The principalía or noble class was the ruling and usually educated upper class in the pueblos of Spanish Philippines, comprising the gobernadorcillo (later called the capitán municipal and had functions similar to a town mayor), tenientes de justicia (lieutenants of justice), and the cabezas de barangay (heads of the barangays) who governed the districts. Also included in this class were former gobernadorcillos or municipal captains, and municipal lieutenants in good standing during their term of office.Maura Law, Art. 7.
The distinction or status of being part of the principalía was originally a hereditary right. However, a royal decree dated December 20, 1863 (signed in the name of Queen Isabella II by the Minister of the Colonies, José de la Concha), made possible the creation of new principales under certain defined criteria, among which was proficiency in the Castilian language. Later, wider conditions that defined the principalía were stipulated in the norms provided by the Maura Law of 1893,Maura Law, Art. 7–9. which was in force until Spain lost the Philippines to the United States in 1898. The Maura Law also redefined the title of the head of municipal government from gobernadorcillo to capitán municipal, and extended the distinction as principales to citizens paying 50 pesos in land tax."Se entenderá por Principalía la agrupación que en cada pueblo estará formada sin número fijo por los antes llamados Gobernadorcillos, Tenientes de justicia, por los Cabezas de Barangay en ejercicio ó que hubiel sen desempeñado el cargo durante diez años consecutivos sin mala nota alguna, por los Capitanes parados, los Tenientes municipales que hubiesen desempeñado bucargo durante el tiempo legal sin nota desfavorable y los vecinos que paguen 50 pesos por contribución territorial." Maura Law, Art. 7.
Prior to the Maura Law, this distinguished upper class included only those exempted from tribute (tax) to the Spanish crown. Colonial documents would refer to them as "de privilegio y gratis", in contrast to those who pay tribute ("de pago").The original manuscript of the report of R.P. Fray Bernardo Arquero, O.S.A., dated January 1, 1897, on the statistical data and historical information of the Parish of St. John the Baptist in Banate, Iloilo (Philippines). The first column of the document (Personas con Cedula Personal) identifies the classes of citizens of the town: the "de privilegio y gratis" (principales) and the "de pago". This document can be found in the Archives of the Monastery of the Augustinian Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus of the Philippines in Valladolid, Spain. It was the true aristocracy and nobility of the Spanish colonial Philippines, roughly analogous to the patrician class in Ancient Rome. The principales (members of the principalía) traced their origin to the precolonial maginoo ruling class of established kingdoms, rajahnates, confederacies, and principalities, as well as the lordships of the smaller, ancient social units called barangays in the Visayas, Luzon, and Mindanao.
The members of this class enjoyed exclusive privileges: only members of the principalía were allowed to vote, be elected to public office, and bear the titles Don or Doña. The use of the honorific addresses "Don" and "Doña" was strictly limited to what many documents during the colonial periodAn example of a document pertaining to the Spanish colonial government mentioning the "vecinos distinguidos" is the 1911 Report written by R. P. Fray Agapito Lope, O.S.A. (parish priest of Banate, Iloilo in 1893) on the state of the Parish of St. John the Baptist in this town in the Philippines. The second page identifies the "vecinos distinguidos" of the Banate during the last years of the Spanish rule. The original document is in the custody of the Monastery of the Augustinian Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus of the Philippines in Valladolid, Spain. Cf. Fray Agapito Lope 1911 Manuscript, p. 1. Also cf. Fray Agapito Lope 1911 Manuscript, p. 2. would refer to as "vecinas y vecinos distinguidos".
For the most part, the social privileges of the nobles were freely acknowledged as befitting their greater social responsibilities. The gobernadorcillo during that period received a nominal salary and was not provided a public services budget by the central government. In fact, the gobernadorcillo often had to govern his municipality by looking after the post office and the jailhouse, alongside managing public infrastructure, using personal resources.
Principales also provided assistance to parishes by helping in the construction of church buildings, and in the pastoral and religious activities of the clergy who, being usually among the few Spaniards in most colonial towns, had success in earning the goodwill of the natives. More often, the clergy were the sole representatives of Spain in many parts of the archipelago. Under the patronato real of the Spanish crown, Spanish churchmen were also the king's de facto ambassadors, and promoters of the realm.
With the end of Spanish sovereignty over the Philippines after the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the introduction of a democratic, republican system during the American colonial period, the principalía and their descendants lost legal authority and social privileges. Many were, however, able to integrate into the new socio-political structure, retaining some degree of influence and power.
