 Chapter 9 Part 2 of A History of the Philippines. The Archipelago and the Religious Orders. During these decades, conflict was almost incessant between the Archbishop of Manila and the Regular Orders. In the Philippines, the regulars were the parish curates, and the Archbishop desired that all matters of their curacy, touching the administration of the sacraments and other parish duties, should be subject to the direction of the bishops. This question of the Diocesan visit was fought over for nearly 200 years. The Governor and the Archbishop. Even more serious to the colony were the conflicts that raged between the Governor-General and the Archbishop. All the points of dissension between church and state, which vexed the Middle Ages, broke out afresh in the Philippines. The appointment of religious officers, the distribution of revenue, the treatment of the natives, the claim of the church to offer asylum to those fleeing the arm of the law, its claims of jurisdiction in its ecclesiastical courts over a large class of civil offenses, these disputes and many others occasion almost incessant discord between the heads of civil and ecclesiastical authority. The Residencia. We have seen that the power of the Governor was in fact very large. Theoretically, the Audiencia was the limit upon his authority, but in fact, the Governor was usually the President of this body, and Oedores were frequently his abetors and rarely his opponents. At the end of each Governor's rule, there took place a characteristic Spanish institution called the Residencia. This was a court held by the newly elected Governor for an examination into the conduct of his predecessor. Complaints of every description were received, and often, in the history of the Philippines, one who had ruled the archipelago almost as an independent monarch found himself at the end of his office, ruined, and in chains. It was upon the occasion of the Residencia that the ecclesiastical powers, after a Governor's ships stormy with disputes, exercised their power for revenge. Unquestionably many a Governor, despite his actual power, facing as he did, the Residencia at the termination of his rule made peace with his enemies and yielded to their demands. Corcuerra had continuous troubles with the archbishop and with the religious orders other than the Jesuits. In 1644, when his successor, Guajardo, relived him, the Franciscans, Augustinians, and Recolects procured his imprisonment and the confiscation of his property. For five years, the conqueror of the Morse lay a prisoner in the fortresses of Santiago and Cavite when he was pardoned by the Council of the Indies and appointed Governor of the Canaries by the King. Weakening of the Governor's power, this power of private and religious classes to intimidate and over all the responsible head of the Philippine government was an abuse which continued to the very close of the Spanish rule. This, together with the relatively short term of the Governor's office, his natural desire to avoid trouble is also a frequent purpose of amassing a fortune rather than maintaining the dignity of his position and advancing the interests of the islands combined decade after decade to make the spiritual authority more powerful. In the end, the religious orders, with their great body of members, their hold upon the Filipinos, their high influence at the port, and finally, their great landed wealth governed the islands. The educational work of the religious orders. In any criticism of the evils connected with the administration of the Philippines, one must not fail to recognize the many achievements of the missionary friars that were worthy. To the Dominicans and the Jesuits is due the establishment of institutions of learning. The Jesuits in 1601 had planted their College of San Jose. The Dominicans, here as in Europe, the champions of Orthodox learning had their own institution, the College of Santo Tomas, inaugurated in 1619 and were the rivals of the Jesuits for the privilege of giving higher instruction. In 1645, the Pope granted to the Dominicans to try to bestow higher degrees and their college became the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. This splendid name breathes that very spirit of the Middle Ages which the Dominican orders drove to perfect weight in the Philippines down to modern days. The Dominicans also founded the College of San Juan de Letran as a preparatory school to the university. We should not pass over the educational work of the religious orders without mention of the early printing plants and their publications. The missionary friars were famous printers and in the Philippines, as well as in America, some noble volumes were produced by their handicraft. Fountain of Hospitals by the Franciscans Nor had the Franciscans in the Philippines neglected the fundamental purpose of their foundation, that of ministration to the sick and unprotected. A narrative of their order written in 1649 gives a long list of their beneficent foundations. Besides the Hospital of Manila, they had an infirmary at Cavite for the native mariners and shipbuilders, a hospital at Los Baños, another in the city of Nueva Caceres. They brethren were attached to many of the convents as nurses. In 1633, a curious occurrence led to the founding of the Lepper Hospital of San Lazaro. The Emperor of Japan, in a probably ironical mood, sent to Manila a shipload of Japanese afflicted with this unfortunate disease. These people were mercifully received by the Franciscans and cared for in a home, which became the San Lazaro Hospital for lepers. Life and Progress of the Filipinos Few sources exist that can show us the life and progress of the Filipino people during these decades. Christianity, as introduced by the missionary friars, was generally successful and yet there were relapses into hedonism. Old religious leaders and priestesses roused up from time to time and incited the natives to rebellion against their new spiritual masters. The payment of tribute and the labor required for the building of churches often drove the people into the mountains. Religious Revolt at Bohol and Leyte In 1621, a somewhat serious revolt took place on Bohol. The Jesuits who administered the island were absent in Cebu, attending the fiestas on the colonization of Saint Francis Xavier. The whisper was raised that the old, hidden deity, Diwata, was at hand to assist in the expulsion of the Spaniards. The island rose in revolt, except the two towns of Loboc and Baclayan. When the four towns were burned, the churches sacked and the sacred images speared. The revolt spread to Leyte where it was headed by the old Datu, Bangkaw of Limasawa, who had sworn friendship with Legaspi. This insurrection was put down by the Alcalde Mayor of Cebu and the Filipino leaders were hanged. On Leyte, Bangkaw was spearing battle and one of the heathen priests suffered the penalty prescribed by the Inquisition for Hersey, death by burning. Revolt of the Pampangos The heavy drafting of natives to fell trees and build the ships for the Spanish naval expeditions and the Acapulco trade was also a cause for insurrection. In 1660, a thousand Pampangos were kept cutting in the forests of that province alone. Salenator heavy libo and at the harshness of their overseers, these natives rose in revolt. The sedition spread to Pangasinan, Zambales, and Ilocos and it required the utmost efforts of the Spanish forces on land and water to suppress the rebellion. Uprising of the Chinese In spite of the terrible massacre that had been visited the Panda Chinese at the beginning of the century, they had almost immediately commenced returning not only as merchants but as colonists. The earlier restrictions upon their life must have been relaxed. For in 1639, there were more than 30,000 living in the islands, many of them cultivating lands at Calamba and at other points on the Laguna de Be. In that year, a rebellion broke out in which the Chinese in Manila participated. They seized the Church of San Pedro Macatius on the Pasig and fortified themselves. From there, they were routed by a combined Filipino and Spanish force. The Chinese then broke up into small bands which scattered through the country, looting and murdering, but being pursued and cut to pieces by the Filipinos. For five months, this pillage and massacre went on until 7,000 Chinese were destroyed. By the loss of these agriculturists and laborers, Manila was reduced to great distress. Activity of the Moro Pirates The task of the Spaniards in controlling the Moro Datus continued to be immensely difficult. During the years following the successes of Corcuera and Almonte, the Moros were continually platin. Aid was furnished from Borneo and Celebes and they were further incited by the Dutch. In spite of the vigilance of Zamboanga, small piratical excursions continually harassed the Visayas and the Camarines. Continued conflicts with the Dutch. The Dutch too, from time to time, showed themselves in Manila. In 1646, a squadron attacked Zamboanga and then came north to Luzon. The Spanish naval strength was quite unprepared, but two galleons, lately arrived from Acapulco, were fitted with heavy guns. Dominican priors took their places among the gunners and under the protection of the Virgin of the Rosary, successfully encountered the enemy. A year later, a fleet of 12 vessels entered Manila Bay and nearly succeeded in taking Cavite. Failing in this, they landed in Bataan Province and for some time held the coast of Manila Bay in the vicinity of Abukai. The narrative of Franciscan missions in 1649, above sighted, gives town after town in southern Luzon where church and convent had been burned by the Moros or the Dutch. The abandonment of Zamboanga and the Malaccas. The threat of the Dutch made the maintenance of the Presidio of Zamboanga very burdensome. In 1656, the administration of the Malaccas was united with that of Mindanao and the governor of the former, Don Francisco de Estebar, was transferred from Ternate to Zamboanga and made lieutenant governor and captain general of all the provinces of the south. Six years later, the Malaccas so long coveted by the Spaniards and so slowly won by them together with Zamboanga were wholly abandoned and to the Spice Islands the Spaniards were never to return. This sudden retirement from their southern possessions was not, however, occasioned by the incest and pricelessness of the Moros nor by the plattings of the Dutch. It was due to a threat of danger from the north. Cozinga, the Chinese adventurer. In 1644, China was conquered by the Manchus. Pekingka pitulated at once and the Ming dynasty was overthrown, but it was only by many years of fighting that the Manchus overcame the Chinese of the Central and Southern provinces. These were years of turbulence, revolt, and piracy. More than one Chinese adventurer rose to a romantic position during the disturbed time. One of these adventurers named Ipkoan had been a poor fisherman of Chiyo. He had lived in Macau where he had been converted to