American Progress by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia is the personification of the United States, shown leading civilization westward with the American settlers. Manifest Destiny in American thought, was pesonified by her.
Manifest Destiny is the realizing of ideals and according to the American interpretation of the march of history, was a process wherein development and empire as well as the creation of new states was a westward march from Greece which had colonies in southern Italy called Magna Grecia, then Rome which interacted with this and then colonized the whole Mediterranean in the Roman Empire and supplanted Greece as the power, after the Roman Empire collapsed, France followed which led the Crusades and composed the Medieval Romances which was afterwards reinvented by Spain, Portugal and England which received French influence in the Norman-French which ruled and grew in England as well as the Clunaic reforms which influenced a Spain that re-conquered itself from Islam, it grew with its’ crowning achievement being the circumnavigation of the world and the colonization of the Americas and the Philippines. An English Saint, Saint Thomas More then wrote a book called “Utopia” interpreted as the “ideal society” by our current language now but which means “Nowhere” in Greek; and Saint Thomas Moor set the “Utopia” in the newly discovered world which is now called the Americas, afterwards Puritans who want to purify Protestant Anglicans from Catholic influence protested against Anglicans themselves and came seeking religious freedoms in the Americas where they established settlements more pure to their ideals. They were at first under the British Empire but eventually, the second most celebrated General in the American Revolution which was supported by Catholic French was a Puritan and these as well as other groups seeking freedoms in America upheld the American Revolution. France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain helped America rebel against Britain and thus set the ideals of the Puritans, the religious dissenters and the “Utopia” of Saint Thomas More, was made a reality. Since then it has been steady march west. To this, I reply that there is an eastward march of history too. Here in the Pacific, the Siberians and Japanese migrated eastward then downwards to the Bering Strait then down to the tip of South America. Even in Mexico they have a legend called Aztlan (The name of Christ in British writer, C.S. Lewis’ works) wherein they migrated southwards and eastwards from somewhere in the northwest and I suspect that there is Austronesian influence too in that they purposefully settled in an island in a lake which is now Mexico City, but obviously, Uto-Aztecan and Malayo-Polynesian are separate language families. Maybe, perhaps their god had maritime influence but the people where Uto-Aztecan. Anyway, they built their wonder city of Tenochtilan on an island on that lake, their writing is Symbolic like the Chinese although sculptures showing Yoga positions are older in the Americas than in Southeast Asia, this means that there was already a marketplace of the oceans spearheaded by Austronesians visiting the lands and islands of the world, mainly the Pacific, before the west came upon the Americas. The Asians gave their best to the Native Americans while the Native Americans faithfully took the ideas of their gods and ancestors and made it fuller and their own and even originated their own technology too like domesticating Maize or Pinya originally found in the Americas. However, when the Americans marched west; instead of defeating larger and more seemingly powerful states like when the Ming destroyed the much larger Mongol dynasty, the Americans instead, had preyed on weaker Native American tribes whom they incorporated; this is sad considering that there is more honor is to be earned as appearing weak while defeating the strong rather than to be strong and just prey on the weak. Anyway, at least the march westward by the Europeans means that they had ideals, it’s just unfortunate how they sent refugees or dissidents westwards, indentured servants guilty of crimes wanting a “New Life” in America. There should be more missionaries not more immigrants (who mostly go for economic reasons to enrich himself via staying in a place in contrast to the missionary who enriches a place by fostering it). Nevertheless, there is significant innovation that happened in America compared to the old world in Europe which was calcified in their classicism to accept innovations, that’s why leading scientific discoveries like the discovery of electricity, the telephone, the technology of Platinum was first encountered in the Americas. This would not have taken place if Europe was entranced with the East, the Arabs or the Indians and Asians which they admired for exoticism but they considered the Americas as a simple novelty which in the end they have to beg America, the land of their refugees, for help in World War 1 and 2.
Nevertheless, everything is so America-centered now that it has lost its original Utopian purpose of being an ideal field of experimentation to percolate in. You can’t innovate if you are the glorified center of everything, you have to take time to contemplate allow yourself to recollect and listen to others. The criticism I have to our American brothers is that they might express their “Refugee” ancestry more and more instead of being able to challenge the purists in their ancestors’ old capital with wiser realities, if America does not want to be like the empire which it now, in which, they in their youth, rebelled against. In which case, us Asians like before had only been doing the best for America, we keep sending our best there; take for example among us Filipinos, the leaders of the “Conspiracy of the Maharlikas” where the most idealistic nobles who chaffed under Hispanic oppression, yet they were exiled to live in Nueva Espanya (Spanish North and Central America), some even reached California where a Filipino became one of the founders of Los Angeles. California is now the Golden State where dreams are being realized and where Internet Technology in Silicon Valley and Hollywood is being propagated. Instead of sending refugees further westward to interact with Asians, Americans should send missionaries or people with vision to help make dreams reality as we send idealists to America too. Instead we get status seekers, of Asians who want to go to America to exploit the wealth and Americans going to Asia for prostitution, profiteering or for being rejects in their homelands, which shouldn’t be the case, in that, we should give the best for others and learn how to tame our selfish natures. In which case, I would like to point out that contrary to the modern tendencies of Asians exporting social climbers to America and Americans exporting opportunists to Asia, the case of the Filipinos and Latin America was in fact, in stark contrast to this.
