Lesson 6

Annotation of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos

de las Islas Filipinas
 Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson the students should be able to
• Describe Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas;
• Compare and contrast Rizal and Morga’s different views about
Filipinos and Philippine culture; and
• Analyze Rizal’s ideas on how to rewrite Philippine history..
 The Sucesos delas Islas Filipinas : A Synopsis

• The Sucesos delas Islas Filipinas is an account of the history of

the Spanish colony in the Philippines during the 16th century.

• Antonio de Morga was an official of the colonial bureaucracy in

Manila and could consequently draw upon much material that
would otherwise have been inaccessible.
 The Sucesos delas Islas Filipinas : A Synopsis

• His book, published in 1609, ranges more widely than its title
suggests since the Spanish were also active in China, Japan,
Southeast Asia, Taiwan, the Moluccas, Marianas and other
Pacific islands.

• In addition to the central chapters dealing with the history of

the Spaniards in the colony, Morga devoted a long final chapter
to the study of Filipino customs, manners and religions in the
early years of the Spanish conquest.
What is the result when Jose Rizal lamented that he was
born and bred without knowing about our pre-colonial
past?
As a result, he felt that he had neither voice nor
authority to talk on what he did not know. You
can be sure that most of his contemporaries felt the
same way.
When Rizal was a student of the Ateneo Municipal

what did he write?

When he was a student of the Ateneo Municipal,
Rizal write an allegorical anti-colonial play
where the Devil was raving about how beautiful
this archipelago was before the Spaniards came.
What are the sources of our history during the time of Rizal?
• Most of the available sources were written by friars of the
religious orders, zealous missionaries determined to
obliterate native beliefs which they considered idolatrous
and cultural practices which to them were savage.

• Rizal must have spent hours plowing through early

Philippine histories by Fathers Pedro Chirino (1604),
Francisco Colin (1663), Gaspar de San Agustin (1698), all of
which he mentioned in his annotations of Dr. Antonio
Morga’s book, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, published in
Mexico (Nueva España) in 1609.
• It was already out of circulation when Rizal saw it in an
obscure corner of the British Library and Museum (Araneta,
2018).
Jose Rizal's Annotation of Antonio’s Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

What were the issues that Jose Rizal corrected in Morga's book?