Philippines Under Spanish Rule, 1571-1898

Introduction

Miguel López de Legazpi’s (b. 1502–d. 1572) conquest of Manila in 1571 ushered in a 327-year epoch of Castilian rule in the Philippine Islands, but his actions also created unintended historical by-products that made the undertaking dissimilar to any other colony in the Spanish empire. Most notable were that the archipelago was located in Asia, it consisted of many islands inhabited by a variety of Malay and Austronesian peoples, and Chinese cultural and economic influences, which had been developing since at least the Tang dynasty, competed with Castilian/Mexican. Manila became both a battleground and mixing pot for Asian, Malay/Austronesian, and Iberian/Mexican peoples, religious beliefs, political institutions, technologies, and cultivated crops and domesticated animals, to name but a few of the exchanges that occurred over the three centuries of Spanish dominion. Before the word “globalization” became a ubiquitous catchphrase in the late 20th century, the Manila Galleon, Amoy, Malay, and Portuguese trade routes converged on Manila, uniting Europe, the Americas, East/South/Southeast Asia, and Africa through maritime commerce across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans in the late 16th century. From that time, traditional scholarship on the Philippines tended to be Iberian-centered narratives flowing unidirectionally from Madrid/Cadíz to Mexico City/Acapulco to Manila and presenting nationally biased and commodity-centered analyses, penned by academics in Spain and Mexico. Beginning in the early 20th century, scholars from the United States in various disciplines began writing their own interpretations of the colonial period that preceded the half-century of American occupation. Filipino social scientists have entered the fray since the 1920s, but exponentially more so following independence in 1946, contributing an important indigenous perspective that had been absent from previous erudition. Despite this centuries-old body of literature, the era of Spanish colonialism is, relatively speaking, an understudied field of academic inquiry. This bibliography is an attempt to frame the 1571–1898 era on a more globally comparative canvas, highlighting the cultural exchanges systematically linking the greater Manila region, China, and New Spain/Mexico, and to accentuate recent trends in scholarship while simultaneously acknowledging classic works from earlier periods.

General Overviews

Since the islands of the archipelago were never unified before the Spanish arrived, and even after three centuries many of them still displayed autonomous tendencies (especially the Muslim islands of Mindanao and the Sulus), the geographical scope of broad surveys on this era is essentially limited to the island of Luzon and the Visayas. Centered on Manila, Castilian power in the Philippines can be explained as a series of concentric circles of weakening influence. A common thread running through the books in this section are gratuitous examinations of the initial conquest, various civil and religious administrative practices, the process of Hispanization, indigenous reactions against exploitative policies, the co-optation of local elites into the power structure, financial and economic matters, security concerns (both foreign and domestic), and Chinese immigration and trade. Early works, epitomized in Zúñiga 1966, are simply chronological storytelling from the Spanish point of view. The second phase of general histories is more analytical (benefiting from ethnographic and anthropological approaches), and the overviews are penned by American-educated Filipino intelligentsia. Benitez 1929 and Zaide 1949 exemplify the attempt to add pre-Hispanic indigenous and Asian influences to the discussion, coinciding with a more objectively critical evaluation of Castilian colonialism. The third and present phase builds upon this foundation and re-centers the focus on Filipino experiences and cultural practices that either resisted or blended with Hispanic, Chinese, and American cultural assimilation strategies. Cushner 1977, with its synoptic style, reveals an empathetic understanding of Philippine culture and its history. The multivolume works in Roces 1977 and Punongboyan, et al. 1998 present multifaceted snapshots of Filipino history, with its people on center stage. Abinales and Amoroso 2005, a welcome addition to the genre, contextualizes more recent events into the longue durée of the archipelago’s history.

Abinales, Patricio N., and Donna J. Amoroso. State and Society in the Philippines. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
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Abinales and Amoroso follow the complicated trajectory of Philippine history from pre-Hispanic times to the turn of the 21st century. Written for both students and scholars, the book blends textbook facts with sophisticated analysis. Although most of the book is dedicated to examining the legacy of US colonial and post-colonial relations on Philippine politics, economics, and society, it provides adequate coverage on a wide range of topics.
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Benitez, Conrado. History of the Philippines: Economic, Social, Political. Boston: Ginn, 1929.
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The author of this massive (472 page) volume dedicated to Philippine history was the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of the Philippines. The book contains an enormous amount of information from prehistory, through the Spanish colonial era (the bulk of its contents) to the early period of US occupation. Although rather dated and dry by today’s standards, it is nevertheless an authoritative work for its time.
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Cushner, Nicholas P. Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest to Revolution. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University, 1977.
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The best English-language monograph available on the history of Spanish imperialism in the Philippines. Cushner’s book condenses the entire spectrum of Castile’s economic, religious, political, and social program into just over 200 pages of narrative. Especially enlightening are the chapters that discuss the exploitative practices of forced tributes and labor, and colonial trade and finance.
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Punongboyan, Raymundo, and Prescillano Zamora, et al. Kasaysayan: The Story of the Philippine People. 10 vols. Manila, Philippines: Asia Publishing, 1998.
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A solid Filipino-centered study that in many ways mirrors the structure and organization of Roces 1977 two decades earlier. The result of a Philippine-American joint venture between A–Z Marketing and Readers’ Digest, each volume contains a collection of essays penned by a myriad of respected academics.
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Roces, Alfredo R., ed. Filipino Heritage: The Making of a Nation. 10 vols. Manila, Philippines: Lahang Pilipino, 1977.
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A very detailed and nationalistic ten-volume work that encompasses the long arc of history from pre-Hispanic times through the Marcos era. The strengths of this encyclopedic approach are the numerous articles written by renowned scholars and an amazing variety of illustrations that include rare documents, paintings, drawings, and maps.
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Zaide, Gregorio F. The Philippines since Pre-Spanish Times. Manila, Philippines: R. P. Garcia, 1949.
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A hefty tome close to 500 pages in length; the prolific and esteemed Filipino historian Gregorio Zaide organized an excellent survey. Zaide spends the first fifth of his work excavating Asian influences in the archipelago prior to Magellan’s arrival. The remainder of the book evaluates a panorama of Spanish colonial policies, international and regional conflicts, the Galleon trade, and wars with Muslim sultanates in Mindanao and the Sulu Islands.
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Zúñiga, Joaquín Martínez de. An Historical Overview of the Philippine Islands. Manila, Philippines: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1966.
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Originally published in 1803. The first few chapters (1–6) describe the conquest of the islands, while the next thirty evaluate in chronological order the major achievements and noteworthy events during the administrations of each governor-general. The final chapters cover Britain’s occupation of Manila from 1762 through1764 and the guerilla tactics of Simon de Anday Salazar (1701–1776) that kept the English from conquering Luzon, and ends with the city’s restoration to Spanish control.
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Translated Primary Sources

There exist in the English language today a variety of firsthand accounts that were written in Spanish by civil and religious authorities. Not unexpectedly, these sources written for a political audience in Madrid (the Council of Indies) or Mexico City (the viceroy) were intended to sway the reader to support policies, actions, or perspectives as viewed through the eyes of their authors. Most recently, Filipino scholars have been at the vanguard of this translation project, especially those affiliated with Ateneo de Manila University and Filipiniana Book Guild, while earlier efforts were initiated by American colonial authorities shortly after the Philippines became a “territory,” as stipulated by the 1898 Treaty of Paris. The author of Chirino 2010 arrived in the islands around 1580 and chronicles the early decades of Spanish conquest and missionary activity. The author of Morga 1971 served as lieutenant governor and judge of the Audiencia from 1595 to 1603, and provides a more detailed socio-economic digest. Zúñiga 1973 and Comyn 1969, written by a priest and a bureaucrat, respectively, richly document a colony in transition as the political and economic ties to New Spain had been severed, Manila opened to global trade, and a larger population of Spanish migrated to the archipelago. In a monumental achievement that resulted from the Spanish-American War of 1898, the authors of Blair and Robertson 1905 were commissioned by the US government to scour the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, in addition to other important libraries and repositories in Spain. This Herculean translation labor chronicles over four centuries of Iberian relations with the Philippines.

