Hispanic Heritage Month: Filipino Mexicans played key roles in Mexico's revolution

 

History has a funny way of erasing the folks who don’t fit neatly into mainstream boxes. If you open a standard textbook, the story of the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821) is usually told through a singular lens. But look a little closer at the edge of the frame, and you’ll find a deep, deeply embedded Asian American connection — or more accurately, an Asian-Latino connection — that has been swept under the rug for far too long.

We’re talking about the Filipino Mexicans who fought, bled, and rose to leadership to kick Spain out of North America.

To understand how they got there, you have to look back at the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade. For 250 years, the Spanish Empire essentially used Mexico and the Philippines as two cogs in the same colonial machine. 

Because the Philippines was actually governed through the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico), thousands of Filipinos made the perilous journey across the Pacific. Many were sailors and laborers who, upon docking in Acapulco, decided they’d had enough of Spanish cruelty. They jumped ship, settled in the coastal regions of Guerrero, and integrated into local society. 

In the colonial caste system, they were collectively labeled "Chinos"—a lazy catch-all term for anyone of Asian descent.

When the revolution sparked in 1810, these marginalized communities didn’t sit on the sidelines.

The original subversives: The Tondo conspiracy of 1587

The seed of this anti-colonial defiance wasn’t planted in 1810—it was planted over two centuries earlier by the very first documented Filipino settlers in Mexico.

In 1587, a secret alliance of pre-colonial Tagalog royalty orchestrated the Tondo Conspiracy (also known as the Revolt of the Lakans). Led by noblemen Don Agustin de Legazpi and Martin Pangan, these native leaders plotted a massive, highly sophisticated geopolitical coup to completely overthrow Spanish rule in the Philippines. They secured an agreement with a Japanese sea captain for weapons and allied with the Sultan of Brunei for naval support. But after 15 months of planning, a single betrayal shattered the plot.

The Spanish response was swift and merciless. While the main ringleaders were publicly executed, Spain stripped several remaining high-ranking noblemen—including Pedro Balinguit (Chief of Pandacan), Felipe Salonga (Chief of Polo), Pitongatan, Calao, and Agustin Manuguit—of their property and exiled them across the Pacific to Mexico.

Arriving in Acapulco in July 1589, these royal political exiles became the historic cornerstone of the Filipino Mexican diaspora. They weren't just random travelers; they were a lineage of deposed freedom fighters. For generations, Spain continued to use Mexico as a dumping ground for Manila’s political subversives, effectively exporting a continuous supply of anti-colonial resentment straight into the Mexican bloodstream.

General Isidoro Montes de Oca

Masterminds on the fontlines: Montes de Oca and Mongoy

By the time the 19th century rolled around, those generations of mixed heritage were ready to finish what the exiles started.

Take a look at General Isidoro Montes de Oca. Born in Mexico in 1789 to a family of Philippine heritage, Montes de Oca wasn’t an indentured sailor. He was a free man who chose to put his life on the line for liberation. Genealogists have tracked his lineage directly to the prominent Montes de Oca family of Makati, Philippines. In fact, his relative, Juan Montes de Oca, was the Prior Administrator of the famous Guadalupe Church in Makati. 

This deep-rooted Catholic connection explains why Montes de Oca and his fellow rebels fiercely marched under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe—a symbol of resistance that bridged both sides of the ocean.

Montes de Oca quickly became a trusted lieutenant commander under legendary revolutionary leaders José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero (who would later become Mexico's first president of African descent). Today, his bravery is so deeply woven into Mexican history that a municipality in Guerrero bears his name: La Unión de Isidoro Montes de Oca.

Then there’s Francisco Mongoy. Like Montes de Oca, Mongoy was a brilliant military commander of Philippine descent. He rose through the ranks to become a brigade commander under General Morelos, specializing in ruthless, high-stakes guerrilla warfare in the rugged mountains of Guerrero.

