The Friars in the Philippines

This is a primary source history of Spanish colonial Philippines, written in the late 19th century when the friars' grip on the islands was already beginning to crack. Ambrose Coleman, himself connected to the religious orders he examines, offers an intimate and often defensive account of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars who shaped Filipino society for over three centuries. He details their dual role as missionaries and civil administrators, the schools they built, the conversions they performed, and the bitter resentment they cultivated among educated Filipinos who saw them as obstacles to modernity. Coleman frames the friars as transformative figures who Christianized the northern islands while contrasting them with the unconquered Moro Muslims of the south. Yet his narrative inadvertently reveals the growing crisis: secret societies, particularly Freemasonry, spreading anti-clerical sentiment, and the revolutionary ferment that would soon erupt in 1896. The book serves as both a historical document and a window into how colonial power rationalized itself at the very moment of its unraveling.