When Mexico Calmed the Sea for Filipino Adventurers, Part 2 of 2

Filipino American history is often told through the people who eventually demanded recognition—labor organizers, civil-rights advocates, community leaders and public officials. Their stories matter. But there is another story that began much earlier.

It is the story of the Filipino sailors.

They were already moving through the Americas before there was a Filipino American political movement. They were sailors, fishermen, shipbuilders, merchants and skilled workers. They did not simply arrive. They adapted, worked and built lives in the places where their journeys took them.

In a sense, they were the first overseas Filipino workers—long before the term OFW existed.

Their maritime skills were in demand abroad. They signed contracts, boarded foreign ships, crossed oceans and earned their living far from home. Some returned. Others settled in the places where their journeys took them.

They also began an exodus that would eventually carry Filipinos across the globe.

Mexico was one destination where Filipinos contributed their skills, knowledge and labor to the country they adopted as their new home. Others continued along the Pacific coast.

By the nineteenth century, that movement became part of a larger maritime labor network. Filipino sailors appeared along the California coast—from Morro Bay and San Diego to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

From California, the maritime trail also connected eastward and southward, eventually reaching New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

In Louisiana, Manilamen established communities at places such as St. Malo and Manila Village. They fished, harvested shrimp and oysters, processed seafood and supplied New Orleans.

They did not simply arrive. They built. They adapted Philippine maritime knowledge to the wetlands and waters of the Gulf and became part of the local economy.

And then came another generation of seafarers.

In 1851, 221 Filipino seamen were recruited in Manila by foreign vessels, including twenty American ships. Some were bound for New York, Boston and New Bedford.

Here, we encounter Leon Zapanta who is probably the first documented Filipino to join the U.S. Navy. Think about that for minute. A Filipino national who left his country in mid-nineteenth century, came to the United States in 1846 and joined the Navy shortly afterward. In 1860, the Manila-born sailor eventually became a naval carpenter aboard USS Owasco, an Unadilla-class screw steam gunboat with a wooden hull.

But he was not alone. Other Manila-born sailors followed later with a common thread: Their skills were their tickets to see the world.

Stephen Amos, ordinary seaman and worked as a caulker—a skilled trade essential to maintaining the watertight integrity of a wooden hull. John Thompson, ordinary seaman recruited at New Bedford who was a sail maker aboard USS Brandywine. Sabas Pilisardo served aboard USS Lancaster as a sail maker’s mate. He was wounded during the Civil War.

And there was other Manila-born names who turned up in Navy records: Mananea Romalus, Johnny Francis, Martin Cruze, Valentine Cross and John Fernando - all skilled maritime workers whose maritime story did not end with fishing boats and commercial vessels.

During the Civil War, Filipino sailors appeared on both sides of the conflict.

At least ten Manilamen served aboard CSS Gaines, a Confederate wooden side-wheel gunboat assigned to the defense of Mobile. Among those identified were Francisco Sabarino, Mathew Francisco and Juan Domingo.

Domingo began as a seaman then cook aboard Gaines. After leaving Confederate naval service, he became a captain in the Spanish Guard of Mobile, a foreign-citizen militia organized during the Civil War for the defense, patrol and scouting of Mobile amid heightened wartime conditions.

Mobile was a major Confederate military target. In August 1864, Admiral David Farragut led his Union fleet into Mobile Bay.

“Damn the torpedoes—full speed ahead!” was his battle cry as Farragut’s fleet broke through the Confederate defenses. The bay was lost, but Mobile remained in Confederate hands. By April 1865, Mobile was under siege. Spanish Fort fell on April 8, Fort Blakely on April 9, and the city was evacuated before Union forces took control on April 12. Captain Domingo oversaw a successful evacuation that saved countless lives.

History remembers Farragut. The records remember Domingo. Circumstances placed them in that same corner of the world at that time.

Their story is complicated, as history often is. Some Manilamen had earlier fought alongside Major General Andrew Jackson against the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Decades later, other Filipino sailors found themselves serving the Confederacy.

Their allegiances were shaped by circumstances, place and the communities in which they lived—not by some single political identity carried across the sea.

They did not simply arrive in the Americas. They adapted, invested their labor and talents, and helped build a young nation in the process. They became plank owners of what would become America.

The sea had brought them here long before the borders were drawn. And they thrived.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, something changed. President William McKinley authorized the recruitment of 500 Filipinos into the Insular Force. For decades, Filipinos serving under this arrangement were largely confined to mess attendant duties, musicians, or tour guides.

That changed in 1932, when Filipinos were directly enlisted into the U.S. Navy as stewards—a rating that restricted their advancement for generations. The policy was eventually changed in 1971, opening broader enlisted ratings to qualified Filipinos. The Steward rating disappeared in 1974.

Many Filipino sailors rose through the ranks, thereafter, attained senior enlisted ranks including holding positions of trust and authority as command master chiefs. Many also became warrant officers and commissioned officers, some even attained flag rank and held commanding officer positions both at sea and ashore.

The steward who once served an officer in the Officer’s Mess could become one. The uniform had never been the limitation. The system was.