Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:34:17.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Inevitability: The Opening of Philippine Provincial Ports in 1855

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr
Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The opening of Philippine provincial ports to the world market in 1855 served to solidify the direct incorporation of regions outside Manila into the international capitalist system. This article reconstructs the events surrounding this important episode by situating it in the context of global capitalist dynamics and Spanish imperial decay, and the conjuncture in which local interest groups manoeuvred to intervene in the colonial state processes of the Spanish Philippines. In line with Philip Abrams' vision of history as the nexus of structure and action, the 1855 ports policy is reinterpreted as issuing from the articulation of macro and micro spheres, a perspective which allows for contingency in so far as the possibilities of human actors confronting structured totalities are multiple yet theoretically bounded. By eschewing the overdetermined view of socioeconomic change and by accounting for human agency in history, this article serves as a case study to overcome the notion of inexorability that, as David Booth rightly points out, has been frequently imputed to the epoch of global capitalist change.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 70 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This paper is based on research in connection with a larger project on social change in Negros, Philippines assisted by a grant from the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies, with funds provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. I am grateful to Philip McMichael, James Rush, Takashi Shiraishi, Edgar Wickberg, and to an anonymous reviewer for reading earlier drafts and providing criticisms and suggestions. However, they are not responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation.

The following abbreviations are used in this article:

AHN Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid

FO British Foreign Office, held at the Public Record Office, London

PNA Philippine National Archives, Manila

PNL Philippine National Library, Manila

1 Abrams, Philip, Historical Sociology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

2 Booth, David, “Marxism and Development Sociology: Interpreting the Impasse”, World Development 13 (1985): 761–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A number of sociologists from diverse theoretical viewpoints have responded to Booth with suggestions that, in one way or another, touch upon the need to emphasize human agency to rectify the field's overwhelming attention to systemic forces. Vandergeest, Peter and Buttel, Frederick, “Marx, Weber, and Development Sociology: Beyond the Impasse”, World Development 16 (1988): 683–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sklair, Leslie, “Transcending the Impasse: Metatheory, Theory, and Empirical Research in the Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment”, World Development 16 (1988): 697–709CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mouzelis, Nicos, “Sociology of Development: Reflections on the Present Crisis”, Sociology 22 (1988): 23–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corbridge, Stuart, “Post–Marxism and Development Studies: Beyond the Impasse”, World Development 18 (1990): 623–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Slater, David, “Theories of Development and Politics of the Post–modern — Exploring a Border Zone”, Development and Change 23 (1992): 283–319CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 This policy applied differently to the Chinese who, though several times expelled from the colony in the late eighteenth century, were from the 1830s subjected to fewer restrictions of immigration to Manila. In 1839 they were also allowed to settle in the interior provinces. Cf. Wickberg, Edgar, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850–1898 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 52Google Scholar. Note that the resurgence in Chinese arrivals in the Spanish Philippines from the 1850s contrasted with the general decline of the junk trade in Southeast Asia and the region's closer integration to European capitalism. Trocki, Carl, Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800–1910 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 29–35Google Scholar.

4 For instance, as one Spanish official emphatically stated in 1827, “it is necessary to keep the people away from every point of contact with foreigners” whom he described as “usually from the dregs of other nations” and whom he accused of having “clandestinely introduced impious, revolutionary, and obscene books printed in the Spanish language, but pirated in France….” Bernaldez, Manuel, “Reforms Needed in Filipinas”, 1827, in Blair, Emma and Robertson, James (eds.), The Philippine Islands, vol. 51 (Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1907), pp. 207–208Google Scholar. Even the “liberal” Sinibaldo de Mas — who figures prominently in the present account — looked unfavourably upon “the introduction of inopportune books”, saying in his secret report of 1842 that he knew of one foreigner “who left in a house in a town in the province the history of the American Revolution”. He recommended “to enforce the laws prohibiting foreigners from going to the provinces and not to open wide the doors to their admission to the capital. This policy is suspicious and unenlightened but still useful for preserving the colony.” de Mas, Sinibaldo, Report on the Condition of the Philippines in 1842 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1963), p. 169Google Scholar; italics in the original.

