Note 5 — Domesticated Natives—Origin—Character

The inhabitants of these Islands were by no means savages, entirely unreclaimed from barbarism before the Spanish advent in the 16th century. They had a culture of their own, towards which the Malay settlers themselves appear to have contributed very little. In the nascent pre-Spanish civilization, Japanese immigrants were almost the only agriculturists, mine-workers, manufacturers, gold-seekers, goldsmiths, and masters of the industrial arts in general. Pagsanján (Laguna) was their great industrial centre. Malolos (Bulacan) was also an important Japanese trading base. Whilst working the mines of Ilocos their exemplary industry must undoubtedly have influenced the character of the Ilocanos. Away down in the Bicol country of Camarines, the Japanese pushed their trade, and from their great settlement in Taal their traffic must have extended over the whole province, first called by the Spaniards Taal y Balayán, but since named Batangas. From the Japanese, the Malays learnt the manufacture of arms, and the Igorrotes the art of metal-working. Along the coasts of the large inhabited islands the Chinese travelled as traders or middlemen, at great personal risk of attack by individual robbers, bartering the goods of manufacturers for native produce, which chiefly consisted of sinamay cloth, shark-fin, balate (trepang), edible birdsʼ-nests, gold in grain, and siguey-shells, for which there was a demand in Siam for use as money. Every north-east monsoon brought down the junks to barter leisurely until the south-west monsoon should waft them back, and neither Chinese nor Japanese made the least attempt, nor apparently had the least desire, to govern the Islands or to overrule the natives. Without coercion, the Malay settlers would appear to have unconsciously submitted to the influence of the superior talent or astuteness of the sedulous races with whom they became merged and whose customs they adopted, proof of which can be traced to the present day.5 Presumably the busy, industrious immigrants had neither time nor inclination for sanguinary conflicts, for those recorded appear to be confined to the raids of the migratory mountaineers and an occasional attack by some ambitious Borneo buccaneer. The reader who would wish to verify these facts is recommended to make a comparative study of native character in Vigan, Malolos, Taal, and Pagsanján.