Literary Cartography in the European Travel Accounts on Mindanao in the late 17th and 18th centuries

Early European travel accounts to Southeast Asia abound since the early journeys of Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama and Magellan. The European travel accounts created an imaginative geography of Mindanao as the island of pearls in their economic, political and scientific networks. This study will analyze the three British travel accounts on Mindanao: William Dampier, Alexander Dalrymple, and Thomas Forrest in the late 17th and 18th centuries, in comparison with the other Spanish, Italian and French travelers in the same period. It addresses three main areas of study: Literary Cartography of Mindanao, the contribution to Natural History with the description and collection of samples for trade and medicinal purposes, and the relations between the European traveler and the indigenous intermediary who provided local knowledges that were integrated into the European scientific and political networks. The published accounts would also form part of the archive that created an image of Mindanao for future European travelers.