Trade and Samar

Trade and Samar in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries©

Bruce Cruikshank

18 September 2016, Revised October 2016

This essay will use the theme of trade in Samar’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century municipalities as the vehicle to examine the lives and activities of Samareños in those times.  Please see the map of Samar (entitled Samar Pueblos circa 1898, Sketch Map) elsewhere on this web site for the locations of these pueblos.[i]

Table of Contents

Seventeenth-century Prologue                                                        2

The Importance of Guiuan                                                              6

The Eighteenth-century Context                                                    9

Early Nineteenth-century Samar                                                     11

Chinese Mestizos                                                                            15

Huerta                                                                                             18

Jagor                                                                                                22

The Chinese and Abaca                                                                  24

Conclusion                                                                                      27

Appendix One: Population Figures for Samar’s Pueblos,

         Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries                               30

Appendix Two: Chinese Mestizos on Samar in the

         Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries                                 32

Appendix Three: Chinese on Samar in the Nineteenth Century     36

End Notes                                                                                       39

Trade and Samar in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries©

Seventeenth-century Prologue

Samar in the seventeenth century was an island of agricultural and marine productivity joined to some commerce within the island and to nearby islands and even to Manila.  Rice productivity seems to have been quite good, “incredible” even, as the Jesuit priest Alcina in his remarkable 1668 manuscript observed:[1]

The rice-yield is abundant here [Samar]; not merely a hundred-to-one,

as some people say, but two or three hundred-to-one; oftentimes even more,

something indeed very incredible.  In some regions the yield is greater than in

others and some years better than others, due to the varying circumstances of

climate.  There are some years, undoubtedly, which are more productive than

others.  Some fields also may be more fertile than others even though they may

be adjacent or even contiguous.

This productivity is even more remarkable since rice fields seem to have been swidden (kaingin) or dry field cultivation.[ii]  Alcina mentions that the primary tool used was the bolo or machete, the best tool for the purpose, given “the numerous roots which this entire land has.”  “It is a tedious procedure because here they have used neither plows nor hoes[iii] nor our other tools to this day” (Alcina, v. 3, 103).  Planting involved two steps with clearly defined roles based on sex: men made holes with sharpened poles while women followed behind and dropped 5 or 6 grains of rice, closing the hole with the big toe as they went on.  Fields were planted with neighbors helping neighbors, with the cost to the field’s owner only the feeding of those helping (Alcina, v. 3, 109).

Some of this rice crop’s abundance was used in trade or to pay tribute (Alcina, v. 1, 251).  Root crops were also grown, one of which, palauan,[iv] seems to have been a trading staple as well as a back-up crop when the rice supply was scarce or exhausted (Alcina, v. 1, 219):

                     On an island near Guiuan and even in the pueblo itself, though not that

much, the Palawan is rather common…  The natives of Guiuan, excellent sailors,

carry it in their ship-storages for trading and transactions since these last for a

long time without spoilage, especially if they are well-dried.

Alcina also mentions the municipality of Guiuan in terms of its productivity in coconuts and in the production of coconut oil (Alcina, v. 1, 347):

                     There is such an island near Guiuan called Suluan …  This island is so

fertile and abundant in trees, that the trunks stand almost as close as the fingers

of the hand, although at the top they are more separated.  The coconuts sprout

on the base of the trunks themselves; or having fallen they spread out their

sprouts and roots, so that the entire island, except the marshy portions in which

plant the Palawan [palauán] mentioned before, is filled with palm trees.  Some

are so close to the sea that when the coconuts ripen they drop into the waters. 

                     One cannot reach this said island without going through the mouth of

the strait which lies between the Island of Ibabao[v] and Mindanao.  The currents

are so strong here that people can [only][vi] go to the island to harvest the coconut

at certain times of the year … otherwise one runs the risk of being drifted by

the currents, as sometimes happens, and never appear again.

                     The people of Guiuan produce plentiful oil in this island because during

the dry season, when they cross there, the fruit is at its best.

         Abaca or hemp was another item emphasized by Alcina.  In the seventeenth century the plant’s fibers were notable in their use in the weaving of blankets, cloths, and other items.  Alcina, v. 1, 247 and 249, discusses abaca with information on its use by women to make blankets (men helped out with abaca varieties whose fibers were hard to card), which were used for tribute or for trade:

                     I find some twelve different groups or species of these plants, all of

which belong to the abaca class.  … with different names to reflect their

particular qualities.  This group of twelve are the kind that are planted and

cultivated.  There are also many wild ones and of great size and large stalk. 

Not all the wild ones are useful and not all of them give fibers from which

blankets and textiles can be made….

Alcina observed that Samareños paid about 12 ½ pounds of harvested abaca for a credit of two reales towards their tribute obligations.  They held out the better quality abaca, which “they trade among themselves” for making blankets.  For “a skein or a bundle large enough to fit between the thumb and the index finger” of the better quality, they sell it for a real, sometimes “two when there is a shortage or a demand for abaca.[vii] 

Women were the mainstays in weaving—“…all the women are weavers.  Here, only the women are engaged in this capacity, unless in rare instances it be an effeminate man, more for their precise needs of dressing themselves than for the purpose of selling to others” Alcina, v. 3, 121; “Just as all women are weavers, so all the men are carpenters” (Alcina, v. 3, 125); and “As we have said, ordinarily the women are the weavers” (Alcina, v. 3, 137).  Whereas, with another craft, both sexes did the work of making the “thick baskets” from nipa fronds, some of which were used to

         carry rice from place to place with great convenience and little impediment,

and with less hindrance than from other types of baskets.  All these articles

are for the livelihood of the people.  All this is so cheap and requires only the

labor of the natives.  All of them, men as well as women, have this skill.

Alcina, v. 1, 363

This seventeenth-century chronicler contrasts pre-Hispanic conditions with the economic conditions in the island at the time he was writing, indicating that there was now more trade, coinage, and imported goods than before (Alcina, v. 3, 127 and 129):

         However, it is true that iron, which in ancient times was acquired either

through the hands of the Chinese or the Borneans, or others who trade with

them, was so scarce that it was a rare individual that came to have what was

necessary for his trade.  Nonetheless, they always had iron workers who

fashioned the bolos, knives, axes and all the rest needed for the fields …and

the other offensive weapons for their petty wars….  They substituted for one

or another purpose hard wood which lessened their problem in the lack of iron. 

Today, with the association with the Spaniards and the commerce with the

neighboring peoples, and even those distant from these Islands—together with

the accumulation of ‘reales de ocho’ which are brought here from Mexico—

there is an abundance of arms and all kinds of other weapons both of iron and

steel.  In this matter there are first class artisans who make every variety of

these with special ease and skill.  ….         

         Before the Spanish and the connection via the Manila galleon with silver coin from Mexico, Samareños engaged in barter when they traded (Alcina, v. 1, 251).  At the time Alcina was writing, however, coin use seems to have been widespread (Alcina, v. 3, 135):

         At a moderate price, the workman demands about one real for making a new

bolo, including the iron and the steel; to restore/repair another, adding steel,

half-a-real.  And thus more or less for other bigger or smaller instruments. 

They are paid according to their nature.

                     It is certain that no artisan among the Bisayans is more profitable

than this kind, as he is the most honored and esteemed among them; the

greatest chiefs are the best smiths.

Samareño talents were recognized and paid for by the Spanish as well, according to Alcina.  Certainly the most notable example is the following (Alcina, v. 3, 209):

         There have been Bisayan natives who have been equal to the Spaniards

themselves in knowing how to select and fashion the wood in suitable

manner for the ships.  They are paid salaries greater than those of many

Spaniards.  Among others, although, I could mention more, a chief of the

town of Palapag where I composed much of this Historia, Don Juan

Polacay, who died a few years ago at an advanced age.  He told me that

he participated in all the construction which had been [done] in these

Bisayan Islands after the Spaniards came, where most it had been done,

that there have been more than twenty large galleons, not to mention

lighter craft.  They paid him a salary of chief clerk and head of the others.

Palapag was one of the pueblos or municipalities on Samar.  Another pueblo, Guiuan, we have met and now needs to be addressed at greater length.

The Importance of Guiuan

Perhaps during Alcina’s time, and certainly for the eighteenth century and most of the nineteenth century, Guiuan seems to have been the most populous pueblo on the island.  The data I have located shows that Guiuan was first or second in size for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: 

First Five Pueblos Ranked by Population, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries[viii]

Year of Data  Largest Size  Second       Third      Fourth     Fifth in Size

1659       Calbiga (1,684)      Guiuan (1,495)  Paranas (1,280)   Catbalogan (963)  Catubig  (742)

1675       Guiuan (3,900)      Calbiga (2,537)  Paranas (2,082)   Borongan (2,008)  Capul  (1,630)

1696               Guiuan (5,462)      Paranas (2916)  Catbalogan (2,530)  Sulat    (2,196)   Tubig  (1,905)

1737       Guiuan (5,862)      Basey  (5,400)   Sulat    (3,898)     Paranas (3546)  Umauas/Villa Real (3,483)

1751       Guiuan (6,572)   Umauas/Villa Sulat    (4,555)    Paranas (4,176)  Borongan (3,423)

Real & Calbiga (5,761)

1755     Guiuan (6,564)   Umauas/Villa         Sulat (4,993))  Catbalogan 4,872)  Basey (4,522)

Real & Calbiga (5,834)

1779 Guiuan (8,403)  Bangajon/ Gandara (3,570)  Basey (3.334)  Catarman (2,602)  Tubig    (2,566)

1797 Guiuan (9,801)  Basey (4,226)     Bangajon/ Gandara (3,833)   Catarman (3,829)  Umauas/Villa     Real & Calbiga (3,613)

While the figures vary in often inexplicable ways, the point that is unambiguous is that Guiuan in the eighteenth century had the most residents of any other pueblo on Samar.  No other pueblo was consistently second and often even the second-ranked one was much less populous than Guiuan.

         If we use number of residents as a proxy for wealth—assuming that people resided where chances for life and profit existed, and that where there were greater opportunities more people stayed or were attracted to that pueblo— Guiuan was the wealthiest pueblo on the island.  The relative wealth of Guiuan was almost certainly based on trade, with items coming in from its hinterland (e.g., coconut oil from Suluan), from other pueblos and regions on Samar, perhaps from parts of Leyte as well, and then shipped on to Manila.  Sources to document Guiuan’s pre-eminence are sparse and fragmentary.  Nonetheless there are significant pieces of evidence for Guiuan’s pre-eminence in eighteenth-century Samar.

         The first is from 1734, listing the names and pueblos of those who rallied to put to sea in an expedition against the raiders from Mindanao and Sulu.  Led by Maestros de Campo (named below), Guiuan (with Balangiga) contributed more men than any other pueblo.  The figures I surmise are reflective of population, wealth, boats, and maritime activity.  No combatants were listed from the pueblos of Catarman, Laoang, Palapag, Catubig, Borongan, or Calbayog:[2]

Guiuan and Balangiga,       Don Matheo Dimatuling, 69 men listed

Basey                              Don Joseph Bocihan, 23 men listed

Catbalogan                      Don Thomas Baladhay, 25 men listed

Gandara [Bangajon]         Don Joseph Guimban, 21 men listed

Sulat                                Don Ygnacio Managbanag, 16 men listed

Tubig                               Don Pedro Cabuyoc, 21 men listed

Villa Real [Umauas]         Don Martin Bonaya (also described as Caveza de Barangay

                                                         and Capitán of the pueblo), 42 men listed

Calbiga                            Don Jul [sic] Y peson [sic], 27 men listed

         Capul                              Don Francisco Joseph, 28 men listed         

Paranas                            Don Juan Macalaglag, 30 men listed

         The second piece of evidence is also somewhat indirect.  A Jesuit writing about 1750 described the fortress in place at Guiuan as one of the “grandest” in the Visayas; indeed it even exceeded in magnitude the one in Zamboanga, the Spanish foothold in the Muslim regions of the archipelago.  Guiuan’s fortress was large enough to surround the church completely.  At night, sentinels were posted at night with soldiers as well stationed there.[3]  Such a fortress, both its construction and maintenance, must have been justified by its importance, plausibly by the commercial importance of Guiuan.  While many areas of Samar could have produced coconut oil for sale, Guiuan was perhaps in the mind of the same writer when he mentioned that coconut oil “was carried to Manila for sale every year” along with marine goods, honey and wax,[4] pig fat, ambergris, and cloths made of abaca.  When weather permitted, Samareños traveled by sea to other islands to trade (78).[ix]  While Pambujan was mentioned for sigay (shells of small snails or cowrie shells) and balate (sea cucumbers), the islands near Guiuan were mentioned as prime sources for coconuts and their oil (81).  Guiuan as a source of commercial voyages to Manila is validated by the next piece of evidence.

         This is a manuscript reference from the end of the eighteenth century, when in 1779 the government collected testimonies of eastern Visayan skippers about why they had not sailed to Manila from the late 1760s to August of 1779.[5]  Ten were interviewed, three from Samar and seven from Leyte (mainly from Carigara).  The Samareños, two of them from Guiuan (one was of unknown provenance) testified as follows:

Testimony of Nicolas Vegis, Master (arraes) of the caracoa[x] Santo Christo from Guiuan. 

         Had been 10 years since the current number of caracoas now shipping to

         Manila.  His cargo includes coconut oil, lard, wax, balate, and woven fabrics. 

         Heretofore had not come because of the Moros.  Used to come annually.  Came

         this year because heard that the Governor General had ordered ships out against

         the Moros.

