The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 34 of 55, 1519-1522; 1280-1605 / 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 Antonio Pigafetta

12. You shall provide that after the houses have been built and the fields sown, the people try to discover minerals and other things in which they will be benefited. They shall cultivate the land and enrich it with new plants of vines and fruit trees for its support and gain.

13. Item: If the natives endeavor to prevent the said settlement, they must be told that the men are not trying to settle there in order to do them any harm or wrong, or to seize their possessions, but only to have friendship with them and teach them to live in a civilized manner and recognize God, and to expound to them the law of Jesus Christ by which they will be saved. After that message and warning has been given (which must be made three times as shall seem best to the person appointed by you after consulting with the religious who shall go to such settlement and by the tongue of the religious who shall tell and declare it), then if notwithstanding the abovesaid, the natives refuse to consent to the colony, the colonists shall endeavor to settle and shall defend themselves from the said natives without doing them other injury than that necessary for their defense and for making the said settlement. All the mildness and moderation possible shall be observed in the said defense.

14. Further, after having made such hamlet and settlement you shall see to it that the citizens and religious who shall be there, try to trade and communicate with the natives and to make friends with them, and to make them understand the abovesaid.

15. If the said natives and inhabitants located near the said colony should become friends because of such good efforts and persuasions, so that they give the religious permission to enter to teach them and to preach to them the law of Christ, you shall see that they do it. The religious shall endeavor to convert them and allure them to the faith, and to have them recognize us as sovereign king and lord.

16. Further, if the said natives and the rulers of the Indians refuse to admit the religious preachers, after the announcement of their purpose as above said, and after the natives shall have been petitioned many times to allow the religious to enter to preach and to expound the word of God, you shall make a report of it and send it to our Council with the most justifiable testimony that you have of what has been done, in order that we may have you ordered as to what course you are to pursue. Meanwhile you shall endeavor to retain their friendship and trade, and shall treat them well. You shall endeavor by all possible means to bring them to a knowledge of our Lord.

17. If any of the officials appointed by us die, you shall appoint in each island those that may be lacking, so that in accordance with the instruction and order given them, they may administer our finances and attend to the other things that are entrusted to the other officials of the other provinces of the Indias. You shall make such appointments until we provide for it, and you shall immediately advise us of it so that we may have the proper measures taken.

18. The persons and our officials who shall be entrusted with duties, shall be paid their salaries from the fruits of the land by our treasurer, in accordance with a list made out and signed by the said officials and signed by the governor of the province.

19. Item: You shall endeavor to take the most virtuous and Christian people possible, and those who shall be best fitted for the said colonization.

20. Item: You shall take four of the religious at present in the said islands, and if you do not have them, you shall take two seculars who must be persons of good life and morals, fit to give the instruction, and to administer the holy sacraments.

21. Item: You shall endeavor with great care to see that the Spaniards do no harm and show no force to the Indians, and that they do not wound them or do them any other evil or harm, or deprive them of their possessions, but they shall show them the utmost good treatment. If any of the men offend the Indians, then you and your captains shall punish him rigorously and shall warn him not to continue such actions. If he be careless and negligent in this, then you shall have him punished with great rigor; for this is a matter whose fulfilment we desire greatly, and if this be not obeyed we shall consider ourselves greatly disserved.