancestry. I wonder if Miguel Covarrubias was one of these ancestors - it might explain why he was drawn to visit and paint the nearby island of Bali.

For a variety of reasons, even though they sailed the Pacific for 250 years, the Spanish deemed that charting the more remote regions of the Pacific had only maginal signifigance for humankind. For many of those 250 years, there was no accurate way of measuring longitude and latitude, and it wasn't until the 18th century when scientific discovery, and not the quest for riches, became an end to itself. It wasn't until Captian Cook's three voyages in the late 1700's that Hawaii was discovered and much of the pacific was mapped.

Vern

Very interesting, how history is written by the people in charge. The Mexican/Fillipino mixture must have created some beautiful chicas...
One reason for Miguel's interest in Pacfic cultures certainly came from the fact that from early on, in the 1920s and 30s, he took part in the American and European art scene, which drew much of their inspiration from primitive art, be it Oceanic, African or pre-Columbian. He was a hobby archaeologist and amassed one of the great private collections of Mexican pre-Columbian art, at a time when one could still seek out ancient sites and dig the stuff up oneself.

I was born too late for that, so I had to do it with Tiki mugs.:)

Bigbro, there are plenty of Phillipinos with Mexican ancestry as well. When Spain set up shop in the Phillipines they sent most of their clergy and administrative officials from Mexico.
Prior to this time the PI had been mostly islamist like some of the Southern Isles stil are. Once again, a result of the spice/ trade routes.

Alejandro Malaspina, another south seas explorer with an Spain - Mexico connection.
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36807&forum=1&0#fresh

Please delete this message, somehow it got posted here instead of Tiki Travel.

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[ Edited by: Wayfarer 2010-06-14 18:49 ]