Note 20 — II. Industries at the Time of Discovery and Conquest

Description of Filipinas Islands, Bartholome de Letona, 1662.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 36, p. 201.

“All these islands are, in many districts, rich in placers and mines of gold, a metal which the natives dig and work. However, since the advent of the Spaniards in the land, the natives proceed more slowly in this, and content themselves with what they already possess in jewels and gold ingots, handed down from antiquity and inherited from their ancestors. This is considerable for he must be poor and wretched who has no gold chains, calombigas (bracelets), and earrings.

Some placers and mines were worked at Paracale in the province of Camarines, where there is good gold mixed with copper. This commodity is also traded in the Ilocos, for at the rear of this province, which borders the seacoast, are certain lofty and rugged mountains which extend as far as Cagayan. On the slopes of these mountains, in the interior, live many natives, as yet unsubdued, and among whom no incursion has been made, who are called Ygolotes. These natives possess rich mines, many of gold and silver mixed. They are wont to dig from them only the amount necessary for their wants. They descend to certain places to trade this gold (without completing its refining or preparation), with the Ilocos; there they exchanged it for rice, swine, carabaos, cloth and other things that they need. The Ilocos complete its refining and preparation, and by their medium it is distributed throughout the country. Although an effort has been made with these Ygolotes to discover their mines, and how they work them, and their method of working the metal, nothing definite has been learned, for the Ygolotes fear that the Spaniards will go to seek them for their gold, and say that they keep the gold better in the earth than in their houses.

There are also many gold mines and placers in the other islands, especially among the Pintados, on the Botuan River in Mindanao, and in Sebu, where a mine of good gold is worked, called Taribon. If the industry and efforts of the Spaniards were to be converted into the working of the gold, as much would be obtained from any one of these islands as from those provinces which produce the most in the world. But since they attend to other means of gain rather than to this, they do not pay the proper attention to this matter.” (Antonio de Morga, Sucesos; Bl. and Rb., Vol. 16, pp. 101–103.)