Zamboangueño people

The Zamboangueño people (Chavacano: Pueblo Zamboangueño), are a creole ethnolinguistic nation of the Philippines originating in Zamboanga City. Spanish censuses records previously showed that as much as one-third of the inhabitants of the city of Zamboanga possess varying degrees of Iberian and Hispanic-American admixture. In addition to this, select cities such as Iloilo, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Cebu, and Cavite, which were home to military fortifications and/or commercial ports during the Spanish era also hold sizable mestizo communities. The Zamboangueño nation constitute an authentic and distinct ethnolinguistic identity because of their coherent cultural and historical heritage, most notably Chavacano, that distinguishes them from neighboring ethnolinguistic nations. As a result of Spanish colonization, according to a genetic study written by Maxmilian Larena, published in the 2021 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the Philippine ethnic groups with the highest amount of Spanish/European descent are the Zamboangueño, with 4 out of 10 Zamboangueños being of Spanish descent (40% of the population), this is followed by Bicolanos, with 2 out of 10 Bicolanos being of Spanish descent (20% of the population). Meanwhile, there are "some" Spanish descended people among the other lowland Christianized Filipino ethnic groups. People from other ethnolinguistic nations came to Zamboanga when the construction of the present-day Fort Pilar began. The colonial Spanish government ordered the construction of a military fort to guard off the city from Moro pirates and slave raiders of Sulu. Labourers from Panay, Cavite, Cebu, Bohol, Negros and other islands were brought to the city to help build the fort. Eventually, these people settled in the city to live alongside and intermarried with other ethnolinguistic nations, primarily among the Subanon ethnic group, whose entire ethnicity descended from one clan is a grand claim.