“ As is seen, one cannot judge of a whole nation—and much less of all the nations of the islands, who are diverse and distinct in genius and customs by the cases of these Indians who speak Spanish. And taking into account so great diversity, I affirm that it is impossible to find a definition that admits and includes all of them. For these persons whom I have mentioned, reared among so many classes, and among people so heterogeneous, and who are imbued with customs so diverse, cannot form rules by which to explain their own nation, much less by which to define the other nations. ”

“ If perchance those of one barangay did any injury to another, cruel wars broke out between them, as broke out between the chiefs of Manila and Tondo when the Spaniards came in to plant with the faith the Catholic dominion, and with it the true peace, which now they enjoy with tranquillity. These chiefs or maguinóos, although some were so by inheritance, commonly did not get these offices by virtue of their blood, but by their merits; or because some one had more power, more wealth, more energy, or more moral virtue than any of the others. ”

“ It is especially interesting for an European to see a crowd of people in the month of October on the high-road, busily fishing in the sowed fields. As the rice is now grown, it is impossible to see the water that bathes [178n] and wets its roots, and consequently, when the hooks are drawn out with fish two palmos long on them, it appears to be enchantment, or the inconsequential things of a dream. As the water dries up, the fish, still living, gather down in toward the hollows where there is yet some water; and they are there caught with the hand, or killed with clubs. ”

“ Money is the vengeance of the aggrieved parties, and the sponge for injuries. When they are paid for, no spot or sign of the offense is left. Although there are crimes which bear especially a capital penalty, yet there is no penalty that cannot be redeemed by money or goods. He who has no possessions at all has still liberty, and can surrender that also. That is the road most traveled by which some come to be the slaves of others ”

“ This tyranny of slaves was so extensive in this archipelago that when our Spaniards conquered it, there were chiefs with so many slaves—of their own nation and color, and not foreign—that there were those who had one, two, and three hundred slaves; and most of these were not slaves by birth, but for slight reasons, and even without reasons. For since their best kind of property, after gold, consisted in slaves, as their own conveniences were increased considerably by their services, they expended care in nothing to a greater extent than in increasing the number of their slaves ”

“ I am greatly surprised that no one of the writers on the Filipinos has spoken of this remarkable fact, which springs from their exquisite sense of smell. It is so great that a servant can tell his master’s shirt, after it is cleaned and ironed, even though it lies with ten or twelve other shirts resembling it and belonging to other persons, by simply smelling them. They also assert that if a man be near a woman for whom he experiences a feeling of love, she knows it by the odor of his perspiration, and vice versa. ”

“ If any free woman had children by any slave who was not her husband, all were free. If a free woman married a half-slave, the children were slaves only to the one-fourth part, and they considered that in the question of their service. ”

“ The worst thing is that all those who had been made slaves by war, or for punishment of debts, were rigorously regarded as such, as slaves for any kind of service or slavery, and served inside the house. The same was true of their children, in the manner of our slaveries, and they could be sold at will. However, the masters were not accustomed to sell those born under their roof, for they regarded them in the light of relatives. Those slaves were allowed to keep for themselves a portion of any profit which they made. The Tagálogs called such true slaves sanguiguilir, and the Visayans halon. ”

“ Who guide and convey us to the villages and missions, and serve us as guides, sailors, and pilots? Perhaps it is the Spaniards? No, it is the Indians themselves, with their so exaggerated, magnified, and heightened laziness. Is this the thanks that we give them, when we are conquering them in their own lands, and have made ourselves masters in them, and are served by them almost as by slaves? We ought to give God our Lord many thanks, because He maintains us only through the affection and by the useful labors of the Indians in this land ”

“ For if the Indian is insolent and intolerable with but little power, what will he be with so much superiority! And if the wedge from the same log221 is so powerful, what will it be if driven by so great authority! What plague of locusts can be compared to the destruction that they would cause in the villages?222 What respect will the Indians have for him, seeing that he is of their color and nation—and especially those who consider themselves as good, and even better perhaps, than he who became a cura, while they do not become anything better than bilango or servant? ”

“ If the death had happened through violence—in war or peace, by treason, or any other manner—the mourning was not laid aside nor the interdict raised until the children, brothers, or relatives, killed an equal number not only of their enemies and the murderers, but also of any strange persons who were not their friends. Like highwaymen and robbers they prowled on land and sea, and went on the hunt for men, killing as many as they could until their fury was appeased. ”

“ By the aforesaid, one will see with how little truth the statement is printed that the Indians are the greatest enemies that the father ministers have; for certainly all the above could not be reconciled with such a proposition. On the contrary, it must be said that the Indians are those who defend us from our enemies; for, in the presidios, who are the soldiers, who sail in the war fleets, who are in the vanguard in war? Could the Spaniards, perchance, maintain themselves alone in this country, if the Indians did not aid in everything? ”

“ The Filipinos, by nature idlers and greedy, are passionately fond of play, for they consider it an excellent and unique way of getting money without working; and they gather like flies to these pernicious places, in order to spend what they have and what they can succeed in borrowing or robbing, abandoning their most sacred and peremptory obligations. ”

“ The worst of it is that the punishment is always more than the offense, for the just pay as if they were sinners. Their avarice or tyranny not satisfied with the vengeance taken on the criminal makes the offense related to the very blood, in order to extend their cupidity farther. Hence it is that on account of the crime committed by a single one, they make all the relations slaves. ”

