Sangley

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Sangley (English plural: Sangleys; Spanish plural: Sangleyes) and Mestizo de Sangley (Sangley mestizo, mestisong Sangley, chino mestizo or Chinese mestizo) are archaic terms used in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era to describe respectively a person of pure overseas Chinese ancestry and a person of mixed Chinese and native Filipino ancestry.^[1] The Sangley Chinese were ancestors to both modern Chinese Filipinos and modern Filipino mestizo descendants of the Mestizos de Sangley. (These were Chinese mestizos, mixed descendants of Sangley Chinese and native Filipinos), who were mestizos (mixed peoples) under the Spanish colonial empire, classified together with other Filipino mestizos.

The Spanish had such categories as indios (

Overseas Chinese entered the Philippines as traders prior to Spanish colonization. Many emigrated to the Philippines, establishing concentrated communities first in Manila and throughout the island of Luzon, then in other cities and settlements throughout the archipelago historically from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Other Filipino terms that refer to Chinese or Filipinos with overseas Chinese ancestry:

• Intsik (derived from the Philippine Hokkien Chinese: 引叔; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: ín-chek; lit. 'uncle')^[2] is the native colloquial informal term in Tagalog/Filipino and other Philippine languages used to refer to Chinese people in general, albeit some speakers prefer 'Tsino' (see below) due to informal vulgar connotations.
• Chinoy or Tsinoy (derived from a
  diminutive suffix') is a modern term currently used in Philippine English and Tagalog/Filipino and other Philippine languages to refer to a Filipino citizen or permanent resident of either mixed (whether partial or half or majority descent) or pure Chinese descent born and/or raised in the Philippines, also known as Chinese Filipinos or Fil-Chi
  .
• Chino or Tsino is a term derived from Spanish that literally means 'Chinese', where "Tsino" is the formal and literary term used in Tagalog/Filipino and other Philippine languages.
• Chinito or Tsinito is a term derived from Spanish that means 'a young Chinese man', from Spanish: Chino, lit. 'Chinese' with -ito. "Tsinito" is the form used in Tagalog/Filipino and other Philippine languages.
• Chinita or Tsinita is the feminine form of the above referring to 'a young Chinese woman', also from Spanish: Chino, lit. 'Chinese' with -ita. "Tsinita" is the form used in Tagalog/Filipino and other Philippine languages.
• Chekwa or Tsekwa is an
  late Spanish colonial era, where "Insik"/"Intsik" was originally derived from the Philippine Hokkien Chinese: 引叔; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: ín-chek; lit. 'uncle', while "wákang" was originally derived from 我工; guá kang; 'I work', while the last two words come from Cebuano: kaon, lit. 'to eat' and Cebuano: kalibang, lit. 'to defecate', forming the full limerick "Chinese (laborer), I work, eat, and shit!" from the late Spanish colonial era when opium dens were rampant and many Chinese migrants worked as low-wage laborers
  .
• Langlang (derived from Philippine Hokkien Chinese: 咱人; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lán-lâng; lit. 'our people') is an even older obsolete term in Tagalog referring to an ethnic Chinese person, as recorded in the 1613 Vocabulario de la lengua tagala,^[4] where it explains in Early Modern Spanish: Sangley) Langlang (pc) anſi llamauan los viejos deſtos [a los] ſangleyes cuando venian [a tratar] con ellos, lit. 'Sangley) Langlang (pc) this is what the elderlies called [the] Sangleys when they came [to deal] with them'. This term referring to Chinese people has long been obsolete and no longer used in Tagalog except in reference to food such as Pancit Langlang from Cavite, but the etymon, Philippine Hokkien Chinese: 咱人; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lán-lâng; lit. 'our people', is still primarily used in Philippine Hokkien by Chinese Filipinos as an endonym.

Etymology

There are multiple versions of the interpretation on the word Sangley, especially as it is also used in historical place names such as Punta Sangley (

Sangley (del chino xiang-lay, mercader.) adj. Nombre que en lo antiguo se dio en Filipinas a los mercaderes chinos, y que luego se hizo genérico de los de esta raza residentes en aquellas islas
Sangley (from Chinese xiang-lay, merchant.) adj. Name that in ancient times was given in the Philippines to Chinese merchants, and that later became generic to those of this race residing in those islands.

