[LEDESMA, Andres de.]

Relacion de la llegada del señor governador Don Manuel de Leon en la nao S. Ioseph à la isla de S. Juan, y relacion de las islas Marianas, hasta aora llamadas de los Ladrones: costumbres de los Indios, y delo sucedido en dichas Islas al Padre Diego Luis de Sanvitores, y sus cinco compañeros de la Compañia de Jesus, desde 16 de Junio de 1668 hasta 17 del mismo mes de 1669.

[C. 1670.] Folio (290 x 190 mm), ff. 4; modern brown morocco. An early and extremely rare account of the Jesuit mission in Guam founded by Diego Luis de Sanvitores in 1668. The author of this narrative, according to Palau, was Andres de Ledesma and Lach notes that ‘Reports from Sanvitores and his companions were edited and summarized for publication in Europe by Andres de Ledesma (1610–84), the procurator of the Philippine province’ (Lach III p. 221). Ledesma describes the arrival of the Jesuits and their initial successes with the native people. The customs and characteristics of the Chamorro are also discussed, and Ledesma suggests that their habit of using surnames implies that they originated in Japan, the only other country in Asia at that time to use family names. The narrative then relates the difficulties that developed when the missionaries’ initial successes were replaced with animosity from the Chamorro, which is here blamed on a Chinese man, ‘Choco’, who had been living on the island for some time and was deliberately creating ill-feeling towards the Jesuits. However, the narrative, written before the death of Sanvitores, remains optimistic and, after listing some of the good works and miracles performed by the Jesuits, it ends with a call for more recruits to the mission. ‘The Jesuit letters published in Europe, as well as the martyrdom of Sanvitores, stimulated an interest in the Marianas far out of proportion to the Christian successes won there’ (ibid.).‘On 15 June 1668 Sanvitores landed on Guam, coming from New Spain, and accompanied by four priests, a few laymen, and thirty-three soldiers: the proportion was ominous. One of the first acts of the grateful Father was to replace the indivious name of Ladrones (“Robbers”) by the more auspicious Marianas . . . . Initial success was almost startling; in his first year Sanvitores claimed over 13,000 baptisms. Easy come, easy go; it soon appeared that superficial compliance masked deep disquiets, which rapidly shifted to aversion. There were several factors: Chamorro society was divided into three classes, and the ruling group saw no earthly reason why, if the Gospel were so great a gift, it should be shared with commoners and serfs; the missionaries naturally tried to get rid of the ‘great houses’ in which bachelors lived with unmarried girls in common; and apparently most important of all, the baptism of a baby was so often followed by its death that the bereaved parents saw a casual connection. Already in 1668 the first missionary to visit Tinian was driven out, and in 1670 there was open “rebellion” with a spirited attack on the Spanish settlement at Agana. This was repelled, but on 2 April 1672 Sanvitores himself was killed after christening a baby over the protests of its father, Matapang, who became one of the most prominent resistence leaders’ (Spate, Monopolists and freebooters pp. 115).‘The first mission appointed to any of the islands in the South Sea was for the Ladrones, and the project has been attributed to the pious charity of an individual; but the colonization of these islands, conveniently situated and in other respects commodious for the commerce from New Spain to the East Indies, naturally came in contemplation of the Spaniards on their obtaining possession of the Philippine Islands. The execution had probably been delayed only because the opportunity was always present; and it is represented at last to have taken place merely as a missionary undertaking, upon motives wholly pure and disinterested’ (Burney III p. 272).‘If there was no true discovery in the western Pacific, the Jesuit mission to the Ladrones or Marianas, all of which had been seen before, at least “established their geography” more correctly. For over a century after Legazpi annexed the group, there was little Spanish contact except the annual visits of the Manila-bound Galleons, an abortive mission in 1595, and two wrecks on Saipan, in 1600 and 1638. Cavendish and the Dutch trans-Pacific voyagers also called at Guam. The Chamorros might have rested indefinitely in their isolation, punctuated by bouts of symbiotic trading with the strangers (valuable for iron), had it not been for the zeal of Diego Luis de Sanvitores . . . . This Jesuit Father had touched at Guam in 1662, and immediately resolved to bring the Gospel to these luckless heathen souls’ (Spate, Monopolists and freebooters pp. 114–5). ‘By 1681 Guam had a mission, a fort, a garrison, and a governor. By the end of the seventeenth century, Spanish explorers and missionaries had learned that there were many islands in the vicinity of Guam; to two of the insular chains uncovered they gave the names Marianas and Carolines. As a result of this change in direction, the Spanish empire in the East had definitively become a Pacific rather than an Asian empire by the end of the seventeenth century’ (Lach III p. 25).Medina, Islas filipinas 196; Palau 258677; Streit XXI 259. OCLC records one copy, at Indiana University.

• GBP 6,750.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: T2192

• Antiquariat: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)