QJorttell Htttoeraity ffiibratg Stlfata, New $nrk CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library DS 674.B77 Discovery conquest and early history o 3 1924 023 508 280 Cornell University Library The original of tinis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023508280 Discovery, Conquest, and Early History of the Philippine Islands Of this work five hundred copies are issued sep- arately from "The Philippine Islands, i^gj-iSgS," in fifty-five volumes. Fernao de Magalhaes [From painting in Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar, Madrid} DISCOVERY, CONQUEST, AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS BY Edward Gaylord Bourne WITH MAPS AND PLATES BEING A SEPARATE ISSUE OF THE HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO BLAIR & ROBERTSON'S "THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: 1493-1898" Cleveland, Ohio The Arthur H. Clark Company 1907 t;()!;lsM: I- i 1^1 COPYRIGHT 1907 THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED YttACi'b HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION by Edward Gay lord Bourne The American people are confronted with two race problems, one within their own confines and long familiar but still baffling solution; the other, new, remote, unknown, and even more imperatively demanding intelligent and unremitting effort for its mastery. In the first case there are some eight millions of people ultimately derived from various savage tribes in Africa but long since acclimatized, disciplined to labor, raised to civilized life, Christianized, and by the acquisition of the English language brought within a world of ideas inaccessible to their ancestors. Emancipated by the fortune of war they are now living intermingled with a ruling race, in it, but not of it, in an unsettled social status, oppressed by the stigma of color and harassed and fettered by race prejudice. In the other case there are six or seven millions of Malays whose ancestors were raised from barbarism, taught the forms and manners of civilized life. Chris- tianized, and trained to labor by Catholic missionar- ies three centuries ago. A common religion and a common government have effaced in large measure 20 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i earlier tribal differences and constituted them a people; yet in the fullest sense of the word a peculiar people. They stand unique as the only large mass of Asiatics converted to Christianity in modern times. They have not, like the African, been brought w^ithin the Christian pale by being torn from their natural environment and schooled through slavery; but, in their own home and protected from general contact with Europeans until recent times, they have been moulded through the patient teaching, parental discipline, and self-sacrificing devotion of the mis- sionaries into a whole unlike any similar body elsewhere in the world. They, too, by the fortunes of war have lost their old rulers and guides and against their will submit their future to alien hands. To govern them or to train them to govern themselves are tasks almost equally perplexing, nor is the prob- lem made easier or clearer by the clash of contradic- tory estimates of their culture and capacity which form the ammunition of party warfare. What is needed is as thorough and intelligent a knowledge of their political and social evolution as a people as can be gained from a study of their history. In the case of the Negro problem the historical sources are abundant and accessible and the slavery question is accorded, preeminent attention in the study of American history. In the Philippine ques- tion, however, although the sources are no less abundant and instructive they are and have been highly inaccessible owing, on the one hand, to the absolute rarity of the publications containing them, and, on the other, to their being in a language hitherto comparatively little studied in the United States. To collect these sources, scattered and inac- 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 21 cessible as they are, to reproduce them and interpret them in the English language, and to make it possible for university and public libraries and the leaders in thought and policy to have at hand the complete and authentic records of the culture and life of the mil- lions in the Far East whom we must understand in order to do them justice, is an enterprise large in its possibilities for the public good. In accordance with the idea that underlies this collection this Introduction will not discuss the Philippine question of today nor Philippine life during the last half century, nor will it give a short history of the Islands since the conquest. For all these the reader may be referred to recent publications like those of Foreman, Sawyer, or Worcester, or earlier ones like those of Bowring and Mallat, or to the works republished in the series. The aim of the Introduction is rather to give the discovery and conquest of the Philippines their setting in the history of geographical discovery, to review the unparalleled achievements of the early conquerors and missionaries, to depict the government and com- merce of the islands before the revolutionary changes of the last century, and to give such a survey, even though fragmentary, of Philippine life and culture under the old regime as will bring into relief their peculiar features and, if possible, to show that although the annals of the Philippines may be dry reading, the history of the Philippine people is a sub- ject of deep and singular interest. The Philippine Islands in situation and inhabitants belong to the Asiatic world, but, for the first three centuries of their recorded history, they were in a sense a dependency of America, and now the whirli- 22 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i gig of time has restored them in their political rela- tions to the Western Hemisphere. As a dependency of New Spain they constituted the extreme western verge of the Spanish dominions and were commonly known as the Western Islands ^ (Las Is las del Poniente). Their discovery and conquest rounded out an empire which in geographical extent far sur- passed anything the world had then seen. When the sun rose in Madrid, it was still early afternoon of the preceding day in Manila, and Philip II was the first monarch who could boast that the sun never set upon his dominions.^ In one generation, i486- 1522, the two little powers of the Iberian Peninsula had extended their sway over the seas until they embraced the globe. The way had been prepared for this unparalleled achievement by the courage and devotion of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, who gave his life to the ad- vancement of geographical discovery and of Portu- guese commerce. The exploration of the west coast of Africa was the school of the navigators who sailed to the East and the West Indies, and out of the ad- "■ The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan, and China at the close of the Sixteenth Century, by Antonio de Morga, Hakluyt Society, London, 1868, p. 265. This will be cited usually as Morga. ^ " The crown and sceptre of Spain has come to ext':nd itself over all that the sun looks on, from its rising to its setting." Morga, p. 6. Down to the end of the year 1844 the Manilan calendar was reckoned after that of Spain, that is, Manila time was about sixteen hours slower than Madrid time. Finally, with the approval of the Archbishop in 1844, the thirty-first of De- cember was dropped and the Philippines transferred, so to speak, into the Eastern Hemisphere. Thenceforward Manila time was about eight hours ahead of Madrid time. Jagor: Reisen in den Philippinen, pp. 1-2. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 23 ministration of the trade with Africa grew the colonial systems of later days. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century the increasing obstructions in Egypt and by the Turks to the trade with the East Indies held out a great prize to the discoverer of an all-sea route to the Spice Islands. Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama solved this problem for Portugal, but the solution offered to Spain by Columbus and accepted in 1492 revealed a New World, the Indies of the West. The King of Portugal, zealous to retain his monopoly of African and eastern exploration, and the pious sovereigns of Spain, desirous to build their colonial empire on solid and unquestioned founda- tions, alike appealed to the Pope for a definition of their rights and a confirmation of their claims. The world seemed big enough and with a spacious liber- ality Pope Alexander VI granted Ferdinand and Isabella the right to explore and to take possession of all the hitherto unknown and heathen parts of the world west of a certain line drawn north and south in the Atlantic Ocean. East of that line the rights of Portugal, resting on their explorations and the grants of earlier popes, were confirmed. The documentary history of the Philippines begins with the Demarcation Bulls and the treaty of Torde- sillas, for out of them grew Magellan's voyage and the discovery of the islands; and without them the Philippines would no doubt have been occupied by Portugal and later have fallen a prey to the Dutch as did the Moluccas. King John of Portugal was dissatisfied with the provisions of the Demarcation Bulls. He held that the treaty between Spain and Portugal in 1479 had 24 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i resigned to Portugal the field of oceanic discovery, Spain retaining only the Canaries ; and he felt that a boundary line only a hundred leagues west of the Azores not only was an infringement on his rights but would be a practical embarrassment in that it would not allow his sailors adequate sea room for their African voyages. His first contention was hardly valid ; the second, however, was reasonable and, as Columbus had esti- mated the distance from the Canaries to the new islands at over nine hundred leagues, the Catholic sovereigns were disposed to make concessions. By the treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, it was agreed that the Demarcation Line should be drawn three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.' This treaty accepted the principle of the Papal arbitration but shifted the boundary to a posi- tion supposed to be half-way between the Cape Verde Islands and the newly discovered islands of Cipangu and Antilia.