1 Colin, Francisco SJ., Chirino, Pedro and Pastells, Pablo, Labor evangelica, ministerios apostolicos de los obreros de la Campania de Jesús, jundación y progresos de su provincia en las Islas Filipinos II (Barcelona 1900; first edition Madrid 1663) 418–441Google Scholar.

2 Pastells, Pablo and Navas, Francisco, Catdlogo de los documentos relatives a las Islas Filipinos V (Barcelona 1929) pp. LXXVI–CVIIIGoogle Scholar.

3 Blair, Emma Helen and Robertson, James Alexander eds, The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and their Peoples, their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Show in the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of those Islands from their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century XII (Mandaluyong and Rizal 1973) 83–97Google Scholar.

4 Morga, Antonio, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinos (Mexico 1609)Google Scholar. We used here the version annotated by Jose Rizal, offset reprinting by the National Commission for the Centenary of Jose Rizal (Manila 1961).

5 Argensola, Bartolome Leonardo, Conquista de las Islas Malucas (Zaragoza 1891)Google Scholar.

6 We have used the following references: MingShi 11 (MS, The History of the Ming Dynasty) (Taipei 1975) pp. 8370–8375Google Scholar; Ming Shi Lu 12-13 (MSL, The True History of the Ming Dynasty) (Taipei 1961) pp. 12090, 12330, 12371Google Scholar; Dong Xi Yang Kao (DXYK, Studies on the Eastern and Western Oceans) (Taipei 1971) pp. 57–60Google Scholar; Ming Ching Shi Wen Bien 6 (Anthology of the Official Documents of the Ming Dynasty) (Beijing 1962) pp. 4727–4728Google Scholar; Huang Ming Xiang Xu Lu; Guo Que 8 (National tolls) (Taipei 1978) p. 4917Google Scholar. I wish to thank Professor Zhang Kai for his invaluable help in pointing out these sources, and my research assistant Lin Li-pin for his help in the translation of these materials.

7 As regards this massacre and the problems of interpretation that arise from consulting and comparing Chinese and Spanish sources, see my recent paper ‘Consideraciones en torno a la imagen de Koxinga vertida por Victorio Ricci en Occidente’, Encuentros en Catay 10 (1996)Google Scholar.

8 There are discrepancies between Argensola and Morga, although these are more a question of details than of arguments.

9 Argensola, , Conquista de las Islas Malucas, 210Google Scholar.

10 Idem, 212.

11 The Dong Xi Yang Kao contains the Chinese translation of Dasmarinas' letter which he gave to the mandarins. Here, the same facts are given, except that the apparent motive of the uprising was more of greed (the ship was loaded with much gold and silver) than of the cruelty received in the hands of the foremen of the ship, as Argensola would have put it.

12 It does not remain clear how Benavides obtained the two documents, and if he made them known to the governor or not. The first (document) is similar in structure to the letter which the governor received from the mandarins, the translation of which he sent to the King, but much more extensive and detailed. Therefore the said document perhaps may be a different version from the letter, made by memory (since he possibly helped in the verbal translation) and completed a posteriori with his own investigations, since at the end of that letter he said: ‘I am a man who knows the language of these Chinese and I know a lot about their things and customs of China by having lived with them for many months and I made it also because I take up this business with suspicion and care as these can be advisors who advise badly on it because of not understanding it’. (Colin, Chirino and Pastells, , Labor evangélica II, 415)Google Scholar. The second document, different from the letter, is a remonstrance of the emperor by one of his officials. The mandarins presented it to the governor with the intention of giving more credibility to his own letter. Given that the Spanish did not seem to take it into account, I will not deal with it now, but I go back to it at the end of this study for its clarificatory value.

13 Note that the spelling of the names correspond to the free style of transcribing that the Spanish translator had of the Fujianese pronunciation of the names (the translation of the document that appears on Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 XII, 83–97Google Scholar, points out in the heading which was made by a Dominican). As will be seen later, the correspondence in mandarin is as follows: Chunchian seems to correspond to Gan Yi-chen, Tio Heng to Zhang Yi and Cochay to Gao Tsai.

14 A Chinese who arrived in Manila during the times of the pirate Limahon, whom he had served. At that time, he was appointed governor of the sangleys and was ‘respected by the Spanish and loved by the sangleys’. Argensola, , Conquista de las Islas Malucas, 230Google Scholar. He was also known as ‘Eng Kang’ (Rizal), ‘Encan’ (Argensola) and ‘Encang’ (Tellez de Almazán).

15 MSL, Chapter 404 (Vol. XII, p. 12090).

16 To better differentiate the Chinese groups, see Wickberg, Edgar, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850-1898 (1965) 6–11Google Scholar.

17 Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 XII, 154Google Scholar.

18 HMXXL, Chapter 5, Luzon.

19 MS, Chapter 323, p. 8372.

20 Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898 XII, 143Google Scholar.

21 Ibid, 155.

22 Sangley general Hontay (Argensola), or Juan Ontal (Tellez de Almázan).

23 Matthew, Chen O.P., ‘The Ming Records of Luzon’ in: Felix, Alfonso Jr ed., The Chinese in the Philippines, 1570-1770 (Manila 1966) 250Google Scholar. According to the translator's note, this place is the present-day San Miguel district, although we do not see any further proof to this.

24 Ibid. Matthew Chen, in another note, indicates that this place was close to what is now known as the city of Makati. The rest of the account probably recounts the travails of the first or second group of the three groups of Chinese who fled, since we know nothing more of their fate from the Spanish references. The data does not seem to refer to the third group that went to'San Pablo de los Monies and Batangas. Moreover, this reference is unusual, since there are no mountains close to the Makati area.

