Joaquim Magalhães de Castro
As a result of a long contact, it was not long before the Portuguese influence was felt in the city of Manila.
In 1606 a local Misericórdia was created, “a unique case in the Spanish empire,” inspired by the Macau counterpart founded in 1569, which in turn followed the model of that of Lisbon, which was the matrix of all the mercies built by the Portuguese in the geographical space that it mediates Goa and Nagasaki.
Aware of the common interest, the double-crowned head of Philip II of Portugal, III of Spain, would incite the Iberian subjects to cooperation in order to quell the disastrous effects of the Protestant rebels, reminding them at the same time of the continued ban on the deal between Macau and the America of Eldorado.
Responding with the same coin, Azevedo, subject to force and viceroy of the State of India, also again prohibited the coming of Castilians to China, as he had sent the king, as a chronicler of the Oriental Portuguese Archive recalls, “many provisions and instructions that with serious penalties for the said commerce to cease and that each year the lewdness of those who commit that trip be taken away.”
Azevedo also admitted that this royal ban would only be viable when “the way to Manila was closed” and that “the great loss of the State of India did not originate in the trade between China and the Philippines, but in the silk trade of these islands with Mexico and Japan.”
For Azevedo, the problem was resolved with the interdiction of trade between the Philippines and Mexico, forcing the ships of the Iberian Union to resort to the Cape of Good Hope route, “thus communicating Manila with the State of India,” an action that, in his opinion of the Portuguese nobleman, would help to repel the Dutch from the Indian Ocean.
José Manuel Garcia highlights the curious fact that the “somewhat identical position” was shared by the authorities in Seville, “since in 1610 they were putting pressure on Philip III of Spain against the interests of Spanish from Mexico, prompting the king to send a letter on December 1 of that year to the Marquis of Castelo Rodrigo, offering him the possibility that the trip to the Philippines would be made by the Cape of Good Hope route, even if such an attitude did not take into account the interests of the State of India.”
The fleet of six caravels commanded by the Portuguese Rui Gonçalves de Sequeira, the only one to embark on a journey “between the Iberian Peninsula and the Philippines along the Cape of Good Hope route,” is in line with the ideas of Azevedo and the majority of Seville. Four of these caravels arrived in Manila in August 1614, six months after leaving Europe, one staying in Brazil and the other in Angola.
Despite punctual collaborations, the relationship between the two Iberian peoples would continue to be tense, and the common Dutch enemy that relied on this weakness to settle the camp would be taken advantage of in the region, as it happened.
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