spaniards, sangleys, mestizos

The Roots of the Filipino Nation By Onofre D. Corpus ©1989.

Chapter 6

SPANIARDS, SANGLEYS, MESTIZOS

We prohibit and forbid that Spaniards ... may live or reside in the reducciones and pueblos of the Indios. because it has happened that some Spaniards who trade, mingle, reside and go among the Indios are troublesome persons, riotous. robbers. gamblers. vicious. or vagrants: and in order to escape injury the Indios leave their pueblos..... Ley 21, Titulo 3, Libro VI, Recopilación promulgated 1563, 1578, 1581, 1589, 1600, 1646.

The Chinese have taken over all of the retail trade. because their system of helping each other exclusively. forming themselves into a distinct guild similar to the practice of the Jews, with whom they have much in common in their social and business principles, gives them great advantages over the natives and Spaniards. From a report of the royal officials in Filipinas. (1830)

The mestizos are acquiring all the lands in Filipinas, and if the Audiencia does not take measures to prevent this abuse. in no time this clever race will own the entire islands, from which will arise grave consequences. Martinez de Zuniga (1800)

Our principal story so far has been that of the natives. Life in the archipelago, whether joyful or bleak, light or depressing, primitive or progressive, was their life, although partly defined by the transient invaders. The invaders caused death and hardship and brought change; but all that they caused and all the change that they wrought were absorbed into the vast body of native life and culture. Inevitably, across the centuries, the story of some nonnative peoples became part of the story of the Filipinos, as members of other racial groups in the islands joined the natives to form and share a common life and future.

We will note in this Chapter that the Chinese mestizos, a completely new class of people in the archipelago, blended almost immediately into native society and the land of their native mothers. Indeed the cause of the secular priests during the 1770s and continuously thereafter until the Revolution was the common cause of the native and Chinese mestizo priests. When members of the other racial groups would see no separate political future for themselves and decide to identify with the awakening mass of natives and mestizos, such as happened by the 1860s, their joint story became the story of the Filipino people.

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The population figures during the Spanish colonial era began as estimates of the tributepaying population. This population was composed of the colonized natives, and the Chinese residents; the latter came in increasing numbers after 1571. The Spanish population reports did not include the Muslims; and people called "independent tribes" in the tributary population. The latter were the unconquered mountain communities; they and the Muslims were also referred to as infieles or infidels. Naturally the Spaniards did not pay tribute, and so they too did not appear in the early population reports.

Although the Chinese paid tribute like the natives (their tribute rate was much higher), they came from such a superior and ancient civilization that they did not identify with the latter.

As time passed, other groups came to be registered in the tributary population reports or estimates. One such group was composed of the swarthy mountain people; they paid the tribute, sometimes only the reconocimiento de vasallaje.

The important new group was the mestizos. The Franciscan friar San Antonio observed in 1738: “The archipelago today, especially the Tagalog provinces, is full of another race of rnestizos. They were not here in the period of the discubrimiento. We call them 'mestizos de Sangley,' the offspring of native women and Chinese men.” The mestizos appeared in the Spanish population reports as a major category for the first time after 1750. Their Chinese fathers had to convert to Christianity, often for convenience in order to enjoy greater security and, much more important, to marry native women. Their mestizo offspring easily integrated into the society of their mothers and identified themselves with their native cousins.

The term "mestizo" until well into the nineteenth century was used only to refer to Chinese mestizos and did not include the offspring of Spanish fathers and Filipina mothers. This was because there were too few Spaniards in Filipinas to begin with; they were expected to reside in the Spanish towns and cities and prohibited from living in the native pueblos.

The mestizos grew in numbers progressively. In the 1760 population estimates there were a reported 36,700; in 1791 there were a reported 66,917; in 1822 96,135; and in 1844 270,000 (although a 1845 report had only 180,000). In comparison, there were only a reported 11,254 Spanish mestizos in 1822. (the 1845 report was on the conservative side, at only 8,584).

The conventional Spanish population estimates were basically approximations (explained in the Appendix), but are adequate for the purpose of establishing trends. In 1846 the Frenchman Mallat had estimates based on the regime's reports. His figures included (not the total population of the archipelago):

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Natives 3,700,000 Chinese mestizos 240,000 Spanish mestizos 20,000 Chinese 10,000 Spaniards born in Filipinas 3,500 Spaniards born in Europe 1,500

The figures indicate the relative racial contributions to the Filipino nation that would ultimately emerge (but still not inclusive of the Muslims). The natives would be dominant. The mestizos would' be disproportionately important, the Chinese mestizos being more so than the Spanish mestizos. The Spaniards ,who would cast their lot with the Filipino nation would be a small minority.1

The Spaniards

To the native Filipinos every Spaniard was called "Castila." This was originally because Filipinas was officially the New Kingdom of Castilla; and this in turn was because the Spaniards who had effected the conquest of much of the archipelago were men in the service of the Spanish kingdom of Castilla, whose king was Felipe II.

But the terms "Castila" or "Espanol" did not include all Spaniards in Filipinas. The Spanish clergy was excluded. During most of the Spanish era the colonial documents (laws and government orders) as well as the friar chronicles did not refer to the clergy as Spaniards. The laws distinguished between the clergy and the lay Spaniards. The friars and priests were referred to as ecclesiastical persons, exempt persons, regulars or seculars, fathers or ministers of the doctrine, but not as Spaniards. The Recopilación had different laws for the lay Spaniards and for the clergy. For instance, it banned "Spaniards" from residing in the pueblos, but not the clergy. It was the same in the documents of the regime in Manila. Official reports would estimate the population of Spaniards in Filipinas; these estimates did not include the friars and curates.

