The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 07 of 55: 1588-1591: 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, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

This is history told in its original voice. Volume 7 of the monumental 55-volume series compiles the actual letters, reports, and manuscripts from 1588 to 1591, when the Spanish colonial project in the Philippines was still taking shape. Here is Bishop Domingo de Salazar writing urgently to King Felipe II, pleading for more missionaries to save the souls of the natives before it is too late. Here is Governor Santiago de Vera documenting the suppression of the Audiencia and the challenges of governing an archipelago thousands of miles from Madrid. Here are the first tremors of China trade, already creating opportunities and anxieties in equal measure. These are not interpretations or retellings. They are the raw documents of conquest, faith, commerce, and survival, showing the collision between indigenous customs and colonial power at the precise moment it began. For anyone who wants to understand how the Philippines entered the modern world, there is no substitute for hearing the people who were there.