Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture has gone to great lengths to prove the Lequios Islands are the Philippines. He has been overly reliant on old and imprecise maps to prove his thesis. 16th century maps have the Lequios Islands in the north and to the east of China. It is Tim's contention that the Lequios Islands were always the Philippines but the name shifted north to the Ryukyu Islands as part of a Jesuit cartographic cover-up.
🪶 THE SMOKING QUILL | May 19, 2025
Cartographers of Control – How the Jesuits Buried the Lands of Gold
🌍 The Realignment Begins
The sixteenth century was a battleground of maps, monarchs, and missionaries. At the center of this struggle was a secret campaign to rewrite the known geography of the world. Today, we follow the smoking quill back to its hand—and it belongs to the Jesuits.
⚫ Who Were the Jesuits?
Formed in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola, the Society of Jesus was initially created to counter the Protestant Reformation. Its members were militant intellectuals, deeply tied to Catholic monarchs and embassies. Many came from converso Jewish families, including Loyola himself, a Marrano by origin. They wielded not just theology, but political and cartographic power—becoming confessors to kings and educators to empires.
🔍 Rewriting History with Ink
As Jesuit missionaries spread across the East, a shift occurred. The Philippines, once labeled as Cipangu and Lequios by explorers like Columbus, Behaim, Magellan, and Cabot, suddenly began to vanish from those identities. Instead, Jesuit accounts moved these legendary lands of gold—Cipangu and Lequios—into Japan and Ryukyu.
⚖️ The Suppression of Truth
The Jesuits were expelled from multiple nations between the 17th and 18th centuries—Portugal (1759), France (1764), and Spain (1767). Why? Treason, espionage, and banking intrigue. Even U.S. Founding Fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson warned that if the Jesuits were restored, they would put democracy itself to the test.
When they returned, so did the suppression. Map labels vanished. Cipangu became Japan. Lequios floated to Okinawa. Only this time, they would move to silence opposition.
📣 Conclusion: The Cartographers of Control
The Society of Jesus did not merely bring religion—they redrew borders, erased truths, and buried the lands of gold under layers of false narrative. This is why the Philippines disappeared from its ancient legacy as Chryse, Ophir, Tarshish, Lequios, and Cipangu.
In a previous article I said I did not need to examine Tim's alleged cartographic evidence because his core thesis is fictitious. Tim did not like that one bit.
The grotesque dismissal of the 20+ maps we have put forth is proof this not an actual blogger, certainly not an academic or scholar, but a hack who thrives on defamation, bullying and cyber libel. Well, we don't back down to bullies. The law will deal with him soon.
https://thegodculturephilippines.com/the-bifurcated-island-of-luzon-lequios-and-lucoes-rediscovered/
There is simply no need to examine all those maps. Imprecise 16th century maps are not indicative of a conspiracy to conceal the locations of the Lequios Islands. The journals and other writings of 16th century explorers identified the Lequios Islands as a place in the north near Japan. Pires, Pinto, Barbosa, and other writers all make a difference between the Lequios Islands and Luzon. Yet, despite their plain words Tim twists those writings to fit his preconceived notions of the Philippines.
In 1958 George H. Kerr, a former diplomat who worked in China, published a book titled Okinawa: The History of an Island People. When discussing 16th century trade between Okinawa and Southeast Asia he brings to witness Pires, Barbosa, and others. Kerr does not waste time attempting to decipher 16th century maps. Instead he goes straight the horse's mouth which is the description of Lequios Island and its people by European explorers.
One of his citations is particularly interesting.
The first book on China printed in Europe was brought out in 1569, the record of the Dominican Father Gaspar da Cruz. In it he noted that there had been misunderstanding concerning the location of the Ryukyus, and has this to say:
"It is an island which standeth in the sea of China, little more or less than thirty leagues from China itself.
What makes this noteworthy is Father da Cruz corrects the distance the Lequios Islands are from China. In a Spanish edition of Barbosa's book it is written that they are 175 leagues east of China. Father Gaspar da Cuz says that is wrong. The correct distance is only 30 leagues. Timothy Jay Schwab has latched onto Barbosa's 175 leagues claiming that proves the Lequios Islands are the Philippines. All it really proves is that whoever inserted that distance into Barbosa's book was wrong.
The reason Tim is so hung up on misidentifying the Lequios Islands as the Philippines is because Spanish Document 98 says the Lequios Islands are Ophir and Tarshish. Magellan allegedly rewrote his copy of Duarte Barbosa's book by scratching out Lequios and writing Ophir and Tarshish. Though he does not mention any of that in his book, George H. Kerr is not unaware of the identification of Lequios with Ophir. He lists the following article in his bibliography:
Denucé, J.: "Les îles Lequios (Formose et Riu-Kiu) et Ophir" Bulletin de la Societé Royal Belge de Géographie (Bruxelles) v. XXXI No. 6 (1907) pp. 435-461.