25 Matthew Chen seems to assume that this town was none other than Manila. But this is not certain.

26 MS, Chapter 323 (p. 8373).

27 DXYK, Chapter 5, Luzon, p. 59.

28 DXYK, Chapter 5, Luzon, p. 60.

29 The figure of Xu Xue-ju is both well known and respected (Goodrich, L. Carrington and Fang, Chao-Ymg, Dictionary of the Ming Biography, 1368-16441 (New York 1976) 582–585)Google Scholar. In 1591, he was appointed Assistant Commissioner for Surveillance in Hukuang and was soon after named Administrative Commissioner in Fujian, a post which he held until 1607. Consequently, he was able to gather first-hand information on all of the occurrences, from their very beginnings.

30 MS, Chapter 323, p. 8373.

31 MJSWB, Chapter 433, p. 4728.

32 In the beginning of 1605, Ricci pointed out in a letter: ‘It was spoken much in the cort, and we feared that some harm could come from all these [due to the possibility that it might be associated with the Spanish]’. See Spence, Jonathan, The Memory Palace of Mateo Ricci (1985) 216Google Scholar.

33 This same letter was sent to the Spanish who translated it. Argensola published it shortly afterwards. It is interesting to note that the two versions closely coincide with each other, but of the five points indicated by the emperor, Argensola's translation only gathered numbers 1, 2 and 4.

34 A brief observation: A Frenchman, Rene Jouglet, passing by the Philippines in 1931, hearing about the treasures of the pirate Limahon, published in Paris, in 1936, an imaginative book called La ville perdue, where he mentions that the treasures of the pirate, which may have been hidden in Cavite or Pangasinan thirty years before the massacre, had been the cause of various Chinese expeditions, the last of which was in 1603. See Callanta, Cesar, The Limahon Invasion (Quezon City 1989) 69Google Scholar.

35 For this, see the letter of Fray Bernardo de Santa Catalina, Provincial of the Dominicans and Commissioner of the Holy Office (Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898), as well as the adjoining note of the translator who comments on the Royal Decree of ISJune (Barcelona), which restricted the presence of Chinese nationals in Manila.

36 See Huang, Ray, ‘Lung-ch'ing and Wan-li Reign, 1567-1620’ in: Mote, Frederick W. and Twitchett, Denis eds, The Cambridge History of China 7-1 (Cambridge 1988) 530–532Google Scholar.

37 We may sight die following examples. In 1599: inspector Ma Tang so provoked the merchants of Linqing (Changdong) that they burned down his house and left him half-dead; Cheng Feng, assigned as tax and mines inspector of Huguang, caused a mutiny among the inhabitants of Wuchuang; textile mill workers of Suzhou staged a demonstra tion against revenue agent Sun Long. In 1603: Wang Zhao, coal mines inspector of Xishan (Beijing), encountered opposition from among the miners who held a demonstra tion in Beijing. In 1606: Yang Rong found the revenue office burnt down by the miners of Yunnan. See also Shouyi, Bai and others, in: A Brief History of China I (Beijing 1984) 348–349Google Scholar; with editions in other languages.

38 Colin, Chirino and Pastells, , Labor evangélica II, 415.Google Scholar In fact, it is not strange the clarity of the observations of the Dominican Benavides about the eunuchs, since he knew in detail the recent experience of another Dominican, Diego de Aduarte, which preceded the ones cited in the previous note. In effect, Aduarte left Manila for Macao on 6 September 1598, with the aim of paying the ransom for the ‘Gendeman Don Luís’ in Canton. He arrived there twenty days after, and coincided with the eunuch, Liculifu (sic), who, upon knowing the presence of the foreigner, tortured him and extorted from him most of the money he carried. In the end, Aduarte had no other remedy but to borrow die money. The entire story is related by Aduarte himself in his autobiographical work entided Historia de la Provincia del Santo Rosario de la Orden de Predicadores de Filipinos, Japón y China (Zaragoza 1693) 214–219.Google Scholar At the same time, Mateo Ricci himself recounts how one of the Catholic servants who acted as a mail carrier, also in 1598-1599, was robbed, murdered and thrown into a river because he denied paying commissions, everything was probably made in connection widi die legal pressure, according to Spence, which was provoked by the eunuchs. See Spence, Jonadian, The Memory Palace of Mateo Ricci, 215Google Scholar.

39 This dieme was studied by Blussé, Leonard in ‘Impo, Chinese Merchant in Pattani: A Study in Early Dutch-Chinese Relations’, Proceedings of the Seventh IAHA Conference (Bangkok 1979) 294Google Scholar. Blussé mentions (citing the Chinese sources and Gao Tzai) how a strange individual ‘with exotic tales such as the eating of live children's brains’; how Shen You-rong, an exemplary Confucian official who wrote a book collecting the panegy rics which his friends dedicated to him.

40 You can read die resume of this person, cited in Goodrich, and Fang, , Dictionary of the Ming Biography II, 1192–1194Google Scholar. Shen You-rong gained prestige dirough this action, but Gao Tzai, resenting him, opposed whatever compensation to be given to him, and in die autumn of 1606, obtained that he be sent to a secondary military post in die province of Zhejiang.

41 Huang, Ray, ‘Lung-ch'ing and Wan-li Reign’, 514–517.Google Scholar We have a most valuable testimony corresponding to the second document Benavides translated and sent to the King of Spain, which carried die tide, ‘Copy of die petition which die supreme magistrate of die province or die reign of Hongkong gave to the King of China in order to persuade him not to listen to some Chinese who, in die year 1603, wanted to come from China to do. battle and take die land of Luzon (Philippines) and that die King gave license and consent’. Colin, Chirino and Pastells, , Labor evangelica II, 416–417Google Scholar.

42 GQ, Chapter 79, vol. 8, p. 4917.