Testimony of Lorenzo Justiniano, chief (cabo) of caracoa San Francisco Xavier of Guiuan. 

                     Due to the Moro threat, had been ten years since he last came to Manila. 

         Had cannons on his boat but could not compete with the Moro fleets.

Testimony of Miguel Pedrosa, 35 years old, Master (arraes) of caracoa Santa Catharina, from

                     Samar (pueblo not specified).  Had not come before because of the Moros, with   

                     which he could not compete.  Came this year because sailed in a group of 43

                     boats, even though their main weapons were bows and arrows; and because had

                     heard that the Governor General had planned to sail against the Moros.

All three of the sailors alluded to hardships during these ten years, families having fled to the mountains or reduced to the “greatest misery” when their pueblos had been destroyed and burned.  Detail and explanations are scant.  However, it is clear that at least in the second half of the eighteenth century memory and practice of commercial voyages between Manila and Guiuan were part of the experience of men of the sea in the eastern Visayas.  Their cargoes were made up of coconut oil, wax, sea products, and woven fabrics.  Moreover, when the trade connection was cut or constricted and raiders ran free, there was significant economic suffering.  While the trade significance of the connection was probably slight for Manila, for Guiuan and Samar it apparently was of notable importance.

         The fourth substantive indicator of Guiuan’s preeminence dates from right around 1800, when an Augustinian observed significant maritime activity from Guiuan and from Catbalogan to ship coconut oil from Guiuan, abaca cloths, and other items for sale in Manila.  The traffic was carried out in Samareño caracoas powered, we are told, by sail and paddle.[6]  The cleric observed that Guiuan was “very rich” (v. 2, 65).

The Eighteenth-Century Context

         What was the Samar context for Guiuan’s preeminence and trade?  What was Samar like in the second half of the eighteenth century, what level of prosperity and life conditions did Samareños experience?  We have a lengthy report from 1770, speaking generally of Leyte and Samar.[7]  Since the author is the Provincial of the Augustinians, and since the Augustinians had by this time inherited the formerly Jesuit parishes of eastern Leyte and southern Samar, the observations are probably based on experience in those areas.[xi] 

The Augustinian began by observing that literacy was low and that one consequence was that those who did know how to read and write tended to occupy the positions of scribe and gobernadorcillo[xii] repeatedly, giving them significant autonomy and power in the pueblos and vis-à-vis the Spanish governor.  As the writer phrased it, after commenting on the domination of office by a small group of pueblo leaders, the result was greatly unsuitable to the “proper subordination and obedience” to the provincial governors.  Within the pueblos the upper crust, the Datus, were supreme and obedience to them was absolute, with large bands of followers, many of them who were hidden from tribute and other obligations to the Spanish government.  “They are effectively obeyed in anything they order, there is no one to oppose them.” 

         Franciscans too wrote about the parishes they took over from the Jesuits.  Their comments echo those made by the Augustinians for southern Samar and eastern Leyte, suggesting a common political, social, and agricultural set of cultures.  Literacy itself was not addressed but knowledge of Spanish was rare outside of Catbalogan.[8]  Those who did know a bit of Spanish were those who had been active in commerce.[9]  The Franciscans also noted that Samareño allegiance and obedience to their own leaders was as significant as the Augustinian had reported, with a Franciscan writing in 1785 that Samareños gave blind:[10]

         … submission, obedience, and respect to their leaders in the pueblos, more to

their Cavezas or Datos [sic] than to the governor.  Nothing is done without the

counsel, opinion, and consent of the Datos,no matter how much the governor

demands obedience to his orders and rules.  Crimes of the leaders, relatives,

servants, and friends remain unpunished.  [The legal authorities] do not dare

to apprehend them.

The writer further observed that Moro attacks had constrained movement and commerce: “Some [coconut] oil is taken to Manila, when they can,” when feasible in spite of the danger from the Moros.[11]  Similarly, general movement by sea had been impeded, industry had been reduced to weaving and some wax along with a bit of coconut oil taken to Manila.[12]  Moro raids had had a severe impact on the pueblos with Franciscan parishes, with even Catbalogan at risk.  Paranas was devasted for two years in a row.  Borongan’s formerly very active trade[xiii] to Manila and consequent abundance of silver and good clothing there had been eclipsed by Moro attacks, though trade networks run by its cabezas de barangay continued to nearby settlements.[13]  Most trade seems to have been centered on Catbalogan, with products from other pueblos brought there and purchased by traders and boats from Cebu and Manila.[14]

         In terms of agriculture, a report from about 1784 mentioned that rice production was low, with only Catarman, Bangajon (Gandara), Paranas, and Tubig with enough surplus for sale.  In other pueblos, rice was insufficient until the next harvest, leading to dependence on root crops for subsistence.[15]  A Franciscan writing in 1775 said that Bangajon (Gandara) produced surplus rice, which was bought up by the provincial governor who then sold it for a profit in Catbalogan.[16]  There were no cattle or carabaos on Samar, and very few horses.[17] 

         A non-clerical source from around 1792 gives us more information about the cultivation of rice in Palapag, reporting that the practice in that pueblo was dry rice cultivation rather than wet rice in paddies.  The writer, a member of the Malaspina expedition,[18] observed that it was the women who cultivated the ground, poked holes with sticks, and planted the rice seed in November, then harvested the crop by hand in May. He made reference to a second crop, planted in June and harvested in a shorter period, four months to maturity.  If the Augustinians were correct that the plow was not used on Samar until they arrived after 1768, perhaps dry rice continued to be the most common form of rice cultivation on the island at least as late as this 1792 report from Palapag.  The observer from the Malaspina expedition also noted that looms using abaca were present in the pueblo, that it took about 8 days to make the fabrics sold in Manila for 2 or 3 pesos each, suggesting regular commerce to the colony’s capital (ff. 363v-364).[xiv]  Other items traded to Manila from Palapag included wax, coconut oil, pig lard, marine products, and abaca.  The goods were transported in convoys of four or five large boats, taking about a month in coming and going, both because of the distance as well as the dangers from Moros (f. 364v). 

Early Nineteenth-Century Samar

         This type of information regarding Palapag is remarkably rare in the manuscripts that have come down to us.  However, it suggests that other pueblos might have carried on a small-scale trade with Manila as well.  We saw earlier that Guiuan may have had the most significant number of boats travelling regularly to Manila, when the Moro threat permitted.  It is only when we get to the first part of the nineteenth century that we begin to get other sources and significant data indicating that Guiuan’s supremacy was continuing but that other pueblos were now documented as being significant economic producers and trade participants in their own right.  The Bishop of Cebu, writing in 1815, suggested substantial Guiuan dominance in commerce between Samar and the western Visayas when he said that the language of Eastern Leyte and Samar was Guivano (today of course we would label it as Waray).  His usage suggests merchants from Guiuan were so numerous that the language eastern Bisayans used in Cebu was intrinsically linked to the pueblo of Guiuan.[19] 

The bishop added as well that commerce by sea or by land was the only way to riches, at least in the eastern Visayas, where agriculture production was so scant that the most common diet was one based on root crops.  A governor of Samar wrote in 1832 that contraband trade by Samareños was not uncommon, while “the little agriculture and fishing is in the hands of the most wretched, who are hard put to harvest a little rice or marine goods for their tribute while subsisting on” root crops.  He stated that the population on the island tended to be dispersed and frequently Samareños changed location to avoid the “inopportune visits by cabezas de barangay as well as to fish and [seek] the most fertile soil” for their agriculture.[20] The governor added that the class with power [la clase pudiente] “is purely dedicated to commerce.”[21] 

Wealth on Samar came from trade.  However, from Manila’s perspective as we see in an 1818 report, trade from Samar was not significant, with only five boats officially registered in Manila as having come from the island.[22]  (Pueblo origins are not given.)  By 1824 we have a listing for products exported from Samar to Manila, though unfortunately again without pueblo origin:[23]

Item, measure used           from Samar   from throughout the Islands to Manila, & price

Wax, quintales                                125                            2,675         30 pesos/quintal[xv]

Turtle shell, quintales                        10                          154.5    500 pesos/quintal     

Balate (sea cucumbers), quintales   300                            7,300.5      16 pesos/quintal

Shark fins, quintales                          12.5                         124.5     16 pesos/quintal

“Ebony,” ebano/ Evano, quintales  1,775                           15,925          1.5 peso/quintal

Pepita de San Ygnacio,[24] cavan el  125                            125          4 pesos/cavan

Cow & carabao hides                      500                          56,170          4.75 real

Sigay [shells], cavanes                    125                            5,425          1.5 pesos/cavan

Coconut oil, tinajas                 9,000                          17,150          2 pesos/tinaja

I include the amount throughout the Islands of each of the Samar items imported to Manila, which shows that while the trade was presumably of significant importance to Samareños—perhaps 36,500 pesos--it was “small beer” in the overall economy centered on Manila.  Samar exported 9 items to Manila, but the report listed 93 items imported to Manila from all over the Islands.  The Pepita de San Ygnacio, apparently found in exportable amounts mainly on Samar, was significant in the archipelago-wide trade to Manila, but its quantity and consequent value in that trade were low.  Half the coconut oil imported into Manila came from Samar. 

         By 1829 we have an official listing of trading boats from Samar arriving in Manila.[25]  The figures suggest that commerce to and from Manila from Leyte and Samar was common but low in number of boats officially making the journeys.  The seasonal pattern is clear as well.

        boats[xvi]     boats from Leyte  boats to Samar boats to Leyte

from Samar            

January 1829

zero 1 galera zero zero

February 1829

2 pontines 1 bergantin 1 bergantin 1 goleta, 1 galera

March 1829

zero zero zero zero

April 1829

7 pontines 1 bergantin 1 bergantin 1 bergantin

May 1829

    1 bergantin, 1 bergantin,  3 pontines, zero

1 galera,      1 galera 1 galera,

      5 pontines,         1 caracoa,

        2 caracoas,          1 panco

3 vintas

June 1829

   3 pontines, 1 pontin 1 goleta, 1 galera,

        3 caracoas,   6 pontines, 1 pontin

        1 baroto     3 caracoas,

  1 panco,

  1 parao

July 1829

1 galera, 2 pontines 1 pontin,   1 bergantin

1 pontin, 2 caracoas,

1 caracoa 1 panco

August 1829

zero zero 1 galera, 1 pontin   2 pontines

September 1829

zero zero zero zero

October 1829

zero 1 goleta 1 falua 1 galera

November 1829

zero zero zero zero

From Samar came 31 boats, with 27 boats returning to Samar from Manila.  Yearly totals, at least in the official record, could fluctuate—for 1834, 41 boats came to Manila from Samar.[26]  Similar data from 1835 shows traffic to/from Samar, again without pueblo of origin, with 33 in that year to Manila from Samar, with 30 officially registering as sailing back from Manila to the island.  Again, Samar had much more activity than Leyte, which only sent 11 boats to and from Manila in 1835, two more each way than in 1829.[27]  In 1851, thirty-five boats in fifty-five trips from Samar to Manila carried abaca, coconut oil, balate (sea cucumbers), coconuts, as well as shark fin, sulfur, rattan, cacao, tortoise shells, wax, lard, and other items.[28] 

         There are indications that regional trade within Samar as well as to Albay, to Leyte, even to Cebu or to Iloilo was going on as well.  For instance, in January of 1832 a boat with nine men traveling from Albay bringing trade goods to Samar was captured;[29] and in August 1838 five Moro boats attacked a boat carrying unhusked rice (palay) from Maripipi, Leyte to the Calbayog region.[30]  In 1855 there is a brief reference to trade from Leyte and Samar to Cebu, primarily in woven items, abaca cordage, and coconut oil.[31]  Even after the end of the Manila Galleon connection to Mexico’s silver mines in 1815, a Spanish Treasury official wrote from Manila in August 1838 that tribute payments on Leyte, Samar, and Negros continued and had “always” been paid usually in coin, suggesting sufficient liquidity and circulation to sustain and power trade in Samar’s products.[32]  We are told that there were no markets as such in Samar at this time.  As late as 1869, Fedor Jagor in his report on his 1859 trip to Samar said the same, an observation I will return to later.[33]  Only a bit before November 1880 was a market established in Catbalogan.[34] 

With no markets but demand for Samar’s products in Manila and elsewhere, and with coin enough to facilitate exchange, how and by whom were goods collected for export?  One network was run by the Spanish provincial governors, probably using pueblo officials as collectors, enabling the officials to collect goods at low pay credits for sale elsewhere at higher, market prices.  Charges in 1857 against a Spanish governor of Samar included storing trade goods in the government house in Catbalogan for commerce to other areas of Samar; and the use of official labor drafts to transport rice from Calbayog for that trade.[35]  Spanish provincial governors often gamed tribute collections in kind for their own benefit and trade advantage.  We see this clearly in a 1865-1866 case against a former governor of Samar, charged and convicted for underpricing tribute collections of rice, part of which he then sold in Samar and even in the Camarines at a higher price.[36] 

Chinese Mestizos

         Other sets of people could also have collected goods for shipping from Guiuan and elsewhere, either directly at the production sources in the hinterlands or by receiving goods for cash or trade goods in Guiuan and other pueblos.  The most identifiable of these traders are the Chinese mestizos, who probably came from outside of Samar.  Undoubtedly there were other Filipinos,[xvii] born on Samar, active in trade as well as a few Spanish mestizos.  Notwithstanding the participation of others, the group most often identified active in trade on Samar and separate from the Spanish governor’s commercial activities was the Chinese mestizo community.  Chinese mestizos were Filipinos who paid a higher tax to acknowledge Chinese descent, usually through the male line from Chinese men who had come to the Islands to seek their fortune.  Because of their tax status, which carried some perquisites of higher status and exemption from some colonial obligations, Chinese mestizos were often identified in the documents and society of the time. 

