The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 38, 1674-1683 / 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

INSURRECTIONS BY FILIPINOS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Gadanes; 1621

[An account of this uprising is given by Aduarte in book ii, chap. xvii, of his Historia; see our VOL. XXXII, pp. 113–120.]

In Bohol and Leyte; 1622

[See account of the Bohol revolt in VOL. XXIV, pp. 116–119; it also spread to Leyte. We present here some further account, obtained from Murillo Velarde’s Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 17, 18; Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 132–136. Concepción (in Hist. de Philipinas, v, pp. 20–25) adds nothing new.]

The majority of the ministers in the island of Bohol[1] had gone to Zebu, to celebrate the feasts of the beatification of St. Xavier; in their absence Lucifer attempted to possess himself again of those souls. The divata, or demon, appeared to some Indians in the woods—its face covered, like that of one taking the discipline—and commanded them to quit the gospel ministers and the Spanish vassalage, and take refuge in the hills; and to build him a chapel, where he would aid them and give them whatever they needed to pass their lives in happiness and abundance, without the encumbrance of paying tribute to the Spaniards or dues to the churches. Two or three Indians, who on account of their evil deeds were wandering as fugitives, became priests of this divata, in order to persuade the people to apostasy and rebellion; and, to take away the fear which they naturally feel toward the Spaniards, these priests told them that, if they would attack the Spaniards, the divata would cause the mountains to rise against their foe; that the muskets of the latter would not go off, or else the bullets would rebound on those who fired them; that if any Indian should die, the demon would resuscitate him; that the leaves of the trees would be converted into saranga (which is a large fish); that when they cut bejucos, these would distil wine instead of water; that from the banana-leaves they would make fine linen; and, in short, that all would be pleasure, enjoyment, and delight. With these magnificent promises, so attractive to men—and especially to the Indians, who are so inclined to idleness and sloth—four villages revolted; only Loboc (which is the chief village) and Baclayon remained firm in the faith, and in loyalty to the king.

Information of this reached Zebu, and immediately Don Juan de Alcarazo, alcalde-mayor of Zebu, went to quiet the island;[2] he invited them to make peace, for which the rebels did not care. Their boldness increasing, they burned the four villages and their churches; they flung on the ground the rosaries and crosses, and pierced an image of the blessed Virgin eighteen times with javelins—although afterward in Zebu some tried to make amends to her with the most affectionate demonstrations of reverence, and she was placed in our church. Thereupon the chief ordered troops from Zebu, fifty Spaniards and a thousand friendly Indians,[3] accompanied by a father; and on New Year’s day, 1622, he began the march to the mountains, where the insurgents were. For five days they traveled through rugged hills and deep ravines, crossing marshes where the mud came to their knees, or even to their waists, and shedding their blood on the thorns and briars. On the fifth day, the insurgents killed a friendly Indian; this they celebrated with loud shouts, and it greatly increased their arrogance. On the following day, more than 1,500 rebel Indians attacked our vanguard, which consisted of sixteen Spaniards and three hundred Indians; but when our muskets were fired so many fell dead that the rebels began to retreat to a bamboo thicket. When we followed them, a heavy rain fell, which encouraged the rebels, for they said that our muskets were then useless. But Heaven favored our cause with a marvel, since, although the pans of the musket-locks were full of water, the soldiers declared that the powder never failed to catch fire, nor did the matches go out. At this the rebels fled into the mountains; and our men arrived at a village of more than a thousand houses, in the midst of which was the temple of their divata. Our troops found there much food, various jewels of silver and gold, and many bells of the sort those people use—all which was given to our Indians. The rebels were in a fortification of stone, in which they had placed many stones and clods of earth to throw at our men; but the latter, covering themselves with their shields, seized the redoubt, with the death of many of the enemy,[4] and in a fortnight returned to Loboc. Captain Alcarazo, who was foremost in all these engagements, commanded that some of the rebels be hanged, and published a pardon to the rest; and he returned to Zebu,[5] where the victory was celebrated. This success had very important results, for it checked the revolt of other islands and other villages—who were expecting the favorable result which the demon had promised them, so that they could shake off the mild yoke of Christ, and with it their vassalage to the Spaniards. Many of them, now undeceived, accepted the pardon; but others, who were stubborn, fortified themselves at the summit of a rugged and lofty hill, difficult of access, and closed the road [to it] with brambles and thorns.[6] They also filled the paths with very sharp stakes driven into the soil, and placed among the branches of the trees many crossbows,[7] in order that these, being discharged as our men passed them, might wound the soldiers; and above they provided many stones to throw at the Spaniards, hurling them from the top of the hill. Six months later the same Don Juan Alcarazo returned, to dislodge those rebels with forty Spaniards and many Indians. After suffering great hardships in making the paths accessible, nearly all his men were hurt, by the time they reached the fort, by the many stones which the enemy hurled down from the summit; but our soldiers courageously climbed the ascent, firing their muskets, and killed many of the rebels, putting the rest to flight. Thus was dispersed that sedition, which was one of the most dangerous that had occurred in the islands—not only because the Boholans were the most warlike and valiant of the Indians, but on account of the conspiracy spreading to many other tribes. Noble examples of fidelity in this great disturbance are not lacking. [Murillo Velarde here mentions two instances of this.]

The natives of Carigara in the island of Leyte became impatient, and revolted without waiting for the result in Bohol, incited thereto by Bancao, the ruling chief of Limasava—who in the year 1565[8] received with friendly welcome Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and the Spaniards who came to his island, supplying them with what they needed, for which Phelipe II sent him a royal decree, thanking him for the kind hospitality which he showed to those first Spaniards. He was baptised and, although a young man, showed that he was loyal to the Christians; but, conquered by the enemy [of souls], he changed sides in his old age.[9] This man lived in the island of Leyte, and with a son of his and another man, Pagali (whom he chose as priest of his idolatry), erected a sacred place to the divata, or devil; and they induced six villages in the island to rebel. In order to remove from them their fear of the Spaniards, these men told their followers that they could change the Spaniards into stones as soon as they saw them, by repeating the word bato, which signifies “stone;” and that a woman or a child could change them into clay by flinging earth upon them. Father Melchor de Vera went to Zebu to give warning of this sedition and obtain aid to check it. Captain Alcarazo equipped an armada of forty vessels, in which were embarked some Spaniards and many friendly Indians, also the father rector of Zebu and Father Vera; these united with the forces (both Spanish and Indian) that the alcalde of Leyte had. They offered peace to the rebels, but the latter spurned it with contempt. Our men, divided into three bodies, attacked them; and, when that which Don Juan de Alcarazo commanded came in sight of the rebels, they fled to the hills. Our soldiers followed them, and on the way put to the sword or shot those whom they encountered; and, although the compassion of the Spaniards spared the children and women,[10] these could not escape the fury of the Indians. Many of the rebels died, the enchantment not availing them by which they had thought to turn the Spaniards into stone or clay; the rest saved themselves by flight. The Spaniards came to a large building which the rebels had erected for their divata; they encamped in it ten days, and then burned it. Some one pierced with a lance Bancao, the chief instigator of the rebellion, not knowing who he was, whom two of his slaves were carrying on their shoulders and immediately his head was placed on a stake as a public warning. He and his children came to a wretched end, as a punishment for their infidelity and apostasy; for his second son was beheaded as a traitor, and a daughter of his was taken captive. To inspire greater terror, the captain gave orders to shoot three or four rebels, and to burn[11] one of their priests—in order that, by the light of that fire, the blindness in which the divata had kept them deluded might be removed. The Spaniards also cut off the head of an Indian who had robbed Father Vinancio [i.e., Vilancio] and broken to pieces an image of the Virgin, and kicked a crucifix; and his head was set up in the same place where he had committed those horrible sacrileges. There were many who, in the midst of so furious a tempest, remained constant in their religious belief. [Several instances of this are related by the author.]

Mandayas; 1625

[For particulars of this insurrection, see Aduarte’s Historia, book ii, chaps, xxviii, xxx, in our VOL. XXXII, pp. 147–152, 162. Cf. Ferrando’s account, Hist. de los PP. Dominicos, ii, pp. 114–117; and our VOL. XXII, pp. 69, 95.]

In Caraga and in Cagayan; 1629

[See VOL. XXIV, pp. 165, 175, 177, 216, 217, 229; and fuller account of that in Caraga, in Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, v, pp. 163–179 (in our VOL. XXXV, pp. 89–91).]

In Nueva Segovia; 1639

[See Santa Cruz’s account (Hist. Sant. Rosario) in our VOL. XXXV, pp. 47–51.]

Map of the Philippine Islands, drawn by Captain John Kempthorne, ca. 1688; (evidently from earlier map of 1676); photographic facsimile

[From original manuscript map in the British Museum]

In Pampanga, 1645; and in Bulacán, 1643

[The following is taken from Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 483, 484:]

This fearful earthquake[12] was general in all these Filipinas, although it was more severe in some regions than in others—for in the province of Cagayán, in [the land of] one people called Maynanes, a great mountain was cleft open; and the havoc made by it extended as far as Maluco. In the heights of Gapang,[13] in the province of Pampanga, it was very severe, and lasted several days. Even greater damage might have been done by an uprising that was plotted by an Indian of evil disposition in the villages of Gapang, Santor, Caranglán, and Patabangán, exhorting the natives there to rebel and restore themselves to their former liberty, by slaying the Spaniards and the religious. He assured them that in Manila there were no Spaniards left, because the earth had swallowed them, with the entire city, on the night of the earthquake that occurred on St. Andrew’s day; and that the demon, with whom he had compact and intercourse, had promised him that he would aid the natives so that they might maintain themselves without paying tribute, and might enjoy much prosperity, and provided that they would slay the fathers and burn the churches. The delusion of the Indians of Gapang went so far that they seized arms, and summoned to their aid many heathen Zambals, and burned the churches of Santor and Pantabangán. When this was known in Manila, the encomendero of those villages, Admiral Rodrigo de Mesa, offered his services to pacify them, and went to Gapang with Alférez Callejas, their collectors of tribute, and some friendly Indians; but the insurgents, who now were numerous, badly wounded the encomendero, who fled on horseback, and a year later died from that wound at Manila. They slew Alférez Callejas and many of the loyal Indians who went in his company, and fortified themselves in the mountains. The prior and minister, Fray Juan Cabello, escaped by the aid of some other Indians who were not of the hostile party, came to Manila, and gave information of the progress of the rebellion. Opinions differed as to the methods which should be employed in pacifying the insurgents; and our father provincial, Fray Alonso Carbajal, decided to send the father lecturer Fray Juan de Abarca,[14] a religious for whom the natives of that district had much affection and respect, since he had been their minister for many years. With this commission this religious set out for Pampanga, taking with him a companion, Master-of-camp Don Agustin Songsong, a valiant Pampango, with as many soldiers of that people as seemed necessary. They arrived at Gapang, and by means of father Fray Juan de Abarca’s preaching and his earnest efforts—which would take too long to relate, as would the many perils of death to which he exposed himself—that sedition was finally quelled, and the insurgents returned to their former quiet. But the Indian sorcerer, the cause of this disturbance, did not make his appearance, notwithstanding all the efforts that were made to find him.

Another rebellion, which threatened a great outbreak, was checked (in the year 1643) by father Fray Cristobal Enriquez. In the district of Malolos in the province of Bulacán, an Indian named Don Pedro Ladía, a native of Borney, went about promoting sedition; he proclaimed that to him belonged the right of being king over the provinces of Tagalos, alleging that he was a descendant of Raja Matanda,[15] the petty king whom the Spaniards found at Manila in the year 1571. With these and other impostures, aided by wine—the chief counselor in matters of policy and war, among those natives—and with the consultations with the demon which always figure on these occasions, he kept many villages of that district disquieted. But the sagacious procedure of father Fray Cristobal Enriquez intercepted all these misfortunes which were threatening us, by furnishing a plan for the arrest of Don Pedro Ladía—who already was styling himself “king of the Tagálogs;” he was sent to Manila, where, he paid with his life for his vain presumption. And thus this revolt, lacking even that weak foundation, was entirely quieted.

In the Pintados; 1649–50

[The best authorities on this insurrection are the Jesuit historians, since it arose in regions under their spiritual charge. We select the earliest account, that of Combés, written while the incidents of that time were fresh in men’s minds; it is found in his Hist. de Mindanao, col. 489–498. Murillo Velarde also relates these events, in Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 171b–175. Cf. the Augustinian Diaz, in Conquistas, pp. 517–523; and the Recollect Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, vi, pp. 247–280.]

The queen of Joló, Tuambaloca, wrote at the same time, asking permission to come to end her days in the island of Basilan, and all was so secure from war that she remained as arbiter of peace for all the islands of Samboangan; and, as such, even the governor of Manila availed himself of her power[16] in order to pacify the disturbances in the islands....

This occasion made sufficiently evident the greatness of the benefit that the islands owe to the Society for the [treaties of] peace made with these kings—thus finding the royal arms at liberty for more pressing exigencies, and being set free, as regards those kings, from the most painful anxiety lest their forces would be allied with our dangers. With this, attention could be given to the punishment of Burney, a pirate as cruel as impious; and to finding external relief in the domestic losses and evils which had rendered our safety so uncertain. [Our forces were thus ready] in an almost general revolt of all the islands, in the provinces that were most subjugated and had never tested the keenness of our arms; for they had yielded to the echoes of our trumpets, receiving our troops in peace. But in these recent years had been operating in these new worlds the influences of that malign planet which was ruining Europe (and especially our España), with revolts of entire kingdoms, and has caused rivers of blood to run in the populous kingdom of China; and it reached these islands, to wreak on them its fierceness. And God—permitting evil, for the credit of virtue and the reward of the good—gave warlike courage to the most pusillanimous tribes, and armed the nakedness of these Indians to resist the unconquerable steel of our Spaniards.

The first region to declare against us was the province of Ibabao, which is in the island of Samar; it is the coast which faces the north, beaten by the sea of Nueva España. There the Society has a new residence, which is occupied by six fathers. All the villages connected with it revolted, following the audacious stand of the chief among them, which is Palapag. This was occasioned by the oppressions arising from our public works—which is a motive that should appeal to them, since they were the ones interested in the defense [of the coasts against their enemies]. But the Indians, as barbarians, do not heed future perils, but rather present fatigues; and to these their slothful nature opposes itself. The losses of galleons made it necessary to maintain in that province a shipyard. This drafted all the carpenters from Manila, and, in order to supply those that were needed on that shore, it was necessary to demand from each province a certain number—a quota of hardly one to each village, and this so equitably that to worldly prudence these allotments seemed advantageous, for which many would eagerly ask. But as the Indians have grown up in their wretchedness and in the life of brutes in their remote mountains, it seems to them that they are maintaining their liberty. They resented greatly this political compulsion to citizenship and the formation of a village, [so that they would live] as men. Those in the provinces that were most civilized and were nearest to Manila had obeyed the decree without opposition, but these [remote] provinces immediately made such demonstrations of displeasure that all of us perceived the difficulty [of enforcing the demand], and several undertook to represent it [to the authorities]. Don Diego de Faxardo was the governor, a man so harsh in his methods, and having so little pious regard for the [religious] ministers, that their intercessions only made him more cruel, on account of the dogmatic opinion which he followed, that the ministers are the ones who oppose the royal service. Accordingly they all gave up any active opposition, but moderated in a thousand ways the execution [of the decree] (which they saw could not be avoided), sometimes with gifts, sometimes with considerations of utility. The men of Ibabao, trusting in the ruggedness of their coast or the inaccessibility of their mountains, or in the succor which had been positively promised to them by the Dutch—who every year make port on their coasts, awaiting with their armed fleets the relief [sent us] from Nueva España—immediately declared themselves [against us]. At the outset, in their stubbornness and disobedience, until their affairs were settled and their retreat prevented, they talked of fleeing to the mountains. This was their first opinion; but a malicious Indian interfered in the discussion, and told them that they could not accomplish anything by that course, because the village would not be destroyed, nor would the promoters [of the rebellion] have the following that they desired, unless they ordered that all should rebel, and slay the father, and burn the church; for their guilt in such action would intimidate all of them. As their councils were held in the excitement of wine, all readily approved this extravagant proposal. Immediately the demon offered them, for its execution, the evilly-inclined mind of a vile Indian named Sumoroy, who, although he had been much favored by the fathers as being a skilful pilot on the sea, and on this account had always enjoyed immunity from tribute and personal services, and was actually the castellan of the fortified residence that they had there, yet desired—because they had removed an obstacle[17] which for many years had kept him at variance with and separated from his lawful wife—to find an opportunity for vengeance. This man offered to kill the father; and, confirming his resolve with many draughts to his success, and loud shouts, they dreamed that they were already masters of the entire world, and had slain all the Spaniards. He had already prejudiced their minds against his enemy, telling each Indian in the village separately that he had been assigned by the father to go to the Manila shore; consequently, no one now repaired to mass or took notice of public affairs. The father rector—who was Father Miguel Ponce Barberan, a native of the kingdom of Aragon—saw plainly the hostile disposition of the people, but never could have imagined so insane a resolve; and if any one could most confidently throw aside anxiety it was this father, for he had been, without contradiction, the most beloved and cherished by the natives, of all the fathers who had itinerated there—and, as well, the one who had spent most years in ministering to those people. A Tuesday, then, the first day of June in the year 1649, the traitor selected for his sacrilegious parricide; and, as a thief in the house, who knew its avenues of entrance and egress very well, he took his stand within, awaiting the father at the top of the stairway, when he should ascend it after supper. While the father halted on the stairs to say a prayer for the souls in purgatory—for which, it happened, the bells were ringing—Sumoroy hurled a javelin at him from above, which pierced his breast and immediately brought him to the ground; nor did he breathe again, spending his last energy in pronouncing the sweet names of Jesus and Mary.

For two days the fathers remained at home in suspense, without understanding the cause of this evil deed, or knowing who was its author; and the rebels themselves delayed to commit sacrileges by breaking with shame and declaring themselves [rebels]. Finally, on the day of Corpus Christi, about noon, the murderer came in sight, leading the multitude, and openly declared that it was he who had slain the father, loudly defying the whole world. They gave the fathers and the brother whom they found in the house the opportunity to leave it, provided that they removed nothing from it; and immediately, as barbarians and enemies of God—forgetting the faith and Christian belief of so many years, in which they had grown up—they sacked and burned the church and house, profaning the ornaments, and cutting from them drawers and turbans according to their old-time usage. If there were any of the faithful [among the crowd], they let themselves be persuaded by the argument of the barbarians for their timidity, that if they remained among the insurgents the anger of the Spaniards would be moderated, and accordingly they followed the perverse ones. The report of this sacrilegious act fanned the flame of infernal zeal itself, and found the minds of the people so ready that, almost as if there had been a general decision and they only awaited the signal for putting it into execution, in almost all the villages on that coast they burned their churches, the ministers fled, and the rebels retreated to the mountains, where they fancied they could maintain their former brutal mode of life.

In the rest of the provinces—either because they perhaps regarded it as somewhat discreditable that the men of Ibabao should display their valor in order to oppose the Spaniards, and they themselves not do so; or because all of them were (as some desire to be) in communication with the Dutch—they proceeded to follow the example and imitate the boldness of the men of Palapag. Our arms would be found greatly embarrassed if those of the Dutch were to add confidence to the insolence of the Indians; and, at the very least, there would not remain a province which would not be up in arms, and no minister or Spaniard of those who were scattered among them would escape. But God our Lord, who chastised as a father, and chose to correct with clemency the wickedness with which the Spaniards abuse the subject condition of these natives—and as a warning to the latter, to confirm them in the truth of our holy faith and disabuse them of their errors—so adjusted the times that although the Dutch fleets had not failed to come to the islands for ten years past, about that very month [i.e., June], in this year the peace kept them away, and the publication of it arrived here in good time, so that our forces were left free for the punishment [of the rebels].

Immediately the province of Camarines, on the mainland of Manila, declared itself against us, and the father guardian [of the Franciscans] was banished from Solsogon; and their lead was followed by their island of Masbate, where an alférez was put to death. This presumptuous act disturbed the peace of Cebú Island; and its natives also, without fearing the strong fort and the city to near them, also defied us, another officer being slain there. In the province of Caraga, the men of Linao revolted, displaying their evil intentions by the murder of the father prior (a discalced Augustinian), and of the Spaniards in a small garrison which was kept there, some dozen in number; but few escaped, and those were badly wounded. In the province of Iligan, which borders on Caraga, the Manobos, a barbarian tribe, seized the peaceable village of Cagayan. The entire coast [i.e., of northern Mindanao], and the adjacent island of Camigin, followed their example; in Camigin they bound the father prior (also a discalced Augustinian), the impious Indians going so far as to place their brutal feet on the neck of the holy religious. In the jurisdiction of Samboangan, the Subanos went astray—their principal village, named Siocon, releasing itself from obedience with the sacrilegious parricide of Father Juan del Campo, and the atrocious murder of his companions, as we shall afterward relate. The Boholans, on account of their valor, retained their esteem for the faith. Thus, for the punishment of so many atrocious deeds and for quelling the insolence of the barbarians, there remained to us no other arms than those of Samboangan, and no other auxiliaries than those people who had been our friends for so few years.