Blair, Emma Helen, and James Alexander Robertson, eds. The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898. 55 vols. Cleveland, OH: Arthur A. Clark, 1905.
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Every study that is undertaken on the Philippine Islands under Spanish rule should start here – a fifty-five-volume compendium containing over 1,400 documents and manuscripts that were translated into English. Although this work has its detractors, it remains the preeminent source for anyone doing research on Castilian colonialism in the archipelago.
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Chirino, Pedro. History of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus. Edited by Jaume Gorriz I. Abela. Translated by José S. Arcilla. 2 vols. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2010.
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Although Chirino wrote primarily about religious matters, he chronicled the earliest period of Spanish conquest and pacification of the archipelago. Thus, his work is considered to be the first “history” of the Philippines authored by a Castilian, one that was heavily cited in later histories and manuscripts written by Spanish secular and clerical authorities. Originally published in 1604.
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Comyn, Tomás de. State of the Philippines in 1810: Being an Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive Account of the Interesting Portion of the Indian Archipelago. Translated by Conrado Benitez. Manila, Philippines: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1969.
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Comyn was an official in the Royal Philippine Company, which monopolized Asian trade between Cadíz and Manila. Consequently, he had access to detailed government statistics on trade, taxation, and demographics, He liberally borrowed from these sources to write his book, which is a socioeconomic history of the archipelago in the early 19th century. Originally published in 1821.
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Morga, Antonio de. Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Translated and edited by Bruce J. Cummins. Cambridge, UK: Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1971.
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Antonio de Morga’s history of the Philippines has been and is revered as a magnum opus. Scholars and students have long mined the rich veins of his work for information on all facets of colonial society. Originally published in 1609.
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Zúñiga, Joaquín Martínez de. Status of the Philippines in 1800. Translated by Vicente del Carmen. Manila, Philippines: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1973.
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Zúñiga, a member of the Augustinian order, arrived in the Philippines in 1786, and served as a parish priest or parson until his death in 1818. He provides eyewitness accounts of cultural practices, in addition to population and economic data that paints an invaluable portrait of what life was like in the archipelago by the turn of the 19th century. Originally published in 1814.
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Travelogues

What makes this type of primary source invaluable is that its authors were neither subjects, clerics, nor civil/military employees of the King of Spain. Thus, the information contained therein tends to be more impartial, although the British accounts trim their sails in a rather predictable direction. Because Spain’s Asian colony was belatedly opened to international trade in the 1790s, earlier travelers or merchants had to be from Catholic nations in order to gain ingress. Following the opening of Manila to vessels from other Western nations, the publication of travelogues from sailors, merchants, and scientists became more commonplace in the 19th century. The diary of Neapolitan Gemelli Careri (Gemelli Careri 1963), who made the trip from China to Manila and then on to New Spain, supplies a rare account of these connections in the late 1600s. The journal of American Nathaniel Bowditch (McHale and McHale 1962) captures the early days of Manila’s opening to foreign trade, underscoring the significance of Chinese and Mestizo merchants in the market. Mallat 1983 is a highly valued ethno-historical and economic study of the Philippines by the French author Jean Mallat, imitated with lesser success by the British author of MacMicking 1967 and the Prussian author of Jagor 1875.

Gemelli Careri, Giovanni Francesco. A Voyage to the Philippines. Manila, Philippines: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1963.
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Italian globetrotter Gemelli Careri provides fairly objective recollections on various facets of daily life in Manila and other islands during his five-year voyage around the world (1693–1698). This work, alongside Viaje a la Nueva España, translated by José María Agreda (Mexico City: Biblioteca Minima Mexicana, 1956) uniquely captures the realities of the Manila Galleon trade system in a manner unrivaled by other contemporary sources. Originally published in 1704.
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Jagor, Fedor. Travels in the Philippines, with Numerous Illustrations and a Map. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875.
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Fedor was a Prussian naturalist and ethnographer who traveled around Asia to collect curios for the Berlin Museum. His voyages to islands in the Philippine archipelago occurred in 1859 and 1860. Although his work is inferior in some ways to the travelogues Mallat 1983 and MacMicking 1967, the illustrations and ethnographic approach more than compensate for chapters that are not based on in situ observation.
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MacMicking, Robert. Recollections of Manila and the Philippines during 1848, 1849, and 1850. Edited and annotated by Morton J. Netzorg. With an appendix by Nicholas Loney. Manila, Philippines: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1967.
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Robert MacMicking (1826–1907) was a Scottish merchant who arrived in Manila in 1848 at the age of twenty-two. His recollections provide an interesting view of Manila at this time. The appendix, Trade in Panay, 1857–67, Four Letters by Nicholas Loney, contains unpublished letters penned by Nicholas Loney (1828–1869) His Majesty’s Vice-Consul dispatched by Hong Kong governor Sir John Bowring, providing a complementary perspective to that of MacMicking. MacMicking’s account was originally published in 1851.
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Mallat, Jean. The Philippines: History, Geography, Customs, Agriculture, Industry and Commerce of the Spanish Colonies in Oceania. Translated by Pura Santillan-Castrance in collaboration with Lina S. Castrance. Manila, Philippines: National Historical Institute, 1983.
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French and British merchants, consuls, and adventurers—benefiting from the opening of Manila to international trade since the 1790s—wrote their own historical, geographic, and ethnographic studies of the archipelago. The economic data and cultural observations, in addition to wonderful color illustrations from that time, make Mallat’s study a great source for the mid-19th century. Originally published in 1846.
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McHale, Thomas R., and Mary C. McHale, eds. Early American-Philippine Trade: The Journal of Nathaniel Bowditch in Manila, 1796. New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1962.
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Bowditch’s journal is an invaluable primary source on various aspects of the reordered international commerce in Manila at the end of the 18th century. Of particular interest are his entries on Chinese domination of the market, although he seems to conflate native-born Chinese Mestizos (who were more numerous) with immigrants from the Qing empire.
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Bibliographies

Reference materials such as bibliographies and library and archival guides are essential research tools for novice students and seasoned scholars alike. The author of Medina 2000 assembled the earliest bibliography of books, tracts, and archival documents that he had become familiar with in Spanish repositories. The author of Retana 1964 published some thirty-six scholarly works on the Philippines during his lifetime, mostly bibliographies that are indispensable. Griffin and Lee Phillips 1903 and Blair and Robertson 1908 are bibliographies that were devised to assist colonial administrators better understand the history of the people living in their newly acquired territory. Bernardo and Versoza 1968 builds upon the work of Medina, Blair and Robertson. Mexican archival and library sources were inventoried by a joint committee of academics, the authors of Quirino and Laygo 1965. On a smaller scale, but no less significant, are the catalogued manuscripts held in the Boxer 1968 manuscript collection at the Lilly Library.

