The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 29 of 55, 1638–40 / Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

by Unknown

Filipinas

These Filipinas Islands, subject to the Catholic king our sovereign for the past thirty years, have been so harassed and terrorized by invasions, robberies, and fires caused by the Moros (Mindanaos, Joloans, Burneyans, and Camucones), that one could not sail outside the bay of Manila without manifest danger. Not a single village was now safe, nor could an evangelical or royal minister perform his duty undisturbed. These pirates—some at one time, others at another, and sometimes all together—set out every year from their own lands, and at first attacked the islands which are called the Pintados, for these were the nearest; and afterward, becoming more impudent, they came to coast along the island of Manila itself, and once they even came to the suburbs of this city (although without making their presence known). The Christians captured by them on these raids were numberless; some were Spanish but the majority were natives, who, sold afterward either among the enemies themselves, or among more distant unbelievers, either abandoned the faith, or suffered living death in a wretched slavery. The villages which they had ravaged were pitiful to see, being either burned to the ground or abandoned and deserted; for those inhabitants who were able to escape from the hands of the enemy hid themselves in the thickets of the mountains, among wild beasts and venomous serpents, without other food than a few roots and wild fruits. And what is impossible to relate without shedding tears, the gospel ministers were compelled to flee in this same way, to endure the same calamities, and suffer the inclemencies of sky and ground, in order not to fall into the hands of Mahometan cruelty. Even thus they were not always able to flee, for some, cut to pieces, fell into their hands; others were captured and ransomed at great cost, or died of ill-treatment in their captivity. Those barbarians did not spare the churches, but rather plundered them with an infernal fury; burned them, and trampled under foot the ornaments; broke the images and profaned the vessels; and impiously clothed themselves with the sacred vestments. The most unbearable thing of all was to see all those evils unchecked, our friends disheartened, the enemy unresisted, and the villages defenseless. For, although the governors sent fleets in pursuit of the enemy, nothing was effected—partly because the latter hid themselves from our men among the numerous islands, and partly because of the great speed of their boats, in which respect they had great advantage over us.

Finally, in the year 1633, the king of Mindanao, named Cachil Corralat, sent out a very large fleet which did signal damage in the islands. To put an end to this, Don Juan Cerezo de Salamanca, who was governor of the islands at that time, surmounting many difficulties, commanded a certain position to be taken and a fort to be begun in Samboangan, on the island of Mindanao, and occupied by a Spanish garrison; for that point was well suited to the purpose of restraining from there the Mindanaos and Joloans, as they were forced to sight it when they went forth to pillage. Soon the enemy Corralat felt the damage done him by the new post of the Spaniards, and since he could no longer sally forth at his safety, he called upon the Burneyans, Joloans, and Camucones to set out in various directions to pillage—which they did. He himself sent out after them, in the beginning of April, 1636, a large fleet in command of a Moro chief named Tagal. This fleet, as our garrison was but recently established, was able to proceed to our islands, and attacking many places, to make many captures—among them three Recollect religious of the Order of St. Augustine, and a Spanish corregidor of the island of Cuyo; to pillage much property, and to plunder the churches. They carried away the ornaments and vessels, and destroyed the images, and especially the cloth of a sacred crucifix, from which Corralat made himself a cape. Thereupon he became arrogant, and boasted that he was carrying away the God of the Christians a prisoner, because he had taken from among the sacred vessels a monstrance and a lunette with the most holy sacrament; and he returned to his own land, where they were already mourning him as lost, because he had been absent from it for eight months.

