After conquest of the Philippine archipelago in the late sixteenth century, Spanish colonizers launched a sweeping social program designed to bring about dramatic religious, political, and economic changes. But the limitations of Spanish colonial resources, together with the reactions of Filipinos themselves, combined to shape the outcome of that effort in unique and unexpected ways, argues John Leddy Phelan. With no wealth in the islands to attract conquistadores, conquest was accomplished largely by missionaries scattered among isolated native villages. Native chieftains served as intermediaries, thus enabling the Filipinos to react selectively to Spanish innovations. The result was a form of hispanization in which the resilient and adaptable Filipinos played a creative part.

John Leddy Phelan (1924–1976) was professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of The People and the King, Portuguese Society in the Tropics, and The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century, all published by the University of Wisconsin Press.