Enemy at the gates: Macao, Manila and the "Pinhal Episode" (end of the 16th century)

• Autor(a) principal: Pinto, Paulo Jorge de Sousa
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/13527
• topic: Pinhal; Macao; Manila; Philippines; China; Japan; Canton; Macau; Filipinas; China; Japão; Cantão; ピニャル（東涌）; マカオ; マニラ; フィリピン; 中国; 日本; 広東

At the end of the 16th Century the authorities in Canton allowed a Spanish vessel to stay in the port of ‘Pinhal’. She had been sent by the governor of Manila with the likely aim of opening a direct channel of communication and trade between Guangdong and the Philippines. Macao reacted immediately, vigorously albeit cautiously, considering this a threat to its role as intermediary in China’s contacts with the exterior. It was the climax in the heightening tension between the Portuguese, who had reached the Far East almost a century earlier, and the Spanish who had recently settled on the island of Luzon. Although a brief, inconsequent period, it nevertheless assumed great importance within the framework of the disputes between the Portuguese and the Spanish in Asia, but also of the relationship between them, China and Japan. This article attempts to analyse the ‘Pinhal episode’ in the light of the unstable, complex political and diplomatic context of the time and of the region, presenting an attempted reconstitution of the events in view of the available sources and linking this unusual event to various issues involving Macao’s role and function and the effects of Castilian competition on access to several routes, ports and markets of the Far East.