ABSTRACT
This chapter on “Asians in the Iberian world” might better be titled “Iberians in Asia”. 1 The first implies that the Iberian empires were the dominant political structures in this part of the world, while the latter recognises that Iberians were a minority population that wielded economic, political, and religious power only in small enclaves, mainly fortified port cities, where their main purpose was trade. Iberian colonists in these commercial entrepôts categorised and interacted with indigenous people according to their own determinants. People in Asia who were Christians were allies, and it was they who maintained relations with Iberians for their own political ends.
