By the early 19th century there were becoming the most powerful and influential group under Spanish rule – not as a special kind of Chinese but as a special kind of Filipino. The very term ‘Filipino’ was in the part their creation. As urban society developed in the late 19th century, its culturally most creative and dynamic element was the Chinese mestizo. Members of this group, together with leading elements among Malay Filipinos, created a Hispanicized urban style of life and group identity as Filipinos. Increasingly, the Filipino elite came from this group. Jose Rizal (1861-96), the Filipino national hero, came from a Chinese mestizo background. Major financiers of the Philippine Revolution (1896-1902), like Mariano Limjap, Telesfono Chuidian, and Roman Ongpin, were Chinese mestizos. Most modern Filipino political leaders, including presidents, have been of at least party Chinese mestizo background. When the Chinese began to immigrate again in larger numbers after 1850, they were able to oust the mestizos from many of their occupations. The mestizos now involved themselves increasingly in landholding and export crop agriculture, thereby becoming part of the landed elite of the modern Philippines.