page_title: Chinese people in Spain
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese people in Spain / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A Chinese-run clothing shop in Zaragoza Español: "Lenceria Oriental", una tienda en Zaragoza
context_page_description: Chinese people in Spain form the ninth-largest non-European Union foreign community in Spain. As of 2009, official figures showed 145,425 Chinese citizens residing in Spain; however, this figure does not include people with origins in other Overseas Chinese communities, nor Spanish citizens of Chinese origin or descent.
context_section_description: The first recorded arrivals of Chinese people to Spain date from the late 16th century. Bernardino de Escalante in his Discurso de la navegación... (one of the first European books on China, published in 1577) says that among his sources of information were "Chinese themselves, who came to Spain" ("los mesmos naturales Chinas que an venido à España"). Juan González de Mendoza in his History of the great and mighty kingdom of China, wrote that in 1585 "three merchants of China" arrived in Mexico "and neuer staied till they came into Spaine and into other kingdomes further off." 
  A legal case was brought before the Council of the Indies involving two Chinese men in Seville, one a freeman, Esteban Cabrera, and the other a slave, Diego Indio, against Juan de Morales, Diego's owner. Diego called on Esteban to give evidence as a witness on his behalf. Diego recalled that he was taken as a slave by Francisco de Casteñeda from Mexico, to Nicaragua, then to Lima in Peru, then to Panama, and eventually to Spain via Lisbon, while he was still a boy. Esteban testified that he knew Diego as a boy in Limpoa (Liampó, the Portuguese name of Ningbo, a Chinese city in Zhejiang), which he claimed to be part of the Spanish colonial indies. This was a false claim since Liampo was not under Spanish rule, and it is speculated that Esteban and Diego lied about it in order to help Diego win his freedom, playing on the fact that the Spanish conducting the case were ignorant of Spain's Asian affairs. It worked in their favor and in July 1575 the Council issued a ruling siding with Diego. Juana de Castañeda also testified on behalf of Diego, claiming that she knew Diego in Lima and she also married Esteban during the ordeal. Juana was a native woman from Lima. Juana was around 40 years old when she testified on behalf of Diego in 1572. Another native woman from Panama, Isabel García also testified in favor of Diego, saying she knew him while he was in Panama. Esteban's will dated 15 March 1599 left his property to his daughter Francisca de Altamirana and her husband Miguel de la Cruz who was a tailor and probably Chinese like Esteban. A family of tailors was started by Esteban. Tristán de la China was taken as a slave by the Portuguese, while he was still a boy and in the 1520s was obtained by Cristobál de Haro in Lisbon, and taken to live in Seville and Valladolid. He was paid for his service as a translator on the 1525 Loaísa expedition, during which he was still an adolescent. The survivors, including Tristan, were shipwrecked for a decade until 1537 when they were returned to Lisbon by a Portuguese ship. Records from 7 May 1618 show that Hernando de los Ríos Coronel was permitted to bring from the Philippines to Spain two Chinese slaves, named Cosme and Juan de Terrenate, who was married to a woman named Manuela. Several Asians took advantage of laws requiring that the Spanish state pay for their return to their homeland after being trafficked to Spain illegally. A Chinese named Juan Castelindala Moreno petitioned to be sent home in 1632.
  Asian slaves who were shipped from the Spanish Philippines in the Manila-Acapulco galleons to Acapulco in New Spain (Mexico) were all called "Chino" which meant Chinese, although in reality they were of diverse origins, including Japanese, Malays, Javanese, Timorese, and people from Bengal, India, Ceylon, Makassar, Tidore, Terenate, and Chinese.- The people in this community of diverse Asians in Mexico were called "los indios chinos" by the Spanish. Most of these slaves were male and were obtained from Portuguese slave traders who obtained them from Portuguese colonial possessions and outposts of the Estado da India, which included parts of India, Bengal, Malacca, Indonesia, Nagasaki in Japan, and Macau. Some Spanish temporarily brought some of these Chino slaves to Spain itself from Mexico, where owning and showing off a Chino slave showed high class since Spanish aristocrats viewed their Chino slaves as fascinating trendy symbols of class. A Spanish woman, Doña María de Quesada y Figueroa, in New Spain owned
caption: A Chinese wholesale clothing store in Zaragoza. The sign is in simplified characters, indicating comparatively recent (and PRC-based) origin of the local Chinese community.
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