Nestled back in the boondocks (bayous) of Louisiana, the land of ‘gators, voodoo and jazz, was a most curious little fishing town. It was a secretive and insular settlement, at its largest populated by slightly more than 100 hundred men, which remained purposefully segregated from the rest of the world for almost 100 hundred years. Only with a story being published in Harper’s Weekly in 1884 was its history known. It’s a story ripe for a literary treatment.
The agreed date of founding of Saint Malo is in 1783, populated by Filipinos who jumped ship during the galleon trade. Manila men, as they were commonly called, have had somewhat of an interesting influence in Mexico and other localities where they settled. For example, the Guerrero province in Mexico is almost predominately populated by descendants of Filipinos. The story goes that four of the early Mexican presidents counted Filipino blood in their ancestry. As well, Guerrero and Mexicans of Filipino descent played important roles in the Mexican revolution. While American settlements by Filipinos may not have had as profound an impact on their regional histories, their stories remain compelling. Saint Malo was not alone, there are at least three other documented Filipino ‘colonies’ in the Southern United States. In the case of Saint Malo, it may have been one of the smallest, but it was the oldest. There is even a story handed down that Filipinos took part in the Battle of New Orleans, enlisting under the command of Andrew Jackson. For various reasons, chief among them that the Filipinos never divulged their ancestry, the story has never been verified.
In 1883, a young writer for the Times-Picayune named Lafcadio Hearn, after strange rumors of the colony began circulating, made a trip out into the bayou. At the time neither he nor his guides really knew where the hell they were going. What he uncovered there became a bit of a sensation; the article he published in Harper’s Weekly was called “St. Malo: A Lacustrine Village in Louisiana”. His visit to the village had such an impact on him he eventually moved to Japan and became a Japanese citizen. His later novels even utilized Tagalog words.
The story that sparked the interest of New Orleans and resulted in Hearn making his trip, involved a woman. At this time the colony was only populated by men. Supposedly a woman appeared in the village causing an uproar and some violence. The village elders ordered her cut to pieces and thrown to the gators (thankfully she did not become a voodoo zombie). When this supposed story reached the ears of authorities Hearn was dispatched to investigate. The story was probably false, but he came back with very strange and curious tale.
Out of the shuddering reeds and banneretted grass on either side rise the fantastic houses of the Malay fishermen, posed upon slender supports above the marsh, like cranes or bitterns watching for scaly prey. Hard by the slimy mouth of the bayou extends a single wharf, as ruined and rotted and unearthly as the timbers of the spectral ship in the “rim of the Ancient Mariner.”
The village (sometime) priest and secondary authority figure was a white man known only as ‘Maestro’, with the most picturesque of homes owned by the oldest Filipino, Padre Carpio. Padre Carpio was the wellspring of authority in the village; he decisions were law and followed to the letter. The villagers held the aged in great respect and usually deferred to their judgements. All the villagers were men, with an unwritten rule being that any who marry or have children must move back to New Orleans. This is likely one of the source of the great and proud concentration of Filipino descendants in New Orleans (of whom a book was written by a Cebuana researcher who migrated to New Orleans). There were no ‘rules’ and ‘laws’ per se, along with a distinct absence of taxation and police officers. Authority was vested in Padre Carpio and ‘Maestro’. Among other things banned from the village was liquor. Wine and women were not welcome in Saint Malo.
Saint Malo was not wholly cut off from the rest of the world, they just jealously guarded their anonymity. Many members of Saint Malo had relatives in New Orleans; as well they frequently sent money to the Philippines to help their families migrate to the area. They were fishermen and worked hard to earn money for their families back home. As a result they lived a spartan life; the only art in the village was a poster and a couple of pictures owned by ‘Maestro’. Entertainment was derived from the card game kino. They typically subsisted on meals of dried or fresh raw fish prepared kilawin style. Surprisingly, or not when you consider their locale, rice was not a major part of their diet. The village existed for a reason; it provided a home and sanctuary for hard-working Filipinos who had left their country behind. With the publication of Hearn’s story their carefully maintained seclusion came to an end. By the early 1900s it ceased to exist.
While the village no longer exists, the descendants of its inhabitants continue on. Two organizations that they founded, the La Union Philipina and Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Hispano Filipinos de New Orleans remain in some capacity. The La Union was a social society, while the Benevolent Society operated as a mutual help fund for its members, as well as their widows and orphans. Today, the concentration of Filipinos in New Orleans remains high, and they are cognizant of their ancestry. In 1933 Manuel Quezon even made a trip to meet with them. And of course, Ms Marina Espina published her history on Filipinos in Louisiana in 1988.
This is one of the few stories of the diaspora that has been told. But, what of the Filipinos shipwrecked in California in the 1700s? Or the Filipinos who were recruited as whalers and sailors by Boston ship owners in the 1800s? Or those brought over by the Spanish when they acquired New Orleans and the surrounding areas? Even the stories of the Filipinos who settled in Mexico remain relatively untold. We sometimes erroneously think of the diaspora as a recent development. The truth is Filipinos have been traveling around the world since the advent of the galleon trade. And if the stories are to be believed, even before with Enrique of Malacca and Magellan.
In the case of Saint Malo, we have a supreme example of the adaptability of Filipinos at work. Even in the bayous of Louisiana they were able to make a home. And unsurprisingly, they even thrived for over 100 hundred years.
