Rascals in Paradise

  It is difficult to isolate the causes for this curious Spanish behavior, for the Spaniards readily admitted that their Chinese were skilled merchants, industrious tradesmen and essential artisans. In addition they provided the barbers, the weavers, the fishermen, the farmers and, in some exalted cases, even the bankers. Serious Spanish writers were always careful to report that the Chinese formed the economic mainstay of the Philippines.

  But they were Oriental, and at home Spain had only recently expelled her powerful invaders from the Near Orient—the Muslim Moors of North Africa—and a natural suspicion was undoubtedly transferred to the Chinese. But what made any substantial rapprochement impossible was the fact that the Chinese, even when they were converted, simply did not make good Christians, and those who submitted to conversion were doubly suspect. For this reason, the entire breed was feared and abhorred by the Spaniards.

  Any trifling scare was more than likely to precipitate a panic and slaughter of the Sangleys, as they were nicknamed.† For instance, in May, 1603, three mandarins arrived in Manila and told the authorities that they had been sent by their emperor to investigate the tale that near Manila was a mountain of pure gold, belonging to no one and rich enough to pay all the taxes of China. Naturally, such an unlikely excuse for travel forced the Spaniards to suspect that these men were spies. In turn, the visiting Chinese feared an attack and this caused the local Sangleys to make preparations for defense. In the autumn the conflict degenerated into open warfare; a company of more than a hundred Spaniards was ambushed and killed, and Chinese gangs assaulted the walls of Manila. When Filipino troops marched to the rescue, the Chinese were driven into the hills. Spanish historians state that no less than twenty-three thousand Sangleys—most of those in the Philippines at the time—perished in the revolt; and because of their loss to the community, an economic depression followed.

  In 1639 Manila was ready for another massacre. Oppression of Chinese laborers in the provinces started an insurrection and the Sangleys plundered twenty-two towns and churches and killed many Spaniards, Filipinos and Christian Japanese. This time they made no attempt to attack Manila, for the memory of their defeat there in 1603 was still fresh. After a year of battles and sieges, the Chinese laid down their arms in February, 1640. The number of Sangleys killed was between twenty-two and twenty-four thousand.

  These massacres were much talked about in Asia and seem to have rankled in Coxinga’s bosom, so that when he saw a chance to gain an economic advantage as well as exact revenge, he quixotically determined to teach the Spaniards a lesson. He would expel them from the Philippines and take over Manila, possibly making it his capital.

  Accordingly he laid plans for a massive assault on the islands, but before actually launching it he made one of the most bizarre gestures of his life. From the European refugees in Formosa he selected a gifted gentleman of wide learning and dispatched him to the Spaniards in Manila with the following bombastic epistle:

  It is a well established custom, in both ancient and modern times, that foreign nations recognize illustrious princes chosen by Heaven and offer them tribute and gifts. The foolish Dutchmen, not recognizing … the decrees of Heaven, operated shamelessly, oppressing … my subjects and even robbing … my sampans filled with goods. I kept sending warnings and exhortations, as from a friend, hoping they might repent of their misdeeds and reform themselves of their sins. But they … were corrupt and perverse and did not behave as if they understood. I then became extremely angry and … collected a fleet to punish their crimes. When I arrived I captured them, and killed and destroyed without end, and … the Dutch humbly asked to become our subjects.…

  I am, therefore, sending ahead my ambassador with a friendly notification … in order that your tiny kingdom, if it wishes to recognize the desires of Heaven and to acknowledge its own errors, may come with penitence to my rule and each year offer tribute. If you accept this … I shall be reconciled and will forgive your old misdeeds, and will respect your royal dignity. At the same time I shall command my merchants to fulfill their contracts with you.

