Part 36 (1/2)
From the earliest period of the Spanish occupation of these Islands, attention has been given to _Gold-seeking_.
It is recorded that in the year 1572 Captain Juan Salcedo (Legaspi's grandson) went to inspect the mines of Paracale, (Camarines); and in the same district the village of Mambulao has long enjoyed fame for the gold-was.h.i.+ng in its vicinity.
In the time of Governor Pedro de Arandia (1754-59), a certain Francisco Estorgo obtained licence to work these Paracale mines, and five veins are said to have been struck. The first was in the Lipa Mountain, where the mine was called ”San Nicolas de Tolentino”; the second, in the Dobojan Mountain, was called ”Nuestra Senora de la Soledad de Puerta Vaga”; the third, in Lipara, was named ”Mina de las Animas”; the fourth, in the territory of San Antonio, took the name of ”San Francisco,” and the fifth, in the Minapa Mountains, was named ”Nuestra Senora de los Dolores,” all in the district of Paracale, near the village of Mambulao. The conditions of Estorgo's licence were, that one-fifth (_real quinto_) of the output should belong to the King; that Estorgo was authorized to construct, arm, and garrison a fort for his own defence against antic.i.p.ated attacks from Mahometans, and that he should have the t.i.tle of Castellano, or guardian of the fort. It was found necessary to establish the smelting-works in Mambulao, so he obtained a licence to erect another fort there on the same conditions, and this fort was named ”San Carlos.” In a short time the whole enterprise came to grief. Estorgo's neighbours, instigated by native legal pettifoggers in Manila, raised endless lawsuits against him; his means were exhausted, and apparatus being wanted to work the mines, he had to abandon them.
About the same time, the gold-mines of Pangotcotan and Acupan (Benguet district) were worked to advantage by Mexicans, but how much metal was won cannot be ascertained. The extensive old workings show how eagerly the precious metal was sought in the past. The Spanish Government granted only concessions for gold-mining, the t.i.tle remaining in the Crown. Morga relates (1609) that the Crown royalty of one-tenth (_vide_ p. 53) of the gold extracted amounted to P10,000 annually. According to Centeno, the total production of gold in all the Islands in 1876 did not not exceed P3,600.
During the Government of Alonso Fajardo de Tua (1618-24) it came to the knowledge of the Spaniards that half-caste Igorrote-Chinese in the north of Luzon peacefully worked gold-deposits and traded in the product. Therefore Francisco Carreno de Valdes, a military officer commanding the Provinces of Pangasinan and Ilocos, obtained permission from the Governor to make a raid upon these Igorrote-Chinese and appropriate their treasure-yielding territory. After a seven days'
march the Spanish gold-seekers and troops arrived at the deposits, where they took up their quarters without resistance. The natives held aloof whilst mutual offers of peace were made. When the Spaniards thought they were in secure possession of the neighbourhood, the natives attacked and slaughtered a number of them. The commander of the district and the leader of the native troops were among the slain. Then they removed the camp to a safer place; but provisions ran short and the wet season set in, so the survivors marched back to the coast with the resolution to renew their attempt to possess the spoil in the following year. In the ensuing dry season they returned and erected a fort, whence detachments of soldiers scoured the neighbourhood to disperse the Igorrote-Chinese, but the prospectors do not appear to have procured much gold.
Many years ago a Spanish company was formed to work a gold-mine near the mountain of Malaguit, in the Province of Camarines Norte, but it proved unsuccessful.
At the beginning of last century a company was founded, under the auspices of the late Queen Christina of Spain (great-grandmother of the present King Alfonso XIII.), which was also an utter failure. I was told that the company had s.p.a.cious offices established in Manila, whence occasionally the employees went up to the mines, situated near the Caraballo Mountain, as if they were going to a picnic. When they arrived there, all denoted activity--for the feast; but the mining work they did was quite insignificant compared with the squandered funds, hence the disaster of the concern.
