Autonomous Filipinos

Autonomous Filipinos©

How Colonial Subjects Carved out Realms of Self-Driven Freedom

While Formally Subject to Spanish Imperial Rule and Exactions, 1565-1898

Bruce Cruikshank

23 April 2017, with minor editing 11 June 2017

Table of Contents

Introduction                                                                          page   3

Dispersion, Mobility                                                                       5

Case Study from ca. 1670, Tanay region                                        10

Agriculture, Fishing, Trade, Weaving                                 13

Social Structure and Filipino Officials                                           25

Case Study from Gandara, Samar, circa 1849                                32

Highlanders and Relations with Lowlanders                             33

Violence                                                                                          39

         Systemic and Incidental Violence against Filipinos           39

         Filipino Violent Retaliation                                                45

Moros                                                                                              51

Filipinos and the Church, Ideally                                                   53

Gambling, Drinking                                                                        56

Sacraments                                                                                      57

Superstitions and Alternative Creeds                                             63

Case Study from the Highlands near Baler, ca. 1720                     67

Case Study from Catbalogan, ca. 1832                                          69

Conclusion                                                                                      70

Case Study from Malasiqui, 1785                                                  72

Selected Bibliography                                                                     73

End Notes                                                                                       78

Introduction

         Colonial complaints about Filipino subjects are remarkably consistent over the third of a millennium the Spanish claimed jurisdiction over the archipelago.  Filipinos[*] in significant numbers would not live in or near the mandated center of the pueblo, the población.[†]  Filipinos moved around, would not pay their taxes and perform their other civic obligations, did not follow the rules of Catholic behavior, and chose to retain many of their pre-conquest beliefs and customs.  Spanish complaints about Filipino behavior, illustrated in the pages below, are wonderful indicators of Filipino initiative.  They show Filipino stubbornness, priorities, beliefs, and flexibility.  They suggest widespread dissimulation persistently practiced under the imperial carapace of civil and ecclesiastical rule imposed by the Spanish state and the Roman Catholic church.

         Drawing on my work over the years, indeed decades in some cases, I will document and celebrate this persistent resistance to Spanish attempts to turn Filipinos into “proper” colonial subjects.  Notwithstanding 333 years of Iberian efforts, I will argue that the ostensible subjects claimed and defended multiple arenas of relative freedom and self-determination.  While not always successful, sometimes suffering severe penalties for their attempts, the documents show  persistent Filipino efforts to maintain and extend domains of autonomy and freedom.

         The Spanish did not view these persistent patterns of Filipino behavior as positive.  Their view of colonial subjects in the archipelago was centered on the concept of Filipinos of any age as children.  This is evident in this quotation from 1707 when the Spanish Franciscan P. Fr. Francisco de Santa Ines observed:[1]

         … the Naturales are [best regarded] as children [parbulos], not only in

         [matters of faith] but also in … talent and ability.  That is why they, even

         after more than one hundred years of Christianity [in] these islands, still

could not be on an equal footing with other Christian settlements….

Another Franciscan wrote in 1774:  “… in my experience the Cavezas de Barangay,[‡] officials, and gobernadorcillos all are children in how they work and behave, and if one wants that they do well it has to be from fear and punishment.”[2] 

         Filipino resistance to colonial domination existed in multiple realms during the period of Spanish rule in the Philippine archipelago from 1565 to 1898.  We can make distinctions analytically among the major themes, though they sometimes will overlap.  We begin with residence choice and individual mobility.  From that topic, agriculture, fishing, trade, and other economic activities naturally follow.  Social structure and the imperial use of Filipinos as local officials is our next topic, which leads us naturally back to the centers of the municipality and the church and its priest.  The priest and the church’s rules and church calendar are often seen as dominant and pervasive if not oppressive, but the documents show us quite a different picture.  We will find Filipinos having chosen which practices to adopt, which to modify, which to ignore.  We will see active and open resistance, opposition to church domination and to civil demands from Iberian administrators.  We will see evidence of Filipino bravery in combat against Spaniards, Malay Muslim invaders from the South (Moros), and the British.  Social practices and popular beliefs round out this essay, which is punctuated throughout with short case studies illustrating Filipino initiative, choices of residence, manipulation of the system, defiance, and other maneuvers to expand arenas of discretionary obedience.

Dispersion, Mobility

         The pueblo was not a town or city but more of a municipal district.  Within the district was the ostensible center, the población, which contained the church.  Around it were other settlements, from visitas to barrios to sitios and rancherías.  Not every resident of the pueblo lived in the población near the church and the priest.  Those who lived away from the población, in the visitas and so forth, did not necessarily get to church every Sunday.  Those living away from the población were usually not available for regular and full participation in church-centered activities, from school for their children to daily, weekly, and seasonal church-sponsored events.

         The Spanish colonial government and the missionary priests tried for a third of a millennium to congregate Filipinos into compact settlements clustered around the church in a  población.  The government wanted to do so to facilitate tribute collection, mustering of victims for forced labor, and easy access for forced requisitions of products.  The clergy wanted to do so in order to more thoroughly supervise religious beliefs and practices and to root out actions and ceremonies they felt were incompatible with Christianity.  As colonial agents and often the only Spaniards in the pueblos, clergy repeatedly tried to attract Filipinos to the población, to encourage or compel them to leave their visitas, barrios, and rancherías and to live “under the bells” of the pueblo church.  In 1783 the Spanish provincial governor of Nueva Cáceres said the task of such “congregation involves much work and tact.”  Nonetheless, if that work of congregation were carried out, “it would be a second Conquista, even more glorious than the first one, because his royal majesty loses many tributes due to the large number of individuals dispersed along the beaches and in the mountains as well as hidden in the shelter of so many Visitas.”[3]

         Most observers agree that the Spanish  failed in their efforts to restructure Filipino patterns of settlement in the Spanish Philippines.  The colonial failure to compel Filipinos to move from their habitual residence patterns to more nucleated and controlled settlements gives us a great insight into Filipino life and thought.  Spaniards had an ideological basis to their colonial attempts to enforce congregation in and around the población.  There were practical reasons for Filipino resistance—location near fields and easy access to fishing areas perhaps most importantly.  There may very well have been ideological reasons that reveal Filipino preferences and priorities.

Those residing in the población tended to belong to the upper class and by virtue of residence and social standing had the most access to education, church ceremonies, and political office (for males only).  They also tended to live the farthest from crop lands and be the most subject to supervision and correction by priest and representatives of the Spanish colonial government.  From this we find the suggestion both of wealth (others worked their lands) and the reasons why many Filipinos chose to live away from the población—closer to their crop lands and fishing areas.  Of course, with the choice to live away from the Spanish-defined center, there was also a consequent loss of access to the perquisites of education and political or social influence that came with colonial rule through the población. 

         The Spanish knew, of course, that ready access to and supervision over cultivated fields and growing crops was a necessity for Filipino agriculturists.  However, with their views regarding the polity (policía) and the civilized life, they consistently stressed not Filipino constraints but Filipino willfulness.  Instead of discussing field access and protection of crops from wild pigs, the documents tended to stress an alleged defect in the very nature of the Filipino and the desire by the colonized to resist imperial government and church demands.  Thus, for instance, P. Fr. Tomas Marti quoted a government decree regarding the pueblo of Pandi:[4]

                     Insofar as within the area of the pueblos there are residents of other

pueblos living for much of the year in houses and with fields and gardens …

with no subjection to civil authority nor to spiritual; and insofar as many

[others] live far away from settled areas and encourage and commit infamous

acts while hidden [by] tribute-payers who act as go-betweens with these evil

folk, against [the interests of] both majesties, for these reasons … it is hereby

ordered that you subjugate and enter these people on the padrón.[§] 

Here is a Spanish administrator’s strictures from 1696 regarding Los Baños:[5]

they have tumbled [into a life] without polity [and] without rational practice,

being contrary to the encouragement and close communication from and

with the pueblo priest.  Moreover,  … by living [there] many die without

the sacraments, having passed their lives in continuous drunkenness,

illicit sexual unions, and other vices.  [These they can indulge in] while

far away from the parish priest, who cannot leave off from his duties in the

[población] and who also lacks precise knowledge of such crimes and bad

customs … because of the tendency to hide them from him. 

         How much dispersion in Franciscan parishes was there in the eighteenth century?  Not surprisingly, statistics are hard to find and undoubtedly imprecise.  From my work on Samar’s past, I found that even with years of efforts to reach and congregate Filipinos around the church, Spanish success was slight.  By the end of the nineteenth century and after some 300 years of Catholic missionizing by Jesuits, Augustinians, and Franciscans, we have the following results for Samar from about 1890: about 49% of the population known to the Spanish lived in the poblaciones at that time, while about 15% lived from 3 to 6 miles from the poblaciones, and about 22% lived more than 6 miles from the poblaciones.[6]  Filipinos in Samar and elsewhere in the colony resisted congregation.  Pressure and exhortations by the priest were only marginally successful against this Filipino choice to live closer to their fields.  As the commentary for Quipayo stated earlier:  “As far as I can tell, [Filipinos] live more by the law that they want than by any other”

Mobility is also a common theme in the manuscripts and seems to have been a constant in the lives of many Filipinos in this period.  Since mobility was legal,[7] the Spanish tried to lay out rules and procedures to adjust to the Filipino mode while still collecting taxes and keeping track of the population.  Some Filipinos registered when they resided in a different pueblo from the one they paid tribute in, paying a sum as vagabundos.  Many ignored and evaded such regulations.  We also have the words of a Franciscan writing in 1726 that “we see Indios who within the space of a year usually have two or three pueblos of residence.”[8]  While we cannot know for sure what motivated this mobility, presumably it was based on perceptions of self-interest and personal or familial advantage.  Other glimpses into the Filipino world come with references to concern by the Franciscans about “those who customarily live hidden in houses and fields [owned] by principales, to those who do not pay the tribute nor [usually do not] hear Mass nor comply with the other obligations and burdens imposed on the pueblo and its neighbors.”[9]

         We find hints as well that some, perhaps many, of the non-official Filipinos in the provinces were actively and creatively playing the system to their advantage, not to the advantage of the Filipino and Spanish officials.  One example dates from the late eighteenth century and Spanish governmental attempts to reform the tribute system.  At one point the plan was to have the cabezas de barangay issue a certificate to each ostensible tribute payer in his charge.  At Easter, when Filipinos were required to attend church and services and make their annual confession, they were to present the certificate, have their name recorded on the roster (the padrón), and thus be subject to the tribute and other colonial demands. 

Filipinos quickly figured out that if they did not show up for the Easter Confession and services their names would not be entered on the padrón and they could then avoid being subject to tribute demands for that year.  As a Franciscan remarked in 1774,[10] the previous three years had seen a “very notable” decrease in those coming to Mass and making their confession,

         with detriment to their recognition of vassalage to our sovereign through the

annual tribute, that they ought to pay to the cavezas de barangay as

representatives of the king.  The priests must certify … the tributes who are

administered in the pueblos, which is done through the padrones that are

made up based on certificates that they carry from their cavezas at the time

of confession.  If they do not confess, their names are not registered in the

padrón.  …  We know the names who should have confessed because of

the previous year’s padrón. 

Stratagems such as missing annual confession, payoffs to local officials, collaboration, and feigning incompetence and laziness were strategic responses to a corrupt and oppressive system where punishments for direct confrontation could be draconian.  Flight and mobility are indicators that are more noticeable and sometimes the linkage was expressly noted.  For instance, according to Huerta, a ranchería established in 1670 by the Franciscans in the municipality of Limotan  took form and “prospered until the year of 1700” when the government tried to obligate its residents to pay tribute.  At that point, they all fled to the hills, and the mission was entirely lost.[11] 

Filipino priorities seem to have been determinative.  We see this in a case from a mission settlement, Manguirin, in 1756:[12]

         … the sitio that is called Santa Cruz of Manguirin … is where the priests suffer

from fevers the most, where there is no [adequate] drinking water, and to bathe

one has to go half a legua from the sitio to the river Ynarihan.  To continue with

the dreadful [qualities of the place, the inhabitants], except for those who have no

tools at all, have implements which barely allow them to make a piece of a field,

all of which means that in that sitio there are only a few houses.  Most people

live [away], in rancherias.  The consequence is attendance at Mass is low …

The priest continues with a clear contrast between Filipino participation at Mass and at the local market:

Only when they want, and how they want, then they come enthusiastically

[Sino solo quando quieren, y como quieren, a una cosa bienen todos gustosos]. 

Notwithstanding [the dispersion of population], every Wednesday there is a

market in the cabecera with markets as well in the sitios on Saturdays and

Sundays.  In these markets one finds goods and sellers from Bicol, selling meat,

fish, tobacco, iron, and many other things, and the cimarrones trade for them

with what they have, namely wax, abaca, etc.  … 

And then the priest observes that Filipinos were responsive to the priest based on their own priorities and needs:

In reality they do not want a priest but rather [only] a shadow of a priest. 

They [only] want [a priest] who will attend to their needs, remove [los saque]

their miseries.  When they arrive in the doorway the priest receives them with

love and gives them protection.  Their [need, though,] only lasts as long as they

are in the doorway.  When they can, they escape ….

Filipino preferences were preeminent.  The priorities of the priests and the governments were of secondary or tertiary significance.

Even if Filipinos had been the obedient children the colonial masters might have wished for, simple logistics precluded such domination and control.  We have a document from 1850 which illustrates concretely why the parish priest could not have known nor been able to control all aspects of everyone’s life and behavior in a pueblo.  While the text itself is overblown in its attempt to remove a new administrative burden from the parish priest’s responsibility, the fundamental point made by the Franciscan parish priest of Mahayhay, P. Fr. Victorino del Moral, is well taken:[13]

         … With its visita of Nagonog this is a pueblo of 14,000 almas.  It has sixty-one

barrios scattered in every direction of the compass.  Some of these barrios are

one, two, three or more leguas[**] away …  Since this pueblo is coterminous with

the two provinces of Tayabas and Batangas, between which cross the majority

of the indios [here] visiting family members or being engaged in small daily

commerce—and on a smaller scale this occurs as well with movement to other

pueblos and provinces farther away, including the capital …  Thus it is that the

indio who lives here today will tomorrow usually be living in the Camarines, in

Manila, or in Bulacan (ff. 421v-22)

Case Study from c. 1670, Tanay region

         Priests were the primary agents of the imperial state mandated to congregate and enforce colonial expectations and taxes in coin, kind, labor, and products.  The following seventeenth report is a Franciscan’s account of an attempt to reach out to Filipinos who had chosen to live away from the población of Tanay.  The author is P. Fr. Francisco de Barajas and the manuscript is in poor condition both in the nineteenth-century copy and in the original.[14] 

         Father Francisco says that he was the parish priest of Santa Ana[15] when he learned in 1669 that the sitios of “Dadaitan, Banatas, Limotan, and other spots had fugitives and other naturales” living there.  “A desire came upon me to go into those mountains and attract them to the vineyard of God” (f. 1).  In mid-1670, he left Santa Ana to evangelize in the uplands.  With him went “a principal from Santa Ana called Don Antonio Espiritu along with his slave [con un esclavo suyo].”  It appears that Don Antonio Espiritu asked to come along since he was seeking a lad who had run away, offering in return to serve Father Francisco at Mass as sacristan and singer (cantor). 

         The expedition left in mid-April of 1670, carrying with them rice, salt, “a gift for saying Mass and a peso in money” (recado para decir misa y un peso en dinero)” (f. 1v).  They proceeded to the pueblo of Tanay, where they contracted with six to eight guides and carriers to accompany them, paying them with three of the five cavanes of rice.  From Tanay they went to a “sitio called San Andrés (which I judge to be eight leguas from Tanay … along a route that is rough with many ups and downs due to the mountains).”  There were ten houses in San Andrés along with a picture of the saint from long ago when it used to be a pueblo (now it was a visita under Tanay).

         We lose the story line since the top of folio two and subsequent folios are illegible due to stains and holes in the 1888 copy.  At night his companions posted sentinels and built a large fire, and when Father Francisco asked why they did that they answered that it was to guard him from the Aetas who might come to rob and murder him in his sleep (f. 2v).  We lose the story line temporarily again when we turn to the top of folio 3, but later on that page we find the attempts continued to try to intimidate and constrain him. 

When Father Francisco saw that he could get no help from his companions in reaching out, he slipped away and went looking on his own.  He climbed some mountains until he saw “smoke and heard the sound of chickens” and thus discovered some people.  After about 1.5 leguas of a trail along a river he found “a band of about twenty persons fishing in the river.  When they saw me one of their elders, who turned out to be their leader, approached.  He knew that I was a priest because he had been several times to town and seen priests.  He asked me what I was seeking in these mountains.”

While his response is lost (top of folio 4 is unusable), it appears that Father Francisco called them all together and probably spoke of baptism and endeavored to inspire them concerning the importance of becoming a Christian or resuming life as a Christian subject of the Spanish king.  The audience was not hostile and from here he was led on another trail to a further twenty houses, and then to others, and so forth (f. 3v).  At some point he must have been rejoined by his companions.  In spite of illness, he continued his work and inquired about other settlements he might approach:

         … we heard that north of San Andrés towards … a river that crosses

the sierra five or six leguas [away] there are some people living near the river

Limotan.  Learning that the principales of San Andrés knew of them and had

commerce with them, I sent [one of] them as an ambassador to tell them that

… I had no bad intentions toward them.  When four days had passed and he

had not returned [f. 4v, top of page again lost; apparently this lost section tells

of how he set out with a group of men to try to make contact] …continuing

my journey when halfway up the mountain we made camp.  It was there that

the ambassador found me.  He told me to go on alone, to leave the men I was

traveling with since the people sought would surely kill them if I arrived with

my party.  He advised me to go there alone.

         There was much discussion.  Members of his party did not want to leave him nor allow him to proceed without them.  It appears that he did not go on alone after all, but apparently they had difficulty finding the way.  Eventually they encountered a passerby who showed them a hidden trail.  After following this trail for a while, they discovered a large field and a house that looked new.  The owner received him “with kindness.”  They shared rice with him and he reciprocated by sharing venison with them.  The host admitted that he had never been baptized and wanted to be.  Father Francisco replied that in order to be baptized “he would have to learn first the four prayers and commandments of God’s law so that he would know how he should live as a Christian.  The man [pointed out] that he knew how to read and write his language and that [therefore] he could learn [what was necessary] quickly.”  The principal, Don Antonio Espiritu, who was accompanying Father Francisco, “was sufficiently competent in the Tagalog characters[††]  [que era bantantemente ladino en los caracteres tagalos] and so he wrote out [what their host needed to learn prior to baptism.”

         The manuscripts continues, we are now in early May, but the rest is so damaged that it is of little result to try to decipher what has survived and is legible.  He spent about a week in one place, busy every day, returning to San Andrés after about a month in this expedition into the highlands (f. 7v).  He seems to have been exhausted and with a thorn wound in his foot and spent some time recuperating.  He did return three other times to baptize more children, but due to illness he no longer made such exploratory trips into the hills (f. 9v).

         A few points stand out.  One person he met explained that they did not want to relocate to the pueblos and poblaciones because whenever they visited there they “were treated like slaves” (f. 6v).  It is evident that they chose to live away from the pueblos but maintained contacts (however cautiously and warily) with those living there.  Indeed Father Francisco was recognized as a priest due to observations made in trips to the pueblos.  The priest noted the courtesy with which he was received wherever he went, the sumptuous food prepared to welcome him (f. 7), and a dance held in his honor (f. 7v).  The last individual that we meet in the manuscript we could read was literate in the script commonly used about 100 years or three generations earlier, before the Spanish conquest.  He had chosen to learn it (as had Don Antonio Espiritu), had chosen to live in the hills, had cleared a large field and had built a house recently.  He chose as well to request the Christian sacrament of baptism, but he indicated no willingness to relocate to live in the población, under the bells of the church.

Agriculture, Fishing, Weaving, Trade

My first research on Philippine history focused on the history of the island of Samar.  It is convenient to begin this and some of the following sections with a summary of major points centered on the economic and subsistence patterns there.  Samar in the seventeenth century was an island of agricultural and marine productivity joined to some commerce within the island, to nearby islands, and even to Manila.  Rice productivity seems to have been quite good, “incredible,” as the Jesuit priest Alcina in his remarkable 1668 manuscript observed:[16]

The rice-yield is abundant here [Samar]; not merely a hundred-to-one,

as some people say, but two or three hundred-to-one; oftentimes even more,

something indeed very incredible.  In some regions the yield is greater than in

others and some years better than others, due to the varying circumstances of

climate.  There are some years, undoubtedly, which are more productive than

others.  Some fields also may be more fertile than others even though they may

be adjacent or even contiguous.

This productivity is even more remarkable since rice fields seem to have been swidden (kaingin) or dry field cultivation.[17]  Alcina mentions that the primary tool used was the bolo or machete, the best tool for the purpose, given “the numerous roots which this entire land has.”  “It is a tedious procedure because here they have used neither plows nor hoes[18] nor our other tools to this day” (Alcina, v. 3, 103).  Planting involved two steps with clearly defined roles based on sex: men made holes with sharpened poles while women followed behind and dropped 5 or 6 grains of rice, closing the hole with the big toe as they went on.  Fields were planted with neighbors helping neighbors, with the cost to the field’s owner only the feeding of those helping (Alcina, v. 3, 109).

Some of this rice crop’s abundance was used in trade or to pay tribute (Alcina, v. 1, 251).  Root crops were also grown, one of which, palauan,[19] seems to have been a trading staple as well as a back-up crop when the rice supply was scarce or exhausted (Alcina, v. 1, 219):

                     On an island near Guiuan and even in the pueblo itself, though not that

much, the Palawan [sic] is rather common…  The natives of Guiuan, excellent

sailors, carry it in their ship-storages for trading and transactions since these last

for a long time without spoilage, especially if they are well-dried.

Alcina also mentions the municipality of Guiuan in terms of its productivity in coconuts and in the production of coconut oil (Alcina, v. 1, 347):

                     There is such an island near Guiuan called Suluan …  This island is so

fertile and abundant in trees, that the trunks stand almost as close as the fingers

of the hand, although at the top they are more separated.  The coconuts sprout

on the base of the trunks themselves; or having fallen they spread out their

sprouts and roots, so that the entire island, except the marshy portions in which

plant the Palawan [palauán] mentioned before, is filled with palm trees.  Some

are so close to the sea that when the coconuts ripen they drop into the waters. 

                     One cannot reach this said island without going through the mouth of

the strait which lies between the Island of Ibabao[20] and Mindanao.  The currents

are so strong here that people can [only][21] go to the island to harvest the coconut

at certain times of the year … otherwise one runs the risk of being drifted by

the currents, as sometimes happens, and never appear again.

                     The people of Guiuan produce plentiful oil in this island because during

the dry season, when they cross there, the fruit is at its best.

         Abaca or hemp was another item emphasized by Alcina.  In the seventeenth century the plant’s fibers were notable in their use in the weaving of blankets, cloths, and other items.  Alcina, v. 1, 247 and 249, discusses abaca with information on its use by women to make blankets (men helped out with abaca varieties whose fibers were hard to card), which were used for tribute or for trade:

                     I find some twelve different groups or species of these plants, all of

which belong to the abaca class.  … with different names to reflect their

particular qualities.  This group of twelve are the kind that are planted and

cultivated.  There are also many wild ones and of great size and large stalk. 

Not all the wild ones are useful and not all of them give fibers from which

blankets and textiles can be made….

Alcina observed that Samareños paid about 12 ½ pounds of harvested abaca for a credit of two reales towards their tribute obligations.  They held out the better quality abaca, which “they trade among themselves” for making blankets.  For “a skein or a bundle large enough to fit between the thumb and the index finger” of the better quality, they sell it for a real, sometimes “two when there is a shortage or a demand for abaca.”[22] 

Women were the mainstays in weaving—“…all the women are weavers.  Here, only the women are engaged in this capacity, unless in rare instances it be an effeminate man, more for their precise needs of dressing themselves than for the purpose of selling to others” Alcina, v. 3, 121; “Just as all women are weavers, so all the men are carpenters” (Alcina, v. 3, 125); and “As we have said, ordinarily the women are the weavers” (Alcina, v. 3, 137).  Whereas, with another craft, both sexes did the work of making the “thick baskets” from nipa fronds, some of which were used to

         carry rice from place to place with great convenience and little impediment,

and with less hindrance than from other types of baskets.  All these articles

are for the livelihood of the people.  All this is so cheap and requires only the

labor of the natives.  All of them, men as well as women, have this skill.

Alcina, v. 1, 363

This seventeenth-century chronicler contrasts pre-Hispanic conditions with the economic conditions in the island at the time he was writing, indicating that there was now more trade, coinage, and imported goods than before (Alcina, v. 3, 127 and 129):

         However, it is true that iron, which in ancient times was acquired either

through the hands of the Chinese or the Borneans, or others who trade with

them, was so scarce that it was a rare individual that came to have what was

necessary for his trade.  Nonetheless, they always had iron workers who

fashioned the bolos, knives, axes and all the rest needed for the fields …

and the other offensive weapons for their petty wars….  They substituted

for one or another purpose hard wood which lessened their problem in the

lack of iron.  Today, with the association with the Spaniards and the

commerce with the neighboring peoples, and even those distant from these

Islands—together with the accumulation of ‘reales de ocho’ which are

brought here from Mexico—there is an abundance of arms and all kinds of

other weapons both of iron and steel.  In this matter there are first class

artisans who make every variety of these with special ease and skill.  ….            

         Before the Spanish and the connection via the Manila galleon with silver coin from Mexico, Samareños engaged in barter when they traded (Alcina, v. 1, 251).  At the time Alcina was writing, however, coin use seems to have been widespread (Alcina, v. 3, 135):

         At a moderate price, the workman demands about one real for making a

new bolo, including the iron and the steel; to restore/repair another, adding

steel, half-a-real.  And thus more or less for other bigger or smaller

instruments.  They are paid according to their nature.

                     It is certain that no artisan among the Bisayans is more profitable

than this kind, as he is the most honored and esteemed among them; the

greatest chiefs are the best smiths.

Samareño talents were recognized and paid for by the Spanish as well, according to Alcina.  Certainly the most notable example is the following (Alcina, v. 3, 209):

         There have been Bisayan natives who have been equal to the Spaniards

themselves in knowing how to select and fashion the wood in suitable

manner for the ships.  They are paid salaries greater than those of many

Spaniards.  Among others, although, I could mention more, a chief of the

town of Palapag where I composed much of this Historia, Don Juan

Polacay, who died a few years ago at an advanced age.  He told me that

he participated in all the construction which had been [done] in these

Bisayan Islands after the Spaniards came, where most it had been done,

that there have been more than twenty large galleons, not to mention

lighter craft.  They paid him a salary of chief clerk and head of the others.

         In terms of agriculture, moving now to the eighteenth century, a report from about 1784 mentioned that rice production was low, with only Catarman, Bangajon (Gandara), Paranas, and Tubig with enough surplus for sale.  In other pueblos, rice was insufficient until the next harvest, leading to dependence on root crops for subsistence.[23]  A Franciscan writing in 1775 said that Bangajon (Gandara) produced surplus rice, which was bought up by the provincial governor who then sold it for a profit in Catbalogan.[24]  There were no cattle or carabaos on Samar, and very few horses.[25] 

         A non-clerical source from around 1792 gives us more information about the cultivation of rice in Palapag, reporting that the practice in that pueblo was dry rice cultivation rather than wet rice in paddies.  The writer, a member of the Malaspina expedition,[26] observed that it was the women who cultivated the ground, poked holes with sticks, and planted the rice seed in November, then harvested the crop by hand in May.  He made reference to a second crop, planted in June and harvested in a shorter period, four months to maturity.  If the Augustinians were correct that the plow was not used on Samar until they arrived after 1768, perhaps dry rice continued to be the most common form of rice cultivation on the island at least as late as this 1792 report from Palapag. 

Jagor[27] reported that rice cultivation in only a few places on Samar used the plow (287), but that carabaos were used to prepare wet rice fields (290).  Jagor observed that most rice was grown as the Malaspina writer described in 1792, using a pointed stick in dry fields, with returns according to Jagor of x50 or x70.  He stated that some fields, presumably wet rice fields, were owned by landlords who received half the produce as rent (287), but implies that most rice fields on Samar were used for dry rice cultivation and were free for the clearing and a single harvest (288).  Jagor also observed that monetary exchanges occurred in the major pueblos but that barter was more usual in the interior of the island (293).  He said that markets were non-existent,[28] suggesting that exports and imports were handled on an ad hoc basis (293):

                     There are no markets in Sámar and Leyté; so that whoever wishes to buy

seeks what he requires in the several houses, and in like manner the seller offers

his goods.

         …  Trade and credit are less developed in eastern and northern Sámar

than in the western part of the island, which keeps up a more active communi-

cation with the other inhabitants of the Archipelago.

Loans were based on monthly interest rates of 12½ per cent (293), which by my calculation means a loan of five pesos would have more than doubled in six months and would be a debt of over 20 pesos by the end of a year.  Penalties of peonage of children or full use of mortgaged land if the loan were not paid back on time were described (294). 

The observer from the Malaspina expedition also noted that looms using abaca were present in the pueblo, that it took about 8 days to make the fabrics sold in Manila for 2 or 3 pesos each, suggesting regular commerce to the colony’s capital (ff. 363v-364).[29]  Other items traded to Manila from Palapag included wax, coconut oil, pig lard, marine products, and abaca.  The goods were transported in convoys of four or five large boats, taking about a month in coming and going, due to the distance and to caution to avoid the dangers from Moros (f. 364v). 

Significant, long-distance trade to Manila occurred from provinces or municipalities.  We know there was trade from the relatively unimportant (economically speaking) island of Samar to Manila in the eighteenth century, even with the danger of interception by Malay Muslim raiders from the south.  A seventeenth century writer talked about 200 pounds of wax collected in Catbalogan and sent from there to Manila for use as candles by the Jesuits.[30]  We know in 1779 that “a fleet of forty-three boats from Guiuan [the southernmost municipality in Samar and thus the farthest from Manila] and Leyte arrived in Manila” with coconut milk, lard, sea cucumbers, cacao, cinnamon, and “other products.”  In the 1790s a municipality on the northeastern edge of Samar sent four or five “large canoes with fourteen oars” with coconut oil, lard, wax, and woven cloth to Manila, “a round trip which took a month to accomplish because of the necessity to carefully scout ahead” for Malay Muslim raiders.  Five ships sailed from Samar in 1818, thirty-one in 1829, and forty-one in each of the years 1833 and 1834.  “In 1824, over half of all the coconut oil sent to Manila came from Samar, about 115,000 gallons, as well as wax, turtle shells, sea cucumbers, and shark fins.  The value was over 35,000 pesos, a considerable amount from a province whose annual revenues (from 1815 to 1818) only averaged about 18,000 pesos.  In 1851, fifty-five trips by thirty-five boats between Samar and Manila carried cargoes totaling about 121,000 pesos in value.”[31]

A source for 1818 gives a more extensive view, indicating that the following craft bearing a wide variety of trade goods arrived in Manila from the following provinces.  I have arranged the information by total number of vessels.  Not surprisingly, this generated a list roughly indicating distance (with exceptions), from closest to farthest from Manila.[32] 

168--Ilocos, 145 pontines, 9 pancos, 14 birayes

           98--Pangasinan, 93 pontines, 5 pancos

           93--Batangas, 2 schooners, 5 galleys, 19 pontines, 59 pancos, 8 tenders

           60--Capiz, 1 frigate, 1 brig, 37 galleys, 8 pontines, 6 pancos, 1 launch, 6 tenders

           32--Mindoro, 5 galleys, 1 schooner, 3 pontines, 15 pancos, 2 paraos, 1 launch, 5 tenders

           58--Zambales, 17 pontines, 23 pancos, 10 paraos, 5 tenders, 3 lighters

           22--Iloilo, 7 brigs, 5 galleys, 3 schooners, 7 pontines

           20-Calamianes, 19 pancos, 1 launch

           16--Camarines, 3 brigs, 2 galleys, 1 schooner, 1 pontin, 9 tenders

           15--Antigue, 6 brigs, 2 galleys, 6 pontines, 1 tender

           12--Cebu, 10 galleys, 1 panco, 1 tender

             9--Tayabas, 4 pontines, 2 pancos, 1 parao, 2 tenders

             9--Cagayan, 9 pontines

             9--Leyte, 1 brig, 1 galley, 4 pontines, 2 pancos, 1 launch

             8--Albay, 3 brigs, 1 pontin, 4 tenders

A governor of Samar wrote in 1832 that contraband trade by Samareños was not uncommon, while “the little agriculture and fishing is in the hands of the most wretched, who are hard put to harvest a little rice or marine goods for their tribute while subsisting on” root crops.  He stated that the population on the island tended to be dispersed and frequently Samareños changed location to avoid the “inopportune visits by cabezas de barangay as well as to fish and  seek] the most fertile soil” for their agriculture.[33]  The governor added that the class with power [la clase pudiente] “is purely dedicated to commerce.”[34]  Wealth on Samar came from trade. 

