Part 29 (2/2)
”One of the s.h.i.+ps which sailed from the port of Navidad in company with the fleet, under the command of Don Alonso de Arellano, carried as pilot one Lope Martin, a mulatto and a good sailor, although a restless man; when this s.h.i.+p came near the islands it left the fleet and went forward amongst the islands, and, having procured some provisions, without waiting for the chief of the expedition, turned back to New Spain by a northerly course; either from the little inclination which he had for making the voyage to the isles, or to gain the reward for having discovered the course for returning. He arrived speedily, and gave news of having seen the islands, and discovered the return voyage, and said a few things with respect to his coming, without any message from the chief, nor any advices as to what happened to him. Don Alonzo de Arellano was well received by the High Court of Justice, which governed at that time, and was taking into consideration the granting of a reward to him and to his pilot; and this would have been done, had not the flags.h.i.+p of the Commander-in-Chief arrived during this time, after performing the same voyage, and bringing a true narrative of events, and of the actual condition of affairs, and of the settlement of Sebu; also giving an account of how Don Alonzo de Arellano with his s.h.i.+p, without receiving orders and without any necessity for it, had gone on before the fleet on entering among the isles, and had never appeared since. It was also stated that, besides these islands, which had peacefully submitted to His Majesty, there were many others, large and rich, well provided with inhabitants, victuals and gold, which they hoped to reduce to subjection and peace with the a.s.sistance which was requested; and that the Commander-in-Chief had given to all these isles the name of Philippines, in memory of His Majesty. The succor was sent to him immediately, and has been continually sent every year conformably to the necessities which have presented themselves; so that the land was won and maintained.
”The Commander-in-Chief having heard of other islands around Sebu with abundance of provisions, he sent thither a few Spaniards to bring some of the natives over in a friendly manner, and rice for the camp, with which he maintained himself as well as he could, until, having pa.s.sed over to the island of Panay, he sent thence Martin de Goiti, his master of the camp, and other captains, with the men that seemed to him sufficient, to the side of Luzon, to endeavor to pacify it and bring it under submission to His Majesty; a native of that island, of importance, named Maomat was to guide them.
”Having arrived at the Bay of Manila, they found its town on the sea beach close to a large river, in the possession of, and fortified by a chief whom they called Rajamora; and in front across the river, there was another large town named Tondo; this was also held by another chief, named Rajamatanda. These places were fortified with palms, and thick arigues filled in with earth, and a great quant.i.ty of bronze cannon, and other large pieces with chambers. Martin de Goiti having began to treat with the chiefs and their people of the peace and submission which he claimed for them, it became necessary for him to break with them; and the Spaniards entered the town by force of arms, and took it, with the forts and artillery, on the day of Sta. Potenciana, the 19th of May, the year 1571; upon which the natives and their chiefs gave in, and made submission, and many others of the same island of Luzon did the same.
”When the Commander-in-chief, Legazpi, received news in Panay of the taking of Manila, and the establishment of the Spaniards there he left the affairs of Sebu, and of the other islands which had been subdued, set in order; and he entrusted the natives to the most trustworthy soldiers, and gave such orders as seemed fitting for the government of those provinces, which are commonly called the Visayas de los Pintados, because the natives there have their whole bodies marked with fire. He then came to Manila with the remainder of his people, and was very well received there; and established afresh with the natives and their chiefs the peace, friends.h.i.+p and submission to His Majesty which they had already offered. The Commander-in-Chief founded and established a town on the very site of Manila (of which Rajamora made a donation to the Spaniards for that purpose), on account of its being strong and in a well provisioned district, and in the midst of all the isles (leaving it its name of Manila, which it held from the natives). He took what land was sufficient for the city, in which the governor established his seat and residence; he fortified it with care, holding this object more especially in view, in order to make it the seat of government of this new settlement, rather than considering the temperature or width of the site, which is hot and narrow, from having the river on one side of the city, and the bay on the other, and at the back large swamps and marshes, which make it very strong.