— Wenceslao E. Retaña, Diccionario de filipinismos, con la revisión de lo que al respecto lleva publicado la Real academia española (1921)

Spanish Governor-General Francisco de Sande also notes in his "Relation and Description of the Filipinas Islands" (1576) as per Manuel (1948):^[9]

Throughout these islands they call the Chinese 'Sangleyes', meaning 'a people who come and go,' on account of their habit of coming annually to these islands to trade, or, as they say there, 'the regular port'.

— Francisco de Sande, Relation and Description of the Filipinas Islands (1576)

The majority of Chinese sojourners, traders, and settlers in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period came from southern Fujian and spoke Hokkien, leaving their mark on Filipino culture (especially the cuisine). Although mestizo de sangley literally means "mixed-race (person) of business," it implies a "mixed-race (person) of Chinese and indigenous/Indio (Filipino) descent" because many early Chinese immigrants were traders and intermixed with the local population. Outside the Philippines, the Spanish word mestizo (without the qualifying de sangley) is normally used to refer to persons of mixed European and non-European ancestry, but the lower number of European mestizos in the Philippines made the term mestizo come to mean mestizo de sangley. For example, Benito Legarda used this definition when talking to the United States Philippine Commission (1899–1900), citing Wenceslao Retana's Diccionario de filipinismos (1921).^[10] The term chino mestizo was also used interchangeably with mestizo de sangley.

In 16th to 19th century Spanish Philippines, the term mestizo de sangley differentiated ethnic Chinese from other types of island mestizos (such as those of mixed

Today,

Spanish explorers and conquistadors landed in Las Islas de Filipinas, which they named in honor of Philip II of Spain. The Spanish colonization of the Philippines required more skilled laborers and they recruited Chinese immigrants. The economy became highly dependent upon the Chinese for their economic role as traders and artisans. Most of the Chinese living in the Manila area settled in a place called the Parían near Intramuros.

The Spanish encouraged those China traders to convert to Catholicism. Many of the Chinese men married native women, and over time the multi-cultural mestizo de sangley caste developed. Although the colonial government never required them to adopt Spanish surnames, in many cases they chose to change their Chinese names. They adopted names such as Lopez, Jalandoni, Palanca, Paterno, Rizal, Laurel, Osmeña, etc., or used a kind of transliteration and Spanish phonetic spelling to make them appear Hispanic by concatenation, for example: Lacson, Landicho, Laoinco, Biazon, Gaspar, Tuazon, Ongpin, Yuchengco, Quebengco, Cojuangco, Cuyegkeng, Goquilay, Yaptinchay, Yuchenco, Yupangco, Sylianco, Tanchanco, Tiongson, Tanbengco, Tanjuatco, Locsin, Tetangco, etc.

In 1574, a few years after the Spaniards established

Most of the sangleys worked as skilled artisans or traders. Aside from shopkeeping, the sangleys earned their livelihood as carpenters, tailors, cobblers, locksmiths, masons, metalsmiths, weavers, bakers, carvers and other skilled craftsmen. As metalsmiths, they helped to build the Spanish galleons in shipyards located in Cavite. As masons, they built Intramuros and its numerous structures.

The Spanish gave the mestizos de sangley special rights and privileges as colonial subjects of the Spanish Crown and as baptized converts to the Catholic Church. They were given preference to handle the domestic trade of the islands. In addition, they were allowed to lease land from the friar estates through the inquilino or lessee system, that allowed them to sublet those lands.

Later, the mestizos de sangley came to acquire many native lands, chiefly through a legal instrument called pacto de retro or contract of retrocession. Through this instrument, a

The

As the Spanish galleons carried mostly Chinese luxury goods destined for Europe, Mexicans called them náos de China (Chinese ships). The Spanish galleon trade was mainly a business affair involving Spanish officials in Manila, Mexico and Spain, and Chinese traders from Xiamen. The highly lucrative galleon trade carried few products originating from the Philippine islands or involving resident domestic traders. The trade was so profitable that Mexican silver became an unofficial currency of Southern China; an estimated one-third of silver mined from the Americas flowed into China during that period. The Spanish galleons also transported Filipino crew and militia men to the Americas, among which were many Sangleys; Some of them chose to settle in Mexico, Louisiana, and parts of present United States, specially California. Americans called these immigrants Manilamen and the Mexicans called them los indios Chinos.

