Spanish maritime experience in Southern Africa during the early modern period

Abstract

Apparently, the Treaty of Tordesillas dismissed the possibility of Spanish shipping via Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. The preferred route to Asia was via Cape Horn or Acapulco. In this article we will show that access to Southern Africa was not entirely closed to the Spanish between the 16th and 18th centuries. We will analyse shipping in this period and, above all, we will discuss the enlightened reforms of the 18th century that changed the connecting routes between Spain and the Philippines, making them pass through Cape Town, as well as the hostility shown to the Hispanic presence in those waters by great powers like the Netherlands. Based on these connections, we will discuss the exchange of plants between Spain and Southern Africa.