Antonio De Morga and his Sucesos De Las Islas

Filipinas
Extract
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.

Dr. Antonio de Morga was a Spanish lawyer and official in the Philippines during the 17th
century. “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas,” which he published in 1609, is an account of his
observations about the Filipinos and the Philippines. The book portrays the Filipinos from the
perspective of the Spaniards. Jose Rizal annotated the book and published it in 1890 with a
prologue by his Austrian friend, Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt.