Programme

Day 1

DAY 1
9:30-10:00

Acknowledgments and Introductions
10:00-11:00Keynote Address
John D BlancoEvacuations and Reoccupations of the Political Imaginary, ca. 1762-64
11:00-12:30Session 1Indigenous Revolts
The Silang Revolt 1762-1764: A Global HistoryKristie FlanneryThe British invasion and occupation of Manila triggered a massive Indigenous and Chinese revolt in Luzon. Across Pangasinan, Ilocos, Pampanga, and Cagayan, Indigenous and Chinese communities rose up in rebellion against Spanish colonial rule, empowered by the conspicuous fragility of the besieged Spanish state. Although rebel leaders including Gabriella and Diego Silang are celebrated as heroes in the Philippines, serious scholarly inquiry into the revolt is limited. This paper presents a revisionist history of these anti-colonial social movements based on an extensive analysis of primary sources that survive in dislocated colonial archives. It considers the ideologies and organization of the rebellion, assessing how it spread across Luzon. It places the Philippines revolt in the context of multiple Indigenous and enslaved peoples’ campaigns against empire that the global Seven Years’ War triggered across the Atlantic world in 1762-1764. This paper also recovers the forgotten history of the massive, multiethnic loyalist forces that mobilized to defeat the insurgency in the Philippines. It considers who participated in counter-revolutionary militias and why, and reflects on what this armed movement tells us about the surprising longevity of Spain’s Asian empire.
In the face of local and foreign enemies: The native militia of the Philippines in the 18th centuryGrace Liza ConcepcionIn 1762, just when Spanish Manila fell to the British, a native elite from the province of Pangasinan began demanding rights from the Spaniards. Don Juan de la Cruz Palaris of the town of Binalatongan threatened to revolt unless his requirements were met. Among his demands was military recognition. First, he wanted the baton of the maestre de campo to be held by his town in perpetuity. The maestre de campo was equivalent to field marshall. He headed the provincial troops of natives. Second, Palaris also wanted military appointments for his allies. When the Spaniards declined, he staged a revolt that lasted for two years, thus undermining the already weakened Spanish power. Finally, in 1764, the Palaris revolt ended thanks to the help the Spaniards received from native Ilocano troops. What advantage did Palaris see in official military appointments? Using the case of the Palaris revolt, scarcely examined in existing literature, this paper seeks to explore the role of the native military in 18th-century Philippines and their activity in the short-lived British presence in the Philippines.
Seducers of Men: Recruiters and Deserters in 18th Century ManilhaJoefe B. SantaritaThis paper goes beyond imperial and national imaginaries by looking at the role of key players aside from the British and Spaniards who were not given much attention in past decades in the narrative making of the brief British occupation of Manila in the third quarter of the 18th Century. Drawn from archival research with emphasis on the Manilha Consultations and other Records of the Fort St. George, this paper will concentrate on the seducers and on the socio-economic conditions leading to the recruitment of deserters from the British forces in the archipelago namely the French, Sepoys and Laskars.

This paper tries to document the local histories or microhistory of collaborations and resistances during the British occupation of Manila. It has three objectives namely (1) highlight the role of recruiters as agent of collaboration and resistance.; (2) identify the factors that triggered the desertion and the counter-mechanisms of the British forces to prevent such separation; and (3) assess the impact of such betrayal to the imperial forces and its lasting effect to Philippine society.
12:30-1:30Lunch
1:30-3:00Session 2 Local Histories
Post Nubila Phebus: The Other Side of the British Occupation of the Philippines and the Recollects in Cavite, 1762-1766Lino L Dizon This paper deals with the British Occupation of the Philippines, with focus on its effects and repercussions in the province of Cavite which, aside from the capital city of Manila, was partially occupied by English invading force from 1762-1764.

