Summary

Don Santiago de los Santos (known as Captain Tiago) is hosting a formal dinner party at his house in San Diego in the Philippines. As the book is written and set in the 1880s, the Philippines is under Spanish colonial rule. At the dinner are some prestigious members of the clergy, including Father Sibyla and Father Dámaso among other members of the secular, local elite. An argument erupts about the native of indigenous Filipinos, with many guests deriding them as inferior.

Don Crisóstomo Ibarra arrives, freshly returned from seven years traveling Europe. He is handsome, impressive, and well-cultured. Crisóstomo has not received any news about his father, Don Raphael, a well-regarded local landowner, in over a year. At the party, many attendees make snide remarks and comments about Crisóstomo's family, to his confusion. Father Dámaso and Crisóstomo...