* Neither in the Papal Bulls nor in the Treaty of Tordesillas was there any specific reference to an extension of the Line around the globe or to a division of the world. The arrangement seems to have con- templated a free field for the exploration and con- quest of the unknown parts of the world, to the east- ward for Portugal, and to the westward for Spain. If ^ For a fuller account of the negotiations relating to these bulls and the Treaty of Tordesillas see Harrisse: Diplomatic History of America, 14.52-1494, S. E. Dawson: The Lines of Demarcation of Pope Alexander VI and the Treaty of Tordesillas, or E. G. Bourne: Essays in Historical Criticism. The texts are printed in this volume. * The names used by Columbus in his interview with the King of Portugal. Ruy de Pina: Chronica del rey Joao H, CollegaS de Livros Ineditos de Historia Portugueze, ii, p. 177. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 25 they should cross each other's tracks priority of dis- covery would determine the ownership.^ The suggestion of the extension of the line around the globe and of the idea that Spain was entitled to what might be within the hemisphere set off by the Demarcation Line and its extension to the antipodes does not appear until the time of Magellan, and it is then that we first meet the notion that the Pope had divided the world between Spain and Portugal like an orange.® The Portuguese reached India in 1498. Thirteen years later Albuquerque made conquest of Malacca of the Malay Peninsula, the great entrepot of the spice trade ; but even then the real goal, the islands where the spices grow, had not been attained. The command of the straits, however, promised a near realization of so many years of labor, and, as soon as practicable, in December 151 1, Albuquerque despatched Antonio d'Abreu in search of the precious islands. A Spanish historian of the next century affirms that Magellan accompanied d'Abreu in com- mand of one of the ships, but this can hardly be true.^ Francisco Serrao, however, one of the Portuguese captains, was a friend of Magellan's and during his sojourn of several years in the Moluccas wrote to him of a world larger and richer than that discovered by ° This is also Harrisse's view, Diplomatic History of America, p. 74. " " Sabese la concession del Papa Alexandra ; la division del mundo como una naranja." Letter of Alonso de Zuazo to Charles V, January 22, 15 18. Docs. I tied, de Indias, i, p. 296 (From Har- risse, p. 174). Cf. also Maximilianus Transylvanus in First Voyage Round the World by Magellan. Hakluyt Society, p. 185. ^ The question is fully discussed in Guillemard's Life of Ferdi- nand Magellan, pp. 68-69. 26 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i Vasco da Gama. It is probable, as the historian Barros, who saw some of this correspondence, sug- guests, that Serrao somewhat exaggerated the dis- tance from Malacca to the Moluccas, and so planted the seed which bore such fruit in Magellan's mind.* The year after the Portuguese actually attained the Spice Islands, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, first of Europeans ( 1513) , set eyes upon the great South Sea. It soon became only too certain that the Portuguese had won in the race for the land of cloves, pepper, and nutmegs. But, in the absence of knowledge of the true dimensions of the earth and with an under- estimate of its size generally prevailing, the informa- tion that the Spice Islands lay far to the east of India revived in the mind of Magellan the original project of Columbus to seek the land of spices by the west- ward route. That he laid this plan before the King of Portugal, there seems good reason to believe, but when he saw no prospect for its realization, like Columbus, he left Portugal for Spain. It is now that the idea is evolved that, as the Moluccas lie so far east of India, they are probably in the Spanish half of the world, and, if approached from the west, may be won after all for the Catholic king. No appeal for patronage and support could be more effective, and how much reliance Magellan and his financial backer Christopher Haro placed upon it in their petition to King Charles appears clearly in the account by Maxi- milianus Transylvanus of Magellan's presentation of his project: " They both showed Caesar that though it was not yet quite sure whether Malacca was within the confines of the Spaniards or the Portuguese, be- ' Guillemard, Magellan, p. 7 1 . Map of South America and An- Jan Huygen van Linschoten [From original (in colors). tilles (showing Strait of Magellan) (Amstelredam, M. D. xcvi) in Boston Public Library] 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 27 cause, as yet, nothing of the longitude had been clearly proved, yet, it was quite plain that the Great Gulf and the people of Sinae lay within the Spanish boundary. This too was held to be most certain, that the islands which they call the Moluccas, in which all spices are produced, and are thence exported to Malacca, lay within the Spanish western division, and that it was possible to sail there ; and that spices could be brought thence to Spain more easily, and at less expense and cheaper, as they come direct from their native pface." ° Equally explicit was the contract which Magellan entered into with King Charles : " Inasmuch as you bind yourself to discover in the dominions which belong to us and are ours in the Ocean Sea within the limits of our demarcation, islands and mainlands and rich spiceries, etc." This is followed by an injunc- tion " not to discover or do anything within the demarcation and limits of the most serene King of Portugal." " Las Casas, the historian of the Indies, was present in Valladolid when Magellan came thither to present his plan to the King. " Magellan," he writes, " had a well painted globe in which the whole world was depicted, and on it he indicated the route he proposed to take, saving that the strait was left purposely blank so that no one should anticipate him. And on that day and at that hour I was in the office of the High Chancellor when the Bishop [of Burgos, FonsecaJ brought it [i. e. the globe] and showed the High Chancellor the voyage which was proposed; and, ^ First Voyage Round the World by Magellan, p. 187. *" Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos, etc., iv, p. 117. 28 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i speaking with Magellan, I asked him what way he planned to take, and he answered that he intended to go by Cape Saint Mary, which we call the Rio de la Plata and from thence to follow the coast up until he hit upon the strait. But suppose youj do not find any strait by which you can go into the other sea. He replied that if he did not find any strait that he would go the way the Portuguese took. — This Fernando de Magalhaens must have been a man of courage and valiant in his thoughts and for undertaking great things, although he was not of imposing presence because he was small in stature and did not appear in himself to be much." " Such were the steps by which i the Papal Demarca- tion Line led to the first circumnavigation of the globe, the greatest single human achievement on the sea." The memorable expedition set out from Seville September 20, 15 19. A year elapsed before the en- trance to the strait named for the great explorer was discovered. Threading its sinuous intricacies con- sumed thirty-eight days and then followed a terrible voyage of ninety-eight days across a truly pathless sea. The first land seen was the little group of islands called Ladrones from the thievishness of the inhabit- ants, and a short stay was made at Guam. About two weeks later, the middle of March, the little fleet reached the group of islands which we know as the Philippines but which Magellan named the ^^ Las Casas : Historia de las Indies. Col. de Docs. Ined. para la Historia de Espana, Ixv, pp. 376-377. This account by Las Casas apparently has been overlooked by English writers on Magellan. It is noticed by Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, p. 488. ^^ See Guillemard's comparison between the voyages of Colum- bus and Magellan in Life of Magellan, p. 258. u c 3 ;:2 en '---^ -T3 > Q I § a c c o Q ^ ?■ « <3 'Si 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 29 islands of St. Lazarus, from the saint whose day and feast were celebrated early in his stay among them/' The calculations of the longitude showed that these islands were well within the Spanish half of the world and the success with which a Malay slave of Magellan, brought from Sumatra, made himself understood" indicated clearly enough that they were not far from the Moluccas and that the object of the expedition, to discover a westward route to the Spice Islands, and to prove them to be within the Spanish demarcation, was about to be realized. But Magellan, like Moses, was vouchsafed only a glimpse of the Promised Land. That the heroic and steadfast navi- gator should have met his death in a skirmish with a few naked savages when in sight of his goal, is one of the most pathetic tragedies in history." The difficulties, however, of approaching the Mo- luccas by the western route through the straits of Magellan (that Cape Horn could be rounded was not discovered till 16 16), the stubborn and defiant attitude of the King of Portugal in upholding his claims, the impossibility of a scientific and exact de- termination of the Demarcation Line in the absence of accurate means for measuring longitude, — all these, reinforced by the pressure of financial strin- gency led King Charles in 1529 to relinquish all claims to or rights to trade with the Moluccas for ^' See Pigafetta's account in The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan, p. 74. ^* Pigafetta, ibid., p. 76. 