  But if you mistakenly do not accept, straightway there will arrive at your city a fleet which will burn up your forces, reservoirs, cities, warehouses—everything of value, even to the very stones. I shall destroy you. And if you then beg to pay tribute and tender your submission, you will not be permitted to do so. Let what happened to the Dutchmen be an example.… Let your tiny kingdom ponder this speedily. Let it not postpone repentance. I am only giving notice in a friendly way, admonishing and instructing.…

  Kuesing

  The rage of the Spaniards at receiving such a message from an infidel and a pirate was no less great than their astonishment at the man who delivered it. Vittorio Ricci, a resident of the city of Florence, was a Dominican friar who was to serve in Asia for thirty-seven incredible years, during which he encountered so many improbable adventures that merely to recount them seems stultifying. Rather late in his pyrotechnic career he became involved with Coxinga, through the accident of having been on the island of Amoy just as the great pirate was preparing his fateful assault on Nanking, and as a result of one improvisation after another he wound up on Formosa as Coxinga’s priest-ambassador, in which capacity he watched the infidel Chinese finally expel the Lutheran religion and establish Confucianism in its place. Old accounts give us good reason to believe that Friar Ricci, seeing the Lutherans at a disadvantage, derived satisfaction from the humbling of this religion that had caused his own such grievous damage in Europe.

  But now he was being sent south to help the infidel Coxinga extirpate not Lutherans but Catholics, who had established a strong enclave in Manila, and his appearance in that city created a scandal. He strode ashore, a handsome man in full mandarin robes, bearing documents which could mean the end of his religion in one of the principal cities of Asia, probably the only time in history when a friar served such a contradictory purpose. He delivered his inflammatory ultimatum to the governor, and then—in great confusion of mind, no doubt—sat back to watch the riots.

  At first the outraged Spaniards decided to employ their traditional gambit: behead every one of the more than fifteen thousand Chinese. As a contemporary pointed out, this would at the same time insure the peace, gratify religious zeal and advance the personal fortunes of the Spaniards: “One seldom finds a person who is not interested in the ruin of the Sangleys—some on account of the loot that they may obtain; the rest because there are few persons who do not hold property of the Sangleys in trust, or else owe much for merchandise which they have bought on credit. Many have become depositaries for their acquaintances, who, fearing the removal of their property to other hands, give it to their intimate friends to keep; and by slaying the Sangleys all render account with payment Accordingly, in the insurrection of 1639 it was found by experience that those in whom the Sangleys placed most confidence were the first and most importunate voters for their ruin.”

  In view of the earlier massacres, it was astonishing that Manila in 1662 held any Chinese, but as in the parallel case of Java, where there were similar repeated extirpations, these seem never to have deterred fresh immigration and thus Manila’s sprawling Parián, one of the world’s principal Chinatowns, became a scene of intense excitement as Spanish troops, inflamed by Coxinga’s maladroit threats, moved to circle the area. The Parián was a remarkable city in itself, of which a contemporary wrote, “Usually fifteen thousand Chinese live there; they are Sangleys, natives of Great China, and all merchants or artisans. They possess, allotted among themselves by streets and squares, shops containing all the kinds of merchandise and all the trades that are necessary in a community. The place is very orderly and well arranged, and a great convenience to the citizens. It is an indication of their greatness that although they are so few, they have so many workmen and servants assigned to their service. The Sangleys live in wooden houses; they have a governor of their own nation, and a Spanish alcalde-mayor and the other officers of justice, with a notary; also
a jail. They have a parish church, where the sacraments, the divine word, and burial are administered to the four thousand Christians among these Sangleys; the rest of them are heathen.” Now the Sangleys of the Parián huddled together and awaited assassination.

  But, although cannon on the walls briefly bombarded the Chinese quarter, this time no mass execution swept the Parián, for the governor of Manila was a resolute man and he refused to give permission for a general massacre. “From the time when the disturbance began until it was entirely quieted, his lordship had much to do in defending his prudent decision against many Spaniards who desired to break entirely with the Sangleys and make an end of them—not considering that such proceedings would ruin the colony, all the more as, since we had to prepare for the war we regarded as certain, we needed more of the Sangleys’ industry for the many labors required for defending and fortifying the walls, erecting temporary defenses, and harnessing so many horses; for it is they who bear the burdens of the community in all its crafts, notably those that are most necessary.”