Christianity and had been a Cargador or Cargo-bearer in Manila. He afterwards went to Japan and engaged in trade. From these humble and laborious beginnings, like many another of his persistent countrymen, he gained great wealth which under conquest of the Manchus he devoted to piracy. His son was notorious Kuessin or Cozinga who for years resisted the armies of the Manchus and maintained an independent power over the coasts of Phukkien and Chekyang. About 1660, the forces of the Manchus became too formidable for him to longer resist them upon the mainland and Cozinga determined upon the capture of Formosa and the transference of his kingdom to that island. For 38 years, this island had been dominated by the Dutch whose fortresses commanded the Channel of the Pescadores. The colony was regarded as an important one by the Dutch colonial government at Batavia. The city of Taiwan on the west coast was a considerable center of trade. It was strongly protected by the fortress of Zealand and had a garrison of 2,200 Dutch soldiers. After months of fighting, Cozinga with an overpowering force of Chinese compelled the surrender of the Hollanders and the beautiful island past into his power, a threatened invasion of the Philippines. Exalted by his success against European arms, Cozinga resolved upon the conquest of the Philippines. He summoned to his service the Italian Dominican missionary, the Ricci, who had been living in the province of Phukkien and in the spring of 1662 dispatched him as an ambassador to the governor of the Philippines to demand the submission of the archipelago. Manila was thrown into a terrible panic by this demand and indeed no such danger had threatened the Spanish in the Philippines since the invasion of Lima Home. The Chinese conqueror had an innumerable army and his armament, stores and navy had been greatly augmented by the surrender of the Dutch. The Spaniards, however, were united on resistance. The governor, Don Sabimiano Manrique de Lara, returned a defiant answer to Cozinga and the most radical measures were adopted to place the colony in a state of defense. All Chinese were ordered immediately to leave the islands. Fearful of massacre, these wretched people again broke out in rebellion and assaulted the city. Many were slain and other bands wandered off into the mountains where they perished at the hands of the natives. Others, escaping by frail boats, joined the Chinese colonists on Formosa. Churches and convents in the suburbs of Manila, which might afford shelter to the assailant, were raised to the ground. More than all this, the Malaccas were forsaken, never again to be recovered by Spaniards. And the Presidios of Zamuanga and Cuyo, which served as a kind of bridle on the morose of Huló and Mindanao, were abandoned. All Spanish troops were concentrated in Manila. Fortifications were rebuilt and the population waited anxiously for the attack. But the blow never fell. Before Ricci arrived at Taiwan, Cozinga was dead and the peril of Chinese invasion had passed. Effects of these events. But the Philippines had suffered irretrievable loss. Spanish prestige was gone. Manila was no longer as she had been at the commencement of the century, the capital of the East. Spanish sovereignty was again confined to Luzon and the Visayas. The Chinese trade on which rested the economic prosperity of Manila had once again been ruined. For a hundred years the history of the Philippines is a dull monotony, quite unrelieved by any heroic activity or the presence of a noble character. End of Chapter 9, Part 2, Recording by Shana Serre, Presno, California. Chapter 10, Part 1, Of A History of the Philippines This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gary McFadden. A History of the Philippines by David Barrows Chapter 10, Part 1, Chapter 10, A Century of Obscurity and Decline 1663-1762 Political decline of the Philippines For the hundred years succeeding the abandonment of the Malacas, the Philippines lost all political significance as a colony. From almost every standpoint they were profitless to Spain. There were continued deficits, which had to be made good from the Mexican treasury. The part of Spain in the conquest of the East was over, and the Philippines became little more than a great missionary establishment presided over by the religious orders. Death of Governor Salcedo by the Inquisition In 1663, Lara was succeeded by Don Diego de Salcedo. On his arrival, Manila had high hopes of him, which were speedily disappointed. He loaded the Acapulco galleon with his own private merchandise and then dispatched it earlier than was usual, before the cargoes of the merchants were ready. He engaged in a weary-some strife with the Archbishop and seems to have worried the ecclesiastic, who was aged and feeble, into his grave. At the end of a few years he was hated by everyone, and a conspiracy against him was formed, which embraced the religious, the army, the civil officials, and the merchants. Beyond the reach of power of ordinary plotters, he fell victim to the commissioner of the Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition, which brought such cruelty and misery in the peninsula, was carried also to the Spanish colonies. As we have seen, it was primarily the function of the Dominic and order to administer the institution. The powers exercised by an Inquisitor can scarcely be understood at the present day. His methods were secret, the charges were not made public, the whole proceedings were closeted, and yet so great were the powers of this court that none could resist its authority or inquire into its actions. Spain forbade any heretics, Jews or Moors, going to the colonies, and did the utmost to prevent heresy abroad. She also established in America the Inquisition itself. Fortunately it never attained the importance in the Philippines that it had in Spain. In the Philippines there was no tribunal, the institution being represented solely by a commissioner. DEATH OF THE GOVERNOR In 1667, when the unpopularity of Governor Salcedo was at its height, this commissioner professed to discover in him grounds of heresy from the fact that he had been born in Flanders and decided to avenge the church by encompassing his ruin. By secret arrangement the master of the camp withdrew the guard from the palace and the commissioner, with several confederates, gained admission. The door of the governor's room was opened by an old woman who had been terrified into complicity, and the governor was seized sleeping, with his arms lying at the head of his bed. The commissioner informed the governor that he was a prisoner of the Holy Office. He was taken to the convent of the Franciscans. Here he was kept in chains until he could be sent to Mexico to appear before the tribunal there. The government in Mexico annulled the arrest of the commissioner, but Salcedo died at sea on the return of the vessel to the Philippines in 1669. In 1668, a Jesuit mission under Padre Diego Luis de San Vitores was established on the Lidrones, the first of many mission stations, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, in the South Pacific. The islands at that time were well populated and fertile, and had drawn the enthusiasm of Padre San Vitores in 1662, when he first sailed to the Philippines. The hostility of the Manchus in China, the Japanese persecutions, and the abandonment of the Mindanao had closed many mission fields, and explains the eagerness with which the Jesuits sought the royal permission to Christianize these islands, which had been so constantly visited by Spanish ships, but never before colonized. With Padre San Vitores and his five Jesuit associates were a number of Christian Filipino catechists. Settlement of Guam. The mission landed at Guam and was favorably received. Society among these islanders was divided into castes. The chiefs were known as Chamori, which has led to the natives of the Lidrones being called Chamaros. A piece of ground was given to the Jesuits for a church at the principal town called Agadna in Perenz, Aganya, and here also a seminary was built for the instruction of young men. The Queen Regent of Spain, Maria of Austria, gave an annual sum to this school, and in her honor the Jesuits changed the name of the islands to the Marianas. The Jesuits preached on eleven inhabited islands of the group, and in a year's time had baptized thirteen thousand islanders and given instruction to twenty thousand. Troubles with the natives at Guam. This first year was the most successful in the history of the mission. Almost immediately after, the Jesuits angered the islanders by compulsory conversions. There were quarrels in several places, and priests, trying to baptize children against the wishes of their parents, were killed. In sixteen seventy the Spaniards were attacked and obliged to fortify themselves at Aganya. The Jesuits had a guard of a Spanish captain and about thirty Spanish and Filipino soldiers who, after some slaughter of the natives, compelled them to sue for peace. The conditions imposed by the Jesuits were that the natives should attend mass and festivals, have their children baptized, and send them to be catacysed. The hatred of the natives was unabated however, and in sixteen seventy two, San Videres was killed by them. His biographer claims that at his death he had baptized nearly fifty thousand of these islanders. And here a footnote. See the account of the settlement of the Lidrones by the Spanish in Bernese, Voyages in the Pacific, Volume Three. Depopulation of the Lidrone Islands. About sixteen eighty a governor was sent to the islands and they were organized as a dependency of Spain. The policy of the governors and the Jesuits was conversion by the sword. The natives were persecuted from island to island, and in the history of European settlements there is hardly one that had more miserable consequences to the inhabitants. Disease was introduced and swept off large numbers. Others fell resisting the Spaniards and an entire island was frequently depopulated by order of the governor, or the desire of the Jesuits to have the natives brought to Guam. Many, with little doubt, fled to other archipelagos. If we can trust the Jesuit accounts, there were in the whole group one hundred thousand inhabitants when the Spaniards arrived. A generation saw them almost extinct. Dampier, who touched at Guam in sixteen eighty six, says then that on the island where the Spaniards had found thirty thousand people, there were not above one hundred natives. In seventeen sixteen and seventeen twenty one, other voyagers announced the number of inhabitants on Guam at two thousand, but only one other island of the group was populated. When Anson in seventeen forty two visited Guam, the number had risen to four thousand, and there were a few hundred inhabitants on Rota, but these seem to have been the whole population. The original native population certainly very nearly touched extinction. The islands were from time to time colonized from the Philippines, and the present