Chinese Prisoners in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines

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Abstract This paper examines the lives of “undesirable” Chinese—vagrants, the undocumented, idlers, beggars, drunkards, and pickpockets—who were incarcerated in Philippine prisons during the nineteenth century. Using criminal records at the National Archives of the Philippines, it interrogates the actors, institutions, and processes involved in confining these Chinese offenders and sheds light on how they lived within the confines of various penal institutions. It demonstrates that their lives were primarily shaped by the policies imposed by the Spanish colonial state and prison administrators. There were instances, however, when some of these prisoners articulated their personal and collective concerns toward prison authorities. Their verbal and physical responses illustrate how they utilized the resources available to them inside the prisons to their advantage. On some occasions, the leaders of the Chinese community were also instrumental in representing the concerns of these prisoners to the colonial authorities.