The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 44, 1700-1736 / Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. :: EVENTS OF 1701

EVENTS OF 1701 - 1715

[The following summary is made from ConcepciÓn’s Historia de Philipinas, viii, pp. 299–391:]

[Don Fausto Cruzat y Gongora is succeeded, after eleven years as governor, by Don Domingo de ZabalburÚ y Echeverri, a knight of the Order of Santiago; he was appointed in 1694, but does not take possession until September 8, 1701. Finding considerable money in the royal treasury, he employs it on important public works. He constructs wharves at Cavite, completes the royal storehouses, and rebuilds the powder-factory lower down from Malate, with suitable fortifications for its defense; and he pays careful attention to the construction of galleons for the Acapulco trade-route. A quarrel arising between the petty kings of Mindanao and JolÓ, the former (named Curay) is slain, and his successor asks Governor ZabalburÚ for aid against the Joloans, which the governor prudently declines to furnish. In the year 1705 the Manila galleon “San Xavier” departs from Acapulco, and is never heard from, being lost with all it contains, to the great sorrow and loss of the citizens of Manila. One of the auditors goes (1702) as official visitor to the province of Camarines,1 and disturbs its affairs with his “scandalous proceedings,” especially his accusations against the Franciscan friars who are in charge of the Indian villages there. In consequence, they hasten to Manila to secure the aid of the courts there, leaving their charges without spiritual ministrations; the Franciscan provincial is therefore despatched to that province with orders to station ministers therein. Those missions had previously been for forty-five years in the hands of the Recollects.]

[In September, 1704, arrives at Manila the papal legate Carlos Thomas Tournon, on his way to China for the settlement of various ecclesiastical difficulties there; he treats the governor and other officials2 with arrogance, refusing to exhibit his credentials, and exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction to such an extent that he antagonizes the religious orders and infringes on the royal prerogatives. These proceedings are tolerated by both governor and archbishop, although manifestly improper and objectionable; but when they are reported at Madrid the king is greatly displeased, and decrees that the governor be removed from office, and disqualified for holding it, and those of the auditors who assented to his acts be punished. Archbishop Camacho also incurs the displeasure of the king, which is increased by his having meddled with the affairs of the royal seminary of San Phelipe, and used at his own pleasure certain ecclesiastical revenues properly in charge of the secular government; and the governor fails to check him, and even to notify the home government of these unwarranted proceedings, which are reported at Madrid by ecclesiastical channels. Camacho is accordingly removed from his see, and transferred to the bishopric of Guadalaxara in Mexico.3 (He is regarded by ConcepciÓn as a very zealous and charitable prelate; he collected from various sources more than 40,000 pesos, which he spent in the adornment and improvement of the cathedral church at Manila, and for this and other pious purposes he incurred debts amounting to over 20,000 pesos more. He promoted the missions of Paynaan and San Isidro, going in person to persuade the Aetas (or Negritos) to be converted.) ZabalburÚ, having undergone his residencia, leaves Manila in the year 1710, and, after having suffered shipwreck in the Bahama Channel, reaches Spain, where he dies after a few years. In 1707 the Acapulco galleon “Rosario” arrives, “with so much silver that it made that fair [at Acapulco] famous;” it also brings a new archbishop, Fray Francisco de la Cuesta, “a professed religious in the distinguished monastic order of San Geronimo,” who wins golden opinions from all.4 Before long, however, the old question of the right of episcopal visitation of the regular curas again arises; Cuesta tries to enforce this right, but with little result.5 A full account of this is given by ConcepciÓn, with the arguments adduced therein.]

[In 1709 the new governor arrives, Conde de Lizarraga (appointed in 1704); he is equitable, upright, and of affable manners. He finds an undesirable surplus of Chinamen in the islands, and sends back many of them to their own country, although many others buy permission to remain in LuzÓn.6 During his term occurs the controversy between some of the friar orders and the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Fray Diego de Gorospe y Irala (himself a Dominican), over the claim of the latter to include the regulars in his official visitations. The matter is carried to the Audiencia, the decision of which is unfavorable to the bishop; he dies soon afterward (early in 1714?), after having occupied his see nine years. Little else appears to mark the official term of Lizarraga, who dies in 1715.]

1 This was Francisco Gueruela; see summary of his report on this visitation, in VOL. XLII, p. 120.?

2 “Except the master-of-camp Endaya, who charged him nothing for the house in which he lived, and spent more than twenty thousand pesos in maintaining him and all his retinue. Endaya made all these demonstrations because he had taken refuge in a church, and the patriarch [i.e., Tournon] condoned all his offences and enabled him to leave his asylum—without any one saying anything to him; nor did the judges dare to lay hands on a man whom the legate a latere had pardoned.” Other favors and honors were conferred on Endaya by Tournon. (ZÚÑiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 412–413.)?

