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Philippines THE DECLINE OF SPANISH RULE, 1762-1898
In 1762 Spain became involved in the Seven Years' War
(1756-63) on the side of France against Britain; in October 1762,
forces of the British East India Company captured Manila after
fierce fighting. Spanish resistance continued under Lieutenant
Governor Simón de Anda, based at Bacolor in Pampanga Province,
and Manila was returned to the Spanish in May 1764 in conformity
with the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the war. The
British occupation nonetheless marked, in a very significant
sense, the beginning of the end of the old order.
Spanish prestige suffered irreparable damage because of the
defeat at British hands. A number of rebellions broke out, of
which the most notable was that of Diego Silang in the Ilocos
area of northern Luzon. In December 1762, Silang expelled the
Spanish from the coastal city of Vigan and set up an independent
government. He established friendly relations with the British
and was able to repulse Spanish attacks on Vigan, but he was
assassinated in May 1763. The Spanish, tied down by fighting with
the British and the rebels, were unable to control the raids of
the Moros of the south on the Christian communities of the
Visayan Islands and Luzon. Thousands of Christian Filipinos were
captured as slaves, and Moro raids continued to be a serious
problem through the remainder of the century. The Chinese
community, resentful of Spanish discrimination, for the most part
enthusiastically supported the British, providing them with
laborers and armed men who fought de Anda in Pampanga.
After Spanish rule was restored, José Basco y Vargas one of
the ablest of Spanish administrators, was the governor from 1778
to 1787, and he implemented a series of reforms designed to
promote the economic development of the islands and make them
independent of the subsidy from New Spain. In 1781 he established
the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, which, throughout
its checkered history extending over the next century, encouraged
the growth of new crops for export--such as indigo, tea, silk,
opium poppies, and abaca (hemp)--and the development of local
industry. A government tobacco monopoly was established in 1782.
The monopoly brought in large profits for the government and made
the Philippines a leader in world tobacco production.
The venerable galleon trade between the Philippines and
Mexico continued as a government monopoly until 1815, when the
last official galleon from Acapulco docked at Manila. The Royal
Company of the Philippines, chartered by the Spanish king in
1785, promoted direct trade from that year on between the islands
and Spain. All Philippine goods were given tariff-free status,
and the company, together with Basco's Economic Society,
encouraged the growth of a cash-crop economy by investing a
portion of its early profits in the cultivation of sugar, indigo,
peppers, and mulberry trees for silk, as well as in textile
factories.
Data as of June 1991
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