Note 51 — INSURRECTIONS BY FILIPINOS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (continued 2)

Thus was quenched that infernal fire which kindled discord in the hearts of the natives of the provinces of Pampanga and Pangasinán, and of the Indians of the village of Bacarra in Ilocos—a fire which threatened to consume the peace and obedience of the other provinces of these islands, whose people were on the watch for its outcome, in order to declare themselves [rebels] and prove Fortune, and to gain what seemed to them liberty. But this would have been, quite to the contrary, their entire perdition; for, escaping from their civilized subjection to the Spaniards, they would have fallen back into the barbarous tyranny of their own people—which, like chips from the same log,51 is what most hurts, as experience shows; and the natives themselves know this. They were continually experiencing this in the tumult in Pampanga, for the tyrannical acts and the extortions which they suffered from the principal leaders of the revolt were more grievous than those which they experienced or could fear from subjection to the Spaniards. So true is this that in the village of Guagua it was said by an old chief who survived that time, named Don Pedro Anas, that so great was the confusion and lawlessness, and so tyrannical were the leaders of the outbreak, that if the governor Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara had not come so promptly with his troops, the Indians themselves would have gone to Manila to make their submission at his feet; some of them could not unite with the others, and, although all desired liberty, they did not work together to secure the means for attaining it, and therefore they experienced a heavier [yoke of] subjection. And among the peoples whom God seems to have created that they may live in subjection to others who govern them with justice and authority are those of these Filipinas Islands; for when the Spanish arms conquered them with so great facility they were living without a head, without king or lord to obey—being only tyrannized over by him who among them displayed most courage; and this subjection was continually changing, other men, of greater valor and sagacity, gaining the ascendency.