population is very largely of Filipino blood. Conflicts between governor and archbishop. Meanwhile, in the Philippines the conflict of the governor with the archbishop and the friars continued. The conduct of both sides was selfish and outrageous. In sixteen eighty three, the actions of archbishop Pardo became so violent and seditious that the Audiencia decreed his banishment to Pangasian or Cagayan. He was taken by force to Lingayan, where he was well accommodated, but kept under surveillance. The Dominicans retaliated by excommunication, and the Audiencia thereupon banished the provincial of the order from the islands and sent several other friars to Marvales. But the year following Governor Vargas was relieved by the arrival of his successor, who was favorable to the ecclesiastical side of the controversy. The archbishop returned and assumed a high hand. He suspended and excommunicated on all sides. The oidores were banished from the city and all died in exile in remote portions of the archipelago. The ex-governor general Vargas, being placed under the spiritual ban, sued for pardon and begged that his repentance be recognized. The archbishop sentenced him to stand daily for the space of four months at the entrances to the churches of the city and of the Parian, and in the thronged quarter of Binando, attired in the habit of a penitent, with a rope about his neck and carrying a lighted candle in his hand. He was, however, able to secure a mitigation of this sentence, but was required to live, absolutely alone, in a hut on an island in the Paseig River. He was sent a prisoner to Mexico in 1689, but died upon the voyage. The various deans and cannons who had concurred in the archbishop's banishment, as well as other religious with whom the prelate had had dissensions, were imprisoned or exiled. The bodies of two oidores were, on their death and after their burial, disinterred, and their bones profaned. Degeneration of the colony under church rule. Archbishop Pardo died in 1689, but the strife and confusion which had been engendered continued. There were quarrels between the archbishop and the friars, between the prelate and the governor. All classes seemed to have shared the bitterness and the hatred of these unhappy dissensions. The moral tone of the whole colony during the latter part of the seventeenth century was lowered, corruption flourished everywhere, and the vigor of the administration decayed. Violence went unrebuke, and the way was open for the deplorable tragedy in which this strife of parties culminated. Certainly no governor could have been more supine and shown greater incapacity and weakness of character than the one who ruled in the time of Archbishop Pardo. Improvements made by Governor Bustamante. Enrichment of the treasury. In the year 1717, however, came a governor of a different type, Fernando Manuel de Bustamante. He was an old soldier, stern of character, and severe in his measures. He found the treasury robbed and exhausted. Nearly the whole population of Manila were in debt to the public funds. Bustamante ordered these amounts paid, and to compel their collection he attached the cargo of silver arriving by the galleon from Acapulco. This cargo was owned by the religious companies, officials, and merchants, all of whom were indebted to the government. In one year of his vigorous administration, he raised the sum of three hundred thousand pesos for the treasury. With sums of money again at the disposal of the state, Bustamante attempted to revive the decayed prestige and commerce of the islands. Refounding of Zambolanga. In 1718 he re-founded and rebuilt the Presidio of Zambolanga. Not a year had passed since its abandonment years before that the pirates from Borneo and Mindanao had failed to ravage the Visayas. The Jesuits had petitioned regularly for its re-establishment, and in 1712 the king had decreed its re-occupation. The citadel was rebuilt on an elaborate plan under the direction of the engineer Don Juan Secara. Besides the usual barracks, storehouses, and arsenals, there were within the walls a church, hospital, and quartel for the Pampangan soldiers. Sixty-one cannon were mounted upon the defenses. Upon the petition of the recollects, Bustamante also established a Presidio at Labo, at the southern point of the island of Palawan, whose coasts were attacked by the morose from Sulu and Borneo. Treaty with Siam. In the same year he sent an embassy to Siam, with the idea of stimulating the commerce which had flourished a century before. The reception of this embassy was most flattering. A treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce was made, and on ground seated to the Spaniards was begun the erection of a factory. Improvements in the city of Manila. How far this brave and determined man might have revived the colony, it is impossible to say. The population of Manila, both ecclesiastical and civil, was at this time so sunk in corruption and so degenerate as to make almost impossible any recuperation except under the rule of a man equally determined as Bustamante, but ruling for a long period of time. He had not hesitated to order investigations into the finances of the islands, which disclosed defocations amounting to seven hundred thousand pesos. He fearlessly arrested the defaulters no matter what their station. The whole city was concerned in these speculations, consequently the utmost fear and apprehension existed on all sides, and Bustamante, hated as well as dreaded, was compelled to enforce his reforms single-handed. His murder. He was opposed by the friars and defied by the Archbishop, but notwithstanding ecclesiastical condemnation, he went to the point of ordering the arrest of the Prelate. The city rose in sedition, and a mob headed by friars proceeded to the palace of the Governor, broke in upon him, and as he faced them alone and without support, killed him in cold blood. Perins, October 11th, 1719. The Archbishop proclaimed himself Governor and President of the Audiencia. The Euleres and officials who had been placed under arrest by Bustamante were released, and his work overthrown. The new government had neither the courage nor the inclination to continue Bustamante's policy, and in 1720 the Archbishop called a Council of War, which decreed the abandonment of the fort at Laboul. When the news of this murder reached Spain, the King ordered an investigation in the punishment of the guilty, and in 1721 Governor Campo arrived to put these mandates into execution. The culprits, however, were so high and so influential that the Governor did not dare proceed against him, and although the commands of the King were reiterated in 1724, the assassins of Bustamante were never brought to justice. Treaty with the Salton of Jolo. In spite of the cowardly policy of the successors of Bustamante, the Presidio of Zamboanga was not abandoned. So poorly was it administered, however, that it was not effective to prevent Moro piracy, and the attacks upon the Bessayas and the Calimienes continued. In 1721 a treaty was formed with the Salton of Jolo, providing for trade between Manila and Jolo, the return or ransom of captives, and the restitution to Spain of the island of Basilan. The Moro Pirates of Tawi Tawi. To some extent this treaty seems to have prevented assaults from Jolo, but in 1730 the Moros of Tawi Tawi fell upon Palawan and the Calimienes, and in 1731 another expedition from the south spent nearly a whole year cruising and destroying among the Bessayas. Deplorable State of Spanish Defenses. The defenses of the Spaniards during these many decades were continually in a deplorable state, their arms were wretched, and except in moments of great apprehension no attention was given to fortifications to the preservation of artillery nor to the supply of ammunition. Sudden attacks ever found the Spaniards unprepared. Military unreadiness was the normal condition of this archipelago from these early centuries down to the destruction of the Spanish armament by the American fleet. 2. The Economic Policy of Spain. Restrictions of Trade. During the closing years of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, commerce seems to have been actually paralyzed. That brilliant trade which is described by Morga, and which was at its height about 1605, was a few years later defeated by the miserable economic policy of Spain, pandering to the demands of the merchants of Cadiz and Seville. Spain's economic policy had only in view benefits to the peninsula. The laws of the Indies abound with edicts for the purpose of limiting and crippling colonial commerce and industry, wherever it was imagined that it might be prejudicial to the protected industries of Spain. The manufacturers of Seville wished to preserve the colonies, both of America and of the Indies, as markets for their monopoly wears, and in this policy for two centuries they had the support of the Crown. The growing trade between Mexico and the Philippines had early been regarded with suspicion, and legislation was framed to reduce it to the lowest point compatible with the existence of the colony. None of the colonies of America could conduct commerce with the Philippines except Mexico, and here all communication must pass through the port of Acapulco. This trade was limited to the passage of a single vessel a year. In 1605 two galleons were permitted, but their size was reduced to 300 tons. They were allowed to carry out 500,000 pesos of silver, but no more than 250,000 pesos worth of Chinese products could be returned. Neither the Spaniards of Mexico nor any part of America could traffic directly with China, nor could Spanish vessels pass from Manila to the ports of Asia. Only those goods could be bought which Chinese merchants themselves brought to the Philippines. Selfishness of merchants in Spain. Even these restrictions did not satisfy the jealousy of the merchants of Spain. They complained that the royal orders limiting the traffic were not regarded, and they insisted upon so vexatious a supervision of this commerce and surrounded infractions of the law with such terrible penalties that the trade was not maintained even to the amount permitted by law. Spanish merchants even went to the point of petitioning for the abandonment of the Philippines on the ground that the importations from China were prejudicial to the industry of the peninsula. The colonists upon the Pacific coast of America suffered from the lack of those commodities demanded by civilized life, which could only reach them as they came from Spain through the port of Portavello and the Isthmus of Panama. Without question, an enormous and beneficial commerce could have been conducted by the Philippines with the provinces of western America. And here a footnote. Some of the benefits of such trade set forth by the Jesuit Alonzo de Ovalle in his historical relation of the Kingdom of Chile, printed in Rome 1649, in Churchill's collection of voyages and travels, Vol. 3. Trade between South America and the Philippines Forbidden But