Probably it has contributed much to these pernicious results and this neglect of sacred things that in these recent years the principal aim and object of the supreme government of these islands, as well as of the alcaldes-mayor, has been only the increase of the royal revenue—actually reversing the royal orders, which decree that the first attention must be paid to religion, and to the ecclesiastics and their affairs and maintenance; and after that to the civil government and justice. But, contrary to these orders, it appears that in everything the first place has been attained by the [affairs of] the royal treasury, which ought to engage the later solicitudes [of the royal ministers]—and then without that excessive severity [of administration] which has been experienced in recent years, [and which has aroused our] pity and compassion.
In most of the provinces of these islands the gobernadorcillos are obliged, as are their [subordinate] officials, to accept, without their own choice, appointments to office; and as the cause of their shunning such appointments is the great expense of the year during which they serve, they suffer on this account great injuries in the provinces near Manila. It arouses pity in the hardest hearts to see and know by experience that nearly all the headmen enter office under compulsion from the alcalde-mayor, and, finding themselves perplexed to the utmost by the difficulties in rendering their accounts satisfactorily—either by the duplicate names on the registration lists, or the absences (which usually are many), or by the deaths [of those registered]—on account of the great poverty that is general in the villages these deficiencies fall back on the headmen, who are compelled to pay them or be imprisoned. This measure of imprisonment is carried out with so great rigor that many headmen are in prison, without any hope that they will be able to pay; and there are even cases in which the headmen have been imprisoned for many years for their indebtedness to the tributes in their charge, and, dying in prison, their burial was delayed for several days in order that their relatives might be able to find security for the dead man’s tribute and debt. From this your Lordship can infer the excessive severity with which the officials proceed in the collections of the royal tributes; but in this no kind of severity can be proper, nor can it be decreed by the royal and liberal purpose of his Majesty.
The works and preparations for the equipment [of ships] which are made on his Majesty’s account often make necessary various repartimientos and bandalas for the supplies of oil and rice, and other products, which the provinces furnish; and it is the continual and well-founded complaint from all of them that the amount paid for the said products is not according to their just price and value, but much less, from which follow the most serious wrongs to the poor. Of this precedent many of the alcaldes-mayor avail themselves for [their own] advancement, to judge by their unrighteous profits, with lamentable injury to the poor, which is general and well known in the provinces.
The royal decree of his Majesty provides that, for just and Christian reasons, Moors, Armenians, and other barbarous peoples may not remain in these islands as inhabitants and citizens; but for the last few years several ships from the Coast [i.e., India] have spent the winter here, and in consequence many Moors, Armenians, and other barbarians have settled without the walls of Manila, and in various provinces. These people have enjoyed (as they still do) free intercourse and trade with every class of people, and are causing notable injury to the spiritual welfare of the Indians—lording it over them, and setting a bad example in morals to all of them. Accordingly our affection and obligation [to the service of God] desire the exercise of your Lordship’s justice and Christian procedure, that this injury, so universal and so opposed to the Christian and praiseworthy usages which they ought [to follow], and which our missionaries are endeavoring to introduce among all the natives, may entirely cease.
On account of the great facility (not experienced before) which there has been in cashiering soldiers, these evil consequences for the villages have resulted, with various unjust acts—according to what idleness, poverty, and many temptations have offered to many poor men who came here only to serve his Majesty in the employment of soldiers.
From the introduction of the vice of gambling are following the injurious results and the offenses against God which the holy fathers [of the Church] decry, and which experience places before our own eyes, in the shape of much cursing, poverty, abandonment of the wives and children of the gamblers, and the sinful waste of much time—in which occur quarrels, frauds, and other wicked acts appropriate to gambling and connected with it. Besides this, some of the alcaldes-mayor—who ought to be on the watch to prevent these things, according to the orders which they have from the supreme government of your Lordship—are the very ones who secretly give full license and permission for gambling games, in consideration of the money which they receive every month for the said license. As a result, the villages and their grain-fields are inundated with gambling games (of cards, dice, and cocks, and many other kinds), with the aforesaid effects—all against the will of God our Lord and of his Majesty, which is always impeded and seldom executed by the alcaldes-mayor.
The experience of many years with the Chinese nation has made it very evident that it was necessary to prohibit to the Sangleys, especially the infidels, trade and intercourse with the villages and provinces of Indians, and keep them out of Indian houses and grain-fields, and thus it is provided and ordained; but unfortunately this prohibition is neither obeyed nor respected. It is, however, a fact that only when they are married, and compelled to make their abode in the chief town [of the province], where the alcalde-mayor resides, or when they are settled in a certain Parián, does his Majesty permit them to reside among the Indians—who from communication with the Sangleys obtain only superstitions, frauds, and the loss of the habits of morality in which we are trying to instruct them. The administration of the Christian Sangleys is in charge of the two holy religious orders of St. Dominic and the Society of Jesus; and as these people are for the most part the poorest [of the Sangleys], we do not consider it foreign to our obligation to attend to them, in such manner as is possible and right. It is only just to direct your Lordship’s attention to a custom introduced within the last few years, which is that the tribute that they pay for licenses [to remain in the country] has been increased—although it appears that the laws favor the Christian Sangleys, providing that their tribute shall be only ten reals; but at present they are paying the same amounts of tribute as do the infidel and heathen Sangleys. Your Lordship, with your clear judgment and ready comprehension, will be pleased to consider whether it is in accordance with the lofty purposes which his Majesty has for propagating the faith, and for lightening the burdens of those who are converted to it—in which his Catholic piety has so earnestly striven—that the said tributes should be extended and increased among the Christians; and whether they do not deserve to be relieved from so grievous a burden.