         There are indications that in additional to regional trade within Samar and to Manila, trade to other provinces such as to Albay, to Leyte, even to Cebu or to Iloilo was going on as well.  For instance, in January of 1832 a boat with nine men traveling from Albay bringing trade goods to Samar was captured;[35] and in August 1838 five Moro boats attacked a boat carrying unhusked rice (palay) from Maripipi, Leyte to the Calbayog region.[36]  In 1855 there is a brief reference to trade from Leyte and Samar to Cebu, primarily in woven items, abaca cordage, and coconut oil.[37]  Even after the end of the Manila Galleon connection to Mexico’s silver mines in 1815, a Spanish Treasury official wrote from Manila in August 1838 that tribute payments on Leyte, Samar, and Negros continued and had “always” been paid usually in coin, suggesting sufficient liquidity and circulation to sustain and power trade in Samar’s products.[38]  We are told that there were no markets as such in Samar at this time.  As late as 1869, Fedor Jagor in his report on his 1859 trip to Samar said the same, an observation I will return to later.[39]  Only a bit before November 1880 was a market established in Catbalogan.[40] 

In the mid-19th century, P. Fr. Félix de Huerta, O.F.M.[41] tells us that there were distinct marketing strategies for certain crops and buyers, with multiple pueblos shipping goods to Manila and elsewhere.[42]  In the South, Basey conducted commerce with both Catbalogan and Leyte; while Guiuan sent goods to Manila, especially coconuts and fish.  On the West Coast, Calbayog traded with both Catbalogan and Manila, while Capul[43] sent rice, fish, and fabrics to Albay.  Catbalogan, the capital of the province, was a common destination of products from other Samar pueblos with goods the traders there traded actively to Manila and elsewhere.  Santa Rita sent goods both to Catbalogan and to Leyte, but only in low quantities “and only when necessity obliged them to do so” (Huerta, 1865, 338).  Villa Real traded with Catbalogan and with other pueblos on Samar, as did Zumarraga which also had some trade directly with Leyte.

On the North Coast, Bobon sent abaca, wax, tar, fish, and tejidos (woven goods) to both Catbalogan and to Manila, while “excess” rice was sent to Albay.  Catarman sent rice to Albay and a variety of other products as well as tejidos de guinaras to Manila.  Catubig traded with Catbalogan, with Albay, and with Manila.  Laoang traded with Catbalogan but sent rice to Albay.  Las Navas also sent rice to Manila with abaca and tejidos de guinaras to Manila, while Pambujan sent rice to Albay with other products going to Catbalogan and other pueblos on the island.  On the East Coast, Borongan (surprisingly) traded with Cebu and Negros along with Leyte and Manila.  Lanang traded with both Guiuan and Catbalogan, while San Julian’s trade went to Guiuan.  Sulat though traded with Catbalogan and with Manila; while Tubig, just north of Sulat, had its own market and sent exports to Catbalogan and traded with other pueblos on the island.

A report from 1876,[44] probably by a Spanish governor of Samar, both affirmed the themes we have seen to date and indicated significant novelty in Samar’s economic situation.  The continuities included that Samar was not self-sufficient in rice, that coconuts and coconut oil were important productions in eastern and southern Samar, that many other products were also exported—pepita de Catbalogan, balate (sea cucumbers), gulaman,[‡‡] cueros [tanned skins, leather hides], carey (tortoiseshell), aletas de tiburon [shark fins], and concha nacar [mother of pearl shell].  The ports of significance for imports and exports were Catbalogan, Laoang, Calbayog, Borongan, Guiuan, and Basey.

What was new according to this report, though, was the strong emphasis on expanded abaca production for export with consequent economic prosperity.  While other products were part of the export trade from Samar, abaca was by then the most important export, with increasing production beginning from an increased demand starting in the 1840s.  While grown throughout the island, abaca was mainly shipped from only a few ports, with producers farthest from those ports receiving less for their product.  As more money to producers came in to Samar, abaca production increased.  The governor observed that imports also increased, with only the poorest continuing to wear clothing made of abaca; others were able to afford a preference for  imported cotton and even for silk fabrics.  Nutrition improved as more could afford imported rice, fiestas became more luxurious, and luxury imports from Europe and the Americas were not uncommon.

The 1876 report said that abaca exports from Samar in 1875 brought in 162,000 pesos, with coconut oil second with 128,700 pesos.  All exports totaled 304,498 pesos, which meant that abaca comprised a shade more than 53% of export returns.  Imports for 1875 included 57,500 pesos for rice, an estimated 120,000 pesos worth of imports brought in by Chinese merchants, with a total import bill of 202,400 pesos.  Even though abaca prices had actually been going down for the last four years, according to the report, the balance of exports over imports was substantial.[45]

The spike in demand for abaca and its consequent export led not just to increased profits.  It also encouraged substantial migration to Samar in the late nineteenth century, especially to the region centered on Calbayog.  When I did research in Calbayog for my doctoral dissertation, I was able to work with the parish registers and discovered:[46]

From 1884 to 1896, the total population [of Samar] grew at an annual rate

of 2.0 percent, while the Calbayog area soared ahead at an annual rate of

growth of 6.2 percent.  Most of the growth in Calbayog and some of the

overall growth was due to immigration.  There appears to have been

migration to the Calbayog area from other regions of Samar, but most of

its immigrants seem to have come from such provinces as Leyte, Cebu,

Bohol, and the Bicol Peninsula.  It appears likely that about 15,000

immigrants came to Samar in the period 1884-1896; and about 23,000

immigrants,[§§] both Samareños and outsiders, came to the Calbayog area.

More impressionistic observations were made by Spanish observers for this region in the 1890s, such as the observation in 1892 that Santo Niño had had people from other provinces settling there.[47]  And for Weyler, again in 1892, with reference to a great deal of immigration from other provinces, especially from Bohol and Cebu.[48]  In 1890 the Governor General of the Philippines commented in passing that the population of Calbayog had risen dramatically in a few years thanks largely to families immigrating from Cebu and Bohol, resulting in a possibly inflated figure for population of 34,000 when he was writing.[49]

Moving from this overview centered on Samar alone, we have sources for elsewhere which reference the ubiquity and effects of trade.  Writing around 1810, Tomas de Comyn noted the existence of widespread trade among Filipinos, not just in Samar but everywhere.  “The circulation of the country productions and effects of all kinds among the inhabitants of the provinces … is tolerably active and considerable.”  While he noted that “magistrates [he probably meant provincial governors] in their respective districts” interfered with that trade and kept it from fully blossoming through the imposition of extra “rates and arbitrary prices” on traders, “a certain degree of stimulus and scope is still left in favor of internal trade.”  He observed the ubiquity of local trade and of course the importance of the Manila market:[50]

Hence it follows, that there is scarcely an island or province, that does not carry on some traffic or other, by keeping up relations with its neighbors, which sometimes extend as far as the capital; where, in proportion as the produce and raw materials find a ready market, returns suitable and adequate to the consumption of each place, respectively, are obtained.

            Some trade was centered in the pueblos, based on local, weekly markets called tiangues or tianguis.  Comyn remarked that tiangues “are held weekly in almost every town” and that “[a] propensity to barter and traffic, in all kinds of ways, is indeed universal among the natives ….”  As Serafin Quiason has noted,[51] with a slight whiff of condescension , “In time, the tiangui dealers, mostly women, formed themselves into a small but active class of enterprising peasants and fishermen tied to the rural market economy.  They were unschooled, yet their market intelligence and business acumen were quite astonishing.  Traditionally, trading by the women marked a logical differentiation of roles from the more laborious farming and arduous fishing activities of the men.  Besides, attending the tiangui also created a social outlet for the women.”  (24-25).  He observed (38) that “… tiangui dealers performed the essential task of suppliers of basic agricultural and marine products to the town areas where they were wanted most.”  And he concluded that the “tiangui, and later the regular Mercado, constituted the heart of the internal economy and an understanding of them is essential to an understanding of the mainstream of rural commercial life in the Spanish Philippines” (38).

     Writing in the 1820s, a Franciscan noted a remarkable range of economic activity and Filipino engagement in production in what is now Quezon Province.[52]  He began his survey with agriculture, industry, and commerce described for each of the pueblos in turn.  Agriculture of Tayabas pueblo was centered on rice cultivation, both dry and irrigated, with two crops per year.  What rice was not consumed in the municipality was sold there or carried to Mahayhay for sale.  Also grown was wheat, with any surplus sold at Santa Cruz in Laguna.  Less successful was the production of maize while cocoa was produced abundantly (unless typhoons had wiped out the plants), bought by Manila merchants for shipment to and sale in Spain. He also mentioned coffee, sugar cane, sesame, and various fruits.  Trade in brown sugar, panocha “that here they call pacascas,” was strong, both for local consumption and as exports “that are sold advantageously” to San Pablo, Mauban, Atimonan, Gumaca, Catanavan, Ilunay, and even Marinduque.  In terms of industry, Tayabas pueblo had just a little weaving and  specialized in home production of sacks or bags (bayones) for rice and other crops, as well as for the manufacture of sails.  Coconuts and their oil were sold “to advantage at the great market in Santa Cruz” (188), but “the most useful branch of industry in this municipality is cattle raising.”  He concluded this section on the pueblo of Tayabas by commenting that Moro raids had adversely affected trade.  What had been a healthy trade with Marinduque, Romblón, and Antiqui had been essentially extinguished (189). 

         Lucban, the next pueblo to be described, also had its agriculture dominated almost exclusively by rice, apparently also both wet and dry, with the surplus sent to Mahayhay for its Monday market and to Lilio and Nagcarlan.  Its major industry was that of hat manufacture and mats called bancuanes, with sales made in Santa Cruz de la Laguna (189).  Also sold in Santa Cruz was oil from coconuts.

         Saryaya also cultivated significant amounts of rice, again both dry and wet, two crops per year, selling the surplus to San Pablo, Lucban, and even some to the pueblo of Tayabas.  Along with a little wheat, some coffee, and some coconuts, the priest commented that cotton would grow well here and would succeed with proper machinery, security in sales, and confidence by the residents that it would be a safe bet (191).[53]  In terms of “Industry” Father Bartolomé says that there is only the raising of cattle and horses, competing with the pueblo of Tayabas for the first and being superior to it with the second (191). 

         Tiaong was the fourth municipality mentioned, growing rice (only dry), with any surplus sold in San Pablo.  Only a little cocoa was grown.  They also (191) grew some wheat along with other items taken to Santa Cruz de la Laguna and then on to Manila by that city’s merchants.[54]  He goes on to mention some cattle raising and sales of carabaos and horses, but Father Bartolomé  indicated in a long paragraph (192) that the general well-being and economic development of this pueblo was drastically hindered by its location as the center of wide-spread banditry extending to the neighboring areas of Laguna de Bay and Batangas.  There were, as a result, widespread theft and rustling, flight to other pueblos where there was greater safety, and links of the bandits to an organization throughout the nearby provinces extending all the way to Manila.  The economic promise of the municipality was undeveloped and “it is unbelievable that the Spaniard looks with indifference on this collection of terrestrial pirates.”  The government could do more against it.  Local political leaders might be in the pockets of the criminals.[55]

The prosperous municipalities were characterized by an active commerce.  The pueblo of Tayabas (186-189), perhaps the wealthiest of the fourteen, has an active internal market for rice (both dry and irrigated).  Surplus was transported and sold in Majayjay.  They also bought and sold wheat within the pueblo, which was then transported and sold in Santa Cruz de la Laguna.  Crafts were also an important source of economic well-being here, with mats imported from Batangas and whatever surplus items not sold in the municipality were taken to Santa Cruz de la Laguna and to San Pablo, “where they sell well.”  Saryaya (190-191) too did well with rice (both dry and wet (two crops per year)), with a surplus that was marketed in San Pablo; while Tiaon (191-192) relied only on dry rice but produced enough for sale in San Pablo, with sales as well in Santa Cruz de la Laguna of a variety of other crops as well as cattle.  Lucban also had an active commercial life, with surplus rice (some purchased from Saryaya) “sold in Majayjay in its Monday market,” “providing not only what that pueblo needs but also enough for Lilio and Nagcarlan” (189).  Those in Lucban worked hard and went as far as Mambulao in the Camarines and Polillo to the north to trade (190). 

Tomas de Comyn noted the existence of widespread trade among Filipinos—“The circulation of the country productions and effects of all kinds among the inhabitants of the provinces … is tolerably active and considerable”—and while he notes that “magistrates in their respective districts” interfered with that trade and kept it from fully blossoming through imposed “rates and arbitrary prices” on traders, “a certain degree of stimulus and scope is still left in favor of internal trade.”  He observed the ubiquity of local trade and of course the importance of the Manila market:[56]

Hence it follows, that there is scarcely an island or province, that does not carry on some traffic or other, by keeping up relations with its neighbors, which sometimes extend as far as the capital; where, in proportion as the produce and raw materials find a ready market, returns suitable and adequate to the consumption of each place, respectively, are obtained. If, however, it would be difficult to form an idea, even in the way of approximation, of the exchanges which take place between the various provinces, a task that would render it necessary to enumerate them, one by one, it is equally so to make an estimate of the total amount of this class of operation carried on in Manila, their common center. Situated in the bottom of an immense bay, bathed by a large river, and the country round divided by an infinite number of streams and lakes descending from the provinces by which the capital is surrounded, the produce and effects are daily brought in and go out of suburbs so extended in a diversity of small vessels and canoes, without its being possible to obtain any exact account of the multiplicity of transactions carried on at one and the same time, in a city built on so large a scale.

… ordinary consumption, the necessity of obtaining assortments of home-manufactured as well as imported goods, in order to supply the markets, known by the name of tianguis, and which are held weekly in almost every town …  A propensity to barter and traffic, in all kinds of ways, is indeed universal among the natives ….

Feodor Jagor made references in passing to weaving and trade as he traveled through Luzon, Bicol, and the eastern Visayas.  In Calumpit, Bulacan, he wrote that he “found the women in almost all the houses occupied in weaving tapis, which have a great reputation in the Manila market.  They are narrow, thickly-woven, silk scarves, six varas in length, with oblique white stripes on a dark-brown ground.  They are worn above the sarong.”[57] Manila was undoubtedly a strong magnet for trade—Jagor commented in Chapter 8 on ten ships which took shelter in a harbor in Mariveles on their way to Albay while noting “a small pontin” whose crew “had taken some of their own produce to Manila.”  He went on to note that “Such cases frequently occur.  A few natives unite to charter a small vessel, and load it with the produce of their own fields, which they set off to sell in Manila.”  Some of these trips were long lasting—he noted in another context having seen a “craft” loaded with “coconut oil for Manila, which had spent six months upon its trip” before it arrived in Manila.  In Chapter 8 he noted that some vessels collected cattle from the islet of Elefante, near Marinduque, paying “four dollars a-piece.” Cost of shipping “to Manila is as much more, where they sell for sixteen dollars.”[58] 

In Chapter 8 Jagor continued with the theme of trade to Manila, noting that “the province of Batangas supplies Manila with its best cattle” but also notes that the provinces “exports sugar and coffee,” suggesting a distinctive trade pattern.  Local or regional trade was also observed: in Chapter 7 he remarks on Lucban residents weaving “fine straw hats” and “pandanus mats” for trade “at Mauban with the placer miners of North Camarines.”  A brief reference in Chapter 15 indicates that Indang traded with Daet, sending abaca out and importing rice.  In Chapter 14 he remarked how the “Quinali, which runs into the south-eastern corner of the lake of Batu … forms the medium of a not inconsiderable trade between Albay and Camarines, particularly in rice; of which the supply grown in the former province does not suffice for the population, who consume the superfluity of Camarines.  The rice is conveyed in large boats up the river as far as Quinali, and thence transported further on in carabao carts; and the boats return empty.”  Trade between goods and locally mined gold is noted in Chapter 15:

In Mambulao the influence of the province on its western border is very perceptible, and Tagalog is understood almost better than Bicol; the Tagalog element being introduced amongst the population by women, who with their families come here, from Lucban and Mauban, in the pursuit of trade. They buy up gold, and import stuffs and other wares in exchange. The gold acquired is commonly from fifteen to sixteen carats, and a mark determines

its quality. The dealers pay on the average $11 per ounce; but when, as is usually the case, it is offered in smaller quantities than one ounce, only $10.  They weigh with small Roman scales, and have no great reputation for honesty.

Jagor also noted (Chapter 10) a local market in Daraga, held on “Monday and Friday evenings,” staffed by “women, neatly and cleanly clad, [who] sat in long rows and offered their provisions for sale by the light of hundreds of torches; and, when the business was over, the slopes of the mountains were studded all over with flickering little points of brightness proceeding from the torches carried by the homeward-bound market women.  Besides eatables many had silks and stuffs woven from the fibers of the pine-apple and the banana for sale.  These goods they carried on their heads….”[59] 

         We have seen significant commercial activity in multiple areas of the Philippine colony.  They are surely characteristic of activity throughout the islands.  Many of the examples occurred before the commercial explosion of the late nineteenth century.  All were characterized by Filipino initiative, hard work, mobility, and often successful attempts to wrest a profit from a fairly low-producing economy only marginally tied to the world economy.  Filipinos dominate the picture.  Filipino initiative in responding to economic opportunity is striking, seemingly ubiquitous, exceedingly active, and seems to have been generated from below or inside the carapace of Spanish rule, structures, and expectations.

Social structure and Filipino officials

Filipinos were divided into leaders and followers.  To achieve anything, the Spanish had to work with and through the leaders.   Father Ignacio de Alcina, S.J., observed for Samar in the seventeenth century:[60]

         Anyone who wishes to have much success in doing what he wants with [the

Samareños] must win over the chiefs … everything depends on them, and a

word from them carries more weight than ten words of ours.  Without their

help one exhausts himself, accomplishes little and wears himself out to no

avail, while they end up laughing.

Reports from the late eighteenth century echo and deepen this observation.  We have a lengthy report from 1770, speaking generally of Leyte and Samar.[61]  Since the author is the Provincial of the Augustinians, and since the Augustinians had by this time inherited the formerly Jesuit parishes of eastern Leyte and southern Samar, the observations are probably based on experience in those areas.[***] 

The Augustinian began by observing that literacy was low and that one consequence was that those who did know how to read and write tended to occupy the positions of scribe and gobernadorcillo repeatedly, giving them significant autonomy and power in the pueblos and vis-à-vis the Spanish governor.  As the writer phrased it, after commenting on the domination of office by a small group of pueblo leaders, the result was greatly unsuitable to the “proper subordination and obedience” to the provincial governors.  Within the pueblos the upper crust, the Datus, were supreme.  Obedience to them was absolute.  “They are effectively obeyed in anything they order, there is no one to oppose them.”  Local leaders had large bands of followers, many of them hidden from tribute and other obligations to the Spanish government. 

         Franciscans too wrote about the parishes they took over from the Jesuits.  Their comments echo those made by the Augustinians for southern Samar and eastern Leyte, suggesting a common political, social, and agricultural set of cultures.  Literacy itself was not addressed but knowledge of Spanish was rare outside of Catbalogan.[62]  Those who did know a bit of Spanish were those who had been active in commerce.[63]  The Franciscans also noted that Samareño allegiance and obedience to their own leaders was as significant as the Augustinian had reported, with a Franciscan writing in 1785 that Samareños gave blind:[64]

         … submission, obedience, and respect to their leaders in the pueblos, more to

their Cavezas or Datos [sic] than to the governor.  Nothing is done without the

counsel, opinion, and consent of the Datos, no matter how much the governor

demands obedience to his orders and rules.  Crimes of the leaders [and of]

relatives, servants, and friends remain unpunished.  [The legal authorities] do

not dare to apprehend them.

Filipino pueblo officials, who might have been expected to help congregate and enforce Spanish clerical and civil regulations were reported to have been lax, even accused of running their own “tyrannical” government while officially serving both majesties.  Those observations were from 1783, but we have other observations from elsewhere in the eighteenth century confirming a pattern.  Here is the Franciscan P. Fr. Antonio de Luna writing about the pueblo of Nabua in 1772: “… that because of its distance and disorder, it only serves as a refuge for evil doers from other pueblos.”  He adds that the pueblo of Bato serves as a place where folks from other pueblos hide and as a consequence do not pay the tribute owed to the king.[65]  He observed as well Filipinos who worked almost as “slaves for pueblo officials,” paying them a real every week in order to come up with the seven pesos demanded as tribute—when the King only in fact requires five reales” (f. 13v).  He went on to mention in passing officials in two pueblos who lived in the población but had Filipinos working on their fields elsewhere, as if they were “encomenderos” (f. 14); and another group who “were occupied in serving the Señor Alcalde maior [provincial governor, a Spaniard]” (f. 16), apparently acting as middlemen in collecting wax, sea slugs (balate), and other coastal and mountain products as tribute or in exchange for cloth (f. 16v).

         Filipino pueblo officials seem to have enjoyed remarkable discretion and authority within the Spanish colonial system, avoiding or contravening mandated church and imperial rules seemingly at will as long as they manifested most outward forms and complied with civil exactions from the population.  The State’s exactions officially were of three kinds:

Ø  an annual tribute, collected from all families registered on the pueblo registry and compiled at Easter under the supervision of the parish priest,

Ø  forced sales to the provincial governor and his agents of commodities in need by the imperial state (the bandala); and

Ø  forced labor, the polo, involving drafts of male labor, often for several months or longer under difficult or dangerous conditions, particularly in cutting and transporting timber for the construction of galleons.

Filipino pueblo officials were expected to facilitate the collection of tribute, commodities, and labor for the Crown—and, in return, they were exempted from same.  As the number of pueblo officials grew, presumably to free friends and allies from these obligations, the burden on others increased.  As long as the pueblo officials could meet tribute and other quotas, there was room for bribes and considerations for those who wanted to make a side arrangement and escape imperial exactions.  Hence the payoffs described earlier.

         Sometimes Filipinos were expressly praised for their cooperation and roles in facilitating Spanish rule and demands.  In an 1894 award, the Cruz Sencilla de Caballero de la Real Orden Americana was awarded to a former gobernadorcillo of Catarman, Samar.  The text of the award made clear that the Spanish realized their dependence upon the intermediaries between the imperialists and the bulk of the ruled.  The award to Quintin Mendiola read in part:[66]

                     The implanting of the municipal reforms … depend for their perfect

development and security not only upon the zeal and good wishes of the

governors, not only upon the cooperation of the Provincial Councils, but also

upon the seconding of their efforts by the [gobernadorcillos] of the pueblos….

Specifically, the award thanked Mendiola for being

         the most dedicated agent in the collection of tribute and, especially, in the

new municipal taxes, matters which everywhere are a source of annoyance

but which in [Catarman] have been imposed without the least complaint….

         Sometimes Filipino principal families, whether officials or not, used their preeminence, power, and relative wealth to engage in practices which Franciscan writers described as usurious.  Our best Franciscan source on this topic for the eighteenth century is P. Fr. Francisco Antonio Maceyra, who described the need for money for marriages, tribute, death rites, as well in order “to dress the family with some decency and to provide for it.”[67]  The Franciscan mentioned two major types of usurious practice, both of which involved sums advanced against collateral which in turn could be lost if the principal as well as interest were not paid off in a specified period of time.  The first type of usury he describe was the casonos, where one borrows and then works in the household of the lender.  While there one eats and must be clothed, further debts that are added to the principal originally borrowed, so “that the longer one serves the greater the debt, and at the end one has found self a slave for life” (391).  The second kind of indebtedness he called sanlang bili but the editor (P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez) indicated would be better written as San lang bili or Sanlá bili, meaning sale with the option for re-purchase if the debt were paid off within a certain amount of time.  With failure to raise the needed principal and accumulated interest, the borrower would lose everything (usually land, coconut palms, etc.), and the buyer would acquire them “for a lower price than legitimate,” lower than purchase if they had been sold on the market (392).  Sometimes the borrowers were allowed to use the land pawned, but more commonly they were obligated to seed, maintain, and harvest it as part of the debt.[68]

Many or some of the upper crust also gamed the tribute system.  One source from the 1760s said that “It is generally the case that the heads of barangays keep back from the king, at a very low estimate, at least ten tributes each, on account of the dispersion of the houses of the Indians, which renders almost impossible any exactness in the tax-lists….”[69]  A contemporary scholar described the hiding of those who should pay tribute as an “endemic evil and greatly damaging” to the Treasury.[70]  A manuscript source from 1701 mentioned that cabezas habitually obliged their charges to pay tribute before the age mandated.  These minors then were also subject to  demands of labor and goods from the alcaldes mayores.  At this time at least, the Filipino officials left office “with advantage and never with loss.”[71] 

Two priests described the common practices in the 1720s and 1730s, which included a general statement of “excesses and tampering in the collection of tribute” and, more particularly, that “some principales make non-official Filipinos work in their homes or in their fields … year around, telling them it is to cover their tribute obligation, turning those so conscripted into slaves of their masters.”[72]  The priests continued by saying that the officials and principales use their extra wealth and position to buy cheap and sell dear as well to make loans at high interest rates—“e.g., loaning a cavan of rice at seeding time with the obligation to return two or three after harvest”—or making them “use their lands and even themselves as guarantees for loans.”  If they made loans in coin the interest charges were “very elevated, one real per month for each peso” (a peso had a value of eight reales, meaning a monthly interest rate of about 12% and that after eight months the loan owed would have doubled). 

         There were also ways, the two priests tell us, for the gobernadorcillo and the cabezas de barangayes to profit from the forced labor (polo) and repartimiento aspects of the general tribute system, mainly by “reserving from personal service those who pay to escape it, then they would make the poorer work more, always unjustly.”   They also drafted individuals to cut timber as part of the polo obligation “but in some cases use the workers for private tasks.”  More generally, they worked to prevent non-official Filipinos from engaging in commerce, presumably to the benefit of themselves as well of course of the governors.[73]

         As Sánchez Gómez notes, “the picture painted by the two priests is scarcely favorable to the principales.”[74]  Indeed, a source from 31 December 1778 by a government official, Pedro Vértiz, confirms the bleakness of the situation for those at the mercy of corrupt municipal officials:[75] Sánchez Gómez reflects that “Vértiz called attention to the major abuses committed by the cabezas de barangay.  In the matter of tributes, given the dispersion of the population and the inaccuracy of the tribute lists, the cabezas would hide tribute payers and appropriate what was collected from them.  The major abuses took place in regard to the prestación personal, using those subject to polo for service to them, with fines and corporal punishments for those who were absent without permission.”  As Vértiz points out, the use of the polistas year around means that these Filipinos could not tend to their own fields, generating a “tyranical slavery, made more insufferable by cruel whippings with which they punish them, so that [finally], seeking to better their fortune, they flee with their families, desperate, going to the most hidden [parts] of the mountains where no one will meet them; or they go to the beaches with the risk of being kidnapped by Muslim pirates.”

Perhaps the worst form of polo was the requisition of labor to cut timber for construction of galleons and other ships, which constituted “an evil that is necessary and unavoidable, since on these depends the entire preservation of these islands; but this necessity is equaled by the destruction and the injuries which that work has caused in these provinces, in the diminution of their population and products.”[76]  This burden fell disproportionately on the provinces around Manila; and within that area fell heaviest on the poorest of the poor.  Those who could purchase exemptions from the alcaldes mayores did so, and some in trying to escape this hard and not infrequently fatal labor “pledge, or sell, or enslave themselves; and from this cause result very serious evils—thefts, withdrawing to the mountains to roam as vagrants, and other crimes.”[77]  Then the list of selectees is sent on to the gobernadorcillo and cabezas de barangay, who again receive payment for exclusion, ending up with few, whose number would again be trimmed by the “superintendent of the work.”  The consequence is that the few remaining have to make up for those culled out, so that they “are so overtaxed and harassed that they hardly have time to eat, and of sleep they will have some three hours, as a result of their labors on the account of his Majesty and outside his account.”[78]

And, yet, the Filipino officials were more vulnerable than the provincial governors, not so much in terms of judicial process against corruption but because they had to facilitate the governors’ graft while also producing the prescribed amount of tribute, laborers, and commandeered goods on a regular and scheduled basis.[79]  Governors had more leeway since their accounts were not due until the end of their terms and were often late, incomplete, or not submitted.[80]  If there were severe epidemics and the population numbers dropped, the cabezas were still responsible for those on the active lists, even if they had died.  If cabezas de barangay could not produce the requisite tribute payments required for the lists in use, they could be fined and jailed.  Here is a description from 1701 of how this might play out: [81]

“It arouses pity in the hardest hearts to see and know by experience that

nearly all the headmen [cabezas de barangay] enter office under

compulsion from the alcalde-mayor, and, finding themselves perplexed

to the utmost by the difficulties in rendering their accounts satisfactorily—

either by the duplicate names on the registration lists, or the absences

(which usually are many), or by the deaths  [of those registered]—on

account of the great poverty that is general in the villages these deficiencies

fall back on the headmen, who are compelled to pay them or be imprisoned. 

This measure of imprisonment is carried out with so great rigor that many

headmen are in prison, without any hope that they will be able to pay; and

there are even cases in which the headmen have been imprisoned for many

years for their indebtedness to the tributes in their charge, and, dying in

prison, their burial was delayed for several days in order that their relatives

might be able to find security for the dead man’s tribute and debt.”

Here is a case from five years later, from a single province: [82]

                 I learned that there were sixty-six cabezas [de barangay] in the

Camarines province in jail, [all because] … the Filipinos in this

province are very mobile.  Almost every year they change their home

from one municipality to another, both in this and surrounding

provinces as well as to pueblos as far away as Laguna de Bay, Tondo

or Bulacan... To collect the tribute from these is almost impossible,

and with others to collect it entails such expense that it undoubtedly

would cost more than the tribute itself.  And so it has occurred that

when the cabezas go to hand over the tribute … they go without it

and must provide it themselves, [from their own pocket].