this traffic was absolutely forbidden, and to prevent Chinese and Philippine goods from entering South America, the trade between Mexico and Peru was in 1636 wholly suppressed by a decree. This decree, as it stands upon the pages of the Great Recopilación, is an epitome of the insane economic policy of the Spaniard. It cites it, whereas it had been permitted that from Peru to New Spain there should go each year two vessels for commerce and traffic to the amount of 200,000 dukots, which later had been reduced to 100,000 dukots, and because there had increased in Peru to an excessive amount the commerce in the fabrics of China, in spite of the many prohibitions that had been imposed, and in order to absolutely to remove the occasion for the future, we order and command the officers of Peru and New Spain, that they invariably prohibit and suppress this commerce and traffic between the two kingdoms by all the channels through which it is conducted, maintaining this prohibition firmly and continually for the future. And here a footnote. Recopilación de les de las Indias, Library 8, Title 45, Law 78 In 1718 the merchants of Seville and Cadiz still complained that their profits were being injured by even the limited importation of Chinese silks into Mexico. Thereupon absolute prohibition of import of Chinese silks, either woven or in thread, was decreed. Only linens, spices, and supplies of such things as were not produced in Spain, could be brought into Mexico. This order was reaffirmed in 1720, with the provision that six months would be allowed the people of Mexico to consume the Chinese silks which they had in their possession, and thereafter all such goods must be destroyed. Infectiveness of these restrictions These measures, while ruining the commerce of the Philippines, were as a matter of fact ineffective to accomplish the result desired. Contraband trade between China and America sprang up in violation of the law. Silks to the value of four million pesos were annually smuggled into America. Here a footnote. Montero y Vidal Historia de Filipinas, Volume 1, Page 460 In 1734 the folly and uselessness of such laws was somewhat recognized by the Council of the Indies, and a celula was issued, restoring the permission to trade in Chinese silks, and raising the value of cargos destined for Acapulco to 500,000 pesos, and the quantity of silver for return to one million pesos. The celebrated traffic of the galleon was resumed and continued until the year 1815, an attempt to colonize the Carolines. Southeastward of the Philippines, in that part of the Pacific which is known as Micronesia, there is an archipelago of small islands called the Carolines. The westernmost portion of this group bears the name of the Pelus or Palaus. In as much as these islands were eventually acquired by Spain and remained in her possession down to the year 1890, it may be well to state something at this time of the attempt made by the Jesuits in 1731 to colonize them. Certain of these little islands were seen several times by expeditions crossing the Pacific as early as the latter part of the 16th century, but after the trade between Mexico and the Philippines had been definitely settled upon, a fixed course was followed westward from Acapulco to Guam, from which there was little variation, and during the 17th century these islands passed quite out of mind. But in the year 1696 a party of natives, twenty men and ten women, were driven by storms far from their home in the Carolines upon the eastern coast of Samar. It seems that similar parties of castaways from the Pelus and Caroline islands had been known to reach Mindanao and other parts of the Philippines at an even earlier date. These last came under the observation of the Jesuit priests on Samar who baptized them and learning from them of the archipelago from which they had been carried, were filled with missionary ambition to visit and Christianize these Pacific Islanders. This idea was agitated by the Jesuits until about 1730 royal permission was granted to the Enterprise. A company of Jesuits in the following year sailed for the Ladrones and thence south until the Carolines were discovered. They landed on a small island not far from Yap. Here they succeeded in baptizing numerous natives and in establishing a mission. Fourteen of their number, headed by the priest Padre Cantava, remained on the island while the expedition returned to secure reinforcements and supplies. Unfortunately this sucker was delayed for more than a year and when Spanish vessels with missionary reinforcements on board again reached the Carolines in 1733 the mission had been entirely destroyed and the Spaniards with Padre Cantava had been killed. These islands have been frequently called the New Philippines. Conditions of the Filipinos during the 18th century During the most of the 18th century data are few upon the condition of the Filipino people. There seems to have been little progress. Conditions certainly were against a social or intellectual advance of the native race. Perhaps, however, their material well-being was quite as great during these years when little was attempted as during the governor's ships of the more ambitious and enterprising Spaniards who had characterized the earlier period of Philippine history. Provincial Governments Provincial administration seems to have fallen almost wholly into the hands of the missionaries. The priests made themselves the local rulers throughout the Christianized portion of the archipelago. Insurrection in Bohol Insurrection seems especially to have troubled the island of Bohol during most of the 18th century and in 1750 an insurrection broke out which practically established the independence of a large portion of the island and which was not suppressed for very many years. The trouble arose in the town of Inabanga where the Jesuit priest Morales had greatly antagonized and embittered the natives by a severity. Some apostatized and went to the hills. One of these men was killed by the orders of the priest and his body refused Christian burial and left uncared for and exposed. A brother of this man named D'Gohoi, infuriated by this indignity, headed a sedition which shortly included three thousand natives. The priest was killed and his own body left by the road unburied. In spite of the efforts of the occaldae of Cebu, D'Gohoi was able to maintain himself and practically established a small native state which remained until the occupation of the island by the recollects after the Jesuits had been expelled from the Spanish dominions. Activity of the Jesuits During the 18th century the Jesuits alone of the religious orders seemed to have been active in prosecuting their efforts and seeking new fields for conversion. The sloth and inactivity which overcame the other orders placed in greater contrast the ambition and the activities both secular and spiritual of the Jesuits. Conversion of the Sultan Ali Bundin In 1747 they established a mission even on Huloh. They were unable to overcome the intense antagonism of the Moro, Pandidas, and Datos, but they apparently won the young Sultan, Ali Uddin, whose strange story and shifting fortunes have been variously told. One of the Jesuits, Padre Velhemi, was skilled in the Arabic language and this familiarity with the language and literature of the Mohammedism doubtless explains his ascendancy over the mind of the Sultan. Ali Uddin was not a strong man. His power over the subordinate Datos was small, and in 1748 his brother, Batilan, usurped his place and was proclaimed Sultan of Huloh. Ali Uddin and his family and numerous escort came to Zabuanga, seeking the aid of the Spanish against his brother. From Zabuanga he was sent to Manila. On his arrival, January 3, 1749, he was received with all the pomp and honor due to a prince of high rank. A house for his entertainment and his retinue of seventy persons was prepared in Bonondo. A public entrance was arranged which took place some fifteen days after his reaching the city. Triumphal arches were erected across the streets which were lined with more than two thousand native militia under arms. The Sultan was publicly received in the hall of the Audiencia where the Governor promised to lay his case before the King of Spain. The Sultan was showered with presents which included chains of gold, fine garments, precious gems and gold canes while the Government sustained the expense of his household. And here a footnote. Relación de la Entrada del Sultan Rey de Huloh in Archivo del Bibliófilo, Filipino Volume 1 Following this reception steps were taken for his conversion. His spiritual advisers cited to him the example of the Emperor Constantine whose conversion enabled him to effect triumphant conquests over his enemies. Under these representations Ali Uddin expressed his desire for baptism. The Governor-General, who at this time was a priest, the Bishop Nuevo Seguvia, was very anxious that this right should take place. But this was opposed by his spiritual superior, the Archbishop of Manila, who, with some others, entertained doubts as to the sincerity of the Sultan's profession. In order to accomplish his baptism the Governor sent him to his own diocese, where at Panache on the 29th of April 1750 the ceremony took place with great solemnity. On the return of the party to Manila the Sultan was received with great pomp, and in his honor were held games, theatrical representations, fireworks, and bullfights. This was the high watermark of the Sultan's popularity. Failure to Reinstate Ali Uddin Meanwhile the usurper, Batilan, was giving abundant evidence of his hostility. The Spaniards were driven from Huloh, and the fleets of morose, again ravaged the Bessayas. In July arrived the new Governor, the Marquis de Elvando, who determined to restore Ali Uddin and suppress the moral piracy. An expedition set sail with the Sultan on board, and went as far as Zaboanga, but accomplished nothing. Here the conduct of the Sultan served to confirm the doubts of the Spaniards as to the sincerity of his friendship. He was arrested and returned to Manila, and imprisoned in the Fortress of Santiago. With varying treatment he remained in the hands of the Spaniards until 1763, when he was returned to Huloh by the English. Great Increase in Moro Piracy The year 1754 is stated to have been the bloodiest in the history of Moro Piracy. No part of the Bessayas escaped ravaging in this year, while the Camarines, Batangas, and Albay suffered equally with the rest. The conduct of the pirates was more than ordinarily cruel. Priests were slain, towns wholly destroyed, and thousands of captives were carried south into Moro Slavery. The condition of the islands at the end of this year was probably the most deplorable in their history. Reforms under General Arendia The demoralization and misery which Obando's rule closed were relieved somewhat by the capable government of Arendia who succeeded him. Arendia was one of the few men of talent, energy, and integrity who stood at the head of affairs in these