A collection of six documents transcribed, translated, and introduced by the collaborative efforts between a group of students from Princeton University and a group of students from the History Department at the University of the Philippines.
Francisca Bridget Bico and Caio Mathias Vaz Pereira
The documents transcribed and translated here about “Freeing the Black Runaways in the Philippines” deals with the 24 September 1750 Royal Decree and its reception in the Philippines. The Royal Decree begins by recounting the case of three enslaved Africans who fled Jamaica for Santiago de Cuba in order to embrace the Catholic faith.
John Carlos Duque and Clariza Macaspac
These manuscripts come from “Expediente sobre prisión del fiscal Francisco Leandro de Viana” (1758-1759) a case about an indio escribiente named Joseph Vicente de León who was unfairly imprisoned by his boss, the Justicia Mayor Francisco Antonio Zapata. León gets thrown in Zapata’s basement/bodega and shackled at the legs and wrists.
Jeraiah Gray and Mariela Mancia Pineda
In 1701, the Archbishop of Manila, Diego Camacho y Ávila, prohibits comedias, coloquios, entremeses, saraos, and "danzas de dalagas" staged by bands of women above the age of ten. The prohibition is to be applied all throughout the colonial capital and archbishopric of Manila as well as in the far-flung religious province of Nueva Segovia to the north of the Philippines.
David Rivera Mosquera
This letter authored by the archbishop of Manila, Fray Domingo de Salazar, is a 1587 petition to the Spanish government to allow Franciscan and Dominican friars to enter Japan, despite a papal prohibition banning nonmembers of the Society of Jesus of ministering there. The original document is located in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid.
María Alejandra Peñuela and Joaquín Reyes
The "Letter from the Count of Lizárraga to segregate the Christians from the Infidels" (1713) is a document found in the Archivo General de Indias, classified under Cartas y expedientes de los Gobernadores de Filipinas in the archive classification scheme. The file contains five different official documents.
You-Jin Kim and Moises Levi Orlino
The Muntinlupa bundle or Títulos y recaudos de las tierras de Muntinlupa y Cupang, pertenecientes al Convento de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, y tanto de las medidas y diligencias hechas por dicho señor juez de indultos y composiciones de tierras, cuya sentencia está en el archivo de provincia (1665), is a compilation of titles, petitions, inquiries, a map, and other documents relating to the purchase of lands of Muntinlupa and its surrounding agricultural lands.