Those of Ibabao aroused the utmost anxiety, their insolence continually calling us to arms; for, not content with atrocities in their own country, they went to disquiet another region. They even disturbed those who dwelt on the opposite coast of Samar, threatening them with ruin if they did not follow the lead of the others. Their attempts began to be dangerous, since they stirred up the village of Paranas, which is only two leguas from the seat of our jurisdiction there—Catbalogan, where the alcalde-mayor resides; and in fact many fled to the mountains, without regard to the war which menaced them, when the Spaniards were placed under arms, two leguas from their abode. In the other villages [the natives] were in arms, and regarded us all with apprehension. At the outset, the alcalde-mayor was ready with such force as he could assemble—adventurers in the province, mestizos, and Indians; but, as the former were all collectors [of tribute] and the latter all relatives [of the insurgents], some were not accustomed to arms and the hardships of campaigning, and the others could not use weapons against those of their own blood. Accordingly this, instead of checking their fury, only rendered their boldness more insolent, and gave unwonted force to their arms; and men who before did not find enough woods in which to hide themselves from a Camucon ship, now went so far as to make daybreak assaults on our troops, and slew our men before our eyes. And as a final token of their contempt, when the captain demanded from them the head of Sumoroy, by way of atonement for what he had done, they sent down the river to him the head of a swine—although in the end, worn out, they considered it good luck that they could again secure peace.

[The authorities] in Manila, seeing that the revolt was continually gathering strength, and that the insolence of the insurgents was passing all bounds, recognized how important it was to repress it, undertaking its chastisement in earnest. For this purpose they despatched General Andres Lopez de Azaldigui (who was chief of the royal galleys of these islands), with the title of lieutenant of the captain-general; and with this authority he levied many Spaniards, being empowered to obtain them from all the fortified posts. He made all the necessary arrangements for the enterprise, but he soon recognized the danger that he incurred among the natives—who all, regarding those of Palapag as restorers of their liberty, were rejoicing over their successes—and that in our reverses we had cause to fear them as enemies, since they were on the watch to know what fortune those of Palapag had in order to follow it if they were sure of the result. A large fleet of native boats was needed for the transportation of provisions and military supplies; but, the greater the number of these that were thus assembled, the more was the danger increased. On this account the general wrote to Manila, demanding galleys; and there, in order to avoid the expense of galleys and the perils of seas so rough, they despatched orders that the armada should come from Zamboangan—for the loyalty of those people against the Bisayans, as against their old-time enemies, could not be doubted. And with the support of these [auxiliaries] effective aid might be rendered by those of the inland provinces, which had been ruled without risk by the Spaniards because they did not go there entirely in the hands of the natives.

The armada was despatched as promptly as possible by the commandant [of Zamboanga]. Sargento-mayor Pedro Duran, with two captains in active service—as chief, Captain Juan Muñoz, who was commander of the armada; and as second in command Captain Juan de Ulloa—with the most choice and distinguished soldiers of the Lutaos. As leader of these, since he was the military chief of that people, was sent General Don Francisco Ugbo (whom I have previously mentioned), with the master-of-camp, sargento-mayor, and captains of the tribe, and as many as four hundred of its men. Father Francisco Martinez had then arrived at Samboangan, to act as rector of the new [Jesuit] college there—of which the official recognition from our father general came in this same year—a religious who deserved well of those Christian churches, for he had sustained them in their earliest infancy, having labored in the arduous beginnings of [the missions in] Joló and Samboangan. By this [departure of the Lutaos] Father Alexandro Lopez found his occupation gone, and was therefore able to embark with the armada, which needed his presence and aid, as it was going for so important an enterprise—on the fortunate result of which, as many thought, depended the fidelity of all the provinces of Pintados. All fortified themselves with the holy sacraments, as solicitously as Christians of very long standing could do; and, as if they were such, on all occasions which arose in the voyage and in the battle itself they made evident, by their reverence for their holy name [of Christians] and appreciation of the danger, how they felt these obligations in their hearts. The sargento-mayor of the tribe (who belonged to its highest nobility) encountered a temptation to his own perdition; but he put it behind him by saying that he was going to war, and could not at that time discuss a matter which would work injury to his soul.

Great was the rejoicing which this armada caused in all the towns where it landed, notably in the city of Cebú, where the Lutaos were known (and most of them, especially those who commanded the joangas, had the reputation of being pirates), at seeing them, now Christians, repair to the churches with so much devotion and attend divine worship with such reverence—those very people who had ravaged the islands with fire, and damaged nearly all the churches of Bisayas with their outrages and robberies; those who yesterday were enemies, but today bearing arms in our aid; and those who yesterday were cruel enemies to God, now the avengers of insults to Him. Tears sprang to [the eyes of] all, and they did not cease to give a thousand thanks to the fathers for their labors, so effectual—not only in the conversion of that Moro people, but for the benefit of these Christian communities, removing their terror and turning their dread and mistrust of the Moro arms into joy and expectation of success.

Arriving at Palapag by the month of May [i.e., in 1650], they found that the leader of the campaign was Captain Don Xinés de Roxas; and that it had been much retarded on account of the reputation which the men of Palapag had steadily gained by their daring acts. They had fortified themselves on a height which was regarded as impregnable by nature, as only one path was known by which it could be ascended, and that very narrow and difficult. On this path the enemy had built fortifications, and from loopholes therein they did much damage to our men, without risk [to themselves]; they lost no opportunity to fall suddenly on our troops, and any man who strayed from the rest paid the penalty with his life, so sharply did they note any negligence on our part; and, as masters of the land, they boldly engaged us, secure from being pursued. The captain wearied himself much with various fortifications, and kept the men exhausted; and he engaged in the same fatiguing labor those of the armada, until the sargento-mayor of that tribe, Don Alonso Maconbon, was bold enough to ask him, face to face, why he was wearing out the men in work which was not important.

He told the captain that they had not come to haul logs, but to fight in battle, and that he must contrive to employ them in fighting; for, if he did not, they would go back to their homes. At seeing the daring of this man, and the angry words that the soldiers of Samboangan—who, as veterans, were eager to have an opportunity for distinguishing themselves—flung at him, although he resented their lack of respect he was rejoiced to see their courage; and he was encouraged to make the assault, which, with the coxcombs and foppish adventurers from Manila, seemed a dangerous enterprise. And, as those of the armada, it seems, were boasting most of their valor, he assigned them to the brunt of the battle, in order thus to employ their courage in carrying out their own advice.

He made ready, then, the infantry of the armada, with the Lutaos, for a day that he set for the assault, which they were obliged to make over a precipitous ascent, exceedingly dangerous—so that they could make their way up it only by giving their weapons and their hands to each other.[18] At nightfall they reached the slope, and in the darkness of the night proceeded to ascend it. The enemy had their sentinels, but our Lord easily diverted their attention by sending a heavy shower of rain—which our men regarded as a misfortune, which made the enterprise more difficult and the ascent all the more dangerous. But it was altogether fortunate for the expedition; for the pass was so difficult that the sentinel alone could defend it against a thousand assailants, and the most feeble old man was sufficient for guarding it, especially if the danger [from an attack] were known to the insurgents, who had given all their attention to the troop of the commander Don Xinés. The time while the rain fell was enough to enable all the soldiers to reach the top without danger; and so careful were the men that not one of them had his match extinguished. They halted there, waiting for the daylight; and when the rain gave opportunity to the sentinel he came back, waving a torch in order to light his path. Our men could have slain him; but they let him go, so as not to raise an alarm. Either because he heard their voices, or saw some lighted match, he waited a little while, and then returned to inform the rest of it; and the troops, seeing that they were discovered, marched toward the fortifications. So quickly they reached them that the enemy at once took to flight; our men pursued them with their arms, but the enemy quickly escaped, by dangerous precipices and paths which they know well. But the Spaniards did not choose to divert much of their attention [to the fugitives], rather taking care to occupy promptly their Rochelle;[19] accordingly, they erected their fortifications, and occupied them with their artillery, supplies, and weapons. From that place they sent for the commander, Captain Don Xinés de Roxas, who went up to take possession of the gains made by the arduous efforts and daring bravery of the men of Samboangan. In this enterprise Captain Francisco de Leyba, then commander of the Samboangan armada, and Captain Silvestre de Rodas, an old soldier of Terrenate, especially distinguished themselves.

The Lutaos dispersed through the place, and, breaking into a house, found the mother of the traitor and parricide Sumoroy; and they dragged her out and tore her to pieces. Sumoroy had been sent down [from their stronghold] the day before, secretly, in a hammock, and all the children and women the rebels had already placed in safety; for, from the day when they saw the Samboangan armada, they felt that their cause was lost, and, lacking confidence in the outcome, they forestalled the danger. Thus was ended this longed-for enterprise, and the war in Ibabao; for the natives, now disarmed and divided, would have no courage left, save for flight, and the hardships of a life so full of fear [as that of fugitives] would oblige them to surrender, one by one—as was actually the case. Accordingly, the armada [and its men] took their departure, leaving the islands thankful for what they had accomplished and edified by their good example. For in the heat of conflict and in dangerous encounters (which is the time when the natural disposition and the inner soul are displayed), those soldiers did not fail to invoke the sweet names of Jesus and Mary, without ceasing or neglecting this in the utmost confusion and ardor of battle, giving pious examples to the Christian soldiery—to the admiration of the natives, [although they were] accustomed to these [pious] observances; since the clamorous efforts [of the soldiers], and solicitude for their danger, disturb the piety of even the oldest veterans.

---

[We append to this the following account from Diaz’s Conquistas (pp. 517–523), as being more detailed and furnishing a somewhat different light on various incidents of the insurrection. In order to place it in the present document, as belonging to this special subject, it has been removed from its place in Diaz’s history of his order and its missions (see VOL. XXXVII, pp. 149–284).]

There was an Indian named Sumoroy in the village of Palapag, who was regarded as one of the best, although he was one of the very worst, and was as evil as his father—who, accredited with the same hypocrisy, was a babaylán and priest of the devil, and made the other Indians apostatize. He was greatly addicted to drunkenness, and he had so promoted it [in others] that all the village was contaminated with this vice, as well as that of lust—vices so closely allied to idolatry, of which truth there are many examples in Holy Writ. The inhabitants of Palapag were corrupted by those evil habits at the time when Governor Don Diego Fajardo—with the intention of relieving the near-by provinces of Tagalos and Pampanga from the burden of working, at the harbor of Cavite, in the building of galleons and vessels necessary for the conservation and defense of these islands—had ordered the alcaldes of Leite and other provinces to send men thence to Cavite for that employment. That was a difficult undertaking, because of the distance of more than one hundred leguas, and the troubles and wrongs to the said Indians that would result from their leaving their homes for so long a time. The father ministers went to the alcaldes, and the latter to Manila, to represent those troubles and wrongs; but the only thing that they obtained was a more stringent order to execute the mandate without more reply. Consequently they could do nothing else than obey the orders of the superior government, although they feared what very soon occurred. But what good end could so mistaken and pernicious a decision have?

As soon as the inhabitants of Palapag saw that the alcaldes-mayor were beginning to collect men to send them to the harbor of Cavite, they began to go oftener to the meetings in the house of Sumoroy and his father, and to begin (when heated with wine, the ordinary counselor of the Indians) to organize their insurrection. They quickly appointed leaders, of whom the chief was Don Juan Ponce, a very influential man and a bad Christian, but married to a wife from a chief’s family in the village of Catubig; she was very different from him in her morals, for she was very virtuous. The second leader was one Don Pedro Caamug, and the third the above-named Sumoroy. Then they discussed the murder of the father minister, Miguel Ponce of the Society of Jesus, an Aragonese,[20] at the suggestion of that malignant sorcerer and priest of the devil, the father of Sumoroy, who charged that undertaking upon his son. On Tuesday evening, the first of June, 1649, he went to the house of the father, who had just eaten his dinner, and was ascending a narrow ladder to his house. Sumoroy awaited him at that place, and hurling his lance, pierced his breast from side to side, and left him dead, without more time than to say “Jesus, Mary.” They spared the life of Father Julio Aleni,[21] a Roman, saying that he was not their minister, but was dedicated to China, whence is inferred their motive in killing the [former] father. Next day they despoiled the house and church of its furniture and holy ornaments; profaned the altars and sacred images; scattered the holy oils; and used the silver chrismatories for the ajonjolí oil with which they anoint their hair.

It was the will of divine Providence to show forth the devout fidelity of the women amid the infidelity and apostasy of the men; for, the day before that spoliation, Doña Angelina Dinagungan, wife of Don Juan Ponce, accompanied by another good Christian woman, Doña María Malón, went to the church and saved some holy images and ornaments, besides a chest belonging to the father, with the little that it contained, which they afterward surrendered to him. Among the images that that devout woman saved from the sacrilegious hands of the rebels was an image of our Lady of the Conception, which was kept with great propriety in the house of Doña María Malón, and which was often seen to sweat abundantly and to shed tears, a miracle which spread throughout the village. When the perfidious Sumoroy heard of it, he said: “The Virgin Mary is weeping. Let us see if she will weep if we burn the house;” and he went thither, with other men like himself, and set fire to it. But Divine Clemency did not permit the fire to catch in that house, although it was of bamboo and nipa like the others. The husband of Doña María Malón, called Don Gabriel Hongpón, was a head man [cabeza de barangay]; and only he and all his people remained faithful to God and to their king. God gave him courage to resist so many, who always respected him as he was so influential a man in that village of Palapag.

The insurgents incited the inhabitants of Catubig, who also revolted. They killed a Spaniard, and burned the church and house of the father minister, after having sacked it. The contagion having spread to other villages, the people did the same at Pambohan, or Bayugo, Catarman, and Bonan; and thence passed to infect the provinces of Ibalón[22] and Camarines, where they killed a Franciscan religious, the guardian of Sorsogón. They killed Alférez Torres in Masbate. In Caraga, the inhabitants of the village of Tinao revolted and killed their minister, a discalced Augustinian, and a few Spanish soldiers of a small presidio established there, the rest escaping the fury of the insurgents. In Iligán, the village of Cagayán, a mission of our discalced religious, revolted. In the adjacent island of Camiguín, a mission of the same religious, they bound their minister and set their feet on his neck. The Subanos mutinied in the jurisdiction of Zamboanga, in the village called Siocon, where they killed Father Juan del Campo[23] of the Society of Jesus. The villages of the islands of Cebú and Bohol, who are warlike people, were wavering in their loyalty. But Divine Clemency did not permit them to declare themselves. Thus with the patience and tolerance of the father ministers, who suffered many hardships and found themselves in great danger, those fires—which could have consumed the loyalty of the provinces of these islands—were soon extinguished. The first village to rebel in the island of Leite was Bacor, where the church and house of the father minister were burned, and the people joined the inhabitants of Palapag, leaving the village deserted. The insurgents pretended that two Dutch ships were near, which were coming to aid them as equals in their rebellion against the Church and the vassalage due to their lawful king; and that pretense greatly aided them in their evil design.

As soon as the alcalde-mayor of Leite heard of the insurrection, he collected all the boats and men possible, but these were very fragile means to oppose to so vast a multitude of insurgent and desperate men. Consequently, although they went to Palapag with the said alcalde-mayor, one Captain Don Juan Gómez de tres Palacios y Estrado, they served no other purpose than to make the rebellion worse, and to encourage the enemy. The latter intrenched themselves on an impregnable hill called “the table of Palapag;” and what is the greatest cause for surprise is that a Spaniard called Pedro Zapata, who had married an Indian woman in Palapag (who must have perverted him), went with them. But the insurgents gave him his pay by killing him, in order to take away the woman, a worthy reward for his incredible treason. They made trenches and strong stockades, with many sharp stakes and snares, and many stone boulders suspended, which, by being thrown upon the strongest army, would cause cruel injury. To work greater harm, they gave command of their men to Don Pedro Caamug, who descended the hill with two hundred insurgents and returned to the village of Palapag, where he killed the father minister, Vicente Damián,[24] and two boys who were serving him, who in their fear were clinging to the father. They again burned the church, a chamber of nipa and bamboo which Don Gabriel and his faithful followers had erected for the celebration of mass, furnishing this additional bond to their apostasy and rebellion. They returned to their impregnable hill after this, which was in their eyes a great victory, and began to fortify themselves much more strongly than they were, as they feared the war that was expected from Manila.

Governor Don Diego Fajardo, seeing that the undertaking of the reduction of the inhabitants of Palapag was an affair requiring much care and consideration, because of the evil effects that would result from any unfavorable event, after holding a council of war determined to entrust this undertaking to the commander of the galleys, Andrés López de Asaldigui (already named on many occasions), as he had all the good qualities which can form a good soldier; for he was very brave and prudent, fortunate in the enterprises that had been entrusted to him, and a prime favorite with the soldiers because of his great liberality. That commander left Manila with the best men whom he could enlist, both Spaniards and Pampangos, and went to Catbalogan, the capital of that province, where he mustered thirteen oared vessels and two champans. His first order was to send some vessels to Panay and Iloilo for food. Well informed of the condition of the rebels of Palapag, he found that he needed more war-supplies for that conquest; for the insurgents had extended their revolt to many villages of the island, and the other neighboring islands were apparently prepared to follow their bold acts, if they were at all fortunate. Therefore Andrés López de Asaldegui sent to ask the governor for the galleys in his charge; but the latter did not send them, in order to avoid the expense that would be caused the royal treasury, which was very needy. But he sent order instead that the fleet of Zamboanga should be at his disposal.

[At this juncture, Asaldigui is summoned by the governor to investigate the loss of the galleon “Encarnación,” and “entrusting the Palapag enterprise to Captain Ginés de Rojas—a brave soldier, but one who had little reputation and affection among the soldiers, who regretted that order exceedingly, and would have returned home had they been able. To such an extent does the reputation of the leader further any enterprise.”]

Don Ginés de Rojas assembled the thirteen oared vessels and the two champans, in the latter of which he stowed the food. Likewise the fleet of Zamboanga came up with four caracoas and some Spaniards, and four hundred Lutaos; these are Indians of that region who have been recently converted to our holy faith from the errors of the cursed sect of Mahomet, by the efforts and toil of the religious of the Society. Their commandant was their master-of-camp Don Francisco Ugbo, a Lutao, and a brave man; and their sargento-mayor Don Alonso Macobo, of the same nation. The chief commander of that fleet was Captain Juan Muñoz, the admiral was Juan de Ulloa, and the captain was Suárez, who were veteran soldiers. In addition to that succor there came from Cebú Captain Don Francisco de Sandoval and Juan Fernández de León, who brought many men from Sialo, Caraga, and other provinces. When all those forces were assembled in Catbalogan, Don Ginés de Rojas divided them into three divisions, two under command of Sandoval and León, and the third in his own charge. He ordered Captain Sandoval to go to his encomienda at Catubig, and thence, with all the men whom he could assemble, to go to reduce the village of Palapag. Captain León was ordered to go with his men through Tubig, Sulat, Borongán, and other villages—first, however, to go to Guigán, to get as many men there as possible. Don Ginés de Rojas chose the villages of Catarmán and Bobor, where his encomienda lay.

All things were ready to undertake the conquest of the impregnable hill. Nothing worthy of note happened to Captain Don Francisco de Sandoval, but the Indians of Bacor prepared an ambush against Juan Fernández de León in a very dangerous pass. Juan de León de Paranas had gone out, embarking in the river of Nasán, which is very rapid because of its great current—and among other dangerous places is one more dangerous than all, namely, a fall and cataract which is two spear-lengths in height. Consequently, in order to proceed, one must unlade the boats; and, after raising them with great toil by means of certain very thick and strong rattans, must, after suspending or letting the boat down thus, again lade it. There did the enemy set their ambush for Juan de León, but it was disclosed by a friendly Indian. Our men firing their muskets and arquebuses at that side, the Indians fled with great loss; and our men proceeded to the bar of the river, where they fortified themselves in a stout stockade. Sandoval did the same in Catubig, as did Don Silvestre de Rodas, whom Don Ginés sent as a reënforcement to Sandoval.

Those leaders, having arranged matters in this manner, continued to invite and pacify the many Indians who presented themselves. But those who were entrenched on the hill, confident in their fortress and defense, persisted obstinately in their revolt, and tried to get the other villages not to declare in our favor. Don Ginés fortified his post, and ordered each captain to do the same with his, for he had resolved to blockade and capture the natives on the hill by hunger. The natives learned from their spies that Don Ginés had but few men in his quarters, as the rest had gone to get provisions; and, having determined to use so favorable an opportunity, many of them went at night, by the river, near the land. When they thought that our men were very careless and sound asleep, they pulled some stakes out of the fortification of Don Ginés, and entered in a disorderly mob. But the sentinels hearing the noise, sounded the alarm. Don Ginés, awaking, seized his sword and buckler; and, accompanied by those who could follow him so hastily, confronted the enemy, and drove them to flight with great loss—as was judged from the abundance of blood that was seen in the camp in the morning. But it was not without any harm to our men, some of whom were wounded, although no one died. One ball struck Sumoroy on the shoulder, but only one dead man was left in the camp; for our opponents dragged the others away and threw them into the water. Don Ginés did not care to pursue them, fearing some ambush, which would have been easy in that darkness.

The soldiers grumbled much at the great caution and prudence of Don Ginés de Rojas, who thought only of strengthening his fortifications, to the great labor of those who now desired to busy themselves with the enemy, and not the trees of the forest. That rose to such a pitch that the sargento-mayor of the Lutaos, Don Francisco Macombo, went to Don Ginés impatiently, and told him that neither he nor his men had come from Zamboanga to cut timber but to fight with the enemies of Palapag. Don Ginés was not displeased to see the willingness of his soldiers to fight, and therefore, in order to employ it, he had the men called to arms, and arranged the attack. He formed two divisions [for attack] from the whole army, and left the third to guard the camp. The assault was made in two parts—one by the open road, although it was better defended by the opponents; and the other by a precipitous path which was passable for the birds alone—for it was a huge steep rock, and so narrow at the place where the camp of the insurgents was established that only a single man could enter an opening made by nature—a place called for that reason by the natives, in their own language, “the eye of a needle.” The men climbed up by that path, using feet and hands without carrying their arms; for these were carried by him who followed, and afterward given to him who was ahead; and so they did one with another. In addition to that, the insurgents had posted a sentinel there to advise them of any new move, for which a few coming to his aid would be sufficient to prevent many from effecting an entrance.

