Rizal in the 19th Century

Introduction

            Contextualization aids comprehension. Generally, to contextualize something is to place within its proper and larger setting in which it presents its true and complete meaning. As Jose Rizal was and grew up in the 19^th century, to contextualize him ---so as to understand his life, thoughts, and works--- is to understand the social and political context of that century.

Nineteenth century is commonly depicted as the birth of the modern life, as well as the birth of many nation-states around the globe. The century was also a period of massive changes in Europe, Spain, and consequently in the Philippines. It was during this era that the power and glory of the Spain, the Philippines’ colonizer, had waned both in its colonies and in the world.

Discussions on the 19^th century Philippines as Rizal’s context are hereby divided into three (3) aspects: the economic, social, and political. Under these main headings are major historical events or issues, which characterized the country during that era.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The Economic Context

            At least four historical elements basically compose the economic context of the era in which Jose Rizal was born: (a) at the end of the Galleon Trade, (b) the opening of the Suez Canal, (c) the rise of export of crops economy, and (d) the established monopolies in the Philippines.           

END OF GALEON TRADE

            Our locals were already trading with China, Japan, Siam (now Thailand), India, Cambodia, Borneo, and the Moluccas (Spice Islands) when the Spanish colonizers came to the Philippines. In 1565, the Spanish government closed the ports of Manila to all countries except Mexico, thereby giving birth to Manila-Acapulco Trade popularly known as the “Galleon Trade”

            The Galleon Trade (1565-1815) was a ship (“galleon”) trade going back and forth between Manila (which actually landed first in Cebu) and Acapulco, Mexico. It started when Andres de Urdaneta, in convoy under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, discovered a return route from Cebu to Mexico in 1865. The trade served as central income-generating business for Spanish colonist in the Philippines.

            Through this trans-Pacific trade, the mango de Manila, tamarind and rice, the carabao (known in Mexico by 1737), the cockfighting, Chinese tea and textiles, fireworks display, tuba (coconut wine) making went to Mexico. The return voyage, on the other hand, brought numerous and valuable fauna into the Philippines, including guava, avocado and papaya, pineapple, horses, and cattle (“Galleon Trade,” n.d.). Other consequences of this 250-year trade were the intercultural exchanges between Asia (especially Philippines), Spanish America and onward to Europe and Africa.

            Because of the galleon trade, Manila became a trading hub where China, India, Japan, and Southeast Asian countries sent their goods to be consolidated for shipping. Those who ran the hub and did most of the work were primarily Chinese. They arrived in the Philippines in junky yearly, bringing goods and workforce. With the huge migration of Chinese because of the galleon trade, the Spaniards feared them and taxed them, sent them out of the Parian and eventually, when tension rose, massacred some of them. “Such massacres were at their height in the 17^th century from suspicion, unease, and fear, until the Spaniards and the Chinese learned to live with each other in the few centuries” (Ongpin, n.d.).

            The Manila Galleon Trade allowed modern, liberal ideas to enter the Philippines, eventually and gradually inspiring the movement for independence from Spain. On September 14, 1815, the Galleon Trade ended with Mexico’s war of independence.

            Previously, the Philippines was governed by Spain from Mexico. The Spanish Crown took direct control of the Philippines and administered it directly from Madrid. The opening of the Suez Canal and the invention of stem ships, which lessened the travel time from Spain to the country to 40 days, made this move convenient.

OPENING OF SUEZ CANAL

            An artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, the Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. Constructed by Suez Canal Company between 1859 and 1869 under the leadership of French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, it was officially opened on November 17, 1869.

            With the opening of the canal, the distance of travel between Europe and the Philippines was considerably abbreviated and thus virtually brought the country closer to Spain. Before the opening of the canal, a steamer from Barcelona had to sail around the Cape of Good Hope to reach Manila after a menacing journey of more than three months. With the Suez Canal, the voyage was lessened to only 32 to 40 days.

