Part 22
122-127. [The deputies of Manila were not satisfied that this concession should be limited to a term of two years, and again petitioned the king, asking that the trial be made for two or three five-year terms, on account of the many difficulties which that commerce must encounter. The king consented (October 21, 1726) to extend the term to five years, and a despatch of September 15 prescribes the conditions and regulations under which the trial of the new plan should be made--for a term of two years, extended to five by another decree of October 31. The annual galleon shall carry no more than 4,000 piezas, 500 of these being half-chests [medios caxones] containing the silken fabrics and the finer ones of cotton; the rest shall be half-bales [medios fardillos] bags [churlas] of cinnamon, cases of porcelain, and cakes of wax. The size or weight respectively of these packages is prescribed: the half-chests and half-bales shall be each 1 1/4 vara long, 2/3 vara wide, and 1/3 vara deep, [92] an allowance of two dedos on each measure being made for the outside cover or packing of the half-chest and for the compression used on the half-bale. The bag of cinnamon shall weigh 150 libras gross (that is, including all packing and covers), but at Acapulco it may be allowed four or five libras more of weight, the difference between the weight of Manila and that of Nueva España. The case [balsa] of porcelain must be one vara high and 2 1/4 varas in circumference at the mouth, no allowance being made. The cakes of wax must weigh twelve arrobas at Manila, four or five libras being allowed at Acapulco for the difference in standards of weight. Besides the 4,000 piezas, unlimited pepper and storax may be shipped; and Chinese cabinets and screens [biombos] may go in larger boxes than the regulation size, provided that the capacity of these be figured in terms of piezas. Passengers on the galleons are allowed each two chests containing their personal property, without any articles of merchandise. The dimensions and crew of the galleon shall be as stated by the Manila deputies. The committee for allotting lading-space shall be as suggested by them, save that the governor shall be included therein. Space is allowed to the extent of 100 piezas to the governor and other royal officials for their personal shipments, but these must come out of the 4,000 piezas. A limited amount of space is allotted to the ecclesiastical cabildo and to the officers on the galleons; also to the widows of traders and military officers. Allotments of space may be transferred to other persons who are approved by the committee. Due provision is made for the valuation, registration, and lading of goods at Manila, and the inspection and sale at Acapulco; for the allowance of small quantities of merchandise to the Spanish seamen and artillerists; for the shipment of the returns from the investments, whether in money or goods; and for penalties against transgressors. The Manila merchants are to pay alcabala on any sales outside of Acapulco; 25,000 pesos annually on each galleon which shall arrive at Acapulco (afterward changed to 20,000 pesos a year during the five years' term), as a contribution to the royal service; duties of five per cent at Acapulco "for the embarkation of the entire product from the aforesaid 4,000 piezas, and the pepper and storax, which is the same that the traders of España pay at Cadiz;" and the following specific duties: for each half-chest, 45 pesos; each half-bale, 30 pesos; each bag of cinnamon, 25 pesos; each cake of wax, 18 pesos; each case of porcelain, 12 pesos; each chest of cabinets or screens, 18 pesos for each of the piezas to which the chest is equivalent; and each arroba of pepper or storax, 12 silver reals.]
(To be concluded.)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA
The documents contained in this volume are obtained from the following sources:
1. Jesuit missions.--From Murillo Velarde's Historia de Philipinas (Manila, 1749); from a copy in possession of Edward E. Ayer.
2. Condition of the islands, 1701.--From Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library), v, pp. 201-230.
3. Events of 1701-15.--From Concepción's Historia de Philipinas, viii, pp. 299-391; from a copy in possession of the Editors.
4. Government of Bustamante.--The first part is from Concepción, ut supra, ix, pp. 183-424; the letters of Otazo and Cuesta are from Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, pp. 249-295.
5. Letter from Santistevan.--From a MS., probably the original, in possession of Edward E. Ayer.
6. Commerce of the Philippines.--From the Extracto historial (Madrid, 1736) of Antonio Alvarez de Abreu; from a copy in possession of Edward E. Ayer.
NOTES
[1] From Murillo Velarde's account of his order in the Philippines we extract such matter as describes their missions, their general labors in Manila for both Spaniards and natives, their methods of work, and some occurrences of special importance to them as an order. The "edifying instances," and biographies of the Jesuit fathers, and other devotional reading it is necessary to omit here, as our limited space forbids its presentation.
[2] The papal concession for this jubilee of fifteen days had come that summer, and had been announced on November 18, just before the appearance of the comets.
[3] The word Moreno is used by the earlier writers rather confusedly, and applied to more than one race, whether pure or mixed; but in later times it apparently refers chiefly to the swarthy-complexioned people from the Malabar coast and to their descendants.
[4] The Tagálog word for "bridge."
