Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines

Preface

Preface H aving worked for some years on the demographic impact of Spanish colonial rule in various parts of Latin America, I became increasingly curious about an oft-repeated statement that the population of the Philippines did not suffer the same demographic disaster that afflicted Native American populations following European contact because it had acquired immunity to Old World diseases through trading contacts with Asia prior to Spanish arrival. My curiosity was aroused, not so much because at the time I thought this assumption was wrong, though this book suggests that to be partly so, but because no one had presented any evidence to support it. I therefore began to research the topic, believing I would write just one journal article looking at the Philippines experience in the context of the demographic impact of Spanish colonial rule more widely. As has now become familiar in my research, this small idea ended up as a long book. Research on this topic meant not only engaging with areas that were hitherto unfamiliar to me, such as the nature of trading contacts in the South China Sea in pre-Spanish times, but also undertaking an in-depth analysis of the scattered, fragmentary sources that exist beyond those available in Emma Blair and James Robertson’s fifty-five-volume The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803 (Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1903–1909). As a geographer, I was also concerned that the study should make a concerted effort to study all regions of Luzon and the Visayas, for experience has taught me that processes are seldom uniform over large areas and that regional study can often reveal the complexity of the factors at work. For many regions of the Philippines only sketchy accounts of their early histories existed, which sometimes meant constructing them from scratch in order to provide some context. So there was more to do than I anticipated, and the book was delayed further by several other writing projects and service as head of the School of Humanities at King’s College between 1997 and 2000, when it proved impossible to snatch even a short period for sustained writing. To support this research, I have been fortunate to receive grants for archival research in the Philippines, Spain, and Italy from a number of bodies, including the British Academy, the Central Research Fund of the University of London, and the School of Humanities at King’s College, London, to all of whom I am most grateful. I have also been privileged to be awarded two Fellowships at the Newberry Library, Chicago. The Philippine collections of this library, including some manuscripts and many rare books, are excellent and underused, and its wonderful facilities greatly facilitated the writing of this book. ix Sources for the study of the Spanish colonial Philippines are scattered. In Manila , research was conducted in the Philippines National Archive, the Archdiocesan Archives of Manila, and the Dominican archives at the University of Santo Tomas. I am grateful to the late Cardinal Jaime Sin and Father Pablo Fernandez for access to the latter archives and to the staffs of all these archives for their very helpful assistance . In the Philippines I also had the good fortune to meet the late William Henry Scott. Scotty kindly allowed me to use his unique library at Sagada, where we also spent many hours enthusiastically exchanging notes and ideas on various aspects of Philippine history. The Archivo General de Indias in Seville has an unparalleled collection of documents on the Philippines, many of which have probably never been consulted, particularly those dating from the eighteenth century. Many of the early Philippine documents are extremely fragile and for conservation reasons were unavailable, awaiting digitalization for significant periods of this research. This necessitated several not unwelcome research trips to Seville. Unfortunately, research in the Archivio Generale dell’Ordine dei Frati Minori in Rome failed to yield any significant materials, but sources in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu proved invaluable. Thanks are due to Father Charles O’Neill for allowing me access to the library of the Jesuit Instititum Historicum in Rome. During the extended period of research I was fortunate to draw on the expertise of some formidable scholars. At the beginning of the project, the late Paul Wheatley introduced me to the nature of trading contacts in the South China Sea and pointed me to research questions he thought I should follow up in the context of the Philippines . Discussions with Ann Jannetta about her research on epidemics in Japan...