5 In 1844 Madrid — in all likelihood prompted by the suggestion of de Mas (cited in note 4 above) — issued a circular reiterating that foreigners were prohibited from entering the provinces. In Manila, a corollary order further specified that travel at a distance exceeding six miles from the capital without express permission and the requisite passport issued by the colonial government was punishable by incarceration and eventual expulsion. Regulation issued by the Ministerio de Marina, de Comercio y Gobernacion de Ultramar, 2 Jan. 1844, AHN Legajo 2152, Expediente No. 11; and Farren to Aberdeen, No. 3, 8 Jan. 1845, FO72/684.

6 Tarling, Nicholas, “Some Aspects of British Trade in the Philippines in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of History 11 (1963): 290–96Google Scholar; MacMiking, Robert, Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines During 1848, 1849, and 1850, ed. Netzorg, Morton (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1967; originally published in 1851), p. 169Google Scholar; Foreman, John, The Philippine Islands, second ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899), p. 293Google Scholar.

7 McCoy, Alfred, “A Queen Dies Slowly: The Rise and Decline of Ioilo City”, in Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, ed. McCoy, Alfred and de Jesus, Ed. (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1982), p. 302Google Scholar.

8 Cf. de Jesus, Edilberto, The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines: Bureaucratic Enterprise and Social Change, 1766–1890 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1980)Google Scholar, and Trechuelo, Maria Lourdes Diaz, “Eighteenth Century Philippine Economy: Agriculture”, Philippine Studies 14 (1966): 65–126Google Scholar.

9 See, for example, Agoncillo, Teodoro and Guerrero, Milagros, History of the Filipino People (Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing Co., 1973), p. 127Google Scholar; Alip, Eufronio, Political and Cultural History of the Philippines, vol. 1, revised ed. (Manila: Alip and Sons, Inc., 1954), p. 264Google Scholar; Constantino, Renato, The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Quezon City: The Author, 1975), pp. 118–19Google Scholar; Corpuz, Onofre, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 1 (Quezon City: Aklahi Foundation, Inc., 1989), p. 441Google Scholar; and Robles, Eliodoro, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1969), p. 144Google Scholar. These authors simply mention the 1855 opening of provincial ports to world commerce as a given fact, with no word as to why and how those ports were opened.

10 For example, Cullinane, Michael, “The Changing Nature of the Cebu Urban Elite in the 19th Century”, in Philippine Social History, ed. McCoy, and de Jesus, Google Scholar; McCoy, Alfred, “Ylo-ilo: Factional Conflict in a Colonial Economy, Iloilo Province, Philippines, 1937–1955” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1977)Google Scholar; McCoy, “A Queen Dies Slowly”; and Wickberg, , Chinese in Philippine LifeGoogle Scholar.

11 Fast, Jonathan and Richardson, Jim, Roots of Dependency: Political and Economic Revolution in 19th Century Philippines (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1979), p. 31Google Scholar.

12 Benitez, Conrado, History of the Philippines, revised ed. (Boston: Ginn and Co.), p. 234Google Scholar; and Benitez, Conrado, “The Old Philippines' Industrial Development” in Philippine Progress Prior to 1898, ed. Craig, Austin and Benitez, Conrado (Manila: Philippine Education Co., 1916), p. 69Google Scholar.

13 Molina, Antonio, Historia de Filipinas, vol. 1 (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica del Instituto de Cooperacion Iberoamericano, 1984), p. 225Google Scholar.

14 Legarda, Benito, “Foreign Trade, Economic Change and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century Philippines” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1955), pp. 324–26Google Scholar.

15 Azcarraga, Manuel y Palmero, , La Libertad de Comercio en Las Islas Filipinas (Madrid: Imprenta de Jose Noguera, 1872), p. 183Google Scholar.

16 Wickberg, , Chinese in Philippine Life, p. 55Google Scholar.

17 Legarda, , “Foreign Trade”, p. 318Google Scholar.

18 MacMicking, , Recollections, pp. 28–30Google Scholar, and Tarling, , “Aspects of British Trade”, p. 316Google Scholar.

19 Regidor, Antonio and Mason, Warren, Commercial Progress in the Philippine Islands (Manila: The American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands, 1925; originally published in 1905), pp. 33–34Google Scholar.

20 Bertrand, Louis and Petrie, Charles, The History of Spain, second ed. (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1952), pp. 323–42Google Scholar; Descola, Jean, A History of Spain, trans. Halperin, Elaine (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), pp. 365–93Google Scholar; and Vilar, Pierre, Spain: A Brief History, trans. Tate, Brian (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1967), pp. 59–61Google Scholar.

