LITERATURE. 157 



HISTORY. 



The most important historical work relating to the island is Garcia's 

 Vida y martyrio de el venerable Padre Diego Luis de Sanvitores (see 

 below). This work was dedicated by the author to the Excelentisima 

 Senora Dona Maria de Guadalupe, Duchess of Aveyro y Maqueda, 

 Duchess of Arcos, since it was by her generosity that its publication 

 was rendered possible. It is made up almost entirely from the annual 

 reports of the Jesuit missionaries living on the island of Guam and was 

 published very shortly after the events it records. It forms the basis 

 of all subsequent histories. 



In the year 1700 there appeared at Paris a little book entitled " His- 

 toire des isles Marianes, nouvellement converties a la religion Chre- 

 tienne; et de la mort glorieuse des premiers missionaires qui y ont 

 preche la Foy," par le Pere Charles le Gobien, de la Compagnie de 

 Jesus. The greater part of this work is almost a literal translation of 

 the preceding, though in the introduction the name of Padre Garcia 

 is not mentioned. Pere le Gobien continued the narrative from 1681 

 to 1694. In conformity with the decrees of Pope Urban VIII, and of 

 other sovereign pontiffs, Pere le Gobien protests at the beginning of 

 the work that he does not pretend to attribute the title of saint, 

 apostle, or martyr to the apostolic men of whom he speaks in the his- 

 tory. In his work he has used on several occasions simple statements 

 of Padre Garcia as themes for elaborate variations, giving speeches of 

 natives in the form of direct discourse and sometimes exaggerating in 

 a most misleading manner, as in his account of the sensations of the 

 natives of Guam when first beholding fire." 



In Burney's Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South 

 Sea or Pacific Ocean, to which reference has already been made, 

 there is a resume of the principal works referring to the Marianne 

 Islands. Burney's work is most interesting and is characterized by a 

 broad humanity and sympathy for the simple natives of the islands of 

 which he writes and hatred for injustice and oppression. 



Don Luis de Ibanez y Garcia, in his Historia de las Islas Marianas, 

 1886, repeats the historical information given by Pere le Gobien. His 

 account of the social institutions, religion, and superstitions of the 

 aboriginal inhabitants (chap. 10, p. 73), has nothing to do with the 

 natives of Guam, who were ignorant of the gods, the bloody sacrifices, 

 and disgusting practices of which he speaks. He tells of crocodiles, 

 hogs, and other animals, which were unknown in Guam, and relates 

 myths which he had evidently gleaned from some of the Philippine 

 tribes. 



o See pp. 99, 100, above. 