A letter to the Franciscan Provincial noted in 1785 that Catbalogan had “some one hundred families of Chinese mestizos and a few of Spanish mestizos.”[37]  Another Franciscan noted, also in 1785, that the common products produced for trade in Samar—rice, coconut oil, wax, blankets and other woven products—were sold or traded directly to Chinese mestizos, who transported them for sale to Cebu and to Manila.[38]  This cleric added that Mestizos de Sangley or Chinese Mestizos “resided in the capital of Catbalogan and a few [lived] in other Pueblos.”    Martínez de Zúñiga, an Augustinian writing between 1803 and 1805, observed that Guiuan was “very rich due to the many mestizos de chino there.”[39]  The numbers for this community were never large, but they appear to have been significant participants in Samar’s commercial traffic.  In the late eighteenth century we begin to get figures for them, with 92 in 1792; 147 in 1812; 206 in 1842; and 265 in 1850 (see Appendix Two for a fuller statement of figures and sources). 

Thanks to conflict between the governor and Chinese mestizos over access to Samareño production, we have late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century manuscripts that allow us to move beyond the figures to see attempts by the governor and municipal officials to monopolize access to pueblo productions.  The earliest case found is from 1792 with a complaint by Catbalogan principales and a Chinese mestizo from Catbalogan (Manuel Phelipe de los Reyes) complaining to Manila that the gobernadorcillo of Bangajon (Gandara), Don Juan Luz, had not allowed them to enter Bangajon to trade.  A brief passage mentions that the Chinese mestizo was affronted because he could not collect products for which he had made advances.  The complaint also mentions that three boats owned by residents of Bohol, loaded with rice and other goods, had been prohibited from landing in Bangajon and diverted to Catbalogan.  In 1793 the Spanish authorities ruled that those restrictions were not legitimate and that access for business was not to be impeded.[40]   

Notwithstanding this precedent, eleven years later, in August of 1804 a subsequent governor of Samar ordered gobernadorcillos in Samar to forbid access to any merchant when the royal tribute was being collected.  The reason was that the merchants, Chinese mestizos, would go house by house selling or bartering goods for blankets and wax, leaving nothing for the pueblo residents to give for their tribute obligation—or leaving only inferior quality products to be collected.  In March of 1805 the governor sent the order to Manila for evaluation and advice. 

Almost a year later, in January of 1806, Manila authorities made their decision, again decreeing that commerce was open to all subjects.[41]    Even so, in October of 1806 the gobernadorcillo and cabezas de barangay of Guiuan asked the governor in Catbalogan to prohibit entry into Guiuan by merchants when tribute payments to the government were being made, which was also the time of harvest.  Their concern was that since these merchants had given advances to farmers, they would be repaid first in kind during harvest, buy the harvest, or swap goods for the harvest, with nothing then left for the tribute obligation.  The governor wrote Manila in April of 1807 requesting judgement on the Guiuan request.  In June of 1807, remarkably quickly for the imperial bureaucracy, the reply was that there was no valid reason to stop entry of Chinese mestizo merchants, since by law resident and ambulatory merchants, “native” or mestizo, were allowed free practice of their business.

         Nonetheless Samar’s governor tried again, this time in October of 1807, with a complaint against four Chinese mestizos from Catbalogan.[xviii]  The problem from the governor’s point of view that these merchants went to various pueblos and bought up the products available at good prices, leaving no tribute in kind available because all had been sold to these merchants.  The governor did not observe that the sellers could then pay their tribute with the cash they had received.  Rather he added the clever argument that the merchants were hurting the poor since they had bought at high prices meaning that the market prices subsequently would reflect the new price floor for goods.  In February 1808, Manila ruled against the governor’s request.[42] 

         The surviving manuscripts contain no other examples of this conflict nor the fragmentary hints of advances against future crops, ambulatory merchants going house to house to buy and sell, and attempts by the Spanish governor and municipal officials to use the tribute system to collect quality goods in bulk for (presumably) sale for private profit with the tribute due paid from the proceeds.  The sensible strategy for the governor and pueblo officials would have been to accept that Manila’s position would not change and to work with the Chinese mestizos to divide the pie so that all of the powerful interests could profit without friction and expense from intra-elite conflict. 

There are no documentary sources to help us determine what in fact happened, so we must return to population figures and more general descriptions for production and commerce on Samar.  Population data for 1816 shows that Guiuan was still the most populous pueblo on Samar, but with Calbiga clearly in second place, ahead of all of the others:[43]

                                                                                 Number of “Souls”

Guiuan                          11,550

Calbiga                    8,720

Catubig                   6,548

Borongan                5,610

Catarman                 5,487

Paranas                    4,756

Basey                      4,204

Sulat                        4,058

Palapag                    4,029

Laoang                                3,993

Catbalogan              3,922

Tubig                       3,507

Calbayog                 3,209

Bangajon/Gandara  missing data

Population figures continue to show Guiuan’s pre-eminence amongst the pueblos on the island of Samar:

Top Five Pueblos in Population, Samar, 1836 and 1849

                             1836[44]                                        1849[45]

Guiuan        13,644                                 Guiuan       14,485        

Tubig             6,478                                 Catubig         8,333

Basey       6,255                                 Catarman       8,215

Borongan      5,642                                 Calbiga          7,545

[Gandara[xix]]   5,111                                 Tubig             7,299

By the middle of the nineteenth century, while trade data is still scarce, we are beginning to get more information about productions and population for each pueblo. 

Huerta

The pre-eminent source for our use for the mid-nineteenth century is Franciscan, the compilation made by P. Fr. Félix de Huerta, O.F.M.[46] From the descriptions of the pueblos[xx] we learn that the following crops and items were commonly produced or collected, consumed, and traded:

         abaca—mentioned as a crop for almost every pueblo                                                       

         cacao—mentioned in Balangiga, Calbiga, Catubig, Guiuan, Oras, Pambujan, Paric,

                                 San Julian,  

         carabaos and cattle; chickens                                                         

         coconuts and coconut oil—particularly important for Basey, Borongan                          

         coffee—mentioned in the section on Guiuan, Paric                                              

         corn—grown in Catbalogan but insufficient for the population; Salcedo                         

         fish and other marine products (e.g., balate[xxi], pearls (perlas), carey (tortoiseshell)

         game animals; palm wine; pigs;

rice—insufficient production in Catbalogan, Guiuan, Lanang, Quinapundan, and

                     Zumarraga

root crops (palauán, camotes (“sweet potatoes”)); sugar cane (in Laoang[xxii])

tobacco—mentioned in Calbiga, Capul, Laoang, Palapag[xxiii]

wax and tar (common for many pueblos)

weavings (tejidos de guinaras [cloth made of abaca] & some mats (petates and bayones)

Huerta says that in one pueblo (Tubig) two crops of rice were usually grown per year.  We perhaps can assume that in others only one crop per year was produced.  One source claims significant imports of carabaos to Samar in the 1830s and 1840s.[47]  Perhaps by this time there was in many places more use of carabaos in rice field preparation, but Huerta and other sources are silent on this practice. 

Huerta observed that a good variety of trees suitable for quality timber grew in the highlands behind almost every pueblo.  There were also specialty items grown or produced—a special variety of rice in Sulat[48] and especially delicious rice in Pambujan.[xxiv]   Most communication was by water, with ports noted for Balangiga, Bobon, Catarman, Laoang, Paranas (shallow), Quinapundan (a cove), San Julian (with a significant bar (gran barra)), Sulat, Tubig (albeit somewhat dangerous), and Villa Real (shallow).  (An 1866 source lists good ports on Samar as Borongan, Calbayog, Catbalogan, Guiuan, La Granja, Libas, Palapag, Paranas, Sulat, Tubig “and others.”[49] Only Paranas,[xxv] Sulat, and Tubig appear on both lists.).

Women were mentioned by Huerta in the descriptions of most of the pueblos but only in regards to the making of tejidos de guinaras, a household production using abaca to weave cloth, whose importance for family income would probably be undercut quite soon with the import of cheap, manufactured textiles.  One source indicates that there were 10,568 weavers on Samar, bringing in 34,613 pesos per year.[50]  Occasional references occur as well to other fabrics (telas para su uso, Calbiga) and to two types of mats (algunos petates y bayones, Dapdap). 

Other, occasional, detail by Huerta included the name of the first gobernadorcillo of Pambujan,[xxvi] fires, relocations,[xxvii] popular devotion and pilgrimages,[xxviii] Moro attacks,[xxix] and sites where troublemakers lived ostensibly under the jurisdiction of the pueblo of Santa Rita.[xxx]  Population dispersion was particularly notable on the island where the pueblo of Zumarraga was located, which usually was linked to Catbalogan in its governance.  Huerta also noted that the 1849-1850 population of Pambujan had been augmented in 1849-1850 with the conversion of 700 highlanders (Huerta, 1865, 326 and 332, respectively).

         More directly germane are the observations that some pueblos conducted maritime commerce using their own boats (Catbalogan, Sulat), presumably meaning that the commerce there was largely in Samareño hands.  Moreover, there were distinct marketing strategies for certain crops and buyers, with multiple pueblos shipping goods to Manila and elsewhere.[xxxi]  In the South, Basey conducted commerce with both Catbalogan and Leyte; while Guiuan sent goods to Manila, especially coconuts and fish.  On the West Coast, Calbayog traded with both Catbalogan and Manila, while Capul[xxxii] sent rice, fish, and fabrics to Albay.  Catbalogan, the capital of the province, was a common destination of products from other Samar pueblos with goods the traders there traded actively to Manila and elsewhere.  Santa Rita sent goods both to Catbalogan and to Leyte, but only in low quantities “and only when necessity obliged them to do so” (Huerta, 1865, 338).  Villa Real traded with Catbalogan and with other pueblos on Samar, as did Zumarraga which also had some trade directly with Leyte.

On the North Coast, Bobon sent abaca, wax, tar, fish, and tejidos to both Catbalogan and to Manila, while “excess” rice was sent to Albay.  Catarman sent rice to Albay and a variety of other products as well as tejidos de guinaras to Manila.  Catubig traded with Catbalogan, with Albay, and with Manila.  Laoang traded with Catbalogan but sent rice to Albay.  Las Navas also sent rice to Manila with abaca and tejidos de guinaras to Manila, while Pambujan sent rice to Albay with other products going to Catbalogan and other pueblos on the island.  On the East Coast, Borongan (surprisingly) traded with Cebu and Negros as well as with Leyte and Manila.  Lanang traded with both Guiuan and Catbalogan, while San Julian’s trade went to Guiuan.  Sulat though traded with Catbalogan and with Manila; while Tubig, just north of Sulat, had its own market and sent exports to Catbalogan and traded with other pueblos on the island.  .

         According to Huerta, the population figures for Samar’s pueblos in the 1850s (using his first edition[51]) showed that Guiuan again dominated the settlement population figures, but with a good representation of other regions lower in the listing:

                                             Top Ten Pueblo Populations, 1850s

1.       Guiuan                         10,781                     South

2.      Borongan                        7,685                    East Coast

3.      Calbayog                         7,510                   West Coast

4.      Basey                              7,258                     South

5.      Catarman                         6,358                     North Coast

6.      Paranas                            6,140                   West Coast

7.      Catbalogan                      6,000                   West Coast

8.      Catubig                           4,709                     North

9.      Lanang                            4,619                    East Coast

10.  Umauas [Villa Real]        4,607                  West Coast                         

         Huerta’s 1865 description for Guiuan, still the pueblo with the largest population on Samar, tells us that it had abundant timber resources, wax, game for hunting, root crops, and was notable for marine products.  It did not produce enough rice for self-sufficiency, had some root crops and a bit of coffee, but was notable mainly for coconut production.  I doubt that coconuts and their products could have attracted so many people to settle there.  However, as a trading center and collection point for trade to and from Leyte and Manila it would have offered opportunity and those functions probably explain its long-term dominance.  Marine products were probably of prime importance in this trade as well.

         Throughout the 1860’s, Guiuan’s demographic pre-eminence continued, with Calbayog beginning to emerge as a creditable challenger:

Top Five Samar Pueblos in Population, 1865 and 1869

                     1865 (Huerta, 1865)                         1869[52]

        Guiuan          12,873                                 Guiuan       13,024

        Basey            9,855                                 Calbayog       9,611

       Calbayog       8,789                                 Basey            8,548

       Borongan      7,671                                 Borongan      8,195

       Catarman       6,880                                 Catarman       7,539

Trade to and from Manila was more active than heretofore, as we can see by the records of boats that sailed to/from Manila and were officially registered in the 1869 Revista Mercantil.[53]  The run of surviving copies of the mercantile newspaper is not continuous, and sometimes the entries regarding Samar did not specify pueblo or origin, but the growth of commerce is clear:

Boats from Samar, 1869                           Boats to Samar 1869

                     39      Samar (most = unspecified pueblos)         33

                        5                          Catbalogan                         

                        4                            Calbayog                               1

                        6                            Guiuan                                  2

                        1                            Catarman

                         4                            Borongan

Samar was still relatively unimportant in Manila’s commerce.  Manila received ships or boats from all over the islands and dispatched boats throughout the archipelago, with Samar only accounting for 39 of 1,033 received; and 33 of 1,060 departing for the dates for which there are surviving records.  Samar, perhaps surprisingly, still was more active in this trade than Leyte, with fifteen more from Samar and sixteen more to Samar. 

