In 1489, Vasco de Gama had discovered India for the kingdom of Portugal. Pope Alexander VI, ignorant of the size of these lands, decided to distribute them between Portugal and Spain through the famous Bull Intercaetera ...
To do this he drew an arbitrary line in that gigantic world barely glimpsed, which gave rise to endless conflicts between both kingdoms, since Charles VIII, King of France, demanded that the pontiff present him “the will of Adam where such a distribution was established ”.
Three years after these events, the accidental discovery of America revolutionized the western world of that time and countless events of great importance followed one another almost vertiginously. For Carlos I of Spain it was urgent to win the possession of the East Indies from Portugal.
In New Spain, Hernán Cortés was already virtually lord and master; his power and fortune were compared, to the chagrin of the Spanish emperor, with those of the monarch himself. Aware of the problems posed by trade and the conquest of the Far East starting from Spain, Cortés paid for an armed fleet in Zihuatanejo from his own money and went to sea on March 27, 1528.
The expedition reached New Guinea, and when it was lost it decided to head for Spain through the Cape of Good Hope. Pedro de Alvarado, not satisfied with the governorship of the Captaincy of Guatemala and obsessed by the myth of the riches of the Moluccas Islands, in 1540 built his own fleet, which sailed north along the Mexican coast to the port of Christmas . Upon reaching this point, Cristóbal de Oñate, then governor of Nueva Galicia -which generally encompassed the current states of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit-, requested Alvarado's help to fight in the Mixton war, so the bellicose Conquistador landed with all his crew and weapons. In his eagerness to conquer more glory, he entered the steep mountains, but when he reached the ravines of Yahualica, his horse slipped, dragging him into the abyss. Thus he paid for the brutal murder perpetrated years ago against the Aztec nobility.
Enthroned Felipe II, in 1557 he ordered the viceroy Don Luis de Velasco, Sr., to arm another fleet whose ships left Acapulco and arrived in the Philippines at the end of January 1564; on Monday, October 8 of that same year, they would arrive back at the port that saw them depart.
Thus, with the names of Galeón de Manila, Nao de China, Naves de la seda or Galleón de Acapulco, the trade and merchandise that concentrated in Manila and from different and remote regions of the Far East, had as their first destination the Acapulco port.
The government of the Philippines -dependent of the viceroys of New Spain-, with a view to storing the various and valuable merchandise that would be transported, built a gigantic warehouse in the port of Manila that received the name of Parian, the famous Parian of the Sangleyes. That construction, which could be compared to a modern supply center, stored all the Asian products destined for trade with New Spain; Merchandise from Persia, India, Indochina, China and Japan were concentrated there, whose drivers had to remain in that place until their products were shipped.
Little by little, the name of Parian was given in Mexico to the markets destined to sell typical products of the region where they were located. The most famous was the one located in the center of Mexico City, which disappeared back in the 1940s, but those of Puebla, Guadalajara and Tlaquepaque, among the most recognized, still remain with great commercial success.
In the Parian de los Sangleyes there was a favorite pastime: cockfighting, which would soon take a letter of naturalization in our country; Few are the fans of this type of event who are aware of their Asian origin.
The galleon that sailed from Manila in August 1621 bound for Acapulco, along with its traditional merchandise, brought a group of Orientals destined to work as servants in the Mexican palaces. There was among them a Hindu girl disguised as a boy whom her companions in misfortune called Mirra, and who was baptized before leaving with the name of Catharina de San Juan.
That maiden, who for many of her biographers was a member of a royal family of India and in circumstances not clarified kidnapped and sold as a slave, had as the final destination of that trip the city of Puebla, where the wealthy merchant Don Miguel Sosa adopted her. Well, he had no children. In that city he enjoyed fame for his exemplary life, as well as for his strange dresses embroidered with beads and sequins, which gave rise to the female outfit with which Mexico is identified almost all over the world, the famous China Poblana costume, which This is how its original carrier was called in life, whose mortal remains are buried in the church of the Society of Jesus in the Angelopolitan capital. Regarding the handkerchief that we know popularly as a bandana, it also has an orient origin and it also came with the Nao de China from Kalicot, in India. In New Spain it was called palicot and time popularized it as a bandana.
The famous Manila shawls, garments worn by the aristocracy, were transformed from the seventeenth century until today they become the beautiful Tehuana costume, one of the most sumptuous feminine outfits in our country.
Finally, the jewelry work with the filigree technique with which Mexico achieved great prestige, was developed based on the teaching of some oriental artisans who arrived on those voyages of the famous Galleon.