The practice went both ways. In the chronicles of the friar orders references to Spaniards, often denigratory, ordinarily did not include the clergy. For instance, a friar history or account might severely criticize "the Spaniards," but this would not include the churchmen. The following paragraphs therefore refer primarily to the lay Spaniards.

The influence of the Spaniards as individuals on life in the pueblos was negligible. There were very few of them in Filipinas as a whole. They had to live in the Spanish cities and towns unless they were officials posted in the provinces. Most of them naturally settled in Manila. The next largest settlement of Spaniards was to have been Cebu, but it could attract only a few citizens or vecinos. By 1750 all the Spanish residents of Cebu were not even enough to constitute the city council. The other Spanish

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cities and towns were equally hard put to have enough residents. The Spanish presence, therefore, was not felt in most of the native pueblos.

Even if there had been more Spaniards, the Recopilación (Libro VI, Titulo 3, Ley 21) prohibited them from residing in the native reducciones and pueblos. This prohibition was justified on grounds stated in the law: the Spaniards “had vicious habits, were cruel to the natives, and set a bad example, all of which frustrate the fruit that We desire for the natives' salvation, increase, and tranquillity." This law was promulgated in 1563, 1578, 1589, 1600, and 1646. Ley 22 (1646) repeated the ban even in cases where Spaniards had bought land in a pueblo. This law became Ordinance 29 of the 1642 and 1696 Ordinances in Filipinas.

For some reason, the ban was required to be strictly enforced in the province of Pampanga. The context indicates that there were still a fair number of Spaniards there before 1650. Some had Spanish wives, others were married to Pampanga women. The Ordinances ordered the departure of all Spaniards from the province, except that those who were already married to Pampanga women were allowed to stay; those who married Pampangas in the future were subject to the prohibition.

Ordinance 29 was repealed in 1752 when the regime tried once again, without success, to promote the teaching and dissemination of the Spanish language. In 1768 Ordinances ordered the alcaldes to aid and favor Spaniards who would reside in the provinces, but they were also ordered to oppose Spaniards who are “vicious and destructive” and to punish these for “the harm they inflict upon the Indios.”

The effect of the old prohibition was to ensure that the only Spaniards in the pueblos were the Spanish friars or curates. But even the lifting of the prohibition in 1752 did not result in Spanish residents in the pueblos. In 1768 Anda was to write in his memorial that: “There is no other settlement of Spaniards than that of Manila; for in the provinces rarely or never does one see a Spaniard.” Anda deplored the prohibitory laws of the Recopilación. He charged that the friars collected copies of these laws and had them posted widely in the doctrinas, and harassed any Spaniard who tried to establish residence. The result was that there was nobody who could check the friars' behavior and excesses. The Frenchman Le Gentil who was in Manila at this time wrote of the difficulties that a Spaniard would have to face if he dared to reside in a pueblo. The friars:

are so absolute that no Spaniard dares to go to the provinces to settle. If he were to undertake to do so, he could not succeed without encountering tremendous difficulties and overcoming the most formidable obstacles; and he would always have to maintain himself in a state of war. The friars would play so many tricks on him, they would stir up so many difficulties, and they would get him into so much trouble that he would

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finally be compelled to leave. Thus these friars are the masters of the country, and are more absolute in the Philippines than the king himself.

Anda was rabidly antifriar and used much stronger language: “The regulars have committed more havoc in America and Filipinas than all the locusts put together”; and “if, by scandals and evil example to the Indians, the Spaniards have to leave the village, one ought to begin with the friar.”

In 1787 the governorgeneral would write to the Spanish king that “almost all the Spaniards (in Filipinas) live in Manila and its environs.” Some numbers will picture the general situation. For 1810 Comyn reports a total of 4,000 European Spaniards (to be read as including those from America), Filipinasborn Spaniards, and mestizos or children of Spaniards and Filipinos. This was after almost two and a half centuries since the Spaniards came to the archipelago. For purposes of comparison, there were almost 120,000 ChineseFilipino mestizos alone this year.

There were somewhat more Spaniards in Filipinas beginning with the 1820s, because many Spaniards in the Americas became jobless when the colonies there won their independence. More would come, some by exile, after the Spanish revolution of 1868. The politics in Spain at this time resulted in the contending political blocs sending their sympathizers to occupy the offices in Filipinas and displacing the officeholders who were partisans of the other party. Finally, more peninsular Spaniards would come after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the voyage to Filipinas. Even so, however, their total numbers would not be significant. In 1876 there were 1,962 in the clergy, and 13,265 Spaniards of all other classes, including mestizos. At this time there were a reported more than six million natives in the colonized population.2

Spanish influence on life in the pueblos, therefore, was generally limited to contacts between the Filipinos and the friars or curates. The long Spanish occupation did not bring Spanish culture to the pueblos. It is only an ambiguous generalization, culturally speaking, to speak of the “hispanization” of the Filipinos. It was not the rich and deservedly admirable Spanish culture that the Filipinos encountered, but only a small part of it, chiefly that part to which they were exposed by the Spanish friar in the doctrina.

The Filipinos who had broad and daily contact with the Spaniards were those in the Manila and Cavite (the naval town) areas, and to a lesser extent those of the cabeceras. Much later on, since the midnineteenth century, it was the sons of the rich provincial families who went to Manila to study, who became the most "hispanized" Filipinos, at least as far as dress and speech were concerned. This class of young men, including the seminary students and priests, eventually divided into two groups. They originally identified with Spanish colonial society, and sought reforms beginning in the late 1860s.

