Note 49 — Letters from Father Mateo Gisbert to the Reverend Fathers and Brothers of Veruela

Moros. The Moros compared to the Christians of Filipinas, are what the Jebusites are to the village of God. Consecrated to piracy and the taking of captives since the beginning of their installation in Joló and Mindanao that profession has always been for them the most solid support of their formidable power. Until 1860 when eighteen steamboats came to this archipelago it was impossible to break their indomitable pride, and assure communication with the sea of Mindoro. Later with the increase of the navy and the installation of the steamship post it has become impossible for those people to leave their lurking places in order to practice their infamous raids. The expeditions of General Claveria against the Moros of Balanguingui; those of Urbistondo and Malcampo, against the Moros of Joló;49 and the definitive establishment of our forts in Dávao, Rio Grande, and Joló, have given the deathblow to Mahometanism in the archipelago,50 and it is now become shrunken to the reducible circle of the territory that they overlook, and in that of the heathen rancherías which surround them, where the beneficent influence of the Spanish domination has not yet been able to penetrate in an efficacious and immediate manner. Nevertheless the Moros will be from today and forever under the vigilant eye of the victorious Lion of Castilla, so that they may not commit any offenses outside. The day on which the missionaries shall have succeeded in planting the cross among the heathens who surround the Moros, then the latter deprived of the slaves who cultivate the earth for them and clothe them, erect their houses, and serve them as an object of luxury and trade, will on that day see their necessity to change the campilan and the kris for the ploughshare and the plough, the fierce arrogance of the warrior or pirate, for the pacific gentleness of the man who is forced to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow.