Manilamen showed reason and logic through the following examples.
1) They hid in marshlands to avoid capture. They build their houses on stilts. 2) They formed a colony of fishermen who lived and worked in the swamps and bayous. 3) They developed a successful method of drying shrimps in the sun on raised platforms. Dried shrimps were exported to other countries.
Manilamen is the term used to refer to Filipino deserters from the Spanish ships at Saint Malo in the bayous of Louisiana, near the city of New Orleans and settled there. They jumped ship to escape Spanish brutalities. They spoke in Spanish and a Malay dialect. They lived together without the world knowing about their swamp existence. They became the roots of Filipinos in America.
