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
The first portion of this volume treats of the Dominican missions, in
general between the years 1670-1700, the matter being translated and
condensed from Salazar's Historia. In 1671 and 1679 new contingents
of religious arrive in the province from Spain, which prove of great
profit to the overworked missionaries, for they have missions on
the Asiatic mainland as well as in the Philippines which must be
supplied. In the latter year the Zambal mission is transferred to
the Dominicans, they supplanting the Recollect order, who have been
in charge there for over sixty years. This is at the request of the
natives themselves, but it is discovered shortly that that request
is only a ruse on the part of the latter in order to escape any
obligation to accept the faith, for they soon petition that they
be given Jesuits in place of Dominicans. Before the transfer of
the mission the Dominicans have already begun to work in the Zambal
district, but desist because of the complaints of the Recollects that
their territory is being invaded. When they resume their work there in
1679, they are aided considerably by the governor, Vargas y Hurtado,
and his military representative in the Zambal district. These chapters
show in extenso the methods used by the missionaries in advancing
the faith. The soldiers are of considerable aid in escorting those
who are to become reduced to a civilized life in the villages where
the fathers can watch over their welfare carefully. The harshness of
the soldiers is counteracted by the mildness and solicitude of the
missionaries. The work of the latter also extends to the industrial
training of the new converts. Natives of civilized villages are
specially hired to instruct them in agriculture, but so lazy are many
of the Zambals that after their lands have been cultivated, sowed,
and tended, they refuse to harvest them themselves and many of them
take to the mountains and apostatize from the faith. Some, however,
gather the harvest as they have the profit in sight. In those new
missions the children, from regarding the fathers with suspicion and
abhorring their very sight, soon flock about them at their appearance
and will scarcely be persuaded to part from them. The children, too,
are the ones whom the fathers first win over to the faith and the
instruction, and these in turn bring in their parents and the other
older people by taunting them with their ignorance. The astute Fray
Domingo Perez, who is in charge of the Zambal field, suppresses the
practice of murders by means of a trick, for by feeling the pulses of
all the men of a village he is able through the natural fear of the
culprit to detect the murderer. Therefore the superstitious Zambals
imagine that he can detect any wrongdoing by simply feeling the pulse,
and look upon him with awe. But still notwithstanding the seeming
success of the missions after three years the father learns through
the children that the Indians have been secretly maintaining their
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