They could not travel about the Islands, nor go two leagues from the city without a written license, nor remain over night within the city after the gates were closed, on penalty of their lives. They had their own alcalde and judge, a tribunal and jail; and on the north side of the river Dominican friars, who had learned the Chinese language, had erected a mission and hospital. There was a separate barrio for the baptized Chinese and their families, to the number of about five hundred.
The Chinese in the Philippines from the earliest time to the present have been known by the name of “Sangleyes.” The derivation of this curious word is uncertain; but Navarrete, who must have understood Chinese well, says that the word arose from a misapprehension of the words spoken by the Chinese who first presented themselves at Manila. “Being asked what they came for, they answered, ‘Xang Lei,’ that is, ‘We come to trade.’ The Spaniards, who understood not their language, conceiving it to be the name of a country, and putting the two words together, made one of them, by which they still distinguish the Chinese, calling them Sangleyes.”
The Japanese Colony.—There was also in those early years quite a colony of Japanese. Their community lay between the Parian and the barrio of Laguio. There were about five hundred, and among them the Franciscans claimed a goodly number of converts.
The Filipino District of Tondo.—We have described at some length the city south of the river and the surrounding suburbs, most of them known by the names they hold to-day. North of the Pasig was the great district of Tondo, the center of that strong, independent Filipino feeling which at an early date was colored with Mohammedanism and to this day is strong in local feeling. This region has thriven and built up until it has long been by far the most important and populous part of the metropolis, but not until very recent times was it regarded as a part of the city of Manila, which name was reserved for the walled citadel alone.
A bridge across the Pasig, on the site of the present Puente de España, connected the two districts at a date later than Morga’s time. It was one of the first things noticed by Navarrete, who, without describing it well, says it was very fine. It was built during the governorship of Niño de Tabora, who died in 1632.[27] Montero states that it was of stone, and that this same bridge stood for more than two centuries, resisting the incessant traffic and the strength of floods.[28]
The Decline of Manila during the Next Century.—Such was Manila thirty-five and forty years after its foundation. It was at the zenith of its importance, the capital of the eastern colonies, the mart of Asia, more splendid than Goa, more powerful than Malacca or Macao, more populous and far more securely held than Ternate and Tidor. “Truly,” exclaimed Chirino, “it is another Tyre, so magnified by Ezekiel.” It owed its great place to the genius and daring of the men who founded it, to the freedom of action which it had up to this point enjoyed, and to its superlative situation.
In the years that followed we have to recount for the most part only the process of decline. Spain herself was fast on the wane. A few years later and the English had almost driven her navies from the seas, the Portuguese had regained their independence and lost empire, the Dutch were in the East, harrying Portuguese and Spaniard alike and fast monopolizing the rich trade. The commerce and friendly relations with the Chinese, on which so much depended, were broken by massacre and reprisal; and, most terrible and piteous of all, the awful wrath and lust of the Malay pirate, for decade after decade, was to be visited upon the archipelago.
The colonial policy of the mother-land, selfish, shortsighted, and criminal, was soon to make its paralyzing influence felt upon trade and administration alike. These things were growing and taking place in the next period which we have to consider,—the years from 1600 to 1663. They left the Philippines despoiled and insignificant for a whole succeeding century, a decadent colony and an exploited treasure.
[1] Relacion de la Conquista de Luzon, 1572, p. 15.