1° The description of the Philippines and their inhabitants which we owe to the Italian Pigafetta who accompanied Magellan is espe- cially noteworthy not only as the first European account of them, but also as affording a gauge by which to estimate the changes wrought by the Spanish conquest and the missions. 30 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i three hundred and fifty thousand ducats." In the antipodes a Demarcation Line was to be drawn from pole to pole seventeen degrees on the equator, or two hundred and ninety-seven leagues east of the Moluc- cas, and it was agreed that the subjects of the King of Castile should neither sail or trade beyond that line, or carry anything to the islands or lands within it." If a later scientific and accurate deter- mination should substantiate the original claims of either party the money should be returned^' and the contract be dissolved. Although the archipelago of St. Lazarus was not mentioned in this treaty it was a plain renunciation of any rights over the Philippines for they lie somewhat to the west of the Moluccas. The King of Spain, however, chose to ignore this fact and tacitly assumed the right to conquer the Philippines. It was, however, thirteen years before another attempt was made in this direction. By this time the conquest and development of the kingdom of New Spain made one of its ports on the Pacific the natural starting point. This expedition commanded by Rui Lopez de Villalobos was despatched in 1542 and ended disastrously. The Portuguese Captain- general in the Moluccas made several vigorous pro- tests against the intrusion, asserting that Mindanao fell within the Portuguese Demarcation and that they " See E. G. Bourne: Essays in Historical Criticism, pp. 209-2 11 for an account of the Badajos Junta which attempted to settle the question of the rights to the Moluccas. The documents are in Navarrete,. iv,' pp. 333-370, a somewhat abridged translation of which is presented in this volume. Sandoval attributes the sale of the Moluccas to Charles's financial straits. Navarrete, iv, xx. The treaty of sale is in Navarrete, iv, pp. 389-406. " Navarrete, iv, p. 394. ^° Navarrete, iv, p. 396. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 3 1 had made some progress in introducing Chris- tianity." Villalobos left no permanent mark upon the islands beyond giving the name " Felipinas " to some of them, in honor of " our fortunate Prince." ^" Nearly twenty years elapsed before another expe- dition was undertaken, but this was more carefully organized than any of its predecessors, and four or five years were absorbed in the preparations. King Philip II, while respecting the contract with Portu- gal in regard to the Moluccas, proposed to ignore its provisions in regard to other islands included within the Demarcation Line of 1529. In his first despatch relative to this expedition in 1559 he enjoins that it shall not enter the Moluccas but go " to other islands that are in the same region as are the Philippines and others that were outside the said contract, but within our demarcation, that are said to produce spices." " Friar Andres de Urdaneta, who had gone to the Moluccas with Loaisa in 1525, while a layman and a sailor, explained to the king that as la isla Filipina was farther west than the Moluccas the treaty of Zaragoza was just as binding in the case of these ^* See the correspondence in Col. de Doc. Ineditos de Ultramar, vol. ii (vol. i of subdivision de las Islas Filipinos), p. 66. ^"Relacion del Viaje que hizo desde la Nueva-Espaha a las Islas del Poniente Ruy Gomez de Villalobosj written by Garcia Descalante Alvarado. Coleccion de Docs. Ined. del Archivo de Indias v, p. 127. The name was first given in July or August 1543 to some of the smaller islands in the group. On page 122, Alvarado writes " chinos que vienen a Mindanao y a las Phili- pinas." Montero y Vidal says that the island first to receive the name was Leyte. Hist. Gen. de Filipinos, i, p. 27. In 1561, Urdaneta uses " las islas Filipinas " in the ordinary way ; see his " Derrotero " prepared for the expedition. Col. Docs. Ined. vol. i, p. 130 6. ^* Col. de Docs. Ined. de Ultramar, vol. ii, pp. 95-96. 32 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [VoL i islands as in that of the Moluccas, and that to avoid trouble some " legitimate or pious reason for the ex- pedition should be assigned such as the rescue of sail- ors who had been lost on the islands in previous expe- ditions or the determination of the longitude of the Demarcation Line." " It is clear from the sequel that King Philip intended, as has been said, to shut his eyes to the appli- cation of the Treaty of Zaragoza to the Philippines. As they did not produce spices the Portuguese had not occupied them and they now made no effectual resistance to the Spanish conquest of the islands.''' The union of Portugal to the crown of Spain in 1580 subsequently removed every obstacle, and when the Portuguese crown resumed its independence in 1640 the Portuguese had been driven from the Spice Islands by the Dutch. This is not the place to narrate in detail the history of the great expedition of Legaspi. It established the power of Spain in the Philippines and laid the foundations of their permanent organization. In a sense it was an American enterprise. The ships were built in America and for the most part equipped here. It was commanded and guided by men who lived in the New World. The work of Legaspi during the next seven years entitles him to a place among the greatest of colonial pioneers. In fact he has no rival. Starting with four, ships and four hundred men, accompanied by five Augustinian monks, reinforced ^'^ Ibid., pp. 109-111. ^^ In September, 1568, a Portuguese squadron despatched by the Governor of the Moluccas appeared off Cebu to drive the Spaniards out of the Visayan Islands. The commander satisfied himself with diplomatic protests. Montero y Vidal: Hist. Gen. de Filipinos, i, p. 34. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 33 in 1567 by two hundred soldiers, and from time to time by similar small contingents of troops and monks, by a combination of tact, resourcefulness, and courage he won over the natives, repelled the Portu- guese and laid such foundations that the changes of the next thirty years constitute one of the most sur- prising revolutions in the annals of colonization. A most brilliant exploit was that of Legaspi's grandson, Juan de Salcedo, a youth of twenty-two who with forty-five men explored northern Luzon, covering the present provinces of Zambales, Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos, and the coast of Cagayan, and secured submission of the people to Spanish rule.^* Well might his associates hold him " unlucky because fortune had placed him where oblivion must needs bury the most valiant deeds that a knight ever wrought." ^^ Nor less deserving of distinction than Legaspi and his heroic grandson was Friar Andres de Urdaneta the veteran navigator whose natural abili- ties and extensive knowledge of the eastern seas stood his commander in good stead at every point and most effectively contributed to the success of the expedi- tion. Nor should the work of the Friars be ignored. Inspired by apostolic zeal, reinforced by the glowing enthusiasm of the Catholic Reaction, gifted and tire- ^* Montero y Vidal, i, pp. 41-42. ^' Juan de Grijalva. From W. E. Retana's extracts from his Cronica de la Orden de N. P- S. Augustin en las provincias de la Nueva Espana, etc. (1533-1592) in Retana's edition of Zuiiiga's Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, ii. p. 219 fE. Juan de Salcedo after being promoted to the high rank of Maestre de Campo (an in- dependent command) died suddenly in 1576 at the age of twenty- seven. Far from amassing wealth in his career he died poor. In his will he provided that after the payment of his debts the residue of his property should be given to certain Indians of his encomienda. Ibid., p. 615. 34 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [VoL i less, they labored in harmony with Legaspi, won converts, and checked the slowly-advancing tide of Mohammedanism. The ablest of the Brothers, Martin de Rada, was preaching in Visayan within five months. The work of conversion opened auspiciously in Cebu, where Legaspi began his work, with a niece of Tupas, an influential native, who was baptized with great solemnity. Next came the conversion of the Moor [Moslem] " who had served as interpreter and who had great influence throughout all that country." In 1568 the turning point came with the baptism of Tupas and of his son. This opened the door to general conversion, for the example of Tupas had great weight."