The more common goods sent from Samar were pretty much what we have seen before—abaca, balate (sea cucumbers), cattle or carabao hides, coconut oil, lard or fat (manteca), tar or pitch (brea), and timber.   From a casual glance-over, it appears that abaca, hides, and oil were the most common components of the trade to Manila at this time.  A fuller overview from 1866 lists the following: rice, abaca, wax, balate, coconuts, coconut oil, salted fish, and some weavings.[54]  A book published in 1870 indicates[55] that abaca and palay (unhusked rice) were the major exports, with 94 boats arriving in Manila from Samar and 93 sent from Manila to the island (it is not clear to me why the numbers are so much higher than the equivalent categories for 1866 and 1869).

         Huerta and these trade records indicate significant commercial activity, with multiple products vended and complex contacts amongst the pueblos of Samar and other provinces.  It is a convincing overview.  His summary seems to have been based both on statistics as well as on detailed reports to Huerta from Franciscans with years of experience all over Samar. 

                                                                      Jagor                 

         There is a report from around 1869 which provides a less vibrant picture of production and commerce, perhaps because it is drawn from notes of a relatively brief trip through Samar by the German explorer and naturalist Fedor Jagor.  Jagor’s impressions[56] were of a province whose products were few, whose residents were lazy and unmotivated, and where commerce was based on “mariners from Catbalogan” who traded for  local crops from Laoang (234) and other pueblos; or who collected “cargoes of rice for Albay” from municipalities such as Catarman (238).  Still, though less reliable than Huerta, Jagor has some significant observations, often on topics the Franciscan omitted, such as municipal elections, natural history, and the adventures of local travel. 

Jagor confirmed that Guiuan at that time was still “the most important district in Samar” (250), a theme we have traced since the seventeenth century.  He discussed at some length Micronesians who had from time to time been storm blown to Samar, some of whom were working as pearl divers near Guiuan (253).  He confirmed that coconut oil was the major economic export at that time from Guiuan up the east coast of Samar to Borongan (269).  He mentioned that Tacloban, Leyte, “keeps up an active intercourse with Manila” (257) and has “a more active intercourse” with that capital city ((294), presumably now acting as a collection point for exports from Leyte as well as from south and western Samar. 

         Jagor reported that rice cultivation in only a few places on Samar used the plow (287), but that carabaos were used to prepare wet rice fields (290).  However, Jagor observed that most rice was grown as the Malaspina writer described in 1792, using a pointed stick in dry fields, with returns according to Jagor of x50 or x70.  He stated that some fields, presumably wet rice fields, were owned by landlords who received half the produce as rent (287), but implies that most rice fields on Samar were used for dry rice cultivation and were free for the clearing and a single harvest (288).

         Jagor acknowledged root crops as a significant food resource (288) and said that there were “large plantations” of abaca but at that time production was low due to low market prices (288-289).  He mentioned “furniture” and implied trade from Manila for some few essential household components (292):

                     For household furniture a family has a cooking pot of unglazed burnt

clay, imported by ships from Manilla [sic], the cost of which is fixed by the

value of its contents in rice; a supply of bamboo-canes; seven plates … a

carahai (iron pan) … cocoa-nut [sic] shells serving for glasses; a few small

pots … a bolo … and a pair of scissors (for the women) …  The loom, which

every household constructs for itself of bamboo, of course costs nothing.

Jagor suggested that iron smithing skills had declined since Alcina’s time and that home weaving was still the fundamental household industry(292):

                     Almost every village has a rude smith, who understands the making

of  … bolos; but the iron and the coal required for the purpose must be supplied

         with the order.  No other work in metal is executed.  With the exception of a

         little shipbuilding, hardly any other pursuit than weaving is carried on; the loom

         is rarely wanting in a household.  Guinara, i.e., stuff made of the abacá, is

         manufactured, as well as also some piña, or figured silk stuffs, the silk being

         brought from Manilla, and of Chinese origin.  All these fabrics are made in

         private homes; there is no factory.

        Jagor also observed that monetary exchanges occurred in the major pueblos but that barter

was more usual in the interior of the island (293).  He said that markets were non-existent,[xxxiii] suggesting that exports and imports were handled on an ad hoc basis (293):

                     There are no markets in Sámar and Leyté; so that whoever wishes to buy

seeks what he requires in the several houses, and in like manner the seller offers

his goods.

         …  Trade and credit are less developed in eastern and northern Sámar

than in the western part of the island, which keeps up a more active communi-

cation with the other inhabitants of the Archipelago.

Loans were based on monthly interest rates of 12½ interest (293), which by my calculation means a loan of five pesos would have more than doubled in six months and would be a debt of over 20 pesos by the end of a year.  Penalties of peonage of children or full use of mortgaged land if the loan were not paid back on time were described (294). 

         Jagor is useful then as a supplement to Huerta and other sources from the 1860s.  Jagor’s description marks an island on the cusp of major changes.  Guiuan’s pre-eminence was about to end, abaca production would explode, commercial agents would reside in every pueblo, pueblo populations would grow dramatically (much through immigration from other parts of the Philippines), trade and commerce would be ubiquitous and arguably the prime characteristic of late nineteenth century Samar.  To mark these changes, let’s begin with the Chinese.

The Chinese and Abaca

In 1859 there were only thirty Chinese registered as paying a head tax and settled on Samar.[57]  By 1886-87, there were 626 Chinese merchants registered in thirty-two pueblos; a year later there were 1,575 merchants (overwhelmingly Chinese) in thirty-six pueblos.  (See Appendix 3)  In both of these listings, Calbayog was the center for most of these merchants, followed by Catbalogan, Guiuan, Gandara, and Paranas.[xxxiv]  An analysis[58] of 444 Chinese registered in Calbayog in 1894 show that 442 said they were single and 427 were not Roman Catholic.  For year of arrival, for the 390 with data, we find that the overwhelming majority surveyed in Calbayog in 1894 had arrived between 1889 and 1893:

         Year of Arrival        between 1854 and 1863        6   (1.5%)

                                             between 1864 and 1873      14   (3.6%)

                                             between 1874 and 1883      50 (12.8%)

                                             between 1884 and 1888      80 (20.5%)

                                             between 1889 and 1893     240 (61.5%)

Of the 441 with age information, the results not surprisingly show most were young men in the primes of their lives, between twenty and forty, 75% of the 441:

Age, Calbayog Chinese, 1894

Ages zero to 14 7 1.6%

Ages 15-19 27 6.1%

Ages 20-24 63 14.3%

Ages 25-29 105 23.8%

Ages 30-34 97 22.0%

Ages 35-39 66 15%

Ages 40-44 41 9.3%

Ages 45-49 22 5.0%

Ages 50-54 12 2.7%

Ages 55 to 64 1 0.2%

By 1894, using another source, there were over 2,000 Chinese registered and resident on Samar (see Appendix 3, below).  What led to this significant expansion in Chinese numbers in Samar, from 30 (1859) to 2,002 (1894)?  The engine for this remarkable growth was the world demand for abaca. 

A report from 1876,[59] probably by a Spanish governor of Samar, affirmed both the themes we have seen to date and as well indicated significant novelty in Samar’s economic situation.  The continuities included that Samar was not self-sufficient in rice, that coconuts and coconut oil were important productions in eastern and southern Samar, that many other products were also exported—pepita de Catbalogan, balate (sea cucumbers), gulaman,[xxxv] cueros [tanned skins, leather hides], carey (tortoiseshell), aletas de tiburon [shark fins], and concha nacar [mother of pearl shell].  The ports of significance for imports and exports were Catbalogan, Laoang, Calbayog, Borongan, Guiuan, and Basey.

What was new according to this report, though, was the strong emphasis on expanded abaca production for export with consequent economic prosperity.  While other products were part of the export trade from Samar, abaca was by then the most important export, with increasing production beginning from an increased demand starting in the 1840s.  While grown throughout the island, abaca was mainly shipped from only a few ports, with producers farthest from those ports receiving less for their product.  As more money to producers came in to Samar, abaca production increased.  The governor observed that imports also increased, with only the poorest continuing to wear clothing made of abaca; others were able to afford a preference for  imported cotton and even for silk fabrics.  Nutrition improved as more could afford imported rice, fiestas became more luxurious, and luxury imports from Europe and the Americas were not uncommon.

The 1876 report said that abaca exports from Samar in 1875 brought in 162,000 pesos, with coconut oil second with 128,700 pesos.  All exports totaled 304,498 pesos, which meant that abaca comprised a shade more than 53% of export returns.  Imports for 1875 included 57,500 pesos for rice, an estimated 120,000 pesos worth of imports brought in by Chinese merchants, with a total import bill of 202,400 pesos.  Even though abaca prices had actually been going down for the last four years, according to the report, the balance of exports over imports was substantial.[xxxvi]

From other sources we can see that the increased prosperity on the island led to increased population and the emergence into prominence of pueblos other than Guiuan.  By the 1880s Guiuan’s population had effectively plateaued and Calbayog and other pueblos showed considerable population expansion; the rankings and population figures were generally similar for 1896, though Gandara’s rank slipped:

                                   Top Seven Samar Pueblos in Population,

1887[60]                                                                  1896[61]

         Calbayog     21,298        West Coast             Calbayog     20,725

         Guiuan        15,005         The South               Guiuan        12,872

         Basey          13,822          The South              Basey         12,852

         Gandara        9,950          The West               Gandara      11,001

         Borongan      9,458          East Coast             Borongan    12,563

         Catubig         9,291          The North   Catubig & Las Navas  11,517

         Catarman       8,575          North Coast            Catarman     9,455

Calbayog and abaca had superseded Guiuan and its trade in coconut oil or marine products.  The northwest part of Samar was closer to Manila, closer to abaca areas.  With demand for abaca skyrocketing, Guiuan was overtaken in population and in commercial importance.  By 1893 a governor could say unequivocally that Calbayog “is the first pueblo in the province.”[62]

         Much of the population growth in Samar was due to immigration.  When I did research in Calbayog for my doctoral dissertation, I was able to work with the parish registers and discovered:[63]

From 1884 to 1896, the total population [of Samar] grew at an annual rate

of 2.0 percent, while the Calbayog area soared ahead at an annual rate of

growth of 6.2 percent.  Most of the growth in Calbayog and some of the

overall growth was due to immigration.  There appears to have been migration

to the Calbayog area from other regions of Samar, but most of its immigrants

seem to have come from such provinces as Leyte, Cebu, Bohol, and the Bicol

Peninsula.  It appears likely that about 15,000 immigrants came to Samar in

the period 1884-1896; and about 23,000 immigrants,[xxxvii] both Samareños and

outsiders, came to the Calbayog area.

More impressionistic observations were made by Spanish observers for this region in the 1890s, such as the observation in 1892 that Santo Niño had had people from other provinces settling there.[64]  And for Weyler, again in 1892, with reference to a great deal of immigration from other provinces, especially from Bohol and Cebu.[65]  In 1890 the Governor General of the Philippines commented in passing that the population of Calbayog had risen dramatically in a few years thanks largely to families immigrating from Cebu and Bohol, resulting in a possibly inflated figure for population of 34,000 when he was writing.[66]

Conclusion

         As we look back over this essay, Guiuan was the most important pueblo in terms of population and inferred wealth until the late nineteenth century.  Thereafter Calbayog superseded it on both counts.  Trade in the early period was composed of a wide variety of products, with coconut oil probably the most significant one.  Samar’s contributions to Manila’s imports were of minor importance to Manila, until abaca began its spectacular export history.  Demand from Manila and other places was of great importance to Samar’s producers and its traders.  Commerce was the only significant way to make a profit and prosper.  For those who actually produced the products others bought and exported from Samar, profits were undoubtedly meager.

While there was a hint or two of loans made against anticipated harvests in earlier times, by 1893 the governor indicated that in Samar “almost all transactions” were based on advanced payments [es uso corriente y costumbre en la provincia el hacer casi todos los tratos con el anticipo del dinero ….].[67]  In the olden times products were collected by merchants who came to the pueblos or by local residents who took them to larger pueblos or to Manila.  Chinese mestizos seem to have been the group supplying these collectors and merchants.  No markets seem to have been present in Samar for most of its history under Spanish rule, but in 1893 the governor observed that “each pueblo [in Samar] has its marketplace where most of its goods are sold….”[68]  By the end of the nineteenth century resident merchants were commonplace.  By the late nineteenth century most resident merchants in the pueblos of Samar seem to have been Chinese. 