”From this post he pursued the work of pacification of the other provinces of this great island of Luzon and of the surrounding districts; some submitting themselves willingly, others being conquered by force of arms, or by the industry of the monks who sowed the Holy Gospel, in which each and all labored valiantly, both in the time and governors.h.i.+p of the adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, and in that of other governors who succeeded him. The land was entrusted to those who had pacified it and settled in it, and heads named, on behalf of the crown, of the provinces, ports, towns, and cities, which were founded, together with other special commissions for necessities which might arise, and for the expenses of the royal exchequer. The affairs of the government, and conversion of the natives, were treated as was fit and necessary. s.h.i.+ps were provided each year to make the voyage to New Sapin, and to return with the usual supplies; so that the condition of the Philippine Islands, in spiritual and temporal matters, flourishes at the present day, as all know.
”The Commander-in-Chief, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, as has been said, discovered the islands, and made a settlement in them, and gave a good beginning to their subjection and pacification. He founded the city of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the provinces of the Pintados, and after that the city of Manila in the island of Luzon. He conquered there the province of Ylocos; and in its town and port, called Vigan, he founded a Spanish town, to which he gave the name of Villa Fernandina. So also he pacified the province of Pangasinan and the island of Mindoro. He fixed the rate of tribute which the natives had to pay in all the islands, and ordered many other matters relating to their government and conversion, until he died, in the year of 1574, at Manila, where his body lies buried in the monastery of St. Augustine.
”During the government of this Guido de Labazarris, trade and commerce were established between great China and Manila, s.h.i.+ps coming each year with merchandise, and the governor giving them a good reception; so that every year the trade has gone on increasing.”
The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that the Island Samai was called Filipina by Vellalohos, who sailed from Mexico in February, 1543. The capital was fixed at Manila in 1571, a distinction enjoyed three hundred and twenty-seven years. It was in a letter of Lagozpis in 1567 that the name Ilas Filipinos appeared for the first time.
The Dutch became very enterprising and venturesome in the Asiatic archipelagoes and gave the Philippines much attention, having many fights with the Spaniards. The Ladrones became well known as a resting place between the islands of Philip and New Spain--Mexico. The Chinese Pirates were troublesome, and the Spaniards, between the natives, the pirates and the Dutchmen, kept busy, and had a great deal of naval and military instruction. There were other varieties of life of an exciting character, in terrible storms and earthquakes. The storm season is the same in the Philippines as in the West Indies, and the tempests have like features. October is the cyclone and monsoon month. The most destructive storm in the island of Luzon of record was October 31st, 1876. Floods rolled from the mountains, and there was a general destruction of roads and bridges, and it is reported six thousand persons were killed.
So extensive and exposed is the Bay of Manila, it is one hundred and twenty knots in circ.u.mference--that it is not properly a harbor, but a stormy sheet of water. Admiral Dewey's fleet has had low steam in the boilers all the while to quickly apply the power of the engines for safety in case of a visitation from the dreaded typhoon, which comes on suddenly as a squall and rages with tornado intensity.
There are many volcanoes in the islands, and they exist from the North of Luzon to the Sulus in the extreme South, a distance as great as from Scotland to Sicily. There is one on Luzon that bears a close resemblance both in appearance and phenomena to Vesuvius. The likeness in eruptions is startling. The city of Manila has repeatedly suffered from destroying shocks, and slight agitations are frequent. Within historic times a mountain in Luzon collapsed, and a river was filled up while the earth played fountains of sand. The great volcano Taal, 45 miles south of Manila, is only 850 feet high, and on a small island in a lake believed to be a volcanic abyss, having an area of 100 square miles. Monte Cagua, 2,910 feet high, discharges smoke continually. In 1814 12,000 persons lost their lives on Luzon, the earth being disordered and rent in an appalling way. There were awful eruptions July 20 and October 24, 1867, forests of great trees buried in discharges of volcanoes. June 3, 1863, at 31 minutes after 7 in the evening, after a day of excessive heat, there was a shock at Manila lasting 30 seconds, in which 400 people were killed, 2,000 wounded, and 26 public and 570 private houses seriously damaged. The greater structures made heaps of fragments. That these calamities have taught the people lessons in building is apparent in every house, but one wonders that they have not taken even greater precautions. The forgetfulness of earthquake experiences in countries where they are familiar, always amazes those unaccustomed to the awful agitations and troubled with the antic.i.p.ations of imagination. However, there never has been in the Philippines structural changes of the earth as great as in the center of the United States in the huge fissures opened and remaining lakes in the New Madrid convulsions.
