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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55, 1640: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth centuryAduarte, Diego

History

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55, 1640: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

Name: The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55, 1640: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Author: Aduarte, Diego

Aduarte, Diego

Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources

Gomez Perez Dasmariñas arrives at Manila in 1590, as governor of
the islands. Dissensions soon arise between him and Bishop Salazar,
and the latter departs for Spain (in June, 1591), accompanied
by Benavides. The governor is afterward slain by his own Chinese
oarsmen. In April, 1592, Fray Alonso Ximenes is chosen provincial;
the various missions are apportioned, and certain ordinances for their
conduct and the better government of the province are enacted. Fray
Juan de Castro and Fray Juan Cobo die soon afterward, of whom Aduarte
presents full biographical accounts. A special assembly of the
religious is convened in December, 1594, at which additional rules
for their conduct are adopted. They are also asked to send religious
to Nueva Segovia, for which mission two fathers are allotted. Aduarte
describes that province, and its conquest (1581) by the Spaniards,
to prevent it from becoming a Japanese possession. The Indians of
that province are so warlike that for a long time the Spaniards can
keep but a precarious hold upon it; and the friars find that they
can accomplish nothing there with either Spaniards or Indians. The
Dominicans, therefore, enter (1595) upon a hard and sterile field;
but a considerable reënforcement of missionaries opportunely arrive
to aid them, although many die while en route from España. Aduarte
recounts the superstitious beliefs and observances current among the
Cagayán Indians, notions which shape or modify nearly all of their
social customs; they are, from his standpoint, slaves to the devil
in all things. The Dominican missionaries, now eight in number, plan
and begin the spiritual conquest of Cagayán. For nearly a year they
endure, on account of the hostility of the natives, great sufferings
from hunger, exposure, and apparently vain efforts; but gradually
they subdue the natives by their unwearied self-denial, patience,
and love. Their first-fruits consist in eight converted chiefs,
who are baptized at Easter (1597), and these are the beginning of a
rich harvest--at first, mainly of children baptized before they die
from the prevalent epidemic of smallpox. Gradually, they are able to
build churches in the respective villages, and to introduce among
the Indians a civilized and Christian mode of life. At the time of
Aduarte's writing (ca. 1637), those people have become very fond
of their religious, and ask for them to come to teach them--even
changing their own residences, when necessary for their obtaining
religious instruction. The supply of missionaries for that region is
very inadequate, and should be promptly increased.


    The Editors

        July, 1905.







COMMERCE BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND NUEVA ESPAÑA

By Antonio Alvarez de Abreu; Madrid, 1736.

    Source: Translated from Abreu's Extracto historial (Madrid, 1736),
    fol. 1-28; from a copy in the possession of Edward E. Ayer,
    Chicago.

    Translation: This is made by Emma Helen Blair.





COMMERCE BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND NUEVA ESPAÑA

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