Bernardo, Gabriel A., comp., and Navidad P. Versoza, ed. Bibliography of Philippine Bibliographies, 1593–1961. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo University Press, 1968.
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Packed with 1,160 sources that were not included in the bibliography Blair and Robertson 1908, Philippine scholars Bernardo and Versoza have completed a commendable task that rounds out the Herculean efforts originally undertaken by the former.
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Blair, Emma Helen, and James Alexander Robertson, eds. Bibliography of the Philippine Islands, 1493–1898. Cleveland, OH: Arthur A. Clark, 1908.
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This extensive bibliography was also published as Volume 53 of Blair and Robertson 1905 (cited under Translated Primary Sources). An indispensable reference book for primary and secondary sources from the Spanish colonial era.
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Boxer, C. R., ed. Catalogue of Philippine Manuscripts in the Lilly Library. Occasional Papers, no. 2. Bloomington: Asian Studies Research Institute of Indiana University, 1968.
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Boxer was one of the foremost scholars of his age on matters pertaining to early modern European colonialism in Asia and Brazil. The jewel of this catalogue is the so-called Boxer Codex, a manuscript penned in 1595 that contains seventy-five color illustrations of the various ethnic groups residing in the Philippines at that time.
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Griffin, A. P. C., and P. Lee Phillips, eds. Bibliography of the Philippine Islands: A List of Books with Reference to the Periodicals of the Philippine Islands in Library of Congress. Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office, 1903.
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Although somewhat dated now, this bibliography contains a complete list of Philippine Islands–related books and periodicals that were housed in the Library of Congress at the time of its publication.
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Medina, José Toribio. Bibliografía Española de las Islas Filipinas (1523–1810). Reprint. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino Fine, 2000.
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Medina was a famous Chilean-born archivist, librarian, and historian of the Spanish empire in the Americas and Philippines from the 1880s through the 1920s. His expert knowledge of the expansive holdings in the Archivo de Indias (Archivo General de Indias today), Archivo Notorial de Madrid, and Biblioteca Nacional make this difficult-to-find annotated bibliography of 667 sources a vital research index for Spanish-language sources on the Philippine Islands. Originally published in 1897.
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Quirino, Carlos, and Abrahan Laygo, eds. Regésto Guión catálogo de los documentos existentes en México sobre Filipinas. Manila, Philippines: El Comité de Amistad Filipino-Méxicana, 1965.
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An essential reference guide for scholars conducting archival research in Mexico. It was written by the Committee of Friendship to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Legazpi’s arrival in the Philippines (Cebu) in 1565.
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Retana, Wenceslao E. Aparato Bibliográfico de la Historia General de Filipinas, deducido de la colleción que posee en Barcelona, la Compañia General de Tobacos de dichas Islas. Vol. 1–3. Philippine Historical Series 1. Manila: 1964.
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An excellent example of Retana’s prolific bibliographic output of the early 20th century, this bibliography of 4,623 entries not only contains vital economic information, but also encompasses all aspects of Philippine life under Spanish rule. 1800 pages in length, it contains rare illustrations, maps, and titles of works that are now missing, including fragments of those extant. Originally published in 1906.
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Conquest and Colonial Culture

Cultural assimilation imposed by means of the sword and the cross had already passed through two stages of development on the Iberian peninsula and the New World by the time it had traversed the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines. Slavery, the imposition of forced labor and tribute, coerced conversion, famine, and disease were all veterans of conquistador campaigns. The trend in scholarship since World War II has been to reassess or confront the traditional “God, Gold, and Glory” narratives with data that starkly exposes the malignant tumors concealed beneath the gleaming armor of Castilian colonialism. The institution of slavery initially followed the same trajectory of Indians conquered in the Americas, but in the 17th century was limited on the islands to Muslims, Africans, or Asians conquered outside of the Philippines. Scott 1991 presents the first substantial investigation of slavery—both the indigenous and Iberian forms—and objectively analyzes the subject in its entirety. The forced collection of tribute in the forms of food, labor, and specie placed a heavy yoke upon the native peoples of the archipelago. Phelan 1959 exposes these exploitative features in comparison to policies imposed on the Indios of New Spain, highlighting the distinctions and similarities between them. Disease and epidemics that followed in the wake of conquest did not reach the catastrophic proportions experienced by the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, Caribes, and other indigenous peoples colonized in the Americas. Nevertheless, Newson 2009 challenges prevailing notions about the demographic impact, arguing that it was more severe than existing literature reveals. De Bevoise 1995 evaluates a little-known outbreak of rolling epidemics that plagued the islands during the last decades of Spanish rule. Using disease as a metaphor to describe the process of cultural assimilation, Rafael 1988 argues that the act of translating Spanish into Tagalog was a sort of proto-inoculation against the scourge of Hispanization. Phelan 1967, however, contends that the Spanish were most successful in the realm of religious conversion, but that overall its mixed results proved the resiliency of pre-Hispanic religious beliefs. A fitting coda to the cross-cultural negotiation that occurred under a Castilian flag is Irving 2010, a brilliant study that utilizes music as an instrument for measuring Filipino resistance to Hispanization.

De Bevoise, Kenneth. Agents of the Apocalypse: Epidemic Disease in the Colonial Philippines. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
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A watershed inquiry into the wave of epidemics that devastated the Philippines in the late 1800s. De Bevoise prioritizes the role of environmental and economic factors over human agency, and in doing so frames his study on a holistic canvas that exposes the complex web of relations between the ecosystem, pathogens, and hosts in a refreshingly nouveaux manner.
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Irving, D. R. M. Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila. Currents in Latin American and Iberian Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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This monograph is a truly unique investigation of Filipino resistance to Iberian cultural assimilation policies. Irving composes a rich and sophisticated analysis of how indigenous musicians interpreted music to successfully challenge the authority of both the Catholic Church and the monarchal state.
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Newson, Linda A. Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009.
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Newson’s research challenges the prevailing view that catastrophic population losses did not accompany Spanish conquest of the Philippines in a manner comparable to the experiences of Indios in the New World. Compiling a demographic model based on robust quantitative analysis, this book concludes that there was a noticeable drop in the native population from the late 1500s to the early 1700s.
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Phelan, John Leddy. “Free versus Compulsory Labor: Mexico and the Philippines 1540–1648.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 1.1 (January 1959): 189–201.
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This fine article compares and contrasts the economically exploitative policies of the Spanish in the Philippines that were modeled on those implemented in New Spain. What was known as the repartimiento in colonial Mexico was called the polo in Asia, which together with the vandala (forced sale of rice, abaca, and other cash crops at below-market rates) adversely affected the native population demographically in the 17th century.
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Phelan, John Leddy. The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565–1700. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.
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An excellent study wherein Phelan compares Iberian cultural assimilation strategies and outcomes in the Philippines to those utilized in colonial Mexico. He argues that, owing to a multitude of extenuating circumstances, the Philippines were less “Hispanized” than the New World kingdoms and viceroyalties. Phelan credits Catholic priests with acculturating the majority of Filipinos through religious conversion, but the results were far from ideal.
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Rafael, Vicente L. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
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Rafael puts a postmodern spin on the processes of religious conversion and Hispanization in early-17th-century Manila. He argues that it was through native Indios such as Tomás Pinpin (b. 1580), actually a Chinese Mestizo who printed religious and secular tracts translated into Tagalog) that the Castilian language was translated and vernacularized, providing an indigenous form of linguistic resistance.
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Scott, William Henry. Slavery in the Spanish Philippines. Manila, Philippines: De La Salle University Press, 1991.
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A pioneering study that compares and contrasts the pre-Iberian and post-Iberian forms of slavery in the Philippine Islands. The strength of Scott’s work is his linguistic facility with both Spanish and Tagalog, and his extensive use of primary sources to illustrate various facets of esclavitud.
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The New World Order and Social Consequences

