September 26, 2025
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

 Presenter: Alfred Wang

In 1605, a rumor spread in South China that the Jesuits—along with their Portuguese, Dutch, and Japanese allies as well as some Chinese rebels—plotted to overthrow the Ming Empire. Supposedly, Lazzaro Cattaneo, an Italian Jesuit working in Macau, wanted to make himself the lord of China. In the upheaval that ensued, a Chinese Jesuit brother Huang Mingsha—referred to in Jesuit texts as Francisco Martins—was accused of being a spy of Macau and subsequently lynched in a Cantonese jail. Although the Jesuit mission in China often receives ample scholarly attention, the tragic death of Huang Mingsha has never been fully examined. Cross-referencing Jesuit and Chinese sources, this essay examines Europhobia in relation to ethnic authenticity in the Ming Empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The story of mutual admiration, long held as the canon of early modern Sino-European exchange, ignores a crucial factor: In fact, to construct a positive image of Europe, the Jesuits and their Chinese colleagues had to contend with the accusations of disloyalty and xenophobic attacks.

Yixin Alfred Wang is a fifth-year PhD candidate in History at the University of Toronto and a fellow of the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies. His research interests include alterity, intermediation, and diplomacy in the cross-cultural encounters in early modern Eurasia, with a special emphasis on the connection between the Italian Peninsula and the Chinese Empire in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is the recipient of several awards including the Tracy-Connaught Award.

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