            It’s the opening of the Suez Canal became a huge advantage in commercial enterprises especially between Europe and East Asia. More importantly, it served as a significant factor that enabled the growth of nationalistic desires of Jose Rizal and other Filipino ilustrados.

            The Suez Canal expedited the importation not only of commercial products but also books, magazines, and newspapers with liberal ideas from America and Europe, which ultimately affected the minds of Rizal and other Filipino Reformists. The political views of Western liberal thinkers entered the Philippines. Furthermore, the reduced route stimulated more and more Spaniards and Europeans with liberal ideas to come to the country and interact with local reformists.

            The availability of the Suez Canal has also encouraged the ilustrados, especially Jose Rizal, to pursue education abroad and learn scientific and liberal in European academic institutions. Their social dealings with the liberals in the West have influenced their thoughts on nationhood, politics, and government.

 RISE OF THE EXPORT OF CROP ECONOMY

            During the Galleon Trade, most of the Spaniards in the Philippines were engrossed in maritime trading undertakings between Manila and Mexico. The exploitation of the Philippines’ natural resources and the progress of an export crop economy were phenomena of the nineteenth century, not of Spanish rules early period.

            Some years after the end of the Galleon Trade, between 1820 and 1870, the Philippines was well on its way of developing an export crop economy. Products such as sugar, Manila hemp, and coffee were produced of foreign markets while imported goods of the European factory industry found their way into many parts of the Philippines. The various economic activities in the new export-crop economy in the country provided many opportunities for the expanding Chinese population. Formerly concentrated in Manila, many Chinese moved to province that produced export crops: the hemp producing areas southeastern Luzon and the eastern Visayas, the sugar area of western Visayas, and the tobacco provinces of the northeastern Luzon.

            The development of the export crop industry in the Philippines was motivated by the commercial undertakings of North European and North American merchants, who provided capital, organization, and access to foreign markets and sources of imports. But since they based their operations in port cities, especially Manila, they needed agents who could distribute imports in the interior and buy up goods for the export. This role was assumed primarily by Chinese.

MONOPOLIES

            Another main source of wealth during the post-galleon trade era was monopoly contracting. After 1950, government monopoly contracts for the collection of different revenues were opened to foreigners for the first time. The Chinese instantly took advantage of this commercial opportunity and thus, for the rest of the 19^th century, enjoyed a pre-eminent position in monopoly contracting in the Philippines.

            The opium monopoly was especially a profitable one. During the 1840’s, the Spanish government had legalized the use of opium (provided that it was limited to Chinese) and a government monopoly of opium importation sales was created. The majority of contracts in the monopoly were held by the Chinese.

            But even before 1850, monopolies on some products had been established, which were basically controlled by the colonial government. There were monopolies of special crops and items, such as spirituous liquors (1712-1864), betel nut (1764), tobacco (1782-1882), and explosives (1805-1864). Among these monopoly systems, the most controversial and oppressive to locals was perhaps the tobacco monopoly.

            On March 1, 1972, Governor General Jose Basco placed the Philippine tobacco industry under government control, thereby establishing the tobacco monopoly. It aimed to increase government revenue since the annual subsidy coming from Mexico was no longer sufficient to maintain the colony. An order was thus issued for the widespread cultivation of tobacco in the province of Cagayan Valley, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Isabela, Abra, Nueva Ecija, and Marinduque.

            These provinces planted nothing but tobacco and sold their produce only to the government at a pre-designated price, leaving little or no profit for the local farmers. The system set the required number of tobacco plants that must be sold to them by each family. Nobody was allowed to keep even a few tobacco leaves for personal use, thereby forcing the local farmers to buy the tobacco they themselves planted from the government. Fines and/or physical punishments were sanctioned to anyone who would transgress any of the decrees under the system.

            The colonial government exported the tobacco to other countries and to the cigarette factories in Manila. The tobacco monopoly positively raised revenues for the government and made Philippine tobacco prominent all over Asia and some parts in Europe. Negatively though, the monopoly brought about food shortages since the planting of basic crops like rice was somewhat neglected and abandoned.

