The Iberian Empire through Epistolary Networks of Cultural Agents

This project is devoted to the intercontinental narratives of European missionaries and explorers who traveled transoceanic routes between Europe, Asia, and America in the Early Modern period (1400-1700, broadly defined). Spanish and Portuguese missionaries arrived in Asia where they consulted and obtained information from local peoples, which later served as the foundation for future colonial projects, whether literary, military, legal, or more broadly, cultural. Apart from producing bilingual manuscripts and other legal documents, Catholic missionaries shared their new findings through a sophisticated epistolary system, which spanned the Spanish and Portuguese empires and shaped all facets of European knowledge-production well into the eighteenth century. These letters not only reported current encounters; they also put names to new places and cultures around the world.