Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History
Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History
Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY*
E. WlCKBERG.
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5. Recopilaci?n de leyes de los rey nos de las Indias (2nd ed; 4 vols; Madrid,
1756), libro 6, titulo 18, ley 3; Purcell, p. 598; BR (Emma H. Blair and
James A. Robertson, ed., The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (55 vols; Cleve
land, 1903-07), L, p. 200.
6. PNA, Gremios, 16-5-5; PNA, Provincial Documents, legajo 117, n?mero 70.
legajo 56, n?mero 11.
7. Chinos. Sus reglamentos y sus contribuciones, comp. El Faro Administrativo
(Manila 1893), pp< 13-14 PNA, Provincial Documents, legaja 56? n?mero II.
8. The; perpetuation of a mestizo group was also aided by the post-1800 marriage
legislation, which tended to discourage mestizo-indio marriages. Joaquin
Rodr?guez San Pedro, Legislati??i ultramarina (16 vols; Madrid, 1865-59), II,
pp. 513-23;'/ Rafael Comenge, Cuestiones* filipinas. La parte. Los chinos
(Manila, 1894), p. 233.
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
9. Austin Craig, Rizal's Life and Minor Writings (Manila, 1927), pp. 7-23.
10. A brief outline of this procedure, with references, is found in J. F. King,
"The Case of Jos? Ponciano de Ayarza: A Document on Gracias al Sacar,"
Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXI, No. 4 (Nov. 1951).
11. I am aware of only one case of a mestizo formally requesting transfer to
Chinese status. See Comenge, p. 229.
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
they were equally unable to live with them. The Chinese popula
tion was many times larger than that of the Spanish, further inciting
Spanish fears of Chinese revolts. The result was a compromise in
Spanish policy between economic interest and political security.
Early in the Spanish period laws were passed limiting the number
of Chinese who could reside in the Philippines and restricting their
areas of settlement. But ? at least until the mid-eighteenth century
-?such laws were often enforced in a very loose manner.14
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
17. The text of Dasmari?as' "donation" is found in PNA, Gremios, 16-5-5. Com
pare Jes?s Gayo, O.P., "Ensayo hist?rico-bibliogr?fico," Doctrina Christiana;
Primer libro impreso en Filipinas (Manila, 1951), p. 70.
18. Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, e?: W. E. Retana, (Madrid,
1910), p. 225; BR, XVII, p. 216. Gayo (p. 73) gives 800.
19. Gayo, pp. 72-73.
20. PNA, Gremios, 16-5-5.
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
the right to collect rent from any non-members who settled there
in.21
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
II. 1741-1850
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Province Indios Mestizos
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29. Comyn, pp. 187, 201, Z??iga, I, 150, 194, 306, 461, 539; II, pp. 9, 20, 25,
31, 40, 47, 53, 62, 67, 70, 77, 81, 88, 93, 96, 100, 103, 110, 113.
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
a people who are richer than the indios and who spend
more, not only on food, but also on dress, gaming, tobacco,
wine, and vices. They have no other source of income
than the land, since their trading is minor1 and their manu
facturing nil.33
Again, at Binan, in Laguna, Z??iga notes that the best houses
were those of Chinese who had settled and married there or of
Chinese mestizos.
33. Ibid., I, p. 12. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
34. Ibid., I, pp. 44-45.
35. Ibid., I, pp. 48-51.
36. Ibid., I, p. 296, 334-35, 348-49.
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Comyn, like Z??iga, has much to say about both the qualities
and the activities of the mestizos.
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
Sir John Bowring, who visited the Philippines during the 1850's,
observed that in the towns around Manila "almost every pueblo
has some dwellings larger and better than the rest, occupied by
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Where, for instance, did the Chinese mestizos\ get the capital to
engage in trading operations and in money lending? Why did they
have such an aptitude for matters of this kind? The simplest
answer to both these questions is that both capital and financial
aptitude were legacies from their Chinese fathers. Indeed, the
commercial skills of the mestizos were said by some observers to
have been "inherited" from their Chinese fathers. But because the
Chinese father was often absent when the children were growing
up, it would seem that in business, as in religion, the mother
would have been the teacher. In any event, we have no docu
mented cases to support generalizations about inheritance or family
training.