So great is the sorrow of our hearts at seeing and realizing how easily and quickly the Indians who are apostates from our holy faith retreat to the mountains, and the obstinacy which the infidels show in not coming out of them, that we cannot neglect to remind your Lordship a second time of the urgent necessity that expeditions into the mountains [by our troops] be continued, like those that were made in former times with success and useful results. We entreat and charge your Lordship that to this remedy which has been already tried on other occasions the piety of your Lordship will be pleased to add [another,] that of prohibiting to the Indians who are already Christians intercourse and trade with the infidels; for the regular result of this is, that the said infidels withdraw more and more from the mild authority of our holy religion. That religion is considered, by the said Christians, as intolerable, although it is not such, whether in itself, in its effects, or in the obligations which they assume by becoming Christians—which, in the feeble light of their understanding, is the same as being reduced only to subjection to the ecclesiastical minister, the alcalde-mayor, and the burdens of tributes and repartimientos.
Finally, Sir, our lofty desire for the general welfare of so many provinces, and the pleasure which we shall all feel in the prosperity and success of your Lordship—which, as [that of] the first and principal head [of this colony], must overflow in all its parts and subjects—impel us to point out to your Lordship how worthy of all assistance and effort in your Christian government is the pitiable condition to which the Christian villages are reduced, now one of poverty and barrenness, even of the native products. And those villages to which, it would seem, their age (which now is more than a century) must furnish greater abundance of produce and wealth rightfully their own, are in the same condition and the same poverty as are the villages that are more recent and less encouraged by the ecclesiastical ministers and the civil officials of these islands; and they can never enjoy any improvement, spiritual or temporal. The remedy for this—which ought to be effective, prompt, and steadily continued—in our humble opinion, is made up of various measures: some for the amelioration and redress of all the evils and difficulties already related to your Lordship, whose peremptory and executive orders must render them effectual; and others which, it seems to us, ought to be charged upon the alcaldes-mayor, and upon the proper ministers who are closest to the Indians themselves (who are the ecclesiastics), in order that they may by every means arouse and animate the slothful natures of the Indians, by instructing them in industries that will be useful to themselves, and in application to an [object of] desire that is honorable and advantageous to the public or to individuals of all the villages. This depends on and consists in not allowing that very abundance and fertility which our Lord has given to these islands to be destroyed with waste and negligence; for it is evident that the enormous sum of silver which necessity, against the royal orders, transfers to foreign kingdoms ruled by infidels and heretics, could remain in the islands themselves, and be converted into property, profit, and the acquisition of wealth for many poor persons. For there are found in these islands, as is well known, abundance of gold, amber, tortoise-shell, various cotton fabrics, wax, and many other native products, even omitting those that concern the sowing of the fields. If these were multiplied in both amount and kinds, it cannot be doubted that they would contribute to the villages, with considerable abundance, wealth and products; and that all the beneficial effects which can be desired would result, in favor of his Majesty and of the public welfare. The chief of these are: first, that all the painful burdens, unavoidable and necessary, which the natives have to bear, and which they lament, would become more easy and light for them, and that they would live a more social and civilized life; second, that their affection, loyalty, and obedience to his Majesty and to your Lordship in his name, as the authors of their prosperity, repose, and advantage, would be enormously increased. Third, all the Christian Indians would be more steadfast and rooted in the holy faith, and would become effective and most suitable instruments for [gaining] new conversions of infidels [and] apostates, the infidels themselves beholding the abundant wealth and profit, and other benefits, of the Christian Indians; for it is the temporal welfare evident to their senses which, as experience teaches us, strongly influences both classes of Indians, to be converted or to maintain themselves in the Christian faith. This same object will be greatly aided by inducing the Indians to settle and form villages; for, in the mode of life in which they now are found, in most of the provinces and villages in which the minister who instructs them is stationed and resides a certain number are destitute of houses, and all the rest of the people live so far away and so scattered that many are obliged to travel three or four leguas in order to be present on a festival day at the church—from which remoteness it also follows that, without any fault of the said ministers, many persons die without receiving the holy sacraments.
Such, Sir, are the evils, and such are the remedies which our consciences, our charity, and our zeal have dictated to us as being most worthy of gaining the attention of your Lordship—at whose feet, through the means of these lines, so many poor Indians approach to prostrate themselves. Neophytes, and bereft of all human protection, they have recourse to your Lordship, not only as to their governor and judge, but also as to a kind father—in whose term of office they hope that peace and justice will again flourish; and that the rights of the poor, and redress for their oppressions, will often obtain a hearing from your Lordship. This, it appears, has not been the case in other times, certainly at the cost of many tears, which were little heeded and never dried by the sovereignty and power that ought to do so. In their name, and only for the objects pointed out at the beginning of this memorial, and that by it we may unburden our own consciences, we are under obligation, at least according to charity, to solicit for them aid and justice.