From the Introduction: Father Jose Arcilla's 1972 article on "Slavery, flogging and other moral cases in the 17th century" took many readers by surprise with its evidence of Filipino slavery as late as the 1680's. Even more surprising was the businesslike attention which a 17th century theologian could give to establishing a fair price. Arcilla cites a judgment by Dominican Fray Juan de Paz on the age at which a child slave could be considered an asset rather than a liability. "
Eight taels for a twelve-year old boy is to me too little to make him a perpetual slave. In Manila, the price of a boy two or three years old is reckoned at thirty pesos more or less... Until he is eighteen or twenty years old, the service of a twelve-year old boy is of little value. One also has to consider the risk that he might die or fall sick and be of no use to the person who bought him."