The coast of Surigao (north-east extremity of Mindanao Is.) has been known for centuries to have gold-deposits. A few years ago it was found in sufficiently large quant.i.ties near the surface to attract the attention of capitalists. A sample of the was.h.i.+ngs was given to me, but gold extraction was never taken up in an organized way in that district. A friend of mine, a French merchant in Manila, told me in 1886 that for a long time he received monthly remittances of 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 lbs. of alluvial gold from the Surigao coast, extracted by the natives on their own account. In the same district a Spaniard attempted to organize labour for systematic gold-was.h.i.+ng, but the friars so influenced the natives against him that he could only have continued his project at the risk of his life, therefore he gave it up.
In an independent way, the natives obtain gold from earth-was.h.i.+ngs in many districts, particularly in the unsubdued regions of Luzon Island, where it is quite a common occupation. The product is bartered on the spot to the Chinese ambulant traders for other commodities. Several times, whilst deer-stalking near the river, a few miles past Montalban (Rizal), I have fallen in with natives was.h.i.+ng the sand from the river bed in search of gold, and they have shown me some of their findings, which they preserve in quills.
In other places in Luzon Island gold is procured in very small quant.i.ties by was.h.i.+ng the earth from the bottoms of pits dug from 20 to 25 feet deep and 3 feet wide. The extraction of gold from auriferous rock is also known to the natives. The rock is broken by a stone on an anvil of the same material. Then the broken pieces are crushed between roughly-hewn stone rollers put in motion by buffaloes, the pulverized ore being washed to separate the particles of the precious metal. I should hardly think the yield was of much account, as the people engaged in its extraction seemed to be miserably poor.
Gold probably exists in all the largest islands of the Archipelago, but in a dispersed form; for the fact is, that after centuries of search, large pockets or veins of it have never been traced to defined localities, and, so far as discoveries up to the present demonstrate, this Colony cannot be considered rich in auriferous deposits. Until the contrary has been proved, I venture to submit the theory that every gold-bearing reef in these Islands, accessible to man, has been disintegrated by volcanic action ages ago.
In 1887 a Belgian correspondent wrote to me inquiring about a company which, he stated, had been formed for working a Philippine mine of Argentiferous Lead. On investigation I learnt that the mines referred to were situated at Acsubing, near the village of Consolacion, and at Panoypoy, close to the village of Talamban in Cebu Island. They became the property of a Frenchman [156] about the beginning of 1885, and so far no s.h.i.+pment had been made, although the samples sent to Europe were said to have yielded an almost incredibly enormous amount of gold (!), besides being rich in galena (sulphide of lead) and silver. I went to Cebu Island in June, 1887, and called on the owner in Mandaue with the object of visiting these extraordinary mines; but they were not being worked for want of funds, and he left for Europe the same year, the enterprise being finally abandoned.
In 1893 ”The Philippines Mineral Syndicate” was formed in London to work scientifically the historical Mambulao Gold Mines already referred to. One pound shares were offered in these Islands and subscribed to by all cla.s.ses, from the British Consul at that time down to native commercial clerks. Mr. James Hilton, a mining engineer, had reported favourably on the prospects. After the usual gold-mining period of disappointment had pa.s.sed away, an eccentric old gentleman was sent out as an expert to revive the whole concern and set it upon a prosperous basis. I had many conversations with him in Manila before he went to Mambulao, where he soon died. Heavy machinery came out from Europe, and a well-known Manila resident, not a mining engineer, but an all-round smart man, was sent to Mambulao, and, due to his ability, active operations commenced. This most recent earnest venture in Philippine gold-mining has not, however, so far proved to be a Golconda to the shareholders.
That there is gold in Mindoro Island is evident from the fact that the Minguianes, a wild tribe, wear gold jewellery made by themselves, and come down to the coast villages to barter with this metal, for they do not understand trading with the coin medium.
As a general rule, failure in most Philippine mining speculations was chiefly due to the unwillingness of the native to co-operate with European capitalists in search of quick fortunes for themselves. The native rustic did not seek and would not submit to constant organized and methodical labour at a daily wage, to be paid periodically when he had finished his work. The only cla.s.s whom one could employ in the neighbourhood of the mines was migratory and half-subjected, whilst there was no legislation whatever in force regulating the relations between workers and capitalists. Some suggested the employment of Chinese, but the obstacles to this proposal have been pointed out in Chap. viii. It is very doubtful whether much profitable mining will ever be done in this Colony without Chinese labour. Again, the wretched state of the public highways obliged the few enterprising capitalists to spend their money on the construction of roads which had already been paid for in taxes.