As an aftermath of the occupation, there is a focus on the development of Imus, in the upper portion of Cavite Province, both eventually as a pueblo and the Casa-hacienda, which gained a priority status from the friars of the Order of Augustinian Recollects (Recoletos) due to the conditions of Manila and Cavite City. This motion, as the paper would argue, greatly contributed to the advance of Upper Cavite, with the institutionalization of the hacienda system for almost two centuries of Spanish presence and the conversion of its sprawling settlements as the eventual economic hubs of the province and the region.
Lives caught on paper: Colonial registration in Luzon prior to Bourbon reformsNicholas Sy and Dries LynaOn November 4, 1762, Manila’s Archbishop scrawled frantically to Simon de Anda that antagonizing the British would cause the destruction of Christianity on the islands. That same day in Lubao, half a day’s march away, Fray Diego Noguerol, OSA recorded the marriage of indios Nicolas Ysidro and Maria de Montemayor into his parish register.
Following up on ‘powerful sense of plunder and loss’ that this conference links with the British looting of Manila, the present paper reflects on the Augustinian order’s contribution to Spain’s paper empire. Even as Alexander Dalrymple plucked the Augustinian convent of San Pablo’s library empty, Augustinians continued to create colonial documentation elsewhere in the archipelago as they had been doing for at least a century-and-a-half.
What in the history of sacramental books made it important for Ysidro and Montemayor to inscribe their union amidst the chaos of war? What was at stake for Fray Noguerol in these colonial registers on the edge of the Spanish Pacific? Using the early modern parish registers of Lubao, this paper talks about the impact of Spain’s paper empire on the lives of ‘ordinary’ people, and about religious registration practices in the Spanish Philippines before the civil government's late-eighteenth-century Bourbon reforms.
‘Why do you want to go to Cainta?’: Searching for Sepoys Against the Archival GrainHana Qugana
An experiment in ethnography and historiography, this paper recounts a journey in 2018 to a barangay on the outskirts of Manila called Cainta, in search of the Indian sepoys, lascars, and topasses alleged to have settled there after deserting the British East India Company during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). When the Company’s forces ended their occupation of Manila in 1764, they departed the Philippines with the spoils of war, but left behind many of the men that had originally set out from Madras. Seldom are the lives of these social actors documented, and voices audible in the official record. Their fates in the Philippine archipelago remain equally nebulous, concealed in deep histories of the state. Consigned to archival alleyways—away from the light of what Eric Tagliacozzo has characterised as the imperial optic—it is through fragments of memory and myth preserved in Cainta’s municipal repositories and civic life that they have been cherished as men from afar, serving key roles in both local and national identity formation today. Both revered and reviled, these men and their descendants also function as spectres of an imperial inheritance more broadly conceived. Recasting the sepoys of Cainta as conduits of racial capitalism, religious sectarianism and environmental exploitation worldwide, this paper therefore queries conventional delineations of the various European and American empires from one another and the resulting blind spots in both Philippine and British imperial historiography.
3:00-3:30Coffee Break
3:30-4:30Session 3 Spanish and British Loyalties
Filipino Natives in Simon de Anda’s Government During the British Invasion of Manila, 1762-1764Ian AlfonsoLoyalty is a recurrent theme when it comes to the military participation of the native Filipinos, especially the Kapampangans of north Manila Bay, in defending the Spanish cause and the Roman Catholicism against the British from 1762 to 1764, as if these natives were not preoccupied with some other things. Books about the British Invasion of Manila and Cavite (1762-1764) are mostly biased toward Simon de Anda while the natives are often recognized as mere members of his heterogeneous army. But Anda did not deprive his native allies of their deserved recognition, being the only peoples to depend on while the constituted Spanish authorities were held captives of the British in Manila. A series of “testimonios” in the Archivo General de Indias related to the event is replete with attestations as to how the natives helped Anda run his government in the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga, complete with the names of the native leaders and their roles as interim members of the administrative and the war juntas. This paper will discuss Anda’s participative governance and his dependency on the natives of the said provinces. This is one way of giving voice to the natives because Anda himself acknowledged in writing the former’s significant contribution to the preservation of the Spanish Philippines well.
Translating Pedro Manuel: Incidental Validations as Animating TextCristina Juan“The Indian from the Philippine Islands, whom I saw alive in London at Alex. Dalrymple’s, was in appearance, exactly this sort of middle man” (Blumenbach 1865: 270n)

We know of Pedro Manuel as a mere footnote in Blumenbach’s treatise. We also know that as a direct result of the British Invasion of Manila, Pedro transports himself to London in order to work as the sole manservant and library caretaker of Alexander Dalrymple’s household in Marylebone, London. . I use the historical genre of incidental validations —texts that acknowledge, praise or memorialise a subaltern in counter-intuitive places: prefaces in books, footnotes, wills, handwritten marginalia, captions for inscriptions attached to lives or projects that are considered more historically or culturally “significant.” Through these sources, I hope to draw a better picture of Pedro’s acclaim as one of the earliest named seafaring Manilamen in Great Britain, as well as, and more importantly, his occluded role as indigenous intermediary, guide, translator, informant and friend in Dalrymple’s pursuit of Empire.
4:30-5:45Paleography WorkshopChristina LeePhilippine Manuscripts in the “Lost” San Agustín Collection and
This workshop will provide 1) an introduction to the project “A Digital Repatriation of a Lost Archive of the Spanish Pacific: The Library of The Convent of San Pablo (Manila, 1762),” which she is co-directing with Dr. Cristina Juan. 2) an overview of the basic guidelines, strategies, and resources on the decoding of handwritten manuscripts produced in the Philippines of early Spanish rule. 3) a hands-on practice session, in which attendees will be divided into small groups and will collaboratively transcribe a document that was “lost” during the British occupation and is in the process of being digitally restored as part of the repatriation project.
5:45-6:00Coffee/ Snacks
6:00-8:00Marylebone Walk/Performance by Batubalani | Followed by KKB Dinner at the Prince Regent Pub after Performance
Batubalani

