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| 1751 |
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| Royal decree permitting provincial governors to engage in trade gave them a commercial monopoly. | 1 |
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| 1755 |
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| Non-Christian Chinese were expelled from the Philippines as part of an attempt by the Spanish government to increase its control over the revenue from the Galleon trade; the Chinese mestizos became a significant economic force in their place. | 2 |
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| 1762 |
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| Manila captured by Britain as a result of the Seven Years' War. A series of indio uprisings occurred throughout the archipelago, the most serious being that of Diego Silang in Ilocos. | 3 |
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| 1764 |
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| The British returned control of the Philippines to Spain. The returning colonial government faced serious economic problems, which were connected with the general decline in the Spanish empire. | 4 |
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| 1765 |
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| In response to financial problems, Governor Francisco Leandro de Viana proposed military and fiscal reforms along with increased trade, expansion of plantations, and immigration from Spain. | 5 |
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| 1768 |
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| The British East India Company established a trading post and garrison in Sulu, initiating a period of regional commercial and political dominance by Sulu which lasted until the mid-19th century. Piracy and slave trading were crucial to Sulu's power. In the latter half of the 18th century, Muslim raids disrupted the Spanish areas of the Philippines, significantly reducing the population. | 6 |
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| 1774 |
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| Royal decree that parishes run by friars be turned over to secular priests. The government appointed indio and mestizo priests to weaken the friars' power. This was symbolic of the increasing divergence between the interests of the Church and the state in this period. By the late 18th century the Church had become the major landholding and moneylending body in the colony. Peasant indebtedness increased markedly and popular resentment of the Church grew as a result. | 7 |
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| 1775 |
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| British military forces expelled from Sulu. | 8 |
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| 1776 |
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| Spain halted the replacement of Spanish clerics by mestizo and indio priests. | 9 |
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| 1781 |
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| Jose Basco y Vargos established a tobacco monopoly that produced substantial revenue for Spain but exploited the producers, resulting in uprisings. | 10 |
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| 1785 |
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| Establishment of the Royal Philippine Company, which was required to invest 4 percent of its earnings in the development of the Philippine economy in return for extensive international trading rights. Most of the company's profit came from Latin American trade, and its ships seldom visited the Philippines after 1789. (See The Philippines, 1800–1913) | 11 |
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