[5] Spanish, sermones de tabla. The tabla is the list kept in the church sacristy which designates on what days certain functions are to be held; it is the tabella of the Italian sacristies, the church calendar of ours. Cathedrals and even lower grade churches (as collegiates, nunneries, hospitals, etc.) had their sermons (d'occasion, as the French say) on certain set days as marked in their local calendars, or tablas; these were always very grand, and delivered by renowned preachers and orators; many of these I have heard.
The phrase "endowed feast" (fiesta dotada) is used also in Italian and French. It was a custom, which I presume still holds, in all those countries (as I often saw in Italy), that a municipality, society, confraternity, or indeed any body of persons, had its feasts on set days in the year--for instance, feasts of their patron saints, or of thanksgiving, etc. Fairs also were endowed; that is, bequests (perhaps centuries old) provided that on set days the people were to have a fiesta, with music, fireworks, games, sermons, etc., with an alms for the poor--all paid for, as also would be the premiums for the fairs. These were occurrences always of great festivity and merriment; and in Italy, at least in the part where I lived, the smallest towns and hamlets had their fiestas dotadas.--Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.
[6] The Exercitia spiritualia of Inigo de Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order; it has long been a text-book therein, and a manual of devotion for persons under direction of the Jesuits. See account of the examination of conscience prescribed in it, in Jesuit Relations (Cleveland reissue), lxviii, p. 326.
"In Europe it is customary for persons at particular seasons to retire for a time from the world, to give themselves up entirely to prayer and meditation. Some part of the season of Lent is generally selected for this purpose; and many, for the sake of more entire seclusion, take up their residence during this time in some religious house. This is called 'going into retreat.'"--Kip's Jesuits in America, p. 302.
[7] That is, "headland of Bondoc" (or Bondog); a mountain 1,250 feet high, at the southern end of the peninsula of Tayabas, Luzón. (U. S. Gazetteer of Philippines, p. 397.)
[8] Marinduque is an island off the coast of Tayabas province, Luzón; it is round in shape, about twenty-three miles in diameter, and has a population (Tagálog) of about 48,000. It has some good harbors; and it produces abundance of rice, cocoanuts, and abacá. (U. S. Gazetteer of Philippines, pp. 643-647.)
[9] Theriacs were held in great estimation during the middle ages. They were composed of opium flavored with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, and mace--or merely with saffron and ambergris.
[10] Aornis (or Aornos), a lofty rock in India, taken by Alexander the Great; thus named, as being so high as to be inaccessible even to birds.
[11] That is, as alternate or substitute for Encinas, in case of the latter's disability or death.
[12] Interesting information about Lake Lanao is given in the following letter from the Jesuit Juan Heras to his superior, dated at Tagoloan, October 6, 1890; it is printed in Cartas de los PP. de la Compañía de Jesús, cuad. ix (Manila, 1891), pp. 254, 255.
"Desiring to furnish to your Reverence as accurate information as possible regarding the lake of Malanao, we sent again for some men who lived there many years as slaves. They are an intelligent family. The father is a Tagálog, captured when he was a mere youth; he was carried to the Lake, and later married a girl, also a Tagálog who had been enslaved. They had three children, and when one of these was ten years old and another one somewhat older, they made their escape, in the year 74. The father and mother lived at the Lake more than twenty years; they settled in Jasaán, and lived there very happily after their children had been baptised. The father has traveled entirely around the lake by the highroad, and the second son had gone half-way round, from the northeastern end to Ganasi. The information, then, which they had given us--precisely the same both tunes, for they had been questioned previously, last March--is as follows:
"The length of the lake from north to south--or from the mouth of the Agus River (which empties near Iligan), to Ganasi, the point of departure for Lalabúan, which is on Illana Bay--is 24 hours of straight sailing, with steady rowing and the wind astern. The breadth from east to west is half the length. It has many promontories, which form large curves [in the coast]; and the shore is steep and rocky at Lúgud and Tugua, at which points vessels cannot find anchor. The lake contains four islets. A good highroad runs around the lake, which is interrupted only near Taraca, by the extensive mud flats which form the rice-lands (or basacanes). Taraca is the principal town, and the sultan lives there. The places which are noted as villages [i.e., on an accompanying map?] are not really such, but are the jurisdictions of the dattos. The settlement is one continuous street, with houses on both sides of the highroad almost all the way round the lake.
"The population is a large one, as several married couples live in the same house, and there are many dwellings. The people who have the reputation of being the bravest are those of Unayan, Bundayan, Ganasi, and Marántao. From Ganasi the highroad goes toward Lalabúan; it has no steep ascents or descents, nor does it cross large rivers; and by following this road Lalabúan is reached in one day. Half-way on this journey is the village of Limudigan, the sultan of Poalas, the richest of all those in the Lake region. Our informants state that the cannon are kept in Ganasi, in a large shed, to a considerable number. The places where the people have most guns are Maraui and Marántao; the number of firearms cannot be exactly stated, although these men say three are many of them. From Maraui one can go to Ganasi in three days, by taking the road to the right, and in four days by going to the left; it therefore takes seven days to make the trip around the lake--but the circuit of the lake is probably somewhat exaggerated. It is said that those people have many mosques. Maraui is on the Agus River, quite near the lake; these men say that there are many horses there. As to the exactness of these data, it is evident that we cannot be altogether certain; but it is certain that each of our informants has confirmed the other's statements."
