Lequios, Zipangu and the Legal Eye of Empire: When Spain Officially Named the Philippines

The above image is art, not an actual map.

🪶 THE SMOKING QUILL | June 14, 2025

When the Crown Knew the Islands: Spanish Legal Justification for Philippine Sovereignty Before Jesuit Rewrites

🔍 Context:
Juan de Solórzano Pereira, legal adviser to the Spanish Crown and one of the leading authorities on colonial legal theory, produced De Indiarum Iure in 1629 to justify Spain's rights over the Indies. His references to Luzon, Borneo, and surrounding islands provide not only legal validation but geographic clarity, showing these islands as Spanish territory — clearly mapped, defined, and politically integrated before Jesuit missionary narratives muddied their true identity.

🔥 Key Quote (translated from Latin):

“Denique Bornei, Lequios, Philippinas, & utramque Luzoniam pervagitarunt…”

Translation:

“Finally [they] traversed Borneo, the Lequios, the Philippines, and both parts of Luzon…”

— Disputationem de Indiarum Iure, 1629.

🗺️ Historical Significance:

• Sovereign Recognition: The Philippines, including Luzon and Borneo, were already recognized Spanish holdings by 1629. There was no ambiguity about their identity or geographic placement.

• Grouped islands: Borneo, Lequios, Philippines, Java — This clearly shows these regions were treated as related and collectively abundant, matching classical descriptions of Chryse (Golden Island) and Aurea Chersonesus (Golden Peninsula). That is not Japan, nor Ryukyu. Aurea was ALWAYS an island in credible history regardless of Ptolemy's ignorance.

• Pre-Jesuit Authority: This represents early Jesuit rebranding efforts which shifted geographic labels (e.g., “Lequios”) toward Ryukyu and Zipangu to Japan to bolster missionary glory.

• Legal and Cartographic Integrity: Solórzano reflects official Spanish legal and geopolitical knowledge—unlike later Jesuit sources that reassign identities based on narrative needs rather than fact. Zipangu was already being moved and now Lequios – both out of the Philippines. The problem is both are called fairy tales today because Japan and Ryukyu fail to live up to the standard that the Philippines embodied.

• Scaliger's “Compendium Orbis” — Julius Caesar Scaliger is cited as calling this region the “Compendium of the World” for its rich abundance — reinforcing that Southeast Asia (not Japan) was the ancient land of gold and trade. This also obliterates any claim of Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, India, or even the Malay Peninsula as the ancient Land of Gold of the Bible.

🔥 The Real Chryse and Zipangu — Not Japan

Despite what Solórzano Pereira claims in 1629 — equating Zipangri with Japan and calling it “formerly Chryse” — this is part of the Jesuit-influenced revisionism that began after the original Portuguese and Spanish maps had already placed:

• Chryse (Chryse Regio, Aurea) in the Philippines since 43 A.D.

• Zipangu (Cipangu, Zipangri) which Marco Polo placed Southeast of South China in the Philippines with the resources 👉 in and around Luzon, not Japan. Over 600 years of maps affirm this as the Philippines, not Japan.

📍 Why It’s Important:

• Legal Designation: Solórzano was not a traveler or a Jesuit — he was a jurist representing the Crown of Spain.

• His inclusion of Lequios alongside the Philippines and Luzon proves Lequios was not an alternate or unknown place, but a known, integrated region of the Spanish East Indies.

• Geographic Confirmation: This text officially anchors Lequios in the Philippines — not in Japan or Ryukyu — and associates it with Borneo and Luzon, not Okinawa or Kyushu.

• Chronological Significance: Coming a century after the earliest Portuguese references, this 1629 Spanish work cements the identification of Lequios with Philippine geography in official royal thought.

🧠 Jesuit Contrast:

While Solórzano places Lequios clearly in the Philippines, Jesuit sources — such as those from Xavier’s circle — increasingly obscure or reassign the name toward Ryukyu, often without cartographic or legal basis.

They had already moved Zipangu into Japan at this point in error, but someone forgot to tell the most credible cartographers of their age who continued to plot it in the Philippines all the way to 1744.

🚨 Smoking Quill Conclusion:

This is not merely a mention — it is a legal codification by the Spanish Empire’s top legal thinker on the Indies. And in his book, Lequios = Philippines, period. He allowed the thinking that Japan was Zipangu, which he never should have.

#SmokingQuill #LequiosIsPhilippines #JesuitGeography #ZipanguTruth #ChryseFound #MappedBeforeXavier #JesuitTrailOfTears #AncientMaps #PhilippinesHistory #BiblicalLands