Mexicanos are beginning to uncover and honor the Filipino immigrants' impact on their culture.

The 200 Warriors of Guerrero

But Montes de Oca and Mongoy weren’t lone actors. When Father Miguel Hidalgo first called for revolution, the insurgent leadership actively recruited an entire contingent of roughly 200 Filipino Mexican revolutionaries from the coastal areas of Guerrero.

These 200 men became the secret weapon of the southern insurgency. Because their families had worked the docks and regional trade routes, they knew every hidden path, valley, and escape route surrounding the heavily fortified Spanish port of Acapulco. Under the direct leadership of Vicente Guerrero, this fierce cohort consistently outmaneuvered and humiliated elite royalist Spanish forces sent to crush them.

The historical irony is delicious: Spain built a maritime global empire by forcing these two cultures together and exiling Filipino rebels to the Americas, only for the human bonds forged by that empire to dismantle it from the inside out.

A lasting footprint

The legacy of these 200 fighters didn’t vanish when the Treaty of Córdoba was signed in 1821. It completely rewrote the cultural and genetic landscape of Mexico's Pacific coast.

• The genetic proof: A 2018 genetic mapping project of the population in Guerrero revealed an astonishing truth — roughly one-third of the modern-day coastal residents carry about 10% Filipino ancestry. That is a direct line of blood tracing right back to the Chino immigrant communities that fought for the nation's freedom.

• The cultural blend: The descendants of these revolutionaries permanently introduced Filipino traditions into mainstream Mexican culture. If you’ve ever enjoyed a glass of coastal Mexican tuba (coconut wine) or seen someone rocking a traditional guayabera shirt, you are looking at living Philippine heritage.

Following independence, General Vicente Guerrero was so moved by the bravery of his Filipino troops that he actively pushed for Mexico to use its new freedom to send a military squadron to help liberate the Philippines from Spain, citing the "intimate relations" and shared blood of the two lands.

Asian Americans and Latinos have a history together. From the first hunters who crossed the land bridge between Asia and North America to the Mexicans and Filipinos marching together for farmworker rights giving birth to the United Farmworkers union, we need to acknowledge that shared history this Hispanic Heritage Month.

History might try to keep these stories on the cutting room floor, but the receipts are there. From the exiled datus of Tondo to the battle-hardened soldiers of Guerrero, Filipino Mexicans didn't just witness the birth of a free Mexico—they fought on the front lines to build it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

Hispanic Heritage Month: the Mexican-Filipino genetic connection

"The Forgotten Filipinos of the Galleons" is painted by American artist Arthur Breede.

If history books mention the Filipino sailors that manned the Manila galleons centuries ago at all, they say the crewmen  endured "harsh conditions." Truth is: most of them were slaves. No wonder they jumped ship the first chance they got to escape their Spanish captains.

While the exact total number of Filipino crewmen who jumped ship in Mexico is unknown, evidence shows a significant and widespread desertion, with one galleon experiencing 70 of its 75 Filipino crew members deserting in Acapulco alone in 1619. 

Over the centuries of the galleon trade, 1565-1815, many of the estimated 60,000 Filipinos who survived the 50-60 day journey from Manila to Acapulco as crewmen escaped upon arrival at Mexico's west coast blending in with the local residents. Some of the galleons' Filipino crewmen formed their own communities, most notable in the Louisiana bayous where they founded the first documented Asian American communities in North America.

Sometimes, the most powerful stories aren't in history books but are whispered in our DNA. We've always known about Filipino resilience, our ability to travel and thrive, but now science is confirming a piece of our story that was nearly forgotten. 

The history books often ignored their names and their fate. But our genes, it turns out, have a much longer memory. Genetic evidence is finally giving a voice to the tens of thousands of Filipinos who made the long and perilous journey to Mexico during the Spanish colonial era.