In the same volume of Cartas is a valuable appendix by Father Pablo Pastells, in which he sets forth the importance of the plan formed by General Valeriano Weyler (governor of the islands during 1889-91) for completing the subjugation of Mindanao to the Spanish crown, and presents a brief historical sketch of the Spanish conquests in that island, and an account of conditions therein and of the natural resources of the country. He argues that the forcible expulsion of all its Mahometan tribes would be impossible, and that the proper way to hispanicize Mindanao must be the slow one--but sure, if the results of the labors of Jesuit missionaries among the Moros be considered--of education, the introduction of civilized modes of life (especially by the cultivation of the soil), a political organization like that already in vogue among the Tagálogs and other christianized peoples, the influence of the Christian religion in displacing their superstitious and false beliefs, governmental protection to the peaceable natives, and the promotion of migration of Filipinos from the northern islands to Mindanao, thus gradually colonizing the latter with industrious, civilized, and Christian inhabitants. Statistics are added to Father Pastells's memorial, showing that the (Jesuit) missions of Mindanao contain (in 1892) a total Christian population of 191,493 souls; this number he compares with the list given by Murillo Velarde (1748; including all the missions of the Jesuits in Filipinas), which foots up to 209,527 souls. At the end of the Cartas is a map (dated March 19, 1892) of the "second and fifth districts"--i.e., those of Cagayán de Misamis and Cottabato--on a scale of ten kilometers to an inch; it contains the latest geographic data up to 1892, and is especially full in the Lanao region and the course of the Pulangi River or Rio Grande, the headwaters of that great river almost interlocking with those of the Cagayán and another large stream which empties into Macajalar Bay. The map also shows the native tribes that occupy the region which it depicts.
[13] Gabe or gabi is the native name (Tagal, Visayan, and Pampango) for the roots of Caladium esculentum (also known as Colocasia antiquorum), which are used considerably as food. This plant is frequently cultivated in the United States for its foliage, and is popularly called "elephant's ears," from the shape of the leaves.
[14] A bay or inlet at the southwest angle of Iligan Bay, extending 12 miles southwest, its inmost point lying but 13 miles from the northern extremity of Illana Bay, which is on the south side of Mindanao. The fort here mentioned must have been at the mouth of Lintogut River.
[15] Spanish, tierra de S. Pablo; but no information is available for its identification.
[16] One of the very rare allusions to this mode of conducting commerce, as used among the Moros, which--although common enough in all parts of the world from very early times, and practiced by most peoples who have risen beyond the savage condition--seems to have been even to the present time undeveloped among the Moros, partly on account of their fierce natures and the feuds among them, partly because of their habits of piracy, plunder, and bloodshed. Of especial interest in this connection is the account published in the New York Outlook, December 23, 1905, of the "Moro Exchange" established at Zamboanga, Mindanao (July, 1904), by Captain John P. Finley, governor of Zamboanga district. Intended from the outset to replace slavery and piracy by honest labor, it has gradually gained the respect and coöperation of the Moro chiefs; and by taking advantage of their talent for trade is exerting a wide and strong influence in the development of industry and peaceful relations among them. This exchange even in its first year had a volume of business amounting to $128,000; and now its daily transactions run from 500 to 800 pesos, while in the Zamboanga district it has fourteen branches.
[17] Spanish, al reir del alba, literally, "at the smile of the dawn."
[18] Limbo (from Latin, limbus): in scholastic theology, a region bordering on hell, where souls were detained for a time; hence, applied to any place of restraint or confinement.
[19] The lists of Augustinian friars in the Philippines record the names of some thirty members of that order who became insane or demented; and probably similar lists could be given by the other orders. Perez's Catálogo (Manila, 1901), and Gaspar Cano's Catálogo (Manila, 1864) present biographical information regarding all the members of the order who labored in the islands from 1565 down to their respective dates of publication; Pérez enumerates 2,467 for the term of 336 years from 1565 to 1901, and of these 1,992 belong to Cano's period, ending in 1864. Cano names thirty friars (two of them being lay brothers) who died in a demented condition; the first of these was Fray Francisco de Canga Rodriguez (1616), who was 55 years professed. Pérez mentions but twenty-seven of Cano's list, but adds four others for the years following Cano's record (1865-1901), a total of thirty-one names. Both these compilers record the facts of dementia among the friars in varied phrases; and Cano speaks (p. 20) of "the many things which there are in Filipinas to cause the loss of one's mind." Zúñiga, in his Estadismo, refers to the liability of the missionaries in the islands to suffer mental alienation from homesickness, solitude, and lack of congenial companions, especially in districts where the natives were of low intellectual calibre. When I was a student in Rome, Pope Pius IX had a college (the Pio Latino) opened for Spanish Americans (from Mexico and South America); this was about 1860. The Italians said that the young students from those countries seemed to be especially given to excessive homesickness (nostalgia).--Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.
