Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines — 09-The Philippines, Ch.2 The Philippines of the Past pt1
THE PHILIPPINES OF THE PAST
How have the Philippines come to present such a unique combination of Spanish and Malay civilization?
Let us look into their past.
We find for the early days myths and legends, preserved by oral tradition.
Two quaint stories told by the primitive mountain people, which show how they believe the Islands first came into being and how the first man and woman entered into this world, are worth transcribing for their naïve simplicity: "A long time ago there was no land.
There were only the sea and the sky.
A bird was flying in the sky.
It grew tired flying.
It wanted something to rest upon.
The bird was very cunning.
It set the sea and sky to quarreling.
The sea threw water up at the sky.
The sky turned very dark and angry.
Then the angry sky showered down upon the sea all the Islands.
That is how the Islands came."
This second tale is even more child-like: "A great bamboo grew on one of the Islands.
It was very large around, larger than any of the others.
The bird lit on the ground and began to peck the bamboo.
A voice inside said, 'Peck harder, peck harder.'
The bird was frightened at first, but it wanted to know what was inside.
So it pecked and pecked.
Still the voice said, 'Peck harder, peck harder.'
At last a great crack split the bamboo from the bottom to the top.
Out stepped a man and a woman.
The bird was so frightened that it flew away.
The man bowed very low to the woman, for they had lived in different joints of the bamboo and had never seen each other before.
They were the first man and woman in the world."
These natives believe there are good and evil spirits, and they invoke the agency of the latter to explain the mystery of death.
They say the first death occurred when the evil spirit lightning became angry with man and hurled a dangerous bolt to earth.
The first suggestion of real history is found in the traditions that tell of Malays from the south who came and settled on these islands.
It is said a race of small black people were already here--the Negritos--who resembled the African negroes, and who retired into the hills before the invaders.
Next we hear of a Mohammedan priest who came to the southern Philippines and gave the people his religion.
His followers have to this day been called Moros.
It was more than two centuries before Captain Cook visited Hawaii, that white men discovered the Philippines.
Magellan, the famous Portuguese navigator, while sailing in the service of Spain, landed on Mindanao and Cebu, and took possession of the group in the name of the Spanish king.
Before starting from Seville on this voyage around the world, Magellan had already spent seven years in India and sailed as far as Sumatra, so he already knew this part of the world.
This time he was in search of the Spice Islands and of a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
He had touched first at Teneriffe and then crossed the Atlantic to Brazil, making his way along the coast of South America.
There were many hardships and difficulties to contend with, and mutiny in the fleet resulted in several deaths.
But, as we all know, he persevered, and on the 15th of October, 1520, discovered the straits which were named after him.
The Ladrones were reached after fourteen tedious weeks, and on St. Lazarus' day, in 1521, the Philippines were sighted and named by him for the saint.
In the early times they were sometimes referred to by the Spaniards as the Eastern, and later as the Western, Islands.
They were finally named the Philippines by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, after his king, Philip the Second.
Magellan was quite unlike Captain Cook, whose visit to Hawaii has been mentioned.
He was a nobleman and full of the religious enthusiasm that fired the Spaniards of his day.
He was accompanied by several friars, who at once began missionary work among the natives, and only a week after his arrival the Cebuan chief and his warriors were baptized into the Christian faith.
Unfortunately, Magellan took sides with the Cebuans in their warfare against a neighbouring tribe, and in the battle he was killed.
After his death, the same chieftain turned on Magellan's followers, but some escaped to their ships.
Out of two hundred and fifty men who had set sail three years before, only eighteen, after suffering incredible hardships on the long journey by way of India and the Cape of Good Hope, returned safely to Spain.
The next explorer who touched at the Islands was the Englishman, Sir Francis Drake, of Spanish Armada fame, who sailed in 1570 on a voyage round the world.
We also hear of another Briton, William Dampier, a noted free-booter, who, in 1685, tried to cross the Isthmus of Panama with Captain Sharp.
