Catarina de San Juan was a slave woman who was brought to the Philippines in the 1610s on her way to Mexico, where she became a beata of great renown. Her experiences in the slave markets of Cochin and Manila suggest that Portuguese traders played a key role as the primary suppliers of Asian slaves to the Philippines. This paper argues that Portuguese slavers made a significant contribution to the Manila economy by providing an important labour force that helped build and maintain the colony from 1580 to 1640, the years of Iberian Union or, from the Portuguese perspective, the “Spanish Captivity”. One-crown rule gave Portuguese traders free trade access to Manila, allowing them to meet the city's demand for this important commodity. The slave trade's volume and profits testify to its social and economic significance and suggests that the Portuguese helped sustain the Philippines, even as they faced the logistical difficulties and legal barriers evident in Catarina's story. This paper shows that the forced migration of individuals like Catarina was a notable outcome of “Spain's Asian presence”—less significant in economic terms than the transfer of silver and textiles, but no less important in human terms.

Where do episodes of colonising failure fit into the historiography of European expansion? Almost by definition, this field, especially those aspects of it concerned with colonial social formation, privileges the study of those colonies which became established. Nor does an enquiry into failure have much to offer to those who have adopted the increasingly popular “Atlantic” perspective on European overseas activity. The students in this school of thought stress the importance of the commercial and social links between European-American settlements, as well as with Africa and Europe. These were forged through the unprecedented movement of people and commodities generated by early modern overseas activity, especially across the Atlantic Ocean. These connections and the corresponding mingling of peoples from four continents constitute the key elements in the development of “modernity” and the creation of a manifestly new world.

The middle decades of the sixteenth century witnessed one of the most dramatic and unexpected transformations in the history of long-distance intercontinental commerce: the revival of the transit spice trade through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, following a period of nearly fifty years during which it had been redirected almost in its entirety through the Portuguese-controlled route around the Cape of Good Hope. And yet, while modern scholars have been aware of this sea change in global commerce for generations, the reasons behind it still remain a subject of debate. Numerous explanations have been proposed, ranging from changes in the international demand for spices to corruption within the Portuguese administration. Until now, however, none has taken into account what may be the most important factor of all: the rising power of Ottoman corsairs, whose predatory raids against Portuguese targets were instrumental in subverting the Estado da India's system for controlling trade in the western Indian Ocean.

The Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, or National Archives of Indonesia (located in South Jakarta), offers some intriguing possibilities for researchers wishing to write transnational histories of the country over a range of time periods. The voluminous materials stretch back to the seventeenth century, and indeed anyone looking for documents or data on the development of the country should really pass through here, though scholars often spend much of their research time in the Netherlands if they have to make a choice. This can be a mistake in some cases: there are real, often undiscovered riches in the Arsip Nasional that make a sustained trip worth the effort. The present article looks at one aspect of these riches—materials usable for writing transnational histories of Indonesia—as a window into this archive. We have divided our discussion into two parts. The first examines some of the sources that can be used for writing transnational Islamic histories of the archipelago, and the second examines documents and collections that can be used for writing about the Chinese diaspora to Indonesia and connections generally between China and the islands. These are only two of the possible approaches to take, but they are two of the main ones. We hope that once informed about these sources, other scholars will make better use of these considerable riches, which shed important light on Indonesian history as a whole.