            The tobacco monopoly was finally abolished in 1882. (Some references state that tobacco monopoly in the Philippines was from 1781 to 1881, not 1782 to 1882, although most authors agree that it lasted for exactly 100 years.) A century of hardship and social injustice caused by tobacco monopoly prompted Filipinos in general and Novo Ecijanos in particular, to seek freedom from colonial bondage

SOCIAL BACKGROUND

Social Background

            Concerning the social picture of the 19th century Philippines, at least three topics are needed to be discussed: (a) education, (b) the rise of Chinese Mestizo, and (c) the rise of inquilinos.

EDUCATION IN THE 19^TH CENTURY

            With the coming of the Spanish colonizers, the European system of education was somewhat introduced to the archipelago. Schools were established and run by Catholic missionaries.

            Aiming to convert the natives to Catholic faith and make them obedient, the colonial government and the Catholic Church made religion a compulsory subject at all levels.

            King Philp II’s Leyes de Indios (Laws of the Indies) Mandated Spanish authorities in the Philippines to educate the locals, to teach them how to read and write and to learn Spanish. The Spanish missionaries thus established schools, somewhat educated the natives, but did not seriously teach them the Spanish language, fearing that the Indios would become so knowledgeable and turn out to be their co-equal. Less than one-fifth of those who went to school could read and write Spanish, and far fewer could speak the language properly.

            The first formal schools in the land were the parochial schools opened in their parishes by their missionaries, such as the Augustinians, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans. Aside from religion, the native children were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and some vocational and practical arts subjects. Aside from the Christian Doctrines, Latin (the official language of the Catholic Church) was also taught to the students instead of Spanish. The Spanish friars believed that the natives would not be able to match their skills, and so one way for the locals to learn fast was to use strict discipline, such as applying corporal punishment.

            Later on, colleges (which were equivalent of our high school today) were established for boys and girls. There was no co-education during the Spanish regime as boys and girls studied separate schools. The subject taught to college students included history, Latin, geography, mathematics, and philosophy.

            University education was opened in the country during the early part of the 17^th century. Initially, the colleges and universities were open only to the Spaniards and those with Spanish blood (mestizos). It was only in the 19^th century that these universities started accepting native Filipinos. Still giving emphasis on religion, universities then did not earnestly teach science and mathematics.

            In 1863, a royal decree called for the establishment of a public school system in the Philippines. Formerly run totally by religious authorities, the education in the colony was thus finally administered by the government during the first half of the 19^th century though even then the church controlled its curriculum. Previously exclusive for Spaniards and Spanish mestizos, university became open to natives though their limited their accommodations to the sons of wealthy Indio family.

            Nonetheless, as a result of the growing number of educated natives, a new social class in the country emerged, which came to be known as the Ilustrados. But despite their wealth and education, the Ilustrados were still deemed by the Spaniards as inferior. One of the aims of the Ilustrados was to be in the same level with the proud Spaniards.

            With the opening of the Suez Canal, which made the travel to Europe faster, easier, and more affordable, many locals took advantage of the chance to pursue higher and better education in that continent, typically in Madrid and Barcelona. There, nationalism and the thirst for reformed bloomed in the liberal atmosphere. The new enlightened class in the Philippine society would later lead the Philippine independence movement, using the Spanish language as their key means of communication. Out of this talented group of students from the Philippine arose what came to be known as Propaganda Movement. The most prominent of the Ilustrados was Jose Rizal, who inspired the craving for freedom and independence with his novels written in Spanish.

 THE RISE OF THE INQUILINOS

            At least in modern Spanish, the term inquilino has the same meaning as the English “tenant.” Contextually, the 19^th Century Inquilino system in the Philippines is better understood as a qualified system of tenancy, or the right to use land in exchange for rent.

