Abstract
In 1568 and 1595 the Spanish colonists in Peru, inspired by the Inca legends of lands of great wealth to the west, sent expeditions to find what they believed might be the conjectured Terra Australis and/or King Solomon’s land of Ophir. Under the command of Adelantado Alvaro de Mendaña, these expeditions explored the islands encountered (now known as the Solomon Islands) and interacted with the peoples there, but failed to establish viable colonies. The archaeological record of the 1595 expedition includes the site of Mendaña’s failed Santa Cruz colony, as well as evidence that the ‘lost’ galleon Santa Isabel from this fleet may have attempted to establish its own colony on Makira. While the two sites can potentially be compared to explore aspects of Spanish colonization strategy, an alternative reading of the evidence might suggest that the archaeological distributions of Spanish material on one or both of these sites may be the result of indigenous agency and the reorganization of spiritually dangerous items following these cross-cultural encounters.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the organizers of the Archaeologies of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism Workshop, Sandra Montón-Subías (ICREA, UPF, Barcelona, Spain), María Cruz Berrocal (Universität Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany), and Apen Ruiz Martínez (UOC-UIC, Barcelona, Spain), for their generosity in allowing me to participate.
The Beyond the New World project is funded by the Australian Research Council grant DP1093168 and is undertaken in collaboration with the Solomon Islands National Museum. The research was conducted under permits from the Solomon Islands National Government and the Makira-Ulawa and Temotu Provincial Governments. The discovery aspect of this project owes much to the original 1970s investigators: the late Prof. Roger Green (Auckland University), Prof. Jim Allen (Latrobe University), and Michael W. Kaschko (formerly University of Hawaii). My particular thanks to my field directors Natalie Blake and Richard Tuffin for enduring a range of exciting conditions over many field seasons, as well as to Dr David Roe (Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority) and my colleagues at the Solomon Islands National Museum: Lawrence Kiko, Stephen Manebosa, the late John Keope, and Director Tony Heorake. Also, thanks to Sarah Kelloway who did her PhD on the Pamua and Graciosa Bay ceramics, and to my many other students and field assistants. Bishop Karibongi of Hanuato’o (Makira) Diocese and Principal Samuel Aruhu of St Stephens School Pamua kindly gave their permissions to stay at Pamua and work on those parts of the site on school grounds. Deputy Principal Fr Paterson Tako and the rest of the staff and students of St Stephens School made us welcome during our visit, and our thanks to Mrs. Noelene Haghamaoto and Chief Ramoni for their knowledge and assistance. I am also grateful to Lonsdale Meapoli for allowing us to work on the Graciosa Bay site and for his hospitality throughout the several seasons there, as well as to Frank Samui, Martin, and Henry Note of Santa Cruz for their knowledge and assistance. This chapter is dedicated to my wife Melissa and daughter Eliza who accompanied me on the 2012 Graciosa Bay season, and to my son William who probably wonders where his daddy has gone while I am busy writing papers.
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Gibbs, M. (2016). The Failed Sixteenth Century Spanish Colonizing Expeditions to the Solomon Islands, Southwest Pacific: The Archaeologies of Settlement Process and Indigenous Agency. In: Montón-Subías, S., Cruz Berrocal, M., Ruiz Martínez, A. (eds) Archaeologies of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism. Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21885-4_11
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