Loading your reading…

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 — John Shaqi

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

A royal decree of November 15, 1777, recommended the establishment of
an institution in which vagrants and dissolute persons might be shut
up. Accordingly, Manuel del Castillo y Negrete, minister of justice
for the Philippines, drew up and printed (Sampaloc, 1779) a manual of
ordinances for the management of a general refuge for poor persons,
beggars, women of lewd life, abandoned children, and orphans. For this
project he had obtained the opinions of learned persons, all of whom
extolled it; and he sent this document to the king. Besides promoting
all interests of morality, and the development of agriculture,
industry, and commerce, Basco founded the noted "Economic Society of
Friends of the Country." [27] A royal decree dated August 27, 1780,
had ordered him to convene all the learned or competent persons in
the colony, "in order to form an association of selected persons,
capable of producing useful ideas;" but when this decree arrived,
Basco had already founded the above society. On February 7, 1781,
the active members of the general tribunal [junta] of commerce had
assembled, and agreed upon the constitution of the society, a number
of them signing their names as its members--among them the Marqués
de Villamediana, the prior of the consulate of commerce. "The body
of merchants endowed the society with a permanent fund of 960 pesos
a year, the value of two toneladas which were assigned to it in the
lading of the Acapulco galleon." The society was formally inaugurated
on May 6, 1781, under the presidency of Basco, who made an eloquent
address. Its first president was the quartermaster-general of the
islands, Ciríaco González Carvajal; according to its first regulations,
it contained the following sections: natural history, agriculture
and rural economy, factories and manufactures, internal and foreign
commerce, industries, and popular education. "Stimulated by Basco,
the society undertook with great ardor to promote the cultivation of
indigo, cotton, cinnamon, and pepper, and the silk industry, according
to the orders published by the superior authority. The parish priest
of Tambóbong, Fray Matías Octavio, taught his parishioners to prepare
the indigo, presenting to the society the first specimens, which were
adjudged to be of superior quality. In 1784, the first shipment of this
article to Europa was made in the royal fragata 'Asunción.' The society
also recommended that effort be made to attain perfection in weaving
and dyeing. (The society declined greatly after the departure of its
founder; and Aguilar roughly opposed it. In 1809 it was extinguished;
two years later, orders were received for its reëstablishment, but
this was not accomplished until 1819. In the following year, its
constitution was remodeled; and in 1821 it founded at its own cost a
professorship of agriculture and an academy of design, and established
special instruction in dyeing. In 1824 it resolved to bestow rewards

No reviews yet