III. Trade and Commerce at the Time of Discovery and Conquest
Centuries before Spanish discovery the Filipinos were in regular intercourse with the neighboring countries of China, Japan, Borneo, and others. In the work of Chao Ju-kua, a Chinese geographer of the thirteenth century, there is a chapter on Philippine trade, from which we learn that the “foreign traders import porcelain, commercial gold, iron vases for perfumes, leaden objects, glass, pearls of all colors, iron needles,”[1] black damask, and other silk fabrics, fish nets, and tin, and also silk umbrellas, and a kind of basket woven from rattan. In exchange, the Filipinos exported cotton (perhaps the “kapok” or tree cotton), yellow wax, strange cloth (foreign cloth: sinamay, a light fabric made from abacá,—and other textiles of the country.—Blumentritt’s note), coconuts, onions, (camotes?—Blumentritt’s note), and fine mats; also pearls, shells (i. e., tortoise-shell.—Blumentritt’s note), betelnuts, and jute (yuta) textiles. (Yu-ta seems to be the abacá.—Blumentritt’s note).[2]