A History of the Philippines. David P. Barrows
the present time under a government strong enough to defend them against other powers, to put down plunder and ravage, and one anxious and disposed to afford to the people such freedom of opportunity, such advantages of government and life, that the incentive to internal revolution will no longer exist. Secure from external attack and rapidly progressing toward internal peace, the Philippines occupy a position most fortunate among the peoples of the Far East. They have representative government, freedom of religion, and public education, and, what is more than all else to the aspiring or ambitious race or individual, freedom of opportunity.
How History is Written.—One other thing should be explained here. Every child who reads this book should understand a little how history is written. A most natural inquiry to be made regarding any historical statement is, “How is this known?” And this is as proper a question for the school boy as for the statesman. The answer is, that history rests for its facts largely upon the written records made by people who either lived at the time these things took place, or so near to them that, by careful inquiry, they could learn accurately of these matters and write them down in some form, so that we to-day can read their accounts, and at least know how these events appeared to men of the time.
But not all that a man writes, or even puts in a book, of things he has seen and known, is infallibly accurate and free from error, partiality, and untruthfulness. So the task of the historian is not merely to read and accept all the contemporary records, but he must also compare one account with another, weighing all that he can find, making due allowance for prejudice, and on his own part trying to reach a conclusion that shall be true. Of course, where records are few the task is difficult indeed, and, on the other hand, material may be so voluminous as to occupy a writer a lifetime, and make it impossible for any one man completely to exhaust a subject.
Historical Accounts of the Philippines.—For the Philippines we are so fortunate as to have many adequate sources of a reliable and attractive kind. In a few words some of these will be described. Nearly all exist in at least a few libraries in the Philippines, where they may sometime be consulted by the Filipino student, and many of them, at least in later editions, may be purchased by the student for his own possession and study.
The Voyages of Discovery.—European discovery of the Philippines began with the great voyage of Magellan; and recounting this discovery of the islands, there is the priceless narrative of one of Magellan’s company, Antonio Pigafetta. His book was written in Italian, but was first published in a French translation. The original copies made by Pigafetta have disappeared, but in 1800 a copy was discovered in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, Italy, and published. Translations into English and other languages exist. It may be found in several collections of Voyages, and there is a good Spanish translation and edition of recent date. (El Primer Viaje alrededor del Mundo, por Antonio Pigafetta, traducido por Dr. Carlos Amoretti y anotado por Manuel Walls y Merino, Madrid, 1899.) There are several other accounts of Magellan’s voyage; but Pigafetta’s was the only one written by an eye-witness, and his descriptions of the Bisaya Islands, Cebu, Borneo, and the Moluccas are wonderfully interesting and accurate.
There were several voyages of discovery between Magellan’s time (1521) and Legaspi’s time (1565). These include the expeditions of Loaisa, Saavedra, and Villalobos, and accounts of them are to be found in the great series of publications made by the Spanish Government and called Coleccion de documentos ineditos, and, in another series, Navarrete’s Coleccion de los viajes y descubrimientos.
Spanish Occupation and Conquest.—As we come to the history of Spanish occupation and conquest of the Philippines, we find many interesting letters and reports sent by both soldiers and priests to the king, or to persons in Spain. The first complete book on the Philippines was written by a missionary about 1602, Father Predo Chirino’s Relacion de las Islas Filipinas, printed in Rome in 1604. This important and curious narrative is exceedingly rare, but a reprint, although rude and poor, was made in Manila in 1890, which is readily obtainable. The Relacion de las Islas Filipinas was followed in 1609 by the work of Judge Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. This very rare work was printed in Mexico. In 1890 a new edition was brought out by Dr. José Rizal, from the copy in the British Museum. There is also an English translation.
These two works abound in curious and valuable information upon the Filipino people as they were at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, as does also a later work, the Conquista de las Islas Filipinas, by Friar Gaspar de San Augustin, printed in Madrid in 1698. This latter is perhaps the most interesting and most important early work on the Philippine Islands.
As we shall see, the history of the Philippines is closely connected with that of the East Indian Spice Islands. When the Spanish forces took the rich island of Ternate in 1606, the triumph was commemorated by a volume, finely written, though not free from mistakes, the Conquista de las Islas Moluccas, by Leonardo de Argensola, Madrid, 1609. There is an old English translation, and also French and Dutch translations.
To no other religious order do we owe so much historical information as to the Jesuits. The scholarship and literary ability of the Company have always been high. Chirino was a Jesuit, as was also Father Francisco Colin, who wrote the Labor Evangelica, a narrative of the Jesuit missions in the Philippines, China, and Japan, which was printed in Madrid in 1663. This history was continued years later by Father Murillo Velarde, who wrote what he called the Segunda Parte, the Historia de la Provincia de Filipinas de la Compania de Jesus, Manila, 1749.
There is another notable Jesuit work to which we owe much of the early history of the great island of Mindanao: this is the Historia de Mindanao y Jolo, by Father Francisco Combes. The year 1663 marked, as we shall see, an epoch in the relations between the Spaniards and the Mohammedan Malays. In that year the Spaniards abandoned the fortress of Zamboanga, and retired from southern Mindanao. The Jesuits had been the missionaries in those parts of the southern archipelago, and they made vigorous protests against the abandonment of Moro territory. One result of their efforts to secure the reoccupancy of these fortresses was the notable work mentioned above. It is the oldest and most important writing about the island and the inhabitants of Mindanao. It was printed in Madrid in 1667. A beautiful and exact edition was brought out a few years ago, by Retana.
A Dominican missionary, Father Diego Aduarte, wrote a very important work, the Historia de la Provincia del Sancto Rosario de la Orden de Predicadores en Filipinas, Japon y China, which was printed in Manila at the College of Santo Tomas in 1640.
We may also mention as containing a most interesting account of the Philippines about the middle of the seventeenth century, the famous work on China, by the Dominican, Father Fernandez Navarrete, Tratados historicos, politicos, ethnicos, y religiosos de la Monarchia de China, Madrid, 1767. Navarrete arrived in these islands in 1648, and was for a time a cura on the island of Mindoro. Later he was a missionary in China, and then Professor of Divinity in the University of Santo Tomas. His work is translated into English in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, London, 1744, second volume.
The eighteenth century is rather barren of interesting historical matter. There was considerable activity in the production of grammars and dictionaries of the native languages, and more histories of the religious orders were also produced. These latter, while frequently filled with sectarian matter, should not be overlooked.
Between the years 1788 and 1792 was published the voluminous Historia General de Filipinas, in fourteen volumes, by the Recollect friar, Father Juan de la Concepcion. The work abounds in superfluous matter and trivial details, yet it is a copious source of information, a veritable mine of historical data, and is perhaps the best known and most frequently used work upon the Philippine Islands. There are a number of sets in the Philippines which can be consulted by the student.
Some years after, and as a sort of protest against so extensive a treatment of history, the sane and admirable Augustinian, Father Joaquin Martinez de Zuñiga, wrote his Historia de las Islas Filipinas, a volume of about seven hundred pages. It was printed in Sampaloc, Manila, in 1803. This writer is exceptional for his fairmindedness, his freedom from the narrow prejudices which have characterized most of the writers on the Philippines. His language is terse