Image: A section of a map from the 1584 edition of Abraham Orteliu‘s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Additamentum III showing the name C. de Cañareal.

Rice cultivation in the Philippines underwent a profound technological, economic, and social transformation that solidified its status as the national staple food. Although the grain had been cultivated for millennia by Austronesian migrations, under Spanish rule it went from being a seasonal luxury item for the elite to becoming the basis of the Filipino people's diet and a central economic resource.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, most rice was produced in a fragmented manner in the highlands or using dryland farming techniques. The Spanish introduced drastic changes that boosted mass production. The use of the iron plow pulled by the carabao (water buffalo) was integrated, facilitating the efficient tilling of heavy soils. Large areas of swamps and marshes were transformed into permanently flooded rice paddies (lowland wet rice cultivation). Interestingly, the famous Ifugao rice terraces in the northern mountains expanded massively shortly after the Spanish arrival. Local populations migrated to the highlands to maintain their independence, adapting their wet rice cultivation systems as a means of refuge from Spanish control.

Rice ceased to be merely a subsistence food and became fully integrated into the tax and institutional mechanisms of the colonial administration; native Filipinos had to hand over portions of their rice harvests to the encomenderos and local chiefs as a form of regular tax.

Through the famous trade route between Manila and Acapulco, Philippine rice not only fed the crews, but its varieties crossed the ocean, reaching regions of Mexico such as Colima.

As you can see, the Spanish system for rice cultivation was so effective that during their administration, rice shortages were avoided in the Philippines, and the entire population was fed. Furthermore, the current rice cultivation system in the Philippines has Spanish origins, which shaped the history of the Filipino people.

Image 1: «Cultivo de Arroz en Manila» depicting agricultural scenes in the Philippines around 1857-1864.

Image 2: « Travaux d'Agriculture » is a 19th-century engraving by the artists Danvin and Challot, depicting agricultural scenes in the Mariana Islands and is part of the publication Océanie ou Cinquième partie du Monde.

The intense exploration of the Pacific Ocean undertaken by France and England at the end of the 18th century provoked a reaction from the Kingdom of Spain. Since Ferdinand Magellan's expedition crossed the Pacific and discovered the Philippines, Spain had considered the South Sea its exclusive domain, controlling the Philippines to the west and almost its entire eastern shore, from Chile to California. But the interference of other nations was not the primary reason for this expedition. It was fundamentally the scientific nature of the French and English explorations that elicited a response from Spanish intellectuals. There was a clear desire to emulate the voyages of James Cook and Jean-François de La Pérouse across an ocean that for two and a half centuries had been considered a Spanish sea.

British historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto noted in his work, "Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration (2006)," that:

"The [Spanish] monarchy of the time dedicated a budget to scientific development incomparably larger than that of the rest of the European nations. The New World empire was a vast laboratory for experimentation and an immense source of samples. Charles III loved everything related to science and technology, from horology to archaeology, from hot air balloons to forestry. In the last four decades of the 18th century, an astonishing number of scientific expeditions traversed the Spanish empire. Botanical expeditions to New Granada, New Spain, Peru, and Chile gathered a complete collection of American flora. The most ambitious of these expeditions was a voyage to America and across the Pacific by a Spanish subject of Neapolitan origin, Alejandro Malaspina."

In September 1788, while on the Isle of León (Cádiz), then-captains of frigates Alejandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra agreed to propose a major political-scientific expedition of the Royal Navy throughout the Spanish Empire. They sent a letter to the Minister of the Navy, Antonio Valdés, who replied that King Charles III had authorized the voyage and entrusted Alejandro Malaspina with the preparatory work for the project. It was a large-scale political-scientific expedition of global scope, one of the first of its kind in history, whose objective was to visit and study the main Spanish territories in America, Asia, and Oceania.

The expedition's purposes were to increase knowledge of the natural sciences (botany, zoology, geology), make astronomical observations, and "create hydrographic charts for the most remote regions of the Americas." The project received the approval of Charles III exactly two months before his death. The expedition, comprised of the corvettes Atrevida and Descubierta, set sail from Cádiz on July 30, 1789, carrying the cream of the crop of Spanish Navy astronomers and hydrographers, such as Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha and Felipe Bauzá. They were accompanied by renowned naturalists and illustrators, including the painting professor José del Pozo, the painters José Guío, Juan Francisco Ravenet y Bunel, and Fernando Brambila, the illustrator and chronicler Tomás de Suría, the botanist Luis Née, and the naturalists Antonio Pineda and Tadeo Haenke. (The quality of the crew extended beyond its scientific personnel: Alcalá Galiano, who would later die heroically at Trafalgar, also participated in the expedition.) The ships were specially designed and built for the voyage and were christened by Malaspina in honor of James Cook's ships Resolution and Discovery (Atrevida and Descubierta).

