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The Development of Philippine Cities Before 1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Daniel F. Doeppers
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Abstract

Cities and towns first developed in the Philippines as a product of Spanish rule and Roman Catholic mission activity. In this context a new three tiered hierarchy of settlements was established above the preexisting village level. Elements of social and spatial segregation derived from Mexico were imposed in these settlements. Due to a lack of economic base, the towns set up to serve as regional centers soon declined. Substantial provincial urbanism appeared only with the rise of commerce and commercial agriculture during the nineteenth century. Manila achieved early predominance as a combined result of its ecclesiastical-administrative position and its role as the principal entrepot in the trade of Mexican silver for Chinese goods. Despite the collapse of that trade, Manila retained its primate position by becoming the chief point of import and distribution for Western manufacturers as well as a major collecting area for the export of agricultural commodities

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , August 1972 , pp. 769 - 792
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1972

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References

1 The word indio was used by the Spaniards to denote the indigenous inhabitants of the Philippines, while the word filipino then meant a Spaniard born in the Philippines. The indigenous inhabitants were divided by language and region, and only in the last few decades of the Spanish era, with the emergence of the ilustrados, can one speak of Filipinos in the sense of Philippine inhabitants motivated by a broad concept of nationalism. Throughout this essay, however, “Filipino” is used to refer to the indigenous lowland inhabitants of the Philippines.

2 Archaeological work at Santubong in Sarawak has uncovered clay crucibles, slag, and other evidence of extensive iron industry. Quantities of such iron slag also have been recovered in Philippine excavations at Santa Ana (Manila), around Laguna de Bay, and in Cebu City for roughly the same 1100–1400 A. D. period. Whether these finds are also indicative of important local iron industry centers has yet to be established. It is suggested that it was the export of iron to South China that formed much of the early basis of exchange for the Chinese porcelain found in such abundance. In any case such development proved a dead end. Harrisson, Tom and O'Connor, Stanley J., Excavations of the Prehistoric Iron Industry in West Borneo (2 vols.; Southeast Asia Program, Data Paper Number 72; Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, Department of Asian Studies, April, 1969)Google Scholar.

3 Lopez de Lagazpi, Miguel, “Relation of the Filipinas Islands,” (Cebu, 1569), in Blair, Emma H. and Robertson, James A. (eds., and trans.) The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, (55 vols.; Cleveland: A. H. Clark Co., 1903–1909)Google Scholar, III, 57 (hereafter referred to as BR). The topic of pre-Hispanic settlements is more fully developed in Doeppers’, D. F., “Hispanic Influences on Demographic Patterns in the Central Plain of Luzon, 1565–1780,” The University of Manila, Journal of East Asiatic Studies (hereafter UMJEAS), XII (September, 1968), 17–36Google Scholar and Reed, Robert R., “Hispanic Urbanism in the Philippines,” UMJEAS, XI (March, 1967), 18–28Google Scholar.

4 Morga reported that vessels bound for Mexico were dispatched from Manila and that “the majority of vessels from China, Japan, Maluco [Moluccas], Borney [Borneo], Siam, Malaca, and India, that come to the Filipinas, gather in the bay and river of Manila. In that city they sell and trade for all the islands and the settlements.” de Morga, Antonio, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (Mexico: 1609)Google Scholar, BR, XVI, 146.

5 The general case for the rest of colonial Asia is presented in Murphey, Rhoads, “Traditionalism and Colonialism: Changing Urban Roles in Asia,” The Journal of Asian Studies, XXIX (November, 1969), 67–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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7 The Zamboanga garrison was established in 1635. withdrawn in 1662, and reestablished in 1718.

8 For a consideration of the processes of conversion and Hispanization and the role of the mission-settlements sec Phelan, John L., The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565–1700 (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1959)Google Scholar.

9 Barrio is a Spanish term adapted in the Philippine context as a successor to the word barangay — in the sense of a village or Gemeinschajt neighborhood. Each barangay controlled certain lands, and the Spanish word also meant “district.” So barrio is also used to designate a minor political area or township.

10 Phelan (1959, 167–176) has mapped the missions as of 1640. The area of Spanish control in Figure 1 is adapted from his map. By 1870 the number of poblaciones exceeded 750.

11 See Adams, Robert McC., The Evolution of Urban Society (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966)Google Scholar; Kubler, The Art Bulletin, XXIV, 167–171, and Stanislawski, Dan, “Early Spanish Town Planning in the New World,” The Geographical Review, XXXVII (1947), 94–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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14 See Hernando de los Rios Coronel, “Memorial y Relacion para su Magestad,” (Madrid: 1621), BR, XIX, 286, and Bartholome de Letona, O. S. F., “Description of Filipinas Islands,” (Puebla, Mexico: 1662), BR, XXXVI, 203.

