The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 50: 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 50: 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
[80] Pardo de Tavera cites (note 11, pp. 56-58) a royal decree dated
April 27, 1704, charging the governor (then Zabalburu) and Audiencia to
restrain the friars from levying unjust exactions on the Indians. This
decree was occasioned by the complaints on this score made (in 1702)
by Archbishop Camacho; in it are enumerated the following acts of
such injustice: "Besides the stipends which are paid to them from
the royal treasury, they oblige every Indian in their districts to
render them service in all their domestic necessities, and to furnish
them with four fowls every day in each mission, and with fish, fuel,
and everything else that the land (and even the water) produces. At
the same time they collect from the Indians excessive fees, without
observing the tariffs; for from an Indian whose property is worth four
hundred pesos (which is the value usually of that belonging to the
wealthier natives) they exact for a burial one hundred or two hundred,
besides what they afterward receive for the funeral honors [i.e.,
ceremonies for the welfare of departed souls]; and twelve pesos for
the offering for [wearing] the cope [del habito de la religión], or,
if the natives are very poor, six or eight pesos, the religious making
it necessary to the burial that he shall wear the cope; and when they
lack means to pay for these, they serve the religious like slaves until
they have earned what they need to pay these impositions. As for the
marriages, the religious receive thirteen pesos for what they call
the altar fee, and thirteen reals for the cross, and eight for the
offering for the mass, and four for the veiling; even when they are
very poor, the religious exact from them at least six or eight pesos
as a requisite [for the marriage]. The Indians are, for a long time,
living in illicit intercourse, because they have not the means to pay
[these exactions]. In the baptisms they have introduced another tax
after the offering; the rich Indian must pay up to twelve pesos for
the silver cross, and the poor one pays, as such, for the wooden
cross. Besides this, they also receive three reals every year from
each Indian for the feast of the patron saint of the village, honors
for the dead, and wax for the monument; and, added to this, one or
two reals when they confess the Indians at the Lenten season--without
giving any care or attention to their instruction, or to the greater
service of the churches in their charge. They are deficient in almost
all which belongs to their obligations as missionary curas, excepting
the religious of the Order of Preachers and those of the Society,
who treat the natives more kindly and instruct them better." Cf. the
"tariff of fees" drawn up by Camacho (VOL. XLII, pp. 56-64).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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