Abstract

The adoption of nineteenth-century European sporting practices was a component in the ilustrados’ creation of a national identity. The adoption of foreign sports promised these young men from the Spanish Philippines an opportunity to stand on equal footing with their supposed betters. The constant training of the body was treated as a tool to maintain health, a weapon against vices, and an avenue to achieve excellence in a modern cultural space associated with ideals of masculinity and civilization.

Their attempts to assert their equal status as competitors on the playing field opposite their Spanish contemporaries possess similar characteristics to the history of sports in other colonial societies, where subaltern narratives feature the creation of distinct sporting cultures which eventually competed against —and sometimes even defeated—those of the colonizers. However, the acculturation of the fencing and shooting the ilustrados practiced in Spain would be disrupted by the Revolution of 1896, and the historical pattern of sport in the colony would have to begin anew under American colonial rule.

Mr. Micah Jeiel R. Perez is an aspiring scholar of sports and recently finished his M.A. in History at the Ateneo de Manila University. His research interests include international sporting events, sports governance, and the history of Philippine elite sports. He also awaits the day that the e-sports scene becomes old enough to be the subject of serious historical inquiry.