1492年哥伦布跨过大西洋来到美洲,1521年麦哲伦从大西洋进入到太平洋,殒命菲律宾,1564年西班牙人从墨西哥发船殖民菲律宾,1565年西班牙航海家乌尔达内塔发现和建立起“中国之船”马尼拉-墨西哥阿卡布尔科的丝银贸易航线,同一年殖民者与华人的首次相遇竟是这样的......
第一章 最初的相遇
从最开始, 西班牙人就在西方群岛 - 即菲律宾群岛- 碰到了天朝帝国的人。 黎牙实比 ( Migue1L6pezLegazpi) 的舰队抵达吕宋 ( Luz6n, 1571 年 5 月 16 日) 的时候, 就已经有 40 名中国人带着他们的妻子和儿女在马尼拉生活, 他们是从日本过来的, 经历了往返几次和多灾多难的朝圣之旅, 其中有两个人, 安东和巴勃罗, 已经皈依了耶稣会, 从其神父给起的名字即可证实。 对于这些先驱, 典籍中均未再提及, 但是可以看出, 与未来移民的关系是受欢迎的。
另外一方面, 西班牙人了解到, 在他们到达之前, 时常有一两条来自中国的船抵达吕宋岛向当地人出卖 ”一些粗糙的陶瓷、 树枝和草制成的熏香、 铁器和一些价值不高的零碎物品”。@ 当然, 中国人跟这里的联系要追溯到非常遥远的年代 以赵汝适 《诸蕃志》 中一份贸易合同为证@ 中国船只至少在宋代就已经航行到菲律宾群岛一带了。
最重大的事情就是, 当刚抵达菲律宾的时候, 西班牙人好几次企图谎称自己是中国人以便进入, 即荒谬又愚蠢的伪装。 也许其目的是不想被当地人把自己同从摩鹿加群岛过来的残忍的葡萄牙人混为一谈。@ 1565年一艘三脆船在宿务 ( Cebu) 对面的群岛进行侦察, 当时发生了伪装异族的事, 我们听听领航员埃斯特班 罗德里格斯 ( Esteban Rodriguez) 所讲述的奇葩故事:
夜晚过后, 我们发现了一条大船, 上面载着这个村镇的很多人, ..那船也看到了我们, 就朝我们喊话。 我们早已经感觉它朝我们过来了, 因为值更人员从很远处就察觉到了。 我们通过土著人跟他们对答。 他们问我们是什么人。 我们说从中国来, 来做生意, 带来很多好东西。 他们讲我们说谎, 从中国来的人, 他们的船不是这个样子的, 在他们看来, 我们是住在附近的人, 是来偷窃的..
我们来到一个村镇附近, 在进去之前, 我们在稻田里碰到一个土著人带着两个男孩, 他朝我们走过来, 问我们要干什么?让我们走开。 我们说是来自中国的人, 来做生意。 他说我们胡说, 他见过中国来的人, 我们不是那边的人, 我们是盗贼。
好一伙假扮中国人的西班牙人呀!
@ 黎牙实比1571 年8 月11 日给国王函 ( Patr.24, 23, ff.4r-4v) ”由于没有油和圣油, 他们未经涂圣油仪式”, 黎牙实比补充写到: ”除了画十字外, 不了解任何教理; 见到十字架和圣母像亦会下跪。”
@ Patr.25.41 ( 自 1591 年 9 月 25 日验证, 是在 Bomb6n 省的 Tac) 。
@ 参见 Laufer, Relationes, pp.251 -252; J.Needham, Scienceand Civilisation, vo1.3., p.536。赵汝适, 1209—1214 年间写此书 ( 《诸蕃志》) , 书中简短提到安达鲁斯国 ( a1Anda1us a1moravide) ( Laufer, Ib{dem, p.249) 。
@ 3 年前 ( 就是 1562 年) , 8 艘来自摩鹿加的船只洗劫了保和 ( Boho1) 岛, 因此, 岛上的居民见到黎牙实比的舰队时, 不是过来与西班牙人交往, 而是望凤而逃 (1565 年 3 月 25 日黎牙实比在保和岛的报告提及此事 - Patr.23, 17.f.14ryss] ) 。
选自《 马尼拉的华人 (16—17 世纪) ( 上卷)》
Reviewed by Christina H. Lee, Princeton University
“ Los chinos en Manila. Siglos XVI y XVII”. Lisboa: Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau, I.P., Ministério da Educação e Ciência, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, 2011. xvii + 798 pp.