  There was complete panic within the Parián, however, for the Chinese there could remember the massacre of 1639 and understandably expected a repetition, particularly when “their desperation was completed by the interpretation which the common people gave to everything—irresponsible soldiers with mestizos, mulattoes, and blacks, telling the Sangleys that they were to have their heads cut off, as if they were men already sentenced to death; and inflicting on them many injuries and uttering a thousand insults.”

  In despair, the frantic Chinese killed two Spaniards, and when Friar Ricci and a fellow priest who spoke Chinese were sent into the Parián to quiet the storm, the mob of eight thousand Chinese also killed this second priest. Only the most courageous action by the governor postponed the holocaust, but when many of the Chinese fled the Parián altogether, he was prevailed upon to declare war against them, and bands of troops and excited Filipinos tracked the cowering Chinese down and slaughtered them mercilessly. Thus Coxinga’s precipitate diplomacy had become the cause of precisely what he had intended to forestall.

  Next it was decided to deport all the remaining Sangleys to China, but in the sober light of economic existence this was found to be impractical, since “all recognized our need of that Chinese nation, in the lack and scarcity of all things to which we see ourselves now reduced—all because the number of Sangleys has been diminished, since the natives have neither energy nor strength to support the burdens that the Chinese carry; and much more on account of our dependence upon their trade, for everything. For not only does everything necessary for life come to us from China—such as wheat, cloth, and earthenware—but it is the Sangleys who carry on all the crafts, and who with their traffic maintain the fortunes of the citizens.”

  Nevertheless, the feeling against Coxinga and the Chinese was so pronounced that three junks were loaded almost to the sinking point with Sangleys and hustled off to China. The remaining Sangleys were holed up in the Parián to await the next outburst against them, and most of them accepted the amnesty offered by the governor. Ambassador Ricci, the bearer of the challenge, was sent back to Formosa with an insulting letter to Coxinga, who was advised to steer clear of the Philippines, lest he be visited with the same punishments already handed his countrymen.

  Friar Ricci, who would probably have been beheaded had he delivered such a message, escaped punishment, for by the time he reached Formosa, his great pirate master had mysteriously died. Coxinga, at his death, was not yet thirty-eight years old, a greatly gifted man who could have been presumed to be just at the portal of accomplishment, so that his untimely death has always been variously explained and interpreted.

  Spanish Catholics in Manila, of course, contended that God had struck him down in retaliation for his blasphemy against the Church; while Dutch Protestants were sure that it was for his sins against their church that the infidel had perished. Portuguese, Manchus, Japanese and English all added their versions and their moralizings—the French suggested that he died in anger at his generals because they refused to kill Coxinga’s eldest son when he had adulterous relations with his younger brother’s nurse—so that the facts of his extraordinary death will probably never be known.

  One completely muddled account impartially combines his father’s death with his and was widely circulated: “Koxinga did not live for more than a year after his conquest of Formosa. It is said that the Tartars imprisoned him; and that he, fearing they would compel him to disclose matters of which he was unwilling to speak, first bit off his tongue and then his forefinger, so as to deprive himself of the ability to speak or write. He afterwards came to a miserable end.”

  Most of the obituaries agree that Coxinga suffered great remorse at having unwittingly been the instrument for unleashing the Spaniards yet again upon the defenseless Chinese of Manila. He certainly blamed himself for the mishap. Then, too, he probably foresaw the gloomy end of all Ming hopes, and although for the time being he felt militarily secure on Formosa, he must have known that ultimately his island refuge was doomed, and this knowledge added to his depression.

  The version of his death which seems completely appropriate, even if one cannot prove it to be true, is found in an unsigned Spanish manuscript of 1663, the year after his death: “With these anxieties Cotsen was walking one afternoon through the fort on Formosa Island which he had gained from the Dutch. His mind began to be disturbed by visions, which he said appeared to him, of thousands of men who placed themselves before him, all headless and clamoring for vengeance on the cruelty and injustice which had been wreaked on them; accordingly, terrified at this vision (or else a lifelike presentation by his imagination) he took refuge in his house and flung himself on his bed, consumed by a fierce and burning fever. This caused him to die on the fifth day, fiercely scratching his face and biting his hands, without any further last will than to charge his intimate friends with the death of his son, or more repentance for his cruelty than to continue it by the orders that he gave for them to kill various persons; thus God interrupted by his death many cruel punishments.”

