The Parián in Manila had a turbulent and violent history from the end of the sixteenth and through the seventeenth century, and was burnt down and rebuilt several times.  (Santamaria, who noted six fires between 1588 and 1642)  Speaking about one fire, Bishop Salazar explained:  “This Parián was also destroyed by fire on account of the houses being built of reeds; but through the diligence of the president and governor, Doctor Vera, much better houses were built, and covered with tiles for protection against fire.(Salazar, p. 224 in Blair and Robertson translation). Man-made disasters also plagued the Parián, which was destroyed five times by state forces to punish the Hokkien residents for insubordination, unruliness, unrest, protests and otherwise unsettling behavior including outright rebellion. In fact, Spanish authorities massacred and expelled thousands at a time, usually leading to the decimation and near depletion of the Parián’s population.

During peaceful times between destruction and rebuilding, the Parián became a bustling center of commercial activities, wholesale and retail, filled with hundreds of Chinese shops scattered over four buildings and the paths connecting them. Estos mercaderes, y oficiales que quedan en Manila…tenían poblado al Parián y sus tiendas, que es una alcayçería grande cerrada, de muchas calles, a tiro de ballista de la muralla de la ciudad, junto al río…” (These merchants and officials that stay in Manila...had populated Parián and its stores, that is one large, closed fortress, with many streets, within the range of the catapults of the ramparts of the city, along the river.) (Morga, p. 320)  To keep peace, resolve conflicts, and mete out justice, Mexican authorities installed a Chinese headman—“un gobernador de su nación, the governor of your nation—who had to be a Christian.(Morga, p. 321) Two of these Christian Chinese community leaders were Don Francisco Zanco, who was the gobernador governor in 1590, and another named Don Tomás Syguán.  (Salazar, no pagination; Salazar in Blair and Robertson, p. 233).[5]

By the turn of the century, the Parián was firmly established, and drew the undivided attention of many a Spanish and Mexican visitor, who marveled at the multifarious and diverse array of products, services and activities in the Parián.  Praise and admiration, however, was sprinkled with no small amount of envy, fear and disdain for the Hokkien Chinese, who early acquired the curious moniker of Sangley, when Chinese or indio chinoIndian Chinese could have sufficed.  But Sangley was very precise, meaning only the Chinese at the time, while chino and indio were vague terms that could have designated more than one cultural minority or ethnic group.  (Can this section be moved up? The Sangley is discussed earlier. I also think the discussion of the Sangley following below can be cut to save space in favor for a shorter, summarized description that can be positioned earlier in the essay. Here, it distracts from discussion of the Parian.)

The origin and meaning of the word Sangley has been much debated and discussed. While all agree that it comes from the Hokkien language (Minnan hua), there is less agreement on its precise meaning.  It may mean “come frequently,”  implying frequent visitor (常来, pronounced siong lay in Hokkien), which is an apt description of the Hokkien traders; moreover, the written Chinese characters were engraved on an early seventeenth painting of the Hokkien sojourner (Ang See, p. 47). Many others assert that Sangleysounds like spoken Hokkien for “doing business,” implying merchant or businessman (生意 seng-i).  (Schurz, p. 63; Bernal 1966, p. 47; Chu p. 69)  A third group posits that Sangley nmeant “merchant traveler” (shang-lü 商 旅) a commonly used Chinese expression since the time of Confucius.  (Y.Z. Chang).  Whatever the precise origin, the 12th edition of the Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana published by the Real Academia of Spain in 1884 defines it as indio chino que pasa a comerciar a Filipinas and W.E. Retana explains in his Diccionario de Filipinismos (1921) that the word comes from “xiang-lay” meaning “mercader or merchant.(cited in Y.Z. Chang)  The interesting thing about these theories is that they all convey the essence of the Hokkien trader, the merchant traveller who comes frequently to Manila to trade with the Mexicans, and hence all are plausible.  But Sangley also became a derogatory label for a despised cultural minority, especially when tensions rose recurrently between the Chinese who far outnumbered the Spaniards and Mexicans. (Wickberg, p. 9).[6]