The Gardener borrows a telescope and takes a quick look at the tale of more than a thousand years of relations between the people of these islands and that big land nearby:
A PARTIAL CHRONOLOGY[1]
OUR FOREBEARS:
Before they were called “Filipinos” our forebears were EARLY SOUTHEAST ASIANS. Some 4,000 years ago people from the southeast archipelagos all the way to the southern part of the mainland dealt a lot with each other and had many things in common… sharing the importance of family ties: of cognate kinship on both mother and father side; reliance on sea for food; on body tattooing for achievements in battle; and even sharing the same questionable traits like slave raiding. In a very real sense they formed one common culture area.
They manifested themselves as a patchwork of human settlements then: river-based (for water and food and transportation), highly mobile, dealing with but yet isolated from one another rather than concentrated in population centers, – in fact every center a center in its own right. Our forebears were islanders all right…people of the Southeast Asian seas.
Pre-Colonial Philippines: moneyless and rich, people of this archipelago had Earth for their purse. There was easy gold, ever abundant, throughout the various islands. Gold, at first, was not currency but just another commodity for barter – like beeswax, or cinnamon, or cloth (woven out of abaca), or like those other products filling simple daily needs. People of the mountains bartered gold dust and venison with salt and dried fish of the seaside and rice of the plains. (“I have some gold here, do you have some dried fish?”)
Penniform Gold Barter Rings
from: www.retrato.com.ph
Piloncitos
from: www.retrato.com.ph
With the arrival of foreign traders, they saw that gold had values beyond decoration and sentiment. The penniform gold barter ring appeared early on, and a little later what numismatists called the “piloncito” – our earliest form of coinage, a small conical bit of solid gold with a raised inscription scholars interpreted as “MA” at the base – which stood either for “Ma-I” or for the old “Madjapahit Empire”.
Foreign trade was a vibrant activity for more than 900 years before the Spanish came.
618-906 A.D – People of this archipelago (our ancestors) were often in contact with
Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty
http://history.cultural-china.com
the Tang rulers of China. “We” and “they” had many things we needed or liked that we could exchange conveniently.
900 – Ma-I (Mindoro) started to bring goods directly to Canton
1001 – Butuan, a gold mining and trading center in Northeast Mindanao sends “tribute missions” to the Sung rulers of China. Going down to its essence, what “tributes” (export) and “gifts” (import) really meant was trade. The “Middle Kingdom” merely preferred a Sino centric vocabulary – tributes from every one and gifts from them in return. Not that our forebears cared. But no doubt that from their mainland the Chinese tended to look down what from their view were the outer islands and did so with the proverbial proprietary attitudes of “civilized” vs. “savages or barbarians”, “us” vs. “them.”
1100 – Malays from Borneo settle in Manila/Tondo and intermarry with native Tagalogs:
1200’s –The Chinese historian Chou Ju-kua describes in detail how early barter trade was conducted in this archipelago, among the “savages”, as he preferred to call our ancestors:
“When foreign traders come to one of their villages, they must not touch the ground, but must remain aboard the vessel, which is anchored in the middle of the current, and announce their presence by beat of drum.
“Thereupon the savage traders approach in their light craft, in which they carry cotton, yellow wax, strange cloth, cocoa nuts, onions and fine mats, and all those things which they offer for sale in exchange.
“In case of misunderstandings in the price of the goods, it is necessary to summon the chief of the traders of that place, so that he may present himself in person, and arrange the tariffs to the satisfaction of all….
“Foreign traders receive twice or thrice the value of the goods sold aboard, in order to serve as a bond of security. Afterward the foreign traders disembark and perfect their contracts, and then return to their vessel. The goods pledged by the natives remain only three or four days aboard the vessel, and then after the expiration of that term they are restored (to shore). Then the vessel visits another village of the savages.”
–In some villages hostages were held. In Sulu in particular to ensure that they would be regularly supplied with Chinese goods they held a few Chinese hostages to ensure their ship’s return. Some of these hostages took native wives and begot the first Chinese “mestizos” in the country.
1275 – Chinese traders and Arab missionaries bring Islam to the Sulu archipelago, almost three hundred years before Legaspi established Christianity in Cebu.