21 Cf. Generaldel Gobierno, Secretaria, Guia Official de Las Islas Filipinas Para 1898 (Manila: Secretaria del Gobierno General, 1898), pp. 42–44Google Scholar.

22 de Jesus, , Tobacco Monopoly, p. 187Google Scholar.

23 The situation in the world sugar industry started to shift markedly in the 1840s with the triumph of the anti-slavery movement in the British Parliament, which enacted a series of measures providing cheaper and better access to the British market for sugars produced by non-slave labour. In the British colonies and possessions, the abolition of slavery was declared to take effect officially on 1 August 1834, although the slave-owners were entitled by law to receive indemnification totalling £20,000,000 and a period of transition during which the quondam slaves were to become “apprentices” of their former masters until 1838. But sugar production immediately entered a precipitous decline. Attention was thus focused on other parts of the world where sugar made by “free labour” might be more cheaply and abundantly obtained.

To ensure the more systematic closure of the supply gap, the British Parliament started to debate in 1840 the equalization of duties between “foreign” and “colonial” sugar, commenced duty reduction on imported “free-grown” sugar in 1844, adopted the equalization principle in 1846, and entirely did away with the duties starting in 1874, a policy upheld until 1901. With the enactment of the tariff reduction of 1844, sugar prices in Manila immediately rose by 10 per cent, an indication of the colony's sensitivity to changing global market conditions. Deerr, Noel, The History of Sugar (London: Chapman and Hall Ltd., 1950), pp. 304–305, 430–43Google Scholar; and Farren to Aberdeen, No. 1, 27 Oct. 1844, FO72/663.

24 Aberdeen to Farren, Nos. 3 and 4, 1 Jul. 1844, FO72/663.

25 Farren to Aberdeen, Nos. 3, 27 Oct. 1844, FO72/663.

26 Farren to Aberdeen, 20 Jan. 1846, and McMicking et al. to Farren, 5 Feb. 1846, FO72/708; Palmerston to Farren, 22 Sep. 1846, FO72/707.

27 Canning to Farren, 6 Jan. 1846, FO72/707.

28 Farren to Canning, Manila 14 May 1846, FO72/708.

29 Farren to Malmesbury, 23 Dec. 1858, FO72/943. Cf. the commentary from the Foreign Office pencilled onto Farren's letter praising his dedication to service but noting aspects of his unsatisfactory behaviour. By 1858 Farren owed a British military official a personal debt of £2,000 which he had left unpaid for fourteen years, prompting the Foreign Office to threaten him with dismissal. Clarendon to Farren, 5 Jan. 1857, 31 Dec. 1858, and 1 Jan. 1859, FO72/943.

30 Despite his eagerness to gain credit for the opening of new ports, Farren's indirect admission of what was, in effect, his inconsequential role as will be shown shortly renders him, to my mind, a reliable source that can compensate for the paucity of Spanish sources on the question of the ports. See note 35 below.

31 A British national, whom Farren described as a “watch repairer” but who was interested in the vice-consulate post at Sual, later accused Farren of having had intimate personal relations with the daughter of de Bosch, a Spaniard who served as Secretary of the Royal Economic Society and whom Farren nominated to the desired post. Farren did not deny his relationship with “the family” of de Bosch but defended the latter for his strategic role in the opening of new ports. The Foreign Office upheld Farren's decision. Farren to Clarendon, 3 Jan. 1857, FO72/927. The issue of vice-consulates is discussed in later sections of this paper.

32 Farren to Palmerston, 2 Mar. 1849, FO72/761.

33 Ibid.

34 However, a protectionist schedule of duties was reimposed in 1891 when ad valorem duties were abandoned and specific taxes levied, Spanish goods imported in Spanish vessels favoured through duty exemptions, and the list of duty-free goods virtually abolished. Cf. Legarda, , “Foreign Trade”, pp. 336–49Google Scholar.

35 Sobre si es conveniente abrir nuevos puertos al comercio exterior, 1850, AHN Legajo 431, Expediente No. 29

A subject of this importance amazingly did not leave behind any substantial quantity of documents in Madrid, although I do not discount the possibility of misfiling and the existence of relevant materials that so far have not been spotted. In my research at the AHN, I was guided by an extensive unpublished catalogue of Philippine materials compiled by Rene Salvania, but the inquiry made in 1850 was the only pertinent material I found. A similar search in the PNA yielded some official decrees, but was not too fruitful either. This paucity of materials is most telling, considering that any measure of some significance the Spanish colonial state contemplated was usually the subject of numerous expedientes in both Manila and Madrid.

