San Gabriel church during the century following 1642; until recently
many have felt ashamed of these really creditable ancestors.

Soon after Lam-co came to Manila he made the acquaintance of two
well-known Dominicans and thus made friendships that changed his career
and materially affected the fortunes of his descendants. These powerful
friends were the learned Friar Francisco Marquez, author of a Chinese
grammar, and Friar Juan Caballero, a former missionary in China,
who, because of his own work and because his brother held high office
there, was influential in the business affairs of the Order. Through
them Lam-co settled in Biñan, on the Dominican estate named after
"St. Isidore the Laborer." There, near where the Pasig river flows
out of the Laguna de Bay, Lam-co's descendants were to be tenants
until another government, not yet born, and a system unknown in his
day, should end a long series of inevitable and vexatious disputes by
buying the estate and selling it again, on terms practicable for them,
to those who worked the land.

The Filipinos were at law over boundaries and were claiming the
property that had been early and cheaply acquired by the Order as
endowment for its university and other charities. The Friars of
the Parian quarter thought to take those of their parishioners in
whom they had most confidence out of harm's way, and by the same act
secure more satisfactory tenants, for prejudice was then threatening
another indiscriminate massacre. So they settled many industrious
Chinese converts upon these farms, and flattered themselves that
their tenant troubles were ended, for these foreigners could have no
possible claim to the land. The Chinese were equally pleased to have
safer homes and an occupation which in China placed them in a social
position superior to that of a tradesman.