Tantae molis erat [So great a task it was] to establish the “eternal laws of Nature” of the capitalist mode of production, to complete the process of separation between labourers and conditions of labour, to transform, at one pole, the social means of production and subsistence into capital, at the opposite pole, the mass of the population into wage labourers … If money …“comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.

Abstract: This chapter analyzes the twin existence of native custom alongside Christian tradition on the colonial frontier. This reckoning appears in the publication of at least two important works during the early eighteenth century: the translation of the legend of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat (now desanctified) from Latin into Tagalog by Jesuit priest Fr. Antonio de Borja (SJ) in 1712; and the first verse adaptation of the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ into Tagalog by native translator and author Gaspar Aquino de Belen in 1703. I demonstrate their shared concern with the same issue: specifically, the encroachment of Crown officials and the money economy into the religious provinces, which adumbrated the renegotiation of both religious immunity and native custom.

Keywords: encomienda, native elite [principalía], Chinese traders [sangleyes], freedom [Maharlika / timawa], slave [alipin], Passion [Pasyón].