Madigan, Francis C.

English

archīum.ATENEO (Ateneo de Manila Univ.)

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints Volume 7 Number 4 Article 22 12-31-1959 Spain in the Philippines: The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses Francis C. Madigan Follow this and additional works at: https://archium.ateneo.edu/phstudies Recommended Citation Madigan, Francis C. (1959) "Spain in the Philippines: The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses," Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints: Vol. 7: No. 4, Article 22. Available at: https://archium.ateneo.edu/phstudies/vol7/iss4/22 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Ateneo Journals at Archīum Ateneo. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints by an authorized editor of Archīum Ateneo. philippine studiesAteneo de Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 PhilippinesSpain in the Philippines:The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aimsand Filipino ResponsesReview Author: Francis C. MadiganPhilippine Studies vol. 7, no. 4 (1959): 528–529Copyright © Ateneo de Manila UniversityPhilippine Studies is published by the Ateneo de Manila University. Contents may not be copied or sent via email or other  means to multiple sites and posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s written permission. Users may download and print articles for individual, noncom-mercial use only. However, unless prior permission has been obtained, you may not download an entire issue of a journal, or download multiple copies of articles.Please contact the publisher for any further use of this work at philstudies@admu.edu.ph.http://www.philippinestudies.netFri June 30 13:30:20 2008PHILIPPINE STUDIES SPAIN IN THE PHILIPPINES THE HISPANIZATION OF THE PHILIPPINES: SPANISH AIMS AND FILIPINO RESPONSES, 1565-1700. By John Leddy Phelan. Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1959. xv, 218 p. $4.00. This scholarly ethnohistory of the Philippines attempts to trace the effects upon the Filipinos of culture contacts with the Spaniards during the period 1565 to  roughly 1700. Filipino culture patterns generally existing shortly before the coming of the Spanish are described in their important details. After having set up this cultural base-line, Dr. Phelan endeavors to show how these patterns were modified during the next 135 years by the Spanish influence. In  so doing he has combined historical methodology with anthropological techniques. Social scientists of many different disciplines will xvelcome Pro- fessor Phelan's work. The author shows a sound knowledge of the historical sources and his discussion of them is  valuable, particularly for the non-historian. The work impresses the reviewer a s  being a solid ccntribution to  our knowledge of pre-Spanish and early Spanish times in the Philippines. Professor Phelan is a doctoral graduate of the University of Cali- fornia and is a t  present an associate professor of history a t  the Univer- sity of Wisconsin. The present book is the fruit of a Philippine Studies fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and of four months spent in examining the unpublished sources in the Arclzivo General de Indias in Seville. The Newberry Library of course is famed for its Filipiniana collection. Phelan has apparently never visited the Philippines, yet his grasp of modern Filipino culture is quite surprising. Much of this is no doubt due to his contacts with University of Chicago anthropologists, many of whom have done field work in the Philippines. These anthropologists were also associated with the Newberry Library and the Chicago Nat- ural History Mweum in the Philippine Studies Program financed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Phelan's interest, in the Phil- ippines s e m  to have developed out of a n  earlier and broader interest in the Spanish colonial period in the New World, upon which topic he has written one book and several journal articles. Here and there, however, the author betrays some unfamiliarity with points of the culture or the environment. In one place (p. 112) he states that  the "Philippines never were and never could be a cattle country." If this statement means that the Philippines will never export beef in large amounts, it may be correct, but if it  means that cattle raising cannot become an important home-consumption industry, he is mistaken. There were large herds of cattle in Bukidnon before the war and there are several contemporary efforts to restore some BOOK REVIEWS 529 of the herds destroyed during World War 11.. In another place he scarcely gives an acccurate picture of the Negritos (presumably of Luzon) when he describes them as  a "fierce and warlike" people (p. 142). According to Father Alcina, fourteen Jesuits were expelled from the Society of Jesus in the Philippines during Alcina's twenty-six year residence in the Visayan Islands. Without producing a shred of evi- dence, Phelan, to advance a line of thought he is developing, suggests quite indefensibly that reasons of unchastity lay behind a large number of these expulsions. The author stresses the role of the Church in the hispanization of the Islands. He believes that but for the Spanish priests the Filipinos never would have accepted the sovereignty of Spain nor remained under her flag. Because the Filipinos lived in little, widely separated settle- ments, it would have been impossible for the handful of Spanish soldiers usually present in the Islands to have subjected the country by the sword alone, and i t  would have been more impossible to maintain their hold if they could have so subjugated it. I t  was rather because the Filipino was attracted to Catholicity and generally received it willingly that  he accepted unification and pacification under the flag of Castile. However, the Filipino did not a t  all receive Spanish Catholicism passively, nor any other feature of Spanish culture. He showed a large capacity for creative social adjustments and his responses to different Spanish cultural traits varied all the way from acceptance to indif- ference and outright rejection. Filipino Catholicism, although a genuine and true Catholicism, is quite different from Spanish Catholicism in many culturally important points, a s  Phelan points out. Despite the criticisms above, this book is important and valuable and one which students of Philippine history and culture will wish to possess. FRANCIS C. MADIGAN AMERICAN CATHOLIC COLLEGES A HISTORY OF CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION I N  THE UNITED STATES. By Edward J. Power. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1958. xiii, 383p. Histories of individual colleges, written to commemorate centen- nials or other anniversaries, leave something to be desired in objec- tivity; the author claims that  such accounts are too often "pious sum- maries of real or imagined successes in higher education, while the failures are seldom mentioned." This history aims to supply for their deficiencies. To be rightly considered "higher", education should have intel- lectual development as  its primary objective. On the college level this 

Spain in the Philippines: The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses

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Spain in the Philippines: The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses

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