Legacies of the Encounter in Institutions

In this paper, I examine two types of texts from the early history of Spanish colonization: on the one hand, dalits or devotional poems by Tagalog natives praising the work of Catholic missionaries; on the other, a section of an eighteenth-century confessional manual used by missionaries to administer the sacrament of Penance. I frame my reading in terms of an on-going spiritual politics characteristic of colonial conversion practices. Each text embodied a different attitude toward the written word in the religious life of the colonial Philippines. For the Tagalog authors of the dalit, the book becomes a magical talisman valued for their protective power, while for the missionaries, confessional manuals provided a set of procedures for establishing an intimate disciplinary strategy meant to alter the behavior of Filipino natives and exact their obedience.

In 2014, the historian Ethan Hawkley remarked: “The momentum of the Reconquista and the legend of Santiago continued beyond Europe, as the Saint was converted from the spirit of anti-Muslim Christian nationalism into the spirit of Portuguese and Spanish imperial expansion.” Following the conclusions of that study, our presentation aims to ask three basic questions: a) can a profounder understanding of Spanish Middle Ages shed greater light on the context of the imperial expansion of Spain in Asia? B) can understanding of the history of the Middle Ages in Spain and its relationship with the aims and objectives of exploration, clarify further the relationship between the Medieval, the Renaissance, and  Modernity, and c) can this recontextualization of the imperial aims of Spain enable a more incisive articulation of the medievalisms in Philippine society and culture?

In the archives of the Society of Jesus of Barcelona are kept two handwritten volumes of a compilation of “moral cases” proposed and resolved in the seventeenth century by Jesuit theologians operating in the Philippines. These texts have only recently been the subject of scientific attention. Among the many themes that are discussed, the question of slavery occupies a significant place. What are the specific configurations of bondage; highlighted in this corpus? What are the Western authorities and argumentations convoked in order to confront them? What are the proposed positions and solutions? To what extent do those texts show a logic of adaptation to and negotiation with the Philippine reality?

The commodification of human beings, although it could manifest itself very differently in different contexts, was a feature of many, if not most pre-modern societies. It is no surprise then that differing forms of what is frequently referred to as “slavery” came to interact within the context of early modern Asian-Iberian contact, as both Europeans and the varied populations of the Philippines bought and sold people among themselves and across cultural boundaries. This paper examines the interactions between the Iberian and Southeast Asian conceptions of “slavery” taking as its starting point the wide-ranging canon law collections by the Dominican friar, Juan de Paz (d. 1699). This is a particularly valuable text, as Paz was intimately involved in the missionary process of attempting to understand various Asian societies (including in the Philippines, Tonkin and China) and harmonize local cultural forms with Christianity. By reconstructing contemporary understandings of both forms of “slavery” from the specific canon law problems that Paz presents, the paper will underline the perceived overlaps and divergences from the perspective of this learned observer. This will then lead into a discussion of how this process played out in practice.

In the seventeenth century, the Portuguese and Spanish imperial presence in the Asian world went through great adversities. These difficulties served as a backdrop for the development of a phenomenon that we today call “arbitrismo,” which consisted of the production of texts, usually addressed to monarchs, with proposals for solutions to the various problems faced by the two States. Written by several authors, from statesmen to the simply curious and adventurous, these writings embodied a true movement, which began in Spain in the sixteenth century and quickly spread to Portugal. The situation experienced by Macau and the Philippines at that time captured the attention of several of these “arbitristas.” In this communication, I propose to analyze the thoughts of two authors and the cures they advocated for the diagnosed problems. One of them is Jorge Pinto de Azevedo, soldier and trader, with extensive experience in the East, who lived in Macau for some time. The other is Hernando de los Ríos Coronel, a man of science who was a prosecutor of the Philippines at the royal court of Madrid. Both criticized the policy of their royal courts in relation to the territories concerned, highlighting their economic and strategic importance in the context of their respective maritime empires and advocating for them greater support and attention.

The Consejo de Filipinas was an entity created in 1870 by the Spanish government to receive expert advice and recommendations regarding the reforms that should be introduced in the Philippines. The Council had to be composed by specialists who knew the islands well and, as indicated in the decree of creation, should become “a representative of the Philippine country” and defend the interests of the population of the islands, allowing the voices of the Filipinos, who had no representatives in the Cortes, to be heard. In this way, through the Council’s reports, it is possible to analyze the attitude taken by colonial authorities and experts concerning both the archipelago’s main problems during those years, as well as the consideration they had of how Spanish colonization should be like, and how the Philippine population fits into those schemes.

