In fact he gives the decree literally, and in truth the crimes of the encomenderos are so atrocious that they become incredible. But granting their certainty, because the decree so says, one must wonder that the father inserts it so exactly after he has just said that he omits those excesses because it is not his intention to describe them. That being a manifest contradiction, proves that the mind of the fathers has always been, and will always be, to defame and make odious the Spaniard to the Indian, the council, and the king, in order that the fathers may be masters of everything, without opposition or witnesses.
The same historian concludes the matter on folio 427, with the following words: “But Doctor Santiago Vera made such judicious arrangements in regard to the evil doing of the encomenderos, that, from the time of his government, that matter began to take better shape, and through the Infinite Pity is at present in better condition.”[28]
This condition of affairs is what the fathers wish, for it has been many years since there has been any encomendero or Spaniard in the provinces. That has been their sole desire, and, having obtained it, he openly avows that the matter is at present in a better condition through the Divine Pity, because they are alone, absolute, and without rival.
But how could this fail to happen thus, if laws xxiii and xxiv of the same título and book only permit the Spaniard, even though he goes as a merchant, to remain in the villages of the Indians for three days; and if he exceeds that time, it must be with the penalty of fifty pesos of gold-dust for each day? It is to be noted here that the father is so exact in the observance of these laws that it can be said that he keeps others; and although he does not exact the fifty pesos because most of the Spaniards require the money for their food, what does it matter if he orders them to be lashed and imprisoned?
Let this point be taken in the sense which is desired [by the fathers], and let the Spaniard be considered most perverse; yet he is better than the best Chinese. Is it possible that so many privileges are conceded to the Chinese, that he is to live, marry, and trade freely in Manila and the provinces, and so great harshness must be exercised against the poor Spaniard? Is it possible that the latter can deserve so little that he is not indeed equal to the Chinese?[29]
The condition of this matter reduces itself to a few points. First, that if, by scandals and evil example to the Indians, the Spaniards have to leave the villages, one ought to begin with the father. This is so notorious a fact that all who have been in América and Filipinas will testify to that effect in the official letters of the Council.
Second, in respect to the arguments which are alleged against the Spaniard, they are not what they seem, and one must subtract three-fourths of them; while it must be assumed as a well-known fact that, as they are his declared enemy, and all the regulars are pledged against the Spaniard, they have not hesitated to find witnesses and raise up false testimonies, in order to attain their plans. This idea is so generally practiced and current, that would to God there were no memory of it.
All these complaints and outcries are reduced to the fact that if the Spaniard is solicitous for women, to oblige him to marry an Indian woman is of infinite advantage to him; and, if he is vicious by another extreme, to punish him. If this remedy does not please the religious (and immediately it does not suit them) why, just as they are irritated against the poor Spaniard, do they not cry out in the same manner against the Chinese, who is so perverse, but defend him in whatever arises? Why do they not cry out against the negro, mulatto, and mestizo who are such consummate rogues, but discharge all their spite upon the Castila?
The explanation of this mystery consists in the fact that the Spaniard treats the father with the urbanity that is used toward ecclesiastics in España; but he is not imposed upon by the kind of servitude which the former desires, and at the same time he is a witness of what occurs in the provinces that is not right, and which the fathers do not wish him to know. On the contrary, the Chinese, under pretense that they allow to him his liberty, keeps still, dissimulates, makes presents, and blindly submits to whatever is ordered of him.
Third, although we grant, as is right, the justice of the above-expressed laws in the time and the sense in which they were made, yet, as they are generally put in force against every Spaniard good or bad, it follows: first, that they punish the innocent; second, they prevent the settlement by Spaniards in the provinces, although it is so necessary; and, third, they hinder our union and friendship with the Indians, and consequently, marriages. And, supposing that the Indian women do not desire anything else, and that a Spaniard thus married has all the kindred of his wife favorable to him, I desire to know, according to good policy, whether there is any other remedy more rational and suitable than this, for the conservation of those domains? This is what law viii, título i, book vi, provides.