The Social Cancer | Page 2

with a company of the splendid infantry,
which was at that time the admiration and despair of martial Europe,
soon effectively exorcised any idea of resistance that even the boldest
and most intransigent of the native leaders might have entertained.
For the most part, no great persuasion was needed to turn a simple,
imaginative, fatalistic people from a few vague animistic deities to the
systematic iconology and the elaborate ritual of the Spanish Church.
An obscure Bathala or a dim Malyari was easily superseded by or
transformed into a clearly defined Diós, and in the case of any
especially tenacious "demon," he could without much difficulty be
merged into a Christian saint or devil. There was no organized
priesthood to be overcome, the primitive religious observances
consisting almost entirely of occasional orgies presided over by an old
woman, who filled the priestly offices of interpreter for the unseen
powers and chief eater at the sacrificial feast. With their unflagging
zeal, their organization, their elaborate forms and ceremonies, the
missionaries were enabled to win the confidence of the natives,
especially as the greater part of them learned the local language and
identified their lives with the communities under their care.
Accordingly, the people took kindly to their new teachers and rulers, so
that in less than a generation Spanish authority was generally
recognized in the settled portions of the Philippines, and in the
succeeding years the missionaries gradually extended this area by
forming settlements from among the wilder peoples, whom they
persuaded to abandon the more objectionable features of their old
roving, often predatory, life and to group themselves into towns and
villages "under the bell."
The tactics employed in the conquest and the subsequent behavior of
the conquerors were true to the old Spanish nature, so succinctly
characterized by a plain-spoken Englishman of Mary's reign, when the
war-cry of Castile encircled the globe and even hovered ominously
near the "sceptered isle," when in the intoxication of power character
stands out so sharply defined: "They be verye wyse and politicke, and
can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell theyr owne natures for
a tyme, and applye ther conditions to the manners of those men with

whom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe; whose mischievous
maners a man shall never know untyll he come under ther subjection;
but then shall he parfectlye parceve and fele them: for in dissimulations
untyll they have ther purposes, and afterwards in oppression and
tyrannye, when they can obtain them, they do exceed all other nations
upon the earthe." [1]
In the working out of this spirit, with all the indomitable courage and
fanatical ardor derived from the long contests with the Moors, they
reduced the native peoples to submission, but still not to the galling
yoke which they fastened upon the aborigines of America, to make one
Las Casas shine amid the horde of Pizarros. There was some
compulsory labor in timber-cutting and ship-building, with enforced
military service as rowers and soldiers for expeditions to the Moluccas
and the coasts of Asia, but nowhere the unspeakable atrocities which in
Mexico, Hispaniola, and South America drove mothers to strangle their
babes at birth and whole tribes to prefer self-immolation to the living
death in the mines and slave-pens. Quite differently from the case in
America, where entire islands and districts were depopulated, to bring
on later the curse of negro slavery, in the Philippines the fact appears
that the native population really increased and the standard of living
was raised under the stern, yet beneficent, tutelage of the missionary
fathers. The great distance and the hardships of the journey precluded
the coming of many irresponsible adventurers from Spain and,
fortunately for the native population, no great mineral wealth was ever
discovered in the Philippine Islands.
The system of government was, in its essential features, a simple one.
The missionary priests drew the inhabitants of the towns and villages
about themselves or formed new settlements, and with profuse use of
symbol and symbolism taught the people the Faith, laying particular
stress upon "the fear of God," as administered by them, reconciling the
people to their subjection by inculcating the Christian virtues of
patience and humility. When any recalcitrants refused to accept the new
order, or later showed an inclination to break away from it, the military
forces, acting usually under secret directions from the padre, made
raids in the disaffected parts with all the unpitying atrocity the Spanish
soldiery were ever capable of displaying in their dealings with a weaker
people. After sufficient punishment had been inflicted and a

wholesome fear inspired, the padre very opportunely interfered in the
natives' behalf, by which means they were convinced that peace and
security lay in submission to the authorities, especially to the curate of
their town or district. A single example will suffice