[29] “That the Chinese should be more successful than the Spaniard in Filipinas is easily explained. In Anda’s time, the Spaniard who went to the provinces to devote himself to trade was a poor man who had no official situation, and for that reason an unlucky fellow who could not depend on support and influence in a country where favor was the law; while the Chinaman, with his presents, trinkets, and bribes, secured everything.” (Pardo de Tavera, note 26, p. 86.) [↑]
[30] “From the earliest days of the conquest of Filipinas, the monarchs displayed decided earnestness that the knowledge of the Castilian language should be diffused among their peoples; while the friars opposed to this a resistance as tenacious as it was hostile, not only to the interests of the civilization of these regions, but to the sovereignty of España.” (Here is cited a royal decree, dated August 4, 1765, as an example of many, strictly commanding that the natives be taught the Castilian language, and that no hindrance be placed in the way of the Spaniards freely traveling and trading in the provinces.) “A few years ago Señor Escosura, royal commissary—whose complaisance toward the friars, so well known, gives more force to the censures which he directs against them—said, in speaking of the education of the Filipinos: ‘That education, in the first place, if we except the city of Manila and its environs, is entirely reduced to instruction in the Christian doctrine, in Tagal or in the dialects of the respective provinces—and for the same reason, is in exclusive charge of the parish priests, either seculars or regulars (who are most in number and influence); and these pastors, to whom this country owes most important services, and whose usefulness and necessity I avow and proclaim, suffer, nevertheless, from some prejudice …. They assert that to teach the Indians Castilian would be to furnish them the means—which at present they lack, on account of the diversity of their dialects—to revolt against the Spanish authority; that from the moment when they can readily understand the laws and measures of the government they will discuss these and comment upon them, from the standpoint of their local interests, and therefore in opposition to those of the metropolis; that to give these natives an idea of their own rights is to inoculate them with the spirit of rebellion; and that, the foundation of race superiority, which now aggrandizes the Europeans, being thus destroyed, it would be impossible to govern these provinces without material force, as now.’ And, in order to promote the teaching of Castilian in the second half of the nineteenth century, Señor Escosura said that ‘it would be expedient to address urgent requests to the archbishops and bishops, impressing upon them the necessity of their obliging the parish priests to fulfil the commands that are given on this point in the laws of the Indias,’ because in three centuries of Spanish domination the laws and frequent decrees thereon had never been obeyed.” (Pardo de Tavera, note 28, pp. 87–90.) [↑]
[31] In the decree cited in the preceding note occurs the following statement: “If the Indians had been taught the said [Castilian] language, the calamities and vexations would not have occurred which were experienced by the Spaniards, of both sexes, who in their flight after the loss of this fortress attempted to find asylum in the mountains and the villages nearest to them.” [↑]
[32] Pardo de Tavera cites (note 29, pp. 90, 91) several statements by Rodriguez Ovalle (whose MS. account of the siege of Manila has been used by Marqués de Ayerbe in his Sitio y conquista de Manila) to show that a few of the religious tried to incite the Indians in the provinces to rise against the Spaniards, and some others became bandits; and that Rojo was jealous of Anda’s position and authority. [↑]
[33] “Law 81, tit. xiv, book i of the Recopilación de Indias, issued in 1594, provides that ‘the religious may not be served by the Indians; but, in very necessary things, they may receive such service by paying them for it.’ The construction of the village churches has been accomplished by obliging the Indians to work gratis, to furnish the materials gratis, and to do everything gratis; the same procedure also served for building the convent or house of the cura.” See note 80, ante, p. 146; also the report made by Auditor Gueruela on his visit to Camarines in 1702, in VOL. XLII, pp. 304–308. [↑]
[34] “The complaints against the sort of abuses which are mentioned in this section of Anda’s Memorial are precisely those which the Filipino people formulated; it was those abuses which drove the Filipinos to form the Katipunan, to rise in armed revolt, and to struggle against the Spanish government, in order to gain escape from friar dominion. Recent occurrences, and the publicity regarding the promoters of the Filipino insurrection, render it unnecessary for us to comment further on the words of Anda.” (Pardo de Tavera, note 31, pp. 91, 92.) [↑]
[35] Sínodo: here a synonym of estipendio (stipend), being the name of the stipend allowed to priests in America and the Philippines. [↑]
[36] “I do not recognize the word parilusclas, in the memorial; perhaps it is an error of the copyist. The fact is that the sick are conveyed in a hammock, a litter, or a sedan-chair to the door of the convent, where the cura comes down to confess them, give the viaticum, or apply the holy oils, as the case demands.” (Pardo de Tavera, note 32, p. 92.) [↑]
[37] “That his name shall be blotted from the Book of Life”—a statement made in the sensational sermon of the Jesuit Puch in 1764 (see pp. 24–26, ante). Pardo de Tavera says (note 33, p. 92) that this occurred in Lima; he cites also a letter by Corcuera in 1636 (see our VOL. XXVI, pp. 60–72) to show that the political use of the pulpit by the friars was a practice of long standing. [↑]
[38] See account of the Santa Ynes mine in note 55, ante, p. 107. [↑]