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ASCENDANCE OF CHINESE MESTIZO 3. Own property
Chinese Mestizo
 Philippine term use for persons of mixed Chinese-
Native ancestry.
 Any person born of a Chinese Father and an Indio
Mother was classified as a Chinese Mestizo.
Membership is strictly defined by:
 Genealogical considerations rather than by place of
birth.
 Possession of a unique combination of cultural
characteristic could be easily distinguished from
both the Chinese and the native communities.
Confusion about the term mestizo:
 Mestizo as Spanish Mestizos (mixed spanish native
ancestry) rather than Chinese mestizos
 It is sometimes claimed that Spanish mestizos were
of great importance in Philippine History when
indeed the activities describe were those of Chinese
Mestizos
Spanish Policy
Population of those parts of the Philippines that were
controlled by Spain was divided into 4 categories:
 Spaniards and Spanish Mestizos
 Indios
 Chinese
 Chinese Mestizos
Tribute Paying Classes
 Chinese - Commercially oriented money maker
 Indio - Concern of the agricultural
 Chinese Mestizos - Concern of the agricultural
As to rights
Mestizos and Indios had the same rights in terms of:
1. Rights to move about the islands (geographic
mobility)
2. Change residence
1. Chinese merchants carried on rich trade between
4. Participate in town government While Chinese
(with degrees of success) were usually restricted.
 The maintenance of three categories was provided
by Spanish legislation.
 Legal status as (Chinese, mestizo, Indio) - not
ordinarily a matter of personal orientation or
choice rather it was based on the status of
parents(particularly the father)
 Son of a Chinese father and an india or mestiza
mother = Chinese mestizo
 Male descendants were inalterably Chinese
mestizo
 The status of female descendants was determined
by their marriages.
 Mestiza marrying a Chinese or mestizo remained
in the mestizo classification as did her children.
 Mestiza marrying an indio will become as indio
and her children.
 Females of the mestizo group could change status
but males could not.
 Individual dispensation
 Procedure by which one could change his
status
 dispensa de ley or gracias al sacar
2 ways to alter status
 Legal action
 Intermarriage (both catholic)
Distinction of term Mestizo
19th century
 According to Retana in this times the term “
mestizo ” is considered as “Chinese mestizos ”
 Opposed by James Leroy because according to
him the term “ mestizos ” refers to “Spanish
mestizos ”
History of Chinese in Philippines
Chinese moved into an important economic position.
Manila and China.
2. They are the provisioners of food
3. Retail traders and artisans
Spanish vs Chinese
 Spanish came to believe the services of the Chinese
were indispensable
 But later on the feelings of distrust and animosity
were developed between Chinese and Spaniards.
 Chinese population was larger than the Spanish.
 Spanish fears of Chinese revolts.
 For the Spanish to overcome the dilemma
 Spanish policy between economic interest and
political security.
 Convert the Chinese to Catholici sm and
Hispanism
Binondo
 Binondo was founded as Chinese town in 1594.
 New Chinese settlement( Binondo ) was given to
prominent Chinese merchants and artisans.
 A royal order for the expulsion of all Chinese from
the Philippines had been receive but Gov.
Dasmarinas realized the importance of Chinese.
 Retain a small number of Chinese for
economic services.
 But the Spanish Dominican fathers made Binondo a
kind of acculturation laboratory.
 Binondo became a community of married
catholic Chinese.
 And this group had reached a size of five
hundred or more.
 Gremio de Mestizos de Binondo in 1741
 Three gremio each claiming superiority in civil and
ceremonial affairs within Binondo
 Mestizo Gremio had jurisdiction over affairs of
general concern
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Inquilinos
 Also called “lessees ” or “tenants ”
 Inquilinos are leaseholders of agricultural land
owned by friars
 They also sublease parcels of the land to
sharecroppers
 Biñan Hacienda is “mostly in the power of the
rich" , who work it by means of the kasamahan
system.
Town of rich people
Tambobong (Malabon)
 A half-mestizo, half-indio town of some 15,000
population, had sprung from obscurity because of
its position as a center for transshipment of goods
from Pampanga and Bulacan to Manila.
Polo
 With a population of about 1,000 had an important
mes tizo minorit y , forming it s wealthies t
element. The people of Polo specialized in the
collection of rice for transport to Manila.
Mercauayan
 Meycauayan specialized in stoneworking, but,
according to Zuñiga, most of the profits went not to
the indio workers but to the mestizos of that town
who loaned tools and advanced money at high rates
of interest to the stone- cutters.
Pasig
 Controlled the gateway from Manila upriver to the
province of Laguna, specialized in wholesale and
retail trade.
 One of the most impressive buildings in Pasig was
the stone casa real of the mestizo gremio.
Pacto De Retro
 Contract of retrocession
 The classic instrument of land alienation by which
the Indio landowner pawned his land for ready cash
with an option to '' repurchase ” it at a price equal  The rise of the mestizo to economic importance
to the amount of the loan. was attributed to the transition from a subsistence
economy to an export crop economy, with
 Indigo industry, for instance, Spaniards opportunities for profit in middleman wholesaling
attempted to replace the mestizo moneylenders by of raw products and foreign imports.
advancing money to growers. But this was a short  Overall, the Chinese mestizos were a crucial and
lived experiment. The mestizos, unlike the influential group in shaping the economic and
Spaniards, lived close to the indios, knew their social landscape of the Philippines during this
language, and watched the harvest closely. period.
 It began with the mestizos of Tambobong
(Malabon), who were taught an indigo
manufacturing method by an Augustinian priest.
 They chose the province of Bataan to experiment
with the new process. There they financed the
growers, processed their product, and sold it to
Chinese in Manila, making handsome profits.
 By the middle of the nineteenth century the
economic position of the Chinese mestizos was
stronger than ever.
 Lannoy, writing in the 1840' s, said that despite
the attempts of the Spanish to treat them with
disdain, it was the Chinese mestizos who had the
biggest fortunes in the Philippines.
Importance of Chinese Mestizos in Philippine
economy and society:
 The Chinese mestizos played a significant role in
the Philippine economy and society during the
18th and 19th centuries. They were described as
being the most industrious, persevering, and
economical element in the Philippine population.
 They were involved in interisland trade,
collecting raw materials in the Visayas and
transporting them to Manila for export overseas.
 The mestizos were also involved in landholding,
internal trading, and retail commerce, and they
dominated the middle class of the Philippines.
Their economic influence was substantial, and
they were predicted to replace the Chinese
economically.