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CHAPTER VIII

SPAIN IN THE FAR EAST

THE bull of Alexander VI, to which reference was made in the last chapter, did not quite satisfy the two countries concerned with regard to the terminus a quo of the territories assigned. It was not till the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1 506, confirmed by Pope Julius II, moved the line of division from 100 to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands that this question was finally adjusted. There was still room for misunderstanding when the explorations of the two countries extended so far as to make doubtful the terminus ad quem. It is somewhere at this point that Spain enters our story of European discovery and colonization in the East.

A general concession had been made by the Spanish Government in 1495 to all who wished to seek for undiscovered lands. The success of Balboa, who first "stared at the Pacific," "silent, upon a peak in Darien," had moved many to a spirit of emulation. Among these was Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese noble who had been wounded in the service of his country and later wounded in spirit by slanders carried to King Manuel. He transferred his allegiance to Charles I of Spain, pledging himself to bring islands and wealth to the empire, under penalty of losing his head. So an expedition of five ships was fitted out and sailed westward in 1519. The rigors of a Patagonian winter moved the men to mutiny and Magellan had every sort of trouble. Alfred Noyes scarcely exaggerates when he says:1

1 Alfred Noyes, "Drake, an Epic."

Magellan, who could only hound his crew

Onward by threats of death, until they turned
In horror from the Threat that lay before,
Preferring to be hanged as mutineers

Rather than venture farther.

But beyond the Straits the sea was so calm in comparison with the waters he had left that the grateful captain gave the ocean the name it still bears, though as yet it scarcely deserves it the Pacific. The voyagers sailed on until, on the sixteenth of March 1521, a group of islands was discovered to which they gave the name, Ladrones, or Robber Islands, because the natives tried to steal the nails from the vessels' sides. A few days later they came upon Mindanao, the southern island of the Philippine group. From the day in the calendar on which the discovery was made, the islands were first of all called the San Lazaro Islands. The Spanish flag was hoisted on Mindanao, and Magellan proceeded to Cebu, where he unwisely made an alliance with one of the chiefs. Unfortunately, this involved him in a factional fight, and in this ignoble conflict the brave explorer perished on April 25, 1521. It was then determined to destroy all but one ship and with this return to Spain with the news. So it came to pass that the first ship to circumnavigate the globe, the little Victoria, under the command of Sebastian del Cano, got back to Spain. The fortunate commander henceforth bore upon his escutcheon a globe with the words: Primus circumdedit me. The discovery was naturally hailed with delight, and another expedition was presently dispatched to make sure of the prize Under Philip II, after whom the islands were finally named, a formidable little army was sent, led by the first Governor-General, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi.

The Philippine group comprises something over three thousand islands of volcanic origin, which stretch southward from Formosa for about a thousand miles. According to A. R. Wallace, the group was separated from the continent of Asia in comparatively recent geological ages. Some of the islands are large. Luzon contains 41,000 square miles, and Mindanao

about 37,000. Others are quite small, down to mere nameless 1 rocky islets, inhabited by nothing but birds. The coastline of the group is about double that of the United States proper. Earthquakes are frequent, and the islands are in the typhoon belt. The climate is hot and not well adapted for white men, though with care health may be maintained.

The native population numbers close to 8,000,000 and is divided into about a hundred tribes. Some ethnologists distinguish three different stocks, the Negrito, the Indonesian, and the Malay. Others make no distinction between Indonesian and Malay. In this view the Malays consist of (a) the wild tribes, such as the Igorrotes; (b) the Muhammadan Moros 2 of the Jolo archipelago and Mindanao; (c) the Filipinos proper, including the seven tribes of Visayans, Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Bicols, Pampangans, Pangasinans, and Ibangs. The first mention of the islands by a Chinese writer, Chao Ju-kuo,3 about 1250 A.D., describes the Negritos as follows: "They build their nests in the treetops and in each nest lives a family, which only consists of from three to five persons. They travel about in the densest thickets of the forests, and without being seen themselves, shoot their arrows at the passer-by. For this reason they are much feared. If the trader throws them a small porcelain bowl they will stoop down to catch it and then run away with it, shouting joyfully.' At the present time the Malayans are for the most part Christians, the Moros are fanatical Muhammadans, and the Negritos are still in a state of primitive paganism. There are also about a hundred thousand Chinese at present in the islands. The Chinese have carried on trade in the islands from before the time of Magellan.

