The First Chinatown
This paper attempts to capture the foundation of Spanish Manila and especially the early Chinese sojourner-settlers from Minnan who were confined to their special quarters outside the city wall, an ethnic and commercial neighborhood mysteriously named the Parián (origin of the word is unknown), or known simply as extramuros—outside the city walls—to this day, or as kan-nei in Hokkien. Manila was an entrepôt in the global trade between Europe and Asia, Spain and China, built on the formidable exchange of American silver for all manners of Chinese products, mostly luxury good for the elite, but also many ordinary, mundane products for everyday usage by common folks, including African slaves in the Americas. With Spaniards denied direct access to the Chinese mainland, Hokkien junk traders supplied the Spanish galleon ships with products brought from China. Almost immediately, other Hokkien businessmen, traders, artisans and shopkeepers, fishermen, gardeners, and laborers, perceived that the small community of Spaniards inside the city wall (intramuros) had many other daily needs which they could also fulfill. Stemming from the original sojourners, who gave rise to the colorful nickname Sangley, many of their descendants became permanent residents in the Parián of Manila, until they were roused by Spanish anxiety, punished with violence, and sent home to Minnan, until signaled to return.
Everyone at that time and scholars today agree that the Mexicans could not have conducted the global trade between China, America, and Europe without the Chinese in all their capacities. If Manila was an entrepôt for Spain, with a small floating population consisting mainly of colonial administrators, transnational merchants, missionaries and soldiers (Bernal 1964), the Chinese community was a more complex and complete society, although peace and stability was elusive given Spanish policies and administrative decisions in response to anxiety and perceived threats from within and without. Nevertheless, when operating at full strength, which was most of the time, Manila informally resembled a “Chinese colonial town” (Headley, pp. 637) or a “typical Chinatown.” It was a self-sufficient community that constituted the economic center of Manila. (Guerrero, p. 27)
In addition to these two groups, the largest population consisted of various indigenous groups in the islands. Typically, Spaniards referred to them as “ natives or indigenous peoples, using a term borrowed from the Americas; sometimes they were also called “naturales” (natives). Despite diligent missionary efforts from the sixteenth century to convert them to Catholicism (see Salazar), many were already converted to Islam, especially in the outer islands far away from Spanish presence, such as Mindanao to the extreme south. During this early period, the Chinese traded with them for local products, sometime venturing to other islands for agricultural products, while Spaniards enlisted them to work as sailors or galley slaves on the galleons.(Schurz, pp. 96-97)
Spaniards interacted with Chinese because they had to, but with the indios or naturales, their interaction was minimal, with the exception of the tireless missionaries. In general, if they needed anything from the natives—usually some kind of natural produce—they left it to the Sangley to obtain them through their trade networks with natives. (see Morga for details)[15]
Because Manila was an extension of Mexico in the Americas, whose colonial officials administered this city of predominantly Chinese from Minnan, it can be considered America’s first Chinatown. Given Spain’s policies in her vast empire to reconstruct Spanish lifestyle for those Spaniards destined to live and work outside their homeland, “Mexico naturally played a crucial role in the Hispanization of the Philippines, which were virtually under the jurisdiction of the Mexican viceroy,” so concludes historian Leslie Bauzon. (Bauzon, p. 61) Those who carried out the hispanization projects were the Chinese immigrants and settlers, the Hokkien artisans, entrepreneurs, and co-ethnic workers from Guangdong (Canton).
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[15] The term “Filipinos” likely referred to the indigenous peoples (indios), while Chinese who crossed the Pacific to Mexico were denoted more precisely as “Chinos de Manila.” Or they were referred to as “indios chinos.” (Seijas) Interestingly, the common word used to designate Chinese in Manila, Sangley, seldom appears in Mexican documents on this side of the Pacific. While native Filipinos worked as sailor or galley slaves on the galleons, those Chinese who also worked on the galleons generally provided more skilled services, such as barbers (an occupation that supplied more than just shaving and trimming hair and beards in those days), resulting in some of them setting up barber shops in Mexico City, producing unwelcome competition to Spanish barbers, a group of whom lodged complaints with the viceroy of Mexico in 1634. (Dubs and Smith)