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Some remained reformists, but the others, the second group, subsequently identified with a Filipino nation and progressed from reformism to radicalism and still later joined the Revolution.

Sangleys and Mestizos

The Chinese presence in the pueblo, producing close contact with the Filipinos since the earliest years of the Spanish era, contrasted sharply with the protracted absence of the Spaniards. The Chinese were called Sangleys, presumably because most of those who came to Filipinas were from Fukien province in China, where Amoy was the chief port and where the word sengli meant trader. Four Chinese trading ships were moored at the bar of the river Pasig when the Spaniards attacked Manila in 1570. There were already forty married Chinese residents in the old native town of Manila. It is not recorded whether they were married to Filipino women; among the prisoners taken by the Spaniards in the fight for Manila were Chinese women, wives of the Chinese. The women had been brought over from China. A Spanish account says that these Chinese had fled their home land, and “brought their wives with them; all of them both men and women, number about one hundred and fifty. They became Christians after coming here.”

The Chinese trading ships did not at first bring their fine silks and other valuable trade goods. The market in preSpanish Manila had not yet become lucrative; the expensive wares were for the trade with Malacca. However, the traders were soon assured by the Spaniards that there would be a market in Manila for these goods. By 1575 twelve to fifteen trading ships were calling annually at Manila, carrying: “figured silks of all sorts; wheat, flour, and sugar; many kinds of fruit; iron, steel, tin, brass, copper, lead; and other kinds of metals; and everything in the same abundance as in Espana and in the Indias, so that they lack for nothing. The prices of everything are so moderate, that they are to be had almost for nothing.”

The flourishing trade and the profits that could be made by the fortunehunting Spaniards with the Chinese made the latter an important element in the colony. Many of them stayed. They prospered; many others came from China to settle. In time their numbers and importance gained them a chapter in the Recopilación. All of Libro VI, Titulo 18 grew out of laws dealing exclusively with the Sangleys. These laws attracted and protected them and regulated their numbers, terms of residence, occupations, as well as relationships with the Spaniards and Filipinos.

The unabated influx and residence of the Chinese sometimes worried the government authorities. Reports to the Spanish king prompted him in 1589 to instruct the governorgeneral to decide whether to prohibit the Chinese traders from remaining

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in Manila after the trading season was over; he was authorized to allow those who converted to Christianity or who would settle as artisans and craftsmen, to remain as residents.

The comparative numbers of Chinese and Spaniards clearly justified the Spanish king's concern. There were just about 2,000 Spaniards in the Manila area in 1591, and another 1,000 scattered in various islands in Filipinas. On the other hand, in 1590 there were 3,000 to 4,000 Chinese in the Chinese quarter in Manila alone, not counting the more than 2,000 who came and went with the ships. Most of the Chinese lived in a ghetto called the Parian, sometimes called Pantin, located one musket shot away and under the guns of the city, to the east. Others managed to live outside of this ghetto. Within the Parian were more than a hundred shops comprising the Chinese silk market, as well as small shops of tailors, cobblers, painters, bakers, confectioners, candlemakers, silversmiths, apothecaries, and other tradesmen. There were also a number of restaurants which several Spaniards learned to frequent.

The main reason why more and more Chinese were allowed to stay and reside in Manila was corruption. The Chinese each paid eight pesos (later, ten pesos and two reals) for the residence permit, compared to the one peso tribute by each native family. The Spanish officials, however, would sell residence permits for a greater number of Chinese than the laws prescribed and pocketed the proceeds from sale of the surplus and illegal documents. They sold the permits at bargain prices.

Another reason for the increasing numbers of Sangleys was that the Spaniards found them indispensable. The Jesuits had 250 Chinese farmers and gardeners working their estates outside the city; the Augustinians employed the same number on their farms. These two factors corruption and the Spaniards' dependence on Chinese skills and services were to lead to tragedy. In 1603 the Chinese rose in revolt. The cabildo or city council of Manila had repeatedly warned that only 3,000 Sangleys should be allowed to remain as residents. The government records showed some 4,000 resident Chinese. But there were then more than 18,000 Sangleys, not counting the 4,000 that had come with the trading fleet. The illegal licenses or permits had been sold for five, six, seven, or eight pesos each.

The Chinese were massacred during the revolt; the Spaniards had incited the natives against them. But they kept coming. This was because the pull of profit was strong, both for them and their protectors. The latter were the religious orders and the officials who profited from their Sangley proteges. The graft in Chinese residence permits lasted for centuries in the Philippines. It was an open secret that influential politicians had amassed handsome fortunes since 1946 for their protection of “overstaying Chinese,” especially when many of the latter fled the 1949 Chinese Communist takeover of the mainland. It was only after 1972, when the naturalization laws were relaxed, that the

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business somewhat tapered off.

After the Chinese uprising of 1603 the Audiencia set a limit of 1,500 Chinese residents (that is, the nonChristians, because the converted Chinese were treated liberally). Nevertheless, no less than 1,648 permits were issued in 1605. The next year 6,533 Chinese arrived. In 1634 the governorgeneral reported that 4,000 were allowed by royal decree, “but a greater number has been tolerated because of the advantages of the licenses that they pay, and in order not to disturb the trade with China.” The next governorgeneral petitioned the king in 1636 for permission to grant more licenses.

