Chapter 23

[26] Another account of this insurrection is given by Gregorio Lopez, S.J., in a letter dated April, 1604; it is substantially the same as those already presented in this series, but Lopez relates in much fuller detail the final pursuit of the Sangleys. He also states that the Chinese Juan Bautista de Bera (Vera), whose heathen name was Hincan, had lived in Manila since the time of Limahon; and that in the conflict there were twenty stalwart Sangleys to each Spaniard. He enumerates the Spanish citizens slain by the Sangleys, mentioning the place where each died. A copy of this letter is contained in the Ventura del Acro MSS. (Ayer library)--for account of which collection see _Vol_. VI, pp. 231, 232--in vol. i, pp. 121-272; it is accompanied by the statement that the original MS. is in the Real Academia de lit Historia, Madrid--its pressmark, "Jesuitas, Filipinas; legajo no. 7."

[27] _Recopilación de leyes_, lib. vi, tit. vi, ley viii, contains the following law in regard to the appointment of the protector of the Indians; "The bishops of Filipinas were charged by us with the protection and defense of those Indians. Having seen that they cannot attend to the importunity, and judicial acts and investigations, which require personal presence, we order the president-governors to appoint a protector and defender, and to assign him a competent salary from the taxes of the Indians, proportioned among those which shall be assigned to our royal crown and to private persons, without touching our royal treasury, which proceeds from other kinds [of taxes]. We declare that it is not our intention by this to deprive the bishops of their superintendence and protection of the Indians in general." (Felipe II, Madrid, January 17, 1593, in a clause of a letter).

[28] The hospital order of St John of God was originally founded by a Portuguese soldier (named Joan), who at the age of forty years devoted himself, as a religious duty, to the care of sick persons. He began a hospital in his own house at Granada (1540), and his bishop permitted him and his associates to wear a habit. After his death (1550) similar hospitals were formed in Spain, and even spread to Italy. In 1585 all these were organized into an order, with constitutions, under the papal sanction; this order is still in existence, and has establishments in many countries. It did not reach the Philippines until 1649.

[29] Fray Diego Aduarte, Bishop of Nueva Segovia, wrote to the king (July 7, 1606), as follows: "Your Majesty possesses here a royal hospital which is one of the most necessary and useful things in this country for the welfare and care of the poor soldiers and others who serve your Majesty. Although the income which it has is small, it would be sufficient aid, with the many alms given by the citizens who are well to do, if there were some one who could distribute it well and take it in charge as his own affair. It is a most necessary thing for its good government and maintenance that your Majesty should send four or five brethren of the order called Juan de Dios, with the authority of your Majesty and his Holiness, and with power to receive others. For the institution is already founded and everything necessary supplied; and these brethren might come with the religious whom your Majesty sends here, either Franciscan or Dominican; or you might command that some of the excellent hospitallers who are settled in Nueva España should come to these islands, which would economize in expense and hasten their coming, and make it more certain." [_Endorsed_: "September 24, 1607. Have the four brethren whom he mentions sent, and entrust the matter to Señor Don Francisco de Tejada, that he may arrange it with the elder brother of Anton Martin. Have a copy sent to Señor Don Francisco."]

[30] Evidently referring to Antonio, prior of Crato, pretender to the crown of Portugal (see _Vol_. I, p. 355). He died at Paris, August 25, 1595; and left six (illegitimate) children whom he commended to the care of Henri IV of France. It is probable that the son mentioned in our text was Cristoval, his second son (born in 1564); he assumed the title of king of Portugal, and with this pretension might easily undertake to fight against Spain (as usurper of that crown), in aid of the Dutch. Cristoval died at Paris June 3, 1638.

[31] _Lancha_: a small vessel navigated with sails and oars; cf. English "launch." _Barcoluengo_: an oblong boat with a long bow, its only mast being in the center.