It is fitting that Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 15-Oct. 15, overlaps with Filipino American History Monthwhich starts Oct. 1 because new evidence confirms the cultural and genetic history. shared by the two countries, both former colonies of Spain.

It's in the genes

Scientists have confirmed a distinct Southeast Asian genetic signature within the Mexican population, particularly in the coastal state of Guerrero. Why Guerrero? Because its port, Acapulco, was the main destination for those galleon ships.

Analysis of this DNA traces its arrival to approximately the 17th century, right in the thick of the galleon trade. This is not a coincidence; it’s a genetic echo of our ancestors stepping onto Mexican soil.

For over 250 years, the Manila Galleons facilitated trade between Asia and Mexico.

        RELATED: Filipinos gave birth to Mexico's mezcal

One study found that as much as a third of the population sampled in Guerrero carried up to 10% Filipino ancestry. In some individuals in Acapulco, that figure was even higher. This wasn't just a handful of people; it was a substantial migration that left a lasting mark.

Filipinos mostly settled in the regions near the terminal ports of the Manila galleons. These include Acapulco, Barra de Navidad, and San Blas, Nayarit, as well as numerous smaller intermediate settlements along the way. They also settled the regions of Colima and Jalisco before the 17th century, which were seriously depopulated of Native American settlements during that period due to the Cocoliztli epidemics and Spanish forced labor.[

One sizable Filipino community settled in Coyuca, on the Costa Grande, 50 km north of Acapulco. Coyuca was apparently known as Filipino Town at one point in its early history. They also settled in significant numbers in the barrio San Juan of Mexico City, although in modern times, the area has become more associated with later Chinese migrants.

The loss of cultural identity of early Filipino migrants to Mexico is the result of several factors. The most significant factor being the use of the terms indio and chino. In the Philippines, natives were known as indios, but they lost that classification when they reached the Americas, since the term in New Spain referred to Native Americans. In Mexico, they were called chinos, leading to the modern confusion of early Filipino immigrants with the much later Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Names might be forgotten, but the people aren't

The Filipinos settling in Mexico introduced mangoes and a game called “cara y cruz” (heads and tails). The Filipino sailors and their descendants were known locally as “Chinese Indians” and brought their expertise in the cultivation and use of palm trees with them. 

In Tagalog, palm fronds are known as “palapa” and by the end of the 18th century, this name was in use, too, for the palm-roofed shelters which remain a distinctive style of architecture along Mexico’s coasts.

'China Publana" garb has become part of Mexico's traditional garb.

The coconut palm’s sap is known locally as tuba. Filipino newcomers fermented the resulting coconut wine into a potent drink. Henry Bruman, a University of California geographer, documented how Filipino seamen and women on the Manila Galleon also introduced simple stills, for making tuba to western Mexico during the late 16th century. These techniques were quickly adapted by Mexicans who used the distillation process to turn their native agave plants into tequila.

Some historians say the famous "China Poblana" was a Filipino woman who became a patriotic leader in Mexico's fight for independence from Spain. Her garb of white blouse and long colorful skirt along with the hairstyle of braided hair became emblematic of female patriots of Mexico. Today, the clothing is among the traditional clothing of working class Mexican women.

The genetic confirmation is more than just a scientific report. It's a testament to the resilience of our people, who not only survived a brutal colonial system but also contributed to the cultural and genetic tapestry of another nation. It's another example of how our history—marked by injustice and exploitation—is also a story of survival and undeniable presence. It tells us that even when our names and stories are erased, our legacy remains, written deep within us.

For Filipino Americans, the genetic proof of the linkage between Mexico and the Philippines. It's the retrieval of a long-lost story. It's a reminder of a struggle of the human struggle for freedom.

It's another example of how Filipino American history—marked by injustice and exploitation—is also a story of survival and undeniable presence. It tells us that even when our names and stories are suppressed, our legacy remains, written deep within us. It is a legacy that deserves to be honored, a story that deserves to be told.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge.