Sejarah Filipina/Bab 8
Keadaan Kepulauan pada Permulaan Abad Ketujuh Belas.—Pemerintahan Spanyol Sepenuhnya Didirikan.—Pada penghujung abad keenam belas, Spanyol berkuasa di Filipina sepanjang satu generasi. Dalam tiga puluh lima tahun, hasil paling menonjol dari seluruh hasil periode panjang pendudukan Spanyol menyertai. Pengerjaan para prajurit dan misionaris pertama mendirikan batas dan karakter kekuasaan Spanyol sebagaimana yang bertahan selama 250 tahun. Sampai sepertiga abad, Spanyol mengerumuni setiap nasib heroiknya terhadap persenjataan, penjelajahan dan perpindahan agama. Setelah itu, sampai 1850, bidang-bidang baru dijelajahi, dan hanya sedikit suku baru yang dikristenkan.
Survei kepulauan yang diberikan oleh Morga tak lama usai 1600 terbaca seperti penjelasan perkiraan kondisi modern. Ini menguak pada kami soal seberapa ebsar kegiatan Spanyol awal dan seberapa kecil pencapaian warganya setelah abad ketujuh belas dimulai. Seluruh kepulauan besar, kecuali Paragua dan wilayah Moro, yang, pada saat itu, di bawah encomiendas, penduduknya membayar upeti dan sebagian besar menganut kepercayaan Katolik.
Sekelompok pulau dan islet yang lebih kecil nyaris sepenuhnya dieksploitasi. Bahkan Catanduanes kecil, yang terbentang di lepas pantai Pasifik Luzon, Morga berujar, “Mereka juga dihuni dengan penduduk asli,—sebuah ras baik, semuanya patuh kepada Spanyol, dengan doktrin dan gereja, dan alcalde-mayor, yang melakukan pembenaran di kalangan mereka.”
Ia berujar bahwa Babuyanes di ujung utara kepulauan, “Mereka tak patuh, maupun upeti dikumpulkan di kalangan mereka, maupun adanya Spanyol di kalangan mereka, karena mereka berwawasan kecil dan jujur, dan tak ada Kristen di antara mereka, maupun pembenaran di kalangan mereka.” Mereka berlanjut dalam kondisi tersebut sampai beberapa tahun sebelum akhir kekuasaan Spanyol. Namun, pada 1591, Babuyanes memberikannya dalam encomienda kepada Esteban de la Serna dan Francisco Castillo. Mereka menempatkan dua ribu penduduk dan lima ratus “tributantes,” namun semuanya tak dinaungi (“todos alçados”).
Di beberapa pulau, penguasaan Spanyol lebih luas pada zaman Morga ketimbang pada masa berikutnya. Kemudian, pulau Mindoro dianggap penting. Pada tahun-tahun dan dekade-dekade awal, kekuatan Spanyol nampak padat di sepanjang pesisir. Kemudian, wilayah tersebut didesolasi oleh pembajak Moro dan masih tetap liar dan nyaris tak berpenguhi kecuali lewat peralihan penduduk dari daratan utama Luzon.
Encomiendas.—Kapal-kapal pertama yang menyusul penjelajahan Legaspi yang membawa urutan dari raja yang menghuni Kepulauan tersebut, dan terbagi dalam encomiendas sampai orang-orang yang menaklukan dan memenangkan mereka. Pada perintah tersebut, Legaspi memberikan masyarakat Filipina dalam encomienda kepada para kapten dan prajuritnya secepat penaklukan tersebut berjalan.
Untungnya, mereka memiliki ulasan dari encomienda tersebut, yang dibuat pada 1591, sekitar dua puluh lima tahun setelah sistem tersebut diperkenalkan ke Kepulauan tersebut. Saat itu, terdapat 267 encomiendas di Filipina, tiga puluh satu diantaranya adalah raja, dan sisanya adalah orang-orang swasta.
Populasi di bawah Encomiendas.—Dari penjumlahan encomiendas tersebut, kami memahami bahwa bagian paling berpenduduk di kepulauan tersebut adalah La Laguna, dengan 24.000 tributantes dan 97.000 penduduk, dan Camarines, yang meliputi seluruh kawasan Bicol, dan Catanduanes, yang memiliki 21.670 tributantes dan penduduk lebih dari 86.000. Di sekitaran Manila dan Tondo, yang meliputi Cavite dan Marigondon, pesisir selatan teluk, dan Pasig dan Taguig, terdapat 9.410 upeti yang dikumpulkan, dan penduduknya berjumlah sekitar 30.000. Di Ilocos, 17.130 upeti dan 78.520 jiwa dilaporkan.
Seluruh lembah Cagayan terbagi di kalangan prajurit komando yang memiliki dampak pada penaklukan. Dalam daftar encomiendas, sebagian kecil dapat diakui, seperti Yguig dan Tuguegarao, namun kebanyakan nama tak ditemukan pada peta-peta saat ini. Kebanyakan penduduk dilaporkan merupakan “pemberontak” (alçados), dan beberapa nampaknya merupakan suku-suku liar yang sama yang masih menduduki seluruh belahan perairan tersebut, kecuali tepi sungai; namun tak ada yang dibagi oleh Spanyol menjadi “repartimientos.” Seorang prajurit bahkan diangkat sebagai encomienda penduduk di perairan hulu sungai, sebuah wilayah yang disebut di Relacion “Pugao,” dengan sedikit peraguan, penduduk dari suku Igorrote yang sama sebagai Ipugao, yang masih menghuni pegunungan. Lembah hulu Magat, atau Nueva Vizcaya, tak nampak diduduki dan mungkin tak sampai misi abad kedelapan belas.
