The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 44, 1700-1736: 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 44, 1700-1736: 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
[41] Zúñiga says (Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 443-445) that the Moros
of Joló and Mindanao, although their rulers were nominally at peace
with the Spaniards, had frequently ravaged the islands, the sultans
pretending that they could not restrain their subjects; Bustamante
accordingly decided to rebuild the fortress at Zamboanga, but when he
laid this plan before the junta of treasury officials they refused
it by a vote of ten against seven--on the ground that the fort
was of no service against the Moros, and would cause extraordinary
expense. "As a matter of fact, the entire situado of that military
post amounts, in supplies and money, to about 25,000 pesos, which
only serves to enrich the governor, who is sent from Manila every
three years. Against the majority of votes in the junta the governor
gave orders to reëstablish the post, exasperating people's minds, and
giving occasion to the malcontents to exaggerate his despotism. The
Recollect fathers, who had returned to the province of Calamianes
because the secular priests--whom the bishop of Zebú had stationed
there when the Recollects abandoned it--could not maintain themselves
there on account of the Moros, erected with the money of their province
some little forts, hardly deserving that name, which did not shelter
many places in those islands from the pirates; and they requested
the governor to establish a post in the island of Paragua, at Labo,
hoping that thus they would be freed from those annoying enemies. The
governor consented to this, and established a post [there] at much
less cost than that of Zamboanga, but equally useless."
[42] The Jesuit Delgado says of this (Hist. de Filipinas, p. 205):
"I was at that time in Manila, and saw the bodies of those unfortunate
men, dragged along, stripped of their garments, and covered with some
old rags; and I was obliged, in order that I might enter the anteroom
of the palace, to step over the body of the governor, which was lying
across the threshold of the door." The editor of Delgado reproduces
in a footnote Otazo's letter (q.v. in this volume, post), with the
following remark: "Don José Montero y Vidal, in his Historia de la
piratería, t. 1, p. 254, asserts that Don Fernando de Bustamante was
assassinated in a tumult at the head of which the Jesuits placed
themselves. The following document will show that gentleman the
falsity of his assertion."
[43] Archbishop Cuesta surrendered the government of the islands to
Bustamante's successor, the Marqués de Torre Campo, who took possession
of it on August 6, 1721. The home government censured Cuesta for
too little strictness in investigating Bustamante's murder, and
transferred him to the bishopric of Mechoacan, Mexico. He arrived
at Acapulco January 11, 1724, took charge of his see on April 18,
and died on May 30 following.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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