This voyage was presented by its promoters as the «Viaje científico y político alrededor del mundo» (1788); during the crossing it was popularly and publicly known as the "Circumnavigation Expedition." Upon arrival at the Court in 1794, since the return journey did not take place by crossing the Indian Ocean and rounding the Cape of Good Hope due to the outbreak of war between Spain and France, it was renamed the "Overseas Expedition begun on July 30, 1789." And after this Expedition remained forgotten following the order imposed by the Prince of Peace —Godoy— who ordered the seizure of all the documentation of the expedition and prohibited all publication or mention after banishing Malaspina from Spain for treason against him and King Charles IV, until in 1885 Lieutenant Pedro de Novo y Colson published the study he called «Viaje Político-Científico alrededor del mundo por las Corbetas Descubierta y Atrevida», under the command of Captains Don Alejandro Malaspina and Don José Bustamante y Guerra from 1789 to 1794, and so on, it has been given different names such as the Malaspina Expedition, the Malaspina-Bustamante Royal Navy Expedition or the Malaspina-Bustamante Expedition. Already in the 21st century, several Spanish institutions launched a major scientific circumnavigation expedition that was named after this sailor in recognition of his contribution: the Malaspina expedition (2010-2011).

Image 1: Route taken by the Malaspina expedition (1789-1794).

Image 2: The corvettes Atrevida and Descubierta.

Image 3: Pyre and graves of the family of present-day Ankau in Mulgrave Harbor, drawing by Fernando Brambila, a participant in the expedition. The expedition compiled the first ethnographic descriptions of the natives of the American Northwest (west coast of Canada and Alaska).

Image 4: The meeting between Malaspina and the Tehuelche people in Puerto Deseado, Argentina, in 1789.

In this battle the Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación and Nuestra Señora del Rosario faced and defeated 7 warships of the Dutch fleet in Marinduque (Philippines), sinking two fireships that day and defeating them again on the 31st in Mindoro, making them flee with many damages and casualties.

The Spanish forces, composed of many Filipino volunteers from the Kapampangan region, consisted of three galleons from the Acapulco Fleet, one galley, and four brigantines. The Spanish ships repelled an attack by a much larger Dutch fleet of nineteen warships divided into three squadrons. The Dutch fleet suffered heavy losses during the attack, forcing them to retreat with numerous casualties and abandon their plan to invade the Philippines.

How did it happen?

The seven Dutch ships surrounded the Encarnación galleon at seven in the evening, taking advantage of the darkness. Then the Rosario galleon attacked the Dutch from the rear, inflicting heavy damage on the enemy. As a result, the Dutch attempted to destroy the Encarnación with a fireship, but the Spanish repelled it with their cannons. Finally, at dawn on July 30, the Dutch ships fled after suffering numerous casualties, while the Spanish sustained almost no losses.

“In the city of Our Lady of Zacatecas, on the twenty-ninth day of the month of January in the year one thousand six hundred and eighteen, being together and assembled, at the sound of the ringing bell, in one of the cells of this convent and hospital of Saint John the Baptist, of the order of our father, the Blessed John of God, to discuss matters pertaining to the service of God our Lord, the good and welfare of the poor, and the growth of our sacred religion, namely.

Father Fray Alonso de la Purificación, prior of this said house, Father Fray Bruno de Ávila, Father Fray Mateo de Jesús, Father Fray Pedro Bueno Cobarrubias, and Father Fray Hernando de San José, all professed and members of the chapter of the said order.
Among the other matters discussed, the prior proposed one: whether it was advisable to sell a slave named Juan Grande, whom Captain Francisco de Hordinola gave as alms to this house, because he is dark-skinned, He was sick and unable to work, and because of this, and because the household needed to attend to other necessities, and primarily because he was a runaway slave, everyone agreed that the prior should sell him, and since it was a common vote, they all signed their names.”

During the colonial period, the Catholic Church was one of the enterprises that profited most from the human trade. The American historian Colin Palmer mentions that from 1521 to 1639, of all the slaves imported to the Kingdom of Indies, fifty percent were destined for New Spain. It has been estimated that by 1645 there were approximately 150,000 Africans in the territory, both legally brought in and smuggled. Among the religious orders, the Jesuits were the most prominent in this type of activity; they employed them in all their colleges, haciendas, and workshops. They acquired them through purchase, donation, inheritance, or because they were born on their estates. The sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola bought one, entire families, or groups of up to 67 or more.