74. Del Pan, Las Islas Filipinas, p. 243; O. D. Corpuz, The/ Bureaucracy in the
Philippines (Quezon City, 1957), pp. 101-03.
75. On the practices of the governors before 1844 see Legarda, Foreign Trade,
pp. 319-21. On mestizo-governor rivalry see Mallat, II, p. 135. See also BR,
LI, pp. 234-35, 245-46.
76. Wickberg, The Chinese, Part I.
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86. BR, LII, p. 64; PNA, Gremios, 16-5-5; PNA, Provincial Documents, legajo 117,
n?mero 70; legajo 56, n?mero 11.
87. BR, LII, p. 64; PNA, Gremios, 16-5-5.
88. BR, LII, pp. 44-65, 85-87. See also Mallat, II, p. 289 and Buzeta and
Bravo, I, p. 214. Although Spanish conservatives favored a "divide and rule"
policy, some Spanish liberals advocated the encouragement of intermarriage,
on the assumption this would produce a "superior" mestizo society. For an
extreme statement of this viewpoint see Raimundo Geler, Islas Filipinas
(Madrid, 1869), summarized in W. E. Retana, Aparato bibliogr?fico de la
historia general de Filipinas (3 vols; Madrid, 1906), II, p. 752.
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
III. 1850-1898
For the mestizo the last half of the nineteenth century was a
period of occupational rearrangement and social Filipinization.
To a large extent, these two phenomena were results of changes
in Spanish policy in the middle and late nineteenth century. By
mid-century the transition to an export crop economy was well
under way. The Spanish government had decided upon a policy
of promoting the economic development of the archipelago along
this particular line. Free enterprise was to be given an opportunity
to make the Philippines a profitable colony for Spain. As part
of this general policy, in 1844, the Spanish government revoked
the indulto de comercio and henceforth forbade Spanish officials to
involve themselves in trading. This measure, retiring their major
competitor from the field, would seem to have removed the last
obstacle to mestizo dominance in internal trade, at a time when
such trade was rapidly expanding. Yet it was not the' mestizos that
reaped the benefits; it was the Chinese. At the same time the pro
vincial governors were, removed from the field, Spanish policy also
pushed aside the barriers to Chinese immigration and residence.
Now, for the first time, Chinese could come to the Philippines
without restriction as to number and with little if any restriction
as to where in the archipelago they might reside. By the 1880*8
the Chinese population had soared to almost 100,000 ?- a figure
several times that of any previous high ? and Chinese were found
in every corner of the Philippines.92
This new influx of Chinese had a profound effect upon the
mestizos. Although the nature and extent of that effect are not
fully clear as yet, there are certain strong indications. Occupation
ally, the result was a partial abandonment of commerce and a
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THE CHINESE MESTIZO IN PHILIPPINES
Thus it would appear that by the end of the Spanish period the
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mestizos were, as they had been around 1800, very much involved
in landholding, especially in certain parts of the Philippines, and
had added to this an increasing concern with commercial agri
culture. But in their other major specialty ? commerce ? they
had) failed in the face of renewed Chinese competition. They had
thus forfeited their chance to become a native Philippine middle
class, a fate that had been predicted for them at mid-century.103
Why, despite their known aptitude for commerce, had this hap
pened? The reasons are not easy to find. Perhaps it was the
excessively speculative nature of mestizo trading, as contrasted with
more conservative Chinese practices. Or perhaps the mestizo pen
chant for display and ostentatious living was a factor. Finally, and
probably of most importance, the Chinese methods of buying raw
materials and distributing imports were superior to methods used
by the mestizos. Or, to put it in a few words, the periodic market
system of distribution and purchase was no match for the Chinese
sari-sari store.104
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105. Del Pan, Las Islas Filipinas, pp. 356, 358; Gregoria Sancianco y Goson, El
progreso de Filipinas. Estudios econ?micos, administrativos y pol?ticos. Parte
econ?mica (Madrid, 1881), pp. 104-18.