Apart from the Portuguese-controlled Macao-Manila trade in the 17th century and the British-controlled Madras-Manila trade in the 18th century, it was chiefly the Spanish-controlled Manila-Acapulco trade that sustained the colony for much of the period. When the trade ended with the last ship's sailing in 1815, the Spaniards needed new sources of revenue. With the Spanish American wars of independence resulting in the loss of Spain's colonies in the Americas, the Spanish government quickly lost its position of pre-eminence amongst the Western powers.

After losing

From the late 18th century through much of the 19th century, the Spanish encouraged development of tobacco as another commodity crop, controlling it as a monopoly. Cultivation was concentrated in Cagayan, where the Spanish relied on the principalía to have their workers produce and deliver the tobacco.^[12]

With the opening of the colony to foreign trade in 1834, Western merchants established import/export and financial companies in Binondo. They partnered with Chinese wholesale/retail traders throughout the islands. The mestizos de sangley shifted to the export crop economy by developing and enlarging plantations devoted to agricultural commodities.

The increase in the late 19th century of British and American commercial interests in Manila coincided with the British founding of a network of treaty port-cities in

In 1868, the United States and China signed the

The Spanish authorities had initially depended upon the sangleys to both supply the labor and manage the colonial economy of the islands. However, after the attacks of the Chinese pirate Limahong, the Spanish colonists viewed the sangleys differently, fearing them as enemy aliens who posed a security threat due to their number. To protect their precarious position, the Spaniards enacted policies designed to control the residents of the islands by means of racial segregation and cultural assimilation, such as limiting the number of resident sangleys to around 6,000, a measure that was proved soon impossible to maintain.

The Spanish founded the Parían in 1581 in what became Manila as the official marketplace and designated residence for the sangleys who did not convert to Catholicism. Circumventing a royal decree outlawing the sangleys, as governor-general of the Philippines, Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas created Binondo in 1594 for the Catholic sangleys and their indio wives and their mestizos de sangley children and descendants. He gave the sangleys and mestizo de sangleys a land grant in perpetuity. They were allowed to establish a self-governing organization, called Gremio de Mestizos de Binondo (Guild of Mestizos of Binondo).

The Spanish colonists attempted to assimilate the sangleys into the Hispanic culture and converted many to

Contemporary 21st century historians have studied demographic and social changes in the Philippines during this period. They note the changes in how mestizo de sangley fared in Philippine society. In the late 18th century, the mestizo de sangley began to markedly improved their position. After the violence and turmoil of the Spanish expulsion of Chinese-Filipino population for having sided with the British in their 1762 capture of Manila,

mestizo economic power increased in conjunction with its social and political clout. The formation of auxiliary units called Real Princípe in Tondo mirrored these trends. Spanish military commanders publicly expressed a preference for mestizo regiments over native militias, enraging Filipino indio elites and requiring a deft negotiation of the political realities in Manila.

— ^[14]

The founding of Chinese mestizo regiments in the Philippines was part of New Spain's military modernization during the reformist Bourbon era. At the same time, New Spain created a colonial militia in Latin America, also enrolling mestizos there. While the colonies developed in distinct ways, there were similarities in the rise of the mestizo classes in Latin American and the Philippines. When colonial authorities accepted them into the militias and armed them, it was in recognition of their rising social position and integration into the colonial economies.^[14]

After the Spanish colonists abolished the Parían in 1790, they allowed the sangleys to settle in Binondo. In the 19th century, the population of mestizos de sangley grew rapidly over the years as more Chinese male immigrants arrived, converted to Catholicism, settled in Binondo and intermarried with indio or mestizo de sangley women. With no legal restrictions on their movement, mestizos de sangley migrated to other areas in the course of work and business, such as Tondo, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, Cavite, Cebu, Iloilo, Samar, Capiz, etc. The number of unconverted sangleys dropped from a high of 25,000 prior to the first great massacre of 1603 to below 10,000 by 1850.

From the 18th century until the latter half of the 19th century, Spanish authorities came to depend upon the mestizos de sangley as the bourgeoisie of the colonial economy. From their concentration in Binondo, Manila, the mestizos de sangley migrated to Central Luzon, Cebu, Iloilo, Negros and Cavite to handle the domestic trade of the islands. From trading, they branched out into landleasing, moneylending and later landholding. With wealth, they gained the ability to give their children elite education at the best schools in the islands and later in Europe.

Following the promulgation of the

Also identifying as the "true sons of Spain", the mestizos de sangley tended to side with the white Spanish colonists during the numerous indio revolts against Spanish rule. In the late 19th century, José Rizal, a fifth-generation mestizo de sangley, arose as an intellectual from the relatively wealthy, middle-class, Spanish-educated Filipinos known as Ilustrados. He was among those who called for reforms in the administration of the colony, integration as a province of Spain, and political representation for the Philippines in the Spanish Cortes.