[32] The capture of the "Santa Ana" by Cavendish in 1588, and the difficulties and risks of the long Pacific voyage for the richly-laden galleons from Manila, made it evident that some halting-place for them should be provided on the California coast. The vessel "San Agustin" was despatched from Manila in 1595 to search for such a place, but was wrecked in the present Drake Bay. In the preceding year Velasco had made a contract with Sebastian Vizcaino for the exploration and occupation for Spain of California; but he did not begin his task until 1597, when he was sent out by Monterey. This expedition accomplished little; but Vizcaino was selected to command the one mentioned in our text, which had the same object as that for which the "San Agustin" was sent, and the pilot of that vessel accompanied Vizcaino. There appear to have been four vessels in this expedition, which carried nearly two hundred men: there were also three Carmelite friars, one of whom, Antonio de la Ascension, kept a diary of the voyage, and assisted the cosmographer, Gerónimo Martin Palacios. They returned to Acapulco in March, 1603, having explored and mapped the coast of California beyond Cape Mendocino, and discovered the bays of Todos Santos, San Diego, and Monterey. Vizcaino made another voyage (1611-14), which was originally intended for the establishment and equipment of the port of Monterey as a station for the Philippine vessels, but was diverted to the Pacific Ocean and Japan. See Bancroft's account of these explorations--with abundant citations of sources, and reduced copy of Vizcaino's map--in his _History of North Mexican States_ (San Francisco, 1886), i, pp. 147-163.

[33] See _Vol_. XIII, p. 228, note 31.

[34] This admiral was Toribio Gomez de Corvan.

[35] The route of vessels to and from the Philippines is described by Morga at the end of his _Sucesos_ (_Vols_. XV and XVI of this series).

[36] This total is as found in the MS., but is inaccurate. The correct total is 6,533.

[37] Also written "pederero"--from Old Spanish _pedra_, "a stone;" so named because of the use of stone for balls, before iron balls were invented; a swivel-gun. For descriptions and illustrations of various kinds of artillery, see Demmin's _Arms and Armor_ (London, 1877).

[38] Cf. "Foundation of the Audiencia," _Vol_. VI, p. 37, sec. 295.

[39] Referring to the famous hot springs and health resort of Los Baños, situated on the southern coast of Laguna de Bay, thirty-five miles from Manila, at the foot of the volcanic mountains Maquiling and Los Baños. See Chirino's account of these springs, in chap. X of his _Relacion_ (_Vol_. XII of this series). Cf. the more detailed accounts by La Concepcion (_Hist. de Philipinas_, iv, pp. 134-151), Zuñiga (_Estadismo_, i, pp. 180-185), and Buzeta and Bravo (_Diccionario_, ii, pp. 168-179). The virtues of these waters were first made known by St. Pedro Bautista, the noted Franciscan martyr (_Vol_. VIII, p. 233), in the year 1590; and he undertook to found there a hospital, but for lack of means this project languished until 1604, when it was duly organized, under the charge of a Franciscan lay brother, Fray Diego de Santa Maria. Various grants were made to this institution, at different times, by colonial and local authorities; and in 1671 large and suitable buildings of stone were erected--which, however, were destroyed by fire in 1727. The hospital seems to have retrograded, in extent and management, early in its history; Zúñiga found it in very poor condition, at the end of the eighteenth century. See chapter on "Minero-medicinal waters" of the islands in U.S. Philippine Commission's _Report_, 1900, iii, pp. 217-227.

[40] The name applied to any knight of a military order who received one of die ecclesiastical benefices called _encomiendas_. These were suitably-endowed dignities conferred on knights of those orders.

[41] After Acuña's death, Rodrigo de Vivero was sent from Nueva España to govern the Philippines _ad interim_, where he arrived June 15, 1608. He remained less than one year in this poet, and was then made governor of Panama. In April, 1609, arrived his successor, Juan de Silva, a member of the Order of Santiago; and distinguished by military service in Flanders. He governed the Philippines for seven years, and died at Malaca, on his way with an expedition to the Spice Islands, on April 19, 1616.

[42] _Situado_ is used here to mean the extra income from the encomiendas which is obtained by increasing the tribute from eight reals to ten. This was done at the time when Gomez Perez Dasmariñas was sent to govern the Philippines; see his instructions (_Vol_. VII, pp. 145, 146), and cf. Morga's _Sucesos_, chap. viii (_Vol_. XVI of this series; and Hakluyt Society's trans., pp. 325, 326). The two reals thus gained were to be thus applied: one-half real, to pay the obligations of the tithes; one and one-half reals, for the pay of soldiers, etc.