islands during two centuries. He reformed the greatly disorganized military force, establishing what was known as the Regiment of the King, made up largely of Mexican soldiers. He also formed a corps of artillerists, composed of Filipinos. These were regular troops who received from Arendia sufficient pay to enable them to live decently and like an army. He reformed the arsenal at Cavite, and in spite of the opposition on all sides, did something to infuse efficiency and honesty into the government. At the head of the armament which had been sent against the Moros, he placed a Jesuit priest, Father Ducos. A capable officer was also sent to command the Presidio at Zabuanga, and while Moro piracy was not stopped, heavy retaliation was visited upon the pirates. Arendia's most popular act of government was the expulsion of the Chinese from the provinces and in large part from the city. They seemed to have had in their hands then, perhaps even more than now, the commerce or small trade between Manila and provincial towns. To take over this trade, Arendia founded a commercial company of Spaniards and Mestizos which lasted only for a year. The Christianized Chinese were allowed to remain under license, and for those having shops in Manila, Arendia founded the al-Qasariya of San Fernando. It consisted of a great square of shops built about an open interior and stood in Binando on the site of the former Parian in what is still a populous Chinese quarter. Death of Arendia and decline of the colony. Arendia died in May, 1759, and the government was assumed by the Bishop of Zabu, who, in turn, was forced from his position by the arrival of the Archbishop of Manila, Don Manuel Rojo. The Archbishop revoked the celebrated orders of good government which Arendia had put into force, and the colony promised to relapse once more into its customary dormant condition. This was, however, prevented by an event which brought to an end the long period of obscurity and inertia under which the colony had been gradually decaying, and introduced, in a way, a new period of its history. This was the capture of the Philippine islands by the British in 1762. End of Chapter 10 Part 2 A History of the Philippines by David Barrows Recording by Gary McFadden Chapter 11 Part 1 of A History of the Philippines This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nathan Markham The Philippines during the period of European Revolution 1762-1837 The new philosophy of the 18th century The middle of the 18th century in Europe was a time when ideas were greatly liberalized. A philosophy became current which professed to look for its authority, not the church's or hereditary custom and privilege, but to the laws of God, as they are revealed in the natural world. Men taught that if we could only follow nature we could not do wrong. Natural law became the basis for a great amount of political and social discussion, and the theoretical foundation of many social rights. The savage, ungoverned man was by many European philosophers and writers supposed to live a freer, more wholesome, and more natural life than the man who was bound by the conventions of society and the laws of the state. Most of this reasoning we now know to be scientifically untrue. The savage and the hermit are not, in actual fact, types of human happiness and freedom. Ideal life for man is found only in governed society, where there is order and protection, and where also should be freedom of opportunity. But to the people of the 18th century, and especially to the scholars of France, where the government was monarchial and oppressive, and where the people were terribly burdened by the aristocracy, this teaching was welcomed as a new gospel, nor was it devoid of grand and noble ideas, which carried out in a conservative way have greatly bettered society. It is from this philosophy and the revolution which succeeded it that the world received the modern ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy. These ideas, having done their work in America and Europe, are here at work in the Philippines today. It remains to be seen whether a society can be rebuilt here on these principles, and whether Asia too will be reformed under their influence. Colonial conflicts between the great European countries. During the latter half of the 18th century, there culminated the long struggle for colonial empire between European states, which we have been following. We have seen how colonial conquest was commenced by the Portuguese, who were very shortly followed by the Spaniards, and how these two great Latin powers attempted to exclude the other European peoples from the rich Far East and the great New World which they had discovered. We have seen how this attempt failed, how the Dutch and the English broke in upon this gigantic reserve, drove the Spanish fleets from the seas, and despoiled and took of this great empire almost whatever they would. The Dutch and English then fought between themselves. The English excluded the Dutch from North America, capturing their famous colony of New Amsterdam, now New York, and incorporating it, 1674, with their other American colonies, which later became the United States of America. But in the East Indies, the Dutch maintained their trade and power, gradually extending from island to island, until they gained what they still possess, and almost a complete monopoly of spice production. War between England and France. In India, England in the 18th century won great possessions, and laid the foundation for what had been an almost complete subjugation of this eastern empire. Here, however, and even more so than in America, England encountered a royal and brilliant antagonist in the monarch of France. French exploration in North America had given France claims to the two great river systems of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, the latter by far the greatest and richest region of the temperate zone. So, during much of this 18th century, England and France were involved in wars that had for their prizes the possession of the continent of North America and the great peninsula of India. This conflict reached its climax between 1756 and 1763. Both states put forth all their strength. France called to her support those countries whose reigning families were allied to her by blood, and in this way Spain was drawn into the struggle. The monarchs of both France and Spain belonged to the great house of Bourbon. War was declared between England and Spain in 1762. Spain was totally unfitted for the combat. She could inflict no injury upon England, and simply lay impotent and helpless to retaliate, while English fleets in the same year took Havana in the west and Manila in the east. English victory over French in India and America. English power in India was represented during these years by the greatest and most striking figure in England's colonial history, Lord Clive. To him is due the defeat of France and India, the capture of her possessions, and the founding of the Indian Empire, which is still regarded as England's greatest possession. The French were expelled from India in the same year that the great citadel of New France in America, Quebec, was taken by the English under General Wolfe. The Philippines under the English, expedition from India to the Philippines. The English were now free to strike a blow at France's ally, Spain, and in Madras an expedition was prepared to destroy Spanish power in the Philippines. Notice of the preparation of this expedition reached Manila from several sources in the spring and summer of 1762. But with that fatality, which pursued the Spaniard to the end of his history in the Philippines, no preparations were made by him, until on the 22nd of September a squadron of thirteen vessels anchored in Manila Bay. Through the mist, the stupid and negligent authorities of Manila mistook them for Chinese trading-junks, but it was the fleet of the English admiral Cornish with the force of 5,000 British and Indian soldiers under the command of General Draper. For her defense, Manila had only 550 men of the regiment of the King, and 80 Filipino artillerists. Yet the Spaniards determined to make resistance from behind the walls of the city. Surrender of Manila to the English. The English disembarked and occupied Malat. From the churches of Malat, Ermita, and Santiago, the British bombarded Manila, and the Spaniards were plied from the batteries of San Andres and San Diego, the firing not being very effective on either side. On the 25th, Draper summoned the city to surrender, but a council of war held by the Archbishop, who was also governor, decided to fight on. 3,600 Filipino militia from Papanga, Bulacan, and Laguna marched to the defense of the city, and on the 3rd of October, 2,000 of these Filipinos made a sally from the walls, and recklessly assaulted the English lines, but were driven back with slaughter. On the night of the 4th of October, a breach in the walls was made by the artillery, and early in the morning of the 5th, 400 English soldiers entered almost without resistance. A company of militia on guard at the Puerta Real was bayoneted, and the English then occupied the plaza, and here received the surrender of the fort of San Diego. The English agreed not to interfere with religious liberty, and honors of war were granted to the Spanish soldiers. Guards were placed upon the convent of the Nuns of Santa Clara, and the biterios, and the city was given over to pillage, which lasted for 40 hours, and in which many of the Chinese assisted. Independence banished capital under Anda at Bulacan. The English were thus masters of the city, but during their period of occupation, they never extended their power far beyond the present limits of Manila. Previous to the final assault and occupation of Manila, the authorities had nominated the oider Don Simon de Anda y Salazar, lieutenant governor and judge at large of the islands, with instructions to maintain the country in its obedience to the king of Spain. Anda left the capital on the night of October 4th, passing in a little banca through the Nipa Swamps and Esteros on the north shore of Manila Bay to the provincial capital of Bulacan. Here he called together the provincial of the Augustinian monks, the Alcalde mayor of the province, and some other Spaniards. They resolved to form an independent government representing Spain, and to continue the resistance. This they were able to do as long as the British remained in the islands. The English made a few short expeditions into Bulacan, and up the Pasig River, but there was no hard fighting and no real effort made to pursue Anda's force. The Chinese welcomed the English and gave them some assistance, and for this Anda slew and hanged great numbers of them. The Philippines returned to Spain. By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, peace was made, by which France surrendered practically all her colonial possessions to England. But England returned to Spain her captures in Cuba and the Philippines. In