Populasi di antara kepulauan Bisayan secara sangat mengejutkan berjumlah kecil, meliputi proporsi saat ininya. Contohnya, Masbate hanya memiliki 1.600 jiwa; Burias berjumlah serupa; seluruh kelompok pusat, yang meninggalkan Panay, hanya 15.833 upeti, atau sekitar 35.000 jiwa. Terdapat encomienda tunggal di Butúan, Mindanao, dan lainnya di pesisir Caraga. Terdapat seribu upeti yang dikumpulkan di encomienda Cuyo, dan seribu lima ratus di Calamianes, yang, dikatakan Relacion, meliputi “los negrillos,” mungkin penduduk campuran Negrito di utara Palawan.
Seluruh penduduk di bawah encomiendas menghimpun 166.903 upeti, atau 667.612 jiwa. Sejauh yang diketahui, ini merupakan penjumlahan terawal dari populasi Filipina. Selain Igorrotes dari Luzon utara serta Moro dan suku-suku lain di Mindanao, ini merupakan perkiraan adil dari jumlah orang Filipina pada tiga ratus tahun lalu.
Ini akan mencatatkan bahwa jumlah yang ditujukan pada encomenderos tunggal di Filipina berjumlah besar. Di Amerika, jumlahnya terbatas, Pada awal 1512, Raja Ferdinand melarang orang tunggal manapun, dari pangkat atau peringkat apapun, untuk menaungi lebih dari tiga ratus Indian di satu pulau. Namun di Filipina, seribu atau seribu dua ratus “tributantes” seringkali dipegang oleh seorang Spanyol tunggal.
Kondisi Filipina di bawahe Encomiendas.—Pemberontakan Berkutnya.—Bukti masyarakat Filipina di banyak kepulauan menempati kondisi tersebut dibuktikan oleh pemberontakan dan kerusuhan berkelanjutan. Encomenderos seringkali menekan dan kejam, dan sehingga pembatasan dan onblikasi diberlakukan pada mereka lewat Hukum Hindia. Terkadang, gubernur baru, di bawah penekanan perintahn pertama dari Meksiko atau Spanyol, terkadang membenarkan penyalahgunaan. Pemberontakan nyaris berlanjut pada tahun 1583, dan kondisi penduduk asli sangat buruk, kebanyakan encomenderos menganggap mereka dan memperlakukan mereka nyaris sebagai budak, dan membeiarkan mereka bekerja sampai penghancuran tanaman mereka sendiri dan penderitaan keluarga mereka. Gubernur Santiago de Vera mencapai Kepulauan tersebut setahun kemudian dan membuat upaya khas untuk menghimpun sistem tersebut, yang kemudian dikaitkan oleh Zuñiga:—
“Kemudian ia mengambil kekuasaan pemerintah, ia belajar untuk memberlakukan perintah yang diberlakukannya dari raja, untuk menghukum encomenderos tertentu, yang menyalahgunakan pemanfaatan yang diraih oleh mereka dalam pemberian encomiendas, kala ia menggulingkan Bartolomé de Ledesma, encomendero dari Abuyo (Leyte), dan lainnya dari orang-orang paling handal, dan menghukum lainnya atas dakwaan perlakuan mereka, dan pengukuhan mereka.
“Pada tahun berikutnya 1585, ia mengirim Juan de Morones dan Pablo de Lima, dengan skuadron yang dipersenjatai dengan baik, ke Maluku, yang petualangannya tak semenguntungkan orang-orang yang mendahuluinya, dan mereka kembali ke Manila tanpa dapat merebut benteng Ternate. Gubernur merasa secara sangat mendalam bahwa penjelajahan tersebut mengalami kegagalan, dan berharap untuk mengirim armada lain sesuai dengan perintah yang diberikan raja kepadanya; namun ia tak dapat memberlakukannya karena pasukan dari Spanyol Baru tidak datang, dan karena Indian, yang tak kehilangan kesempatan mencurahkan dirinya untuk mengguncang pendirian Spanyol.
“Pampangos dan banyak penduduk Manila bersekongkol dengan Moro dari Kalimantan, yang datang untuk berdagang, dan berencana untuk memasuki kota pada malam hari, menyulut kebakaran, dan memicu pertikaian, menjahal seluruh orang Spanyol. Persekongkolan tersebut didapati melalui seorang wanita Indian, yang menikahi prajurit Spanyol, dan tindakan untuk membongkar konspriasi tersebut diambil, sebelum tambang diledakkan, sebagian besar dirampas dan mendapatkan hukuman.
“Pulau-pulau Samar, Ybabao, dan Leyte juga terganggu, dan encomendero Dagami, pueblo Leyte, kehilangan nyawanya, karena Indian terusik oleh pencuriannya dalam pengumpulan upeti, yang dibayar dengan lilin, dan mengeluhkan mereka untuk dibobotkan dengan baja yang ia buat jumlah legal berganda, dan ingin membunuhnya. Mereka akan melakukannya jika ia tak kabur ke pegunungan dan setelah itu melintas menggunakan banca ke pulau Cebu. Gubernur mengirim Kapten Lorenzo de la Mota untuk memadamkan gangguan tersebut; ia membuat beberapa penghukuman, dan dengan setiap hal yang meredamnya.”