There is some suggestion that due to the potential hardships and legal complications of the position some individuals in the nineteenth century began to refuse the position of cabeza de barangay.[83] 

         To conclude this overview, here is a fairly lengthy quotation from 1701 which puts all the pieces together, from the alcalde mayor through the Filipino pueblo officials to agents and high profile Filipinos, tribute payments and the polo and the repartimiento or bandala.  It show the fiddles, disparity in power, and the ultimate vulnerability of the Filipinos as victims or even as fellow complicitors in the frauds.[84]  The quotation begins with observations on the alcaldes mayor, the goals of those who are corrupt, the actions of their pueblos’ official minions, and how they all manipulated the tribute system to their advantage:

                     It seems as if in most things the principal object of the alcaldes-mayor

in the provinces, and that in which they proceed with most assiduity—excepting

many who conduct themselves with entire integrity—reduces itself to a rigorous

and excessive collection of the tributes; and their other aim is the utmost attention

to their own personal advantage.  These two aims are most injurious and prejudicial

to the public welfare and to the poor people of the said provinces—because, when

there is no produce [with which to pay the tributes] the alcaldes-mayor either

compel the headmen to search for it, and even to bind themselves to do this,

or regularly make the headmen responsible for amounts which they not only

will not but cannot collect.  Another reason is, that the said headmen, with

cruel injustice, compel Indians to pay tribute before the age which his Majesty

commands and fixes, and this they do under the compulsion of the alcaldes-mayor; likewise, the said headmen exact more than the amount of their obligations for the

conveyance of the tributes. 

Next the quotation introduces the image of the hydra and briefly refers to the polos:

In the other aim of the said alcaldes-mayor (that is, their own private advantage)

is seen a monstrous hydra with many heads of injustice and inqiuity.  One of

these is their compelling the Indians to labor in construction and other works

which do not belong to his Majesty’s service, although even for those [for the

crown] the royal law spares and exempts them [from service] during the times

when they sow and harvest their crops. 

Then this 1701 document discusses the bandala or forced delivery of crops and other goods:

         The alcaldes also appoint certain Indians who are intimate with them, and

who have influence among the other natives, to whom the latter deliver the

         commodities which they carry to the provinces; and these Indian agents, fixing

         the prices of goods at their own pleasure, compel the said Indian chiefs to

         supply them, either by sale or in exchange for other wares.  From this results a

         most flagrant inequality in the prices and the exchanges of goods; and the loss

         in all these dealings always falls on the mass of the poor people, because the

         alcalde-mayor and the said petty chiefs or influential Indians always conclude

         their bargains with profit, and never with loss. 

And the quotation concludes with the recognition that the crooked alcaldes have more power than the crooked Filipino officials, and if there is a problem with profit for the former the latter must pay:

         Some alcaldes-mayor have gone to such an extreme of violence that, in case

the said petty chiefs are unable to dispose of the goods which are thus

committed to them, the alcalde compels them to assume the obligation, and

to bind themselves to take the goods.  Thus some of the Indians are constantly

bringing upon others irreparable consequences and losses that are worthy of

redress—all springing from the first injustice of compelling those to buy who

neither possess nor can take charge of such commodities. 

But the game was worth the candle, for whatever reasons, at least for most areas well into the nineteenth century.  Filipinos who chose to be officials, even with the risks, clearly found it in their interest to continue to stand for election or appointment as pueblo officials.

Within the rules and demands set by the Spanish and the imperial state, some Filipinos made the decision to exploit and abuse those with less power, resources, and fewer options.  Presumably other Filipino officials behaved with honor, once their family’s welfare was attended to.  Filipinos with less power or standing responded by submission, accommodation, cooption, or flight.  All Filipinos had to learn to game the system.  The following case study indicates that some played the Spaniards and the imperial structures very well indeed.

Case Study from Gandara, Samar, ca. 1849

         This is an example of how pueblo officials were able sometimes to defy the Spanish colonial regime, successfully.  We do not have a complete record but the important points for our purposes are clear. [85] The Franciscan parish priest of Gandara, a Spanish mestizo, was involved in some sort of altercation with the gobernadorcillo and two other pueblo officials of that pueblo.  The priest was removed, either by the Franciscans or by the government, in 1839 or in early 1840.  In 1849, the Spanish governor of Samar was informed by the Governor General of the colony that the priest was to be reinstated.  By July 1849 the priest was back.

         By August the gobernadorcillo, an assistant, and the pueblo clerk had fled.  They took with them a cannon, its carriage, some balls and powder, and the lists of tribute payers.  Others joined them.  Samar’s governor appointed an interim administrator and sent some pueblo residents to convince those who had fled to return.  About a week and a half later they did. 

         There were two major reasons the officials gave for their flight.  Since they were the major protagonists who had tried to oust the priest, they felt ashamed when he returned and they wanted to make the authorities reconsider.  They feared that the priest might precipitate trouble for them.  Secondly, fearing arrest for having opposed the priest, the subordinate pueblo officials refused to go to the provincial capital in another case.  The gobernadorcillo feared that he would be arrested because the two refused to go to Catbalogan.  They explained that they had taken the weapons and the tribute lists because the gobernadorcillo was responsible for them and did not want to be blamed if they were lost or damaged during their absence. 

         The three pueblo officials were reinstated by the provincial governor.  The Spanish governor reinstated them “because, as he saw it, they were backward people with unfounded fears, whose flight hinged on the reinstatement” of the priest, whose return they feared would be bad for them.[86] 

It is clear that the pueblo officials gamed the system successfully—reinstated in spite of obvious defiance or even rebellion against the colonial state.  These Samareño officials gambled that they could commit what appeared to be a serious crime and not be punished. 

Highlanders and Relations with Lowlanders

         One of the major themes hinted at in the manuscripts are the contacts between lowlanders and mission residents or with highlanders living in independence away from the missions.  Lowlanders wanted highland goods and enterprising traders from the lowlands would go to the highlands to get them, just as enterprising highlanders would travel to the lowlands to exchange goods.  Documentary records for the missions under Franciscan administration strongly suggests widespread, significant trade contacts between highlanders and lowlanders.  In the Nueva Ecija region and the missions of Carranglan, Pungcan, and Pantabangan, we learn that in 1832 Carranglan was situated near “eight rancherías of pagan Ibilaos” numbering about 700, with more further away.  These used to trade with Pungcan regularly, though enmity with that mission around 1829 had an adverse effect of the interchange for a while.  The Pungcan mission had a relationship with a ranchería of “negritos” [Aetas, I assume], trading their wax for lowland trade goods and helping out with the rice harvest.  Pungcan also had trade relations with a ranchería of about 100 Igorots.[87]

In this same Nueva Ecija mission area but some forty years earlier, a report from the Malaspina expedition in 1792 mentioned that there were “Ygorrotes” living in the mountains near Pantabangan, and that they grew tobacco with which they traded for contraband with traders from Pangasinan.[88]  Roughly at the same time a Franciscan noted that in the missions of Pungcan, Carranglan, and Pantabangan “each mission can produce annually about two hundred pesos from venison jerky … which is then sold in some of the pueblos of Pampanga, principally in those of Gapan and Bacolor.  The mestizos there usually advance payments in cloth against expected jerky ….”[89]         

         An example from the Manguirin mission in 1756, which was quoted more fully earlier in the essay, demonstrates that the appetite for complementary items from the two ecological zones was strong:[90]

         Notwithstanding [the dispersion of population], every Wednesday there is a

market in the cabecera with markets as well in the sitios on Saturdays and

Sundays.  In these markets one finds goods and sellers from Bicol, selling

meat, fish, tobacco, iron, and many other things, and the cimarrones trade

for them with what they have, namely wax, abaca, etc.  … 

This quotation speaks directly to the existence of strong trade connections between highlanders and lowlanders.  Other examples exist as well. 

For instance, one from 1776, by a Franciscan writing to the Franciscan Provincial about the Mount Isarog area observed:[91]  “Filipinos from the parish of Lagonoy purchase from the Cimarrones that which they have [for sale] … such as wax, abaca, and a bit of their subsistence crops [y el poco Plantio, que tienen para su manutencion].”[92]  Or this reference from an 1832 document regarding trade between Aetas in the mountains and Casiguran in the Baler/Palanan region: “… there are tame, pagan “negritos who come to the población [of Casiguran] to exchange wax for rice and clothing.”[93]

A manuscript from around 1720 describes another group of Aetas in the Baler/Palanan area, at the end of which trade connections are sketched:[94] 

… on the slopes of the mountains, along their rivers and on the beaches are

the Aetas, but with such a strange way of life, without a fixed sitio or place

for their residence.  They live where there are trees that give them fruit, their

usual and constant food.  Their house is a half shack [choza], in which they

take refuge from storms.  …  Those on [this coast] live in great poverty and

are called Tologtog.  Their commerce are of [forest and other products] that

they take to the pueblos and fields of the Christians, where they are exchanged

for the goods they value, namely rice and tobacco.  Afterwards they return to

the mountains rich and happy.  When they have exhausted the fruit in one area

they move to another ….

This same manuscript (f. 619-619v) spoke of a similar trade with mountain products for lowland goods, this time between the “Yrrayas” in the mountains near Palanan, which appear “to be of the same group as those called Yzalines and Ylongotes.”  They brought goods to Dibinbinan in April and May, traded wax for salt, and returned directly to the mountains.  They became irritated if one tried to speak of conversion or suggested that they visit with the missionary priest.  Some from Debimbinan who had been to the Yrraya territory said that it is a difficult trek and for those carrying loads it took nine days (six without loads) to get to the first of their settlements. 

It is striking in fact how distance and difficult terrain or tumultuous seas did little to prevent the movement of goods to and from Manila.  Here is a description of Palanan from about 1832, which mentions how isolated it was from effective Spanish administrative oversight due to distance and adverse sailing conditions.  Yet Palanan and its nearby areas produced significant amounts of wax, some rice (corn was more commonly consumed), and marine products.  The forests produced such quality timber that it was taken to Manila even though its transport is “difficult and costly.”  Tobacco was purchased from traders from Cagayan, who even sold it in Polillo, Binangonan, and into the provinces of Laguna and Tayabas (the province of Quezon today), albeit in small quantities.[95]

Also in the Baler/Palanan area, according to this manuscript from 1832, there was a well-established trade connection between Baler and the mission of Dipaculao, with implications that the mission folks had further contacts into the mountains; and that the trade goods provided by Baler traders came from other places, perhaps even from Manila:[96]

The inhabitants of Baler purchase by way of the Christian Ilongots of

Dipaculao the wax and tobacco harvested from other rancherias in exchange

for clothing, rice, and bolos.  [The goods from Dipaculao] are then sold to

Polillo and to Binangonan in return for vino de Nipa and commodities.

The manuscript records shows that trade connections between highlander and lowlander was an important theme, probably in all areas of the Islands and throughout Philippine history. 

         Also an important theme was the prevalence of conflict in the highlands.  Some incidents seemed to have occurred between groups without involving residents in the missions.  In 1792, in the mission area with Pantabangan, Casiguran, and Pungcan, an observer noted that the “Ylongotes” in the area “are negative, capital enemies of the Aetas, who attack them whenever they encounter them.”[97]  Seventy some years earlier, in the Baler/Palanan area,  Ilongotes were said to have killed and beheaded an enemy from Cagayan two days before the priest arrived at the mission of Umirey. [98]  A manuscript from 1785 talks about three groups in the Baler/Palanan region—Yzalines , Ylongotes, and Aetas--and the ongoing conflicts of the first two against the Aetas.  The conflict was marked by such hatred and brutal enmity, we are told, that no quarter was given to the Aeta, with each day murders and beheadings.[99]   Threats and persecution from Ilongots against Aetas in an unnamed mission near Baler led 52 Aetas to leave.  A mission with 23 houses was reduced to three.[100]  Conversely, a Franciscan manuscript from 1720 indicates that Aetas near Casiguran killed a Baguntavo from Casiguran and then threatened some Ilongots who wanted to settle near Aeta territory, forcing them to return to the Comblan area.[101]  The writer adds (f. 2) that these same Aetas had killed four or five Christians over the years.  A writer in 1785 said that during the two years he was in the highlands (Casignan and Pungcan) he knew of 103 deaths of Igorots at the hands of Ilongots; and in one year, he knew of 69 Ilongots killed by Igorots.[102]

Some of the conflict involved highlander attacks on those who had converted to Christianity and become residents in the missions.  In 1754, for instance, we learn that “in some missions in the mountains here in the Philippines we are experiencing some insults from and deaths caused by the Infidels.  Since they are naturally fearful, many of those already congregated have deserted the Missions and returned to the mountains.”[103]  Leaving aside the condescension revealed in the phrase “they are naturally fearful,” it would seem that in this case the hostility was directed primarily at the mission itself—otherwise, why would mission residents think they would be safer by going away from the mission into the hills and mountains?  Franciscans certainly thought that highlanders not living in the missions were not infrequently antagonistic specifically to those settled there, particularly those who had become Christian, with references in passing to “the hatred that they have towards the Christians”[104]

In a 1754 source we read of references to feuds between settlements in the Baler/Palanan mission territory and the desire for vengeance for murders perpetrated by residents of some of them, with particular animus directed against a settlement called Pugu.  There is a reference to long-standing enmities with settlements going toward Cagayan from the Baler/Palanan Franciscan missions.  This same source discussed (p. 9) the cultural imperatives of revenge two pages after telling of meeting a man near the Dipaculao River who wanted to revenge himself on a nearby settlement since the people there had killed his wife.[105]  A 1751 report speaking of these same Baler/Palanan mission areas repeatedly speaks of revenge killing of those they hate.[106]  Father Vicente Inglés mentions that on one of his 1718-1719 trips to the Baler/Palanan area he encountered Aetas who wanted to kill some of the “Indios” travelling with him in order to avenge the death of two of their band.[107]  Revenge killings apparently were done regardless of whether the victims were in any way connected to the original assaults. 

Threats and attacks against priests also occurred.[108]  Two Franciscans were in fact assassinated, one in the Mount Isarog area and one in the Baler/Palanan region:

P. Fr. Juan Silva o de la Concepcion, assassinated, Tigaon, 8 September 1770.[109]

P. Fr. Juan Beltran, assassinated, Tabueyon, 1 October 1770.[110] 

Huerta suggests that Father Juan Beltran had been particularly fervent in trying to stop headhunting practices in the area, perhaps provoking a ferocious response.[111]  Subsequently, eight years after his murder, this mission was abandoned because its inhabitants had deserted it.[112]

Another brief and undetailed reference from 1832[113] refers to conflict in 1829 between those living in the mission of Pungcan and “Ibilaos”[114] from nearby, occasioned apparently (ff. 100-101) by “Ibilao pagans who rustled cattle that belonged to the assistant priest of San José;”[115] and “though some Ibilaos died things are peaceful now with communication with one another.”  Referring to the Baler Isarog area, one source says that there used to be significant danger from attack by cimarrones” along with lots of cattle rustling near Salog/Goa, but by 1776 the Goa area was relatively peaceful with only a little theft.[116] 

Most of the conflict seems to have been most acute and frequent in the Baler/Palanan region.  In the 1720s or thereabouts we are told of a case when in an unnamed mission near Baler, the site was “surrounded by Ysalines and Ylongotes carrying emblem and signals of bloody war that they use in their battles” along with lances and other weapons.  Through an interpreter the Franciscan priest learned that residents in Baler had stolen rice and other items from one of their leaders.  They planned to take revenge by killing the thief.  The Christians in the mission said that in fact no such incident had occurred but the highlanders continued to make threats.  The priest offered to make up what was allegedly stolen and the raiders eventually accepted his offer and withdrew “to the fallow thickets in the interior of the mountains.”  Such events, the priest reported, were more common than not, with “a thousand insults and atrocities.”[117] 

         Random and individual attacks also occurred, and we have a partial explanation in a Franciscan source from 1747.  The Franciscan writer, P. Fr. Bernardo de Santa Rosa, observed that among the Ilongots, especially in a place called Dinariauan on the way north towards Baler, their leaders were not infrequently priests.   If the leader demanded a head for magical services, the individual would have to get one.  If someone fell ill, a head would be necessary.  For these reasons the trip from Casiguran to Baler was dangerous.[118] 

Certain non-Christian customs such as marriages by highlander rules seem to have been deeply rooted no matter how hard the missionaries worked, but the phenomenon of initially marrying outside the church was not uncommon in the lowlands either.  Other customs, most notably perhaps headhunting and other acts of warfare or revenge killing, seem to have been particularly intractable and common in certain highlander regions.  The prevalence and ferocity seem to have been particularly notable in the highlands in the Baler/Palanan region. 

         We see a glimpse of the complexity of highlander life and motivations in another example.  Around 1720 P. Fr. Vicente Inglés travelled into the highland territories of the Yzalines, accompanied by eight emissaries from that group, who had come to Baler in response to news of the priest’s intention to go into the mountains.  He was taken to their settlements, and described them as pueblos (a significant word choice), with well-proportioned and well-made houses, surrounded by extensive fields producing good yields.  He eventually visited five settlements (the “pueblo” Bongabon along with the settlements of Damag, Lauang, Tambaguen, and Bongob), “all of the Yzaline nation.”  The sites were inhabited not only by the pagan Yzalines but also by some 500 persons who said that they had been baptized but “now lived scattered in these territories.”   The priest asked if they would welcome a resident missionary and he was told yes.  Subsequently the Franciscans tried to staff these areas with one priest for the Yzalines and one for the Ylongotes, but shortages of clerical personnel short circuited that initiative.

         What seems clear is that highlanders lived well and productively in the hills and mountains of the Baler/Palanan region.  It is reasonable to suggest that such successful adaptation to the environment occurred elsewhere as well.  We also can see that for some, perhaps many, of the highlanders exposure to Christianity and acceptance of baptism was attractive.  Residence in and around the missions and Spanish pueblos apparently was not.  We also saw that highland settlements were not isolated enclaves, with significant movement of individuals to and from, settlements, and fields under cultivation.  Trade with the lowlands seems to have been common, suggesting that reports of constant danger and warfare from and among highlander groups were at the very least exaggerated.  Just as with lowland Filipino history, the history of the uplands is complex and difficult to fully discern and appreciate.  What is clear, again, is that Filipinos are the central actors within that history.

Violence

There are two aspects of this topic—first, violence by Spaniards against Filipinos and, second, violence by Filipinos against Spaniards.  Violence by Spaniards was systemic.  It was also sometimes inflicted on an ad hoc and individualized basis. 

Systemic Violence against Filipinos

         The systemic abuses centered on Filipinos supporting the foreigners who ruled them through labor, productions, and payments.  The foremost contemporary student of the system, Luis Alonso Álvarez, has repeatedly pointed out that the tribute system (the “tribute complex”) in fact consisted of three parts, each of which provided opportunities for graft and corrupt practice:[119] 

                     First, the tribute: paid partly in kind, it provided the Spanish food and

supplies at very low prices.  Secondly, forced labor (polos): it provided

them with labor services at low cost.  And, finally, forced purchases or

cash repartimientos (Bandalas): it completed the goods delivered in the

tribute, which the Spanish acquired with little money.

The polo, “forced but remunerated work for the colonizers … was called coatequil in Mexico and mita in Peru.”[120]  Pay for the work was mandated by ordinance but most observers agree that food and pay received were not what was ordered by the King.  This has also been described as the “obligatory personal loan” of labor” and paid or “unpaid work for the government for a set period of time.”[121]  One writer described the practice around 1800 or so, saying that “the injustice begins” with the gobernadorcillo who, needing 100 men, requests 120; “the 20 pay in money for the work they should do,” and the gobernadorcillo pays off the alcalde mayor or his agents.  “Each cabeza de barangay does the same with those who in his charge, some 45 to 50 persons, and in this way public works that each indio ought to work on once during the assigned time requires that he work on it seven or eight times.”[122]

         Bandalas, the third part of Alonso Álvarez’s “tribute complex,” was the “obligatory sale of products to the government “ with amounts due assigned to the provinces.[123]  Hidalgo Nuchera describes this practice as a “double imposition, since it both compelled purchase of products from the Spanish and assigned a price for goods sold to the Spanish at lower than the market value.”[124]  An account from 1701 describes the process and the fiddle:[125]

                     The works and preparations for the equipment [of ships] which are

made on his Majesty’s account often make necessary various repartimientos

and bandalas for the supplies of oil and rice, and other products, which the

provinces furnish; and it is the continual and well-founded complaint from

all of them that the amount paid for the said products is not according to

their just price and value, but much less, from which follow the most

serious wrongs to the poor.  Of this precedent many of the alcaldes-mayor

avail themselves for [their own] advancement, to judge by their unrighteous

profits, with lamentable injury to the poor, which is general and well known

in the provinces.

Almost sixty years later, thanks to a manuscript written by the Bishop of Nueva Cáceres, we see an additional twist to the gouge: “… obliging them to sell what they need for their children and families, sometimes in the name of the bandala, other times in the name of a sale mandated by the king.  And then in a short time, re-selling the items to the same Indios when there is a scarcity, but now at an exorbitant price.”[126]

Coercion was key: coerced sales or purchases through the bandalas or associated ploys; and with the polos, coerced sale of labor at rates lower that would exist in “a true labor market.”[127]   Payment in kind facilitated the capability for extortion by the governors since they could “impose the tribute demands in what type of items they wished, set the price of the item as they wish” while also “using with full freedom the labor of provincial families through the polos and personal services linked to the tribute payments.”[128]  Retana observes that “some governors learned how to use hundreds of free arms” for their own purposes.  “Naturally, once innoculated by the evil it spread to cabezas, gobernadorcillos, etc., resulting” in much wealth to quite a few individuals.[129]

While Filipinos in all provinces under Spanish rule were subject to unpaid labor and forced sale of goods, the severest impact tended to be greater in provinces closer to Manila and Cavite than in those farther away since forced labor to cut timber for use in constructing galleons in the shipyards at Cavite and the Spanish demand for goods was usually inflicted on Filipinos in the Manila region.[130]  Regulations from the King, the Council of the Indies, and Governors General in Manila repeatedly addressed the problem and outlined penalties for misbehavior.  The fact that the descriptions and concerns appear repeatedly in codes of conduct and royal pronouncements from the seventeenth well into the nineteenth centuries suggests that the problems and practices were endemic and pervasive.[131]  Indeed they started shortly after the Conquest, back in the sixteenth century.  For instance, a complaint to Bishop Salazar in June 1582 by the principales, or leading male citizens, of three municipalities around Manila denounced the governors for having taken goods for tribute assessed at a low prices, “severe and injust punishments ordered by these authorities, and the demand for tribute without taking into account those [on the tribute lists] who were dead or absent.”[132]  Once set, the pattterns continued even as details of the exactions and what was permitted changed over the centuries.

         Another type of violence inflicted on Filipinos by the colonizers was the common practices of whipping and slaps.  We know from a variety of evidence that slaps and whippings were common forms of correction and punishment throughout the Spanish imperial empire.  There is little material regarding slapping, there is more on the use of the lash.  This may have been because a slap would be more spontaneous and in most cases not part of a mandated punishment.  I found one example of a slap and have assumed that others occurred and were not noted in manuscripts.  This example is from a 1923 letter but the incident dates from the late nineteenth century in Baler (ca. 1879), when the priest discovered that the pueblo notables had failed to deliver sufficient building supplies for the scheduled repairs to the church.  The Franciscan gave the gobernadorcillo, who was holding the staff of office in his hand, “a slap in the face.”  Present were other pueblo officials and other people, including the Franciscan who witnessed it and the Spanish military commander of the region.  None of the Filipinos reacted nor did the gobernadorcillo complain.  The military commander, though, opined that it showed “a major disrespect towards [civil] authority” and called the gobernadorcillo in to submit a complaint to Manila.  The gobernadorcillo, however, responded that since he had erred the priest had punished me [‘Yo he faltado y por eso el padre me ha castigado’] and refused to make a complaint.  “This shows how great the respect and veneration all the pueblo of Baler, without distinction of class, had for the priests.”  Perhaps.  The priest in question was about 26 years old, the Filipino official was in his 40s.[133]

         Unlike what may have been common use of slapping, the use of the whip was perhaps less frequent but is well-documented in the manuscripts.  Apparently it was applied by missionaries throughout the Spanish colonial empire and was usual practice in other contexts as well.  For instance, in colonial California, P. Fr. Francis F. Guest notes[134]

                     that whipping played a significant role in Spanish culture in the

         eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  It was part of the domestic,

         social, and religious life of the people.  Children were whipped at home

and in the schools.  Criminals were flogged in prisons.  Servants were

beaten by their masters.  Indian house boys and ranch hands in Mexican

California were whipped by their employers much as they had been by the

padres at the missions.  Among clergy, religious, and lay people

self-flagellation was practiced by the devout for religious reasons.

Inclusion of self-flagellation in this quotation is disingenuous.  We are talking not about suffering that was voluntarily chosen for religious reasons by pious believers.  Rather, we are discussing punishments inflicted by others against the wishes of those being whipped.  In colonial contexts generally, it would have been the conquered and lower class subjects who most frequently received the azote.  Whipping or other punishments directed at upper class Filipinos also occurred, however, and in some cases seem to have prompted significant retaliation against the priests.[135] 

Franciscan priests in the Samar in the eighteenth century observed that datus, using the term for pre-Hispanic leaders, had a corps of followers who were “revered and loved.”  “Among these people it is a grave crime to arrest a datu, no matter what the crime, whether the arrest is by a capitan or not.”[136]  Priests had to be very careful whom they punished, since clearly it would be a public humiliation and shaming and fundamentally dangerous if the victim could rally supporters to avenge it.  One of the methods used was to try to pretend that the punishment came from another Filipino, probably a transparent stratagem.  In the Philippines, for whippings decreed by parish priests for infractions, Filipinos were lashed usually by a Filipino church official, not by the priest personally.[137]

… the fiscal celador is chosen by the priest from among the ranks of

honorable and well-known men in the pueblo, one who is a man of

conscience and fears God.  The job of this fiscal is to disinterestedly

and in truth to punish those indios in the pueblo who have been

denounced and admonished by the priest for their sins.

This punishment was carried out on the priest’s command and (usually) under his supervision.  Twenty-five lashes were standard but twelve may have been more common.[138]  One does not know how frequently whippings were given nor whether they habitually had as victims both those Filipinos who lived in the población and those who lived in the surrounding communities, whether females as well as males were whipped, whether there were age limits, and how frequently (if at all) principales were whipped.  We do know that whipping was a well-established punishment in the colonial Philippines, at least in theory, until perhaps the early nineteenth century.[139] 

         Franciscan limits on the number of lashes (twenty-five or less) seems to have been more moderate than the amounts imposed by civil authorities.  Here we have figures of twenty-five and one-hundred lashes casually advocated by a non-clerical, government official for Los Baños in 1696.  He begins with the settlement pattern of dispersion and how it is significantly deleterious to “proper” Christian life:[140]

                     In Los Baños [17 November 1696] … insofar as I am informed that the

naturales of this pueblo have no [or very few] … houses [in the población]

but continue to live [near their] fields, [a practice] which is gravely

prejudicial to the common spiritual and civil good.  Because of this they

miss many days of fiesta, [fail] to attend Mass and [to learn and expound]

the Doctrina Christiana.  Furthermore, those families which have children

but do not live in the [población] do not send their children to school ....

He continues to list the adverse conseqeunces of not living in the población (which I quoted earlier (p. 6), then continues by specifying the punitive consequences unless designated changes occur:

For all of these reasons I order … that the naturales of this pueblo, under

penalty of two months’ imprisonment and 100 lashes if they do not comply

—and another 100 lashes and six months suspension from office to the

gobernadorcillo if he does not implement this order—that all will build

houses in the [población] and establish streets as in the other pueblos…

and that all children … will be sent to learn the Doctrina Christiana and

go to school. 

All were subject to the penalty, no matter social rank or tax category, using both the pre-Conquest and the Spanish colonial terms for social rank:

There will be no distinction made between Chinese  or mestizos, the

principales and Maguinoos and the timagues and common folk, with

punishment for non-compliance for the first time 25 lashes in the pillory … 

Moral infractions are also proscribed and under certain circumstances even women were to receive the lash:

In addition the gobernadorcillo, subject to penalty as before, is not to permit

in this pueblo gambling, nor drunkenness, nor the sale of alcohol …  Nor is

he to permit in this pueblo illicit friendships, punishing the woman the first

time by putting her in an honorable house where she is to work for a month

for her sustenance …  [Second and third offenses lead to greater penalties,

with the third case leading to loss of hair for both [the man and the woman]],

one hundred lashes to the man and fifteen to the woman, and exile from the

pueblo for scandalous behavior.  ….

         Franciscans too could be stern in their expectations, if not as severe in their punishments, as seen in this 1703 source, which speaks to closing the church doors after parishioners have gathered for the obligatory Mass and lays out punishment for unexcused absence:[141]

         On fiesta days parishioners are required to attend Mass.  Priest must be extra

careful to close the door of the church in order to check on attendance at Mass. 

Use the Padrón [pueblo census, used for tax and church obligations]  and take

roll, noting those who are absent.  The [fiscal] celador will then verify if the

absence is due to illness, and if not the person will be brought to the priest.  If

after two such occasions with remonstrances by the priest the person fails to

attend Mass one more time, that person will be punished with a dozen azotes. 

These lashes are to be administered on the person at the door of the church or

… rectory ….  Attendance at Mass is mandatory except for those … who

alternate with others to guard their homes …  Saturdays  and Sundays the

young girls and [young men] must be in church saying their prayers and

reciting the Doctrina Christiana.  At Mass they will each in turn recite the

rosary.  Attendance will be checked according to the Padrón, and if they are

absent without good reason they will be punished, girls by the Maestra and

boys by the priest.

Also from 1703, we learn of an anonymous Franciscan who spoke from personal experience in ordering the whip applied, “only six lashes:”[142]

         There is no doubt that punishment stimulates more than talent.  It is both

         the doctor and the wise teacher when used frequently to help keep us on

         the correct road.  I gave only six lashes to an indio houseboy who had

         failed to come to Mass on festive days, and that was sufficient because

         he came every day thereafter.

In 1789 a Franciscan Provincial expressed concern over what he saw as “cruelty” in the punishment of parishioners:[143]

         The cruelty with which some punish the Naturales causes me great discomfort

and affliction.  I therefore charge you to correct your practice as regulated and

set forth in the Constitutions.  … only with moderation are priests allowed to

punish poor behavior, and be very careful in apportioning such punishment. 

Only in this way can a good priest cultivate a good harvest in the pueblo.

Undoubtedly the prevailing culture of pedagogical punishment played a role.  Other factors might have been the psychology of the priest, the colonial context, and the behavior and manner of the Filipino.  One Franciscan in 1774 was clear that he wanted less freedom for the Filipino and more punishment, but that he was not advocating punishment at any time and without cause.[144]

Filipino Violent Retaliation

Sumoroy Rebellion, northern Samar, 1649-1650

The rebellion occurred in the period of heightened tension and danger for the young colony resulting from Moro and Dutch attacks and blockades.[145]  The governor general had recently ordered that Bisayans be conscripted and sent to work in the Cavite boatyards, giving a break for the over-worked Tagalogs used heretofore.  The priests in the Visayas anticipated trouble and tried in vain to get Governor-General Diego Fajardo to rescind his order.  One center for Bisayan resentment and resistance was Palapag, the headquarters of the Jesuit northern Samar mission area and an important port in the galleon trade. 

Three Filipinos were the leaders of the resistance in Palapag.  The most important of the three was Sumoroy.  His father apparently was an important man in the pueblo, a Babaylan or priest of the pre-conquest religion.  Sumoroy himself was in charge of the fortress and its guard, was a skilled pilot and seaman, and was as a result of ancestry and skills apparently numbered among the principales.  The other two leaders, also of the upper class, were Juan Ponce and Pedro Caamug, about whom little is known except that the former was “married to a wife from a chief’s family … of Catubig” (BRPI, 38, 115).

