Note 11 — Chapter I · A PEOPLE’S WRONGS

The roots of this story begin three centuries before the Mercado family at Calamba was caught up in its heartbreaking intrigues. After what was called the “discovery” of the Philippines by Magellan, March 16, 1521, Spain laid claim to the entire Archipelago, more than two thousand sizable Islands.11 Portugal disputed this, neither having the slightest just basis for its claim, until 1529, when the pope settled the quarrel out of hand and gave the Philippines to Spain. In 1570 the taking by a Spanish expedition of the capital city of Manila was assumed to have put the physical seal upon this deed of gift, and Spain proceeded to annex and to govern such of the Islands as she could by persuasion or beating induce to accept her sovereignty. From the first the tenancy was incongruous and precarious; Europe of the Middle Ages laid upon a civilization more ancient, wholly alien, and traditionally well rooted. What followed is a tangle of inconsistencies. On the administrative side, Spain with musket-balls shot order and obedience into the natives; from first to last the rulers had but the one broad policy, which was to overawe the people they ruled and to subjugate them with fear. On the cultural side the account was at first wholly different. That they might give to these same natives the blessings of Christianity and the gospel of peace, the heroic Spanish missionary priests endured trials compared with which most martyrdoms seemed easy. Thus in a naïve way, rather startling now to contemplate, perdition and paradise were to be glimpsed side by side, brute force marched with an apostolic love, and bullets were distributed with the Bible.