CHAPTER IX

HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINES AND THE DUTCH EAST INDIES

DURING FOREIGN OCCUPATION

The early adventurers from Europe who sought trading privileges with the people of China and Japan had already learned that they could demand them successfully from the peoples of the tropical and semi-tropical islands to the south. These island people, possessing none of the warlike proclivities of the Japanese, nor being favored by a vast unconquerable territory like the Chinese, were subdued with comparative ease and soon sank into the subservient condition of a subject people. This was not accomplished, of course, without some difficulty, but once the different island tribes were pacified, it only remained for their conquerors to play off the jealousies, natural to isolated island people, one against the other in order to protect themselves from unified revolt.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

Discovery of the Philippines by Magellan.-Magellan, in search of a western route to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, had already persuaded King Charles of Spain that Spanish rights of exploration lay in the western hemisphere, leaving the Portuguese their claims to the eastern hemisphere by right of prior discovery. Pope Alexander VI, appealed to as arbitrator by Spain and Portugal, had created an artificial dividing meridian in the Atlantic and had granted Spain the right to explore west of this line and Portugal east of it. This was due to an erroneous idea that the world was much smaller than it really was

and that Columbus' discoveries were merely the most eastern reaches of a vast archipelago extending westward to the Malay peninsula. Magellan had visited the Malay peninsula in 1511 and had there heard of the rich islands to the east, which he determined to approach from the west in order to avoid all claims on the part of Portugal. His voyage, begun in 1519, landed him in 1521, after many vicissitudes, at Cebu in the Philippines. Here Magellan was so deceived by the good feeling displayed by the natives that he ventured to another island with too small a force and he and his party were killed. The rest of the expedition escaped and returned to Spain in 1522, having accomplished the first circumnavigation of the globe.

The Work of Legaspi.-Several explorers followed Magellan to the islands, one of whom named one of the islands "Filipina" in honor of Prince Philip of Spain. This name was afterward extended to include the whole group which were thereafter known as the "Philippines." In 1564 Legaspi was commissioned by the now King Philip II of Spain to settle and subdue the islands named in his honor. After encountering little opposition on the islands of Leyte, Bohol, and Mindanao, Cebu had to be taken by force but peace was soon established. Unfortunately the decision of Pope Alexander had made no provision for an eastern limit to the territories which he had divided between Spain and Portugal in the Atlantic and although Portugal continued to lay claim to the Philippines, Spain refused to recognize the claim. In 1569 Legaspi transferred the seat of his government from Cebu to Iloilo and continued to explore and pacify the islands, founding Manila in 1571. In his process of pacification Legaspi depended largely upon the industry of the monks, but resorted, when necessary, to force. Provincial governors were appointed from among his followers who levied tribute at a rate fixed by him and annual voyages were made

to Mexico for supplies. In this way the Philippines were really governed from Mexico rather than from Spain directly. When Legaspi died in 1574 the conversion of the natives to Christianity had steadily progressed and the subjugation of the islands to Spanish rule was nearly complete.

Events of the Latter 16th Century in the Philippines.— After the death of Legaspi, the Spanish in the Philippines were almost immediately engaged in resisting in 1574 an invasion headed by a Chinese buccaneer commanding over sixty war junks. Encouraged by the ease with which the Islands had been subdued by the Spanish this expedition of some 4,000 warriors, including 1,500 women, and abundant supplies, landed on the northern coast of Luzon and started toward Manila. After two unsuccessful attacks, during which the small Spanish garrison fought valiantly, the pirates sailed away to the mouth of the Agno River in what is now Pangasinan Province and made all preparations to settle permanently. The following year a Spanish detachment aided by a war junk sent by the Emperor of China routed the buccaneers and drove a remnant of them to the mountains where their descendants, a Chinese-Filipino race, still exist. During the next two decades the only important events were the arrival of the first body of Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans and a Spanish expedition to Borneo and to the Moluccas against the Dutch. It was during this time that the disadvantages of the arrangement whereby the Philippines were governed indirectly from Mexico first became apparent. The conditions and people of Mexico were quite different from those of the Philippines and the Mexican laws grafted upon the Oriental colony were naturally unsuitable. Legaspi had left a large degree of selfgovernment to the local native communes, but his successors gradually abolished this and a greater centralization of authority took place in Spanish hands. Friction between

the church and the civil government soon appeared and in response to an appeal from the Bishop of Manila the King of Spain in 1589 defined the activities of church and state in the Islands, abolished slavery, provided proportionate tribute to civil, military, and ecclesiastical establishments and initiated several other reforms. At about this time the Emperor of Japan sent an ambassador to the Spanish rulers of the Philippines demanding allegiance to his throne. After much parley the ambassador was so impressed with the tales of the greatness of Spain and her people that he invited a return embassy to Japan to negotiate a treaty on a basis of equality. This was successfully accomplished but the returning envoys were shipwrecked and the treaty lost. A second treaty signed in 1593 was the beginning of Franciscan intercourse with Japan.

The Developments of the Early 17th Century.-The history of the next seventy years is one of numerous threatened invasions from without or ambitious expeditions on the part of the Spanish to bring the neighboring islands under their control. Thus Viscaya, Isabela, and CAgayan were subjugated in 1595 but an expedition to Cambodia and to Mindanao was not so successful. A massacre of Spanish priests in Japan in 1597 put an end to plans for Christianizing Japan from Manila. During this period the royal Spanish court of justice was established with jurisdiction over Mindanao, Sulu, Cambodia, and parts of the Moluccas and the College of San José was founded in 1600. But the attention of the colonists was frequently distracted from internal improvement by threats from without. The source of supplies from Mexico was being constantly threatened by Dutch hostility and many Spanish supply boats were seized and the colonists thus reduced to sore straits. This enmity between the two rival colonizing nations was not finally averted until the restoration of peace between the two countries in Europe in 1763. To