Don Ginés entrusted that difficult undertaking to Captain Silvestre de Rodas, a native of Rota, and a soldier of great renown in his time, of whom are recounted incredible exploits performed by him in Ternate. He gave him command of the Lutao soldiers, with their commander Don Francisco Macombo; for himself Don Ginés took the battalion of the soldiers who attacked the hill in front. The vanguard and rearguard were placed in command of Captains Sandoval and Juan Fernández de León. The assault being planned in that form, Don Ginés engaged the enemy with his men, with great valor, to the sound of drums and trumpets, and went up the hill with great difficulty and danger. For the insurgents, cutting the rattans by which the stones and very large trunks of trees were fastened and kept back, would have been able by rolling them down to do great damage to our men, had not divine Providence directed these missiles to places where they could do no damage. Our men went up most of the hill with this obstinacy, and the enemy went out to meet them with so great valor that it seemed rather desperation; and the damage inflicted upon them by our arquebuses did not cool their obstinacy, for they tried to throw themselves on our spears and swords in their anxiety to die while killing [others]. The great advantage of the fortress of the hill increased their courage, as it could have caused great loss to our men to fight in the open and unsheltered. The fight lasted many hours, the enemy often being relieved, for they had many brave and well-armed men on the hill. Don Ginés de Rojas, seeing that the fury of the enemy was invincible (for they were fighting more like lions than like men), and that his men could not proceed with the undertaking, because they had no further strength and were tired, and had many wounded, yielded for the time being, and sounded the retreat, leaving more vigorous experience for another day. The enemy also retired, satisfied at the resistance that they had shown, although much to their cost.

Very different was the success of the brave Silvestre de Rodas, with his Lutaos in charge of Don Francisco Ugbo and Don Alonso Macombo, who on the second of July, 1650, made the assault in the most difficult point—which was the eye of the needle in the rock, as we have stated above, through which Silvestre de Rodas was the first to go. He chose the silence of the night, a time when they were least likely to be discovered. Climbing up one by one and without arms, with the labor that was necessary, at the middle of the ascent an obstacle occurred that could have blocked so great an enterprise. That was a very heavy rain, which lasted a great part of the night, and which the men endured without the slightest shelter, but with great vigilance and care that fire for their matches should not be lacking—availing themselves for that purpose of the shields of the Lutaos, which are called carazas, and are made of long narrow pieces of wood, with which they cover all the body at the side. The rain ceased and, although they were soaking, they all resumed the ascent of the hill; they reached the entrance of the rock at an opportune time, when the sentinel, quite unsuspicious of such an assault, was absent, as he had gone to get some fire (without the company of which those Indians cannot live), or indeed have a smoke, for they think that that furnishes them with fine company. On that account, Silvestre de Rodas and some of the foremost, who were the most vigorous were enabled to enter. The sentinel returned with a brand in his hand, and when he was near perceived the bad effect of his carelessness, and believed that our camp was already upon him. He looked in astonishment, and then, hurriedly taking flight, began to cry out and announce that our men had already entered the hill by means of the rock. Not less was the confusion of all, who were quite free from the dread of so unexpected an assault. Confused and lacking in counsel, a panic terror seized them and forced them into disorganized flight, so that Silvestre de Rodas and the Lutaos were allowed to become masters of the field. Unfurling their victorious banners, they took possession of the lodgings, trenches, and food of the enemy. Don Ginés de Rojas ascended the hill with his whole army, and destroyed the insurgent quarters by setting fire to them. Having published a general pardon, those who had been insurgents before, presented themselves in peace.

The chief leader Sumoroy and his sorcerer father refused to put in an appearance, or to talk of peace. But the very ones whom he had caused to rebel killed him, and carried his head to Don Ginés de Rojas, although they had been so loyal to him before that when the alcalde-mayor of Leite went at the beginning to reduce them to peace, and asked them as the first condition to deliver to him the head of Sumoroy, they, making light of the request, sent him the head of a swine. But afterward, as a token of their true obedience, they delivered the head, without any one asking for it. Don Juan Ponce remained in hiding in the island of Cebú for a long time, but after having obtained pardon he returned to Palapag; there he committed crimes that were so atrocious that the alcalde-mayor seized him and sent him to Manila, where he paid for those crimes on the scaffold. He who had the best end was Don Pedro Caamug; for he was the first to present himself, and showed great loyalty in the reduction of the others. He continued all his life to be very quiet, and was governor of his village, where he was highly esteemed; and it was proved that he was not the one who had killed Father Vicente with his hands, although he was captain of that band. Moreover, it was found to be advisable to overlook much on that occasion, as the quiet of all the Pintados Islands, who were awaiting the end of the rebels of Palapag, depended on it.

[The following additional information is obtained from Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, vi, pp. 247–280:]

[p. 254:] From here [i.e., Cebú] leaped more than sparks to the province of Caraga, where there had been some causes for resentment between the alcalde-mayor and the father minister of Tandag. The father had rebuked the alcalde for oppressions inflicted on the Indians, and, perceiving that his exhortations were unheeded, he carried his complaints to the supreme tribunal, where hearing was given to them. The alcalde-mayor was angry at being prodded from Manila, and found means to take his revenge. Governor Faxardo, vigilant in defending the provinces from the Dutch, gave orders to reconnoiter the harbors and fortify the military posts; and, that he might take seasonable precautions, he solicited accurate information [from the officials]. The alcalde-mayor, in the anger that he felt, availed himself of this opportunity. He informed the governor that the fort of Tandag was in condition to make a vigorous defense, to which the only hindrance was the church and convent—a very strong edifice, which dominates the castle—and that he considered it very necessary to demolish it. In virtue of this report, it was decided in the military and fiscal councils that those buildings should be demolished, as well as all others that might be on that coast which were of like materials, in order that the Dutch might not find in them means of offense or defense. This order arrived at Tandag, where now there was another governor. Captain Don Juan Garcia did not make it known, and held a council in the fort regarding its execution, and therein was decided the suspension of the order—for, in case that the enemy came, the buildings could be easily torn down and burned, since the walls were weak and the roofs of nipa or straw—until the supreme government should make some other arrangement. Representations were made to that government of the great sorrow that the natives felt at the destruction [of those buildings], from which it was feared that if another church were not built, at a greater distance, the natives would take flight to the mountains. Notwithstanding this second information, the former order for demolition was confirmed. [See account of this measure, and of the revolt of the Indians, and of its being quelled by Spanish troops, in VOL. XXXVI, in Santa Theresa’s narrative. Concepción continues, p. 262:] This father minister[25] sent a despatch to Manila, communicating this melancholy information; on receiving it, Señor Faxardo immediately sent to Tandag Captain Gregorio Dicastillo with a detachment of Spanish infantry, so that, in conjunction with Bernabe de la Plaza, alcalde-mayor of that province, they might try all measures, even though they might be severe, for reducing the insurgents. They went to Butuan, where they established a military base or headquarters. In order to justify the severity of war, a general amnesty was published. Many Indians came to present themselves, of whom several were hanged; a few of those who came down from the mountains gained their liberty, the rest remaining as slaves. It was a wicked act of those who executed [the governor’s orders] that they shamefully broke the promise made in the name of the king, and in so august a name committed perfidy. Manila and its suburbs were full of slaves. The royal Audiencia made formal inquiry into these illegal acts, and took the residencia of the principal persons concerned in them. One was put to the torture, and confessed; he was sentenced to decapitation. The property of another was confiscated, after two years of imprisonment; and another found himself reduced to extreme poverty. He who was commissioned by the supreme government for the trial of these suits, Licentiate Don Manuel Suarez de Olivera, the military auditor-general, declared in favor of the Indian slaves, setting all of them free. In order that this decree might be effective, those included under its provisions were registered by father Fray Augustin—then secretary of his province, and known by the name of “Padre Capitan” [i.e., “Father Captain”]—who included in the list many Indians whose names were not contained in the official documents. He presented it to the governor, and asked for a mandatory decree for their liberty, which was promptly issued; and then he went with the notary through all the houses in which the Indians were distributed, enforcing the execution of the decree. This proceeding cost him many fatigues and annoyances; for since those who had paid out their money for the Indians were left without slaves, there was hardly a house where he came where he would not hear opprobrious language. It also caused him great expenses; but his efficient management of the business came out successfully. He collected all the slaves, and furnished them with transportation to carry them back to their homes and their native land. This benefaction rendered it easy for the Indian chiefs of Linao, who had left their village and were fugitives, to return to their due obedience and vassalage....

[pp. 273–281: After the rebellion was put down in Leyte], the Indians of Bisayas remained more quiet; by those so costly experiences they had been undeceived, and had learned that it is impossible to shake off the Spanish yoke, by force or by fraud; their wildness subdued by trade and intercourse [with us], they recognize that they ought not to thrust aside what produces so many advantages for them in being treated by our sovereign as his children. These tribunals treat them with charity, mildness, and justice, besides bearing with their troublesome traits and their weaknesses, without adding injury to their wretched condition.

Don Francisco Ugbo returned from the Palapag expedition wounded, and attacked by a serious malady, which was declared mortal. This commander, learning that his last hour was at hand, showed how deeply rooted was the Christian religion in his heart, although it was of recent growth; he received the holy sacraments with extraordinary devotion and reverence, exhorted all his family and acquaintances to become good Christians, and in the midst of his intense pains endured them without complaint or anger. In his testament he commanded, as his last wishes, that his property should be shared between his relatives and his soul [i.e., in saying masses for its repose]; and he died while offering fervent acts of contrition, to the admiration and consolation of those who were present.

By the death of Father Juan de el Campo the [religious] administration of La Caldera and Siocon was left forsaken. The provincial of the Society sent to that conversion Father Francisco Combes, who applied his efforts to gathering those wild natures into a social group; with this basis he undertook their instruction in our supreme mysteries, and they gradually became accustomed to a rational and civilized life. On the river of Sibuco there was an Indian named Ondol, so cruel that he would kill any person without further cause than his own whim; and this man had a brother of the same barbarous habits, who kept a great number of women in his power that he might abuse them. Ondol sought to kill Father Adulfo de Pedrosa, and also threatened Father Combes; but the latter discreetly took no notice of it, and Ondol went on, trusting to this. Consequently, before he realized it he was seized, and sent a prisoner to Samboangan; the governor there received him gladly, at seeing in his power an Indian who had made so much mischief. His brother continued to rouse disturbances, and an armada was sent against him, but accomplished nothing. This, however, warned him to avoid the blow, and he hid among the woods and hills. The guards of Father Combes seized by stratagem more than fifteen relatives of this evil man, and sent them to Samboangan; love for his people, and their danger, brought this bloody man to the church, to beg mercy from the father. The latter gladly admitted him, and proposed to him the conditions, [of his pardon]—he and all his people, who were Lutaos, must live in range of the artillery of the fort, and render service in the armada. He also obtained, by diligent efforts, the ascendency over the insurgents of Siocon. Father Combes entered that village, landing there with his men; they asked for the bones of Father Campo’s companions, which they found lying among the brier-patches. These they buried together, and placed a cross over the tomb. Father Combes took from that place a hermit, who, dressed as a woman, punctually observed the natural law, and professed celibacy; he was named Lavia de Manila.[26] This man was converted to the law of Christ, and spent the remainder of his life as a faithful servant [of God].

In Basilan, affairs were more difficult. Most of the people of that island had been subdued by Father Francisco Lado,[27] who with the aid of the governor of Samboangan had driven from it all the panditas,[28] and the vicious and suspicious characters. Only one of these was left, who by his malice stirred up much disquiet; this was one Tabaco, who incited the natives of the island to revolution. All who desired to be freed from the tribute and other obligations repaired to him, and at once found in him their patron. His faction rapidly increased, and at Samboangan it was decided to intercept this danger. Diligent were their efforts, for the very Basilanos whom it was necessary for the Spaniards to employ warned this man of all that they did; and with their information he mocked the utmost efforts of the Spaniards. An adjutant undertook a raid, with a considerable number of Spaniards and Pampangos, and burned his grain-fields; but he did not encounter Tabaco, and had to return. Father Lado went to find him, and asked him to wait for him in a certain place; the father made such representations that he succeeded in inducing this man to leave the mountains. He went with the father to see the governor of Samboangan, and gave the latter such assurances of his desires for peace and quiet that to him was entrusted the reduction of the natives. He returned to Basilan, and to his perverse mode of life—so much so, that he tried to kill Father Lado, in order to remove that obstacle to his evil designs. The father knew his depraved intentions, and fled from the blow that was aimed at him; and at Samboangan there was discussion, in a military council, of the most effective measure for restraining those seditious natives. Among the speakers was an alférez, Don Alonso Tenorio, who said that it was a fruitless trouble and fatigue to transport [to Basilan] arms and troops, since these carried with them the warning to the rebels to place themselves in safety; that efforts should be made to kill Tabaco, and the rest would be subdued, and thus this source of evil would be stopped without wearing out either Spaniards or Indians. The governor, who supposed that Don Alonso spoke without experience, and that the arrogance of youth led him too far, said to him: “Then, your Grace, go and kill him.” Tenorio was not a man to jest, or one to form speculative projects which others might carry out; he took this order quite in earnest, and immediately set out for Basilan with some companions. He summoned Tabaco to a certain place, in which he must communicate to him an important matter, which would be to his advantage. Tabaco went to the place designated, with several of his most valiant companions; and Tenorio also arrived with his friends. The Indian awaited him without fear, at seeing him destitute of forces adequate to his own; and Tenorio, having talked about the subject that had been agreed upon, said to him, in a most resolute voice, “Tabaco, unless thou desirest me to kill thee, give thyself up as a prisoner.” Tabaco, without showing any alarm, rose to his feet, holding his lance, in order to reply with it; Tenorio attacked him with astonishing courage, and the companions of both engaged in the fight. Our men killed Tabaco, and seven of his braves; and on our side one Spaniard and two Indians were slain. Tenorio cut off Tabaco’s head, and those of his seven companions, and in forty hours[29] was already on his return to Samboangan with these trophies. Thus promptly was concluded an exploit which pledged [the safety of] all the forces of the garrison; with the death of Tabaco his followers lost their courage, and the island remained entirely quiet. Such is the power of an heroic resolution. It is certain that conversions of the Moros are difficult, but those which are successful are stable; they steadfastly maintain the true religion, when they cast aside the errors of their false belief. The following instance is an edifying one, and goes far to confirm our statement. When the Joloans were conquered and reduced to quiet, the turbulent and cruel Achen—a dato, and a notorious pirate—was not pacified. He made a voyage to Borney, in order to stir up the natives there, and to make them companions and auxiliaries in his robberies. He carried with him his wife Tuam Oley,[30] daughter of Libot; the latter was a urancaya or petty king of the Lutaos of the Siocon coast, and was a Mahometan by profession. Enlightened within and from above, he had received holy baptism, and very strictly maintained its innocence. Achen became very sick in Borney, and, reduced to the last extremity, as a last farewell he made his wife swear that she would never abandon the doctrine of Mahoma. After Achen’s death, Oley began to feel the sorrows of an afflicted widowhood, and she sadly wrote to her father, Libot, asking him to go to carry her away from that wretched exile. His paternal affection made him resolve, although he was now old and feeble, to go to console his daughter. The governor [of Samboangan] tried to prevent this voyage, on account of Libot’s age, and because, as the latter had grown up in the errors of that sect, it was feared that there was danger of his perversion [from the Christian faith]. The governor therefore proposed to him measures which were sufficient for removing his daughter from that country. Libot assured him of his constancy in the faith, and in proof of his firmness, gave a contribution of a hundred pesos to the church; as it was not easy to detain him, they acquiesced in the voyage. He arrived at the court of Borney, where, on account of his advanced age and the hardships of the journey, he fell ill, and this sickness proved to be mortal. The king, seeing Libot, exhorted him to abandon the new religion and return to his former faith; but Libot remained steadfast. Then the king sent him his panditas, or learned doctors, in order to convince him; but they found that their efforts were in vain. The king was angered at this constancy, and threatened to take Libot’s property from him, make his daughter a slave, and fling his dead body into the open field. All this Libot scorned, and charged his daughter to bury him as a Christian, without using the ceremonies of the Moors [i.e., Mahometans] in their funerals, or even mingling these [with Christian rites]; and so he died, in a very Christian frame of mind. The prince took possession of all Libot’s property, and ordered that his daughter Oley be imprisoned; but she, availing herself of her many slaves, forced her way out of her prison, and risked going as a fugitive to Samboangan. The king, furious, undertook to avenge this affront on the corpse of her father, and commanded that it be disinterred; but through Supreme Providence they were never able to find it, although they attempted to, with the closest search, and they believed that his daughter had carried the body with her. Oley arrived at Samboangan safely, and soon fell ill, not without suspicion of some deadly poison. The fathers went to her, to see if they could convert her to the faith of Jesus Christ, but their persuasions were vain. In compassion, the governor and other persons opposed such obstinacy, with both promises and threats; but they could not make her change her opinion in the least. The victory was won by the [native] master-of-camp, Don Pedro Cabilin, a very influential and respected man, who pledged himself to persuade Oley to become a Christian. She listened to him attentively on account of his nobility, and because he was of her own kinsfolk and blood. With these recommendations, and his effectual arguments, that obstinacy was conquered, and she received holy baptism, to the universal joy of the entire garrison. Her godmother was the wife of the governor, Doña Cathalina Henriquez, and the newly-baptized convert took that lady’s name. Oley had an excellent intellect, and put it to good use in her last moments, continually invoking God up to her last breath. The Spaniards gave her a very solemn burial. The chiefs carried her body on their shoulders up to the door of the church, where the governor and the officers of the garrison took it, carrying it in the same manner to the burial-place, and afterward to the tomb—this magnificent display causing edification to all.

[See Santa Theresa’s account (in VOL. XXXVI) of one of the outer waves of this insurrection, that among the Manobos of Mindanao.]

In Pampanga and Pangasinan; 1660–61

[The following account of this revolt is taken (partly in synopsis) from Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 568–590. These events are also related in Santa Cruz’s Hist. Sant. Rosario, pp. 331–341; Murillo Velarde’s Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 253b–256; Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, vii, pp. 9–35; and Ferrando’s Hist. de los PP. Dominicos, iii, pp. 67–74.]

[p. 568:] All the ten years of the government of the prudent and magnanimous governor Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara were a melancholy period of troubles and misfortunes, greater and more continual than these islands had ever before suffered; and without doubt they would have been more painful and intolerable if they had not been ameliorated and diminished by the discretion, affable behavior, and clemency of this great governor—so that it seems as if divine Providence (or, in heathen phrase, Fortune) had trained Don Sabiniano for a governor in such times. [Diaz then enumerates several of these disasters, notably the losses of richly-laden galleons.]

[p. 571 et seq.] So frequent were these losses that Don Juan Grau de Monfalcón, procurator in Madrid for the city of Manila, in a curious treatise which he presented to the royal and supreme Council of Indias makes a computation of them for sixty-five years, and finds that only fifteen of these were exempt from such misfortunes. But they were almost continual in this calamitous term of office, although Don Sabiniano met all these disasters with serenity and steadfastness, and apparently with cheerfulness; this he did through prudence, in order that the sorrow [of the people] might not extend to despair.... But no art could long veil so much misery. The more warlike provinces of these islands ascertained the unusual events which had caused our forces to be so small, however much prudence dissimulated these; and they sought to avail themselves of so good an opportunity, deeming it a suitable time for recovering their liberty, a gift of priceless value. Subjugation is always a matter of coercion, and this in turn needs other and greater violence that it may repress this natural inclination; and in natives whose condition makes them abject this desire increases more vehemently. They did not realize that the Spaniards had freed them from the harsh captivity of their barbarous tyranny, transferring them to an honorable subjection which made them more the masters of their liberty, because these rebels had not endured that tyranny. They came to know our lack of strength, and from that passed to despising it; they presumed more on their own strength than they ought, and rashly went on, without consideration, looking only at the end and forgetting the means [to attain it].

The first who decided to try fortune by experience were the Pampangos, the most warlike and prominent people of these islands, and near to Manila. [Their rebellion was] all the worse because these people had been trained in the military art in our own schools, in the fortified posts of Ternate, Zamboanga, Joló, Caraga, and other places, where their valor was well known; but it needed the shelter of ours, and therefore it was said that one Spaniard and three Pampangos were equal to four Spaniards. This people were harassed by repeated requisitions for cutting timber, for the continual building of galleons, and they received no satisfaction for many purchases of rice for which the money was due them. The province of Pampanga is in our charge in spiritual matters, and there we have sixteen convents and doctrinas, among the best which there are in this field of Christianity. The convents are: Bacolor (which is the head of them all), Baua, Lubao, Sexmoan, Betis, Porac, Mexico, Minalin, Macabebe, Apalit, Candava, Arayat, Magalang, Gapan, and Santor. Then in the hill-country beyond these places we have large missions of warlike peoples who are being converted to our holy faith, called Italones, Abacaes, and Calonasas, and Ituríes, and various others, who have been induced to settle in several villages. These are continually increasing, and we expect in God that they will attain much growth if it is not interfered with by subjecting them to tribute and personal services, of which they have a great horror. These are the hindrances which delay the conversions of these numerous peoples, some heathens and others recently converted; for among these tribes of low condition the appetite for liberty increases with great force—spurred on by the envy which is aroused in them at seeing the freedom which is enjoyed by other peoples as being more noble or vigorous, or because the cultivation of their mental powers procures it for them. Many peoples were conquered because they did not know their own strength until they found that they were subdued. In these islands we find by experience that in no province do the people live more peaceably than in those which received us with hostility, and in none have they attempted a change [of rule] except in those which invited us with [offers of peace]—and the most pusillanimous of these have most strenuously endeavored to throw off the curb of subjection. Those immediately surrounding Manila were the last to do so, because in them our hands had seized the reins. Some were intimidated by the contact with our power, and others were restrained by a sense of honor, seeing themselves admitted to the privilege of [carrying] our arms, and honored by the confidence which up to this time had been merited by the fidelity of the Pampango people. On this occasion they were the first who broke away, because even our esteem could not remove from them their mean nature.

