CHAPTER2- 19th Century Philippines as Rizal’s Context

• When Governor-General Jose de Basco y Vargas arrived in the Philippines, Galleon Trade was not yet in progress. But trading with China, Japan, Siam (now Thailand), India, Cambodia, Borneo, and the Moluccas (Spice Islands) was already apparent among our ancestors when the Spaniards came to the Philippines.
• Manila became the center of commerce in the East.
• the Spaniards closed the ports of Manila to all countries except Mexico.
• the birth of the Manila-Acapulco Trade, more known as the “Galleon Trade.”
• Only two galleons were used: one sailed from Acapulco to Manila with some 500,000 pesos worth of goods, spending 120 days at sea and the

  other sailed from Manila to Acapulco with some 250,000 pesos worth of goods spending 90 days at sea.
• Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, discovered a return route from Cebu (from which the galleon actually landed first)
• Cargo in the galleon ship:

  • Chinese silk
  • tamarind
  • rice
  • carabao
  • Chinese tea and textiles
  • fireworks
  • tuba
  • perfumes
  • porcelain cotton fabric (from India),
  • cotton fabric (from India)
  • and precious stones.
• After unloading at Acapulco, this cargo normally yielded a profit of 100-300%
• Royal Philippine Company, that will finance both the agricultural and the new trade that were being made between the Philippines and Spain, and other Asian countries.
• In 1871, the first tobacco monopoly was established in Cagayan

  Valley, Ilocos Region, La Union, Isabela, Abra, Nueva Ecija and Marinduque.
• The first among the revolutions was the Industrial Revolution, which was about the inventions of steam engines and machines that were used in the manufacturing sector in different cities of Europe.
• industrial revolution was considered as one of the most

  significant developments in the 19th century
• By 1810, the end of Galleon trade transpired because of the loss of Latin

  American colonies brought by the Mexican War of Independence from the Spanish empire.
• ilustrados, who belonged to the landed upper class, were much-respected in their own town
• pueblos but were regarded as filibusteros or rebels by the friars.
• the suez canal was built by Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French man, the opening of the Suez Canal for world shipping took place on November 17, 1860.
• pacto de retroventa – an agreement of sale

  guaranteeing that the landowner could buy the land back at the same price at which it was sold. However, it was difficult to buy back the land because of the coutinously rising demand of the economy and payment for renewals, causing farmers to be in full debt.
• The farmers lost rights to their land as they were forced to work as tenant farmers, or kasama.
• Inquilinos, a laborer indebted to a landlord who allows him to form a farm in parts of his property and who, in exchange, works without pay from the landlord.
• Spaniards were afraid that the Chinese could be more loyal to the Indios (Christianized natives) than the Spanish regime.
• the spaniards planned to convert the Chinese

  and introduce intermarriages with indios that brought the Chinese mestizos.
• the spaniards demanded that the natives should do forced labor or polo y servicio for the governmentand the Catholic church.
• social status in the society:

  • Peninsulares (pure-blooded Spaniard born in the Iberian Peninsula such spain)
  • Insulares (pure-blooded Spaniard born in the Philippines)
  • Spanish Mestizo (one parent is Spanish, the other is a native or Chinese Mestizo; or one parent is Chinese, the other is a native)
  • Principalia (wealthy pure-blooded native supposedly descended from the kadatoan class)
  • Indio (pure-bloodedd native of the Philippines or the Filipinos)
  • Chino Infiel (non-Catholic pure blooded Chinese)
• inquilinato system - a system of tenure in which the landlord and tenant are not in a direct relationship
• somebody or someone, known as canon, will be renting a piece of land for a fixed amount for the year. The inquilino or lessee should be working for the landlords.
• century, the only school that offered different courses was the University of Santo Tomas, an existing higher education in the Philippines that was founded in 1611. Courses offered were related to medicine, pharmacy, theology, philosophy, canon and civil law.
• An Educational Decree of 1863, requiring each town in the Philippines to establish one elementary school for boys and one elementary for girls, also paved the way for the establishment of a regular school for the training of teachers to master the Spanish language, under the supervision of the Jesuits.
• the French Revolution, which allowed for the changing

  of political views among the people.
• the American revolution was somehow about the political disturbance during the mid-18th century.
• Bourbon reforms, a set ofeconomic and political laws that

  contributed to the expansion of the gaps be tween the

  peninsulares and the creoles (those born in America).