Culture

From the beginning of the colonial period in the Philippines, the Spanish administration had the goal of converting natives to

The Spanish colonial government established schools and colleges run mostly by religious orders, including the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, the Ateneo Municipal, the Universidad de Santo Tomás in Manila, or the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Cebu, that accepted all types of students, regardless of race, gender or financial status in the case of primary grade instruction.^{[citation needed]} In 1863, the Spanish government established a modern system of free public education, the first of its kind in Asia.^{[citation needed]}

Binondo served as the traditional center of community life for the Catholic sangleys and mestizos de sangley. The Gremio de Mestizos de Binondo was the official guild chartered to administer community affairs. Born in Binondo,

In the late 19th century, cosmopolitan mercantilism emerged in Binondo, at the same time that Western and overseas Chinese merchants entered the island's economy, which was being integrated into the global trading system. The Spaniards tended to be more isolated from the new urban environment. They lived in Intramuros, where Hispanic Catholicism dominated the walled city. The rapid urbanization elsewhere transformed the ethnic enclave of Binondo into a thriving commercial district within an expanding urban core. The overseas Chinese (traditional Chinese: 華僑; pinyin: Huáqiáo) merchants essentially displaced the mestizos de sangley from their role as the domestic traders of the islands. Although officially under Spanish rule, cosmopolitan Binondo became the semi-official capital of an "Anglo-Chinese colony" in the late 19th-century Philippines.^{[citation needed]}

Chinese-Filipino merchants dominated the textile industry in Molo and Jaro. Iloilo produced sinamay, a hand-woven cloth made from fine

In food, Chinese-Filipinos adapted Hokkien food from Fujian. They used indigenous ingredients and Spanish names to improvise what became part of an evolving creole Filipino cuisine. During the 19th century, noodle shops called panciterias serving comida China (Chinese food) dotted the islands. The ubiquitous pancit (meaning "noodle" from the Hokkien word pian-e-sit) became pancit luglog and lomi (flavored with sauce); mami (served with broth); pancit molo (cooked as pasta) and pancit Malabon (mixed with seafood). The Chinese brought their use of rice as a staple (and wet-rice agriculture). One result was the local rice porridge called arroz caldo. Other well-known Filipino dishes such as lumpia (egg-roll), maki (soup dish), kiampong (fried rice) and ma-chang (sticky rice,) among others, trace their origins to the Chinese immigrants.

In

In contrast to the typical stone-and-brick Spanish colonial houses, this style of residence was better suited to the tropical environment of the islands. It was more flexible, so could better withstand frequent earthquakes. The steep roofs with overhanging eaves provided shelter against rain and storms, and added to the sense of openness and space connecting the interior and exterior. These helped shield residents from seasonal monsoons. During less severe rain and in the hot summers, the sliding windows could be opened to allow greater circulation of air and more light into the house. When illuminated at night, such houses resemble giant Chinese lanterns. The stone/brick-and-wood house became so widespread throughout the islands that this Chinese-Filipino merchant's house came to be known as the "colonial Filipino" style.

The mestizos de sangley synthesized a hybrid culture incorporating Hispanic and European influences with both indigenous and Asian elements. In fashion, cuisine, design and architecture, a distinctive style emerged, especially among the wealthier segment. As the sangley prospered from trading, they built the first and in many cases the only stone-and-wood houses in the countryside. Like other rising elites, they created forms of conspicuous consumption to signify their status. The mestizos de sangley held feasts to commemorate baptisms, weddings, funerals and processions. As the 19th century drew to a close, the colonial Spanish empire in the Philippines was defeated by the rising Western empire of the United States following the Spanish–American War.

Following the war, the United States took possession of the Philippines and influenced its culture in turn. The Filipinos, including the mestizos de sangley, were referred to as "little brown Americans".^{[citation needed]} The Philippines was made a protectorate in relation to the United States, with the residents given special status but not U.S. citizenship at the time.^[16]

See also

• Binondo
• Cambodian Hokkien
• Chinese Filipino
• Criollo people
• Filipino mestizo
• Hokkien and Hoklo Americans
• Japanese settlement in the Philippines
• Mestizo
• Nanyang (region)
• Peranakan
  of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand

Notes

References