The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 1670-1700: 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 43, 1670-1700: 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
At the date on which we went to Santa Fe, it had been quite a long
time since the said village had experienced any aggression from the
baganis. Consequently, the people were living somewhat free from
their past misery, and relieved of the frequent alarms and consequent
frights. However, they were suffering great famine on account of
the said aggressions, and because they had lost almost all the crops
of maize and sweet potatoes (the only things which they cultivate),
during that time because of the great and prolonged heat and the lack
of rain. They were supporting themselves on the few sweet potatoes
that had been saved, thanks to the humidity of the ground, and the
shade of the trees, and on the soft parts of convolvulus and palms
which grow along the shores of the rivers. In spite of so many and so
severe troubles, thanks be to God, there has not been hitherto, but two
families of San Luis who have become fugitives. That action has not at
all been because they repent of having become Christians, but for other
very different reasons. Those families have, however, now established
relations with the father and promised him to abandon the Dacungbanua
or lands of Magdagasang, where they are living at present, as soon as
they shall have harvested the palay of their fields, and settle in a
village other than the one in which they lived formerly. What a fine
example, then, Father Superior, of Christian fidelity and resignation
have those newly-reduced people given us in general, and how evident a
proof of their true conversion to Christianity! In my opinion, these
are results that ought to be attributed, after divine Grace (without
which no good thing can be done), especially to the plan which Father
Pastells has always followed in so far as it has been allowed him, in
the reduction of heathens. It is exclusively a system of attraction
by means of great charity, great mildness, continual patience, and
solid foundations upon which the village recently established rests;
namely, the foundations of a good inspector who continues to form
gradually in the village the good customs of the Christians, of
good authorities who rule and govern the people without exactions
and injustice, or excessive rigor, of good masters who instruct
and educate the children, with the visit of the father, as often
as possible in order further to exercise his spiritual ministries,
and to ascertain how they all observe their important obligations.
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