The archipelago of the Philippines had been under Spain's rule since 1565, but up until the 18th century it hadn't been considered a significant colony in the eyes of the Spanish nobility. However, this began to change in the early 1700's, and some consider it to have begun when Spain lost the War of the Quadruple Alliance. An attempt to restore Spanish rule to Italy ended in failure, and as a result the Spanish cardinal Guilio Alberoni was dismissed from his high government position and ordered to leave Spain. The cardinal then fled to Genoa in 1720, only to flee Italy soon after in order to avoid arrest [1].
With nowhere left in Europe to run, he decided to flee to the Spanish colony of the Philippines in 1722, where the King of Spain and Alberoni's other European enemies deemed him to not be a threat of any kind. Thus, he was allowed to stay in the Philippines.
Despite being removed from the Spanish government and banished from Europe, Alberoni still had quite a bit of popularity among the religious higher-ups, not to mention that the Spanish officials running the archipelago were far more favorable to the cardinal since they lacked the vendatta that the European Spaniards had against him. This in turn allowed him to gain power in the colonial government similar to how he did so in the Spanish monarchy, although he made sure not to be too prominent lest the Spanish king decide to eliminate him once and for all.
His presence proved to help the Philippines in quite a few ways. First, he reformed the economy by using the same policies that he did in Europe, such as promoting trade with the American colonies, abolishing the colony's internal-customs houses, and reorganizing state finances. Also, he improved the quality of education in the colony by having multiple schools built, with finances from his remaining Papal friends in Rome paying for most of it. Lastly, his presence attracted Spanish settlers from the mainland (and also the American colonies but to a lesser extent at first) for multiple reasons.
First, even with the government banishing him from Europe, his religious status still appealed to many Spanish peasants, who were more open to living in the Philippines if there was a "man of the church" living there, which led to hundreds to thousands of peasants settling in both Manila and the island of Mindanao (though many of them died on the journey to the island). Second, he was a well-known gourmet, which resulted in many a chef going to the colony to serve him (since a good salary was all but guaranteed for such a job). These cooks often brought their families, who were later remembered as some of the first European settler families. Alberoni's gourmet tendencies also resulted in many merchants and traders setting up shop in the colony to sell their food to the chefs, along with some farmer families from Europe who grew food for the colonial administrators.
An unfortunate result of the European immigration was that the Sultanate of Sulu and its Moro people were overpowered as the Spanish colony was able to use its growing wealth to buy more artillery and hire hundreds of mercanaries, resulting in a brief war beginning in 1746 that ended with the Sultanate of Sulu capitulating in 1757 after a brutal conflict. Oppression, forced conversion,
de facto serfdom, and other atrocities ensued, with the Moro population being cut in half by the end of the century. The centuries-old city of Jolo was wiped out (with its mosques being the first to go), and was turned into a penal colony for European prisoners. Sulu was renamed to Isla del Cardenal ("Isle of the Cardinal", in honor of Cardinal Giulio Alberoni).
It also helped that about 4 to 10 thousand Spanish landowners came throughout the 1720's and 1730's from what was formerly known as Santo Domingo after the French took it over, since the French decided to encourage landowners from France to take over and subtly favoring them over the Spanish ones in terms of laws (particularly slave laws) and finances, which eventually led to some of the fed-up Spanish immigrating abroad with their family to the Philippines, with the incentive of cheap European labor from the poorest and most desperate of Spanish settlers and their families brought to Mindanao motivating them. While their usage of
de facto serfdom was abhorrent, the wealth they brought from Santo Domingo was crucial in investing in the Viceroyality's economy.
All of this immigration led to an economic boom due to increased agricultural and mineral output from the Viceroyality of the Philippines, and the archipelago began to gain a reputation abroad among troubled peasants of being a place full of rich farmland away from European conflicts.
All these minor factors grouped together set the stage for major European immigration to the Philippines, although it was still only a few hundred to a few thousand a year for the first 2 decades (with the white population being only around 40-50 thousand by 1740 and being almost completely focused in the sparsely populated Mindanao region, asides from a few hundred in Manila). However, this began to change starting with the Treaty of Warsaw that ended the 10-Years War in 1740. [2]
The Treaty of Warsaw led to the northern part Spanish Viceroyality of Peru [3] getting split 3 ways between the Viceroyality of New Granada in the North, Portuguese Brazil to the center, and the newly-formed Viceroyality of the Río de la Plata [4], along with the French getting all of Dutch Guyana (along with taking the Spanish Venezuela province which had been occupied by the Dutch during the war, in exchange for giving Spain a financial compensation) and the Brazilian region of Amapá. The loss of Venezuela and a large portion of Peru to foreign powers led to a sizable amount of people within the "lost lands" to leave for Spanish territories. Of course, the majority of them simply immigrated to New Granada or Río de la Plata, but over the next decade or so some 10-20 thousand would move to Mindanao, motivated by hearing of an island with plenty of farmland and living space (and to be fair, Mindanao was sparsely populated).