36 Farren to Palmerston, 30 Oct. 1850, FO72/772.

37 Robles, , Philippines in the Nineteenth Century, p. 141Google Scholar.

38 For the history of the General Intendancy established in 1819 and its vacillating relationship with the Governor's office with which the Intendancy was virtually co-equal for many years, see ibid., pp. 138–45, 156–57, 189–92. It was not until the 1840s that the Governor obtained effective control over the country's finances, but this was reversed in 1850.

39 Farren to Palmerston, 16 Apr. and 21 Apr. 1851, FO72/795.

40 Farren to Palmerston, 28 Jun. 1851, FO72/795.

41 This letter is alluded to in: Real orden no. 148 fecha 15 de Febrero ultimo por lo cual se autoriza al Excmo. Son Superintendente, en contestacion á la carta no. 1740, para habilitar una Aduana en Yloilo y en algun otro punto donde sea necessaria, 1854, PNA Reales Ordenes, 1800–1854, Expediente 105, Folio 1–5b. This material is extremely fragile and barely legible, hence I could not ascertain whether the issue of opening provincial ports was fully discussed in relation to the setting up of customs houses.

42 Farren to Russell, 29 Mar. 1853, and Farren to Clarendon, 5 Dec. 1853, FO72/831; Farren to Clarendon, 6 Dec. 1856, FO72/904.

43 Robles, , Philippines in the Nineteenth Century, p. 141Google Scholar. On Pavia's reputed powers, see also Farren to Clarendon, 7 Feb. 1854, FO72/853. A Russian visitor wrote that Pavia's broad powers were intended to curb the influence of the clergy. Goncharov, Ivan, “Voyage of the Frigate ‘Pallada’”, Travel Accounts of the Islands (1832–1858) (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1974; originally published in 1854), p. 200Google Scholar.

44 M. Peirce to Marcy, 28 Nov. 1854, PNL Despatches from United States Consuls in Manila, 1817–1899, Roll 2.

45 Real orden no. 148 fecha 15 de Febrero … para habilitar una Aduana en Yloilo y en algun otro punto …, 1854, PNA Reales Ordenes, 1800–1854. See note 41 above.

46 Farren to Clarendon, 2 Jun. 1855, FO72/876.

47 Farren to Clarendon, 30 Aug. 1855, FO72/876.

48 Cf. Molina, , Historia de Filipinas, p. 225Google Scholar.

49 Farren to Clarendon, 2 Jun. 1855, FO72/876.

50 Ibid.

51 Farren to Clarendon, 15 Jan. 1857, FO72/927.

52 Reacting to this ruling, the US Consul was emphatic in writing to the Secretary of State that “to be able to attend to his duties and in order that he may claim the proper respect due to his office, it is, in this colony, quite necessary that a Foreign Consul should be secured the privileges and immunities which are enjoyed by the greater portion of the Spanish population….” M. Peirce to Marcy, 14 Dec. 1854, PNL Despatches from United States Consuls in Manila, 1817–1899, Roll 2.

53 Farren to Clarendon, 2 Jun. 1855, FO72/876.

54 Farren to Clarendon, 2 Jun. 1855, FO72/876. Six years later, with Farren having run afoul of the Foreign Office owing to his unpaid personal debts as well as a breach of protocol, he portrayed his role in the question of the ports in more glowing and certain terms. Cf. Farren to Russell, 31 Aug. 1861, FO72/1017.

55 Established in 1850, the Junta de Autoridades was composed of the Governor/Captain-General, the Archbishop of Manila, the Intendant General, the Regent of the Real Audiencia (the colony's judicial core), and the Commander General of the Navy. According to Robles, the Archbishop was excluded in matters pertaining to security and defense, but included in budgetary and economic discussions. Robles, , Philippines in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 138–39Google Scholar. However, Molina provides a slightly different version of the Junta and its composition. Molina, , Historia de Filipinas, p. 221Google Scholar.

