It is an abuse that the fathers have in every way defended and
protected, from the time of the conquest, the Chinese idolaters,
apostates, traitors, and sodomites, without any benefit to the
community, [88] but with considerable harm in spiritual and temporal
affairs; and that they have persecuted the poor Spaniard with so
great rancor and eagerness. For it is seen that if any Spaniard goes,
on account of misfortune, to the provinces to gain his livelihood,
the father immediately orders him to leave, even if he does not lash
him, etc. [89]
This is the reason why, after so long a time, there is no other
settlement of Spaniards than that of Manila; for in the provinces
rarely or never does one see a Spaniard. And, pursuing the same
reasoning, after the lapse of so many years we are as strange to the
Indians as in the beginning, and even more so, as one can see in the
history of the conquest compared with what we all saw during the war.
I venerate, as I ought, the justness of the laws, (xxi and xxii, book
vi, título iii, and law i, book vii, título iv, of the Recopilación)
which prohibit, in the words of the laws, "Spaniards, negroes,
mulattoes, or mestizos from living in the villages of the Indians, for
it has been found that some of the first are restless fellows, of evil
life, robbers, gamblers, and vicious and abandoned people." However,
conceding for the present whatever crimes and stigmas these laws
impute to the Spaniards, I declare and affirm that, with that ban,
the regulars have committed more havoc in America and Filipinas than
all the locusts together. These (the laws) the regulars order posted
in the tribunal houses of the villages, and obey them with such rigor
that if the laws concerning the missionaries were observed in the same
way there would be no Christianity equal to that of those countries.
Let the evil Spaniard be punished; that is but justice: but the good
man cannot and ought not to be punished. The fact is that by means
of the said laws the father puts all [the Spaniards] on the same
footing, and persecutes and punishes all without distinction until
he drives them out of the country. In this way, he is left alone in
the village, and without witnesses for what only God knows, and the
intelligent Catholics weep; and the Indian grows more alien every day,
and becomes hostile to the Spaniard through the instruction which he
receives from the father.
If the Spaniard is very bad, let him be punished by all means. But,
if this is proper, why do they not only not ask the same in regard to
the Chinese (who without comparison is worse), but defend, protect,
and aid him, on account of trade and whatever else offers?
The Spaniard may be a robber, gambler, and vicious; but he is not an
idolater, an apostate, or a traitor, a sodomite, and the father of all
deceit, as is the Chinese. Nevertheless, the father keeps still about
all this and shelters it, and reserves his hootings only for the poor
Spaniard, who many times shames the father missionary himself by the
regularity of his conduct.
What consolation can there be for the Spaniard, prohibited so
rigorously from entering the domains of his king, when he sees that
the Chinese are not only not hindered from such entrance, but also
that they are encouraged; and that they rove about, and come and go,
with more freedom than in their own country? [90]
Is it possible that we must see laws so harsh against the people of
our own nation, and yet, that although the Chinese are foreigners and
so perverse in all ways, they have merited a special título in the
Recopilación and in article 18, book vi, for their defense, trade,
and increase in Manila and the provinces?
Fray Gaspar de San Agustin speaks as follows in his history of the
conquest of Filipinas, book ii, folio 373 and verso, when speaking of
the Chinese: "They are a race blinded by greed, and self-interest,
and when these intervene friendship or relationship counts for
nothing; for the son delights more in deceiving his father than the
foreigner." He continues, and after noting that they are atheists,
and that only by a miracle will it be seen that any of them is a good
Christian, he concludes as follows: "finally, they are a nation who
hope for no other blessings than those of this world, nor other glory
than temporal goods; and they worship no other God than the metals
of silver and gold, and keep faith with Money alone."
This is the character of the Chinese, according to the above-cited
author. [91] And, granted that it was a very inadequate statement, it
is necessary to remark that both he and the rest of his order, and the
others, with no difference, have favored and protected such atheists
and persecuted the Spaniards. The proof is ad oculum [i.e., ocular],
until the destruction during the war; for Manila and the provinces
were inundated by Chinese, married and protected by the fathers, but
there was not, nor is there a Spaniard [in the provinces]. This was
because they did not find themselves persecuted by those same fathers;
therefore the Chinese, according to the same historian, reached in
time past the number of four hundred thousand. The most remarkable
thing is, that the fathers administered to them in spiritual matters
with as great serenity as if they were fathers of the deserts, [92]
and yet Fray Gaspar confesses that they are atheists.
We cannot pass in silence the fact that after the war the Chinese
religious [93] refused to confess the Chinese, for they said that
they knew that their fellow-countrymen were idolaters. However, the
Spanish religious found a moral rule by which to proceed without
any innovation, as they proceed in their own administration; and
in this way they have administered the Christian churches in those
regions. Consequently, he who says the contrary deceives, and falsifies
the truth in regard to certain facts which are public, and which all
those of us who have been in those regions have seen.
In confirmation of the above, see the same historian, book iii, folio
426, in which, treating of the arrival of Governor Santiago de Vera, he
says: "He brought very strict orders from his Majesty [94] to correct
the great excesses which had come to his royal notice, and which had
been committed by the encomenderos of the Indians--who, losing shame
before God and the world, had descended to such dishonorable acts
(perhaps for lack of punishment in the first encomenderos), which
transgressed their obligation." Leaving aside the truth of so great
excesses and of the medium by which they came to his royal notice
(which if investigated thoroughly must have been, without doubt,
through the fathers themselves) it is a fact that a decree was
despatched at Lisboa, March 27, 1583, in favor of the Indians, and
against the excesses of the encomenderos.
