The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 47, 1728-1759: 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 47, 1728-1759: 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
In order that the evangelical ministers who have to work in this
mission may be able more clearly to direct those souls redeemed by the
blood of our Lord Christ along the true pathway of heaven from which
they have strayed so far for so many years blinded with the darkness of
infidelity and idolatry; also in order that this paper may be used so
that the ministers of justice of the king, our sovereign, may subject
said Indians and establish them under the obedience of his Catholic
Majesty: although it is true that for more than sixty years they had
ministers of the gospel, neither said ministers nor his Majesty have
been able to succeed in getting them to live in a settlement so that
they may be administered or have justice as today it is hoped that
they will be. The most that it has been possible to obtain with them
was that distinct bands of them should unite on various occasions
in the mountain on the plateau where the ministers had a house and
church. But they immediately broke up again, said division occasioning
the wars which those Indians generally wage among their different
bands, and the alcaldes-mayor were unable to punish the guilty and
ungovernable because of the greater distance from the chief cities
where the alcaldes-mayor live to these places, and because the coast
of the sea is so rough during all the time of the vendavals and south
winds, that it is impossible to navigate along it, while the road
overland is so rough and blocked by mountains full of black enemies
(those mountains being very rough in parts), and in the ravines there
are very great rivers with very strong currents, so that in the rainy
season one can have no communication from this place, with Pangasinan,
or with Mariueles, or with Pampanga; and during the dry season these
Indians are generally with the blacks in the mountains trading wax:
consequently, they have never been obedient to the alcaldes-mayor, and
hence, neither to his Majesty nor to the gospel ministers whom they
have hitherto had. Although they have had ministers of great virtue
and most ardent zeal for souls, as can be seen in the annals of their
sacred order and even today, there are ex-provincials who have been
their ministers whose signal virtues are apparent to all the community.
Of the site and district of Playa Honda
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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