Historical background
Pre-colonial principalities
From the beginning of the colonial period in the Philippines, the Spanish government built on the traditional preconquest sociopolitical organization of the barangay and coopted the traditional indigenous princes and their nobles, thereby ruling indirectly. The barangays in some coastal places in Panay,Manuel Merino, O.S.A., ed., Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid 1975. Manila, Bohol, Cebu, Jolo, and Butuan, with cosmopolitan cultures and trade relations with other countries in Asia, were already established principalities (kinadatuan) before the coming of the Spaniards. In other regions, even though the majority of these barangays were not large settlements, yet they had organized societies dominated by the same type of recognized aristocracy and lordships (with birthright claim to allegiance from followers), as those found in more established, richer and more developed principalities. The aristocratic group in these precolonial societies was called the datu class. Its members were presumably the descendants of the first settlers on the land or, in the case of later arrivals, of those who were datus at the time of migration or conquest.
The duty of the datus was to rule and govern their subjects and followers, and to assist them in their interests and necessities. What the chiefs received from their followers was: to be held by them in great veneration and respect; and they were served in their wars and voyages, and in their tilling, sowing, fishing, and the building of their houses. The natives attended to these duties very promptly, whenever summoned by their chief. They also paid their chief tribute (which they called buwis) in varying quantities, in the crops that they gathered. The descendants of such chiefs, and their relatives, even though they did not inherit the lordship, were held in the same respect and consideration, and were all regarded as nobles and as persons exempt from the services rendered by the others, or the plebeians (timawas). The same right of nobility and chieftainship was preserved for the women, just as for the men.
Some of these principalities and lordships have remained, even until the present, in un-Hispanicized and mostly Lumad and Muslim parts of the Philippines, in some regions of Mindanao.
Pre-colonial principalities in the Visayas
In more developed barangays in Visayas, e.g., Bohol, Cebu and Panay (which were never conquered by Spain but were incorporated into the Spanish sphere of influence as vassals by means of pacts, peace treaties, and reciprocal alliances), the datu class was at the top of a divinely sanctioned and stable social order in a territorial jurisdiction called in the local languages as sakop or kinadatuan (kadatuan in ancient Malay; kedaton in Javanese; and kedatuan in many parts of modern Southeast Asia), which is elsewhere commonly referred to also as barangay. This social order was divided into three classes. The kadatuan, which is also called tumao (members of the Visayan datu class), were compared by the Boxer Codex to the titled lords (señores de titulo) in Spain. As agalon or amo (lords), the datus enjoyed an ascribed right to respect, obedience, and support from their oripun (commoner) or followers belonging to the third order. These datus had acquired rights to the same advantages from their legal "timawa" or vassals (second order), who bind themselves to the datu as his seafaring warriors. "Timawas" paid no tribute, and rendered no agricultural labor. They had a portion of the datu's blood in their veins. The Boxer Codex calls these "timawas" knights and hidalgos. The Spanish conquistador, Miguel de Loarca, described them as "free men, neither chiefs nor slaves". In the late 1600s, the Spanish Jesuit priest Fr. Francisco Ignatio Alcina, classified them as the third rank of nobility (nobleza).
To maintain purity of bloodline, datus marry only among their kind, often seeking high ranking brides in other barangays, abducting them, or contracting brideprices in gold, slaves and jewelry. Meanwhile, the datus kept their marriageable daughters secluded for protection and prestige. These wellguarded and protected highborn women were called "binokot", the datus of pure descent (four generations) were called "potli nga datu" or "lubus nga datu", while a woman of noble lineage (especially the elderly) was addressed by the Visayans (of Panay) as "uray" (meaning: pure as gold), e.g., uray Hilway.
Pre-colonial principalities in the Tagalog region
The different type of culture prevalent in Luzon gave a less stable and more complex social structure to the precolonial Tagalog barangays of Manila, Pampanga and Laguna. Enjoying a more extensive commence than those in Visayas, having the influence of Bornean political contacts, and engaging in farming wet rice for a living, the Tagalogs were described by the Spanish Augustinian Friar Martin de Rada as more traders than warriors.
The more complex social structure of the Tagalogs was less stable during the arrival of the Spaniards because it was still in a process of differentiating.
Comparison
The Jesuit priest Francisco Colin made an attempt to give an approximate comparison of it with the Visayan social structure in the middle of the seventeenth century. The term datu or lakan, or apo refers to the chief, but the noble class to which the datu belonged or could come from was the maginoo class. One may be born a maginoo, but he could become a datu by personal achievement. In the Visayas, if the datu had the personality and economic means, he could retain and restrain competing peers, relatives, and offspring. The term timawa came into use in the social structure of the Tagalogs within just twenty years after the coming of the Spaniards. The term, however, was being applied to former alipin (third class) who have escaped bondage by payment, favor, or flight. The Tagalog timawas did not have the military prominence of the Visayan timawa. The warrior class in the Tagalog society was present only in Laguna, and they were called the maharlika class. At the early part of the Spanish regime, the number of their members who were coming to rent land from their datus was increasing.