The above-mentioned historian continues, and says that the governor
deprived Bartolomé de Ledesma, encomendero of Abuyo, of his encomienda,
as also others whom he found more guilty in similar crimes--whose
names he omits, as it is not his intention to reveal or point out
other persons who at present behave as they should; but he will not
neglect to give the royal decree.
In fact he gives the decree literally, and in truth the crimes of the
encomenderos are so atrocious that they become incredible. But granting
their certainty, because the decree so says, one must wonder that
the father inserts it so exactly after he has just said that he omits
those excesses because it is not his intention to describe them. That
being a manifest contradiction, proves that the mind of the fathers
has always been, and will always be, to defame and make odious the
Spaniard to the Indian, the council, and the king, in order that the
fathers may be masters of everything, without opposition or witnesses.
The same historian concludes the matter on folio 427, with the
following words: "But Doctor Santiago Vera made such judicious
arrangements in regard to the evil doing of the encomenderos,
that, from the time of his government, that matter began to take
better shape, and through the Infinite Pity is at present in better
condition." [95]
This condition of affairs is what the fathers wish, for it has been
many years since there has been any encomendero or Spaniard in the
provinces. That has been their sole desire, and, having obtained it,
he openly avows that the matter is at present in a better condition
through the Divine Pity, because they are alone, absolute, and
without rival.
But how could this fail to happen thus, if laws xxiii and xxiv of the
same título and book only permit the Spaniard, even though he goes as
a merchant, to remain in the villages of the Indians for three days;
and if he exceeds that time, it must be with the penalty of fifty
pesos of gold-dust for each day? It is to be noted here that the
father is so exact in the observance of these laws that it can be
said that he keeps others; and although he does not exact the fifty
pesos because most of the Spaniards require the money for their food,
what does it matter if he orders them to be lashed and imprisoned?
Let this point be taken in the sense which is desired [by the fathers],
and let the Spaniard be considered most perverse; yet he is better
than the best Chinese. Is it possible that so many privileges are
conceded to the Chinese, that he is to live, marry, and trade freely
in Manila and the provinces, and so great harshness must be exercised
against the poor Spaniard? Is it possible that the latter can deserve
so little that he is not indeed equal to the Chinese? [96]
The condition of this matter reduces itself to a few points. First,
that if, by scandals and evil example to the Indians, the Spaniards
have to leave the villages, one ought to begin with the father. This
is so notorious a fact that all who have been in América and Filipinas
will testify to that effect in the official letters of the Council.
Second, in respect to the arguments which are alleged against
the Spaniard, they are not what they seem, and one must subtract
three-fourths of them; while it must be assumed as a well-known fact
that, as they are his declared enemy, and all the regulars are pledged
against the Spaniard, they have not hesitated to find witnesses and
raise up false testimonies, in order to attain their plans. This idea
is so generally practiced and current, that would to God there were
no memory of it.
All these complaints and outcries are reduced to the fact that if
the Spaniard is solicitous for women, to oblige him to marry an
Indian woman is of infinite advantage to him; and, if he is vicious
by another extreme, to punish him. If this remedy does not please
the religious (and immediately it does not suit them) why, just as
they are irritated against the poor Spaniard, do they not cry out in
the same manner against the Chinese, who is so perverse, but defend
him in whatever arises? Why do they not cry out against the negro,
mulatto, and mestizo who are such consummate rogues, but discharge
all their spite upon the Castila?
The explanation of this mystery consists in the fact that the Spaniard
treats the father with the urbanity that is used toward ecclesiastics
in España; but he is not imposed upon by the kind of servitude which
the former desires, and at the same time he is a witness of what occurs
in the provinces that is not right, and which the fathers do not wish
him to know. On the contrary, the Chinese, under pretense that they
allow to him his liberty, keeps still, dissimulates, makes presents,
and blindly submits to whatever is ordered of him.
Third, although we grant, as is right, the justice of the
above-expressed laws in the time and the sense in which they were made,
yet, as they are generally put in force against every Spaniard good
or bad, it follows: first, that they punish the innocent; second,
they prevent the settlement by Spaniards in the provinces, although
it is so necessary; and, third, they hinder our union and friendship
with the Indians, and consequently, marriages. And, supposing that the
Indian women do not desire anything else, and that a Spaniard thus
married has all the kindred of his wife favorable to him, I desire
to know, according to good policy, whether there is any other remedy
more rational and suitable than this, for the conservation of those
domains? This is what law viii, título i, book vi, provides.
There are two alternatives: it is either advantageous for the
nation to preserve them, or not. If the latter, let the Spaniards
come, and let them be abandoned at once. If the former, there is no
other means better than that of union between the two nations. And,
besides the fact that this is the universal practice throughout the
world, it is unnecessary to say anything more about the matter; for,
let the regulars say what they will, they will not deny that if the
Castilian language had not been precluded from the beginning, and had
the Spaniards married the Indian women--which was the method of giving
them good treatment, according to the laws--there would be little or
nothing to conquer in the two Américas and Filipinas. Consequently, it
seems indispensable to abrogate the above-cited laws, or to moderate
them somewhat in favor of the nation, restraining the license of the
fathers. That is quite in accordance with law xxiv, título i, book vi,
which permits the Spaniard to trade freely with the Indians. That
cannot be done if he is to be driven from the villages in three
days' time.