Paramount Yet Frontier: A Historiographical Appraisal of Select 18th-Century Philippine Geological Disasters

Abstract

This study is a historical and historiographical evaluation of select eighteenth-century Philippine geological disasters: the 12 January 1743 Tayabas and Laguna de Bay earthquake and the 02 June-12 December 1754 Taal Volcano eruption. Using archival chronicles and historical studies, it analyzes how these two geological phenomena can be contextualized in the larger world of the eighteenth century. It also argues that the meanings emanating from these disasters and their interpretations constitute the complexities of historical studies on calamities and catastrophes. Finally, it attempts to present an exploratory comparison with their contemporary geological disasters: the 01 November 1755 Lisbon earthquake in Portugal and the 29 July 1773 Antigua Guatemala/Santa Marta earthquake in Guatemala. Albeit proportionate in terms of sheer strength and gravity of destruction to human communities, the Philippine disasters seem remote not only because of the archipelago’s geographic location in reference to the center of the Spanish empire but also of the way they are mounted as historical disasters – they are paramount yet frontier – colossal yet they occurred in the fringes.