[3] Alluding to the death, by Fajardo’s own hand, of his unfaithful wife and her lover; see the first two documents of the present volume.
[4] Celebes was long almost unknown to Europeans, and its deep indentations by gulfs led to the notion, long entertained, that it was a group of islands, rather than one. It has an estimated area of some 57,000 square miles, but its soil is generally poor, and its population thin and scanty. The two leading and more civilized people of Celebes are the Macassars and Bugis, who inhabit its southwestern peninsula. The Macassar nation (in their own language, Mangkasara) conquered the Bugis in the sixteenth century, and became converts to Mahometanism early in the seventeenth. They were conquered by the Dutch in 1669, and the latter nation has since then been nominal ruler of Celebes Island. By the name Macassar is commonly meant the Dutch fortified town of Rotterdam, on the western shore of the peninsula above mentioned; the Dutch made it a free port in 1847. See the full descriptive and historical account of Celebes by Valentyn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, part iii, book ii, pp. 128–235.
[5] Pernambuco, one of the most important of the Portuguese colonies in Brazil, was founded early in the sixteenth century. It was captured and plundered in 1593 by the English, under Sir James Lancaster, and again seized by the Dutch in 1630; but the Portuguese drove out the Dutch in 1654, after which time Brazil remained in possession of Portugal, until the peaceful revolution of that colony, and the formation of the present republic.
Documents of 1622
- [Letter to the king]. Alvaro Messa y Lugo; 1621 and July 30, 1622.
- [Letters from the archbishop of Manila to the King]. Miguel García Serrano, O.S.A.; 1621–22.
- [Royal decrees regarding the religious]. Felipe IV; December 31.
Source: These documents are obtained from MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla.
Translations: All these are made by James A. Robertson.