Under the eye of the tax authority. The role of the colonial tax administration in the structuring of local power in the 19th century Philippines

This article examines the role played by the Spanish colonial tax administration in the selection of local Philippine elites during the second half of the 19th century. It analyses the economic and moral requirements for candidates seeking to run the principalias and collect the indigenous tax. It further assesses the influence of the levying of the tax in the struggles for municipal control, and also the extent to which the corruption and rigidity of the tax system influenced the means of coopting junior local cadres.