[60] However, in a 1994 publication the historian William Henry Scott identified instances in Spanish writing where "Filipino" did refer to "indio" natives.

[54] These examples prompted the historian William Henry Scott to conclude that during the Spanish colonial period: [...]the people of the Philippines were called Filipinos when they were practicing their own culture—or, to put it another way, before they became indios.

[64][60] Historian Ambeth Ocampo has suggested that the first documented use of the word Filipino to refer to Indios was the Spanish-language poem A la juventud filipina, published in 1879 by José Rizal.

[74][75] One of the notable settlements of Manilamen is the community of Saint Malo, Louisiana, founded at around 1763 to 1765 by escaped slaves and deserters from the Spanish Navy.

[76][77][78][79] There were also significant numbers of Manilamen in Northern Australia and the Torres Strait Islands in the late 1800s who were employed in the pearl hunting industries.

[91] After the Negritos, were two early Paleolithic migrations from East Asian (basal Austric, an ethnic group which includes Austroasiatics) people, they entered the Philippines at around 15,000 and 12,000 years ago, respectively.

Like the Negritos, they entered the Philippines during the lowered sea levels during the last ice age, when the only water crossings required were less than 3km wide (such as the Sibutu strait).

From there, they colonized the rest of Austronesia, which in modern times include Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar, in addition to Maritime Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

Trading links with Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Cambodia, Malay Peninsula, Indochina, China, Japan, India and Arabia.

[107] In the years leading up to 1000 AD, there were already several maritime societies existing in the islands but there was no unifying political state encompassing the entire Philippine archipelago.

Nations such as the Wangdoms of Pangasinan and Ma-i as well as Ma-i's subordinates, the Barangay states of Pulilu and Sandao; the Kingdoms of Maynila, Namayan, and Tondo; the Kedatuans of Madja-as, Dapitan, and Cainta; the Rajahnates of Cebu, Butuan and Sanmalan; and the Sultanates of Buayan, Maguindanao, Lanao and Sulu; existed alongside the highland societies of the Ifugao and Mangyan.

[113][114][115] Datu – The Tagalog maginoo, the Kapampangan ginu and the Visayan tumao were the nobility social class among various cultures of the pre-colonial Philippines.

The concept of the alipin relied on a complex system of obligation and repayment through labor in ancient Philippine society, rather than on the actual purchase of a person as in Western and Islamic slavery.

By the 15th century, Arab and Indian missionaries and traders from Malaysia and Indonesia brought Islam to the Philippines, where it both replaced and was practiced together with indigenous religions.

[117]: 177 [118][119] 20,000 were Chinese migrant traders,[120] at different times: around 15,600 individuals were Latino soldier-colonists who were cumulatively sent from Peru and Mexico and they were shipped to the Philippines annually,[121][122] 3,000 were Japanese residents,[123] and 600 were pure Spaniards from Europe.

The Ginoo and Maharlika castes (royals and nobles) in the Philippines prior to the arrival of the Spaniards formed the privileged Principalía (nobility) during the early Spanish period.

The Mexicans especially were a major source of military migration to the Philippines and during the Spanish period they were referred to as guachinangos[141][142] and they readily intermarried and mixed with native Filipinos.

European investors of British, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, and French nationality were among those who settled in the islands as business increased.

In the late 1700s to early 1800s, Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga, an Agustinian Friar, in his Two Volume Book: "Estadismo de las islas Filipinas"[144][145] compiled a census of the Spanish-Philippines based on the tribute counts (Which represented an average family of seven to ten children[146] and two parents, per tribute)[147] and came upon the following statistics:[144]: 539 [145]: 31, 54, 113 The Spanish-Filipino population as a proportion of the provinces widely varied; with as high as 19% of the population of Tondo province [144]: 539  (The most populous province and former name of Manila), to Pampanga 13.7%,[144]: 539  Cavite at 13%,[144]: 539  Laguna 2.28%,[144]: 539  Batangas 3%,[144]: 539  Bulacan 10.79%,[144]: 539  Bataan 16.72%,[144]: 539  Ilocos 1.38%,[145]: 31  Pangasinan 3.49%,[145]: 31  Albay 1.16%,[145]: 54  Cebu 2.17%,[145]: 113  Samar 3.27%,[145]: 113 Iloilo 1%,[145]: 113  Capiz 1%,[145]: 113  Bicol 20%,[148] and Zamboanga 40%.

On December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris formally ended the war, with Spain ceding the Philippines and other colonies to the United States in exchange for $20 million.

After World War II, South Asians continued to migrate into the islands, most of which assimilated and avoided the local social stigma instilled by the early Spaniards against them by keeping a low profile or by trying to pass as Spanish mestizos.

[citation needed] People who lived outside Manila, Cebu and the major Spanish posts were classified as such: 'Naturales' were Catholic Austronesians of the lowland and coastal towns.

Persons of Negrito descent were viewed as being outside the social order as they usually lived in tribes outside the colony and resisted conversion to Christianity.

[183] The results of a massive DNA study conducted by the National Geographic's, "The Genographic Project", based on genetic testings of 80,000 Filipino people by the National Geographic in 2008–2009, found that the average Filipino's genes are around 53% Southeast Asia and Oceania, 36% East Asian, 5% Southern European, 3% South Asian and 2% Native American.

[184] According to a genetic study done by the Kaiser Permanente (KP) Research Program on Genes, Environment, and Health (RPGEH), most self-identified Filipinos sampled, have "modest" amounts of European ancestry consistent with older admixture.

Authored by Spanish Governor-General Narciso Claveria y Zaldua and Domingo Abella, the catalog was created in response to the Decree of November 21, 1849, which gave every Filipino a surname from the book.

[181] Many adopted words from Sanskrit and Tamil were incorporated during the strong wave of Indian (Hindu-Buddhist) cultural influence starting from the 5th century BC, in common with its Southeast Asian neighbors.

It has been argued that the Philippines were less hispanized than Canaries and America, with Spanish only being adopted by the ruling class involved in civil and judicial administration and culture.

[204] The latter was introduced by the Spanish beginning in 1521, and during their more than 330-year colonization of the islands, they managed to convert a vast majority of Filipinos, resulting in the Philippines becoming the largest predominantly catholic country in Asia.

Historically, ancient Filipinos held animist religions that were influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism, which were brought by traders from neighbouring Asian states.