This last invasion, more than all the previous ones, afflicted Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, who at that time had been proprietary governor of the islands for a year. Inflamed with a zeal for the honor of God and his king, he determined, after surmounting the numerous difficulties and oppositions, to avenge in person the insolent acts of those barbarians. But first of all he sent out, as governor of the presidio at Sanboangan, Sargento-mayor Bartolome Diaz Barrera, and, under his orders, Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gonçalez, so that they might be making preparations and sweeping the seas of those corsairs—a very important matter, as will be seen subsequently. He then fitted out a good fleet of champans (sailing vessels of moderate size, which are used by the Chinese); and, embarking in one of them, made sail on the day of the Purification of our Lady, the second of February, of this year 1637. At Oton (which is about half-way) he received definite information that Tagal was returning to his own country with eight very well laden ships. The commander of the garrison at Sanboangan was informed of that; and, preparing in two hours a squadron of five caracoas (which are swift craft with oar and sail, which are used by these Indians) and placing in command thereof Nicolas Gonçalez, the sargento-mayor of that presidio, he set out to round a very steep cliff, in which a small mountain terminated, projecting out into the sea, and distant about thirty leguas eastward from our fort. It was necessary for the enemy to stop there, in order to discharge numerous lances and arrows at the cliff (for it was their custom to sail by that point when either outward or homeward bound)—a superstitious custom of those barbarians. On account of this the place was known as “the point of arrows” [punta de flechas]. The result was that which our men desired for on the morning of the day of St. Thomas, the twenty-first of December (at the time when prayer was being offered up within the fort), the enemy was sighted; and both then and on the following night our men made such an attack upon the enemy that, in spite of a desperate defense, they surrendered. Of the eight ships only one worthy of mention escaped, and that one in such a condition that in order to escape, they cast overboard all its merchandise and slaves. The other ships, heavily laden with merchandise, fell into the hands of our soldiers and were plundered. There were not many firearms, but they contained the vases and sacred ornaments, which were declared, in order to be returned to their rightful owners. There died Tagal, the commander of the enemy, with more than three hundred other Moros—so obstinate and furious that they preferred death rather than surrender, although they were offered their lives. Better was the course of one of Tagal’s brothers, who, when badly wounded, surrendered, protesting that he had always regarded the faith of the Christians as the true one, and begging for baptism, after receiving which he died. His example was followed by fourteen other Moros, who surrendered and besought baptism. Thus also there were recovered a hundred and twenty Christian captives and among them a Recollect father, one of those whom the Moros were taking away with them; but he was so badly wounded that he soon died, although greatly consoled to have seen with his own eyes the bravery with which our captains had punished the insolence of the barbarians, obtaining so signal a victory as that, to the honor of Jesus Christ and of the Spaniards, without its having cost even a single man to our side. In that we began to enjoy the benefits of the fort of Sanboangan; for if it had not been there, we could not have encountered the enemy—who were none the less frightened by a miracle which occurred on the very night on which the victory was won. For having commenced by a terrific trembling of the earth and sea, with a great noise of groans and screams, which were heard by some, and which terrified all, that cliff—which we have mentioned as an infamous place, both on account of the superstitious rite of shooting arrows at it and many other things, and because there was a tradition among the natives that the devil had been actually seen there—became loosened from the land and fell with a great crash into the sea, our Lord giving to understand thereby that the impiety so strongly intrenched in that island was to fall and give place to our holy religion, as events are constantly demonstrating. The shore has already been consecrated to God with the name of Point San Sebastian, so that the superstitions by which that place was contaminated may be transformed by His holy arrows.