The number and size of the municipalities on Samar  increased in the late nineteenth century from 19 pueblos in 1854 to 33 pueblos in 1870.  By 1898, there were 40 pueblos on Samar,[69] and as we have seen throughout this essay the absolute population figures for the pueblos also grew.  Overall, then, Samar’s population grew from about 42,000 in 1800 to almost 193,000 in 1884, continuing to rise to about 245,000 in 1896, with a continued rise in population to and beyond the end of the Spanish imperial rule.[70] 

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, abaca had become the most significant export, with significant amounts and pesos involved, leading to increased imports of rice and consumer goods.  The Spanish governor of Samar in 1888 noted that exports consisted of abaca, coconut oil, lard, coconuts, and salted fish; and that imports were made up of “rice, products from Europe and such with some other foodstuffs from elsewhere in the Islands as well as cloth, furniture, tools, and other useful and specialized items.”[71]  Textile production from abaca was a household industry of note until the last decades of the nineteenth century when imported textiles largely supplanted products from the household looms; by 1893, looms and handwoven cloth could still be found but “these family workshops have disappeared completely.”[72]  Moro raids significantly constricted commerce and free movement of Samareños until the 1850s.  Unmolested shipping to and from Samar increased significantly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 

         Although this period saw a move from maritime passage by boats powered by sail and oar to significant communication with Manila and other Philippine ports by ships powered by steam, on Samar itself low use of technology was a consistent theme in Samar’s history.  We see this most notably in the lack of use of the plow until the nineteenth century—a governor even remarked in 1893 that rice in Samar was planted without the use of plow.[73]  As late as 1929 in the Calbiga region, carabaos were used to “trample” field areas in a process called payatak; but rice plants were grown from broadcast rice and transplanted subsequently (when from 5 to 7 inches tall) to another field which had been “prepared by 15-20 carabaos until muddy and weeds [had been] trampled.”  The author observed that “neither plows nor harrows nor substitutes thereof are used.” Nor were terraces and controlled irrigation areas employed, with rice growth depending entirely on the rains.[74]  As we have seen repeatedly in our essay, the 1929 author observed the importance of the “aquatic tuber” palauan and that rice was grown for local use in the Calbiga area, with exports centered on abaca and copra.  Even marketing in the 1920s speaks to themes we have encountered in earlier times (260):

         … marketing is done by tabo, meaning to meet in the barrios or sitios for the

bartering of agricultural products, home utensils, dry goods, etc.  In the towns

and barrios are found local buyers who gather up abacá fiber, copra, rattan and

other agricultural products that are in turn sold to exporters in Catbalogan.

Other themes that we have encountered continued into the twentieth century.  For instance, in Wernstedt and Spencer[75] we find the ca. 1967 observations that Catbalogan “functions as the principal shipping point for incoming cargoes, and as the main distribution center for the entire island.”  However, Calbayog “serves as the principal outport for the productive northern plains of Samar,” supplemented in both cases by Catarman/Bobon and Laoang (467).

By turning our focus onto trade in a single province and its pueblos from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, we have identified significant thematic continuities and discontinuities.  Much changed and much stayed the same while the island population was shaped by commercial incentives as well as by Moro raids, technology, social and political structures, immigration, and the economies of the archipelago and the world economy.  This essay suggests that commerce, population, and social structure might be the complex of themes most useful with adequate source materials to develop equivalent studies of other provinces and regions in the Philippine past.

This essay speaks as well to larger issues in Philippine historiography first signaled half a century ago by Jack Larkin, who observed that the “singular concern with Manila and its environs and the highest echelons of society tends to distort the history of the Philippines as a whole.”[76]  Perhaps Samar’s experience was more similar to most areas under Spanish rule for roughly 333 years and that Manila’s history was linked to but atypical of the bulk of the archipelago.  We cannot deny the importance of Manila, of course, but we should both recognize and emphasize that most Filipinos and most settlements were more similar to Samar’s than they were to this major metropolitan settings and arenas.  If we continue the emphasis on regional history begun in the 1960s, we may be able to develop a richer and more representative understanding of the history of the Philippines in the third of a millennium from 1565 to 1898. 

Appendix One

Population Figures for Samar’s Pueblos, 17th and 18th Centuries

Population figures are always problematic for municipality reports prepared under Spanish imperial rule.  This is particularly so when the data are discontinuous and without sufficient context to explain what appear to be inconsistencies and spikes and valleys.  Still, the data are available and at least for orders of magnitude and relative ranking of size, they are plausibly useful.

1659[77]

1675[78]

1675 ALT[79]

1696[80]

1737[81]

Guiuan[xxxviii]

1,495

3,900

2.900

5,462

5,862

Balangiga

338

430

430

1,551

666

Basey

382

1,101

1,101

1,256

5,400

Catbalogan

963

1,380

1,380

2,530

2,487

Catarman

740

1,050

1,050

1,657

1,832

Bobon

313

570

570

724

542

Laoang

180

634

634

1,405

1,681

Palapag

515

785

785

1,200

1,511

Catubig

742

1,321

1,915

1,391

2,065

Bangajon [Gandara]

398

1,089

1,089

1,077

2,297

Sulat

666

940

940

2,196

3,898

Tubig

425

1,160

1,160

1,905

2,874

Borongan

460

2,008

1,988

1,640

2,357

Oras

287

not listed

not listed

not listed

not listed

Umauas [Villa Real]

not listed

not listed

not listed

1,745

3,483

Calbiga

1,684

2,537

2,537

1,325

1,739

Capul

640

1,630

1,630

1,315

699

Calbayog

not listed per se

not listed per se

not listed per se

not listed per se

not listed per se

Paranas

1,280

2,082

2,082

2,916

3,546

Jibatang

166

470

470

705

955

Tinagon [Dapdap]

not listed

not listed

not listed

not listed

488

Lalavitan

not listed

not listed

not listed

not listed

544

                                                                                                                     Appendix One, cont.

July 1751[82]

July 1755[83]

1779[84]

1797[85]

Guiuan

6,572

6,564

8,403

9,801

Basey

2,241

4,522

3,334

4,226

Catbalogan

3,211

4,872

1,998

2,299

Catarman

2,462

3,519

2,602

3,829

Laoang

1,840

1,841

1,736

1,878

Palapag

1,528

1,663

1,536

1,994

Catubig

2,649

3,853

2,307

2,276

Gandara [Bangajon]

1,329

2,858

3,570

3,833

Sulat

4,555

4,993

1,555

3,030

Tubig

2,886

3,496

2,566

1,940

Borongan

3,423

4,367

2,340

2,408

Umauas [Villa Real] and Calbiga

5,761

5,834

2,349

3,613

Capul

1,283

1,567

1,113

2,078

Calbayog

n/a

1,026

995

n/a

Paranas

4,176

3,629

2,375

2,857

Appendix Two

Chinese Mestizos on Samar in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Here are multiple sets of data, roughly consistent, from the 18th until well into the 19th centuries.

Mestizo Data[xxxix] for Samar, late-18th and early-19th Centuries

                     1792              91½           AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 599

                     1807            137½           AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 592

                     1812            147              AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 599

                     1822            153½           AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 599

                     1831            172½           Buzeta, Diccionario…, v. 2, 419-420.[xl]

                     1832            168½           Buzeta, Diccionario…, v. 2, 419-420.

                     1833            165½           Buzeta, Diccionario…, v. 2, 419-420.

                     1834            163½           Buzeta, Diccionario…, v. 2, 419-420.

                     1835            174½           Buzeta, Diccionario…, v. 2, 419-420.

1837            187½           AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 849

                     1838            192              AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 849

                     1839            190              AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 849

                     1840            199½           AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 849

                     1841            201½           AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 849

                     1842            205½           AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 849

                     1848            236              AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 1301

                     1849            239              AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 1301

                     1850            242              AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 1301

                     1851            240              AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 1301

                     1852            258              AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 1301

                     1859            264½           AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5174 f 175

Figures for 1851 through 1854 tributantes are significantly higher in another set of sources (449, 516, 531, and 544).[86]  I am not confident in the data given in these published volumes (the Guias de Forasteros), but they do have the advantage of indicating where the mestizos were resident:

                                                                                                                     Appendix Two, cont.

                                 1851            1852            1853            1854

Catbalogan                337              353              369              372           

Calbiga                      17               6              6              9

Umauas [Villa Real]     5               4              4              6           

Basey                        5            5              4             5

Quinapundan            2              4              4             4

Guiuan                       35            45            44            42

Catubig                     5              3              3              3

Capul                       5              8              9            10

Calbayog                17            19            19                    19

Bangajon [Gandara] 15            17            18            21

Dapdap                     6              8              8              8

Paranas                           13            15            13

Sulat                                   1              1              2

Catarman                          30            27            29

                                 1851            1852            1853            1854

Catbalogan, the political capital of the province, was clearly the preferred center for Chinese mestizos, with 75% (1851), 68% (1852), almost 70% (1853), and 68% (1854) of the registered Chinese mestizos on the island.  Guiuan was second, far behind with almost 8% (1851), almost 9% (1852), 8% (1853), and again almost 8% (1854).  By 1863 the number of mestizos on Samar was listed as 504.  Catbalogan was still dominant with 303 (60%), Guiuan was still second with 37 (7%), but pressed now by Paranas (22), Catarman (29), and Calbayog (23).[87] 

         And, through the end of this appendix, we can appropriate multiple sets of data from Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), Appendix 12, 261-265:[xli]

Chinese Mestizos in Samar for Selected Years, 1778-1816,

Franciscan Pueblos Only

Year

Catbalogan

Paranas

Calbayog

Catarman

Gandara

Total

1778

363

363

1783

256

256

1785

[265][xlii]

18

14

297

1787

283

24

14

321

1789

284

25

14

323

1790

286, with

Paranas

23

15

324

1793

380, with

Paranas

26

17

423

1794

377, with

Paranas

25

10

412

1795

277

26

13

266

1796

330

29

13

372

1797

330

29

13

372

1798

373

34

16

423

1799

305

43

19

367

1800

324

722[xliii]

11

1,057

1801

341

899

33

1,273

1816

227

8

8

30

Blank

273

Year

Catbalogan

Paranas

Calbayog

Catarman

Gandara

Total

Chinese Mestizos for Selected Years, 1812-1852 Samar

Year

Derived Total

Year

Derived Total

1812

294

1832

337

1815

279

1842

411

1822

307

1852

516

Chinese Mestizos in Samar by Pueblo and Region,

1852, 1857, 1862, and 1864

North Coast

1852

1857

1862

1864

Catubig

3

0

12

7

Las Navas

0

0

6

5

Catarman

30

34

30

29

Bobon

0

0

2

2

Capul

8

10

10

10

Totals

41

44

60

53

Calbayog Area

1852

1857

1862

1864

Calbayog

19

13

22

24

Tarangnan

8

7

8

9

Gandara

17

19

16

17

Totals

44

39

46

50

Catbalogan Area

1852

1857

1862

1864

Catbalogan

353

383

280

319

Jiabong

0

0

1

3

Paranas

13

18

19

23

San Sebastian

0

0

0

1

Calbiga

6

6

6

8

Pinabacdao

0

0

3

2

Villa Real

4

5

6

8

Zumarraga

0

0

3

3

Totals

376

419

318

367

The South

1852

1857

1862

1864

Basey

5

5

4

5

Quinapundan

4

4

4

3

Salcedo

0

0

0

1

Guiuan

45

30

41

38

Totals

54

39

49

47

East Coast[xliv]

1852

1857

1862

1864

Sulat

1

2

0

0

Paric

0

1

2

2

Totals

1

3

2

2

Totals, Samar

516

544

475

519

1852

1857

1862

1864

Numbers for Chinese mestizos become harder to locate after this time.  In any event, their numbers and probably their importance in Samar’s commerce are about to be eclipsed by Chinese and other merchants.

Appendix Three

Chinese on Samar in the 19th Century

Chinese per Pueblo, Samar, 1886-1887[88]             Merchant Activity/Pueblo, 1888[89]

79, second

Catbalogan

178, second

23

Zumarraga

17

n/a

Lanang

14

8

Jiabong

22

45, fourth

Paranas

78, fifth

6

San Sebastian

19

7

Calbiga

14

21

Pinabacdao

7

n/a

Mercedes

13

22

Villa Real

33

3

Santa Rita

16

20

Basey

39

2

Balangiga

10

66, third

Guiuan

97, third

4

Salcedo

8

13

Borongan

32

1

Sulat

23

3

Tubig

7

2

Paric

9

1

       Libas/San Julian

8

4

Oras

24

19

Catubig

38

5

Palapag

38

15

Laoang

26

5

Pambujan

18

n/a

Hernani

14

3

Mondragon

5

19

Catarman

72

n/a

Capul

14

10

Bobon

54

9

Lavezares

28

17

La Granja

46

2

Oquendo

55

144, first

Calbayog

337, first

38, fifth

Gandara

93, fourth

10

Tarangnan

53

n/a

Quinapundan

4

                                                                                                         Appendix Three, cont.

And, through the end of this appendix, multiple sets of data are used from Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), Appendix 13, 265-266:[xlv]

Chinese Distribution by Pueblo and Region, Samar, 1886-1894

North Coast

1886-1887

1892

           1894

Palapag

5

18

16

Laoang

15

34

46

Pambujan

5

28

32

Catubig

19

36

39

Mondragon

3

6

9

Catarman

21

51

53

Bobon

10

27

32

Lavezares

9

34

36

La Granja

17

32

48

Capul

0

10

20

Totals

104

271

331

Calbayog Area

1886-1887

1892

           1894

Weyler

0

15

5

Oquendo

2

73

52

Calbayog

144

379

464

Santa Margarita

0

49

48

Tarangnan

10

58

76

Gandara

38

97

119

Santo Niño

0

25

22

Totals

194

696

784

Catbalogan Area

1886-1887

1892

           1894

Catbalogan

79

211

216

Jiabong

8

14

11

Paranas

45

129

162

San Sebastian

6

9

10

Calbiga

7

21

17

Pinabacdao

2

4

11

Villa Real

22

39

46

Zumarraga

23

51

58

Totals

192

478

531

The South

1886-1887

1892

           1894

Santa Rita

3

8

14

Basey

20

44

61

Balangiga

2

9

11

Quinapundan

0

12

10

Salcedo

4

16

10

Mercedes

0

0

1

Guiuan

66

143

167

Totals

95

232

274

East Coast

1886-1887

1892

           1894

Hernani

0

9

3

Lanang

0

0

0

Borongan

13

19

38

San Julian

1

5

6

Sulat

1

11

12

Tubig

5

7

13

Paric

2

2

6

Oras

4

5

4

Totals

26

58

82

Totals, Samar

611

1,735

2,002

1886-1887

1892

           1894

End Notes

[i] Pueblos were not towns but much more akin to municipal districts or counties, with the name coming from the major urban or urban-like settlement within it.  The center of a pueblo was called a población, and usually it contained the church, rectory, government house, and plaza, near which the houses of the prominent families were located.  Dispersed settlements were common in the Philippines, and the poblaciones were usually surrounded by smaller hamlets called visitas, barrios, rancherias, and sitios.  These ranged in size from the more settled and populated visitas, usually with a chapel for the priest to say Mass in when he made a visit, to two or three houses loosely clustered and called a sitio.  Each of these subsidiary units had officials under the government of the población officials.  Except in major pueblos, if the priest were European he would be the only European resident there.

