Chapter V. That your Majesty possesses in the Filipinas enormous wealth, even with the little effort made to realize it.
What most discourages many servants of your Majesty, and even prevents others who are striving to forward your royal service from giving credence to great things, has been the incredulity which they display regarding the greatness of the Indias. This has been true since the first discoverers, as is well known. For not only are we to believe that the Holy Ghost gave them that impulse to persevere in their intention—even if that were not (which ought not to be believed) the glory of God and the saving of souls—but our Lord, who sought by this means to accomplish His work, gave them so great perseverance and fortitude in breaking through the midst of so many difficulties and so much opposition and so many hard rebuffs that, indeed, if one look upon and read the history of the Indias, it would seem that men would be unable to suffer so much. But God would encourage them, for whose cause they persevered in their projects, bringing so great increase of grandeur to the kings of España. Although since that time some, more desirous of wealth and honor than moved by God, have tried to imitate those discoverers, and have had ill success, they ought not all for this reason to be condemned and reproved without first examining their intentions and objects, and the real nature of the affairs which they are conducting.
I have said this briefly, for in what I wish to say I think there will be many of this sort mentioned; and, just as it is imprudent to believe all, it would be going to the other extreme to give credit to no one.
In the Filipinas Islands, in so far as I have been able to learn (and I consider it certain), your Majesty has, without going to conquer foreign kingdoms, the greatest wealth which has been found in the Indias;[15] and I base this upon these arguments, for in all those islands it is well known and established.
After the Spaniards founded the city of Manila and reduced that island to peace, they learned that in some mountainous regions which lie about forty leguas from the city, in the province of Pangasinan, there were many mines of gold, according to the information which the Indians gave them; but that they were inhabited by warlike and barbarous Indians, who never permitted those of the plains to go up there. This was known because they came down at certain times of the year to buy a quantity of cattle, and brought a great deal of gold. On this information, although it was somewhat indefinite, Guido de Labaçares, who governed at that time, sent a number of soldiers to climb up the mountain.[16] These, being unprovided with necessities, and fewer in number than were needed, encountered much resistance from the natives. As the country is rough, and their food soon failed them, they went back, many of them ill. Although they brought some information, it was not sufficient to encourage the governor or to cause him again to further the enterprise. Therefore, little by little, this knowledge was fading away among the Spaniards, notwithstanding that the religious who ministered in the neighboring provinces were well informed, and certain Indians told them of it. Accordingly, considering the host of vexations, injuries, and losses, and the diminution of numbers that are suffered by the Indians in all the Western Indias on account of the labor in the mines, the Order of St. Dominic especially, who administer the province of Pangasinan, have tried with all their might to cover up this information, on account of this fear which possesses them.
Many years ago I learned something of this, but I sided with the others who gave little credit to it, owing to the little knowledge that we had. But as time is a great discloser of secrets, while I was discussing with some religious the difficulties of the future which the kings of España, the successors of your Majesty, must meet in maintaining this country if there were in the country itself no wealth or sources of profit which would oblige them to do so, I succeeded in securing a great deal of information concerning the wealth which is there. Particularly, he who is now archbishop[17] told me that a religious of St. Dominic—the vicar of a village named Vinalatonga, who was named Fray Jasinto Palao, and who at that time had come from Luzón to this kingdom [i.e., España]—had shown him some rocks which an Indian had brought him from a mine, and which appeared extraordinarily rich, beyond anything that had been seen. But he enjoined the bishop to secrecy, because he himself had heard it in the same manner. I, who desired the preservation of that country, took occasion to make friends with that religious, in order to inform myself the better under pretence of curiosity. I asked him to tell me what he knew of those mines, whereupon that religious (who was already en route for the return to the islands) told me that what he had said was true; and further he said: “No one knows as much about those mines as I, because some Indians came down from the mountains and I entertained them. They told me that there was a great deal of gold up there, and that of what they took from the mines, half the ore was gold.” And he said that when one of them, who was already somewhat versed in our tongue, saw reals of eight, he said to him: “We have much of this metal there, Father, much in the mines; but Indian wants nothing besides gold.” I conferred with the bishop of Nueva Segovia (as that province falls under his jurisdiction), who was Don Fray Diego de Soria, a Dominican, and with another religious, the provincial of the same order, named Fray Bernardo de Santa Catalina, in regard to this matter; and I gave them so many arguments to incline them to my plan that they were brought to my way of thinking. The most convincing argument which I used was to persuade them that the same reason did not hold there as in Nueva España and Piru, for ill-treating the Indians; for there are so many Chinese who are raising their hands to God to find something to work at—as many as are necessary, as was well known by them. Thereupon they told me all the information that they had for certain from various Indians—not only from the Christians, some of whom had gone up peacefully to trade, but likewise from those from above who came down to the province. The bishop certified that there was the greatest wealth in the world; and that they had brought him from one hill a little red earth, of which the whole hill is composed, which was as much as they could put upon a silver platter. They washed it, in his presence, and took out seven taes of gold, which amount to forty-four castellanos.[18] He asserted that in every part of the hill the earth was all of this richness. With all this information I went to Don Juan de Silva and told him what had happened, and how I had pacified the friars. He agreed that we should go and discover it and said that he would go in person when he finished that expedition. He was overtaken by death, as has been said, and accordingly the matter has remained in this condition. And even if there were not in these mountains the wealth of which we are told, it seems that the obligation to pacify these Indians exists, and that the holy gospel ought to be preached to them—in the first place, because your Majesty has undertaken so just and holy an enterprise; and second, because they are in the same island [with our Spaniards]. It is a shame that, being in the neighborhood of Manila, they do not enjoy the blessing that the others do. Beside this, there is the fact that these as well as their neighbors will not allow other people to trade in their territory; by the law of nations, therefore, the Spaniards have a right of action.
The ease and little cost connected with this enterprise are such that if the governor would send a single person suitable for it, with two hundred soldiers from the garrison of Manila, and levy a thousand Indians from the two provinces to help them and transport the supplies, they would subdue those savages without difficulty, if the man who does it is prudent and has ambition to make the enterprise a success. This is not the place to discuss the other measures and affairs in detail; but if your Majesty should be pleased to have this done, I offer to give information of all that is necessary to provide, and to solve any doubts that may arise. I protest before the divine Majesty that I am not moved by covetousness, nor by desire that your Majesty should grant me any favor for this, nor am I trying to secure favors by this means; but I am only seeking the glory of God, the service of your Majesty, and the welfare of that land.
Chapter VI. Of the persons who are needed in the government of the Filipinas.
One (and the most important) of the matters which are necessary for the preservation and growth of that kingdom—whereon depends, as it were, the attainment of its object—is that the governors should be such men as are suitable for that post, and have the requisite qualifications demanded by that government. As so few have hitherto gone there who are thus qualified, the hindrance to the growth of that country has been much more than can be understood here.