The governor was highly elated with these tidings, and still more when he received the ornaments, sacred vessels, and images which had been recovered; and was moved to deep pity by the maltreated holy crucifix, which had been made into a cape.[1] He ordained the latter as thenceforth a standard for that expedition, as he did also with the miraculous painting of St. Francis Xavier which was carried by Father Marcelo Mastrillo, well known in the greater part of the world for the so great mark of favor shown him by the Lord through the agency of that great apostle of India. This father, while passing from Malaca to Macan, a port of China, in fulfilment of the vow which he made at Napoles, met with the Dutch corsairs, from whom the Lord delivered him by a sudden wind which, while it turned him from the course which he was pursuing, miraculously carried him, without a pilot who knew those regions, into the bay of Manila. They anchored at the port of Cavite, on the day of St. Ignatius of last year, for the signal consolation and edification of all these islands, and for the good success of this expedition (in which consisted the complete relief and remedy of all)—especially to the benefit of the sick, of whom he took charge during the entire course of the expedition. Our fleet reached the port of Sanboangan on February 22, of this year; and all the men in it having been confessed and having received communion, and having been so encouraged (as they made evident to the father) by seeing from the pulpit, the outraged image of the Crucified One, they cried out that they would attack the whole world; and that the mothers were fortunate who had employed their sons in so glorious an undertaking. Then the soldiers returned to their vessels; they were divided into three companies of Spaniards, and one of Panpango Indians. Without awaiting the Spaniards and the volunteer Bisayan Indians they began to lay their course toward Lamitan, on the fourth of March, in order not to allow the enemies time to prepare themselves. At that place Corralat had his principal village. The governor preceded the entire fleet, with only four boats—both because the weather was contrary, and because he had heard that there were some Moro merchantmen on the sea from Java Major, very full of Christian slaves. Without the loss of an instant’s time, by sailing night and day, he came within sight of Lamitan, on March thirteen. There the same man, in company with only six musketeers as a guard, personally reconnoitered the coast and river, with great valor and risk. Having fully ascertained that the beach and the low grounds were safe, he disembarked with the men of his four boats, as well as those of two others, that had already come up at that time—in all, about seventy soldiers. He placed these in battle-array, and marched with them to attack the village, without knowing that it was so well fortified as was the case, as he understood that all their force was about one and one-half leguas inland on a high hill. It was an especial providence of our Lord, and a brilliant stratagem, to leave an open road along the beach (on which, as was afterward seen, the enemy had planted all their artillery), and to deceive the enemy by taking another road on the opposite side. This was very difficult and dangerous, both because of the ambuscades which the enemy had prepared in the thickets (which were quickly cleared by our men, by means of two field-pieces which were in the vanguard), and by the swamps and river—which the soldiers forded twice, with the water up to their breasts, with incredible valor. They were encouraged by the example of their captain-general, who was the first in all these hardships, as he was also later, when attacking two large stockades, one after the other. Those stockades, notwithstanding the fierce resistance made by the Moros in their defense, he entered with his men, ever proving himself not less prudent in commanding than spirited in attacking—personally encountering several Moros, who set upon him with extraordinary spirit. Thereupon, they caught sight of the fort with which Corralat had defended his village. It was exceedingly well fortified with a new ditch, with eight pieces of artillery, twenty-seven versos, many muskets with rests, and other lighter arms, and with more than two thousand warrior Moros. But that was of little use, for so gallant was the assault of the Spanish, notwithstanding their small number, that they instantly gained possession of the fort, killing a goodly number of Moros—among whom was their castellan, who obstinately fought to the death—while the others fled very badly wounded. From that place a portion of our men went on ahead to a stockade which, with one piece [of artillery], defended the house of Corralat, and it soon fell into our power; for after the commander who had charge of it (and who until then had kept them in good spirits by his vain and superstitious promises) had been killed, those who accompanied him lost heart and fled, while many of them were left there dead. The other body [of the Spaniards] attacked the river at the same time, and, putting the Moros to flight, captured more than three hundred craft, great and small. Of these they sacked some large Javanese merchantmen which were heavily laden with goods, and set free their Christian slaves. Some boats which were suitable for our men were kept, and the others were burned, without a single one being left. Had the fleet that left Sanboangan been all together on that day, they would have finished matters with the Moro king Corralat, who, with as many men as possible, withdrew to the hill which he had fortified, disguised and borne on the shoulders of slaves.

The governor after having given the village over to sack, having gathered all the arms of the enemy—which, as aforesaid, consisted of eight bronze pieces with ladles, one swivel-gun of cast iron, twenty-seven versos, and more than one hundred muskets and arquebuses; besides a very great number of cannon-chambers, and iron, balls, and powder; campilans (what the Indians call by this name resemble certain cutlasses), lances, javelins, and many other kinds of poisoned missile weapons; and also after having repaired the fort which the enemy had (now called San Francisco Xavier) with new and suitable fortifications, which he planned, and himself commenced with his own hands to execute; and having lodged his men without the loss of even one (for only two servants deserted): he retired to a large mosque, where he established a bodyguard. He first had the mosque blessed, and a chair and some Arabic books of the cursed Koran burned. Quite necessary was the garrison and watch set by the vigilant governor during the days of his stay there, while awaiting the rest of his fleet, in order to drive away some false and pernicious embassies, and to defend themselves from the continual surprises which the defeated Moros sprang upon them, especially at night. Our men did not receive much hurt from them; on the contrary, various bodies of troops, leaving their posts, overran the country, burning the villages, and committing other damage on the enemy. Many Christian captives fled from the enemy on this account, and were immediately sent to Sanboangan.

