Publications

In this consulta, the jurist Juan de Paz OP responds to a combination of queries from Luzon’s southernmost coast dated 1663, that is, within the first century of colonial rule in the Philippine archipelago. In one query, a missionary consults Paz about one provincial governor’s request that the priest commit fraud in his count of his parish’s tributary population. In a second query, a missionary accidentally mixed-up the ritual oils he applied and wonders whether he should redo a sacrament. Although seemingly disparate, in both cases Paz and his priestly correspondents candidly reflect on the fragility of their representations of less-than-self-evident truths to colonial audiences, adopting a tone in contrast with the adamance of their opinions better-known in the historiography. In this essay, the opacity with which early missionaries managed their articulations in oil and ink in the face of their less-than-credulous indigenous parishioners helps the reader problematize both our present engagement with colonial archives for information about the past as well as our own scholarly abstractions about the past-as-lived by our subjects into a history-as-valued by present audiences.

The death of a person and its consequences provide an opening to the social and cultural life of the society where that person belonged. In Spanish-era Philippines questions about the dead’s will and the legacies they leave behind give a glimpse about their networks, relationships, and beliefs in colonial society. This chapter is based on three documents that deal with Juan de Paz’s responses to consultations about distant relatives’ entitlement to inheritance, a dead woman’s slave, and the payment of debt to a dead creditor’s compulsory heirs. Though diverse, these consultations all revolve around the legacy of the dead and the ties they had made in their lifetime. The questions examine how the death of different persons impacts those ties. This chapter will discuss the context of these documents in seventeenth-century Philippines for a better understanding of the questions raised in the consultations. In particular, the essay will give a background on slavery in the Philippines, women’s property, and the Catholic custom of offering masses for the dead.

This paper explores the challenges faced by Spanish consuls in Singapore and Hong Kong as they navigated diplomatic and jurisdictional complexities within British colonial rule in the nineteenth century. Tasked with representing Spanish interests beyond the Philippines, consuls encountered difficulties in asserting authority over Spanish subjects due to extraterritorial limitations and conflicting legal frameworks. Through three case studies from 1864 to 1876, this study examines disputes over Spanish jurisdiction, diplomatic complaints, and efforts to reclaim deserters, highlighting the legal and geopolitical tensions involved. By analyzing archival records and diplomatic correspondences, the paper sheds light on the broader dynamics of colonial governance and Spain’s strategic maneuvers in Southeast Asia. Ultimately, it underscores the intricate interplay between consular authority, imperial expansion, and jurisdictional contestation in a rapidly shifting colonial landscape.

This study examines the role of Spanish consulates in Singapore and Hong Kong during the 19th century, highlighting their function as agents of interaction within a context of growing interconnection in Southeast Asia. Through the analysis of archival documents from the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, the research seeks to answer several key questions: When, how, and why were Spanish consulates established in Singapore and Hong Kong? How were these consulates connected to the Philippines, Spain’s closest colony in the region? Who were the consuls, vice-consuls, and agents appointed to these British-controlled territories? What were their main activities, concerns, and the issues addressed in their reports and correspondence? Additionally, the study examines the relationship between these consulates and the authorities in Manila and Madrid, revealing tensions between the perspectives of consuls on the ground and the decisions made by the central administration.

This paper seeks to examine notions of indigenous land ownership through notarial records of land sales and claims in the Philippines in the 16th and 17th centuries. These records include the procedure by which natives proved the ownership of lands they were selling and their reasons for the sale. Before land could be sold or alienated, a probe on ownership was done to ensure that the rightful owners were making the sale or the land being claimed was not owned by anybody. In the absence of land titles, witnesses, other natives from the same town or neighboring areas, were invited to provide their testimony about the owner of the land and how it was used. Ideas of land use and ownership that the natives practiced presumably before the advent of colonialism can be drawn from these records. The paper will give tentative conclusions about land ownership by native Tagalogs in the early colonial era in the process of transitioning into a colonial society.