In a surprising extent the Spanish government in the Philippines has been in the hands of the priests, especially the orders of the church. In the early centuries there was less cruel oppression than in Mexico and Peru. And yet there is in the old records a free-handed way of referring to killing people that shows a somewhat sanguinary state of society even including good citizens.
Blas Ruys de Herman Gonzales wrote to Dr. Morga from one of his expeditions, addressing his friend:
”To Dr. Antonio de Morga, Lieutenant of the Governor of the Filipine isles of Luzon, in the city of Manila, whom may our Lord preserve. From Camboia.” This was in Cochin China, one of the Kings being in trouble, called upon Gonzales, who sympathized with him and wrote of the ceremony in which he a.s.sisted: ”I came at his bidding, and he related to me how those people wished to kill him and deprive him of the kingdom, that I might give him a remedy. The Mambaray was the person who governed the kingdom, and as the king was a youth and yielded to wine, he made little account of him and thought to be king himself. At last I and the Spaniards killed him, and after that they caught his sons and killed them. After that the capture of the Malay Cancona was undertaken, and he was killed, and there was security from this danger by means of the Spaniards. We then returned to the war, and I learned that another grandee, who was head of a province, wished to rise up, and go over to the side of Chupinanon; I seized him and killed him; putting him on his trial. With all this the King and kingdom loved us very much, and that province was pacified, and returned to the King. At this time a vessel arrived from Siam, which was going with an emba.s.sy to Manila, and put in here. There came in it Padre Fray Pedro Custodio. The King was much delighted at the arrival of the priest, and wished to set up a church for him.”
Unquestionably there was degeneracy that began to have mastery in high places, and this can be distinctly made out early in this century, becoming more obvious in depravity, when Spain fell into disorder during the later years of the Napoleonic disturbances, and the authority and influence of Mexico were eliminated from Spain. I may offer the suggestion and allow it to vindicate its own importance, that if we have any Philippine Islands to spare, we should turn them over to the Republic of Mexico, taking in exchange Lower California and Sonora, and presenting those provinces to California to be incorporated in that State as counties. It was under Mexican rule that the Philippines were most peaceable and flouris.h.i.+ng.
The late Government of the islands as revealed to the American officers who came into possession of Manila, was fearfully corrupt. It was proven by doc.u.ments and personal testimony not impeachable, that a Captain-General's launch had been used to smuggle Mexican dollars, that the annual military expedition to the southern islands was a stated speculation of the Captain-General amounting to $200,000, in one case raised to $400,000, that the same high official made an excursion to all the custom houses on the islands ordered the money and books aboard his s.h.i.+p and never returned either, that one way of bribery was for presents to be made to the wives of officials of great power and distinction; one lady is named to whom business men when presenting a splendid bracelet, waited on her with two that she might choose the one most pleasing, and as she had two white arms, she kept both.
The frequent changes in Spanish rulers of the islands are accounted for by the demand for lucrative places, from the many favorites to whom it was agreeable and exemplary to offer opportunities to make fortunes. It goes hard with the deposed Spaniards that they had no chance to harvest perquisites, and must go home poor. This is as a fountain of little tears.