Namun, tiga tahun kemudian, para penduduk asli Leyte kembali memberontak. Pada 1589, Cagayan bangkit dan membunuh banyak orang Spanyol. Pemberontakan tersebut nampaknya menyebar dari sana ke kota Dingras, Ilocos, tempat penduduk asli bergerak melawan pemungut upeti, dan menyerbu enam orang Spanyol dari pueblo Fernandina. (Zuñiga, Historia de Filipinas, hlmn. 165.)
Dampak Pemerintah Spanyol.—Pendudukan Sapnyol membawa keruntuhan dan penyingkiran ke beberapa belahan negara tersebut. Salazar menjelaskan kepahitan dari kondisi jahat Filipina. Di ladang kaya Bulacan dan Pampanga, kelompok-kelompok buruh besar ditekan, bergerak ke hutan untuk pembangunan armada Spanyol dan mengawaki armada pendayung, pada perjalanan yang membutuhkan waktu empat sampai enam bulan dari rumah mereka. Gubernur Don Gonzalez de Ronquillo memaksa banyak Indian dari Pampanga ke pertambangan Ilocos, membawa mereka dari penyemaian padi mereka. Kebanyakan meninggal di pertambangan dan sisanya dikembalikan dalam keadaan lemas agar mereka tak dapat menanam. Kelaparan dan bencana kelaparan telah menurun ke Pampanga. Di encomienda Guido de Lavazares, lebih dari seribu orang tewas akibat kelaparan.
Pajak.—Pajak adalah sumber penyalahgunaan lainnya. Secara teori, pajak terhadap indian terbatas pada “tributo,” yang sejumlah delapan real (sekitar satu dolar) per tahun dari kepala setiap keluarga, yang dibayar dalam bentuk emas atau penghasilan daerah. Namun dalam memastikan harga komoditas tersebut, terdapat banyak pemerasan, encomendero menunda pengumpulan upeti sampai musim kering, kala harganya tinggi, namun memberlakukan jumlah yang sama pada musim panen.
Pemimpinnya, yang menduduki jabatan bekas dato, atau “maharlica,” seperti gobernadorcillo pada masa sekarang, bertanggung jawab atas pengumpulan upeti, dan lahannya nampak berada dalam pengerjaan keras. “Jika mereka tak memberikan sebanyak yang mereka tuntut, atau tak membayar seperti kebanyakan Indian yang mereka katakan, mereka memeras pemimpin miskin, atau menempatkan mereka ke pasungan (cepo de cabeza), karena semua encomenderos, kala mereka pergi melakukan pengumpulan, mengambil pasungan-pasungan menyertai mereka, dan mereka menahannya dan menyiksanya, sampai terpaksa memberikan seluruh permintaan mereka. Mereka bahkan dikatakan mengambil istri dan putri pemimpin tersebut, kala ia tak dapat ditemukan. “Kebanyakan pemimpin wafat di bawah siksaan tersebut, menurut laporan.”
Salazar kemudian menyatakan bahwa ia mengetahui bahwa penduduk asli dijual dalam perbudakan, menggantikan upeti. Mereka memberlakukannya pada orang-orang dewasa saja, namun “mereka mengumpulkan upeti dan bayi, lansia dan budak, dan kebanyakan tak menikah karena upeti, dan lainnya menjagal anak mereka.”
Scarcity of Food.—Salazar further charges that the alcaldes mayores (the alcaldes of provinces), sixteen in number, were all corrupt, and, though their salaries were small, they accumulated fortunes. For further enumeration of economic ills, Salazar details how prices had evilly increased. In the first years of Spanish occupation, food was abundant. There was no lack of rice, beans, chickens, pigs, venison, buffalo, fish, cocoanuts, bananas, and other fruits, wine and honey; and a little money bought much. A hundred gantas (about three hundred pints) of rice could then be bought for a toston (a Portuguese coin, worth about a half-peso), eight to sixteen fowls for a like amount, a fat pig for from four to six reales. In the year of his writing (about 1583), products were scarce and prices exorbitant. Rice had doubled, chickens were worth a real, a good pig six to eight pesos. Population had decreased, and whole towns were deserted, their inhabitants having fled into the hills.
General Improvement under Spanish Rule.—This is one side of the picture. It probably is overdrawn by the bishop, who was jealous of the civil authority and who began the first of those continuous clashes between the [166]church and political power in the Philippines. Doubtless if we could see the whole character of Spanish rule in these decades, we should see that the actual condition of the Filipino had improved and his grade of culture had arisen. No one can estimate the actual good that comes to a people in being brought under the power of a government able to maintain peace and dispense justice. Taxation is sometimes grievous, corruption without excuse; but almost anything is better than anarchy.
Before the coming of the Spaniards, it seems unquestionable that the Filipinos suffered greatly under two terrible grievances that inflict barbarous society,—in the first place, warfare, with its murder, pillage, and destruction, not merely between tribe and tribe, but between town and town, such as even now prevails in the wild mountains of northern Luzon, among the primitive Malayan tribes; and in the second place, the weak and poor man was at the mercy of the strong and rich.