Day 2

DAY 2
10:00-12:00Session 4 Objects of Knowledge: A Roundtable Discussion
A Survey of Records in the Spanish Documents Section of the National Archives of the Philippines Related to the British Occupation (1762 to 64)Victorino Mapa ManaloAn initial review of publications on the British Occupation of the Philippines yields scant mention of records from the National Archives of the Philippines. The present survey then aims to review the holdings of the Philippine Archives for records series or records which may hold information on the British Occupation of the Philippines. The Survey will focus on the years 1761 to 1765 as the years coinciding with the Occupation. Main output will be a listing but, whenever possible, individual records may be discussed.
Taking a Long View of the British Invasion of Manila: Replication and Commodification of Objects of KnowledgeFlorina Capistrano-Baker Pivoting on the British Occupation of Manila from 1762-1764 as reference point and anchor, this paper examines inter-imperial dynamics leading to the British invasion and its subsequent impact on the lives of objects implicated in the rivalry between Spain, Britain, and the newly ascendant American Republic. Shifting focus from a narrative of plunder and loss, the paper examines instead the re-orientations of patronage and movements of luxury goods. I focus on Philippine export paintings known as tipos del pais depicting local inhabitants, attire, and occupations. Early iterations of this genre include vignettes depicting local inhabitants that frame the borders of the 1734 Carta Hydrogaphica y Chronographica de las Islas Filipinas designed by the Jesuit priest Pedro Murillo Velarde; drawn and engraved by two Filipino artists, Francisco Suarez and Nicolas dela Cruz Bagay, respectively. When Gen. William Draper seized the eight copper plates used to print the map, he inadvertently ensured the survival of restrikes printed from the original copper plates in Cambridge. A few surviving copies of the map trace English provenance. A number of tipos de pais by Damian Domingo and Justiniano Asuncion similarly trace English patronage or ownership. Knowledge gleaned from the British who participated in the invasion contributed to early American interest in Manila. Clandestine British trade with Manila before the invasion and persistent interest after the city was returned to Spain, coupled with commercial activities of the newly independent American Republic altered the nature, dramatis personae, and economics of late-18th to mid-19th century Manila trade.
12:00-1:30Lunch
1:30-3:00Session 5 The Logistics of War
The British Invasion in the Philippines: An Augustinian Chronicle