* It is a singular coincidence that within the span of one human life the Spaniard should have finished the secular labor of breaking the power of the Moslem in Spain and have checked his advance in the islands of the antipodes. The religion of the prophet had penetrated to Malacca in 1276, had reached the Moluccas in 1465, and thence was spread- ing steadily northward to Borneo and the Philip- pines, lolo (Sulu) and Mindanao succumbed in the sixteenth century and when Legaspi began the con- quest of Luzon in 1571 he found many Moham- medans whose settlement or conversion had grown out of the trade relations with Borneo. As the old Augustinian chronicler Grijalva remarks, and his words are echoed by Morga and by the modern historian Montero y Vidal :" " So well rooted was ^* This account of the conversion is based on Grijalva's con- temporary narrative; see Retana's Zuniga, ii, pp. 219-220. " Montero y Vidal, i, p. 59. Map of islands of Luzon and Hermosa, with part of China; by Hernando de los Rios Coronel [From MS. map (dated Manila, June 27, i597)^ '" Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla~\ 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 35 the cancer that had the arrival of the Spaniards been delayed all the people would have become Moors, as are all the islanders who have not come under the government of the Philippines." ^* It is one of the unhappy legacies of the religious revolution of the sixteenth century that it has fixed a great gulf between the Teutonic and the Latin mind, which proves impassable for the average intellect. The deadly rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, of Englishman and Spaniard, have left indelible traces upon their descendants which intensify race preju- dice and misunderstanding. The Englishman or American looks with a contempt upon the economic blindness or incapacity of the Spaniard that veils his eyes to their real aims and achievements. The tragedies and blunders of English coloniza- tion in America are often forgotten and only the tragedies and blunders of Spanish colonization are remembered. In the period which elapsed between the formulation of the Spanish and of the English colonial policies religious ideals were displaced by the commercial, and in the exaltation of the commer- cial ideal England took the lead. Colonies, from being primarily fields for the propagation of Chris- tianity and incidentally for the production of wealth, became the field primarily for industrial and com- mercial development and incidentally for Christian work. The change no doubt has contributed vastly to the wealth of the world and to progress, but it has been fatal to the native populations. The Spanish policy aimed to preserve and civilize the native races, not to establish a new home for Spaniards, and the "* Retana's Tiuniga, if, p. 222 ; Morga, Hakluyt Society edition, pp. 307-308 ; Montero y Vidal, i, p. 60. 36 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i colonial legislation provided elaborate safeguards for the protection of the Indians. Many of these were a mere dead letter but the preservation and civilization of the native stock in Mexico, Central and South America, and above all in the Philippines stand out in marked contrast, after all allowances and qualifi- cations have been made, with the fate, past and prospective, of the aborigines in North America, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, and Australia, and clearly differentiate in their respective tendencies and results the Spanish and English systems. The con- trast between the effects of the Spanish conquest in the West Indies, Mexico, and the Philippines reflects the development of the humane policy of the govern- ment. The ravages of the first conquistadores, it should be remembered, took place before the crown J had time to develop a colonial policy. It is customary, too, for Protestant writers to speak with contempt of Catholic missions, but it must not be forgotten that France and England were con- verted to Christianity by similar methods. The Protestant ridicules the wholesale baptisms and con- versions and a Christianity not even skin-deep, but that was the way in which Christianity was once pro- pagated in what are the ruling Christian nations of today. The Catholic, on the other hand, might ask for some evidence that the early Germans, or the Anglo- Saxons would ever have been converted to Christian- ity by the methods employed by Protestants. The wholesale baptisms have their real significance in the frame of mind receptive for the patient Christian nurture that follows. Christianity has made its real conquests and is kept alive by Christian training, and its progress is the improvement which 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 37 one generation makes upon another in the observance of its precepts. One who has read the old Penitential books and observed the evidences they afford of the vitality of heathen practices and rites among the people in England in the early Middle Ages will not be too harsh in characterizing the still imperfect fruits of the Catholic missions of the last three centuries. In the light, then, of impartial history raised above race prejudice and religious prepossessions, after a comparison with the early years of the Spanish con- quest in America or with the first generation or two of the English settlements, the conversion and civiliza- tion of the Philippines in the forty years following Legaspi's arrival must be pronounced an achievement without a parallel in history. An examination of what was accomplished at the very ends of the earth with a few soldiers and a small band of missionaries will it is believed reveal the reasons for this verdict. We are fortunate in possessing for this purpose, among other materials, a truly classic survey of the condition of the islands at the opening of the seven- teenth century written by a man of scholarly training and philosophic mind, Dr. Antonio de Morga, who lived in the islands eight years in the government service."" The Spaniards found in the population of the ^° He was lieutenant to the Governor and the first justice to be appointed to the supreme court (Audiencia) on its reorganization. His Sucesos de la islas Philipinas — Mexici ad Indos, anno i6og, is a work of great rarity. It was reprinted in Paris in 1890 with annotations by the Filipino author and patriot, Dr. Jose Rizal and with an Introduction by Blumentritt. Rizal tries to show that the Filipinos have retrograded in civilization under Spanish rule; cf. Retana's comments in his Ziiniga, ii, p. 277. The references to Morga to follow are to the Hakluyt Society edition. 38 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [VoL i islands two sharply contrasted types which still sur- vive — the Malay and the Negrito. After the intro- duction of Christianity the natives were commonly classified according to their religion as Indians (Christian natives), Moors'" (Mohammedan na- tives), and Heathen (Gentiles) or Infidels. The religious beliefs of the Malays were not held with any great tenacity and easily yielded to the efforts of the missionaries. The native taste for the spectacular was impressed and gratified by the picturesque and imposing ceremonials of the church. Their political and social organization was deficient in cohesion. There were no well established native states but rather a congeries of small groups some- thing like clans. The headship of these groups or barangays was hereditary and the authority of the chief of the barangay was despotic.'^ This social disintegration immensely facilitated the conquest; and by tact and conciliation, effectively supported by arms, but with very little actual bloodshed, Spanish sovereignty was superimposed upon these relatively detached groups, whose essential features were pre- served as a part of the colonial administrative machinery. This in turn was a natural adaptation of that developed in New Spain. Building upon the available institutions of the barangay as a unit the Spaniards aimed to familiarize and accustom the Indians to settled village life and to moderate labor. Only under these conditions could religious training and systematic religious oversight be provided. These villages were commonly called pueblos or '°A natural transference of the familiar name in Spain for Mohammedans. '^ Morga, pp. 296-297. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 39 reducciones, and Indians who ran away to escape the restraints of civilized life were said to " take to the hills " (remontar). As a sign of their allegiance and to meet the ex- penses of government every Indian family was assessed a tribute of eight reals, about one dollar, and for the purpose of assessment the people were set off in special groups something like feudal holdings (encomiendas). The tribute from some of the en- comiendas went to the king. Others had been granted to the Spanish army officers or to the officials. ^^ The '* Report of the Encomiendas in the Islands in 1591 " just twenty years after the conquest of Luzon reveals a wonderful progress in the work of civilization. In the city of Manila there was a cathedral and the bishop's palace, monasteries for the Austin, Domi- nican, and Franciscan Friars, and a house for the Jesuits. The king maintained a hospital for Span- iards; there was also a hospital for Indians in the charge of two Franciscan lay brothers. The garrison was composed of two hundred soldiers. The Chinese quarter or Parian contained some two hundred shops and a population of about two thousand. In the suburb of Tondo there was a convent of Franciscans and another of Dominicans who provided Christian teaching for some forty converted Sangleyes (Chinese merchants) . In Manila and the adjacent region nine thousand four hundred and ten tributes were col- lected, indicating a total of some thirty thousand six hundred and forty souls under the religious instruc- tion of thirteen missionaries (ministros de doctrina), besides the friars in the monasteries. In the old prov- '=' Morga, p. 323. 