The Chinese Massacre of 1603
The massacre of 1603: Chinese perception of the Spaniards in the Philippines
José Eugenio Borao National Taiwan University
From a historiographic point of view, the incident of 1603 acquires special significance in the long and tragic history of Chinese massacres in the Philippines. For compared to all the rest, this has been the best chronicled, not only in Spanish, but also in Chinese sources. Moreover, both coincide in the presentation of facts and are alike in the ordering of events. When these sources—especially the Chinese—begin their account of the massacre, they refer to a remote, perhaps even unrelated, incident that is, nevertheless, significant. The tension started in 1593, when 250 Chinese were forcibly recruited to row the ships which Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, then Philippine governor general, sent to conquer the Moluccas Islands. Soon after they set sail, the Chinese in the flag ship staged a mutiny, assassinated Dasmariñas, and took over the vessel. Weeks later, the son of the murdered governor, Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, then based in Cebu, sought vengeance to fall on the heads of the culprits. To do this, he asked for assistance from the Chinese authorities of Fujian, who welcomed the young Dasmariñas’ ambassadors and offered them their help as well. The second episode happened 10 years later, in the spring of 1603, when “three mandarins” arrived in Manila on a strange mission: to reconnoiter a "mountain of gold" abundant with trees that bore gold. This visit raised the suspicion of the Spaniards in the Philippines, already so accustomed to intermittent threats of conquest, particularly from the Japanese. They concluded that this was probably an advance party for a future invasion of Manila. At that time, the Chinese in this city were almost 10 times the number of Spaniards. The third event, the Sangley uprising, happened in autumn of that same year. The reasons for this uprising remain unclear. The motives range from the desire of the Chinese to
José Eugenio Borao National Taiwan University
From a historiographic point of view, the incident of 1603 acquires special significance in the long and tragic history of Chinese massacres in the Philippines. For compared to all the rest, this has been the best chronicled, not only in Spanish, but also in Chinese sources. Moreover, both coincide in the presentation of facts and are alike in the ordering of events. When these sources—especially the Chinese—begin their account of the massacre, they refer to a remote, perhaps even unrelated, incident that is, nevertheless, significant. The tension started in 1593, when 250 Chinese were forcibly recruited to row the ships which Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, then Philippine governor general, sent to conquer the Moluccas Islands. Soon after they set sail, the Chinese in the flag ship staged a mutiny, assassinated Dasmariñas, and took over the vessel. Weeks later, the son of the murdered governor, Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, then based in Cebu, sought vengeance to fall on the heads of the culprits. To do this, he asked for assistance from the Chinese authorities of Fujian, who welcomed the young Dasmariñas’ ambassadors and offered them their help as well. The second episode happened 10 years later, in the spring of 1603, when “three mandarins” arrived in Manila on a strange mission: to reconnoiter a "mountain of gold" abundant with trees that bore gold. This visit raised the suspicion of the Spaniards in the Philippines, already so accustomed to intermittent threats of conquest, particularly from the Japanese. They concluded that this was probably an advance party for a future invasion of Manila. At that time, the Chinese in this city were almost 10 times the number of Spaniards. The third event, the Sangley uprising, happened in autumn of that same year. The reasons for this uprising remain unclear. The motives range from the desire of the Chinese to