The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 27 of 55 / 1636-37 / 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

by Unknown

Letters from Corcuera to Felipe IV

Sire:

When your Majesty, through your grace and condescension, sent me to serve you in these Filipinas Islands, you were pleased to give me your commands in one of your royal decrees, dated at Madrid, on the sixteenth of February in the past year, one thousand six hundred and thirty-five—issued on account of the information which you had from this royal Audiencia of the losses which these islands have suffered, during the past thirty years and more, from Cachil Corralat, king of the great island of Mindanao, from the kings of Jolo and Burney, and from the Camucones. They have plundered the islands, and taken captive the poor Christian Indians, selling them as their slaves from one country to another, seizing the religious and the ministers of the holy gospel, burning the villages, and devastating everything. The royal Audiencia has given your Majesty but scant information of the great and excessive injuries which these poor islands have experienced from these Moro enemies. For in the year when I arrived here, they did not content themselves with taking captive more than twenty-five or thirty thousand vassals of your Majesty; at this time which I mention they seized and carried away captive from the island of Calamianes Don Diego de Alabez, your Majesty’s alcalde-mayor in that island and province, together with three religious, Recollects of the Order of St. Augustine, who in various places were furnishing instruction to the vassals of your Majesty. At the same time when they made this notable seizure, they sacked the churches, and afterward burned them, carrying away the monstrances with the most holy sacrament, the chalices, and other sacred vessels, with all the ornaments that they could find—even taking the bells. All together, this booty was worth more than two or three thousand pesos—which for churches so poor, and for poor Indians, was a considerable loss.

Having made inquiries as to what measures had been taken by my predecessors in so many years to check such lawless acts, I was assured by this royal Audiencia, and by all the oldest and most experienced residents of this colony, that in the past thirty-four years there had been expended from your Majesty’s royal exchequer more than two hundred thousand pesos, in equipping fleets in Cebu, Oton, this city, and other places, against these enemies. But these fleets were never able to come up with the pirates because of the swiftness of the Moro vessels, and because of the negligence of the commanders who were sent on these expeditions; consequently, all that was accomplished was to go to the islands where these enemies had been, and to live on the tender chickens and other supplies which the poor Indians had carried away to the hills. All these things, and the commands that your Majesty was pleased to lay upon me in your royal decree above mentioned, constrained me to summon a council of war. It included all the old soldiers who are in this city, not only those in active service, but those on half-pay; also the royal Audiencia, and the royal officials of your Majesty. I told them how important it was to put an end to these raids, as your Majesty had commanded, and proposed to go in person to punish these Moros. All the members of the council uttered opinions contrary to mine, deeming it to be of greater importance that I should remain in this city. Only one thought that I should go to render this service, and that was my nephew, Captain and Sargento-mayor Don Pedro Hurtado de Corcuera; and some one among them said that your Majesty’s power was not sufficient to conquer the height of Mindanao, where the king Cachil Corralat was.

Considering what your Majesty had commanded me in your royal decree, and the blasphemies which these Moros had uttered—saying that by carrying away the monstrances with the most holy sacrament they were carrying the God of the Christians captive, trampling upon them, and mocking them in other ways; spitting in the chalices; and using the patens as receptacles for the saliva from their buyo-chewing—all these things obliged me, Sire, [to go on this quest]. After having sent to Terrenate two galleons well armed, two pataches, and six champans, with two hundred infantry and two hundred mariners, to carry supplies to those forts, together with one new galley which the governor of those forts, Don Pedro de Mendiola, had requested from me that it might accompany the one which he maintained there (of which enterprise and of those islands I will give your Majesty an account in a separate letter), I embarked with eleven champans—vessels which were indeed frail and weak, but the other galley had not been completed. I had my own company of infantry, of one hundred and fifty soldiers; another, of a hundred Pampango Indians; and that of Captain Lorenco de Orella y Ugalde, containing another hundred men, mariners. With these two hundred and fifty Spaniards and one hundred Pampango Indians, I sailed as far as the fort of Camboanga, which (as I wrote to your Majesty last year) Don Juan Cereco de Salamanca had begun, or had ordered to be built, in that very island of Mindanao; by way of this port sail the ships which go to Terrenate for the relief of those forts. I made the decision which I have stated to your Majesty, in order to see if that port was of so much importance as they were all assuring me it was, and whether the expenses which that fort has caused your Majesty were being checked; I also went in order to visit the rest of the islands, which lie on that route, and to repair the wrongs which certain persons are inflicting on the poor Indians. A few months before, I had sent to that fort a new governor and a new commander, judging that those officers who had until then been stationed there had accomplished nothing of importance with their flotilla. After Sargento-mayor Bartolome Diaz Barrera arrived as governor, and Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gomez as captain of both companies, those Moros withdrawing [to their own country] with the rich prize of those religious and the consecrated vessels which I have mentioned to your Majesty, and a friendly Moro having informed us that the pirates had passed, two leguas from there, by the island of Basilan (or Taguima, for the island has both names), Bartolome Diaz Barrera sent Sargento-mayor [Gomez] with five caracoas and his company of soldiers. They encountered the Moros in the middle of their voyage, with their booty, and fought with them. One of our own balls, strangely, struck one of the missionary fathers, who tried to see how the Spaniards were fighting; and he was killed. Out of seven caracoas which were conveying the enemy with their spoils, the said sargento-mayor captured four and burned one; and he rescued more than one hundred and twenty Christian captives, the rest being killed by our bullets. There were also some Moros who, as those people are so stubborn, would not stop killing our men, and perished by drowning. As soon as our men captured two of the caracoas, the rest took to flight, and by hard rowing reached their own lands, with the two priests and the greater part of the sacred vessels which they were carrying away as plunder.

In the province of Camarines there was another piece of good-fortune; for Don Pedro Mena, alcalde-mayor of that province, burned eighteen of the Moro caracoas; and of the rest more than ten were wrecked by a storm, in which were drowned the Moros and the Christian captives whom they were carrying away. In the island of Leite, two other officers, half-pay alférezes, sailed out in different vessels after the rest of the Moro horde; and they captured from the pirates a caracoa, and slew many of their men. With these two successes, then, I arrived, Sire, at Camboanga with the troops whom I have mentioned; and from that fort I took Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gomez, with his company. With these, I had a force of three hundred and fifty Spaniards and one hundred and fifty Pampangos, and with them proceeded to Lamitan, the principal village of the king, Cachil Corralat; but only four caracoas and two champans could arrive at the same time with me, on account of stormy weather. Confiding more in the goodness and mercy of God than in the number of my soldiers, and having left those vessels well guarded, I landed with about seventy Spaniards and two small field-pieces (which they themselves fired). They engaged the enemy, in both the village and the fort; and God was pleased to give your Majesty a great victory, although by the means of forces so weak and so few soldiers. The village and fort were gained in less than half an hour; in them were two pieces of bronze artillery, for six- and eight-libra balls respectively; thirteen bronze versos, and some forty or fifty muskets and arquebuses; and in the mosque were found two bells. In the river were more than three hundred barks and other vessels; four of these, belonging to some merchants, were laden with wax, oil, and other goods, which made rich booty for the soldiers. I reserved for your Majesty only the wax and oil, and the arms. If I had had more men, I would have followed the king to the top of the height; and it might be that before he reached the height he would have fallen into the hands of your Majesty’s soldiers. I thought it best to give thanks to God for what had been accomplished, and to content myself with that until the rest of the men should arrive. This was Friday, the thirteenth of the month; on the sixteenth the rest of the vessels arrived. Having made all the soldiers confess and receive communion, I distributed among them ammunition, and biscuit and cheese for four days. I sent Nicolas Gomez with one hundred and fifty Spaniards by way of the rear of the hill, two hours before daybreak, and fifty Pampangos, and some Indians to carry the supplies. I myself set out with about two hundred Spaniards, fifty Pampangos, and as many more Indians, by the route in front, and arrived at the foot of the hill, a distance of about a long legua. I found a large village built below, and abandoned by the Moros, who had retreated up the hill. I set out over the rugged slopes, and although the Moros uttered many shouts and outcries, they did not interrupt my progress until we were at a musket-shot from their fortification. I had given orders to the captains who were leading the vanguard, Lorenzo de Ugalde and Don Rodrigo de Guillestigui, and to my nephew the sargento-mayor, to make observations and reconnoiter when they reached the fort, instructing them to win the fight, with hearts all the more courageous since they had seen that in the assault on the village not one man had been killed, and no more than two or three wounded. They laid siege to the hill before I could reach the scene of conflict, to which I proceeded with your Majesty’s colors. The Moros awaited us with a good supply of muskets and versos; at the first volley they killed some of the more daring soldiers, and wounded others. Our men reached the stockade, shouting “Santiago!” and asking for more men from the detachment which was still ascending the hill, by one of slopes and paths as rugged and narrow as any which I ever saw in the Alarbes or the Pirineos, or in any places where I have served your Majesty. On account of the haste with which he had tried to reach me, Captain Ugalde had lost an arm; and Captain Don Rodrigo de Guillestegui, alférez in my company, had been several times struck by stones, so that he could hardly move. My nephew Don Pedro had received a musket-shot in the right leg, across the shin-bone. There were twenty-three killed, officers and men, and more than fifty wounded. Although your Majesty’s soldiers fought with great valor, the enemy could not have received much damage, even from our musketry, on account of the great strength of their stockades, which were everywhere pierced with holes from our musket-balls; and, because we were unable to carry up the hill our two small field-pieces (which carry two-libra balls), the musketry could not accomplish much. Seeing that we could not carry the fort, and the number of men I had lost, so that there were hardly a hundred effective men left, and knowing that on the hill the Moros numbered four thousand, well armed, I took command of the rearguard, ordered that the wounded be carried away, and went down from the hill, uniting my troops with the guard of Pampangos whom I had left with the cannon. Although I desired to hold that post, I had not men for this; on that account, and in order that the Moros should not harass me by cutting off the heads of the wounded men, I had to escort them as far as the fort of San Francisco Xabiel, which had been gained below. I reached it at night, with the troops discouraged, and reduced to the small number that I have mentioned to your Majesty. On this occasion I had not the support of Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gomez and his men—who went as the rearguard, on account of pains in his legs—although he had not more than three leguas to go from four o’clock in the morning to eleven, when the battle commenced. They were reconnoitering, carrying Nicolas Gomez in a hammock because he could not, on account of his foot, climb paths so rugged. He did not come back until the morning of the next day, when I had sent eighty men who survived from the vanguard, to which Nicolas Gomez had to go, setting out as soon as the men had heard mass. They went at that time because the enemy had not fortified the rear of the hill. Captain Gastelu, who led Nicolas Gomez’s vanguard, gained a good position, and killed some Moros who were defending a passage across which they had only felled a tree. Captain Gastelu passed this obstruction, and gained the top of the hill and the rear of the king’s main stronghold, where he had his house, and four pieces of artillery. Of these, one was bronze, with your Majesty’s arms on it, carrying an eight-libra ball; the three others were of cast iron, for six- and eight-libra balls. They were loaded up to the mouth with balls, chains, and spikes, in order [to destroy us] if we had gone up the hill by that route, on which the guide whom I took with me had already started us. But God influenced my choice, in order that we should go by the other road; for although I did not get off very cheaply, yet by this road it would have cost me far more dear. At the time when we were fighting above on the seventeenth of March, the eve of St. Joseph’s day, the eighty men whom I sent with Captain Rodrigo de Guillestigui, my alférez, arrived at the foot of the hill on this other side; and, as a result of the pious haste which Father Marcelo Mastrilo used in saying mass in order that we might pursue our march, the news was soon brought to me that the Moros had flung themselves down from their heights in flight, and that your Majesty’s banners were flying over their three forts and our chaplains singing the Te Deum laudamus. Other arms were secured there—twelve or thirteen versos, and more than a hundred arquebuses and muskets; everything else was given to the soldiers as booty, as a reward for their labors. Thus your Majesty gained a victory, as others will write you. As the king, Cachil Corralat, is very influential in those regions, I have made public an offer to give three thousand pesos for his head. The captives and his wife’s servants tell me that the king was wounded in an arm by a musket-ball; with that, I understand, he will not be able to keep up his people’s courage; and, if he does not go away into those rugged mountains, he will not escape me. His wife threw herself from the walls, with a little child in her arms; and many other women belonging to the leading families were sold here on your Majesty’s account—fifty of them, besides as many more men; while more than two hundred Christian captives were set free. Of the two Augustinian fathers, one had been slain in revenge because we had killed, in the assault from below, the commander of that fort, who was a nephew of the king, and two others of their chiefs. On the day when the height was carried by our men, the Moros, when they took to flight, inflicted so many wounds on the other father that, although they brought him to me alive, he had seventeen mortal wounds, so that within thirteen hours he died, in my quarters. His death left us all as envious as compassionate of his fate. Thus all the three fathers, Sire, have died, at various times. I brought away the ornaments and sacred vessels, and returned them to their owners, after having displayed them in a procession which was made as a thank-offering to the most holy sacrament—from which, as I firmly believe, your Majesty received this favor [of the victory], on account of the fiestas which had been celebrated a few months before, in accordance with your royal decree. I send an official statement of this, in order that your Majesty may know in what manner your commands were obeyed. I had intended to make this relation more concise, but I have not been able to do so. Others will give a more detailed account of the campaign; but I am telling your Majesty only the substance of the service that has been rendered to you.