The Pampangos, determined to break the bonds of subjection and throw off the yoke of the Spanish dominion, carried out that resolve with valor. In their opinion, they had just cause for this action, in the timber-cutting that was being done in their forests, in the place called Malasinglo and Bocoboco; they alleged as their first pretexts some acts of oppression committed on them by Juan de Corteberria,[31] chief overseer of the said timber-cutting—which lasted eight months, a thousand Pampango men assisting in the work, levied in the usual repartimientos. In the early days of October, 1660, the loyal population of Pampanga made their first rebellious movements—the people being exasperated against the overseers of the wood-cutting, who had been ill-treating them. Setting fire to the huts in which they had lodged, they declared, by the light of the fierce flames, their rash intention; and as leader of their revolt they appointed an Indian chief named Don Francisco Maniago, a native of the village of Mexico, who was master-of-camp for his Majesty. The post of chaplain for the said wood-cutting was filled by a religious of the Order of St. Dominic, named father Fray Pedro Camacho;[32] he made all possible efforts to pacify them, but all in vain. On this account he decided to come to Manila and report everything to Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, to whom he represented that he did not regard as prudent the idea that he must proceed with rigor against the ringleaders of the sedition. At the same time when the information of that fire reached Don Sabiniano there came also advices from the alcalde-mayor of the province of Pampanga, Don Juan Gomez de Payva, that he had exhausted all measures for restoring security. In consequence of this, Don Sabiniano again despatched father Fray Pedro Camacho with a message for those people, that he on his part would assure them of pardon and relief if they would return and resume their work. Don Sabiniano rightly guessed the burden imposed by the circumstances of the occasion; for the revolt was in one of the most warlike nations of these islands, and the garrison at Manila was drained of soldiers by the continual reënforcements sent to Maluco, and by the aid [furnished from it] to the relief that had come from Nueva España. This had been brought in the patache “San Damián,” in charge of Admiral Don Manuel de Alarcon, sent by the viceroy, Conde de Baños, and had been secreted on the coast opposite the port of Lampón; and therefore Don Sabiniano, although he put on an appearance of assurance, in reality experienced the utmost anxiety. He wrote secretly to our father Fray José Duque, who was then prior of the convent of Sexmoán, and to father Fray Isidro Rodríguez, prior of the convent of Baua, to ask that they, with the authority which they had acquired during so many years as ministers in that province, would endeavor to persuade those people to return to their obedience. Those religious labored to that end, with all the greater eagerness on account of what was risked in the revolt; but the only effect was to set spurs to the boldness of the insurgents, who attributed to the governor’s fear of them the peaceable measures that were proposed. The result showed this, for, tearing off at once the mask which they had worn, they presented themselves, armed, in the village of Lubao, under the command of the above-named Don Francisco Maniago, although many of the mutineers had gone to their own villages. Others gathered in a strong force in the village of Bacolor, closing the mouths of the rivers with stakes, in order to hinder the commerce of that province with Manila; and they wrote letters to the provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, urging them to follow their example and throw off the heavy yoke of the Spaniards, and to kill all of the latter who might be in those provinces. Information of this reached Don Sabiniano at night, and, without stopping to wait for daylight, he embarked in company with the twelve military leaders, and set out at daybreak for the village of Macabebe.

The governor took with him, besides his alférez Francisco de Roa and others, the following recently-created officers: Generals Don Felipe de Ugalde, Juan Enrique de Miranda, and Don Juan de Vergara; Admirals Don Diego Cortés and Don Felix de Herrera Robachero; Sargentos-mayor Don Pedro Tamayo, Martín Sanchez de la Cuesta, and Pedro Lozano; Captains Don Pedro Carmona, Don Juan de Morales, Don José Cascos de Quirós, Don Alonso de las Casas, Don Alonso de Quirante, Don Gabriel Niño de Guzmán, Juan Diaz Yañez, Silvestre de Rodas; and for his secretaries General Sebastian Rayo Doria and Juan de Padilla. The government notaries were Captain Juan Fijado and Captain Simón de Fuentes; and the aides-de-camp, Pedro Méndez de Sotomayor and Francisco Iglesias. With this detachment, who numbered at most 300 men, in eleven small champans and with four pieces of artillery, each carrying four-libra balls, Don Sabiniano began his journey; and he reached the village of Macabebe at six in the afternoon of the following day, having been delayed a long time by removing the stakes with which the insurgents had closed the entrances to the rivers. All the islands were imperiled by this war, since all the tribes were on the watch for its outcome—which, in case it were adverse to the Spaniards, would give to this [Pampango] people a great reputation, and to the rest so much confidence that not one of them would forego the opportunity for their fancied relief. A very hazardous corrective was that of resort to arms; for, whether [we remained] victorious or conquered, in any event the Spanish power would be left diminished and weakened. For, although only 200 infantry had been taken from the Manila garrison for this expedition, it was necessary that the deficiency should be made good by the ecclesiastical estate in that city—which was left in charge of Master-of-camp Don Domingo de Ugarte. As we have stated, Don Sabiniano arrived at Macabebe, a rich and populous village in that province; he came opportunely, as on that very day the people in that village had made ready their vessels and weapons to go to join the mutineers. Those of Macabebe received the governor with affected friendliness, the presence of the Spaniards so well armed having taken away their courage; and all their anxiety was to hide the tokens of their disorder. The governor was lodged in the house of Don Francisco Salonga, as it was the best in the village, although the convent was offered to him by father Fray Enrique de Castro (who was its prior), observant of the civilities requisite to guests so honored, although unexpected. He also endeavored that all the women should be kept out of sight, so that the wanton conduct of the soldiers might not give any occasion for new dangers; and Don Sabiniano gave the men strict orders, with heavy penalties for the transgressors, so that they might not render the Spanish name more odious through fault of ours. This unexpected arrival diverted the course of the resolution made by the Macabebe natives, and therefore they revoked it, dissimulating with affected protestations of loyalty; but those who were found with arms did not neglect to hasten to hide their weapons, in order that their recent inconstancy might not render suspicious, by so manifest a token of rebellion, the loyalty which their respectful behavior pledged. Don Sabiniano well understood it all, but, feigning affable manners, and careful to show confidence, he made a virtue of the occasion. The obsequious solicitude of the Macabebe men rendered doubtful the resolution of the others, who in the village of Apalit took away the despatches that had been given to Don Agustin Pimintuan, the intended ambassador of the rebels for conspiring in the provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, their near neighbors—fearing that he who bore them would place them in the hands of the governor, that he might with the names of the conspirators blot his own from the list of the traitors. All were afraid at the so close proximity of the governor, imagining that they already had upon them the entire Spanish power, which discouraged the former ardor of all. It was worth much to Don Sabiniano that he had made sure of one individual, named Don Juan Macapagal, a chief of the village of Arayat, since it was necessary to pass through there to reach the province of Pangasinán; and, this being assured, we were free from the danger that the Indians of the two provinces might unite their forces. Don Sabiniano wrote a letter to Don Juan Macapagal, in which, assuming his fidelity to his Majesty, he ordered that chief to come to confer with him at Macabebe. Don Juan Macapagal immediately left his home, and, passing through the camp of the rebels, went to assure Don Sabiniano of his obedience, offering his life in the service of his Majesty. Don Sabiniano treated him with great kindness, accompanied with promises [of reward], with which the fidelity of Macapagal was easily secured. Don Sabiniano made him master-of-camp of his people, and, as pledges for his constancy, asked him for his children and wife, on the pretext of assuring in Manila their safety from the rebels—thus mingling his confidence with measures of suspicion, but veiling this with pretexts of protection. The Pampango, quite contrary to what was believed, accepted this so harsh condition; but when once the resolution of a nobleman has been declared, any alteration brings in greater distrust. Don Sabiniano sent Captain Nicolás Coronado with twenty-five soldiers, ordering him to construct a fort in Arayat, as was afterward done, and also to hasten the coming of the wife and children of Macapagal. [The mutineers send an envoy to Macapagal to secure his support, but he kills the envoy and compels his followers to turn back.] The chiefs and leaders of the mutiny were already finding that their followers had grown remiss, and the courage of those who supported them had diminished, and they despaired of the constancy of these. They were still more depressed by the news which they received of the extreme honors which the governor paid to the wife and children of Don Juan Macapagal—sending them to Manila with great distinction, and entrusting them to the gallant care of General Don Francisco de Figueroa, the alcalde-mayor of Tondo—and of their entertainment and kind reception, in which they were served with a display beyond what their condition and nature required. At this demonstration the envy of the rebels guessed the superior position to which Macapagal’s fidelity would raise him, above all those of his people. By the honors paid to this chief, the governor allured the ambition of the rest, and introduced discord in order to separate by craft that body which ambition held together. Our religious availed themselves of this opportunity, and like thieves in the house, since they understood the natural disposition of the Indians, they neglected no occasion to persuade some and allure others with promises—an endeavor which, although the governor had not charged it upon them, they prosecuted with great earnestness, on account of the great risk which was incurred by the Christian church in such disturbances. All the ministers of that province accomplished much, especially the father definitors Fray José Duque and Isidro Rodríguez, also Fray Jose de Vega (the prior of Guagua), Fray Andres de Salazar, and Fray Enrique de Castro, and others—whom those natives reverenced, as their abilities deserved. Soon the results of these efforts became available; for the chief promoters of the rebellion, finding the courage of their followers so weakened, began to search for paths for their own safety. They despatched our father Fray Andrés de Salazar with a letter to Don Sabiniano, in which they alleged, as an excuse for the disturbance, the arrears of pay which were due them for their services, together with the loans of their commodities which had been taken to Manila for the support of the paid soldiers; they entreated his Lordship to command that these dues be paid, so that their people, delighted with this payment and therefore laying aside their fury, could be disarmed by their chiefs and sent back to their homes. Don Sabiniano allowed himself to be influenced by the arguments which they placed before him, considering that the anger of the people is not easily quenched by resorting to another force, and so he agreed to grant them a part of what they demanded; and they were pacified by his paying some part of the debt—although the authorities must contract fresh obligations to do this, as the royal treasury was exhausted on account of not having received even the interest on the money which had been landed at a place one hundred leguas from Manila. In view of this, the governor offered them 14,000 pesos, on account of what was due them, which amounted to more than 200,000 pesos. For this he sent his secretary, General Sebastian Rayo Doria, to authorize two other commanders, Generals Juan Enriquez de Miranda and Felipe de Ugalde, to establish peace and publish the general amnesty for the past which he granted to all that people. When the writ of amnesty was drawn up, and the words were repeated to them in their own language by the amanuensis (who was one of the Pampango tribe), in reading to them these words, “In the name of his Majesty I grant pardon, for the sake of avoiding all bloodshed,” he altered the sense of this sentence, telling them the very opposite [of what it said]. Then, slipping out of the conference, he went among the crowd to tell them [this false statement], and from this resulted fresh disturbances. The effect of this was the detention of our generals as prisoners, and the choice of a new head, or master-of-camp, for the mutiny, Don Nicolás Mañago—who immediately issued a proclamation that on the following day all should be on hand, with their arms ready for use. That day’s interval gave opportunity for the labors of our religious, who did everything in their power to undeceive the people and dispel the error under which they were laboring—making known to them the true meaning of the terms of the amnesty; and thereupon those timid creatures began to grow calm. Nor was the governor negligent meanwhile; for, as soon as he was informed of the condition of the generals whom he had sent, he commanded that the drums should immediately call the troops to arms, and they should move against the rebels—for his very desire for peace had made him keep his forces in readiness and at their stations; but, as a good officer, he knew that the most suitable means of securing an honorable peace is to make more formidable the preparations for war. The troops—[as yet] in peace, but well armed—were encamped very near the rebels; they traveled through the open country, as is possible in the settled part of that province (which is all rivers and bayous), conveyed in boats that were adequate for their numbers. The mountain route was taken by Captain Don Luis de Aduna and Don Sebastian Villareal with the cavalry, in order to embarrass the enemy’s retreat, and deprive them of their accustomed refuge, which is the mountains. Don Juan Macapagal, who with loyal ardor took the field in his Majesty’s service, was sent to his own village of Arayat, that he might, in conjunction with the people from the farms about that village, prevent the enemy from using that route to go to Pangasinán—a matter which caused the governor much anxiety, as those natives are warlike. On the same day, at sunset, Don Sabiniano met his secretary, General Sebastian Rayo Doria, whom the rebels had sent back with entreaties, that he might delay the just wrath of his Lordship, and they accompanied these with submissions and offerings. Most of our success in quieting this second revolt is due to the many efforts made by the fathers who were ministers in that province, not only with the common rebels but with their leaders—offering to the former amnesty, and to the latter rewards, on the part of his Majesty. With only the near approach of the army, its march being directed toward the rebels, and with no other writ of requisition than its fearful reputation which threatened them with chastisement, affairs assumed another guise; and those who before looked at any plan for peace with distrust now solicited it, having lost their expectation of any more favorable arrangement.

As Don Sabiniano understood the desire which led them, he spoke to them with affected severity, and despatched a courier to give them orders that they must immediately send him the two generals (whom they had detained to secure a settlement favorable to their fears), with their weapons, furnishings, and clothing, without a thread being missing. He said that if any one of these articles should be lacking, a duel would be enacted in honor of it, which would be satisfied [only] with the fire from weapons that were already intolerable in the hands [of the soldiers]; and that, if their valor could ill endure the bridle of clemency so ill recompensed, if they did not accept it he would now proceed to exchange it for severity. At the distance of a few paces the courier met Generals Sebastian Rayo Doria and Juan Enriquez de Miranda, whom the rebels had set at liberty through the persuasions of the father ministers. As their fear was not quieted by any means whatever, they made haste to the safety which imagination suddenly presented to them; they feared that the illegal detention of the Spanish generals would add fire to our indignation. The governor, seeing our honor thus satisfied, and discretion triumphant, turned to the alcalde-mayor of that province, and told him that on the following day he must surrender to him its chief men. Those who were present looked at one another in surprise, wondering that the governor should not know the condition in which the chiefs still were, united and armed in so great a number that their submission was not to be expected at a mere summons. It is a fact that in the excuses which the chiefs had given for their resolution they cast the blame on the villages, attempting thus to confuse their own malice with [that of] the multitude. Accordingly, it was expedient that the governor should follow their usage, by making them think that he had not fathomed their purposes, so that they could not guess that he was dissimulating. The result corresponded to the ingenious scheme, skill obtaining what guile had concealed. For the chiefs, seeing that their excuses were so readily received, attempted to carry them further; and therefore at one o’clock at night they arrived, with all the people of the revolted villages, in eighty vessels, at the village of Macabebe. The military officers felt anxiety, not only at their coming at a suspicious hour of the night, but at the multitude, a great impediment to negotiations for peace; in view of this the governor deferred until the next day giving them audience. But as there are cases in which confidence is safer than mistrust, especially when one is intent on giving security to distrust and calming fear, the governor commanded that all should enter his presence, and that our armada and troops should, without any outcry or demonstration of anxiety, watch very attentively the actions of these people. It was the effect of fear, which is with difficulty laid aside when conscience itself accuses, that these rebels came armed to capitulate, concealing by the submission that they tendered the cunning with which they acted. Many things have to be tolerated in an enemy when there are certain expectations of gaining one’s end. The governor overlooked their being armed, and granted what they asked; and his efforts succeeded in allaying the fears of those people. He commanded the chiefs to make the people go away, so that they might resume their industries; and, in testimony of the fidelity which their authority guaranteed in the common people, he ordered them to continue sending the men necessary for the timber-cutting for the galleons, the only source of life for these islands. The multitude gladly took their departure, and the governor, although he was victorious and armed, did not choose for that time that the chiefs who had incited the rebellion should make amends for their fault; instead, he granted them all that they asked, and afterward talked with them quite familiarly—endeavoring to convince their minds, although he saw their strength conquered at his feet. To the chiefs who were humble and repentant he said: “I cannot deny that in demanding the payment of what was due you, you asked what was just; but as little can you deny that you did not ask it in a just way. Not only because, when the manner in which you act must be so costly both to yourselves and to the king, he who solicits justice by such means is the aggressor, more cruel than is justice, perverting peace and introducing war (in which this virtue [of justice] is always lacking), but because in war all the wealth that one had intended to increase is destroyed; and it is more cruel than kind to employ, in order to show anger at the wealth which recognizes a debt, what will cause the ruin of property and lives. Who has ever grown rich through war? and who has not lost in war that which in peace he held secure? Many are they who with the wealth that they possessed had not yet been able to attain the success at which they aimed; and those who had attained it were subjected to a lamentable misery—the villages burned, the countries depopulated, and their customs trampled under foot. It is not, then, justice to bring in general ruin as the price of so limited an expectation, which vanishes through the very means by which it is secured. If this mode [of obtaining what you demand] is so harsh, your purpose is no less unjust. You make an arrogant demand upon the king, when you know that he cannot pay you; and in order to expedite it you oblige him to incur greater expenses, thus doing more to render his efforts impossible. Ignorance may serve other provinces as an excuse, but not you, whom our continual intercourse with you has rendered more intelligent. You know very well the scantiness of the relief which has come from Nueva España during my term of office; and you are not ignorant of the unavoidable expenses which this government is obliged to meet for the preservation of the country, which much exceed the aid received. One galleon alone demands half of the money, even when the wages and other expenses are reduced to what is absolutely necessary. The [expenses of the] fortified posts, which are paid for by all the native peoples, amount to five thousand [pesos]; while the aid [sent], averaging one year with another, hardly amounts to 5,000 pesos. The king has no other wealth than that of his vassals, and his own is in the amount that their defense requires, when the necessities of these islands are so great; for with you [Indians] he does not avail himself of this right, which is that of all kings and commonwealths. Many times have I written to his Majesty to ask that he regulate this matter; and from his clemency I am expecting the relief for which I have been so anxious, which I am sure he will furnish. Must his Majesty, since the peace of these islands and the maintenance of the faith in them are all so costly to his royal treasury, make up the omissions of the officials in Nueva España? Your patience would be greater than ours if your gratitude more quickly recognized our kindness in employing our forces for your defense, and our arms in watching over your peace. I ask you to consider, not the powerful enemies who oppose our forces, but the wretched condition in which you formerly lived without our arms—in continual wars, within even your own homes, one village against another; without liberty having two leguas of extent, and being waylaid by your own tyranny, without any right save might, or further justification than deeds of violence. Let me remind you of the way in which you lived; your huts were the taller trees, like bird’s nests,[33] your sleep was disturbed by the nightmare of anxiety, because danger confronted you, so near that it was no farther away than from one house to another. Cast your eyes on the Spanish infantry; consider the hardships which they endure on sea and land; and see what support they receive, only the fourth part of the wages assigned them, which still does not bring them to the condition which among your people is misery. See how they give to the king, as a loan, each year much more than this, and of much more importance—since they deprive themselves of life itself, without any opportunity remaining to them for supplying their needs. They serve as if they were slaves, and would be fortunate if we paid them as we do our servants. And finally, consider that the king taxes himself in enormous sums, for your safety and defense alone, while the rest of the nations in the world obey him and pay him tribute. They all enrich his treasures, yet he willingly lavishes these here, for you people. Understand these reasons, and you will see how little cause you had for so ungrateful a resolution. Your natives must be blamed for the ungrateful way in which they have acted, since they have shown no patience with a nation which has endured so much for you, or for its king, who has so generously spent his money for your welfare. Notify them also that I acknowledge the docility with which they have returned to their obedience, more in humility than in distrust; for I would grieve much if we came to blows, since if fighting began I could not restrain the soldiers from compelling me, against my wishes, to behold your entire ruin. You know very well that there is no people in these islands who can resist their valor in the field, and no hope could render you secure [from them]. The open country [would be] clear of obstructions, the ground level, the villages wide open; and you would have to flee to the mountains, wherever necessity guided you lost creatures, or else the ashes of your villages must be mingled with those of your bodies. I have had a greater struggle with the Spanish valor, to check its ardor, than even with your thoughtlessness [in trying] to bring you to a full knowledge of your error. Now let your behavior blot out that error, since I have forgiven you for what is past; and beware that you do not repeat your faithless ingratitude.”

Thus did the discreet and sagacious governor, Don Sabiniano, destroy the infernal seed that discord had sowed in the hearts of the Pampangos, alluring them with [the idea of] liberty, more potent than the apple of gold flung down at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis....