Ericsson BorreOne of the best chronicled experiences of an Augustinian friar in the Philippines was his own experience during the British invasion. Fray Agustin Maria Castro, OSA was biographer, and a librarian of several Augustinian convents in the country, including that of San Agustin in Intramuros. He was in Manila and was its librarian when the British soldiers ransacked the convent and left almost nothing, “even a single nail head where to hang a jacket”, he said in his narrative. Aside from the much-detailed content of the convent especially the friars’ library, Fray Castro makes mention of the same religious Order's participation in the war, resisting the British forces – from bomb making to recruitment of local soldiers. The conventional archive of the Augustinians in Valladolid (Spain) where the original documents are kept, corroborates such important event in Philippine history, giving explanation to the many items found in the library catalogue, but are nowhere to be found.
The military uses of mathematics, according to Juan Domínguez Zamudio (1766, Manila)Regalado Trota JoseIn 1766, Theses mathematicas de la munitoria, pyrotechnia, y polemica defensiva, y ofensiva by Juan Dominguez Zamudio was published in the Jesuit press in Manila. Among other things, the Theses tackle the casting of cannon, the computations of constructing fortresses, and the attack and defence of a town. The present paper will examine how, through the Theses, the teaching of mathematics adopted a military outlook in the context of post-British invasion Manila. Two previous publications of the same press on mathematics, Conclusiones mathematicas by Fernando de Araya (1758) and Theses mathematicas de astronomia by Joseph Sousa y Magallanes (1762) dealt with the teaching of mathematics and astronomy, respectively. The 1762 and 1766 Theses mathematicas were both written under the direction of Padre Pascual Fernández, who taught mathematics at the Jesuits’ Royal and Pontifical University in Manila from at least 1762 until the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768. The only known copy of the 1766 Theses is at the University of Santo Tomás in Manila. It contains two interesting engravings that illustrate some aspects of the work. One of these is signed “Cyprianus a Cruce Bagay.”
3:00-3:30Coffee Break
3:30 - 5:00Session 6The Collaterals of War
Strangling the Silver Stream: the impact of the British occupation of Manila on the English East India Company’s trade in CantonJuan Jose RivasWhile it is widely acknowledged that 18th century Manila was fundamental in providing silver in Asian waters through its direct trade across the Pacific, little is known about how the English occupation of Manila in 1762-1764 damaged the trading position of the Canton Committee in China to the point of virtual default. This paper aims to uncover the channels through which Manila’s provision of silver specie enabled the expansion of English trade in East Asia by examining the consequences of the momentary interruption of silver flows that resulted from this event. In the process, it places Manila in the broader Southeast Asian trading network as a specialised provider of liquidity and explains the economic connections that made Manila a necessary complement for European commercial penetration in Asia. The central point of this paper is to show how the EIC’s Canton Committee relied on indirect silver supplies from Manila to have liquidity in China, and how when the supply failed due to the occupation, the EIC embarked in a search for alternatives that would leave a long-lasting impact on its operations in Asia.
The British Occupation of Spanish Manila and the Sulu Sultanate. Considerations on British and Spanish Interests in Southeast Asia (1749-1775)Eberhard CrailsheimThis paper takes a closer look into the relations between three different powers in the colonial Philippines: the Spanish, the British, and the Sulu. On the eve of James Warren’s “Sulu Zone” (1768) the three powers moved in a very dynamic context, which culminated in the British occupation of Manila in 1762. The focus is set on the events preceding the occupation, the dynamic of the year 1762, and the aftermath. It will analyse key elements such as the figure of Azim ud-Din I, sultan of Sulu, as white hope for Spain and later for the British, or on the island Balambangan, off the coast of Borneo, which was ceded to the British in 1762 for military and commercial purposes. Looking into Spanish and British sources, this paper will reflect on the geopolitical embedding of the occupation in connection with the strategic importance of the Sulu sultanate during these years.
New Maritime Frontiers for the Philippines: Defensive Projects North of LuzonGuadalupe Pinzón-RíosThe British invasion of Manila showed the maritime vulnerability of Spain. It was especially a wake-up call for the Philippines because, unlike the Atlantic world where the capture of Havana was organized from Jamaica, there were no English settlements in the Asia Pacific coast, which made the invasion of Manila even more surprising. And when the Treaty of Paris was signed, it became necessary to restructure the communications of the Philippines, as well as its defensive and populated situation. Although more attention was paid to the conditions of the southern Philippines because it was the gateway from the Indian Ocean, and because it was a conflict area with the sultanates of the region. But it is important to consider that the northern part of the archipelago also had to be considered because even when apparently it was a peripheric area, in the 18th century it became a more and more transited space.
The objective of this presentation is to review the measures that were taken by the Hispanic government to protect the northern part of the Philippines after the English attack of 1762. The intention is to show how the capture of Manila, supposedly the better defended area, made the rest of the insular territories easy prey to any enemy advance. That is why it was necessary to change the occupation policies of the Philippines and extend the Hispanic frontiers to the islands of the North. For this purpose, it was necessary to promote the economic and maritime activities of the area. A way to do that is to recuperate previous projects to the occupation of the islands of Batanes and Babuyanes, and the project to change the Manila galleons route. These planes were registered In the cartography and the official Hispanic documents of that period.The subject is not new in historiography and there is research about those subjects. But the novelty of this presentation lies in connecting these changes directly to the English occupation. This event shows the necessity to rethink the social, economic, and defensive situation of the North of the Philippines, but also made it possible to reconsider its maritime situation, the oceanic spaces around them and the connections with New Spain.
5:00-5:30Coffee Break
5:30-7:15Screening of Ta Acorda Ba Tu El Filipinas? Followed by a Reading of Rogelio Braga's Elephant and Castle Sally Gutierrez, Rogelio Braga, Candy Gourlay and Jill Damatac
Working with the legacies of colonization by both the Spanish and the British and its long-term consequences in the lives of the Filipino people , a Film Maker and Novelist talk about the importance of grounded archival research in their artistic production.

With readings by Candy Gourlay and Jill Damatac

Moderated by Candy Gourlay
7:15- 9:30Closing Dinner