This impressive tome of almost eight hundred pages marks the culmination of Juan Gil’s scholarship on Early Modern Spanish-Chinese relations in the Philippines. Los chinos en Manila is the most comprehensive history of the Chinese presence in the Philippines to date. In writing the book, Gil consulted the Archivo Histórico Nacional, the Archivo General de Indias, the Biblioteca Nacional, Biblioteca del Palacio Real, and the Real Academia de la Historia. Although previous scholars have discussed many of the same primary sources in their investigations, Gil is the first to focus the discussion mainly from the point of view of the Spanish colonizers and missionaries in the Philippines. The book is composed by ten chapters, an appendix with a transcription of key documents, and a glossary with filipino terms often seen in the referenced manuscripts. It is organized chronologically; starting from the moment the Philippines became a Spanish colony under Miguel López de Legazpi in 1571 to the expulsion of the Chinese from the islands (which took place through a number of edicts, beginning in 1688). The number of Chinese residents in the Philippines during this period is believed to have reach up to thirty thousand.
Juan Gil’s main argument is that the relationship between Spaniards and the ethnic Chinese, known as sangleys, during the Early Modern period was “un fracaso múltiple” (xvi). As one reads Gil’s text, one gets the sense that the Spanish did not understand that any kind of fruitful relation with the Chinese would have entailed their recognition of the hegemonic economic power of China and the Chinese in Asia. The lack of cultural understanding of the dominance of China disposed Spaniards to miscalculate and make unsound policy and military decisions. One of the most memorable and little known anecdotes we find in Gil’s book regards a man named Esteban Rodríguez, one of the first Spaniards to arrive in the Philippines in 1565.
When Rodríguez encountered some filipino natives near Cebú, he told them that he and fellow travelers were Chinese and that they had come from China to sell some goods. The natives responded that they were lying, for they knew the Chinese and the Chinese did not look anything like them. The natives added that they (the Spaniards) were thieves from another area and had come to their territory to steal goods
A more serious error of judgment was the belief that Spain could conquer China without much effort. Gil reminds us of the better known but still compelling example of Governor Francisco de Sande’s unfulfilled plan of conquering China with four to six thousand armed men. We also learn from Gil’s book is that when the number of Chinese residents increased noticeably in Manila, the Spanish government led by Gonzalo Ronquillo in 1581, segregated them from the indigenous and the Spanish population in a controlled area outside the walls of Manila, Parián. Parián was overseen by Spanish civil and religious authorities, but it was internally ruled by a Chinese alcalde –trusted by the Spanish and probably hated by the Chinese– and had its own judicial system. The segregation of the Chinese helped the Spanish government keep some control over their activities and better manage the collection of tributes to which they were subject. In order to tell be able to separate Catholic sangleys and mestizos de sangley from the unconverted ethnic Chinese, the Spanish authorities designated another section close to Parián in which the converted were to reside, Binondo. Despite all the efforts of the Spanish officials and missionaries, most of the ethnic Chinese appear to refuse to identify and assimilate into the population of native indios. Some wealthy Chinese even dared to dress in Spanish fashion. Such behavior was intolerable to some missionaries who to emphasize the point sent memoranda and letters to their orders and to the Spanish Crown exaggerating Chinese cultural transgressions. Gil mentions, for instance, that Governor Niño de Távora wrote in 1628 “siendo los sangleyes estrangeros, obran y lo pueden todo como si fueran naturales; y los españoles mismos, naturales, ni saben ni pueden hazer nada, como si fueran estangeros” (447). The Dominican friar Victorio Ricci also complained that the sangleys acted as if “las Philippinas son sus Indias” (312) and that Spaniards ran the risk of becoming the indios of the Chinese. This type of hyperbolic rhetoric convinced the Spanish Crown to approve the first edict of expulsion, followed by others, in 1688. As Gil observes, the supporters of the expulsion cited many explanations for such measure. For Gil, Victorio Ricci’s discourse (1677) on the need to expel the sangleys from the island is representative of the stance of many of the Spaniards who promoted their expulsion. The Chinese were said to be atheists and idolaters. They were accused of mocking Christian beliefs and rituals, which prevented the conversion of the native indios or led them to become apostates. They were believed to have taught the native indios the practice of sodomy. They were said to be responsible for the death of governor Gómez Perez de Dasmariñas. They were also blamed for Chinese piracy in the islands, for leading their own uprisings (1603, 1639, 1662, and 1686), and for inciting natives to revolt (1660). Ricci, furthermore, argued that the Chinese had to be expelled because they controlled trade in the Philippines with money they had “stolen” from the Spaniards. Finally, Ricci was adamant that the expulsion of the Chinese would not affect the missions to China because he alleged that the Chinese depended heavily on Spanish trade.
Gil’s volume is a must-read for scholars and students of Hispanic Studies. Not only, is it a superbly researched survey of the history of the Chinese in the Philippines, but it also provides references to sources and compelling ideas for future investigations in the fields of Sino-Hispanic relations and transcultural studies. As an example, Gil compares –in passing– the treatment and perception of the Chinese to that of the Jews in the Middle Ages in Spain. The Chinese were indeed known as the “Jews of the East” by Europeans. This is an insight that might be worth further investigation.
ISBN: 978-99981-46-88-4, 978-99981-46-89-1