The establishment of Spanish sovereignty had certainly mitigated, if it did not wholly remedy, these conditions. “All of these provinces,” Morga could write, “are pacified and are governed from Manila, having alcaldes mayores, corregidors, and lieutenants, each one of whom governs in his district or province and dispenses justice. The chieftains (principales), who formerly held the other natives in subjection, no longer have power over them in the manner which they tyrannically employed, which is not the least benefit these natives have received in escaping from such slavery.”8
Old Social Order of the Filipinos but Little Disturbed.—Some governors seem to have done their utmost to improve the condition of the people and to govern them [167]well. Santiago de Vera, as we have seen, even went so far as to commission the worthy priest, Padre Juan de Plasencia, to investigate the customs and social organization of the Filipinos, and to prepare an account of their laws, that they might be more suitably governed. This brief code—for so it is—was distributed to alcaldes, judges, and encomenderos, with orders to pattern their decisions in accordance with Filipino custom.9
In ordering local affairs, the Spaniards to some extent left the old social order of the Filipinos undisturbed. The several social classes were gradually suppressed, and at the head of each barrio, or small settlement, was appointed a head, or cabeza de barangay. As these barangays were grouped into pueblos, or towns, the former datos were appointed captains and gobernadorcillos.
The Payment of Tribute.—The tribute was introduced in 1570.10 It was supposed to be eight reales or a peso of silver for each family. Children under sixteen and those over sixty were exempt. In 1590 the amount was raised to ten reales. To this was added a real for the church, known as “sanctorum,” and, on the organization of the towns, a real for the caja de communidad or municipal treasury. Under the encomiendas the tribute was paid to the encomenderos, except on the royal encomiendas; but after two or three generations, as the encomiendas were suppressed, these collections went directly to the insular treasury. There was, in addition to the tribute, a compulsory service of labor on roads, bridges, and [168]public works, known as the “corvee,” a feudal term, or perhaps more generally as the “polos y servicios.” Those discharging this enforced labor were called “polistas.”
Conversion of the Filipinos to Christianity.—The population had been very rapidly Christianized. All accounts agree that almost no difficulty was encountered in baptizing the more advanced tribes. “There is not in these islands a province,” says Morga, “which resists conversion and does not desire it.”11 Indeed, the Islands seem to have been ripe for the preaching of a higher faith, either Christian or Mohammedan. For a time these two great religions struggled together in the vicinity of Manila,12 but at the end of three decades Spanish power and religion were alike established. Conversion was delayed ordinarily only by the lack of sufficient numbers of priests. We have seen that this conversion of the people was the work of the missionary friars. In 1591 there were 140 in the Islands, but the Relacion de Encomiendas calls for 160 more to properly supply the peoples which had been laid under tribute.
Coming of the Friars.—The Augustinians had been the first to come, accompanying Legaspi. Then came the barefooted friars of the Order of Saint Francis. The first Jesuits, padres Antonio Sedeño and Alonzo Sanchez, came with the first bishop of the Islands, Domingo de Salazar, in 1580. They came apparently without resources. Even their garments brought from Mexico had rotted on the voyage. They found a little, poor, narrow house in a suburb of Manila, called Laguio (probably Concepcion). “So poorly furnished was it,” says Chirino, “that the same chest which held their books was the table on which [169]they ate. Their food for many days was rice, cooked in water, without salt or oil or fish or meat or even an egg, or anything else except that sometimes as a regalo they enjoyed some salt sardines.”13 After the Jesuits, came, as we have seen, the friars of the Dominican order, and lastly the Recollects, or unshod Augustinians.
Division of the Archipelago among the Religious Orders.—The archipelago was districted among these missionary bands. The Augustinians had many parishes in the Bisayas, on the Ilocano coast, some in Pangasinan, and all of those in Pampanga. The Dominicans had parts of Pangasinan and all of the valley of Cagayan. The Franciscans controlled the Camarines and nearly all of southern Luzon, and the region of Laguna de Bay. All of these orders had convents and monasteries both in the city of Manila and in the country round about. The imposing churches of brick and stone, which now characterize nearly every pueblo, had not in those early decades been erected; but Morga tells us that “the churches and monasteries were of wood, and well built, with furniture and beautiful ornaments, complete service, crosses, candlesticks, and chalices of silver and gold.”14
The First Schools.—Even in these early years there seem to have been some attempts at the education of the natives. The friars had schools in reading and writing for boys, who were also taught to serve in the church, to sing, to play the organ, the harp, guitar, and other instruments. We must remember, however, that the Filipino before the arrival of the Spaniard had a written language, and even in pre-Spanish times there must have been instruction given to the child. The type of humble school, [170]that is found to-day in remote barrios, conducted by an old man or woman, on the floor or in the yard of a home, where the ordinary family occupations are proceeding, probably does not owe its origin to the Spaniards, but dates from a period before their arrival. The higher education established by the Spaniards appears to have been exclusively for the children of Spaniards. In 1601 the Jesuits, pioneers of the Roman Catholic orders in education, established the College of San José.
Establishment of Hospitals.—The city early had notable foundations of charity. The high mortality which visited the Spaniards in these islands and the frequency of diseases early called for the establishment of institutions for the orphan and the invalid. In Morga’s time there were the orphanages of San Andres and Santa Potenciana. There was the Royal Hospital, in charge of three Franciscans, which burned in the conflagration of 1603, but was reconstructed. There was also a Hospital of Mercy, in charge of Sisters of Charity from Lisbon and the Portuguese possessions of India.
