A Historical Study of Spanish Colonial Manila

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This study is part of a larger project by the present investigator to write a history of Spanish colonial Manila. As one of the first steps toward this goal, the life of Chinese immigrants in colonial Manila during 1750-1820 has been examined and illustrated, particularly, such aspects as their relations with the Spanish colonial authorities ; namely, the governors and the City of Manila, their Catholic faith, and their marriage with the local women. For this, Spanish manuscripts preserved in the archives in the Philippines, such as the Records Management and Archives Office (PNA) and the Archdiocesan Archives of Manila (AAM), as well as in Spain, namely, the Archivo General de Indias(AGI), have been consulted. Among them are the notarized wills and testaments found in the "Protocolos de Manila" kept in the PNA. These documents served to illustrate the Chinese life in colonial Manila.The Chinese residents in Manila during 1750-1820 were required to adopt the Christian faith, and they were in fact converted to Christianity. Their Catholic faith made them possible to establish themselves in the colonial Philippines through their legal marriage with the local women who were mostly Chinese mestizos. In this, while the mestizo women served to facilitate the integration of the Chinese into the colonial society, they acted also as a key element in maintaining the Chinese immigrant society in Manila. It was because there were virtually no Chinese women in colonial Manila during the period under the consideration. Without the mestizo women, the Chinese immigrant society could not have survived in the Spanish Philippines. As partial fulfillment of this project, a paper entitled, "Becoming Spanish Subjects : Chinese Society in the Spanish Philippines, 1750-1820," was read at the 7th International Conference on the Philippine Studies held in Leiden, the Netherlands.in June 2004.