ROMANCE OF THE SUN AND MOON
In this paper, I am putting in my research about how Filipinos came to Mexico and how Mexicans came to the Philippines. Let’s begin with the Mexican origins from the west, allegedly from an island there. [1]
This
may mean that the Aztecs had Malayo-Polynesian inspiration since the
idea of sailing is very Malay but not exclusively so, however their
language is totally different since the Mexica’s primordial tongue
is Uto-Aztecan.[2]
What piques the curiosity is that the ancient Mexicans had ample
space and necessity, to pick a land based area to establish their
capital but instead, they willfully chose to settle on an island in a
lake. Anyway
according to various sources, some conflicting, there is an unclear
point of origin for Aztlan, what is known though is that they came
west of current day Mexico and that through faithfulness to their god
Huītzilōpōchtli[3]
they created a paradise city in Tenochtilan (Modern day Mexico City)
which was a faithful image of the original Aztec capital which was
legendary whereas their capital is now, in contrast, uniquely
Mexican. This became the oldest capital city built by Native
Americans in the New World.[4]
The
foundation my of the Mesoamerican capital of Mexico, (From
Wikipedia), Huitzilopochtli guided the people, through-out. For a
time, Huitzilopochtli left them in the charge of his
sister, Malinalxochitl,
who, according to legend, founded Malinalco,
but the Aztecs resented her ruling and called back Huitzilopochtli.
He put his sister to sleep and ordered the Aztecs to leave the place.
When she woke up and realized she was alone, she became angry and
desired revenge. She gave birth to a son called Copil.
When he grew up, he confronted Huitzilopochtli, who had to kill him.
Huitzilopochtli then took his heart and threw it in the middle
of Lake
Texcoco.
Many years later, Huitzilopochtli ordered the Aztecs to search for
Copil's heart and build their city over it. The sign would be an
eagle perched on a cactus, eating a precious serpent, and the place
would become their permanent home.[5]
It is a concrete manifestation of the legendary Aztecs but it is a uniquely Mexican endeavor, whereas the Aztecs are unknown and legendary the Mexicans are an actuality. Fast forward to the Spanish period where the Spanish defeated the noble minded Aztecs because these Native Americans treated war as a sacred art and in their struggle against the invading Spanish. Their aim was to capture the Spanish soldiers and ritually sacrifice them to their god, Huītzilōpōchtli who is nourished by the sacrifice of enemy royals and warriors his people captured and offered to him. Huītzilōpōchtli was also a Christ-like god in that in the native rituals of his people, eating him, is akin to the Eucharist. For example, Panquetzaliztli (7 December to 26 December) was the Aztec month dedicated to Huitzilopochtli (Which also coincides with Christmas). People decorated their homes and trees with paper flags; there were ritual races, processions, dances, songs, prayers, and finally human sacrifices. This was one of the more important Aztec festivals, and the people prepared for the whole month. They fasted or ate very little; a statue of the god was made with amaranth (huautli) seeds and honey, and at the end of the month, it was cut into small pieces so everybody could eat a little piece of the god.
