A History of the Philippines Part 9

"In the following year of 1585, he sent Juan de Morones and Pablo de Lima, with a well equipped squadron, to the Moluccas, which adventure was as unfortunate as those that had preceded it, and they returned to Manila without having been able to take the fortress of Ternate. The governor felt it very deeply that the expedition had failed, and wished to send another armada in accordance with the orders which the king had given him; but he could not execute this because the troops from New Spain did not arrive, and because of the Indians, who lost no occasion which presented itself to shake off the yoke of the Spaniards.

"The Pampangos and many inhabitants of Manila confederated with the Moros of Borneo, who had come for trade, and plotted to enter the city by night, set it on fire, and, in the confusion of the conflagration, slay all the Spaniards. This conspiracy was discovered through an Indian woman, who was married to a Spanish soldier, and measures to meet the conspiracy were taken, before the mine exploded, many being seized and suffering exemplary punishment.

"The islands of Samar, Ybabao, and Leyte were also in disturbance, and the encomendero of Dagami, pueblo of Leyte, was in peril of losing his life, because the Indians were incensed by his thievings in the collection of tribute, which was paid in wax, and which he compelled them to have weighed with a steelyard which he had made double the legal amount, and wanted to kill him. They would have done so if he had not escaped into the mountains and afterwards pa.s.sed by a banca to the island of Cebu. The governor sent Captain Lorenzo de la Mota to pacify these disturbances; he made some punishments, and with these everything quieted down." [38]

Three years later, however, the natives of Leyte were again in revolt. In 1589 Cagayan rose and killed many Spaniards. The revolt seems to have spread from here to the town of Dingras, Ilocos, where the natives rose against the collectors of tribute, and slew six Spaniards of the pueblo of Fernandina. (Zuniga, Historia de Filipinas, p. 165.) [39]

Effects of the Spanish Government.--The Spanish occupation had brought ruin and misery to some parts of the country. Salazar describes with bitterness the evil condition of the Filipinos. In the rich fields of Bulacan and Pampanga, great gangs of laborers had been impressed, felling the forests for the construction of the Spanish fleets and manning these fleets at the oars, on voyages which took them for four and six months from their homes. The governor, Don Gonzalez de Ronquillo, had forced many Indians of Pampanga into the mines of Ilocos, taking them from the sowing of their rice. Many had died in the mines and the rest returned so enfeebled that they could not plant. Hunger and famine had descended upon Pampanga, and on the encomienda of Guido de Lavazares over a thousand had died from starvation. [40]

The Taxes.--The taxes were another source of abuse. Theoretically, the tax upon Indians was limited to the "tributo," the sum of eight reales (about one dollar) yearly from the heads of all families, payable either in gold or in produce of the district. But in fixing the prices of these commodities there was much extortion, the encomenderos delaying the collection of the tribute until the season of scarcity, when prices were high, but insisting then on the same amount as at harvest-time.

The princ.i.p.al, who occupied the place of the former dato, or "maharlica," like the gobernadorcillo of recent times, was responsible for the collecting of the tribute, and his lot seems to have been a hard one. "If they do not give as much as they ask, or do not pay for as many Indians as they say there are, they abuse the poor princ.i.p.al, or throw him into the pillory (cepo de cabeza), because all the encomenderos, when they go to make collections, take their pillories with them, and there they keep him and torment him, until forced to give all they ask. They are even said to take the wife and daughter of the princ.i.p.al, when he can not be found. "Many are the princ.i.p.ales who have died under these torments, according to reports."

Salazar further states that he has known natives to be sold into slavery, in default of tribute. Neither did they impose upon adults alone, but "they collect tribute from infants, the aged and the slaves, and many do not marry because of the tribute, and others slay their children." [41]

Scarcity of Food.--Salazar further charges that the alcaldes mayores (the alcaldes of provinces), sixteen in number, were all corrupt, and, though their salaries were small, they acc.u.mulated fortunes. For further enumeration of economic ills, Salazar details how prices had evilly increased. In the first years of Spanish occupation, food was abundant. There was no lack of rice, beans, chickens, pigs, venison, buffalo, fish, cocoanuts, bananas, and other fruits, wine and honey; and a little money bought much. A hundred gantas (about three hundred pints) of rice could then be bought for a toston (a Portuguese coin, worth about a half-peso), eight to sixteen fowls for a like amount, a fat pig for from four to six reales. In the year of his writing (about 1583), products were scarce and prices exorbitant. Rice had doubled, chickens were worth a real, a good pig six to eight pesos. Population had decreased, and whole towns were deserted, their inhabitants having fled into the hills.

