There is a town called Mexico, but it is not in North America. It is located in Pampanga Province, the Philippines, thousands of kilometers from the country whose name it bears. Its existence is a legacy of the centuries-long trade relationship between the Philippines and Mexico during the Spanish colonial era.
What is even more remarkable is that this relationship left a deeper legacy than just a place name. Scientists have even found traces of it in the DNA of people in Mexico.
How Did the Philippines–Mexico Connection Begin?
To understand why there is a town named Mexico in the Philippines, we need to go back to the 16th century. At that time, Spain had colonized the Philippines, but it did not govern the colony directly from Spain.
Instead, the Philippines was administered through Mexico City, the capital of Spain's American colony known at the time as New Spain (Nueva España). The two colonies were connected by the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade, which operated from 1565 to 1815 for more than 250 years.
Each year, one or two galleons departed from Manila around June or July, carrying silk, porcelain, and spices from Asia to be sold in the Americas. They returned from Acapulco around March or April, bringing back about 3 million silver pesos on each voyage. The trade was highly profitable, with merchants earning substantial profit margins.
Because of the close relationship between the two colonies, many Spanish officials serving in the Philippines, including military officers and members of the clergy, were born in or had previously lived in Mexico. This administrative arrangement eventually gave rise to a town named Mexico in Pampanga.
Why Is a Town in Pampanga Called "Mexico"?
Exactly how the town acquired its name remains a matter of historical debate. According to the town government's official website, Mexico was established around 1581 and was originally named "Novo Mexico," after Mexico City, as a symbol of the administrative connection described above.
However, another version tells a different story. According to Pilipino Express, the town's original name was "Masicu," which may have meant "elbow" in the local language, referring to a bend in the Pampanga River.
The Spanish later changed the name, intentionally or not, to "Mexico" because it sounded similar. If this version is correct, the town's name resulted from a coincidence in pronunciation rather than a deliberate tribute.
To this day, there is no single historical record that conclusively confirms which version is correct.
Traces Left in the Blood
The origin of the town's name may still be debated. However, there is one legacy of this trade route that is no longer in dispute, as it has been confirmed through genetic research published in The Royal Society journal.
A team of scientists analyzed the DNA of 369 people from ten Mexican states. The results showed that 12 of the 50 individuals examined in Acapulco, the port where the Manila galleons once docked, carried more than 5 percent East Asian and Melanesian ancestry. One individual even carried more than 14 percent.
The researchers were also able to estimate when this genetic admixture occurred, around 13 generations ago, or approximately 1620. This period coincides with the height of the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade.
The genetic ancestry was traced to Indigenous populations from western Indonesia and the Philippines, including Sumatra, Mindanao, the Visayas, and Luzon. Researchers estimate that between 40,000 and 120,000 Asian migrants arrived in Mexico through this trade route.
Many of them were enslaved or brought under forced labor contracts. In colonial records, they were often identified simply as "Indios," causing their true origins to disappear from written history for centuries.
The Words and Flavors That Crossed the Ocean
It was not only people who crossed the Pacific through this trade route. Words and food crops also traveled across the ocean, and many are still used in the Philippines today without people realizing where they came from.
An estimated 250 Filipino words are derived from Nahuatl, the language of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico. Kalabasa comes from calabaza, sayote from chayote, and tsokolate from xocolatl.
Most of these loanwords are the names of fruits and vegetables because the Manila galleons also transported many new crops from the Americas to Asia.
As a result, two lasting traces remain from this centuries-long relationship.
One is a name, marked on the map of a small town in Pampanga. The other is hidden in human DNA, only revealed after scientists analyzed the genetic ancestry of people in Acapulco. Both originated from the same trade route, which ceased operations more than two centuries ago.