– Yuan dynasty trade proliferates with Visayan settlements of Butuan, Tanjay (Negros) and Cebu. Yes, there were already big barangays then, with populations of from 2000 (Pasig) to 20,000 (Panay). Cebu had 3000 and Baybay in Leyte 15,000. Calompit had 3000 and Pangasinan 4000. Such large aggregates of peoples in clearly defined territories with their own common stories, had to have societal power organized enough to be superior to merely kinship groups. (cf.Loarca, 1604)
When Pigafetta later wrote that on April 27th 1521 Lapu-lapu mobilized hundreds of warriors overnight, what could be more obvious than the existence therefore of well-prepared fighters or citizen warriors who could be instantaneously mobilized under a chain of command? So, the communities we are talking of at this time were far from defenseless and weak.
1349 Ship-building to trade A report in 1349 by Tao I-chi-lio of the Yuan dynasty mentioned the excellent metallurgy in the Philippines (made famous by the story of Panday Pira) and a thriving ship-building industry strong enough for international trade. And, in fact, –
1368-1424 – Sulu sends six missions of tribute and trade to China during this time – the Ming period.
Looking again at these our “family albums” clearly show that our forebears were a very prosperous people in the stage of civilization identifiable at that time – that they had so many surpluses as to enable them for centuries to engage in sustained and serious trading with neighboring communities and empires. A thousand years of constant trading with neighboring peoples is no small matter by any standards anywhere! It was also a thousand years of allowing, if not welcoming, Chinese to reside and do business and miscegenate in our shores, sometimes witnessing the occasional massacres of blaming foreign scapegoats for bigger than life problems.
1521 – This year was different as it saw Westerners setting foot for the first timeon the soil of our forebears. Funny how later they would claim and we would
Pigafetta
dutifully and pathetically chant along with them that they “discovered” the Philippines. Anyway, at that time what did they see? Antonio Pigafetta, the Italian Chronicler of this Spanish force commanded by a Portuguese conquistador (how little “nationalities” mattered but only civilizations did) wrote that the people, our forebears, “have earrings in their ears so large they can pass their arms through them.” They carry knives and spears ornamented with gold. Their gold was equivalent to 22 carats, made of the highest quality.
1560s – Poor rich Philippines! While China never had to invade us but merely engage us in trade and intermarriage, Westerners from much farther away preferred unabashed invasion. Some 40 years after their first unsuccessful invasion, the Spanish returned – to the Visayas and heard Manila was a more strategic trading area and so decided to expand north where they saw a good number of Chinese already residing and doing business.
1565 – Legaspi reported that the people “…possess in common throughout these islands, swine, goats, hens of Castille, rice, millet, and in addition a great variety of excellent fruit. The people wear gold earrings, bracelets and necklets. Wherever we went we found a great display of these articles. People say that there are many mines and much pure gold, yet the natives do not extract it until the very day they need it; and even then, they take only the amount necessary for their use, thus making the earth their purse.”
1566 -A Spaniard writing home to Seville recounted that our forebears held gold “in so little esteem that one chief gave 3 barachillas of gold dust for one string of hawk’s bells.” Yes, barter may have been unfair exchange but if people were happy with what they got, all was “fair.”
1576- Francisco Sande wrote to Madrid that people of the Philippines did not regard gold as currency although it was found in rich deposits and extracted with relative ease: “There is no need for anyone to spend gold; for they catch fish which they eat; the wine is made from the palms which are very abundant; and from the same tree (coconut) they obtain also oil and vinegar. In the mountains there are wild boar, deer and buffalo, which they can kill, in any desired number. Rice, which is the bread of the country, grows in abundance. Therefore they are afflicted by no poverty.”
-Without poverty there was no scarcity mentality either. Legazpi had earlier reported that:
“They do not even try to become wealthy, nor do they care to accumulate wealth. When the chief possesses one or two pairs of earrings of very fine gold, two bracelets and a chain, he will not trouble himself to look for any more gold.”
1582 -It seems that more than gold was rice as some form of medium of exchange. Our ancestors were not worth their weight in gold but in rice given the subsistence economy then prevailing. Everything from a pig to a water buffalo would have a corresponding price in terms of rice. The basic unit was a bunch of rice stalks still heavy with the ripened grain tied up in bundles of uniform size and could normally be grasped in one hand. Later Spaniards called this a manojo of palay. An elaborate table of measures was used based on the number of such rice bundles and each measure had a fixed value.
