The Sangley Rebellion was a series of armed confrontations between Overseas Chinese, known as the Sangley, and the Spanish and their allied forces in Manila, Captaincy General of the Philippines, in October 1603. The Chinese had dominated trading and outnumbered Spanish residents in Manila by a five-to-one ratio. The Spanish feared and resented them. Policies of persecution were enacted against the Chinese and they were expelled from the city to an undesirable swamp area in 1586, which the Chinese turned into a thriving town. The Chinese planned a strike due to worsening relations, but it resulted in the execution of their mayor, and became a rebellion. It ended in the massacre of more than 20,000 Chinese in Manila by Spanish, Japanese, and Filipino forces.

Background

Chinese settlement
Chinese merchants had been making trading voyages to Manila well before the Spanish arrival. The Chinese were noted in the first Spanish records of the area made by Magellan in 1521 and Loaysa in 1527. In 1570, the Spanish conquered Manila. The locals had started developing a monarchical institution only recently under Muslim influence; they did not raise sustained opposition to Spanish occupation after their king's town was destroyed. The Chinese had been settled across the Pasig River in an area granted to them by the Muslim king. They were initially friendly toward the Spanish, who had rescued a disabled Chinese ship off Mindoro in 1571. Some of the rescued visited Manila in 1572 with large cargo shipments. In 1573 the first cargo of Chinese goods was shipped to Acapulco across the Pacific Ocean in New Spain. Trade with the Chinese continued until the Chinese dominated nearly all the trade entering the Americas from Manila.

Spanish control

Armed conflict between the Chinese and Spanish soon erupted. In 1574, the pirate Lin Feng tried to take Manila on November 29 and December 2, being repelled both times. He withdrew to Pangasinan, where he was ejected in March 1575 by a force of Spanish and Filipino soldiers. An officer from the Ming dynasty, Wang Wanggao, who had been sent to track down Lin Feng, was received cordially in Manila. He returned to Fujian with two Spanish envoys and two priests hoping to gain permission to proselytize in China. Although the initial reception to the Spanish in China was positive, the negotiations soon floundered, and the relationship between the Chinese and Spanish became more violent.

By 1586, the Spanish had become concerned with the amount of profit the Chinese were making from trade. They were also concerned about being far outnumbered by the Chinese, who totaled 10,000 in Manila in comparison to 2,000 Spaniards. The Spanish forced the Chinese out of the city to a swampy area northeast of the city walls. Despite the setback, the Chinese soon developed this as a thriving town with a pond in its center. By 1590, in addition to trade, the Chinese dominated industries such as bread-making, book-binding, tavern-keeping, and stone-masonry. 

In 1587, the Dominicans built a church to proselytize to the Chinese. Their letters back to their order from 1589 and 1590 claim that there was considerable interest from the Chinese to convert and adapt their culture to the Spanish model. By 1603 the Spanish colonial authorities made it an established practice to appoint a Christian Chinese as mayor over all the Chinese. At the same time, the Spanish sought to restrict Chinese enterprises. 

Around 1600 the Spanish started selling a limited number of residence permits, only 4,000, to the Chinese at 2 reals each. The Spanish also tried to restrict Chinese trade. A decree was approved in 1589 to make all prices of Chinese imports uniform and agreed upon prior to the trading season. In 1593 the Spanish closed Peru to Chinese imports and prohibited Spanish voyages to China. Only certain Spaniards were allowed to trade Chinese goods.

Armed conflict
In 1593, Governor Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas was killed in a mutiny by his Chinese rowers. The rowers fled to Vietnam, where most of them stayed. Some returned to China, where their leader was punished. Fearing an attack by the local Chinese in Manila, the Spanish forced them to relocate to the north side of the Pasig. In 1596, 12,000 Chinese were ejected from Manila and sent back to China. In 1603, the Spanish conflicts of fear of the Chinese, dependence on them and the China trade, and the effects of continued immigration resulted in efforts to suppress them and the massacre of over 20,000 Chinese.

Incident

Background

Two Fujian adventurers, Yan Yinglong and Zhang Yi, told Gao Cai, a eunuch tax and mines commissioner in Fujian, that there was a mountain of gold on the Cavite Peninsula in Manila Bay. A plan was made to send a naval expedition to obtain said gold by attacking Manila, but several censors protested this. Provincial authorities did not believe there was gold where Zhang Yi described but felt they had to send some kind of expedition, if only to prove Zhang false. So an assistant county magistrate, Wang Shihe, and a company commander, Yu Yicheng, were sent to confirm the veracity of Zhang's story. Zhang was brought with them in chains.

The Ming delegation arrived in March 1603 and was received by the governor, Pedro Bravo de Acuña. They were treated well but when they tried to administer justice in the Chinese community, they were ordered to stop. In May they made it clear to the governor that they did not believe there was a mountain of gold but were obliged to obey their orders. 

The governor let them go to Cavite, where they took a basket of dirt and then left for China. The Spanish did not believe the expedition had been sent just to search for gold. The Archbishop of Manila Miguel de Benavides, O. P. suspected that it had been a probe sent to spy on Manila in preparation for a major Chinese invasion. They feared that the local Chinese would cooperate with such an invasion. The Spanish, Filipino, and even Japanese residents began to threaten the Chinese.