A
fter
a while the Spanish came from Europe and that they allied with tribes
that were against the Aztecs and justified an invasion of Mexico via
liberation of the slaves from the Aztecs. When the Spanish destroyed
the cities of the natives they subsumed and put underground; the
Native cultures, as they built churches and Spanish civic buildings
over them. However, in the intersection between the Mexican culture
going underground to the foundations, while the Spanish is on top of
the pillar of colonization, this is where the Mexican born
Conquistador of the Philippines, Juan de Salcedo was born.[6]
Thus, since Juan de Salcedo was exposed to the scientific and ruthless treatment of warfare the Spanish were adept in and the artful and sacred view of war the native Mexicans proposed, he was able to make his own approach to it as he led many victories against overwhelming odds when he then proceeded to Manila after De Goiti interacted with the natives there, then under the Sultanate of Brunei. The Rajah of Manila, promised to be friends with De Goiti and had a “Word of honor” with him, however, Pampanga’s Bambalito of Macabebe allegedly also a Moro (Muslim) wanted the Rajah to revoke his treaty of friendship, but since the Rajah already agreed with the Spanish, it was up to them to prove the powerlessness of the Spanish by killing at least 50 which did not transpire under the said Rajah’s watch. Thus, De Goiti as advanced guard had laid the stage for the consolidation of Maynila which was once under the Sultanate of Brunei into the Manila under the Spanish. This is where Juan de Salcedo came into the picture, when he arrived at Manila after punishing the Moros in Mindoro who raided villages in Panay, he and some Mexicans, Spanish and B(v?)isayans sided with him in assaulting the area of Manila and liberated Tondo, which was formerly Tantric and had a rivalry with Brunei ruled Maynila. There in the area of Saludong, he met Dayang-dayang (princess) Kandarapa who gave him a White Lotus as a symbol of her fidelity (The White Lotus is a sacred symbol in Eastern Mysticism since it grew pure and beautiful from its muddy and dirty surroundings), this really animated Juan de Salcedo to do even more great works such as conquering the Islamised areas of Luzon and extracting tribute from gold rich areas. However one great deed Salcedo did was lifting the siege of Manila by Pirate Warlord Limahong who led 6500 warriors mostly Japanese Ronin and Chinese Pirates by using only 600 soldiers, 300 Spaniards and Mexicans and 300 native Filipinos (together with Don Galo) and then chasing them to Pangasinan and despoiling their Pirate-Settlements. However, despite of the inspired accomplishments Juan de Salcedo did, fostered by Kandarapa. Kandarapa died of a broken heart when she mistakenly thought that Juan de Salcedo was unfaithful to her especially considering that they were both under a lot of pressure, since Lakan Dula the uncle of Kandarapa wanted her to marry the Rajah of Macabebe while Juan de Salcedo’s grandfather, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi wanted him to marry a Spanish woman. When, Juan de Salcedo came back to Tondo he discovered that his beloved had died of a broken hear whe she heard lies that he married another, he was so struck by this, it is said that when he himself finally died in Ilocos, he had in his breast pocket the dried leaves of the Lotus Flowers, Kandarapa gave him. This romance was recorded by Salcedo’s aid, Don Felipe Cepada who returned to Acapulco and then the romance was published by the Catalonian Jesuit, Rev. Fr. Jose Ibañez in Spain.[7]
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Anyway, there is another series that’s an extension to this romance. The next chapter is what happened in Brunei and fulfilled and made true something which was once only a legend. Just as the foundation of America was inspired by Puritans and Saint Thomas Moore’s book “Utopia”, so was the state of California was a case of legend made reality, California was named after a female Caliph, a “Calipha” who in the legend of Esplandia was a name given to a black Amazon Queen who sided with Muslims who herself then converted to Christianity but who had then fought alongside Muslim and Amazon people. When the area of California was discovered, it was part of the Mexico-based Viceroyalty of New Spain which extended to the Philippines. Legend became reality when events happened in Brunei and the Philippines, as the Pagans of the Philippines had divided loyalties, some supported the Christians against the Muslims and vice-versa, the Amazon Warrior Queen wearing gold armor described in the novel corresponds well with accounts of local states, one of which, Pangasinan, was led by a Female Warrior Monarch called Urduja and as well as the artworks describing the native inhabitants of the Philippines presenting them as bedecked in gold, as shown in the Boxer Codex.Furthermore, the situation in the legend of Esplandia had also began to be played out in a global stage; the Turks had conquered Anatolia and Christians in Europe were threatened while the Spanish rose as champions of Christianity worldwide, even in Southeast Asia, the Ottoman Caliphate had territories as far Aceh in Sumatra, and since the novel was set somewhere in the Orient and the New World, events in the Philippines which was tied with Asia and the Americas had the effect of turning the situation of a fantasy into reality.
Case in point, the royal family of Brunei were descended from Caliphs. The royal family of Brunei came from Sharīf ‘Alī ibn ‘Ajlān ibn Rumaithah ibn Muḥammad[8] former Shariff of Mecca and a sacred son of a Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib, fifth Caliph of Islam,when the Spanish sailed from the Americas and reached the Philippines they intervened in a civil war in Brunei. Pengiran Seri Lela, the legitimate monarch complained that his brother, Saiful Rijal usurped the throne from him so he allied under Spain to be restored to throne of Brunei.[9] This event is called the “Castilian War”. During the Castilian War, the Spanish-Filipino-Mexican forces assaulted Brunei and re-installed Pengiran Seri Lela as Sultan, however he died, allegedly by poisoning; nevertheless his daughter a certain Princess Putri and had a claim to the throne and by witnessing his father’s coronation and death, thus by technicality, as the reputed known descendant, the crown went to her, she poetically married a Christian convert named Agustin de Legaspi of Tondo, thus Agustin de Legaspi became the son in law of the legitimate sultan,[10] what’s even doubly poetic is that Agustin is named after Agustin, Bishop of Tagaste, North Africa, a territory which is now converted from Christianity to Islam and now at the other side of the globe in the formerly Muslim areas of the Philippines, it had turned Christian like in Manila, it was Augustinian spirituality that reversed the situation and a woman of Caliphate blood married a Christian and her descendants which had incorporated both Islam and Christianity spread to the Americas. In fact the very first Asian explorers who set foot in California where Filipinos, some of whom were Muslim converts to Christianity, people educated in both religions, or were either Muslims or Pagans who were employed by Spanish ship captains. These Muslims and Pagans or newly Christianized people from the Philippines and Asia were even the first ones who reached California, The historical documentation based on a 1587 voyage’s log book says that eight Filipinos identified as “Yndios Luzones” (yet to be known as Filipinos) were with the landing party headed by Pedro de Unamuno, having sojourned for some three days in a Central California Coast point close to today’s San Luis Obispo in Morro Bay.[11] thus manifesting destiny but in an Eastbound manner and fulfilling what was only once legend of California becoming the land a Calipha’s blood. Furthermore, this was only reinforced in modern times when the famous Delano Grapestrike in California was co-led by the Filipino, Larry Dulay Itliong who according to geneological records are descended from the royal Filipino Lakan Dula clan, adding a Y to the Dula upon Batang Dula's marriage to Goiti's relative. It was customary to appelate a Y meaning "and" to include the mother's surname. The Dulas being am ancient family that were eye witnesses to the Castilian War and their dispersal to New Spain (Which included California) meant that these new Christians accompanied some Mudejar, Caliph-blooded princes or princesses to New Spain.