Don Sabiniano received all their excuses with his usual affability, and in the name of his Majesty restored them to his favor and to the condition of faithful vassals, and gave them in due form, in writing, a general amnesty. He commanded the alcalde-mayor to distribute to them with exactness and care the sum which he had, by contracting new obligations, brought for their relief; and to order them in testimony of their repentance—now that he had brought them back to their former fidelity, and as this outbreak had been [the result of] their anxiety, in grief rather than in rebellion—to repair, as before, with men to the wood-cutting for the construction of the ships. They asked from him time to repair their houses, and permission to attend to their cultivation of the soil; and this was granted, to their satisfaction. The affairs of the province were immediately put in order. The governor commanded Juan Camacho de la Peña to retire, and left as governor of the province General Don Francisco de Atienza y Báñez—an old soldier whose valor was equal to the wisdom gained by his experiences in the governments which he had held in these islands, in Caraga and Zamboanga—with orders that he must exercise vigilance in regard to every indication of disturbance, and by prudent action and kind treatment constrain the natives to prefer their own tranquillity.

He sent a despatch by Adjutant Francisco Amaya, accompanied by seven soldiers, to the province of Pangasinán, to notify the alcalde-mayor, named Francisco Gómez Pulido, of the outcome in Pampanga, in order that he might with this example be on the alert in his own province. Don Sabiniano also ordered him to communicate this information to the alcaldes-mayor of Ilocos (Don Alonso de Peralta) and of Cagayán, and warn them to keep watch on the movements of the natives, and to endeavor that the submission of the Pampangos should confirm the others in their tranquillity. Nor was the governor content with this activity only; but he sent a sealed letter to the sargento-mayor of the royal regiment in Manila, Francisco Pedro de Quirós, with orders that he should deliver it, in a well-equipped champan with twelve soldiers, to a thoroughly reliable person; and that the latter, when two leguas beyond Mariveles, should open the letter, and execute the orders that he should find therein. These were, that he should take the route to Pangasinán, and deliver the letters which he had sent to the alcalde-mayor, in which he warned him by the events in Pampanga of the danger which he had cause to suspect in the province which was in his charge, and of the watchful care that he must exercise over the actions of the natives therein; and that if any Pampangos should be dispersed through his villages—and he regarded it as certain that such had been sent, in order to form conspiracies among those natives—he should by suitable plans arrest them and send them to Manila. Having made these arrangements, the governor returned to the capital, taking in his company Don Francisco Mañago, under pretext of employing him in the office of master-of-camp for those of his tribe in that city. Under the pretext of honoring this chief, he cloaked his anxiety to remove from the sight of the Pampangos the man to whom all eyes were directed on account of his authority and power, and from whom, it was understood, their resolution took new breath; for, if their regard for peace grew weak, his prestige and authority might not be lacking for seditions—although this alone was not the sole incentive which moved them, since it was accompanied by the influence of José Celis, a native of that province, who was incited by the laws that he had learned, which had been taught to him by the auditor Don Francisco Samaniego y Cuesta, under whom he had served. At the same time he carried with him others of the more guilty, whom he attracted with the hope of greater rewards; there was no discussion of other modes of satisfaction, as the occasion did not allow them.

After the return of the governor to Manila, affairs were so skilfully arranged that the Pampangos themselves demanded that two garrisons be placed in their province, as necessary to their security—one in Lubao, to free themselves from the invasions which in that direction they are continually suffering from the blacks of the hill-country; and the other in Arayat, as a precaution against the fears which arise from the Pangasinans—and that these should be in charge of officers thoroughly satisfactory to the governor. This, the very thing that the governor desired, was quickly agreed to, and he stationed in Arayat Captain Nicolás Coronado, and in Baras (which is Lubao) Captain Juan Giménez de Escolástica, soldiers of great valor. This step was of great importance on account of the commotions (which will be considered further on) in the provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, the results of which were so lamentable that up to this day they have not ceased to arouse grief. Very different were they from the events in Pampanga, for in the latter province there was not experienced any death, or ravaging of churches, or burning of villages, but merely threats of disobedience to their chiefs; but in the other provinces, all these things occurred, and many of each kind.

The alcalde-mayor, Francisco Gómez Pulido, replied to the governor’s letter that the natives in his province maintained remarkable peace, and that the alcalde-mayor of Ilocos, Don Alonso Peralta, had made the same report to him; and with this the anxiety that was felt in regard to those provinces was partly dissipated. But his vigilance was deceived; for in a fortnight from that time, in the village of Malunguey in the province of Pangasinán, from some slight cause was raised a sedition which compelled the alcalde-mayor to hasten out with the soldiers whom the governor had sent him in the champan. Those first disturbances were quieted, more because the fruit of rebellion was not yet matured than because other endeavors were made [by the Spaniards]. The alcalde-mayor was more easily satisfied than he should have been with the dissembled tranquillity, and sent a report of the whole affair to Manila. However much the ashes of dissimulation hid the fire, it did not fail to make its presence known, by the smoke that it sent forth, or by the flames which arose at every breath of wind. One is wont in such case to curb caution, even though he has not yet the wood ready for keeping up the fire of his strength; but if one is sure of safety without having turned over the ashes, a fire that cannot be checked will leap upon him in his sleep.

The fire, covered during two months, steadily spread, through the hidden passage of the intercourse between different villages, until its effects became so serious that the alcalde-mayor Francisco Gómez Pulido was undeceived, and had to give up his groundless confidence. A spark flew over to the province of Ilocos, and left matters there ready for the operations that afterward were seen.... It took two months, as I have said, after apparent quiet was secured, to explode the mine which the faithlessness of the Pangasinans had covered, [and this occurred] with a fearful crash. On the fifteenth of December, 1660, this perilous volcano was revealed in Lingayén, the chief town of that province. The reason why its effects were so long delayed was the great bulk which it had acquired through the diligence of Don Andrés Malóng, his Majesty’s master-of-camp for that tribe, a native of Binalatongan. The first proceeding of mob ferocity was to go to the house of the alguazil-mayor[34] and kill him and all his family, and then set fire to his house. From here the multitude went, hoisting their sails, under the guidance of Malóng to conquer the villages—by the cruel acts of armed force gaining those who would not voluntarily have surrendered to them. Encouraged by their large following, which was hourly increasing, Malóng directed his efforts to capture by force the village of Bagnotan, one of the richest and most populous of that province, whose inhabitants had thus far refused to range themselves on the side of the traitors. The loyalty of those people proved very costly to them; for they were suddenly attacked one night by Don Andres Malóng, followed by more than four thousand rebels. They sacked the town, and after having committed many inhuman murders set fire to it, and reduced it to ashes—the voracity of the flames not sparing the convent and church, a magnificent edifice which was one of the finest that the fathers of St. Dominic possessed in that province. The father minister thought himself fortunate that he could escape with his life, fleeing on a swift horse from the barbarous cruelty of the assailants—who, on learning that the alcalde-mayor Francisco Gómez Pulido had left Lingayén in flight, flew thither on the wings of their fury. He had embarked with all his family, and with the soldiers whom the governor had sent him, in the champan of a ship-master named Juan de Campos; but, as unfortunately they could not pass over that bar on account of the ebb-tide, they had to wait for high tide, and this gave the insurgents time to arrive. Attempting to attack the champan, they found such resistance from the firearms of those within it that they had to curb their first fury; but they were soon freed from this hindrance by the malicious cunning of some Sangleys, who imparted to them a scheme for success. This was, to cover some small boats with many branches of trees, when they could safely attack those on the champan—which plan they carried out so effectively that a great number of little boats in entire safety made an assault on the champan. Those who were in it could make no resistance to such a multitude, and were all put to the sword—among them the alcalde-mayor, who did wonderful things in the defense, until, covered with wounds from arrows and javelins, and faint from loss of blood, his strength failed. The rebels killed his wife, who had recently become a mother, and his sister-in-law, a young girl, and all those in his service—soldiers, servants, and other people—no one being able to escape from this barbarous cruelty except a little girl and a little boy (the latter only a few days old), the children of the alcalde-mayor. Their lives were saved by the efforts of a friendly Indian from the village of Binalatongan; Don Sabiniano afterward rewarded him, and gave the girl an encomienda for the services rendered by her father. With this deed, which seemed a victory to Don Andrés Malóng, he persuaded himself that he had closed the account with the entire Spanish nation, his arrogant confidence believing that the Spaniards would not return there on account of their punctilious regard for honor. Carried away by his vanity, he caused himself to be acclaimed king of Pangasinán, with much drinking of wine; and he bestowed the title of Conde on Don Pedro Gumapos, a native of the village of Agoo. In order to perpetuate by might his new but tyrannical dignity, he summoned to his aid the Zambal tribe—a people who know no more civilized mode of life than the savage abode of the mountains and rocks; and without recognizing any one as king save him who, most barbarous of all, distinguishes himself as most courageous. They accepted the invitation, attracted more by the desire to plunder than by friendship, a relation which they recognize with no one. With this succor, Malóng easily persuaded himself that he was invincible; his arrogance therefore led him to send letters to all the chiefs of the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán, commanding that they immediately acknowledge him as their lord, and slay all the Spaniards whom they might find in those provinces, unless they wished to experience chastisement from his power. He sent other letters, similar to these, to Pampanga, and especially to Don Francisco Mañago; these were seized from the messengers by the wary artifice, inspired by loyalty, of an Indian, a native of Magalang, who offered to the messengers to place the letters safely in the hands of Don Francisco Mañago. He delivered them to the commandant of the fort at Arayat, Captain Nicolás Coronado, who without delay sent them to the governor, who received them on the twentieth of the same month of December. When he opened these, he found that their contents were, in brief, to tell Don Francisco Mañago that, if he did not undertake to arouse the province of Pampanga to take sides with Malóng, killing the Spaniards who were found therein, he would send for the chastisement of that province Don Melchor de Vera, with six thousand men who were already under his command. This assertion was not a false one; for so great was the multitude of adherents who were coming to him—some attracted by the novelty, others by their eagerness for plunder, and others by inconstancy or fear—that he was able to divide his men into three parts. To Don Melchor de Vera he gave orders to descend on Pampanga with six thousand men, and conquer the villages; to Don Pedro Gumapos he assigned three thousand Pangasinans and Zambals, with orders to reduce the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán; and he himself was left with two thousand men, to furnish aid wherever necessity required it.

This information was received by the governor without surprise, as if he had been expecting it; and on that very afternoon he despatched, to fortify the post at Arayat, Captain Silvestre de Rodas—an old soldier of experience and reputation in many encounters, in which his valor always obtained the advantage over the enemy. The governor gave him fifty infantry, so that in case Don Melchor de Vera arrived with the rebel army he could maintain his position, going out to encounter them until the arrival of General Francisco de Esteybar with the Spanish army. The latter was on the same day appointed commander-in-chief of the troops and lieutenant of the governor and captain-general, with all the body of soldiers who, under the pressure of necessity, could be detached from the scanty garrison of Manila. On the same day Don Sabiniano appointed, as commander of the armed fleet which he resolved to equip and despatch against the rebels, General Felipe de Ugalde—a man of unusual prudence, and distinguished by heroic deeds in the army of Ternate, where he was sargento-mayor. To this he added a commission as commander-in-chief of Pangasinán and Ilocos, in order that he might be able to act independently, wherever he might be, and, in the lack of a governor for those provinces, carry out their pacification through their fear of punishment. In this army went the following officers: Sargento-mayor Diego de Morales, and Captains Simón de Fuentes, Alonso Castro, Juan de San Martín, Don Juan de Morales, Don Juan Francisco. In it were also the company of Merdicas (who are Malays), and their master-of-camp Cachil Duco, the prince of Tidori; Don Francisco García; the company of creole negroes,[35] with their master-of-camp Ventura Meca; and the Japanese of Dilao. They had four pieces of artillery, which carried four-libra balls.

On December 22 General Esteybar began the march by land; on the twenty-fourth General Don Felipe de Ugalde set out by sea, with four champans and under their protection a joanga. With the former went two hundred infantry, and other troops of all nationalities, Japanese and Merdicas; while Ugalde took seventy Spaniards and some thirty Pampangos—with Captains Don Alonso Quirante, Don Juan de Guzmán, Juan Díaz Yáñez, Don Diego de Lemos; the adjutant Diego Sánchez de Almazán, Miguel Roldan, and Cristobal Romero; Captains Nicolás Blanco and Lorenzo Coronado. Ugalde carried orders to land at Lingayén, the chief town in the jurisdiction of Pangasinán, and fortify a post from which he could inflict injury on the enemy. This was compassed by the activity of General Ugalde; for, having stationed a force in Bolinao, he assured [the loyalty of] that village,[36] which had been doubtful. Although those natives had not yet committed the cruelties of those of Pangasinán, they carried out the orders sent them by Malóng; and they had captured a Spanish woman, and slain a Spaniard named Pedro Saraspe, the collector for Bolinao—which was an encomienda of Admiral Pedro Duran Monforte—and had sent his head to Don Andrés Malóng. General Ugalde quieted all their fear of the chastisement which they saw threatening their heads, and, placing the government of the village in the hands of a chief who had shown himself most steadfast in loyalty, Don Luis Sorriguen, he left Bolinao secured for the service of his Majesty. Then he pursued his way, and came in sight of the bar at Lingayén on January 6, 1661; although he strove, at the risk of his armada, to enter it against the severity of the storm that opposed him, the weather prevailed, and compelled him to make port two leguas to leeward of the bar, at Suali. He sent the joanga (which is an oared vessel) to make soundings at the bar, with orders to summon him by signals, so that he could approach with this opportunity near enough to reconnoiter the fortifications of the rebels. He discovered a large crowd of people, who made him no other reply than that of bullets and arrows; and he observed the haste with which they were building fortifications, working behind a shelter which they had made of gabions. The foresight of the general suspected that they had not closed the bar against him, and he again strove, although without avail, to enter it on the eighth of the same month. Then, seeing that the weather was steadily becoming more favorable to the enemy, he proposed to assault the village by land. This idea of his was opposed by all the military leaders, and he therefore had to repeat his attempt by sea, on the ninth; but they had hardly set sail when they encountered a messenger from the minister of Lingayén, Father Juan Camacho,[37] of the Order of St. Dominic. He informed them that the usurping “king,” Malóng, had despatched soldiers with orders to cut off the head of the governor of that village, named Don Pedro Lombey, to burn the church, and to carry the religious as prisoners to him at Binalatongan, where he was waiting far them; for with this severity he expected to compel the few people whom that governor and the religious were keeping peaceable, to take sides with his faction. At the same time, that religious related the grievous injuries, the plundering of property, and the burning of buildings, that had been inflicted by the cruelty of the insurgents, and those which must result if the above order were carried out; for then that village and the Christian church which had been maintained under its protection would be finally destroyed.

General Ugalde immediately formed another resolution, without submitting it to the opinions of other men; since in critical moments, when reputation and the common welfare are at stake, such opinions serve rather as a hindrance than as an advantage to success. He commanded the infantry to disembark, without allowing them to take with them anything save their weapons. He despatched the armada in charge of Captain Don Diego de Lemos, commanding him to contend once more against the severity of the elements [for an entrance to the river], and, if he could not overcome their hostility, to return to the harbor, and there await the result and new orders. He ordered the adjutant, Diego Sánchez de Almanzán, to enter the river with the joanga, at all risks, as its passage was so important for the security of the people against the enemy, who were awaiting them on the other side; and told him that if the joanga should be wrecked they would find him and his troops at a post convenient for securing the people from invasion by the enemy. Ugalde divided his soldiers into three bodies; one of these went ahead as vanguard, under command of Captain Miguel Rendón. The battalion was given to Captain Cristobal Romero, and the rearguard to Captain Juan Díaz Yáñez. Captains Nicolás Blanco and Lorenzo Coronado were sent forward with some arquebusiers, to reconnoitre the field. The general gave public orders to the men of the rearguard to shoot the first soldier who should retreat from his post. He was awaited at the bar by the forces of the insurgents, who supposed that he had come in the champans which they saw endeavoring to occupy the bar. By this precaution he took them by surprise, so little ready for it that, seeing themselves assailed and the drums sounding the call to arms behind them on the land, this second danger so terrified them that their defensive array was thrown into confusion; and their fear giving them no leisure for other plans, it sent them headlong and dispersed them in precipitate flight. The army of Ugalde arrived at the river without encountering the enemy, at four in the afternoon, and continuing the march, he entered the village of Lingayén at sunset, with all his men. The only persons whom he found alive there were the father ministers and four chiefs; but they saw in front of the royal buildings, impaled on stakes, the heads of Alcalde-mayor Francisco Gómez Pulido, Nicolás de Campos, Pedro Saraspe, and the wife and the sister-in-law of Pulido—which the rebels, in their confusion, could not hide. When those people rebel, and see that they involve themselves in danger, they try to lead the rest to engage in destruction, in order thus to persuade the rabble and those who are easily deluded that, if they remain in the villages, they expose themselves to the blows of the vengeance which will be executed on those whom the sword encounters. For the same reason, they try to burn the churches and kill the priests, thinking that with such atrocious deeds the crime becomes general, even though it has been committed by only a few. Thus fear, which so easily finds place in their pusillanimous natures, drives them to flee as fugitives; and necessity makes them take refuge with those who are traitors, fearing their cruelties. It was this that had caused most [of the people of Lingayén] to flee, since their hands were free from such crimes. On the same night when General Ugalde arrived, four agents of Don Andrés Malóng came, in accordance with the warning of Father Camacho which had hastened the general’s decision; they came to set fire to the church and seize the religious; and, as they did not find the men whom they had left in defense of the bar, or any one of their faction in the village who could warn them in time, they easily fell into the power of Ugalde’s men. He immediately ordered that their heads should be cut off and suspended from hooks on the road to Binalatongan, in order that these might be tokens of the severity that would be experienced by those who were stubborn in their rebellion. By this means General Felipe de Ugalde so quickly pushed his good fortune that when the military commander-in-chief arrived, which was on January 17, only two villages in the entire province of Pangasinán, those of Malunguey and Binalatongan, persisted in their rebellion; and most of the inhabitants of the villages had returned to their homes, remaining in their shelter and peace.

The commander-in-chief, Francisco de Esteybar, although he at first set out by land, was detained for some time because he halted at Arayat, to wait for the Pampango troops who were being levied for this campaign—until on the sixth day he was constrained to begin the march by the news which he received about the natives of Magalang, the furthest village in Pampanga, by a chief from Porac named Don Andrés Manacuil. This man had been snared and captured by Malóng, with eleven companions who were lying dead from lance-thrusts, and he alone had escaped. He declared that Don Melchor de Vera was approaching with an army of six thousand Pangasinans, and that they would reach that village on the following day; that it was not strong enough to resist the enemy, and therefore it would be necessary for the Spaniards, unless they received reënforcements, to abandon the village and take refuge in the mountains. The general’s reply was prompt action; he gave the signal to march with all the energy and promptness that the emergency demanded, and on the same day reached Magalang, at nightfall. There he learned that the rebel army had lodged that night at Macaulo, a hamlet two leguas distant. Francisco de Esteybar proposed to push ahead, but this was opposed by the leading officers, on account of the men being exhausted with marching all day long. The cavalry captain Don Luis de Aduna offered to go, with the freshest of the men, proceeding until he encountered the enemy, so as to ascertain how strong they were, and doing them what damage he could. The commander-in-chief gladly accepted the offer, and, adding a detachment of thirty foot-soldiers to the cavalry troop, he despatched them very quickly. The enemy Don Melchor de Vera came to meet the army, ignorant and unsuspecting that he would find it so near and in the field; and the night, the fatigue of his men, and the present hostile attitude of the people, rendered futile the activities of his spies. The troop of Don Luis de Aduna marched in good order, and, although he sent forward men to explore the road, when daylight came he found himself in the midst of the enemy, who were stretched out in a pleasant open field—nearly all of them lying on the ground, either from their natural sloth or overcome by sleep. The Pangasinans raised an alarm, uttering a loud shout, a signal with which all these peoples begin their battles, in order to arouse their own courage and weaken that of the enemy; but such was not the effect of their activity on this occasion, for apprehension awoke, without enlivening their courage, and, their fear of unforeseen danger prevailing, it made them run away in disorderly flight from the perils that they dreaded. As for our men—whether the horses, frightened by the unaccustomed shouting, could not be held in by the curb; or their riders, at sight of that frightful multitude armed, felt the natural effect in their hearts; or their ears were deafened by the hideous shouts, of for some other reason—the cavalry of the squadron turned their backs, with the same haste as did the enemy, without either side waiting to prove the danger with their weapons. Who doubts that Don Luis de Aduna, already informed of the multitude of those whom he was going to seek, had carefully considered the hazard? But it is not the same thing to look at the danger from afar, and to consider it while in the midst of it, if the leader has known danger beforehand from similar experiences. If he had fought in other campaigns, he would have known that mere numbers do not make these peoples more valiant; for they do not know how to wage war except in their ambuscades, where they are quite safe, and in the open field they cannot, for lack of military discipline, maintain battle for an instant. At last the cavalry arrived in safety at the camp, to report to their commander, General Francisco de Esteybar, without having accomplished anything worthy of note.

