Travel Times in the Philippines before 1898©
Bruce Cruikshank, May 2015
Fernand Braudel makes the provocative point that “Distances were not invariable, fixed once and for all. There might be ten or a hundred different distances and one could never be sure in advance, before setting out or making decisions, what timetable fate would impose.”[1] While he was writing about the greater Mediterranean world, one could readily insert the Philippines or other areas of the world. Before the technological advances in transportation and communication after 1900, the conclusion regarding time and space presumably would be the same.
In the Philippines, steamships were added to the repertoire of boat, horse (and carriage), porters, carabao (with carts), and shank’s mare only in the second half of the nineteenth century. While railroads appear then also, their use was negligible for general travel and communication until the twentieth century. Storms and consequent damage to paths and roadways for land travel and the risk of capsizing and death on water were not infrequent concerns in the Islands until the end of the Spanish regime.
One might deduce travelling time in the Islands from the Franciscan Félix Huerta’s observation that the distance of legua “is understood to be the distance that a person can walk in about an hour.”[2] He readily acknowledges that in the time of the rains the roads and pathways can become “rather difficult,” “exceedingly arduous,” or “almost impassable.”[3] Sometimes land transport was so problematic that preference was given to travel by river or sea, even with the threat of Moro raiders, and “pagans,” as well as storms or tempests.[4] Bandits of course were always a danger, by land or by sea. The legua as an hour’s walk is an imprecise measure at best, at least under adverse conditions.
In my work on the Spanish Franciscans in the Islands before 1898, I found that sometimes the Franciscans circulated important announcements from pueblo to pueblo. My guess would be that in most cases Filipinos from the parish(es) carried the letters and circulars. The expectation was that each Franciscan parish priest would note the date and time received on the missive, read and possibly copy it into an official church register, and then note date and time that it was sent on to the next Franciscan-administered parish. Some of the originals of these manuscripts, sometimes complete with the signed information, have survived and are in the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental in Madrid.
Whenever I encountered one of these with annotations indicating receipt or departure, I made note of the information. I have transcribed this information into the lists posted here,[5] organized by year. Spellings and names in use at the time the manuscript was written are generally those I have presented. The gaps in the data that I have compiled are notable, but such entries are a start toward compiling a more comprehensive list of actual communications. However, we must be aware, as Braudel cautions: “In the end we must acknowledge the paradox of measuring the delays imposed by distance by studying the dispatch of letters. Even at their slowest these precious goods moved faster than any other travelers.”[6]
I hope other scholars will add similar information, especially for communication times between municipalities and parishes not under Franciscan administration. Perhaps other researchers have or will come across accounts by letter-writers or by travelers in the Islands who gave times to transit from town to town, province to province.
Please contact me at dbc_research_institute@yahoo.com with any information you would like to share; or with comments and criticisms on the material I am posting here.
Bruce Cruikshank, May 2015
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Again, the materials can be accessed at https://sites.google.com/site/traveltimesphilippines15651898/
[1] Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), v. 1, 357. Translation by Sián Reynolds, first published 1949, 2nd revised edition in 1966.
[2] 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 (Binondo: M. Sánchez, 1865, 2nd ed), 5th of his Advertencias in the front of his book.
[3] Examples of such phrasing can be found in Huerta, pp. 84, 102, 116, 172, 205, 237, 245, 265.
[4] See, for example, Huerta, pp. 217, 283, 289, 292, 302-303, 307, 314-315, 319, 321, 327, 332, 335, 354, and 366. Delays in travel by water can also be found in the documents I provide below, most notably in late 1775, note 1; late 1783, note 2; and late 1784, note 1. Also see Joaquin Martínez de Zúñiga, O.S.A., Estadismo de las islas Filipinas o mis viajes por este país por el Padre Fr. Joaquin Martinez de Zúñiga, Agustino calzado (ed. W. E. Retana. Madrid: Imp. de la Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Rios, 1893. 2 vols.), v. 1, p. 143: “Es increíble la dificultad que hay en estas Islas para conducir por tierra cualquier cosa; como las gentes no están acostumbradas á la arriería, y no hay muías, sino unos débiles caballos para carga, cuesta mucho este género de conducción. El llevar un pico de trigo desde Tanauan á Calamba, que no dista tres leguas, importa más que el conducirlo de allí á Manila, que hay diez ó doce leguas de navegación.”
[5] Found at https://sites.google.com/site/traveltimesphilippines15651898/
[6] Braudel, 368.