3 Archbishop Camacho was appointed in 1703 bishop of Guadalajara; and early in July, 1706, he went to take possession of that see (which he retained until his death in 1712), abandoning his diocese of Manila. He left as ruler of that see Don Francisco Rayo (who was not a member of the cabildo), despite the protests of the chapter-members. On August 19 the cabildo declared the see vacant, and chose as its provisor the archdeacon Doctor JosÉ Altamirano y Cervantes. At first his title was contested by Rayo; but the latter was finally induced to give up his pretensions, and by August 28 “the cabildo remained in peaceable possession of its government and vacant see.” (Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, pp. 247, 248. In the same volume, pp. 135–206, is a detailed account of Camacho’s controversy with the orders and the papal delegate, with a royal decree on that subject, dated May 20, 1700.)?

4 “As soon as he took possession of his archbishopric, he began to busy himself with the building of the seminary of San Phelipe; and the first error that he committed was, to place the arms of the cabildo on the front of the edifice together with the arms of the king, which he placed on one of the stories. He also drew up the instructions for this collegiate seminary; and when he came to the admission of students he did not remember the [rights of the] royal patronage, and arranged for their admission without mentioning the vice-patron. The king’s fiscal, who saw therein one of his Majesty’s prerogatives wounded, strongly opposed the exercise of the archbishop’s claims, and from this ensued some mortifications to his illustrious Lordship; but the college was completed, and the seminarists were appointed, as the king commanded.” (ZÚÑiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 417, 418.)?

5 “Because of the controversies which SeÑor Camacho had had with the regulars about subjecting them to the visitation, the pope issued a brief, in which that subjection was decreed; it came endorsed by the [Spanish] Council, and it seemed as if, in virtue of a decision so clear and explicit, no reply was left for the religious save that of the submission which SeÑor Cuesta desired; but their ingenuity found a mode of escape from this strait. They replied that this brief was a declaration of the rights of the archbishop, which they did not deny; and that their only proposition was, that it was not expedient to execute this decree in these islands (in regard to which his Holiness ought to have given a hearing to the religious orders). They asserted that it was, so far as concerned the point at issue, obtained surreptitiously; for it was staled therein that there were entire orders who were willing to come to these islands in the position of subordinates to the bishops—which was false, because the only authentic thing about it was, that the vicar-general of the Recollects had promised a hundred religious who should minister in Philipinas as subject to the visitation and the [royal] patronage; but when this was known to the general of the calced Augustinians, he had censured this proposal and compelled its withdrawal. The orders therefore petitioned that the execution of the papal brief be suspended, until appeal could be taken to his Majesty. SeÑor Cuesta, who was a very peaceable man, and averse to disputes, agreed to this, and sent a report to the king. The representations of the regulars were considered in the Council of the Indias, and it was decreed that the regulars must submit; but his Majesty, being informed by a member of his Council of the injurious results which might follow from this visitation, approved the proceedings of SeÑor Cuesta, and ordered him not to annoy the religious in this matter until further orders.” (ZÚÑiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 418, 419.)?

6 “He sent away most of the Chinese, and retained only those whom he deemed necessary for the mechanical offices and the service of the public; in this matter his reputation suffered somewhat, for it was reported that he had a share of the proceeds from the licenses of those Chinamen who remained in the country. However that may be, his decision was a very sagacious one, and advantageous to this country; for the Sangleys who come to Manila are more slothful than the Indians themselves. They remain here [pretending] to cultivate the land, and on account of this pretext licenses are given to them; but there is not one in each thousand of the Chinese who applies himself to this labor. The rest of them are all devoted to trade, a mode of life well suited to their idle dispositions and to the [social] system of their nation—where it is a received idea that he who is most deceitful is most clever. The Sangleys adulterate everything—coins, measures, sugar, wax, and whatever they can thus handle without the fraud being known. Every one of them is a monopolist; they all secrete their wares, even those of prime necessity, and sell them at the price that they choose to ask. The oddest thing is, that by dint of presents they are able to gain protectors, who defend them; and even if sometimes a fine is imposed on them, on that very day they plunder [people] in their trading, in order to pay for their losses. In this way they become rich in a short time, and send much money to their relatives in China, or else go back with it to their own country, defrauding the Philipinas Islands of this silver.” (ZÚÑiga, Hist. de Philipinas, pp. 422, 423.)?

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