March 1764, there arrived the Spanish frigate Santa Rosa, bringing the first lieutenant of the king for the islands, Don Francisco de la Torre, who brought with him news of the Treaty of Paris and the orders to the English to abandon the islands. Resistance of the English by the Friars In resistance to the English and in the efforts to maintain Spanish authority, a leading part had been taken by the Friars. The sacred orders, Ser Martínez de Sufiga, had much to do with the success of Señor Anda. They maintained the Indians of their respective administrations, loyal to the orders. They inspired the natives with horror against the English, as enemies of the king and of religion, inciting them to die fighting to resist them. They contributed their estates and their property, and they exposed their own persons to great dangers. The Friars were certainly most interested in retaining possession of the islands, added most to lose by their falling into English hands. Increase of the Jesuits in wealth and power In this zealous movement for defense, however, the Jesuits bore no part, and there were charges made against them of reasonable intercourse with the English, which may have had foundation, and which are of significance in the light of what subsequently occurred. At the close of the 18th century, all the governments of Catholic Europe were aroused with jealousy and suspicious hatred against the Jesuits. The society, organized primarily for missionary labor, had gradually taken on much of a secular character. The society was distinguished, as we have seen in its history in the Philippines, by men with great capacity and liking for what we may call practical affairs, as distinguished from purely religious or devotional life. The Jesuits were not alone missionaries and orthodox educators, but they were scientists, geographers, financiers, and powerful and almost independent administrators among heathen peoples. They had engaged so extensively and shrewdly in trade that their estates, warehouses, and exchanges bound together the fruitful fields of colonial provinces with the busy marks and money centers of Europe. Their wealth was believed to be enormous. Properly invested and carefully guarded, it was rapidly increasing. What, however, made the order exasperating alike to rulers and peoples were the powerful political intrigues in which members of the order engaged. Strong and masterful men themselves, the field of state affairs was irresistibly attractive. Their enemies charged that they were unscrupulous, and the means which they employed to accomplish political ends. It is quite certain that the Jesuits were not patriotic in their purposes or plans. They were an international corporation that members belonged to known one nation. To them the society was greater and more worthy of devotion than any state, in which they themselves lived and worked. Discussion of the Society of Jesus. Europe had, however, reached the belief, to which it adheres today, that a man must be true to the country in which he lives and finds shelter and protection, and in which he ranks as a political member, or else incur odium and punishment. Thus it was their indifference to national feeling that brought about the ruin of the Jesuits. It is significant that the rulers, the most devoted to Catholicism, followed one another in decreeing their expulsion from their dominions. In 1759 they were expelled from Portugal, in 1764 from France, and April 2nd, 1767 the degree of confiscation and banishment from Spain and all Spanish possessions was issued by King Carlos III. Within a year thereafter the two most powerful princes of Italy, the King of Naples and the Duke of Parma, followed, and the grand master of the Knights of Malta expelled them from that island. The Friends of the Order were powerless to withstand this united front of Catholic monarchs, and in July 1773 Pope Clement XIV suppressed and dissolved the Society, which was not restored until 1814. The Jesuits Expelled from the Philippines. The order expelling the Jesuits from the Philippines was put into effect in the year 1767. The instructions authorized the governor in case of resistance to use force of arms as against the rebellion. Besides their colleges in Manila, Tonklo, Cavite, Leyte, Samar, Bohol, and Negros, the Jesuits administered curacies in the vicinity of Manila, and Cavite Province, and Nindoro and Marinduke, while the islands of Bohol, Samar, and Leyte were completely under their spiritual jurisdiction. In Mindanao, their missions, a dozen or more in number, were found on both the northern and southern coasts. Outside of the Philippines proper, they were the missionaries on the Ladrones, or Marianas. Their property in the Philippines, which was confiscated by the government, amounted to $1,320,000 pesos, although a great deal of their wealth was secreted and escaped seizure through the connivance of the governor Raón. Governor Anda's charges against the religious orders. Don Simon de Anda had been received in Spain with great honor for the defense which he had made in the islands, and in 1770 returned as governor of the Philippines. His appointment was bitterly resented by the friars. In 1768, Anda had addressed to the king a memorial upon the disorders in the Philippines, in which he openly charged the friars with commercialism, neglect of their spiritual duties, oppression of the natives, opposition of the teaching of the Spanish language, and scandalous interference with civil officials and affairs. Anda's remedy for these abuses was the rigorous enforcement of the laws actually existing, for the punishment of such conduct, and the return to Spanish of friars, who requires to respect the law. He was, however, only partially successful in his policy. During the six years of his rule, he labored unremittingly to restore the Spanish government and to lift it from the decadence and corruption that had so long characterized it. There were strong traits of the modern man in this independent and incorruptible official. If he made many enemies, it is perhaps no less to the credit of his character, and if in the few years of his official life he was unable to restore the colony, it must be remembered that he had few assistants upon whom to rely and was without adequate means. The Moro Piterits. The Moros were again upon their forays, and in 1771 even attacked Apari, on the extreme northern coast of Luzon, and captured a Spanish missionary. Anda reorganized the armada de Pintalos, and toward the end of his life created also the Marina Sutil, a fleet of light gunboats for the defense of the coast against the attack of pirates. English settlement. The hostility of the Moro rulers was complicated by the interference of the English, who, after the evacuation of Manila, continued to haunt the Sulu archipelago with the apparent object of effecting a settlement. By treaty with the Sulu Sultan, they secured the session of the island of Balambangan, off the northern coast of Borneo. This island was fortified and a factory was established, but in 1775 the Moros attacked the English with great fury and destroyed the entire garrison, except the governor and five others, who escaped on board a vessel, leaving a great quantity of arms and wealth to the spoils of the Moros. The English factors, who had taken up business on the island of Jolo, fled in a Chinese junk, and these events, so unfortunate to the English, ended their attempts to gain a position in the Sulu archipelago until many years later. Increase in agriculture. Anda died in October 1776, and his successor, Don José Vasco Ivargas, was not appointed until July 1778. With Fiasco's governorship, we see the beginning of those numerous projects for the encouragement of agriculture and industry, which characterized the last century of Spanish rule. His plan general economico contemplated the encouragement of cotton planting, the propagation of mulberry trees and silkworms, and the cultivation of spices and sugar. Premiums were offered for success in the introduction of these new products, and for the encouragement of manufacturing industries suitable to the country and its people. Out of these plans grew the admirable Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, which was founded by Vasco in 1780. The idea was an excellent one, and the society, although suffering long periods of inactivity, lasted for fully a century, and from time to time was useful in the improvement and development of the country, and stimulated agricultural experiments through its premiums and awards. Establishment of the tobacco industry Up to this time the Philippine revenues had been so unproductive that the government was largely supported by a subsidy of 250,000 pesos a year paid by Mexico. Vasco was the first to put the revenues of the islands upon a lucrative basis. To him was due the establishment in 1782 of the famous tobacco monopoly, Estanco de Tabacos, which became of great importance many years later, as new and rich tobacco lands like the Gag Ay An were brought under cultivation. Favorable commercial legislation The change in economic ideas, which had come over Europe through the liberalizing thought of the 18th century, is shown also by a most radical step to direct into new channels the commerce of the Philippines. This was the creation in 1785 of a great trading corporation with special privileges and crown protection, the royal company of the Philippines. The company was given a complete monopoly of all the commerce between Spain and the Philippines, except a long-established direct traffic between Manila and Acapulco. All the old laws designed to prevent the importation into the peninsula of wares of the Orient were swept away. Philippine products were exempted from all customs duties, either on leaving Manila or entering Spain. The vessels of the company were permitted to visit the ports of China, and the ancient and absurd prohibition, which prevented the merchants of Manila from trading with India and China, was removed. Though still closing the Philippines against foreign trade, this step was a veritable revolution in the commercial legislation of the Philippines. Had the project been ably and heartily supported, it might have produced a development that would have advanced prosperity half a century. But the people of Manila did not welcome the opening of this new line of communication. The ancient commerce with Acapulco was a valuable monopoly to those who had the right to participate in it, and their attitude toward the new company was one either of indifference or hostility. In 1789 the port of Manila was opened and made free to the vessels of all foreign nations for the space of three years, for the importation and sale exclusively of the wares of Asia. But the products of Europe, with the exception of Spain, were forbidden. The royal company was rechartered in 1805 and enjoyed its monopoly until 1830, when its privileges lapsed and Manila was finally opened to the ships of foreign nations. Conquest of the Igorot provinces of Luzon. Basco was the zealous governor and organized a number of military expeditions to occupy the Igorot country in the north. In 1785 the heathen Igorots of the missions of Paniki and Utoy, or Nueva Vizcaya, revolted and had to be reconquered by a force of musketeers from Cacayan. Conquest of the Batanes Islands. Basco also affected the conquest of the Batanes Islands to the north of Luzon, establishing garrisons and definitely annexing them to the colony. The Dominican missionary shortly before this time had attempted to convert these islands to Christianity, but the poverty of the people and the fierceness of the typhoons which sweep these little islands prevented the cultivation of anything more than camotes and tarot, and made them unprofitable to hold. Basco was honored, however, for his reoccupation of these islands, and on his return to Spain at the expiration of his governorship received the title of Count of the Conquest of the Batanes. End of Chapter 11 Part 1, Recording by Nathan Markham Chapter 11 Part 2, A History of the Philippines. