Paracel and Spratly Islands in the European’s knowledge from the seventeenth to the nineteenth-century centuries: a view from contemporary English documents

Abstract

After the age of exploration, international trade routes were established and strongly developed, including the Eurasian international trade links passing through the East Sea. Following those sea voyages, journey diaries, historical records, geographical works and maps were produced, reflecting territories, seas and islands across the globe, including those in Vietnam with archipelagoes of Paracel and Spratly. This article focuses on exploiting information from English documents relevant to the Paracel and Spratly islands published between the 17th and 19th centuries to outline the changes in Western knowledge about these two archipelagoes. The investigation is necessary to not only re-examine Vietnam's historical sources but also present an objective view of Vietnam's sovereignty over these two archipelagos.