Chapter 1: The Philippines before the Americans
Chap 1, pg 1
Hello! Kamusta! Maayong adlaw! Bolos ka!
I’m Juan dela Cruz, a representative of the
Filipino people. I will be sharing some of my
thoughts with you during this story about the
Philippines.
Who were the first settlers of the Philippines?
Anthroplogists and other scientists have long tried to answer this question, but even today there is no general
agreement as to who were the first Filipinos. There are several theories:
Land Bridge Theory
Some archaeologists have suggested that at least 30,000 years ago, exposed
bodies of land connected the Philippines with mainland Asia. They believe
that migrating people walked over these land bridges to reach the Philippines.
However, geologist Fritjof Voss rejected this theory, using geologic studies of
the earth’s crust to show that the Philippines was never part of mainland Asia.
Waves of Migration Theory
Anthropologist H. Otley Beyer developed this theory to explain how the first people arrived in the Philippines:
1. The “Dawn Men” came to the Philippines around
250,000 years ago.
2. The Negritos, an aboriginal pygmy group, came via land
bridges about 25,000 years ago.
3. The Indonesians came to the Philippines by sea about
5,000 to 6,000 years ago.
4. The Malays, who also came by sea, brought the Iron Age
culture and became the dominant cultural group in preSpanish Philippines.
Not many scientists still believe in the Land Bridge theory or the Waves of Migration theory, because there is
little geological or archaeological evidence to support them. There are now more modern theories:
Evolution / Local Origin Theory
Anthropologist F. Landa Jocano disagrees that most Filipinos descended from Negritos and
Malays who migrated to the Philippines from present-day Malaysia. Human bones found in
the Tabon Caves of Palawan, carbon-dated at 21,000 years old, show that humans arrived in
the Philippines before the Malay Peninsula. Thus, no group among the Filipinos, Indonesians
or the Malays is culturally or racially dominant. Instead, Jocano suggests that Filipinos are
products of the long process of evolution and movement of people. Thus, many aspects of
Filipino physical evolution and culture have a local origin.
Chap 1, pg 2
The Spanish Arrive
Philippine history changed when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in 1521, beginning 300 years of
Spanish colonization.
The Spanish came to the Philippines searching for spices such as pepper,
nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, which were very valuable in Europe.
From 1500 until the 1800s, the Spanish Empire
(dark areas on the map) was the largest in the world,
and included colonies in South America, North
America, Africa and Asia.
Galleon Trade
The Philippines did not have many spices;
this was a big disappointment to the Spanish.
However, the Philippines did play an important role
for the Spanish empire: Manila served as a hub of the
annual galleon trade: Spanish galleons (boats) carried
silver from the mines of Mexico to Manila and then on
to China, then returned along the same route carrying
Chinese silks, ceramics and spices to the Philippines and
onward to Spain.
Chap 1, pg 3
Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church, unlike the Spanish Kings, was very enthusiastic about the Philippines. The Pope
in Rome viewed the islands as fertile ground for recruiting new converts; he sent priests from the Augustinian,
Dominican, Franciscan and Jesuit orders to the Philippines as missionaries.
Although the colony was supposed to be administered by the Spanish Colonial government, in truth it was largely run by the Spanish
friars or “los frailes” as they were known. Their religious orders
were given huge tracts of land and controlled the areas where they
were assigned. In many cases they were abusive to the natives; this
caused a great deal of resentment.
In response to the repressive policies of the
friars and the Spanish colonial government,
there were dozens of attempted uprisings.
Sadly, every one of these revolts failed.
In the southern Philippines, the Muslim sultanates of Mindanao (Maguindanao and Sulu)
strongly resisted Spanish colonial rule, and
were therefore not integrated with the rest of
the islands.
Ang Katipunan
Chap 1, pg 4
In 1892, the Filipino nationalists Andrés Bonifacio, Ladislao Diwa, Teodoro Plata, Deodato Arellano,
Valentin Diaz, Jose Dizon, and others founded Ang Katipunan, a revolutionary organization which aimed
to gain independence from Spain.
The Spanish Government reacted with more repression. Thousands of Filipino suspects were arrested, questioned under torture, and then imprisoned or deported to the Carolines or to the Spanish island colony of Fernando Po in faraway Africa. Hundreds of them were executed.
The most famous victim of Spanish
repression was Jose Rizal, a doctor,
writer and poet who was executed by
the Spanish in 1896.
He is now the national hero of the Philippines.
By the late 1890s, the Katipunan army had grown large enough to
seriously threaten continued Spanish rule in the islands.
In 1896 the Spanish sent fresh troops, the “Ejercito Expedicionario,” to strengthen their position, but nevertheless lost control of most of the Philippines to the Katipunan Army. By January 1898 the Spanish colonial army
controlled only Manila and a few other cities such as Cebu and Iloilo. The era of Spanish rule was ending.