Reporters:

Oberez, Janit
Lovino, Nuenzelle Kaye
Labayane, Joshua Wilmor
RIZAL'S CHINESE ANCESTRY

• Domingo Lam-co was a native of the

Chinchew district, where the Jesuits first,
and later the Dominicans, had mission,
and perhaps knew something of
Christianity before leaving China.
• He was baptized in the Parian church ogf
San Gabriel on Sunday in June of 1697.
• Lam-co and his wife suffered a great loss
in 1741 when their baby daughter,
Josepha Didnio, lived only for five (5)
days.
RIZAL'S CHINESE ANCESTRY
• They had at that time one other child, a boy of ten,
Francisco Mercado, whose Christian name was given
partly because he had an uncle of the same name.
• The Lam-co family was not given tothe practice of taking
the names of their god - parents. "Mercado" recalla\s an
honest Spanish encomendero.
• "Mercado" and "Merchant" mean much the same;
Francisco, therefire, set out in life with a surnamethat
would free him from the prejudice that followed those
with Chinese names reminding of his Chinese
ancestry.(Wickberg, 2000)
LIBERALIZING HEREDETARY INFLUENCE

• Francisco Mercado lived near enough to

hear of the "cajas abiertas" (exiles) and
their ways.
• He married on May 26, 1771, Bernarda
Monicha, a Chinese mestiza of the
neighboring hacienda of San Pedro
Tunasan(Craig, 2005 pp.59-62)
• Mr. and Mrs. Francisco Mercado had two
children, both boys, Juan and Clemente.
LIBERALIZING HEREDETARY INFLUENCE

• In 1783, he was an alcalde or chief officer

of the town, and he lived till 1801.
• Mrs. Francisco survived her husband by a
number of years and helped to nurse
through his baby ailments a grandson also
named Francisco, the father of Jose Rizal.
• Francisco Mercado's eldest son, Juan,
built a fine house in the center of Beῆan.
LIBERALIZING HEREDETARY INFLUENCE

• At 22, Juan married a girl of Tubigan, who

was two (2) years his senior, Cirila
Alejandra, daughter of Domingo Lamco's
Chinese godson, Siong-co.
• Young Francisco was only eight (8) years
old when his father died, but his mother
and sister Potenciana looked after him
well. First he attended a Biῆan Latin
school, and later he seemed to have
studied Latin Philosophy at the College of
San Jose in Manila.
LIBERALIZING HEREDETARY INFLUENCE

• Francisco, in inspite ogf his youth, became

a tenant of the state. The landlords early
recognized the agricultural skill of
Mercados by further allotments, as they
could bring more land under cultivation.
• A year after his sister Potenciana's death,
Francisco Mercado married Teodora
Alonzo, a native of Manila, who for several
years had been residing with her mother in
Calamba.
LIBERALIZING HEREDETARY INFLUENCE

• Her father, Lorenzo Alberto, was is said to

have been very Chinese in appearance.
He had brother who was a priest, and a
sister, Isabel, who was quite wealthy. Their
mother, Maria Florentina, was on her
mother's side of the famous Florentina
family of Chinese mestizo originating from
Baliwag, Bulacan, and her father was
Captain Mariano Alejandro of Biῆan.
LIBERALIZING HEREDETARY INFLUENCE

• Regina Ochoa, who became the wife of

attorney Manuel de Quintos, was of
Spanish, Chinese, and Tagalog ancestry.
• de Quintos was an attorney of Lingayen
and an uncle was the leader of the
Chinese mestizos in a protest they had
made against the arbitrariness of their
provincial governor.
• Mrs. Rizal was baptized in Santa Cruz,
Manila on November 18, 1827, as Teodora
Morales Alonzo.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO

• Jose Rizal's Chinese descent came from

his maternal grandfather, Manuel de
Quintos, a Chinese mestizo who had been
a well-known lawyer in Manila.
• Both Don Lorenzo and his father, Don
Cipriano, had been mayors of Bifiang.
• Early in 15th century, Chinese mestizos
were already established in the region,
particularly in Luzon.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO
• By 1603, barely 32 years after the founding of
Manila as a Spanish settlemen, the Chinese
population there was estimated at 20,000 in
contrast to perhaps 1,000 Spaniards.
• They were classified separately into four
categories by the Spanish government in the
Philippines: those who did not pay any tribute
(which included Spaniardsand Spanish
mestizos), indios (Malayan inhabitants of the
archipelago who are now called Filipinos),
Chinese, and Chinese meztizos.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO

