raori921 OP t1_izdw53o wrote
Reply to comment by Swanky_Molerat in Why is the Spanish colonial empire often said/implied to be "less focused on trade" or "not prioritising trade" compared to other empires like the Dutch, British, Portuguese etc.? by raori921
>based on my very limited knowledge of the Spanish conquest of the Philippines, I would suspect that this fits better with the “American” pattern than the “Indian” or “Indonesian.”
Well, the strange thing is that the Spanish conquest of the Philippines also doesn't quite fit the "standard American" pattern either, apart from the major goal of Christianising the natives. But economically it seems at least more trade oriented than the mostly extraction-based (Latin) American economy, largely also because the Spanish found little to extract directly in the Philippines themselves: less spices than nearby Indonesia (under Portuguese then Dutch control) and less gold or silver than in Mexico or South America. (Which is not to say they didn't extract what they could here. Filipino natives wore and traded a lot of gold and maybe also silver, it wasn't a lot, but a lot of it was in danger of being melted down for reuse as Church relics and things, for example. And they extracted labour, if that counts; most of it was technically not slavery, but the working conditions were still bad and pay was often unreliable or low.) On the other hand, demographically the Philippines as the Spanish found them does seem to fit more like the average American profile, outside at least of the big empires like the Incans or Aztecs, like what you said here:
>Population levels were lower (although this was not the case everywhere) and native societies enjoyed a lower level of economic and technical development
I actually think Philippine populations in the 1600s or so, from what we can tell, might even have declined because of Spanish colonial labour extraction taking its toll, rather than the genocidal effect of the early American conquests. Some scholars have looked into this, like Linda Newson.
But going back to the trade thing, I don't know if this is reaching to say, but, if we disregard the religious and general military/territorial part of the conquest, the economic part of the Spanish conquest, in the Philippines specifically, did seem to be based more around trading than most people know or think: using Manila as a galleon port and a base for trading with China was the main one. And yet even with this, if this is a major difference between their Asian/Philippine economic approach as compared to the American one, overall the perception is still that Spain in general is not seen as prioritising trade to the degree other European empires did. I guess while the other empires were aggressive at economic expansion throughout Asia, the Spanish were content to stop with the galleons for the most part.
>Spanish colonial trade was generally subject to stricter and more limited monopolies, and did not create wealthy merchant elites to the same extent as in England and the Dutch Republic.
One thing I did notice is the Spanish were very late to create what was basically a "Spanish East India Company", the Royal Company of the Philippines established in the 1780s, nearly 200 years after the English and Dutch created their better known East India Companies. And even then it didn't last very long and was rarely profitable. By the 1830s it was gone again.
Also someone said in another repost of this thread that some merchants in Spain itself, to the extent they were ever influential, actually opposed competition coming in from Asia and from the Philippines generally, maybe they got all they could need more locally or closer to home?
Swanky_Molerat t1_ize0s6l wrote
I am not saying that trade wasn't important, but on the whole Spanish rule in the Philippines was not profitable and depended on substantial annual subsidies.
Also, if the goal was mainly trade the Spanish could have made use of Manila similar to how the Portuguese and Dutch used Malacca and Batavia during the 17th century: as trade hubs and chokepoints to control, dominate, or divert existing trade routes - without caring too much about conquering the hinterland and converting the native population.
Other examples of this approach are Ormuz, Goa, and Macao (Portugal) and Bombay and Calcutta (England).
I think the Spanish approach was quite different from the start and that it is fair to say that trade was not their main priority even in the Philippines.
elmonoenano t1_izf9x66 wrote
>Other examples of this approach are Ormuz, Goa, and Macao (Portugal) and Bombay and Calcutta (England).
>
>I think the Spanish approach was quite different from the start and that it is fair to say that trade was not their main priority even in the Philippines.
Trade absolutely was the priority in the Philippines. China was a strong enough and unified enough government to forbid the Spanish from entering and trading directly in China. Intramuros was specifically founded to be the location where Spanish and Chinese traders would meet to conduct trade for highly prized Chinese goods like silk. Manila was the terminus of the Spanish galleon trade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_galleon
The big thing that distinguishes Manila from the other examples you listed, except Macao which provided the Portuguese with the same thing the Spanish used Manila for and the British later used Hong Kong for, was that China was strong enough to keep foreign powers out and conduct trade on their terms. India wasn't. It didn't have a unified government or political system or even a national identity.
raori921 OP t1_ize79jn wrote
Now I wonder if this low priority on trade has not had adverse consequences for the modern Philippines after independence from Spain, though the American colonial period after 1898 is another complicating factor.
Wonder if it could ever be said with any certainty that the under-focus on trade by the Spanish colonisers has in any way (direct or not) resulted in why even recently, the Philippine economy has historically had trouble growing fast or sustaining growth anytime it does grow fast, unlike more successful East Asian (and even some Southeast Asian) economies.
Swanky_Molerat t1_izebotw wrote
>Now I wonder if this low priority on trade has not had adverse consequences for the modern Philippines after independence from Spain
The Dutch profited immensely from intra-Indonesian trade conducted by native Indonesians. Perhaps the Spanish were less opportunistic and more restrictive and controlling.
But it is always difficult if not impossible to draw proper causal inferences from such observations.
In any case, internal trade is likely to have had a more lasting impact than the regular but sporadic galleon trade.
elmonoenano t1_izfclgm wrote
It's important to remember that trade in the Philippines wasn't focused on the Philippines. It was focused on China, so the Spanish had no incentive to encourage any kind of economic development there. If anything it would have made their conflict with the Moros on the southern islands more difficult. The world economy had changed enough by the time of the US colonization that you do get some forms of plantation development and a more serious interest in political administration of the Philippines, but whereas the Spanish mostly neglected the country, the US was highly extractive.
raori921 OP t1_ize98k1 wrote
>if the goal was mainly trade the Spanish could have made use of Manila similar to how the Portuguese and Dutch used Malacca and Batavia during the 17th century: as trade hubs and chokepoints to control, dominate, or divert existing trade routes - without caring too much about conquering the hinterland and converting the native population
I would argue with Manila the Spanish actually kind of did both. I suppose the "conquering and converting" was the bigger and more lasting impact of course, but I thought that in some small way the galleon trade did sort of "control, dominate, or divert existing trade routes" that existed before the Spanish period.
For example, pre-Spain the Philippine kingdoms used to trade a lot more with the Malay and other Southeast Asian regions, even as far as India (and Arab regions) I guess—in addition to the existing China trade; but after Spain came in, the South/Southeast Asian trade mostly disappeared or at least is not heard of as much, compared to the new connection with Mexico/the Americas and the expanding Chinese connection, partly due to Chinese who wanted Mexican silver.
But for sure conquering and converting was always somehow much bigger for the Spanish. Somehow I feel it might be why the Filipinos got so much more culturally changed than their neighbours in SEA—but not so much physically, as few Spaniards actually went all the way there to settle, except for friars, and barring those cases that raped or otherwise knocked up native women, they wouldn't generally be able to have offspring.
Swanky_Molerat t1_izebq5v wrote
>I would argue with Manila the Spanish actually kind of did both.
Sure.
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