0 PRIMERAS.Qxp
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Population movement in the Spanish Pacific during the 17th century: Travellers from Spain to the Philippines ANTONIO GARCÍA-ABÁSOLO Universidad de Córdoba Recibido: 26 de septiembre de 2007 Aceptado: 15 de octubre de 2007 Abstract This work is part of a wider scope project which deals with the Spanish population movements towards Spain´s Pacific domains from the 16th to the end of the 19th centuries. All the attention is centered around the official inmigration: that which was registered in Seville´s Casa de Contratación, nowadays kept at the Archivo General de Indias. Final results evolve from the study of the conditioning factors of this human flow towards the East in the 17th century. Key words Spanish / settlers / Philippines / 17th century. La aportación pobladora de España a Filipinas en el siglo XVII Resumen Este trabajo forma parte de un proyecto más amplio, dedicado a estudiar la emigración de España a sus dominios del Pacífico desde el siglo XVI hasta fin del siglo XIX. Este trabajo se centra en la emigración oficial de España a Filipinas, la que se registró en la Casa de Contratación de Sevilla y se conserva en el Archivo General de Indias. Los resultados finales van precedidos de un estudio de los factores condicionantes de este movimiento humano hacia Oriente en el siglo XVII. Palabras clave Españoles / pobladores / Filipinas / siglo XVII. 133 Revista Española del Pacífico 2006/2007, 19-20: 133-151 ARTÍCULOS Antonio García-Abásolo I. INTRODUCTION This paper which I present today is included in a larger research project devoted to the study of the Spanish emigration to the territories of Spanish territories in the Pacific Ocean area from the 16th to the 19th centuries1. The object of study are the persons who left with the intention of residing there, either permanently or in order to occupy a post for a long period. They are the ones we can consider to be the Spanish settlers in the Philippines. The dispatch of troops is left out on purpose, especially the large contingents sent during the wartime periods of the 19th century. However, the military men who left as passengers for a post, bringing along their family and servants, are also considered settlers and belong to this study. In fact, it could be misleading to consider this last type of people only as military men, because, even if they did come for this purpose, they are professionally very versatile, and their capacity to adapt led them often to successfully engage in commerce during the first centuries of the Spanish government. Therefore, my findings provide me with the possibility of speaking about the different aspects of the emigration in the 17th century, even though they cannot yet be considered as definitive, especially during the final stage of the Spanish presence in the Philippines. I will develop my study from the quantitative to the qualitative, showing the data in graphs whenever possible, and analyzing the most salient points deserving commentary. My intention in the presentation, still within the general guidelines of the larger research project, is to go from the quantitative data to the persons or, in other words, from the number of passengers to the characteristics of the emigration. That is, I will tackle the ratio between men and women, the age at departure time, the profession and social status they had in Spain, the departure place, and the reasons for migrating. The data about the Spanish settlers in the Far East were gathered from last testaments, letters and other similar documents. All this information makes possible to know their private life, especially for 1 Other works that I have already published belonging to this project are the following: «The Private Environment of the Spaniards in the Philippines in the Colonial Period», Philippine Studies, Vol. 44, Manila, July 1996, pp. 349-373; «Pasajeros España-Filipinas (1800-1841)», in El Lejano Oriente Español: Filipinas (siglo XIX), Castañeda Delgado, Paulino (ed.), Seville, 1997, pp. 721-737; «The Contribution of Southern Spain to European Population Settlement in the Pacific», 18th International Congress of Historical Sciences, Montreal, 1995, published in Las relaciones internacionales en el Pacífico (siglos XVIII-XX), Madrid, 1997, C.S.I.C., pp. 185-200; «Pobladores españoles en Manila 1570-1600», Congreso Internacional Presencia Española en el Pacífico, García-Abásolo A. (ed.), España y el Pacífico, Córdoba, 1997, Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales, Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, pp. 143-155. Revista Española del Pacífico 134 2006/2007, 19-20: 133-151 Population movement in the Spanish Pacific ARTÍCULOS the case of the settlers of the Manila community. Through their lives one can look into the creation of that community, the relationship among the ethnic groups, the different professional occupations, the level of wealth and religious devotions. In