• The Chinese mestizos, paid double to the

tribute paid by the indios.
• A mestiza marraying a Chineseor mestizo
remained in the mestizo classification, as
did her children. But marraying an indio,
she and her children became in that
classification.
• Thus, females of the mestizo group could
change status, but males could not.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO
• Binondo was founded as a Chinese town in
1594. A royal order was passedfor the expulsion
of all Chinese from the Philippines; however,
Governor Dasmarinas realized that the city of
Manila, the largest Spanish settlement, needed
to retain at least a small group of Chinese for its
economic sevices.
• Therefore, he purchased a tract of land across
the river from the walled city and gave it to a
group of prominent Chinese merchants and
artisans as the basis for a new Chinese
settlement.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO
• The rise of themestizo to economic importance
was paralleled by a rise in social prominence.
• Indeed, the mestizo's wealth and the way they
spent it made them in a sense, the arbiters of
fashion in Manila and in the other large
settlements.
• Capitan Tiago is an aexcellent example of an
indio cacique of means who wished to be
regarded as a Chinese mestizo and was able to
purchase for himself a place in wealthy and
famous Cremio de Mestizos de Binondo.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO
• Not all indios admire the mestizos.
• The indios and mestizos must kept
separated.
• The separate gremios should be
maintained and their rivalries encouraged
wherever possible.
• As part as general policy, in 1844, the
Spanish government revoked the indulto
de comercio and henceforth forbade
Spanish officials to involve themselves in
trading.
THE CHINESE MESTIZO

• Furtheremore, Spanish policy also pushed

aside the barriers to Chinese immigration
and residence. Thus, the Chinese could
come to the Philippines without any
restriction as to number, and with little, if
any, restriction as to where in the
archipelago they might reside.
AGRARIAN RELATION AND THE FRIAR
LANDS
• Throughouot most of the 333 years of Spanish
colonization in the Philippines, ecclesiastical
estates occupied nearly 40％ of the surface area
in the four Tgalog-speaking provinces, namely,
Bulacan, Tondo (now known as Rizal), Cavite,
and Laguna de Bay.
• According to documents, on the eve of the
Philippine Revolution of 1896, four religious
orders owned atleast 21 haciendas in the
provinces surrounding Manila.
ORIGIN OF THE STATES

• During late 16th and early 17th centuries,

approximately 120 Spaniards received
grants within a 100-kilometers radius od
Manila.
• The Spanished hacienderos were quick to
show treir unwillingness snd inability to
exploit their lands.
• The religious orders acquired their states
in a variety of ways.
EARLY PERIOD OF SPANISH
COLONIZATION
• The transfer of state unsuccessful Spanish
landownersto the monastic orders was
accomplished with relative ease.
• In 1745, five provinces near Manila
erupted in an agrarian revolt, which
directly expressed Filipino anger with the
states.
• The flashpoint of the rebellion was a
dispute between the Hacienda of Biῆan
and the neighboring town of Silang,
Cavite.
EARLY PERIOD OF SPANISH
COLONIZATION
• The revolt ot 1745, by a few years became
a turning point in the socio-economic
history of the friar estates.
THE CAVITE MUNITY AND THE
GOMBURZA EXECUTION
• Their death marked a turning point in the
history of Filipino nationalism, a catalyst
that brought togrther the liberal reformist
elements in the Philippine society with the
growing self-awareness of a people into a
movemwnt that before long would be
directed at independenn nationhood.
• Their death witnessed the long struggle of
the Filipino priest s in the aspect of
religion.
THE CAVITE MUNITY AND THE
GOMBURZA EXECUTION
• So, how did the controversy start?
• The long failure of the bishops to enforce
their rights tp visitation was closely linked
to the third factor, the failure of the
Spanish missionaries to encourage the
development of a native Filipino clergy.
THE CAVITE MUNITY AND THE
GOMBURZA EXECUTION
• During the term of Governor-General Carlos
Maria Dela Torre (1869-1821).
• Fr. Burgos challenged openly the religious
sector by writing articles in the Madrid
newspaper La Discusion.
• The principal organizers in Cavite itself were
sergeant Lamadrid and Francisco Zaldua
(executed togrther with GOMBURZA) who were
in contact with the junta headed by Burgos,
Pardo de Tavera, Regidor, and some other
lawyers and priests (Schumacher, 1972).