Rebellion

A large group of Chinese planned a strike. The Chinese mayor, Juan Bautista de la Vera, a wealthy Catholic, tried to dissuade them but found that his own adopted son was the leader. They tried to persuade him to become their leader, but he refused and reported them to the Spaniards. The Spaniards arrested him after finding gunpowder in his house and eventually executed him.

Alerted to the unrest among the Chinese, the Spanish shut the city gates on the night of October 3. One Spanish family was murdered north of the Pasig while an attack on the church in Tondo was repelled by Spanish soldiers. Their commander, Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, overconfident of Spanish strength, decided to pursue the Chinese. When cautioned against attacking by his fellow officers, he derided them as cowards and retorted that "twenty five Spaniards were enough to conquer the whole of China". They followed the Chinese into a swamp, where they were surrounded and cut down.

On October 6, the Chinese rebels crossed the Pasig and prepared an attack on the city walls with ladders and siege towers. While they had obtained some firearms from the Spaniards they had defeated, it was not enough to overcome the artillery on the walls. Their haphazard assaults were defeated and their ladders and towers demolished by cannon shots. After a day or two, Spanish and Japanese soldiers started to sortie out and attack the Chinese with support from Filipino auxiliaries. The Chinese fled and were pursued throughout the countryside in the following weeks. Those who were captured were killed, and no prisoners were taken in the aftermath. An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 Chinese were slaughtered.

Aftermath
After the slaughter, the Spanish realized that they could not survive without Chinese trade and industry. They assured the remaining Chinese merchants that normal trade would be restored and continue as usual. Spanish officials sent letters to Fujian and Guangdong authorities explaining what had happened. In Fujian, the officials blamed most of what had occurred on Zhang Yi, but replied that the Spanish should not have killed the Chinese, and that the widows and orphans should be sent back to China. No further action was taken. 

Because the Chinese town had been devastated, Chinese merchants visiting Manila in 1604 were given fine lodging inside the walled city. Trade quickly returned to normal with the trade value for 1606–1610 averaging over 3 million pesos per year, the highest 5-year average in the history of the trade.

The Chinese continued to live under Spanish rule. Although they were exempt from the labour and petty personal dues required of the Filipinos, the Chinese had to pay a license fee of 8 pesos per year, often suffering additional extortion and harassment from sellers. They were also subject to population control in addition to the license fee, with the Spanish establishing a limit of 6,000 in Manila. But the ethnic Chinese population in the 1620s and 1630s ranged from 15,000 to 21,000. The Chinese petitioned the king of Spain for self-government, but this proposal was rejected in 1630. 

As the Chinese population continued to swell, reaching 33,000–45,000 by 1639, they entered other industries such as farming. They were laborers on their own in outlying areas, employed on estates of religious orders, or used as farm labor in forced settlement projects. This large rural Chinese population rebelled again in 1639, and suffered another massacre.

Notes

References

  (Online version)
 
 
 

1603 in the Philippines
17th-century rebellions
Chinese diaspora in the Philippines
Conflicts in 1603
History of Manila
History of the Philippines (1565–1898)
Philippine revolts against Spain
필리핀 중국인 학살 사건(, )은 17세기 초, 필리핀 루손섬(스페인명 Luzón, 중문명 呂宋)에 주둔한 스페인인들이 중국인들을 학살한 사건을 말한다. 1603년, 1639년, 1662년, 1686년, 1762년에 발생하였다.

1603년 학살사건 
1603년(만력31년), 루손섬에 중국인 23,000여명이 학살되고 300명의 중국상인만이 살아남은 사건이다. 1571년, 스페인인들이 마닐라에 식민정청을 수립하면서 필리핀 내 스페인 식민정부가 처음 수립되었다. 이후 스페인 식민정부는 1575년 명(明)과 공동으로 마닐라 인근을 점거한 중국 해적 임봉(林鳳) 등을 협공하면서 관계를 맺기 시작하였다.

이후 스페인인들은 250명의 중국인에게 강제로 노젓는 노역을 부여하여 몰루카 제도(Molucca Islands, 일명 향료제도, 香料諸島, Spice Islands)를 침입하였다. 이 과정에서 스페인인들은 중국인들이 노젓는 것이 조금이라도 흐트러지면 채찍으로 때려 죽였다. 이에 중국인 반화오(潘和五) 등은 선상반란을 일으켜서, 마닐라총독 고메스 페레스 다스마리냐스(Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas y Ribadeneira, 1519.1.1 - 1593.10.25) 등을 살해하였다. 이후 스페인들은 모든 중국상인과 중국인을 추방하였으나, 중국인들은 도시 밖에서 모여 살았다.

당시 대량의 은이 루손섬과 일본을 거쳐 명나라로 유입되면서, 명말 통화 가치 하락 위기를 불러왔다. 이른바 '만력삼대정(萬曆三大征, 동쪽 조선 임진왜란, 서북쪽 영하(寧夏) 지역 몽고 발배의 난, 서남쪽 묘족 양응룡의 난)'을 거치면서 명조는 재정 적자에 부딪쳤다.
 