15 Reed, UMJEAS, XI, 66–68. On the functioning of the central elements of small poblaciones as physical and cultural complexes in the twentieth century see Hart, Donn V., The Philippine Plaza Complex: A Vocal Point in Cultural Change (Southeast Asia Studies, Cultural Report Series, No. 3; New Haven: Yale University, 2nd printing, 1961)Google Scholar.

16 Kubler, The Art Bulletin, XXIV, 161–162. See also Stanislawski, The Geographical Review, XXXVII, 98, and Caplow, Theodore, “The Social Ecology of Guatemala City,” Social Forces, XXVIII (December, 1949), 129Google Scholar.

17 Miguel de Loara, “Relacion de las Islas Filipinas,” (Arevalo: 1582), BR, V, 41; Careri, Giovanni Gcmelli, A Voyage to the Philippines [1696] (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1963), 54Google Scholar; Pedro Velasco, O. S. A., “Augustinian Parishes and Missions, 1760,” (Tondo: 1760), BR, XLVIII, 55, and Buzeta, Fr. Manuel and Bravo, Fr. Felipe, Diccionario Geografico, Estadistico, Historico de las Islas Filipinos (2 vols., Madrid: 1851)Google Scholar, I, sixth unnumbered foldout at the end.

18 In 1603 there were 20,000 Chinese and fewer than 1,000 Spaniards in Manila. See Fr. Juan Cobo, O.P., “Father Cobo's Account,” (Parian, Manila: 1589); Rafael Bernal, “The Chinese Colony in Manila, 1570–1770,” and Alberto Santamaria, O.P., “The Chinese Parian,” all in The Chinese in the Philippines, Felix, Alfonso Jr., ed. (Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1966)Google Scholar.

19 On the Manila Parian consult Cobo (1589) and Santamaria in Felix, ed. (1966), 67–118 and 135 as well as Sonia Pinto, “The Parian, 1581–1762” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Ateneo de Manila, 1964).

20 Pedro Chirino, S. J., Relacion de las Islas Fillpinas, (Rome: 1604)Google Scholar, BR, XII, 276–278 and XIII, 40, and Gemelli Careri (1963), 54.

21 Edgar Wickberg, “The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History,” Journal of Southeast Asian History (hereafter JSAH), V, (March, 1964), 64. Wickberg refers here to the social compartmen talization of Chinese mestizos in the eighteenth century, but the same applies to the previous century as well.

22 Chirino (1604), BR, XII and XIII; Gemelli Careri (1963), 54, and Fernando Valdes Tamon, “Survey of the Filipinas Islands” (Manila: 1739), BR, XLVII, 113–114.

23 On the minorities see Morga (1609), BR, XVI, 176 and 198–199; Letona (1662), BR, XXXVI, 205 and 214; Miguel Garcia Serrano, O. S. A. Archbishop of Manila, Letter to the King, Manila, July 30, 1622, BR, XX, 229 and 233; Santamaria in Felix ed. (1966), 116–117, and Chirino (1604), BR, XIII, 40. Dilao (dilaw) means “yellow” in Tagalog.

24 Medina (1630/1893), BR, XXIII, 215–216.

25 See Doeppers, UMJEAS, XII, 61–70.

26 Loarca (1582), BR, V, 109; Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, “Account of the Encomiendas in the Philippinas Islands,” (Manila: 1591), BR, VIII, 105; Medina (1630/1893), BR, XXIII, 277, and Keesing, Felix, The Ethnohistory of Northern Luzon (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 129Google Scholar.

27 Medina (1630/1893), BR, XXIII, 159–164 and 259 and XXIV, 115 as well as Vandermeer, Canute, “Population Patterns of the Island of Cebu, the Philippines: 1500 to 1900,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, LVII (June, 1967), 323Google Scholar. Special institutions such as the Jesuit school in Cebu and the Franciscan hospital in Naga could not be financed locally and were continually dependent on the Crown's largess.

28 Valdes Tamon (1739). BR, XLVII, 113–114. See also Gemelli Careri (1963), 54 and Guillaume Le Gentil [1781], “Ecclesiastical Survey of the Philippines,” BR, XXVIII, 208–209. By 1735 the population of Cavite (the port and San Roque) had dwindled to only 1,437. Buzeta and Bravo (1851), I, 535.

29 Most Asian vessels calling in the colony traded at Manila to begin with, but after 1620 this was made compulsory. Bernal, in Felix ed. (1966), 43.

30 Reed dates the period of Manila's stagnation from 1625 to 1815. Reed, UMJEAS, XI, 132–134.

31 Perhaps a thousand or more of the Chinese expelled from Manila in 1755 set up a commercial quarter in Jolo Town in Muslim Sulu (Figure 1). Cesar Adib Majul, “Chinese Relationships with the Sultanate of Sulu” in Felix, ed. (1966), 153–157. See also Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “The Role of the Chinese in the Philippine Domestic Economy (1570–1770),” in Felix, ed. (1966), 187–210.