The conspirators met frequently and drank together at Sumoroy’s house.  Sumoroy had recently been reprimanded by the Jesuit parish priest for his love affair with a woman other than his wife.  The priest had even moved the woman to another village in order to separate them.  Sumoroy decided to kill the priest.  As head of the armed guard, Sumoroy regularly reported to the priest in the evening.

On the 1st of June 1649, he killed the Jesuit priest with a lance after entering the parish house on the pretext of making that report.  The other Jesuits were not harmed.  Two days later Sumoroy and his men evicted the Jesuits and proceeded to sack, burn, and profane the church and parish house.  The rebels then fled inland to a plateau which offered easy and secure defense.  Other pueblos on the north coast of Samar joined in the rebellion, along with other and smaller outbreaks in Leyte, Albay, the Camarines, Sorsogon, Masbate, Cebu, and north and east Mindanao.  Not all Filipinos supported the rebellion.  In Palapag itself a cabeza de barangay Gabriel Hongpón, his wife, the wife of Juan Ponce, and others stayed, saved some items from the old church, and erected a temporary church.

The rebels continued to fortify their redoubt on the plateau but took time to return to Palapag once to burn the new church and kill the Jesuit priest officiating there.  The Spanish were caught by surprise and stretched thin.  Only in 1650 were troops mustered and in July 1650 a successful assault was made and the rebel base captured.  Clemency was offered to the defeated rebels and one group surrendered with Sumoroy’s head “as a token of their true obedience” (BRPI, v. 38, 127).  Juan Ponce was pardoned but later executed for subsequent crimes.  Pedro Caamug had been among the first to surrender, received a pardon, and later became the gobernadorcillo of Palapag.

Samar, late 18th century

       When the Franciscans took over in most of Samar from the Jesuits as parish priests, they faced a series of confrontations and conflicts with Samareños there.  Not every Franciscan faced conflict, but some of those who did recounted gripping incidents.  For instance,[146]  one Franciscan mentioned three incidents, once for slapping the hand of a sacristan three times as punishment “for not a few sins.”  Another time was when he gave seven lashes to someone for a misdemeanor.  The third was after sending a man to Catbalogan with eight pesos and the church register:

         He used the money to get drunk and broke the book.  He returned to Borongan

         intent upon killing me so I would not learn of his having spent the money and

         his other disgraces.  Everyone in Borongan but I knew this and his plots against

my life, but neither the capitán nor anyone acted to capture him or to take any

action against him.  I sent datus to whip him for wanting to hear Mass, and he

drew his knife to kill me.  The same men, including the capitán I had sent, told

him, “Flee, for the padre is coming after you.”  No one was ever punished for

warning him to flee.

Another Franciscan in Borongan was almost burned alive in July of 1773 when a fire burned down the parish house where he was sleeping, the church, and some houses.  Seventy Samareños were killed who were unable to escape the wind-fanned flames.  It seemed evident that the fire had been deliberately set, probably by a cabeza de barangay who had been punished the previous Sunday for mocking and disparaging the priest’s reprimands and sermons.  In addition, two days before the fire, the priest had publicly reprimanded this man for being very drunk and for using offensive language.  Moreover, the cabeza and his followers had disappeared after the fire.

Filipino Valor and Threats during the British Invasion, 1762-1764

We know of the Filipino uprisings against Spanish rule in the Ilocos and Pangasinan during the British occupation of Manila.  I wish to focus on lesser-known examples of Filipino valor and violence in defense of the Spanish colony.  For instance, during the British attack on Manila’s walls  Filipino resistance and sorties against the invading army were significant and contrasted dramatically with the unprepared, mismanaged, and ineffectual military efforts of the Spanish.  Before the walls were breached, Filipinos, particularly troops from Pampanga, suffered significant losses and finally withdrew, we are told, in disgust and anger at Spanish failures of leadership and valor.

Indeed we see this in passing from the Spaniard Simón de Anda himself, who later led the resistance to the British, who wrote in July that when he left Manila shortly before the British conquered the city, he went north to Bulacan.  Along the way he met some patrols of Filipinos who also were fleeing the city.  At first they were insolent “against the Spaniards, considering themselves free of them, but with patience and love” (and some time for reflection) they have “forgotten their first impulses.”[147]  An anonymous manuscript from 1767 reports as well that when Anda heard that Manila had fallen he “consulted with ecclesiastics and called on the [leading male] indios of the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga” to get their input as he decided on what to do and how to defend the Islands against the British.[148]

Some of this Filipino anger at Spanish pusillanimity seems to have played a role in events in Laguna, an anger that resulted in the murder of the Spanish governor.  From a report by the new Governor General of the Philippines after the end of the war between England and Spain, we learn that after the fall of Manila, the Filipinos in and around Pagsanghan “took up arms against the Spanish there and as proof of their anger took the life of the Alcalde mayor Don Felix Galán” after holding a trial in front of the leading men of that municipality.  He was found guilty, denied the right of Confession, and (as we saw) executed.  Two others were killed and a woman was wounded.  The lives of the two small children of the governor were threatened.[149]

Franciscan sources are the best record of what may have happened.  On the 29th of May 1763 the Franciscan Provincial wrote a long and frank letter to a Franciscan colleague in Spain where he mentions that many Spaniards and their families fled from Manila and took refuge in Franciscan rectories in Laguna and in Tayabas.  But the Filipinos there were “tumultuous” due to the poor defense the Spaniards had made in Manila and cried out that they hated all Spaniards and wanted “to kill them all.”  The priests worked hard in pacifying the crowds and allowed the Spaniards refuge in the rectories in order to protect them.  Thanks to their efforts “no more disgraceful acts, wounds, or deaths occurred.”  However, “because of the war, there has been an upsurge of heartlessness, iniquities, and banditry so that now one cannot go on the roads without an escort of well-armed men.”  Some of this, he said, was due to sheer wickedness, other because of hunger.[150]

More specifically, in Laguna, we have this frank account from him a day later, this time to a Franciscan in Madrid.[151]  After brief references to wounded or killed Franciscan, Augustinian, Recollect, and Dominican priests in various places around Manila, and the pillage of the Dilao [Paco] rectory by Filipinos, he briefly tells of the “riot” in Pagsanghan.  Before the fall of Manila to the British, Archbishop Rojo acting as Governor General sent Treasury funds to Laguna to prevent them from falling into the hands of the British.[152]  After the British had taken Archbishop Rojo’s surrender, they set about trying to collect the ransom set forth in the terms of capitulation.  The Archbishop, working with the British at this time, remembered the 110,000 pesos he had sent to Laguna and sent two representatives to bring it back in order to deliver it to the British.[153] 

 When emissaries from Archbishop Rojo came to reclaim the Treasury funds sent out of Manila before the city fell, Franciscans (according to an unnamed “witness”) asked Filipinos in the provinces of Laguna and Tayabas to protect the Treasury funds from being taken back to Manila but instead “to free it for the king.”[154]  Subsequently about 500 Filipinos, led by the Filipino Don Francisco de San Juan, who had served in a variety of posts in local and provincial administration, gathered around the rectory in Pagsanghan.   The envoys sent by the Archbishop were inside.  The priests approached them and explained that the Filipinos would not leave until they were assured that the funds would not go back to Manila, would not go to the British.  As they were discussing this, the Filipinos were getting louder and edging closer.  The Franciscans took a hard stand and the envoys backed down, leaving the Treasury funds.  

The Franciscan Provincial observed that “It was a miracle that there were none wounded” in the melee, and the Franciscans were able to move the money to Mahayhay safely (later it was moved to Anda’s headquarters). 

Samar, 1884-1886 Rebellions[155]

         These rebellion began with the suppression of a non-violent pilgrimage followed by armed conflict and resistance.  Rebellion seems to have been directly caused by Spanish actions against the pilgrimage.  The trouble began with the arrest in November 1883 of Samareños caught without government identification papers.  One faced an additional charge of having spread the word that “there was a new king, called Conde Leynes.”  All three were said to be in the service of an Isidro Reyes, who was arrested in January of 1884.  He was charged with promising miraculous cures in September and October of 1883, attracting large crowds, and profiting from presents of money and goods given to him.  Soon others were arrested for gathering to await a ship from a foreign country with a king to free them from the Spanish.  In March a report came in that a large concourse gathered in Dapdap had been meeting in the visita of Bonga as a devotion to Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, patroness of that visita.  They planned to move on to Tarangnan to pray to its patron saint, Saint Francis of Assisi; and then on to the barrio of Tinambacan to pray at its site to Saint Vicente Ferrer.  People were coming from all over Samar to join the pilgrimage. 

         The Spanish governor of Samar, Enrique Chacon, reacted quickly, leaving from Catbalogan for Bonga on March 5th, and ended up arresting 257 persons.  The most common story told from the interrogations of the prisoners was that  

         … the islands on which they lived were going to sink, the world was going to

end.  To evade this first cataclysm, they moved to the visita of Bonga where

each paid one-half real to register and expenses of the cult organization.  Those

that preached were Lucreo, Nicolas, Ramon, and Carlos (who some called Saint

Carlos), all from Gandara.

The prisoners, all but 22 male, were interrogated and, except for pueblo officials, released and ordered to return to their own pueblos since (according to Chacon) the jail was too small for all of them, there had been no resistance, and they were only “fanatics who had been deceived by some more disposed to exploit them.”  The other leaders, except for Lucreo, were captured separately and kept in jail in Catbalogan. 

         By the second half of March 1884 reports began to come in that Lucreo and armed men were gathering near Bonga and planned to come to Catbalogan to free their companions.  Lucreo was said to be preaching that a great city would appear at Bonga which then would become a center where ancient customs would rule and a Bisayan king would reign.  By the end of March Chacon had received reinforcements from Cebu and on April 2nd moved to confront what were now some 1,500 men drawn up on the beach in battle formation.  The governor’s force was in a number of small boats and he ordered them into a line paralleling the beach, gave two separate warnings, and proceeded to land his troops.  The clash was anticlimatic.  Machetes and clubs were no match for rifles and bayonets on an open beach.  The Filipino leaders died immediately, with the total of dead Filipinos numbering thirteen, with twenty-three wounded and nienty-five captured.  Seventy-nine machetes, lances, and knives were confiscated.  Chacon was later criticized by his direct superior for both exaggerating the threat and (somewhat contradictorily) for not acting more forcefully and sooner to take care of it.  Even the parish priests were criticized for not having known of and dissuaded the pilgrimages and false beliefs.

         For our purposes, it is significant that Filipinos had developed passionate beliefs within and beside the official religious orthodoxy, organized and traveled to sites to show devotion, and mobilized for violent defense against imperial forces when their beliefs, leaders, and movement were threatened by the Spanish.  Samareños were persistent in their beliefs even after the rout on the beach, with active recruiting and preaching reported in Borongan in September 1884, and with attacks twice against Borongan in November.  Spanish response was active, with arrests and conflicts encountered in November 1884 near Pinabacdao, in October 1885 near Lanang and another near Calbayog, and more at the end of year near las Navas and others near San Sebastian.  Near Guiuan in January 1886, more “insurrectionists called Dios Dios” were arrested, and in October 1886 more were arrested near Sulat, with the movement either dying out or disappearing from Spanish view thereafter until their reappearance as pulahanes in the 1890s.[156]

         Filipinos were not just passive victims and colonial subjects.  At times they responded with ideological and armed resistance to foreign attempts to rule them.  One of the more persistent threats and extended series of conflicts was with the Malay marauders from the independent, southern portions of the archipelago, the Moros.

Moros

Moro raids had a severe impact in the eighteenth century on Samar’s pueblos, with even the province’s capital Catbalogan at risk.  Paranas was devasted for two years in a row.[157]  Indeed, raids by Moros from the Sulu Archipelago, Cotabato, and Lanao are a major theme

in Philippine history from the 16th to well into the 19th century.  Jim Warren has been the key historian to explain and describe the reasons, patterns, and effects in Sulu and western Mindanao of these raids.[158]  Others have described and discussed the impact these raids had on communities under Spanish rule elsewhere in the Philippine archipelago.[159]  Lowland areas accesssible by water throughout the areas claimed by Spain felt the weight of the raids, particularly in areas away from Manila, “which were always being prostrated” by them, as a 1771 Franciscan noted.[160]  Sometimes pueblos and settlements were repeatedly visited, as happened in a town in what is today Quezon Province—“In 1755 and 1756, the Moros destroyed the town of Guinayangan.  Its inhabitants were resettled by the colonial authorities to the village of Cabibihan.  In November 1767, the Moros attacked and destroyed Cabibihan, dispersing once more the hapless Cabibihan … inhabitants.”[161]

Filipinos from Spanish-ruled areas were commonly kidnapped by Moros, but there are cases as well of priests being taken and ransomed, as happened on Samar with an Augustinian in 1771 or 1772; and a Franciscan in 1773 (Samar: 1768-1898, 239).  A more general observation with a direct, economic linkage, comes from 1771:[162]

         … regarding the unhappy state of the provinces of Tayabas, Camarines, Leyte,

Samar, Calamianes, Zebu, Bohol, and all the others known by the name Bisayas,

which is where the Moros, never more than now, are in place and have converted

pueblo populations into those with weapons in their hands but unable to cultivate

their fields, not able to engage in commerce, which are the two arenas where they

formerly pursued their livelihood; others … are carried off to Mindanao and Jolo

as captives ….

Other effects of these Moro raids should be stressed: a climate of fear and uncertainty, movement to less accessible locations, loss of loved ones specifically and population loss more generally, destruction to houses, loss of crops and animals, coconut palms and other trees cut down, damage to fish traps and boats, food insufficiency, commercial stasis and stagnation.  These are self-evident and only alluded to in the Franciscan manuscripts—e.g, “others live in the mountains, for by this stratagem they are safe from the Moros, a security they cannot achieve in the pueblos due to the continuous invasions.”[163]

         Filipinos also were active in resisting Moro attacks, with notable successes when their poblaciones were attacked.  For instance, when Samareños were attacked at Catbalogan (1754), Buad (1756), Catbalogan again (1757), Calbayog (early 1770s), Paranas (four separate attacks, 1773) there was successful resistance and the Moro forces were repulsed.  In 1855, a flotilla (armadilla) from Samar fought against Moro boats in September with success.  One of the Samareños in the flotilla who had fought bravely then and previously in April of 1854 was signaled out for recognition.  Indeed we have reports from 1803 and 1814 of Samareños organizing boats and armaments to confront and attack Moro raiders[164]

         It is convenient to view the raiders as foreign attackers, as non-Filipinos.  Most Moros certainly were not “Filipinos” in the sense I have used the term—“Asians born in the areas under real or claimed Spanish rule.”  It is a rough and ready way to distinguish those born in areas under Spanish administrative claim and some degree of control.  Moros from their own potentates in the southern regions of the archipelago were clearly not under Spanish dominion.  Some Moros, though, were Filipinos in the sense I use, most commonly those who were born in the Spanish colony.  Most of these would be those subsequently captured by Moro raiders, carried off to Moro polities, and subsequently joining Moro raids as slaves or paddlers, warriors or guides, for future attacks on their home regions.  Some “Moros” were actually raiders based in Spanish-claimed waters and islands and made raids on local communities in the vicinity.  One 1823 source says that Moros had established a base in Burias and lived there year around.[165]  Warren saw the same phenomenon in his research,[166] writing of “convenient staging points set up within the target areas or at crossroads along their routes,” with expeditions after the 1790s lasting longer than a single season and even extending to several years.  He also spoke of the “satellite communities on Mindoro, Burias, and Masbate” (Warren, 166), with Mamburao on Mindoro specifically noted until its destruction by the Spanish in 1770 (Warren, 168).  A page later he notes that “A ring of satellite stations stretched out around the provinces of Tayabas, Camarines, and Albay” from 1768-1800 (Warren, 169).

         Some Filipinos might have used fear of Moros as a ploy to steal from other Filipinos, as a Spaniard asserted in 1833, speaking of a “fraud” perpetuated on fishermen:   “Those that commit this fraud also in different areas sound the alarm of Moros, and extort items from the fishermen or … go out as fishermen … raise the sails as the Moros do until the [real] fishermen beach the boat and run into the woods, leaving the haul they have harvested with their effort in the hands of the pursuers ….”[167] 

One may thus conclude that Filipinos were active as victims, resisters, and in some cases raiders.

Filipinos and the Church, Ideally

         Filipino devotion and protection of their patron saints is legendary, showing their incorporation of faith and devotion as part of their social and individual beings.  Most observers noted then and now that Filipinos generally felt and feel passionately about their pueblo patron saints and are as well as devoted to the titular saints and venerated images linked to their local church.  One way to manifest this passion was the village fiesta devoted to celebrating the pueblo’s patron saint.  The expenses of such a fiesta were (relatively speaking) large, the popular participation tended to be passionate, and the draw and prestige of the celebration were of great importance.  “The annual fiesta of the pueblo’s patron saint was a non-working day in that pueblo, even if it fell on a weekday.  …  And the whole populace of the pueblo shared the same festive liberality by welcoming to their own homes the many visitors from the neighboring pueblos who came to honor and pray to the pueblo’s patron saint.”[168]

         Major attention was given to decorations of the church and patio.  This was organized and directed by the church fiscal.  In some pueblos decorated streets and houses were also part of the expected backdrop to the procession(s) and the general festivities.  “To the Filipino Indios, the feast of the Santo Patrón was the liturgical and popular fiesta par excellence” (Balquiedra, 368).  It included two theatrical presentations as well, comedia de santos, “one for the eve of the fiesta and another on the feast-day itself,” with major parts reserved for the principales.[169]  Filipinos paid for and collected the funds to support these fiestas (Balquiedra, 375-376):

The fiesta itself was officially blessed through the Mass, usually early in the afternoon before the actual day of the patron saint’s day, at first Vespers, before the major celebrations began.  The ceremonies during and after the Mass incorporated major Filipino and community participation.  For instance, the “afternoon singing of the First Vespers” by “not only the cantores reservados and boys of the Escuela” but also the general community present at the Mass (Balquiedra, 384), which underlines the importance of the fiesta as well as the participation from the populace.  Before the Mass at First Vespers came a special mode of tolling the bells to summon the faithful, “which served as the diana or reveille and was prolonged by the playing of brass bands, which existed in every pueblo, marching through the streets of the pueblo.  Then came a procession into the church organized strictly by rank (with Filipinos at the head—the Fiscal mayor, the gobernadorcillo, and two other principales), followed by twelve young dancing girls (las dalaguillas) from the community, and so forth (Balquiedra, 387-388).[170]  After the Mass came the recessional, in reverse order, still with regulated ranks of precedence, solemnity, and significance.

         There are as well other patron saints in a pueblo.  While not the official patron saint, they also evoked similar patterns of activity, passion and devotion.  “It was not uncommon that a pueblo celebrated two or more fiestas de patronos … one fiesta of the Titular and other fiestas of non-titular patron saints” (Balquiedra, 426).  These usually did not involve quite the detail and expense, since these were not subsidized through compulsory contributions, presumably based entirely on voluntary donations.  The fiesta associated with the pueblo’s patron saint was the major popular celebration in the Spanish pueblos.  Attention to personal dress, presentations of fireworks, and cockfights would occur as well.  Major fiestas would attract visitors from other pueblos, sometimes coming as a regular expression of piety.  Fiestas continue today to be the most visible manifestation of Filipino spirituality and good cheer.[171]

There was a range of activities around the población and the pueblo church associated with these festive occasions.  There was manifold participation by a spectrum of Filipinos, from church officials (fiscal mayor or celador; Mayordomo de la iglesia, Sacristan mayor, fiscales menores or fiscalillos, cantor, organist), boys and girls as singers and dancers, pueblo officials and leading citizens (the gobernadorcillo, Mayordomo de comunidad, and principales), and other Filipino adult women and men. 

         Of course not every day was a fiesta but here too events and participation were organized, scheduled, and expected.  The weekly schedule of the pueblo centered on Sunday and Mass at the church in the población.  With the Sunday Mass came mandated ceremonies and spiritual guidance.  The pattern of the major Sunday Mass (there was an earlier one as well, for those with obligations to tend the sick or children or protect the pueblo from fires and robbers) began with the bells, summoning the parishioners to the church about 9 a.m. (“in some pueblos, much later, to give people time to come from distant visitas” (Balquiedra, 219):[172]  The rest of the day was marked with lunch, Vespers at 2 p.m. (again with the Filipino boys and the cantors), and on some Sundays confessions heard until dusk.  On Sundays when there were no confessions (Balquiedra, 220-221) “at around five o’clock the campana mayor would again strike twice to give signal for the recitation of the Completas  (“The Compline, the last Canonical Hour of the Breviary” (Balquiedra, 483)) which was immediately followed by another installment of mental prayer.  And so we come to the end of the day, marked by the Angelus and other routines (Balquiedra, 220-221).

         Such was the pattern for Sundays, with of course more detail and ritual on more special Sundays and less on the more routine holy days.[173]  It is an inspiring picture and particularly important as it details the roles and importance of Filipino parishioners, singers, and Filipino church officials.  Without Filipinos we would have merely a building and a priest, unless he too were Filipino (few Franciscans were[174]).  Within the Church hierarchy, after the priest the importance and authority of the fiscal was supreme, followed by the sacristans, the maestro cantor and boy singers and acolytes, and so forth.  The fiscals, as we saw earlier, were responsible for the decorum of the audience who were to witness what was believed to be the divine miracle through the Mass.

The sacristans, attended by boys from the school as their assistants, “rendered the common services of acolytes” before, during, and after the Mass (Balquiedra, 202).  There was also the Filipino Mayordomo de la Iglesia, chosen by the priest, who was charged with “keeping and recording all the alms—either in money or in kind—that the people donated for the upkeep of the church,” to maintain and protect the ritual ornaments and vestments of the church, to inspect and see to the repairs of the building and its altars, shrines, paintings, etc., as well as to provide the supplies of candles and other necessities for the Mass and the faithful (Balquiedra, 203).  This must have been a position of remarkable importance and trust.

         Filipinos were active in ceremonies celebrating their faith, their church, and their pueblo.  The picture sketched seems so far to be reliable, but it is an ideal projection of a pueblo population gleefully and actively participating in church-sanctioned events as the center of their preoccupations and actions.  Filipinos also celebrated in ways the priests and church rules decried.

Gambling, Drinking, Sacraments, Superstitions

Gambling, Drinking

Priests had concerns with some Filipino practices, most notably drinking and gambling.  Representatives of the Roman Catholic church were unable to eradicate what they viewed as vices and occasions for sin.  In Samar, the Jesuit Father Ignacio de Alcina observed that rancor and alcohol made a dangerous combination:[175]

         … the padres should never use disrespectful language or even speak to an

         Indio who is drunk, or worse still with one who is only half drunk, if they

         wish to avoid dangerous, violent and irreverent attacks upon their persons …

         When the Indio is drunk he is inclined to commit any disrespectful act

whatever and to lose his sense of reverence very easily.  This he would

ordinarily not dare to do if he were in his right mind …  For sometimes an

Indio gets himself drunk so that with greater courage and less fear he can do

something he would not know how or dare to do if he had all his faculties.

Censorious judgments against drinking and gambling are found regularly in Franciscan reports.  Here are characteristic examples, taken from a Franciscan writing from Polo in May 1731, criticizing habitual or excessive card playing:[176]

… every day there are quarrels and robberies—nothing is safe in the

         houses –and every day that there are card players there are fights.  Not only

         is there dissension among the gamblers, it is a rare day that their wives don’t

         come to me to request that I sever them from their husbands … since the

         husbands do not just gamble they also wager the household’s clothing, gold,

         jewelry, and even their bodies.  This last week there came to me a woman,

         crying, hungry and with a babe at her breast, asking for separation from her

         husband.  He not only gambles every morning and afternoon …, but comes

         home angry from the game and beats her for not having food on the table.  …

         Another woman came to me crying and asked that I support her against her

         father who had gambled at cards and lost in a game with Manila men in the

         barrio of Passolo.  The father had lost two water buffalo, his land, rice, more

         than fifty pesos, and everything else that they had in the house.  The wife and

         children had nothing to eat.

The priest went on to mention that he had received word that there was heavy drinking and partying going on with the card games in some of the more remote parts of the pueblo. 

Notwithstanding clerical concerns, gambling and drinking seem to have continued.  One Franciscan writing in 1774 said that he knew of cases where pueblo officials had set up gambling dens in houses in the población itself, in one case even in the government house.  Of course all was done by keeping the sites and activity hidden from the priest. [177]

         Regarding Catanvan, in present-day Quezon Province, P. Fr. Bartolomé Galan remarked around 1823 (196) that “I have seen this pueblo various times and always with grief,” since its lands only produce enough rice to feed them for four months of the year even though the potential is good for better productivity.  They have a lot of carabao but their major commercial activity is to sell resin or pitch to boats from Capis, Iloilo, and Antiqui for the rice they need.  They also use resin to pay their tribute.  “Some years past the priest there helped to send boats to Burias to collect balate but the second year they went the Moros put an end to the effort (196).”  The fundamental cause of “the decadence of this pueblo” was due to the addiction of its men, women, and children to card playing, which they carry out night and day (196-197), hamstringing the promise of its products and commerce.[178]

Sacraments

Family and so-called morality issues make up an area of remarkable Filipino divergence from the norms brought by Spanish missionary priests.  Some couples formalized their unions in the church, though Norman Owen has found that proportions of women who never married (officially at least) could be significant:[179]

         Marriage in the Philippine generally seems to have been later than it was

         elsewhere in historical Southeast Asia, with ages at first marriage averaging

         just over 20 for brides and two to four years older for grooms.  A significant

         proportion of women—5 to 10 percent in Nagcarlan, 15 to 25 percent in

         Tigaon—apparently never married at all, which suggests a society in which

         formal marriage, though normative, was not socially mandatory.

However, if there were a formal marriage, one source suggests that the parents of the young women arranged the marriages and would even resort to force to have their wishes obeyed by their daughters:[180]

         Regarding the sacrament of marriage, there are among los naturales many

practices that need to be remedied, changes that only a strong hand can effect. 

Parents are accustomed to arrange marriages without the daughter knowing

beforehand, from which stem not unimportant difficulties.  Parents sometimes

have to use cruel punishments to force their daughters to accept the arranged

marriage, and this sometimes brings with it a wretched life, especially if they

had not consented voluntarily to their parents’ choice or if they had been in

love with another.  …

         This observation is echoed in a late eighteenth-century source that adds an observation about how thwarted love might find a way, no matter that it goes against the morality of the Church:[181]

         … Many of the women were married against their will, forced by their

         parents.  Many times, perhaps most of the time, the parents give their

         okay to a marriage without consulting at all with their daughters to see

         if they are in favor of the groom.  In other cases, the daughters have been

         in secret contact with one while their parents are arranging for a different

         groom.  The parents receive presents and labor in the home or in the field

         from the man they have chosen and the daughter … through fear of her

         parents does not dare to contradict their choice.  …  [Some of these], after

         the wedding, at the cost of great offense given to God, end up staying

         with the man they loved.

Notwithstanding clerical concerns, the practices that diverged from Roman Catholic norms seem to have continued.

         Franciscan sources also mention the seemingly common practice of “groom service,” where the prospective groom had to spend some time and labor in the household and fields of his beloved’s family.  The priests were against this because of the opportunity for pre-marital sexual intercourse by the engaged couple.  The late eighteenth-century source by P. Fr. Francisco Antonio Maceyra that we have used before describes the practice and the moral dangers he and other priests anticipated:[182]

                     They are accustomed in many parts of the island for the young men

         to serve as a servant in the house of the [betrothed], going in and out with

         her, going to the fields with her … from which come not a few offenses

         against God.  If in time the young man displeases his future in-laws, they can

         easily dismiss him without paying him a thing for all of the work, leaving

         the door open then for a new candidate, with the same risks brought as

         with the predecessor.

Priestly opposition notwithstanding, the practice seems to have been widespread and Filipinos continued to successfully resist persistent ecclesiastical efforts to eradicate it. 

Many Filipinos appeared not to follow the teachings, expectations, and strictures of the imperial priests regarding religious beliefs and practices.  For the sacraments in general, one Franciscan reported in 1785 that Filipino non-compliance was widespread.[183]  The sacrament of baptism was fairly well observed, depending on terrain, weather, health, energy of the priest, and commitment of the baby’s family.  Presumably those families with newborns in the población were more readily able to have their newborns baptized than those born in outlying settlements.  This Franciscan states that “seven or eight days after birth the baby is carried … to the Church where, by means of Holy Baptism the child enters into the society of the Holy Church, becomes a child of God and an heir to His glory” (ff. 37-38).  However, he himself noted that he had baptized children of two or three months of age (ff. 90-91), apparently in a pueblo without a resident priest.  A study of parish records in Nagcarlan reports that the

mean number of days between [birth and baptism] ranged from three to five for

all the records examined.  For those years [sampled], five to 33 percent of the

infants of Nagcarlan [were] baptized within the first two days of birth, and between

67 and 90 percent [were] baptized within the first week of birth.  The trend was

towards a shorter lapse between birth and baptism as the century wore on.[184]

         Sacraments other than baptism tended to be performed with less compliance to Church prescriptions.  The same 1785 writer, P. Fr. Francisco José Pérez Cobos o de la Encarnación, mentions the widespread tendency in the Islands to go to Confession only once a year.  He saw this practice as in effect undercutting the ability of the priest to influence parishioners against social behavior such as “adultery, incest, and sacrileges” (ff. 59-60).  Even those who went to Confession once a year were not always forthcoming in the confessional (ff. 61-63):

                     It is certain  that the sins of the Yndio are common knowledge to the

         Yndio while hidden from the magistrates who can punish them.  It is true

         that the Yndio does not hide the commission of his fault from [another] Yndio,

         but he hides it from the parish priest who can correct him.  It would be too

         much to hope that the officials of justice, not even the zelador of the pueblo,

would report him, since they are all of the same sort and belong to a strict

brotherhood [promising to] cover things up among themselves.  It is because

of this that many bad things done by Yndios are hidden.  I do not deny that the

Yndio makes confession, though many do not, at least annually.  Nonetheless

it is very certain that what is confessed is as much as the Yndio wishes and

things not asked about are not mentioned, which usually means all the disorders

of the Yndio’s past.  They confess to the small and the great disobediences, to

the reprimands and words of the devil … but they omit to mention adultery,

incest, obscenities, and rash acts … the sins of the flesh, the harmful and vain

observances, superstitions, and usury.  These they do not regard as great sins

but rather as custom of the land from olden times, known to all and practiced

by most.

This statement and statements in other reports mention complicity of Filipinos in concealing those subject to recrimination or punishment by the priest.  The point of course is that in these cases Filipino allegiances were more significant in the community than the priest’s authority and prestige.  Notwithstanding clerical concerns, the practices that diverged from Roman Catholic norms continued, apparently not just with the connivance of Filipino pueblo officials but also with Filipino church personnel (e.g., the zelador as mentioned in the statement above). 

The statement that “These they do not regard as great sins but rather as custom of the land from olden times” suggests that the rules and expectations of the Church did not penetrate and encompass all aspects of Island life.  Norman Owen has observed from his careful work in Tigaon that “the hold of the Church was much less strong in nineteenth-century Tigaon than our usual impression of Philippine society under Spanish rule would suggest.  … the Church did not dominate even those aspects of the public life of Tigaon it most assiduously recorded … apparently [the nparishioners of Tigaon] did not feel constrained to abide consistently by all the rules of the Church, even with regard to the sacraments.”[185]  While he continues by observing that “in Nagcarlan … the influence and administrative hold of the Church appear, on the evidence of parish records, to have been much stronger”, he concludes that “we may well suspect that Tigaon is more typical of the Philippines as a whole than Nagcarlan is.”  While his work is focused on the nineteenth century, we can with some confidence project the findings back in time where they coincide with the manuscript comments I have cited for eighteenth-century areas served by Franciscans.  One should add the caveats, of course--popular fervor might change from time to time; priests differed in health and the physical ability to trek throughout the municipality; and population and settlement density might have changed--but overall we can be confident that Filipinos made decisions that did not always coincide with the expectations and strictures expressed by the Spanish imperial church and state.

