Señor Arzadun set out on his commission, which he fulfilled with integrity; he was an unassuming and affable man. Without causing injuries to individuals, he reformed many abuses; and by mild measures he added two reals to each whole tribute. This peaceable result ruffled some persons, and led to various disputes with the ecclesiastical judge, provisor, and vicar-general, which ended in favor of the said auditor. Nor did he fail to have noisy controversies with some other persons; but all this ended as peacefully as possible.
Another controversy, no less disagreeable, occurred at that time between the fathers of the Society [of Jesus] and the mestizos of Santa Cruz. The latter complained, in a petition presented to the royal Audiencia, that with occasion of undertaking to build a bridge across a lagoon which extends from their village to that of Quiapo the fathers had compelled them to sign an obligation for two hundred and fifty pesos in favor of the superintendent of the work, for its cost and materials; and, for the payment of this, assessments had been levied in their village among the mestizos, and various persons had been arrested for not making their payments for this sum, part of which was not yet collected. On examination of this complaint, it was ordered that the auditor who was on duty for that week should proceed to the investigation of these statements; and the completion of such bridge was placed in his charge—for which he was to employ the means and measures that would be mildest, these being entrusted to his good judgment. In virtue of this order, the licentiate Don Pedro Calderon Henriquez, auditor of this royal Audiencia, made the investigation and examined the witnesses, which resulted in verifying the complaint made. It appeared from the judicial inquiry that the land of that village belonged to the Society; and the auditor drew up a formal statement, saying that the inhabitants of that village, who possessed no landed property, were paying ground rents that were exorbitant. He declared that the money for the cost of that bridge ought not to have been levied among the Sangleys and mestizos, even though they belonged to that village; and that consequently the owner of the land ought to pay it—citing laws i and v of título xvi, book iv of the Recopilación. [Here follows a relation of the various legal proceedings in this controversy; after hearing all the evidence in the case the decision of the court was against the Jesuits. It was shown that part of the land in question did not belong to them, and they were ordered not to disturb the tenants of it in their possession, and not to collect rents from them. They proved their title to other lands, but were warned that they must no longer exact, as they had been doing, three and one-half pesos as ground-rent for the sites occupied by the huts which the colonists erected within the grain-fields so that they might more conveniently cultivate the lands. “By this sentence the Jesuits lost some three thousand pesos a year for the [rents of the] ground-plots of the houses; each married man had paid them three pesos, and each unmarried man and widow a peso and a half—and this, besides, for houses and lands which belonged to those people.” The Jesuits pleaded ecclesiastical immunity, and claimed that they had a right to the rents in question. A long and clamorous dispute arose, in which manifestoes were issued on both sides; it appears to have lasted from March 28, 1738, to July 1, 1739. The Jesuits appealed to the king, but Auditor Calderon’s sentence was sustained. (Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, xi, pp. 79–89.)]
[1] The following summary of events, sometimes in full translation and sometimes abridged, is obtained from the histories of Concepción, Zúñiga, and Montero y Vidal, the source of each paragraph being indicated at the end. [↑]
[2] “As the latter [i.e., Bustamante] could not defend himself, and it was for the interest of the religious orders and of the principal citizens of Manila that the blame for what had occurred should recoil upon Bustamante, they accumulated against him numberless charges—most of them formulated by his assassins, by the officials who had defrauded the exchequer, by those who were debtors to the treasury, and by all who, instead of making amends for their offences in a military post, had been replaced in their offices by Archbishop Cuesta” (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, i, pp. 430–431). [↑]
[3] Sebastian de Totanes was a noted member of the Franciscan order in the islands. He was born in the village of Totanes in Spain, in 1687, and entered that order in 1706. After finishing his studies he gave instruction in the Toledo convent for several years, departing thence (1715) for the Filipinas missions, which he joined two years later. He held various high offices in the order there, among them being that of minister provincial (1738–41); he also administered the churches in Sampaloc (1721–29), Lilio (1732–35), and Pagsanhan (1735–38). In 1746 he went to Europe as procurator of his order to Roma and Madrid, and died at the latter city, on February 13, 1748. He left a grammar and manual of the Tagálog language, which is regarded as one of the beat works of its kind; it was published at Sampaloc in 1745. (See Huerta’s Estado.) [↑]
[4] “Although the archbishop had not, in strictness, any direct connection with the assassination of the head of government of the islands, his connivance with the seditious element, the fact that the authority was entrusted to him, and his tolerance and lenity in the investigation and punishment of the criminals, aroused against him the wrath of the [home] government; and, in spite of his advanced age, he was transferred to the bishopric of Mechoacan, in Nueva Espana” (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, i, p. 432). [↑]
[5] “In order to curb these so bold and inhuman actions, it was necessary that the squadrons should sail from Manila; for if they should be permanently stationed at Samboangan the expenses would be insupportable in so barren a region. If this establishment had been fixed in Yloylo, a fertile and abundant land, and sufficiently near to the Moros, the consumption of provisions on the voyages would have been more endurable; while at the same time there might remain in Samboangan a regular garrison of thirty-five men, and it would be a landing-place sufficient for our vessels when on a cruise, which from that port could go more quickly for any emergency. Moreover, in Samboangan there is not an adequate number of boats, nor is there in Yloylo—enormous sums being spent on the walls [of those forts] alone, without their being able to hinder the passage of the Moros, or prevent their infesting the provinces.” (Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, x, pp. 184, 185.) [↑]
[6] This account does not agree with the historical sketch given by N. M. Saleeby in his Studies in Moro History, Law, and Religion (Manila, 1905) pp. 57–59; but this is not surprising, as Concepción probably had but inaccurate and second-hand information regarding the rulers of Joló and Mindanao. According to Saleeby, Manāmir, a great-grandson of Dipatwān Qudrat (the Corralat of the Spanish writers), was declared sultan after the death of his father Barahamān; but the government was usurped by his uncle Kuda, and civil war followed, which must have lasted more than thirty years. Kuda was finally murdered by some Sulus whom he had invited to aid him against Manāmir, who therefore obtained the ascendency for a time. But the Sulus fomented discord between Manāmir and his brother Anwār, which brought on even worse hostilities and murders, weakening both sides. Manāmir was assassinated by his nephew Malīnug, and his sons Pakīr Mawlāna and Pakāru-d-Dīn were obliged to leave Magindanao, and retired to Tamontaka; and the larger part of the towns of Magindanao and Slangan were destroyed by fire. Sultan Anwār died at Batawa and Malīnug assumed the sultanate after his father’s death, and kept up the fight. “After a tedious, desultory war, Malīnug fled up the Pulangi to Bwayan. Pakīr Mawlāna then got possession of all the lands about Magindanao, and peace was made soon after. Malīnug died a natural death, and some time later his two sons visited Pakīr Mawlāna.” This account is cited from Capt. Thomas Forrest’s Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas (London, 1779), a voyage made in 1774–76; Forrest obtained his information directly from Pakīr Mawlāna himself. That ruler, however, could not have been the one mentioned in the text; Mawlāna is apparently an official or a hereditary title.
From Forrest’s original account (pp. 201–206) we take the following items in regard to the above events: “The following short account of the history of Magindano, is drawn from original records, in the possession of Fakymolano, elder brother to Paharadine the present Sultan, and father to Kybad Zachariel, the present Rajah Moodo; they are wrote in the Magindano tongue, and Arabic character. I took it down from Fakymolano’s own mouth, who dictated in Malay.