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The work of Christianization began with the arrival of Magellan, but its real success dates from the coming of Andres de Urdaneta with Legaspi. Urdaneta had formerly been a soldier, but came to the islands as an Augustinian monk. With him were five other Augustinians who labored zealously and

1 Elliott says that, in 1905, 1473 islands were still nameless,
That is, Moors,

See Elliott, p. 88,

successfully. In course of time the missionaries at work in the islands included Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, Capuchins, and Benedictines, as well as Augustinians.

The story of the Viceroy Legaspi is one of the most romantic out of a romantic era. The General was a Basque nobleman, settled in Mexico City, famous alike for piety and patriotism. He was practising as a notary when called upon to represent Spain in the East Indies. Many wanted him to annex New Guinea rather than the Philippines, but he had already made up his mind when he left a Mexican port in November 1564. The islands were sighted in February 1565, and Legaspi resolved to proceed to Cebu. On the way he stopped at Mindanao, where spies of the Prince of Cebu found him and prepared their report of the newcomers. The Spaniards were, so they said, “enormous men with long pointed noses, dressed in fine robes; ate stones [hard biscuits], drank fire, and blew smoke out of their mouths and through their nostrils. Their power was such that they commanded thunder and lightning, and that at meal-times they sat down at a clothed table. From their lofty port, their bearded faces, and rich attire, they might have been the very gods manifesting themselves to the natives." 1 For his part, the Viceroy had resolved to accept Cebu for the Spanish Crown. He landed, and after fruitless efforts at negotiations sacked the principal town and raised the Spanish flag. It was in 1567 that we first have, in a letter of the General's, reference to the whole group as Las Islas Filipinas, so named in honor of Philip II.

Two or three years later, Salcedo, Legaspi's grandson, was sent to the island of Luzon to extend Spanish sovereignty in the north. He routed Soliman, chief of Manila, - then called Maynila, and sent word to his grandfather to come and take possession. Legaspi came, noted the importance of the conquest, and established Manila as the capital of the whole group, now formally declared to be under the dominion of Spain. The City Council of Manila was created in June 1571 and, a little 1 See Foreman, p. 34.

over a year later, the energetic Governor-General passed away. He is well remembered monumentally in Manila to the present day and, to adopt the felicitous quotation of Mr. Foreman : "Death makes no conquest of this conqueror,

For now he lives in fame, though not in life."

Salcedo continued the task of subjugation, but it was long before the whole archipelago was in any sense under Spanish control. The adjacent groups were annexed as discovered, or as opportunity offered. Thus the Ladrones, which had been earlier visited, were in 1668 occupied by a Jesuit mission and named, in honor of the then Regent, Queen Maria Ana, Las Islas Marianas. The older name has been more generally used. In 1686 were discovered the islands named after the Emperor Charles II, the Carolines.1 This group seems to have been lost for a while and had to be rediscovered. The Pelew Islands were made a dependency in absentia, news of the existence of the group having come to Samar through the arrival of a number of islanders in their canoes.

In Salcedo's time a formidable crisis had to be met through the attack upon Manila by a Chinese pirate, the redoubtable Li-ma-hong. Taking a leaf out of the book of the Spaniards, the sea rover imagined that conquering an archipelago required nothing but courage and assurance. So, with several thousand men and women in some sixty junks, he with his Japanese lieutenant made on two successive days an attack on the capital and its citadel, which all but succeeded. The assailants were eventually driven off with severe loss, but Li-ma-hong established himself for a time in another part of the island, and it was some months before the Spanish, with some promised help from the Chinese Governor of Fukien, was in sufficient force to resume operations. Li-ma-hong slipped out, and many of his men fled to the hills, where their supposed descendants are still known as Igorrote Chinamen. The grateful citizens of Manila

'The Mariana and Caroline Islands were later sold to Germany, and after the Great War assigned by mandate to Japan.

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