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