When Spanish administrators began implementing the wide array of policies designed to reorder the daily lives of native Filipinos, they borrowed heavily from templates forged in New Spain. A demographic restructuring policy termed reducción that resettled natives into Mexican-style cities, pueblos (barangays), and villages to facilitate political control and resource extraction was likewise transplanted from the viceroyalty. Mexico City, Havana, and Lima were models for the urban design and layout of public space in Manila. Security concerns and economic imperatives also influenced the capital city’s form and function. Notwithstanding the similarities, the unique geographical and cultural realities of Spain’s Asian colony meant that policies and practices transplanted from the New World did not always take root in the Philippines. How urbanity changed Philippine society, especially in the greater Manila region, has been a subject of keen interest for social scientists. In a watershed study on “Hispanic urbanism,” Reed 1978 describes how the author skillfully excavated the soils in and around Manila to expose its imperial classification and control functions from the foundations of its walls, plazas, and cathedrals. De Viana 2001 refocuses the diagnostic lens across the Pasig River to the dynamic Chinese-dominated suburb of Binondo. Ortíz 1958 is history as a montage of events that captures many defining elements of colonial life in the capital over the span of 374 years. Edited volumes that illuminate significant scholarship on the variety of transformations that occurred within local societies in the greater Manila region include McCoy and Jesús 1982, in addition to Villacorta, et al. 1989. Manila’s vital dependency relationship with the neighboring province of Pampanga is deftly appraised in Larkin 1972.

De Viana, Lorelei D. C. Three Centuries of Binondo Architecture, 1594–1898: A Socio-Historical Perspective. Manila, Philippines: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2001.
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De Viana blends imperial urban planning and social history in this masterful study of Hispanization in Binondo, “the most important and prominent arrabal [suburb] outside the walled city of Manila” (p. 18). Binondo was unique, since it functioned as a middle ground where heathen and Catholic Chinese, native Malays, and their mixed-race offspring (Chinese Mestizos) experienced the most intense secular and religious Iberian influences.
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Larkin, John A. The Pampangans: Colonial Society in a Philippine Province. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
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Larkin skillfully evaluates the vital role played by the inhabitants of Pampanga province during the Spanish colonial era. Prior to 1800, Pampanga was the “ricebasket” that supplied Manila with the bulk of her foodstuffs. Pampangans were considered the most loyal subjects and the most faithful converts of all Philippine Indios. The changes resulting from economic globalization in the 19th century are similarly well documented.
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McCoy, Alfred W., and Edilberto C. de Jesús, eds. Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1982.
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Features eight essays on the transformation of local Philippine societies after the archipelago had been opened to international trade in the late 1700s. The main themes revolve around the formation of local elites; incorporation into the global economy at various stages, depending on the locality studied; and regional conflicts that are residual evidence of these processes into the late 20th century.
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Ortíz, Pedro Armengol. Intramuros de Manila de 1571 hasta su destrucción en 1945. Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispánica, 1958.
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This kaleidoscopic history of the fortified city of Manila reflects a multitude of events that impacted the lives of its ethnically diverse population. Topics include its construction and expansion; love-hate relationships with Chinese traders and residents; attacks by foreign and Muslim pirates; devastating earthquakes and fires; political scandals; changes under US control; and the city’s destruction by the Japanese in World War II.
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Reed, Robert R. Colonial Manila: The Context of Hispanic Urbanism and Process of Morphogenesis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
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A strong study that assesses the “ingredients of Hispanic imperialism” (p. 11) that were based on the policy of resettlement of native peoples as a means of economic exploitation, religious conversion, and cultural transformation. Manila’s municipal layout was modeled after the New World capitals of Mexico City, Lima, and Havana. Highly recommended for understanding how colonial urban planning was a tool of empire.
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Villacorta, Wilfrido V., Isagani R. Cruz, and María Lourdes Brillantes, eds. Manila: History, People, and Culture: The Proceedings of the Manila Studies Conference/ Co-sponsored by De La Salle University and the Philippine Studies Associaiton, April 11–12, 1986, Barrio San Luis Complex, Intramuros Manila. Manila, Philippines: De La Salle University, 1989.
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A wide-ranging collection of essays from leading Filipino scholars on subjects related to the life and times of the people who resided in the metropolitan area since the 1500s. Intriguing offerings include Muslims in Manila prior to Spanish conquest, the development of nationalism in the 19th century, and the changing roles of Chinese women.
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The Philippine Agricultural Economy

Unquestionably, the most prominent feature of the colonial economy was the role of maritime commerce, especially that of the Manila Galleon Trade System and the Amoy Network (discussed under Relations between China and the Philippines). The flip side of the peso that primed the Philippine economic pump was the agricultural sector. Unlike the encomienda system that dominated the domestic economy of New Spain, in the Philippines ecclesiastical estates monopolized the production of foodstuffs (mostly rice) and livestock until the turn of the 19th century. Afterwards, Chinese Mestizos, native elites, and international corporations expanded the production of cash crops for the global marketplace. Surprisingly, there is a shortage of literature that provides a general overview of the economy during the Spanish colonial era. Corpuz 1997 is the most complete perspective on every imaginable aspect, and is therefore one of the best efforts to date. Cushner 1976 and Roth 1977 plow deeply into the archives to expose the hidden details of how various religious orders controlled labor, rents, financing, warehousing, and distribution for their agricultural pursuits. Legarda 1999 is a laudable achievement in this genre. It is a meticulous investigation of the paradigm shift from the Manila Galleon trade to a cash-crop economy dependent upon the global market and the economy’s social repercussions. Jesús 1980 focuses on the commerce in tobacco and the colonial government’s attempts to monopolize production, distribution, and sales. Along this rich vein of financial reforms, Fradera 1999 scrutinizes colonial policies that expanded the tentacles of empire into new sources of revenue that sustained a Spanish presence in Asia through the end of the 19th century.

