Note 2 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Comyn’s Estado says that in 1810 the number of Spaniards, born in the Peninsula or elsewhere, and of Spanish mestizos, of both sexes and all ages, classes, and occupations, did not exceed 3,500 to 4,000. Diaz Arenas (Memorías históricas y estadísticas de Filipinas; Manila, 1850) quotes official figures showing 293 Spaniards settled in the provinces, outside of Manila and Tondo, in 1848; and he records 7,544 as the number of Spanish mestizos in the islands, including Tondo, as Manila province was then called. Cavada (Historia geográfica, geológica y estadística de Filipinas; Manila, 1876), taking his figures apparently from the governmental statistics as to houses and their occupants for 1870, gives for that year 3,823 Spaniards (all but 516 of them males) from the Peninsula, and 9,710 “Filipino-Spaniards,” the latter classification apparently including Spanish mestizos with such pure-blooded Spaniards as had been born in the Philippines. Among his Peninsular Spaniards would be included over 1,000 members of religious orders, an approximately equal number of soldiers, and the civil officials of Spanish blood (except a relatively small number born in the islands themselves, mostly in the minor categories of officials). J. F. del Pan (La poblacion de Filipinas; Manila, 1883), and F. Cañamaque (Las íslas Filipinas; Madrid, 1880) both report the parochial statistics of 1876 as showing the total of Spaniards, apart from members of the religious orders, the civil service, and the army and navy, to be 13,265; Cañamaque speaks of this latter class as “Spaniards without official character (Peninsulars and Filipinos),” and Del Pan calls them “persons not subject to the capitation-tax on account of being of the Spanish race.” At least some of the Spanish mestizos in the islands would appear to have been included in this total. A statistical résumé for 1898 (La Política de España en Filipinas, 1898, pp. 87–92) gives the number of Spaniards in the Philippines at the end of Spanish rule as 34,000 (of whom 5,800 are credited as officers and employees of governments, 3,800 as the normal number of Spaniards in army and navy, and 1,700 as of the clerical estate). These figures, like various other estimates in pamphlets of recent years, are considerably exaggerated; they are reconcilable only on the supposition that they include not only Spaniards of Philippine birth, but also Spanish mestizos. In 1903, only 3,888 Peninsular Spaniards were found in the archipelago. The census of 1896 would have shown separately Spaniards and Spanish mestizos; but it was not completed for all provinces, and has never been published. The foregoing estimates and figures do, however, show the great relative increase of Spaniards and Spanish influence in the Philippines in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Apropos of Mr. LeRoy’s note the following is of interest as regards the population of the eighteenth century. “The number of Spaniards who are in the part of Manila not occupied by the friars is very inconsiderable; in 1767, they did not exceed eight hundred persons. It can be said that the friars are masters of the city, for all the houses, except perhaps five or six, belong to them. This makes a fine revenue for them, since the houses are very dear—from two hundred to four hundred piasters (one thousand to two thousand livres). They are still dearer in the suburb of Santa Cruz, where they are worth at least five hundred piasters, for it is there that all the foreign merchants from India or China lodge. Manila is still peopled by the Tagálogs, who are the natives at once of this city and of its bishopric; the Tagálogs serve the Spaniards as domestics, or live by some petty trade or occupation.” (Le Gentil, Voyage, ii, p. 104.)—Eds. ↑