WAR OF EXTERMINATION. 15 
upon by the Spaniards themselves, who for that reason had sent them 
into exile on this island; and he said that surely the water used in 
baptism was poisonous, though some of the more robust upon whom 
it was poured might resist its effects. As it was indeed true that 
many of those baptized had died shortly after the performance of the 
rite, and as the missionaries thought them happy in dying thus secure 
of salvation, it seemed to the natives that there might be truth in the 
Chinaman’s charges. Henceforward, instead of receiving the mission- 
aries joyfully in their villages and retaining them as guests almost 
against their will, the natives greeted them with scowling faces, and, 
calling them murderers, threatened them with their spears. They no 
longer offered them breadfruit, as had been their custom, and mothers 
on their approach would catch up their infants and fly with them to 
the woods for safety; or if the little ones were sick or dying, they 
would conceal them in their houses as best they could.“ In their zeal 
the missionaries would often baptize children in spite of the threats of 
the fathers and the tears and prayers of the mothers. Moreover, they 
awakened the enmity of the mahahnas, or wise men, whom they declared 
to be imposters; they assailed the liberty of the w77taos, or bachelors, 
by their efforts to abolish the ‘* great houses ” of the villages, in which 
they lived with unmarried women; they tried to change the marriage 
customs, according to which the parents received presents from the 
bridegrooms for their daughters; they tried to put an end to the invo- 
cation of the anzt/, or spirits, and taught that it was wrong to venerate 
the relics of ancestors. 
Less than two years after the arrival of the missionaries in the 
islands, on January 29, 1670, a priest was killed on the island of 
Saipan for having baptized a child in spite of the protests of its 
parents;’ and on April 2, 1672, in Guam, Padre Sanvitores met his 
death in the same way. 
CONQUEST OF THE NATIVES, 
A war of extermination now began, which lasted twenty-three years, 
suspended from time to time when the Spaniards found themselves 
too weak to continue it, but resumed at the arrival of each ship bring- 
ing reinforcements, no matter whether in the meantime peace with the 
natives had been declared or not. Often whole villages were punished 
for the act of a single man, and innocent natives who had committed 
no crime whatever were shot down wantonly.¢ 
Much did the evangelical ministers regret these excesses of the fervors of the new 
soldiers [says Padre Garcia], which, with the lack of experience and too great desire 
to make themselves feared, placed in jeopardy all Christianity; for the Indians 
retired from their villages to others more distant from Agadfia, and it was feared 
with reason that the whole island would form a confederation against the Spaniards 
@Garcia, op. cit., p. 224. ¢Garcia, op. cit., pp. 446, 447. 
> Garcia, op. cit., pp. 421-424. 
