Orphans of empire : Bourbon reforms, constitutional impasse, and the rise of Filipino Creole consciousness in an age of revolution (original) (raw)

UMI Dissertation Pub. : ProQuest eBooks, 2011

Abstract

"My doctoral dissertation is entitled "Orphans of Empire: Bourbon Reforms, Constitutional Impasse, and the Rise of Filipino Creole Consciousness in an Age of Revolution". The thesis marshals new data to study a period in Philippine history that has received little scholarly attention, and, in the process, offers an important new perspective to the historical analysis of the origins of Filipino nationalism. In broad terms, the project examines the evolution of political identity and social formations that shaped the nationalist and modernist reform movements of the second half of the nineteenth century in the Philippines. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, creoles developed a new identity that was differentiated from the Spaniards, setting the basis for mainstream political discourse over nation, ethnicity, and modernity in the late nineteenth century. This process happened within the imperial framework of economic reforms brought by the Bourbons to the colonies at the end of the eighteenth century. It was reinforced as the disintegration of the Spanish empire happened in the first half of the nineteenth century. Within this context, the reformulation of the relationship between the metropolis and the remaining colonies introduced to the Filipino upper classes new avenues to frame their political discourse and their relationship with the metropolis. Two main contributions of the dissertation are to fill a major gap in the political history of the Philippines and to provide a re-interpretation of the origins of Filipino nationalism. The dissertation not only contributes new historical data, but also a critical narrative for a long-neglected period of political Philippine history, the period from the 1770s to the 1840s. Most historians of the Philippines have concentrated their research and analysis on the late nineteenth century, emphasizing the social and economic transformations that led to the modernist reform movements, the 1896 “national” rebellion against Spain, and the war against the United States (1899-1902). There are few works on earlier periods and almost none of them attempt to trace these later developments back to those that occurred a half century earlier. Only the works of the writer and cultural historian Nick Joaquin had attempted to understand the significance of the political culture that emerged among early nineteenth-century creoles. Clearly, creole political sentiments, ideas, and actions informed the events that took place later, not only in Manila but also throughout the Philippines. "

Ruth de Llobet hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let Ruth know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.