[ii] Alcina said that transplanting seedlings into swampy lands was a procedure not used too much in the Visayas (Alcina, v. 3, 109).

[iii] However, in v. 3, 113 and 115, Alcina refers to a hoe but adds (115) that “even now … there are very few who have … and use it.”

[iv] A “giant swamp taro” (http://www.bitlanders.com/blogs/yummy-root-crops/4361350 ).  It is also known as galiang in Bikolano (http://www.stuartxchange.com/Palauan.html).

[v][v] Older term for Samar.

[vi] My addition to the text.

[vii] Note that the Spanish governor would collect a large amount for only a credit of 2 reales, whereas on the market for what must have been a much smaller amount abaca fiber would bring in 1-2 reales.  Admittedly the marketed abaca was better quality, but still the Spanish imperial state and almost certainly the Spanish governor would seem to have been benefitting enormously from the prices and quantities that were set.

[viii] See Appendix One for a full listing of population totals for all the pueblos in Samar at these times.

[ix] He does not specify Guiuan or any other pueblo.

[x] This was described in a standard Spanish English dictionary (Appleton’s New Spanish Dictionary (1966) as a “small oared barge,” which is remarkably unhelpful.  The term was defined with the same deficiency as a “small row-barge” in the Gran Diccionario Cuyás (Barcelona, 1977).

[xi] When the Jesuits were ousted from the Philippines in 1768, the Augustinians were given the formerly Jesuit parishes in Leyte along with the parishes of Balangiga, Basey, and Guiuan in southern Samar.  At the same time the Franciscans took the Jesuit parishes in the rest of Samar.  In 1794, the Augustinians ceded their Samar parishes to the Franciscans, who actually took possession of them in 1804.  Thereafter, until 1898, the Franciscans ministered the parishes on the island of Samar, supplemented by Secular clergy when Franciscan numbers were insufficient.

[xii] The Filipino head of the pueblo was called a gobernadorcillo or capitán.  He was elected by a subset of the male principales or principal citizens; those voting usually were former gobernadorcillos.  The total group of male principal citizens was called the principalía.  Under the gobernadorcillo were the men in charge of forty or fifty families (a barangay), who were called cabezas de barangay.  There were other officials as well serving under the gobernadorcillos.  All officials were male; none were Spanish.

[xiii] I have found no other references to such activity, which is even more remarkable given Borongan’s location on the Pacific side of Samar.  This brief florescence of commerce with Manila might have been in the 1750s, when the population of Borongan expanded significantly (see Appendix One).

[xiv] The governor of the province seems to have been feathering his nest as well, since he gave two reales (one-fourth of a peso) credit toward the tribute obligation when he collected the tax in kind from the residents.  Presumably he later sold the fabrics in Manila and paid the tribute due from his sales, pocketing the difference. 

[xv] Weights and measures were not effectively standardized in the Philippines until the early twentieth century.  The equivalents listed here (taken from Appleton’s New Spanish Dictionary (1966)), are suggestive only in this time and place.  They may not have been the standard rate in any or all regions in Samar or elsewhere in the archipelago:     

cavan, 75 quarts

quintal, 100 pounds; the United States Bureau of the Census, Census of the Philippine Islands taken under the

direction of the Philippine Commission in the year 1903 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,

1905), 4 volumes; here, v. 4, 449, defines quintal as 46.009 kg.

tinaja, 12 2/3 gallon

[xvi] Boat terms specifically and nautical terms more broadly are often imprecise or vary dramatically from place to place and language to language.  I have included the Spanish so that those who know the subject can more precisely determine the significance of the listing.  Using a standard Spanish English dictionary (Appleton’s New Spanish Dictionary, 1966), here are the equivalents presented there, caveat lector:

baroto, see vinta [in Gran Diccionario Cuyás (Barcelona, 1977), the baroto is defined as a “small boat in the

Philippines—and vinta is defined as a baroto];                                       

bergantin, “brigantine:;                    

caracoa, “small oared barge”; 

falua, “small boat, tender”;                          

galera, “galley”;                                  

goleta, “schooner”;                  

panco, “coasting vessel”;                         

parao, “a large passenger vessel”;  

pontin, “coasting vessel”;           

vinta, “small boat”.

[xvii] I use the term Filipino to designate all Asians born in the areas under real or claimed Spanish rule.  The usage is employed for convenience and is, of course, anachronistic. 

[xviii] Marcos Evangelista, Francisco Raymundo, Juan Evangelista, and Pioquinto Tuason

[xix] Bangahon in the original document.

[xx] Little or no information was given for Hernani, Jiabong, La Granja, Mondragon, Oquendo, Pinabacdao, San Sebastian, Santa Margarita, Santo Niño, and Weyler.

[xxi] Sea cucumbers, also known elsewhere as trepang or bêche-de-mer.

[xxii] Alcina, v. 1, 625, mentions Paranas in connection with sugar cane, “which in that soil grows more plentiful and ripens better.”

[xxiii] Around 1784 a Franciscan commented that some poor quality tobacco was grown here and there on Samar, with a better quality crop harvested on the banks of the river by Bangajon [Gandara].  AFIO 95/9, Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Gobierno sobre misiones de la provincia de Samar entregadas a los franciscanos y algunos pertenecen a los agustinos, esas pueblos debian pasar a Leyte (Guiuan, Balanguiga y Basey) y otros los tenian los Jesuitas unidos como Calviga y Calbayog. Relación, 1 fol., sin fecha [probably ca. 1784].

[xxiv] Huerta, 1865, 333: “El terreno cultivado produce mucho arroz y de la major calidad que se conoce en Filipinas, del cual esportan en gran cantidad para la provincia de Albay.”

[xxv] Alcina, v. 2, 278-280, mentions a type of fishing, the pagbiday, practiced particularly in Calbiga and in Paranas involving many boats and long nets, suggesting that boat use and number did not depend on the quality of the ports.

[xxvi] 1781, Don Domingo Catangas, “natural del pueblo de Lauáng” (Huerta, 1865, 331).  In the entry for Las Navas (424-325, Huerta refers to a visita called Poponton, established in 1823 “por un anciano llamado Timoteo y otra denominada Napauala, fundada el año de 1824 por un capitan de Catubig llamado D. Tomás Simon.”

[xxvii] Catubig, Dapdap, Las Navas,

[xxviii] Devotion to St. Francis brought daily pilgrims from Samar as well as from Leyte “á tributar adoraciones á su bienhechor, que sin duda los favorece con larga mano cuando sanos y enfermos vuelven todos alegres y satisfechos, por lo que, el dia cuatro de Octubre, secede la concurrencia de personas á las romerias de mas nombradía en Filipinas” (Huerta, 1865, 330, referring to Dapdap).

[xxix] Catubig, Pambujan

[xxx] “En el continente de Sámar hay algunos barrios pertenecientes á este pueblo [Santa Rita], que mas bien pueden llamarse guarida de malhechores, porque tanto el pueblo como todo su termino es el refugio de todos los malvados de las provincias de Sámar y Leite” (Huerta, 1865, 337).

[xxxi][xxxi] A Franciscan writing in 1877 observed that the Moros had retarded the development of Samar, that they had been “the rulers of the Bisayan seas” until 1858.  (AFIO 95/15, Informe de Fr. José Huerce al Gobierno sobre los pueblos de Samar. Polo, 26 June 1877)

[xxxii] Alcina, v. 2, 258-261, mentions the difficulties of navigating to or from Capul and the consummate skill mariners from Capul employed in crossing those dangerous waters in their boats.

[xxxiii] Huerta, as we saw, said that Tubig had a market in the 1850s.

[xxxiv] Paranas was fourth in 1886-87, fifth in 1888; Gandara was fifth in 1886-87 and fourth in 1888.

[xxxv] I am told that gulaman is dried sea weed. 

[xxxvi] Of course dependence for the bulk of your exports on this one crop meant vulnerability when the market for abaca changed dramatically in the twentieth century.  For a full discussion of this phenomenon in the Bicol provinces, see Norman G. Owen, Prosperity without Progress. Manila Hemp and Material Life in the Colonial Philippines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 

[xxxvii] The figures of 15,000 and 23,000 refer to net immigrants of course.

[xxxviii] The order that the pueblos listed is mine, done for my convenience in note taking from sources that had varying formats.

[xxxix] Figures are in tributos, which roughly correspond to husband/wife/minor children.  The half figures would be single tribute payers, presumably adult males.  Because we do not know how many families paying full tributes there were, we cannot merely double the number of tributos to ascertain the full number of resident, adult Chinese mestizos in Samar for these years.

[xl] Manuel Buzeta, O.S.A.; and Felipe Bravo, O.S.A., Diccionario Geográfico, Estadístico, Histórico de las Islas Filipinas (Madrid: José C. de la Peña, 1851).  2 v.

[xli] Sources and discussion given in that appendix.

[xlii] No figure given in text but the assumption seems reasonable that the total not accounted for was probably resident in Catbalogan.

[xliii] Remarkable figure (as is the 1801 one), perhaps due to scribe error or to some remarkable and unexplained surge in demand for some specific product or productss from the Gandara region.  I am inclined to assume scribe error.

[xliv] Rather surprisingly, there are no figures for Borongan or for Tubig given in the text.

[xlv] Sources given in that appendix.

[1] Ignacio Francisco Alcina, S.J., History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands. Evangelization and Culture at the Contact Period. Historia de las Islas e indios de Bisayas … 1668.  Translated, edited, and annotated by Cantius J. Kobak, O.F.M., and Lucio Gutiérrez, O.P.  Manila: UST Publishing House, 2002-2004-2005.  3v.;

Volume 1: Part One, Book 1.  2002.  714pp.

Volume 2: Part One, Book 2.  2004.  671pp.

Volume 3: Part One, Book 3.  2005.  605pp.

Here, v. 1, 183.  I will refer to this major source henceforth as Alcina.

[2] Archivo General de Indias [AGI henceforth], Audiencia de Filipinas [Filipinas hereafter], Legajo 705, “Expediente sobre invasions de los moros Jolos y Mindanaos en varias provincias, y armadas que para su castigo se hicieron,” 1734-1735, pp. 118-130.  On pp. 143-144v there is another summary of men contributed by different Samar pueblos.  These figures are quite different from presented earlier and the discrepancy is not explained.  I include them here without confidence in their reliability: Umauas, 26 men; Catbalogan, 36 men; Basey, 29 men; Paranas, 29 men; Guiuan, 76 men; Calbiga, 52 men; and Capul 50 men.  Even these figures--unreliable though they may be and while Calbiga and Capul have significantly moved up in personnel contributed--show the preeminence of Guiuan.

[3] Juan J. Delgado, S.J., La Historia General Sacro-Profana Política y Natural de las islas del Poniente llamadas Filipinas (Manila: Imp. de El Eco de Filipinas de D. Juan Atayde (Biblioteca Histórica Filipina), 1892), 239-240.

[4] P. Ignacio Alcina observed in a 24 June 1660 report to his superiors [St. Louis, Vatican Film Library, ARSI. Phil. 12 (Roll 165), 1660-1729, f. 4] that there were Jesuit purchases of wax in Samar for churches in Samar, Manila, Cebu or Oton, at “current prices such as paid by the Spaniard or the Chinese” or others.

[5] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 645, Folio 5: “Espediente del Gobernador esponiendo los motivos que habian tenido los habitantes de las Visayas para no haber comerciando con aquella capital,” including a “Testimonio de las Diligencias practicadas en las que expressan los motibos que han tenido los naturales de las Provincias de Catbalonga [sic], Leyte, y Samar para no hacer venido de dies años a esta parte en tan gran numero de Embarcaciones, como vinieron en este año de comercio de esta Ciudad,” dated 12 August 1779.

[6] Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga, Joaquín, O.S.A., Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas ó Mis viajes por este país.  Ed. W. E. Retana, who estimates that it was written sometime between 1803 and 1805.  Certainly the data are from 1804 or earlier since the Augustinians effectively transferred the parishes of Guiuan, Basey, and Balangiga in 1804, starting the process of transfer in 1794.  Madrid: Imp. de la Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Ríos, 1893, 2v.; here, v. 2, 64.

[7] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 627, “Cartas y Expedientes,” 1770: Folio 31, “Espediente del Provincial de Agustinos sobre el estado en que hallo las doctrinas que administraba los Jesuitas,” 26 July 1770.  There is another copy of this report in the Augustinian archive in Valladolid, Spain [AVall henceforth], Legajo 359, Informe á V.M. sobre la entrega que le hizo Vro. Governador de las Doctrinas que administraban los Regulares de la Compañia antes de su estrañamiento en las Provincias de Leite, y Samar, y estado actual de ellas.

[8] Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental [AFIO henceforth] 95/8, Carta Informe del P. José Fayo al Provincial P. Santiago de la Cabeza sobre la ida de los religiosos a Samar. Morong, 14 September 1785.

