SPANISH COLONIZATION

Structure and Organization of Spanish Colonial Government in the Philippines

Author/s: Ligaya A. Delos Santos|CEIT-01-1002P

Rizal Technological University, Mandaluyong, Philippines
ligayadelossantos0@gmail.com

population to Roman Catholicism and the creation of a stratification system are one of their
reasons for colonization. However, they are driven from their thirst to acquire control of the
spice trade. They made these possible by enhancing their imperial authority through making
Manila a huge commercial center and a way in which to reach and control East Asian Trade
resulting to the change in social, political, and economic position of the country. Should we
be thankful to the colonizers for the developments they brought to us or be grateful to the
heroes who ended 400 years of pain, distraught and slavery?

the natives were capable to establish

external relationships and trades with neighboring countries. The Sultanate of Sulu was a
Muslim state that ruled over many of the islands of the Sulu Sea, in the southern Philippines.
In the 1300s, much trade was conducted with Indonesia, India, China and Japan. As a result,
Arab traders from Indonesia brought Islam to the Philippines. Islam was established in the
Sulu Archipelago and spread from there to Mindanao; and it had reached the Manila area by
1565. But when the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, the majority of the estimated
500,000 people in the islands still lived in barangay settlements.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Filipinos basically relied upon many small
communities, and when the Spanish arrived, that was when the government became much
more centralized. The social and political organization of the population in the widely
scattered islands was more decentralized. The encomienda system was also established.
Within the barangay, social divisions included nobles, including the datu, freemen, and a
group called the dependents. Dependents included people of many occupations: landless
agricultural workers, those who had lost freeman status because of indebtedness or
punishment for crime; and slaves. Tributes were also collected among the native in order to
settle the costs of colonization and to recognize their submission to the king of Spain. The
Polo or forced labor had created discontent among the Indios during the Spanish times. All
men between sixteen and sixty years of age, except chieftains and their elder sons, were
required to render labor of various forms for 40 days in the colony. This was instituted in
1580 and reduced to 15 days per year in 1884.

The Filipinos were already working mines of gold, silver, copper and iron, brass, and tin when
the Spanish arrived. The iron work in particular was said to be of extremely high quality in
some cases, and occasionally in some areas, even better than that found in Europe. When
the Spanish arrived, the Philippines were filled to the brim with gold. Filipinos were also into
fishing, and they were very advanced with their barangays. Their ancient sailing sand
navigational techniques were extremely impressive to the Spanish. The Philippines had a
great abundance of rice, cotton, fowls, and wine, as well as many buffalo, deer, wild boar and
goats. Due to all of their rich natural resources, they were able to trade with many countries,
and many of their products were appealing.

Spanish colonialism robbed the Philippines of their time to develop a solid unique identity as
a societal group. The Filipino adapted the writing system of their rulers. Unlike most
colonized nations, the Filipino wasn't known to fight imperialism but rather embrace it.
Thank god for the ones with a sense of nationalism to actually fight but the average Filipino
saw the one sided alliance with the Spanish as a good thing. Truly, the belief in the
superiority of foreigners was ingrain by the Spanish and taken advantage of by all other
Imperialist including America.