Close by the Monastery of Saint Francis stood then, where it stands to-day, the hospital for natives, San Juan de Dios. It was of royal patronage, but founded by a friar of the Franciscan order, Juan Clemente. “Here,” says Morga, “are cured a great number of natives of all kinds of sicknesses, with much charity and care. It has a good house and offices of stone, and is administered by the barefooted religious of Saint Francis. Three priests are there and four lay-brethren of exemplary life, who, with the doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries, are so dexterous and skilled that they work with their hands marvelous cures, both in medicine and surgery.”15[171]
Mortality among the Spaniards.—Mortality in the Philippines in these years of conquest was frightfully high. The waste of life in her colonial adventures, indeed, drained Spain of her best and most vigorous manhood. In the famous old English collection of voyages, published by Hakluyt in 1598, there is printed a captured Spanish letter of the famous sea-captain, Sebastian Biscaino, on the Philippine trade. Biscaino grieves over the loss of life which had accompanied the conquest of the Philippines, and the treacherous climate of the tropics. “The country is very unwholesome for us Spaniards. For within these 20 years, of 14,000 which have gone to the Philippines, there are 13,000 of them dead, and not past 1,000 of them left alive.”16
The Spanish Population.—The Spanish population of the Islands was always small,—at the beginning of the seventeenth century certainly not more than two thousand, and probably less later in the century. Morga divides them into five classes: the prelates and ecclesiastics; the encomenderos, colonizers, and conquerors; soldiers and officers of war and marine; merchants and men of business; and the officers of his Majesty’s government. “Very few are living now,” he says, “of those first conquistadores who won the land and effected the conquest with the Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legaspi.”17
The Largest Cities.—Most of this Spanish population dwelt in Manila or in the five other cities which the Spaniards [172]had founded in the first three decades of their occupation. Those were as follows:—
The City of Nueva Segovia, at the mouth of the Cagayan, was founded in the governorship of Ronquillo, when the valley of the Cagayan was first occupied and the Japanese colonists, who had settled there, were expelled. It had at the beginning of the seventeenth century two hundred Spaniards, living in houses of wood. There was a fort of stone, where some artillery was mounted. Besides the two hundred Spanish inhabitants there were one hundred regular Spanish soldiers, with their officers and the alcalde mayor of the province. Nueva Segovia was also the seat of a bishopric which included all northern Luzon. The importance of the then promising city has long ago disappeared, and the pueblo of Lallo, which marks its site, is an insignificant native town.
The City of Nueva Caceres, in the Camarines, was founded by Governor La-Sande. It, too, was the seat of a bishopric, and had one hundred Spanish inhabitants.
The Cities of Cebu and Iloilo.—In the Bisayas were the Cities of the Holy Name of God (Cebu), and on the island of Panay, Arévalo (or Iloilo). The first maintained something of the importance attaching to the first Spanish settlement. It had its stone fort and was also the seat of a bishopric. It was visited by trading-vessels from the Moluccas, and by permit of the king enjoyed for a time the unusual privilege of sending annually a ship loaded with merchandise to New Spain. Arévalo had about eighty Spanish inhabitants, and a monastery of the Augustinians.
The City of Fernandina, or Vigan, which Salcedo had founded, was nearly without Spanish inhabitants. [173]Still, it was the political center of the great Ilocano coast, and it has held this position to the present day.
Manila.—But all of these cities were far surpassed in importance by the capital on the banks of the Pasig. The wisdom of Legaspi’s choice had been more than justified. Manila, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was unquestionably the most important European city of the East. As we have already seen, in 1580 Portugal had been annexed by Spain and with her had come all the Portuguese possessions in India, China, and Malaysia. After 1610, the Dutch were almost annually warring for this colonial empire, and Portugal regained her independence in 1640. But for the first few years of the seventeenth century, Manila was the political mistress of an empire that stretched from Goa to Formosa and embraced all those coveted lands which for a century and a half had been the desire of European states.
The governor of the Philippines was almost an independent king. Nominally, he was subordinate to the viceroy of Mexico, but practically he waged wars, concluded peaces, and received and sent embassies at his own discretion. The kingdom of Cambodia was his ally, and the states of China and Japan were his friends.
The Commercial Importance of Manila.—Manila was also the commercial center of the Far East, and the entrepôt through which the kingdoms of eastern Asia exchanged their wares. Here came great fleets of junks from China laden with stores. Morga fills nearly two pages with an enumeration of their merchandise, which included all manner of silks, brocades, furniture, pearls and gems, fruits, nuts, tame buffalo, geese, horses and mules, all kinds of animals, “even to birds in cages, some of which talk and others sing, and which they make perform [174]a thousand tricks; there are innumerable other gew-gaws and knickknacks, which among Spaniards are in much esteem.”18
Each year a fleet of thirty to forty vessels sailed with the new moon in March. The voyage across the China Sea, rough with the monsoons, occupied fifteen or twenty days, and the fleet returned at the end of May or the beginning of June. Between October and March there came, each year, Japanese ships from Nagasaki which brought wheat, silks, objects of art, and weapons, and took away from Manila the raw silk of China, gold, deer horns, woods, honey, wax, palm-wine, and wine of Castile.