To construct the American colonial state in the Philippines, American colonial officials did not start from scratch, but instead adapted the remnants of the pre-existing Spanish colonial administrative apparatus and deployed it towards the pursuit of their political and developmental goals for the Philippine Islands. Examining interactions among the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the Government of the Philippine Islands as well as between the Insular Government as the public sphere and spheres designated as private in the colony, this paper explores whether and to what extent this inherited constitutional terrain may have conditioned the operation of principles and practices that were transplanted from the American constitutional tradition to order relationships both internal and external to the Insular Government and reflects upon implications of this blended legacy for the government of the independent Philippine Republic. 

This paper is based on prosopographie research done on the Holy House of Mercy’s elites over a total of sixty-one biographies. We intend to identify the trajectories of relationships established with the Philippines and explain their nature. Additionally, we aim to correlate these elites with the economic diplomacy of Macao, as well as the city’s support and survival networks within the Macao–Manila–Nueva España axis.

Bishoprics were critical institutions in the Iberian Peninsula since medieval times. At the beginning of the early modern age, the network of dioceses increased and became a crucial element in the lives of the political centre and its subjects. In parallel, bishoprics quickly multiplied in the overseas territories of the Iberian empires. However, similarly to other institutions, the establishment of these dioceses entailed adaptations to the new territories and produced multiple consequences on the government of the bishoprics. In this presentation I intend to analyse the common features as well as the differences between the bishoprics of the Iberian Peninsula and those, in general much bigger, that were created in Asia, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Were the Iberian experiences a key element in the understanding of the creation of new bishoprics in Asia during this period? Can it be said that the reasons for the growing number of dioceses in the Iberian Peninsula and in Asia, in the sixteenth century, are connected and interrelated? Finally, is the creation of these new bishoprics part of the processes of territorialisation, as some historians that studied the evolution of justice or local government institutions in America have suggested?

Philippine Jesuit schools of education are important training sanctuaries for future teachers. These schools help build a nation by nurturing educators in their student years so that these said teacher-students may be equipped as they pursue their vocation of journeying with the Philippine youth towards meaningful and heroic learning. There is limited research on these Philippine Jesuit schools of education and how these have created an impact on Philippine nation-building. The qualitative research draws attention to the four pillars of Heroic Leadership in these schools of education. It will look for practices of Self-awareness, Ingenuity, Love, and Heroism in the Escuela Normal de Maestros in Manila established in the 1860s and in present-day schools of education found in four Jesuit universities: Ateneo de Davao, Ateneo de Naga, Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, and Ateneo de Zamboanga. Archival work will be done for the paper to examine the narrative of the Escuela Normal. Interviews and focused group discussions will be conducted among the stakeholders of the four present-day Jesuit schools of education. Weaving the story of the past into that of the present will produce a better appreciation of how Jesuit pedagogy has contributed to the flourishing of a transformative and revolutionary spirit that transcends Philippine education--and how it in itself has had a significant impact on nation-building.

The year 2020 marks the quasquicentennial, meaning 125th anniversary, of the Benedictine Missions to the Philippines. On 12 September 1895, twelve Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat in Spain, landed on Philippine soil.  They were to begin the foundations for Benedictine presence in the Philippines.  Deviating from the original intent of establishing agricultural colonies (as they were previously effective in Europe since the Middle Ages), the monks had as their mission the taking over of the parishes that the members of the Society of Jesus—Jesuits—in the missions of Mindanao.  This paper seeks to trace the collaboration between the Benedictines and Jesuits in the negotiations, planning, and eventual turn-over of the parishes in Surigao.  It will be evident that the Benedictines, notably the latest among the religious orders in Europe to send missionaries to the Philippines during the Spanish colonization, had at their disposal the unwavering assistance of the Jesuits in the successful sending of Benedictine missionaries. Not only did the Jesuits provide the necessary connections to both civil and ecclesiastical authorities, they also extended to the monks the essential necessities that launching a religious enterprise  entails

Historian John N. Schumacher, SJ, opines that “one major defect” of the Spanish missionary enterprise was “the disastrous failure to develop an adequate native clergy.” Nevertheless, by the end of the Spanish regime, there were more than 150 Filipino parish priests and many more coadjutor parish priests in the country. The record is dismal for Filipinos admitted into the religious orders themselves. This paper looks at the case of the Society of Jesus and presents some historical considerations for the admission of Filipinos into the ranks of the Jesuits. It also sets some directions for future research in Philippine Jesuit and Church history.