By focusing on food, the present study explores the connection between a Pacific sailor’s body, intercontinental exchanges, and the Spanish empire’s mechanisms of control in the seventeenth century. The first part discusses how food as tribute, gift, or commodity facilitated trade and exchanges among the Philippines, New Spain, and Spain. Further, it tackles the transformation of the sailors’ bodies as they traveled from one location to another, as the food became abundant, rotten, or scarce. The last part examines how food functioned as the Spanish empire’s instrument of inclusion or exclusion of its royal workers. For the sources, it used two seventeenth-century travel accounts specifically focused on the Manila- Acapulco journey: one by the famous Italian traveler Gemelli Carreri and the other by a Manila creole named Diego Lopez, who served as a page at the young age of fourteen. It also consulted archival documents from Archivo General de la Nación de México (AGNM), especially the bundle titled Archivo Histórico de Hacienda (AHH), which contained information regarding efectos y víveres (stocks and provisions) loaded to the ships. Lastly, it utilized inquisitorial records of foreign sailors accused of heresy.

This paper explores the important roles of the cabecilla principal de sangleyes (also called capitan chino)—the highest leader of the Chinese community in Manila—in the recruitment, transportation, and employment of Chinese immi- grants in the Philippines during the late eighteenth century. Using the experi- ences of cabecillas principales Nicolas Quito and Bartolome Pitco and framed within the political and socio-economic milieus of the period, it describes and analyzes (1) the need for the Spanish colonial government to use these Chinese

community leaders in bringing new immigrants into the colony; (2) the factors that made them the most suitable “immigration agents”; and, (3) the benefits that they and the colonial state obtained from such conscription and migration arrangements. Comparisons are made between these two cases, especially as Quito spearheaded the migration process while the Chinese immigration ban was still in effect. In contrast, Pitco did it when the Chinese were again allowed to return to the islands. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the Chinese community and its leaders, colonial administration and various aspects of Philippines-China relations during the early colonial period.

This study is a historical and historiographical evaluation of select eighteenth-century Philippine geological disasters: the 12 January 1743 Tayabas and Laguna de Bay earthquake and the 02 June-12 December 1754 Taal Volcano eruption. Using archival chronicles and historical studies, it analyzes how these two geological phenomena can be contextualized in the larger world of the eighteenth century. It also argues that the meanings emanating from these disasters and their interpretations constitute the complexities of historical studies on calamities and catastrophes. Finally, it attempts to present an exploratory comparison with their contemporary geological disasters: the 01 November 1755 Lisbon earthquake in Portugal and the 29 July 1773 Antigua Guatemala/Santa Marta earthquake in Guatemala. Albeit proportionate in terms of sheer strength and gravity of destruction to human communities, the Philippine disasters seem remote not only because of the archipelago’s geographic location in reference to the center of the Spanish empire but also of the way they are mounted as historical disasters – they are paramount yet frontier – colossal yet they occurred in the fringes.

Isinalaysay ng kabanatang ito ang pagsibol ng interes at pagpapanday ng kasanayan ni Rene O. Villanueva sa pagsulat ng panitikang pambata mula 1977 hanggang 1986. Maliban sa personal na buhay at pagkatha ni Rene, ipinopook din ng pag-aaral na ito ang mga pangyayari sa mas malawak na kaligirang pangkasaysayan-- ang diskurso ng pagkabata at pagkabansa, ang pulitika ng wika at malikhaing produksyon, at ang pag-akda sa panahon ng diktadura.

The Czech community in the Philippines just prior to World War II was a small but intimate group. There were but a handful of old-timers, mostly businessmen and their families. Most recent arrivals of Czech Jews, refugees from Hitler's forcible occupation of Czechoslovakia. At least one had arrived from China, a refugee from the Sino-Japanese conflict. The group were employees of the Bat'a Shoe Company, working in the head office, retail outlets or the shoe factory, all in Manila. It was relatively young community, with most in their thirties or younger.

Manila at that time was a vibrant, cosmopolitan city full of promise. The Philippine Commonwealth government had been inaugurated in 1935, and prospects for a mutually beneficial relationship between the Philippines and Czechoslovakia were bright.