From Malacca and India came fleets of the Portuguese subjects of Spain, with spices, slaves, Negroes and Kafirs, and the rich productions of Bengal, India, Persia, and Turkey. From Borneo, too, came the smaller craft of the Malays, who from their boats sold the fine palm mats, the best of which still come from Cagayan de Sulu and Borneo, slaves, sago, water-pots and glazed earthenware, black and fine. From Siam and Cambodia also, but less often, there came trading-ships. Manila was thus a great emporium for all the countries of the East, the trade of which seems to have been conducted largely by and through the merchants of Manila.
Trade with Mexico and Spain Restricted.—The commerce between the Philippines, and Mexico and Spain, though it was of vast importance, was limited by action of the crown. It was a commerce which apparently admitted of infinite expansion, but the shortsighted merchants and manufacturers of the Peninsula clamored against its development, and it was subjected to the severest limitations. Four galleons were at first maintained [175]for this trade, which were dispatched two at a time in successive years from Manila to the port of Acapulco, Mexico. The letter on the Philippine trade, already quoted, states that these galleons were great ships of six hundred and eight hundred tons apiece.19 They went “very strong with soldiers,” and they carried the annual mail, reinforcements, and supplies of Mexican silver for trade with China, which has remained the commercial currency of the East to the present day. Later the number of galleons was reduced to one.
The Rich Cargoes of the Galleons.—The track of the Philippine galleon lay from Luzon northeastward to about the forty-second degree of latitude, where the westerly winds prevail, thence nearly straight across the ocean to Cape Mendocino in northern California, which was discovered and mapped by Biscaino in 1602. Thence the course lay down the western coast of North America nearly three thousand miles to the port of Acapulco.
We can imagine how carefully selected and rich in quality were the merchandises with which these solitary galleons were freighted, the pick of all the rich stores which came to Manila. The profits were enormous,—six and eight hundred per cent. Biscaino wrote that with two hundred ducats invested in Spanish wares and some Flemish commodities, he made fourteen hundred ducats; but, he added, in 1588 he lost a ship,—robbed and burned by Englishmen. On the safe arrival of these ships depended how much of the fortunes of the colony!
Capture of the Galleons.—For generations these galleons were probably the most tempting and romantic prize that ever aroused the cupidity of privateer. The first to profit by this rich booty was Thomas Cavendish, [176]who in 1584 came through the Straits of Magellan with a fleet of five vessels. Like Drake before him, he ravaged the coast of South America and then steered straight away across the sea to the Moluccas. Here he acquired information about the rich commerce of the Philippines and of the yearly voyage of the galleon. Back across the Pacific went the fleet of Cavendish for the coast of California.
Capture of the Galleon “Cabadonga,” off the Coast of Samar.
(From a print in Anson’s Voyage Around the World.)
In his own narrative he tells how he beat up and down between Capes San Lucas and Mendocino until the galleon, heavy with her riches, appeared. She fell into his hands almost without a fray. She carried one hundred and twenty-two thousand pesos of gold and a great and rich store of satins, damask, and musk. Cavendish landed the Spanish on the California coast, burned the “Santa Anna,” and then returned to the Philippines and made an attack upon the shipyard of Iloilo, but was repulsed. [177]He sent a letter to the governor at Manila, boasting of his capture, and then sailed for the Cape of Good Hope and home.
There is an old story that tells how his sea-worn ships came up the Thames, their masts hung with silk and damask sails. From this time on the venture was less safe. In 1588 there came to Spain the overwhelming disaster of her history,—the destruction of the Great Armada. From this date her power was gone, and her name was no longer a terror on the seas. English freebooters controlled the oceans, and in 1610 the Dutch appeared in the East, never to withdraw.
The City of Manila Three Hundred Years Ago.—We can hardly close this chapter without some further reference to the city of Manila as it appeared three hundred years ago. Morga has fortunately left us a detailed description from which the following points in the main are drawn. As we have already seen, Legaspi had laid out the city on the blackened site of the town and fortress of the Mohammedan prince, which had been destroyed in the struggle for occupation. He gave it the same extent and dimensions that it possesses to this day.
Like other colonial capitals in the Far East, it was primarily a citadel and refuge from attack. On the point between the sea and the river Legaspi had built the famous and permanent fortress of Santiago. In the time of the great Adelantado it was probably only a wooden stockade, but under the governor Santiago de Vera it was built up of stone. Cavendish (1587) describes Manila as “an unwalled town and of no great strength,” but under the improvements and completions made by Dasmariñas about 1590 it assumed much of its present appearance. Its guns thoroughly commanded the entrance [178]to the river Pasig and made the approach of hostile boats from the harbor side impossible.
It is noteworthy, then, that all the assaults that have been made upon the city, from that of Limahong, to those of the British in 1763, and of the Americans in 1898, have been directed against the southern wall by an advance from Parañaque. Dasmariñas also inclosed the city with a stone wall, the base from which the present noble rampart has arisen. It had originally a width of from seven and a half to nine feet. Of its height no figure is given, Morga says simply that with its buttresses and turrets it was sufficiently high for the purposes of defense.
The Old Fort.—There was a stone fort on the south side facing Ermita, known as the Fortress of Our Lady of Guidance; and there were two or more bastions, each with six pieces of artillery,—St. Andrew’s, now a powder magazine at the southeast corner, and St. Gabriel’s, over-looking the Parian district, where the Chinese were settled.
The three principal gates to the city, with the smaller wickets and posterns, which opened on the river and sea, were regularly closed at night by the guard which made the rounds. At each gate and wicket was a permanent post of soldiers and artillerists.
