The maps of a Spanish imperial frontier in the Philippines made in the eighteenth-century by the missionary Alejandro Cacho reflect an ethnographic approach that simultaneously reified and undermined Spanish notions of conquest and civilization. While Cacho celebrated mission towns and denigrated unsubjugated settlements, several elements of his maps subverted that message by recognizing the presence of animist communities and the different mobilities taking place at the frontier. The apparent conflict of messages is explained by the context in which the maps were made.