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nathan Markham A scientific survey of the coast of the islands. About 1790 the Philippines were visited by two Spanish frigates, the Descubierta and the Atrevida, under the command of Captain Malaspina. These vessels formed an exploring expedition sent out by the Spanish government to make a hydrographic and astronomical survey of the coast of Spanish America, the Ladrones and the Philippines. It was one of those creditable enterprises for the widening of scientific knowledge, which modern governments have successfully and with great honor conducted. The expedition charted the strait of the San Bernardino, the coasts of several of the Bisayan Islands and Mindanao. One of the scientists of the party was the young botanist Don Antonio Pineda, who died in Ilocos in 1792, but whose studies in the flora of the Philippines thoroughly established his reputation. A monument to his memory was erected near the church in Malat, but it has since suffered from neglect and is now falling in ruins. Establishment of a permanent navy in the Philippines. The intentions of England in this archipelago were still regarded with suspicion by the Spanish government. And in 1795 and 1796, a strong Spanish fleet sent secretly by way of the coast of South America was concentrated in the waters of the Philippines, under the command of Admiral Alava. Its object was the defense of the islands in case of a new war with Great Britain. News of the declaration of war between these two countries reached Mandela in March 1797, but though for many months there was anxiety, England made no attempt at reoccupation. These events led, however, to the formation of a permanent naval squadron, with headquarters and naval station at Cavite. Note one, these little islands have a dense population, but owing to their stormy situation seem never to have been examined until the visit of the English freebooter, Dempier, in 1687. End note. The climax of Moro piracy. The continued presence of the Moros in Mindoro, where they haunted the bays and rivers of both east and west coasts for months at a time, stealing up from this island for attack in every direction, was especially noted by Padre Sufiliga, and indicated how feebly the Spaniards repulsed these pirates a hundred years ago. It was the latest severe phase of Malay piracy, when even the strongest merchant ships of England and America dreaded the straits of Borneo and passed with caution through the China Sea. North Borneo, the Sulu archipelago, and the southern coasts of Mindoro, were the centers from which came these fierce seawolves, whose cruel exploits have left their many traditions in the American and British merchant navies, just as they periodically appear in the chronicles of the Philippines. Five hundred captives annually seem to have been the spoils taken by these Moros in the Philippines islands, and as far south as Batavia and Makassar, captive Filipinos were sold in the slave-marts of the Malays. The aged and infirm were inhumanly bartered to the savage tribes of Borneo, who offered them up in their ceremonial sacrifices. The measures of the Spanish government, though constant and expensive, were ineffective. Between 1778 and 1793, a million and a half of pesos were expended on the fleets and expeditions to drive back or punish the Moros, but at the end of the century, a veritable climax of piracy was attained. Pirates swarmed continually about the coasts of Mindoro, Burias, and Masbate, and even frequented the estheros of Manila Bay. Some sort of peace seems to have been established with holo and a friendly commerce was engaged in toward the end of the century, but the Moros of Mindanao and Borneo were unceasing enemies. In 1798, a fleet of 25 Moro bancas passed up the Pacific coast of Luzon and fell upon the isolated towns of Baler, Casiguran, and Palanan, destroying the pueblos and taking 450 captives. The cura of Casiguran was ransomed in Binangonan for the sum of 2,500 pesos. For four years, this pirate fleet and its rendezvous on Burias, wins it raided the adjacent coasts in the Catanduanes. The Great Wars in America and Europe. The English-reoccupied Balambangan in 1803 beheld the island for only three years when it was definitely abandoned. For some years, however, the coasts of the Philippines were threatened by English vessels, and there was reflected here in the Far East the tremendous conflicts which were convulsing Europe at this time. The wars which changed Europe at the close of the 18th century, following the French Revolution, form one of the most important and interesting periods of European history, but it is also one of the most difficult periods to judge and describe. We will say of it here only so much as will be sufficient to show the effect upon Spain and so upon the Philippines. The Revolution of the English Colonies in America. In 1776, the 13 English colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America declared their independence of Great Britain. In the unfair treatment of the British king and parliament they had, they believed, just grounds for revolution. For nearly eight years a war continued, by which England strove to reduce them again to obedience. But at the end of that time, England, having successively lost two armies of invasion by defeat and capture, made peace with the American colonists and recognized their independence. In 1789 the Americans framed their present constitution and established the United States of America. The French Revolution. Condition of the people in France. In their struggle for independence the Americans had been aided by France, who hoped through this opportunity to cripple her great colonial rival England. Between America and France there was close sympathy of political ideas and theories, although in their actual social conditions the two countries were as widely separated as could be. In America the society and government were democratic. All classes were experienced in politics and government. They had behind them the priceless heritage of England's long struggle for free and representative government. There was an abundance of the necessaries of life and nearly complete freedom of opportunity. France, like nearly every other country of continental Europe, was suffering from the obsolete burden of feudalism. The ownership of the land was divided between the aristocracy and the church. The great bulk of the population were serfs bound to the estates, miserably oppressed and suffering from lack of food, and despoiled of almost every blessing, which can brighten and dignify human life. The life of the court and of the nobility grew more luxurious, extravagant, and selfish, as the economic conditions in France became worse. The king was nearly an absolute monarch. His will was law, and the earlier representative institutions, which in England had developed into the splendid system of parliamentary government, had in France fallen into decay. In other countries of Europe, the German states, Austria, Italy, and Spain, the condition of the people was quite as bad, probably in some places even worse than it was in France. But it was in France that the revolt broke forth, and it was France which led Europe in a movement for a better and more democratic order. Frenchmen had fought in the armies of America. They had experienced the benefits of a freer society. And it is significant that in the same year, 1789, that saw the founding of the American state of the revolution in France began. It started in a sincere and conservative attempt to remedy the evils under which France was suffering. But the accumulation of injustice and misery was too great to be settled by slow and hesitating measures. The masses, ignorant and bitter with their wrongs, broke from the control of statesmen and reformer, threw themselves upon the established state and church, both equally detestable to them, and tore them to pieces. Both king and queen died by beheading. The nobility were either murdered or expelled. The revolutionary government, if such it could be called, fell into the hands of wicked and terrible leaders, who maintained themselves by murder and terrorism. Effects of the revolution. These are the outward and terrible expressions of the revolution, which were seized upon by European statesmen, and which have been most dwelt upon by historical writers. But apart from the bloody acts of the years from 1793 to 1795, the revolution modernized France and brought incalculable gains to the French people. By the seizure of the great estates and their division among the peasantry, the agricultural products of the country were doubled in a single year, and that terrible condition of semi-starvation which had prevailed for centuries was ended. The other monarchies of Europe regarded the events in France with horror and alarm. Monarchs felt their own thrones threatened, and a coalition of European monarchies was formed to destroy the republic and to restore the French monarchy in old regime. France found herself invaded by armies upon every frontier. It was then the remarkable effects produced by the revolution upon the people of France appeared. With a passionate enthusiasm, which was irresistible, the people responded to the call for war. Great armies were enlisted, which by an almost uninterrupted series of victories threw back the forces of the allies. Men rose from obscurity to the command of armies, and there was developed that famous group of commanders, the marshals of France. Out of this terrible period of warfare there arose two, another who was perhaps, if we accept the Macedonian king Alexander, the greatest man ever permitted to lead armies and to rule men. Bonaparte, later the emperor, Napoleon I. France and Europe under Napoleon Bonaparte. From 1795 when Bonaparte was given command of the invasion of Italy until 1815, when he was finally defeated at Waterloo in Belgium, Europe experienced almost continuous war. The genius of Napoleon reduced to the position of vassal states, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. In all these countries the ancient thrones were humbled, feudalism was swept away, and the power of a corrupt church and aristocracy was broken. In spite of the humiliation of national pride, these great benefits to Europe of Napoleon's conquests cannot be overestimated. Wherever Napoleon's power extended, there followed the results of the revolution, a better system of law, the introduction of the liberal Code Napoleon, the liberation of the people from the crushing toils of medievalism, and the founding of a better society. These are the debts which Europe owes to the French Revolution. The decline of Spain, lack of progress. In this advance in progress Spain did not share, the empire of Napoleon was never established in the peninsula. In 1811 the Spaniards, with the assistance of the English under the great general Wellington, repulsed the armies of the French. This victory, so gratifying to national pride, was perhaps a real loss to Spain for the reforms which prevailed in the other parts of Europe were never carried out in Spain, and she remains even yet unliberated from aristocratic and clerical power. A liberal constitutional government was, however, set up in Spain in 1812 by the Cortes, and in 1814 King Ferdinand VII, aided by the Spanish aristocracy and clergy, was able to overthrow this representative government and with tyrannical power to cast reforms aside. 