LUZON 230 LUZON
Legaspi, who was sent to Manilla in 1569, with a detachment of eighty soldiers, in
pursuit of pirates. Legaspi himself did not reach the island and begin its conquest
until 1571, fifty years after the discovery of the group by Magellan. Luzon, however,
although wholly unknown to Europeans until towards the end of the 16 th century,
had been long known and frequented by the Malays, the Javanese, the Chinese, and
Japanese, for the purpose of trade. The intercourse of the two first must have been of
long standing, to j udge by the considerable number of words of their languages found
in all the cultivated tongues of Luzon, as well as by the character of these words. Thus
we find many nautical and commercial terms to be Malayan, such as vessel, sail, ballast,
anchor, plummet, with the names of nearly all weights and measures. In Luzon, as
in the other Philippine Islands, the Malay language had become the common medium
of communication between the natives and strangers, and was spoken by all persons
connected with foreign trade. Through the Malayan nations, the Hindu religion first,
and then the Mahommedan, had made some slight progress# When the Spaniards
first arrived, they found, on the site of the present city of Manilla, a prosperous
Mahommedan community (un rico pueblo de Moriscos). This village, for such
without doubt it was, had a wooden stockade, on which were mounted twelve pieces
of cannon; a place, it may be safely inferred, of no great strength, or not well
defended, since the Spaniards easily captured it with eighty men. I t was the haunt
of the denounced pirates of Juan de Salcedo.
Both the Chinese and Japanese appear to have traded with the inhabitants of
Luzon before the arrival of the Spaniards, although there is no direct evidence of
their having done so. Soon after that event, both nations invaded the island in the
character of corsairs. The Chinese did so in 1574, only three years after the
Spaniards had settled in the bay of Manilla. A pirate, of the name of Lim-ma-hon,
had ravaged the coast of China, with a fleet of ninety-five war-junks, and having been
pursued by an Imperial fleet of a hundred and thirty sail, carrying 40,000 men, he
fled towards Luzon, and hearing of the small number of the Spanish garrison of
Manilla, he attacked it, and was defeated by a force which, at the time,^ did not
exceed sixty soldiers. The condition of the Chinese Empire, which gave rise to the
extensive system of piracy indicated by this numerous fleet, was probably not unlike
what it is in our own time, and, indeed, has been, more or less, for the last forty
years. It was most likely in that state of anarchy which portended the overthrow of
the native dynasty of the Ming, an event which was brought to a crisis forty-five years
later by the invasion of the Manchu Tartars. In 1581, ten years after the first
Spanish settlement, the Japanese invaded the northern end of the island, occupying
the present province of Cagayan, from which they were expelled, not without danger
and difficulty.
With all these obstacles, the facility and rapidity with which the essential conquest
of Luzon was effected is very remarkable. A few short years were sufficient to bring
under the Spanish rule four out of the six advanced nations of Luzon, with little
bloodshed. The two principal heroes of these exploits were Juan de Salcedo, the nephew
of Legaspi, and Martin Goiti. The first of these, with forty-five soldiers and a few
priests, marched from Manilla to near the northern end of the island, and afterwards
to near its southern extremity, subduing and converting as he marched. These
triumphs, indeed, were at least as much owing to spiritual as temporal arms, the
Augustine and Franciscan monks always accompanying and aiding the troops, a
politic course which has been invariably persevered in ever since. The priests who
in this manner contributed to the easy conquest, not only of Luzon, but of the other
Philippine Islands, are said not to have exceeded forty or fifty in number. No such
cruelties were perpetrated in Luzon as the Spaniards are charged with^ having
committed in America and its islands. On the contrary, the conduct of their chiefs
seems to have been politic, and humane.