On the sixteenth of the same month, Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gonçalez came to join the governor with the rest of the fleet, which sailed from Sanboangan. The governor immediately began to prepare his men with all temporal and spiritual equipment with which to invest the hill on the next day. There was well seen the military prudence and skill, and the zeal for the divine honor, of the captain-general, in the so well arranged and efficacious address which he made to his soldiers, and in the so definite orders that he issued. He divided his men; and, committing about one hundred and twenty Spaniards, thirty Pampango Indians, and some other Bisayans as carriers, to Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gonzalez, ordered him to surprise the enemy by the rear of the hill, first sounding his trumpets, so that he himself might attack the front at the same instant by this means dividing the enemy’s forces, and weakening their defense. In accordance with these orders, the sargento-mayor began his march. The governor, with the rest of the army (after leaving a sufficient defense of soldiers in the fort and boats), marched toward the hill at six o’clock the following morning. At its brow was a very fine deserted village, where the governor fortified a good house, and had a piece of artillery planted and a garrison of Pampangos established, to be used as a place of refuge for his men. Commencing to ascend the hill by the road which the Moro who was guiding them showed him, he stopped near where there was another road; and, having asked the guide whether that road also led to the hill, and which of the two was the better, the Moro replied in the affirmative, and said that both were poor. “Then if both are poor,” said the governor in reply, “let us go by the other, and not by the one along which the Moro is guiding us.” That was the inspiration of Heaven, and very good military counsel, and so did the outcome declare it; for that first road was taking them point blank into a cavalier, garrisoned with three pieces, one of which was of bronze. It was found afterward that, besides a double charge of powder, the piece was loaded with two plain artillery balls, two crowbars, and more than three hundred musket balls—with which, no doubt, at least all the vanguard would have been swept away. Now freed from that danger, and marching with great difficulty up the hill, the governor sent some of the vanguard with orders to reconnoiter only the road, and to halt at some fitting place in order to await the signal of those who were to attack the enemy in the rear. In truth the road was so difficult that it could be ascended in some places only with great difficulty, by clambering up and laying hold of the shrubs with their hands. It was narrow and very steep, and had precipices in all parts, so that they could not mount upward except one at a time. And, above all, it was so well commanded at the top by three forts—which were inaccessible, both by the great height of their location, and by the defenses of ditches, very stout stockades, and a very large supply of weapons—that very few of the enemy, without receiving any hurt, could with the use of only stones kill a million men who might attack them in that part. Notwithstanding this, those who were sent to reconnoiter the road were so blinded by their overweening valor and spirit (truly Spanish) that, thinking that they could easily gain all, they went ahead to attack one of the three forts, without heeding the order that the general had given them; thereby they encountered, for themselves and the rest of the vanguard, great damage from the three forts, without doing anything to the enemy. More than twenty [of the Spaniards] were killed and more than eighty badly wounded. Much greater would have been the destruction of our men—for, not considering those who were falling, they continued to involve themselves and the others further, with false rumors of victory—had it not been that the governor, placing himself in the greatest danger, where the balls were raining down, and where they wounded his squire (and others who were very near him fell dead), and recognizing that victory was impossible in that part, and prudently hiding the disorder which had happened, in order not to discourage his soldiers, caused them all, both whole and wounded, to retire. This he did with so great ease and gallantry on one side, while on the other he confronted the enemy with so great valor, with sword in hand; had he not done that not a single man would have remained alive, since the enemy were numerous, the road full of precipices, and our men badly impeded with the wounded and more than two hours of fighting. That night the governor passed, with those who remained unhurt, in the retreat at the brow of the hill—at the greatest risk of perishing, if the enemy had made a sally, however vigilant our men had been. But God delivered them from that danger; for the enemy did not make a sally, because they made a great feast that night over the good result of having, as they imagined, killed the governor. Already by this time the sick were in the camp, in which miraculous cures of very deadly wounds occurred. One had been shot through the head from temple to temple; another was shot through the mouth by a ball that passed up through the stomach; another had several poisoned dart-points (here called sompites) left sticking in his throat; and both those and all the others, excepting two or three who did not allow themselves to be treated, are today alive and well. They, and all, attribute their miraculous health to the special favor with which God chose to repay the holy zeal with which all risked their lives for His Divine Majesty.