Three times he sailed round the world, and touched at the northern as well as the southern Philippine Islands.
Magellan, Drake and Dampier gave the western world much knowledge of the Far East, but did not remain long enough in the Islands to have any great or lasting influence over the natives.
The work of civilizing them was left to Legaspi and the Spanish friars, who were the first real settlers.
In 1565, the Philippines were occupied by an expedition under Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, _alcalde_ of the City of Mexico, who was charged to open a new route to Java and the Southern Islands.
On his return voyage he was to examine the ports of the Philippines, and, if expedient, to found a colony there.
In any case he was to establish trade with the Islands.
The viceroy of Mexico charged him that the friars with the expedition were to be treated with the utmost consideration, "since you are aware that the chief thing sought after by His Majesty is the increase of our holy Catholic faith and the salvation of the souls of those infidels."
Cebu was occupied, and Manila was taken and made the seat of government.
The occupation of the Islands was not exactly by force of arms, for there was no fighting, although they found the islands well populated and the people more or less armed.
The natives seemed to recognize and submit to a better government and religion than they had ever known.
The reports of the Spaniards of the time speak of the success of small expeditions of perhaps a hundred men, who took over whole provinces.
These soldiers were accompanied by Spanish priests, who settled among the people, preaching Christianity in the native tongues.
The friars persuaded them to give up their continual feuds and submit to the central authority which the friars represented.
Legaspi brought with him from Mexico four hundred Spanish soldiers.
Later eight hundred more arrived, and civilian Spaniards, both married and single, sailed to the Islands as settlers.
In 1591, according to the records of Spanish grants, there were 667,612 natives under Spanish rule, and twenty-seven officials to enforce the laws and preserve order.
It was reported that in a majority of the grants there was peace, justice and religious instruction.
There were Augustinian, Dominican and Franciscan friars as well as secular clergy.
These men were not only priests but also fighters and organizers, and did fine work for many years, until long-continued possession of power gradually made the orders corrupt and grasping.
Upon their first arrival, the Spaniards found the people established in small villages, or _barangays_, where the chief lived surrounded by his slaves and followers.
It was considered wise to continue this system, ruling the villages through the local chieftain, whom the Spaniards called _cabeza de barangay_.
Churches were erected, convent houses were built about them, and the natives were urged to gather near by.
It was ordered that "elementary schools should be established, in which the Indians will be taught not only Christian doctrine and reading and writing but also arts and trades, so that they may become not only good Christians but also useful citizens."
So at the end of the sixteenth century the Philippines were at peace.
The natives were allowed to move from one town to another, but they were required to obtain permission, in order to prevent them from wandering about without religious instruction.
The tendency of the Malays is to separate into small groups, and they have never been dwellers in large towns.
The Spanish priests, therefore, found a constant effort necessary to keep them concentrated about the churches "under the bells."
[Illustration: "UNDER THE BELLS."
] The fervour of religious reform which started in Germany was followed by an equal fervour within the Roman Catholic Church.
The period of Julius II and Leo X was over; the Council of Trent had met.
Ignatius Loyola had seen his visions and sent forth his company, and Spain was full of priests eager to serve God with the same stern energy which the previous generation had shown in the search for lands and gold and fabulous gems.
No duty was so grave as that of conformity to the Church, no stigma so galling as that of heretic.
To convert the heathen was an obligation binding upon all men.
All Spanish colonies were missions; the Philippines were always rather a mission than a colony.
Until the revolt of 1896, Spain never found it necessary to hold the Islands by armed force; her dominion there was based rather on her conquest of the minds and souls of men.
There had been a few uprisings, however, and early in the eighteenth century a Spanish governor and his son were murdered by a mob.
But notwithstanding occasional difficulties, in the main there was peace until the civil service of the Philippines was assimilated with that of Spain.
Then officials became dependent upon their supporters at home, and were changed with every change of the ministry.