In the next half-century or so after the "Peruvian immigration", the population of those with European and/or American descent would boom alongside the native population as living conditions gradually improved and the western and southern regions of the archipelago saw mid-scale immigration from both Europe and America (not nearly as big as European immigration to America, but still significant). There was also a spike in immigration from Japan (and China to a lesser extent) due to increased trading possibilities, with this becoming a major factor in Japan opening up in the early 19th century. Manila eventually became a city full of both European and Asian languages as people from Edo to Copenhagen moved there to find a better life.
However, one of the largest boosts in European and American immigration came as a result of the Age of Revolutions, which lasted from 1790 to 1800. The Spanish Monarch saw himself get overthrown (as did the viceroys of Río de la Plata and New Spain), resulting in them along with their followers, allied nobles, and families of their loyalist supporters (many of whom were middle or lower class but still supported the king) fleeing to Spain, along with peasants who didn't give a damn about the king but lost their homes and were forced to flee their nations due to the violence. Not to mention, plenty of non-Spanish commoners who had enough money for the voyage believed that it would be a place to safely live without having to abandon the "European community". The number of immigrants who successfully arrived in the Philippines are unknown, but the commonly-accepted range by historians today is anywhere between 100 and 200 thousand immigrants from Spain, Latin America, Germany, the former Netherlands, etc.
By 1800, when most of the refugees had arrived and emigration had gone down to normal levels, the population of the Philippines was 6.7 million [5], and as many as 1.1 million of these were of European/American descent (though they were all in the west [Manila alone was at least half-European] or in Mindanao [which was European-majority], so the rest of the country was mostly if not totally native).
With Spain becoming a Republic, the former Spanish king (who was far more liked in the Philippines due to treating the viceroyality with a gentle hand) was installed as the King of the Spanish Kingdom of the Philippines. And the nation would have a very interesting 20th century...
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And yes, this is the colony that by the beginning of the 20th century will have a significant minority of people who are of "pure" European descent or are mestizos.
Apologies for the wait, guys, but I'm getting used to college so classes are still taking up a lot of time. Sorry for the spoilers!
Also, sorry if the chapter doesn't reveal as much about the Philippines (like the government before 1800 and things like that), but I don't want to spoil too much (if I haven't done so already). Besides, the government until 1800 was basically the same as OTL: a Spanish Viceroy ruling over the colony. The only difference is that with more Europeans comes a bigger bureaucracy and a more centralized local government. The colonial army and navy are also much tougher than IOTL.
[1] OTL the attempt to arrest him failed due to the King of Spain's veto meant to prevent Alberoni's election (so he could be arrested) having been signed by the Spanish Secretary of State rather than the King himself and was subject to a challenge. Matters dragged on while a messenger was sent to Madrid to obtain verification. However, this doesn't happen ITTL, not to mention that due to various minor diversions from OTL, France sends agents to try getting him arrested so he doesn't try manipulating Louis XV again.
[2] Sorry for the spoilers.
[3] The OTL Peru part, since the OTL Argentina part was part of the Viceroyality of Peru until 1776 IOTL, but ITTL gets formed in 1740.
[4] See what I wrote about Peru above on Rio de la Plata's formation. Also, this earlier formation will lead to Río de la Plata having a different future from OTL for various reasons.
[5] Even without taking into account the 1.1 million people of European/American descent, 5.6 million native Filipinos is still FAR higher than OTL Philippines' 1800 population, which is due to much better agriculture and an increased amount of schools and hospitals, not to mention the better economy. By the beginning of the 20th century (and the eve of the Great War), it'll have gone through a
huge population boom (both for ethnic Filipinos and those of European/American descent).
Does Russia have Alaska at this time?
Yes, they discover it in 1733 just like in OTL, but to say that it plays a far larger role and has far more people ITTL than IOTL (for various reasons) would be an understatement.