Memories of the 1603 revolt faded away very quickly. The issuance of residence permits again became wantonly indiscriminate and profitable. In 1639 a reported 33,000 Sangleys were staying throughout Filipinas. The estimated number of Chinese in the provinces was 20,000. This year the regime decided to conscript 6,000 Chinese to work in a new plantation near Calamba, Laguna to produce rice for the Spanish presidios. Many of them fell sick before long; 300 died while the Spanish alcalde of the province subjected them to extortions and other abuses. They revolted. The Chinese in the nearby provinces, as well as those of the Parian, followed suit. The Spaniards, aided by Tagalogs and the usual Pampangos, succeeded in suppressing the uprising. In the process there was another massacre of the Chinese, the total dead reaching to between 22,000 and 24,000.

There would be two more major Chinese revolts, those of 1662–1663 and 1762, and a minor uprising, that of 1686. After the revolt of 16621663, the ceiling on the number of Chinese residence permits was placed at 6,000. The Manila Spaniards justified this on the following argument: “for not only does everything necessary for life come to us from China – as wheat, cloth, and earthenware – but it is the Sangleys who carry on all the crafts, and who with their traffic maintain the fortunes of the citizens.”3

We will now consider the background of the Chinese impact on the pueblos. The 1642 Ordinances professed a cautious and strict attitude toward the Sangleys. They were a source of spiritual demoralization on the Filipinos; besides, the Ordinances claimed, whether the Chinese were Christian or nonChristian, they were wily and tricky, exchanging trifles of little value in return for the products of the natives. The nonChristians were therefore prohibited from residing in the native pueblos. Those found in any village were to be sent immediately to the Parian; anyone found living among the natives was subject to 200 lashes and four years service in the Cavite naval base. Unmarried Christians were allowed to live in the native pueblos, but only up to the number required for service in the churches and in the pueblo governments. Chinese who had converted to Christianity and were married to Filipino wives were naturally allowed residence in their wives' villages. In addition, the Christians were monitored by the friars in the doctrinas; if found unsatisfactory, the married ones were to be sent to

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the Christian Chinese villages of Santa Cruz and Binondo outside of Manila; if single, to the Parian.

The Christian Chinese were allowed by the Recopilación to engage in trade. They were exempt from the tribute for a period of ten years after the date of their conversion. These advantages were enough to attract a number to convert to Christianity, although for a long time their custom of wearing pigtails was an obstacle. No converts were allowed to return to China.

The regime allowed the nonChristian Chinese to trade in the provinces upon payment of the trading permit; this became a rich source of illicit income for corrupt Spanish officials. The traders who bought the permits were originally allowed in the nearby provinces of Tondo, Bulacan, Pampanga, Laguna, and in the port of Cavite. They were permitted a maximum of twelve days in each pueblo, but could not spend the night anywhere except on their boats. Those found sleeping in the village were subject to two years' service in the Cavite shipyards.

As tens of thousands of Chinese resided and traded in the provinces over the years, they inevitably became the principal contact between the Filipinos and the outside world. From them the Filipinos saw and bought commoditie from other provinces, from Manila, and from Asia. The Filipinos learned new arts and trades and technologies. Equally important, they were exposed to a new but rich and ancient culture. The Chinese presence to this point was a relatively quiet but enriching influence on Filipino pueblo life, compared to the dour and scolding presence of the Spanish friar.

The image of the Chinese in Filipinas has generally been shaped by their crucial and conspicuous role in the trade between Manila and Acapulco, as merchants in Manila, and as transient traders in the provinces. Actually, although on a smaller scale, the Chinese were also associated with land and agriculture. As early as 1589 it is reported that they were buying up gardens, estates, and other landed property in the environs of Manila. A 1629 letter from the governorgeneral to the Spanish king stated that the Chinese were better farmers than the natives. Spanish landowners in the Manila area would advance them money to work the former's lands, and the Chinese would repay the advances in a very short time, with profit to all parties. The Augustinian and Jesuit hiring of the Sangleys to till their estates and haciendas has already been mentioned, as well as the regime's illfated project for Chinese plantation labor in Calamba in 1639. In the Manila area the Chinese early on saw the opportunities in truck gardening to meet the needs of the Spanish city. The Spaniards exploited them by requiring them to make weekly deliveries of vegetables and poultry for their households in return for protection. The Chinese vegetable growers in fact became a feature of Manila's environs for centuries. They supplied the metropolis with greens until World War II and its aftermath of urban sprawl cleared away the gardens.4

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The fortunes of the Chinese often hung upon the difference between two viewpoints in the colony. The first, which tended to favor more Chinese residents, was that of the more or less permanent Spanish residents of Manila: the officials who sold the residence and trading permits; those whose fortunes depended on their shipments of Chinese goods to Acapulco; and sometimes the friar orders that wanted to convert them – and obtained, free, weekly supplies of food from the Chinese. The second viewpoint was that of almost every recently arrived governorgeneral whose interests were not yet corrupted by Chinese bribes; and of the Spanish king who was far away from it all; both of them tended to place more stress on colonial security than on profits.

