The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; 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, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 48]

I751-I765]

MORO RAIDS REPULSED

5I

from slavery;8 while, on the contrary, those who
through cowardice did not make valorous resistance
to the Mahometan enemy have not only lost their
goods, but they groan in captivity, unless they have
been delivered by the victorious arms of his Majesty.
And thus the natives of this archipelago, arousing
their own courage by the fortunate successes of their
countrymen, can take example therefrom in order to
avoid misfortunes in the future.9
8 Forrest says (Voyage to New Guinea, p. 302) in describing
the pirate raids by the Moros: "The Spaniards not allowing the
Bisayans fire-arms, the latter prove less able to defend themselves." Also (p. 303): "On Celebes, they take, if in Dutch
territory, even those of their own religion: a decent musselman,
with his wife and four children were brought to Mindano, by
this very prow." "The Sooloos have in their families many
Bisayan, some Spanish slaves, whom they purchase from the
Illanon and Magindano cruisers. Sometimes they purchase whole
cargoes, which they carry to Passir, on Borneo; where, if the
females are handsome, they are bought up for the Batavia market.
The masters sometimes use their slaves cruelly, assuming the
power of life and death over them. Many are put to death for
trifling offences, and their bodies left above ground." (Ut supra,
p. 330.)
The archbishop of Manila, Don Miguel Garcia Serrano,
wrote to his Majesty that in the period of thirty years during
which there was no fortified post in Mindanao, twenty thousand
Christians had been made captive by the Moros. (Torrubia,
Dissertacion, p. 49.)
This relation was evidently written by some one of the Jesuit
missionaries in Leyte, and perhaps even an eyewitness to the
events related. The villages which he names as having repulsed
the enemy seem to have been largely those in charge of the
Jesuits. Some mention of the raids made in 1752-53 against the
Recollect missions may be found on pp. 163, I64, post, note 88.