General Improvement under Spanish Rule.--This is one side of the picture. It probably is overdrawn by the bishop, who was jealous of the civil authority and who began the first of those continuous clashes between the church and political power in the Philippines. Doubtless if we could see the whole character of Spanish rule in these decades, we should see that the actual condition of the Filipino had improved and his grade of culture had arisen. No one can estimate the actual good that comes to a people in being brought under the power of a government able to maintain peace and dispense justice. Taxation is sometimes grievous, corruption without excuse; but almost anything is better than anarchy.

Before the coming of the Spaniards, it seems unquestionable that the Filipinos suffered greatly under two terrible grievances that inflict barbarous society,--in the first place, warfare, with its murder, pillage, and destruction, not merely between tribe and tribe, but between town and town, such as even now prevails in the wild mountains of northern Luzon, among the primitive Malayan tribes; and in the second place, the weak and poor man was at the mercy of the strong and rich.

The establishment of Spanish sovereignty had certainly mitigated, if it did not wholly remedy, these conditions. "All of these provinces,"

Morga could write, "are pacified and are governed from Manila, having alcaldes mayores, corregidors, and lieutenants, each one of whom governs in his district or province and dispenses justice. The chieftains (princ.i.p.ales), who formerly held the other natives in subjection, no longer have power over them in the manner which they tyrannically employed, which is not the least benefit these natives have received in escaping from such slavery." [42]

Old Social Order of the Filipinos but Little Disturbed.--Some governors seem to have done their utmost to improve the condition of the people and to govern them well. Santiago de Vera, as we have seen, even went so far as to commission the worthy priest, Padre Juan de Plasencia, to investigate the customs and social organization of the Filipinos, and to prepare an account of their laws, that they might be more suitably governed. This brief code--for so it is--was distributed to alcaldes, judges, and encomenderos, with orders to pattern their decisions in accordance with Filipino custom. [43]

In ordering local affairs, the Spaniards to some extent left the old social order of the Filipinos undisturbed. The several social cla.s.ses were gradually suppressed, and at the head of each barrio, or small settlement, was appointed a head, or cabeza de barangay. As these barangays were grouped into pueblos, or towns, the former datos were appointed captains and gobernadorcillos.

The Payment of Tribute.--The tribute was introduced in 1570. [44]

It was supposed to be eight reales or a peso of silver for each family. Children under sixteen and those over sixty were exempt. In 1590 the amount was raised to ten reales. To this was added a real for the church, known as "sanctorum," and, on the organization of the towns, a real for the caja de communidad or munic.i.p.al treasury. Under the encomiendas the tribute was paid to the encomenderos, except on the royal encomiendas; but after two or three generations, as the encomiendas were suppressed, these collections went directly to the insular treasury. There was, in addition to the tribute, a compulsory service of labor on roads, bridges, and public works, known as the "corvee," a feudal term, or perhaps more generally as the "polos y servicios." Those discharging this enforced labor were called "polistas."

Conversion of the Filipinos to Christianity.--The population had been very rapidly Christianized. All accounts agree that almost no difficulty was encountered in baptizing the more advanced tribes. "There is not in these islands a province," says Morga, "which resists conversion and does not desire it." [45] Indeed, the Islands seem to have been ripe for the preaching of a higher faith, either Christian or Mohammedan. For a time these two great religions struggled together in the vicinity of Manila, [46] but at the end of three decades Spanish power and religion were alike established. Conversion was delayed ordinarily only by the lack of sufficient numbers of priests. We have seen that this conversion of the people was the work of the missionary friars. In 1591 there were 140 in the Islands, but the Relacion de Encomiendas calls for 160 more to properly supply the peoples which had been laid under tribute.

Coming of the Friars.--The Augustinians had been the first to come, accompanying Legaspi. Then came the barefooted friars of the Order of Saint Francis. The first Jesuits, padres Antonio Sedeno and Alonzo Sanchez, came with the first bishop of the Islands, Domingo de Salazar, in 1580. They came apparently without resources. Even their garments brought from Mexico had rotted on the voyage. They found a little, poor, narrow house in a suburb of Manila, called Laguio (probably Concepcion). "So poorly furnished was it," says Chirino, "that the same chest which held their books was the table on which they ate. Their food for many days was rice, cooked in water, without salt or oil or fish or meat or even an egg, or anything else except that sometimes as a regalo they enjoyed some salt sardines." [47]

After the Jesuits, came, as we have seen, the friars of the Dominican order, and lastly the Recollects, or unshod Augustinians.

Division of the Archipelago among the Religious Orders.--The archipelago was districted among these missionary bands. The Augustinians had many parishes in the Bisayas, on the Ilocano coast, some in Pangasinan, and all of those in Pampanga. The Dominicans had parts of Pangasinan and all of the valley of Cagayan. The Franciscans controlled the Camarines and nearly all of southern Luzon, and the region of Laguna de Bay. All of these orders had convents and monasteries both in the city of Manila and in the country round about. The imposing churches of brick and stone, which now characterize nearly every pueblo, had not in those early decades been erected; but Morga tells us that "the churches and monasteries were of wood, and well built, with furniture and beautiful ornaments, complete service, crosses, candlesticks, and chalices of silver and gold." [48]

The First Schools.--Even in these early years there seem to have been some attempts at the education of the natives. The friars had schools in reading and writing for boys, who were also taught to serve in the church, to sing, to play the organ, the harp, guitar, and other instruments. We must remember, however, that the Filipino before the arrival of the Spaniard had a written language, and even in pre-Spanish times there must have been instruction given to the child. The type of humble school, that is found to-day in remote barrios, conducted by an old man or woman, on the floor or in the yard of a home, where the ordinary family occupations are proceeding, probably does not owe its origin to the Spaniards, but dates from a period before their arrival. The higher education established by the Spaniards appears to have been exclusively for the children of Spaniards. In 1601 the Jesuits, pioneers of the Roman Catholic orders in education, established the College of San Jose.

Establishment of Hospitals.--The city early had notable foundations of charity. The high mortality which visited the Spaniards in these islands and the frequency of diseases early called for the establishment of inst.i.tutions for the orphan and the invalid. In Morga's time there were the orphanages of San Andres and Santa Potenciana. There was the Royal Hospital, in charge of three Franciscans, which burned in the conflagration of 1603, but was reconstructed. There was also a Hospital of Mercy, in charge of Sisters of Charity from Lisbon and the Portuguese possessions of India.

Close by the Monastery of Saint Francis stood then, where it stands to-day, the hospital for natives, San Juan de Dios. It was of royal patronage, but founded by a friar of the Franciscan order, Juan Clemente. "Here," says Morga, "are cured a great number of natives of all kinds of sicknesses, with much charity and care. It has a good house and offices of stone, and is administered by the barefooted religious of Saint Francis. Three priests are there and four lay-brethren of exemplary life, who, with the doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries, are so dexterous and skilled that they work with their hands marvelous cures, both in medicine and surgery." [49]

Mortality among the Spaniards.--Mortality in the Philippines in these years of conquest was frightfully high. The waste of life in her colonial adventures, indeed, drained Spain of her best and most vigorous manhood. In the famous old English collection of voyages, published by Hakluyt in 1598, there is printed a captured Spanish letter of the famous sea-captain, Sebastian Biscaino, on the Philippine trade. Biscaino grieves over the loss of life which had accompanied the conquest of the Philippines, and the treacherous climate of the tropics. "The country is very unwholesome for us Spaniards. For within these 20 years, of 14,000 which have gone to the Philippines, there are 13,000 of them dead, and not past 1,000 of them left alive." [50]

The Spanish Population.--The Spanish population of the Islands was always small,--at the beginning of the seventeenth century certainly not more than two thousand, and probably less later in the century. Morga divides them into five cla.s.ses: the prelates and ecclesiastics; the encomenderos, colonizers, and conquerors; soldiers and officers of war and marine; merchants and men of business; and the officers of his Majesty's government. "Very few are living now,"

he says, "of those first conquistadores who won the land and effected the conquest with the Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legaspi." [51]

The Largest Cities.--Most of this Spanish population dwelt in Manila or in the five other cities which the Spaniards had founded in the first three decades of their occupation. Those were as follows:--

The City of Nueva Segovia, at the mouth of the Cagayan, was founded in the governorship of Ronquillo, when the valley of the Cagayan was first occupied and the j.a.panese colonists, who had settled there, were expelled. It had at the beginning of the seventeenth century two hundred Spaniards, living in houses of wood. There was a fort of stone, where some artillery was mounted. Besides the two hundred Spanish inhabitants there were one hundred regular Spanish soldiers, with their officers and the alcalde mayor of the province. Nueva Segovia was also the seat of a bishopric which included all northern Luzon. The importance of the then promising city has long ago disappeared, and the pueblo of Lallo, which marks its site, is an insignificant native town.

The City of Nueva Caceres, in the Camarines, was founded by Governor La-Sande. It, too, was the seat of a bishopric, and had one hundred Spanish inhabitants.

The Cities of Cebu and Iloilo.--In the Bisayas were the Cities of the Holy Name of G.o.d (Cebu), and on the island of Panay, Arevalo (or Iloilo). The first maintained something of the importance attaching to the first Spanish settlement. It had its stone fort and was also the seat of a bishopric. It was visited by trading-vessels from the Moluccas, and by permit of the king enjoyed for a time the unusual privilege of sending annually a ship loaded with merchandise to New Spain. Arevalo had about eighty Spanish inhabitants, and a monastery of the Augustinians.

The City of Fernandina, or Vigan, which Salcedo had founded, was nearly without Spanish inhabitants. Still, it was the political center of the great Ilocano coast, and it has held this position to the present day.

Manila.--But all of these cities were far surpa.s.sed in importance by the capital on the banks of the Pasig. The wisdom of Legaspi's choice had been more than justified. Manila, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was unquestionably the most important European city of the East. As we have already seen, in 1580 Portugal had been annexed by Spain and with her had come all the Portuguese possessions in India, China, and Malaysia. After 1610, the Dutch were almost annually warring for this colonial empire, and Portugal regained her independence in 1640. But for the first few years of the seventeenth century, Manila was the political mistress of an empire that stretched from Goa to Formosa and embraced all those coveted lands which for a century and a half had been the desire of European states.

The governor of the Philippines was almost an independent king. Nominally, he was subordinate to the viceroy of Mexico, but practically he waged wars, concluded peaces, and received and sent emba.s.sies at his own discretion. The kingdom of Cambodia was his ally, and the states of China and j.a.pan were his friends.

The Commercial Importance of Manila.--Manila was also the commercial center of the Far East, and the entrepot through which the kingdoms of eastern Asia exchanged their wares. Here came great fleets of junks from China laden with stores. Morga fills nearly two pages with an enumeration of their merchandise, which included all manner of silks, brocades, furniture, pearls and gems, fruits, nuts, tame buffalo, geese, horses and mules, all kinds of animals, "even to birds in cages, some of which talk and others sing, and which they make perform a thousand tricks; there are innumerable other gew-gaws and knickknacks, which among Spaniards are in much esteem." [52]

Each year a fleet of thirty to forty vessels sailed with the new moon in March. The voyage across the China Sea, rough with the monsoons, occupied fifteen or twenty days, and the fleet returned at the end of May or the beginning of June. Between October and March there came, each year, j.a.panese ships from Nagasaki which brought wheat, silks, objects of art, and weapons, and took away from Manila the raw silk of China, gold, deer horns, woods, honey, wax, palm-wine, and wine of Castile.

From Malacca and India came fleets of the Portuguese subjects of Spain, with spices, slaves, Negroes and Kafirs, and the rich productions of Bengal, India, Persia, and Turkey. From Borneo, too, came the smaller craft of the Malays, who from their boats sold the fine palm mats, the best of which still come from Cagayan de Sulu and Borneo, slaves, sago, water-pots and glazed earthenware, black and fine. From Siam and Cambodia also, but less often, there came trading-ships. Manila was thus a great emporium for all the countries of the East, the trade of which seems to have been conducted largely by and through the merchants of Manila.

Trade with Mexico and Spain Restricted.--The commerce between the Philippines, and Mexico and Spain, though it was of vast importance, was limited by action of the crown. It was a commerce which apparently admitted of infinite expansion, but the shortsighted merchants and manufacturers of the Peninsula clamored against its development, and it was subjected to the severest limitations. Four galleons were at first maintained for this trade, which were dispatched two at a time in successive years from Manila to the port of Acapulco, Mexico. The letter on the Philippine trade, already quoted, states that these galleons were great ships of six hundred and eight hundred tons apiece. [53] They went "very strong with soldiers," and they carried the annual mail, reinforcements, and supplies of Mexican silver for trade with China, which has remained the commercial currency of the East to the present day. Later the number of galleons was reduced to one.

The Rich Cargoes of the Galleons.--The track of the Philippine galleon lay from Luzon northeastward to about the forty-second degree of lat.i.tude, where the westerly winds prevail, thence nearly straight across the ocean to Cape Mendocino in northern California, which was discovered and mapped by Biscaino in 1602. Thence the course lay down the western coast of North America nearly three thousand miles to the port of Acapulco.

We can imagine how carefully selected and rich in quality were the merchandises with which these solitary galleons were freighted, the pick of all the rich stores which came to Manila. The profits were enormous,--six and eight hundred per cent. Biscaino wrote that with two hundred ducats invested in Spanish wares and some Flemish commodities, he made fourteen hundred ducats; but, he added, in 1588 he lost a ship,--robbed and burned by Englishmen. On the safe arrival of these ships depended how much of the fortunes of the colony!

Capture of the Galleons.--For generations these galleons were probably the most tempting and romantic prize that ever aroused the cupidity of privateer. The first to profit by this rich booty was Thomas Cavendish, who in 1584 came through the Straits of Magellan with a fleet of five vessels. Like Drake before him, he ravaged the coast of South America and then steered straight away across the sea to the Moluccas. Here he acquired information about the rich commerce of the Philippines and of the yearly voyage of the galleon. Back across the Pacific went the fleet of Cavendish for the coast of California.

In his own narrative he tells how he beat up and down between Capes San Lucas and Mendocino until the galleon, heavy with her riches, appeared. She fell into his hands almost without a fray. She carried one hundred and twenty-two thousand pesos of gold and a great and rich store of satins, damask, and musk. Cavendish landed the Spanish on the California coast, burned the "Santa Anna," and then returned to the Philippines and made an attack upon the shipyard of Iloilo, but was repulsed. He sent a letter to the governor at Manila, boasting of his capture, and then sailed for the Cape of Good Hope and home.

There is an old story that tells how his sea-worn ships came up the Thames, their masts hung with silk and damask sails. From this time on the venture was less safe. In 1588 there came to Spain the overwhelming disaster of her history,--the destruction of the Great Armada. From this date her power was gone, and her name was no longer a terror on the seas. English freebooters controlled the oceans, and in 1610 the Dutch appeared in the East, never to withdraw.

The City of Manila Three Hundred Years Ago.--We can hardly close this chapter without some further reference to the city of Manila as it appeared three hundred years ago. Morga has fortunately left us a detailed description from which the following points in the main are drawn. As we have already seen, Legaspi had laid out the city on the blackened site of the town and fortress of the Mohammedan prince, which had been destroyed in the struggle for occupation. He gave it the same extent and dimensions that it possesses to this day.

Like other colonial capitals in the Far East, it was primarily a citadel and refuge from attack. On the point between the sea and the river Legaspi had built the famous and permanent fortress of Santiago. In the time of the great Adelantado it was probably only a wooden stockade, but under the governor Santiago de Vera it was built up of stone. Cavendish (1587) describes Manila as "an unwalled town and of no great strength," but under the improvements and completions made by Dasmarinas about 1590 it a.s.sumed much of its present appearance. Its guns thoroughly commanded the entrance to the river Pasig and made the approach of hostile boats from the harbor side impossible.

It is noteworthy, then, that all the a.s.saults that have been made upon the city, from that of Limahong, to those of the British in 1763, and of the Americans in 1898, have been directed against the southern wall by an advance from Paranaque. Dasmarinas also inclosed the city with a stone wall, the base from which the present n.o.ble rampart has arisen. It had originally a width of from seven and a half to nine feet. Of its height no figure is given, Morga says simply that with its b.u.t.tresses and turrets it was sufficiently high for the purposes of defense.

The Old Fort.--There was a stone fort on the south side facing Ermita, known as the Fortress of Our Lady of Guidance; and there were two or more bastions, each with six pieces of artillery,--St. Andrew's, now a powder magazine at the southeast corner, and St. Gabriel's, over-looking the Parian district, where the Chinese were settled.

The three princ.i.p.al gates to the city, with the smaller wickets and posterns, which opened on the river and sea, were regularly closed at night by the guard which made the rounds. At each gate and wicket was a permanent post of soldiers and artillerists.

The Plaza de Armas adjacent to the fort had its a.r.s.enal, stores, powder-works, and a foundry for the casting of guns and artillery. The foundry, when established by Ronquillo, was in charge of a Pampangan Indian called Pandapira.

The Spanish Buildings of the City.--The buildings of the city, especially the Casas Reales and the churches and monasteries, had been durably erected of stone. Chirino claims that the hewing of stone, the burning of lime, and the training of native and Chinese artisans for this building, were the work of the Jesuit father, Sedeno. He himself fashioned the first clay tiles and built the first stone house, and so urged and encouraged others, himself directing, the building of public works, that the city, which a little before had been solely of timber and cane, had become one of the best constructed and most beautiful in the Indies. [54] He it was also who sought out Chinese painters and decorators and ornamented the churches with images and paintings.

Within the walls, there were some six hundred houses of a private nature, most of them built of stone and tile, and an equal number outside in the suburbs, or "arrabales," all occupied by Spaniards ("todos son vivienda y poblacion de los Espanoles"). [55]

This gives some twelve hundred Spanish families or establishments, exclusive of the religious, who in Manila numbered at least one hundred and fifty, [56] the garrison, at certain times, about four hundred trained Spanish soldiers who had seen service in Holland and the Low Countries, and the official cla.s.ses.