LATIN AMERICANS IN THE PHILIPPINES
When this is applied to the 366 years of Spanish rule. There has a been a cumultative number of 66143 Latinos sent to the Philippines which supplamented the base population of 600,000 during the first years of Spanish-Philippines.
Due to the extreme distance between Spain and the Philippines, the Mexico-based Viceroyalty of New Spain was assigned with the responsibility of colonizing and fortifying the Philippines since it was nearer the Philippines. Thus, for most of the Spanish colonial era, the Filipinos were closer to the Mexicans culturally and geographically than Spain, in which case the Philippines was only close to Spain proper near the tail end of the colonial era, being one of the few colonies that didn’t rebel as early as the Latin American ones. Nevertheless, Mexico and Peru supported war-torn Philippines by constantly sending reinforcements and subsidizing the perennially besieged colony by the silver mined in Potosi, Bolivia which was taken at the price of thousands of Incan lives permanetly lost, dying to mine the metal while being enslaved under the Mita system. Anyway, the Mexicans sent as many as 18,000 soldiers and missionaries to the Philippines per century; which translates to approximately 66,000 soldiers sent from Mexico, Peru and Spain in the total 366 years of Spanish colonization in the Philippines. These 66,000 soldiers sent from Latin America had settled in the Philippines and increased the amount of those having European and Latin American descent via interbreeding. As the initial base population of Spanish-Philippines was 667,612 people[12] of which, 20,000 were trader immigrants from China, 16,500 were soldier-colonists from New Spain and Peru[13], 3,000 were Japanese residents, and a mere 600 were pure Spaniards from Europe.[14] With the small initial base of the Philippine population, it is thus understandable that Latin-American descent rather than European which was rarer, propagated quickly among the population, so much so that by 1818, the German ethnographer Fedor Jagor, estimated that one-third of Luzon which holds half the population of the Philippines has Spanish admixture.[15], Let me put in mind that these “Spanish” soldiers were actually mostly: Mestizos, Mulattoes and Native Americans from Mexico or Peru.[16] The fact that assorted mass of Latinos instead of White Spaniards were mostly sent by the people in Mexico, angered the colonial administration in the Philippines who demanded that racially pure Spaniards be sent since Europeans were low in number and they even petitioned the king[17] for more European reinforcements and that any other ethnic group would only add further thoughts of rebellion and insubordination.
The source of recruitment for the troops sent to the Philippines aren’t something to be lauded though. Most of the men levied where often vagrants or poor youths indicted of minor crimes before being shipped to the Philippines.[18] Another source of recruits were the illegal immigrants from Europe who initially enlisted as sailors and soldiers and deserted upon arrival in Veracruz.[19] These illegal immigrants were often about 50% of those who arrive New Spain that had originated from Europe, these were also rounded up and sent to the Philippines. This was so, because demand for Latin American men was high, however, the supply was low.
Upon
arrival at the Philippines, these recruits who were often
inexperienced youths, petty criminals or illegal immigrants. The
colonial administration reasoned that whereas they were va
grants
and criminals with violent intentions and where a danger to society
in peaceful America, at least in the Philippines, they could tap
their propensity for force to good use.
The
first port of call for these Latin Americans were Manila and Cavite;
after some logistical procedures, these soldiers and sailors where
then distributed to Presidios across the archipelago.
Most
of the soldiers were stationed in Manila and Cavite, which throughout
the century housed between four and seven companies, or between four
hundred and nine hundred Spanish soldiers.
The
Soldiers’ primary purposes included defending the cities from Moro
Islamic raids, Chinese revolts and native uprisings and safeguarding
commerce from the Dutch and British pirates the Manila Galleons were
stalked by, which came yearly from Acapulco and is the lifeblood of
the colony.
