修道会領地処分問題 : 米系糖業資本の対比進出との関連で

Abstract

This article discusses the friar lands question in the Philippines during the early American colonial period. After the United States had taken possession of the Philippines at the turn of the century, the colonial government purchased haciendas and parcels of land owned by three religious orders to put an end to agrarian unrest in the Tagalog region. The Friar Lands Act was enacted in 1904 to regulate the procedures of land redistribution by the colonial government to former tenants of these friar lands. The colonial government, however, faced difficulty in selling the land to former tenants, because among the friar lands were large uncultivated haciendas in remote areas. After the amendment of the Friar Lands Act in 1908-1909, which abolished the limitation of sales to individuals, the San Jose Estate of more than 22, 000 hectares was purchased by American sugar capital. This was a forerunner of the American capital investment in the Philippines which flourished in the 1920s.