  The most provocative account of Coxinga’s death, however, comes from a Spanish historian who hated the pirate. He starts with the last days of the massacres in the Philippines: “The Chinese of the provinces who had taken no part in the disturbances at the Parián came out still less luckily. The governor, seeing the internal and external dangers which threatened the entire archipelago, and fearing that the rebellion and the disturbances would spread to other parts of these islands, ordered that all the Chinese found in the distant provinces should be immediately decapitated. This was a cruel and inhuman order, it appears, and far from the benevolent nature of that governor; but he considered it then as a necessity, inescapable if the islands were to be saved from the danger which menaced them in this crisis. Under this power were decapitated various Chinese seamen serving on the ships found in this port.…

  “On the same ominous day of the bombardment of the Parián there had disappeared from these waters thirteen Chinese ships, under the command of a captain known by the name of Na-chin, a wise man, proud and vengeful. When the flight of the Chinese became known, the governor ordered several ships to go out in pursuit; but, with the start they had, they were not able to capture them, and the ships arrived without incident at Formosa. The malign Na-chin immediately appeared before the great pirate, and revealing in his manner and appearance an extraordinary feeling, he spoke thus: ‘Our nation, powerful lord, all your faithful vassals are ruined and dead in Luzon. I alone, with the aid of our gods, have been able to escape from the hands and sword of the cruel Spaniards. In this manner has been paid the tribute which is due you and which you await. What should be done? Your forces are immense, your soldiers valiant, your arms victorious, and our fortune has descended from the heavens, which make you terrible in the face of the nations, and eternal victor over the enemy on land and sea. There is no lack of ships, supplies, munitions or provisions, and your troops are compara
ble only to the stars in the sky, the blades of grass in the fields, and the seething sands of the abyss [hell]. Let your power wipe out the name of Christian in all parts; let perish at a blow of your sword all the Spaniards in Luzon, our greatest enemies, for heaven does not wish and your justice should not permit that their malignity should go unpunished.’ The proud pirate [Coxinga] was furious at hearing such astounding news; the pupils of his eyes were transformed at once into two flashes of lightning, and clutching convulsively the hilt of his cutlass, he ordered that all his forces and his immense military resources should get ready to advance against those islands, swearing by Hell that he would scatter such trifling dust on the surface of the seas.

  “However, God, Who watches over and always watched over these Spanish provinces with special concern for their preservation and independence, confounded his ideas and jested with this vow in his counsels. His sudden attack of terrible anger altered the robust constitution of the corsair in such a way that within a few hours he was smitten by a sort of terrifying and astonishing hydrophobia. In his horrifying frenzy he scratched his face, bit his lips and tongue, attacked furiously anyone who came near his bed, and issued death decrees against the Spanish monarchs. Five days passed, filled continually with these horrible scenes, until throttled with rage, he delivered up his perverse soul to the demons, as a manuscript says. Thus died the Attila of the Orient on July 2, 1662, at the age of thirty-nine years.”‡

  The Spaniards understandably feared and hated Coxinga, who was indeed the Attila of the East, but nowhere is their peculiar reaction to this great pirate more clearly expressed than in the following peroration, which neatly combines the anxiety they felt as they saw him encroaching on Manila, and their firm assurance that God held that city in His special care: “Eternal nightmare of the empire, terrifier of Tartary and China, fateful and sinister vestige of the continents and the seas, he made with his shadow to tremble the tyrants of his homeland, and his domination would have been a problem if God had not smashed with His hand the head of this monster in the robust vigor of his existence. He who knew how to face with calm visage the fury and the might of the angry elements; he who in his horrible blasphemy feared neither God nor man, nor the dominions of Hell, succumbed merely at the idea of seeing himself conquered and humiliated by the high dignity of the Spanish nation, even before resorting to the barbarous argument of combat.”