Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas: Toward a Global History

Chinese Mestizo Impact on Philippine Society

By around 1810, there were approximately 120,000 Chinese mestizos, or five percent of the total Philippine population of about 2,500,000. Large Chinese mestizo populations were found in urban areas like Manila and Cebu, and in the provinces of Cavite, Pampanga, and Bulacan. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the Chinese mestizo population was around 150,000 to 300,000 out of a mean population of 5,500,000.[9]

The “height” of Chinese mestizo impact on social and economic Philippine colonial society was from the period 1750-1850. In 1755 and 1766, the Spanish expelled non-Catholic Chinese from the Philippines. Chinese mestizos and some indios took over the task of provisioning Manila with food from nearby provinces.[10] Most of them were engaged in “wholesaling, retailing, and landholding” by the beginning of 1800. However, when Chinese immigration picked up again in the mid-1800s, the Chinese reclaimed their position in the wholesale-retail trade and several Chinese mestizos, along with rich indios, resumed their focus on the landholding business.[11]

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, as the Spanish colonial government transformed the Philippine economy into a cash-crop economy, local families who benefited from this economic change sent their children overseas for study. Once abroad, primarily in Spain and other parts of Europe, many Chinese mestizos and upper-class indios were introduced to the liberal ideas of the reform movement and were thus inspired to work for change in the Philippines. Upon returning to the Islands, they demanded political reforms such as the restoration of Philippine representation to the Spanish cortes and the curtailment of friar abuses.
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[9] Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 73-79.
[10] Ibid., 28-29.
[11] Ibid, 28.

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