The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 28 of 55. Unknown
and two brother-coadjutors, who attend to its temporal affairs. Its patron is the same Captain Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa. Its income does not reach one thousand pesos, and that sum is used for the support of the religious, and for repairs in the building and to the properties. The fellowships that the college obtains are maintained with the sum remaining. The rest of the students pay one hundred pesos per year for their tuition. Inasmuch as the country is poor, and most of the inhabitants are supported by the king’s pay, the fellowships are very few in number. For that reason, Governor Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera tried to endow some fellowships in the name of his Majesty, for the sons of his officials and for those of worthy citizens. That was not continued, as it was done without order of the royal Council.30
This is a village of Christian Chinese, opposite the Parian or alcaicería of the heathen of that nation on the other side of the river of this city, and of some free negroes and Indians who work on the farm-lands of the college of Manila, to which the above-mentioned mission village is subordinate. There are one or two priests who are interpreters in it. The number of Chinese gathered in this mission village is five hundred tributarios, or a trifle less, and about one hundred Indians and negroes.
This is a village of Tagál Indians, and numbers about one hundred and forty tributarios. It has one priest who gives instruction. It is located outside the walls of the city of Manila, and is subordinate to the rector of that college. A number of Japanese, comprising influential men and women who were exiled from their country for the faith, have gathered in this village since the year fifteen. Among them, the illustrious gentlemen Don Justo Ucondono and Don Juan Tocuan, with some influential women, have died with the lapse of time. The Society has always maintained all those Japanese with its alms, and with the alms given by various persons who aided them generously when this city was in its prosperous condition; but now they are living in penury. This house has been the seminary of martyrs since some of the European and Japanese fathers have gone thence to Japon, who obtained there the glorious crown of martyrdom.
It generally has four religious, three of whom are priests, who labor among the seamen and soldiers and the inhabitants of that village—Spaniards, Indians, negroes, Chinese, Japanese, and people of other nationalities—and one brother, who attends to temporal matters, and conducts the school for reading and writing. The mission of two small villages of Tagál Indians near there—namely, Cabite el Viejo [i.e., Old Cabite] and Binacaya, which have about one hundred and thirty tributarios—is subordinate to this college. The priests who are generally asked by the governors for the fleets of galleons that oppose the Dutch, and those for the relief of Terrenate, are sent from this college and the one at Manila. Its founder and patron is Licentiate Lucas de Castro, who endowed it with an income of five hundred pesos, the greater part of which was lost on the occasion of the rising of the Chinese in the year 39.
This house is located about two leguas upstream from Manila. It was established on a site suitable for the education of the novices of the province—although they generally live in Manila, as they are few in number, and this house contributes to their support. Its founder and patron is Captain Pedro de Brito,31 who gave a stock-farm and tillable lands for its endowment. Two religious live there. It has sixty tributarios of Tagál Indians, who work on the estate, to whom the religious teach the Christian doctrine and administer the sacraments. Besides that, they exercise the ministries of the Society among those who go to the said church from the lands and places near by—a not considerable number.
This residence has six villages, with their churches; but it has only two religious and one brother at present, because of the great lack of ministers. There are about five hundred tributarios, all Tagál Indians, now Christians, with the exception of a few heathen who wander in the interior among the mountains. During the first years while the Society had charge of this residence, about seven thousand were baptized. The names of the villages are Antipolo, Taytay, Baras, Cainta, and Santa Catalina.
This residence formerly comprised five villages, which are now reduced to three. They have their churches and three ministers. There are about one thousand tributarios, all Tagál Indians and Christians. The villages are Silan, Indan, and Marigondon.
There are two religious in this island, and about four hundred and fifty tributarios. There are still some Indians in the mountains to be subdued. In the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, a priest died most gloriously in that mission at the hands of the heathen.32 The island is about three leguas distant from the shores of the island of Manila, opposite Tayauas. It is about three leguas in diameter, and about eight or nine in circumference. The products in which the tribute is paid are rice, pitch, palm-oil, and abacá—which is a kind of hemp, from which the best rope and some textiles are made. There is a good port in the island where a galleon was built in the time of Governor Don Juan de Silva.33
Formerly it generally had six religious, who labored among the Spaniards, Indians, and people of other nationalities. At present it has but four, one of whom is in charge of the boys’ school. On the occasion of the insurrection of the Chinese in Manila in the year thirty-nine, this college had lectures in theology. It was founded by an inhabitant of that city, one Pedro de Aguilar. That college has in charge the mission of the village of Mandaui, which is the family of an influential Indian, in which there are about forty tributarios. It has its own church, where the sacraments are administered to the people at times; they usually come to the church at our college, as it is near. Missionaries have gone from this college several times to certain districts of the lay clergy of that bishopric, and chaplains for the oared fleets which are used against pirates among the islands.
