A History of the Philippines

by David P. Barrows

Political Decline of the Philippines.—For the hundred years succeeding the abandonment of the Moluccas, the Philippines lost all political significance as a colony. From almost every standpoint they were profitless to Spain. There were continued deficits, which had to be made good from the Mexican treasury. The part of Spain in the conquest of the East was over, and the Philippines became little more than a great missionary establishment, presided over by the religious orders.

Death of Governor Salcedo by the Inquisition.—In 1663, Lara was succeeded by Don Diego de Salcedo. On his arrival, Manila had high hopes of him, which were speedily disappointed. He loaded the Acapulco galleon with his own private merchandise, and then dispatched it earlier than was usual, before the cargoes of the merchants were ready. He engaged in a wearisome strife with the archbishop, and seems to have worried the ecclesiastic, who was aged and feeble, into his grave. At the end of a few years he was hated by every one, and a conspiracy against him was formed which embraced the religious, the army, the civil officials, and the merchants. Beyond the reach of the power of ordinary plotters, he fell a victim to the commissioner of the Inquisition.

The Spanish Inquisition, which wrought such cruelty and misery in the Peninsula, was carried also to the Spanish colonies. As we have seen, it was primarily the function of the Dominican order to administer the institution. The powers exercised by an inquisitor can scarcely be understood at the present day. His methods were secret, the charges were not made public, the whole proceedings were closeted, and yet so great were the powers of this court that none could resist its authority, or inquire into its actions. Spain forbade any heretics, Jews, or Moors going to the colonies, and did the utmost to prevent heresy abroad. She also established in America the Inquisition itself. Fortunately, it never attained the importance in the Philippines that it had in Spain. In the Philippines there was no “Tribunal,” the institution being represented solely by a commissioner.

Death of the Governor.—In 1667, when the unpopularity of Governor Salcedo was at its height, this commissioner professed to discover in him grounds of heresy from the fact that he had been born in Flanders, and decided to avenge the Church by encompassing his ruin. By secret arrangement, the master of the camp withdrew the guard from the palace, and the commissioner, with several confederates, gained admission. The door of the governor’s room was opened by an old woman, who had been terrified into complicity, and the governor was seized sleeping, with his arms lying at the head of his bed.

The commissioner informed the governor that he was a prisoner of the Holy Office. He was taken to the convent of the Augustinians. Here he was kept in chains until he could be sent to Mexico, to appear before the Tribunal there. The government in Mexico annulled the arrest of the commissioner, but Salcedo died at sea on the return of the vessel to the Philippines in 1669.

Colonization of the Ladrone Islands.—In 1668 a Jesuit mission under Padre Diego Luis de Sanvítores was established on the Ladrones, the first of the many mission stations, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, in the South Pacific. The islands at that time were well populated and fertile, and had drawn the enthusiasm of Padre Sanvítores in 1662 when he first sailed to the Philippines.

The hostility of the Manchus in China, the Japanese persecutions, and the abandonment of Mindanao had closed many mission fields, and explains the eagerness with which the Jesuits sought the royal permission to Christianize these islands, which had been so constantly visited by Spanish ships but never before colonized. With Padre Sanvítores and his five Jesuit associates were a number of Christian Filipino catechists.

Settlement of Guam.—The mission landed at Guam, and was favorably received. Society among these islanders was divided into castes. The chiefs were known as chamorri, which has led to the natives of the Ladrones being called “Chamorros.” A piece of ground was given the Jesuits for a church at the principal town called Agadna (Agaña), and here also a seminary was built for the instruction of young men. The queen regent of Spain, Maria of Austria, gave an annual sum to this school, and in her honor the Jesuits changed the name of the islands to the Marianas. The Jesuits preached on eleven inhabited islands of the group, and in a year’s time had baptized thirteen thousand islanders and given instruction to twenty thousand.

Troubles with the Natives at Guam.—This first year was the most successful in the history of the mission. Almost immediately after, the Jesuits angered the islanders by compulsory conversions. There were quarrels in several places, and priests, trying to baptize children against the wishes of their parents, were killed. In 1670 the Spaniards were attacked, and obliged to fortify themselves at Agaña.

The Jesuits had a guard of a Spanish captain and about thirty Spanish and Filipino soldiers, who, after some slaughter of the natives, compelled them to sue for peace. The conditions imposed by the Jesuits were that the natives should attend mass and festivals, have their children baptized, and send them to be catechised. The hatred of the natives was unabated, however, and in 1672 Sanvítores was killed by them. His biographer claims that at his death he had baptized nearly fifty thousand of these islanders.[1]