In 1709 the governorgeneral sent many Chinese back to China. In 1755 the governorgeneral Arandia, perhaps the first to bring an economic development perspective to Filipinas, tried a novel approach to the Chinese problem, an approach that is mistakenly said to be an expulsion order, even in the Spanish histories. There were two elements in this approach. The first was the establishment of a quarter where the Chinese traders were required to dwell and to do business in until their champans or trading junks were to sail on the return voyage to China. This was the alcaiceria or silk market of San Fernando. Arandia had several new buildings erected for its special function. The second was the formation of a trading company, under the sponsorship and protection of the governorgeneral; membership was to be open to Spaniards and natives and mestizos; the purpose of the company was to bring about the takeover of the wholesale and retail business in textiles and household provisions from the Chinese. The company was duly organized, began operations, and its governing statutes were sent to Spain for approval. In the meantime, everyone concerned prepared for the traders' departure. The deadline was set for 30 June 1755, and the government had vessels riding in the bay, ready for the voyage.

The Sangleys had also been preparing. From experience they had long ago discovered the sure way to avoid deportation and to obtain permission to stay. This was baptism into Christianity. So, many of them did indeed prepare for the deadline and for this great event, certainly with the help of the religious orders. On the day fixed for their departure, 515 Sangley traders escaped repatriation by becoming Christians in a mass baptism. As for the trading company, its operations during the first year met with indifferent success in spite of its having a captive market. It was in Spain where the project was doomed. The fiscal of the Council of the Indies recommended disapproval of the company. He believed that trading in Filipinas should be free and that the Spaniards compete with the Sangleys on equal terms, since “it cannot be the case that the vassals of his Majesty have less capacity and skills than the Sangleys” The retail trade therefore remained in Sangley hands, and the Chinese continued their dominance into modern times.

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The most important Chinese revolt, politically speaking, took place in 1762. This was partly triggered by the flagrant ineptitude of the Spaniards' defense, and then abject surrender, during the British invasion. Witnessing the Spaniards' weakness, the Chinese of Guagua in Pampanga conspired with their countrymen in the Parian to rise in December. The Chinese in San Pablo de los Montes in Laguna also joined the Filipinos of the pueblo in a minor revolt.

The reckoning came with the departure of the British and the restoration of Spanish authority. Spanish troops reentered Manila in May 1764 under the peace treaty of February 1763. In 1766 the expulsion of the Chinese from Filipinas was ordered by royal decree; rigorous penalties were imposed on converted Christians who had committed crimes of disloyalty, apostasy, and other serious offenses during the war. This decree had immediate effects on the Chinese and longterm consequences on the role in Filipino society of those who remained. The 1768 Ordinances provided that “true Christians” were to be allowed to remain under the following rules: they were to register regularly; they would be assigned to various pueblos or districts for their residence; they were prohibited the possession and the use of weapons; they were to engage in agriculture, crafts, and the mechanical trades; they were not to leave their assigned pueblos without authorization, subject to perpetual banishment from all Spanish dominions.

Two more expulsion orders were issued in the eighteenth century – that of 1769 which was only partially enforced and was revoked in 1778, and that of 1785. After the latter came another decree which approved a project to establish a colony for 200 Chinese farm workers in the swamps of Candaba in Pampanga. These measures were essentially followup actions to the 1766 decree, which was meant to be implemented in the 1768 Ordinances.

The conditions prescribed in the Ordinances had two primary purposes. The first was to finally effect the dispersal of the Chinese from their concentration in the Manila and surrounding area and settle them in the various provinces, so that they would not be able to unite in any possible future uprising. The second was to have them engage in agriculture.

The numbers of the Chinese in Filipinas did in fact later go down, but not because of the expulsion orders nor because of the stringency of the 1768 Ordinances. The principal cause was the abolition of the galleon trade; the last ship of the line, aptly named the Magallanes, sailed from Manila in 1811. The loss of the American colonies to Spain, which killed off the ManilaAcapulco trade, also enabled Spain to strengthen its military forces in Filipinas by transfer or reassignment of its surplus officers and soldiers from America. The result was better security from domestic insurrections, whether native or Chinese, so that the colonial regime overcame its anxiety over the Chinese presence and

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generally became more tolerant in its policies. In 1822 the Chinese reportedly numbered an official 5,440; in 1830 there were 5,708 in Filipinas. More than 5,200 were in the Tondo province, so that the policy of dispersal does not seem to have succeeded.

Still, the series of expulsions and of pressures for the Chinese to go to the provinces had a cumulative effect. They led to the founding of small Sangley colonies in some provinces; these colonies were called pariancillos after the Parian in Manila. Among the better known of these were those in Cebu, Vigan, Lingayen, Naga, and Molo. There was also a colony in Jolo, which explains the fair number of Chinese names there in modern times. Understandably, of course, the Chinese quarter in Jolo was not called a Parian. Molo near the modern Iloilo City continues to be known as the home of the popular ChineseFilipino dish, the tasty pansit molo. These small Chinese colonies provided the small capital and, more important, the entrepreneurship for the provinces.

The second objective, to engage the Sangleys in agriculture, also did not succeed: The Frenchman Vicomte de Pagés visiting in 1768, says that “At present they amount to more than 20,000 [and], after engrossing the whole manufactures, and the principal part of the Manila trade, begin to turn their attention to agriculture.” What he actually meant was that the Chinese were now beginning to trade in agricultural produce. By the early 1820s a visiting Englishman would observe that only a very few Chinese or mestizos were engaged in cultivation. A royal decree of 1843 provided for the importation of Chinese farm workers, but it was a dead letter. Various other arrangements were decreed around 1850. One decree classified the Chinese on the basis of agricultural holdings and provided for a reduced tribute rate on Chinese farm workers. An impossible decree ordered that the Chinese could engage only in agricultural cultivation. In 1851 a law provided that Chinese who were in Filipinas for the first time would be exempt from the tribute for one year.5

What was natural was that the Chinese would continue to trade, and they did. By this time of economic growth and trading opportunities, the Chinese would not only remain in the retail trade; they would move into the interprovincial shipping trade between the Visayas, even Jolo, and Manila.

