Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/17



The entrance of the United States of America into the arena of world-politics, the introduction of American influence into Oriental affairs, and the establishment of American authority in the Philippine archipelago, all render the history of those islands and their numerous peoples a topic of engrossing interest and importance to the reading public, and especially to scholars, historians, and statesmen. The present work—its material carefully selected and arranged from a vast mass of printed works and unpublished manuscripts—is offered to the public with the intention and hope of casting light on the great problems which confront the American people in the Philippines; and of furnishing authentic and trustworthy material for a thorough and scholarly history of the islands. For this purpose, the Editors reproduce (mainly in English translation) contemporaneous documents which constitute the best original sources of Philippine history. Beginning with Pope Alexander VI's line of demarcation between the Spanish and the Portuguese dominions in the New World (1493), the course of history in the archipelago is thus traced through a period of more than three centuries, comprising the greater part of the Spanish regimé.