The Plaza de Armas adjacent to the fort had its arsenal, stores, powder-works, and a foundry for the casting of guns and artillery. The foundry, when established by Ronquillo, was in charge of a Pampangan Indian called Pandapira.
The Spanish Buildings of the City.—The buildings of the city, especially the Casas Reales and the churches and monasteries, had been durably erected of stone. Chirino claims that the hewing of stone, the burning of lime, and [179]the training of native and Chinese artisans for this building, were the work of the Jesuit father, Sedeño. He himself fashioned the first clay tiles and built the first stone house, and so urged and encouraged others, himself directing, the building of public works, that the city, which a little before had been solely of timber and cane, had become one of the best constructed and most beautiful in the Indies.20 He it was also who sought out Chinese painters and decorators and ornamented the churches with images and paintings.
Within the walls, there were some six hundred houses of a private nature, most of them built of stone and tile, and an equal number outside in the suburbs, or “arrabales,” all occupied by Spaniards (“todos son vivienda y poblacion de los Españoles”).21
This gives some twelve hundred Spanish families or establishments, exclusive of the religious, who in Manila numbered at least one hundred and fifty,22 the garrison, at certain times, about four hundred trained Spanish soldiers who had seen service in Holland and the Low Countries, and the official classes.
The Malecon and the Luneta.—It is interesting at this early date to find mention of the famous recreation drive, the Paseo de Bagumbayan, now commonly known as the Malecon and Luneta. “Manila,” says our historian, “has two places of recreation on land; the one, which is clean and wide, extends from the point called Our Lady of Guidance for about a league along the sea, and through the street and village of natives, called Bagumbayan, to [180]a very devout hermitage (Ermita), called the Hermitage of Our Lady of Guidance, and from there a good distance to a monastery and mission (doctrina) of the Augustinians, called Mahalat (Malate).”23 The other drive lay out through the present suburb of Concepcion, then called Laguio, to Paco, where was a monastery of the Franciscans.
The Chinese in Manila.—Early Chinese Commerce.—We have seen that even as long ago as three hundred years Manila was a metropolis of the Eastern world. Vessels from many lands dropped anchor at the mouth of the Pasig, and their merchants set up their booths within her markets. Slaves from far-distant India and Africa were sold under her walls. Surely it was a cosmopolitan population that the shifting monsoons carried to and from her gates.
But of all these Eastern races only one has been a constant and important factor in the life of the Islands. This is the Chinese. It does not appear that they settled in the country or materially affected the life of the Filipinos until the establishment of Manila by the Spaniards. The Spaniards were early desirous of cultivating friendly relations with the Empire of China. Salcedo, on his first punitive expedition to Mindoro, had found a Chinese junk, which had gone ashore on the western coast. He was careful to rescue these voyagers and return them to their own land, with a friendly message inviting trading relations. Commerce and immigration followed immediately the founding of the city.
The Chinese are without question the most remarkable colonizers in the world. They seem able to thrive in any climate. They readily marry with every race. The [181]children that follow such unions are not only numerous but healthy and intelligent. The coasts of China teem with overcrowding populations. Emigration to almost any land means improvement of the Chinese of poor birth. These qualities and conditions, with their keen sense for trade and their indifference to physical hardship and danger, make the Chinese almost a dominant factor wherever political barriers have not been raised against their entrance.
The Chinese had early gained an important place in the commercial and industrial life of Manila. A letter to the king from Bishop Salazar shows that he befriended them and was warm in their praise.24 This was in 1590, and there were then in Manila and Tondo about seven thousand resident Chinese, and they were indispensable to the prosperity of the city.
Importance of Chinese Labor and Trade.—In the early decades of Spanish rule, the Philippines were poor in resources and the population was sparse, quite insufficient for the purposes of the Spanish colonizers. Thus the early development of the colony was based upon Chinese labor and Chinese trade. As the early writers are fond of emphasizing, from China came not only the finished silks and costly wares, which in large part were destined for the trade to New Spain and Europe, but also cattle, horses and mares, foodstuffs, metals, fruits, and even ink and paper. “And what is more,” says Chirino, “from China come those who supply every sort of service, all dexterous, prompt, and cheap, from physicians and barbers to burden-bearers and porters. They are the tailors and shoemakers, metal-workers, silversmiths, sculptors, locksmiths, painters, [182]masons, weavers, and finally every kind of servitors in the commonwealth.”25
Distrust of the Chinese.—In those days, not only were the Chinese artisans and traders, but they were also farmers and fishermen,—occupations in which they are now not often seen. But in spite of their economic necessity, the Chinese were always looked upon with disfavor and their presence with dread. Plots of murder and insurrection were supposedly rife among them. Writers object that their numbers were so great that there was no security in the land; their life was bad and vicious; through intercourse with them the natives advanced but little in Christianity and customs; they were such terrible eaters that they made foods scarce and prices high.
If permitted, they went everywhere through the Islands and committed a thousand abuses and offenses. They explored every spot, river, estero, and harbor, and knew the country better even than the Spaniard himself, so that if any enemy should come they would be able to cause infinite mischief.26 When we find so just and high-minded a man as the president of the Audiencia, Morga, giving voice to such charges, we may be sure that the feeling was deep and terrible, and practically universal among all Spanish inhabitants.
