Recruiting caciques: the selection of philippine colonial elite in the late 19th century

Abstract

This work assesses the local elections in an indigenous municipality in the late 19th century Philippines. From a micro-historical and comparative approach, the paper during Spanish colonial rule. Therefore, the municipal sphere was one of the few real power spaces for the indigenous elite within the colonial political-administrative structure established in the Asian archipelago by Spaniards. The indigenous political leaders - appointed by the Spanish colonial authorities for diverse political, economic and religious reasons - played a crucial role in building resistance or allegiance to the metropolitan government in the oriental dominions. These are the main lines of a study that also compares the electoral process in the Philippine colonial territories with the strategies for political control of metropolitan power. The examination of analogies and dissimilitude is a central theme, as is the analysis of the strategy employed by the State in the power struggle between the insular elite, its causes and its consequences.