“ It appears probable, from what we know of other islands, where these people are found gathered in the most inaccessible mountains, that these are the first ones that occupied all these islands; but, as they are more ancient and are so shut in, nothing more is known of their origin than what is evident from this land, connected by its islands in a chain with those of Burney, Macaçar, and Great Maluco. This nation maintains only one excellence—at the cost, [however,] of its brutal condition and wretched mode of life—namely, its liberty. ”

“ It is arbitrary to declare that the Indian enters the priesthood solely for his own comfort, and because of the respect shown him, and not because of the spiritual blessings. Many Spaniards also enter the ecclesiastical estate merely for a living. There are examples of Negro, Japanese, and Chinese priests. “Consequently, it is not to be wondered at that the most illustrious prelates and bishops should ordain Indians here and in Nueva España, and in other parts of the Indias.” ”

“ I have seen a son who held his father as slave, and, vice versa, a father who held his son as slave; for if one make an outlay for another, they take account of it, as would be done in the case of a stranger. ”

“ It may happen that a chief lowers himself [by having intercourse] with his slave-woman, and the son whom she bears may be so cruel that at the death of [147] his father he makes his own mother his slave. Even if, while they are at peace, these points are not cleared up, and the inner tyranny employs external civility, yet, if dissensions alter these relations, and they are divided, the men avail themselves of those rights, and subject their mothers to whatever they choose, and do not allow them to leave their houses. Thus do they come to be served by their mothers at all times. ”

“ Thus has been established a province which, in our time, has been given separate an alcalde-mayor, namely, that of Iligan; and by that province is secured to our arms an opening for the conquest of Mindanao and Jolo, as we have thereby had soldiers, pilots, and most skilful sailors, who are better than all those who sail in these islands. Their village remains as a stronghold opposed to the petty rulers of those peoples.
They are a very prudent race, and are quite Hispanicized in their customs, and by the modesty of their bearing naturally deserved respectable. ”

“ Now if the statements of authors in regard to physical or moral matters are so at variance that we can say that each author has a different opinion—as says the proverb, Quot capita, tot sententiæ—and if thus far no ground and certain point has been found at which the understanding may stop, how is it strange that they do not find, in order to describe Indians with customs so unusual and artificial as have those of Manila, a compound idea made up of all that they have learned from the Spaniard, both good and evil ”

“ For the Indian who is ordained does not become a priest because it is the calling that conduces to the most perfect estate,219 but because of the great and almost infinite advantage that comes to him with the new estate that he chooses. How much it differs from being a father cura, to be a baguntao or sexton! From paying tribute, to being paid a stipend! ”

“ This is, that while the difference between the poverty, wretchedness, and want of their houses and the anxiety and poverty in which they live, when compared with the abundance, good cheer, good clothes, and comfort which they enjoy in the service of certain Spaniards is almost infinite, if they happen to be discharged, or to leave for some very slight cause occasioned by their pride and vanity, they turn from one extreme to the other, so contented with the present misery that they do not remember or even consider the past abundance. ”

“ There must be many in España who were in the dangerous sieges which Governor Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera undertook against the kings of both Mindanao and Joló—where, in the so great mortality which the glorious boldness and military honor of our men incurred, the most of those who fell, to exalt their fame forever, were slain by arms so weak and apparently contemptible. ”

“ For, since self-interest is the advantage of those who [148] are powerful, it unites them against the unfortunate one who dares to proclaim the offense that has been done to him, while his punishment conciliates so many other offenders who might perplex justice; and fear shuts the mouths of those whom the same fortune might gain to his favor in the support of his testimonies. Therefore, when it comes to proof there is always a lack of witnesses for innocence; while on the contrary there is for tyranny an oversupply of ocular witnesses of things that they have never seen or heard. ”

“ Upon thinking over this matter, I am convinced that a partial cause of it is the little importance that they attach to the act of love, and especially in the fact to which they are persuaded that no one of their women will ever love us; and they are only handed over for the profit, and are lent us as a personal service, just like any other; and when the woman goes away from us, she takes her heart with her, which is all for the Filipinos. ”

“ They appear ingenious and simple in countenance and words, but they are masters eminent in deceit and feigning; under an apparent simplicity they conceal an artful and crafty dissimulation. I believe that the Indian never fails to deceive, unless when his own interests are hindered. In their lawsuits and business dealings they are like flies, which never quit what they are seeking, no matter how much they are brushed away; and thus they surpass and conquer us. The Chinese say that the Spaniard is fire, and the Indian is water, and that water quenches fire. ”

“ In a nation so barbarous and who knew not God, it appears a prodigy worthy of wonder that one of the special providences of His Divine Majesty, to place such examples of virtue in a country where vice had absolute control, so that the experience of the eyes causes them to esteem what God’s love did not obtain. I have known two of these men, and one of them I baptized, to my especial consolation, while visiting the coast of Siocon, which extends for twenty leguas from Samboangan toward Dapitan. ”

“ Furthermore, they pass many hours, both in their houses and in the cockpit, teaching a cock how to fight and to have no fear of the people; and examining the other cocks, in order to ascertain by certain rules and marks which will triumph and which will succumb. There is nothing more commonly seen even in the very streets of Manila itself, than a man squatted down on his heels with one of these fowls, in order that it might become accustomed to the noise, so that it might not grow confused or become frightened in the pit. ”