Even within the central portion of the pueblo, the población, Filipinos may have had more autonomy and control over their own priorities than the classic view suggests.  One provocative set of 1842 figures, drawn I assume from both Franciscan and Secular (diocesan) parishes, apparently tried to measure Filipino performance of their annual confession against the number obligated to do so.[186]  According to these figures, in the parishes of the Camarines, Albay, and Tayabas, out of a population of 364,820 confirmed young people and adults, 96,282 or 26.4%, did not take communion.  We see here that about one out of every four individuals obligated by age and faith failed to make their annual confession, an obligation  imposed by both king and their god, by both majesties.  About twenty percent of those not taking communion apparently tried to do so but were disqualified due to ignorance of essential components of the Doctrina Christiana (19,927 out of 96,282), about five percent of the total population.  The others were ill or absent or …, a remakable commentary on the inefficacy of priestly (both Franciscan and Secular) admonitions and alleged control. 

         This same source suggests that Church attempts to have parents marry each other before giving birth to their child were slightly more successful, at least for the 84% of those parents who had their child or children baptized.  An overall average of 16.1% of children whose parents were known to the priest but remained unwed seems remarkable.  One may conclude that if the priests were so powerful and knowledgeable, how could parents have been in his ken and under his shadow but remained unmarried?  Close attention to marriage and baptismal registers might indicate how many babies were born before nine months had elapsed since the wedding, suggesting whether priests’ pronouncements against pre-marital sexual activity were effective.

         Filipinos made choices, as we have seen.  The remarkable range of their decisions and actions is particularly evident in descriptions regarding attendance at Mass.  How common was it that Filipinos regularly skipped Mass in spite of Franciscan efforts to compel or encourage it?  Here is a condensed summary from the Camarines and Albay in the early 1780s, showing a mixed pattern of Filipino choices:[187]

Bombon, whose population living in a visita a quarter of an hour from the población “hear Mass,

         confess, and comply with their Christian obligations” along with those in the población.

Buhi, which has a visita five hours away from the población.  “Its residents … scarcely hear

Mass at all through the year, but they do confess and take communion once a year.”  Another visita, about three hours away by water, has residents who regular attend Mass and fulfill their other obligations.

Bula, has a visita one hour away by oar or three-fourths of an hour by land, whose residents

         “comply with their Christian obligations to hear Mass and confess as expected.”

Calabagnan—the Filipinos here “live as they want and do not comply with their obligations”

         One visita, 4.5 hours away, is described as having residents who are “contentious and

         evil,” with a tendency to flee to Mount Isarog.

Camalig—three visitas named, two of which (only a few hours walk from the población) have

         residents who “seldom hear Mass” but do comply with their annual obligations to the

         church

Camaligan—all residents comply “with all their Christian obligations promptly”

Canaman—“In the sitios and visita there are many hidden places with Bagamundos[†††] who are

         little devoted regarding Mass attendance, they confess and take communion at Easter, and

only learn the Doctrina Cristiana by whipping [y la Doctrina Christiana sin azotes no se aprendez]

Casiguran has two visitas mentioned.  The one only a quarter of an hour away from the

         población has a mixed response to fulfillment of obligations—others one has to look for

         “several times” in order to get them to comply.  The other visita, considerably farther

         away, has a population that mainly does not hear Mass

Guinobatan, with four visitas from an half hour to 2.5 hours away were quite good in attending

         Mass and attending to their obligations, albeit with some qualifications noted to the praise

Ligmanan, with two visitas mentioned, one of which (the other had no commentary)  had

         residents who “complied with their Christian obligations and paid their tribute to the king

         [pues cumplen con las obligaciones de Christianos tributan al Rey]

Libon, with two visitas mentioned, one two hours away by land and the other three hours away

         by water.  The first has residents who “never come to Mass, nor hear the word of god,

         have forgotten all their Christian obligations and most are ignorant of the Doctrina

         Cristiana, and there is no unmarried woman without two or more children [jamas vienen

         a misa, ni oyen la Palabra de Dios, estan olvidados de todas las obligaciones Cristianas

         a mas de ignorer la doctrina … y no haber soltera que no tenga dos, o mas hijos].  The

         other visita’s residents, “while they usually come to Mass live with equal liberty” and

         have as well the same situation regarding unmarried mothers.

Ligao, with about 1200 families only has about 800 adults who come to Mass, “it’s a shame.”

         One visita, less than a mile away, has 80 households but only 38 actually live in the

         visita, living instead scattered in the hills “as if they were animals.”  About 25 usually

         come to Mass, only ten or less of the children attend school (and only through pressure

         from the priest).  Wickedness is common here.  Another visita has residents who “never

         hear Mass, nor make their Confession, nor pay tribute.”  Another visita with 80 tributes,

         but only 24 of whom actually live in the visita, is notable for its wicked folk that neither

         “make their Confession nor comply with any precept of the Church.”  Yet another visita,

         half a day from the población, is made up of 40 families, only half of whom live in the

         visita, and the priest seldom visits them.

Milaor, three visitas and two sitios, whose populations is very dispersed but with good

         attendance at Mass and fiestas

Minalabag, two visitas, one of which (one hour away) has residents who seldom hear Mass and

         are characterized as dissolute and depraved folks [Sus havitantes oyen Missa mui pocos

         … Libertinaje, y Vicios …].   Very few of the other visita’s residents, 3.5 hours away by

         water, hear Mass.

Oas, with four visitas, has folks living away from the población, whose attendance at Mass and

         fulfillment of Christian obligations is mixed (average to poor).  One visita, two hours

         away, is notable for its wickedness and drunkenness, and one visita is particularly notable

         for its dispersed population.

Polangui, with five visitas.  One visita, 4 hours from the población, is notable for having few

         from there who attend Mass or whose children come to school.

Quipayo has residents who are notable for hearing Mass only once a year, even less taking

 annual Confession or communion.  “As far as I can tell, they live more by the law that

they want than by any other” [Y en mi Corto Juisio viven mas en la Ley que quieren, que

otra cosa].

Seventeen pueblos are listed here—I only noted the ones which gave some data regarding church participation.  Six had good adherence to church expectations, two were okay or mixed, and nine pueblos had visita populations who were seen as poorly attending to expectations and behaviors.  There was some correlation between distance and irregular attendance to church obligations in the población, but that was not always the case.  Certainly the closer you were to the church the easier it would be to attend for Mass and other obligations regardless of weather, but disinclination to do so seemed to have been more important:

·         “the Yndios live as they please and do not comply with their obligations” (Calabagnan),

·         “some neither attend Mass, nor make their Confession, nor pay the tribute” (Ligao),

·         “they want to hide in some of the rancherias and live as they wish” (Oas)

·         “the people are little inclined to hear Mass, to confess and take communion at Lent.  Without the scourge they would not learn the Christian doctrine” (Canaman)

·         “As far as I can tell, they live more by the law that they want than by any other” (Quipayo)

Superstition and Alternative Creeds

         Non-compliance with Chruch sacraments might be as simple as illness, weather, and distance from the church.  Ideological reasons need also to be considered.  Full-fledged alternative and Filipinized forms of Christianity show themselves again and again.  For instance, in the island of Biliran in the late eighteenth century there developed under the leadership of Don Gaspar de Guerrero, a Secular priest born in Paranas, a creed which “promised and proposed liberty of conscience, no tribute, and no obedience to Spanish superiors … teaching that no sacrament administered by us or our predeessors was [valid] … ordaining some Indios who were unable to read, and appointing governors…”[188]  He was captured and killed by the Moros sometime before 1775.[189]

         Dapdap was famous as a site in the nineteenth century for pilgrimages, as we saw earlier, with particular devotion to Saint Francis and with visitors from Samar as well as from Leyte.[190]  The origins of this form of devotion, or at least its deepening, may be linked to a cholera epidemic on Samar from July 1821 to March 30th, 1823.  Dapdap was described as the only pueblo “spared by the epidemic, without doubt through the mediation of Saint Francis, whose image … is venerated in that pueblo [and] has manifested many miracles.”[191]  When the venerated image was moved from Dapdap to the población at Tarangnan in 1883, there was significant resistance.[192]  We have also seen the amalgamated beliefs hinted at in the reports regarding the Dios Dios movement on Samar in the 1880s. 

         Filipino creativity in combining Christianity with indigenous beliefs and charismatic leaders is abundantly cited in the literature, from Apolinario de la Cruz well into the twentieth century.[193]  Often we find suggestive hints of other movements, such as this one from the 1830s.  When the Spanish Capitán D. José María Peñaranda’s attempted in the early 1830s to make contact with and suppress bandit gangs in the Mount Banahaw area of southeastern Laguna, he also investigated the areas around the mountain that he described in 1831 as “the object of superstition by the indios who go there on pilgrimage and it appears they have been converted … to the cult [and religious practices devoted to] their idols in that same mountain.”[194]  In May 1833, he found the following site, one clearly in use as a religious pilgrimage center:[195] 

         On the 25th [of May] in the morning they broke camp and by noon had arrived

at the “ravine that runs from San Cristoval to Mahayhay, where all we found

were tracks of carabao and horses that had been stolen in Batangas being taken

for sale in Laguna or (going in the other direction) taking contraband of wine

and tobacco.  After forty minutes they arrived at the sitio of Mambuhan.  The

first thing that caught my attention was the ridge about one hundred brazas long

and twelve in width, perfectly leveled and clean except for tall and leafy trees

surrounding it as a protection from the sun.  There were benches made out of

tree trunks, three crosses at one of the extremes and toward the other end an

enormous balete [tree]” with a small hut “big enough for three or four persons

and signs that it had been inhabited at some times.”  Towards the south was a

river in a ravine with steep walls.  They found on the walls drops of wax and

shells that might have been used for candles. 

The site had obviously been prepared with a significant amount of labor, was maintained (“perfectly leveled and clean”), and showed use with candles, either for general illumination or for religious purposes and illumination.  Peñaranda continued:

         This appeared to the site called the Puerta de Jerusalem and the Jordan River

where [believers] went to purify themselves.  Higher up was a great rock with

a cave inside called San Isidro, again with traces of candles.  … It is quite

difficult to verify or, better said, impossible [to establish] the origins of this

superstitious devotion that attracts so many people from the immediate

provinces, even from the capital, especially during the Easter season when

hundreds gather.  …  Two of those with me had been on a pilgrimage here

and from one I was able to learn that they came with some friends and were

obligated to pray and afterwards bathe at different hours of the day and night

… and when they asked to whom they should pray since there was no image,

they were commanded to be quiet.  In fact I believe that no one knows what is

the object of this cult.  It is carried from one to another, passed from parents to

children, and the custom is to hold some sites sacred ….

The site would appear to have been used by a popular form of Christianity.  His informants apparently gave him the names of the river and the cult center.  It appears to have been a site that attracted many people from a wide area.  Many even came from Manila, with popular participation particularly marked during the Easter season.  It is of course nonsense to say “that no one knows what is the object of this cult.”  What is clear is that Spaniards were not privy to the knowledge and that for many Filipinos the devotions practiced there superseded in importance the religious practices mandated by formal Christianity in the pueblos during the Easter season.

Aside from devotional pilgrimages and popular movements based on new expressions of popular Christianity, Filipinos persisted and adapted specific customs and beliefs as well.  The practice of Communion was neglected, usually only done according to this 1785 source on required days (f. 65).[196]  The last rites, perhaps because of distance from the church, were also inconsistently given—though, paradoxically, they were asked for frequently unnecessarily (f. 40), presumably because the priest judged that the patient was not yet severely ill or near death. 

Another source suggests that customs after death also departed from strictly orthodox Spanish Catholic practice:[197]

         As part of the customs associated with burials, these naturales gather in the

         house of the deceased to pray the rosary for relief.  While the work itself is

         good, it is one that has bad consequences, not only in impoverishing the

         surviving spouse … who has to feed them all … but also because both sexes

         and of all ages are together at night but [not in the practice] of our holy faith. 

         The Indios have adopted the Chinese view that the soul of the deceased

         comes on the third day after death to visit the family members …  For this

reason it is convenient to order … that if they wish to continue such a pious

act of prayer [for the deceased] that they do it in the church after Mass.

         There were other beliefs and practices that Filipinos practiced that diverged from Roman Catholic orthodoxy.  For instance, Filipinos are reported to have had strong beliefs in the Tigbalang, the Tamboli, the Osvang [aswang], the Patianac, the Sava, the Naanayo, the Tavac, Mutya, amulets, and the Nono.[198]  While actual worship of anitos or idols seems to have been snuffed out in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,[199] we do have some references circa 1700 to various non-Christian practices and vigorous but perhaps unsuccessful Franciscan responses to them:

         And since some of the naturales performed maganittos[‡‡‡] or superstitious rites,

         they were rigorously punished, in public, both as a punishment and as an

         example to others.[200]

         Not only do I[201] not know of any priest who permits superstitions or maganitos

         among the Indios in these two provinces [Albay and Camarines], but in Albay

         P. Fr. Domingo de San Lorenzo had a body in Malinao disinterred when he

         learned that it had been buried with … some superstitious [artifacts].  … 

         In [Camalig] in the Camarines, P. Fr. Alonzo de Zafra, former Provincial,

Punished the Maestra of the girls in the pueblo and her assistants for [complicity

in the practice of some] superstitious rite.[202]

         The priests have been particularly careful that the Yndios do not make

         Maganitos or other superstitious things … and if [the priests] learn that

         they have, the Yndios have been punished publicly.[203]

We know that such practices continued well into the twentieth century.[204]  There are contemporary practices that are very much within the larger Catholic tradition of local shrines, special amulets and prayers, local healers, and so forth, just the sort of thing one finds in other areas of the Roman Catholic world.[205]  The overwhelming impression these reports give us is that Filipinos who probably considered themselves good Christians had integrated beliefs and practices into a functioning whole that from their perspective did not seem to contain inconsistencies or conflict.  While Franciscans seem to have regularly decried certain practices, particularly when combined with neglect of the core sacraments and practices of the orthodoxy, the practices generally were perpetuated through time and space to become in some form part and parcel of Philippine religion, then and now.[206] 

         Filipinos seem to have been active in making their own synthesis of Christianity and other beliefs.  We have seen as well that they were active in other arenas as well, pursuing their own interests and activities.  Not infrequently such choices involved opposition to strictures from the priest—live in the población, no bride service, obey and religiously adhere to the sacraments of the Church, discard non-Christian religious beliefs, register, reside, and pay tribute in one pueblo, obey priest and Spanish government officials more than local Filipino leaders, and so forth.  The patterns diverging from Spanish strictures that I have tracked are not simply individual and idiosyncratic.  They seem to have been widespread among many ostensibly colonized Filipinos.  They show arenas of Filipino freedom from mandated colonial expectations.  They show discretionary obedience.

Case Study from the Highlands near Baler, ca. 1720

Now let’s look at a case from the highlands.  The well known Franciscan P. Fr. Vicente Inglés in his informative 1720 report on the Baler coastal and inland missions[207] introduces us to a case study that initially seems humorous but fundamentally leads us both to see the fundamental marginality of a priest or missionary as well as the centrality of the Filipino in Philippine history.  Father Vicente tells the story of how he had heard from “some Aetas that they had heard that some remontados and apostates wanted to kill me.  I was then making my inspection trip to the pueblo of Casiguran [and was told] that … if I went into the mountains I would be assassinated.  With this information in mind, but knowing that except for a few bad people the Franciscans were well recognized for their love-filled and careful work among the [highlanders], I [continued] on to Dicalaya …”  Nothing happened and he arrived safely, and there he learned that in the riverbed of the river Garrongot,

five days of navigation away, among the other lost Indios there there was a

native of the pueblo of Dibimbinan with them.  This individual twelve years

earlier had absented himself [from Dibimbinan], taking with him a married

woman whose husband was still alive.  Moved by compassion and pity for

their souls, I sought to find ways and means to bring them back.  It appeared

to me that the easiest and most suitable way to achieve this would be to speak

to some of the Indios, particularly the parents and brothers of the man so that

they would seek him out and tell him that he had nothing to fear from the

priest.  I would receive him with love and care and only wanted that he

recognize his sin so that he could reform himself.  These reasons led the

parents of the young man to go out to seek him themselves, and in short order

they returned with him along with the woman he had made off with.  When I

heard they were already in the pueblo, I ordered them brought to me.  I

received them graciously and with great tenderness, made them reflect on

their offence and the heinous nature of their transgression.  I told them … that

all I requested was that they repent and beg God’s forgiveness and I would

then be willing to give them both Confession.  The woman agreed to this and

since she had forgotten the Doctrina Christiana and the prayers. I sent her with

an Indio to her parents so that she could learn them again.

Subsequently this woman who had run off from her husband with another man, and who apparently had been living in adultery for over a decade, was received back by her legal husband and they lived together “cheerfully” “in a married and happy life.” 

However, the fellow who had absconded with her (whose name was Francisco), who had returned to the pueblo with the married woman and met with the priest, this Lothario not only subsequently went back to the mountains.  When he left he had yet another woman with him.  The priest sent the father of the man after them, and along the trail they encountered some remontados who, when asked if they knew where the couple had gone, replied that the pursuers should not go farther.  Francisco had left some armed men behind to kill those pursuing him and the woman.  Moreover, if the priest were to go after them, he or the remontados or Aetas would kill him.  The party pursuing Francisco gave up, returned to the pueblo and told the priest.  The priest said that he mourned “the irretrievable loss of their souls,” while acknowledging that he had become an object of ridicule to the peoples of the contracosta.  “This is the general corruption of all of this area, but particularly for those who live in the rivers [and mountains].  The missionaries take clothing and other trifles in order to attract them, and when the missionaries come they are greeted with great shouts.  Now we are left as figures of fun without those miserables knowing that they are left with the worst part, that they have lost the most.”  He concluded his report by observing that “Christian customs are not preserved among the Indios,” and that all that is left are the words of the gospels and “the infinite pity of God.”

         Yes, a classic tale of human appetite re-emerging and triumphant in spite of the best efforts of the priest.  This is a tale that many devotees of world religions would find familiar.  It is unfortunate that we do not know certain other facts—how old were the Lothario and the female lovers?  Were there children of the first woman, either with her husband or with the man who took her into the hills for ten years?  What was said between that woman and her legal and religiously sanctioned husband when they were reunited?  Was she in fact kidnapped initially or did she go willingly?  Did her husband have mistresses while she was in the hills?  Did the second woman go willingly or was she kidnapped? 

         Beyond rueful amusement of our common human condition and frustration at the details of the story we do not know, there is another dimension that fits well with the argument of this essay.   Francisco apparently had allies and defenders, both in the pueblo and in the hills.  He was able to make plans, without betrayal, to mobilize armed allies to protect his flight, and to communicate fully with “cimarrones” met on the trail while avoiding recapture or confrontation with the priest.  The priest had been kept in the dark about the plans, the allies, the victim or willing new sexual partner, and only found out about things after the fact.  In spite of his best efforts, this experienced missionary priest could do nothing.  Filipinos kept a secret from him, organized and acted without his knowledge, and carried out a plan without the priest’s knowledge or ability to forestall it.

Case Study from Catbalogan, ca. 1832

Filipinos did refuse to fully obey their priests.  They avoided or refused to fully obey Spanish civil officials.  Here is a case from Samar where both are manifested.  Franciscans, the Spanish governor, and even the Bishop could not move the principalia in Catbalogan into action.[208]  The situation is reported 20 September 1832 by the Bishop of Cebu as part of his inspection trip to the eastern Visayas in the early 1830s:

                 The pueblo of Catbalogan, the capital of the province of Samar, is one

of those that lacks a rectory, though it does have an excellent house they call

the Municipal Building, where no one lives.  Although the parishioners of this

pueblo excel among those of the other pueblos in the careful attention to the     

luxurious adornment of their private homes, they are obstinate and lazy when

it comes to repairs for the church and rectory.  …  They are not at all shamed

that their parish priests not only lacks a rectory but is not even given a house

in the [población] to live in.  Rather he has to rent at the expense of the church

a house in which to live, a thing which perhaps has not been duplicated any

where else in these islands.   They have arrived at such a point in their

indolence (in order not to say arrogance) that they have completely mocked

the admonishments of their bishop who entreated the gobernadorcillo and the

group of principales when I visited that they help the parish priest build a

rectory and repair the church.  I made these entreaties in the presence of the

alcalde mayor [Spanish governor of the province of Samar], I spoke of the

obligations they had as children of the church and faithful subjects of the king

to maintain the house of God and to give to their priest [a residence] appropriate

to his character and office.[209]  They promised me that they would do this, but

they had not the least intention to do so … since [nothing has been done] in

spite of the efforts of the alcalde mayor and the parish priest.  The priest …

did manage to get their help in repairing a sad house of an Indio amidst the

houses of the [población] where he could live until (they said) the rectory was

built.  Not a hand has been lifted since toward that work ….

                     I have been assured that the people in Catbalogan have always

maintained that they owe no obedience to their priests in aiding them to repair

the church and rectory … 

The report eventually ended up on the desk of the Governor General of the Philippines, the energetic and efficient Don Pascual Enrile y Alcedo.  On 20 November 1832, he endorsed a plan to ensure that the parishioners in Catbalogan build a rectory.  While we do not know if even his decision took effect, this is still a noteworthy case suggesting that the ruling group of Filipinos in Catbalogan could delay and defer projects for the church and parish priest did not meet their priorities.

Conclusion

We have seen that Filipinos were active, adaptable actors under Spanish imperial rule.  We have seen persistent Filipino attempts to demonstrate independence while dealing with colonial demands, with Moro attacks, and with economic as well as with the biological parameters of their lives.  Filipinos lived where they wanted and actively moved from place to place as they could.  They pursued economic opportunity wherever they were able to find it, be it on land or on sea, in the lowlands or in the highlands, legitimate or illegal.  They borrowed or lent money according  to Filipino custom.  Some Filipinos pursued public office and parlayed their ambition and social rank into offical positions, while other Filipinos endured official exactions, joined the hangers-on of those officials, or evaded officials as best they could.  Violence was not foreign to Filipinos, both as victims and as participants, dealing in a variety of ways with or against the Spanish as well as against Filipino officials, bandits, or martime marauders.  The Church and its rituals was often important in Filipino lives, but significant numbers of Filipinos married without a church ceremony, attended to the other sacraments and obligatory church occasions as they chose, and often behaved or believed in ways that directly contradicted church doctrines. 

It is obvious that Filipinos had social and interior lives kept secret in whole or in part from priests and Spanish officials.  Much of what was going on amidst the colonized was unrecorded, perhaps even unknown to the Spanish. 

Filipino autonomy could carry significant costs.  Direct opposition to clerical or governmental colonial power could be painful.  Punitive responses were readily employed by the Iberian colonial authorities.  Evasion, concealment, partial acquiescence, manipulation, playing government against clerical authority, acquiescence without action, and flight therefore were more successful stratagems.  Even these of course came with no guarantees of success and also could bring risks or costs for individuals and families. 

For Filipinos living far from the población, there was more freedom from Church and State and less hispanization--but along with this came also perhaps less ability to avoid discriminatory prices for their goods, less opportunity for their children to get some formal education, perhaps more subjection to debt bondage and exclusion from church rituals and sacraments.  Those Filipinos who lived in the población were close to the church and the residence of the priest, where hispanization and Spanish control should have been the greatest.  However, it was here where the leading Filipino families lived and where their political skills and economic power supported their control of the municipality.  It is here where they built networks of political and economic influence, recruited followers, received petitions for loans and other help, and made alliances and arranged for allies to hold pueblo and church positions.  With political acumen would have come greater influence, power, and wealth, enabling them more effectively to deflect, avoid, and fulfill demands of the Spanish government and the parish priest, artfully working the system and “both majesties.” 

I have argued in this essay that a focus on Filipinos allows us to discern Filipino initiative, relative autonomy, and pursuit of Filipino goals besides or in spite of Spanish pretensions and coercion.  Wherever they lived, Filipinos were deemed by Church and State to be colonial subjects.  Direct opposition to that subordinate position was almost always unsuccessful.  More artful and evasive methods allowed some Filipinos to manipulate the system to their advantage while appearing to be dutiful subjects of crown and church.  Many of those who chose to live outside the población, in sitios or hidden in the hills, seem to have succeeded in doing so.  The Spanish ruled, Filipinos chose their responses.  They were discretionary subjects.  They chose to what degree and in what ways they would permit the Spanish to believe that the Iberians ruled.  It was and is illusory to think of colonial Filipinos as subject in all ways to imperial power.  Our last case study illustrates Filipino ability to maneuver within or to manipulate the system.

Case Study from Malasiqui, 1785

In 1785, the Governor General of the Philippines made an inspection trip north from Manila into the provinces of Pangasinan and Ilocos.[210]  When he arrived in Malasiqui, he was received by the pueblo officials and the usual welcoming dance by young people.  The next day the officials asked a boon from the Governor General:  during the war against the English in 1762-1764, Malasiqui was part of the general rebellion against Spanish rule, a rebellion centered to the north, in the Ilocos provinces.  After the treaty with the British and the full re-assumption of power by the Spanish, some of those who had fought against Spanish rule were hanged in Malasiqui—with the added proviso that the gallows would be preserved as a reminder of what happens to rebels against Spanish dominion.  Now, almost two dozen years later, the gallows still stood as a painful reminder and an “embarrassment” to the relatives of those executed.  The pueblo’s officials “entreated his lordship in writing that he would deign, as a gift from the King whose birthday they celebrated, to permit the gallows to be destroyed.”  The Governor General, who did not “want to frustrate the confidence shown by those who came and invoked the name of our sovereign to request a boon,” ordered the Spanish governor of the province to have them destroyed, an order which was received with “repeated vivas.”   Well done!  A request in writing (presumably in Spanish), reference to the king’s birthday, supplication and reference to a boon, and the final touch, “repeated vivas” when the gallows were ordered to be demolished. 

Selected Bibliography

Manuscript Collections Cited

AFIO:  Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, Madrid, Spain

AGI: Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain

AHN:  Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Spain

ARSI: Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, used through microfilm at Saint Louis, Missouri

ASHM:  Archivo del Servicio Histórico Militar, Madrid, Spain   

AVall:  Archivo de los Agustinos Filipinos, Valladolid, Spain

BN: Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid Spain (library with both books and manuscripts)

BRPI: Blair, Emma H.; and James Alexander Robertson, eds. and trans.

The Philippine Islands 1493-1898.  Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1903-

         1909.  55 v.

Fondo:  Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropología e Historia,

Mexico City, Mexico

MN: Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain

PNA:  The Philippine National Archives, Manila, Philippines

RAH:  Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain

Selected Publications and Dissertations

Abad Pérez, Antolín, O.F.M.

         “Fr. Vicente Ingles, Un Restaurador de las Misiones en el Siglo XVIII.”  Missionalia Hispanica, 40:117 (January-June 1983), 131-159.

Abad Pérez, Antolín, O.F.M.; and Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M.

         “Los Ultimos de Filipinas: tres heroes franciscanos.”  Archivo Ibero-Americano, 16: 63 (1956), 265-354.

Abad Pérez, Antolín, O.F.M.

         “Una Visión de Filipinas y de su Economía de Principios del Siglo XIX.  Informe del P. Bartolomé Galán en 1823.”  Missionalia Hispanica, 37:109-111 (January-December 1980), 175-209.

Alcina, Ignacio Francisco, S.J.,

History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands. Evangelization and Culture at the Contact Period. Historia de las Islas e indios de Bisayas … 1668.  Translated, edited, and annotated by Cantius J. Kobak, O.F.M., and Lucio Gutiérrez, O.P.  Manila: UST Publishing House, 2002-2004-2005.  3v.                                             [abbreviated as Alcina in the essay]

Volume 1: Part One, Book 1.  2002.  714pp.

Volume 2: Part One, Book 2.  2004.  671pp.

Volume 3: Part One, Book 3.  2005.  605pp.

Alonso Álvarez, Luis

         “Repartimientos y Economía en las Islas Filipinas bajo Dominio Español, 1565-1815.”  In Margarita Menegus Borneman, ed., El Repartimiento Forzoso de Mercancias en México, Perú y Filipinas, siglos XVI-XVIII (Mexico: Instituto Mora/UNAM, 1999), 170-215.

Alonso Alvarez, Luis

    “Los señores del Barangay.  La principalía indígena en las Islas Filipinas, 1565-1789: Viejas evidencias y nuevas hipótesis.”  In Margarita Menegus Bornemann and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador, eds., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: Centro de Estudios sobre la Universidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005), 355-406.

Arcilla, Jose S., S.J.

         “Slavery, Flogging and Other Moral Cases in 17th Century Philippines.”  Philippine Studies, 20:3 (1972), 399-416.

Balquiedra, Luis D.

         The Development of the Ecclesial and Liturgical Life in the Spanish Philippines.  A Case of Interaction between Liturgy, Cult of Saints and Extraliturgical Religious Practices in the Upbuilding of the Filipino church in Franciscan Pueblos 1578-1870.  Ph.D. dissertation, Doctor in Sacred Liturgy, The Pontifical Liturgical Institute S. Anselmo, Rome, 1982.  765 pp.  [abbreviated as Balquiedra in the essay]

Barrion, M. Caridad, O.S.B.

         “Religious Life of the Laity in Eighteenth Century Philippines as Reflected in the Decrees of the Council of Manila of 1771 and the Synod of Calasiao of 1773.”  Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas, 34 (1960), 426-438; 490-501; 552-565; 698-708; 763-773; and 35 (1961), 43-51.

Butcher, John G.

         “Recent Research in Southeast Asian History, and Another Look at the Question of Perspective.”  Time Remembered, 2 (1978), 57-68.

Butcher, John G.; and R. E. Elson

         Sovereignty and the Sea. How Indonesia Became an Archipelagic State.  Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2017.  527 pp.

Cosano Moyano, José

         Filipinas y Su Real Hacienda (1750-1800).  Córdoba: Publicaciones del Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Córdoba, 1986.  527 pp.

Cruikshank, Bruce.

         Pilgrimage and Rebellion on Samar, 1884-1886.  Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies (Wisconsin Papers on Southeast Asia, no. 4), University of Wisconsin, 1979.  36 pp.

Cruikshank, Bruce

         Samar: 1768-1898.  Manila: Historical Conservation Society (Pub. no. 41), 1985. 321 pp.

Cruikshank, Bruce.

         Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, 1578-1898.  Catalogs and Analysis for a

History of Filipinos in Franciscan Parishes.  Hastings, Nebraska: Cornhusker Press, 2003.  5 v.

Dery, Luis Camara

Pestilence in the Philippines: A Social History of the Filipino People, 1571-1800 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2006).  309 pp.

Doeppers, Daniel F.

         Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850-1945.  Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2016.  443 pp.

Fradera Barceló, Josep M.

         Filipinas, La Colonia más Peculiar. La Hacienda pública en la definición de la política colonial, 1762-1868.  Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1999.  292 pp.

Francis, Dick  

         Reflex.  New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981.  295 pp.

Furlong, Matthew J.

         Peasants, Servants, and Sojourners: Itinerant Asians in Colonial New Spain, 1571-1720.  Ph.D. dissertation, History, University of Arizona, 2114.  768 pp.

Gómez Platero, Eusebio, O.F.M.

