The Census of the Philippine Islands: 1903 is a landmark document in the history of the archipelago, representing the first comprehensive census conducted by the American colonial administration following the Spanish-American War. The undertaking was directly authorized by an Act of the U.S. Congress, a prerequisite established for measuring the population and resources of the islands. Politically, the completion and publication of the census were crucial, as they were conditions for the establishment of the Philippine Assembly, the first elected legislative body for the Christianized territories, marking an initial, albeit limited, step toward self-governance. The census was directed by the Philippine Commission and utilized American census methods, departing from the Spanish system, which was historically distrusted by Filipinos as a basis for taxation and conscription. The compilers of the census sought to identify, enumerate, and detail the diverse human and physical geography of the new American possession. This specific volume lays the groundwork for the subsequent statistical reports, providing extensive background on the islands' climate, physical formation, and a historical summary of the Spanish period leading up to the American occupation. Crucially, it dedicates significant space to the characteristics and distribution of both the "civilized" Christian tribes and the various "non-Christian" or "wild" tribes, such as the Igorots and Moros, thereby providing the new administration with a detailed ethnographic map necessary for governance and resource management.
Census of the Philippine Islands : 1903, Volume I: Geography, history, and population