“Indescribable Misery” (Mis)translated : A Letter from Manila’s Chinese Merchants to the Spanish King (1598) ¹

Abstract

Over a hundred Chinese merchants in Manila wrote a letter in Chinese to King Phillip II of Spain in 1598. In the letter, they denounced the corruption and abuses of the Spanish colonial officials in the Philippines. Their petition sheds light the poetic and political subjectivity of the Chinese merchant class under Spanish colonial rule. The elite Manila Chinese challenged the Spanish tendency to marginalize and treat the diverse peoples in the Philippines as a single, inferior group. They also resisted identification as “sangleys,” a common term used by Spaniards for the Chinese in Manila. Their narrative also challenges the sincerity of Catholic conversion of the resident Chinese, who considered it a beneficial process for naturalization.