         Catálogo biográfico de los Religiosos Franciscanos de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Filipinas desde 1577 en que llegaron los primeros a Manila hasta los de nuestros días  Manila: Colegio de Santo Tomás, 1880.  813 pp.

Hidalgo Nuchera, Patricio

         La Recta Administración.   Primeros Tiempos de la Colonización Hispana en Filipinas: La Situación de la Población Nativa.  Madrid: Ediciones Polifemo,  2001.   182 pp.

Huerta, Félix de, O.F.M.

         Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de religiosos Menores Descalzos de la Regular y más estrecha Observancia de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las islas Filipinas; comprende el número de religiosos, conventos, pueblos, situación de estos, años de su fundación, tributos, almas, producciones, industrias, casos especiales de su administración spiritual, en el archipiélago Filipino, desde su fundación en el año de 1577 hasta el de 1865.   2nd ed.  Binondo: M. Sánchez, 1865 [2nd ed.].  713 pp.

Larkin, John A.

The Pampangans. Colonial Society in a Philippine Province.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.  340 pp.

Larkin, John A.

“Philippine History Reconsidered: A Socioeconomic Perspective,” The American Historical Review, 87:3 (June 1982), 595-628.

Larkin, John A.

         “The Place of Local History in Philippine Historiography,” Journal of Southeast Asian History, 8:2 (September 1967), 306-317.

Martínez de Zúñiga, Joaquín, O.S.A.

Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas ó Mis viajes por este país.  Ed. W. E. Retana.  Madrid: Imp. de la Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Ríos, 1893.  2 v. 

McCoy, Alfred W.; and Ed. C. de Jesus, eds.

Philippine Social History. Global Trade and Local Transformations.  Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1982.  479 pp.

Owen, Norman G.

         “Life, Death, and the Sacraments in a Nineteenth-Century Bikol Parish.”  IN Daniel F. Doeppers and Peter Xenos, eds., Population and History. The Demographic Origins of the Modern Philippines (Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1998), 225-252.

Owen, Norman G.

         “The Principalia in Philippine History: Kabikolan, 1790-1898,” Philippine Studies, 22 (1974), 297-324.

Owen, Norman G.

         “Problems in Partido: 1741-1810.”  Philippine Studies, 38: 4 (1990), 421-452. 

Owen, Norman G.

         Prosperity without Progress. Manila Hemp and Material Life in the Colonial Philippines.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.  311 pp.

Owen, Norman G.

         “Requiem for a Heroic Priest.”  IN Festschrift in Honor of Dr. Marcelino Foronda, Jr.,  edited by Emerita S. Quito (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1987), 243-245. 

Pérez, Lorenzo, O.F.M.

         “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-397.

Sánchez Gómez, Luis Ángel

         Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas.   Ph.D. dissertation, Facultad de Geografia e Historia, Departamento de Prehistoria y Etnologia.  Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1991.  738 pp.

Schumacher, John, S.J.

“Some Historical Considerations on the Evangelization of the Philippines,” Contemporary Studies, 2: 4 (December 1965), 222-237.

Smail, John R. W.

         “On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia,” Journal of Southeast Asian History, 2:2 (July 1961), 72-102.  Also available in Laurie J. Sears, ed., Autonomous Histories, Particular Truths. Essays in Honor of John R. W. Smail (Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies (Monograph no. 11), University of Wisconsin, 1993), 39-70.

Warren, James Francis

         The Sulu Zone, 1768: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State.  Singapore: Singapore University Prss, 2007.  2nd edition.  390 pp.

End Notes

[*] I use the term Filipino to designate all Asians born in the areas under real or claimed Spanish rule.  The usage is employed for convenience and is, of course, anachronistic.  The Spanish often used the term Indio for the majority of Filipinos, a term which I retain occasionally when quoting directly from a manuscript or published source.

[†] Pueblos were not towns but much more akin to municipal districts or counties, with the name coming from the major urban or urban-like settlement within it.  The center of a pueblo was called a población, and usually it contained the church, rectory, government house, and plaza, near which the houses of the prominent families were located.  Dispersed settlements were common in the Philippines, and the poblaciones were usually surrounded by smaller hamlets called visitas, barrios, rancherias, and sitios.  These ranged in size from the more settled and populated visitas, usually with a chapel for the priest to say Mass in when he made a visit, to two or three houses loosely clustered and called a sitio.  Each of these subsidiary units had officials under the government of the población officials, all Filipinos.  Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, the priest was a European.  Unless the pueblo were one of the larger and more important ones (such as the capital of a province), he would be the only European resident there.

[‡] The Filipino head of the pueblo was called a gobernadorcillo or capitán.  The total group of male principal citizens was called the principalía.  An individual from the upper class was called a principal.  Under the gobernadorcillo were the men in charge of forty or fifty families (a barangay), who were called cabezas de barangay.  There were other officials as well serving under the gobernadorcillos.  All officials were male; none were Spanish.

[§] Roster of tribute payers, a tax or tribute list.

[**] A legua was about 2.6 miles in distance, about an hour’s walk.

[††] This appears to be a reference to the  script used by Filipinos before the Spanish conquest and the subsequent move to the Latin alphabet and script.  For a good overview and introduction to the pre-hispanic characters, see William Henry Scott, Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994), 210-216.

[‡‡] I am told that gulaman is dried sea weed. 

[§§] The figures of 15,000 and 23,000 refer to net immigrants of course.

[***] When the Jesuits were ousted from the Philippines in 1768, the Augustinians were given the formerly Jesuit parishes in Leyte along with the parishes of Balangiga, Basey, and Guiuan in southern Samar.  At the same time the Franciscans took the Jesuit parishes in the rest of Samar.  In 1794, the Augustinians ceded their Samar parishes to the Franciscans, who actually took possession of them in 1804.  Thereafter, until 1898, the Franciscans ministered the parishes on the island of Samar, supplemented by Secular clergy when Franciscan numbers were insufficient.

[†††] Vagabundos, literally vagabonds, Filipinos registered in other pueblos but resident here.

[‡‡‡][‡‡‡] “Maganitos. Offerings and prayers to gods and anitos by the people of the Philippines during the Spanish times.”  Tomas D. Andres, Dictionary of Filipino Culture and Values (Quezon City: Giraffe Books, 1994), 98.  “Anitos. Gods for the restoration of health; these were minor deities which pre-hispanic Filipinos revered and esteemed as intermediaries to God,” Ibid., 7.  The word maganito is usually spelled with only one t but as we see in the quotation, usage could vary.

[1] Luis D. Balquiedra, The Development of the Ecclesial and Liturgical Life in the Spanish Philippines.  A Case of Interaction between Liturgy, Cult of Saints and Extraliturgical Religious Practices in the Upbuilding of the Filipino church in Franciscan Pueblos 1578-1870 (Ph.D. dissertation, Doctor in Sacred Liturgy, The Pontifical Liturgical Institute S. Anselmo, Rome, 1982.  765pp.), which I will refer to as Balquiedra in cases of multiple references. 

The original is provided by Balquiedra on page 624, note 11.  He gives a partial translation on pp. 96-97, and I have added and translated the first sentence.  The original source is from AFIO, 48/6, P. Francisco Santa Ines, Escrito sobre las Visitas de las Doctinas que se intent en el año 1707.  Ms., 6ff., 1707.  Another example Balquiedra noted was from much later, from a Franciscan manual published in 1886 where “the author advised the newcomers in the Philippines: ‘Es necesario de toda necesidad que el religiosos destinado a ejercer la cura de almas aqui en Filipinas comprenda desde luego, y se haga cargo de que, los que han de ser feligreses suyos, son unos niños grandes, en los que hallara perfectamente amalgamento todas las impertinencies, molestias e inconsecurencias propias de la infancia, con la sensatez, sagacidad, rectitude de juicio, o critirio y hasta la astucia adherents, por lo común, a la edad viril o Madura.”  Balquiedra, 652n122, citing  L. Bustamante, Instrucciones a los jóvenes franciscanos (Manila: 1886), 29.

[2] AFIO, 8/2, Informe de varios Religiosos a nuestro Provincial y de este al Gobernador General de Filipinas … sobre malhechores y trastornos ocurridos en el Archipiélago, Mss., 1774; here, 12 July 1774, f. 19v, by P. Fr. Miguel de Brihuega, who would have had fifteen years’ worth of experience in the Islands at this point: “… por la experiencia que tengo, es que Cavezas de Barangay, oficiales y Capitanes todos son niños en su modo de obrar y proceder; y si han de hacer algo Bueno, hadecer [sic] por el temor y Castigo.”  I return later in this essay to the question of punishment.

[3] PNA, Ereccion de Pueblos, Camarines Sur, 1781-1783. 1781-1783: Espediente formado por mandado del Superior Gobierno para que los dos Alcaldes mayors de Camarines y Albay informen sobre lo representado por el M. R. P. Provincial de la Provincia de San Gregorio, sobre las visitas de los pueblos efectuado por D. Juan del Castillo Negrete Alcalde mayor de esta de Camarines quien lo remite al de Albay, f. 31v.

[4] AFIO, 96/19. Fr. Tomas Marti, Oficio del Gobierno pidiendo se mande empadronar a los naturales que no teniendo morada fija pasan temporadas en el pueblo.  Santa Maria de Bulacan, Pandi, sin fecha.  P. Tomas was the parish priest of Pandi in 1805.  It is reasonable to assume that this manuscript dates from about then.  The padrón was the official register of pueblo residents and the basis for tribute and other imperial demands on the population.

[5] AFIO, 90/14.  Los Baños. Mandato del Oidor y Visitador de La Laguna, para que todos los tributantes del pueblo de los Baños formen o construyan sus casas en el pueblo. Lilio, 25 November 1696, 2ff., ms., original, mal estado. 

[6] Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 1, 158 and 158n65.

[7] Recognized and protected in the Recopilación, Title 1, Libro 6.

[8] AFIO, 7/20, Informe al Gobernador sobre si convenia cobrar el tributo por cuenta abierta o cerrada, 11 January 1726, 4ff.; here, f. 3.

[9] P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-97; here 387-388, quoting from the 1771 Informe.

[10] Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, 8/2, Informes de varios Religiosos a nuestro Provincial y de este al Gobernador General … sobre malhechores y trastornos ocurridos en el Archipiélago, ms., 1774, ff. 1v-2.  Another complication was that a separate tax had been levied by the government at this time to be collected at Easter confession, leading to the false perception that Filipinos had to pay for that mandated religious obligation— “It is certain that the Indian believes that he pays for confession, and it is also a fact that if he does not pay he is not confessed” (BRPI, v. 50, pp. 137-190, taken from “Anda’s Memorial, 1768;” here, p. 145).

[11] Félix de Huerta, O.F.M., Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de religiosos Menores Descalzos de la Regular y más estrecha Observancia de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las islas Filipinas; comprende el número de religiosos, conventos, pueblos, situación de estos, años de su fundación, tributos, almas, producciones, industrias, casos especiales de su administración spiritual, en el archipiélago Filipino, desde su fundación en el año de 1577 hasta el de 1865 (2nd ed.,  Binondo: M. Sánchez, 1865), 564-565.  This might merely be a coincidence, a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but the Franciscan’s impression was that it was a clear case of cause and effect and not a simple coincidence of two phenomena one after another.

[12] AFIO, 93/17. Carta del P. Fr. Alejandro Ferrer, Provincial, al alcalde mayor de Camarines sobre el Expediente de Manguirin.      

Cambio a Himoragat efectuada por Fr. José Esteban Gascueña sin autorizaciones. Sapa, 23 February 1756.  2ff.

Informe sobre puntos principales acerca de la traslación de Manguirin a Himoragat. Ms., 1756.

Carta de Don Fernando Caraveo al Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer, sobre cambio de Manguirin a Himoragat. Manila, 7 February 1756.                           

Carta del Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer al P. Juan de Taracena sobre Lagonoy y Manguirin y su

cambio a Himoragat. Santa Ana de Sapa, 18 February 1756.

Carta del P. Juan de Taracena al Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer sobre cambio de Manguirin a

Himoragat. Manila, February 1756.  This is the manuscript used in the text above.

[13] APSR, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Tomo 4, Doc. 29: Folleto del cura de Majayjay sobre cambio de los Apellidos, 1850, ff. 420-29.

[14] AFIO, 90/8. Relación de Fr. Francisco de Barajas sobre su viaje y frutos de su predicación en los montes de Lanatin y Limotan al norte de Tanay.  Acompaña una copia posterior. Todos [sic] los papeles destrozados. 1669. Ms., 9ff.  I used the 1888 10ff. copy for this partial summary; folio references are to this copy, not to the original.

[15] He had been parish priest of Caboan in 1667 (his second assignment after arriving in the Islands in 1662) and was priest in Lumbang in 1669, founding the mission of San Andrés in 1670 (Gómez Platero, 284-285).  Presumably he served in Santa Ana between taking his position at Lumbang; though the manuscript indicates he stayed in Santa Ana after his term in Lumbang was underway.  After 1672 he served in a variety of other pueblos and was Definidor and Ministro Provincial of the Franciscans in 1693-1694.  He died in 1704.

[16] Ignacio Francisco Alcina, S.J., History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands. Evangelization and Culture at the Contact Period. Historia de las Islas e indios de Bisayas … 1668.  Translated, edited, and annotated by Cantius J. Kobak, O.F.M., and Lucio Gutiérrez, O.P.  Manila: UST Publishing House, 2002-2004-2005.  3v.; here, v. 1, 183.  I will refer to this major source henceforth as Alcina.

[17] Alcina said that transplanting seedlings into swampy lands was a procedure not used too much in the Visayas (Alcina, v. 3, 109).

[18] However, in v. 3, 113 and 115, Alcina refers to a hoe but adds (115) that “even now … there are very few who have … and use it.”

[19] A “giant swamp taro” (http://www.bitlanders.com/blogs/yummy-root-crops/4361350 ).  It is also known as galiang in Bikolano (http://www.stuartxchange.com/Palauan.html).

[20] Older term for Samar.

[21] My addition to the text.

[22] Note that the Spanish governor would collect a large amount for only a credit of 2 reales, whereas on the market for what must have been a much smaller amount abaca fiber would bring in 1-2 reales.  Admittedly the marketed abaca was better quality, but still the Spanish imperial state and almost certainly the Spanish governor would seem to have been benefitting enormously from the prices and quantities that were set.

[23] AFIO, 95/9, Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Gobierno sobre misiones de la provincia de Samar entregadas a los franciscanos y algunos pertenecen a los agustinos, esas pueblos debian pasar a Leyte (Guiuan, Balanguiga y Basey) y otros los tenian los Jesuitas unidos como Calviga y Calbayog. Relación, 1 fol., sin fecha [probably ca. 1784].

[24] AFIO, 95/5, Descripción de los pueblos de Samar por el P. José Joaquin, Ms., 12 ff., 24 March 1775.

[25] AFIO, 95/9, Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Gobierno sobre misiones de la provincia de Samar entregadas a los franciscanos y algunos pertenecen a los agustinos, esas pueblos debian pasar a Leyte (Guiuan, Balanguiga y Basey) y otros los tenian los Jesuitas unidos como Calviga y Calbayog. Relación, 1 fol., sin fecha [probably ca. 1784].

[26] Museo Naval [MN henceforth], Ms. 136, Document 11, sub-section entitled “Apuntes de Palapa[g] en la Ysla de … Samar,” ff. 362-372; here, 362v-363.

[27] Fedor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875).

[28] Huerta, as we saw, said that Tubig had a market in the 1850s.

[29] The governor of the province seems to have been feathering his nest as well, since he gave two reales (one-fourth of a peso) credit toward the tribute obligation when he collected the tax in kind from the residents.  Presumably he later sold the fabrics in Manila and paid the tribute due from his sales, pocketing the difference. 

[30] Cited in Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), 50-51.

[31]  Cited and quoted from Ibid, 112-13.

[32] O. D. Corpuz,    An Economic History of the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1997), 129, “Provincial Produce and Other Commodities Brought to Manila by Coasting Vessels in 1818,” based on data taken from Yldefonso A. Aragon, Estados que manifiestan la Importación y Exportación de esta ciudad, en todo el presente Año … (Manila, 1819).  Corpuz explains that pontines were “large coasting vessels;” pancos were “coasting craft, smaller than pontines;” paraos were “passenger-cargo craft;” a caracoa was “an oared barge;” and birayes were “sailboats, the modern kumpit.” 

[33] MN, Ms. 1774, Doc. 41, ff. 70-78, 1832: Informe del cura de Borongan y del alcalde mayor de Samar sobre la provincia de Samar y formación de las visitas, explicando los motivos de que no prosperen.  The priest wrote on 26 October and the governor,     quoted in my essay, wrote on 31 October 1832.

[34] A Franciscan in 1894 narrowed his focus to Spaniards alone, writing “¿Y que diremos de los españoles que estan por aqui [La Granja] comerciando?  La mayor parte son vampiros que chupan la sangre del pobre, hombres sin educacion, sin conciencia, su unico objeto es hacer dinero sea como quiera.”

[35] Philippine National Archives [obsolete name but the title when I enjoyed the opportunity to work there in the 1970s; I will use PNA hereafter in these end notes], Ereccion del Pueblo, Legajo 122, no. 23, Samar, 1832-1833.

[36] Archivo Histórico Nacional [AHN henceforth], Ultramar, Legajo 5155, 1839 f #10.

[37] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5166, 1855 f #36.

[38] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 828, “Duplicados de Superintendentes é Yntendentes de Ejercito y Real Hacienda,”

1838, f #171, “Contesta la Real órden de [10 Dec. 1835] manifestando el Sistema que en el dia se observa en el

pago y recaudación del tribute, tanto en especie como en dinero, proponiendo lo que sobre este particular estema mas conveniente.”  16 August 1838 letter.  However, this same source includes a Testimonio del Espediente instruido en virtud de la Real orden de [10 Dec. 1835] sobre que no se obligue á los contribuyentes á satisfacer

su tribute de modo determinado sino como les acomode, esto es, en especie ó en dinero, which shows that Samar also made “contributions” in palay (as did Negros).  In 1846, all tribute was registered as paid in coin (PNA, Provincia de Samar, Unnumbered Legajo, 1841-1893. 1846).

[39] Fedor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875), 293.

[40] PNA, Mercados Públicos, Unnumbered Legajo, 1861-1894, 1880-1884.  There is a reference to a public market set up in Catbalogan in a communication dated 27 November 1880 by the governor.  The implication that this was the first time had had one there and in Samar.  On the 27th of January 1881, the governor requested that the Catbalogan market day be set at once a month on the 8th of each month for buying/selling goods, especially imports from other Samar towns.  Also see AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5320-3,o 1899 [sic] f #300.

[41] Félix de Huerta, O.F.M., Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de religiosos Menores Descalzos de la Regular y más estrecha Observancia de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las islas Filipinas; comprende el número de religiosos, conventos, pueblos, situación de estos, años de su fundación, tributos, almas, producciones, industrias, casos especiales de su administración spiritual, en el archipiélago Filipino, desde su fundación en el año de 1577 hasta el de 1865.   First published in 1855 but expanded in the 2nd edition of 1865.  Binondo: M. Sánchez, 1865.  713pp.  Much of the description is from the 1850s, which is why I consider the second edition (which I used, except for population figures expressly noted as taken from the earlier edition) as a mid-nineteenth century source.

[42] A Franciscan writing in 1877 observed that the Moros had retarded the development of Samar, that they had been “the rulers of the Bisayan seas” until 1858.  (AFIO, 95/15, Informe de Fr. José Huerce al Gobierno sobre los pueblos de Samar. Polo, 26 June 1877)

[43] Alcina, v. 2, 258-261, mentions the difficulties of navigating to or from Capul and the consummate skill mariners from Capul employed in crossing those dangerous waters in their boats.

[44] AFIO, 96/46, Memoria sobre la situacion actual del Distrito. Ms., 19ff., August 1876.

[45] Of course dependence for the bulk of your exports on this one crop meant vulnerability when the market for abaca changed dramatically in the twentieth century.  For a full discussion of this phenomenon in the Bicol provinces, see Norman G. Owen, Prosperity without Progress. Manila Hemp and Material Life in the Colonial Philippines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 

[46] Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), 139.  Also see the extended discussion and statistics in Ibid., Appendix 16: Migrations and the Late-Nineteenth-Century Population of Samar, 284-288.

[47] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 2311, 1899, f. 230, “Creación de una Parroquia en Santo Niño (Samar) independiente de su matriz Calbayog.”

[48] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 2311, f. 228, “Creación de una Parroquia en el pueblo de Weyler, independiente de Calbayog, distrito de Samar.”

[49] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5327, 1899 [sic] f #384.  The letter carries the date of 9 December 1890.

[50] Tomas de Comyn, The State of the Philippines in 1810, based on the 1821 translation, found and used on line through Guttenberg Books, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10770/10770-8.txt.   In text the original Spanish can be found on pp. 49-50 of the 1878 edition of the Comyn book.

[51] Serafin D. Quiason, “The Tiangui: A Preliminary view of an Indigenous Rural Marketing System in the Spanish Philippines.”  Philippine Studies, 33:1 (1985), 22-38.  In contrast to Quiason’s usage, I have chosen to use the spelling tiangue.  Even though the Mexican spelling and origin of the term is tiangui, my understanding is that tiangue is the spelling more commonly used in the Philippines.  Today I am told, tiangue has more the meaning of “flea market.”

[52] Fr. Antolín Abad Pérez, O.F.M., as “Una vision de Filipinas y de su economica de principios del siglo XIX. Informe del P. Bartolomé Galan en 1823,” in Missionalia Hispanica, 37: 109-111 (1980), 175-210.

[53] “También se daria perfectamente el agodón, pues es terreno seco; pero sería necesario seguridad en venderlo y máquina para despepitarlo y poco a poco tendría su increment, pues a los naturales les entran los conocimientos por los ojos y no dejan la desconfianza hasta que se desengañan.” (191)

[54] “…siembran más porción de Balatong o mongos, patani, frijoles y cadios, que llevan a vender a Santa Cruz de La Laguna, y de todo lo dicho podrá sacar sobre dos mil pesos. Estos ramos, por lo común, van a Manila, tomados en el mercado de dicho pueblo por los vivanderos de ello.”  (191)

[55] “Un gran óbice para la felicidad de aquel pueblo en todos los ramos es su situación: lindero con la Laguna de Bay, Batangas y Tayabas, es la reunion de todos los pícaros de las tres provincias y aún del partido de Cavite, cometiendo impunemente robos sin fin, especialmente los de Batangas y, según voz común, los de Lipa y Tal, a cuyos pueblos se llevan los robos y desde allí se les da giro.  De estos pueblos debían cuidar mucho los Jefes Políticos, creyéndose con no leve fundamento que los principales de los dichos pueblos son encubridores y participes de los robos.  Este es el motive que el pueblo de Tiaong haya tardado tanto en erecer a pesar de tener un término grandísimo y excelente, pues hacía la Mar del Embocadero, tiene seis leguas llanas; fastidiados los naturales de verse privados de sus carabaos continuamente, dejándoles en la indigencia se han expatriado, buscando asilo en otros pueblos donde haya más seguridad.  Es verdad que tampoco faltan rateros en dicho pueblo, acaso para resarcir de este modo sus quiebras.  Lo que no puede negarse es que, atendida su actual población y extension de terreno pingüe, es de los más atrasados de esta provincia en Agricultura, Industria y Comercio.  ¿Cuándo quería Dios que los jefes oígan los clamores de los naturales por una cordada, que anihile de una vez a los ladrones?  Todo natural, ciudadano pacific, les desea, porque se acuerda de los Buenos efectos de la que hubo e tiempo del Sr. Basco; y el español debe desearla más, pues es una Cofradía organizada, con ramificaciones en todas las provincias inmediatas, el foco en Manila y sus alrededores, que tienen su táctica y dan los golpes con tino y sin mucho peligro y no es credible que el español mire con indiferencia esta reunion de piratas terrenos, que puede intentar mayors proyectos aumentándoseles la fuerza.”  (192)  Italics are taken from the text in the journal.  I have added the question mark after una vez a los ladrones.

[56] Tomas de Comyn, The State of the Philippines in 1810, based on the 1821 translation, found and used on line through Guttenberg Books, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10770/10770-8.txt.   In text the original Spanish can be found on pp. 49-50 of the 1878 edition of the Comyn book.

[57] Feodor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (from the 1875 English translations), from Austin Craig, ed., The Former Philippines through Foreign Eyes, from books by Fedor Jagor, Tomas de Comyn, Charles Wilkes, and Rudolf Virchow  (Manila: Philippine Education Department, 1916).  Available and used on line through Guttenberg Books, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10770/10770-8.txt.        

[58] Jagor notes in Chapter 14 that cattle were “exported profitably for some years past to Manila” from the Camarines.  He also notes there that rice is exported from the Camarines to Albay and that Chinese monopolized the trade in clothing, “women’s embroidered slippers, and imitation jewelry” but that where there were no Chinese merchants “the inhabitants are consequently obliged to get their supplies from Naga.”

[59] A Franciscan writer in 1855 mentioned women who did weaving in a large number of towns with Franciscan clerics.  See Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 1, 142-46.  Market information can be found in Volume 1, 147-48.

[60] Francisco Ignacio de Alcina, S.J., Historia natural del sitio, fertilidad y calidad de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas,” 1668, translated by Dr. Paul Lietz, Book 4, Chapter 7, quoted in Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), 44. 

[61] AGI, Filipinas, Legajo 627, “Cartas y Expedientes,” 1770: Folio 31, “Espediente del Provincial de Agustinos sobre el estado en que hallo las doctrinas que administraba los Jesuitas,” 26 July 1770.  There is another copy of this report in the Augustinian archive in Valladolid, Spain [AVall henceforth], Legajo 359, Informe á V.M. sobre la entrega que le hizo Vro. Governador de las Doctrinas que administraban los Regulares de la Compañia antes de su estrañamiento en las Provincias de Leite, y Samar, y estado actual de ellas.

[62] AFIO, 95/8, Carta Informe del P. José Fayo al Provincial P. Santiago de la Cabeza sobre la ida de los religiosos a Samar. Morong, 14 September 1785.

[63] AFIO, 95/11, Carta Informe al Gobierno sobre la misión de Samar por el P. Santiago de la Cabeza.  Estado actual y el que tenian cuando marcharon los Jesuitas.  Santa Maria de Manila, September 1785 (no day given).

[64] AFIO, 95/11, Carta Informe al Gobierno sobre la misión de Samar por el P. Santiago de la Cabeza.  Estado actual y el que tenian cuando marcharon los Jesuitas.  Santa Maria de Manila, September 1785 (no day given).

[65] AFIO, 92/28, Informe del Obispo de Camarines, Fr. Antonio de Luna, sobre la Real Cédula que manda se predique y enseñe el castellano.  Mss., 1755., 1772. Al final se refiere al estado de los pueblos.  Ff. 13-13v.

[66] AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5304-1, exp. 66.

[67] P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-97; here, 394.

[68] There are undoubtedly many other forms and types of loans and debt-bondage, but this sounds quite similar to the pacto de retroventa described by Jack Larkin as the major means to acquire lands for sugar cane cultivation.  See John A. Larkin, The Pampangans. Colonial Society in a Philippine Province (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 53-54, 74-76, 211-213, 279, and 281.  Also see his “Philippine History Reconsidered: A Socioeconomic Perspective,” The American Historical Review, 87:3 (June 1982), 595-628, where usury is but one of the aspects of the archipelago-wide responses to economic opportunity within the world market from the mid- to late eighteenth century to the 20th century.  There is an overview of the pacto de retroventa as well in John N. Schumacher, S.J,, “Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Agrarian Developments in Central Luzon,” in Reflections on Philippine Culture and Society. Festschrift in Honor of William Henry Scott, ed. Jesus T. Peralta (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2001), 168-202; especially, 186-189.

[69] BRPI, v. 50, 77-117, Don Francisco Leandro de Viana, “Financial Affairs of the Islands, 1766;” here, pp. 98-99.  This quotation also appears in Fradera Barceló, Filipinas.  La Colonia más Peculiar, 164-165n81.

[70] Fradera Barceló, Filipinas.  La Colonia más Peculiar, 164.

[71] Also, AFIO, 7/11: Informe al Rey, en cual los Provinciales le dan cuenta de las injusticias cometidas por las autoridades contra los Indios.  Ms., 7 Oct. 1701, 18 numbered paragraphs; here, paragraph 9.  And yet, in paragraph 11, this same report notes that cavezas de barangay were imprisoned because they could not produce the mandated tribute amounts due to death or flight of the listed tributantes.

[72] Sánchez Gómez, Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas, 238-240.  Also in Luis Ángel Sánchez Gómez, “Las élites nativas y la construcción colonial de Filipinas (1565-1789).”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 2, 37-69; here, 63-64.  The two priests, whose words were taken by Sánchez Gómez from Sinibaldo de Mas’ Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1842 (Madrid, 1843), 3v., here, v. 2, 23-28 (Las principalías Indígenas, 248n9).  Sánchez Gómez goes on to give us the citations for the sources used by Mas, namely:

             Manuel del Río, O.P., Instrucciones morales y religiosas para el gobierno de nuestros ministros (Manila, 1739); and

             Tomás Ortiz, O.S.A., Práctica del ministerio que siguen los religiosos del Orden de NPS Agustín en Filipinas (Manila: Convento de Na. Sa. de los Angeles, 1731).

[73] It is possible that the ability of the provincial governors to manipulate the naming and thus the control of cabezas de barangay increased in the late 18th century since, as Alonso Álvarez tells us (citing Mateo de Roxas, “Instrucción de don Mateo de Roxas alcalde de Bataan sobre recaudación y administración de los ramos de la Hacienda,” in the Philippine National Archives, Tributos, leg. 4, Bataan, 1815-1877, cap. 15, fol. 5v.), by a decree of 29 March 1789, based on an earlier decree of 23 March 1781 from Madrid, the alcaldes mayores were now allowed to name the cabezas de barangay directly, without submitting names to the government in Manila for their titles.  Alonso Álvarez indicates that this may have contributed to the weakening of the pre-Hispanic family lineage control of local power positions, but I am more impressed by how this could potentially have increased alcalde power on the local level.  Luis Alonso Álvarez, “Los señores del Barangay.  La principalía indígena en las Islas Filipinas, 1565-1789: Viejas evidencias y nuevas hipótesis.”  In Margarita Menegus Bornemann and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador, eds., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: Centro de Estudios sobre la Universidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005), 355-406; here, 403n139. 

[74] Sánchez Gómez, Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas, 240.  He follows on pp. 240-244 with more abuses as shown in municipal ordinances from 1743 with brief references as well to the 1768 code by Raón.

[75] Luis Ángel Sánchez Gómez, “Las élites nativas y la construcción colonial de Filipinas (1565-1789).”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 2, 37-69; here, 67-68.  Archivo General de Indias, Ultramar, leg. 613.  Vértiz served in Cebu, probably for only a month or two.  The quotation from Vértiz is taken from p. 111 of Ma. F. García de los Arcos, La intendencia en Filipinas (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1983).  Also see Luis Ángel Sánchez Gómez, ““Los debates sobre la regulación de la prestación personal en Filipinas.”  Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 57:2 (2000), 577-99.  And Hidalgo Nuchera, La Recta Administración, 83-84. 

[76] BRPI, v. 44, pp. 120-141, “Conditions of the Islands,1701,” 7 October 1701 to the Governor General by the Provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, and the Jesuits; here, pp. 125-126.  Also see Hidalgo Nuchera, La Recta Administración, 85-88.  Also, Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, 7/11: Informe al Rey, en cual los Provinciales le dan cuenta de las injusticias cometidas por las autoridades contra los Indios.  Ms., 7 Oct. 1701, 18 numbered paragraphs; here, paragraph 4.