The commander, not only to proceed with the foresight which the remoteness of the country and the laborious march required, but to make sure that the enemy’s army should not leave Pampanga, waited there a week, going round a hill opposite, which had a spring on the other side. Don Melchor de Vera, although he had seen his own men take to flight, as he saw that our soldiers did the same thing, attributed to his own valor that panic of terror of which the incidents are perhaps noted among the barbarous exploits of these peoples, in recording the events of war in these islands. Don Melchor de Vera returned to the presence of his [superior, the] usurping king, and assured him that he had left the Spaniards conquered, and cut off the heads of three hundred of them and more than a thousand Pampangos, without losing a single man of his own. But all the exploit that he had performed was to cut off the heads of three Indians from the village of Cambuy (a visita of Arayat), whom Don Juan Macapagal had sent on business to the village of Telbán; their bodies were found this side of the village of Paniqui. What these peoples gain easily they regard with credulity and confidence; accordingly they supposed that the failure of the Spaniards to follow them was a recognition of their power. This delay, which they attributed to fear, gave them assurance; and as General Felipe de Ugalde had not yet set his troops in motion for Lingayén, they all considered themselves safe, and talked of following up their enterprise, to which they were led by their eagerness to make an actual raid on the province of Ilocos; for it was rich in gold, and its inhabitants had little courage. They were encouraged to this by the favorable result of the raid which “Conde” Don Pedro Gurcapos had effected a few days before, although he only went as far as Bauang; but now, with their troops still further reënforced, they wished to go as far as Cagayán, to stir up the minds of those natives, so that, if they succeeded, they could induce those people to join them. For this purpose, they detached from the best troops of the rebel army as many as four thousand men, Zambals and Pangasinans, and placed them under command of Don Jacinto Macasiag, a native of Binalatongan, for the new conquest—which they supposed would be very easy, as the minds of some of the chiefs there, with whom they had held correspondence, were prepared for it.

Soon Don Andrés Malóng repented of having separated so large a number of troops from the main body of his army, when, on the ninth of January, General Ugalde gave the signal for hostilities by way of Lingayén; and on the seventeenth of the same month the commander, Francisco de Esteybar, came unexpectedly with all the strength of the Spanish army. The rebels of Binalatongan had torn down and burned the bridge, which was built of planks—a difficulty which might prove an obstacle to the courage of Francisco de Esteybar; but a courageous soldier named Cristóbal de Santa Cruz, with two bold Merdicas, made the crossing easy. The latter leaped into the water, swimming, and the Spaniard walked upon their shields or bucklers; and in this way, fastening together all the logs and bamboos that they could collect, they made a raft large enough to transport on it the infantry. Malóng sent to summon Don Melchor de Vera, and in the interval, urged on more by the fear arising from their guilt than by the number of the Spanish soldiery (which, compared with that of the rebels, was much smaller), all the rebels took refuge in Binalatongan; but this did not last them long, for the two generals, having united their forces, marched forward to attack them and thus end the war at once. Don Andrés Malóng, having been informed of this intention, would not wait to confront the chances of fortune. He set fire to the village of Binalatongan, and plundered it of everything; and he burned the church and convent, the images of the saints which were therein becoming the prey of that barbarous multitude, who trampled on them and broke them in pieces, venting on, these figures of the saints the fury and madness which obliged them to retreat to the mountains. This they did in such haste that many fell into the hands of the soldiers whom the commander-in-chief, observing their flight, quickly sent for this purpose. The main body of the troops—not only the cavalry but the infantry—followed the rebels, as far as the ground allowed them to, killing, while the pursuit lasted, more than five hundred Zambals and rebels. After this the army not being able to continue the pursuit, returned to Lingayén in order to aid the other provinces wherever necessity might require. Soon afterward, troops of Indians began arriving, to cast themselves at the feet of the commander-in-chief, entreating pardon; and he in virtue of the powers with which he had been invested, detained those whom he considered guilty, and allowed the rest to go to their villages. The natives, in order to check the just wrath of the Spaniards, thought best to offer themselves to bring in Don Andrés Malóng a prisoner; and Francisco de Esteybar, having learned where this man had concealed himself—which was in a forest between Bagnotan and Calasiao—sent Captain Simon de Fuentes and Alférez Alonso de Alcántara with sixty soldiers, fifteen Spaniards, with fifteen Merdicas and creoles, and Sargento-mayor Pedro Machado of Ternate and some Pangasinans, who served as guides. They found the hut of Don Andrés Malóng, where they arrested him and his mother, Beata de Santo Domingo; they also took away a girl of ten years, a sister-in-law of Francisco Pulido, whom he had kept a captive for the purpose of marrying her. They found a large quantity of gold, pearls, and silver, which Malóng had taken with him. Carrying him to Binalatongan, they placed him in prison, under close guard. It is quite worth while to note what happened to Don Francisco de Pacadua, one of the principal rebels, who in this farce played the role of judge to the king Don Andrés Malóng. They had carried him a prisoner to Binalatongan; and, as he was very rich he formed a plan to escape from the prison by bribing the guards with much gold. He succeeded in this, and in his flight, while crossing the river, a crocodile seized him; but it did him no further harm than to carry him held fast in [its mouth], to the mouth of the river of Binalatongan, where some soldiers were on guard, and to leave him there, half-dead with fear, with only some slight wounds from the creature’s claws. The soldiers ran up to see who he was, and recognized Pacadua; they took him prisoner, and in due time he atoned for his crime on the gallows. They conveyed him to the presence of General Francisco de Esteybar, who ordered that he be carefully guarded until his punishment should be duly adjudged; for in the province of Ilocos very lamentable events were making pressing calls upon the Spanish forces—since, as will be seen in the proper place, the natives there had slain two religious.

Francisco de Esteybar was informed how, among the ravages and cruelties which the rebels had committed in the village of Malunguey, they had demolished the church and convent in order to use the planks in these for making their fortifications; and in a thicket had been found an image of the mother of God, [that had been taken] from that church, showing marks of ill-treatment, and with its hands cut off. Francisco de Esteybar went to Malunguey with most of his army, and they carried the sacred image in a triumphal procession to Binalatongan, where it was reverently deposited. It is said that the rebels used the hands of the sacred image as spoons for eating their cooked rice [morisqueta]—an act of insolence which was made known as being insurrection and rebellion against both Majesties. It is also related that they trampled on the rosaries and committed other impious acts, tokens of their apostasy. The fathers of St. Dominic labored much in reducing and pacifying the insurgents, displaying the ardor and energy in insurrection which they are accustomed to exert in their missions and ministries; but as the hearts of the Pangasinans were so cold, and their wills were so obstinate in their treacherous rebellion, they would not be affected even by blows from the hammer of the strongest Cyclop. But many withdrew from the ranks of the insurgents through the counsel and persuasion of father Fray Juan Camacho—Don Carlos Malóng, the brother of the usurping king Don Andrés, and many others—who, being tractable, in time embraced his wholesome counsels.

Thus was finally extinguished this fire which rebellion kindled in the province of Pangasinán, which threatened great destruction—although it wrought no slight havoc in the burning of the two villages Bagnotan and Binalatongan, which were the most important in that province; and up to the present time they have not been able to recover the wealth and population that they formerly had. That the outbreak of these rebels was no more extensive is due to the fact that the governor undertook so promptly to apply the remedy, sending out by land and sea officers so valiant, and so experienced in conquest—as [for instance], Francisco de Esteybar, who was one of the most fortunate soldiers who have been known in these regions. In a printed history[38] I have seen mention of this rebellion in Pangasinán with much solicitude to exonerate the insurgents, and omitting many circumstances which aggravate it. But I am not influenced by prejudice, for I do not feel it; but I am guided by the relations of it made by disinterested persons of that period, and of soldiers who took part in the said reduction. Some of these are still alive, among them Captain Alonso Martín Franco, who was present in all the revolutions, those of Pampanga, Pangasinán, and Ilocos, and gives an account of all the events above mentioned and of those which are related in the following chapters. In the latter are recounted the ravages wrought by Don Pedro Gumapos, by order of his king Don Andrés Malóng, in the province of Ilocos, aided by the Zambals, a cruel and barbarous people, who inflicted so much harm on that province that it is deplored even to this day.

Raid of the Pangasinans and Zambals into the province of Ilocos; 1660–61

[This is related by Diaz, continuing the above account, in his Conquistas, pp. 590–616 (book iii, chapters xxi–xxiv).]

That I may give a more satisfactory relation of the melancholy tragedy in the province of Ilocos, I have thought it best to defer for later mention the march of the fantastic “Conde” Don Pedro Gumapos to that province, where we shall find him in due time, and to follow the relation of all those occurrences which was sent to our father provincial, Fray Diego de Ordas, by his vicar in that province, father Fray Bernardino Márquez—adopting the simplicity of his mode of writing, that I may without exaggeration accurately describe the events of all that occurred there; for a uniform style cannot always be employed, especially when the accounts of others are followed.

On the sixteenth day of December in the year 1660, the father preacher Fray Luís de la Fuente, prior of that district, having left the village of Bauang—to which he had gone to make his confession—to go to his village of Agoo, learned on the route of the insurrection in the province of Pangasinán, and the raid of the Zambals into that of Ilocos. He returned to Bauang with that information, and communicated it fully to the father preacher Fray Bernardino Márquez,[39] prior of that convent and vicar-provincial of Ilocos; and at the same time asked permission to go up to Lamianán, which is the most northern district in that province. Father Fray Bernardino attempted to turn father Fray Luís from this purpose, telling him that it was not right to abandon one’s flock in time of tribulation—for which reason he was of opinion that Fray Luís should return to his ministry at Agoo; and in order to do so with safety he could go accompanied by an Indian chief named Don Pedro Hidalgo, who was much beloved by the Zambals. Father Fray Luís was as willing as prompt to comply with his superior’s wishes; but Don Pedro Hidalgo answered that it was not proper to expose father Fray Luís’s life to so evident a risk; and that it was better that he himself should first go to ascertain in what condition affairs were in the village of Agoo. This opinion of Don Pedro was approved by father Fray Bernardino, who thereupon gave permission to father Fray Luís to make his journey to Laminián. He set out for that place on the seventeenth of December, 1660, in company with a Spanish tax-collector named Juan de Silva, who had come [to Bauang] to escape the fury of the rebels in the province of Pangasinán.... On the sixteenth, father Fray Luís had warned Captain Aguerra and the alcalde-mayor of the province of Ilocos, Don Alonso de Peralta, of the disturbed condition in which those districts were; and on the same day a letter went by way of Bauang from Don Andrés Malóng, who styled himself king of Pangasinán. The letter was written to all the Indian chiefs of the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán, and he advised them therein to take up arms and slay all the Spaniards, as he had done in his kingdom of Pangasinán; and declared that if they did not do so, he would go thither with his soldiers and punish them as disobedient.

On the day of the Expectation of our Lady, which they reckon the eighteenth of December, father Fray Bernardino Márquez, while in his church at Bauang ... [was warned of the approach of the Zambals]. He found at the door of the church two Indian chiefs of that village, one of whom was named Don Juan Canangán; they told him not to be afraid, as they were there determined to defend the father from the fury of the Zambals, who were already near, even if it cost them their lives.... While he was saying mass, the Zambals arrived; their leader or captain was he who had been titled “Conde,” a native of the village of Agoo and married in Binalatongan, named Don Pedro Gumapos, who had been an associate of Don Andrés Malóng in that insurrection. The Zambals waited very quietly for the father to finish saying mass; and when he had returned thanks and begun to say the prayers, a message came to him from Don Pedro Gumapos asking permission to kiss his hand. Father Fray Bernardino gave it, and Gumapos came up accompanied by Zambals and Negritos, armed with balazaos[40] and catanas. He kissed father Fray Bernardino’s hand, and told him absurd things about his rebellion against the Spaniards, and at the same time he asked permission for his soldiers to search the convent, to see if any Spaniard were concealed there. Father Fray Bernardino, certain that no one was there, told him that he might do as he pleased; Gumapos ordered his companions to make the search, and if they met any Spaniard to kill him. The Zambals carried out this order of Gumapos, and in the course of the search looted whatever there was in the convent. While this was being done, Gumapos remained talking with father Fray Bernardino Márquez; and, when he asked where was father Fray Luís de la Fuente, father Fray Bernardino answered that he had gone up to Bagnotan to make his confession. Gumapos replied to this that he had come to kill Fray Luís, unless father Fray Bernardino would ransom him for 300 pesos. To this audacious proposition the father answered that he had not so much money, and that Gumapos should therefore take his life, or carry him away as a slave, and let father Fray Luís go. Gumapos replied to this that no injury of any kind would be done to the father, for he himself would rather suffer such harm in his own person; but this was no virtue of Gumapos, but [the result of] an order given to him by his little king Don Andrés Malóng, who was very fond of father Fray Bernardino Márquez.

[Gumapos orders the headman of Bauang to go after Fray Luís with a troop of Indians, Zambals, and Negritos; they kill the Spaniard who accompanies him, and carry the father back to Bauang. Gumapos, after vainly trying to exact a ransom from the friar, orders the Indian to kill him; but they take pity on him, and collect among themselves the sum of eight and a half taes of gold, “the greater part of this being given by Doña María Uañga, chieftainess of the visita of Balanac.” Finally Gumapos imprisons both the religious in a cell, where they remain under guard until the rebels go away.] All the time while the Zambals remained in Bauang, they were engaged in plundering and robbing the poor Indians, and did all the damage that they could. The religious emerged from their prison, half-dead from weakness, for they had remained almost three days without eating or drinking; but the Zambals had left nothing in the convent, and the religious therefore had to send to the Indians to beg food. That day father Fray Bernardino wrote a letter to father Fray Juan de[41] Isla, the commissary of the Inquisition in that province and his visitor, entreating him to notify the bishop—who then was bishop of Nueva Segovia, the illustrious Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas, belonging to the Order of St. Dominic, and a native of Lima; a man who excelled in virtue as well as in learning—and that both of them should ask the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, for the aid which those districts of Bauang and Agoo so greatly needed.

On the following day, the twentieth of December, nearly all the people in the village of Bauang confessed and received communion, most of those who had taken part in the murder of the Spaniard Juan de Silva doing penance—especially the headman, who, as he had a very quiet and peaceable disposition, had been constrained by fear of Gumapos to assist in such a crime. The fathers were greatly edified by the Christian spirit of the Indians, which is so great in this province of Ilocos. Father Fray Luís pursued his journey to Lamianán, accompanied by a native named Don Dionisio Maricdín—a friendly act which no other Indian is known to have performed on that occasion, as being disobedient to the orders of “Conde” Don Pedro Gumapos, of whom all had conceived so great fear. For this service he was afterward rewarded by General Sebastián Rayo Doria, who made the said Don Dionisio Maricdín sargento-mayor of the villages of Aringuey, Bauang, and Agoo, on July 5, 1661. Father Fray Luís reached the bar of Purao, and found there Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros, alguazil-mayor and deputy of the alcalde-mayor of the province of Ilocos; he had come with a troop of Indians from that province to set free the fathers, Fray Bernardino and Fray Luís, from the power of the Zambals. They all came to Bagnotán, from which place they notified father Fray Bernardino, who was in Bauang.

In consequence of the repeated advices of Zambal raids into Ilocos, the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, called a council of war at Vigan, to provide suitable measures for averting the many dangers which were threatening the province. At this council were present the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas, the father visitor Fray Juan de Isla, and all the Spaniards; and it was decided that the alcalde-mayor should go in person to the succor of those districts infested by Zambals, accompanied by father Fray Gonzalo de la Palma and father Fray José Polanco.[42] The lord bishop was to remain in Vigan, in company with father Fray Juan de Isla, with the charge of sending a troop of Ilocan and Cagayan Indians who were being levied, and of taking such other measures as might prove desirable. In order to render aid and confront the Zambals as quickly as possible, the alcalde-mayor sent ahead Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros, with such men as could be collected in so short a time; and soon Don Alonso de Peralta followed him, [with troops] lightly equipped [a la ligera], accompanied by the two fathers, Fray Gonzalo and Fray José, as far as Namacpacán, the first village of the province of Ilocos.

I have already related how father Fray Bernardino Márquez had remained at Bauang, where he received notice of the arrival of Lorenzo Arqueros at Bagnotán for the succor of those districts; and at the same time he had very accurate information that the Zambals were planning to make a second raid on the province of Ilocos. He immediately warned Lorenzo Arqueros of this, who was still at Bagnotán—asking that officer to go down to Bauang, if he thought it best, that he might from a nearer station check the designs of the Zambals. Father Fray Bernardino continued to receive reliable advices of the coming of the Zambals, and on that account decided one night to leave Bauang in a boat, with six Indians as a guard, to go in search of Lorenzo Arqueros. At the cost of much hardship the father found him near the visita of Dalangdang, on his march toward Bauang; the father joined the troop of Lorenzo Arqueros, and they continued the march to Bauang. They arrived there at daybreak, but found the village without inhabitants, because for fear of the Zambals they had fled to the woods.

Lorenzo Arqueros ordered his men to beat the drums, and soon the village was full of people. Father Fray Bernardino talked to the Indians, and sent notice of this aid [just received] to the village of Agoo. Those people replied by informing him that the Zambals were ready to make a second raid; and that in any case the Spaniards ought to see that Don Miguel Carreño was hanged. He was a native of the visita of Aringuey, and the father of Don Pedro Gumapos, the head of the conspirators, to whom he communicated all the operations of the loyal Indians. In consequence of this advice, Lorenzo Arqueros ordered Master-of-camp Don Lorenzo Peding, a valiant Ilocan, to go with a hundred men to arrest Don Miguel Carreño. [Carreño is seized and hanged; the Zambals of his command, dispirited by losing him, are defeated and take to flight.]

Lorenzo Arqueros reported all this to his captain the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, who was still at Namacpacán—asking at the same time that he would come to his aid, since he knew with certainty that the Zambals, with much larger numbers, were coming in search of him. At this, Don Alonso de Peralta resolved to go in person to the succor of his lieutenant; but this resolution was opposed by the fathers, not only because it was not right for him to go on so important a relief expedition with only six or seven Spanish mestizos, who accompanied him, but also because he ought not to leave his jurisdiction, which extended only as far as Namacpacán. They told him that it would be better to wait for the soldiers whom the bishop was to send from Vigan, so that he could with this reënforcement go to look for the enemy; but the alcalde-mayor, urged on by the letters of Lorenzo Arqueros, and, besides, encouraged by the latter’s previous success, pursued his resolution, and marched for Bauang, accompanied by father Fray José Blanco[43] and father Fray Gonzalo de la Palma. As soon as he encountered Lorenzo Arqueros, he ordered the latter to set out for the village of Agoo, to succor Master-of-camp Don Lorenzo Peding. [Arrived at Agoo, Arqueros finds the Zambals in sufficient force to render more aid necessary; and his urgent request brings Peralta to Agoo. The latter brings with him two jars [tibores] of gunpowder, which had been kept in the convent at Bauang. Arqueros advises Peralta to retreat, since their auxiliaries are all undisciplined, and the Ilocans somewhat timid, while the enemy are superior in numbers—having more than five thousand men, while the Ilocans did not exceed one thousand five hundred. Peralta refuses to do this, especially as the Ilocans have firearms, “which the Zambal so greatly dreads.” The Ilocans go, without orders, across the river, to form an ambush against the foe; Arqueros goes to their aid, followed by Peralta. “The fathers disguised themselves, fearing that the Zambals, if they should be victorious, would, angered by having seen fathers in battle, slay the Dominican fathers of the province of Pangasinán, who were in their power.” At daybreak the enemy come to the attack; the Ilocans are soon overcome by fear, and take flight, neither the officers nor the friars being able to restrain them. Don Lorenzo Peding dies bravely fighting, after having slain many of his assailants; and all the guns and other weapons, and the gunpowder, of the Ilocans are captured by the Zambals. Peding’s death utterly destroys the little remnant of courage in his followers, and they flee pell-mell, trampling on and drowning each other in the ford of the river. “The most pitiable thing was to see the children and old men in flight, and especially the women—some of whom gave birth to children, and others suffered abortion through fear, the infants being abandoned in the camp. The children were drowned, and the old people were overcome by exhaustion; all were in most pitiable condition. Those who felt it most keenly were the fathers, who aided some but could not help all, since all the people had fled.” The Spanish leaders attempt to rally the Indians at Agoo, and afterward at Bauang, but all in vain; they are compelled to return to Namacpacán, where they arrive on January 4, 1661. Finding that they can obtain neither men nor arms, they continue their retreat to Vigan. On the route, they stop at Narbacán, and order “the Indians of that village, with those of Santa Catalina, a visita of Bantay, to erect a stockade and rampart in Agayayos[44] to prevent the Zambals from passing through there for Vigán and Cagayán. He garrisoned this post with a body of Indians, in command of one of them, named Don Pedro de la Peña, a native of Santa Catalina, and continued his journey to Vigán.”]

The father visitor, Fray Juan de la Isla, had considered it expedient to command the father ministers to retreat to Vigán; they obeyed, although against the dictates of their paternal charity, which was unwilling to abandon their spiritual sons. Some fathers thought that they ought not to obey this mandate; and one of them made his way through the middle of the enemies, to go to his ministry of Taguding, and others to the hills, to which the Ilocans had retreated, for fear of the Zambals.

