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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 01 of 55: 1493-1529; Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century — John Shaqi

History

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 01 of 55: 1493-1529; Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources

The most peculiar feature of the old regime in the Philippines is
to be found in the regulations of the commerce of the islands. In
the _Recopilacion de leyes de los reinos de las Indias_, the code of
Spanish colonial legislation, a whole title comprising seventy-nine
laws is devoted to this subject. For thirty years after the conquest
the commerce of the islands was unrestricted and their prosperity
advanced with great rapidity. [88] Then came a system of restrictions,
demanded by the protectionists in Spain, which limited the commerce
of the islands with America to a fixed annual amount, and effectively
checked their economic development. All the old travelers marvel
at the possibilities of the islands and at the blindness of Spain,
but the policy absurd as it may seem was but a logical application
of the protective system not essentially different from the forms
which it assumes today in our own relations to Porto Rico, Cuba,
and the Philippines.

The Seville merchants through whose hands the Spanish export trade to
the New World passed looked with apprehension upon the importation
of Chinese fabrics into America and the exportation of American
silver to pay for them. The silks of China undersold those of Spain
in Mexico and Peru, and the larger the export of silver to the East
the smaller to Spain. Consequently to protect Spanish industry and to
preserve to Spanish producers the American market, [89] the shipment
of Chinese cloths from Mexico to Peru was prohibited in 1587. In 1591
came the prohibition of all direct trade between Peru or other parts
of South America and China or the Philippines, [90] and in 1593 a
decree--not rigorously enforced till 1604--which absolutely limited
the trade between Mexico and the Philippines to $250,000 annually for
the exports to Mexico, and to $500,000 for the imports from Mexico, to
be carried in two ships not to exceed three hundred tons burden. [91]
No Spanish subject was allowed to trade in or with China, and the
Chinese trade was restricted to the merchants of that nation. [92]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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