Episode S5 · Ep 21 March 15, 2024 14 min 11s

S5E11: Sweet Carolines

Sea snakes and scientists, popes and Pacific islands all star in this wide-ranging episode. As Germany and Spain threaten to go to war over a chain of islands, the Spaniards feared that the diplomatic ruckus kicked up by the Caroline Crisis would also swallow up their colony next door: the Philippines!

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P.S. My voiceover partner-in-crime, Anya, is on extended leave, so I’ll be voicing the entirety of this episode.

The book version of this podcast is called Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, 1565-1946. ⁠⁠Purchase here⁠⁠. (An ebook version is ⁠⁠also available in Amazon⁠⁠.)

References:

Weston, Nathaniel Parker (2012). “Scientific Authority, Nationalism, and Colonial Entanglements between Germany, Spain, and the Philippines, 1850 to 1900” [doctoral dissertation]. University of Washington.

Weston, Nathaniel Parker (2021). Specters of Germany: Colonial Rivalry and Scholarship in the Philippine Reform Movement and Revolution. Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Hanlon, David (1988). Upon a Stone Altar: A History of the Island of Pohnpei to 1890. University of Hawaii Press.

Hezel, Francis X. (1995). Strangers in Their Own Land: A Century of Colonial Rule in the Caroline and Marshall Islands. University of Hawaii Press.

“German Gunboats and Pacific Natives” (14 February 1887). The West Australian.

“Jose Rizal, suspected spy, deciphered” (19 September 2012). National Historical Commission of the Philippines. https://nhcp.gov.ph/jose-rizal-suspected-spy-deciphered/