-Loarca wrote at this time, 1582:
“If they lent rice to anyone, one year was allowed for repaying it, since it is something that is planted. If the loan were not repaid after the first harvest, double the amount was to be paid at the second; at the third harvest, fourfold was due on an unpaid loan; and so on, regularly increasing.”
-One can say that this early practice of charging interest for loans of rice was the foundation of a system of lending and borrowing which made some people very rich and many so poor as to be virtual slaves to their creditors – especially when there were crop failures and borrowers had to borrow some more in order to pay back the original loan.
De Salazar
1583 – But how fast things changed. The introduction of coins got the natives to be very money-conscious as decried this year 1583 by Bishop Domingo de Salazar who wrote:
“When the Spaniards first came to the Philippines [only a few decades ago], a large variety of native produce could be had for very little, until the Spaniards introduced the use of money, from which no little harm came to the country. Products began to be scarce in this country and articles which were formerly cried through the streets have today reached so high prices and such scarcity that there is now no one who can obtain them even when they go to search for them in the Indian [i.e. Philippine] villages.”
1600s The Spanish invaders meet terrible resistance.
1599-1600 – Maguindanao Datus, with 50 vessels and 3000 warriors attack central Philippines and return to Southern Mindanao with 800 captives. A year later
1600 -The Spanish battle the Dutch over Manila, beating the Dutch, but not before losing a flagship and 300 men.
1603 – Mass uprising, surprise of surprises, by the Chinese resulted in 20,000 of them massacred by the Spanish.
1639 –Chinese revolt rocks Manila, again.
1642 -Kudarat defeats the Spanish, again.
1645 – Peace Treaty was signed at last between Muslims and Spaniards. With peace were greater hopes of sustained economic activity (NB, this is not 2012, though it may look so).
1650 Using the Spanish owners of the Philippines, the Chinese go into an awesome international trade with the West, the first of its kind ever. The Galleon Trade was the first regular east-west trans-pacific trade – the “only” or at least the chief economic activity of invaded Philippines. The ships went via the Pacific Ocean to Mexico (Manila to Acapulco), and then across the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean to Spain (Veracruz to Cádiz). Manila became the most important center of trade in Asia between the 17th and 18th centuries. All sorts of products mainly from China, but also from Japan, Brunei, the Moluccas and even India were sent to Manila to be sold for silver 8-Real coins, which came aboard the galleons from Acapulco. These goods, including silk, porcelain, spices, lacquer ware and textile products were then sent to Acapulco and from there to other parts of New Spain, Peru and Europe.
-Chinese junks came to Manila Bay regularly loaded with the wealth of Asia – wealth seeking its way by Spanish galleon to the annual feria (Trade Fair really) at Acapulco. Boletas allocating space in the ship holds were reserved for “poor widows and orphans” but in truth sold to the highest bidders. The galleons returned from Acapulco with at least more than a hundred percent profit, despite any kinds of imaginable risks.
-The Spaniards of Manila neglected modernization of agriculture and any and all incipient industrial projects. They had the galleon trade. The South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean were all they needed, and dreaded. You had to cross them to trade but one never knew which were the greater dangers – the pirates or the typhoons.
1700 – Sulu and Maguindanao sultanates fight for control of trade in their region.
1737 – Another Peace Treaty is signed between Spain and Sulu.
1739 – The Manila-Northern Luzon road system opens.
1756-63 –saw the so-called “Seven Years War” between Britain and Spain. At one time the British captured a galleon with one and half million in silver pesos and a cargo of rich merchandise.
1762 – British invade Manila – sparking revolts in Pampanga, Pangasinan, and Ilocos Sur, and an uprising by 900 Pampanga Chinese allied with Manila Chinese.
1765 -New liberal policies by a succession of hard-hitting progressive-minded Governors-General started. They reflected the new thinking of the “benevolent despot”, El Rey Carlos II, who had somehow imbibed radical new ideas from Adam Smith: “Let the people alone and the world will get along…Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui-meme.”
