More Hispanic Than We Admit 3, Quincentennial Edition

Edited by Jorge Mojarro
With a foreword by María Dolores Elizalde

This anthology of new, classic, and adventurous essays delivers a volume replete with fascinating stories about the first three hundred years of Spanish Philippine history. Based mostly on archival sources, the book offers insights on Ferdinand Magellan, the first recorded European on Philippine soil; Lapulapu, the first native to resist foreign domination; Fray Martín de Rada, pioneer defender of indigenous people’s rights; Rajah Tupas of Cebu, the first major ally of the colonizers; the three rulers of pre-Hispanic Manila and Tondo, Rajahs Lakandula, Matanda, and Soliman; Don Nicolás de Herrera, the first native civil servant or “brown Spaniard”; and indomitable Madre Ignacia del Espíritu Santo and Venerable Madre Jerónima de la Asunción, courageous founders of religious institutes for women. These personages and other marginalized actors such as indio sailors, slaves, babaylanes (native priestesses), beatas (religious laywomen), Moros, highland Ifugaos, and Chinese merchants are studied as representatives of this turbulent and highly dynamic period. Also included are the most comprehensive synoptic essays on colonial Spanish Philippine literature, art, architecture, native rebellion, Hispano-Christian transculturation and mestizaje, transpacific maritime exchanges via the galleon, the early beginnings of the colonial treasury, the British invasion, and the rise of constitutionalism and criollismo.

The book balances hegemonic narratives with meticulous research using primary documents in order to reveal the once heretofore hidden Filipino responses to Spanish incursion—whether it be cooptation, acculturation, or outright resistance. Richly illustrated with prints, maps, and archival documents, More Hispanic than We Admit 3 serves as an important contribution to the continuing study of the Hispanic record as well as its legacy, the Hispano-Filipino identity, while foregrounding native agency during the early and foundational stages of Spain’s imperial project.

This collection of essays lets us dive into the over 300 years of Spanish Philippine history, discovering conflicts, entanglements, hybridities, and interactions. Its editor has curated essays from various disciplines such as history, literature, anthropology, and heritage studies, setting the stage for source-based and globally contextualized texts with a transnational perspective that avoid the pitfalls of Eurocentric biases. More Hispanic than We Admit 3 emphasizes the long and productive—and sometimes ignored and overlooked—common history of Spain and the Philippines, reminding both nations of this important period in their common history.
—Eberhard Crailsheim
Instituto de Historia, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid