The Indolence of the Filipino Part 3

15. The decrease of population among native people in the Philippines after the arrival of the Spaniards compares in no degree with what occurred in America. A most distressing picture of conditions in the Philippines is given by Bishop Domingo de Salazar in his relation written about 1583 (see B. & R., vol 5, pp. 210-255. See especially p. 212.) It is well to balance Salazar's account with those of others

(A "tributary" was generally reckoned as five persons, one "tribute"

being required for each adult male. Hence "tributaries" and "families"

may here be taken to mean about the same number,--D.)

16. The forced labor required by the Spaniards in shipbuilding formed one of the legitimate causes of complaint among the people almost from the beginning.

17. See ante, note 15, also note 16.

18. The early friars, although many of them fell into some of the very faults which they condemned, inveighed boldly against the cruelty of the Spaniards. Doubtless their att.i.tude did encourage their converts to withdraw from industry to a certain degree.

19. See B. & R, vol. 4, pp. 148-303.

20 See B & R., vol. 6, for early accounts of Chinese trade and Spanish measures affecting it The hostility between Spaniards and Portuguese enters largely into the question. The effects of the deplorably bad economics of Spain in its trade relations are still felt in the Peninsula.

21. See ante, note 20.

22. See ante, note 20. The arrival and departure of the annual galleon were times of activity, but otherwise Manila was a dull town, with little industry. The Chinese usurped all the petty trade.

23 It is to the credit, of the Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais de Filipinas, founded by the energetic governor Basco y Vargas in 1781, that it extended its many-sided interests to the destruction of the devastating hordes of locusts that visit the Philippines so frequently.

24 The Spanish policy remained to the end one of exclusion, and the privileges granted were almost all because of coercion, and the penetrating force of modern ideas.

25. A loose use of the word "monk", which is properly used of a cloistered ecclesiastic who does not leave his convent. "Friar" would be a more exact term. The Benedictines are monks; the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Recollects, are friars.

26. This was the Filipino chemist Anacleto del Rosario, whom Rizal rightly praises.

27. This refers doubtless to Rizal himself, who competed in an open contest for Spaniards and Indians, of the Liceo Artistico-Literario de Manila, and of whom such an occurrence is related. He was awarded first prose prize for a production ent.i.tled "El Consejo de los Dioses", which see in the "Revista del Liceo Artistico-Literario de Manila, No. 4, 1880, pd. 45. This production, which bears neither signature nor sign of authorship, is dated April 13, 1880.