ANTONIO DE MORGA AND HIS SUCESOS DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS

Abstract

The value of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas has long been recognised. A first-hand account of the early Spanish colonial venture into Asia, it was published in Mexico in 1609 and has since been re-edited on a number of occasions. It attracted the attention of the Hakluyt Society in 1851, although the edition prepared for the Society by H. E. J. Stanley was not published until 1868. Morga's work is based on personal experiences, or on documentation from eye-witnesses of the events described. Moreover, as he tells us himself, survivors from Legazpi's expedition were still alive while he was preparing his book in Manila, and these too he could consult. As a lawyer, it is obvious that he would hardly fail to seek such evidence. The Sucesos is the work of an honest observer, himself a major actor in the drama of his time, a versatile bureaucrat, who knew the workings of the administration from the inside.It is also the first history of the Spanish Philippines to be written by a layman, as opposed to the religious chroniclers. Morga's book was praised, quoted, and plagiarized, by contemporaries or successors. Filipinos have found it a useful account of the state of their native culture upon the coming of the conquistadors; Spaniards have regarded it as a work to admire or condemn, according to their views and the context of their times; some other Europeans, such as Stanley, found it full of lessons and examples.