Concealing the empire : the silenced history of the conquest of the Americas transmitted by Jesuit missionaries in late Ming China and its local reception in the Qing period

Hosne, Ana Carolina (author)

Unlike Catholic missions in Spanish and Portuguese America, the Jesuit mission in China had no colonial power on its side. Subjected to local authorities, the missionaries often avoided arousing suspicion with any behavior that could be understood as posing a threat. This situation could impact the information the missionaries transmitted on Chinese soil. Right from the beginning, they engaged in cartographic knowledge production to, among other purposes, prove that they were knowledgeable of parts of the world the Chinese knew little or nothing about, like the Americas. This article examines how the Jesuits dealt with the challenge of conveying information about this continent on Chinese soil, concealing the fact that it had been conquered by men from the same part of the world the missionaries came from, i.e. Ouluoba 歐羅巴. To this end, it particularly analyses the Zhifang waiji 職方外紀 (published in Hangzhou 1623), edited by Jesuit Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) and the literatus Yang Tingyun 楊挺筠 (1557–1627). This survey also ex­amines the reception of the information concerning the Americas by certain Chinese literati in the Qing period.

• Language: English
• Keywords: the Americas, Zhifang waiji, Spanish conquest, Ming China, Qing literati
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 143-172
• Numbering: Vol. 14, no. 2
• ISSN on article: 2232-5131
• DOI: 10.4312/as.2026.14.2.143-172
• Publication date in RUL: 05.11.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Asian studies = Azijske študije
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• COBISS.SI-ID: 265206272

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Zatajeni imperij : Zamolčana zgodovina osvajanja Amerik, ki so jo v poznem obdobju dinastije Ming na Kitajskem širili jezuitski misijonarji, ter njen lokal­ni sprejem v obdobju dinastije Qing

Abstract

Drugače od katoliških misij v španski in portugalski Ameriki je jezuitska misija na Kitaj­skem delovala brez podpore kolonialne moči. Misijonarji, ki so bili podrejeni lokalnim oblastem, so se tako pogosto izogibali vsakršnemu ravnanju, ki bi lahko vzbujalo sume ali bilo razumljeno kot grožnja. Takšna situacija je lahko vplivala na informacije, ki so jih misijonarji posredovali na kitajskem ozemlju. Že od samega začetka so se ukvarjali tudi s pridobivanjem kartografskega znanja, med drugim zato, da bi dokazali, da poznajo dele sveta, o katerih Kitajci niso vedeli ničesar ali pa le malo, kot sta Ameriki. Članek preučuje, kako so jezuiti obravnavali izziv posredovanja informacij o teh celinah na kitaj­skem ozemlju, pri čemer so prikrivali dejstvo, da so ju osvojili ljudje iz istega dela sveta, iz katerega so prišli tudi misijonarji, to je Ouluoba 歐羅巴 (Evropa). V ta namen članek posebej analizira delo Zhifang waiji 職方外紀 (izdano leta 1623 v Hangzhouju), ki sta ga uredila jezuit Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) in učenjak Yang Tingyun 楊挺筠 (1557–1627). Raziskava obenem preučuje tudi, kako so v obdobju dinastije Qing informacije o Ameri­kah sprejemali določeni kitajski učenjaki.

• Keywords: Ameriki, Zhifang waiji, španska osvajanja, Kitajska v obdobju Ming, učenjaki iz obdobja Qing