Corpuz, O. D. An Economic History of the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines Press, 1997.
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Corpuz penned an excellent overview of the Philippine economy’s evolution from precolonial times to the end of Spanish rule. Richly documented and well organized, this history analyzes multiple facets of the mercantile, political, and social realities associated with exploitative colonial policies in local, regional, and international arenas.
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Cushner, Nicholas P. Landed Estates in the Philippines. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.
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Cushner’s book is an excellent and pithy study about the growth of the Philippine encomienda/hacienda system and its impact on society in the regions surrounding Manila. Chapters 3–5, which describe the evolution of landed ecclesiastical estates and indigenous revolts against its abuses in the 18th century, are essential reading on the colonial economy.
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Fradera, Josep M. Filipinas, la colonia más peculiar: La hacienda pública en la definición de la politica colonial, 1762–1868. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1999.
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Fradera seeks answers to Spain’s perplexing ability to keep the Philippines as a colony, following the collapse of empire in the Americas. His research focuses on measures taken to rationalize public finances under the influence of Bourbonic reforms primarily in the 19th century, accentuating the role of tax collection agents and alterations to tributary exactions, among other meticulously examined factors.
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Jesús, Edilberto C. de. The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines: Bureaucratic Enterprise and Social Change, 1766–1880. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1980.
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An important study on an extremely lucrative source of revenue for both the colonial government and Real Hacienda of Spain. The agricultural economy and the growth, administration, and demise of the Real Renta de Tobaco monopoly are explored in depth. A social as well as an economic history, with many ample nuggets to be mined from the author’s narrative.
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Legarda, Benito J., Jr. After the Galleons: Foreign Trade, Economic Change and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines. Madison, WI: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1999.
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A much-needed study of a pivotal shift in the Philippine economy from a transpacific clearing house for Asian products (mostly Chinese) to a major cash crop (sugar, abaca, tobacco, and coffee) producer for the international marketplace. Legarda ascribes the successful 18th- century transition to British and American entrepreneurship. An essential resource for comprehending the globalization of the Philippine economy.
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Roth, Dennis M. The Friar Estates of the Philippines. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977.
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Along with Cushner’s Landed Estates, Dennis Roth’s investigation of ecclesiastical estates presents a clear picture of farming and ranching prior to the 19th century. By focusing more exclusively on religious haciendas, Roth is able to expose the abusive aspects of the landed- estate economy that fueled native revolts and, ultimately the downfall of the friar estates.
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The Manila Galleon Trade System

What made the Pacific Ocean a “Spanish Lake” for more than two centuries was the lucrative maritime trade route established by Castilians in the mid-1560s, a route that bound together the backwater pueblo of Acapulco in New Spain with the effervescent capital/emporium of Manila. Galleons and other sailing vessels that annually made this long and treacherous voyage were colloquially known in the Americas as las naos de China, or the “China ships,” for the reason that precious silks from the Middle Kingdom initially constituted the bulk of cargoes transported to Acapulco. The long-term effects parallel nautical journeys had on the social, political, religious, and economic spheres of life for inhabitants at both ends of the route were multifaceted and complex. Each anchorage behaved like an enormous funnel for products and peoples coming from the Americas and Europe on one side and from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa on the other. In this manner, commercial relations between Manila and Acapulco transcended the spatial limitations of the two seaports to encompass a global proportion of five continents. Foundational studies on this subject began in the early 20th century and were pioneered by William Lytle Schurz. His book The Manila Galleon (Schurz 1939) stimulated scholarly interest that has branched off into two main subfields: beginning in the 1950s with those that emphasize economics and finance, and a more recent focus on the socio-cultural influences experienced in New Spain by the influx of Oriental goods, slaves, and immigrants. Dennis Carr’s article “Asian Art and Its Impact in the Americas, 1565–1840” published by Oxford Bibliographies already covers much of this material. In order to avoid duplication of the same sources in this article, most of the works cited herein with respect to the Manila Galleon are different save for those that are considered pathbreaking and therefore essential. Yuste López 1984 is the most authoritative work on the economic and financial components governing the galleon trade system. Edited volumes that present a tableau of scholarship on the subject include Sierra de la Calle 1991, Cruz Gerrero, et al. 1996, Mola and Shaw 2000, and Flynn, et al. 2001. A unique approach that explores the Manila Galleon through the adventures of a single vessel is provided in García del Valle y Gómez 1993.

Cruz Gerrero, Gemma, Christina Barrón Soto, Andrés del Castillo Sánchez, Cutberto Hernández Legorreta, eds. El Galeón de Manila: Un mar de historias; Primeras jornadas culturales Mexicano-Filipinas, México, 12–14 de junio de 1996, octubre-diciembre de 1996. Mexico City: JGH Editores, 1996.
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An important edited collection of articles penned primarily by scholars from Mexican universities, pertaining to the Manila Galleon trade and its historical influence on both sides of the Pacific Rim (as well as the Mariana Islands in the Basin).
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Flynn, Dennis O., Arturo Giráldez, and James Sobredo, eds. European Entry into the Pacific: Spain and the Acapulco-Manila Galleons. Burlington, VT: Ashgate/Variorum, 2001.
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An edited volume that brings together fourteen published articles from noted scholars explores the Pacific Ocean as a coherent unit of analysis in the comparative framework of world history. It is divided into four parts that highlight not only the trade between Mexico and the Philippines, but also trade and relations with China, Japan, and Muslim sultanates.
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García del Valle y Gómez, Jesús. Retrato de un navío: Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza de la carrera Manila-Acapulco (1733–1750). Madrid: Editorial Naval, 1993.
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A microcosm of the Manila Galleon trade through the seventeen-year history of the galleon Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragosa. Expertly researched and wonderfully illustrated; a highly recommended study that brings into clear focus the realities of maritime trade across the Pacific, including details about the crew, construction, and operation of the vessel during peace and war, at the threshold of British and French incursions into the “Spanish Lake.”
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Mola, Marina Alfonso, and Carlos Martínez Shaw, eds. El Galeón de Manila. Madrid: Aldeasa, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, 2000.
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An essential collection of incisive articles on the Manila Galleon trade, written primarily by scholars from Spain. Unlike Schurz 1939, this book is amply illustrated with artifacts, portraits, and maps that accentuate the Oriental influence of the commerce.
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Schurz, William Lytle. The Manila Galleon. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939.
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The classic study that exposed a forgotten and inconvenient truth about Philippine history: maritime trade between the Pacific ports of Manila and Acapulco sustained Spain’s sole Asian colony for 250 years. Although the narrative style is considered passé, this book has singlehandedly launched more scholarly investigations of global, transpacific, or regional significance on the Spanish empire since the book’s publication than any other work to date.
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Sierra de la Calle, Blas, ed. Vientos de Acapulco: Relaciónes entre América y Oriente. Valladolid, Spain: Museo Oriental, 1991.
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This skillfully organized and illustrated book is of museum quality because it was assembled by the director of the Museo Oriental in Valladolid, Spain. Blas Sierra de la Calle combines his extensive knowledge of Asian art and its influences on New Spain and Iberia with academic acumen, creating a work that is both visually and intellectually stimulating.
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Yuste López, Carmen. El comercio de Nueva España con Filipinas, 1590–1785. Mexico City: INAH, 1984.
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Carmen Yuste is the leading authority on transpacific maritime commerce, let alone anything pertaining to trade and finance with New Spain (Mexico) during the Spanish colonial era. Her classic study thoroughly examines the Manila Galleon system and its multifacted effects on the viceroyalty. This book by a prolific scholar with numerous publications to her name is still an unsurpassed masterpiece.
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Cultural Comparisons and Exchanges between the Philippines and New Spain

