Where Do You Put a Historical Document? A Manila Folder: The History of the Philippines Spanning to the 20th Century
Written by Anne O. ’25. In celebration of Filipino communities everywhere!
Imagine: it’s October 18, 1587.
The Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza lands at what is now Morro Bay, California. And in 400 years, 4.4 million people will celebrate that day.
Filipino American History Month celebrates the first recorded presence of Filipinos in the continental United States. On October 18, 1587, the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza landed at what is now Morro Bay, California. In commemoration of 2023’s Filipino American History Month, we gaze back to the past in order to celebrate the presence, accomplishments, and culture of the Filipino community in America today. Laden with complex social, political, and cultural intricacies, it’s important to start at the beginning. The very beginning. The very beginning being about, like, 709,000 years ago.
In the relatively bland year of 2018, in the Philippines’ northern island of Luzon, a group of archaeologists unearthed 57 stone tools and a butchered rhinoceros skeleton. Paleontologists think that the makers of the tools were most likely related to Homo erectus, one of the earliest human species, though no remains have been found to support this. This date would be too early for these tools to have been made by Homo sapiens and it flipped prior beliefs of human immigration on their heads.
To set the scene, we have to understand that the Spaniards destroyed any prior records during their colonization of the Philippines. As a result, much of what is known about the pre-Spanish era — and there is still plenty to learn — comes from the records of others. Centuries before the West’s impact on the Philippines, early settlers brought along the cultures of India, China, and Southeast Asia. The Philippine Islands were part of an enormous Hindu-Malayan kingdom controlled by Java and Sumatra, involved in Indian Ocean Trade, from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries.
Suggesting a connection of other Southeast Asian islands, a peace pact between Magellan’s crew and a ruler in Palawan, a province of the Philippines, indicates that it was translated by a Spanish-speaking Makassarese (a province of Indonesia) slave. They had been seized from a Luzon vessel in Borneo, an island in the Malay archipelago, linking the Philippines into slave trade and language exchange. Later on, missionary efforts to convert the Philippine’s people to Catholicism were documented in journals that reflected other connections of pre-Spanish Philippines. Court proceedings against “religious regressing” converts in Manilla included a description of a Muslim burial. Tagalog sermons by friar missionaries mention unknown deities. (Barangay Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture And Society, Scott)
Spanish rule in the Philippines started with Ferdinand Magellan himself, who landed in the islands in March of 1521, and then promptly died a month later on April 27, 1521. Following this, King Phillip II (the namesake of the islands) sent Miguel López de Legazpi, who established the first permanent Spanish settlement, in Cebu, in 1565. This is a new type of beginning — colonization cues.
Spanish rule for the first century was majorly commercial. And this was observed though Spanish imposed practices exercised in most areas. The labor system they implemented was from the Americas; a type of tax farming known as the encomienda. The tax collectors responsible for collecting these funds often withheld them from the Crown. Coupled with violent abuse towards the locals and a lack of imposed Catholicism on the people, the Spanish abandoned the system by the end of the 17th century.
Economic, social, and political areas were all affected by Spanish presence. Missionaries tried to move all the people into pueblos, or villages, furthering the goal of the Spanish clergy was nothing less than the full Christianization and Hispanization of the Filipino people. Pre-Spanish noble classes, for example, the datu, a hereditary position as head of kinship groups became subject to Spanish appointment. Integrating western ideas of ownership sparked datus to claim fields that were worked on by others to step around Spanish policies on property.
Central government in Manila was controlled by a governor who was so powerful that he was basically king. He was general of their armed forces, in charge of the high court, and rich in the private market. Sharp contrast existed between the Filipino people and the government. For example, Filipino people didn’t speak, write, or read Spanish. The colonial power that controlled the Philippines was kept completely separate from the government and their processes for almost 300 years.
Manila, the political capital established by the Spanish in 1571, leveled economic competition. Laden with many silver mines, the silver trade enriched the Crown. Production of the Manila Galleon, and subsequent trade throughout the New and Old World brought the Philippines into global trade like never before. This circulation of Spain’s silver dollar, better known as the piece-of-eight, (see image above) drained into China, tying China and the Philippines together through silver trade and shared violence from Spaniards. (Ways of the World, Strayer)
But China’s silver drain was more like a silver sewer. All of it ended up there. And inflation is as inflation does, the Spanish galleon lost its value and Spain’s home economy was ruined. By the nineteenth century, Manila found its place as an open market to foreign merchants. Increased demand for sugar beat down on the landholdings of the church and landowners with rice estates. Chinese-Filipino mestizos, mixed ethnicity of indigenous Filipino people and Spanish descent, owned haciendas, large plantations, growing coffee and sugar for exports.