            As earlier explained, the elimination of the Galleon Trade and the opening of the Suez Canal gave way for more intensive rice cultivation and production of crops, such as sugar cane and tobacco. Consequently, many estates turned progressively to the Inquilino system of the land tenure. But since the friars and secular Spanish were normally absentee landlords, estate management was granted to an administrator who was typically a lay Spanish mestizo of Filipino lay brother. During harvest time, the administrator would collect the rent of the Inquilinos, organize the delivery of the harvests to the local marker or to Manila, and remit the income from sales and rents to the estate owners. In some estates though, these farm duties were consigned to trusted Inquilinos. Acting as overlords, some Inquilinos would make innumerable and irrational demands from farm workers.

            As friars estates enlarged, outlining the boundaries that separated these estates from communal lands became a common cause of conflict:

Disputes over communal woodcutting and grazing areas occurred regularly between villages and estates, with their latter denying to the farmer their traditional communal privileges. In Bulacan, for instance, the villagers once complained that the friars took illegal possession of their land and to compound this crime, they even denied the use of rivers for fishing and the forest for collecting firewood and wild fruits. In Cavite and Laguna, the Dominicans and Tagalogs frequently fought over border lands. In one incident, the former claims that the pasture lands in a nearby mountain was included in their land grant, while the latter denied this and regularly killed the estate cattle grazing there. Land border conflicts became so acute in these provinces that they serve as catalysts for agrarian uprisings. (Sobritchea, n.d.)

            There were also conflicts between estate owners and workers. These stemmed from collection of excessive taxes and land rent, the decline of sharing agreements, extreme demands for labor services and capricious fixing of crop prices:

“… the hacienda structure consisted of three strata: the estate owner, the leaseholder of Inquilino and the tenant-sharecropper. Between the owner and the Inquilino, however, was the administrator who often demanded a share of the produce, over and, above the stipulated land rent. Each year at harvest time, the inquilino paid the land rent, separated the seed, and divided the remaining crop equally between the sharecropper and himself. Since the sharecropper was at the bottom rung of the hierarchy, he suffered most abuses and demands of the two non-producing sectors above him.” (sobritchea, n.d.)

            Consequently, there were instances of peasants taking arms to protest the alleged abuses and usurpation of their lands by the Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians, and the Recollects. The relative freedom, which the Inquilinos acquired by sub-leasing their farms provided them a tactical advantage for arranging and leading these peasant protest movements.

Political Landscape

          The so-called political influences affecting the 19^th century-Philippines largely impacted the locals, particularly Jose Rizal. Under these political influences, worthy of mention are (a) Liberalism, (b) the impact of Bourbon reforms, and (c) the Cadiz constitution.

LIBERALISM

            Liberalism is a worldview founded on the ideas of freedom and equality. It includes a wide range of political philosophies that consider individual liberty to be the most significant political goal, and underscore individual rights and equality of opportunity. Liberals normally believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being abused by others though they are also aware that government itself can pose a threat to liberty.

            The French revolution (1789-1799) started a political revolution in Europe and consequently in some other parts of the globe. “Having ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” as its battle cry, this period became a fundamental change in the political history of France as the French government structure was changed from absolute monarchy (with feudal privilege for the rich and clergy) into a more liberal government system founded on the principle of citizenship and inalienable rights.

            As an eventual repercussion of the French revolution, Spain later experienced a stormy century of political disturbances, which included “numerous changes in parliament and constitutions, the Peninsular war, the loss of Spanish America, and the struggle between liberals and conservatives” (Vallano n.d.). The liberals in Spain considered the Catholic Church, called anti-clericalism, had gained some strength.

            Radical modifications in government form were also introduced by liberals in Spain. These political changes had their repercussion in the Philippines, “cracking the fabric of the old colonial system and introducing through cracks perilous possibilities of reform, of equality and even emancipation” (De la Costa, as cited in Vallano n.d.)

            When the Philippines was opened to the world trade in the 19^th century, liberal ideas from America carried by ships and people from foreign ports started to penetrate the country and sway the illustrados. These political thoughts included the ideologies of the American and French revolutions.

