Trinidad Pardo de Tavera


Trinidad Hermenegildo José María Juan Francisco Pardo de Tavera y Gorricho was a Filipino physician, historian and politician of Spanish and Portuguese descent. Trinidad, also known by his name T. H. Pardo de Tavera, was known for his writings about different aspects of Philippine culture.

Family

Trinidad was born on 13 April 1857 to Spanish lawyer and government official Félix Pardo de Tavera and Juliana Gorricho from a wealthy, illustrious Filipino family. The Pardos de Tavera had a long history. His father, Félix, descended from the Portuguese aristocratic family of Pardo from Tavira, Portugal. In late 1640s, the Pardos added the name de Tavera to affix their place of origin similar to Spanish noble customs. Among the notable members of the family was Juan Pardo de Tavera, who carried the title Marquis de Magahon and Juan VI Pardo de Tavera, the Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain and Grand Inquisitor of Spain during the reign of Emperor Charles V. In 1825, Trinidad's grandfather and Félix's father, Julián Pardo de Tavera, set sail for Manila shortly after marrying Spanish woman Juana María Gómez. Julián and Juana bore three children: Félix, Joaquín and Carmen.
The Pardos de Tavera lived in Cabildo St., Intramuros. Félix and Joaquín were sent to the University of Santo Tomas where they both finished as bachelors of law. The brothers also worked for the advisory council of the governor-general. They married sisters Juliana and Gertrudis Gorricho.
Trinidad's mother has its origins rooted from an Irishman named Joseph Doyle. Juliana Gorricho was the daughter of José Dámaso Gorricho, a wealthy landowner in Manila and Cavite and owner of country's largest money-lending company that time. José's father, Miguel Ignacio Gorricho, was a Spanish from Pamplona who became the governor of Capiz province. Juliana's mother, Ciriaca de los Santos, was a Filipino enterprising woman from Cavite who made their family fortune by selling hay to horses used by the Spanish cavalry.
Félix Pardo de Tavera and Juliana Gorricho bore three children, namely Trinidad himself, Félix hijo and María de la Paz.

Early life

Trinidad was known in his early years as Trini. Their house in Cabildo street was just across the central square or plaza mayor, the Manila Cathedral and the government house or cabildo. In 1870, the government rented one of the wings of the Pardo de Tavera house to support the establishment of Academia de Dibujo y Pintura, the country's first state-supported school for drawing and painting.
In 1864, Trini's father Félix died. His uncle, Joaquín, still childless from his marriage to Gertrudis Gorricho, volunteered to become the adoptive father of Trini, Félix hijo and Carmen or Chiching. To fill Félix's post in the four-people Consejo de Administración, a royal order came to Manila offering the position to Joaquín. To sit in the Consejo was one of the highest honors in the Philippines during those times: he mingled with the highest officials of the country and was conferred into knighthood Order of Isabella the Catholic.
When the Glorious Revolution broke out in Spain in 1868 to overthrow Isabella II, Joaquín was named one of the assemblymen to push reforms in the Philippines. In 1869, they presented list of reforms to the liberal governor Carlos María de la Torre which made the peninsulares or Spaniards born in mainland Spain, outrageous. In 1871, de la Torre was replaced by Rafael de Izquierdo. In 1872, a mutiny broke out in Cavite and Joaquín was one of the alleged mutineers arrested by Izquierdo and was imprisoned in Fort Santiago. By 15 February 1872, Joaquín was sentenced to be deported in Guam. Three years later, his sentence was lifted and he was pardoned as one of the suspects of the mutiny. Because of the harassment and humiliation, Joaquín chose not to return to Manila, and reside together with his wife in Paris instead.
Trinidad was already a student at these times. He finished his primary and secondary education at Ateneo Municipal de Manila. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1873 at Colegio de San Juan de Letran. By 1875, he was on his midway of his study of medicine at University of Santo Tomas when his uncle Joaquín, sent an invitation for them to reside in Paris and pursue education in France.

Life in Paris

In Paris, the Pardos de Tavera befriended many powerful French politicians, including Prime Minister Léon Gambetta and presidents Maurice de MacMahon and Jules Grévy. The Pardos de Tavera made a living by receiving the income made by their real properties left in the Philippines.
Trinidad enrolled at the University of Paris to continue his degree in medicine. One of his prominent professors was Étienne Stéphane Tarnier, an obstetrician and one of the pioneers of introducing Pasteur and Lister theories in obstetrics. While at the university, he met Louise Ivanovna Krilof and Maria Nikolaevna Lujine, Russian Nihilists. At a visit to one of them, Trinidad learned the idea of the Nihilist movement and shared his own experience of repression while in the Philippines.
In 1880, Trinidad received his licentiate in medicine at the Faculté de Médecine de Paris and in 1881, his bachelor in medicine. In mid-1880s, he enrolled in École nationale des langues orientales vivantes and took courses under Pierre Étienne Lazare Favre. In December 1885, he received his diploma in Malay language. During his study at Paris, he tracked down rare collections of books and maps about the Philippines, its culture, tradition and history. He submitted medical articles to various journals, one of them maybe an article he wrote about Pott's disease in 1881 and was published at El Siglo Médico in Madrid. In 1884, he sent an article about faith and folk healing in Luzon to Paris' Journal médecine. In 1886, he published his thesis Contribution a l'etude de la periarthrite du genou or Contribution to the Study of Periarthritis of the Knee .
While a student at the École nationale, he wrote Contribución para el estudio de los antiguos alfabetos Filipinos in 1884 which was published in Lausanne and El sánscrito en la lengua tagala in 1887. The El sánscrito investigates the etymology and influence of the Sanskrit family of languages to Filipino grammar and orthography. In 1886, he joined several linguistic societies such as Société académique indo-chinoise, Société hespagnole d'hygiène and Société d'anthrologie. His papers Contribución para el estudio and El sánscrito were later lauded by overseas research journals and publications such as the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.