Each one the presidios were made for its defensive and strategic value. The Presidios of Cebu and Oton (In Panay island) were jointly responsible both for the defence of the Visayas islands against Moro raiders and for the organization and dispatching of the socorro (Succor) for the men stationed in the Moluccas. Cebu also played the role of interiorly policing the natives of the Visayas islands, the alcalde mayor of Cebu was responsible for dispatching of soldiers who went to put down rebellions on the islands of Bohol and Leyte during 1622. [20] The presidios on Mindanao, including Zamboanga, Caraga and Iligan, were intended as outposts for detering slave-raiding among the Moros of Mindanao, Jolo, Borneo and southern Palawan, and as bases from which to extend Spanish control over these lands. As a consequence, these presidios were constantly besieged by hostile neighbors. The Spanish occupations of the Moluccas in 1606 and Formosa in 1626 were intended to create a defensive buffer against the Dutch presence in the region, although in reality both presidios simply created a chronic drain on Spanish resources and were eventually closed for this reason. In contrast, the presidios in Cagayan, Pangasinan, Pampanga and the Mariana Islands were bases from which the Spanish could extend their control over indigenous populations and counter ongoing resistance to Spanish rule.
Nevertheless,
their privations and challenges in the Philippines were so numerous.
Firstly, they were starving and barely paid, some were not even paid
at all. A
sample
of pay records for the period 1 July 1635 to 30 June 1636 indicates
the haphazard nature of soldiers’ salaries. For the infantry of
Manila, only twenty-two out of 388 soldiers were paid, and all but
two of these soldiers were paid exactly one third of the money that
was owed to them. The average number of years’ salary owed to these
soldiers was 2.2 and ranged from between less than half a year to
nearly four years. For the infantry of the Moluccas, thirty-eight out
of 480 soldiers were paid, and each again received exactly one third
of what was owed to them.[21]
In addition to this miserly pay, they were exposed
to
constant warfare which often made veterans out of them but also
pruned their ranks and thus only the fittest had survived.
Thereafter, these survivors, upon finishing their military assignment
had to dessert or disband themselves. Governor Anda was even once
quoted saying:
"In
Governor Anda y Salazar’s opinion, an important part of the problem
of vagrancy was the fact that Mexicans and Spanish disbanded after
finishing their military or prison terms "all over the islands,
even the most distant, looking for subsistence."" ~CSIC
riel 208 leg.14
These
vagrants who survived constant wars, disbanded and escaped from
military service then circulated in and out of Spanish society as
well as wandered across the native settlements, further increasing
those of Spanish and Latin American descent, nevertheless, their
descendants were often considered illegitimate children.
"The descendants of Mexican mestizos and native Filipinos were numerous but unaccounted for because they were mostly the result of informal liaisons." ~Garcia de los Arcos, Forzados, 238
These Spaniards and Latin Americans upon surviving their tour of duty, had disbanded and deserted as well as miscagenated with the native populace, forcing the fortresses and presidios to be renewed by fresh reinforcements as well as dealing with the rebellions fomented among the natives by the previously serving and now disbanded Latin American vagrants, something already quite taxing to the colonial administration.
Latin-American admixture has so pervaded the Philippine populace, it is estimated that 1/3rd of Luzon island and select cities in the Visayas and Zamboanga, Iligan and Caraga in Mindanao had varying degrees of Hispano-American ancestry.
It is this complicated relationship which the Mexicans have with the Spanish colonial administration which I would like to further explore upon. In that, it had reverberations near the end of Spanish rule. One revolt in the Philippines, in particular had participants from all across the Americas join in, and it was called the Novales Uprising where even people from Argentina and Costa Rica participated in. Andres Novales, the self proclaimed “Emperor of the Philippines” was born in the Philippines to a captain father from Spain and a local woman from a prominent family, although he became accomplished in richer Spain when he signed up for a war against France, he decided to return and serve in the poorer Philippines, this endeared him to the local population after discontent arose when the Spanish decided to replace the local and Latin-American born officers in the army of Spanish-Philippines with those from Spain, after the Latin-American wars of independence rose up, because they doubted the loyalty of colonial citizens. Officers in the army of the Philippines were almost totally composed of Americans,” observed the Spanish historian José Montero y Vidal. “They received in great disgust the arrival of peninsular officers as reinforcements, partly because they supposed they would be shoved aside in the promotions and partly because of racial antagonisms.” As punishment for this dissent, many military officers and public officials were exiled, including Novales, who was exiled to Mindanao to fight pirates. Undeterred, he secretly returned to Manila and started the Novales Uprising.
