Tracing Lineage

My great great great grandfather was an illegitimate son of a Spaniard from Dehesa de Campoamor and a southern Las Islas Felipinas "indio". "Dehesa" means pasture o grazing land. So most likely, either he was an haciendero from Campoamor or a helper of a rich haciendero who acquired the latter's name for his "insular" son. Campoamor is located south of Torrevieja (Western Spain). It took around three months sea travel from Acapulco, Mexico to Manila (and there were no straight travel from Spain). There were lots of risks involved in the travel (mutinee, diseease, piracy, typhoon, lack of food etc) therefore most likely Spaniards who travelled to the islands then were either missionaries (Jesuits dominated the island of Bohol in 18th and 19th century) or men-on-the-run (criminals o rebolucionarios). Looking at the characteristics of Torrevieja (Dehesa de Campoamor's nearest town), I discovered that "The town originated in the early 18th century when it was a small fishing village built around the watchtower 'La Torre Vieja' or 'old tower'....the men of the town had three main professions, sailors, fishermen, and salt workers. They were great sailors and ship builders who traded salt and flat roof tiles to America and the Philippines." According to Spanish documents, people from Dehesa traded with Bohol island (where my father grew up), more specifically Panglao island close to the main Bohol island, even before the Spanish occupation.

My sister emailed me about our surname (Campoamor) being possibly one of the names handed down to "indios" during the Spanish colonization. She refers to the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos in 1800. But I think its contradictory. The Spanish government handed out a list of surnames to be used by indios to improve tax collection. It was in fact very systematic. Arranged in alphabetical order, the names were to be used systematically from north to south, that is, surnames starting with A to C shall be made to use in the northernmost area, and V to Z in the southernmost area. Here, I have two options: one is to search for the entry "Campoamor" in the Catalogo (which Im almost sure is not) or find out if the Campoamor clan originally was from the north. Interestingly, "Abreu", the surname on my mother's side hails from the Southern Tagalog province of Batangas and only migrated to the northern province of Benguet (Baguio) in the 1950s. Granting the "Abreu" is in the Catalogo, my maternal grandfather could have just returned the family to an area close to his ancestors' origin.

I already discounted the fact that I am a descendant of the famous Spanish poet Ramon de Campoamor because he never wrote about the Philippines, much less, have ever set foot on the islands.