Prof. E.G. Bourne says: "Many of the Spanish colonies received regular situados from the crown to make up their annual deficits. The word may mean subsidy, appropriation, rent, or income, according to the context." Humboldt mentions--in _New Spain_ (Black's trans.), iv, pp. 228, 229--the situados, "remittances of specie annually, made to other Spanish colonies" from the treasury of Mexico, which in 1803 amounted to 3,500,000 piastres. These remittances from Mexico of course ceased when that colony revolted from Spain and became a republic (1823).

Still another meaning of _situado_ is given by Bowring (_Philippine Islands_, pp. 98, 99): "As it is, the Philippines have made, and continue to make, large contributions to the mother country, generally in excess of the stipulated amount which is called the _situado_."

[43] The husk surrounding the cocoanut; it is used for making cordage and calking vessels.

[44] A prebendary who enjoys the benefice called _racion_.

[45] The prebendary immediately subordinate to the racionero.

[46] _Barrachel_: the alguacil-mayor. This word is now obsolete.

[47] He had filled this post before, during 1590-95 (_Vol_. VII, p. 230); he succeeded Montesclaros on July 2, 1607, and governed Nueva España until June 12, 1611, when he returned to Spain as president of the Council of the Indias. Already aged, he did not long survive this promotion. He established many reforms in Nueva España, and showed great humanity in his treatment of the Indians.

[48] That is, "rich in gold," and "rich in silver;" two mythical islands, often mentioned in documents of that time; thus named, according to Gemelli Careri, because some earth taken from them, accidentally heated on a ship, was found to contain grains of precious metal. There is an interesting mention of these islands on La Frechette's "Chart of the Indian Ocean" (published by W. Faden, London, 1803). They are placed thereon in 32° and 34°, N. lat., and in 160° and 164° E. long., respectively, with the following legend: "Kin-sima, la Rica de Oro, or Gold Island. Gin-sima, la Rica de Plata, or Silver Island. These Two Islands, which are Known to the Japanese, are laid down according to the report of the former Spanish Navigators; they did imagine till the middle of the last century, that Gin-sima and Kin-sima were the Land of Ophir, since it could not be found in the Isles of Solomon."

[49] Referring to the archbishop Benavides; he bequeathed his library and the sum of one thousand pesos for the foundation of the college of Santo Tomas at Manila.

[50] The route of this expedition was evidently up the Rio Grande de Pampanga, northward through the present provinces of Pampanga and Nueva Ecija; the headwaters of this stream are separated by the ridge of Caraballo Sur from those of the Rio Grande de Cagayan. Crossing these mountains, the Spaniards found themselves, at the southern end of Nueva Viscaya, at the sources of one of the two great branches of the latter river, the Magat River--the one which is named Tuy in our text. It joins the main stream of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, a few miles above Ilagan, in the province of Isabela, and the united streams flow northward through the entire length of that province and of Cagayan, falling into the sea below Aparri, on the northern coast of Luzón. See the short account of this expedition given in _Vol_. VIII, pp. 250, 251.

[51] A species of orange-colored agate, of great beauty.

[52] This city is no longer in existence; it has been replaced by the town of Lalló, formerly only a district of that city.

[53] In the MS., _cabra_; but this may be only a copyist's conjecture for an illegible word.