a nutshell, there appears a whole new world, which ordinarily is difficult to detect because it is not contained in official documents. After spending several years researching on this kind of documents, I do not hesitate to say that the authentic cultural transfer from Spain to the world was carried through the settlers who left their birth places in order to establish themselves in the West and East Indies. We can attribute to them the development of customs, techniques, beliefs, and life styles, which oftentimes were typical of their place of origin. These settlers formed an active and dynamic foundation, which was capable of adapting to the new conditions and of receiving features characteristic of the colonial environment2. The data for this paper come from the Archivo General de Indias, especially from the division of Contratación. Within the latter, the three most consulted subdivisions were the Libros de pasajeros, Informaciones y licencias, and Autos de bienes de difuntos. Other additional divisions that were also consulted are Arribadas, Ultramar and Indiferente General. Aside from the Archivo General de Indias, I have incorporated partially some documentation from the Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid). The information gathered from those sources serves very well to meet my objectives, since it makes possible studying the Spaniards in the Far East on two accounts: the passengers who went to the Philippines, and the settlers who lived in the Philippines. These can be studied because we have their last wills, or they are mentioned in others’ last testaments, property inventories, auction sales, records of law-suits. In short, it is a documentation that contains a great deal of qualitative information, and that indirectly can also provide demographic data. I will divide my work in two sections. The first will be dedicated to show the reasons behind the population movements toward Manila. The second part will bring up the outcome of this flow by means of graphs, allowing us to get to know a little better what kind of people were the ones willing to embark in the galleons of the Pacific route. 2 Regarding the research possibilities of this kind of documentation and the methodology applied to deal with it see García-Abásolo, Antonio: La vida y la muerte en Indias, Córdoba, 1992. 135 Revista Española del Pacífico 2006/2007, 19-20: 133-151 ARTÍCULOS Antonio García-Abásolo II. FIRST PART: MOTIVATIONS FOR POPULATION MOVEMENT FROM SPAIN TO THE PHILIPPINES 2.1. Stimulus to Emigration. State of Affairs in Spain The 17th century is marked by an evident decline of Spanish emigration around 1640-1650. This was related to the policy of the royal government that was averse to granting exit permits from a Spain demographically in need. Many people had left Spain in the 16th century: Many families with young children, especially during the second half of the century; many single youth in marrying age. Most likely those who left were those more capable of taking risk and engaging in business. Spain suffered the quantitative and qualitative effects of these migrations, and also those caused by the constant human requirements of the foreign policy of the grand Habsburg monarchs. Among the causes of the Spanish political decline in the 17th century, there is a proliferation of contemporary references to the scarcity of population, which caused, together with other types of reasons, a decrease in the productive capacity of the Spanish kingdoms. The situation aggravated after 1640, due to the revolts in Catalonia and Portugal, and above all, owing to the terrible epidemics that followed in uninterrupted succession until the end of the century. During the 16th and 18th centuries Spain also suffered plague epidemics, however, the ones in the 17th had especially catastrophic consequences, up to the point of being comparable with those that flogged Europe in the 14th century, which were the most terrible and devastating among those known3. Listing of epidemics in the 17th century: 1596-1602: It entered through Santander and spread throughout the whole Spain up to Andalusia. There were 8.000 deaths in Seville and 2.138 in Córdoba. Cabrera de Córdoba (Relaciones de las cosas sucedidas en la Corte de España) gives the estimate of 500.000 deaths (for the whole of Spain). 1629-1631: Epidemic outbreak blamed on the Frenchmen (living in Spain), which was an absurdity that reached the point of asking for a census of Frenchmen in Madrid as one of the means in the program to combat the pest. 1647-1652: In 1647, Levante (the lower West of Spain) and Andalusia were especially hit. In 1649 in Seville, it started in March and it lasted until July. This city was stricken more than ever before, so that this epidemic marked the end of Seville’s era of highest demographic and economic grandeur. No less 3 Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio: La sociedad española del siglo XVII. Madrid: CSIC., 1963. pp. 66 y ss.