Philippine colonial history

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.

This dissertation examines the interplay of conflict, negotiation and collaboration among the natives of Laguna and the Spanish authorities in the formation of colonial spaces: the pueblos. As the pueblos were founded in the late 16th and 17th centuries, and their corollary institutions established, the people of Laguna, the friar missionaries and the Spanish government became enmeshed in a web of interactions contextualized in these spaces. The dissertation studies and clarifies the process of pueblo foundation. It also explains the institutions that were inseparable from the pueblo—the Church, tribute, labor and personal services—and examines the kinds of interactions that arose within these institutions. Finally, it elucidates the roles of the principalia of Laguna in these interactions.

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.

Fashioning Maestras: Fray Francisco Gainza and the Escuela Normal de Sta. Isabel de Nueva Cáceres This paper discusses the contribution of Bishop Francisco Gainza, O.P. (1818-1879) to the development of women's education in the Philippines. The Dominican friar played a key role that paved the way for the emergence of the teaching profession among Filipino women in the 19 th century. With the aid of Gainza's writings and archival records from the Philippine National Archives, the paper examines the early history of the Escuela Normal de Sta. Isabel de Nueva Caceres, the school which Gainza fought hard to establish in the Kabikolan region of the the island of Luzon. The beginning of Sta. Isabel coincided with the early attempts of the Spanish government to standardize and

The Philippine Exposition in Madrid in 1887 deserves as much attention as the better-known St. Louis Exposition (Missouri) in 1904. Designed as part of the efforts in reinventing the Spanish empire at a time of its decline, it highlighted advances in the colony by providing exhibits of civilizing institutions as well as products that might bring in investments. The exhibition also showed a contrast between the non-Christianized tribal peoples in a reconstructed natural setting and the Christianized villagers, whose advance was evident in the works of arts displayed in the central pavilion. A comparison with the St. Louis Exposition provides running commentaries, especially on the human display of Igorots that infuriated Filipinos. What happened after 1887 as a result of the Exposition also deserves notice.

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).

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...