This island belongs to the jurisdiction of the city of Zebu, and its mission is in charge of the Society. It had many villages formerly, but now it is reduced to six, the three larger being Loboc, Baclayon, and Malabooch, which have their ministers; the other three, smaller ones, being Plangao, Nabangan, and Caypilan, which are appended to the former, being called visitas here. It has about one thousand two hundred tributarios. Those are warlike Indians, and have made plenty of trouble during the past years. However, they are reduced now, and are conspicuous among the other Indians in the exercises of Christianity. They pay their tribute in lampotes, which are cotton cloths. It is said that the tribute was formerly paid in gold in some part of the island; but gold is not now obtained there in any considerable quantity.
This jurisdiction contains two islands, namely, Leyte and Samar—or, as it is called by another name, Ibabao. The Society has four residences in those islands, two in each one.
This island has a circumference of about one hundred leguas, and is long and narrow. A large chain of mountains cuts it almost in the middle. That and the difference of the two general monsoons, the brisas and the vendavals, cause there an inequality and a wonderful variety of weather and climate, so that when it is winter in the north, it is summer in the south, and vice versa during the other half of the year. Consequently, when the sowing is being done in one half of the island, the harvest is being gathered in the other half. Hence they have two harvests per year, both of them plentiful; for ordinarily the seed yields a hundredfold. Leyte is surrounded by many other small islands, both inhabited and desert. The sea and the rivers (which abound, and are of considerable volume) are full of fish; while the land has cattle, tame and wild swine, and many deer and fowls, with fruits, vegetables, and roots of all kinds. The climate is more refreshing than that of Manila. The people are of a brownish color, and plain and simple, but of sufficient understanding. Their instruction and ministry is under charge of two residences or rectoral houses, namely, Carigara and Dagami.
This residence has ten villages with their churches, and about two thousand tributarios. The names of the principal villages are Carigara, Leyte, Xaro, Alangalang, Ogmuc,
Corcuera’s endowment of these fellowships raised a great storm in the islands, especially among the Dominicans, who claimed that it was aimed at their college of Santo Tomás; while in Spain the king and his council were equally indignant because they had not been previously consulted in the matter, an indignation that was carefully fostered and increased by the Dominicans. The lawsuit in this case was bitter, and was conducted in the supreme Council of the Indias by Juan Grau y Monfalcon, procurator of the cabildo of the city of Manila; Father Baltasar de Lagunilla, procurator-general of the Society of Jesus, for the college of San José; and father Fray Mateo de Villa, procurator-general of the Dominican province of the Rosario, for the college of Santo Tomás. The case was prolific in documents from all three sources. The Dominicans remained masters of the field, and this case contributed to the downfall of Corcuera, who was finally superseded in 1644 by Diego de Fajardo, who had been appointed some years before, but might never have gone to the islands had it not been for the lawsuit over the fellowships. See Pastells’s Colin, iii, pp. 763–781.
Pedro de Brito was also a regidor of Manila, whose post was adjudged to him at public auction for one thousand four hundred pesos of common gold, with the third part of what was promised from the increase. He took possession of his post June 24, 1589. See Pastells’s Colin, iii, p. 783.
This was the protomartyr of the Society of Jesus in the Philippines, Juan de las Misas, who met death in the last part of November, 1624 (not 1625). He was a fluent preacher in the Tagal tongue, and entered the Society in the Philippines. When returning from Tayabas to Marinduque he was met by some hostile Camucones and killed by a shot from an arquebus, after which he was beheaded, in fulfilment of a vow to Mahomet. See Pastells’s Colin, iii, p. 791.
This was the galleon “San Marcos.” See Pastells’s Colin, iii, p. 791.