The Igorot struggle for independence: William Henry Scott.

for Spain and her government at home and abroad, to realize that
thousands of human beings, some at the very doorway-of the
capital, and many others within sight of Christian towns with
government forces and'authorities, not only live in pre-Conquest
backwardness, but commit crimes even to the extent of collecting
tribute from the Christian towns themselves without receiving any
punishment for their boldness."
Of course the Spaniards did not consider this resistance a
fight for independence. They considered the Igorots to be bandits
and savages and lawbreakers because they did not submit to Spanish
rule like the lowlanders. And they explained the Igorot defense of
their liberty as the instincts of uncivilized tribes who. had always
been at war with their more peace-loving neighbors. But the first
generation of Spanish records do not make it clear that the Igorots'
lowland neighbors were peace-loving, or that the Igorots were their
enemies. Quite the opposite, they make it clear that the Ilocanos
and the Pangasinanes and Igorots were business partners in the
gold industry. A Dominican account of 1593 says the Igorots
brought their gold down to their special friends and agents in
Pangasinan, and the'Tamous book by Dr.' Antonio de Morga of
1609 says the Igorots mined the gold but that the Ilocanos refined
it and distributed it to other places. When the first friars went to
Mangaldan, Pangasinan, in 1588, they found the people there
making regular business trips to the mountains, and worshipping a
mountain god called Apo Laki In 1745 the place that is now called
Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya, was inhabited by Panipuy Igorots who also
inhabited villages high in the mountains of what is now Kayapa
municipality and the southwestern borders of Ifugao. And when a
Kalinga chieftain raised a revolt in Isabela in 1787, the mayor of
Camarag who remained loyal to the Spaniards, was his own brother.
Considering the similarity of the present languages of Pangasinan
and Benguet, and of Isinay and Lagawe, who can say where the
dividing line between highlander and lowlander was when the
Spaniards arrived in the Philippines?
As a matter of fact, early Spanish accounts don't even make it
clear that highlanders and lowlanders were very different racially
or culturally. The first missionaries in Zambales, Pangasinan and
Cagayan said the natives were all headhunters there, and the same

2