Santo Niño in Recoding the History of the Spanish Conquest

Abstract

Santo Niño de Cebu is one of the most revered saints in the Philippines and draws tens of thousands of devotees during his fiestas, like few others. Santo Niño’s origins and cult formation can be traced to the very first instances of the Spanish conquest. This chapter analyzes the documentary genealogy of the colonial discourse that figures Santo Niño as the symbol for the predestined Christianization of the Philippines and tracks the rise of a native counter-narrative at the end of the sixteenth century that denies his Spanish origins. Its argues that for the Cebuano subjects, as well as other natives of the colonized Philippines, to speak of the pre-Hispanic origins of Santo Niño could have been a means to maintain their own collective memory of the material and spiritual pillage that arose with the Spanish conquest.