[54] The Igorrotes first appear under the name Ygolot, which was applied to the inhabitants of Benguet; and those people probably represent the original tribe. The name was later applied to all the head-hunters of northern Luzon, then collectively to all in the Philippine Islands, and is now almost synonymous with "wild." The district assigned to the real Igorrotes is a matter of controversy among various authors, as are also their various characteristics, and their origin. Certain characteristics point to infusions of Chinese and Japanese blood. Comparatively few of them have embraced Christianity. They live in villages of three or four hundred, with a chief in each, who is usually the richest man, and whose lands the common people cultivate. They are generally monogamous, and respect the marriage tie highly. They believe in a supreme being whom they call Apo or Lu-ma-oig; his wife Bangan; his daughter Bugan; and his son Ubban. There are two inferior gods Cabigat and Suyan. Their priests are called Maubunung and they heal sickness with charms and incantations. They believe in two places of abode after death: one pleasant and cheerful, for those who die a natural death; the other a real heaven, for warriors killed in battle and women who die in childbirth. They bury their dead in coffins in a sitting position, in clefts or caves, and often dry the corpse over a fire. Ancestor-worship is prevalent. They are an agricultural people, but do not breed cattle. They have worked the copper mines of their districts and extracted gold from the earliest times. As yet, however, exact and scientific knowledge regarding them is slight, as is true of many other Filipino tribes, owing to the confused state of Philippine ethnology. See Smithsonian _Report_, 1899, p. 538, "List of native tribes of Philippines" by Ferdinand Blumentritt (translated by Dr. O.T. Malon); Blumentritt's "Über den Namen der Igorroten" in _Ausland_, no. 1, p. 17 (Stuttgart, 1882); Sawyer's _Inhabitants of the Philippines_ (New York, 1900); pp. 254-267; and Foreman's _Philippine Islands_ (London, 1890), pp. 212-215.

[55] The city of Potosi in Bolivia is situated on the slope of the Cerro Gordo de Potosi, a mountain 16,152 feet high, which contains silver mines of a richness that has become proverbial; they were discovered in 1545, by an Indian. It is estimated that the silver obtained from this mountain, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, amounted to $1,600,000,000. Humboldt gives the figures for its yield, from 1566 to 1789, amounting to 60,864,359 pounds troy; see his _New Spain_ (Black's trans., London, 1811), iii, pp. 171, 172. He also endeavors to estimate (pp. 353-379) the value of the total yield from its discovery to 1789, which he places at 5,750,000,000 of livres tournois (£234,693,840 sterling). The mines now are almost abandoned, and the annual yield is about $800,000.

[56] Referring to the allotment of space for freight in the regular trading fleet sent yearly to Mexico. As has been shown in preceding documents, this privilege, as the source of much profit, was restricted by the government to the citizens of the islands, among certain of whom the space was duly allotted by toneladas, each shipping goods to that extent--although many frauds were practiced, often by royal officials themselves. The stipulation in our text secured, to persons having the right to a share in this trade, the exercise of that right while absent on the Tuy expedition, the same as if they were present in Manila when the ships were laden. The _pieza_ mentioned in this paragraph was the bale used as the unit of capacity in lading the vessel (see Bourne's introduction to this series, _Vol_. I, p. 63). A letter from Andres de Alcaraz to the king (August 10, 1617), which will be presented in _Vol_. XVII, gives further information regarding the pieza. From this document it appears that the tonelada was reckoned at eight piezas; the pieza would then be estimated at ten arrobas, or two hundred and fifty libras.

[57] Evidently a reference to a compilation of Spanish laws. There is nothing in the _Recopilacion de las leyes de Indias_ answering to this.

[58] The district of the governor formerly called adelantado.

[59] Archbishop Benavides died on July 26, 1605, and was succeeded by Diego Vazquez de Mercado--although the latter did not take possession of the see until June, 1610. He was a native of Arevalo, Castilla, and a relative of Gonzalo Ronquillo, fourth governor of the Philippines. He was the first dean of the Manila cathedral, serving therein for sixteen years; then went to Nueva España, and, having obtained a doctor's degree from the University of Mexico, held a benefice at Acapulco. He was appointed bishop of Yucatan, but was transferred to the archbishopric of Manila; this post he held until his death, in 1618. He completed the cathedral edince, applying to that work much of his patrimony.

[60] Rueda's name alone is contained in the list furnished by Aduarte in 1605 (see "Dominican mission of 1606," _ante_). The names of those Dominicans who actually reached the Philippines in 1606, twenty-six in number, are found (with biographical information) in _Reseña biog. Sant. Rosario_, i, pp. 328-333; but the list of those who died on the way (including Rueda and Colmenero) is on p. 335.

[61] Also known as Recollects (see _Vol_. XIII, p. 246 and _note_). When they arrived in the Philippines (1606), they established themselves in a suburb of Manila called Bagumbayan. See the detailed account of the circumstances attending the despatch of friars thither from this order, and of the beginning of their work in the islands, in La Concepción's _Hist. de Philipinas_, iv, pp. 189-265.