40 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i ince of La Pampanga the estimated population was 74,700 with twenty-eight missionaries ; in Pangasinan 2,400 souls with eight missionaries; in Ilocos 78,520 with twenty missionaries ; in Cagayan and the Babu- yan islands 96,000 souls but no missionaries; in La Laguna 48,400 souls with twenty-seven missionaries ; in Vicol and Camarines with the island of Catandu- anes 86,640 souls with fifteen missionaries, etc., mak- ing a total for the islands of 166,903 tributes or 667,- 612 souls under one hundred and forty missionaries, of which seventy-nine were Augustinians, nine Dom- inicans, forty-two Franciscans. The King's enco- miendas numbered thirty-one and the private ones two hundred and thirty-six."^ Friar Martin Ignacio in his Itinerario, the earliest printed description of the islands (1585), says: " Ac- cording unto the common opinion at this day there is converted and baptised more than foure hundred thousand soules." " This system of encomiendas had been productive of much hardship and oppression in Spanish Amer- ica, nor 'was it altogether divested of these evils in the Philippines. The payment of tributes, too, was irksome to the natives and in the earlier days the Indians were frequently drafted for forced labor, but during this transition period, and later, the clergy were the constant advocates of humane treatment and stood between the natives and the military authori- ties. This solicitude of the missionaries for their '' Relacion de las Encomiendas existentes en Filipinas el dia 31 de Mayo de 1591, in Retana: Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino, iv, pp. 39-112. ^* Mendoza, The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China. Halduyt Society edition, ii, p. 263. H93-IS29] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 4 1 spiritual children and the wrongs from which they sought to protect them are clearly displayed in the Relacion de las Cosas de las Filipinas of Domin- go de Salazar, the first bishop, who has been styled the " Las Casas of the Philippines." '° That it was the spirit of kindness, Christian love, and brotherly helpfulness of the missionaries that effected the real conquest of the islands is abundantly testified by qualified observers of various national- ities and periods,'* but the most convincing demon- stration is the ridiculously small military force that was required to support the prestige of the Catholic king. The standing army organized in 1590 for the defense of the country numbered four hundred men!" No wonder an old viceroy of New Spain ^° Printed in Retana's Archivo, iii, pp. 3-45. ^* " Of little avail would have been the valor and constanqr with which Legaspi and his worthy companions overcame the natives of the islands, if the apostolic zeal of the missionaries had not seconded their exertions, and aided to consolidate the enterprise. The latter were the real conquerors; they who without any other arms than their virtues, gained over the good will of the islanders, caused the Spanish name to be beloved, and gave the king, as it were by a miracle, two millions more of submissive and Christian subjects." Tomas de Comyn, State of the Philippine Islands, etc., translated by William Walton, London, 1821, p. 209. Comyn was the general manager of the Royal Philippine Company for eight years in Manila and is described by his latest editor, Senor del Pan, editor of the Revista de Filipinas, as a man of " extensive knowledge especially in the social sciences." Retana characterizes his book as " un libro de merito extraordinario," Zufiiga, ii, pp. 175-76. Mallat says: " C'est par la seule influence de la religion que Pen a conquis les Philippines, et cette influence pourra seule les conserver." Les Philippines, histoire, geographie, moeurs, agri- culture, industrie et commerce des Colonies espagnoles dans Toceanie. Par J. Mallat, Paris, 1846, i, p. 40. I may say that this work seems to me the best of all the modern works on the Philippines. The author was a man of scientific training who went to the islands to study them after a preparatory residence in Spain for two years. " Morga, p. 325. 42 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i was wont to say: "En cada fraile tenia el rey en Filipinas un caption general y un ejercito entero " — " In each friar in the Philippines the King had a captain general and a whole army." ^* The efforts of the missionaries were by no means restricted to relig- ious teaching, but were also directed to promote the social and economic advancement of the islands. They cultivated the innate taste for music of the natives and taught the children Spanish.'" They in- troduced improvements in rice culture, brought Indian corn and cacao from America and developed the cultivation of indigo and coffee, and sugar cane. Tobacco alone of the economic plants brought to the islands by the Spaniards owes its introduction to gov- ernment agency.*" The young capital of the island kingdom of New Castile, as it was denominated by Philip II, in 1603 when it was described by Morga invites some com- parison with Boston, New York, or Philadelphia in the seventeenth century. The city was surrounded by a wall of hewn stone some three miles in circuit. There were two forts and a bastion, each with a gar- rison of a few soldiers. The government residence and office buildings were of hewn stone and spacious and airy. The municipal buildings, the cathedral, and the monasteries of the three orders were of the same material. The Jesuits, besides providing special courses of study for members of their order, con- ducted a college for the education of Spanish youth. The establishment of this college had been ordered 2« Mallat, i, p. 389. ^° Morga, p. 320. " Mallat, i, pp. 382-385. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 43 by Philip II in 1585 but it was 1601 before it was actually opened." Earlier than this in 1593 there had been established a convent school for girls/" the college of Saint Potenciana. In provisions for the sick and helpless, Manila at the opening of the seven- teenth century was far in advance of any city in the English colonies for more than a century and a half to come.*' There was first the royal hospital for Spaniards with its medical attendants and nurses; the Franciscan hospital for the Indians administered by three priests and by four lay brothers who were physicians and apothecaries and whose skill had wrought surprising cures in medicine and surgery; the House of Mercy, which took in sick slaves, gave lodgings to poor women, portioned orphan girls, and relieved other distresses; and lastly, the hospital for Sangleyes or Chinese shopkeepers in the Chinese quarter.** Within the walls the houses, mainly of stone and inhabited by Spaniards, numbered about six hundred. The substantial buildings, the gaily- dressed people, the abundance of provisions and other necessaries of human life made Manila, as Morga says, " one of the towns most praised by the strangers *^ Morga, p. 312. Mallat, ii, p. 240. *'' Morga, p. 313. Mallat, ii, p. 244. *^ The first regular hospital in the thirteen colonies was the Pennsylvania Hospital, incorporated in 1751. Patients were first admitted in 1752. Cornell, History of Pennsylvania, pp. 409-411. There are references to a hospital in New Amsterdam in 1658, but the New York hospital was the first institution of the kind of any importance. It was founded in 1771, but patients were not admitted till .1791. Memorial History of New York, iv, p. 407. There was no hospital for the treatment of general diseases in Boston until the nineteenth century. The Massachusetts General Hospital was chartered in 181 1. Memorial History of Boston, iv, p. 548. " Morga, p. 350. 44 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i who flock to it of any in the world."" There were three other cities in the islands, Segovia and Cazeres in Luzon, and the city of the "most holy name of Jesus " in Cebu, the oldest Spanish settlement in the archipelago. In the first and third the Spanish in- habitants numbered about two hundred and in Cazeres about one hundred. In Santisimo nombre de Jesus there was a Jesuit college. Although the Indians possessed an alphabet before the arrival of the Spaniards and the knowledge of reading and writing was fairly general they had no written literature of any kind.*" A Jesuit priest who had lived in the islands eighteen years, writing not far from 1640, tells us that by that time the Tagals had learned to write their language from left to right in- stead of perpendicularly as was their former custom, but they used writing merely for correspondence. The only books thus far in the Indian languages were those written by the missionaries on religion." "Morga, p. 314- *° Friar Juan Francisco de San Antonio who went to the Philip- pines in 1724, says that " up to the present time there has not been found a scrap of writing relating to religion, ceremonial, or the ancient political institutions." Chronica! de la Apostolica Pro- vincia de San Gregorio, etc. (Sampoloc, near Manila, 1735), i, pp. 149-150 (cited from Retana's Zuniga, ii, p. 294. *'' They used palm leaves for paper and an iron stylus for a pen. " L'escriture ne leur sert que pour s'escrire les uns aux autres, car ils n'ont point d'histoires ny de Livres d'aucune Science; nos Religieux ont imprime des livres en la langue des Isles des choses de nostre Religion." Relation des Isles Philippines, Faite par un Religieux qui y a demeure 18 ans, in Thevenot's Voyages Curieux. Paris 1663, ii (p. 5, of the "Relation"). This narrative is one of the earliest to contain a reproduction of the old Tagal alphabet Retana ascribes it to a Jesuit and dates it about 1640: p. 13 of the catalogue of his library appended to Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino, i. The earliest printed data on the Tagal language according to Retana are those given in Chirino's Relacion de las Islas Filipinos, Rome, 1604. