The Editors October, 1903.

Documents of 1591

The collection of tributes in the Filipinas (concluded).  Domingo de Salazar, and others; January-March.  Liberty of the Indians in the Philippinas.  Gregory XIV; April 18.  Articles of contract for the conquest of Mindanao.  G. P. Dasmarinas and Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa; May 12.  Ordinance forbidding the Indians to wear Chinese stuffs.  G. P. Dasmarinas and others; April 9-May 20.  Account of the encomiendas in the Philippinas Islands. [G.  P. Dasmarinas]; May 31.  Letter to Felipe ii.  G. P. Dasmarinas; June 20.  The fortification of Manila.  G. P. Dasmarinas; June 20.  Investigations at Manila concerning trade with Macan.  Melchor de Baeca, and others; May 23-November 19.

Sources:  All but two of these documents are obtained from original MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla.  The papal decree is found in Hernaez’s Coleccion de bulas, i, p. 108; the account of encomiendas is taken from Retana’s Archivo del bibliofilo filipino, iv, pp. 41-111.

Translations:  Such part of the first document as appears in this volume is translated by Norman F. Hall; the second is by Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A., of Villanova College; the third and fifth, by James A. Robertson; the fourth, by Herman G. A. Brauer, of the University of Wisconsin; the sixth, by Jose M. and Clara M. Asensio; the seventh, by Henry B. Lathrop, of the University of Wisconsin; the eighth, by Alfonso de Salvio, of Harvard University.

The Collection of Tributes in the Filipinas Islands (concluded)

Letter from the Bishop to the Governor

Jesus

Inasmuch as your Lordship wrote to me at San Francisco del Monte that the encomenderos were urgently seeking from you permission to make collections from their encomiendas, I despatched to you from that place an answer to the letter which your Lordship wrote to me after having received my statement and that of the other theologians of the bishopric who think carefully about this matter.  I had therein represented to your Lordship some of the difficulties which might result from carrying into execution some of the plans proposed in the aforesaid statement.  In the reply, I solved these difficulties; and have since been waiting to learn what your Lordship has communicated to the encomenderos regarding collections in the encomiendas which are without religious instruction.  Since I must inform all confessors who are outside the city how they are to deal in the confessional with the aforesaid encomenderos, I pray your Lordship to favor me by advising me of your transactions with these encomenderos, so that we may all be of one mind, express ourselves in harmony, and avoid dissensions among ourselves, which are wont to be the cause of many evils.  It is necessary that your Lordship should inform me promptly; for messages must be sent to some districts remote from here, and, if I do not write at once, I shall be unable to send word to the confessors in time.  May God guard your Lordship.  From this house, on Ash Wednesday of the year 91.