It was equally natural that the original Chinese pariancillos would metamorphose into mestizo communities. The first mestizos in Filipinas, of course, were not those of these little parians. The first were the offspring of some of the tens of thousands of traders who bought permits, across almost two centuries, for the privilege of trading in the provinces; and of the shrewder among these, who converted to Christianity and contracted marriages with local women. It will not be facetious to say that the most valuable contribution of the Chinese to Filipino life was not their exotic and expensive wares, nor their technology, nor their culture in general, but the ChineseFilipino mestizos.

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The first trading permits allowed the Sangleys only in the provinces around Manila. The 1738 Franciscan history says that the Chinese traders married Filipino wives, “becoming Christians for this purpose, and their mestizos cannot be counted.” The sons looked less Chinese than the daughters, but almost invariably inherited their fathers' ambition and application to hard work. The presence of the mestizos became most marked in the Tagalog provinces and in Pampanga. The Franciscan author reports that there were “innumerable” mestizos in Tondo province; Cavite had somewhat less; there were 870 in Pampanga, fifty in Ilocos, and “a few” in Bulacan. There were as yet no reports of the mestizo population in the smaller provinces. In the small island of Agutaya near Cuyo Island north of Palawan, the people in 1624 were already reported as being mestizos, “industrious and shrewd in trade.”

Before 1760 the mestizos were not numerically significant to warrant separate listing in the population estimates, and were reported jointly with the native population. This year their numbers as a class were at an estimated 36,700. This increased to just under 67,000 in 1791. The pariancillos would grow and prosper during the era of the promotion of commercial agriculture that began around 1780. By 1810 there were a reported 119,718 mestizos. This compares with only 11,254 SpanishFilipino mestizos in 1822. In 1842 a Spanish observer was impressed by the fact that there were 200,000 “rich, active, and intelligent” mestizos. In 1844 the government estimated their number at 270,000.

By virtue not only of their numbers, but for other reasons besides, the mestizos were destined to play the most important roles in Filipino life. Their mothers and, later, their wives, came from the pueblo upper class, so that they were normally integrated into pueblo society at the principalia level. Moreover, since the residents of a pueblo were generally not allowed to transfer residence to another – the pueblo tributes would go down, the friar's income would be reduced – the mestizo children grew up and married in the pueblos of their mothers. They had to identify with the place of their birth. They also regarded their pueblos, from the inherited unerring profit instincts of their fathers, as ripe fields for profit making.

This seems to be the explanation for Ordinance 44 of the 1768 Ordinances, which noted that the native lands were falling to the permanent possession of the mestizos– through cash advances against the crop which would not be repaid, or during the life of a loan against the debtor's land as security. This is significant as an indication of the beginnings of a class in pueblo society that had cash to lend, as well as of the existence of a growing need for cash in pueblo life. More important, it marked the beginnings of a phase in Filipinas land tenure history, where the mestizos were starting to accumulate lands. They became de facto landlords with the debtors working out their debts, but without hope of ever redeeming their rice lands. They became compradors of

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agricultural produce, especially rice, cornering the market and dictating prices. Later on, they became the chief inquilinos (renters, managerlessees) of the friar haciendas.

The first wave of agricultural output increases in Filipinas came about in the form of the forced surpluses that the people had to produce for their tributes and their quotas of the reales compras. The second wave, which was more authentic, was the result of the colonial regime's new policies that began on the eve of the 178()s. This period was featured by the emergence of commercial agriculture for both the domestic and export markets.

For this development the mestizos were in the right place at precisely the right time, and they had the resources to enable them to play a vital role in both agriculture and trade, as will be seen in Chapter 10.

The mestizos also became important in a role that has not been generally recognized. They and their cousins the sons of the native principalia moved up the ladder of colonial society and served the purposes of the regime when they were recruited for education and ordination into the secular clergy. The friars' contemptuous attitude toward them, on racial grounds, cemented their common identity. Both natives and mestizos were regarded as one in the friars' attacks on their character and ability. The native and mestizo priests reacted as one, and would become the core of the Christian Filipino nationalism that began to surface in the 1860s.

The Chinese mestizos had class characteristics that set them apart from the other class of mestizos, the children of SpaniardFilipino marriages. The latter were usually born in Manila, where most of the Spaniards resided. Their fathers were engrossed with the galleon trade and generally did not invest in land. The Spanish mestizos were therefore basically an urban class (with the exception of the offspring of Spanish friar concubinage in the doctrinas). They looked to careers in the offices of the regime, both civil and military. They were unlike the ChineseFilipino mestizos, whose families had binding links to the land and were active in domestic trade. The Oriental physical features of the Chinese mestizos were also a factor towards their easy integration into native society. The Spanish mestizos, on the other hand, would almost invariably have a pronounced blend of Castilian and native features; this is appreciated highly in modern times, but in those days the Spanish mestizos were merely viewed as looking neither Castilian nor native.

The Spanish mestizos sought identification with the nation of their fathers, but their mixed caste only earned them the very bottom place in the rigidly statusconscious Spanish community. Caste also closed the doors of the friar orders to them. Circumstances would therefore lead many of the Spanish mestizos to seek entry into the secular clergy and share the scorn that the friar orders directed at the native and

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ChineseFilipino priests. It is for this and other reasons, much later on during the midnineteenth century, that the Spanish mestizos would even tually also cast their lot with the Filipinos.6

We end this part of the story with brief illustrative notes of Sangleys and mestizos as they exploited or tried to exploit economic and social opportunities in the regime.