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 45 In regard to the religious life of the converted In- dians the Friars and Morga speak on the whole with no little satisfaction. Friar Martin Ignacio in 1584 writes: " Such as are baptised, doo receive the fayth with great firmenesse, and are good Christians, and would be better, if that they were holpen with good ensamples." ** Naturally the Spanish soldiers left something to be desired as examples of Christianity and Friar Martin relates the story of the return from the dead of a principal native — " a strange case, the which royally did passe of a trueth in one of these ilandes," — who told his former countrymen of the " benefites and delights " of heaven, which " was the occasion that some of them forthwith received the baptisme, and that others did delay it, saying, that be- cause there were Spaniard souldiers in glory, they would not go thither, because they would not be in their company." *° Morga writing in 1603 says: " In strictest truth the affairs of the faith have taken a good footing, as the people have a good disposition and genius, and they have seen the errors of their paganism and the truths of the Christian religion; they have got good churches and monasteries of wood, well constructed, with shrines and brilliant ornaments, and all the things required for the service, crosses, candlesticks, chalices of gold and silver, many brotherhoods and religious acts, assiduity in the sacraments and being present at divine service, and care in maintaining and supplying their monks, with great obedience and re- spect; they also give for the prayers and burials of ** Mendoza's Historic of the Kingdome of China, volume ii, p. 263. *^Ibid., p. 264. 46 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i their dead, and perform this with all punctuality and liberality." '"' A generation later the report of the Religious is not quite so sanguine : " They receive our religion easily and their lack of intellectual pen- etration saves them from sounding the difficulties of its mysteries. They are too careless of fulfilling the duties of the Christianity which they profess and must needs be constrained by fear of chastisement and be ruled like school children. Drunkenness and usury are the two vices to which they are most given and these have not been entirely eradicated by the efforts of our monks." " That these efforts were sub- sequently crowned with a large measure of success is shown by the almost universal testimony to the tem- perate habits of the Filipinos. This first period of Philippine history has been called its Golden Age. Certainly no succeeding gen- eration saw such changes and advancement. It was the age of Spain's greatest power and the slow decline and subsequent decrepitude that soon afflicted the parent state could not fail to react upon the colony. This decline was in no small degree the consequence of the tremendous strain to which the country was subjected in the effort to retain and solidify its power in Europe while meeting the burden of new estab- lishments in America and the Philippines. That in the very years when Spaniards were accomplishing the unique work of redeeming an oriental people from barbarism and heathenism to Christianity and civilized life, the whole might of the mother-country should have been massed in a tremendous conflict in °» Morga, p. 319- '^^ Relation d'un Religieux, Thevenot, volume ii, (p. 7 of the Relation). 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 47 Europe which brought ruin and desolation to the most prosperous provinces under her dominion, and sapped her own powers of growth, is one of the strangest coincidences in history. Bending every energy for years to stay the tide of change and progress, suppressing freedom of thought with relentless vigor, and quarantining herself and her dependencies against new ideas, conservatism grew to be her settlec^ habit and the organs of gov- ernment became ossified. Policies of commercial re- striction which were justifiable or at least rationally explicable in the sixteenth century lasted on, proof against innovation or improvement, until the eight- eenth century and later. Consequently from the middle of the seventeenth century at the period-^f the rapid rise of colonial powers of France, Holland, and England, the Spanish colonies find themselves under a commercial regime which increasingly hampers their prosperity and effectually blocks their advance- ment. The contrast between the Spanish possessions and those of the other maritime powers became more marked as time went on. The insuperable conserva- tism of the home government gave little opportunity for the development of a class of energetic and pro- gressive colonial officials, and financial corruption honeycombed the whole colonial civil service. Such conditions : the absence of the spirit of pro- gress, hostility to new ideas, failure to develop re- sources, and the prevalence of bribery and corruption in the civil service, insure abundant and emphatic condemnation at the present day for the Spanish colonial system. But in any survey of this system we must not lose sight of the terrible costs of progress in 48 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i the tropical colonies of Holland, France, and Eng- land; nor fail to compare the pueblos of the Philip- pines in the eighteenth century with the plantations of San Domingo, or Jamaica, or Java, or with those of Cuba in the early nineteenth century when the spirit of progress invaded the island. To facilitate the understanding of the historical materials which will be collected in this series and to lay the foundation for a just and appreciative com- parison of the institutions of the Philippines with those of other European dependencies in the tropics, it will be my aim now to bring into relief the distinc- tive features of the work wrought in the islands which raised a congeries of Malay tribes to Christian civil- ization, and secured for them as happy and peaceful an existence on as high a plane as has yet been at- tained by any people of color anywhere in the world, or by any orientals for any such length of time. Such a survey of Philippine life may well begin with a brief account of the government of the islands. This will be followed by a description of the com- mercial system and of the state of the arts and of education, religion, and some features of social life during the eighteenth century and in the first years of the nineteenth before the entrance of the various and distracting currents of modern life and thought. In some cases significant details will be taken from the works of competent witnesses whose observations were made somewhat earlier or later. This pro- cedure is unobjectionable in describing a social con- dition on the whole so stationary as was that of the Philippines before the last half century. From the beginning the Spanish establishments in the Philippines were a mission and not in the proper 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 49 sense of the term a colony. They were founded and administered in the interests of religion rather than of commerce or industry. They were an advanced out- post of Christianity whence the missionary forces could be deployed through the great empires of China and Japan, and hardly had the natives of the islands begun to yield to the labors of the friars when some of the latter pressed on adventurously into China and found martyrs' deaths in Japan. In ex- amining the political administration of the Philip- pines, then, we must be prepared to find it a sort of outer garment under which the living body is ecclesi- astical. Against this subjection to the influence and interests of the Church energetic governors rebelled, and the history of the Spanish domination is check- ered with struggles between the civil and religious powers which reproduce on a small scale the medi- eval contests of Popes and Emperors. Colonial governments are of necessity adaptations of familiar domestic institutions to new functions. The government of Spain in the sixteenth century was not that of a modern centralized monarchy but rather of a group of kingdoms only partially welded together by the possession of the same sovereign, the same language, and the same religion. The King of Spain was also the ruler of other kingdoms outside of the peninsula. Consequently when the New World was given a political organization it was subdivided for convenience into kingdoms and captaincies gen- eral in each of which the administrative machinery was an adaptation of the administrative machinery of Spain. In accordance with this procedure the Phil- ippine islands were constituted a kingdom and placed under the charge of a governor and captain general, 50 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i whose powers were truly royal and limited only by the check imposed by the Supreme Court (the Audi- encia) and by the ordeal of the residencia at the ex- piration of his term of office. Among his extensive prerogatives was his appointing power which em- braced all branches of the civil service in the islands. He also was ex officio the President of the Audien- cia.'^^ His salary was $8,000 °^ a year, but his income might be largely augmented by gifts or bribes." The limitations upon the power of the Governor imposed by the Audiencia, in the opinion of the French astronomer Le Gentil, were the only safeguard against an arbitrary despotism, yet Zuiiiga, a genera- tion later pronounced its efforts in this direction gen- erally ineffectual.