[Arriving at Vigan, the Spaniards hold a conference regarding the threatening dangers.] The alcalde-mayor, Bishop Don Fray Rodrigo Cárdenas, and father Fray Juan de Isla were of opinion that the most prudent measure was to place in a ship all the father ministers and all the Spaniards who were there, and send them to Manila, so that they might not experience the worst severity of ill-fortune. For, although it could not be doubted that aid would come from Manila, it was very uncertain whether information of the disordered condition of those provinces had reached the supreme government, while it was most evident that the Zambal army would soon come [to Vigan], aided, as was already conjectured, by their communication with some Indian chiefs of that province. Many forcible arguments were brought forward against this opinion by the father ministers, especially Fray Bernardino Márquez, Fray José Arias, and Fray Gonzalo de la Palma, who were followed by all the other ministers. They concluded by saying that if the ministers were to retreat, it would be utter ruin to the province, in regard, not only to God but to the king; for the Indians who yet maintained their faith and loyalty would abandon all if they had not the fathers—either through fear, or carried away by their heathen customs. In that council it was also resolved to build a fort at Vigan, so that they could resist the Zambals until aid from Manila should arrive. This work was begun, but not carried out; for the Indians who worked at it were continually disappearing. The alcalde-mayor, therefore, Don Alonso de Peralta, finally decided to give orders that all the Spaniards who were in the province—except Lorenzo Arqueros, who refused to embark—and all the father ministers, both secular and religious, who wished to go to Manila, should go aboard the champans which he had at the bar there. He himself embarked in a champan with the father visitor Fray Juan de Isla and father Fray Luís de la Fuente, the bishop promising to follow them. The retreat of Don Alonso Peralta caused great injuries to that poor province, although the rest of the religious remained in Vigán, in company with the bishop and in his house; he had at his side only two secular priests—one named Don Gerónimo de Leyva, the judge-provisor and commissary of the Inquisition for that bishopric; and the other, father Don Miguel de Quiros.

I have already told how the governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, hearing at Manila of the uprising and disturbances in the province of Pangasinán, commanded that an army and some vessels be assembled as promptly as possible, so that our arms might by land and sea punish the conspirators; and how he appointed as commander of the land forces Francisco de Esteybar—a valiant and fortunate soldier, a native of the town of Mondragon, in the province of Guipúzcoa—and of the armed fleet Felipe de Ugalde, also a brave soldier, and a native of the same province of Guipúzcoa. Don Sabiniano gave them orders that, in the emergencies that might arise in the campaign, each might act for himself, without waiting for the opinion of the other commander—for this reason, that often excellent opportunities in war are liable to miscarry. The instructions of Don Sabiniano were so judicious and clear that to this, more than any other cause, is due the speedy pacification of those provinces. At this time the Zambals—who, eager to plunder the rich province of Ilocos, and encouraged by the victory over its alcalde-mayor, had continued the pursuit of the conquered—arrived at Narvacan, where they waited some time through fear of the resistance which they would meet in the pass of Agayayos; but they were soon relieved from this fear by the very man, Don Pedro de la Peña, who had remained for the guard and defense of that pass. He tore down the stockade, and very gladly went to offer them a free passage; accordingly, they went on without further hindrance. This treason of Don Pedro de la Peña was the whole cause of the Zambals being able to raid the villages of Ilocos, from Vigan on; for this post of the Agayayos is so difficult of passage that it only affords easy entrance to one man, and a horse can go through with difficulty, between two great cliffs, which are inaccessible by the summits. And since the Zambals must pass through it one by one, it would have been impossible for them to succeed in penetrating it, with even a very few men to defend the entrance. But this traitor to his country was like Conde Don Julián in España, who gave free passage to the enemies. Don Pedro paid for it with his life, on the gallows; but that province even now bewails the harm [that he caused it].

On that same day letters arrived at Vigán from General Felipe de Ugalde, written to the alcaldes-mayor of Ilocos and Cagayán, informing them of his arrival by sea for the succor of the province of Pangasinán, and of the arrival of General Francisco de Esteybar by land. On account of the absence of the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso, the letter which came for him was opened by the bishop, and his illustrious Lordship and his companions were delighted at the good news, and full of hopes that they would soon enjoy peace; but their joy was quenched by the information which soon followed that the Zambals had already arrived at Santa Catalina, a visita of Vigán.

On the following day, the twentieth of January, the Zambals arrived at Vigán. [The bishop waits for them to come, prepared to say mass for their benefit, since they have sent him word that they wish to hear it, “a singular mode of hostility, and a still more rare mode of devotion, which looks more like craft than simplicity, although all traits at once are possible in these people.” A number of the Zambals, including their leaders, hear mass with much reverence, and even confess to the priests, saying that many of their men have come on this raid through fear, rather than their own inclination. Most of the troop, however, proceed to loot the village; the people take refuge in the bishop’s house and the church, thus saving their lives, although they endure great suffering and privation by being shut up indoors for two days, with little food or drink. Finally the fathers persuade the Zambals to let the people return to their houses.] On that day the enemy appointed Don Juan Celiboto headman of the village, and from that time the Zambals made great haste to seize as many Indians as they could, both men and women, to be their slaves. Only the sacristans had been left on guard in the church; the Zambals slew them together in the baptistery, and plundered it of all the ornaments and cloth that they found; and there they also killed a negro who tried to avail himself of the church to escape from their hands. Many Ilocans died in various places on that day—so many that when the number was reckoned it was found that the village of Bantay alone had eighty[45] dead, whose bodies they hid among the hills, so that they might not be seen by the fathers. In those villages all was confusion, outcries, the ringing of bells, the discharge of arquebuses, and shouts; and among the ecclesiastics all was affliction and grief at seeing so many calamities, without being able to remedy them.

Some Indian chiefs, for greater security, had brought to the bishop’s house the gold, silver, and other valuables which they possessed; and the amount thus brought together was so great that there was not space for them in the rooms above, and much property was even placed below the house. The Zambals cast their eyes on this wealth with eager desire, and their sentinels therefore watched very closely the house of his illustrious Lordship; this was a source of great anxiety to him and to the fathers, lest the poor owners should lose their property. The commander Don Jacinto [Macasiag] had promised to confer with the bishop about providing safety for these things, but did not keep his promise; his illustrious Lordship therefore commanded father Fray Gonzalo to go to talk with Don Jacinto in his quarters. The father did not shun making these journeys, because he lost no time on the road, hearing some confess, and baptizing others, even of the Zambals themselves. At the same time he gained the opportunity of seeing one of the champans of General Felipe de Ugalde arrive at the bar; it had been sent to reconnoitre those coasts, under the appearance of selling merchandise. Under the pretext of looking at the goods, father Fray Gonzalo went aboard this vessel, and informed the captain of the wretched condition in which they all were. Nothing was gained, however, by this effort, as the champan, on its return, was maliciously steered away from the place where the commander was who had sent it; but the ecclesiastics were left with the consolation that aid would soon come.

The Zambals came, plundering and killing, as far as the slope of Baduc, but they could not pass from that place to the province of Cagayán, on account of the resistance made by Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros with a troop of Ilocans and Cagayans. The bishop and the fathers were well aware of the greedy anxiety of the Zambals to plunder the valuables that were in the house of his illustrious Lordship—who, hearing reports of the abominations, thefts, and murders which they had committed in the churches, summoned them before him, and, when most of them were assembled, publicly cursed and excommunicated all those who should hereafter kill, or meddle with things belonging to the churches or to his house. Immediately after this, a sermon was preached to them by the father vicar-provincial, Fray Bernardino Márquez, rebuking them for the evil that they did instead of keeping the law of the Christians—for such were the greater part of the Zambal army. They listened very attentively to the sermon, much to the satisfaction of the bishop; and, as he always did when affairs of importance came before his illustrious Lordship, he availed himself of the Augustinian religious (especially of father Fray Gonzalo de la Palma), on account of the secular clergy being unacceptable to the Zambals. Nor is it to be doubted that not only the clerics but his illustrious Lordship would have perished, if it had not been for our religious, as is fully proved by letters written to the supreme government by the illustrious Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas.

As soon as the coming of the Zambals was known, much silver belonging to the churches, and much silver and gold of private persons, were buried in different places; but on Wednesday afternoon the Zambals began to open [these] tombs, until no silver or gold was left. Our Lord granted that some of the church silver should afterward be restored; but all the gold and silver of private persons was lost. Father Fray Gonzalo asked permission of the Zambal leader, Don Jacinto, to dig up the silver belonging to the church of Taguding; Don Jacinto gave this, and promised that he would, for the father’s greater safety, assist him in person. He did so, as he had promised; but while they were engaged in digging up the silver the Zambals rushed to the house of the bishop, and pillaged whatever hampers and chests they found under the house—with so much violence and clamor that the religious, affrighted, took refuge in the apartments of his illustrious Lordship.

[The eagerness of the Zambals for plunder soon induces them to send the bishop and the priests to Santa Catalina, so that they may loot the bishop’s house and whatever of value remains in it. On the way they see many corpses of Indians slain by the foe; the village of Bantay is burned, only the church and convent, and a tiled house, are left standing. Arrived at Santa Catalina, the Zambals who escort the priests proceed to plunder and burn that village; and the fathers are unable to procure any food until the next day, save a little rice, and are compelled to flee for their lives from the flames—finally spending the second day with no shelter save a tree, and no food save what is given them by the Zambals from whom they beg it as alms.]

In the afternoon came Don Marcos Macasián to notify the fathers of the order given by his chief, Don Jacinto, that the bishop and the rest who were with him should go on with the rebel army, which included three hundred Ilocan Indians—some forced to join them, and others who were traitors; counting these with the Pangasinans and Zambals, the whole number was about three thousand. He brought some talabones[46] in which the bishop and the fathers were accommodated—although but poorly, on account of the few men available to carry them, and the ill-will of the bearers. On this account, and so that they might aid the bishop, who was in poor health, the religious and the priests were reduced to traveling on foot over most of the route from Santa Catalina to Narbacán—where it is necessary to go through the Agayayos, which are certain cliffs very difficult of passage.... In the middle of the [second] day they reached Agayayos, and at nine in the night they entered Narbacán. At the entrance to this village the Zambals had a skirmish with the Indians of that district, who, allied with the Tinguianes, did all the harm that they could to the Zambals. So daring were they that they seized and carried away one of the men who were escorting the fathers, and, without his companions being able to prevent it, the assailants cut off his head, and ran into the woods. In this manner more than four hundred Zambals had already died. Moreover, they had thickly planted the road from Narbacán with sharp stakes, in order that the Zambals might not use it; and for this reason the fathers suffered greatly, because they traveled on foot. As soon as they arrived at Narbacán, they notified the native governor [gobernadorcillo], (who was the father of the traitor Don Juan de Pacadua), who gave the fathers sufficient cause to fear; for between him and his blacks he held the fathers fast, unwilling to let them go, by saying that he preferred that they should be entertained in his own house, which was quite spacious, and not in the convent, which was ill supplied. The fathers would not go anywhere except to the convent, and thus the contest lasted until the arrival of the bishop; he also insisted on going to the convent, with which they gained their point; and the captain of the village went with them, to escort them and light the way. They arrived at the convent, where they found not even water to drink; then the father went out to get some, and to find also a little rice [morisqueta] for the bishop, of which he was in great need.

On the following day, January 31, the entire Zambal army encamped in Narbacán; it had been awaited by the leader, Don Jacinto Macasiag, who had been detained in Vigan by his plan of attacking a champan sent by Don Felipe de Ugalde with more than twenty soldiers. Don Jacinto returned to Narbacán, without having been able to carry out the intention which had delayed him; and found at Narbacán a letter from his kinglet, Don Andrés Malóng. The latter informed him of the arrival of the Spanish forces in his kingdom, for which reason Don Jacinto must make haste to go there with troops under him, so that they and his own men might together put an end to the “Spanish rabble;” and he must carry thither with him the Indian chiefs of the villages that they had conquered, so that these might be witnesses of the rebels’ valor against the Spaniards. Many were the letters and papers written by that infernal monster to all the Indian chiefs in all the provinces; and in the last ones written to Don Jacinto Macasiag, which the bearers concealed without giving them to him, he ordered Don Jacinto to burn all the villages with their churches and convents, and to retreat to the woods with the Zambals, since he had already conquered the Spaniards. But the result was quite different; for when he wrote it Don Jacinto had already fled and taken refuge in the hills, and the Spaniards were pursuing him.

When the Zambals saw the letter from Malóng, they began to clamor against the natives of Narbacán, on account of the injuries which they had received from the latter; and they swore that for this cause they would kill them and burn their village. But they did not fulfil the latter threat, nor dare to carry out the first, not only because the Indians had concealed themselves in the woods, but on account of the fear that the Zambals had conceived of them—especially of the Indian who led them in battle, named Don Felipe Madamba, a native of the village of Bringas; he was so loyal to his Majesty, and so valiant, that he dashed alone, on horseback, among the Zambals and Calanasas, cutting off their heads, without any one being able to resist him. He was able to escape from these affrays, but his horse and he were covered with the arrows which they shot at him, although not one of these caused him any injury worth mention.

On the same day (that of St. Ignatius the martyr), the army of the Zambals set out to go to Pangasinán, leaving part of the village of Narbacán in flames; the fathers, having compassion for those people, entreated the leader, Don Jacinto, to order his men to put out the fire. He did so, by a public order; and immediately they extinguished the flames. Litters and carriers were already provided for the bishop and the fathers, that they might follow the army; but they all, with one voice and opinion, told the guards that they would not depart from Narbacán, even though it should cost them their lives. When the guards perceived their firm resolution, they notified their chief, Don Jacinto Macasiag, who was willing that the fathers should remain; but when this decision was learned by Gumapos, who had marched ahead, he commanded his arquebusiers to go there and slay the bishop and all the ecclesiastics. They would have carried out this order, if Don Marcos Macasián had not dissuaded Gumapos from it—the latter saying that the fathers did not serve in the army, and that they were more of a hindrance than anything else, and it was therefore better to kill them.

[On the third day after the departure of the enemy, the people of Narbacán return to their homes. The bishop is accidentally hurt, and Fray Bernardino becomes ill—both cases being aggravated by the sufferings which they endured while in the hands of the Zambals.] Generals Francisco de Esteybar and Felipe de Ugalde were in Pangasinán, uncertain in what part of the country the enemy might still be, in order to send thither their forces; for, although General Ugalde had sent two champans to reconnoiter the coasts of the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán, they had not returned with their report. By land, he had no letter from either the alcaldes or the religious of those provinces. With this, and the assurances of the fathers of St. Dominic in the province of Pangasinán that those of Ilocos and Cagayán were free from enemies, the commanders were perplexed, and almost determined to withdraw their forces from those provinces. Our Lord permitted that, the champan in which Alcalde-mayor Don Alonso de Peralta and the father visitor Fray Juan de Isla were sailing having landed at Bolinao, they should learn there how the Spanish armada was in Pangasinán; accordingly, they directed their course thither, and, having arrived, found the commanders and related to them the wretched condition in which that province of Ilocos was left. In consequence of this information, Francisco de Esteybar at once gave orders that the army should set out for that province. Before Francisco de Esteybar departed from Binalatongan, he left the place fortified, with a stronghold in the court of the church; it had four sentry-posts, four pieces of bronze artillery carrying four-libra balls, and four officers—Captains Don Alonso Quirante, Juan Diaz Ibáñez, Don Juan de Guzmán, and Nicolás Serrano. As chief commander he left Sargento-mayor Domingo Martín Barrena, with some infantry—Spaniards, Merdicas, and creole negroes [criollos morenos]. The alcalde-mayor returned in his champan to Vigán, and fathers Fray Juan de Isla and Fray Luis de la Fuente marched with the Spanish army, which on its way reached the village of Santa Cruz. The Zambals left Narbacán, and, reaching the village of Santa María, sacked and burned it, as well as the convent; they did the same at San Esteban and the village of Santiago—to whose patron [i.e., St. James] was attributed their failure to burn the church, although they set fire to it. They burned and plundered the villages of San Pedro and Candón, going from the latter to that of Santa Cruz. There they learned that the Spaniards were at Santa Lucía; then they collected many of the valuables and cloths which they had plundered and set fire to them, and they set out in search of the Spaniards, who also were coming with the same object. The latter, ignorant of the enemy’s proximity, learned of it by an accident; this was, that father Fray Juan de la Isla, having pushed ahead of the Spanish army, encountered a party of Zambals, from whom he escaped by a miracle. Father Fray Juan warned the Spaniards of the Zambals’ approach, and they forthwith set out to fight the enemy. The armies came into sight of each other between the villages of Santa Cruz and Santa Lucía, and General Francisco de Esteybar at once commanded that the signal for attack be given. The Zambals twice engaged our men, with fierceness and loud shouts; but they were finally conquered by the Spaniards—more than four hundred Zambals being killed, and the greater part of their force taken prisoners. One of these was Don Pedro Gumapos, holding in his hand the staff of the bishop, thus being fulfilled what the holy prelate had prophesied to him.

The victory completed, Francisco de Esteybar withdrew with his army to Namacpacán, where he had left Captain Simón de Fuentes with a division of the army; they took with them Gumapos and many other prisoners, and afterward sent them to Vigán. There, in company with others, they hanged the rebel leader, and after his death cut off that sacrilegious hand, which was fastened near the house of the bishop. The loss of the Spaniards was very small, but a circumstance worthy of admiration was noted; it was that, not only in this battle but in other encounters which had occurred, all those of the Zambal army who were slain lay face downward, and all the dead of the Spanish army had their faces turned upward—as if by this God had chosen to show that the Zambals died under the curse and excommunication of the bishop. On account of this so fortunate success, Generals Francisco de Esteybar and Felipe de Ugalde talked of returning to Manila, believing that now everything was quiet; but information came to them of the new uprising by the Indians of Bacarra, and Francisco de Esteybar at once ordered the army to march to that village. The manner in which those Indians revolted is as follows: I have already pointed out the multitude of letters and documents which the usurping king Malóng wrote [to the leading men] everywhere—more especially to Don Juan Magsanop and Don Pedro Almazán. The latter was a very rich chief, a native of the village of San Nicolás (then a visita of Ilauag), and so bitterly hostile to the Spaniards that he kept in his house as many pairs of fetters as there were fathers and Spaniards in the entire province, in order to fasten these on them when he should have opportunity. This Don Pedro Almazán formed an alliance with Don Juan Magsanop, a native of Bangi, a visita of the village of Bacarra; and with Don Gaspar Cristóbal, headman of Ilauag, and a native of that village. The former, in order to make sure of Don Gaspar Cristóbal, asked him for his daughter, to marry her to his own oldest son; and these three Indians, as being so influential, continually stirred up others to join their conspiracy, and called in the Calanasa tribe to aid them.

The Calanasas were heathen barbarians who lived in the clefts of the mountains and other rocky places, and their only occupation was the killing of men and animals. Feeling safe with such aid as this, the leaders of the conspiracy undertook to make Don Pedro Almazán king of the province of Ilocos, and they swore allegiance to his son as prince; the latter celebrated his wedding with the daughter of Don Gaspar Cristóbal, as they had agreed. In order that the [former] function might be celebrated with all solemnity and not lack what was requisite, they plundered the church in the village of Ilauag, and with the crown which they took from the head of the Queen of Angels (who is venerated in that church) they crowned Don Pedro Almazán as king and the married pair as princes. All these proceedings were carried on so secretly that they could never be traced; and in this condition of their plot the letter of Don Andrés Malóng found them, in which he notified them that he had conquered the Spaniards. As now they were free, in their own opinion, from that danger, and safe from the Zambals, who were on their march from Pangasinán, it seemed to them now time to bring to light their depraved intentions. Before doing so, Don Juan Magsanop wrote from Bacarra a letter to Don Gaspar Cristóbal, in which he asked what opinion the latter had reached, and that he be informed of it. The reply which Don Gaspar Cristóbal gave was to take a fagot of reeds in his hand, and himself set fire to the church in Ilauag; and he ordered the bearer of the letter to carry back that reply. When this was known to Magsanop, he made himself known, with banners displayed, at Bacarra at the end of January, 1661, and sent word to the Calanasas to come down with all speed to his aid. In the rebel league were joined the villages of Pata and Cabicungán, administered by the fathers of St. Dominic, their minister at that time being father Fray José Santa María; hearing the tumult and the shouts of the rebels, he went out of the convent, against the advice of a Spaniard (whose name is not known) who had taken refuge in it. Father Fray José persisted in his resolution, but as soon as the rebels saw him many attacked him; and, piercing him with many javelins they cut off his head, and with great delight went to sack the convent. They made the attack by way of the church, the doors of which were locked; but the brave Spaniard, now bereft of the father, when he heard their clamor from within fastened all the windows and doors that he could reach, and loaded two guns that he had inside. The servants of the father who had remained there kept loading the guns for him, and, aiming through some loopholes or apertures, they allowed the multitude to come close to the building, and then fired, without a shot failing to hit. He accomplished so much that the rebels, persuaded that some company of soldiers were inside the church, retreated without executing their purpose of sacking and burning the church and convent.

On the first of February this melancholy tidings reached the village of Narbacán, where there were nine religious of the order of our father St. Augustine, exchanging congratulations and expressions of joy over the freedom that they were beginning to enjoy with the departure, that day, of the Zambal army. All their joy was changed into sadness and perplexity by the news of what had occurred at Ilauag; but the one who felt this most was father Fray José Arias, at that time prior of the village of Bacarra. [Feeling that duty calls him to go back, there, he does so, although against the entreaties of his brethren. His people welcome his return, but at the news that the Calanasas are approaching all take to flight, carrying the friar with them; but later they leave him in the house of a native helper. “The streets were full of rebels and Calanasas, who with loud shouts and yells acclaimed Don Pedro Almazán as king, and threatened all the Spaniards with death.” Fray José and the helper plan to escape by night, but an envoy from the rebels warns the latter to drive the friar from his house, or they will kill him and his family; frightened at this, he carries the father to another house. “In a little while Don Tomás Bisaya, one of the heads of the conspiracy, sent a mulatto named Juan (who had been a servant of the fathers) with some men, and an order to Fray José to enter a petaca[47], so that he could escape to the village of Ilauag.” He does this, and the party set out for that village; but on the way they meet a party of rebels, who kill the father, cut off his head, and carry it to Magsanop. Diaz here copies the relation of this affair which was sent to the Augustinians throughout the province, a letter from the provincial, Fray Diego de Ordás, citing the account sent to him by Bishop Cárdenas. “Magsanop and the other tyrants celebrated this victory, all drinking from the skull of the venerable father, which served in their barbarous proceedings as a precious vase.... After several days his head was ransomed, and interred with his body.”]