[9] AFIO 95/11, Carta Informe al Gobierno sobre la misión de Samar por el P. Santiago de la Cabeza.  Estado actual y el que tenian cuando marcharon los Jesuitas.  Santa Maria de Manila, September 1785 (no day given).

[10] AFIO 95/11, Carta Informe al Gobierno sobre la misión de Samar por el P. Santiago de la Cabeza.  Estado actual y el que tenian cuando marcharon los Jesuitas.  Santa Maria de Manila, September 1785 (no day given).

[11] AFIO 95/9, Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Gobierno sobre misiones de la provincia de Samar entregadas a los franciscanos y algunos pertenecen a los agustinos, esas pueblos debian pasar a Leyte (Guiuan, Balanguiga y Basey) y otros los tenian los Jesuitas unidos como Calviga y Calbayog. Relación, 1 fol., sin fecha [probably ca. 1784]. 

[12] AFIO 95/11, Carta Informe al Gobierno sobre la misión de Samar por el P. Santiago de la Cabeza.  Estado actual y el que tenian cuando marcharon los Jesuitas.  Santa Maria de Manila, September 1785 (no day given).

[13] AFIO 95/5, Descripción de los pueblos de Samar por el P. José Joaquin, Ms., 12 ff., 24 March 1775.

[14] AFIO 95/5, Descripción de los pueblos de Samar por el P. José Joaquin, Ms., 12 ff., 24 March 1775.

[15] AFIO 95/9, Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Gobierno sobre misiones de la provincia de Samar entregadas a los franciscanos y algunos pertenecen a los agustinos, esas pueblos debian pasar a Leyte (Guiuan, Balanguiga y Basey) y otros los tenian los Jesuitas unidos como Calviga y Calbayog. Relación, 1 fol., sin fecha [probably ca. 1784].

[16] AFIO 95/5, Descripción de los pueblos de Samar por el P. José Joaquin, Ms., 12 ff., 24 March 1775.

[17] AFIO 95/9, Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Gobierno sobre misiones de la provincia de Samar entregadas a los franciscanos y algunos pertenecen a los agustinos, esas pueblos debian pasar a Leyte (Guiuan, Balanguiga y Basey) y otros los tenian los Jesuitas unidos como Calviga y Calbayog. Relación, 1 fol., sin fecha [probably ca. 1784].

[18] Museo Naval [MN henceforth], Ms. 136, Document 11, sub-section entitled “Apuntes de Palapa[g] en la Ysla de … Samar,” ff. 362-372; here, 362v-363.

[19] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 1069A, Contestación que dá el Obispo de Zebú de Sopetran Agustino Recoleto descalzo, al interrogario formado por la Governación de Ultramar en la Ciudad de Cadiz, en 6 de Diciembre de 1812, y recibido por el expresado Obispo en 22 de Noviembre de 1814.  13 February 1815 by Fr. Joachim, Obispo de Zebu.

[20] MN, Ms. 1774, Doc. 41, ff. 70-78, 1832: Informe del cura de Borongan y del alcalde mayor de Samar sobre la provincia de Samar y formación de las visitas, explicando los motivos de que no prosperen.  The priest wrote on 26 October and the governor,     quoted in my essay, wrote on 31 October 1832.

[21] A Franciscan in 1894 narrowed his focus to Spaniards alone, writing “¿Y que diremos de los españoles que estan por aqui [La Granja] comerciando?  La mayor parte son vampiros que chupan la sangre del pobre, hombres sin educacion, sin conciencia, su unico objeto es hacer dinero sea como quiera.”

[22] AFIO 111/4, 1818 Estados de importacion, Manila, Estado de los Buques.  The Samar list represented two Galeras, 2 Pontines, and 1 Caracoa, carrying tar or pitch (brea), wax, and coconut oil.  Leyte sent 9 boats to Manila in that year, carrying sulfur (azufre), brea, and coconut oil.  Alcina, v. 2, 236-239, mentions in passing the veins of brea or pitch found on the ground, particularly in Paranas.  He indicated that the pitch was used locally for candles and torches.

[23] AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 599, Estado general que manifiesta las producciones comerciales en un año de las 27 Provincias de las Yslas Filipinas con espresion del valor que rinde cada articulo, y el total á que ascienden aquellas al precio de comercio que se fija, asi como su consume y parages adonde se esportan.  Dated 30 December 1824.  Later in the document the prices are given in ranges, but for my general estimate of the trade value I have used only the arbitrary, single price given in the table.  My notes do not include tejidos de guinaras, suggesting that the total commerce and value was probably higher than reported here.  The Museo Naval (MN, Ms. 1667, Doc. 2, ff. 33-40) has an undated summary (f. 37-37v) of goods traded from Samar, probably from between 1830 and 1835 since most of these papers were related to the office period for Governor General Pascual Enrile y Alcedo, who served in Manila from 23 December 1830 to 1 March 1835.  The goods then were similar to the 1824 report, including balate (sea cucumbers), tortoiseshell, shark fins, wax, cattle or carabao hides, and pepita de San Ygnacio.  Pueblos of origin were not given. 

[24] Saint Ignacio’s seed, the pepita de San Ygnacio, is described in Manuel Blanco, O.S.A., Flora de Filipinas, segun el sistema sexual de Linneo (Manila: Imp. de D. Miguel Sánchez, 1845. 2nd ed., revised), 61, and was found in Bohol as well; and that it (Strychnos Philippensis) was said to be good against fevers and against the venom of snakes.  Juan J. Delgado, S.J., La Historia General Sacro-Profana Política y Natural de las islas del Poniente llamadas Filipinas ( Manila: Imp. de El Eco de Filipinas de D. Juan Atayde (Biblioteca Histórica Filipina), 1892), 784-788, describes the igasud or Strychnos Ignatii, or pepita de San Ignacio as found throughout the upland Visayas but not in Luzon; and that it was useful against venom, poison, with other medicinal benefits from fevers to wounds to inducing labor in cases of difficult or slow births.  Alcina does not mention it by this name, though he does have (v. 1, 554-555, 569) reference to Pepinos de San Gregorio: “Salacsalac llaman acá a una como estopa, que tiene dentro una calabacilla y algunos en español llaman ‘pepinos de San Gregorio,’ no sé por qué causa. Los bisayas le llaman con dicho nombre, que quiere decir ‘nido chiquito’ (porque se semeja a los nidos que hacen algunos pajaritos acá, colgados en las ramas de los árboles).  Es tan medicinal que se puede decir que exceed, pues, en usando de él sin tiento, es dañoso.” “Salacsalac is what they call here a tow-like material which has within it a small gourd. Some call these in Spanish ‘cucumbers of Saint Gregory,” I do not know for what reason. The Bisayans refer to them with the above name, which means little nest, because it resembles the nests which some birds make here fastened in the branches of trees. It is so medicinal that it can be said that it is so in excess, because using it without restraint is dangerous.”  I doubt that Alcina would mistakenly have written the Franciscan San Gregorio for the Jesuit Saint Ignacio, and the editors (v. v. 1n5) comment that “Alcina does not know why it is called thus, neither do we.”  On the other hand, the editors discuss Salacsalac or Salaksalak or salag-salag, whose description and use includes potency against snakebites. References to this remarkable natural drug can also be found in Fedor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875), 267-268.

[25] Registro Mercantil de Manila, monthly reports January through November 1829, from AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 664, in the legajo titled Espedientes de navegacion industria y comercio, 1829-35.  The numbers of the publications are 61, 62, 63 (two for March found), 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, and 71, scattered throughout the legajo.  These are figures of official trade to/from Manila only.  There are, of course, no records here of voyages from Samar to Cebu and elsewhere than Manila, which undoubtedly again underestimates the amount of maritime activity to and from Samar.  The source too has other limitations.  In addition to its reliance on official figures, it tells us what sorts of boat but does not name the boats or their owners.  Moreover, while it gives us the total of goods carried per month and year, there is no data broken down by boat or by province of origin/destination.

[26] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 824, “Duplicados de Superintendentes é Yntendentes de Ejercito y Real Hacienda,” 1835, including (pp. 27-28v) an Estado que demeustra los buques del ramo de cabotage que han entrado en el rio y barra de esta Capital desde 1re de Enero hasta fines de Diciembre del 1834 ….”  Samar’s total was made up of 3 Goletas, 3 Galeras, 22 Pontines, 4 Pancos, 4 Caracoas, and 5 Paraos.

[27] MN, Ms. 2187, Doc. 14, ff. 53-54, Estados demostrativos de los buques de cabotaje que han entrado y salido en el rio y barra de esta capital desde 1o de enero hasta la fecha [30 November 1835], procedentes de los puntos que se expresan, número de embarcaciones de cada provincia y sus clases.  From Samar were 2 Bergantines, 1 Galera, 1 Lugre [both of the dictionaries referred to earlier define this as a “lugger, small vessel.”], 24 Pontines, 2 Pancos, 1 Caracoa, and 2 Paraos; to Samar from Manila were 2 Bergantines, 1 Galera, 1 Falua, 21 Pontines, 2 Pancos, 1 Caracoa, and 2 Paraos. 

[28] Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Seccion “Filipinas,” 9-23-6-4480.

[29] Philippine National Archives [obsolete name but the title when I enjoyed the opportunity to work there in the 1970s; I will use PNA hereafter in these end notes], Ereccion del Pueblo, Legajo 122, no. 23, Samar, 1832-1833.

[30] Archivo Histórico Nacional [AHN henceforth], Ultramar, Legajo 5155, 1839 f #10.

[31] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5166, 1855 f #36.

[32] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 828, “Duplicados de Superintendentes é Yntendentes de Ejercito y Real Hacienda,”

1838, f #171, “Contesta la Real órden de [10 Dec. 1835] manifestando el Sistema que en el dia se observa en el

pago y recaudación del tribute, tanto en especie como en dinero, proponiendo lo que sobre este particular estema mas conveniente.”  16 August 1838 letter.  However, this same source includes a Testimonio del Espediente instruido en virtud de la Real orden de [10 Dec. 1835] sobre que no se obligue á los contribuyentes á satisfacer

su tribute de modo determinado sino como les acomode, esto es, en especie ó en dinero, which shows that Samar also made “contributions” in palay (as did Negros).  In 1846, all tribute was registered as paid in coin (PNA, Provincia de Samar, Unnumbered Legajo, 1841-1893. 1846).

[33] Fedor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875), 293.

[34] PNA, Mercados Públicos, Unnumbered Legajo, 1861-1894, 1880-1884.  There is a reference to a public market set up in Catbalogan in a communication dated 27 November 1880 by the governor.  The implication that this was the first time had had one there and in Samar.  On the 27th of January 1881, the governor requested that the Catbalogan market day be set at once a month on the 8th of each month for buying/selling goods, especially imports from other Samar towns.  Also see AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5320-3,o 1899 [sic] f #300.

[35] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5169, 1857 f #18.  The former governor was found guilty of most of the charges in 1859 and by the time the case was closed in 1864 his penalty was a fine of 300 pesos and half the costs.

[36] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5173, 1865 f #2.

[37] AFIO 95/8, Carta Informe del P. José Fayo al Provincial P. Santiago de la Cabeza sobre la ida de los religiosos a Samar.  Morong, 14 September 1785.

[38] AFIO 95/11, Carta Informe al Gobierno sobre la misión de Samar por el P. Santiago de la Cabeza.  Estado actual y el que tenian cuando marcharon los Jesuitas.  Santa Maria de Manila, September 1785 (no day given).  The Spanish text says that Samareños [my coinage] expenden el arroz, aceyte, cera, mantas, guinaras, y todos los demas efectos, que les produce se trabajo e industria.  No pasan por otras manos que las suias; lo regular es venderlos a los Mestizos, y estos hacen su comercio a Zebu, y a esta Capital.

[39] Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga, O.S.A., Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas ó Mis viajes por este país.  Ed. W. E. Retana, who estimates that it was written sometime between 1803 and 1805.  Madrid: Imp. de la Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Ríos, 1893.  2 v.; here, v. 2, 65.

[40] PNA, Ereccion del Pueblo, Legajo 122, no. 9, 1792.  There is a reference in PNA, Ereccion del Pueblo, Legajo 119, Part 1, #29, 1771-1772, to an accusation made in passing that Chinese mestizos were using debt slavery to control labor on their lands in Samar.  Monies advanced against first crack at harvested products would probably have been the more common mechanism since land was not scarce, shifting cultivation was the norm, and Samareños were well known to move from place to place.  Advancing money against a crop already planted would have been a more secure method to exploit cultivators.

[41] PNA, Ereccion del Pueblo, Legajo 122, no. 31, 1804-1806.

[42] The Catbalogan aspect of these conflicts might have been part of a larger conflict between Chinese mestizos and other elite members over what forced labor obligations the former should perform.  At one point the governor of Samar, Don Manuel Estevan Siauzon, who had supported exemptions for polo labor for Chinese mestizos, was deposed and in June 1803 another governor (Don Mariano Alvares) was appointed.  The complaints against Chinese mestizos surfaced again in 1807 with the new governor ruling against the Chinese mestizos in 1808.  As a consequence, some Chinese mestizos in Catbalogan requested permission from Manila to be permitted to relocate to Calañganan, Leyte.  The final resolution is not given in the documentation I was able to locate.  PNA, Ereccion del Pueblo, Samar, Legajo 117, Part 1, #70, 1807.