[77] BRPI, v. 44, pp. 120-141, “Conditions of the Islands,1701,” 7 October 1701 to the Governor General by the Provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, and the Jesuits; here, p. 126.  For 17th century abuses, see Furlong, Peasants, Servants, and Sojourners: Itinerant Asians in Colonial New Spain, 1571-1720, 152-153 and 181-190.

[78] BRPI, v. 44, pp. 120-141, “Conditions of the Islands,1701,” 7 October 1701 to the Governor General by the Provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, and the Jesuits; here, p. 127.   Also see Carlos Quirino, “Abuses in the Philippine Government during the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century.”  The Journal of History, 9 (December 1961), 125-154; here, 148-152.

[79] See pp. 139-148 for examples of alcalde mayor abuse and exploitation of cabezas de barangay and gobernadorcillos, in Carlos Quirino, “Abuses in the Philippine Government during the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century.”  The Journal of History, 9 (December 1961), 125-154.  Also see Eliodoro G. Robles, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books, Inc., 1969), 84-86.

[80] Luis Alonso Álvarez observes that the accounts when sent by the governors to Manila were often incomplete, replete with inconsistencies or faulty arithmetic, or missing—“not so much due to lost documentation but that they were never submitted (or the governor died before they could be sent), were not prepared, or were misplaced in the province.”  The figures he was able to find and use were sent and validated by Manila.  Luis Alonso Álvarez, “El tributo indígena en la consolidación de la Hacienda filipina, 1698-1800,” 104n23 (and notes 21 and 22 as well).

[81] BRPI, v. 44, pp. 120-141, “Conditions of the Islands,1701,” 7 October 1701 to the Governor General by the Provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, and the Jesuits; here, p. 133.  I added the brackets [cabezas de barangay].  The brackets [of those registered] is found in the text presented in BRPI.

[82] AFIO, 7/14, Informe al Gobernador sobre la cobranza de tributos en la Provincia de Camarines, 1706, ff. 1-2.

[83] Javier de Tiscar and José de la Rosa, comps., Colección legislativa de todos los ramos y servicios de la administrativa económica de Filipinas y su contabilidad, solo en la parte vigente (Madrid: Amigos del País, 1866), 181.  [Google books] Here, in a 18 July 1862 decree from the superintentendent of the Treasury in Manila, one finds reference to absentees among listed tributantes and that due to the risk of financial ruin and imprisonment, it was becoming difficult to recruit individuals to fill the position.  It is also possible, though not mentioned, that individuals preferred to pursue economic opportunity in commerce rather than serve in the administration.  Also see Eliodoro G. Robles, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books, Inc., 1969), 84, who remarks that after 1844 “formerly lucrative offices gradually turned into ruinous positions….” 

[84] BRPI, v. 44, pp. 120-141, “Conditions of the Islands,1701,” 7 October 1701 to the Governor General by the Provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, and the Jesuits; here, pp. 130-131.  The text inserted in the brackets is as found in BRPI.  Also see Eliodoro G. Robles, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books, Inc., 1969), 81-82.

[85] Taken from PNA, Provincia de Samar, unnumbered legajo, 1804-1890: 1840; PNA, Provincia de Samar, unnumbered legajo, 1844-1898: 1844-51.

[86] Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, 157.

[87] Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain.  Ms. 2316, Doc. 10, 1832-noviembre-15-Bongaban.  Descripción de la provincia de Nueva Ecija, en las islas Filipinas, por Dionisio Gómez.  Copia literal de la copia de la Colección Enrile que en muy mal estado se conserva en el Ms.  Fols. 92-108; here, ff. 100-101.

[88] Museo Naval, Ms. 135, Doc. 7: 1792. Diario de la expedición de Pineda desde Manila a la zona norte de Luzón. Descripción detallada de este region y sus habitantes, f. 397.

[89] P. Fr. Francisco José Pérez Cobos o de la Encarnación [name on the manuscript is Francisco, Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnación, O.F.M.], Manifiesto canónico-politico-moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres missions de Puncan, Caranglan and Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Cristiano y civil.  Ms., 240 leaves, dated 14 September 1785, Puncan, copy provided through the courtesy of the Santa Barbara [California] Mission Archives.  Ff. 97-100.

[90] AFIO, 93/17. Carta del P. Fr. Alejandro Ferrer, Provincial, al alcalde mayor de Camarines sobre el Expediente de Manguirin.      

                             Cambio a Himoragat efectuada por Fr. José Esteban Gascueña sin autorizaciones. Sapa, 23 February 1756.  2ff.

                             Informe sobre puntos principals acerca de la traslación de Manguirin a Himoragat. Ms., 1756.

                             Carta de Don Fernando Caraveo al Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer, sobre cambio de Manguirin a Himoragat. Manila, 7 February 1756.               

Carta del Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer al P. Juan de Taracena sobre Lagonoy y Manguirin y su

cambio a Himoragat. Santa Ana de Sapa, 18 February 1756.

Carta del P. Juan de Taracena al Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer sobre cambio de Manguirin a

Himoragat. Manila, February 1756.  This is the manuscript primarily used in the text above.

[91] AFIO, 93/20. Monte Ysarog, Informe de Fr. Manuel de los Santos sobre las misiones de Ysarog. Manguirin,

28 April 1776. Carta del Provincial José Casañes pidiendo el informe. Naga, 23 April 1776.

[92] AFIO, 93/20.  Informe sobre las misiones de Isarog. Manguirin, 28 April 1776.  Acompaña carta del Comisario Provincial Fr. José Casañes pidiendole el informe. Naga, 23 April 1776.  The writer suggests that there was resentment by highlanders in how they are treated and the prices they receive by the traders in Lagonoy, but unfortunately there is no more information on what might have been an important sub-theme: conflict and

friction between traders in the different ecological zones.

[93] Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain. Ms. 2316, Doc. 10, 1832-noviembre-15-Bongaban. Descripción de la provincia de Nueva Ecija, en las islas Filipinas, por Dionisio Gómez. Copia literal de la copia de la Colección Enrile que en muy mal estado se conserva en el Ms.  (Fols. 92-108; here, f. 104.

[94] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.  Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-623: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversion de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic].  Manila, 6 July 1720.  Ms., [11] ff. —listed as having 10 folios, but one of the numbers on the folios is duplicated, leading to the undercount – here, ff. 621v-622.  The information based on first-hand recollections would have been based on his two trips to the area in 1718-1719 (ff. 621v-622). 

[95]  Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain. Ms. 2316, Doc. 10, 1832-noviembre-15-Bongaban. Descripción de la provincia de Nueva Ecija, en las islas Filipinas, por Dionisio Gómez. Copia literal de la copia de la Colección Enrile que en muy mal estado se conserva en el Ms.  (Fols. 92-108; here, ff. 105-106.

[96] Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain. Ms. 2316, Doc. 10, 1832-noviembre-15-Bongaban. Descripción de la provincia de Nueva Ecija, en las islas Filipinas, por Dionisio Gómez. Copia literal de la copia de la Colección Enrile que en muy mal estado se conserva en el Ms.  (Fols. 92-108; here, f. 104).  The Spanish text reads:  Los habitantes de Baler compran por medio de los ilongotes cristianos de Dipaculao la cera y tabaco que acopian las demás rancherias en cambio de ropas, palay y bolos cuyos articulos expenden a Polillo y Binangonan retornando vino de Nipa y géneros.

[97] Museo Naval, Mdrid, Spain, Ms. 135, Doc. 7: 1792. Diario de la expedición de Pineda desde Manila a la zona norte de Luzón. Descripción detallada de este region y sus habitantes.  Ff. 369-484; here, f. 397: “Son de Genio [these “Ylongotes”] muy negative enemigos capitals de los aetas a los quales destruyen quando los encuentran.”

[98] AFIO, 89/33. Carta del P. Santiago de Jesus Maria, misionero de Baler dandole cuenta de los sacramentos administrados, y bautizados en Umirey.  Baler, 22 August 1720.  1 fol., ms., orig.

[99] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.  Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-623: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversion de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic].  Manila, 6 July 1720.  Ms., [11] ff.—listed as having 10 folios, but one of the numbers on the folios is duplicated, leading to the undercount—ff. 621v-622. 

[100] AFIO, 89/39. Dipaculao, San José, Lauang, Umirey, Damas. Estado personal de las misiones citadas. Por Fr. Juan de Ocaña.  Firm Fr. Manuel de S. Agustin.  Undated.  The archivist P. Gil dated it as 1735 but this section has a dated reference from 25 April 1753.

[101] Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain. Ms. 2316, Doc. 10, 1832-noviembre-15-Bongaban. Descripción de la provincia de Nueva Ecija, en las islas Filipinas, por Dionisio Gómez. Copia literal de la copia de la Colección Enrile que en muy mal estado se conserva en el Ms.  (Fols. 92-108; here, f. 1.

[102] P. Fr. Francisco José Pérez Cobos o de la Encarnación [name on the manuscript is Francisco, Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnación, O.F.M.], Manifiesto canónico-politico-moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres missions de Puncan, Caranglan and Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Cristiano y civil.  Ms., 240 leaves, dated 14 September 1785, Puncan, copy provided through the courtesy of the Santa Barbara [California] Mission Archives, p. 165. 

[103] AFIO, 19/32.  P. Fr. Alejandro Ferrer, Carta al Rdmo. De Nueva España.  Manila, 12 July 1754, f. 1v.  There is a brief reference as well to a 1758 rebellion [sublevación] by Ilongotes in Nueva Ecija [Pampanga alta] in Lorenzo Perez, O.F.M., Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-397; here, 375.  Details are not given.

[104] AFIO, 89/57. Carta del P. José Jimenez al Provincial P. Alejandro Ferrer, dandole cuenta del estado de la mission. Casiguran, 14 July 1755. 2ff., ms., orig. (f. 1v).

[105] Archivo de la Provincia del Santo Rosario, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Tomo 4, Doc. 18: Relación del Descubrimiento, y Entrado de los Religiosos de N. S. P. S. Francisco de la Apostólica Provincia de S. Gregorio de las islas Philipinas en los Pueblos, o Rancherias de los Montes altos de Baler, en la Contracosta de dichas islas.  Printed, 17pp., June 1754.  Based upon a report to the Franciscan Provincial by P. Fr. Manuel de Jesus María Fermoselle [P. Fr. Manuel Ramos de Jesús y Maria].  Pages 1-7 are made up of a letter to the Franciscan Provincial by P. Fr. Manuel de San Agustin, dated 25 February 1754, Baler; pp. 7-10 are a letter to the same person, dated 9 March 1754, written by P. Fr. Manuel de Jesus Maria, Fermoselle, and he has another pp. 10-11, dated 21 May 1754; and a third one, pp. 11-16, dated 25 May 1754 (which has the reference involving the settlement of Pugu).  Also see AFIO, 89/71, Relación del descubrimiento y entrada de los religiosos de N. P. S. Francisco … en los pueblos o Rancherias de los Montes altos de Baler, en la contra costa de la Isla de Luzon.  Imp. En Orihuela, 1756.  30pp.

[106] AFIO, 145/1, P. Fr. Casimiro Pitarque, [comp.], Resoluciones y conferencias morales propuestas por varios Presidentes, en diferentes conventos de la Provincia de San Gregorio.  Ms., bound vol., 593pp., multiple items; for instance pp. 206 and 207, taken from pp. 205-215, 9 August 1751, “Ynforme, que sobre la Visita, que hize de las Missiones de los Montes, ofrezco a N. C. H. Provincial [P.] Fr. Juan Rino de Brozas, para que con facilidad pueda tener presente el estado actual de las dichas Missiones, y el que puede esperarse en adelante.” 

[107] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.  Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-623: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversion de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic].  Manila, 6 July 1720.  Ms., [11] ff.; here, f. 618v.

[108] From a manuscript that now appears to be lost there is a rather unspecific reference to attacks not only against “new Christians” but also against a Franciscan, the Father Juan Beltran mentioned immediately below in the text: “en los primeros años, al ver los misioneros la docilidad con que se les presentaban los habitantes del bosque, fueron contrarios a que se protegiesen las misiones con fuerza armada; pero bien proto la experiencia los demostró la necesidad de domeñar los instintos feroces de aquellas razas que, llevadas de sus antiguas enemistades y de sus costumbres paganas, con frecuencia hicieron victimas de sus instintos sanguineos a los que se habían acogido a la sombra de la cruz, por lo que, a ruegos de los mismos misioneros, el Gobernador del Archipiélago ordenó, en 14 de marzo de 1759, que el Cabo del presidio de Bahay protegiera a los misioneros Franciscanos siempre que pidiesen auxilio.  En 26 de mayo de 1766 decretó la Provincia de San Gregorio, en vista de las continuas Matanzas que los infieles hacían entre los cristianos, con peligro de la vida de los mismos misioneros, pedir al Gobierno un destacamento de soldados para que protegiesen aquellas nuevas cristiandades; pero, por la escasez del element military, no pudo el Gobernador General complacer a los misioneros.  En 2 de octubre de 1770 asesinaron los Ilongotes al misionero de Tabueyon, Fray Juan Beltrán, en la ranchería de Cabiganan, y en 21 de noviembre de 1775 ordenó la Provincia que, en atención a la poca seguridad que en el interior del Caraballo tenían los misioneros, y en vista de que los ilongotes, cansados de la vida tranquila de los pueblos, se retiraban a sus antiguas viviendas de los bosques, se replegaran los misioneros a Baler, Binatangan y San José de Casignan, encargándoles que desde estos pueblos hicieran periódicamente sus excursions a las misiones abandonadas.”  Informe del estado de las Misiones de baler, por el Padre Juan Sardón, fechado en 1789. Ms. del AP. [former name of AFIO, when the archive was located at Pastrana, Spain], sig. 38-3. Published by Antolín Abad [Pérez], O.F.M.; and Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Los Últimos de Filipinas: tres heroes franciscanos,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 16:63 (1956), 283-284.  There is also a mention of threats against P. Fr. Pablo Gimenez around 1720 in the Baler/Palanan region (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, f. 620v.

[109] Eusebio Gómez Platero, O.F.M., Catálogo biográfico de los Religiosos Franciscanos de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Filipinas desde 1577 en que llegaron los primeros a Manila hasta los de nuestros días ( Manila: Colegio de Santo Tomás, 1880), 475-476: … celebrada la primera misa en la mision de Tigaon y emprendiendo el viaje para la de Sangay para celebrar la segunda misa, á la mitad del camino le dispararon sus flechas unos infieles emboscados y cayó herido de muerte huyendo los agresores preciptadamente … y su cadáver fué sepultado en la iglesia de Tigaon, donde yacen sus restos venerables….”

[110] Gómez Platero, op. cit.,  538: fué destinado a la mision de Casignan en 768, á la de Tabueyo en 769 trabajando con infatigable celo por la redencion y conversion de los infieles por espacio de once meses, al cabo de los cuales asaltaron una noche, 1 de Octubre de 1770, su casa de nipa y al amanecer del dia dos le asaetaron los infieles de la rancheria de Cabiganan; al sentirse herido saltó por ua ventana perdiendo un brazo al golpe de un campilan ó machete que le descargaron al caer, y arrastrandose y todo desangrado llegó, hasta la cruz del frente de la iglesia y arrodillado y pronunciando los dulcisimos nombres de Jesus y María espiró á los golpes que aun alli le dieron y cortandole la cabeza se la llevaron al monte con infernal algazara; los fieles de Tabueyon dieron sepultura al cadáver, pero á los cuatro dias volvieron los infieles y sacandole de la sepultura se ensañaron en él haciendole menudos trozos….”

[111] Félix de Huerta, O.F.M., Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico-religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno, de religiosos Menores Descalzos de la Regular y más estrecha Observancia de N. S. P. S. Francisco en las islas Filipinas; comprende el número de religiosos, conventos, pueblos, situación de estos, años de su fundación, tributos, almas, producciones, industrias, casos especiales de su administración spiritual, en el archipiélago Filipino, desde su fundación en el año de 1577 hasta el de 1865 (2nd ed.,  Binondo: M. Sánchez, 1865), 566-567.

[112] Ibid., 566-567: “… el dia 21 de Noviembre de 1775 fué preciso retirar al misionero por haberse marchado todos.” 

[113] Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain.  Ms. 2316, Doc. 10, 1832-noviembre-15-Bongaban. Descripción de la provincia   de Nueva Ecija, en las islas Filipinas, por Dionisio Gómez. Copia literal de la copia de la Colección Enrile que en muy mal estado se conserva en el Ms.  Fols. 92-108. He mentions as well (f. 105) that along the road from Baler to Casiguran there were Aetas who would kill Christians unless the Christians went in armed groups of fiftenn or twenty.

[114] “ ‘Ibilaos’ was a name that Christian peoples in the valleys (particularly Isinays) gave to Ilongots.  It is not a  self-designation and is taken by Ilongots as a slur.”  Renato I. Rosaldo, “Viewed from the Valleys: Five names      for Ilongots, 1645-1969,” Papers in Anthropology, 19: 1 (Spring 1978), 6.  No offense intended.

[115] If this is San José del Monte, the coadjutor would have been non-Franciscan at this time since on the Franciscan rosters list it was “Vacant” from 1811 through 1832, except when it was not listed at all (1825, 1831, 1832).  Franciscans of course were not allowed to own cattle or similar property.  Ownership of the rustled cattle does  not necessarily mean that the cattle were stolen because a priest owned them, or even that the rustlers knew who owned them. 

[116] AFIO, 93/21, Informe del P. Fr. Gines Antonio Fernandez sobre las misiones de Ysarog.  Goa, 14 May 1776, 4ff.; here, f. 1.

[117] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.  Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-623: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversion de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic].  Manila, 6 July 1720.  Ms., [11] f. 617.

[118] Antolín Abad [Pérez], O.F.M.; and Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Los últimos de Filipinas: Tres heroes franciscanos.”  Archivo Ibero-Americano, 16:63 (1956), 265-354; here p. 276.  The longer, original Spanish (with the article’s authors’ editorial comments) reads: “En caunto a los dumagas que habitan desde este pueblo (Dinalongang) hasta Baler, es la más vil canalla que Dios a criado desde Mautan hasta Cagayan: pues yo he visto y hablado a quantos aetas a desde Vinangonan [sic] hasta Baler y desde este pueblo hasta Palanan; ellos salen a los indios y se alegran de ver a los Padres; pero éstos que ay habitan desde este pueblo hasta Baler, no pareze sino que el diablo tiene allí su silla, especialmente en una ensenadilla que se llama Dinariauan, pues éstos son matadors si los ay; ellos los capotes de los ylongotes grandes maganiteros [4. Maganiteros, partidarios de los idolos. Los tagalos llamaban maganito al escultor o pintor de idolos, y en algunas regions Filipinas se daba este nombre a los sacerdotes de los idolos.] y sobervios y banos; éstos, los que alborotan todo este contorno , ¿no lo an de alborotar?, pues piden ellos por dote una cabeza; si muere alguno, han de matar; si alguno cae malo, que les dieron veneno, etc., y por tales cosas es penosíssima esta travesía que ay desde Casiguran a Baler, pues es precis over el tiempo que no ayga si puede ser, detención en una noche y dos dias o al contrario.”

[119] Luis Alonso Álvarez, “La política de Legazpi y su proyección: la formación del proyecto espanol en las islas Filipinas, 1565-1593.”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 1, 437-62; here, 443.  Also see Luis Alonso Álvarez, “Reply to Cruikshank,” Philippine Studies, 59: 2 (2011, 239-250; here, 249.  And Luis Alonso Álvarez, “El tributo indígena en la consolidación de la Hacienda filipina, 1698-1800.”  Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas/Anuario de Historia de America Latina, 41 (2004), 91-116; here, 114.  And Luis Alonso Álvarez, “El impacto de las reformas Borbónicas en las redes comerciales.  Una visión desde el Pacífico hispano, 1762-1815.”  Paper presented to the Second Congress of the Mexican Association of Economic History, 3rd  Symposium, “Redes sociales e instituciones comerciales en México, ss. XVII-XIX”  for references to the “galleon network” and to the “internal network,” 11-12.  And Luis Alonso Álvarez, “Los señores del Barangay.  La principalía indígena en las Islas Filipinas, 1565-1789: Viejas evidencias y nuevas hipótesis.”  In Margarita Menegus Bornemann and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador, eds., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: Centro de Estudios sobre la Universidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005), 355-406; here, 401.

[120] Patricio Hidalgo Nuchera, “La encomienda en Filipinas.”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 1, 465-84; here, 478.  Also see Luis Camara Dery, Pestilence in the Philippines: A Social History of the Filipino People, 1571-1800 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2006), 38-43.

[121] Sánchez Gómez, Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas, 213-214.

[122] Martínez de Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, v. 1, 525.  There actually were two forms of labor requisition imposed by the Spanish rulers.  One was the polo with an “obligation to work a certain number of days in community works.  All males from sixteen to sixty years old were required to render this obligation.  Originally, it consisted of sixty days work but was reduced to fifteen days in 1890.”  The other was the repartimiento, the draft of Filipinos “from their villages for various colonial works” such as “shipbuilding, roadbuilding, building of colonial edifices, fighting Spain’s wars,” and cutting timber for and building the galleons.  [Quotes taken from Luis Camara Dery, Pestilence in the Philippines: A Social History of the Filipino People, 1571-1800, 298].  The more egregious abuses occurred with the forced levies, the repartimientos. 

[123] Sánchez Gómez, Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas, 215-216.  Quantitites could be quite large.  See, for instance, the description of a bandala in Bulacan around 1800 made up of a “large mountain of rice” that contained “some two hundred “fanegas [1 fanega is about 55.5 liters, roughly 56 quarts] of rice,” artfully crafted into a cone covered with with straw and such able to keep the rice dry from the rains (Martínez de Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, v. 1, 325).  Carlos Quirino, “Abuses in the Philippine Government during the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century.”  The Journal of History, 9 (December 1961), 125-154; here, 139n9, gives the equivalent of fanega as “about one English bushel.”  Also see Luis Camara Dery, Pestilence in the Philippines: A Social History of the Filipino People, 1571-1800 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2006), 51-55, where he summarizes the products and amounts officially required from each province for 1752.  Among the descriptions we find 12 quintales of beeswax from Mindoro, 6,000 cavanes of palay from Bulacan, 12,000 cavanes of palay from Pampanga (reduced from the previous amount of 24,000 cavanes), while Oton/Cebu/and Panay were required to produce 20,000 cavanes of palay.

[124] Patricio Hidalgo Nuchera, “La encomienda en Filipinas.”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 1, 465-84; here, 479.  Also see Hidalgo Nuchera, La Recta Administración, 47-49.

[125] BRPI, v. 44, pp. 120-141, “Conditions of the Islands,1701,” 7 October 1701 to the Governor General by the Provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, and the Jesuits; here, pp. 133-134.  Brackets and added text are as found in BRPI.  A seventeenth century Governor General also refers in general terms to “many opportunities” for personal gain.  See Luis Alonso Álvarez, “Repartimientos y Economía en las Islas Filipinas bajo Dominio Español, 1565-1815.”  In Margarita Menegus Borneman, ed., El Repartimiento Forzoso de Mercancias en México, Perú y Filipinas, siglos XVI-XVIII (Mexico: Instituto Mora/UNAM, 1999), 170-215; here, 181; and on p. 182 there is another Governor General referring to an “infinite number of frauds” with the bandalas.  Also see page 183 and another Spanish official discussing Cagayan and the active mercantile proceedings of its alcalde. 

[126] AFIO, 92/22: Informe del Sr. Obispo sobre las vejaciones y atropellos causandos por los Alcaldes mayores.  Camarines, 6 May 1760, 2ff; here, f. 1-1v.

[127] Patricio Hidalgo Nuchera, “La encomienda en Filipinas.”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 1, 465-84; here, 479, citing Lorenzo Alonso Álvarez, Él alimento de Manila: un acercamiento a los niveles de mercantilización de la economia filipina durante la época colonial temprana,” La industrialización y el desarrollo económico de España. Homenaje al Doctor Jordi Nadal (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1999), v. 1, 95-106.

[128] Fradera Barceló, Filipinas, La Colonia más Peculiar, 154. 

[129] Retana in Martínez de Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, v. 2, 553.

[130] Sánchez Gómez, Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas, Appendix 1, pp. 670-675, includes materials concerning a ca. 1743 petition for relief from these demands by Filipinos in what was then the province of Tondo.

[131] See Sánchez Gómez, Las Principalías Indígenas y la Administración Española en Filipinas, 63-68 for a discussion of the ordinances of good government by those of mid-eighteenth century by D. Pedro Manuel de Arandía as well as those published by Corcuera, Cruzat y Góngora, and Raón.  For the texts of these ordinances, a good source is Documentos para la Historia de la Administración de Filipinas. Las Ordenanzas de Buen Gobierno de Corcuera, Cruzat y Raon (Manila: Est. Tip. de La Oceania Española, 1891), especially the introduction, pp. 1-39.  BRPI, v. 50, 191-264, has a section on the “Ordinances of Good Government,” which has some useful material but it not as complete as the Documentos para la Historia de la Administración de Filipinas.  The selection in BRPI dates the ordinances by Corcuera as from 1642, those from Cruzat in 1696, and those by Raón as having been published in 1768.

[132] Luis Ángel Sánchez Gómez, “Las élites nativas y la construcción colonial de Filipinas (1565-1789).”  In Leoncio Cabrero, ed., España y el Pacífico Legazpi (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, S. A., 2004), v. 2, 37-69; here, 56. 

[133] Carta del P. Mariano al P. Lorenzo Pérez, Medina del Campo, 1-12-1923.  AP [AFIO], sign. 52-5, transcribed in Antolin Abad Pérez, O.F.M., “Los franciscanos en Filipinas (1578-1898).”  Revista de Indias, 24:97-98 (July-December 1964), 411-444; here 439-444, quotations taken from p. 441.

[134] Francis F. Guest, O.F.M., “Cultural Perspectives on California Mission Life,” Southern California Quarterly, 65: 1 (Spring 1983), 1-65; here, 14.  For the Philippines,  also see the references on pages 771-773 of Sister M. Caridad Barrion, O.S.B., “Religious Life of the Laity in Eighteenth Century Philippines as Reflected in the Decrees of the Council of Manila of 1771 and the Synod of Calasiao of 1773.”  Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas.  There is a brief reference to whipping as well in Jose S. Arcilla, “Slavery, flogging and other moral cases in 17th century Philippines.”  Philippine Studies, 20:3 (1972), 399-416; here, 403.

[135] The Mexican case suggests that public flogging of upper class members did occur and also generated the most significant cases of “spontaneous anger and violence villagers sometimes showed when the priest acted this way” (William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred. Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (California: Stanford University Press, 1996), 220).

[136] AFIO, 95/6, Relación de la Visita hecha a Samar por el P. José Martinez y Rosas con la relación de los costumbres de los naturales, armas que disponen para su defense contra los moros … relaciones escritas por los misioneros.  Mss., 1775; as quoted in Cruikshank, Samar, 35-36.

[137] Fondo Franciscano, Vol. 160, “Informe, a petición de fray Agustin de Madrid …, 18v.  In this same manuscript, f. 25, there is an order from provincial governor to a Capitan Don Pedro de Avendaño Billela: “… save que en todos los dias festibos se zierran las puertas de las Yglecias, antes de acavar la Missa, y que despues por el Padron de Confeziones, unas Vezes el Ministro, y otras el Zelador los ba llamando y alque no haviendo, no siendo con justa caussa le amonestan, por la primera, segunda vez, y a la tercera le Mandan al zelador le de seis, o dose azotes en la Porteria, o puerta de la la Yglecia….”  This is a remarkable intrusion by a government official into church matters and I do not know if this was in fact executed.  The Zelador is a shortened term for the fiscal celador.  I don’t know what pueblo this was, who the Capitan was, nor the context.  Also see the 1763 incident from Isabela and the 1835 case from Ilocos Sur reported and discussed by William Henry Scott in “Colonial Whip. A Filipino Response to Flogging in 1835,” in his Cracks in the Parchment Curtain and Other Essays in Philippine History (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1982), 158-163.

[138] AFIO, 79/3, Fr. Mateo de la Asuncion, Provincial. Patente. Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, Dilao, 11 June 1681 [exhorta a sus subditos al amor fraterno, a que traten con Caridad a los Indios, que no se entrometan en los asuntos seculars y que eviten todo trato con personas sospechosas], ff. 2-2v: “… se me ocurre advertir y mandar a VVCC que nuevos accidents que se han ofrecido y noticias individuales que han tenido los Ministros de Justicia de su Magestad que residian en esta ciudad en que le dan cuenta por extensor de lo que se obra en ordena los ministerios de todas las Religiones como me la han dado a mi en particular (por la merced que me hacen) que es advertir en los excesos que ha habido en los castigos de los indios y repartimientos que se han hecho con titulo de las obras, de todo lo cual tienen individual noticia.  Por tanto mando a todos VVCC que por ningun pretext, ninguno de los Religiosos de nuestra obediencia castigue a ningun indio en mas de doce azotes en caso que la culpa lo merezca y por ningun caso ni acontecimiento pase de ahi, y de ser la culpa de esta dicha pena sean remitidos a los ministros de justicia de dichos pueblos para que segun sus costumbres sean castigadas poniendoles las penas que merecen, pues nosotros no podemos castigar como Jueces sino como Padres y aunque la constitucion admite ad summum veinticinco azotes en Culpa grave por las causas que tengo referidos, conviene minorarlos por ser necesario al buen gobierno de esta Provincia con advertencia que cualquiera que exceda de dicho número será castigado y corregido con el mismo exceso sin que le valga ninguna exencion.”

[139] “The Spanish Cortes decreed, on September 8, 1813, that the Indian, along with all other men, could not be punished by whipping.  On July 4, 1833, Father Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno forbade the missionaries of his jurisdiction in California to emply this form of punishment on recalcitrant neophytes.  In his view at this time, whipping had outlived whatever usefulness it may once have had and was contrary to the basic principles of pedagogy.”  Francis F. Guest, O.F.M., “Junipero Serra and His Approach to the Indians,” Southern California Quarterly, 67:3 (Fall 1985), 223-261; here, 255.  I do not know if  or when such suppression took place in the Philippines. 

[140] AFIO, 90/14.  Los Baños. Mandato del Oidor y Visitador de La Laguna, para que todos los tributantes del pueblo de los Baños formen o construyan sus casas en el pueblo. Lilio, 25 November 1696, 2ff., ms., original, mal estado.  I have no record of whether any of these pronouncements were in fact executed.

[141] Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropología e Historia, Vol. 160, ff. 16-38v: “Informe, a petición de fray Agustin de Madrid, sobre la Buena administración de las doctrinas Franciscanas en Filipinas (1703),” f. 17.

[142] AFIO, 68/8. Instrucciones a nuestros misioneros acerca de la predicación y confesión de los indios. Ms. anónimo.  1703, f. 14. 

[143] AFIO, 79/32.  Fr. Juan de la Mata, Provincial, Patente.  Candelario, Dilao, 8 August 1789, f. 8.  My translation is a bit loose.  The Spanish reads: La crueldad con que algunos castigan a los Naturales ya por si, ya por otros me sirve de muchissima pena afliccion y desconsuelo; y assi los encargo la enmienda, y que se regulen a lo que previenen los estatutos.  Deven entender los tales, que no hay ningun derecho, que los conceda semejante autoridad; y que solo como Padres pueden con moderacion castigar los defectos, y que averiguare esto con particular cuidado; ya hé dicho del modo con que el buen Ministro puede hacer fruto en su Pueblo.

