People of the Philippines

In 1596, the Italian Francesco Carletti visited the Philippines.

Carletti described the Filipinos as having "beautiful bodies, robust and vile."

Filipino men covered their bodies with well-crafted tattoos and walked about naked, while the women wore clothes and covered their legs with metal rings and bracelets.

Both sexes wore metal earrings that were so heavy that, according to Carletti, they caused their ears to sag to their shoulders.

Men and women dyed their teeth red.

Filipinos' houses were built on poles. The floors and walls were made of woven reeds, and the roofs were made of palm leaves.

The houses were so high that the people needed ladders to get in and out. Pigs and poultry were kept underneath the houses.

Foods eaten by the Filipinos included rice cooked with salt and water - their main dish - as well as a bread made from thick palms and a bread made from fish.

Some of the islanders were involved in cockfighting, where heavy gambling took place.

By the 16th century, Manila was one of the world's great cosmopolitan ports. Traders from Japan, China, Thailand, Cambodia and the Spice Islands traded luxury goods, included silks, satins and spices to Spanish merchants from Acapulco who brought gold from the Americas.

Large Chinese and Japanese communities developed in Manila.

Colonization

Spanish colonists had richly decorated houses and palaces in the center of Manila.

The Spanish colonists traveled in elaborate carriages and sedan chairs. They had retinues of servants and slaves and did not perform any physical labor themselves.

They would dine in the late afternoon and then parade around in expensive clothing.

Many items were imported to the Philippines for the Spanish colonists to use. These included sugar, silks, satins and musk from China and wheat from Japan. Fine wines and the latest fashions of Europe were imported from Spain and from Mexico.

Before the Spanish arrived, the Filipinos had no concept of private property. They lived in small kinship communities called "barangays". The Spanish took over the barangays. They gave some to the church, kept some for themselves and gave most of the land to local chiefs whose cooperation they needed.

Spanish land was divided into "encomiendas". The owner of each encomienda, the "encomendero", was given 50 to 100 Filipinos who had to pay tribute to the state. Tribute was usually given in the form of manual labor.

Sometimes, a pool system supplemented this system. All the males except the chiefs and their eldest son were forced to join a labor pool.

Another system, known "vandala", forced laborers to sell all their produce in return for promissory notes, which usually were never honored.

Demands to supply the colonists with more and more produce resulted in shortages, famine and disease.

About ninety percent of the Filipinos converted to Catholicism.