56 The customs house in Zamboanga was established earlier in relation to trade with Jolo, over which Spanish sovereignty was not clearly demarcated until 1851. On 26 February 1852 Urbiztondo decreed that Jolo's products were to be treated in like manner as those found in other parts of the archipelago. Espediente instruido á consulta de la Administracion de dicha renta [de Aduanas] acompanando la del Ministro Ynterventor de Zamboanga relativa á si los efectos que se estraen del Deposito mercantil con destino á Zamboanga pueden aportarse para Jolo y Mindanao, 1851–52, PNA Aduana de Manila, 1852–1859.

57 Sobre establecimiento de Aduanas en Sual, Yloilo y otros puntos donde se considere conveniente, PNA Junta Superiors y Decretos [de Hacienda Civil], 1855, Expediente 141, folio 93b–96b. It is interesting that the word “foreign” or the phrases “foreign trade” and “free trade” which previously had been widely used hardly entered the official discourse in the documents concerning the establishment of customs houses. In Madrid's royal decree cited in note 68 below, only the phrase “comercio general de importacion y esportacion” is actually used.

58 Sobre establecimiento de Aduanas en Sual, Yloilo …, PNA Junta Superiores y Decretos, 1855, Expediente 141, folio 93b–96b.

59 My search at the PNA failed to yield any letters or expedientes expressing either support or nonsupport for the opening of provincial ports. Surviving documents are in an extremely frail condition.

60 Farren to Russell, 31 Aug. 1861, FO72/1017.

61 Cf. the earlier cited Expediente 141 (note 57) which follows the entry concerning another subject dated 26 April 1855. The earliest correspondence by a lower ranking official on this subject which I found was dated 11 April 1855, written by the person designated as collector of customs in Sual. D. Jose Ramires Herrera Ynterventor de la Aduana de Sual en Pangasinan solicita dos pagas adelantadas, 1855, PNA Aduana de Manila, 1852–1859.

62 The five-year monopoly on the export of gutta percha was decried by Farren as “characteristic of the present state of administration here, under a Chief Authority, who, however amiable in personal disposition and of good intentions, has no principle or ideas of his own on administrative matters, and commits the most contradictory acts according to the particular and diverse influence of those around him”. Farren to Clarendon, 5 Aug. 1855, FO72/876.

63 Prior to this, there had been instances when the export of rice was disallowed, although previous bans were lifted after the local supply of rice had been assured and prices had stabilized. For the earlier history of rice exports to China, see Tarling, , “Aspects of British Trade”, pp. 288–305Google Scholar.

On the occasion cited here, Farren rather exaggeratedly called the ban “a breach of engagement” which “caused much disgust among the commercial body”. Farren to Clarendon, 15 May 1855, FO72/867. With the resumption of rice exports, 197,810 cavans of rice were loaded at Sual, among other products, for Manila, Hongkong and Macao in the first nine months of 1857. Trade figures in Farren to Clarendon, 31 Dec. 1857, FO72/927.

64 Even de Mas did not reconcile his recommendation on provincial ports with the issue of “foreign influences” against which he took a very strong stand (see note 4 above).

65 Farren to Clarendon, 30 Jun. 1855, FO72/876. Elsewhere Farren referred to the Intendant as the President of the Royal Economic Society. Farren to Clarendon, 3 Jan. 1857, FO72/927.

66 Ibid.

67 Farren to Clarendon, 7 Feb. 1856, FO72/904.

68 Real orden aprobando la creacion de tres Aduanas para el comercio general de importation y esportacion en los puntos de Sual, Yloilo y Zamboanga con lo demas que espresa, 29 Sep. 1855, PNA Cedulario — Reales Ordenes, 1855–1857, Expediente 70, folio 111–12.

69 Farren to Clarendon, 7 Feb. 1856, FO72/904.

70 Real orden aprobando la creacion de tres Aduanas …, 29 Sep. 1855, PNA Cedulario — Reales Ordenes, 1855–1857, Expediente 70, folio 111–12.

71 Molina, , Historia de Filipinas, p. 225Google Scholar.

72 E1 consul de S.M.B. en esta corte sobre dificultades que presentaron las autoridades locales al reconocimiento de los vice-consules, 1856, AHN Legajo 432, Expediente No. 30; Evacuado, con copias, el informe pedido por R. O. de 14 de Junio acerca de una nota del ministerio plenipotenciario de S.M.B. sobre dificultades en el reconocimiento de los Vice-Consules nombrados para los puertos Sual é Yloilo, 1857, AHN Legajo 5169, Expediente No. 8; and Farren to Clarendon, 11 Mar. 1857, FO72/927.

