The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 | Page 8

the economic blindness or incapacity of the Spaniard that veils his eyes to their real aims and achievements.
The tragedies and blunders of English colonization in America are often forgotten and only the tragedies and blunders of Spanish colonization are remembered. In the period which elapsed between the formulation of the Spanish and of the English colonial policies religious ideals were displaced by the commercial, and in the exaltation of the commercial ideal England took the lead. Colonies, from being primarily fields for the propagation of Christianity and incidentally for the production of wealth, became the field primarily for industrial and commercial development and incidentally for Christian work. The change no doubt has contributed vastly to the wealth of the world and to progress, but it has been fatal to the native populations. The Spanish policy aimed to preserve and civilize the native races, not to establish a new home for Spaniards, and the colonial legislation provided elaborate safeguards for the protection of the Indians. Many of these were a mere dead letter but the preservation and civilization of the native stock in Mexico, Central and South America, and above all in the Philippines stand out in marked contrast, after all allowances and qualifications have been made, with the fate, past and prospective, of the aborigines in North America, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, and Australia, and clearly differentiate in their respective tendencies and results the Spanish and English systems. The contrast between the effects of the Spanish conquest in the West Indies, Mexico, and the Philippines reflects the development of the humane policy of the government. The ravages of the first conquistadores, it should be remembered, took place before the crown had time to develop a colonial policy.
It is customary, too, for Protestant writers to speak with contempt of Catholic missions, but it must not be forgotten that France and England were converted to Christianity by similar methods. The Protestant ridicules the wholesale baptisms and conversions and a Christianity not even skin-deep, but that was the way in which Christianity was once propagated in what are the ruling Christian nations of today. The Catholic, on the other hand, might ask for some evidence that the early Germans, or the Anglo-Saxons would ever have been converted to Christianity by the methods employed by Protestants.
The wholesale baptisms have their real significance in the frame of mind receptive for the patient Christian nurture that follows. Christianity has made its real conquests and is kept alive by Christian training, and its progress is the improvement which one generation makes upon another in the observance of its precepts. One who has read the old Penitential books and observed the evidences they afford of the vitality of heathen practices and rites among the people in England in the early Middle Ages will not be too harsh in characterizing the still imperfect fruits of the Catholic missions of the last three centuries.
In the light, then, of impartial history raised above race prejudice and religious prepossessions, after a comparison with the early years of the Spanish conquest in America or with the first generation or two of the English settlements, the conversion and civilization of the Philippines in the forty years following Legaspi's arrival must be pronounced an achievement without a parallel in history. An examination of what was accomplished at the very ends of the earth with a few soldiers and a small band of missionaries will it is believed reveal the reasons for this verdict. We are fortunate in possessing for this purpose, among other materials, a truly classic survey of the condition of the islands at the opening of the seventeenth century written by a man of scholarly training and philosophic mind, Dr. Antonio de Morga, who lived in the islands eight years in the government service. [30]
The Spaniards found in the population of the islands two sharply contrasted types which still survive--the Malay and the Negrito. After the introduction of Christianity the natives were commonly classified according to their religion as Indians (Christian natives), Moors [31] (Mohammedan natives), and Heathen (Gentiles) or Infidels. The religious beliefs of the Malays were not held with any great tenacity and easily yielded to the efforts of the missionaries. The native taste for the spectacular was impressed and gratified by the picturesque and imposing ceremonials of the church.
Their political and social organization was deficient in cohesion. There were no well established native states but rather a congeries of small groups something like clans. The headship of these groups or barangays was hereditary and the authority of the chief of the barangay was despotic. [32] This social disintegration immensely facilitated the conquest; and by tact and conciliation, effectively supported by arms, but with very little actual bloodshed, Spanish sovereignty was superimposed upon these relatively detached groups, whose essential features