“The valor and constancy with which Legaspi and his worthy companions conquered these natives would have been of little use, had not the apostolic zeal of the missionaries aided in consolidating the undertaking. The latter were the true conquerors—who, without other weapons than their virtues, attracted the good-will of the natives, made them love the Spanish name, and gave the king, as by a miracle, two millions more of submissive and Christian vassals. They were the legislators of the barbarous hordes who inhabited the islands of this immense archipelago, thus realizing with their persuasive mildness the allegorical prodigies of Amphion and Orpheus.
“As the means, then, which the missionaries employed to reduce and civilize the Indians, were their preaching and other spiritual instruments, and as, although they were scattered and working separately, they were at the same time subject to the authority of their superiors—who as chiefs, directed the great work of the conversion—the government primitively established in these provinces must necessarily have shared much of the nature of the theocratic; and there is no doubt that it so continued until, the number of the new colonists, as well the effective force of the royal authority, increasing with the lapse of time, it was possible to make the governing system uniform with that which rules in the other ordinary establishments of España.
“Further, this same is deduced from the fragments which even yet remain of that first constitution in the islands of Batanes and the missions of Cagayan, which are administered spiritually and temporally by the Dominican fathers; and from what can be noted at every step in the other provinces, by whoever gives the matter but a little attention. For although the civil magistracies are regulated now, and their respective attributes determined with all precision, it has been as yet impossible to lay aside, however much they have tried to show the contrary, the personal authority which the parish priests hold among their parishioners; on the contrary, the government has indeed seen itself constantly under the necessity of making use of this same authority, as the most powerful instrument to acquire respect and due subordination. Consequently, although the parish priests are not today authorized to intervene by law in the civil administration, they become in fact the real rulers.
“It certainly is the case that, since the parish priest is the consoler of the afflicted, the pacifier of families, the promoter of useful ideas, the preacher and example of all good; as generosity is conspicuous in him, and the Indians see him alone among them, without relatives, without trade, and always engaged in their greater good—they are accustomed to live contentedly under his paternal direction, and to give him their whole confidence. Master in this way of their wills, nothing is done without the counsel—or, to speak more correctly, without the consent—of the cura. The gobernadorcillo, on receiving an order from the alcalde, goes first to get the permission of the father; and it is the latter who, in strict terms, tacitly sees to its fulfilment, or prevents its course. The father concludes or directs the suits of the village; makes the writs; goes up to the capital to plead for his Indians; opposes their petitions, and at times their threats, to the violences committed by the alcaldes-mayor; and manages everything by the standard of his own desire. In a word, it is impossible for there to be any human institution, at once so simple and so firmly grounded, and from which so many advantages can be derived for the State, as that (which is admired with reason) which is firmly established in the ministries of these islands. And by the same fatality it is very strange that since the true art of governing a colony like Filipinas, which is different from all others, consists in the wise use of so powerful an instrument as secrecy, the superior government has been laboring under an hallucination for some years past, to the point of pledging itself to the destruction of a work that it is so advisable to maintain.
“In this as in other things, one may very plainly see how absurd or how difficult it is to organize a system of government which is equally well suited to the genius of all peoples, regardless of what discordance may exist in their physical and moral make-up. Hence, when one tries to assimilate in toto the administrative régime of these provinces to that of the Americas, he meets obstacles at every step which evidently originate from this erroneous principle. The regime, however much one may try to assert it, must either make itself obeyed by fear and force, or respected by means of love and confidence. And in order to convince one’s self that the first is impracticable, it is quite sufficient to take into consideration the following circumstances and reflections.
“The number of the whites in proportion to that of the natives is so small, that it can scarcely be set at the ratio of 15:25,000. These provinces, infinitely more populous than those of América, are given into the care of their alcaldes-mayor, who take there no other troops than the title of military captains and the royal decree. Besides the religious, no other whites than their alcalde-mayor generally live in the whole province. He has the care of the royal possessions; he attends to the punishment of evildoers; he pacifies riots; he raises men for the regiments who garrison Manila and Cavite; he orders and leads his subjects in case of an invasion from the outside; in short, he alone must do everything, on the word of alcalde-mayor and in the name of the king. In view, then, of the effective power that the fulfilment of so great a variety of obligations exacts spontaneously, and the fact that no one assists him with what is in his charge, who could deny that it would be to risk the security of these dominions too greatly to try to rule them by means so insufficient? If the villages are in disorder or revolt, to whom will the alcalde turn his face for aid in checking and punishing them? What other recourse is there for him in such a conflict than to flee or to die in the attempt? And if it is considered indispensable among cultured nations that authority always present itself accompanied by force, how can one expect that bare and unprotected law be respected among Indians?
“It is clear that it is necessary to appeal to force of another kind, and to employ means, which although indirect, are without dispute the most adequate under the peculiar circumstances of these lands; means which, by influencing the imagination, excite veneration, subjugate the rude intellect of the inhabitants, and lead them to endure our dominion without repugnance. And well can one understand, too, how ready these means are found, and how we are envied for them and have always been envied by all the other European nations who have aspired to extend and consolidate their conquests in both Indias.
“Let one listen to La Perouse, if he would know and wonder at the arms with which our missionaries captured the natives of the Californias. Let him read dispassionately the marvelous deeds of the Jesuits in other parts of América. And above all, let him go to the Filipinas Islands, where he will be surprised to see those remote fields strewn with spacious temples and convents wherein divine worship is celebrated with splendor and pomp; regularity in the streets; ease and even luxury in dress and house; primary schools in all the villages, and the inhabitants very skilful in the art of writing; paved highways disclosed to view; bridges constructed in good architectural style; and the greater portion of the country, finally, in strict observance of the provisions of good government and civilization—all the work of the union of the zeal, apostolic labors, and fiery patriotism of the ministering fathers. Let him traverse the provinces, where he will see villages of five, ten, and twenty thousand Indians, ruled in peace by one weak old man who, with his doors open at all hours, sleeps secure in his dwelling, without other magic or other guard than the love and respect with which he has been able to inspire his parishioners. Can it be possible, on contemplating this, that by the efforts of foolish zealots, and by the vain endeavor that only those persons assigned by the general laws in ordinary cases shall intervene in the government of the natives, there should not only be a waste of the fruit obtained in so long a time and by so great constancy; but also that, scorning and repelling for the future a coöperation as efficacious as economical, the attempt should be made purposely to destroy the royal regulator, the principal wheel of this machine. Such is, notwithstanding, the deplorable upheaval of ideas that has conduced in these latter times to the adoption of regulations diametrically opposed to the public interest, under pretext of restraining the excessive authority of the parish priests.
“The superior government does not content itself with having despoiled the ministers of the power of themselves prescribing certain corrective punishments—which although of slight importance, contributed infinitely, when applied with discretion, to strengthen their predominance, and consequently that of the sovereign. But, in order more effectively to exclude them from and deprive them of all intervention in civil administration, the attempt has been made directly to destroy their influence, by arousing the distrust of the Indian, and by separating, when possible, the latter from their side. In proof of this, and so that my statement may not be taken as an exaggeration, it is sufficient to cite substantially two notable measures which, by their tendency, were obviously intended to weaken the influence and good reputation of the spiritual administrators.
“By one measure it is decreed that, for the purpose of preventing the abuses and notorious maladministration of the fund of the saints (especially attached to the cost of the festivals and the worship of each parish, formed from the principal and medium parishes—which are contributed by each individual tributario for that purpose, and are collected and administered privately by the cura), it should thereafter be kept in a box with three keys, one of which was to be in the possession of the alcalde-mayor, another in that of the gobernadorcillo of the respective village, and the other in that of the parish priest. By the other measure, it is declared, as a general point, that the Indian who is or has recently been employed in the domestic service of the parish priest is disqualified for being chosen to any office of justice.