MESA, Arizona – September 2, 2026 – Mesa Community College anthropology faculty and LLILAS Benson Digital Scholarship Research Fellow David Gowey presented his research during the LLILAS Benson Digital Scholarship Showcase on August 28, 2026.
Gowey’s research centers on Spanish colonial history in the Philippines, with a particular focus on a 1640 document written by Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera y Gaviria, Governor-General of the Philippines. The manuscript, housed in the University of Texas at Austin’s Benson Latin American Collection, details what Spanish authorities described as a revolt by Chinese residents of the Philippines protesting legal discrimination.
Gowey examines the governor’s firsthand account of the military campaign that followed — an event that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 17,000 to 22,000 Chinese residents.
By studying this report alongside other contemporary accounts, including religious narratives and writings about figures such as Juan Imbin, Gowey works to reconstruct a holistic picture about the uprising and its aftermath.
“What surprised me the most in carrying out this project was that none of the surveyed secondary literature cited his account, even in extended treatments of the massacre, making me suspect that this manuscript is not well-known among scholars of the 17th-century Philippines and Latin America,” said Gowey.
Gowey’s research investigates how colonial leaders shaped their narratives for audiences in Mexico City and Spain, highlighting what may have been exaggerated, omitted or reframed to protect their reputations.
Through transcription, paleographic analysis and digital tools such as ArcGIS mapping, Gowey aims to make these early modern documents more accessible while deepening historians’ understanding of colonial power, resistance and cross-cultural conflict in the Spanish-Pacific world. His project is publicly available through ArcGIS StoryMaps.
The LLILAS Benson Digital Scholarship provides stipends of up to $3,000 for scholars to develop projects based on LLILAS research and Benson collection strengths in Latin American, U.S. Latine, African Diaspora or Indigenous Studies using data, born-digital sources and/or the Benson’s digitized holdings.
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Media contact: Dawn Zimmer, 480-461-7892, [email protected]
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