Immigration into the Philippine archipelago, largely from…

Immigration into the Philippine archipelago, largely from the maritime province of Fujian on the southeastern coast of China, has increased in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and a growing proportion of Chinese settle in outlying areas.

In 1849 more than ninety percent of the approximately six thousand Chinese lived in or around Manila, whereas in 1886 this proportion had decreased to seventy-seven percent of the sixty-six thousand Chinese in the Philippines at that time, declining still further in the 1890s.

The Chinese presence in the hinterland goes hand in hand with the transformation of the insular economy.

Spanish policy encourages immigrants to become agricultural laborers.

Some become gardeners, supplying vegetables to the towns, but most shun the fields and set themselves up as small retailers and moneylenders.

The Chinese had soon gained a central position in the cash-crop economy on the provincial and local levels.