Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the PG Distributed Proofreaders Team
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
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,
Edited and annotated by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson
with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord
Bourne.
Preface 9
Relación de las Islas Filipinas (concluded) Pedro Chirino, S.J.;
Roma, 1604 2
Documents of 1604
Letters to Felipe III. Pedro de Acuña; Manila, July 15
and 19 221
Decrees regarding religious orders. Felipe III, and others;
Valladolid, February-July 246
Grant to the Jesuit seminary at Cebú. Pedro Chirino;
[undated; 1604?] 251
Decree regulating commerce with Nueva España. Felipe III;
Valladolid, December 31 256
Documents of 1605
Complaints against the Chinese. Miguel de Benavides,
and others; Manila, February 3-9 271
Letter from a Chinese official to Acuña. Chincheo,
March 287
Letters from Augustinian friars to Felipe III. Estevan
Carillo, and others; Manila, May 4-June 20 292
Letter to Felipe III. Antonio de Ribera Maldonado; Manila,
June 28 307
Bibliographical Data 317
Autograph signature of Pedro Chirino, S.J.; photographic facsimile
from MS. in Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla 215
Autograph signatures of Pedro de Acuña and members of the
Audiencia; photographic facsimile from MS. in Archivo general de
Indias, Sevilla 243
The larger part of the present volume is occupied with the Relacionof the Jesuit Chirino, begun in Vol. XII, and here concluded. Inthis work is recorded the progress of the Jesuit missions up tothe year 1602, by which time they have been established not onlyin Luzón and Cebú, but in Bohol, Leyte, Negros, Samar, and northernMindanao. The arrival of the visitor García in 1599 results in newvigor and more thorough organization in the missions, and the numbersof those baptized in each rapidly increase. The missionaries are ableto uproot idolatry in many places, and greatly check its practicein others. Everywhere they introduce, with great acceptance andedification among the natives, the practice of flagellation—"theprocession of blood." Religious confraternities are formed among theconverts, greatly aiding the labors of the fathers; and the latteropen schools for boys, among both the Spaniards and the Indians. Intime of pestilence they minister to the sick and the dying; and theygain great influence among all