Slavery

SLAVERY was flagrant in the island when the Spaniards came and went on for 100 years under Spanish regime. Indeed, next to glittering gold, slaves were man's prized possessions. One measured his wealth by the number of slaves he had. King Phillip II of Spain had to send Contador Bustamante to Leyte in 1581 to free 2,000 slaves. In the words of Fr. Alonso de Humanes:"Every principal was living, according to their ancient customs, with his relations; and slaves in separate cluster of his huts..."

However, the most common causes of slavery here was usury. A debtor who could not pay his debts automatically became a slave. Even after the principal was paid, the slave remained so until the interests, which in the meantime had accumulated, was also fully paid.

Chirino had something to say about this:" Whenever they gave out loans (not in money which they neither had nor made use of but in kind, generally rice, bells and above all, gold, which duly weighed served as their medium of exchange and for which... everyone carries a small scale in his pocket), they always expected to make a profit, which in addition to the principal would have to be paid back to them...that same profit or interest kept increasing with every delay in the repayment and in the course of time exceeded what the debtor could possibly pay back; the obligation was then charged against the debtor's person and the poor man was made a slave, as thenceforth all his descendants."

"They had another rule of usury and slavery, which was that upon receipt of the loan, the debtor or his son immediately bonded himself to the service of the lender, to work out the full repayment of the principal plus the usuries and interests that were current among them. The result was that the debtor, or his hostage, together with all his descendants, became slaves....they also made slaves, cruelly and unjustly, in vengeance and punishment for things that were of little real importance but which they made out to be serious offenses, such as not observing the silence for the dead or happening to pass in front of a noble woman while she was bathing...while waging war, by means of raids and ambushes, they also made slaves of all those they did not wish to kill. And as warfare was so common among them, and as the strong generally take advantage of the weak, it was the easiest thing in the world for the powerful to multiply their slaves. They therefore possessed them in very large numbers, for among them slaves represent the greatest form of wealth."(Chirino)
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