On the following day, the eighteenth of the same month, while the governor was hearing mass, the rattle and roar of artillery and musketry was heard on the hill, which increased his anxiety. Suspecting that Nicolas Gonzalez was fighting, he sent him, as a reënforcement, a company of soldiers under command of Captain Don Rodrigo de Guillestigui. And it was so that, the said sargento-mayor, Nicolas Gonzalez, not having been able to arrive the day before at the assigned place because of the great difficulty of the road, it was our Lord’s pleasure that, after conquering many difficulties and great obstacles, he gained possession of an eminence which dominated the enemy’s forts in the rear. Thence he started to invest them, with such intrepidity that, although the king, leading his men in person, began to resist him furiously, he could not however withstand our charges. Consequently, they were compelled to abandon their three forts, one after the other, leaving an infinite number of dead Moros, who perished partly by the balls, and partly through falling over precipices in escaping, as the way was narrow. Among those who escaped by flight was Corralat; he fled, badly wounded, to some small villages that he owned, which were four leguas distant from the hill. The queen his wife, and many others of his servants threw themselves over the precipices of their own accord, in order to avoid falling into our hands. Many of the enemy were captured and the Christian captives there freed. Among the latter was found alive one of the Recollect fathers, who, as he had been badly mangled, was judged to have lived as by a miracle until the day following, when he died as a saint in the camp, after receiving all the sacraments with great consolation. The third [Recollect religious] was killed through the fury of the Moros, and it is not known where they threw his body. The three forts, then, with all their arms (namely, four pieces of artillery, and other numberless weapons of other kinds), having fallen into our hands, as well as a great quantity of food, and a quantity of wealth, and a suitable guard having been placed, the governor was advised of everything. He was waiting anxiously in camp; rejoicing over the good news, and more that no one of our soldiers had been killed, he ascended the hill. In two days’ time having taken down to the camp with very few men the pieces which it had taken the enemy six months to take up with more than two thousand Indians; collecting many sacred vases and ecclesiastical ornaments which were found; giving the house of the king over to sack, and others, very large and full of riches, by which many Spaniards were greatly advantaged; and having burned the buildings, and leveled the forts: as he was no longer able to endure the stench which arose from the [dead bodies of] the enemy who had been slain and those who had fallen over the precipices, the forces returned to camp—leaving the Moro king entirely ruined, as a chastisement for the many outrages which he had impiously committed on the true God, on His priests, and other Christians. From there, after having given thanks to our Lord with a mass, and a solemn procession with the most holy sacrament on the day of the Incarnation, they set sail for Sanboangan.

When they left, the governor sent Sargento-mayor Pedro Palomino with one hundred Spaniards to Cachil Moncay (the legitimate king, although he had been oppressed by the tyranny of his uncle Corralat), in order to tell him that, if he wished to be protected by the Spanish arms of his Majesty, he must render homage and pay tribute to the Catholic king our sovereign, wage war by fire and sword on Corralat and his allies, free the Christian captives, and admit gospel ministers. The king offered in person to do all that, and afterward through his ambassador and brother-in-law, at Samboangan, to the governor. The latter having issued the fitting orders in that presidio, and having received the homage offered to our sovereign by many—especially by the inhabitants of the island of Basilan, to whom he immediately assigned gospel ministers, as they asked for them—he entrusted one hundred Spaniards and more than one thousand volunteer Indians (who had now arrived, although after the battle), with orders to coast along the island, doing all the harm possible to the enemy, and helping the Spaniards’ friends. The said captain performed all the aforesaid excellently, coasting along the island from Sanboangan to Caraga. And although the Moros had retreated inland, being terrified by the news of the victory, still the captain did them considerable damage. He burned as many as sixteen villages, and many other collections of houses, laid waste the fields and gardens, destroyed more than one hundred ships (counting large and small), and seized others for the use of the fleet, whose need he abundantly supplied with many provisions which he collected. He also beheaded seventy-two spirited Moros, who defended themselves against him, whose heads he placed on pikes, in various places along the beach, in order to terrorize the others. He made prisoners some others, whom he took alive, with which the whole land became fearful. While that was being done, as has been said, the governor set sail toward Manila. He entered that city in triumph on the twenty-fourth of May, with his four companies in battle-array, with the prisoners in their midst, and with fourteen wagons heavily laden with many important arms of the enemy, together with the banners which had been captured dragging in the dust. There was general applause and rejoicing by the Spaniards and natives. That was an affair well calculated to inspire fear in the numberless infidels by whom we are surrounded.

Finally, his Lordship, having shown certain very splendid honors to those who had so gloriously perished in the war, and having ordered a great number of masses to be said for their souls, ended the celebration most happily on the seventh of June (the Sunday of the Trinity), by a very solemn procession of the most holy sacrament as an expression of thanks. In front marched the ransomed Christians, very handsomely clad, carrying candles and rosaries. Four long paces behind them were many sacred vases and ecclesiastical ornaments, which were recovered from the possession of the barbarian. By that sight the hearts of Catholics were moved to great compassion; and the people gave many thanks to our Lord for the sight of that which they had desired for so many years. They entreated Him that the work might progress until, the enemies who remained in those regions having received the faith of Jesus Christ, they and the other long-time Christians might enjoy the desired peace and quiet.