The Manila Galleon trade circuit carried more than just silver from Acapulco to Manila and, conversely, much more than silk, porcelains, and spices from Asia to the New World. People, ideas, plants, animals, technologies, customs, and artistic styles were exchanged, negotiated, and assimilated in various degrees at each terminus of the transpacific commercial route. The earliest comparative study is Basarás 1763. Its biases notwithstanding, we see through the eyes of Joachín Antonio de Basarás images and perceptions frozen in time that underscore the theme of Indios at two ends of the Iberian empire sharing a common Hispanic heritage linked by the Manila Galleon, yet undeniably different. Frances 1964 notes the historical similarities and distinctions between Manila and Mexico City during the Spanish colonial era and beyond. The author of Bernal 1965 undertook the first methodical appraisal of Mexican contributions to the process of cultural transference under the guise of Hispanization in the Philippines, establishing a new paradigmatic baseline for future studies. Since Dennis Carr’s article for Oxford Bibliographies (see the Manila Galleon Trade System) eloquently enumerated the research touching upon Asian influence in New Spain, Slack 2012 is a synopsis of the cultural counter-currents that arrived in Acapulco. Buschmann, et al. 2014 combines similar approaches, creating a dynamic framework for reevaluating Guam and the Philippines in the Spanish empire by re-centering the Pacific into the Atlantic world, while questioning what form of Hispanization actually took place in the South Sea.

Basarás, Joachín Antonio de. Origen, costumbres y estado presente de mexicanos y philipinos, descripción acompañada de los estampas in colores. 2 vols. Mexico City: 1763.
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An invaluable primary source, written by a Spanish friar who served in both colonies, that provides a biased, proto-anthropological comparative examination of the Filipino and Mexican Indios in the mid-18th century. Most of Basarás’ first volume is a diatribe against the vices and perceived inferior qualities of the Filipino Indio. A difficult source to acquire, but well worth the effort.
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Bernal, Rafael. México en Filipinas: Estudio de una transculturación. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1965.
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Diverging from earlier studies that highlight Castilian exceptionalism, Bernal focuses on purely Mexican contributions to the process of “Hispanization” in the archipelago, making a convincing case for a new nomenclature (i.e., “Mexicanization”) prior to 1815. A seminal work that evaluates the sum and substance of colonial relations between New Spain and the Philippines.
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Buschmann, Rainer F., Edward R. Slack Jr., and James B. Tueller. Navigating the Spanish Lake: The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521–1898. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014.
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This coauthored book investigates Schurz’s “Spanish Lake” as a historical artifact that unites the Pacific Rim (the Americas and Asia) and the Basin (Oceania) with the Iberian Atlantic. The book injects the Pacific into the prevailing “Atlanticentric” scholarship on the Spanish empire and prioritizes the social-cultural legacies of Spanish colonial history over the silver and silk beyond the Manila Galleon era.
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Frances, J. M., ed. México y Manila: Historía de dos ciudades. Mexico City: Secretaria de Educacion Publica, 1964.
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Frances’s comparative history is divided into three parts: the first two explore a myriad of topics from the 1500s until 1898, while the third probes the relationship between Mexico and Manila in the turn of the 20th century to the early 1960s. This “History of Two Cities” coincided with the four-hundredth anniversary of Legazpi’s arrival in the Philippines.
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Slack, Edward R., Jr. “Orientalizing New Spain: Perspectives on Asian Influence in Colonial Mexico.” México y la Cuenca del Pacífico 15.43 (April 2012): 97–127.
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This article summarizes the totality of what the author terms the “Orientalization” of New Spain during the Manila Galleon era. Included under this rubric are Asian migration and assimilation strategies, the influence of art and textiles on the consumption of luxury goods by elites, and the Acapulco Fair’s economic impact on a variety of industrial sectors.
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Relations between China and the Philippines

Trade between early Chinese dynasties and inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago in the South China Sea had been established by the first millennium BCE. At least since the Tang dynasty (618–906 CE), there are written records to authenticate such contact. Scholarship on this subject has not been as robust as one would expect, since it requires academics with both Chinese and Spanish language proficiency to publish research—a skill set that is not that commonplace. In spite of its paucity, the literature that has been produced prioritizes quality over quantity. Zhongguo Di Yi Lishi Dang’anguan 2003 is a collation of a large number of official government documents from the early-middle to late Qing dynasty that pertain to matters involving Spanish trade, foreign relations, and Chinese immigrants living in the Philippines. Laufer 1967 is the first publication in the English language to utilize Chinese dynastic histories to investigate the lengthy ties between the two peoples. With respect to studies written in the Chinese language, Ch’en 1968, by the Taiwanese scholar Lieh-fu Ch’en, traces the relationship back to Tang and Song times, but the bulk of his research centers on the Spanish colonial era and provides salient analysis of the life and difficulties experienced by Chinese immigrants and merchants. Chen 1985 is a detailed two-volume history of Sino-Philippine relations that demonstrates the author’s knowledge of the sources from the period. The trading system that brought so many Chinese products and immigrants to Manila is masterfully assessed by Ng 1983, and situates the Philippine relationship in the larger context of the regional Amoy Network prior to the 1800s. Working down from the macro- to the micro-level on this topic is the outstanding article Chia 2006. Wilson 2004 departs from the early colonial era to explore relations at the end of Spanish rule, investigating how conflicting strains of nationalism and identity politics affected Chinese communities in Manila and Southeast China. As a counterpoint to these studies, Ollé 2002 takes us back to the first decades following the initial conquest to expose Castilian arrogance and frustration in dealing with the great empire of China on its own terms.

