Iberian Asia : the strategies of Spanish and Portuguese empire building, 1540-1700
Kevin Joseph Sheehan, University of California, Berkeley (Degree granting institution)
This dissertation presents an historical analysis of the relations between the Spanish and Portuguese along the frontier of their imperial possessions in East and Southeast Asia, and the Southwest Pacific, from the middle of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. This political frontier was created as the antemeridian of the Atlantic line of demarcation initially adjudicated by the papacy in 1493, and subsequently modified by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The incapacity of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cosmographers and cartographers to accurately define and depict this boundary would give rise to ongoing tensions between the Spanish and Portuguese, both on the fringes of their respective empires, and at their courtly centers. Matters were further complicated in 1580, when Philip II of Spain acquired the throne of Portugal. From 1580-1640, the Spanish Habsburgs ruled as lords of two theoretically distinct empires -- that of Spain and Portugal. This study explores the complexities of governance that resulted from this union of crowns
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2008
2008