Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 05).djvu/225

 and weapons, orders the chiefs to be called, and demands that they give him the tributes for all the Indians of their village. Here my powers fail me, I lack the courage, and I can find no words, to express to your Majesty the misfortunes, injuries, and vexations, the torments and miseries, which the Indians are made to suffer in the collection of the tributes. The tribute at which all are commonly rated is the value of eight reals, paid in gold or in produce which they gather from their lands; but this rate is observed like all other rules that are in favor of the Indians—that is, it is never observed at all. Some they compel to pay it in gold, even when they do not have it. In regard to the gold likewise, there are great abuses, because as there are vast differences in gold here, they always make the natives give the finest. The weight at which they receive the tribute is what he who collects it wishes, and he never selects the lightest. Others make them pay cloth or thread. But the evil is not here, but in the manner of collecting; for, if the chief does not give them as much gold as they demand, or does not pay for as many Indians as they say there are, they crucify the unfortunate chief, or put his head in the stocks—for all the encomenderos, when they go to collect, have their stocks, and there they lash and torment the chiefs until they give the entire sum demanded from them. Sometimes the wife or daughter of the chief is seized, when he himself does not appear. Many are the chiefs who have died of torture in the manner which I have stated. When I was in the port of Ybalon some chiefs came there to see me; and the first thing they said to me was, that one who was collecting the tributes in that settlement had killed a chief by torture, and the