Aside from engaging in trade, the Chinese sought additional opportunities for making money through the various government monopolies. In 1714, for instance, a Sangley Christian named Benito Jonio bid 2,000 pesos a year for the concession of the salt monopoly covering the provinces around Manila and the port of Cavite. The offer was disapproved on the ground that the price of salt, which was a prime staple, would go up.

A more complex case involved a mestizo, Pedro Tiangco, in the 1790s. He was a resident of the pueblo of Tambobong, by the old village of Tondo. He had been rewarded with a grant of exemption from the tribute by the Spanish king. This was for his reputed contributions and involvement in the cultivation and development of indigo and cotton, crops which were then being promoted by the regime. In 1794 the exemption from the tribute was extended via another royal favor to Tiangco's sons and male descendants on condition that they continue to engage in their father's efforts in the promotion of indigo and cotton. At this point Manila sent an inquiry to Madrid, seeking clarification on a technical matter: whether the exemption from the tribute for the children also extended to their exemption from the polos.

Accompanying the inquiry were the endorsements formulated on the question in Manila. The fiscal had ascertained that Tiangco had seven sons; two were married. He believed that the grant of exemption was an excessive favor, because the Tiangco family was large. He also asked that the original grant of exemption to Tiangco be suspended. Tiangco, he said, was not an agriculturist. Nor was he a real promoter of indigo. He was actually a mere trader who made profits by making advances against the crop to the real indigo growers.

The governorgeneral's legal adviser held the same views. He affirmed that the grant of exemption to Tiangco was fraudulent in the first place, since he was not a cultivator, and had concealed the fact. The loss to the royal treasury would be serious in view of Tiangco's many sons. The gobernadorcillo of Tambobong had also certified that three of Tiangco's sons were pursuing careers in letters; they were not engaged in agriculture. The opinions from Manila were unfavorable to Tiangco in two ways: they held that exemption from the polos was not covered in the grant of exemption from the tribute, and they recommended that the original exemption to Tiangco himself be withdrawn.

Still more complex were two cases involving Sangley and mestizo families named

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Tuason. They were upper class families. In the early 1770s the governorgeneral had appealed to the guild of mestizos in the province of Tondo for contributions, in view of the straitened finances of the regime. The task of leading the fundraising fell upon the mestizo Antonio Tuason of Binondo. He was a pillar of the community. He had already attained the high rank of colonel of the urban militia infantry regiment in Manila. He called upon the mestizos of the sixteen pueblos of Tondo. He started off by making a generous personal donation of 1,000 pesos; his wife Justa Leonor contributed 200 pesos; Tuason then gave eighty pesos more in the name of his children. The fund campaign was successful.

Tuason's record of generosity to the regime under which his family had prospered was exemplary. By 1773 he had contributed a total of 8,119 pesos on different occasions. In acknowledgment of Tuason's constant loyalty and support, the governorgeneral Anda had recommended to the Spanish king that Tuason, his children, wife, and parents be exempted from the tribute. Beyond this ordinary grace and favor, Anda further recommended that Tuason, his sons, and grandsons be vested the Fucro militar (an ancient set of rights or exemptions enjoyed by feudal knights). The Spanish king approved only the exemption from the tribute.

The Tuasons must have steadily risen in caste. The next case involved the purchase via public auction of one of the seats on the council of the Ayuntamiento de Manila. This requires a brief explanation. The sale of public offices in the colonial governments, including judicial magistracies, was a rich and customary source of revenue for the Spanish king. The theory was that the king owned everything of value in the Indies. Therefore he could sell them. These sales were authorized and governed by Libro VIII, Titulo 20 of the Recopilación. The Ayuntamiento was the city corporation, so that in law it was the city itself. It functioned through its council or cabildo. A member of the cabildo was called a regidor, and to bid for a regidor's seat was to bid for one of the most illustrious positions in Spanish Manila.

Each seat was valued intrinsically at between 800 pesos to 1,000 pesos yearly in terms of income to the holder. This in itself was a piddling sum, not nearly large enough to cause the scandal that would soon agitate the Spanish community, so that it is clear that it was the glory and the honor of the position that attracted bidders. Over the period 17751795 the post had been sold in the auctions for 1,500 pesos, the lowest, to 4,747 pesos, the highest. In 1800, when the bidding for the vacant seat was conducted, it was officially appraised at 4,000 pesos.

The highest bidder was Vicente Dolores Tuason. To qualify in the bidding, Tuason had exhibited a patent of nobility from the Spanish king to his father, since deceased, and to his children and descendants. This patent ennobled them and qualified them for the post of regidor of the council as well as for other posts of honor in the royal service.

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Tuason was, in short, a hidalgo or a noble, of Spain.

The Ayuntamiento de Manila, made up of Spaniards, contested his bid. The cabildo pointed out to the governorgeneral the grave impropriety and fatal consequences that would ensue if Tuason, a Sangley mestizo, were to become a regidor of a Spanish city. Besides the fact that he was a descendant of pure Sangleys, the cabildo stressed, and despite the favor of noble status granted to his house by the King, Tuason continued to observe Sangley customs and maintained dealings, friendship, and commerce with the other Sangleys. The Ayuntamiento foresaw adverse effects on religion, the monarchy, and on the fatherland.

