in dealing with the dwellers in warmer lands, all played their part in
this as in the other conquests. Only on occasions when some stubborn
resistance was met with, as in Manila and the surrounding country,
where the most advanced of the native peoples dwelt and where some of
the forms and beliefs of Islam had been established, was it necessary
to resort to violence to destroy the native leaders and replace them
with the missionary fathers. A few sallies by young Salcedo, the Cortez
of the Philippine conquest, with a company of the splendid infantry,
which was at that time the admiration and despair of martial Europe,
soon effectively exorcised any idea of resistance that even the boldest
and most intransigent of the native leaders might have entertained.

For the most part, no great persuasion was needed to turn a simple,
imaginative, fatalistic people from a few vague animistic deities
to the systematic iconology and the elaborate ritual of the Spanish
Church. An obscure Bathala or a dim Malyari was easily superseded
by or transformed into a clearly defined Dios, and in the case of
any especially tenacious "demon," he could without much difficulty
be merged into a Christian saint or devil. There was no organized
priesthood to be overcome, the primitive religious observances
consisting almost entirely of occasional orgies presided over by
an old woman, who filled the priestly offices of interpreter for
the unseen powers and chief eater at the sacrificial feast. With
their unflagging zeal, their organization, their elaborate forms
and ceremonies, the missionaries were enabled to win the confidence
of the natives, especially as the greater part of them learned the
local language and identified their lives with the communities under
their care. Accordingly, the people took kindly to their new teachers
and rulers, so that in less than a generation Spanish authority was
generally recognized in the settled portions of the Philippines,