Some
months prior, in February 1823, a dozen
suspects
among the creoles who called themselves ‘hijos del pais” (Sons of
the Country) were deported to Spain. Among them were Domingo Roxas,
leading businessman and ancestor of the present-day opulent Ayala,
Zobel, Roxas and Soriano families, José Ortega, general manager of
the Royal Company, the barrister José Maria Jugo, Captain Jose Bayot
and his two brothers, Luis Rodriguez Varela, former mayor of Tondo
and self-styled count of the Philippines, Regino Mijares,
sergeant-major of the king’s regiment, and a dozen other suspects.
Ordered to leave for Misamis Province, Novales instead convinced the
brother officers and non-commissioned officers of the king’s
regiment to join him in a coup d’etat in June of that year. These
“americanos,”, composed mostly of Mexicans with a sprinkling of
creoles and mestizos from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Chile,
Argentina, Costa Rica and other former colonies of Spain in South
America, supported Novales. With about 800 native soldiers they
seized early in the morning the royal palace, the city’s cabildo
and important government buildings in Intramuros, killed the
lieutenant governor, Mariano Fernández de Folgueras, but failed to
seize Fort Santiago because his brother who commanded the citadel at
the last minute refused to open its gates. The
loyalist troops, led by Spanish peninsulars, mustered a
counterattack, and the timely arrival of a battalion of native
soldiers from Pampanga Province spelled the end of the rebellion.[22]
The rivalry between American and European interests in the Philippines extended to beyond military affairs to even church and commercial ones. In church matters, there was a very sharp racial divide between Creole, Mestizo and Castizo Priests and Nuns born in the Americas and the pure bred European clergy born in Spain with the later being more strict and orthodox and the former, liberal and tolerating.
Even in affairs of the church, the Philippines was under the early jurisdiction of Mexico. In 1578, Pope Gregory XIII created the diocese of Manila, and made it a suffragan to the archdiocese of Mexico. Many Bishops of the Philippines we re actually born in Mexico, especially the following: the third bishop of Nueva Caceres, in the Bicol region, Baltazar de Cobarrubias, was a Mexican-born and -educated friar who had received his holy orders at the Augustinian convent in Mexico City. Another Augustinian from Mexico, Francisco Zamudio, was consecrated the eighth bishop of Nueva Caceres in 1630. An Archbishop of Manila during the British occupation of Manila was born in Mexico too, Manuel Rojo del Río y Vieyra who was born in Tula, Mexico[23] which was the site of a Toltec city.[24] These Mexican Bishops in question often supported local clergy, the “diocesans” over the “monastic orders” which caused much conflict with the Spanish dominated clergy. It is this tension between native clergy and those belonging to foreign Catholic Orders (Except some few others like the Jesuits or Augustinians and Augustinian Recollects) which caused much nationalistic fervor against Imperial Spain, a precedent having been set in Mexico when the Mexican war of independence against French occupied Spain, was led by a Jesuit educated local Mexican Priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. The rebellions in Mexico initially led by Priests, had reverberations in the Philippines which had Priests who were martyred in the name of local interests: the clergy Gomburza (Gomez, Burgos and Zamora)[25] which inspired Jose Rizal, who in turn, fomented the Philippine Revolution.
There
is also the rivalry stemming from the conflicting commercial
interests between Madrid and Mexico. The Spanish who were then
believers in the philosophy of mercantilism, wherein industries from
the homeland should be grown and where colonies were only extraction
points for resources; where trying to legally impose her mercantilism
on her colonies in the Americas and the Philippines, in which case,
Mexico and Peru where allied with one another and the Philippines
since the Americans were getting more profits via trade with the rich
and developed markets of Asia than with a Spain who was imposing her
exploitative commercial policies across her colonies.[26]
The flow of people and goods wasn’t just one way, from the Americas to the Philippines though, the opposite was also true and I will outline that in the next section.
FILIPINOS IN THE AMERICAS
The long common history the Americas and the Philippines has had while under Spain, is also the reason why there are many Filipino communities in the Americas and that Filipinos have been participating in crucial; events in the Americas.
