The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

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Chapter 38342 wordsPublic domain

P. 55. note: The name Palaos (also written Palau or Pelew) is applied to the western group of the Carolinas Archipelago, which extends in a general east and west direction from the region south of the Marianas. Although nominally the property of Spain, these islands were greatly neglected by the Spaniards, even into the nineteenth century. Their attention was directed for a time to the Palaos by the event described in Clain's letter, and various attempts were made, but unsuccessfully, to establish Christian missions therein, two Jesuits, Duberon and José Cortil, being killed by natives in 1710, and another, Antonio Cantova, meeting the same fate in 1731. In the latter half of the last century, German interests gained ascendency in the islands, which led to their absorption by Germany. Jagor cites (Reisen, pp. 215, 216) several historical instances of Palaos islanders being carried by storms to the coasts of Filipinas; and adds, "Later, I had in Manila an opportunity to photograph a group of people from the Paláos and Caroline Islands, who a year previously had been cast by a storm on the coast of Samar." He also says (p. 203): "As Dr. Gräffe (who spent many years in the Micronesas) informs me, Paláos is an indefinite expression, like Kanaka and so many others, and certainly does not designate the inhabitants of the Pelew group exclusively." Regarding these islands, see Montero y Vidal's Hist. de Filipinas, i, pp. 31, 402-409, 455-473. and his Archipiélago filipino, pp. 469-505; also Miguel's Estudio de las Islas Carolinas, and the various bibliographies of the Philippines, especially Griffin's List, and Vindel's Catálogo biblioteca filipina. See Karl Semper's Die Palau-Inseln im Stillen Ocean (Leipzig, 1873), which Pardo de Tavera praises (Biblioteca filipina, p. 402) as "the most important modern work on the Palaos Islands which I know." In the Ethnological Museum at Dresden is an important collection of material made by Semper.

P. 313, line 9: Instead of Barcena, this name is written by Torrubia (Dissertación, p. 63) Barrena.

P. 316, note: Add "apparently a misprint for Cutay."