Richard III., Act 3, Sc. 1.
In the meantime Salcedo continued his task of subjecting the tribes in the interior. The natives of Taytay and Cainta, in the Spanish military district of Mórong, (now Rizal Province) submitted to him on August 15, 1571. He returned to the Laguna de Bay to pacify the villagers, and penetrated as far as Camarines Norte to explore the Bicol River. Bolinao and the provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos yielded to his prowess, and in this last province he had well established himself when the defence of the capital obliged him to return to Manila.
At the same time Martin de Goiti was actively employed in overrunning the Pampanga territory with the double object of procuring supplies for the Manila camp and coercing the inhabitants on his way to acknowledge their new liege lord. It is recorded that in this expedition Goiti was joined by the Rajahs of Tondo and Manila. Yet Lacandola appears to have been regarded more as a servant of the Spaniards nolens volens than as a free ally, for, because he absented himself from Goitiʼs camp “without licence from the Maestre de Campo,” he was suspected by some writers of having favoured opposition to the Spaniardsʼ incursions in the Marshes of Hagonoy (Pampanga coast, N. boundary of Manila Bay).
The district which constituted the ancient province of Taal y Balayan, subsequently denominated Province of Batangas, was formerly governed by a number of caciques, the most notable of whom were Gatpagil and Gatjinlintan. They were usually at war with their neighbours. Gatjinlintan, the cacique of the Batangas River (Pansipít?) at the time of the conquest, was famous for his valour. Gatsun͠gayan, who ruled on the other side of the river, was celebrated as a hunter of deer and wild boar. These men were half-castes of Borneo and Aeta extraction, who formed a distinct race called by the natives Daghagang. None of them would submit to the King of Spain or become Christians, hence their descendants were offered no privileges.
The Aetas collected tribute. Gabriel Montoya, a Spanish soldier of Legaspiʼs legion, partially conquered those races, and supported the mission of an Austin friar amongst them. This was probably Fray Diego Móxica, who undertook the mission of Batangas on its separation from the local administration of Mindoro Island in 1581. The first Governor of San Pablo or Sampaloc in the name of the King of Spain was appointed by the soldier Montoya, and was called Bartolomé Maghayin; the second was Cristóbal Soman͠galit and the third was Bernabé Pindan, all of whom had adopted Christianity. Bay, on the borders of the lake of that name, and four leagues from San Pablo, was originally ruled by the cacique Agustin Maglansan͠gan. Calilayan, now called Tayabas, was founded by the woman Ladía, and subsequently administered by a native Alcalde, who gave such satisfaction that he was three times appointed the Kingʼs lieutenant and baptized as Francisco de San Juan.
San Pablo, the centre of a once independent district, is situated at the foot of the mountains of San Cristóbal and Banájao, from which over fourteen streams of fresh water flow through the villages.
The system established by Juan Salcedo was to let the conquered lands be governed by the native caciques and their male successors so long as they did so in the name of the King of Castile. Territorial possession seems to have been the chief aim of the earliest European invaders, and records of having improved the condition of the people or of having opened up means of communication and traffic as they went on conquering, or even of having explored the natural resources of the colony for their own benefit, are extremely rare.
[1] During the previous century jealousy had run so high between Spain and Portugal with regard to their respective colonization and trading rights, that the question of demarcation had to be settled by the Pope Alexander VI., who issued a bull dated May 4, 1493, dividing the world into two hemispheres, and decreeing that all heathen lands discovered in the Western half, from the meridian 100 leagues W. of Cape Verd Island, should belong to the Spaniards; in the Eastern half to the Portuguese. The bull was adopted by both nations in the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494). It gave rise to many passionate debates, as the Spaniards wrongly insisted that the Philippines and the Moluccas came within the division allotted to them by Pontifical donation.
[2] Probably so called from the enormous number of patos (ducks) found there.