I returned to Çamboanga, after I had sent Sargento-mayor Pedro Palomino with five caracoas to the king of Buayen, to reduce him to a vassal of your Majesty, and to make him pay tribute, or else wage war against him as we had done to Corralat. He yielded what was demanded from him, and became tributary to your Majesty. He and all his vassals pay the annual tribute: every married man, three eight-real pesos; and each single man, a peso and a half. To some persons it has seemed that I have imposed a heavy tax on them; but they do not consider the great expenses which these Moros have caused to your Majesty’s treasury, nor my granting them the favor, in your Majesty’s royal name, of remitting half the tribute to those who shall become Christians. I doubt much whether they will do so; for they are a fierce and obstinate people. The king of Buayen will allow the fathers of the Society to supply instruction, under the condition that they baptize only children, and do not annoy or urge the adults; I granted this, as being so in accord with the holy gospel, since God does not bring any one by force to His holy law; and gradually both the children and their grandparents will become Christians. I have therefore brought to settle and live in the fort of Camboanga nearly four hundred Moros; and I hope that within a year all that island (which is larger than the whole of España) will pay tribute to your Majesty.

I sent Captain Juan Nicolas with eighty Spaniards and twenty Pampangos, with a thousand fighting Indians from among your Majesty’s Christian vassals; and he harried all the coast of more than half of the island—burning villages and grain-fields, and destroying the trees, and cutting off more than seventy heads—until he reached the fort of Caraga in the same island. That fort (which I have now finished) is built of stone, without any expense from the royal treasury of your Majesty; and that at Çamboanga will cost very little. Thus, between Juan Nicolas and myself, we made the entire circuit of the island.

This coming year I will go, or I will send some one, to explore the country inland to the lake of Manala [i.e., Malanao], around which there are more than seventy houses, I mean villages, containing many people. They are not supplied with firearms, although the Moros are well provided with long arrows and other missile weapons. I hope in God to carry on that enterprise as promptly and easily as this other one; and even to bring down from his lofty stronghold the king of Jolo, and reduce him to obedience to your Majesty. And I will try to send an expedition—if not next year, then the year after—against the king of Burney, who shelters and favors the Camucones, who by themselves and alone are of no account. When that is done, in all this archipelago there will remain no enemy except the Dutch. God knows that if I had a thousand more Spaniards, I would give them enough in which to earn reward; but I have so much territory to guard, and in so many posts, that, with the small forces that there are in these islands, one thousand five hundred men, I cannot attempt to render your Majesty this service.

Although your Majesty has not authorized me to grant extra pay, when I saw how your soldiers fought in my presence, and how at the cost of their blood and their lives they won credit for your Majesty’s arms, I granted in your royal name an increase of pay to the wounded, to each one a peso more than his usual wages; and to some I gave two pesos. This will be, in all, ninety-seven pesos of extra pay. In order to compensate for this new expenditure from your Majesty’s revenues, I placed in the royal treasury two hundred and fifty pesos which will be vacant at this time in every year, in order that from this sum may be paid the twenty-one and thirty pesos which an adjutant had who died in the campaign; these amounts also will remain on the half-pay list. Accordingly, the only extra expense thus incurred from your Majesty’s revenues is the other forty-six pesos; and from that I have cut out more than twenty pesos, by means of offices which I have given to those soldiers—while within a year, or sooner, I will have given offices to the rest of them, and thus will have canceled all the extra pay which I granted them.

The royal official judges made objections to doing this, alleging their obligations. I replied that nevertheless they must confirm these grants, and that I would give account of them to your Majesty; and that, in case you were not pleased to approve them, I would pay them from my own salary. For I consider it a grievous thing to see before me your soldiers fighting, and being crippled in your Majesty’s service, and I not able to encourage them with the reward of a peso of extra pay, which is very little gain for them. I entreat your Majesty to be pleased to command that this be examined and approved; and, in case objection is made, to be pleased to let me know of it, so that—although in like cases I may grant other favors to the soldiers in your royal name—I may not give them extra pay; and so that the royal official judges may pay this amount from my salary, deducting from it what shall have been thus spent. May our Lord protect the Catholic person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need. Manila, August 20, 1637. Sire, your vassal kisses your Majesty’s feet.

Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera

Sire:

Master-of-camp Pedro de Heredia has by your Majesty’s grace governed the forts of Terrenate for twelve years, and you have commanded that his residencia be taken; but he has ingenuity and shrewdness, and always has been able to make gifts to my predecessors. It is reported that he is accustomed to say among the soldiers that he has 30,000 pesos to close one eye of any governor who shall send to take his residencia, and, if it should be necessary, as many more pesos to close the other eye; but he has found the door to this shut. He is availing himself of his ingenuity, as he has done before, to make the residencia which I have taken of his government suit his wishes. After I came here (or before), a Portuguese resident in Malaca demanded from him 60,000 pesos, which Don Pedro had seized from his property. I appointed Auditor Don Antonio Alvarez de Castro as judge in this suit. The sentence having been pronounced, on sufficient evidence, that he must repay 12,000 pesos to this Portuguese, Simon Texeira, Don Pedro appealed to your Majesty’s royal Council of the Indias; but as you have here your royal Audiencia, the affair was placed in its hands. He challenged Auditor Marcos Çapata and all the lawyers of this city; his plea was that in Terrenate he had brought to trial Sargento-mayor Don Marcos Çapata, son of the auditor, because he had punished with the cudgel a subordinate of his for a certain shameless act, and because officially, without having complained to any one, he upbraided him for holding illicit relations with a married woman, without having corrected or punished him. This might be true, because, in order to cover up his own evil proceedings, there was not a captain, nor a commander of the relief ships, nor a private soldier, with whom he did not pick a quarrel, in order to keep that man under guard during his term there, defending himself by saying that they were his enemies, on account of his quarrel with them. Besides this, Sire, is the money which has come into his hands and those of the accountant during these twelve years, together with the military supplies of all kinds which are carried to him every year. The provisions he distributed among the soldiers, without charging these against their pay; and he has, according to assertions made to me, charged large quantities of supplies to many men who had fled to the enemy on account of the bad treatment that they experienced, and to others who had died of sickness; it cannot be known, therefore, whether these men actually received them. All these things are made public by the soldiers whom I have had exchanged from those forts, which have held these men as slaves for twenty or twenty-four years, without their being allowed to come to this city. On account of all these things, I have ordered that all the papers of the accountancy for those forts shall be brought here, so that it may be seen how so great an amount of your Majesty’s properly has been spent. Since the old soldiers have come back, there is no end to the petitions against him—for having taken away from some of them honor, from others their possessions.

As I found last year your Majesty’s royal treasury in a needy condition, and the citizens not only had no money to lend it, but instead had asked me for more than 60,000 pesos from the Sangley licenses in order to relieve their own needs, I managed through an intermediary person to inform Don Pedro that he could make a donation to your Majesty of 100,000 pesos, which would adjust his residencia and his affairs, rendering satisfaction to the parties concerned, so that his reputation might be saved and that he might have opportunity to receive grace from your Majesty; for the universal opinion is that he possesses wealth amounting to 400,000 pesos. Not only did he refuse to do this, but he even undertook to offer only 15,000 pesos; so I ordered that nothing more be said in this matter. This man is so subtle that if your Majesty does not send an official to take his residencia, he will come out from it with everything just as he desires, as every one says. I assert that it is necessary for your Majesty to send some one, because with all the officials here Don Pedro is so shrewd and crafty and suave that he sways every one at his will, and will attain all his desires. I have fulfilled my duty in placing this before your Majesty; now you will be pleased to command what is most expedient to your royal service. May our Lord protect the Catholic person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need. Manila, August 20, in the year 637. Sire, your vassal kisses your Majesty’s feet.

Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera

[Endorsed: “Manila; to his Majesty; 1637. Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, August 20; contains particulars regarding the master-of-camp Pedro de Heredia.” “February 5, 1639; hand to the fiscal.” “The fiscal says that this letter comes alone, and without any accompanying proofs of the allegations. This residencia could be awaited, if an account of it comes in the fleet; and if it is delayed in the Audiencia it can be entrusted to the auditor whom the Council shall be pleased to appoint, so that the residencia may be taken in a thoroughly satisfactory manner and referred to the Council for its decision. Let the governor be informed that he must endeavor most carefully to administer justice in such cases, without giving any opportunity for composition of offences, which is so injurious to justice, which should be administered with the utmost equity and uprightness to all persons. Madrid, February 22, 1639.” “February 28; wait for the coming of the fleet, to see what information about this matter shall arrive; and if any comes, let it be brought with this letter.”]