73 Farren to Clarendon, 9 Feb. and 15 Apr. 1856, FO72/904. The Royal Economic Society conferred upon de Bosch the honorary title of “Permanent Secretary” on the occasion of his appointment to Sual. Expediente Acerca del titulo de Secretario perpetuo que concedio en sesion de 29 de Febrero de 1856 á D. Jose Bosch Vice-Consul de S.M.B. en Sual, PNA Real Sociedad de Amigos del Pais, 2nd Legajo.

74 Farren to Crespo, 5 Jun. 1856, enclosed in Farren to Clarendon, 4 Jul. 1856; Loney to Farren, 2 Aug. 1856, FO72/904. See also Loney, , A Britisher in the Philippines: The letters of Nicholas Loney (Manila: National Library, 1964), pp. 45–46Google Scholar. At this point in the narrative, the following statement from Cushner can be seen as plainly erroneous: “After 1855 prospects of greater sugar exports were even brighter because the port of Iloilo in the Visayas was opened to foreign ships due primarily to the insistence of the British consul in Negros.” Cushner, Nicholas, Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest to Revolution (Quezon City: Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University, 1971), p. 201Google Scholar.

75 Loney, Nicholas, A Britisher, pp. 95–96Google Scholar; and Exhauz, Robustiano, Apuntes de la Isla de Negros (Manila: Tipo-Litografia de Chofre y Compãnia, 1894), p. 25Google Scholar.

76 Azcarraga, , La Libertad de Comercio, p. 29Google Scholar.

77 Loney to Farren, 2 Aug. 1856, FO72/904.

78 Molina, , Historia de Filipinas, pp. 229–30Google Scholar.

79 Azcarraga, , La Libertad de Comercio, p. 171Google Scholar.

80 Robles, , Philippines in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 57, 188–89Google Scholar. Presided over by the Governor, the Consejo de Administracion was composed of the heads of the main branches of government, and included the Archbishop and the President of the Tribunal of Accounts. The changes introduced in 1861 further weakened the Intendancy which lost its military functions. A royal decree issued in 1865 distributed the Intendancy's treasury functions in a manner that gave the Governor's office “governmental” powers over public finance and reduced the Intendant General to a mere “general manager” of accounts. Ibid., pp. 191–92.

81 Loney to Farren, 10 Jul. 1861, FO72/1017.

82 Ibid. This represented, respectively, 11 per cent, 22 per cent, and 95 per cent of all sugar leaving the Iloilo port, indicating a drastic decline in sugar shipments to Manila and the strengthening of Iloilo's direct trade links with the world market. From 1880 to 1889, the Iloilo port exported sugar at an annual average of 78,345 tons; Iloilo's export performance reached a peak of 165,407 tons in 1892. Foreman, John, The Philippine Islands, second ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899), pp. 295–96Google Scholar.

83 Molina, , Historia de Filipinas, p. 232Google Scholar.

84 British merchants to H. Webb (Acting British Consul), 17 Dec. 1864, FO72/1087.

85 Ibid.

86 Webb to Russell, 20 Dec. 1864, FO72/1087.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 McCoy, “A Queen Dies Slowly”; Larkin, John, “The International Face of the Philippine Sugar Industry, 1836–1920”, Philippine Review of Economics and Business 21 (1984): 39–55Google Scholar; and Aguilar, Filomeno Jr, “Phantoms of Capitalism and Sugar Production Relations in a Colonial Philippine Island” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1992), ch. 4Google Scholar.

90 de Bosch to F. Ricketts, 29 Dec. 1873, FO72/1377.

91 Farren died on 23 Aug. 1864, reportedly of acute dysentery and inflammation of the liver. He left liabilities amounting to $7,000, some “old and much neglected” furniture and a house in Sta. Ana, and a farm in a mountainous part of Bulacan, only a small portion of which was cleared and cultivated. The farm was eventually liquidated for $3,000. His sole heir was a legally adopted daughter who lived in a parsonage near Manchester. Webb to Russell, 30 Aug., 18 Sep. and 23 Nov. 1864, FO72/1087.