I have previously written about that article
here. Of this article Tim writes:
This Smoking Quill exposé reveals a monumental confirmation buried in a 1907 French academic journal. The article verifies that Odoardo Barbosa and Ferdinand Magellan identified the Lequios Islands as the Biblical lands of Ophir and Tarshish, not speculatively, but in a formal manuscript preserved in the Archives of the Indies in Seville. This record, suppressed in later editions, was part of a Spanish government submission prior to Magellan’s expedition to the Moluccas.
The identification of the Lequios Islands as Ophir and Tarshish was official Spanish policy, documented by Magellan, recorded by Barbosa, and submitted to the Crown. The editorial erasure that followed was not an academic oversight—it was cartographic and historical suppression.
This exposé restores the truth, not by conjecture, but by returning to the primary source in Seville that declared the Philippines the Land of Gold—Ophir
Tim is actually saying the Lequios Islands, which he misidentifies as the Philippines, really are Ophir and Tarshish because Magellan said so. Whereas Tim has decided to drown in the deep waters of unsubstantiated and imaginary conspiracy theories George H. Kerr preferred to swim in the pond of reliable written sources.
The following section from Kerr's book can be found on pages 124-130.
OKINAWAN TRADE WITH THE INDIES AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Upon the first contact with the marauding Europeans in 1511, the Okinawans began slowly to retreat from ports of Southeast Asia, trading over shorter sea routes and in less varied goods until, in 1611, they found themselves cut off from the south and confined to a narrow range of commerce with China at Ch'uang-chou and with Satsuma in Japan.
Events in the 16th century proved that no prosperous trading port in Asia was secure from the Japanese wako or the European conquistadors. Behind the Okinawans, to the north, were the Japanese, watching with deep concern the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English adventurers in turn come up from India through the Indies, Malaya, the Philippines, Formosa, and the Ryukyu Islands. The white men were willing to trade, but only on their own terms; they gave no quarter to anyone bold enough or foolish enough to refuse their demands. The more prosperous the port, the greater the danger that it would be seized and sacked, or declared a possession newly "discovered" for a Christian king.
It is to Portuguese accounts we must turn, however, for notices of the position, the reputation, and the activities of the Okinawans in Southeast Asia. Our principal sources (reproduced in annotated translations by the Hakluyt Society) are the Suma Oriental of Thomé Pires, written about 1512-15; the Book of Duarte Barbosa, completed about 1518; and the Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India, prepared by his son from dispatches forwarded by the viceroy to the King of Portugal, Dom Emmanuel. In his immense work Da Asia, Joao de Barros also noted that Portuguese traders were encountering Okinawan ships and merchants at Patani.
Traders at Malacca settled in small communities having common race, language, or national origin. Along the wharves and in the market place the visiting Okinawans brushed shoulders with Moslems from Egypt, Aden, and Mecca, with Abyssinian and Armenian Christians, with Persians, Parsees from India, Turks from Asia Minor, and representatives from many of the small kingdoms and enclaves of India. There were traders from Ceylon, Bengal, and Burma, from Siam, Cochin-China, and Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Timor, and the Moluccas, Borneo and the Philippines. (Pires names sixty nations, cities, or principalities in addition to the men of Lequeos, or Ryukyu.)
Shipping in the roadstead was supervised on behalf of the rajah by an Admiral of the Sea known as the Lasamane, under whose control lay the merchants from China, "Lequeos," Cochin-China, and Champa. On shore the foreigners were controlled by xabandares, to whom the incoming merchants must make gifts. These agents of the rajah “have become rich through this function, because they greatly overtax the merchants; and these put up with everything because their profits are large and also because it is the custom of the country to do so and endure it."
Among the cargoes handled by the Okinawans at Malacca (according to Portuguese accounts) were gold and copper, arms of all kinds, fine gold-leaf and gold-dust lacquerware, excellent fans, paper, colored silks, damask, porcelains, musk, rock-alum, grains, onions, and many other vegetables.
There is a mention of green porcelains brought in by the Okinawans and transshipped to Bengal. Okinawan goods had a high reputation; they were well made and, says Pires, "just as we in our kingdoms speak of Milan, so do the Chinese and all other races speak of the Lequjos [Ryukyus]."
It is evident from these lists that most of the Okinawan cargoes were of goods transshipped from Japan, Korea, and China. The Malacca merchants were aware of this, according to Pires, for: "All that comes from the Lequos is brought by them from Japan. And the Lequeos trade with the people of Japan in cloths, fishing-nets and other merchandise." He notes that the Okinawans picked up cargoes not unlike the cargoes bought by Chinese merchants, and that they took “a great deal of Bengal clothing" and were especially fond of a heavy, brandy-like Malacca wine, shipping it out in quantity. Much of their cargo was paid for by them in gold coinage bearing a distinctive stamp.
As for the people themselves and the distant country from which they came, the Portuguese learned that:
"The Lequeos are called Gores-they are known by either of these names. Lequios is the chief one.