I t must, however, be observed that the state of society in Luzon was highly favourable
to the enterprise of the Spaniards. The more advanced populations, as already
stated, were divided into six different nations, with as many different languages. But
each of these nations again, did not form an united people. Those even who spoke the
same language, were themselves divided into small independent tribes called, in the languages
of the country, barangay, and headed by a chief, with a native name varying
with the nation to which he belonged, but also frequently called by the Malay name
of datu, which may be translated “ an elder.” Besides being thus broken down by division,
even the most advanced of the nations of Luzon were, in civilisation, far below
the Malays, and especially the Javanese, of the same time. They possessed a knowledge
of malleable iron, but made small use of it,—most probably from its scarcity. The
MACASSAR 231
MACTAN
only other metal they were
used by weight as a medium of 6 > and ox possessed by the cotempor y
usually carried on by barter. them and their only beast of draught
Malays and Javanese, were and even this they had received from the
burden was the heavy and sluggish “u° a ’ confined to the possession of a
Malayan nations. Their ttoa6 of any of the nations
written character, far more crude and unsystematic, and them
of the Malayan Archipelago. Them gt “ ,g of perishable materials. Neither
temples, unlike those of Java, were made any serious th™ Hindu nor Mahommedan religions had made any am Qfi m^ pr e^ssio onf foinre .tahlTeOm8,;
or conduced in any material deSree ° Aztecs 0r Peruvians, although the Malayan
they were nearly as ignorant as t ggsion of them iong before the arrival of
nations, their neighbours, had W m B inhabitants of Luzon were not a wild race
Europeans. With all this, ^ e P P an agricultural people, fixed and attached
of wandering savages, b u t , on the c o n t r a ^ credulou3 bu t not a sanguinary people ,
to the soil. They were a ^ ^ ^ p T u practised by them being the occasional
the only cruel rite alleged to Qf gocjety were prepared for subjugation,
sacrifice of a slave. A people in th ^ they B0 readily adopted. The
and for the reception of the * w relig | principal nations of the
Spaniards found the inhabitants of Malay Archipelago in civilisation, and
Philippines far below th e chief natl° , t they n0w are, upon the whole, superior
they have the merit of having made themw y &n islands who have
to any of them. They are, centuries and a half which have
W tl i p » ! s £ £ % a- p—
M .
MACASSAK, m t a g » * of « ¿ j f e g M
kasar, is properly the name of a PeoP ^ ^ d ¿ ationB 0f the island, and speaking
south-western peninsula, one of the tw character. When Celebes was first
a peculiar language of its own, ’with a ^ nation Was rising into notice, and
visited by the Portuguese, in 1525, having brought the Bugis tribes under
soon became the paramount one of t Mahommedan religion, and even on the
its yoke. Itwasrthe first to embrace, tiie M g H g a ^ ^ ^ faith; but it was not
first arrival of the Portuguese they °u“ £ ® general conversion was effected, and
until 1606, or about eighty years l a f e t o t The Macassars became,
this was brought about by Malay and wholly subdued, since which
in time, involved with the Dutch, and m 1669 w p o r t i o n of Celebes,
aH h o u g h ta lem o te1 Tt be6'RtSe more than nominal, and nowhere assuredly
.k. «» r r « s i “
Rotterdam, lying on the western shor P ^ small one, of
latitude 5° 1' 45", and east longitude 119 21 8 1 . lb e ^ lowlati.
European construction, and the port a “ er®r°ad t ’ ^ ’affording, like Singapore,
tude in which it lies, and consequent freedom from storiM, imo g,
somewhat similarly situated, safe anchorage in almost importance. i t
Macassar in 1813, it was, m an Europ ’ . d and four hundred praus
was always, however, a p o r t of c o n s i d e ^ e ^ “ dommercial placePfrom
are now s a i d to belong to g r a d i n g ^ or holothurion, on the
Sumatra to New Guinea, and carrying on th y P Netherland Governnorthern
coast of Australia, with Chinese capital. In 1847 th p *W r t s i n t h e
ment made Macassar a free port to all nations, in uni a 10 attended with as
Straits of Malacca, and this enlightened measure will, no
much success as can be reasonably looked for from a place not lying in the highway
of general commerce. . . .
MACTAN, the name of a small island lying adjacent to the eastern coast ot ^ebu,
one of the principal Philippines, and parted from it only by a very n
has anarea of 26 square geographical miles, and is described as fertdeandweU
peopled? But the place is chiefly °f note for having been the scene of the death of
the celebrated Magellan, who, on the 26th day of August, 1521, was k