Can the Devil Cross the Deep Blue Sea? Imagining the Spanish Pacific and Vast Early America from Below

José María Rodríguez enslaved his soul to Satan in Mexico City in 1779, signing a binding contract written in his own blood to avoid being sent to the Philippines as a convict soldier. When he arrived in Manila, Rodríguez contemplated whether the devil could have followed him across the Pacific Ocean. He grappled with questions of distance and imperial power through the lens of demonology during his years of servitude. This article analyzes the records of the Inquisition’s investigation into Rodríguez’s satanic pact to examine how he not only experienced but also imagined the Spanish Pacific. It shows that subalterns played an important part in the invention of the Spanish Pacific as an idea, challenging assumptions that European elites alone forged this geospatial scheme. Rodríguez conceived of a vast early Hispano-America that encompassed the territories that Spain claimed to rule in Asia and the Americas, and his words and actions helped to bring the concept of the Spanish Pacific into being.