Ch’en, Lieh-fu (Chen, Liefu). Feilübin de lishi yü Zhong-Fei guanxi de guoqu yü xianzai. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1968.
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Ch’en’s study explores Philippine interactions with China over the long arc of history (approximately 1,000 years). Nevertheless, it contains data from Chinese sources that add important details to the Chinese experience that are more accurate and less biased than Spanish-language sources. Ch’en makes a convincing argument that “The Philippines were [actually] a Chinese colony with a Spanish flag” (p. 135).
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Chen, Taimin. Zhong-Fei guanxi yü Feilübin Huaqiao. Hong Kong: Chaoyang chubanshe, 1985.
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This two-volume monograph investigates, for the most part, China’s relations with the Philippines during the era of Spanish colonialism. The author, born to Chinese parents in the Philippines prior to World War II, writes from the perspective of Philippine huaqiao (overseas Chinese). A reliable and detailed source, although lacking the proper citation format followed by Western scholars.
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Chia, Lucille. “The Butcher, the Baker, and the Carpenter: Chinese Sojourners in the Spanish Philippines and Their Impact on Southern Fujian (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 49.4 (2006): 509–534.
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A brilliant investigation of the Minnanese trade network and its links to the Chinese diaspora in the greater Manila area. In an article based on geneaologies and other Chinese primary sources, Chia traces different occupational groups serving the Spanish (i.e., bakers) to several specific cities and towns during late Ming to mid-Qing dynasties, and how these linkages affected native place economies and migration patterns.
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Laufer, Berthold. “The Relations of the Chinese to the Philippines.” Historical Bulletin 11.1 (March 1967): 1–38.
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In this landmark early study of China’s historical interactions with the Philippine Islands (originally published in 1907 by the Smithsonian Institute), revered Sinologist Berthold Laufer examines these influences from the Tang dynasty to the late Ming era. Translating historical texts from several dynasties into English, Laufer relates how the trade, peoples, and products on Lüsong (Luzon) were seen through Chinese eyes up to the early 1600s.
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Ng, Chin-Keong. Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast 1683–1735. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983.
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A superb analysis of Chinese social, political, and economic realities that influenced the early Qing dynasty’s trading relations with Southeast and East Asia. The Amoy Network, which constituted the cities of Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Xiamen (Amoy), was the largest node of foreign and domestic maritime trade in China prior to the establishment of the Canton System by 1760, and linked firmly to Manila.
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Ollé, Manel. La Empresa de China: De la Armada Invencible al Galeón de Manila. Barcelona: Acantilado, 2002.
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This study by Ollé is historically vital because it focuses on the rather stormy early relations between Spain and the Ming dynasty. In this well- researched book, using both Chinese and Spanish sources, Ollé describes how dreams of conquest and conversion of the Great Ming dynasty gave way to the modus vivendi that resulted in a large population of Chinese in the Philippines and the Manila Galleon commercial link between Manila and Acapulco.
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Wilson, Andrew R. Ambition and Identity: Chinese Merchant Elites in Colonial Manila, 1880–1916. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004.
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An enlightening investigation of merchant elites in the overseas Chinese community of colonial Manila, during a time of intense local, regional, and international turbulence. Wilson skillfully reveals the cultural, economic, and political ties that bound villages of southern China together with the Philippines through the ”twine” of community institutions and migration networks, while stressing the agency utilized by Tsinoys (Chinese) to create their own unique identity.
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Zhongguo Di Yi Lishi Dang’anguan. Qingdai Zhongguo yü Dongnanya geguo guanxi dang’an shiliao huibian. Vol. 2, Feilübin juan. Beijing: Guoji wenhua chuban gongsi, 2003.
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The Number One Historical Archive in Beijing published this edited volume, containing 420 government documents pertaining to relations with the Philippine Islands from 1724 to 1911. Just over half of them concern the Spanish colonial era, covering such subjects as trade, illegal missionary activity, and tributary visits from representatives of the Sulu kingdom, to list but a few of the matters worthy of the imperial bureaucracy’s attention.
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Chinese and Chinese Mestizos

When the Spanish conquered Manila in 1571, owing to a scarcity of Iberian colonists and the enormous profits realized from selling silks, porcelains, spices, and exotic wares in Acapulco, the diminutive Spanish community encouraged Chinese immigration and trading relations to provide a myriad of services and revenue to make their colonial adventure economically viable. Because the majority of Chinese were male, they began to have relations with native women who were being converted to Catholicism. Unlike the native Indios, the Sangley (Chinese) immigrant community was permitted to keep its own customs and habits, including religious beliefs, spurring Manila’s secular and religious authorities to undertake serious evangelization efforts among the Chinese. The Dominicans were given the task to convert Sangleyes in the Parián, and in 1594, a piece of land across the Pasig River from Manila Intramuros called Minondoc—later Binondo—was set aside as a purely Chinese Catholic community. It was in Binondo that the first generation of a social engineering experiment would emerge as the historically unique byproduct of a tricultural convergence in the Philippines. Thereafter, the term Mestizos de Sangley (Chinese Mestizos) entered the colonial vocabulary. The Chinese community (both Christian and infidel) would suffer economic exploitation, large-scale massacres, and expulsions prior to the 1800s, and always be seen as a threat in some way, shape, or form by the Spanish. Chinese Mestizos, viewed as more Hispanized and less of a security concern, would begin enjoying preferential treatment that was met with suspicion by Indio elites. In both cases, Mestizo and Chinese communities would wrestle with issues of identity as nationalism (both Chinese and Filipino varieties) emerged in the 19th century. The edited volumes Ang See 1992, Felix 1966–1969, and Ang See, et al. 2005 contain a mosaic of the Chinese experience in the Philippines from pre-Hispanic times to the present day. Wickberg 1965 is a definitive study on the Chinese under Spanish rule into the mid-1800s. Ch’en 1968 examines the early decades of Chinese-Iberian interaction in Manila, while Tan 1972 fast-forwards to the transitional era of the late 19th century to elucidate discriminatory policies shared by two colonial powers. Scholarship on Chinese Mestizos is published less frequently. Wickberg 2001 is the first historical summary of Chinese Mestizos, while Chu 2010 has an interdisciplinary approach that opens new windows on the issues of identity and elite status in Chinese and Mestizo social spheres.

Ang See, Teresita, ed. The Chinese Immigrants: Selected Writings of Professor Chinben See. Manila, Philippines: Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, 1992.
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The erudition of one of the Philippines’ most respected Tsinoy scholars is memorialized in this volume edited by his wife (and esteemed scholar in her own right), Teresita Ang See. Chinben See’s early use of cultural anthropology for understanding the complicated forces of tradition and acculturation that influenced the Chinese community in Philippine history is requisite reading on this subject.
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Ang See, Teresita, Go Bon Juan, Doreen Go Yu, and Yvonne Chua, eds. Tsinoy: The Story of the Chinese in Philippine Life. Manila, Philippines: Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, 2005.
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A richly illustrated and beautifully packaged edited volume about the Tsinoy (Tagalog word for Chinese) in Philippine life and history. It contains forty short essays penned by eight well-known scholars on subjects ranging from prehistorical and pre-Hispanic times, through the next five centuries of Spanish, American, and Japanese occupation, ending with the Tsinoy struggles since Philippine independence.
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Ch’en, Ching-ho. The Chinese Community in the Sixteenth Century Philippines. Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1968.
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Venerable scholar Ch’en Ching-ho, a specialist on the history of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, traces the stormy relationship that evolved between Sangley merchants/immigrants and Castilians from 1565 to 1600. Based on both Spanish and Chinese sources from the era, Ch’en’s book masterfully traces the economic threads and colonial policies that set the stage for massacres, expulsions, and mistrust in the centuries that followed.
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Chu, Richard T. Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity and Culture, 1860s–1930s. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
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A landmark study by Richard Chu that picks up where Wickberg 1965 ends, more or less. Chu meticulously investigates the social-climbing strategies intertwined with identity issues that were negotiated by elite families in Manila of both Chinese and Mestizo heritage during the transitional eight decades overlapping the Spanish and American colonial eras. Chu’s study is a welcome addition to scholarly literature on these complex themes.
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Felix, Alonso, Jr., ed. The Chinese in the Philippines. 2 vols. Manila, Philippines: Solidaridad, 1966–1969.
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A classic and requisite two-volume exegesis on the evolution of Chinese trade, settlement, and cultural conflict in the Philippine archipelago, anchored by contributions from respected scholars in the field. Volume I analyzes the Spanish colonial era from 1570 through 1770, with multiple perspectives on the aforementioned issues, while Volume II covers the remaining 128 years of Chinese living under Spanish rule.
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Tan, Antonio S. The Chinese in the Philippines, 1898–1935: A Study of Their National Awakening. Quezon City, Philippines: R. P. Garcia, 1972.
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A solid study in this genre, Tan’s thesis is that relations between native Malays and the Chinese were harmonious before the arrival of Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century. After 1571, the Castilian colonial regime imposed harsh anti-Chinese measures that by the 19th century forced the Chinese community to identify themselves culturally with their homeland rather than their adopted nation, thus keeping them separate and dangerous in the eyes of indigenous Filipinos.
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Wickberg, Edgar. The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850–1898. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965.
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A pioneering study on the Chinese in the Philippines under Spanish rule, this book remains unsurpassed to this day. The scholarship is exemplary, and although its emphasis is on the last half-century of Iberian colonialism, the first chapter on Philippine Chinese prior to that era is equally engaging. Essential reading for anyone interested in the Sangleys’ role in dramatically influencing Philippine society, economy, and historical trajectory.
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Wickberg, Edgar. The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History. With Chinese translation by Go Bon Juan. Manila, Philippines: Kaisa Para Sa Kuanlaran, 2001.
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Wickberg’s tract (fifty-eight pages including footnotes) is a compact but exhaustive survey of Chinese Mestizos in Philippine society during the Spanish colonial era. The second half of the book was translated in Chinese by Go Bon Juan, a notable scholar affiliated with Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran. Required reading for those curious about the historical significance of this mixed-race casta/gremio.
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Nationalism and Revolution