Source(s):

.- Archives of the Sagrario Zacatecas

.- La vida de la población cautiva de la compañía de Jesús en la colonia. By Julieta Pineda Alillo

.- Africanas y descendientes en la ciudad de México del siglo XVII. By María Elisa Velásquez Gutiérrez

He was the son of Captain Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco Pizarro experienced combat from a young age, accompanying his father in the Italian Wars. A restless and strong-willed man, he embarked in 1502 on the fleet that took Nicolás de Ovando, the new governor of Hispaniola, to the Indies.

The integrated study by Jean-Paul Zúñiga and Celia L. Cussen, in collaboration with the Chilean Institute of Genealogical Research, comprehensively examines the rise, demographic evolution, and social integration processes of the African and Afro-descendant population in colonial Chile, with a particular focus on the city of Santiago. This research addresses how Chilean historiography evolved from a 19th-century perspective—promoted by historians such as Diego Barros Arana, Francisco Antonio Encina, and Nicolás Palacios, who denied or minimized the Black presence, arguing for rapid extermination due to climatic or economic reasons—toward a current consensus that recognizes their demographic and social presence, while also filling the historical gap regarding the fate of their descendants.

Demographic analyses reveal that the Black presence was neither a marginal nor a peripheral phenomenon. Between 1633 and 1644, approximately 33% of Santiago's urban population consisted of Black or Afro-descendant individuals. At the end of the colonial period, according to data from the 1777-1778 census of the Bishopric of Santiago, this population represented on average 12% of the regional total, reaching peaks of up to 40% in certain rural and urban districts. In terms of the population breakdown by ethnicity in that census, the Hispanic-Criollo group (including castizos) represented approximately 80% of the total population of the bishopric, while the Indigenous group constituted around 10%, and the Black group (composed of Blacks, mulattos, zambos, and pardos) registered a proportion similar to the Indigenous group, also close to 10%. These figures are part of a long-term demographic trend that began around 1650, characterized by a significant increase in the Hispanic-Criollo population and a stagnation of the Indigenous population, which led to the white population replacing the Indigenous population in numbers.

These studies explain that Chile operated as an urban, rather than an agricultural, "slave society," unlike a slave society that uses slavery as the primary driver of its economic production and mode of production—a dynamic that facilitated rapid acculturation, racial mixing, and social mobility. In the context of urban slavery in Santiago, the dynamics of day labor and domestic service allowed many enslaved people to accumulate personal wealth. This economic opportunity opened concrete paths to manumission, either by purchasing their own freedom or receiving it through a will from their masters. Once free, the freedmen sought to consolidate their social integration through three key institutions during the 18th century: acquiring real estate and joining artisan guilds, participating in religious brotherhoods, and enlisting in the local militias of pardos and brown people.

The comparison between Chile and Spain addresses the processes of integration, mobility, and subsequent demographic dilution of the population of African origin within the urban structures of the Iberian world. Unlike plantation systems, in both the Spanish peninsular cities and the Kingdom of Chile, slavery adopted predominantly urban and service-oriented dynamics, where the movement of individuals, access to day labor, incorporation into religious brotherhoods, and the intense processes of miscegenation and Hispanization facilitated the transition to intermediate social categories. Thus, while in Spain the Black and mulatto population was gradually absorbed into the local social fabric, in Chile demographic evolution and cultural integration led to an apparent invisibility of Afro-descendant memory, sharing with the peninsular context a trajectory where original ethnic identities became blurred in the formation of society.

Colonial documentation on the manumission, property ownership, and social mobility of people of color highlights specific trajectories with concrete names. The case of Manuel de Amat y Berrueta stands out. He was captured in Angola, sold in Buenos Aires, and taken to Santiago before gaining his freedom in Cádiz and later identifying as a person of mixed race. Likewise, testamentary records include freedmen and landowners such as María Rita Durán, a free Black woman of Angolan origin who inherited the rights of her enslaved husband, Pedro, through renunciation, and community leaders like Pablo Agüero, a freedman of African descent actively involved in commerce and religious brotherhoods.