[43] AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 693, Plan General de Almas y Tributos de todos estados, Provincias, Pueblos, y Cura que los administran, y sus Edades, y Profesiones existentes en el Obispado de Zebu en este año de 1816.  The data for Bangajon are lacking, perhaps due to lack of data when the report was compiled.  Another copy, again with no Bangajon data, is in AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 1001, in the legajo entitled Consultas de Materias y Provisiones Eclesiasticas, 1774-1832.  And yet another copy, again without Bangajon data, is in AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 372, in the legajo entitled Informes sobre materias governativas, 1765-1824.

[44] Taken from PNA, Patronato, Unclassified—1842-1846. Estadistica de San Francisco de los Religiosos y Almas que administraron en los años 1831, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42, y 45, as published in Bruce Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, 1578-1898. Catalogs and Analysis for a History of Filipinos in Franciscan Parishes (Hastings, NE: Cornhusker Press, 2003), 5v.; here, v. 2, 31-32.

[45] Taken from PNA, Patronato, Unclassified—1843-1849.  Resumen General del estado que actualmente tiene la Provincia de S. Gregorio de la Regular y mas estrecha observancia de N. S. P. Francisco en estas Yslas Filipinas en el presente año 1849 con esprecion del numero de tributos y almas, Bautismos, casamientos y Defunciones que ha habido en los Pueblos de su administracion, as presented in Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 2, 38-40.

[46] Félix de Huerta, O.F.M., Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de religiosos Menores Descalzos de la Regular y más estrecha Observancia de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las islas Filipinas; comprende el número de religiosos, conventos, pueblos, situación de estos, años de su fundación, tributos, almas, producciones, industrias, casos especiales de su administración spiritual, en el archipiélago Filipino, desde su fundación en el año de 1577 hasta el de 1865.   First published in 1855 but expanded in the 2nd edition of 1865.  Binondo: M. Sánchez, 1865.  713pp.  Much of the description is from the 1850s, which is why I consider the second edition (which I used, except for population figures expressly noted as taken from the earlier edition) as a mid-nineteenth century source.

[47] Valentin Marin y Morales, O.P., ed., Ensayo de una Síntesis de los Trabajos realizados por las Corporaciones Religiosas Españolas de Filipinas (Manila: Santo Tomás, 1901), v. 2, 594-597, claimed that P. Fr. José Huerce, O.F.M., organized imports of carabaos from the Camarines and Albay, bringing in “algunos centenares” to Samar.  This writer also says that Father José Huerce organized the deepening of the port for Calbayog in 1853; and that

this Franciscan and one in Borongan around 1850 were instrumental in improving the cultivation for export of abaca (v. 2, 377-378).  Without other sources corroborating these assertions, it is difficult to be confident that these notable accomplishments were as singular as described.

[48] “El terreno [of Sulat] cultivado produce bastante arroz y de varias clases, especialmente un arroz negro llamado Mumus, que por lo regular se dá siempre de alimento á los enfermos (Huerta, 1865, 304).  Antonio Sánchez de la Rosa, O.F.M., Diccionario Bisaya-Español. Diccionario Hispano-Bisaya para las provincias de Samar y Leyte (Manila: Chofré, 1895), pp. 110-112, names sixty-nine types of rice, though he does not specify which were grown exclusively on Samar and where.  The three black rice grains named are Muños, Pinarogmoc, and Sugbuanun. 

[49] AFIO 111/19, D. Felipe Govantes, Noticias y geográfica de Filipinas en dos partes en forma de diálogo y lecciones (Binondo: Miguel Sánchez, 1866.  142pp.), 113-115.

[50] Agustín de la Cavada y Méndez de Vigo, Historia Geográfica, Geológica y Estadística de Filipinas (Manila: Ramirez y Giraudier, 1876), 2v.; here, v. 2, 80.  Also see Norman G. Owen, Textile Displacement and the Status of Women in Southeast Asia (Ann Arbor: Michigan Occasional paper (no. 17), Spring 1981). 29pp.

[51] Félix de Huerta, O.F.M., Estado geográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso,  de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de religiosos Menores Descalzos de la Regular y más estrecha Observancia de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las islas Filipinas … desde su fundación en el año de 1577 hasta el de 1853.  Manila: Ymp. de los Amigos del País, 1855.  439pp.  These figures are taken from the text descriptions of the individual pueblos.  The figures given in the estado at the end of the book can be quite different.

[52] Estado General de los Religiosos y Religiosas de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de PP Franciscanos Descalzos en los diversos conventos que tiene en las islas Filipinas y España, con expression de curas párrocos y demás ministerios que ocupan el año de 1869 (Isla del Romero, 19 February 1869); as published in Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 2, 66-70.

[53] AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 604, Expedientes é Ynstancias de Partes, 1831-1870, which contains a copy of issues 81, 83-87, 89-90, 92-94, 100-101, and 103-104 for 4 January 1869, 1 and 15 February, 1 and 15 and 27 March, 21 April and 5 May, 2 and 16 and 30 June, 22 September and 11 October, and 8 and 22 November 1869. 

[54] AFIO 111/19, D. Felipe Govantes, Noticias y geográfica de Filipinas en dos partes en forma de diálogo y lecciones (Binondo: Miguel Sánchez, 1866.  142pp.), 113-115.

[55] Agustín de Cavada y Méndez de Vigo, Historia Geográfica, Geológica y Estadística de Filipinas (Manila: Ramirez y Giraudier, 1876),  2v.; here, v. 2, 80-81.  His statistics suggest that Samar was not an integrated economy since the island’s producers exported 80,500 cavanes of unhusked rice while elsewhere in Samar 50,600 cavanes of husked rice was imported.  The ships from Samar included 32 Bergantines Goletas, 5 Goletas, 8 Pontines, 4 Pancos, 1 Paylebot, 6 Lorchas [the dictionaries used earlier describe this as a “junk-rigged coaster”], and 38 “Diversos;” to Samar went 33 Bergantines Goletas, 5 Goletas, 6 Pontines, 5 Pancos, 3 Paylebots [unknown to the dictionaries used earlier], 6 Lorchas, and 35 “Diversos.”

[56] Fedor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875), chapters 19, 20, and 22.

[57] PNA, Provincia de Samar, Unnumbered Legajo, 1844-1898. 1859.

[58] Based on information collected by Dr. Dan Doeppers, which he kindly allowed me to work with as tabulated in his CROSTAB2 Program back in the 1970s at the University of Wisconsin.  I am grateful for his generosity with what was then his own research in progress; and of course with his advice and suggestions for my work then and through the years since.

[59] AFIO 96/46, Memoria sobre la situacion actual del Distrito. Ms., 19ff., August 1876.

[60] Estado General de los Religiosos y Religiosas existentes en los diversos conventos, hospitals, enfermerias, parroquias, misiones y demás casas que la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de PP. Franciscanos Descalzos tiene establecidas en estas Islas y en España con expression de la edad, antiguedad de hábito y clase de cada religioso, número de provincias, pueblos, personas con cédula personal de pago y almas etc. que espiritualmente han administrado los Religiosos, Párrocos o Misioneros en el año de 1887 (Islas del Romero, 31 July 1888, Imprenta de Amigos del Paía, Manila, 1888, 27pp.; as presented in Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 2, 71-75.

[61] Estado General de los Religiosos y Religiosas existentes en los diversos conventos, hospitals, enfermerias, parroquias, misiones y demás casas que la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de PP. Franciscanos Descalzos tiene establecidas en estas Islas y en España con expression de la edad, antiguedad de hábito y clase de cada religioso, número de provincias, pueblos, personas con cédula personal de pago y almas etc. que espiritualmente han administrado los Religiosos, Párrocos o Misioneros en el año de 1896 (Islas del Romero, 30 June 1897, Tipo-Litografía del Asilo de Huerfanos de la Consolacion de PP. Agustinos, Malabon, 1897.; as presented in Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 2, 81-85. 

[62] PNA, Memoria, Samar, 1893.

[63] Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), 139.  Also see the extended discussion and statistics in Ibid., Appendix 16: Migrations and the Late-Nineteenth-Century Population of Samar, 284-288.

[64] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 2311, 1899, f. 230, “Creación de una Parroquia en Santo Niño (Samar) independiente de su matriz Calbayog.”

[65] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 2311, f. 228, “Creación de una Parroquia en el pueblo de Weyler, independiente de Calbayog, distrito de Samar.”

[66] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5327, 1899 [sic] f #384.  The letter carries the date of 9 December 1890.

[67] PNA, Memoria, Samar, 1893, dated 31 January 1893, signed by Ricardo Nouvilas Aldean.

[68] PNA, Memoria, Samar, 1893, dated 31 January 1893, signed by Ricardo Nouvilas Aldean.

[69]  Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), Appendix 14, 266-274.

[70] Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), Appendix 15, 274-283; here, 274.  Also, Ibid., 139.

[71] PNA, Provincia de Samar, Unnumbered Legajo, 1804-1890. 1888.  The Spanish text reads “El comercio de exportacion es el abaca, aceyte, manteca, coco y pescado salado y el de importacion consiste en arroz, efectos de Europa y tal con algunos otros comestibles del pais notandose tambien el de telas, muebles, herramientas y otros útiles de distinta aplicacion.”

[72] PNA, Memoria, Samar, 1893, dated 31 January 1893, signed by Ricardo Nouvilas Aldean.

[73] PNA, Memoria, Samar, 1893, dated 31 January 1893, signed by Ricardo Nouvilas Aldean.

[74] G. Santos y Ciocon, “Agriculture in Calbiga Valley, Samar Valley,” Philippine Agricultural Review, 22: 3 (1929), 257-263; here, 258-259.

[75] Frederick L. Wernstedt and J.  E. Spencer, The Philippine Island World: a Physical, Cultural, and Regional Geography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). 

[76] John A. Larkin, “The Place of Local History in Philippine Historiography,” Journal of Southeast Asian History, 8:2 (September 1967), 306-317; here, 307.

[77] St. Louis, Vatican Film Library, ARSI. Phil. 2, II, Roll 158, ff. 314-317v.  The totals are mine.

[78] St. Louis, Vatican Film Library, ARSI. Phil. 2, II, Roll 158, ff. 412-415.  The totals are mine.

[79] St. Louis, Vatican Film Library, ARSI. Phil. 12 (Roll 165), ff. 264-267.  The totals are mine.

[80] St. Louis, Vatican Film Library, ARSI. Phil. 14 (Roll 166), ff. 106-109.  The totals are mine. 

[81] St. Louis, Vatican Film Library, ARSI. Phil. 14 (Roll 166), ff. 110-113, 1737.  The totals are mine.  There are some statistics for 1743 on this roll, ff. 114-117, but the presentation is too damaged to permit a full listing of pueblo data.

[82] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 323, Testimonio Autenico de los Informe que dieron los Illmos Señores Obispos Sufraganeos Prelados Regulares Sobre los Curas y Ministros de Doctrina de estas Yslas, Pueblos y doctrinas de su cargo, sus zituaciones, y Naturales de sus havitadores, pp. 146-148.  Calviga and Umauas are combined, but the Visita Tinajon (under Bangajon (earlier name for Gandara)); Talbayo, under Capul; Visita de Salaviton (under Basey), Bobong (under Catarman) are not entered.  Buad (Zumarraga) is added to Catbalogan.  Figures for Esclavos (in Catbalogan, Umauas, Bangajon, Tinajon, Capul, and Talbayo), from 2 to 5 in each locality, are not added into the totals presented here.

[83] These 1755 figures come from AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 301, Ramo 3, f. 48, del numero de almas que administran los Religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus y de San Agustin de Religiosos Calzados.  I have added the Balangiga figure (1756) to the Guiuan one.  The Catbalogan figure is without adding in 12 Mestizos Españoles and 42 Sangleyes; it does include a remarkable 1,617 for “Bouad,” which I think must be Buad, later Zumarraga.  Not included in the table are figures for Bobon (1,361) and for “Tinagub” (925).

[84] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 1027.  The figures for Guiuan includes 822 “souls” for Balangiga.  

[85] The data for Guiuan and Basey are from AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 698, Testimonio de los informes de los Provinciales de los cuatro Ordenes de Dominicos, Agustinos, Franciscanos y Recoletos sobre Doctrinas y Misiones y numero y nombre de los Religiosos, 1799-1802.  The data for other pueblos for 1797 is taken from AGI, Ultramar, Legajo 524, Consultas, expedientes y resoluciones del Consejo, Cámara y Ministros, within which is a Plan General de Tributos y Almas que administra la Provincia de San Gregorio perteneciente al Año de 1797.

[86] I assume the data are for the year prior to year to publication, not to the year given in the titles which improbably is the year after publication. 

Guía de Forasteros en las Islas Filipinas para el año de 1853.  Manila: Amigos del País, 1852.  364pp.

Guía de Forasteros en las Islas Filipinas, para el año de 1854.  Manila: Amigos del País, 1853.  376pp.

Guía de Forasteros en las Islas Filipinas, para el año de 1855.  Manila: Amigos del País, 1854.  360pp.

Guía de Forasteros en las Islas Filipinas, para el año de 1856.  Manila: Amigos del País, 1855.  368pp.

[87] Guía de Forasteros en las Islas Filipinas para el año de 1864.  Manila: Ramírez y Giraudier, 1864.  449pp.

[88] PNA, Prestacion Personal, Samar, Legajo 108 (1886-1898), 1886-1887.

[89] PNA, Provincia de Samar, Unnumbered Legajo, 1846-1898. 1888.  The names appear to be overwhelmingly Chinese, some with tobacco licenses separately (not counted here); some entries may be duplicates.  The data are based on the number of licenses issued for mercantile activity in the pueblos.