            Furthermore, the opening of the Suez Canal eased the importation of books, magazines, and newspaper with liberal ideas from the West, which eventually impacted the thought of local reformists, such as Jose Rizal. The political views of liberal thinkers, such as Jean Jacques Rousseau (Social Contract), John Locke (Two Treatises of Government), Thomas Paine (Common Sense), Thomas Jefferson, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and some others thus entered the Philippines.

            The valuable canal also encouraged more and more liberal Spaniards and Europeans to come to the country and intermingle with natives. The abbreviated route has also stimulated the ilustrados like Rizal to pursue higher studies abroad in learn liberal ideas in European universities. For sure their school interaction with liberals in foreign lands has affected their beliefs on politics and nationhood.

            Philippines’ actual experience of liberalism comes from the role modelling of the “first liberal governor-general in the Philippines,” Governor-General Carlos Maria De la Torre. After the liberals in Spain had deposed Queen Isabela II in 1868 mutiny, a provisional government was formed, and the new government extended to Spain’s colonies the reform they implemented in the motherland. The liberal General Carlos De la Torre was appointed by the provisional government as Governor-General of the Philippines. He held the position from 1869 to 1871, and as widely considered to be the most beloved of the Spanish Governor-General ever assigned in the country.

            General De la Torre’s rule was essential in the dawn of national consciousness of the locals in the 19^th century. His liberal democratic governance had provided Jose Rizal and the others a preview of a democratic rule and way of life:

“De la Torre put into practice his liberal and democratic ways by avoiding luxury and living a simple life. During his two-year term, Governor De la Torre had many significant achievements. He encouraged freedom and abolished censorship. He recognized the freedom of speech and of the press, which were guaranteed by the Spanish Constitution. Because of his tolerant policy, Father Jose Burgos and other Filipino priests were encouraged to pursue their dream of replacing the friars with Filipino clergy as parish priests in the country. His greatest achievement was the peaceful solution to the land problem in Cavite. This province has been the center of agrarian unrest in the country since 18^th century because the Filipino tenants who lost their land had been oppressed by Spanish landlords. Agrarian uprisings led by local hero, Eduardo Camerino, erupted several times in Cavite. This agrarian problem was only solved without bloodshed when Governor De la Torre himself went to Cavite and had a conference with rebel leader. He pardoned the latter and his followers, provided them with decent livelihood and appointed them as members of the police force with Camerino as captain.” (Vallano, n.d.)

 THE IMPACT OF THE BOURBON REFORMS

            When the Spanish Bourbon King Philipp V (b. 1700-1746) assented to the throne, he and his successors, Ferdinand VI (r. 1746-1759), Charles III (r. 1759-1788), and Charles IV (r. 1788-1807), advocated a century-long effort to reform and modify the Spanish empire. These policy changes, known jointly as the Bourbon reforms, endeavored to curtail contraband commerce, reclaim control over transatlantic trade, restrict the church’s power, reform estate finances to fill dwindling royal coffers, and found tighter administrative and political control within the empire.

            Ideally, the Bourbon reform policies were advantageous to the Philippines, which was under Spain from 1565 to 1898. They surely impacted the way the colony was run by Spanish administrators but only to limited extent. For one thing, the Philippines was practically far from Spain, and so it was hard for the Bourbon advocates to check if reform policies were properly implemented in Spain’s colony in the far East.

            Moreover, there were questionable maters as regards the effectiveness of the Bourbon reform project. The policies lacked some ideological coherence, with the diverse and frequently contradictory aims of Madrid policy makers, who struggled haltingly to balance the crown’s several commercial, administrative, fiscal, and military aims. The reform process was also seen as so complex, much so that Spanish reformers sometimes promoted distinctly different kinds of policies for province in its diverse empire. Furthermore, there were instances when European conflicts forced Charles IV to go home from one policy to another by the mid-1790s to meet the needs of financing Spain’s wars.

            As a consequence, there were very different impacts of reform in the diverse Spanish empire, having deep consequences of colonial policy innovations in areas, such as Mexico, while in some other regions such as the Philippines, Chile, and New Granada, the reforms had a much more limited impact. But while historians are questioning the overall timing, impact, and effectiveness of the Bourbon reforms, its impact at least is it gave people, especially the natives in the Philippines, the idea that colonization could be done without much intervention from the Catholic Church.