According to the publication written by Lizzie Wade called, “Latin America’s lost histories revealed in modern DNA”, genetic studies on the Mexican state of Guerrero, populated by about 3.5 Million people, said that about 1/3rd of the genetic samples taken from there show Filipino and Indonesian admixture.[27] Thus, without considering the 4 Million Filipinos who now live in the United States of America, we can say for certain that there are at least 1 Million Filipino descendants in Guerrero, Mexico too. Asides from Filipinos living in Mexico, records show that they made it all the way to the East Coast of the United States in Saint Malo, Louisiana. It was established as an isolated autonomous Filipino settlement in French Louisiana,[28] no doubt they established it there so that they could escape from the Spaniards who had oppressed them beforehand, and when the territory came under the United States of America, the Filipinos there rose up to help defend the United States from a British reconquest in the War of 1912 when they helped defend New Orleans under Jean Lafitte who fought under Major General Andrew Jackson.[29] These Filipinos were participants during the war because they were independent in practice, from the political machinations of their more homeland bounded brothers. Filipinos working independently of Spain also aided the Argentine corsair, Hypolite Bouchard when he laid siege to Spanish California.[30] Thus extending the political participation of Filipinos not only in North America but all the way down to the tip of South America. However, there is a case of a Filipino who made it to the Mexico which underscores the unique situation of Filipinos in the transpacific milieu of the era, which was both multicultural and militant, straddling the extremes of the frontier. This is the case of the Moluccan Mestizo soldier and Manila resident, Alexo de Castro. Alexo was born in the Sultanate of Tidore, a rival to neighboring Sultanate of Ternate when it comes to the production of spice. He was a grandson of a Tidore sultan and son of a Tidore princess (sister of the reigning sultan) who converted to Christianity when the Portuguese came to aid the Tidore sultanate in a war against Ternate. Alexo de Castro’s grandfather, Sultan Siro, sealed this alliance by converting to Christianity and taking the title of Dom João, king of Bacan. With this act, Alexo stated to the Inquisition of Mexico who tried him, that the islanders “gave themselves to the Portuguese.” Tellingly, Alexo’s mother took the surname of the highest-ranking Portuguese official in Maluku, Captain Duarte Deça, a clear sign that the captain was her godfather.[31] When the Portuguese left, it is alleged that the Tidore princess married a Mexican who went to Tidore after the Spanish took over from the Portuguese in the war against Ternate. Nevertheless, since the Portuguese were the more invested community at that time, they chose to identify with the Portuguese instead of the Spanish, although De Castro’s Father was a shipwrecked Mexican and a soldier of Spain.
When he moved to Manila and had a family with the Indian-Bengali Christian named Inez de Lima[32], due to the violence and sexual abuse he laid on his wife, child and household help, his Indian-Bengali wife denounced him to the inquisition, the center of power of which, lay in Mexico city. It was his half Muslim descent from his mother’s side which cast doubt on his sincerity as a Christian and he was suspected of being a crypto-Muslim and thus he was expedited to Mexico City. In Mexico City, Inez’ agents said that for his crimes he deserves to be executed in an auto de fe. However, under the Inquisitorial court, he logically defended himself by saying that, had he been a real “Crypto-Muslim” (Hidden Muslim) he would have had ample opportunity to join his Muslim relatives in Tidore and Ternate where he would be welcomed in royal palaces and be served by his countryman as a proper prince, yet he chose to fight against his Muslim family members on his mother’s side and suffered much as he traveled among the Portuguese and Spanish militaries fighting the said Muslims. The two contexts: that of the Philippine one and that of the Mexican one, was in great clash. In this case, since under the Mexican context, wherein there was a Caste system of pure-bred Spaniards who’s testimonies were given more weight than the mestizos who populate the general peasant population and that Spanish theories of Limpieza de Sangre (Blood purity) stated that the racial characteristics of people reflected that of their recent religion unto at least 3 generations, thus it is important to have “pure” Christian ancestry which put you above the mixed bred masses who had Native-American descent as well as illegal immigrants from old Spain suspected to have partial Jewish, Muslim or Pagan descent. This clashed with that of the Philippine one, where mestizos who were rarer than in Mexico, were often near the administrative class and were crucial middlemen, translators, spies and soldiers with the myriad peoples the Spanish enslaved or where in conflict with and thus it was not practical to enforce Spanish blood purity laws and accusations of being cryto-muslims/jews/pagans. Upon the end of the Mexican inquest, the Inquisitorial court then decided that Alexo de Castro be given the lightest punishment class, that of the Abjuración de levi (Slight suspicion of heresy).[33]
CONCLUSION
A s a logical extension of the theory of Manifest Destiny mainly of civilization marching west from the eastern coast of America until it reaches the Pacific, it said that under “The Pacific Century”, the center of world economic gravity will move from Europe to a Pacific incorporating Asia and the Americas.[34]
This term is no doubt used in modern times; among East Asians and Anglo Americans and is driven mostly by capitalism and mutual profit.[35] Nevertheless, there are nobler precedents for this, having been set by Southeast Asians from the Philippines and Latin-Americans from Mexico and Peru, who traveled to each others’ lands, under the name of religion and military mission.
REFERENCES:
- Rajagopalan, Angela Herren (2019). Portraying the Aztec Past: The Codices Boturini, Azcatitlan, and Aubin.
- Jane H. Hill (Proto-Uto-Aztecan: A Community of Cultivators in Central Mexico?) https://www.jstor.org/pss/684121
- Read, Kay Almere (2000). Mesoamerican Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs of Mexico and Central America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 193
- http://www.traveldir.org/articles/n_america/us/what_are_the_oldest_cities_in_america.html
- Read, Kay Almere (2000). Mesoamerican Mythologies: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs of Mexico and Central America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 193.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Salcedo
- Besa, Emmanuel. "Tales of Intramuros". Retrieved 19 January 2019.
