“calling his attention to the within communication. Information is desired as to whether or not the within facts are true as stated, and also whether there are any persons held in involuntary servitude other than convicts within the province, and if so, that full particulars be given.”
Governor Corrales himself has none too good a record in connection with the treatment accorded the non-Christians of his province, and would certainly not paint a darker picture than was called for by the facts, yet in his reply[8] he gives the names of six towns in which “one still finds a few slave servants, most of them acquired many years ago.” He adds:—
“At the present time, there are but few sales of slaves proceeding from the mountain tribes, which are now relatively civilized. In Iligan and Misamis, I have heard that such sales were more frequent, for two reasons: (1) the Moro race is more despotic and more numerous; (2) the weekly market in Iligan gives them an opportunity to carry on that sort of business, although they have to do it by stealth, on account of the watchfulness of the authorities.
“I will call your attention to the fact that the slaves proceeding from the Moro district constitute, in the Moro villages, an inferior social class, the slave family, whose origin is due to the prisoners taken by the Dattos on their expeditions; when they are transferred to the Christians in Iligan or Misamis, because their masters wish to make money, or are hard pressed by the famines which are so frequent in the region of the Lanao, their condition is considerably improved by the good treatment and the better and more abundant food which they obtain in their new situation, by the mere fact that they live with a more civilized people.
“Those who come from the mountain tribes are not born slaves; with few exceptions, the chiefs and principal men of these tribes do not own slaves which they use for their service or for agricultural work, as the Moros do. Slaves are generally obtained in the following way:—
“It happens that a chief with bellicose and sanguinary instincts, who leads a nomad life and does not belong to the peaceful class which is given to farm life, organizes a gang of men of his sort, makes incursions in the wildest parts of the woods and raids the lone huts inhabited by savage and nomad families; he kills by treachery the grown-up people and carries off the children, which he can easily master; he then sells them to the peaceful farm dwellers, who sell them in their turn to the Christian pueblos.
“As I have already said, such cases are happily rare. In Iligan and Misamis, which are far from the capital of the province, and therefore from the Court and the provincial authorities, the slaves have had less opportunity to claim their rights, and it is not astonishing that neither the slaves nor their masters have a true notion of what is meant by individual liberty, although the former are at least sure of their lives since they left the jurisdiction of the Moros, at whose absolute mercy they were, and are much better treated among the Christians.
“I intend taking all necessary measures within my jurisdiction in order to put an end to such a hateful trade, and wait for any further instructions which you may deem it convenient to give me.”
Unfortunately neither the measures taken by Governor Corrales nor those adopted by his successors have sufficed to end this “hateful trade” in the province of Misamis.