[144] AFIO, 8/2, Informe de varios Religiosos a nuestro Provincial y de este al Gobernador General de Filipinas … sobre malhechores y trastornos ocurridos en el Archipiélago, Mss., 1774; here, 12 July 1774, f. 19, by P. Fr. Miguel de Brihuega: “Menos livertad, y mas Castigo … No es decir por esto, que se castiguen a todas horas, y sin Culpa.”

[145] The summary that follows is based on pp. 198-199, Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, which in turn in based on the sources listed in Ibid., 204n37.

[146] Taken from Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, Chapter One, passim, with sources given in the notes to that chapter.  I have only selected a few cases from this chapter to present in the essay here.

[147] AFIO, 22/71, #3, Anda, Apalit, 28 January 1763.

[148] AFIO, 22/86, transcription by Abad Pérez, 500.

[149] Eduardo Navarro, O.S.A., Documentos Indispensables para la Verdadera Historia de Filipinas, con prólogo y anotaciones (Madrid: Imp. del Asilo de Huérfanos, 1908), v. 1, 87n1.  Father Eduardo returns to the subject on pp. 295-296n2, but again does not give the date nor a full accounting of the events and causes.  The absence of Confession suggests that no priests were present since of course they would have endorsed and insisted on granting the governor’s request for that important sacrament before his execution.

[150] AFIO, 22/70, #2, 29 May 1763, Franciscan Provincial to the Provincial of the Franciscan, Spanish Province of San José.  He also observes that there were abuses with the innocent being punished and the guilty going free, with “Chinese, Indios, or Mestizos” listened to by government officials before priests.  He states that there was trade with the English, the Dutch, and Chinese, that it was common, and that it was facilitated by bribes.  One of the worst government officials was the Oydor Don Manuel Galban (also see AFIO, 22/71-3, quoted in part regarding this individual in Abad Pérez, 475n12).  In subsequent letters in AFIO, 22/70, the Provincial does indicate that some Filipinos responded to what he perceived as false British promises to abolish tribute and other forms of Spanish rule if Filipinos would join them in defeating Anda.  [Anda himself would abolish tribute during the war, except for fees to support parish priests.  AFIO, 22/54: Anda y Salazar, Don Simón de, Gobernador.  Decreto del Superior Gobierno sobre Tributos.  Bacolor, 1 fol., [3] June 1763.  Copia concuerda con el origin.  Fr. Juan Godoy, Com.  Documento en tagalo.]  And the Provincial admits that some Filipinos supported the British and acted as spies, presumably in the areas the Franciscans knew the best, since he makes no reference here to Ilocos or Pangasinan.

[151] AFIO, 22/70, #3, P. Fr. Roque de la Purificación al Guardian de San Gil de Madrid, Lucban, 30 May 1763.  BRPI, 49, 243n151, has a reference to this incident, albeit very brief, as well.  Also see AFIO, 22/86, transcription by Abad Pérez, 501-502.   

[152] Horacio de la Costa, S.J., “The Siege and Capture of Manila by the British [Texts and Documents].”  Philippine Studies, 10: 4 (October 1962), 607-654, here p. 619: “… at the suggestion of the oidores of the royal audiencia, Rojo took 110,000 pesos from the colonial treasury and gave them to the Treasurer, Don Nicolás de Echaus, to take to safety in the province of Laguna.”  Also see BRPI, v. 49, 210. 

[153] Father Antolín Abad Pérez indicates in his article that the sum was 111,000 pesos (480); also in AFIO, 22/86, transcription by Abad Pérez, 501. 

[154] Also see Eduardo Navarro, O.S.A., Documentos Indispensables para la Verdadera Historia de Filipinas, con prólogo y anotaciones (Madrid: Imp. del Asilo de Huérfanos, 1908), v. 1, 283-284n1.

[155]  Summary based on Chapter Eight of Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, sources given at the end of that chapter.

[156] See Richard Arens, S.V.D., “The Early Pulahan Movement in Samar and Leyte,” Journal of History (Philippine National Historical Society), v. 7 (Dec. 1959), 303-371; and passim.

[157] For a fuller description, see Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, Chapter Three and Appendix 9; and, for other areas served by Franciscan priests, Bruce Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, 1578-1898, Volume One, 166-170.

[158] Among his many publications and research findings, these are perhaps the most relevant for this section of the essay: James F. Warren, Trade-Raid Slave. The Socio-Economic Patterns of the Sulu Zone, 1770-1898.  Ph.D. dissertation, History, Australian National University, 1975.  520pp.; James F. Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: the Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State; James F. Warren, “The Structure of Slavery in the Sulu Zone in the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.”  In Gwyn Campbell, ed., The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia (London, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 2004, 111-128; James F. Warren, “Saltwater Slavers and Captives in the Sulu Zone, 1768-1878.”  In Philip D. Morgan, ed., Maritime Slavery. (London: Routledge, 2012), 119-139; James F. Warren, “The Port of Jolo: International Trade and Slave Raiding.”  In John Kleinen; and Manon Osseweijer, eds., Pirates, Ports, and Coasts in Asia. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies/The Netherlands: International Institute for Asian Studies, 2010), 178-199; and “The Global Economy and the Sulu Zone.  Connections, Commodities, and Culture.”  In Bernhard Klein; and Gesa Mackenthun, Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean (London: Routledge, 2004), 55-74.

[159] Francisco Mallari, S.J., Ibalon under Storm and Siege.  Essays on Bicol History: 1565-1860.  Cagayan de Oro City: Xavier University, 1990. 

[160] AFIO, 7/43, Informe al Gobernador, el cual trata del comercio y refiere los estragos causados por los temblores del mes de febrero.  25 Nov. 1771

[161] Luis Camara Dery, Pestilence in the Philippines: A Social History of the Filipino People, 1571-1800 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2006), 133-134.  Also see AFIO, 93/33, Copia del Informe del Alcalde de Tayabas sobre la defensa que hizo contra los moros. Tayabas, 2ff., 28 November 1767.  This source indicates that the attack expanded to include as a target the pueblo of Gumaca.  With help from the pueblos of Atimonan, Mauban, Lucban, and Tayabas pueblo, the assault was repulsed.  Three kidnap victims from Albay were saved and the Moros had significant losses before they withdrew.

[162] AFIO, 7/44, Informe al Rey sobre el mal proceder observado por el Governador General por el Arzobispo contra el Obispo de Camarines. Mahayhay, 13 and 15 1771, 14ff.; here, f. 13-13v.  The manuscript draft is generally focused on how Anda had done nothing to repair damage from the war and that the Islands were suffering a “decadence” ever since he arrived.  The translation I provide is rather loose.  The original reads: “… del infeliz estado de las Provincias de Tayabas, Camarines, Leyte, Samar, Calamianes, Zebu, Bohol, y todas las restentes que se distinguen con el nombre de Bisayas en donde los Moros, nunca mas que ahora, viven de asiento, y tienen reducidos a aquellos Pueblos a que tengan las Armas en la mano, sin poder cultivar sus campos, ni hacer su comercio unos con otros, que son los dos ramos de que viven y se mantienen; siendo por esta causa muchos mas, que en otros tiempos, los Captivos que lleban a Mindanao, y Jolo….”

[163] AFIO, 8/2, Informe de varios Religiosos a nuestro Provincial y de este al Gobernador General de Filipinas … sobre malhechores y trastornos ocurridos en el Archipiélago.  Mss., 1774: “otros vivir en los montes, para de esa Suerte estar seguros de los Moros; Lo que no pueden Conseguir en los Pueblos por las Continuas imbaciones.”  Bocaue, 12 July 1774.

[164] Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, 103-104 notes 23 and 24.  Also see Warren, The Sulu Zon, 1768-1898, 174, for reference to P. Fr. Julian Bermejo, O.S.A., parish priest of Boljoon, southern Cebu, 1804-1836, who combined an early warning system with a small fleet.

[165] P. Fr. Antolín Abad Pérez, O.F.M., as “Una vision de Filipinas y de su economica de principios del siglo XIX. Informe del P. Bartolomé Galan en 1823,” in Missionalia Hispanica, 37: 109-111 (1980), 175-210; here p. 207: “… la mayor porción de los que la hacen no están avecindados en Mindanao, ni en Joló; viven el tiempo que no piratean en varios parajes de las islas, poco frecuentadas, como tiempo que no piratean en varios parajes de las Islas, poco frecuentadas, como Burias .….” 

[166] James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898. The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State .

[167] Museo Naval, Ms. 2237, Document 13: 17 April 1833.  D. José María Peñaranda informa a D. Pascual Enrile sobre las sospechas de complicidad que recaen en diversos pueblos de la costa sur de Camarines, con los corsarios moros.  Copia.  Ff. 93-94; here, f. 93v, which in the Spanish text reads: .Los mismos que se emplean en cometer este fraude asi como otros de diferentes puntos son tambien los que frecuenten le esparsen la alarma con el nombre de Moros y ocasionan continuas estorciones a los pescadores, y a los que navegan en pequeñas embarcaciones desarmados todos cocon__ndan en que estos malvados salen como pescadores y en asistando alguna banca que ya vuelve de la pessca con carey o balate, o que va provista de vivenen para ___parse en ella, ponen su vela como los Moros la persiguen, y cuando no pudiendo huir de otro modo, los man el partido los que van en ella de embican en la playa mas proxima, y corr__ al bosque, dejan el ____ de sus fatigas en mano de sus persiguidores los que se transorman de ___ y desaparecen los enemigos como portrarraga asi el que muchas veces como ha sucedido ahora en la contracosta, a poco de recivir un aviso de estos ya no se dabe donde eran __la derrota que han seguido. 

[168] I draw extensively from the useful 1982 dissertation kindly made available for my study and use by its author, Luis D. Balquiedra, The Development of the Ecclesial and Liturgical Life in the Spanish Philippines.  A Case of Interaction between Liturgy, Cult of Saints and Extraliturgical Religious Practices in the Upbuilding of the Filipino church in Franciscan Pueblos 1578-1870 (Ph.D. dissertation, Doctor in Sacred Liturgy, The Pontifical Liturgical Institute S. Anselmo, Rome, 1982.  765pp.; here 367), which I will refer to as Balquiedra in cases of multiple references. 

[169] Balquiedra, 373 and 700n45, quoting the Baculo, Chapter 18, paragraph 5.

[170] “The introduction of dancing then in the official liturgy was meant to enhance the celebration and hopefully to lead the native Filipinos to devotion and to the increase of their faith.,..  It was not meant to be a ritual symbolism [and] it remained only in the periphery of the liturgy.  … they chose the dalaguillas, that is, young girls [because], according to the first Franciscan chronicler, ‘[the children] do things with such grace that they seem to be little angels.’  On the other hand no attempt was done at having adults dance during liturgical functions.”  Balquiedra, 411-412, citing Marcelo de Ribadeneyra, O.F.M., Historia de las islas del archipiélago y reynos de la Gran China, Tartaria, Conchinchina, Malaca, Siam, Camboya, y Jappon, y do lo sucedido en ellos a los religiosos descalzos de la orden del seraphico padre San Francisco de la provincial de San Gregorio de las Philippinas (Barcelona: Imp. de Gabriel Graells y Giraldo Dotil, 1601), 55.

             “… some dalaguillas would dress up on principal feasts and dance before” the priest.”  “This holy custom should not be forgotten by the priest…”   (Balquiedra, 411, from the Baculo, Chapter 19, paragraph 4, reproduced in Balquiedra, 711-712).

             In two former Franciscan parishes, Obando and Pakil, “dancing with ritualistic symbolism or magical gestures has remained until the present day as devotional acts to the saints” (Balquiedra, 413); but otherwise the dancing associated with sacred ritual seems to have been confined to children, and then only “at Vespers, Solemn Mass and procession” (Balquiedra, 412).

Concerning dancing, a comparative dimension is added with the research in Cebu City by Sally A. Ness, Body, Movement, and Culture. Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).  In an essay, “When Seeing is Believing: The Changing Role of Visuality in a Philippine Dance” (Anthropological Quarterly, January 1995, 1-13), she notes on page 1 that “The Visayan language term sinulog translates roughly as ‘moving like a current’ and refers to a number of ritual practices performed throughout the Central Philippines.  …  Until sometime after the turn of the twentieth century, sinulog dancing served as a climactic event for the fiesta celebration for the Santo Niño, held annually during the third week in January[,] … inside the Augustinian church where the Santo Niño was kept….”

[171] See, for instance, Peter Harper and Evelyn Sebastion Peplow, Philippines Handbook (Chico, CA: Moon Publications, Inc., 1991), 91, 182-183 (for Obando), and 301 (Pakil).  Also see Frank Lynch, S.J., “Town Fiesta. An Anthropologist’s View,” Philippines International, 6:6 (1962), 20-27; reprinted in Aram A. Yengoyan and Perla Q. Makil, eds., Philippine Society and the Individual. Selected Essays of Frank Lynch, 1949-1976 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Center for South and Southeast Asia, the University of Michigan, 1984), 209-223.  A comparative look at colonial Mexican experiences with “Fiestas and Fandangos” is in William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred. Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (California: Stanford University Press, 1996), 250-258.

[172] Estatutos, 132, translation by Balquiedra, 212, bold-facing added.

[173] We can ignore some of the complexity of the Philippine Franciscan religious calendar, where Sundays “were classified according to their relationship with any of the Cuatro Pascuas (four pascal feasts) before or after them.  The Cuatro Pascuas in the Spanish Philippines were” Christmas, the Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost.  “All Sundays of the year served either as preparation or prolongation of any of the four Pascuas, although the Pascuas themselves did not necessarily fall on a Sunday” (Balquiedra, 180-181).

[174] I counted eleven Filipino Franciscans out of over 2,000 Franciscans in the islands from 1578 to 1898, which is less than 1%, “not a striking record of recruitment and opportunity” (Bruce Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, 1578-1898, v. 2, Appendix Seven, “Filipinos as Franciscan Clerics in the Spanish Philippines,” 181.  Also see the publications by Luciano P. R. Santiago, the masterly volumes by Regalado Trota Jose [Curas de Almas: A Preliminary Listing of Parishes and Parish Priests in the 19th Century Philippines based on the Guias de Forasteros, 1834-1898.  Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 2008.  4v.], and my web-posted essay (Secular Priests in the Philippines 1565-1898), where I estimate there are between 1500 and 2000 Secular priests who served in the Philippines before 1899.  Many would have been Filipinos as I am using the term.

[175] Francisco Ignacio de Alcina, S.J., Historia natural del sitio, fertilidad y calidad de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas,” 1668, translated by Dr. Paul Lietz, Book 3, Chapter 22, quoted in Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985), 46.

[176] AFIO, 7/23, Informe de varios religiosos al Provincial y de este al Gobernador sobre juegos de naipes con la Real Cédula sobre lo mismo.  Ms., 1731, ff. 18-18v.  Also see, though, Doreen G. Fernandez, “A Conversation with Fray Juan de Oliver on Drinking and Drunkenness,” in Jose M. Cruz, S.J., ed., Declaración de la Doctrina Christiana en Idioma Tagalog. Juan de Oliver OFM (+1599) (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1995), 226-233, where she suggests that this sixteenth-century Franciscan both misunderstood its limits and functions (“… generally social in nature, a community activity governed by mores and manners, and aimed not at individual self-indulgence but at bonding, sharing, and social confirmation” (230)) and was as well more concerned with possible links to “pagan relations of drinking” (233).

[177] AFIO, 8/2, Informe de varios Religiosos a nuestro Provincial y de este al Gobernador General de Filipinas … sobre malhechores y trastornos ocurridos en el Archipiélago, Mss., 1774; here, 12 July 1774, ff. 22v-23, by P. Fr. Miguel de Brihuega.

[178] Fr. Antolín Abad Pérez, O.F.M., as “Una vision de Filipinas y de su economica de principios del siglo XIX. Informe del P. Bartolomé Galan en 1823,” in Missionalia Hispanica, 37: 109-111 (1980), 175-210.

 “El natural, que se envicia en el juego, especialmente de naipes, es corriente deja desde aquel momento cuantos medios sabia o usaba para buscar dinero. Ni las obligaciones de Cristiano o cuidadano, o ni la mujer y (sic) hijos, que perecen, le sacan de él; para él todo es indiferente, menos el juego desde el momento que llegó a cierto punto su vicio.  Varias causas, que son muy largas de referir, han influido para que en dicho pueblo se haya hecho el juego general.  Sé con evidencia moral, que no es solo vicio de gente hecha: mujeres, muchachos, muchachas, todos mezclados juegan día y noche.  Como el dicho pueblo está tan lejos de esta Cabecera y al dificil alcance del Jefe Político, se juega con tanto descaro, que se convoca a toque de tambor, siempre que hay embarcaciones o gente de fuera que quiera y tenga que jugar, asignando la casa de donde se pone el juego.  En el tiempo que soy Cura en esta provincia, he conocido algunos Alcaldes que han celado con eficacia el dicho juego, penetrados de la necesidad de hacer una continua Guerra a esta pésimo vicio; pero no han alcanzado medios para verificarlo en Catanavan, pues no han hallado uno siquiera del pueblo que quiera declararlo por no querer chocar con todos los demás, inclusos los Superiores o principales.  Yo no conceptúo tan difícil el lograrlo, mandado sujetos de otros pueblos con algun pretext decente y que se echen sobre ellos.  Y en atención a que los Jefes de él son, al menos, consentidores sobre esos debe cargar la mano, hasta privarlos de sus empleos, después de cierto número de multas, advirtiendo de paso que, aunque los demás pueblos de este partido no son tan viciosos, como Catanavan, se van extendiendo el juego insensiblemente y en Mulanay se juega tanto como en Catanavan que es el más immediate.

             “Cortado este vicio es regular que ellos se dedicasen a la labranza, en atención a que solo les falta el tiempo que invierten en el juego. Carabaos y tierra les sobra, excelentes uno y otro; se dedicarían a la crianza de vacas, que no las he visto ni más gordos, ni más grandes, las pocas que hay; y aunque no fuera fácil llevarlas vivas a esa Capital, podían hacerlas tasajo, que se vende tan bien o major que fresca. Les luciría su brea, porque teniendo que comer, no se varían en la precision de malvenderla a trueque de arroz; con su product podrían comprar efectos de Visayas, Camarines y Albay, traerlos a esta Cabecera y aún a Manila, empleando su precio en otras cosas útiles y de fácil venta, vivirían con desahogo y conveniencias y creceria el pueblo, que es imposible se verifique subsistiendo las causas, que lo impiden, como se palpa por experiencia, a pesar de las muchas ventajas, que todo les proporciona.”  (196-197)

[179] Norman G. Owen, “Life, Death, and the Sacraments in a Nineteenth-Century Bikol Parish,” in Daniel F. Doeppers and Peter Xenos, eds., Population and History. The Demographic Origins of the Modern Philippines (Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1989), 229.  The data are from the nineteenth century, but one can provisionally at least project the same patterns to earlier times.  A nineteenth-century source for Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Albay, and Tayabas, suggests that “an overall average of 16.1% of children known to the priest … were born of unwed parents ….”  Bruce Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, 1578-1898, v. 1, 209.

[180] P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-97; here, 388-390.

[181] AFIO, 52/32, P. Fr. Casimiro Pitarque, Parecer sobre las dudas de RR.CC. y Acuerdos en orden al casamiento de los Indios. Ms., 4ff. Sobre la Real Pragmatica de 23 marzo 1776. Real Cédula de 7 abril 1778 y Real pragmatic 21 enero 1781. Mss., Baras, 5 octubre 1781, ff. 1v-2. Also see the seventeenth-century Franciscan chronicler P. Fr. Francisco de Santa Inés, Crónica de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Religiosos Descalzos de N. S. P. San Francisco en las Islas Filipinas, China, Japón, etc. (Manila: Tipo Litografía de Chofre y Comp., 1892 (Biblioteca Histórica Filipina)), v. 1, 64-66.

[182] P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-97; here, 388-389.  He also observed (395) that since many Filipino rural houses were small, the family all sleep “next to each other, and visitors as well … from which no few inconveniences and offenses against God” occur.

[183] P. Fr. Francisco José Pérez Cobos o de la Encarnación [name on the manuscript is Francisco, Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnación, O.F.M.], Manifiesto canónico-politico-moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres missions de Puncan, Caranglan and Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Cristiano y civil.  Ms., 240 leaves, dated 14 September 1785, Puncan, copy provided through the courtesy of the Santa Barbara [California[ Mission Archives. 

[184] Ng Shui Meng, Demographic Change, Marriage and Family Formation: The Case of Nineteenth Century Nagcarlan, the Philippines, Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, University of Hawaii, December 1979, 48-49.

[185] Norman G. Owen, “Life, Death, and the Sacraments in a Nineteenth-Century Bikol Parish,” in Daniel F. Doeppers and Peter Xenos, eds., Population and History. The Demographic Origins of the Modern Philippines (Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1989), 243-244.

[186] Philippine National Archives [PNA], Patronato, Unclassified—1836-1849, Resumen de la Estadistica remitida por los Curas Parrocos del Obispado de Nueva Caceres á la Secretaría Episcopal perteneciente al año 1842.  I omitted the figures from Nueva Ecija since they were partial only, but they can be seen in Appendix Four of my Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines.  Data for absences from Mass for Camarines and Albay around  1781 can be found in Chapter Three of my Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, v. 1, 159-63.

[187] PNA, Ereccion de Pueblos, Camarines Sur, 1781-1783: 1781-83, Espediente formado por mandado del Superior Gobierno para que los dos Alcaldes mayors de Camarines y Albay informen sobre lo representado por el M. R. P. Provincia de San Gregorio, sobre las visitas de los pueblos efectuado por D. Juan del Castillo Negrete Alcalde mayor de esta de Camarines quien lo remite al de Albay, 52ff.  I have re-arranged and consolidated the relevant information; and I have omitted entries that did not speak to the point discussed in this part of this monograph.

[188] His names come from AFIO, 95/6, Tubig, and from AGI, Filipinas, leg. 690.  His birthplace is from AFIO, 95/5, Paranas and Catarman, as are the areas of his influence.  Also see AFIO, 95, Umauas/Calbiga, Borongan, Sulat, Laoang; and AFIO, 95/6, Capul.  The content of his teaching is from AFIO, 95/6, Catbalogan.  P. Fr. Cantius Kobak, O.F.M., informed me some years ago that the memory of this man was still venerated on Biliran Island as a saint; offerings and prayers were made to him even then by the older residents (letter, 20 October 1974).  Also see Father Cantius Kobak’s article “Don Gaspar de Guevara of Biliran Island, Leyte: a legendary figure or a historical personality?”   Leyte-Samar Studies, 13: 2 (1979), 150-153.  The honorific “Don” as used in the documents by the Franciscans may indicate upper class or mestizo status.

[189] AFIO, 95/5, Catubig; AGI, Filipinas, leg. 690; and AFIO, 95/5, Capul.

[190] Devotion to St. Francis brought daily pilgrims from Samar and from Leyte “á tributar adoraciones á su bienhechor, que sin duda los favorece con larga mano cuando sanos y enfermos vuelven todos alegres y satisfechos, por lo que, el dia cuatro de Octubre, secede la concurrencia de personas á las romerias de mas nombradía en Filipinas” (Huerta, 1865, 330, referring to Dapdap).

[191] PNA, Provincia de Samar, unnumbered legajo, 1823-1897: 1823.

[192] See Bruce Cruikshank, Pilgrimage and Rebellion on Samar, 1884-1886; and Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898, Chapter Seven.

[193] See, for instance, Setsuho Ikehata, “Popular Catholicism in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines: The Case of the Cofradia de San José.”  IN Reading Southeast Asia: Translation of Contemporary Japanese Scholarship on Southeast Asia (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program (Translation Series), Cornell University, 1990, volume one), 109-188; and David R. Sturtevant, Popular Uprisings in the Philippines, 1840-1940.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976.  317pp.

[194] Museo Naval, MS. 2237, Doc. 2: 6 April 1832-12 June 1832.  Cartas de D. José María Peñaranda a D. Pascual Enrile, en su viaje a las provincias: Contra costa, Subic, Tayabas, Camarines y Albay.  Copias.  Ff. 27-39v; here, f. 31.

[195] Museo Naval, Ms. 2237, Doc. 15: 2 June 1833.  Parte del Capitán D. José María Peñaranda referente a la batida que se llevó a Cabo contra los ladrones y contrabandistas que se abrigaban en los montes de San Cristóbal.  Copia.  Ff. 98-105; here, 98-102v.

[196] A nineteenth century set of numbers for Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Albay, and Tayabas suggests that about 26% did not take communion, about a fifth of these because they did not know the essential components of the Doctrina Christiana.  Bruce Cruikshank, Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines, 1578-1898, v. 1, 208. 

[197] P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-97; here, 395-396.  I am doubtful of the author’s view that the practice came from the Chinese, guessing instead that it was a belief throughout the archipelago and perhaps antedated the Spanish conquest.

[198] Ibid., 379-386, orthography as given and described at some length in the published manuscript that P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., published.  Only one of these terms appears in and is defined by W. E. Retana in his “Diccionario de Filipinismos con la Revisión de lo que al respect lleva publicado La Real Academia Española,” Revue Hispanique, 51: 120 (1921), 1-174, though with the variant spelling Asuán, “Espiritu malign, nocturne, que toma diversas formas y se dedica a causar maleficios, señaladamente a las mujeres que están de parto, cuyo fruto malogra” (38).

[199] For an instance of a late sixteenth-century attack on these forms of non-Christian belief, see Manuel R. Pazos, O.F.M., “El P. Diego del Villar extermina la idolatría entre los tagalos Filipinos de Lumbang,” Archivo ibero-Americano, Series 2, 8 (1948), 531-535, where 173 “anitos, algunas estaban cubiertas de ojas de oro de martillo, y otras de plata, y otras encubiertas en anillos, y otras en piedras y palos, más estimadas y guardadas que los propios ojos” were collected with other items and burned in the patio of the church ca. 1596.  One might also find useful P. Fr. José Castaño, “Breve Noticia acerca del Origen, Religión, Creencias y Supersticiones de los Antiguos Indios del Bicol,” as printed in Wenceslao E. Retana, Archivo del Bibliófilo Filipino: Recopilación de Documentos Históticos, Científicos, Literarios y Políticos y Estudios Bibliográficos (Madird: Impr. en Casa de la Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Rios, 1895-1905), v. 1 (1895), 57pp.  Also see Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism. Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1988), 191 and passim.

[200] Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropologia e Historia, Vol. 160, f. 19, from the statement by the Franciscan P. Fr. Agustin de Madrid, 1703.

[201] From testimony responding to charges of malpractice made against the Franciscans, Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropología e Historia, Vol. 160, f. 21v, from the statement supporting the Franciscans by a Diego Arriola, Alcalde mayor of Camarines and Albay.

[202] P, Fr. Alonso de Zafra was elected Provincial in 1696 and 1697, giving us a rough time period for his reprimand of the Maestra.  P. Fr. Domingo de San Lorenzo was Comisario Provincial of the Camarines in 1694, which may have been when the disinterment occurred; it certainly was not after 1696, since Malinao was turned over by the Franciscans to diocesan administration in 1696.

[203] Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropología e Historia, Vol. 160, f.24, from the statement by the former Alcalde mayor of Albay, a Capitan Don Frutos de Delgado.  This seeming contradiction—take care that none are made and punish those that do make them—reminds me a bit of the unintentional humor of the sign I saw in a window in Ermita in 1972 next to an ornamental Sari Manok for sale: “The Sari Manok is a mythological bird found only in Mindanao.”

[204] See, out of a very large literature, “Folk Practices and Beliefs of Leyte and Samar: The Collected Articles of Fr. Richard Arens, SVD, reprinted,” Leyte-Samar Studies, 5: 1-2 (1971);  Maria G. Villegas, R.S.M., “Superstitious Beliefs and Practices in the Coastal Towns of Eastern Leyte,” Unitas, 44: 2 (June 1971), 28-95; and Francis X. Lynch, S.J., “An Mga Asuwáng. A Bicol Belief,” Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review, 14: 4 (1949), 401-427, reprinted in Aram A. Yengoyan and Perla Q. Makil, eds., Philippine Society and the Individual. Selected Essays of Frank Lynch, 1949-1976 (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asia, The University of Michigan, 1984), 175-196.  Also see Francisco R. Demetrio, S.J., comp., Encyclopedia of Philippine Folk Beliefs and Customs (Cagayan de Oro City: Xavier University, 1991), 2 vols., with entries based on informant reports from (mainly) the twentieth century (particularly from 1986-87) on topics such as amulets, aswangs, birth and death beliefs, diseases, engkantos, folk medicine, marriage, natural phenomena, etc.

[205] See, for instance, Fenella Cannell, Power and Intimacy in the Christian Philippines (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology), 1999), 13 and 165-182, for her discussion of “the shrine of the Amang Hinulid or ‘Christ laid out in death,’” on the edge of Calabanga (13).

[206] Father John Schumacher, S.J., has written perceptively on the patterns of syncretism and Filipino Catholicism.  See, for instance, his “Some Historical Considerations on the Evangelization of the Philippines,” Contemporary Studies, 2: 4 (December 1965), 222-237, where he says at one point that “even where Christianity was mingled with pagan superstitions, this need not have meant that Christianity was no more than a superficial veneer of outward ritual observance; faith can be real, even when mixed with what is, objectively speaking, pagan in form.  This, too, has been a common experience in the Christianization of Europe, only overcome with the passage of time and the bringing of reform and instruction.”

[207] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-23: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversión de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic].  Manila, 6 July 1720.  Ms., [11] ff.

[208] PNA.  Patronato.  Unclassified—1831-1834.  1832: Expediente creado a Consulta del Señor Obispo de Zebú, dando parte del estado deplorable en que se hallan las Yglesias y Cassas Parroquiales de algunos Pueblos de las Provincias de Leyte, Samar, y Caraga.  10ff. and title page, with folio numbers written in pencil on the pages.

[209]  According to the Franciscan assignment lists, P. Fr. Gregorio Chacon had been parish priest from 1825 to some time in 1828 but there was no parish priest assigned from 1829 to 1832.  In 1832, P. Fr. Pascual Gómez was appointed.  He was then twenty-six years old and this was his first parish.  He was replaced in 1834 by P. Fr. Timoteo Calderon, twenty-four years old and again taking a parish for the first time.  It seems odd to me, perhaps reflecting tension between Franciscans and the parishioners in Catbalogan, that such junior priests would have been assigned to the province’s capital city’s parish or that there would be gaps in such assignments.

[210] Museo Naval, Ms. 136, Doc. 10: 12 April 1785, Manila.  Relación del viaje de D. José Basco y Vargas gobernador y capitán general de las Filipinas, a las provincias de Pangasinan e Ilocos.  Ff. 310-343; here, ff. 319v-320v.   The key section in Spanish reads: Desde el alzamiento de Pangasinan a instigazion de los Yngleses que havian tomado Manila en la guerra de 62 se mantenian levantadas las Horcas en que padecieron suplicio los culpados.  Los principales de Malasiqui sentidos de tener a la vista este Padrono, que publica siempre su infedelidad, suplicaron a su Senoria por un escrito se digna se mandar en obsequio de nuestro soberano, cuio cumple anos celebran, se derribasen la Horcas para borrar en lo succesivo la memoria de un delito de que los parientes de los reos vivian tan puanosos como avergonzados.  Su Senoria en celebridad de un dia tan plaucible no quiso frustrar la confianza conque venian los naturales de este Pueblo invocando el nombre de Nuestro soberano para pedir una gracia que devia gravarse en su memoria, y desde luego mando al Alcalde maior que hiciese derriban  las Horcas cuya providencia recibieron con repetidos vivas, que mortraban bien su gozo, y su agradecimiento.