32 In the Philippine context the word mestizo primarily referred to those of mixed Chinese-Filipino blood. There were always some persons of mixed Spanish-Filipino heritage, but, unlike Mexico, this particular group was never of great numerica l importance in the Philippines.

33 Cheong, W. E., “The Decline of Manila as the Spanish Entrepot in the Far East, 1785–1826: Its Impact on the Pattern of Southeast Asian Trade,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, II (September, 1971), 142–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 On this topic sec Horatio de la Costa, S. J., Asia and the Philippines (Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1967), 73–74Google Scholar; Wickberg, JSAH, V, 82, and Nicholas Loney, Letter from Iloilo, May 2, 1859, quoted in Bowring, John, The Philippine Islands (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1859), 400–401Google Scholar and 339.

35 Bowring, Ibid., 378–379 and Buzeta and Bravo (1851), II, 58–59.

36 Wickberg, JSAH, V, 75–76 and 81–83 and Reed, UMJEAS, XI, 191–192.

37 Buzeta and Bravo (1851), I, sixth unnumbered foldout at the end of the volume and II, Table Numero 2 at the end.

38 Wickberg, JSAH, V, 93.

39 Various Chinese economic roles were won at the expense of the Hispanicized mestizos. Meanwhile, many mestizos turned to growing cash crops for export. This was both an increasingly possible and culturally favored method of financing the education, “display, and ostentatious living” that had become fashionable. Edgar Wickberg, JSAH, V, 90–94 and The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850–1898 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), 129Google Scholar, 135, and 237.

40 In Manila the resurgence of Chinese was highly directed to Binondo (including San Nicolas) and Santa Cruz. Yet this location could no longer be described as peripheral. U. S. Bureau of the Census, Census of the Philippine Islands: 1903 (4 vols.; Washington, D. C, 1905), II, 261, 286–287, and 293–294.

41 Taaffe, Edward J., Morrill, Richard L., and Gould, Peter R., “Transport Expansion in Underdeveloped Countries: A Comparative Analysis,” The Geographical Review, LIII (October, 1963), 503–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 The hostility of the populace of several Batangas province towns toward Chinese is well known. In Taal, for example, Tagalogs and Tagalog mestizos occupied what elsewhere would have been a Chinese economic niche. See the selection from Jose Felipe del Pan, 1878 in Horatio de la Costa, S. J., Readings in Philippine History (Manila: Bookmark, 1965), 157–158Google Scholar.

43 D. Agustin de la Cavada y Mendez de Vigo, Historia, Geografica, Estadistica de Filipinos (2 vols.; Manila: Imp. de Ramirez y Giraudier, 1876)Google Scholar, 1, 49 and 166 and II, 109, 155, and 418. By that time Cebu, Iloilo, Zamboanga, and Sual had been officially opened to direct international trade.

44 Census (1903), IV, 485. Manila's concentration represented 40 percent of die country-wide total. The most numerous single type of “establishments” were bakeries.

45 Ibid., II, 130 and 883. This includes the Districto Municipal made up of Intramuros, Binondo (with San Nicolas), Quiapo, Sampaloc, San Miguel, Santa Cruz, and Tondo plus Ermita and Malate. Less than I percent had occupations classed as “agricultural pursuits.”

46 Iloilo's three principal nuclei had a long history of jealous political separatism. But with the opening of the port to international trade, commercial development tended to gravitate to the central port district. After the 1850's the channel used by coasting vessels to reach Molo was obstructed, and its merchants were forced to move their warehouses to Iloilo (Bowring, 1859, 376). The several nuclei were still not contiguously built up in 1903, but Iloilo municipality, containing the port and commercial district, was the principal urban center. The 1903 population was Jaro poblacion, 7,169, La Paz poblacion, 1,822, Molo, 8,551, and Iloilo, 19,054 (poblacion data not given for the last two) comprising an initial total of 36,596. A census note gives the population of the “closer built part” of Cebu as 18,330; no similarly based figure is offered for other cities. The population of the contiguous poblacion of Pardo (San Nicolas) was 1,160 making a total population of at least 19,490. Census (1903), II, 156, 158, 168–169, and 879.

47 The significance of “colonial” in this context is primarily ethnographic.

48 Ginsburg, Norton S., “The Great City in Southeast Asia,” American Journal of Sociology, LX (March, 1955), 455–462CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 On the former capital which was replaced by Bangkok-Thonburi see Sternstein, Larry“‘Krung Kao’: The Old Capital of Ayutthaya,” The Journal of the Siam Society, LIII (January, 1965), 83–122Google Scholar.

50 See Ullman, Edward L., “Trade Centers and Tributary Areas in the Philippines,” Geographical Review, L (April, 1960), 203–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar.