The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 50 / 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

ELEVENTH ABUSE

It is an abuse that the fathers have in every way defended and protected, from the time of the conquest, the Chinese idolaters, apostates, traitors, and sodomites, without any benefit to the community,[21] but with considerable harm in spiritual and temporal affairs; and that they have persecuted the poor Spaniard with so great rancor and eagerness. For it is seen that if any Spaniard goes, on account of misfortune, to the provinces to gain his livelihood, the father immediately orders him to leave, even if he does not lash him, etc.[22]

This is the reason why, after so long a time, there is no other settlement of Spaniards than that of Manila; for in the provinces rarely or never does one see a Spaniard. And, pursuing the same reasoning, after the lapse of so many years we are as strange to the Indians as in the beginning, and even more so, as one can see in the history of the conquest compared with what we all saw during the war.

I venerate, as I ought, the justness of the laws, (xxi and xxii, book vi, título iii, and law i, book vii, título iv, of the Recopilación) which prohibit, in the words of the laws, “Spaniards, negroes, mulattoes, or mestizos from living in the villages of the Indians, for it has been found that some of the first are restless fellows, of evil life, robbers, gamblers, and vicious and abandoned people.” However, conceding for the present whatever crimes and stigmas these laws impute to the Spaniards, I declare and affirm that, with that ban, the regulars have committed more havoc in America and Filipinas than all the locusts together. These (the laws) the regulars order posted in the tribunal houses of the villages, and obey them with such rigor that if the laws concerning the missionaries were observed in the same way there would be no Christianity equal to that of those countries.

Let the evil Spaniard be punished; that is but justice: but the good man cannot and ought not to be punished. The fact is that by means of the said laws the father puts all [the Spaniards] on the same footing, and persecutes and punishes all without distinction until he drives them out of the country. In this way, he is left alone in the village, and without witnesses for what only God knows, and the intelligent Catholics weep; and the Indian grows more alien every day, and becomes hostile to the Spaniard through the instruction which he receives from the father.

If the Spaniard is very bad, let him be punished by all means. But, if this is proper, why do they not only not ask the same in regard to the Chinese (who without comparison is worse), but defend, protect, and aid him, on account of trade and whatever else offers?

The Spaniard may be a robber, gambler, and vicious; but he is not an idolater, an apostate, or a traitor, a sodomite, and the father of all deceit, as is the Chinese. Nevertheless, the father keeps still about all this and shelters it, and reserves his hootings only for the poor Spaniard, who many times shames the father missionary himself by the regularity of his conduct.

What consolation can there be for the Spaniard, prohibited so rigorously from entering the domains of his king, when he sees that the Chinese are not only not hindered from such entrance, but also that they are encouraged; and that they rove about, and come and go, with more freedom than in their own country?[23]

Is it possible that we must see laws so harsh against the people of our own nation, and yet, that although the Chinese are foreigners and so perverse in all ways, they have merited a special título in the Recopilación and in article 18, book vi, for their defense, trade, and increase in Manila and the provinces?

Fray Gaspar de San Agustin speaks as follows in his history of the conquest of Filipinas, book ii, folio 373 and verso, when speaking of the Chinese: “They are a race blinded by greed, and self-interest, and when these intervene friendship or relationship counts for nothing; for the son delights more in deceiving his father than the foreigner.” He continues, and after noting that they are atheists, and that only by a miracle will it be seen that any of them is a good Christian, he concludes as follows: “finally, they are a nation who hope for no other blessings than those of this world, nor other glory than temporal goods; and they worship no other God than the metals of silver and gold, and keep faith with Money alone.”

This is the character of the Chinese, according to the above-cited author.[24] And, granted that it was a very inadequate statement, it is necessary to remark that both he and the rest of his order, and the others, with no difference, have favored and protected such atheists and persecuted the Spaniards. The proof is ad oculum [i.e., ocular], until the destruction during the war; for Manila and the provinces were inundated by Chinese, married and protected by the fathers, but there was not, nor is there a Spaniard [in the provinces]. This was because they did not find themselves persecuted by those same fathers; therefore the Chinese, according to the same historian, reached in time past the number of four hundred thousand. The most remarkable thing is, that the fathers administered to them in spiritual matters with as great serenity as if they were fathers of the deserts,[25] and yet Fray Gaspar confesses that they are atheists.

We cannot pass in silence the fact that after the war the Chinese religious[26] refused to confess the Chinese, for they said that they knew that their fellow-countrymen were idolaters. However, the Spanish religious found a moral rule by which to proceed without any innovation, as they proceed in their own administration; and in this way they have administered the Christian churches in those regions. Consequently, he who says the contrary deceives, and falsifies the truth in regard to certain facts which are public, and which all those of us who have been in those regions have seen.

In confirmation of the above, see the same historian, book iii, folio 426, in which, treating of the arrival of Governor Santiago de Vera, he says: “He brought very strict orders from his Majesty[27] to correct the great excesses which had come to his royal notice, and which had been committed by the encomenderos of the Indians—who, losing shame before God and the world, had descended to such dishonorable acts (perhaps for lack of punishment in the first encomenderos), which transgressed their obligation.” Leaving aside the truth of so great excesses and of the medium by which they came to his royal notice (which if investigated thoroughly must have been, without doubt, through the fathers themselves) it is a fact that a decree was despatched at Lisboa, March 27, 1583, in favor of the Indians, and against the excesses of the encomenderos.

