This article surveys recent research of the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines since the late eighteenth century. While highlighting imperfections in our understanding, the article establishes the parameters with which the Philippine economy entered the twentieth century. It outlines the intensification of Spanish colonial rule through changes in the taxation system, particularly the expansion of forced tobacco cultivation until its abolition in 1882. Since then, the Spanish set out to further change and intensify colonial rule but contradictions in the system of colonial rule caused the effort to come to an abrupt end in 1898. Josep M. Fradera CHANGE IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURYThe British invasion in 1762 was not the first foreign aggression in this remotest of Spanish possessions. In the first half of the seventeenth century, several attacks by the Dutch had made the Spanish aware of how difficult it was to administer such a distant possession. 4 To sustain the defence of the country, peasants in various parts of the Philippines were forced to work for the imperial army and navy through a system of corvée labour, which would last well into the nineteenth century. The Dutch threat was a very serious one, since the Dutch East India Company not only had a powerful navy, but forged alliances with the Malay sultanates in the south of the Philippines, in Mindanao. 5 The difference between those seventeenth century attacks and the assault by the British East India Company is that the latter attack was successful in terms of both effectiveness and ease. Moreover, it acted as a catalyst for the discontent of the social groups subjugated by the Spanish, in particular the Chinese minority in Manila and large sectors of the peasant population of the Tagala area and Pangasinan. 6 The outcome of these factors was an unprecedented crisis, which forced the Spaniards to radically rethink their political and economic position in Asia. The ensuing change in their colonial policy had great consequences, both internally and for the relationship of the archipelago with the international economy.The rural population in the areas controlled by the Spanish were most affected by the change in priorities of the Spanish administration. During the rest of the eighteenth century, the colony's fiscal policies were drastically reformulated. The aim was to provide resources essential to improving the fortifications and the Spanish military organisation in the colony. To this end, the mechanism to collect the cédula (head tax) was expanded to provinces and localities that had hitherto been under largely nominal colonial administration, and the list of taxes was consolidated. At the same time, a system of fiscal monopolies was established which affected important popular objects of consumption, including local spirits and tobacco. Particularly revenues from the tobacco monopoly increased faster than what even the Spanish themselves had expected, as a study by De Jesús shows. 7 During 1782-1820, the fiscal monopolies developed around the...

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RésuméL’histoire des empires atlantiques montre bien la difficulté de concilier les systèmes représentatifs et les institutions libérales avec l’esclavage ou avec les tensions propres aux sociétés post-esclavagistes. L’article explore les contradictions entre le développement du libéralisme dans les métropoles et leurs conséquences problématiques dans les colonies. L’analyse est centrée sur trois cas emblématiques : les Antilles françaises à l’époque de la Révolution, Cuba pendant la révolution libérale espagnole des années 1830-1840 et la Jamaïque britannique en 1865, au moment de l’apogée de l’empire victorien. Nous cherchons à mieux comprendre la question des « régimes spéciaux » dans le cadre des systèmes constitutionnels des empires européens pendant les XIXeet XXesiècles.

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