A few years after the successful conquest of major native settlements in the Philippines, the Spanish authorities started sending waves of immigrants from various parts of Spain to reside in these provincial capitals which were eventually elevated to the dignified status of  royal cities. Functioning primordially as military outposts, the cities of Cebu, Manila, Naga, and Vigan evolved into an archipelagic network of vibrant Iberian communities. As multi-faceted colonial nerve centers, these cities  served as effective channels for comprehensive Hispanizing projects. Drawing mainly from Spanish archival documents, this paper explores the urban morphology of these nascent Iberian communities and their early social interaction with the nearby native communities.  But of greater emphasis is given on  discovering their role in the preservation and expansion of colonial hegemony in these respective regions.

This paper examines how the long history of rebellion against empire is encoded in Manila’s cityscape. Statues, museums, and street art combine to forge an anti-colonial urban space that evokes and condemns the violence of Spanish colonialism and celebrates the men and women who rebelled against it. I analyze several sites including the Lagusnilad underpass decorated by the Gerilya art collective’s new mural that portrays Lapu-Lapu and other indigenous warriors battling the first-wave of armor-clad Iberian conquistadors in the sixteenth century alongside scenes from the life and death of José Rizal, the ilustrado critic of empire executed by the colonial government in 1896. Bronze busts of these early modern rebels line the nearby Rizal Park adjacent to Fort Santiago; the bastion of Spanish power in the archipelago is thus reinvented as a monument to a movement that destroyed it. Exploring the notion of the city as an anti-colonial monument, this chapter also speaks to the problems of simplifying the complexity of colonial rule, and it questions who is rendered invisible in versions of history repurposed for nation-building. Moreover, it highlights the contested nature of anti-colonial narratives and the persistence of alternative romanticized visions of the Spanish Pacific, such as those on display in the Augustinian Church and Museum in Intramuros. This critical assessment of Manila’s public interpretations of the colonial past puts the Philippines’ experience in conversation with urgent discussions about the memorialization of the Spanish empire in North America. Lapu-Lapu’s spear casts new light on Oñate’s foot.

In the late eighteenth to the nineteenth century, Manila first witnessed its first phase of intensive urbanization and development bolstered by the social and economic transformations and the ballooning of its population. The heightened city movement and rapid city growth produced varied problems of sanitation, order, and control and posed challenges to the administration of the colonial capital. Moreover, the spread of infectious diseases and waves of cholera epidemic aggravated the city ́s condition. During this time, increased public works were introduced by the Spanish colonial government in Manila to bring solutions to the growing urban needs and problems of the colony. This study presents the colonial public works projects as a lens by which Manila’s urban transformation and (re)configuration as a colonial city could be displayed and analyzed. Ideas of public health, urban hygiene, order, and control heavily influenced the conception, design, and construction of Manila’s colonial built environment in the late eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Moreover, it examines the infrastructure projects as they became spaces of governance and surveillance. The laws and decrees that regulated these urban landscapes’ use and functions provide a glimpse of the colonial government’s view on governmentality and authority. These regulations produced varied responses from Manila’s diverse racial and socio-economic communities, thus converting the public works projects as urban spaces of encounter, contestation, and negotiation in the colonial city. The investigation heavily relies on materials culled from the Spanish archives of the Archivo General de Indias and the Archivo Histórico Nacional as well as the National Archives of the Philippines.

This is a study of auditory cultures and sounds of Manila during the late nineteenth century before Manila was urbanised. This paper focuses on sonic terms or collective habitat expressions of weather and other natural elements, found in the third edition of Vocabulario de la lengua tagala of the Jesuit priests Pedro Sanlucar and Juan de Noceda, published in 1860 and was recently translated in 2016 into Filipino by National Artist, Virgilio Almario. By collating these sonic terms, we are not trying to hear how the people then heard Manila, but we can understand some of the ways in which sound and hearing featured in the negotiation of their everyday life. This paper tells us something about life then, how these sonic terms fashion, frame, and flesh out our world, surroundings, and our very existence.