The highest Spanish bid was 10,255 pesos. Tuason had topped everybody with a bid of 12,200 pesos. He showed his affluence by paying the full amount to the treasury, plus the mediaanata and eighteen per cent more to cover the costs of remittance to Spain. Then he capped it all by making still another generous donation of 300 pesos.

The Spaniards closed ranks to prevent Tuason's triumph. The incumbent members of the Ayuntamiento pleaded in a petition that any Spaniard was better than Tuason; they volunteered jointly to pay the difference between Tuason's bid and the next lower bid as well as his 300 pesos donation. Thereupon the governorgeneral awarded the post to the second highest bidder. Tuason did not take this lying down, and appealed the decision to the Spanish king. The documents do not include the final resolution of this case, but the officials at court were of the opinion that the king would not lose any money if the action of the governorgeneral against Tuason were to be confirmed.7

In the following chapters the story of the Filipinos will be the common story of the natives and of the Chinese mestizos. The Spanish mestizos will make their decisions around the 1820s after the revolutions in Spain's American colonies lead the Spaniards in Filipinas to suspect the mestizos of potential sedition. Some fullblooded Spaniards, born in Filipinas, follow the mestizos during the 1860s.

As for the Chinese mestizo Filipinos, many had become indistinguishable from the natives by the mideighteenth century. The national hero Jose Rizal had Chinese forbears. But after four generations the head of the family changed its registration in the tribute rolls from Chinese mestizo to Indio or native, in Binan, Laguna just after 1800. The military assessor's endorsement of the death sentence on Rizal in 1896 referred to him as a mestizo. He replied in writing; he denied he was mestizo; he wrote that he was a pure Indio, a native. The Rizal family case illustrates the completed identification of the mestizos with the native Filipinos.8

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Notes Chapter 6

SPANIARDS, SANGLEYS, MESTIZOS

The quotations at the beginning are from Libro VI, Titulo 3, Ley 21 of the Recopilación; Zamora y Coronado, VI, 102103; and Martinet de Zuniga, Estadismo, 1, 364365.

1. Re population numbers: see the Appendix. Re mestizos, 1738: San Antonio, 132.

2. Re Spanish residents in Cebu: in the 1730s, San Antonio, 89; in 1751, Delgado, 60, 62; in the mid1760s, Le Gentil, 138. Although the prohibition in the Recopilación on Spaniards residing in the native

villages was repealed in 1752, it was still noted in 1768 in Pierre Marie Francois, Vicomte de Pagés, Travels

Round the World (1791), I, 205206. The population numbers are in the Appendix.

3. Re sengli: Schurz, 63, Note. Re the Chinese and wives: "Relation of the Voyage to Luzon," BR, III, 95, 101102; "Relation of the Conquest of the Island of Luzon;" ibid., 167168.

Re the trading ships and goods: "Affairs in the Philippines After the Death of Legazpi," ibid., 181182; "Letter from Juan Pacheco Maldonado to Felipe II;" ibid., 299.

Re excessive numbers of Chinese, official corruption, need for Chinese, and insurrection of 1603: “Instructions to Gomez Perez Dasmarinas;” ibid., VII, 141172; "The Chinese, and the Parian

at Manila," ibid., 212238; “Letters from Benavides to Felipe III;” ibid., XII, 109; '"The Sangley Insurrection;' ibid., 142168.

Re licenses after 1603: "Relations with the Chinese; ibid., XIV, 51; "Letter from the Fiscal to Felipe III," ibid., 150; "Letters from Juan Cerezo de Salamanca to Felipe IV," ibid., XXIV, 310;

"Letters from Governor Hurtado de Corcuera," ibid., XXVI, 140143. Re 1639 revolt "Events in the Filipinas Islands, 16391640," ibid., XXDC, 201207; "Relation of the Insurrection of the Chinese,"

ibid., 208258. Re Manila Spaniards' justification: "Events in Manila, 16621663," ibid., XXXVI, 257260.

4. Re Chinese and land: "Report of Conditions in the Philippines," ibid., X, 88.

5. Re 1709 expulsion: "Events of 17011715;' ibid., XLIV, 146. Martinet de Zuniga, Historical View,

173174. Re Arandia project of 1755: Concepción, XIII, 356361; Ferrando and Fonseca, N, 587588;

AGI, Filipinas, 158 has a comprehensive account. Re 1762 revolt and consequences: "Anda and the English Invasion, 17621764," BR, XLIX, 147

149; "Synopsis of Letter from Anda to Carlos III," ibid., 262264. Re Chinese and agriculture in 1768: De Pagés, 228229. Re Chinese and cultivation in early

1820s: Piddington, ibid., LI, 137. Re 18431851: Buzeta and Bravo, I, 181184; Montero y Vidal, III, 150152, 154, 160161.

6. Re 1738 history on mestizos: San Antonio, 132 et passim; “General History of the Discalced Religious of St. Augustine,” BR, XXI, 313. See Appendix for number of mestizos since 1760.

7. Re cases of Sangley and mestizos: AGI, Filipinas, 874, 374; and AGI, Nueva Espana, 137.

8. Re Rizal family registered as native: Austin Craig, Lineage, Life, and Labors of José Rizal (1913), 54.

Re Rizal's denial that he was a mestizo: José Barón Fernández, José Rizal (1980), 357. The endorsement is reproduced in Rafael Palma, Biografia de Rizal (1949), 320322.

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spaniards, sangleys, mestizos

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