106. Del Pan, Las Islas Filipinas, pp. 347-48. One abortive Spanish attempt to
adjust to the new situation without changing the old tax system may be
seen in an attempt of 1851 to force mestizos who lived in masonry houses to
pay double the ordinary mestizo tribute. San Pedro, VIII, pp. 408, 410-11.
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Yet we need not believe that all the "brutes loaded with gold"
who challenged the order of things were mestizos. Nor should
we attribute the Revolution to mestizo discontent or a mestizo
plot. That Spanish conservatives did so may be partly explained
by their scorn of the indio. Their practice was to assign credit
or blame for any act that took some initiative to mestizos, in
order to underline the assumed incapacity of the indio for anything
but animal's work. This disparagement of the indio as a brute is
one form of Spanish reaction to the pretensions of Filipino nation
alism in the late nineteenth century.115
It is more likely that mestizo participation was part of an in
creasing trend toward identification in interests of indio and
mestizo. Sancianco, a Spanish-trained mestizo lawyer, pointed out
in the 1870's that recent revolts had had this character, and that
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IV. Summary
Our knowledge is still insufficient to allow us to assess the over
all significance of the mestizo in Philippine history. But on the
basis of what we now know we can make some generalizations and
some hypotheses for future study. It is clear, in the first place, that
the activities I have described are those of Chinese mestizos ? not
Spanish mestizos. While the Chinese mestizo population in the
Philippines exceeded 200,000 by the late nineteenth century,117
the Spanish mestizo population was probably never more than
35,000.118 Furthermore, those who commented at all on the Spa
nish mestizo noted that he was interested in military matters or
the "practical arts" ? never in commerce. The aptitudes and atti
tudes of the Chinese mestizo were in sharp contrast to this.119
Secondly, the Chinese mestizo rose to prominence between 1741
and 1898, primarily as a landholder and a middleman wholesaler of
local produce and foreign imports, although there were also
mestizos in the professions. The rise of the mestizos implies the
existence of social change during the Spanish period, a condition
that has been ignored or implicitly denied by many who have
written about the Philippines.120 It needs to be emphasized that
the mestizo impact was greatest in Central Luzon, Cebu, and Iloilo.
We cannot as yet generalize about other areas.
116. Sancianco, pp. 104-18.
117. Ferdinand Blumentritt, "Die mestizen der Philippinen-Inseln," Revue colo
niale internationale, 1, No. 4 (Oct. 1885), pp. 253, 257; Foreman, p. 410;
Francisco Ahuja, Rese?a acerca del estado social y econ?mico de las colon
ias de Espa?a en Asia (3 vols; Madrid, 1874-75), III, pp. 20-21; Ram?n
Gonz?lez Fern?ndez and Federico Moreno Jerez, Manual del viajero en Fili
pinas (Manila, 1875), pp. 51, 93.
118. Eestimates of thq number of Spanish mestizos' vary widely. Mallat (I, p. 97)
estimated 20,000; Diaz Arenas cauderno 5) counted 7,515, excluding those
in the Marianas; Zamora (VI, p. 104) presents a figure of 11,254. All of
these are mid-nineteenth century estimates, made at a time when the total
Philippine population was 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 and the Chinese mestizos
numbered about 200,000. The only late nineteenth century estimate I have
is one of 1891 (given ini Sawyer, p. 292) which gives the number of Spanish
mestizos as 75,000, and the number of Chinese mestizos as 500,000. The
latter estimate is about twice the actual amount. I suspect the former is
equally in error. The Spanish population, at its highest point, was about
34,000. BR, LII, pp. 115-116n.
119. Lannoy, p. 113; Mallat, II, p. 134; Buzeta and Bravo, II, p. 2441 Plauchut,
p. 904.
120. For example, E. H. Jacoby, Agrarian Unrest in Southeast Asia (Chapel Hill,
1950), pp. 85-90; Alvin Scaif, The Philippine Answer to Communism (Stan
ford, 1955), pp. 86-87.
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