만력30년(1602) 7월, 만력제(萬曆帝)는 광세사자(鑛稅使者) 염응룡(閻應龍), 복건 간민(奸民) 장억(張嶷), 해징현승(海澄縣丞) 왕시화(王時和), 백호(百戶) 간일성(干一成)을 '여송기역산(呂宋機易山)'에 파견하여 광산을 조사하게 하였다. 스페인 식민정부는 이들이 루손섬 내 중국인들과 내통하여 자신들을 공격할 것이라고 의심, 체류 중인 중국인들을 학살하였다.

2년 후, 스페인인들이 인접국을 정벌하겠다고 중국인들을 속이고 높은 값으로 철기를 사들였으며, 중국인들은 모두 팔아버렸다. 마닐라총독은 중국인들의 성명을 기록하고 300명을 한 원(院)으로 하여 중국인들이 들어오자마자 살해하였다. 무기를 모두 팔아버린 중국인들은 저항하지 못한 채 죽었고, 살아 남은 나머지 중국인들은 대륜산(大侖山)으로 도망갔다. 대륜산에서 중국인들은 굶주림을 참아가며 기다리다가 마닐라를 공격하였으나, 스페인인들의 매복에 걸려 몰살, 전후 25,000여명의 중국인들이 살해당하였다(이른바 대륜산참안大侖山慘案).

이후 스페인 식민정부측은 명조에게 중국인들이 모반을 일으키려 하였기에 부득이 살해하였다고 속였다. 만력32년(1604) 음12월 13일, 형부우시랑(刑部右侍郞) 동유(董裕) 등은 장억이 반란을 일으키고자 환관들과 결탁하고 오랑캐들을 도발하고 염응룡도 이에 동조하였으며, 여송추장이 의심하고 분개하여 중국상민 20,000여명을 도살하게 하였고, 복건에 화를 끼쳤다고 보고하였다. 이에 만력제는 조정을 속이고 해외에서 일을 일으켜서 3만명의 중국상민이 도살되게 한 죄로 장억 등을 효수에 처하고, 학살에 관한 일은 복건순무(福建巡撫) 등에게 보고하도록 지시하였다.
복건순무 서학취(徐學聚) 등이 여송에 격문을 보내어서 학살죄를 묻고 유가족들을 중국으로 귀환하게하였으나, 끝내 요구하지 못하였다. 이후 중국인들은 다시 루손섬으로 갔으며 스페인인들은 중국과 호시(互市)를 계속 진행하였다.

1639년 학살사건 
1639년(숭정12년), 스페인인들이 중국인들에게 강제로 고가의 신분증세와 조세를 거두자, 중국인들이 이에 반항하였고, 스페인인들은 다시 중국인들을 학살하였다. 이 시기 명조는 아편흡입이 만연하고 섬서(陝西), 하남(河南), 산동(山東) 등지에는 황충과 기근, 가뭄이 들었다. 이자성(李自成)과 장헌충(張獻忠)이 각각 하남과 호북(湖北)에서 봉기하였고, 명조는 여송으로 눈을 돌릴 수 없었다.
1654년(순치11년), 산토도밍고(Santo Domingo)회 소속 이탈리아 신부 리치오(Victorio Riccio, 李科羅)가 마닐라에서 정성공(鄭成功)의 지배에 있었던 하문(廈門, 오늘날 샤먼)으로 가서 교회를 세웠다. 정성공은 리치오로부터 스페인인들의 만행을 듣고서, 루손에 사신을 보내어서 항복을 권유하였으며, 거절할 경우 공격하겠다고 전하였다. 당시 루손의 중국인들은 수십 만명에 달하였으며 정성공이 주둔한 대만 인구보다도 많았다.

1662년 학살사건 
1662년(강희원년, 영력16년) 4월, 리치오는 정성공이 마닐라총독 데 라라(Sabiniano Manrique de Lara)에게 보내는 국서 한 통을 가지고서 스페인 식민정부를 향하여 루손섬 중국인들에게 협조할 것을 위협하였다. 리치오는 국서를 넘긴 후 스페인인들이 놀랐고 즉시 루손섬 중국인들 수만 명을 학살하였다. 이후 스페인인들은 정성공의 공격을 우려, 리치오를 따라 사자를 파견하여 대만에 가서 화의를 청하게 하였다.
정성공은 중국인들이 집단 학살된 사실을 알고 대노하여 여송을 정벌하기로 결정하였으나 도중에 병사하였다. 또한 정씨 사이에서 왕위 쟁탈권이 벌어지면서 필리핀 공격은 무산되었다. 청조 수립 직후, 청조는 해상 통제권을 장악하지 못하였고 해외로 나간 중국인들을 외국인 취급하였기에 원군을 보내지 못하였기에, 정성공이 해외 화교 권익을 보호하려는 뜻이 계승되지 못하였다. 이에 루손섬 내 중국인들은 또다시 대규모 집단 학살을 당하였다.

각주 

마닐라의 역사
필리핀의 반란
17세기 반란