Sangley and Mestizo de Sangley are archaic terms used in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era to describe respectively a person of pure overseas Chinese ancestry and a person of mixed Chinese and native Filipino ancestry. The Sangley Chinese were ancestors to both modern Chinese Filipinos and modern Filipino mestizo descendants of the Mestizos de Sangley, also known as Chinese mestizos, which are mixed descendants of Sangley Chinese and native Filipinos. Chinese mestizos were mestizos in the Spanish Empire, classified together with other Filipino mestizos.
A mestiza de sangley, c. 1875
Sangley couple in Boxer Codex (circa 1590), with the label, "來常 Sangley" on top with the Chinese characters traditionally written right to left and when read in the old Chiangchiu dialect of Hokkien Chinese: 常 來; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: siâng-lâi; lit. 'frequently comes'.
José Rizal, the Philippine National Hero, was a mestizo de sangley but also had other ancestry.
Sangleys as depicted in the Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas (1734)
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. In the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of 7,641 islands, with a total area of 300,000 square kilometers, which are broadly categorized in three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. It is the world's twelfth-most-populous country, with diverse ethnicities and cultures. Manila is the country's capital, and its most populated city is Quezon City. Both are within Metro Manila.
Ilustrados in Madrid around 1890
Filipino General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops in Pampanga around 1898, during the Philippine-American War
The Inauguration of Manuel L. Quezon as President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines on Nov 15, 1935
General Douglas MacArthur and Sergio Osmeña (left) coming ashore during the Battle of Leyte on October 20, 1944