The First Massacre of the Chinese.—Each race feared and suspected the other, and from this mutual cowardice came in 1603 a cruel outbreak and massacre. Three Chinese mandarins arrived in that year, stating that they had been sent by the emperor to investigate a report that there was a mountain in Cavite of solid precious metal. [183]This myth was no more absurd than many pursued by the Spaniards themselves in their early conquests, and it doubtless arose from the fact that Chinese wares were largely purchased by Mexican bullion; but the Spaniards were at once filled with suspicion of an invasion, and their distrust turned against the Chinese in the Islands.
How far these latter were actually plotting sedition and how far they were driven into attack by their fears at the conduct of the Spaniards can hardly be decided. But the fact is, that on the evening of Saint Francis day the Chinese of the Parian rose. The dragon banners were raised, war-gongs were beaten, and that night the pueblos of Quiapo and Tondo were burned and many Filipinos murdered.
In the morning a force of 130 Spaniards, under Don Luis Dasmariñas and Don Tomas Bravo, were sent across the river, and in the fight nearly every Spaniard was slain. The Chinese then assaulted the city, but, according to the tradition of the priests, they were driven back in terror by the apparition on the walls of Saint Francis. They threw up forts on the site of the Parian and in Dilao, but the power of their wild fury was gone and the Spaniards were able to dislodge and drive them into the country about San Pablo de Monte. From here they were dispersed with great slaughter. Twenty-three thousand Chinese are reported by Zuñiga to have perished in this sedition. If his report is true, the number of Chinese in the Islands must have increased very rapidly between 1590 and 1603.
Restriction of Chinese Immigration and Travel.—Commerce and immigration began again almost immediately. The number of Chinese, however, allowed to remain was reduced. The Chinese ships that came annually to trade [184]were obliged to take back with them the crews and passengers which they brought. Only a limited number of merchants and artisans were permitted to live in the Islands. They were confined to three districts in the city of Manila, and to the great market, the Alcayceria or Parian.
The word “Parian” seems to have been also used for the Chinese quarter in and adjoining the walled city, but here is meant the district in Binondo about the present Calle San Fernando. A block of stores with small habitations above them had been built as early as the time of Gonsalez. It was in the form of a square, and here were the largest numbers of shops and stores.
They could not travel about the Islands, nor go two leagues from the city without a written license, nor remain over night within the city after the gates were closed, on penalty of their lives. They had their own alcalde and judge, a tribunal and jail; and on the north side of the river Dominican friars, who had learned the Chinese language, had erected a mission and hospital. There was a separate barrio for the baptized Chinese and their families, to the number of about five hundred.
The Chinese in the Philippines from the earliest time to the present have been known by the name of “Sangleyes.” The derivation of this curious word is uncertain; but Navarrete, who must have understood Chinese well, says that the word arose from a misapprehension of the words spoken by the Chinese who first presented themselves at Manila. “Being asked what they came for, they answered, ‘Xang Lei,’ that is, ‘We come to trade.’ The Spaniards, who understood not their language, conceiving it to be the name of a country, and putting the two words together, made one of them, by which they still distinguish the Chinese, calling them Sangleyes.”[185]
The Japanese Colony.—There was also in those early years quite a colony of Japanese. Their community lay between the Parian and the barrio of Laguio. There were about five hundred, and among them the Franciscans claimed a goodly number of converts.
The Filipino District of Tondo.—We have described at some length the city south of the river and the surrounding suburbs, most of them known by the names they hold to-day. North of the Pasig was the great district of Tondo, the center of that strong, independent Filipino feeling which at an early date was colored with Mohammedanism and to this day is strong in local feeling. This region has thriven and built up until it has long been by far the most important and populous part of the metropolis, but not until very recent times was it regarded as a part of the city of Manila, which name was reserved for the walled citadel alone.
A bridge across the Pasig, on the site of the present Puente de España, connected the two districts at a date later than Morga’s time. It was one of the first things noticed by Navarrete, who, without describing it well, says it was very fine. It was built during the governorship of Niño de Tabora, who died in 1632.27 Montero states that it was of stone, and that this same bridge stood for more than two centuries, resisting the incessant traffic and the strength of floods.28
The Decline of Manila during the Next Century.—Such was Manila thirty-five and forty years after its foundation. It was at the zenith of its importance, the capital of the eastern colonies, the mart of Asia, more splendid than Goa, more powerful than Malacca or Macao, more [186]populous and far more securely held than Ternate and Tidor. “Truly,” exclaimed Chirino, “it is another Tyre, so magnified by Ezekiel.” It owed its great place to the genius and daring of the men who founded it, to the freedom of action which it had up to this point enjoyed, and to its superlative situation.
In the years that followed we have to recount for the most part only the process of decline. Spain herself was fast on the wane. A few years later and the English had almost driven her navies from the seas, the Portuguese had regained their independence and lost empire, the Dutch were in the East, harrying Portuguese and Spaniard alike and fast monopolizing the rich trade. The commerce and friendly relations with the Chinese, on which so much depended, were broken by massacre and reprisal; and, most terrible and piteous of all, the awful wrath and lust of the Malay pirate, for decade after decade, was to be visited upon the archipelago.
The colonial policy of the mother-land, selfish, shortsighted, and criminal, was soon to make its paralyzing influence felt upon trade and administration alike. These things were growing and taking place in the next period which we have to consider,—the years from 1600 to 1663. They left the Philippines despoiled and insignificant for a whole succeeding century, a decadent colony and an exploited treasure.[187]