Macau’s Nascent Constitutionalism During the Ming-Qing Transition

Abstract

To the Ming Dynasty, Portuguese Macau’s raison d’etre was its economic vitality. Chinese authorities agreed to tolerate the foreign presence on their shore in exchange for their service in suppressing regional pirate threats, acting as middlemen in trade with Japan, and the regular payment of “land rent” and hefty bribes. Such being the case, a strong Ming Dynasty might have revoked their leasehold as a series of traumatic events befell the city in the late 1630s and early 1640s. The arrival of the English, collapse of the Japan trade, and fall of Portuguese Malacca in rapid succession caused the once bountiful city to descend into madness. And yet beleaguered Macau endured, in large part due to the tireless initiative of its Senate, who found the wherewithal to outlast this series of catastrophes while largely preserving Macau’s nascent, legislative-led constitutional order. This article relies upon constitutional ethnography to sketch that order as it existed at Macau during the fall of the Ming Dynasty, between the years 1618 and 1683, with special emphasis upon constitutional moments involving the interplay between the Macau-Portuguese government and relevant Ming, Southern Ming, and Qing authorities.