The third of a thousand years during which Spain misgoverned the
archipelago that Magellan had discovered for her was a period of
Philippine preparation.
Divided already so each town was jealous of its neighbors and anxious
to enlist the Europeans in waging war upon them, the Filipinos were
an easy conquest for soldiers whose first military maxim was Rome's
"Divide and Conquer."
The conquest might better be called a conversion for the cross did much
more to establish and maintain Spain's authority than the sword. And
the new religion formed a bond of union, perhaps the only one which
could have brought together such diverse elements.
Spanish catholicism was not merely a Spanish church, the church was
Spain. There was therefore no humiliation over subjugation, rather
exultation in having found salvation.
The people were seafaring folk with the sturdiness such a life
gives. Their chiefs were their captains, and, in waters that are
the home of the typhoon, leadership, if in no other way than by the
survival of the fittest, came to the most capable.
Women held high position, for with their husband so much away not only
the household but all the family affairs were under their control,
a condition still notable. Thus the home influence in which the
children grew up was not that of the Orient, a shut-in Zenana with,
for the child's first model, a mother who had been a slave and now
as mistress was a tyrant, but the youth of the Philippines earlier
saw the real world and had training from mothers who knew its ways.
There were gradations of rank, but people were constantly falling from
the higher to the lower so that these had ambitious persons among
them seeking to regain their former estate and arousing ambition
among their fellows. And the condition of even the lowest was not
hopeless. So well ordered was society that even slaves had rights and
knew them; had too the civic courage to stand up for them against
their masters. Witness the story of the surprise of the Spaniards
who heard slaves saying to their masters, "What is there in it for
me in this?", when orders were given them.
Nor should it be thought that the wholesale conversion betrayed
weakness of character. The islands had had a nature religion, the
belief of an artistic people, that their Gods would delight in and
frequent the most beautiful spots. Then came the religion of Mahomet
with a system which reason readily recognized as superior, but before
it was fairly established there arrived another religion which not
only commended itself to reason but appealed to the artistic sense,
both in larger measure than either of its predecessors.
Those who had felt exalted in the glory of the tropical sun, found
comfort in the moonbeams' softer radiance, had sought the leafy
recesses of the forest for reflection and were soothed and sustained
by the musical murmurs of mountain cascades found greater comfort
and a higher gratification in the rites and ceremonies of a church
which has ever been the patron of art and consecrates all that is
beautiful in music, painting and sculpture to adorn its sanctuaries
and dignify its worship.