Some Spaniard writing at the time said that with the opening of the Suez Canal Spanish office holders descended on the Islands like locusts.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the Spanish army had grown to 17,859 of all ranks, only 3,005 of whom were Spaniards, and there was a constabulary of over 3,000 officers and men, who were almost entirely natives.
The rule of Spain was secured by a native army.
There could have been no widespread discontent, or that army would not have remained true to its allegiance, especially as its recruits were obtained by conscription.
The chronicles remind us, however, that the Spaniards did not have things all their own way.
In the early days, they were at first friendly with the Chinese, and Mexico carried on a flourishing trade with China by way of Manila until the pirate Li Ma Hong raided the Islands.
The Spaniards were on good terms with the Japanese until the latter massacred the Jesuit friars in Japan.
When the Shogun Iyeyasu expelled the priests he sent away even those who were caring for the lepers, and as a final insult, he sent to Manila three junks loaded with lepers, with a letter to the governor general of the Philippines, in which he said that, as the Spanish friars were so anxious to provide for the poor and needy, he sent him a cargo of men who were in truth sore afflicted.
Only the ardent appeals of the friars saved these unfortunates and their contaminated vessels from being sunk in Manila Bay.
Finally the governor yielded, and these poor creatures were landed and housed in the leper hospital of San Lazaro, which was then established for their reception and which remains to-day.
The Spanish governors were also hampered by the lack of effective support from the older colony of Mexico, which was so much nearer than the home land that they naturally turned to it for aid.
One of them wrote pathetically to the King of Spain: "And for the future ...
will your Majesty ordain that Mexico shall furnish what pertains to its part.
For, if I ask for troops, they send me twenty men, who die before they arrive here, and none are born here.
And if I ask for ammunition, they laugh at me and censure me, and say that I ask impossible things.
They retain there the freight money and the duties; and if they should send to this state what is yours, your Majesty would have to spend but little from your royal patrimony."
The Portuguese were a source of anxiety to the colonists until Portugal fell into the hands of Spain.
The Dutch, too, who were growing powerful in the Far East, even took Formosa, which brought them altogether too near, but they were driven out of that island by the great Chinese pirate Koxinga.
[13] From the time of Legaspi to the end of Spanish rule there were occasional attacks upon the Chinese residing in the archipelago, who were never allowed to live in the Islands without exciting protest and dislike, based partly upon religious, partly upon commercial grounds.
During the last one hundred years of Spanish supremacy, the greatest danger to their power was the presence of the Chinese.
Efforts to exclude them were never effective or long enduring, and yet it was felt that the men who came as labourers and traders were the advance guard of an innumerable host.
In business the Malay has never been the equal of the shrewd Chinaman, and although the latter might be converted and take a Spanish name, yet it was always gravely suspected that a search would find joss sticks smoldering in front of the tutelary deity of commerce hidden behind the image of the Virgin in his chapel.
So the Chinaman, like the Jew in medieval Europe, carried on his trade in constant danger of robbery and murder.
This antipathy did not, however, extend to Filipina women, many of whom married the foreigners.
Among the leaders in the Filipino insurrection against the United States, Aguinaldo, two of his cabinet, nine of his generals, and many of his more important financial agents were of Chinese descent.
In 1762 the English swooped down upon Manila, but they held the capital only two years, for, by the Treaty of Paris, the lands they had taken were returned to Spain.
It is said the English conquest, brief as it was, brought good results to the Islands.
Before going on to the struggle against the friars, I wish to quote from my father's letters describing his experiences in the Philippines twenty years before American occupation.
"At Sea, December 2, 1878. "Yesterday I left Manila, where I have been since the 6th of last month....
Our first days there were spent in firing salutes and exchanging visits, and going through all the forms which are customary when a government vessel comes into a foreign port.
Admiral Patterson sent me here to settle a stabbing affray on board the American barque _Masonic_, and that took up my attention at first.
In the evenings I went to the opera, and visited the sights of the city.
