You shall attend to all of the above with the care and close attention that I expect from your character and prudence, and from your earnest zeal in affairs touching my service.  San Lorenco, August nine, one thousand five hundred and eighty-nine.

I The King

By order of the king, our sovereign: 

Juan de Ybarra

Countersigned by the council.

Customs of the Tagalogs

(Two Relations by Juan de Plasencia, O.S.F.)

After receiving your Lordship’s letter, I wished to reply immediately; but I postponed my answer in order that I might first thoroughly inform myself in regard to your request, and to avoid discussing the conflicting reports of the Indians, who are wont to tell what suits their purpose.  Therefore, to this end, I collected Indians from different districts—­old men, and those of most capacity, all known to me; and from them I have obtained the simple truth, after weeding out much foolishness, in regard to their government, administration of justice, inheritances, slaves, and dowries. [25] It is as follows: 

Customs of the Tagalogs

This people always had chiefs, called by them datos, who governed them and were captains in their wars, and whom they obeyed and reverenced.  The subject who committed any offense against them, or spoke but a word to their wives and children, was severely punished.

These chiefs ruled over but few people; sometimes as many as a hundred houses, sometimes even less than thirty.  This tribal gathering is called in Tagalo a barangay.  It was inferred that the reason for giving themselves this name arose from the fact (as they are classed, by their language, among the Malay nations) that when they came to this land, the head of the barangay, which is a boat, thus called—­as is discussed at length in the first chapter of the first ten chapters—­became a dato.  And so, even at the present day, it is ascertained that this barangay in its origin was a family of parents and children, relations and slaves.  There were many of these barangays in each town, or, at least, on account of wars, they did not settle far from one another.  They were not, however, subject to one another, except in friendship and relationship.  The chiefs, in their various wars, helped one another with their respective barangays.

In addition to the chiefs, who corresponded to our knights, there were three castes:  nobles, commoners, and slaves.  The nobles were the free-born whom they call maharlica.  They did not pay tax or tribute to the dato, but must accompany him in war, at their own expense.  The chief offered them beforehand a feast, and afterward they divided the spoils.  Moreover, when the dato went upon the water those whom he summoned rowed for him.  If he built a house, they helped him, and had to be fed for it.  The same was true when the whole barangay