Keywords

Document Network System, Hispanic world, modernity

Objectives

This research draws attention to and clarifies the nature of the document network systems that criss-crossed the domains of government, law, finance, religion, and military affairs to form a mechanism for global expansion of the Spanish empire starting in the late fifteenth century.
During the early modern period, document networks centered on Madrid but spreading to cover the aboriginal inhabitants of colonized regions, spread across Asia and America. Expansion of these systems was the fundamental principle by which Spain maintained its rule across its vast empire. It was supported by ideological commitment to the supremacy of the document, which became the mechanism for imposing Spain’s rule. At the nodes of this network were structured flows of goods, people, and information, providing the foundations for a system of government for a global empire whose size was unprecedented in modern European history.
We will investigate archives in Spain, Latin America and Asia, gather materials, and analyze their contents from the perspectives of cultural anthropology, historical anthropology, literacy, historical materials theory, historiography, ethnohistory, document management theory, and archival science.  Experts in all of these areas will be brought together in an effort to construct a comprehensive understanding of imperial Spain’s document network systems and their development in Spain’s colonies.

Research Results

This joint research, whose central theme was to elucidate the document network system in the Spanish Empire, defined the following three items as the priority research issues when starting activities in 2014:
(1) Comparative study regarding the material aspect of documents
(2) Determination of the document distribution process in the Spanish Empire
(3) Determination of document dynamism in places around colonies
The following is a summary of the results that the study group gained through discussions on these items.
As regards (1) Comparative study regarding the material aspect of documents, based on an analysis of baptism registers by missions of the Society of Jesus in the Moxos plains that occupy part of the Amazon in South America, for example, the report by Akira Saito shed light on the dual process of dwelling together in which organization principles of document space and geographical space responded to each other while the report by Nozomi Mizota discussed the process of changes in the filing system of documents by notary publics in the Wamanga region (Peru) in the 17th century. We were able to tangibly demonstrate the significance of a research perspective of paying attention to ways of documents’ being as material as proposed by our study group in elucidating the basis of existence of the document network system in the Spanish Empire and also the validity of an analytical method that focused on the document management system. We can safely say that we were able to reap a harvest through discussing these reports.
On the second point (2) Determination of the document distribution process in the Spanish Empire, we discussed the report by Yuuko Shimizu that clarified the mechanism of a remote dialogue network that connected the mainland of Spain with the Governor-General of the Philippines and the report by Kazuhisa Takeda that focused on a global information network of the Society of Jesus that deployed missionary work in Spanish America. Through these discussions, we were able to approach the historical background of the document network system that came into existence by including the regions from Europe to America and to Asia and the development process of technological and system infrastructures that were basic requirements from a microscopic perspective, which can be cited as the fruit of our efforts. Meanwhile, in terms of investigating the actual state of cross-disciplinary distribution of documents in the empire, research did not move forward as originally planned and it remains to be addressed further down the road.
Finally as to (3) Determination of document dynamism in places around colonies, we discussed the report by Tetsuya Amino that interpreted the background of native indigenous peoples’ wills prepared in Peru in the 17th century based on several factors, such as religious sentiments, financial interests and documentation practice, and the report by Takafumi Yoshie that clarified the development process of a spontaneous document circulation cycle in cities around Indias based on an analysis of the forms of judicial documents in La Paz in the 18th century. We were able to deepen an understanding of the importance of the role performed by a peripheral society of a colony as a factor that helped stimulate the document network system, which is yet another fruit that this research produced.