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, maJcahnas, or wise men, whom they declared 

 to be imposters; they assailed the liberty of the urritaos, or bachelors, 

 by their efforts to abolish the " gi-eat 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 aniti, 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 3, 1672, in Guam, Padre Sanvitores met his 

 death in the same way. 



CONQUEST OF THE NATIVES. 



A war of extermination now began, which lasted twentj'^-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 Agadna, 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. 



6 Garcia, op. cit., pp. 421^24. 



