Agrarian Reform and Friar Lands, Slides of History

Download Agrarian Reform and Friar Lands and more Slides History in PDF only on Docsity! TOPIC: AGRARIAN RELATIONS AND THE FRIAR LANDS Main Question: What is the broader history of the friar lands? Why did the Hacienda de Calamba become a site of agitation in the late nineteenth century? Towns in the Philippines have different groups: 1. Filibusteros • the educated, the independent, those who live by themselves without the necessity of crutches or sponsors, those eager for justice and peace, those filled with reproaches against iniquities and tyrannies of some classes, those denounced by their enemies • Composed of honorable men and from which group the real filibusteros would come if the present lametable system continued 2. Party of the Friars • Composed of the shiftless, the intriguer, they are called the party of the friars because they obey and serve them, because they are considered as strong supporters of the friars, although the latter have neither love nor resepct for them and may become their most contemptible enemies when they are no longer useful 3. Neutral • The indifferent ones Church Lands in the Agrarian History of the Tagalog Region (Dennis Morrow Roth) Origin of Estates The friar estates trace their beginnings to the land grants which were made to the early Spanish conquistadores. • Generally, a land grant consisted of a large unit of land known as a sitio de ganado mayor (equivalent to 1, 742 hectares) and several smaller caballerias (42.5 hectares) • Larger grants measured two or three sitios and may have included a sitio de ganado menor (774 hectares) Requirement: Spanish law required that land grants not encroach on areas already occupied by Filipinos This injunction is followed in some instances, particularly in areas which where thinly populated at the time of conquest In areas where population density is greater, this principle is disregarded Religious orders acquired their estates in a variety of ways: 1. Several of the largest haciendas were donated to the orders by Spaniards seeking spiritual benefit 2. Some lands were purchased directly from their Spanish owners 3. Estates were heavily mortgaged to religiously endowed funds known as Capellanias. The orders simply assumed the old mortgages when the properties were transferred to them at auction Filipino donors and sellers also contributed directly to the formation of the religious estates, though to a lesser extent than the Spaniards • Former Filipino chiefs and headmen were invariably the ones who sold or donated land. Collectively known as principales by the Spaniards, they were converted into villages and town officials by the colonial government. Principales often dealt in large tracts of land • Most Filipinos living in the late 19th century knew nothing of the actual origins of the friar estates Colonial Sugar Production in the Spanish Philippines: Calamba and Negros Compared (Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. ) The growth in the sugar cane cultivation was ‘ most spectacular’ in Calamba, where the inquilinos were more dependent on sugar cane than most tenants of other friar estates-making Calamba an exceptional sugar-producing friar land and the Dominicans quite enterprising compared with other friar orders in supporting sugar production. Hacienda de Calamba Land was rented out on three-year contracts New lands are cleared at the cost of the leaseholder rather than the hacienda management Because of the inquilino’s start-up expenses, the rent was suspended for three to four years until the land could be made productive In 1890, when Rizal’s older brother Paciano was negotiating to lease more land for sugar cultivation, the administrator of the Hacienda de Calamba claimed that abundant land was available; he offered five years of rent-free usage, the prolonged grace period purportedly to encourage a wider sugar cropping area Rizal’s family in 1890 was considered as one of the largest leaseholders in Calamba They rented 66.2644 quinones (about 382 hectares) of sugar land and 1.6952 quinones (about 9.8 hectares) of rice land The Rizals’ farm holdings were considered huge by Calamba standards and compared favourably with may of the larger haciendas in Negros, enabling Rizal’s family to accumulate wealth But their landholdings dis not measure up to the largest properties in Negros In Calamba, Sugar planters, such as Rizal’s family, were constrained in accessing cultivable land by both the size and administration of the Dominican estates Sharecropping in Calamba and Negros Foreign Merchant Houses and Investments