1765-1793 -Three Governors-General in a row (Simon de Anda, Jose de Basco y Vargas, and Felix Berenguer de Marquina) pursued agricultural productivity and industrial development opening the country to even more intense international trade.
1800’s -Foreign merchants other than Chinese were permitted permanent residency in the city, and many foreign firms were opened.
–Foreign competition and the open port policy spelled the doom of the galleon trade.
With the collapse of the Galleon Trade, particularly after the opening of the Suez
Canal, it was back to the land as prime source of wealth creation:
-It was also the beginning of more intense land struggles.
1800’s -With foreign occupation, the foreign notion of individual private ownership of land encouraged the heads of barangays to individually own the communal lands of the whole barangay and to lay de facto claims to the lands of those indebted to them. For the first time ever they would now appropriate for themselves as their exclusive property lands that hitherto in their mind and in actual practice traditionally belonged to all.
-This process of individual appropriation continued throughout the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries and into the nineteenth, and produced a society of a few non-producing owners, a broad majority of non-owning producers, and a little slice of haves-a-little – in short an oligarchy of the Philippine variety.
18th and on to the 19th centuries
The making of the ilustrado: During the 18th century and on to the 19th, the impact of a commercial revolution based on the foreign demand for such crops as sugar, tobacco and indigo was felt up and down this new oligarchic system. A new class was born whose members became wealthy enough to have their children acquire formal education up to the university level and traveled as far as Europe.
Most important of all, these ilustrados had the loyalty of their tenants who, because of their “submerged subculture” and their failure to crystallize their own class interests, identified these interests with their masters, the landlords.
Chinese mestizos (offspring of Chinese and Filipino intermarriage) also began their rise to economic power.
Once more, the Chinese Even at an earlier period, the consumption needs of Manila were supporting a very lucrative internal trade. Despite the so-called monopoly of domestic trade allocated to the provincial governors, Chinese mestizos who were “naturals” at business gained control of the trade routes that linked Manila with the Central Plain of Luzon. This stimulus of commercial activity operating within a developing cash economy encouraged the religious orders, the biggest owners of land then (despite their vow of poverty), to acquire lands that now could be owned privately and lease them to civil lessees called inquilinos. The Chinese mestizo class dominated the leasing of these lands and arranged for native peasants to sharecrop the land. Famous names here include RIZAL and COJUANGCO.
20th and on to the 21st centuries
The Philippines provides America Year One of Empire
Beveridge
No sooner had the ilustrado-led nationalists put an end to Spanish colonialism than they found themselves fighting another enemy – the American Empire. Why would a democratic Republic like America now turn imperialist? U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge explained: “We are a conquering race…We must obey our blood and occupy new markets, and if necessary, new lands. American factories are making more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us. The trade of the world must and shall be ours.” The Senator was quite frank. Looking carefully into the character of American capitalist economy he saw in its essence a persistent urge to expand, to dominate, and consequently defend the political order that its expanding economy created (“to have and to hold”). Capitalists knew that their capital must go where it makes the largest profits; it must expand, or go under.
America needed both the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. America needs navigational freedom from the Strait of Hormuz through the Strait of Malaca via Southern Philippines to the Pacific Ocean and Japan for more than 90 percent of oil cargo daily.
Well, and China, too, the world’s come-back kid has many things to assert. I almost forgot – there’s the Philippines as well. Will it now act as the American colony that it has been for almost a century now, or the member of Southeast Asia that it was thousands of years past, or just plain so-called independent and sovereign with all that such adjectives pretend to mean.
Therefore, the next seed the Gardener will plant is the tale of two names: South China Sea or West Philippine Sea? FINIS
Charles Avila -The Gardener
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[1] Culled in great part from: Virginia Benitez Licuanan, Money in the Bank, Manila: PCIBank Human Resources Development Foundation, 1985; Edwin Green, Banking – An Illustrated History, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1989; Jacques Amyot, The Manila Chinese, Quezon City: 1973; H. Otley Beyer, Early History of Philippine Relations with Foreign Countries, Manila: 1948, National Printing Company; Cesar Augusto Espiritu and M.M. Mijares, Rural Banking, Manila: 1957, and from various writings of Charles Avila.