[20] That is, "Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi, v. 15).
[21] Thus characterized, because this long account of the hardships and dangers of missionary life is inserted in the midst of a sketch of Father Francisco Paliola, martyred in Mindanao in 1648.
[22] "And the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity" (Genesis 6, v. 11).
[23] The Jesuit Diego Luis de San Vitores had just arrived (July, 1662) in Luzón with fourteen companions, in a patache, sent from Acapulco by Conde de Baños, viceroy of Mexico.
[24] "Through evil report and good report" (II Corinthians vi, v. 8).
[25] Tagálog words, meaning young men and girls of marriageable age. Barbateca does not appear in the standard lexicons.
[26] See note on the masses, in VOL. XXXIX, p. 246, note 148.
[27] "Saying: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who wast, who art, and who art to come.'"
[28] After citing numerous examples from the customs of various nations, Herbert Spencer concludes--Ceremonial Institutions (New York, 1880), pp. 128-131: "It seems that removal of the hat among European peoples, often reduced among ourselves to touching the hat, is a remnant of that process of unclothing himself by which, in early times, the captive expressed the yielding up of all that he had."
[29] The provincial of the Society of Jesus in the Filipinas Islands, in a report to the king dated June 20, 1731, declares that the Society reckoned 173,938 souls in the 88 principal villages and some visitas which they were administering. This number, compared with the estimate for the preceding period of six years, showed an increase of 11,886 Christians; by this may be seen the increase which the population is steadily gaining--except that of the Marianas Islands, which has decreased. (Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, p. 307.)
[30] Spanish, azicate; "a long-necked Moorish spur with a rowel at the end of it" (Appleton's Velázquez's Dictionary). The Latin quotation means, "He who spares the rod hates his son."
[31] Spanish, lolios y zizañas. Lolio is an old form of joyo; and both joyo and zizaña (modern, cizaña) refer, according to Appleton's Velázquez's Dictionary, to the common darnel, or Lolium temulentum.
[32] Spanish, la inata del Pays, la conatural al sexo, y la congenita entrañada en la Nacion.
[33] That is, to Zabalburu, just one month after his entrance into office.
[34] Polo: a personal service of forty days in the year.
[35] This was Francisco Gueruela; see summary of his report on this visitation, in VOL. XLII, p. 120.
[36] "Except the master-of-camp Endaya, who charged him nothing for the house in which he lived, and spent more than twenty thousand pesos in maintaining him and all his retinue. Endaya made all these demonstrations because he had taken refuge in a church, and the patriarch [i.e., Tournon] condoned all his offences and enabled him to leave his asylum--without any one saying anything to him; nor did the judges dare to lay hands on a man whom the legate a latere had pardoned." Other favors and honors were conferred on Endaya by Tournon. (Zúñiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 412-413.)
[37] Archbishop Camacho was appointed in 1703 bishop of Guadalajara; and early in July, 1706, he went to take possession of that see (which he retained until his death in 1712), abandoning his diocese of Manila. He left as ruler of that see Don Francisco Rayo (who was not a member of the cabildo), despite the protests of the chapter-members. On August 19 the cabildo declared the see vacant, and chose as its provisor the archdeacon Doctor José Altamirano y Cervantes. At first his title was contested by Rayo; but the latter was finally induced to give up his pretensions, and by August 28 "the cabildo remained in peaceable possession of its government and vacant see." (Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, pp. 247, 248. In the same volume, pp. 135-206, is a detailed account of Camacho's controversy with the orders and the papal delegate, with a royal decree on that subject, dated May 20, 1700.)
[38] "As soon as he took possession of his archbishopric, he began to busy himself with the building of the seminary of San Phelipe; and the first error that he committed was, to place the arms of the cabildo on the front of the edifice together with the arms of the king, which he placed on one of the stories. He also drew up the instructions for this collegiate seminary; and when he came to the admission of students he did not remember the [rights of the] royal patronage, and arranged for their admission without mentioning the vice-patron. The king's fiscal, who saw therein one of his Majesty's prerogatives wounded, strongly opposed the exercise of the archbishop's claims, and from this ensued some mortifications to his illustrious Lordship; but the college was completed, and the seminarists were appointed, as the king commanded." (Zúñiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 417, 418.)