Church sanctioned school was the first public education offered in the Philippines during the 1860’s. Higher education was intended for men of wealthy families under clerical direction. Spearheading reform in government and religious matters, José Rizal y Mercado wrote two political novels — Noli me tangere (1887; Touch Me Not) and El filibusterismo (1891; The Reign of Greed) — and emerged as a leader of Propaganda Movement. Published media flourished. In 1892, Rizal founded the Liga Filipina, a reform-minded society, loyal to Spain, who most certainly did not call for freedom from Spanish rule. Spanish authorities arrested Rizal as a threat to their rule, anyway.
Regardless of Rizal’s lack of call for independence, in the Philippines, some of the lower class called out in place. These activists formed the Katipunan under the leadership of Andres Bonifacio, a self-educated warehouseman. Katipunan was a Filipino nationalist organization founded in 1892 opposed to Spanish rule, they later would take front stage in the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
On August 26, 1896, Bonifacio called for an armed uprising against the Spanish, known later as Grito de Balintawak (“the Cry of Balintawak”). The campaign lasted almost two months and ended with the Spanish victory. In the aftermath, despite Rizal having no connection to the uprising or Katipunan, the Spanish military found him guilty of treason. He was executed by a firing squad in Manila on December 30, 1896.
And since war is war is war, the battle between global powers of Spain and America erupted too. After the U.S. naval victory in the Battle of Manila Bay in May 1898, Filipino independence leader Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines after the Spanish government paid him to go to Hong Kong and stay away from the Philippines. Confident of U.S. support, Aguinaldo liberated several towns south of Manila.
Suddenly. It’s June 12, 1898, and the Philippines is independent.
Establishing a republic with Aguinaldo as president, the Philippines was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris, penned on December 10, 1898. They are the first Asian nation to throw off a European world power. The Spanish-American War came to an end and took with it Spain’s presence as a colonial power in the New World. Exchanging it, instead, for the US’s new position as global power.
Exchanging it, instead, for another colonial power — in the case of the Philippines.
The concept of independence was smothered by continual and unwanted US administration of the Philippines. Days before the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, on February 4, 1899, fighting broke out between American forces and Aguinaldo’s forces who sought independence rather than a change in colonial rulers. The Filipino struggle for independence would continue through the Philippine-American War (1899–1902) and would not be achieved until after World War II.
Philippine-American War bloodied history even further. US forces burned villages to the ground, used civilian reconcentration policies, and tortured suspected insurgents, while Filipino militants tortured captive soldiers and persecuted civilians who cooperated with American forces. Mass civilian death resulted from battle, disease, and famine caused by several agricultural disasters.
Even while the conflict continued, the colonial authority formed by the United States in the Philippines in 1900 under not-yet President Taft implemented a pacification program. The purpose of this program, known as the “policy of attraction,” was to win over elites and other Filipinos who disagreed with Aguinaldo. It allowed for extensive self-government, created reforms to society, and implemented economic development plans. The program would prove successful. The US gained important Filipino support and undermined the revolutionaries’ popular appeal, aiding the United States’ military effort to win the war.
The Philippines held its first elected parliament in 1907, and the Jones Act of 1916 promised the country’s ultimate independence. According to the House of Representatives, the “purpose of the people of the United States” is to recognize Philippine independence “as soon as a stable government can be established therein.” By 1916, Filipino dominance in both the legislative and judicial branches of government limited the executive and administrative roles of the United States. In 1935, the archipelago became autonomous. In the mid-20th century, political unrest erupted throughout the nation. President Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country for more than ten years before the widely supported People Power movement launched a bloodless takeover of the government in 1986. After the conflict, Marcos was forced into exile and the Philippines republic received democratic rule again; in 1946, the US granted the country independence.
America’s treatment of the Filipino community varies from mediocre to worse as immigration policies change with concurrent events. By the 1960’s, overseas students from the Philippines were enrolled in American Universities (Cariño, 1996). Some were unable to obtain professional licenses and accepted lower status employment in the health field and in other areas. This trend continues: “Philippines-trained RNs make up 1 out of 20 RNs in this country and continue to be the largest group of foreign-trained nurses today.” An elite group of Filipino nurses traveled to the U.S. to address, creating prestige and economic mobility with practicing in America. In the mid 1970s economic and political refugees from the Marcos regime added to the “socio-cultural, educational, economic, and political diversity of the community.”
Amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act in the 90’s brought a wave of WWII Veterans who received American citizenship automatically because of a promise to grant US citizenship for fighting for the Allies. Many of these veterans migrated to California. They were not given service-related benefits, though, and without health benefits, advocacy for their welfare is an ongoing issue in the community.
Filipino American History Month is not just for Filipino-Americans and does not end with the conclusion of October. Bonaficio Day is celebrated on November 30th to celebrate Andres Bonifacio’s birth and his life achievements, the founding of Katipunan and their role in the Philippine Revolution. The Philippines’ history is a shadow, spread long and wide. It spans entire centuries and perhaps, more importantly, entire lives. Our hearts go out to Filipino communities around the world.