The city of Manila is not lofty in buildings, because it has been twice damaged to the verge of ruin by earthquakes and many times searched and shaken by tremendous gales, and is situated on the lands so low that it is not uplifted to the gaze of mankind--is not a city upon a hill, and yet it is ”no mean city.” Antonio de Morga says:
”The entrance of the Spaniards into the Philippines since the year 1564, and the subjection and conversion which has been effected in them, and their mode of government, and that which during these years His Majesty has provided and ordered for their good, has been the cause of innovation in many things, such as are usual to kingdoms and provinces which charge their faith and sovereign. The first has been that, besides the name of Philippines, which they took and received from the beginning of their conquest, all the islands are now a new kingdom and sovereignty, to which His Majesty Philip the Second, our sovereign, gave the name of New Kingdom of Castile, of which by his royal privilege, he made the city of Manila the capital, giving to it, as a special favor among others, a coat of arms with a crown, chosen and appointed by his royal person, which is a scutcheon divided across, and in the upper part a castle on the red field, and in the lower part a lion of gold, crowned and rampant, with a naked sword in the dexter hand, and half the body in the shape of a dolphin upon the waters of the sea, signifying that the Spaniards pa.s.sed over them with arms to conquer this kingdom for the crown of Castile.
”The Commander-in-Chief, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, first governor of the Philippines, founded the city of Manila, in the isle of Luzon, in the same site in which Rajamora had his town and fort (as has been said more at length), at the mouth of the river which pours out into the bay, on a point which is formed between the river and the sea. He occupied the whole of it with this town and divided it among the Spaniards in equal building plots, with streets and blocks of houses regularly laid out, straight and level leaving a great place, tolerably square, where he erected the cathedral church and munic.i.p.al buildings; and another place of arms, in which stood the fort and there also the royal buildings; he gave sites to the monasteries and hospital and chapels, which would be built, as this was a city which would grow and increase every day, as has already happened; because in the course of time which pa.s.sed by, it has become as ill.u.s.trious as the best cities of all those parts.
”The whole city is surrounded by a wall of hewn stone of more than two and a half yards in width, and in parts more than three, with small towers and traverses at intervals; it has a fortress of hewn stone at the point, which guards the bar and the river, with a ravelin close to the water, which contains a few heavy pieces of artillery which command the sea and the river, and other guns on the higher part of the fort for the defense of the bar, besides other middling-sized field guns and swivel guns, with vaults for supplies and munitions, and a powder magazine, with its inner s.p.a.ce well protected, and an abundant well of fresh water; also quarters for soldiers and artillerymen and a house for the Commandant. It is newly fortified on the land side, in the place of arms, where the entrance is through a good wall, and two salient towers furnished with artillery which command the wall and gate. This fortress named Santiago, has a detachment of thirty soldiers, with their officers, and eight artillerymen, who guard the gate and entrance in watches, under the command of an alcalde who lives within, and has the guard and custody of it.
”There is another fortress, also of stone, in the same wall, at the ditance of the range of a culverin, at the end of the wall which runs along the sh.o.r.e of the bay; this is named Nuestra Senora de Guia; it is a very large round block, with its courtyard, water and quarters, and magazines and other workshops within; it has an outwork jutting out towards the beach, in which there are a dozen of large and middle-sized guns, which command the bay, and sweep the walls which run from it to the port and fort of Santiago. On the further side it has a large salient tower with four heavy pieces, which command the beach further on, towards the chapel of Nuestra Senora de Guia. The gate and entrance of this is within the city, it is guarded by a detachment of twenty soldiers, with their officers, and six artillerymen, a commandant, and his lieutenant, who dwell within.
”On the land side, where the wall extends, there is a bastion called Sant Andres, with six pieces of artillery, which can fire in all directions, and a few swivel guns; and further on another outwork called San Gabriel, opposite the parian of the Sangleys, with the same number of cannon, and both these works have some soldiers and an ordinary guard.
”The wall is sufficiently high, with battlements and turrets for its defense in the modern fas.h.i.+ons; they have a circuit of a league, which may be traversed on the top of the walls, with many stairs on the inside at intervals, of the same stonework, and three princ.i.p.al city gates, and many other posterns to the river and beach for the service of the city in convenient places. All of these gates are shut before nightfall by the ordinary patrol, and the keys are carried to the guard-room of the royal buildings; and in the morning, when it is day, the patrol returns with them and opens the city.
”The royal magazines are in the parade; in them are deposited and kept all the munitions and supplies, cordage, iron, copper, lead, artillery, arquebuses, and other things belonging to the royal treasury, with their special officials and workmen, who are under the command of the royal officers.
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