92 Farren to the British merchants at Manila, 25 Jun. 1855, FO72/876.

93 Farren to Crespo, 31 Jan. 1856, FO72/904. Robert MacMicking, a British businessman who lived in Manila from 1848 to 1850, was rather exceptional in indirectly calling for the opening of provincial ports by criticizing the exclusion of foreigners from provincial trade, a policy he described in his memoirs as “about as illiberal and unwise an act as any country could be guilty of, and should be changed — not for the benefit of foreign traders but for the good of the country”. MacMicking, , Recollections, p. 164Google Scholar.

94 de Bosch to F. Ricketts, 29 Dec. 1873, FO72/1377.

95 Farren to Clarendon, 4 Jul. 1855, Ker and Co. and R. Jardine to Farren, 23 Jun. 1855, Farren to the British merchants at Manila, 27 Jun. 1855, FO72/876; and Farren to Clarendon, 5 Jan. 1856, FO72/904.

96 Loney to Farren, 10 Jul. 1861, FO72/1017.

97 Loney to Farren, 12 Apr. 1857, FO72/927.

98 Loney, , A Britisher, p. 66Google Scholar.

99 Ibid., p. 67.

100 Loney to Farren, 12 Apr. 1857, FO72/927.

101 Ibid.

102 Loney, , A Britisher, p. 102Google Scholar.

103 Loney to Farren, 10 Jul. 1861, FO72/1017.

104 British merchants to Webb, 17 Dec. 1864, FO72/1087.

105 Sobre los medios de colonizar la Ysla de Negros, Molto to the Gobernador Superior Civil, 13 Aug. 1864, AHN Legajo 447, Expediente No. 15.

106 I would also argue that the changed context — in which the interests of foreign businessmen in the provincial ports were deemed “self–evident” — affected later reconstructions of economic history. In 1905 it could confidently be asserted that one of the principal grievances of foreign traders in the early part of the nineteenth century was “the refusal of the authorities to open other ports beside Manila to foreign ships, thus necessitating the conveyance of produce from the most distant parts of the Archipelago to the Capital at entirely unnecessary cost”. Regidor, and Mason, , Commercial Progress, p. 33Google Scholar.

107 For the emergence of the rice export industry in mainland Southeast Asia, cf. Owen, Norman, “The Rice Industry of Mainland Southeast Asia 1850–1914”, Journal of the Siam Society 59 (1971): 75–143Google Scholar. Ironically, by a decree issued on Christmas Day 1857, the Spanish Philippines sent an expeditionary force of about 1,500, mostly native, soldiers to assist the French in Cochin-China. Molina, , Historia de Filipinas, pp. 226–27Google Scholar.

108 Foreign Office to Ricketts, 13 Jun. 1873, FO72/1355; and de Bosch to Ricketts, 29 Dec. 1873, FO72/1377.

109 Loney, , A Britisher, p. 47Google Scholar.

110 Loney to Farren, 10 Jul. 1861, FO72/1017.

111 In 1857, Loney observed that striped muslins “imitating ‘Sinamay’ have been imported to some extent” but sold at rates that hardly encouraged future sendings. Cotton sarongs which were “in considerable demand” also had “to be sold cheaply to compete with the native made goods of similar descriptions”. Loney sent samples of locally manufactured textiles in the hope “that the samples and details regarding this market forwarded to England may induce the shipment via Manila of a few goods from Glasgow or Manchester specially intended for Panay ….” Loney to Farren, 12 Apr. 1857, FO72/927. The study of local clothing practices as an imperial business strategy was even more sophisticated in British India. Cohn, Bernard, “Cloth, Clothes, and Colonialism: India in the Nineteenth Century”, in Cloth and Human Experience, ed. Weiner, Annette and Schneider, Jane (Washington, DC and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), pp. 338–41Google Scholar.

112 Loney, , A Britisher, p. 97Google Scholar.

113 Loney to Farren, 10 Jul. 1857, FO72/1017.

114 Ibid.

115 Loney to Russell, 10 Sep. 1864, FO72/1087; Ricketts to Stanley, 19 Sep. 1868, FO72/1193.

116 McCoy, Yloilo, pp. 62–63; and Ricketts to Granville, 5 May 1873, FO72/1355.

117 Wickberg, , Chinese in Philippine LifeGoogle Scholar; and Doeppers, Daniel, “Destination, Selection and Turnover among Chinese Migrants to Philippine Cities in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of Historical Geography 12 (1986):381–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 I offer an elucidation and substantiation of this argument elsewhere. Aguilar, “Phantoms of Capitalism”, chs. 4 and 5.