"The king is a heathen, and all the people too, he is a tributary vassal of the king of the Chinese. His island is large and has many people; they have small ships of their own type; they have three or four junks which are continuously buying in China, and they have no more. They trade in China and in Malacca, and sometimes on their own. In China they trade at the port of Foqem [Fukien] which is in the land of China near Canton, a day and a night's sail away. The Malays say to the people of Malacca that there is no difference between Portuguese and Llequos, except that the Portuguese buy women, which the Leqos do not.
"The Lequjos have only wheat in their country, and rice and wines after their fashion, meat and fish in great abundance. They are great draftsmen and armourers. They make gilt coffers, very rich and well- made fans, swords, many arms of all kinds after their fashion...
"They are very truthful men. They do not buy slaves, nor would they sell one of their own men for the whole world, and they would die over this. . . .
"They are white men, well dressed, better than the Chinese, more dignified. They sail to China and take merchandise that goes from Malacca to China, and go to Japan, which is an island seven or eight days' sail distant, and take the gold and copper in the said island in exchange for their merchandise. The Leqios are men who sell their merchandise freely for credit, and if they are lied to when they collect payment, they collect it sword in hand....
"The chief [merchandise] is gold, copper, and arms of all kinds, coffers, boxes . . . with gold leaf veneer, fans, wheat, and their things are well made. They bring a great deal of gold. They are truthful men, —more so than the Chinese-and feared. They bring a great store of paper and silk in colours; they bring musk, porcelain, damask; they bring onions and many vegetables.... The Lequos bring swords worth thirty cruzados each, and many of them.”
Pires may have met the last Okinawans who reached Malacca, in 1511, but the presumption must be that he prepared these notes on the basis of inquiry made among residents of Malacca who were well acquainted with Okinawans, who had come hitherto regularly to trade at the port. If allowance is made for the mistake in believing some of the Japanese wares to be products of Okinawa, the account is a fairly accurate one, though at one point Pires relays as hearsay a story that after escape from peril at sea the Okinawans "buy a beautiful maiden to be sacrificed and behead her on the prow of the junk, and other things like these."
Duarte Barbosa (a cousin of the great Magellan), writing about 1518, describes the Okinawans as "certain white folk, who they say are great and rich merchants. The Malacca people say that they are better men, and richer and more eminent merchants than the Chins [Chinese]. Of these folk we as yet know but little, and they have not yet come to Malacca since it has been under the King our Lord [i.e., since 1511].'
In preparing his Commentaries upon his father's reports, Dalboquerque the Younger repeats most of the information supplied to Lisbon by Pires, but discusses the location of the Ryukyus at some length, and
remarks upon difficulty in securing details:
"...they are men of very reserved speech, and do not give anyone an account of their native affairs. ..."
"The land of these Gores is called Lequea; the men are fair; their dress is like a cloak without a hood; they carry long swords after the fashion of Turkish cimetars, but somewhat more narrow; they also carry daggers of two palms' length; they are daring men and feared in this land [of Malacca]. When they arrive at any port, they do not bring out their merchandize all at once, but little by little; they speak truthfully, and will have the truth spoken to them. If any merchant in Malacca broke his word, they would immediately take him prisoner. They strive to dispatch their business and get away quickly, for they are not the men to like going away from their own land. They set out for Malacca in the month of January, and begin their return journey in August or September. . ."
In these brief notices the Portuguese accounts return again and again to note the presence of gold bars and gold dust in the Okinawan commerce, and of gold used in the lacquerware brought in from Naha. Their curiosity was roused by this; perhaps these were the Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata-the Islands of Gold and of Silver-said to lie far out in the Eastern Seas. Pires finished his great manuscript about 1515: in 1517 he set out as ambassador to the Emperor of China. He was escorted to Canton in a fleet commanded by Fernao Peres de Andrade, who ordered a subordinate commander (Jorge Mascarenhas) to proceed with a detachment of vessels up the coast of China to search for the fabled Ryukyu Islands. Mascarenhas got no farther than Fukien Province, where he was trading with profit at Amoy when orders overtook the squadron, directing him to return to Malacca.
The Portuguese were soon trading along the China coast and established themselves as far north as Ningpo, near the mouth of the Yangtse. Gradually they accumulated further data concerning Okinawa. The first book on China printed in Europe was brought out in 1569, the record of the Dominican Father Gaspar da Cruz. In it he noted that there had been misunderstanding concerning the location of the Ryukyus, and has this to say:
"It is an island which standeth in the sea of China, little more or less than thirty leagues from China itself. In this island live this people, which is a well-disposed people, more to the white than brown.
"It is a cleanly and well-attired people; they dress their hair like women, and tie it up on the side of their head, fastened with a silver bodkin. Their land is fresh and fertile, with many and good waters; and it is a people that sail very seldom although they are in the midst of the sea. They use weapons and wear very good short swords. They were in times past subject to the Chinas, with whom they had much communication, and therefore they are very like the Chinas.