It is calculated that in the working of mines in the Philippines, as much as P1,300,000 was spent from the beginning of the last century up to 1876, without the least satisfactory result.
A Spanish writer [157] a.s.serts that on the coasts of Taal and Bauan, in the Province of Batangas, there were many traces of old gold-mines, and remarks: ”We are already scared in this enlightened century at the number who have spent their silver and their health in excavating mines in the Philippines, only to undeceive themselves, and find their miserable greed punished.”
Still Gold-seeking continues, and the hope of many an American to-day is centred in the possibility of finding the smile of fortune in the Benguet and other districts now being scoured by prospectors.
Iron-mines, situated a few miles from Manila, were worked about the middle of the 18th century by Government, but the result being disastrous, a concession of working rights was put up to public auction, and adjudicated to a certain Francisco Salgado, who engaged to pay annually to the State P20,500 in gold and 125 tons of iron. The concern was an entire failure, chiefly owing to the usual transport difficulty. Salgado afterwards discovered an iron mine in a place called Santa Ines, near Bosoboso, in the district of Morong, and obtained a concession to work it. The ore is said to have yielded 75 per cent. of pure metal. The greatest obstacle which Salgado had to contend with was the indolence of the natives, but eventually this was overcome by employing Chinese in their stead. All went well for a time, until the success which attended the undertaking awoke envy in the capital. Salgado found it desirable to erect his smelting-furnaces on the banks of the Bosoboso River to obtain a good water supply. For this a special permission had to be solicited of the Gov.-General, so the opportunity was taken to induce this authority to put a stop to the whole concern on the ground that the Chinese workmen were not Christians! Salgado was ordered to send these Chinese to the Alcayceria in Binondo (Manila), and s.h.i.+p them thence to China at his own expense. Moreover, on the pretext that the iron supplied to the Royal Stores had been worked by infidels, the Government refused to pay for the deliveries, and Salgado became a ruined victim of religious fanaticism.
The old parish priest of Angat, in Bulacan Province, once gave me the whole history of the rich iron-mines existing a few miles from that town. It appears that at about the beginning of last century, two Englishmen made vain efforts to work these mines. They erected expensive machinery (which has since disappeared piece by piece), and engaged all the headmen around, at fixed salaries, to perform the simple duty of guaranteeing a certain number of men each to work there daily. The headmen were very smart at receiving their pay, some of them having the audacity to ask for it in advance; yet the number of miners diminished, little by little, and no reasonable terms could induce them to resume work. The priest related that, after the Englishmen had spent a fortune of about 40,000, and seeing no result, in despair they hired a canoe, telling the native in charge to paddle out to sea, where they blew their brains out with pistols.
Afterwards a Spaniard, who had made money during years of office as Chief Judge and Governor of the Bulacan Province, thought he could, by virtue of the influence of his late position, command the services of all the labourers he might require to work the mine. It was a vain hope; he lost all his savings, and became so reduced in circ.u.mstances that for a long time he was a pauper, accepting charity in the parish convents of the province.
The Angat iron-mines undoubtedly yield a very rich ore--it is stated up to 85 per cent. of metal. Up to the Revolution they were still worked on a small scale. In 1885, at the foot of these ferruginous hills, I saw a rough kind of smelting-furnace and foundry in a dilapidated shed, where the points of ploughshares were being made. These were delivered at a fixed minimum price to a Chinaman who went to Binondo (Manila) to sell them to the Chinese ironmongers. In Malolos (Bulacan) I met one of the partners in this little business--a Spanish half-caste--who told me that it paid well in proportion to the trifling outlay of capital. If the natives chose to bring in mineral they were paid for it; when they did not come, the works and expenses were temporarily stopped.
In Baliuag, a few miles from Angat, where I have stayed a score of times, I observed, at the threshold of several houses, slabs of iron about 8 feet long by 2 feet wide and 5 inches thick. I inquired about the origin of this novelty, and several respectable natives, whom I had known for years, could only inform me that their elders had told them about the foreigners who worked the Angat mines, and that the iron in question came from there. Appearing to belong to no one in particular, the slabs had been appropriated.