The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700: 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.
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700: 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.
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
7. The Dominican fathers also applied themselves to the work in the
province of Zambales. That province had already eleven villages formed,
although they were small, because that province has but few people. It
appeared to the new fathers that that number of villages made their
administration difficult; consequently, they tried to reduce their
number by uniting some of them. That incorporation was difficult;
hence they increased the troops and arms of the presidio of Paynaven,
the center of that province. Through the protection afforded by those
troops, they broke up the whole province. The village of Bolinaò,
which had a fair population, was located on an island, which is
separated from the land by only a channel, which forms its famous
and secure port. [65] It was fertile and pleasant. They moved it to
the mainland, to a sandy shore, useless for anything, even for the
ordinary fields. Its lack of water they supplied with wells which
they opened. There they obtained some water, but it was thick, and in
the time of the dry season it entirely disappeared. The Indians who
were harmed by this measure were so angry at that moving, that many
families retired to Ylocos. In truth, that site is despicable. An
eminence which looks upon and almost dominates the port would have
been much more suitable, and they would have obtained better air
there; while their boats, which cannot navigate by the channel
to the village during the blowing of the north wind, so that the
cargo has to be carried for a long distance on the shoulders, would
have obtained shelter. There are many other inconveniences but one
cannot think of a single advantage. They moved the village of Agno
[66] from the coast into the interior, to a site which is a swampy
mudhole when there is the least rain. The village of Sigayan was
moved to another site, where the only advantage was a near-by river
of fresh water which was unnavigable. They left Masinloc [67] on its
pleasant site, while the village of Paynaven was moved inland to
a site called Iba, [68] from which the new village took its name,
moving that village in order to get it away from the commandant of
the fort, whose proximity was annoying to them. They did not regard
it as a recompensable hardship for the minister of that village to
go on feast-days in order to say mass in the presidio, and to repeat
it afterwards in his own church. In order to increase that place
and give it the name of capital, they brought families from Bolinaò,
who formed a large barangay. It has already been seen that they made
use of the fort in this, and that those who were moved were not very
well pleased. The Dominicans also founded, or better, made from
other villages, the village of Cabangaan [69] in an obscure site,
which was rough and surrounded by dense mountains, and suitable only
for a hermit and solitary life, but so far as others were concerned,
a place of profound melancholy. They also formed the village of Subic
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