50,000 people were imprisoned for their liberal opinions, the inquisition was restored, the Cortes abolished, and its acts nullified. The effects of these acts upon the Philippines will be noticed presently. Separation of the Philippines from Mexico. The events of these years served to separate the Philippines from their long dependency on Mexico. In 1813 the Cortes decreed the suppression of the subsidized Acapulco galleon. The Mexican trade had long been waning, and voyages had become less profitable. The last of the galleons left Manila in 1811, and returned from Acapulco in 1815, never again to attempt this classical voyage. The cessation of these voyages only briefly preceded the complete separation from America. From the first period of settlement, the Philippines had in many respects been a dependency of the New World. Mexico had until late afforded the only means of communication with the mother country, the only land of foreign trade. Mexican officials frequently administered the government of the islands. The Mexican Indians formed the larger part of the small standing army of the Philippines, including the regiment of the king. As we have seen, a large subsidy, the situado, was annually drawn from the Mexican treasury to assist the deficient revenues of the Philippines. Rebellion of the South American countries. But the grievances of the Spanish American colonists were very great and very real. The revolution which had successfully stirred North America and Europe now passed back again to the Spanish countries of the New World, and between 1810 and 1825 they fought themselves free of Spain. The last of the colonies from which the Spaniards were forced to retire was Peru. Mexico achieved her separation in 1820. Spain lost every possession upon the mainland of both Americas, and the only vestiges of her once vast American empire were the rich islands of the greater Antilles, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Limited trade with the Philippines. The Philippines were now forced to communicate by ship directly with Spain. The route for the next 50 years lay by sailing vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. It occupied from four to six months, but this route had now become practically a neutral passage. Its winds and currents were well understood, and it was annually followed by greater numbers of vessels of Europe, England, and the United States. Trade was still limited to the ships of the Royal Philippine Company, and this shipping monopoly lasted until 1835, when a new era in the commercial and industrial life of the Philippines opened. An English commercial house was established in Manila as early as 1809. Volcanic eruptions. The terrible eruptions of Mount Tal, the last of which occurred in 1754, were followed in the next century by the destructive activity of Mount Mayon. In 1814 an indescribable eruption of ashes and lava occurred, and the rich hemp towns around the base of this mountain were destroyed. Father Francisco Aragoneses, Cura of Caxawa, an eyewitness, states that 12,000 people perished. In the Church of Buriao, alone, 200 lay dead. Rebellions in the Philippines. The liberal Spanish Cortez. Two revolts in the Philippines that occurred at this period are of much importance and show the effect in the Philippines of the political changes in Spain. In 1810 the liberal Spanish Cortez had declared that the kingdoms and provinces of America and Asia are and ought to have been always reputed an integral part of the Spanish monarchy, and for that same their natives and free inhabitants are equal in rights and privileges to those of the peninsula. This important declaration, which carried out would have completely revolutionized Spain's colonial policy, was published in the Philippines, and with that remarkable and interesting facility by which such news is spread, even among the least educated classes of Filipinos, this proclamation had been widely disseminated and discussed throughout the islands. It was welcomed by the Filipino with great satisfaction, because he believed it exempted him from the enforced labor of the Polos y Servicios. These were the unremunerated tasks required of Filipinos for the construction of public works, bridges, roads, churches, and convents. Effective the repeal of the declaration of the Cortez. King Ferdinand VII, in May 1814, on his return to power, as we have seen, published the famous decree abolishing constitutional government in Spain, and annulling all the acts of the Cortez, including those which aimed to liberalize the government of the colonies. These decrees, when published in the Philippines, appeared to the Filipinos to return them to slavery, and in many places their disaffection turned to rebellion. In Ilocos twelve hundred men banded together, sacked convents and churches, and destroyed the books and documents of the municipal archives. Their fury seems to have been particularly directed against the petty tyrants of their own race, the casique, or principales. The resolve of Spanish civilization in the Philippines had been to educate, and to a certain degree, enrich a small class of Filipinos, usually known as distinguidos, or the gente ilustrada. It is this class which has absorbed the direction of municipal and local affairs, in which almost a lone of the Filipino population has shared in those benefits and opportunities, which civilized life should bring. The vast majority of the population have, unfortunately, fallen or remained in a dependent and almost semi-survival position, beneath the principales. In Ilocos, this subordinate class, or dependientes, is known as Kailían, and it was these Kailían who now fell upon their more wealthy masters, burning their houses and destroying their property, and in some instances killing them. The assignment of compulsory labor had been left to the principales in their positions as goberden oseos and cabezes de barangay, and these officials had unquestionably abused their power, and had drawn upon themselves the vengeance of the Kailían. This revolt, it will be noticed, was primarily directed neither against friars nor Spanish authorities, but against the unfortunate social order which the rule of Spain maintained. A revolt led by Spaniards. A plot with far more serious motives took place in 1823. The official positions in the regiments and provinces had previously been held almost entirely by Spaniards, born in America or the Philippines. The government now attempted to fill these positions with Spaniards from Spain. The officials, deprived of their positions, incited the native troops which they had commanded into a revolt, which began in the walled city in Manila. About 800 soldiers followed them, and they gained possession of the quartel of the king, of the royal palace, and of the cabildo, but they failed to seize the fortress of Santiago. It was not properly a revolt of Filipinos, as the people were not involved and did not rise, but it had its influence in exciting later insurrection. Insurrection on Bohol. Since the insurrection on Bohol in 1744, when the natives had killed the Jesuit missionaries, a large part of the island had been practically independent, under the leader Dagoy. After the expulsion of the Jesuits, Regelex replaced in special charge of those towns along the sea coast, which had remained loyal to Spain. An effort was made to secure the submission of the rebels by the proclamation of a pardon, but the power of the revolt grew rather than declined, until in 1827 it was determined to reduce the rebellion by force. An expedition of 3,200 men was formed in Cebu, and in April 1828 the campaign took place, which resulted in the defeat of the rebels and then settlement in the Christian towns. The new provinces of Benguet and Abra. It is proper to notice also the slow advances of Spanish authority, which began to be made about this time among the heathen tribes of northern Luzon. These fierce and powerful tribes occupy the entire range of the Cordillera Central. Missionary effort in the latter half of the 18th century had succeeded in partly Christianizing the tribes along the River Magat in Nueva Fiscaia, but the fierce head-hunting hillmen remained unsubdued and un-Christianized. Between 1823 and 1829, the mission of Pidigan, under an Augustinian friar, Christianized some thousands of the Tinginians of the river Abra. In 1829 an expedition of about 60 soldiers, under Don Guillermo Calve, penetrated into the cool elevated plateau of Benguet. The diary of the leader recounts the difficult march up the river cagaling from Aringae, and their delight upon emerging from the jungle and Cogon, upon the grassy, pine-timbered slopes of the plateau. They saw little cultivated valleys and small clusters of houses and splendid herds of cattle, carabaos, and horses, which to this day have continued to enrich the people of these mountains. At times they were surrounded by the yelling bands of Igorots, and several times they had to repulse attacks, but they nevertheless succeeded in reaching the beautiful circular depression, now known as the Valley of La Trinidad. The Spaniards saw with enthusiasm the carefully separated and walled fields, growing Camotes, Taro, and sugarcane. The village of about 500 houses was partly burned by the Spaniards, as the Igorots continued hostile. The expedition returned to the coast, having suffered only a few wounds. The comandancia of Benguet was not created until 1846, in which year also Abra was organized as a province.