- Pusat Sejarah Brunei" (in Malay). https://web.archive.org/web/20150415152209/http://www.history-centre.gov.bn/sultanbrunei.htm
- Melo Alip, Eufronio (1964), Political and cultural history of the Philippines, Volumes 1-2 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0A5wAAAAMAAJ&
- Martinez, Manuel F. Assassinations & conspiracies : from Rajah Humabon to Imelda Marcos. Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2002.
- “OPINION: ‘Filipinos, first in America’ – Tweaking a historical perspective” By Buddy Gomez. ( https://news.abs-cbn.com/blogs/opinions/10/20/17/opinion-filipinos-first-in-america-tweaking-a-historical-perspective)
- The Unlucky Country: The Republic of the Philippines in the 21St Century By Duncan Alexander McKenzie (page xii)
- Stephanie Mawson, ‘Between Loyalty and Disobedience: The Limits of Spanish Domination in the Seventeenth Century Pacific’ (Univ. of Sydney M.Phil. thesis, 2014), appendix 3.
- Spanish Settlers in the Philippines (1571-1599) By Antonio Garcia-Abasalo ( http://www.uco.es/aaf/garcia-abasolo/files/63df3.pdf )
- Fedor Jagor et al ( http://www.authorama.com/former-philippines-b-8.html)
- Letter from Fajardo to Felipe III From Manila, August 15 1620. (From the Spanish Archives of the Indies)("The infantry does not amount to two hundred men, in three companies. If these men were that number, and Spaniards, it would not be so bad; but, although I have not seen them, because they have not yet arrived here, I am told that they are, as at other times, for the most part boys, mestizos, and mulattoes, with some Indians (Native Americans). There is no little cause for regret in the great sums that reënforcements of such men waste for, and cost, your Majesty. I cannot see what betterment there will be until your Majesty shall provide it, since I do not think, that more can be done in Nueva Spaña, although the viceroy must be endeavoring to do so, as he is ordered.")
- AGI, Filipinas, leg. 31, núm. 43; leg. 32, núm. 1.
- Ibid. , 702; AGI, Escribanía de Cámara de Justicia, leg. 425B, fos. 119 r –205 v ; Cáceres Menéndez and Patch, ‘Gente de Mal Vivir’, 368.
- Auke Pieter Jacobs, ‘Legal and Illegal Emigration from Seville, 1550–1650’, in Ida Altman and James Horn (eds.), ‘To Make America’: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period (Berkeley, 1991), 70, 80; Auke Pieter Jacobs, Los movimientos migratorios entre Castilla e Hispanoamérica durante el reinado de Felipe III, 1598–1621 (Amsterdam, 1995), 104.
- Insurrections by Filipinos in the Seventeenth Century’, in The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and their Peoples, their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century , ed. Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, 55 vols. (Cleveland, Ohio, 1903–9), xxxviii, 89, 92; AGI, Filipinas, leg. 76, núm. 13.
- Ibid, leg. 8, ramo 3, núm. 50.( https://academic.oup.com/past/article/232/1/87/1752419 )
- http://adoborepublic.net/live-local-mexico/filipinos-in-mexican-history/filipinos-in-mexicos-history-4/
- http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/brdrv.html
- George L. Cowgill (March 2004). "Ancient Tollan: Tula and the Toltec heartland". 78 (299). Antiquity: 226–227.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070928000521/http://www.manilacathedral.org/history/7th-cath.htm
- Mejia, Javier. "The Economics of the Manila Galleon" New York University, Abu Dhabi
- https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/latin-america-s-lost-histories-revealed-modern-dna .
- Welch, Michael Patrick (27 October 2014). "NOLA Filipino History Stretches for Centuries". New Orleans & Me. New Orleans: WWNO.
- Rodel E. Rodis. http://www.inquirer.net/globalnation/col_gln/2005/oct03.ht m">"Filipinos in Louisiana". Global Nation. www.inq7.net. Archived from the original on 6 September 2009.Mercene, Floro L. (2007). Manila Men in the New World: Filipino Migration to Mexico and the Americas from the Sixteenth Century. UP Press. p. 111
- Delgado de Cantú, Gloria M. (2006). Historia de México. México, D. F.: Pearson Educación.
- Castro Trial (1643–48), AGN Inquisición, vol. 418, exp. 5, fol. 375, Sá, Documentação, vol. 2, 338; Sousa, Oriente conquistado, 436; King Laudim of Bacan to Philip III (1606), AGI Patronato Real 47, r. 14.
- Castro Trial (1643–48), AGN Inquisición, vol. 418, exp. 5, fol. 373r–v; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors, 2.
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/transpacific-mestizo-religion-and-caste-in-the-worlds-of-a-moluccan-prisoner-of-the-mexican-inquisition/8CDFC3666834252554B14DD1B4C975AE
- Clinton, Hillary (November 2011). "America's Pacific Century". Foreign Policy
- https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1993-03-01/pacific-century-america-and-asia-changing-world
