“Those live chiefly in the Southern islands. The body of the people of the Northern islands are of the Malayan stock, loving liberty, but kept poor by tributes exacted. They were a people of simple ways and homely virtues. Because of being of Malayan descent they wore called Moros by the Spaniards. The two tribes of Moros, the Tagals of Northern Luzon, and the Viscayans of Southern Luzon and North Mindoro, yielded to Legaspi, to whom the king of Spain gave all the land he might conquer. He was not a hard master, leaving the olden, native chiefs in charge; but when, after this, the friars came from Spain, they began the work of oppression. When the great earthquake destroyed Maynila in 1645, and over 600 perished in the catastrophe, the natives were forced to work without pay on the arsenal at Ca Vite, and when, because of harsh treatment, they rebelled, burning towns and churches, the friars dispatched soldiers for the head of Sumoroy, the rebel. His followers sent in the head of a pig instead. The enraged friars and soldiers tortured to death the mother of Sumoroy, and afterward, when the rebel was betrayed to them, struck off his head and mounted it on a pole for the people to look upon.”
“Brutal, doubtless. But such things were common in those days,” returned the admiral.
“God pity us, they are too common in Manila in these days. The reputation of the friars was such in those days that when some of them went to Japan it was reported in that land that they were advance guards of the Spanish army, getting a foothold, and that after them would come the army to protect them. The Mikado ordered the friars out, but they defied him. Then the Japanese emperor adopted heroic measures. He gathered together 150 lepers and sent them to Maynila, saying that Japan did not allow Roman friars in that country, but, since these friars were fond of this kind of people, he sent them a ship load.”
“That, too, seems to have been inhuman. How were the lepers received?”
“Oh, the friars built the hospital of St. Lazarus for their reception. You can see it beyond those palms.”
“That was rather a Christian act.”
“The friars have done some good. But they insist on foreign friars ruling instead of native priests, and to maintain their supremacy keep the people uneducated. Then they claim ownership of large tracts of the best land, and exact high rentals. The people have rebelled against their exactions over and over again. Long ago the king of Tagals killed the alcade of Tayabas province, and made the people believe that the earth would swallow the Spaniards when they were attacked, but his rebellion was put down with great slaughter.”
“No wonder, General. This confirms my information that the inhabitants are not free from superstition.”
“Eso fue en los dias antiguos[1], Admiral. The people were crude then. Perhaps they were like your American Indians. But they were oppressed, and they began even then the rebellion against Spain and the friars which they have maintained for over 300 years, from the days when Soliman, the native king, set fire to Maynila and fought them from the forests, to the last rebellion of Rizal and the religious deflection of Aglipay.”
“It seems to me a man of ability, like you, General, ought to be able to win.”