EVENTS OF 1701–1715
[The following summary is made from Concepción’s Historia de Philipinas, viii, pp. 299–391:]
[Don Fausto Cruzat y Gongora is succeeded, after eleven years as governor, by Don Domingo de Zabalburú y Echeverri, a knight of the Order of Santiago; he was appointed in 1694, but does not take possession until September 8, 1701. Finding considerable money in the royal treasury, he employs it on important public works. He constructs wharves at Cavite, completes the royal storehouses, and rebuilds the powder-factory lower down from Malate, with suitable fortifications for its defense; and he pays careful attention to the construction of galleons for the Acapulco trade-route. A quarrel arising between the petty kings of Mindanao and Joló, the former (named Curay) is slain, and his successor asks Governor Zabalburú for aid against the Joloans, which the governor prudently declines to furnish. In the year 1705 the Manila galleon “San Xavier” departs from Acapulco, and is never heard from, being lost with all it contains, to the great sorrow and loss of the citizens of Manila. One of the auditors goes (1702) as official visitor to the province of Camarines,[1] and disturbs its affairs with his “scandalous proceedings,” especially his accusations against the Franciscan friars who are in charge of the Indian villages there. In consequence, they hasten to Manila to secure the aid of the courts there, leaving their charges without spiritual ministrations; the Franciscan provincial is therefore despatched to that province with orders to station ministers therein. Those missions had previously been for forty-five years in the hands of the Recollects.]
[In September, 1704, arrives at Manila the papal legate Carlos Thomas Tournon, on his way to China for the settlement of various ecclesiastical difficulties there; he treats the governor and other officials[2] with arrogance, refusing to exhibit his credentials, and exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction to such an extent that he antagonizes the religious orders and infringes on the royal prerogatives. These proceedings are tolerated by both governor and archbishop, although manifestly improper and objectionable; but when they are reported at Madrid the king is greatly displeased, and decrees that the governor be removed from office, and disqualified for holding it, and those of the auditors who assented to his acts be punished. Archbishop Camacho also incurs the displeasure of the king, which is increased by his having meddled with the affairs of the royal seminary of San Phelipe, and used at his own pleasure certain ecclesiastical revenues properly in charge of the secular government; and the governor fails to check him, and even to notify the home government of these unwarranted proceedings, which are reported at Madrid by ecclesiastical channels. Camacho is accordingly removed from his see, and transferred to the bishopric of Guadalaxara in Mexico.[3] (He is regarded by Concepción as a very zealous and charitable prelate; he collected from various sources more than 40,000 pesos, which he spent in the adornment and improvement of the cathedral church at Manila, and for this and other pious purposes he incurred debts amounting to over 20,000 pesos more. He promoted the missions of Paynaan and San Isidro, going in person to persuade the Aetas (or Negritos) to be converted.) Zabalburú, having undergone his residencia, leaves Manila in the year 1710, and, after having suffered shipwreck in the Bahama Channel, reaches Spain, where he dies after a few years. In 1707 the Acapulco galleon “Rosario” arrives, “with so much silver that it made that fair [at Acapulco] famous;” it also brings a new archbishop, Fray Francisco de la Cuesta, “a professed religious in the distinguished monastic order of San Geronimo,” who wins golden opinions from all.[4] Before long, however, the old question of the right of episcopal visitation of the regular curas again arises; Cuesta tries to enforce this right, but with little result.[5] A full account of this is given by Concepción, with the arguments adduced therein.]
[In 1709 the new governor arrives, Conde de Lizarraga (appointed in 1704); he is equitable, upright, and of affable manners. He finds an undesirable surplus of Chinamen in the islands, and sends back many of them to their own country, although many others buy permission to remain in Luzón.[6] During his term occurs the controversy between some of the friar orders and the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Fray Diego de Gorospe y Irala (himself a Dominican), over the claim of the latter to include the regulars in his official visitations. The matter is carried to the Audiencia, the decision of which is unfavorable to the bishop; he dies soon afterward (early in 1714?), after having occupied his see nine years. Little else appears to mark the official term of Lizarraga, who dies in 1715.]
[1] This was Francisco Gueruela; see summary of his report on this visitation, in VOL. XLII, p. 120. [↑]
[2] “Except the master-of-camp Endaya, who charged him nothing for the house in which he lived, and spent more than twenty thousand pesos in maintaining him and all his retinue. Endaya made all these demonstrations because he had taken refuge in a church, and the patriarch [i.e., Tournon] condoned all his offences and enabled him to leave his asylum—without any one saying anything to him; nor did the judges dare to lay hands on a man whom the legate a latere had pardoned.” Other favors and honors were conferred on Endaya by Tournon. (Zúñiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 412–413.) [↑]
[3] Archbishop Camacho was appointed in 1703 bishop of Guadalajara; and early in July, 1706, he went to take possession of that see (which he retained until his death in 1712), abandoning his diocese of Manila. He left as ruler of that see Don Francisco Rayo (who was not a member of the cabildo), despite the protests of the chapter-members. On August 19 the cabildo declared the see vacant, and chose as its provisor the archdeacon Doctor José Altamirano y Cervantes. At first his title was contested by Rayo; but the latter was finally induced to give up his pretensions, and by August 28 “the cabildo remained in peaceable possession of its government and vacant see.” (Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, pp. 247, 248. In the same volume, pp. 135–206, is a detailed account of Camacho’s controversy with the orders and the papal delegate, with a royal decree on that subject, dated May 20, 1700.) [↑]
[4] “As soon as he took possession of his archbishopric, he began to busy himself with the building of the seminary of San Phelipe; and the first error that he committed was, to place the arms of the cabildo on the front of the edifice together with the arms of the king, which he placed on one of the stories. He also drew up the instructions for this collegiate seminary; and when he came to the admission of students he did not remember the [rights of the] royal patronage, and arranged for their admission without mentioning the vice-patron. The king’s fiscal, who saw therein one of his Majesty’s prerogatives wounded, strongly opposed the exercise of the archbishop’s claims, and from this ensued some mortifications to his illustrious Lordship; but the college was completed, and the seminarists were appointed, as the king commanded.” (Zúñiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 417, 418.) [↑]