After noting that Spain established her relationship with the Philippines “a través de una de sus colonias americanas, la Nueva España,” Mexican historian Carmen Yuste López characterized this relationship as “un comercio intercolonial” (Yuste 1984, p. 10). The eminent historian of the Manila Galleon, William Schurz, offered a subtle but significant distinction in characterizing the relationship this way:  “A Spanish Orient might be made an adjunct of Spanish America.” (Schurz, p. 21; italics added) In this sense, Manila and Las Filipinas in the Asia-Pacific can be seen as an extension of Mexico and America, rather than sharing co-equal status as Spanish colonies.

From inception, Spaniards decided on a policy of not developing any Spanish settler society in Asia, certainly not in Manila, much different from what they did in Mexico or Peru, the other silver-producing colony in South America.  Instead, they tapped into and maximized the use of Chinese trading networks through the vast Nanyang (Southeast Asia) and Indian Ocean worlds. This policy, which was similar to that adopted by the Portuguese and later the Dutch in Southeast Asia, further spurred the rise of large and prosperous overseas Chinese communities in many parts of the Malay and Filipino archipelagos and the Indochina coasts, starting with Manila.  In effect, Manila was no more than an entrepôt or a “way station” (Schurz p. 26) for trade with China, sometimes imagined by Spaniards as a beachhead for the eventual spiritual and political conquest of China, which never came to pass.  In this way, Manila was an extension of Mexico. The permanent Chinese community that took shape should rightfully take its place as America’s first Chinatown.  To examine closely the nature of this first America Chinatown is the central focus of this paper.

The Chinese population in Manila swelled from a handful--about 150--at moment of first contact in 1564 to some 10,000 in 1586, rising to some 25,000 in another ten years.  Almost all—up to 85 percent--were the Hokkien people from  Minnan (southern Fujian province), with a small number from Guangdong province to the south; these Cantonese-speaking Chinese were also experienced long distance junk traders operating from their cosmopolitan port of Canton.  (Ang See 1977, p. 106).  

First impressions were mixed. Judge Antonio de Morga, who spent years in Manila closely observing the Chinese, said:  “Son gente blanca, altos de cuerpo, poca barba, muy fornidos de miembros, y de muchas fuerças, grandes trabajadores, e ingeniosos en todas artes y oficios…" They went about unarmed, dressed in their own loose style of clothing made of black and colored silk, which he described with obvious fascination:

… ropas largas, con mangas anchas, de cangán azul o blanco por luto; y los principals, de sedas negras y de colores, calçones anchos de los mismo, media calças de fieltro, mui anchas çapatos a su usança, de seda azul, bordados de cordonçillo, con muchas suelasbien cosidas, y de otras telas, el cabello largo, muy negro y curado, y rebuelto a la cabeça, con una lazada alta, un capillejo o escofia encima, de cerdas de cavallo, muy justa, hasa la mitad de la frente, y bonete alto, redondo, de la mismas cerdas sore todo, de diferentes hechurs, en que se diferencias los oficios, y calidad de cada uno.”

This population was predominately male, a major issue for the Spaniards, especially the missionaries who began proselytizing among them from the beginning.  Dominican friars founded the town of Binondo (next to the Filipino neighborhood called Tondo where Chinese also resided) on the east side of the Pasig River outside the city walls ("extramuros").  There, they encouraged Christianized Chinese men to take Filipina wives and settle down, building a church and a hospital to serve them. By the early seventeenth century, it had about five hundred residents.  Later in the eighteenth century, Jesuit missionaries would build another quarter, Santa Cruz, for the Chinese they converted and married. (Schurz, pp. 79-83; Wickberg, pp. 11-19; Morga, p. 320)  Bishop Salazar of the Dominican order submitted a fairly detailed report to the Emperor about Dominican missionary activities among the sangley and about the Chinese Christians of Binondo and Tondo, and wherever the Chinese lived (Salazar).

At first, most of the Chinese lived scattered among Spaniards in the city intramuros (translation: within city walls), and made themselves useful. Only ten years after arrival, in 1574, the Spanish Governor noted the continuous flow of Chinese to "supply us with many articles, such as sugar, wheat, and barley flour [as well as] flour, nuts, raisins, pears, and oranges, and silks, wine, porcelain, iron, and other small things which we lacked in the land before their arrival" (cited in Guerrero, p. 21). No wonder that by 1573, two galleon carried to Acapulco a great volume and rich variety of Chinese goods brought to Manila by the Hokkien traders: 712 pieces of Chinese silk and 22, 300 pieces of "fine gilt china and other porcelain wares," (Schurz, p.27) giving a preview of better and more to come in future galleons.