^^ The residencia to which ^^ On the powers of the Governor, see Morga, pp. 344-345. ^^ Throughout this Introduction the Spanish " peso " is rendered by " dollar." The reader will bear in mind the varying purchas- ing power of the dollar. To arrive at an approximate equivalent ten may be used as a multiplier for the sixteenth and early seven- teenth centuries, and five for the middle of the eighteenth century. "* It may be remembered that the official conscience in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not so sensitive in regard to " tips " as it is expected to be today. Le Gentil writes : " Les Gouverneurs de Manille corrompent journellement leurs graces, et les Manillois ne les abordent guere pour leur en demander, sans se precautioner auparavant du rameau d'or; seul et unique moyen de se les rendre favorables. Un soir etant alle voir le Gouverneur, in 1767, a peine m'eut-il demande des nouvelles de ma sente qu'il alia me chercher une bouteille de verre de chopine, mesure de Paris, (half-pint) pleine de paillettes d'or, il me la fit voir en me disant que c'etoit un present dont on I'avoit regale ce jour-la meme ; Oi, me dit-il, me regalaron de este." Voyage dans Les Mers de Ulnde, Paris, 1781, ii, pp. 152-153. Le Gentil was in the Philip- pines about eighteen months in 1766-67 on a scientific mission. His account of conditions there is one of the most thorough and valuable that we have for the eighteenth century. As a layman and man of science his views are a useful offset against those of the clerical historians. °° Voyage, ii, p. 153. "The Royal Audience was established I493-I529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 5 1 reference has been made was an institution peculiar in modern times to the Spanish colonial system. It was designed to provide a method by which officials could be held to strict accountability for all acts during their term of office. Today reliance is placed upon the force of public opinion inspired and formulated by the press and, in self-governing communities, upon the holding of frequent elections. The strength of modern party cohesion both infuses vigor into these agencies and neutralizes their effectiveness as the case may be. But in the days of the formation of the Spanish Empire beyond the sea there were neither free elections, nor public press, and the criticism of the government was sedition. To allow a contest in the courts involving the governor's powers during his term of office would be subversive of his authority. He was then to be kept within bounds by realizing that a day of judgment was impending, when every- one, even the poorest Indian, might in perfect security bring forward his accusation.^' In the Philippines the residencia for a governor lasted six months and was conducted by his successor and all the charges made were forwarded to Spain." The Italian trav- to restrain the despotism of the Governors, which it has never prevented; for the gentlemen of the gown are always weak-kneed and the Governor can send them under guard to Spain, pack them off to the provinces to take a census of the Indians or imprison them, which has been done several times without any serious con- sequences." Zuniga : Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas o mis Viages por este Pais, ed. Retana, i, p. 244. ^' " Cuando se pusieren edictos, publicaren, y pregonaren las residencias, sea de forma que vengan a noticia de los Indios, para que puedan pwdir justicia de sus agravios con entera libertad." Law of iSS^j lib. V, tit. xv, ley xxviii of the Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias. °' Recopilacion, lib. v, tit. xv, ley vii. 52 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [VoL i eler Gemelli Careri who visited Manila in 1696 characterizes the governor's residencia as a " dread- ful Trial," the strain of which would sometimes " break their hearts." °' On the other hand, an acute observer of Spanish- American institutions of the olden time intimates that the severities of the residencia could be mitigated and no doubt such was the case in the Philippines.'" By the end of the eighteenth century the residencia seems to have lost its efBcacy.*" The governorship was certainly a difficult post to fill and the remoteness from Europe, the isolation, and the vexations of the residencia made it no easy task to get good men for the place. An official of thirty years experience, lay and ecclesiastical, assures us in the early seventeenth century that he had known of only one governor really fitted for the position, Gomez Perez Dasmari- fias. He had done more for the happiness of the natives in three years than all his predecessors or suc- cessors. Some governors had been without previous political experience while others were deficient in "* Churchill's Voyages, iv, pp. 427-428. "• " I request the reader not to infer from my opinion of the tribunals of residence, my confidence in their efficacy. My homage is immediately and solely addressed to the wisdom of the law. I resign all criticism on its operation, to those who know the se- ductive influence of Plutus over the feeble and pliant Themis." De Pons: Voyage to the Eastern Part of Terra Firma or the Spanish Main in South America during the years iSoi, 1802, 1803, and 1804. New York, 1806, ii, p. 25. °° " Une loi tres-sage, mais malheureusement sans eflet, qui devrait moderer cette autorite excessive, est celle qui permet a chaque citoyen de poursuivre le gouverneur veteran devant -son successeur; mais celui-ci est interesse a excuser tout ce qu'on reproche a son predecesseur ; et le citoyen assez temeraire pour se plaindre, est expose a de nouvelles et a de plus fortes vexations." Voyage de La Perouse autour du Monde. Paris, 1797, ii, p. 350. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 53 the qualities required in a successful colonial ruler."^ The supreme court or Audiencia was composed of four judges {oidores, auditors) an attorney-general (fiscal) a constable, etc. The governor who acted as president had no vote."'' Besides the functions of this body as the highest court of appeal for criminal and civil cases it served as has been said as a check upon the governor. Down to 1715 the Audiencia took charge of the civil administration in the interim be- tween the death of a governor and the arrival of his successor, and the senior auditor assumed the mili- tary command."^ Attached to the court were advo- cates for the accused, a defender of the Indians, and other minor officials. In affairs of public importance the Audiencia was to be consulted by the governor for the opinions of the auditors."* For the purposes of local administration the is- lands were subdivided into or constituted Provinces under alcaldes mayores who exercised both execu- '^ His comments on the kind of oiEcials needed are not without interest today : " A governor must understand war but he must not be over confident of his abilities. Let him give ear to the advice of those who know the country where things are managed very differently from what they are in Europe. Those who have tried to carry on war in the islands as it is carried on in Flanders and elsewhere in Europe have fallen into irreparable mistakes. The main thing, however, is to aim at the welfare of the people, to treat them kindly, to be friendly toward foreigners, to take pains to have the ships for New Spain sail promptl}* and in good order, to promote trade with neighboring people and to encourage ship-building. In a word, to live with the Indians rather like a father than like a governor." Relation et Memorial de Tetat des Isles Philippines, et des Isles Moluques by Ferdinand de los Rios Coronel, Prestre et Procureur General des Isles Philippines, etc. Thevenot, ii (p. 23 of the Relation). •* Morga, p. 345. Recopilaciorij lib. ii, tit. xv, ley xi. ^^ Ibid., ley Iviii. Le Gentil, ii, pp. 159, 161. ** Recopilacion, lib. ii, tit. xv, ley xi. 54 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [VoL i tive and judicial functions, and superintended the collection of tribute."'' The alcaldes may ores were allowed to engage in trade on their own account which resulted too frequently in enlisting their interest chiefly in money making and in fleecing the Indians.** The provincial court consisted of the alcalde mayor, an assessor who was a lawyer, and a notary. The favoritism and corruption that honeycombed the civil service of Spain in the colonies in the days of her decline often placed utterly unfit persons in these po- sitions of responsibility. A most competent observer, Tomas de Comyn, many years the factor of the Phil- ippine Commercial Company, has depicted in dark colors, and perhaps somewhat overdrawn the evils of the system." "" Mallat, i, pp. 349-50. For a historical summary of the varia- tions in the names of the provinces see Retana's Zuniga's Estadismo, ii, p. 376 ff. *° They received the tribute in kind in fixed amounts and made money out of the fluctuations of the market prices. At times of scarcity and consequent high prices this procedure doubled or trebled the burden of the tribute. See State of the Philippine Islands, by Tomas de Comyn, translated by William Walton, p. 197. Mallat says: " Rien n'est plus funeste au pays que la permission qui est accordee aux alcaldes de faire le commerce pour leur compte." i, p. 351. See also Retana's note, Zuniga, Estadismo, ii, p. 530. This right to trade -was abolished in 1844. *^ " It is a fact common enough to see a hair-dresser or a lackey converted into a governor; a sailor or a deserter, transformed into a district magistrate, collector, or military commander of a pop- ulous province, without other counsellor than his own crude understanding, or any other guide than his passions. Such a meta- morphosis would excite laughter in a comedy or farce ; but, realized in the theatre of human life, it must give rise to sensations of a very different nature. Who is there that does not feel horror- struck, and tremble for the innocent, when he sees a being of this kind transferred from the yard-arm to the seat of justice, deciding in the first instance on the honor, lives, and property of a hundred 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 55 The subdivision of the provinces was into pueblos each under its petty governor or gobernadorcillo. The gobernadorcillo was an Indian and was elected annually. In Morga's time the right of suffrage seems to have been enjoyed by all married Indians,*' but in the last century it was restricted to thirteen electors.