It is recorded that in the year 1572 Captain Juan Salcedo (Legaspiʼs grandson) went to inspect the mines of Paracale, (Camarines); and in the same district the village of Mambulao has long enjoyed fame for the gold-washing in its vicinity.
In the time of Governor Pedro de Arandia (1754–59), a certain Francisco Estorgo obtained licence to work these Paracale mines, and five veins are said to have been struck. The first was in the Lipa Mountain, where the mine was called “San Nicolás de Tolentino”; the second, in the Dobójan Mountain, was called “Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Puerta Vaga”; the third, in Lipara, was named “Mina de las Animas”; the fourth, in the territory of San Antonio, took the name of “San Francisco,” and the fifth, in the Minapa Mountains, was named “Nuestra Señora de los Dolores,” all in the district of Paracale, near the village of Mambulao. The conditions of Estorgoʼs licence were, that one-fifth (real quinto) of the output should belong to the King; that Estorgo was authorized to construct, arm, and garrison a fort for his own defence against anticipated attacks from Mahometans, and that he should have the title of Castellano, or guardian of the fort. It was found necessary to establish the smelting-works in Mambulao, so he obtained a licence to erect another fort there on the same conditions, and this fort was named “San Cárlos.” In a short time the whole enterprise came to grief. Estorgoʼs neighbours, instigated by native legal pettifoggers in Manila, raised endless lawsuits against him; his means were exhausted, and apparatus being wanted to work the mines, he had to abandon them.
About the same time, the gold-mines of Pangotcotan and Acupan (Benguet district) were worked to advantage by Mexicans, but how much metal was won cannot be ascertained. The extensive old workings show how eagerly the precious metal was sought in the past. The Spanish Government granted only concessions for gold-mining, the title remaining in the Crown. Morga relates (1609) that the Crown royalty of one-tenth (vide p. [53]) of the gold extracted amounted to ₱10,000 annually. According to Centeno, the total production of gold in all the Islands in 1876 did not not exceed ₱3,600.
During the Government of Alonso Fajardo de Tua (1618–24) it came to the knowledge of the Spaniards that half-caste Igorrote-Chinese in the north of Luzon peacefully worked gold-deposits and traded in the product. Therefore Francisco Carreño de Valdés, a military officer commanding the Provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, obtained permission from the Governor to make a raid upon these Igorrote-Chinese and appropriate their treasure-yielding territory. After a seven daysʼ march the Spanish gold-seekers and troops arrived at the deposits, where they took up their quarters without resistance. The natives held aloof whilst mutual offers of peace were made. When the Spaniards thought they were in secure possession of the neighbourhood, the natives attacked and slaughtered a number of them. The commander of the district and the leader of the native troops were among the slain. Then they removed the camp to a safer place; but provisions ran short and the wet season set in, so the survivors marched back to the coast with the resolution to renew their attempt to possess the spoil in the following year. In the ensuing dry season they returned and erected a fort, whence detachments of soldiers scoured the neighbourhood to disperse the Igorrote-Chinese, but the prospectors do not appear to have procured much gold.
Many years ago a Spanish company was formed to work a gold-mine near the mountain of Malaguit, in the Province of Camarines Norte, but it proved unsuccessful.
At the beginning of last century a company was founded, under the auspices of the late Queen Christina of Spain (great-grandmother of the present King Alfonso XIII.), which was also an utter failure. I was told that the company had spacious offices established in Manila, whence occasionally the employees went up to the mines, situated near the Caraballo Mountain, as if they were going to a picnic. When they arrived there, all denoted activity—for the feast; but the mining work they did was quite insignificant compared with the squandered funds, hence the disaster of the concern.
The coast of Surigao (north-east extremity of Mindanao Is.) has been known for centuries to have gold-deposits. A few years ago it was found in sufficiently large quantities near the surface to attract the attention of capitalists. A sample of the washings was given to me, but gold extraction was never taken up in an organized way in that district. A friend of mine, a French merchant in Manila, told me in 1886 that for a long time he received monthly remittances of 4½ to 5½ lbs. of alluvial gold from the Surigao coast, extracted by the natives on their own account. In the same district a Spaniard attempted to organize labour for systematic gold-washing, but the friars so influenced the natives against him that he could only have continued his project at the risk of his life, therefore he gave it up.
In an independent way, the natives obtain gold from earth-washings in many districts, particularly in the unsubdued regions of Luzon Island, where it is quite a common occupation. The product is bartered on the spot to the Chinese ambulant traders for other commodities. Several times, whilst deer-stalking near the river, a few miles past Montalbán (Rizal), I have fallen in with natives washing the sand from the river bed in search of gold, and they have shown me some of their findings, which they preserve in quills.
In other places in Luzon Island gold is procured in very small quantities by washing the earth from the bottoms of pits dug from 20 to 25 feet deep and 3 feet wide. The extraction of gold from auriferous rock is also known to the natives. The rock is broken by a stone on an anvil of the same material. Then the broken pieces are crushed between roughly-hewn stone rollers put in motion by buffaloes, the pulverized ore being washed to separate the particles of the precious metal. I should hardly think the yield was of much account, as the people engaged in its extraction seemed to be miserably poor.
Gold probably exists in all the largest islands of the Archipelago, but in a dispersed form; for the fact is, that after centuries of search, large pockets or veins of it have never been traced to defined localities, and, so far as discoveries up to the present demonstrate, this Colony cannot be considered rich in auriferous deposits. Until the contrary has been proved, I venture to submit the theory that every gold-bearing reef in these Islands, accessible to man, has been disintegrated by volcanic action ages ago.