Filipino nationalism began to emerge in the mid-18th century as a result of improved educational opportunities for Mestizo and Indio elites. This process was hastened by the Jesuits who established progressive schools and universities in the greater Manila region. The Jesuit curriculum emphasized science, technology, and more modern subjects alongside of religious instruction. Subsequently, a new and important intelligentsia class called the Ilustrados emerged from these schools. Many of the Ilustrados had intended to become priests but found that the Spanish dominating the upper ranks of clergy blocked any attempts toward this goal. Racism incited Indio and Mestizo to find common ground and work toward creating a new Filipino identity, a process that led to armed uprisings such as those by Apolinario de la Cruz (1815–1841) in 1841 and soldiers at the Cavite Arsenal in 1872 . When the Spanish became increasingly repressive, the Ilustrados exchanged the sword for the pen and initiated the Propaganda Movement (1870s–1890s), epitomized by the works of José Rizal (1861–1896). When nationalist and revolutionary organizations emerged in the 1890s, followed by the revolution and short-lived Philippine Republic in 1898, it simultaneously marked the end of Spanish rule and, ironically, Chinese or Mestizo inclusion in what constituted Filipino identity in the 20th century. When the American invasion and occupation commenced, revolutionaries either resisted or cooperated with new imperial regime, while Chinese in the Philippines were subjected to the “Yellow Peril” trope and Chinese Exclusion Act in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. Scholarly literature on this subject tends to fall into three categories: biographies and memoirs; traditional scholarship that incorporate primary and secondary sources; and novel reassessments that challenge conventional thinking. Fitting in the first category are the works Zaide and Zaide 1984, Alvarez 1992, and Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran 1988. Cullinane 2005 follows the familiar narrative of publications in the second category. Schumacher 1981 and Thomas 2013 utilize innovative approaches that shed new light on roles of the clergy and intelligentsia along the road to revolution, while Ileto 1980 examines popular movements of the present and past through the language of Christian-inspired passion plays. Anderson 2005 excavates the previously unearthed links between anarchism and anticolonial nationalism in the last remaining outposts of a crumbling Spanish empire.

Alvarez, Santiago V. The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General; With the Original Tagalog Text. Translated by Paula Carolina S. Malay. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992.
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This priceless, first-hand account of the revolution from one of its military leaders has finally been translated into English. The Alvarez memoirs fill in many of the vague or unknown details that were obscured by the speed and chaos of the revolutionary typhoon that ravaged the Philippines during 1896 and 1897.
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Anderson, Benedict. Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination. London and New York: Verso, 2005.
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This globally comparative study of late-19th-century revolutionary movements in Cuba and the Philippines spotlights the role of anarchism in anticolonial nationalism. Building upon his “Imagined communities” approach, Anderson emphasizes the shared intellectual influences of Asian, Caribbean, and European elites within the framework of anti-imperialist literature and their cosmopolitan lifestyles.
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Cullinane, Michael. Ilustrado Politics: Filipino Elite Responses to American Rule, 1898–1906. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005.
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A lengthy and well-researched monograph that investigates the morphogenesis of Filipino elites from anti-Spanish revolutionaries into native administrators of the new Yanqui colonial order. Tracing the rise of influential powerbrokers from the local (provincial) levels to Manila, especially Manuel Quezon (1878–1944) and Sergio Osmeña (1878–1961), Cullinane discloses the opportunities provided by American authorities for these men to reshape the concepts of Filipino identity and nationalism.
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Ileto, Reynaldo C. Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1980.
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A truly pioneering study, Ileto’s thesis is that Tagalog songs and narrative poems pertaining to the pasyon (the final days leading to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ provided the ideological justification for revolutionary action by Filipino peasants in the 18th through 20th centuries. The author’s mastery of Tagalog sources and radical reinterpretation of Christianity through the language of the downtrodden masses make this book revolutionary in its own right.
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Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran. A Chinese General in the Philippine Revolution: Jose Ignacio Paua. Manila, Philippines: Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, 1988.
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This short but fascinating tract on the life of a Chinese-born revolutionary reveals the contributions Jose Ignacio Paua (1872–1926) made to Aguinaldo’s anti-Spanish and anti-American struggles. An important biography printed in the English and Chinese languages, it is ironically the last hurrah of a celebrated Chinese influence in the Philippines into the early era of US occupation.
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Schumacher, John N. Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist Movement, 1850–1903. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1981.
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A trenchant reevaluation of the nationalist and anticolonial movements that places Filipino priests at the vanguard rather than marching behind the Ilustrados or Katipunan revolutionaries. Schumacher’s reputation as a specialist in Philippine religious and secular history at the turn of the 20th century is further enhanced by this trailblazing study.
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Thomas, Megan C. Orientalists, Propagandists, and Ilustrados: Filipino Scholarship and the End of Spanish Colonialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
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Thomas reexamines the literature produced by both famous and lesser-known propagandists, contending that their anticolonial rhetoric and construction of a Filipino identity was influenced by the very same racist Orientalist discourses and colonialism they that were reacting against. A powerful thought-piece that turns prevailing conventional wisdom on this subject upside down.
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Zaide, Gregorio F., and Sonia M. Zaide. José Rizal: Life, Works, and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist and National Hero. Manila, Philippines: National Book Store, 1984.
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Dr. José Rizal has long been revered in the Philippines as a national hero. In this biography of his life and work, the Zaides have penned a veritable hagiography that evaluates the totality of Rizal’s contributions to the development of both the anticolonial movement and early nationalistic identity.
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