*' The gobernadorcillo was commonly called thousand persons, and haughtily exacting the homage and incense of the spiritual ministers of the towns under his jurisdiction, as well as of the parish curates, respectable for their acquirements and benevolence, and who in their own native places, would possibly have rejected as a servant the very man whom in the Philippines they are compelled to court, and obey as a sovereign." State of the Philippine Islands, London, 1821, p. 194. «« Morga, p. 323. ** Jagor describes an election which he saw in the town of Lauane, of four thousand five hundred inhabitants, in the little island of the same name which lies just ofE the north shore of Samar. As it is the only description of such a local election that I recall I quote it in full. " It took place in the town house. At the table sits the Governor or his proxy, on his right the pastor and on his left the secretary who is the interpreter. All the Cabezas de Barangay, the Gobernadorcillo and those who have formerly been such have taken their places on the benches. In the first place six of the Cabezas, and six of the ex-Gobernadorcillos respectively are chosen by lot to serve as electors. The Goberna- dorcillo in office makes the thirteenth. The rest now leave the room. After the chairman has read the rules and exhorted the electors to fulfil their duty conscientiously, they go one by one to the table and write three names on a ballot. Whoever receives the largest number of votes is forthwith nominated for Goberna- dorcillo for the ensuing year, if the pastor or the electors make no well-founded objections subject to the confirmation of the superior court in Manila, which is a matter of course since the influence of the pastor would prevent an unsuitable choice. The same process was followed in the election of the other local officials except that the new Gobernadorcillo was called in that he might make any objections to the selections. The whole transaction was very quiet and dignified." Reisen in den Philippinen, Berlin, 1873, pp. 189-190. Sir John Bowring's account of this system of local administra- tion is the clearest of those I have found in English books. A Visit to the Philippine Islands, London, 1859, pp. 89-93. 56 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i the " captain." Within the pueblos the people formed little groups of from forty to fifty tributes called barangays under the supervision of cabezas de barangay. These heads of barangay represent the survival of the earlier clan organization and were held responsible for the tributes of their groups. Originally the office of cabeza de barangay was no doubt hereditary, but it became generally elective.^* The electors of the gobernadorcillo were made up of those who were or had been cabezas de barangay and they after three years of service became eligible to the office of petty governor. In the few Spanish towns in the islands the local government was similar to that which prevailed in America, which in turn was derived from Spain. That of Manila may be taken as an example. The corporation, El Cabildo (chapter) consisted of two ordinary alcaldes, eight regidores, a registrar, and a constable. The alcaldes were justices, and were elected annually from the householders by the cor- poration. The regidores were aldermen and with the registrar and constable held office permanently as a proprietary right. These permanent positions in the cabildo could be bought and sold or inherited." Turning now to the ecclesiastical administration, we find there the real vital organs of the Philippine governmental system. To the modern eye the islands would have seemed, as they did to the French scientist Le Gentil, priest-ridden. Yet it was only through the '" The Gobernadorcillo in council with the other Cabezas pre- sented a name to the superior authority for appointment. Bowring, p. 90. ''^ Zuniga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinos, i, p. 245. Cf. Mal- lat, i, p. 358. 1493-1529] HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 57 Friars that Spain retained her hold at all." A cor- rupt civil service and a futile and decrepit commer- cial system were through their efforts rendered relatively harmless, because circumscribed in their effects. The continuous fatherly interest of the clergy more than counterbalanced the burden of the tribute." They supervised the tilling of the soil, as well as the religious life of the people; and it was through them that the works of education and charity were administered.'* The head of the ecclesiastical system was the Arch- bishop of Manila, who in a certain sense was the Patriarch of the Indies.'" The other high ecclesias- tical digntaries were the three bishops of Cebu, of Segovia in Cagayan, and of Cazeres in Camarines; and the provincials of the four great orders of friars, the Dominicans, Augustinians, the Franciscans, the barefooted Augustinians, and the Jesuits." In the earlier days the regular clergy (members of the orders) greatly outnumbered the seculars, and refused to acknowledge that they were subject to the visitation of bishop or archbishop. This contention gave rise, at times, to violent struggles. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the proportionate number of seculars increased. In 1750 the total number of parishes was 569, of which 142, embrac- ing 147,269 persons, were under secular priests. The numbers in charge of the orders were as follows : '^ Comyn : State of the Philippine Islands, ch. vii. " Mallat, i, pp. 40, 386. Jagor, pp. 95-97. " Mallat, i, p. 380 ff. Comyn, p. 212 ff. " Mallat, i, p. 365. " Morga, p. 333. 58 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS [Vol. i Villages. Souls. Augustinians, 115 252,963 Franciscans, 63 141,193 Jesuits, 93 209,527 Dominicans, 51 99)78o Recollects, 105 53*384 making a total of 569 parishes and 904,116 souls." These proportions, however, fail to give a correct idea of the enormous preponderance of the religious orders; for the secular priests were mostly Indians and could exercise nothing like the influence of the Friars upon their cures." In these hundreds of villages the friars bore sway with the mild despotism of the shepherd of the flock. Spanish officials entered these precincts only on occasion. Soldiers were not to be seen save to sup- press disorders. Spaniards were not allowed to live in these communities, and visitors were carefully watched." As Spanish was little known in the provinces, the curate was the natural intermediary in all communications between the natives and the officials or outsiders. In some provinces there were no white persons besides the alcalde mayor and the '''' Delgado : Historia de Filipinos, Biblioteca Historica Filipina, Manila, 1892, pp. 155-156. Delgado wrote in 1750-51. Some- what different figures are given by Le Gentil on the basis of the official records in 1735, ii, p. 182. His total is 705,903 persons. '« Le Gentil, i, p. 186. '' Recopilacion, lib. vi, tit. iii, ley xxi. Morga, p. 330. "Avec toutes les recommandations possible, il arrive encore que le moine charge de la peuplade par ou vous voyagez, vous laisse rarement parler seul aux Indiens. Lorsque vous parlez en sa presence a quelque Indien qui entend un peu le Castillan, si ce Religieux trouve mauvais que vous conversiez trop long-temps avec ce Naturel, il lui fait entendre dans la langue du pays, de ne vous point repondre en Castillan, mais dans sa langue: I'lndien obeit." Le Gentil, ii, p. 185. • -^ >t - c w rt 15: S +-3^ t-T C S" (U > c o i*H o <^ o -t3 c c l-H <4i 3 ■■^ X! o CJ w. c rt u C ^+^ en ?* 3 o 3 < -o O ■ S l-H . ^ N hflt-^ ■»«» «3 " O * ^* (^ pp: '^~^ W c f-1 .■^ 1^ ^ ^ ti s? ^ ScS^ bJO "3 c '3 », >Ph ^ "^ M^; C S K U tu ■^ ^ • '^ u* ■Ws ^O o to °. '- :: 3 ^»'° u''e' n Pt. Oranl^Je^yMC Engano F MAP OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, especially prepared to illustrate the "PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: 1493-1803" ' ■ - editedby EMMA HELEN BLAIR and JAMES ALEXANDER ROBERTSON. SCALE or ENGU3H STATUTE MILES. APPfiOXiyATtLV, *7 MILEB TO ONE INCH. KILOMETERS. C-6j}Jeador St.Fernan SB es Explaii atlonA . Capital:® Capital of Proviuces: ® Treaty Boundaries: Boundaries of Provinces: Railroads: Principal Road3-.w. Telegraph Go's Cables:- Pt.Piedn Style and size of type indicate the relative size and importance of the towns, 1!^ CITY OF MANILA. H > % eCALE OF MILES. The Dlatrlcta of the City of Manila are shown lu hlack type, viz: Tondo. L Captain of Port. 8. Custom House. 3. Anda Monument. 4. Signal Polo. 5. CityFalL 6. CathedraL 7. Society of Jesos. 8. Convent of St. AoffOStine. 9. General HospitaL 10. Wareliouse. 11. Red Cross Hospitai. 13. Paco Cemetery. 13. Obserratory. 14. Malate HospitaL 16. Church and Convent. 16, Palace of Governor General. t.llig&n "' &^:ilari'ii lie P ,■- Mcj^iinoj /Pt '^Oinapiqu las ^ T-AmlQ| <^ Sortb.L^ H [BAUyc^ulD 3Ujui Itluid* Chin a B.Rkfk«Ld?St*.^crU Sea ibajfflf ^\'S'''^ BataQ Islands (.BataiR'fli MUrada SuitD Domlngode Bul»jJb *<'0* I But Cftrlos de HulgiktcafT^Un 1. Sui Joge lie I^tM^a. Vine cote Deguei I, 'T™^*?JB.ABtunl. 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