The Archaeology of Early Colonial Manila

A view into the diverse culture of the Philippines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Although Manila, capital city of the

Philippines, played a critical role in economic and cultural exchanges

between the East and the West during the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, little is known about what life was like for its residents

during this time. In this book, Ellen Hsieh uses archaeological,

historical, and ethnographic resources to document the ways Manila was

transformed by the arrival of Spanish colonists in 1571 and how the city

in turn shaped the modern world.

Manila was uniquely

positioned as a crossroads in the networks of Southeast Asia, East Asia,

and Iberia, resulting in a hybridized culture where colonial Spanish,

Indigenous Tagalog, and overseas Chinese groups exchanged goods and

ideas. In The Archaeology of Early Colonial Manila, Hsieh

analyzes material goods such as ceramics from Intramuros (the Spanish

walled city) and Parian (the Chinese quarter) and illustrations from the

Boxer Codex—a Spanish manuscript featuring images of people in the

Philippines and surrounding areas—to illuminate the diversity of Manila

society and to unravel the intricate power dynamics among these ethnic

groups.

Bridging the gap in research between pre-Spanish

and late colonial periods and amplifying the voices of non-elite,

diasporic, and colonized communities often overlooked in historical

documents, Hsieh provides an important focus on Manila’s contributions

to world history during a period of intense globalization.