The Indolence of the Filipino | Page 6

in Paragua and of its inhabitants, who nearly all tilled their
own fields. At this island the survivors of Magellan's expedition were
well received and provisioned. A little later, these same survivors
captured a vessel, plundered and sacked it, add took prisoner in it the
chief of the Island of Paragua (!) with his son and brother. (10)
In this same vessel they captured bronze lombards, and this is the first
mention of artillery of the Filipinos, for these lombards were useful to
the chief of Paragua against the savages of the interior.
They let him ransom himself within seven days, demanding 400
measures (cavanes?) of rice, 20 pigs, 20 goats, and 450 chickens. This
is the first act of piracy recorded in Philippine history. The chief of
Paragua paid everything, and moreover voluntarily added coconuts,
bananas, and sugar-cane jars filled with palm-wine. When Caesar was
taken prisoner by the corsairs and required to pay twenty five talents
ransom, he replied; "I'll give you fifty, but later I'll have you all
crucified!" The chief of Paragua was more generous: he forgot. His
conduct, while it may reveal weakness, also demonstrates that the
islands were abundantly provisioned. This chief was named Tuan
Mahamud; his brother, Guantil, and his son, Tuan Mahamed. (Martin
Mendez, Purser of the ship Victoria: Archivos de Indias.)
A very extraordinary thing, and one that shows the facility with which
the natives learned Spanish, is that fifty years before the arrival of the
Spaniards in Luzon, in that very year 1521 when they first came to the
islands, there were already natives of Luzon who understood Castilian.
In the treaties of peace that the survivors of Magellan's expedition
made with the chief of Paragua, when the servant-interpreter died they
communicated with one another through a Moro who had been
captured in the island of the King of Luzon and who understood some
Spanish. (Martin Mendez, op, cit ) Where did this extemporaneous
interpreter learn Castilian? In the Moluccas? In Malacca, with the
Portuguese? Spaniards did not reach Luzon until 1571.
Legazpi's expedition met in Butuan various traders of Luzon with their
boats laden with iron, wax cloths, porcelain, etc. (Gaspar de San
Agustin,) plenty of provisions, activity, trade, movement in all the

southern islands. (11)
They arrived at the Island of Cebu, "abounding in provisions, with
mines and washings of gold, and peopled with natives," as Morga says;
"very populous, and at a port frequented by many ships that came from
the islands and kingdoms near India," as Colin says; and even though
they were peacefully received discord soon arose. The city was taken
by force and burned. The fire destroyed the food supplies and naturally
famine broke out in that town of a hundred thousand people, (12) as the
historians say, and among the members of the expedition, but the
neighboring islands quickly relieved the need, thanks to the abundance
they enjoyed.
All the histories of those first years, in short, abound in long accounts
about the industry and agriculture of the natives: mines, gold-washings,
looms, farms, barter, naval construction, raising of poultry and stock,
weaving of silk and cotton, distilleries, manufactures of arms, pearl
fisheries, the civet industry, the horn and hide industry, etc., are things
encountered at every step, and, considering the time and the conditions
in the islands, prove that there was life, there was activity, there was
movement.
And if this, which is deduction, does not convince any minds imbued
with unfair prejudices, perhaps of some avail may be the testimony of
the oft-quoted Dr. Morga, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Manila for
seven years and after rendering great service in the Archipelago was
appointed criminal judge of the Audiencia of Mexico and Counsellor of
the Inquisition. His testimony, we say, is highly credible, not only
because all his contemporaries have spoken of him in terms that border
on veneration but also because his work, from which we take these
citations, is written with great circumspection and care, as well with
reference to the authorities in the Philippines as to the errors they
committed. "The natives," says Morga, in chapter VII, speaking of the
occupations of the Chinese, "are very far from exercising those trades
and have even forgotten much about farming, raising poultry, stock and
cotton, and weaving cloth AS THEY USED TO DO IN THEIR
PAGANISM AND FOR A LONG TIME AFTER THE COUNTRY

WAS CONQUERED." (13)
The whole of chapter VIII of his work deals with this moribund activity,
this much-forgotten industry, and yet in spite of that, how long is his
eighth chapter!
And not only Morga, not only Chirino, Colin, Argensola, Gaspar de
San Agustin and others agree in this matter, but modern travelers, after
two hundred and fifty years, examining the decadence and misery,
assert the same thing. Dr. Hans