Philippine colonial history

Investigating the emergence of a specific mestiza/mestizo whiteness that facilitates relations between the Philippines and Western nations, this book examines the ways in which the construction of a particular form of Philippine whiteness serves to deploy positions of exclusion, privilege and solidarity. Through Filipino, Filipino-Australian, and Filipino-American experiences, the author explores the operation of whiteness, showing how a mixed-race identity becomes the means through which racialised privileges, authority and power are embodied in the Philippine context, and examines the ways in which colonial and imperial technologies of the past frame contemporary practices such as skin-bleaching, the use of different languages, discourses of bilateral relations, secularism, development, and the movement of Filipino, Australian and American bodies between and within nations. Drawing on key ideas expressed in critical race and whiteness studies, together with the theoretical concepts of somatechnics, biopolitics and governmentality, The Somatechnics of Whiteness and Race sheds light on the impact of colonial and imperial histories on contemporary international relations, and calls for a 'queering' or resignification of whiteness, which acknowledges permutations of whiteness fostered within national boundaries, as well as through various nation-state alliances and fractures. As such, it will appeal to scholars of cultural studies, sociology and politics with interests in whiteness, postcolonialism and race.

El presente trabajo aborda el estudio del viaje de la fragata Santa Rita (alias Mercante), uno de los navíos que cubrió la ruta entre Manila y Acapulco tras el fin del Galeón de Manila. La trascendencia del viaje reside en que en 1821, antes de su regreso, Agustín de Iturbide incautó su carga para el pago de tropas. Este hecho justificó las amargas quejas de los cargadores implicados en la expedición y sentó las bases del mito historiográfico de la quiebra del comercio manileño. Este colapso explicaría el fin de las expediciones transpacíficas.
A través del análisis del contexto histórico y de otras expediciones similares, nos proponemos desmontar las exageraciones vertidas sobre esta expedición y conjeturar los intereses detrás de la construcción del mito.

The present paper presents the study of the travel of the frigate Santa Rita (alias Mercante), one of the vessels en route between Manila and Acapulco, after the end of the Manila Galleon. The significance of the journey lies in the appropriation of its charge by Agustín de Iturbide in 1821, before its return, in order to pay the troops. This fact justified the bitter complaints of the involved chargers in the expedition and laid the groundwork of the historiographic myth of the bankruptcy of the Manila trade. This collapse would explain the end of the transpacific expeditions.
By means of the analysis of the historical context and similar expeditions, we try to dismantle created excessiveness about this expedition and conjecture the hidden interests on the myth construction.

Undoing all forms of domination – including, in particular, religious domination – remains a crucial imperative of our time, given that domination constitutes a spirit-killing dynamic that distorts, oppresses and throws living beings (both human and non-human alike) out of synch
with themselves. One form of domination in colonial contexts is the totalising claim to a monopoly of ‘the’ truth that effectively delegitimises and demonises all other ways of seeing the world. This essay grapples with the question: What happens when the ‘One True Story’ encounters other faith stories? Riffing off my (coedited) anthology, Back from the Crocodile’s Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory (dedicated to the memory of the Filipino indigenous women and men healers impaled on stakes by early Spanish missionaries and left on river banks for crocodiles to feast on), I narrate my personal journey growing up as a Filipina Methodist pastor’s kid, becoming a born-again believer and an aspiring Christian missionary trained by Philippine Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and the Navigators, and belatedly coming to grips with my relationship to my country’s colonial history and its consequences for me and my people’s struggle for wholeness and authenticity. What happens
when my wholly formed Christian subjectivity becomes challenged by the resurrecting call of spirit to indigenous and earth well-being? Informed by a multilayered cultural memory, I trace my faith learnings from an encounter with deep ancestry in the ‘belly of the beast’ and its larger significance for today’s social movement struggles for sustainability and global coexistence.

El presente texto analiza los cambios acontecidos en la economía productiva de Filipinas y en el sistema comercial español del Pacífico entre el arranque de las reformas borbónicas en Asia y el final del proceso de independencias de la América continental. Mediante fuentes de tipo fiscal, que representan una fotografía fija de las dinámicas de cambio, es analizado el papel de los diferentes elementos en estas transformaciones.
En una primera parte, introducimos el sistema explotación colonial de Filipinas hasta el siglo XVIII. En la segunda, estudiamos las políticas estatales así como las dinámicas internas y los factores externos que transformaron este primer modelo colonizador. Prestamos especial atención a los efectos de la liberalización comercial y sus efectos como catalizador de cambios más profundos en la estructura fiscal de la colonia (como el estanco del tabaco) y en el comercio exterior de Filipinas (la transformación en una economía agrícola de exportación orientada al mercado global).

The following text analyses the changes in the productive economy of the Philippines and at the Spanish commercial system in the Pacific from the beginning of the Bourbon reforms in Asia to the end of the Continental America processes of independence. By means of fiscal sources, which represent a still photography of the change dynamics, it is analyzed the role of the different elements in these turns.
In a first stage, we introduce the colonial exploitation system of the Philippines until 18th century. In the second part, we study the state policies as well as the inner dynamics and the external factors which modified the first colonization model. We pay special attention to the consequences of the trade liberalization, and its effects as the promoter of deeper shifts in the fiscal structure of the colony (like the tobacco state monopoly) and the foreign trade of the Philippines (the transformation in an agro-export economy focused to the world trading system).