 THE CADIZ CONSTITUTION

During the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, liberal constitution was promulgated in Cadiz in March 1812. Drafted by elected representatives, the Cadiz Constitution was put in practice in almost all the areas of the Hispanic Monarchy still under control of the Spanish crown.

This milestone constitution had an impact on many other European constitutions, as well as the American states after independence. The Cadiz Constitution was the first constitution in Europe to deal with national sovereignty, recognizing sovereignty as coming from the people and not from the king. Unlike the French constitution, which applied to all French-speaking citizen of France, this Spanish Constitution of 1812 had a universal character as it included everyone from overseas, like the Italian kingdoms and even the Philippines.

During the occupation of almost all of the Iberian peninsula by the French army in that fateful year, a group of around 300 deputies from Spain, Spanish America, and the Philippines promulgated a liberal constitution in the Mediterranean part of Cadiz. This became possible especially because the city was protected by the British Navy.

The first delegates from the Philippines were Pedro Perez de Tagle and Jose Manuel Coretto who took their oath of office in Madrid. The Cadiz Constitution, which was formally implemented in Manila soon after, established the principles of universal male suffrage, national sovereignty, constitutional monarchy, and freedom of the press, and advocated land reform and free enterprises. Dealing with the policies on Spain colonies including the Philippines, the constitution issued a decree “granting all its colonies representation as provinces in Spanish cortes through deputies chosen by the various capital cities” (Pedrosa, n.d.). Under the Cadiz Constitution:

Governor General Manuel Gonzales Aguilar called for an election of Manila officials which resulted in the selection of Don Ventura de los Reyes, a wealthy merchant and member of the Royal Corps of Artillery of Manila, as the deputy. The Vigan-born Don Ventura de los Reyes was a son of poor Ilocano parents. He took part in the Ilocos revolt led by Diego Silang in 1762, but later on engaged in vegetable and indigo business. He was one of the delegates who signed the Constitution but it was only after a year that those in Manila knew about the decree.” (Pedrosa n.d.)

The constitutional monarchy that the Cadiz Constitution attempted to put in place did not come to fruition because in May of 1814, King Fernando VII declared it invalid and restored absolutism. However, Cadiz was a very significant period in the political history of Spanish-speaking world at least. On the part of the locals in the Philippines, one crucial creed embodied in the constitution was the exemption of the natives from paying tributes and rendering public services based on its equality clause.

For the freedom-loving people of the Philippines in the 19^th century, the constitution was very influential as it was a liberal constitution, which vested sovereignty in the people, recognized the equality of all men and the individual liberty of the citizen, granted the right of suffrage.

 Seeing Rizal’s Life in His Society

In various social sciences, it is a widely accepted principle that we see the life on an individual in his/her society, and society in the life of individual. This is precisely the reason that 19^th century Philippines, as Rizal’s society, is discussed here as a preliminary in studying the hero’s life and works.

            One unique feature of Rizal, nonetheless, is that he did not only know the valuable information about his society but also had a quality of mind that helped him use the information in a way that he could think about what was going on in the world and of what might be happening within himself. Sociologists call this quality of mind the “sociological imagination.”

            Having this sociological imagination, people can view their inner life and career in terms of larger historical forces. Those who possess this quality of mind can understand their own experiences by locating themselves in history; they can recognize the response available to them by becoming aware of all of the individuals who share the same situation as themselves.

            People who cannot locate their lives in history are unlikely to know how to respond effectively to a world in which the lives of people around the globe are interconnected and which one society’s problems are part of larger global problems. On the other hand, those who have the sociological imagination can grasp history in the context of realities they face and the connections between the two. As will discussed in this book, Rizal had this quality---he knew his place in the greater scheme of things, he understood the societal forces shaping his life, and thus able to respond in ways that benefited others.