On account of earthquakes, all the buildings are but one story high.
The customs, fashions, etc. , are Spanish.
Every one was polite and I found it very pleasant; but, as you might expect, after a little while I grew restless.
I heard that there was some beautiful scenery in the interior, and I resolved to go on an investigating trip and see it.
Our vice-consul, Mr. Yongs, and another gentleman went with me.
"From Manila we went in a boat up a short river, which had its rise in a large lake, about twenty-five miles long, that we crossed in a steamer.
I think I never saw such quantities of two things as were on that lake--namely, ducks and mosquitoes.
"From the lake we continued our journey in two-horse vehicles, like the _volantes_ of Havana, and in these we went from village to village, on our way to the mountains.
We were very well treated.
The Spanish authorities at Manila provided us with whatever we required.
The villages were clusters of thatched huts around a church, and the religion seemed to be a curious mixture of Roman Catholic Christianity and pagan superstition, as I concluded from the style of the pictures with which the churches were adorned.
These were chiefly representations of hell and its torments.
Devils, with the traditional tails and horns, and armed with pitchforks, were turning over sinners in lakes of burning brimstone....
"We found the natives very musical; they sang and played on a variety of instruments, and they were rather handsome.
The women had, without exception, the longest and most luxuriant hair I ever saw in all my travels.
You know it is a rare thing among us for a woman to have hair that sweeps the ground, but here the exception is the other way; nearly every woman I saw had hair between five and six feet in length.
"I was told that back among the mountains there existed tribes whom the Spaniards have never been able to conquer, and no one dares to venture among them, not even the priests.
Our road was constantly ascending, and as we advanced toward the interior the scenery became beautiful.
Peaks of mountains rose all about us; plains and valleys stretched out, covered with tropical vegetation; picturesque villages, clustering around their churches, were visible here and there; and in the distance were glimpses of the sea, sparkling and bright in the sun.
"I was told of a wonderful ravine among the mountains that was worth seeing and I decided to visit it, especially as it was a favourable time; the river, by which it had to be approached, was then high, and its fifteen cascades, which usually had to be climbed past, dragging the canoe, were reduced to four.
I took three natives with me, and we ascended successfully.
I have called it a ravine, but a gorge would be a better term, for it is worn directly through the mountain by a large river, and the rock rises up on each side, as sheer and straight as if cut by machinery.
"After I had ascended a certain distance, I stopped for a time to examine all the wild magnificence about me.
The rocky wall on each side was so high that when I looked up I could see the stars shining in that bright noonday, as if it were night.
Huge birds came flapping up the gorge far above my head; and yet they were far below the top of the mountain of rock.
I do not know how many feet it rose, but I never saw any precipice where the impression of height was so effectually given--it seemed immense.
"Beneath us was the deep, broad stream, looking very dark in the twilight that such a shadow made, and I could not help feeling awestruck.
But the opening of the gorge framed as smiling and cheerful a landscape as could possibly be devised, to contrast with the inner gloom.
It was a wide, varied and splendid view of the country beyond, sloping to the distant sea, and all of it as aglow with light and colour as sea and land could be, beneath a tropic sun.
"Descending the river on our way out, I had a characteristic adventure, which will make me satisfied for a time.
We had passed two of the rapids in safety, but as we approached the third, the canoe struck on a rock or something in the current, bow on, and swinging round, half filled with water.
The natives in the end of the canoe nearest the rock sprang out and clung to the vines which hung over its sides, but the other man and I went over the fall in the half-swamped canoe, and were wholly at the mercy of the stream, with an unusually good prospect of getting a good deal more of it.
"The fall once passed through, the current drove us toward the shore, if that is what you would call a precipice of rock, running straight down far below the surface of the water.
I succeeded in grasping the vines and pulling the canoe after me by my feet.
The water was quite close by the rock, and the other two men, crawling down to us, hung on with me, and bailed out the boat till it was safely afloat, and then we went down the rest of the way without accident."
