The project to install a permanent naval station on the South American shores of the Pacific attracted the consensus of Spain's political-intellectual, military, and diplomatic elites during the reign of Isabel II(1844-1868). This article reconstructs the constellation of strategic, economic, legal, and political arguments used by the Spanish monarchy's diplomatic agents to support the need to station warships in its former Pacific dominions. It also identifies these agents' socioeconomic coordinates, networks, and interests, evaluating the factual consequences of their attempts to create the station. We will argue that Spanish political elites conceived the naval station as a critical element in the new repertoire of instruments of power necessary for configuring a "second Spanish empire" based on the ideological postulates of navalism, pan-Hispanism, and the imperialism of free trade. This case study allows us to make some theoretical contributions to understanding the crucial functions that naval stations performed as elements of imperial power in the nineteenth century.
This article analyzes the importance of Korean skilled workers in Japan during and after the East Asian War of 1592-1598. By tracing the story of the Korean Pak Hoin and his descendants, this article demonstrates the close relationship between domains and migrants. In doing so, it demonstrates that migrants were not only widespread throughout early Tokugawa Japan, but also that their experiences were highly varied. By placing Hoin's experience next to that of other Korean migrants, this article identifies some of the factors that influenced migrant experiences and the varying impact they had on their local environments.