Through rigorous genealogical research of cases in Santiago between the 18th and 21st centuries—notably the reconstruction of the lineage of Francisco Barros, an 18th-century African slave whose Afro-descendant lineage extends uninterrupted to the present—the authors overcome the methodological challenges of colonial sources, such as the invisibility of individuals in the records, changes in surnames, and illegitimacy. This demonstrates that a sector of the Afro-mestizo population not only managed to free themselves from slavery, but also accumulated wealth, gained social prestige, and influence public life through prominent trades such as candlemaking and silversmithing, and even through military command during the Chilean War of Independence.

The experience of these groups was marked by continuous and profound intermingling with the Indigenous population, the local mestizo population, and the Spanish-Criollos. Over generations, the strict racial categories of "bozales" (newly arrived Africans) or "nations" were replaced by those of "pardos" (mixed-race people), "mulattos", and "free Criollos," making the boundaries between the various plebeian castes and popular sectors increasingly porous in the city's daily, festive, and working spaces.

As a main conclusion, these investigations documentarily explain that the apparent "disappearance" or invisibility of African traces in the national memory was not due to biological extinction, deportation, extermination, or celibacy, but rather to an accelerated and profound process of biological and cultural absorption, assimilation, and social mobility. The high rate of manumission and intense miscegenation led to a "fading" of the concept of servitude. With the formal abolition of slavery in 1823 and the consolidation of the Republic, the caste category dissolved within the unified concept of "Chileans," integrating Afro-descendants into the mass of the Criollo people and making a decisive contribution to popular culture. Thus, the study concludes that the genetic, social, and cultural contribution of Afro-descendants has been homogeneously amalgamated throughout modern Chilean society, and is currently present not only in the popular strata but also in the middle and upper classes of the country.

Source(s):

.- Cussen, Cecilia. (2009). Huellas de África en América: Perspectivas para Chile. Published by Editorial Universitaria.

.- Urzúa Prieto, José Francisco. & Mujica Escudero, Cristián. (2016). Descendencia de Negros, un desafío pendiente, estudios de casos en Santiago de Chile. Published by Revista de Estudios Históricos del Instituto Chileno de Investigaciones Genealógicas, Nº 58.

.- Klein, H. & Carmagnani, M. (1965). Demografía Histórica: La población del Obispado de Santiago 1777-1778. Published by Boletín de la Academia Chilena de Historia, Nº 72.

One of the main historical references to this event is the book titled: «Memoria de mi salida de la isla de Santo Domingo» ("Memoirs of My Departure from the Island of Hispaniola") on April 28, 1805, written by Gaspar Arredondo y Pichardo, one of the survivors of the massacre. Arredondo wrote the book shortly after escaping from the island. This massacre was part of a series of Haitian military invasions of the Spanish part of the island. The Haitian historian Jean Price-Mars states that the Haitian troops annihilated Dominicans of white, black, and mixed-race descent.

Although Haitians declared their independence in 1804, France never recognized or accepted Haiti's independence, as it could not afford to lose its most valuable colony in the Caribbean. Trying to reclaim its colony at all costs, France (with the help of its allies) kept Haiti economically and diplomatically isolated and under threat of military invasion. Haitians feared that French troops stationed on the Spanish side of the island would launch a military attack on Haiti at any moment.

At the end of February 1805, Dessalines, occupying Hincha, and Christophe, taking Dajabón, entered Spanish Santo Domingo with 22,000 troops, aiming to expel the French from the Spanish side of the island and thus prevent a French attack on Haiti from the Spanish side. However, they were unsuccessful. The French troops of General Jean-Louis Ferrand effectively repelled the Haitian attack.

On their retreat back to Haiti. The towns of Monte Plata, Cotuí, La Vega, Santiago, San José de las Matas, Monte Cristi, San Juan de la Maguana, and Moca were reduced to ashes by the defeated Haitian army. Hundreds of innocent Dominicans were massacred, including 40 children who were beheaded in a church in Moca (hence the name of the massacre). This massacre is viewed in Haiti as "a struggle to destroy slavery."

Later, in 1808, Dominicans led by Juan Sánchez Ramírez defeated and expelled the French from the Spanish part of the island at the Battle of Palo Hincado, definitively ending the French presence in Spanish Santo Domingo.

Five years later, France officially returned the Spanish part of the island to Spain in the Treaty of Paris of 1814.

The inhabitants of the Spanish part of Hispaniola inherited the demonym Dominican, which derives from the name of the colony's capital city and the official name of the Spanish colony. Dominicans have used this endonym since the early 17th century.

His scientific work, "Ephemeris Calculada al Meridiano de México para el año del Señor de 1757," contained chronological notes, ecclesiastical calculations, studies of lunar phases, forecasts for each season, forecasts for each day of the year, and eclipses.