The above-mentioned historian continues, and says that the governor deprived Bartolomé de Ledesma, encomendero of Abuyo, of his encomienda, as also others whom he found more guilty in similar crimes—whose names he omits, as it is not his intention to reveal or point out other persons who at present behave as they should; but he will not neglect to give the royal decree.

In fact he gives the decree literally, and in truth the crimes of the encomenderos are so atrocious that they become incredible. But granting their certainty, because the decree so says, one must wonder that the father inserts it so exactly after he has just said that he omits those excesses because it is not his intention to describe them. That being a manifest contradiction, proves that the mind of the fathers has always been, and will always be, to defame and make odious the Spaniard to the Indian, the council, and the king, in order that the fathers may be masters of everything, without opposition or witnesses.

The same historian concludes the matter on folio 427, with the following words: “But Doctor Santiago Vera made such judicious arrangements in regard to the evil doing of the encomenderos, that, from the time of his government, that matter began to take better shape, and through the Infinite Pity is at present in better condition.”[28]

This condition of affairs is what the fathers wish, for it has been many years since there has been any encomendero or Spaniard in the provinces. That has been their sole desire, and, having obtained it, he openly avows that the matter is at present in a better condition through the Divine Pity, because they are alone, absolute, and without rival.

But how could this fail to happen thus, if laws xxiii and xxiv of the same título and book only permit the Spaniard, even though he goes as a merchant, to remain in the villages of the Indians for three days; and if he exceeds that time, it must be with the penalty of fifty pesos of gold-dust for each day? It is to be noted here that the father is so exact in the observance of these laws that it can be said that he keeps others; and although he does not exact the fifty pesos because most of the Spaniards require the money for their food, what does it matter if he orders them to be lashed and imprisoned?

Let this point be taken in the sense which is desired [by the fathers], and let the Spaniard be considered most perverse; yet he is better than the best Chinese. Is it possible that so many privileges are conceded to the Chinese, that he is to live, marry, and trade freely in Manila and the provinces, and so great harshness must be exercised against the poor Spaniard? Is it possible that the latter can deserve so little that he is not indeed equal to the Chinese?[29]

The condition of this matter reduces itself to a few points. First, that if, by scandals and evil example to the Indians, the Spaniards have to leave the villages, one ought to begin with the father. This is so notorious a fact that all who have been in América and Filipinas will testify to that effect in the official letters of the Council.

Second, in respect to the arguments which are alleged against the Spaniard, they are not what they seem, and one must subtract three-fourths of them; while it must be assumed as a well-known fact that, as they are his declared enemy, and all the regulars are pledged against the Spaniard, they have not hesitated to find witnesses and raise up false testimonies, in order to attain their plans. This idea is so generally practiced and current, that would to God there were no memory of it.

All these complaints and outcries are reduced to the fact that if the Spaniard is solicitous for women, to oblige him to marry an Indian woman is of infinite advantage to him; and, if he is vicious by another extreme, to punish him. If this remedy does not please the religious (and immediately it does not suit them) why, just as they are irritated against the poor Spaniard, do they not cry out in the same manner against the Chinese, who is so perverse, but defend him in whatever arises? Why do they not cry out against the negro, mulatto, and mestizo who are such consummate rogues, but discharge all their spite upon the Castila?

The explanation of this mystery consists in the fact that the Spaniard treats the father with the urbanity that is used toward ecclesiastics in España; but he is not imposed upon by the kind of servitude which the former desires, and at the same time he is a witness of what occurs in the provinces that is not right, and which the fathers do not wish him to know. On the contrary, the Chinese, under pretense that they allow to him his liberty, keeps still, dissimulates, makes presents, and blindly submits to whatever is ordered of him.

Third, although we grant, as is right, the justice of the above-expressed laws in the time and the sense in which they were made, yet, as they are generally put in force against every Spaniard good or bad, it follows: first, that they punish the innocent; second, they prevent the settlement by Spaniards in the provinces, although it is so necessary; and, third, they hinder our union and friendship with the Indians, and consequently, marriages. And, supposing that the Indian women do not desire anything else, and that a Spaniard thus married has all the kindred of his wife favorable to him, I desire to know, according to good policy, whether there is any other remedy more rational and suitable than this, for the conservation of those domains? This is what law viii, título i, book vi, provides.

There are two alternatives: it is either advantageous for the nation to preserve them, or not. If the latter, let the Spaniards come, and let them be abandoned at once. If the former, there is no other means better than that of union between the two nations. And, besides the fact that this is the universal practice throughout the world, it is unnecessary to say anything more about the matter; for, let the regulars say what they will, they will not deny that if the Castilian language had not been precluded from the beginning, and had the Spaniards married the Indian women—which was the method of giving them good treatment, according to the laws—there would be little or nothing to conquer in the two Américas and Filipinas. Consequently, it seems indispensable to abrogate the above-cited laws, or to moderate them somewhat in favor of the nation, restraining the license of the fathers. That is quite in accordance with law xxiv, título i, book vi, which permits the Spaniard to trade freely with the Indians. That cannot be done if he is to be driven from the villages in three days’ time.

Remedy for this evil

To abrogate the laws above cited, as being suggested without doubt, by the regulars, and if not, as being dangerous to the state; and to order that the Spaniards can come and go, and freely trade, in the provinces; to proclaim rewards for those who marry Indian women, and to expel the father if he meddles with the Spaniard in what concerns his external conduct, since, if he is evil and commits crimes, there are justices to punish him.