The army of General Francisco de Esteybar marched to Bacarra, but the first to arrive was Lorenzo Arqueros, with a detachment of more than a thousand men, Ilocans and Cagayans; the rebels and the Calanasas, not daring to face these, retreated with all speed to the woods, but Lorenzo Arqueros did not fail to search for them, in whatever places they had concealed themselves. He seized Magsanop, who, angered at seeing himself a prisoner, drew a dagger and killed himself with it, a worthy punishment for his sacrilegious perfidy. Don Pedro Almazán, who had taken horse to flee, burst into a fury, and died raging;[48] and all his children met wretched deaths.

General Francisco de Esteybar arrived with all his army at the village of Bacarra, but Lorenzo Arqueros had it already reduced to quiet, so that the general had nothing to do, except to order that a fort be built in Bacarra and garrisoned with soldiers, so as to secure the province from other disturbances. General Sebastián Rayo Doria gave orders for the execution of the commission which he bore, by agreement of the royal Audiencia, to administer justice to those who were most guilty; his military judge was Licentiate Don Juan de Rosales, and the notary was Nicolás de Herrera, who began their official duties, bringing legal proceedings [against the rebels]. The penalties of justice were inflicted as follows: In Vigán, Don Pedro Gumapos was shot through the back, and afterward the hand with which he took the staff from the bishop was cut off; and Don Cristóbal Ambagán, Don Pedro Almazán, Don Tomás Boaya,[49] Don Pedro de la Peña, and others, to the number of sixteen, were hanged. In Binalatongan was erected a square gallows, as in Vigán, and the following were hanged: Don Melchor de Vera, Don Francisco de Pacadua, Don Francisco Along, and Don Jacinto Macasiag; a Sangley mestizo, named Domingo Isón, although he said that he died innocent; a man of half-Malabar blood, named Lorenzo; and others, to the number of fourteen. It is quite remarkable that, when the sacristans were in the [church] tower with orders from the father ministers to toll the bells as soon as each of those who were hanged was dead, when it came to the turn of Domingo Isón they rang a peal instead of tolling, without having had an order for it; in this it seems as if the divine Majesty chose to demonstrate his innocence, as it was afterward ascertained. They promptly shot Don Andrés Malóng, placed in the middle, seated on a stone; and this was the end of his unhappy reign in Pangasinán. Afterward, in Mexico, punishment was inflicted on Don Francisco and Don Cristóbal Mañago, who were shot; and some were hanged—Don Juan Palasigui, Don Marcos Marcasián, Sargento-mayor Chombillo, Supil and Baluyot of Guagua, the amanuensis, and many others. José Celis, the lawyer, was carried to Manila, where he was hanged. After these executions, Licentiate Manuel Suárez de Olivera, the senior advocate of the royal Audiencia, printed a treatise against Don Juan de Rosales, in which he condemned the excessive rigor of these punishments. This was answered by Don Juan de Rosales with another pamphlet—very learned, which also was printed—whose theme was Feci judicium et justitiam, non tradas me calumniantibus me, drawn from Psalm 118,[50] justifying his proceedings to the satisfaction of those who were free from prejudice.

Thus was quenched that infernal fire which kindled discord in the hearts of the natives of the provinces of Pampanga and Pangasinán, and of the Indians of the village of Bacarra in Ilocos—a fire which threatened to consume the peace and obedience of the other provinces of these islands, whose people were on the watch for its outcome, in order to declare themselves [rebels] and prove Fortune, and to gain what seemed to them liberty. But this would have been, quite to the contrary, their entire perdition; for, escaping from their civilized subjection to the Spaniards, they would have fallen back into the barbarous tyranny of their own people—which, like chips from the same log,[51] is what most hurts, as experience shows; and the natives themselves know this. They were continually experiencing this in the tumult in Pampanga, for the tyrannical acts and the extortions which they suffered from the principal leaders of the revolt were more grievous than those which they experienced or could fear from subjection to the Spaniards. So true is this that in the village of Guagua it was said by an old chief who survived that time, named Don Pedro Anas, that so great was the confusion and lawlessness, and so tyrannical were the leaders of the outbreak, that if the governor Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara had not come so promptly with his troops, the Indians themselves would have gone to Manila to make their submission at his feet; some of them could not unite with the others, and, although all desired liberty, they did not work together to secure the means for attaining it, and therefore they experienced a heavier [yoke of] subjection. And among the peoples whom God seems to have created that they may live in subjection to others who govern them with justice and authority are those of these Filipinas Islands; for when the Spanish arms conquered them with so great facility they were living without a head, without king or lord to obey—being only tyrannized over by him who among them displayed most courage; and this subjection was continually changing, other men, of greater valor and sagacity, gaining the ascendency.

Map of portion of Philippine Islands, drawn by William Hacke, ca. 1680; photographic facsimile

[From original manuscript map in the British Museum]

Nor was the least cause of their reduction the diligent efforts of the religious who were ministers in these provinces, with their notable assiduity in preaching to the natives and exhorting them, with the arguments that we have already stated; and in this task they suffered the greatest hardships and dangers to life. In the province of Ilocos, fathers Fray Bernardino Márquez, Fray Gonzalo de la Palma, Fray Luís de la Fuente, and Fray Juan de Isla. In Pampanga, the following fathers were very prominent in the reduction: in Bacolor, Fray Francisco de Medina Basco; in Guagua, Fray Luís de la Vega; in Lubao, Fray José Botoño; in Mexico, Fray José Cornejo; in Candaba, Fray Pedro de Eguiluz; in Apalit, Fray José de Tapia; in Macabebe, Fray Enrique de Castro; but, more than all, Fray José Duque and Fray Isidro Rodríguez, whose authority among the natives could overcome the greatest difficulties. Information to this effect was given to the royal and supreme Council of the Indias by Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara himself, in Madrid, after his return from his government in the year 1667—when father Fray Isidro Rodríguez was at the same court as procurator for this province, soliciting the numerous mission which he conducted hither, and in which I came, the least of its members.

[Notable among the losses and injuries caused by the Zambal raid was the death of the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas, of whom Diaz gives a biographical sketch. He died at Manila, early in May, 1661.]

In Otón (Panay); 1663

[As related by Diaz in his Conquistas, pp. 640–644.] At the time when this conflagration[52]—which threatened to destroy what Spanish constancy had gained in these islands during a hundred and ten years—had just been extinguished, another and new one began to burn in the province of Ogtong in Pintados; and, if timely measures had not been taken to check it, this one would have caused greater ravages than the previous rebellions in the provinces of Pampanga, Pangasinán, and Ilocos. This entire province is in charge of our religious. We have in it eight convents and doctrinas—Antique, Guimbal, Tigbauan, Ogtong, Jaro, Dumangas, Laglag, and Pasig[53]—which belong to the jurisdiction of the alcalde-mayor who resides in Iloilo, where there is a good supply of artillery, with two companies of Spaniards, and one of Pampangos. This province and that of Panay are united in one island, yielding a great abundance of rice; it is the Sicilia of Filipinas for its fertility, and also resembles that island in its extent, and in having three promontories such as gave it the name Trinacria. This island is called Panay, so even its name suits it; for in it there grows so great an abundance of rice, which is the bread of this country. It contains two provinces, governed by two alcaldes-mayor—that of Iloilo, already mentioned, and that of Panay; the latter rules over nine large villages. Of these, six are in charge of the order of our father St. Augustine—Capiz, Panay, Batan, Mambusao, Dumalag, and Dumarao;[54] two are administered by secular priests, Aclán and Ibahay; and the island of Romblón is a doctrina of the discalced religious [i.e., Recollects] of our father St. Augustine. [Diaz here refers to the description of Panay and the Augustinian houses therein which is given by Medina, and to the foundation of their convent at Laglag.[55]] This ministry and doctrina comprises five visitas and dependent churches: two on the river that is called Araut, named Sibucao and Sumandig; and three in the mountains, Misi, Camantugan, and Malonor. These were a cruel and rude people, and greatly addicted to superstitions and heathen rites on account of living so separated from intercourse with the gospel ministers—who throughout the year share, in their turn, in the instruction and administration of these visitas. It cost the first religious many hardships to tame these mountaineers and instruct them in the holy faith; for what they gained with the utmost toil in a week was dissipated during the absence of the religious from their ministry. The village of Malonor always had disguised babaylanes—which is the same as “priests of the demon,” by whose direction the sacrifices which they made proceeded. They offered up swine, birds, and various kinds of food produced by the ground; and held solemn drinking-feasts—the main purpose of the universal enemy [of souls], since from this vice resulted many acts of lewdness and [other] abominations, all which tended to the perdition of their souls.

The prior and minister of that district in this year of 1663 was father Fray Francisco de Mesa—a native of the city of Manila,[56] and who had professed in our convent of San Pablo; a religious of great virtue, and most zealous and diligent in fulfilling the obligations of his office. In the visita of Malonor there was at this time a malicious Indian, a noted sorcerer and priest of the demon, who lived in concealment in the dense forest; and there he called together the Indians, telling them that he was commanded by the nonos—who are the souls of their first ancestors who came over to people these Filipinas—in whose name he assured them that the demon had appeared to them in trees and caves. This minister of Satan was named Tapar, and went about in the garb of a woman, on account of the office of babaylán and priest of the demon, with whom they supposed that he had a pact and frequent communication. Moreover, he wrought prodigies resembling the miracles, with which he kept that ignorant people deluded.

With these impostures and frauds Tapar obtained so much influence that the people followed him, revering him as a prophet, and he taught them to worship idols and offer sacrifices to Satan. Seeing that he had many followers, and that his reputation was well established, he made himself known, declaring that he was the Eternal Father; and he invented a diabolical farce, naming one of his most intimate associates for the Son, and another for the Holy Ghost, while to a shameless prostitute they gave the name of María Santisima [“Mary most holy”], as the name of Mary had been given her in baptism.[57] Then he appointed apostles, and to others he gave titles of pope and bishops; and in frequent assemblies they committed execrable abominations, performed with frequent drinking-bouts, in which there were shocking fornications among the men and women, both married and unmarried. This debauchery ended with the sacrifice to the demon, who, they said, gave them replies, although confused ones; but all were for their greater perdition; at other times, they believed, the demon appeared to them in various forms. All these things were done in the most retired part of the mountains, which there are very craggy. For a long time this infernal epidemic remained concealed; but finally spread as far as the visitas of the villages of Jaro and Pasig, although those who were infected by it were not so many there as in the village of Malonor, where the morals of those wretched people; deluded by the demon, were more corrupt.

Father Fray Francisco de Mesa received word of the unhappy condition in which were the souls of those parishioners of his; and, knowing that that cancer, which was spreading so far, needed to be severely cauterized, he gave information of all this to the purveyor-general of Pintados, the alcalde-mayor of that province, Admiral Pedro Duran de Monforte—a valiant soldier, whom we have mentioned in this history at various times. That officer, with the promptness that was necessary, sent Captains Gregorio de Peralta, Nicolás Becerra, and Francisco Duarte, and Adjutants Pedro Farfán and Pedro Brazales, with some Spaniards, Pampangos, and Merdicas from Siao (which is an island of Maluco)—a brave people, but cruel, which is a vice of cowards.

While the people were on their way to the village of Malonor, father Fray Francisco de Mesa decided to risk the attempt to prove whether he could through his preaching persuade them to accept better counsels, and, repentant, to put an end to that abominable farce of apostates; for it seemed to him that he would not fulfil his obligation if he did not make this endeavor. He encountered much opposition from the chiefs of the village of Laglag, who were not accomplices in the sedition by those of Malonor; but with intrepid courage to confer with the rebels. He reached the village and sent word to them to assemble in some convenient place, where he would go to discuss with them what concerned the deliverance of their souls, in case they were unwilling to come to the place where father Fray Francisco was. They replied “that they would not go out of the place where” (on account of its being rugged) “they had taken refuge for the sake of their safety—not, however, for fear of the Spaniards, whom they esteemed but lightly, for they themselves were accompanied by all the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the apostles, who would defend them by working miracles.” They also said that they did not need father ministers, because they had popes and bishops and priests who could minister to them in their own way, although it was very different from that which the fathers used; and “that Fray Francisco should be content with this, that they did not undertake to do harm to the other Christians who, deluded, followed him—although they could do these much harm with the power of God the Father, who assisted them”—and in this fashion they uttered other execrable blasphemies.

Father Fray Francisco, grieved at the perdition of those souls, with intrepid heart determined to go to the place where the rebels were (which was almost inaccessible on account of its ruggedness), where they had erected a shed which served them as a temple in which to offer their sacrifices to the demon and to hold their infamous assemblies. But he did not venture to do so, being dissuaded by the peaceable Indians of Laglag, and by Fray Martín de Mansilla, the prior of Pasig; for that would be to search imprudently for danger, without hope of accomplishing even the least good, since the people of Malonor were so obstinate. The prior told him that it was better to wait for the coming of the Spaniards. But this was not enough to prevent him from going to the said Laglag.[58]

The father arrived, very late in the day, at the house which he had in the village, close to the church, with the intention of obtaining better information regarding the condition of those misguided people, so as to see if he could make any endeavor for the good of their souls. In case he could not do so, he intended to return to Laglag the next day, and there await the coming of the Spaniards. The rebellious apostates consulted the demon as to what they should do; and in consequence resolved to put Father Francisco to death; and they proceeded to carry out this decision. It was about midnight when they all came down to the village in a mob; and some surrounded the house, which was made of bamboo, and others began to thrust their lances through the openings in the floor, between the bamboos, wounding father Fray Francisco, and uttering many abusive words. The father religious, alarmed at his peril, sprang up intending to jump out at the windows, as the house stood very low, not considering the greater danger of this. As he leaped, the insurgents ran toward him, and received him on the points of their lances; and all he could do was to reach the cross which stood in the cemetery, next to the church. He embraced it tenderly, and in this position received many lance-thrusts; and thus, his arms flung round the holy cross, and uttering loving and devout words, he rendered his soul to the Lord—to go, as we may piously believe, to enjoy eternal peace.[59] The insurgents burned the house and the church, but they did not dare to profane the body of the venerable father, and retreated to the most secluded part of those mountains.

On the same day when the news that the apostates had killed the father reached the village of Laglag the Spaniards and soldiers arrived whom Admiral Pedro Durán had sent; and with them came the notary-public of the province and Lorenzo Tallez Mucientes to make an investigation [of the murder], although there was some delay in the arrival of the alcalde-mayor, Pedro Durán, in person. Two days after the death of the venerable father, they went to the village of Malonor, and found the body of the venerable father at the foot of the cross—quite ruddy and without corruption, and the blood dropping from it as if the murderers had but that instant slain him (as the notary Bernabé López has assured me at various times); and it remained in the same incorruption, and without the blood coagulating, until the third day, when they buried it in the church of Laglag. Pedro Durán proceeded, as both a soldier and a judge, to search for the aggressors; and a considerable time after the death of the venerable father, and after many endeavors, and having employed adroit spies, the Spaniards seized the principal actors in the diabolical farce. Others defended themselves and were slain; but their corpses were brought in, and carried with the criminals to the port of Iloilo. There justice was executed upon them; they were fastened to stakes in the river of Araut,[60] and the body of the accursed woman who played the part of the Blessed Virgin was impaled on a stake and placed at the mouth of the river of Laglag.

In Otón; 1672

[This is related by Diaz in his Conquistas, pp. 696–697.]

The spirit of discord also roamed through the mountains of the province of Ogtong in the island of Panay, causing a disturbance which had an aspect more ridiculous than serious; and if I have concluded to set it down here it is only to show the pliability of disposition in these Indians in believing every new thing, even when it is groundless, simply because fear persuades them to believe whatever is inimical to the Spaniards, and especially if it is to their discredit. In the villages of Miagao and other visitas of Tigbauan, the collector of tributes for the king was a soldier born in Nueva España, of a merry and jesting disposition; he without heeding what would result, told among the Indians this exceedingly absurd story: “That the king of España had gone out to the seashore for recreation, so heedless of danger and so lightly attended that he had been captured by some Turkish galleys that landed at that shore, and had been carried away to the court of the Grand Turk, who demanded for his ransom an enormous number of slaves; and that to comply with this demand he had sent many ships, which were to carry all the natives of that province to him, so that he could deliver them to the Turks.” The soldier told them that several ships had come for this purpose, which were already in the harbor of Iloilo; and that the alcalde-mayor Don Sebastián de Villarreal and other Spaniards had to go with the ships, in order to make this delivery. This foolish and so perverse story was so thoroughly believed by the Bisayan Indians[61] that it caused a great disturbance and commotion among the inhabitants of the villages of Tigbauan, Miagao, Guimbal, and their visitas—so that, abandoning their homes and villages, they fled to the woods without concerted action, publishing the story that the Turks were already close by to seize them, and would carry the natives to their king as prisoners. The father ministers, as being nearest to them, experienced great perplexity, not being able to bring back the fugitives, as they did not know the cause of their disturbance; for when the natives perceived any religious they only took to flight, crying out, “Turks!” and thus the villages were being depopulated.

When the said alcalde-mayor learned this, he gathered all the soldiers that he could find, and reënlisted many veteran soldiers; and, in company with the father ministers Fray Marcos Gabilán, Fray Marcos González, and Fray Agustín de Estrada, he set out with all speed to see if he could check the disturbance; for he did not know of the falsehood uttered by the demon through the lips of the soldier. But this measure tended to fan the flames and to give further confirmation to that lie; they found, therefore, the villages deserted, and feared that this was a general rebellion. At last, the absurd cause which had influenced the natives was ascertained; and in a conference of the father ministers and the sensible Spaniards they chose the more prudent measure of withdrawing the troops, and allowing the natives to be undeceived by the course of events. The soldier, who must have been more knave than dolt, succeeded in concealing himself so well that nothing was known of him for a long time, because he left the island. The end of this revolution was, that gradually the Indians became undeceived, and ascertained that the whole thing was a lie; and through the agency of father Fray Agustín de Estrada, of whom they had a very high opinion, they were pacified, and brought back to their villages and homes. This is written only that some idea may be formed of the readiness with which these natives believe any lie; and the difficulties experienced by the religious who live among them as ministers, and the danger to the lives of the fathers if the demon concocts some fiction which, like this, is to their detriment or to the discredit of the Spaniards.

In Playa Honda; 1681

[From Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 747–748.]

The governor, Don Juan de Vargas, in view of the many ravages, murders, and thefts which the revolted Zambals of Playa Honda had committed—infesting the road from Pangasinán to Ilocos, and harassing the adjoining villages that were subject to the Spanish dominion—determined to curb their audacity by some exploit which would inspire them with fear, and to restrain for the future their insolence and daring. For this purpose he sent Captain Alonso Martín Franco and Captain Simón de Torres, with a suitable number of Spaniards, Pampangos, and Merdicas (who are Ternatans and Malays), and gave them the orders that were desirable for the success of so useful an expedition—that Simón de Torres and Alonso Martín Franco, each with half of the soldiers, should go in opposite directions, beating the woods, and fighting with any Zambals whom they might encounter. They did so, compelling the rebels to retreat as far as the place where their companions were; and on St. James’s day the two captains joined their forces, the signal being the discharge of three exploding rockets, and fought with the Zambal insurgents. They carried out their orders and fought against these enemies, who are indeed a warlike people, and killed many of them, not without some loss of our men. Their leader was a valiant Zambal named Tumalang, to whom the inhabitants of those mountains rendered obedience; this man, seeing the death of an associate of his in whom he greatly trusted, whom Alonso Martín Franco had slain, and influenced by some higher feeling, declared that he wished to be a friend of the Spaniards, and with his people to establish villages where he would be under Spanish rule. A very convenient location was set apart, and therein was founded a handsome village called Nueva Toledo, and some others near a fort that is called Pignamén,[62] which Don Manuel de León ordered to be founded—in which, by order of the governor, Captain Alonso Martín Franco remained as commandant, with a larger garrison; and this fort has been most efficacious for averting such losses as they then experienced. Chief Tumalang received holy baptism, and was named Don Alonso; and he declared that it was he who had cut off the head of Don Felipe Ugalde,[63] whose skull he had in his possession as a trophy. This he surrendered to Martín Franco, that he might bury it in consecrated ground. The command of this fort is today an office that is conferred on a very meritorious officer; he has jurisdiction in all those villages of Playa Honda, and appoints in them governors who administer justice, as do the alcaldes-mayor of these islands in their [respective] provinces.

In Zambal villages; 1683

[The following account is taken from Salazar’s Hist. de Sant. Rosario, pp. 300–311. It was a revolt against ecclesiastical authority, and would have ended in the liberation of the Zambals from all Spanish rule, had they not been in awe of the fort and garrison of Paynauen. Salazar’s relation is interesting in regard to native character and missionary methods.]

There was in the village of Balacbac an Indian chief named Dulinen, to whose following belonged a great part of the village; although he came down [from the hills] to live in a settlement, it was more from worldly considerations than from affection for a Christian mode of life, and he therefore left in the mountains all his valuables, and a nephew of his for a guard over them. This was learned by an Indian named Calignao, who went to the mountain and slew the nephew of Dulinen—who, incensed at this, urged his followers to go with him to the mountain to avenge the death of his nephew. When this came to the knowledge of the servant of God,[64] he made every effort to prevent this flight, and although he restrained some of them he could not entirely prevent it; accordingly, that chief went back to the mountains, followed by seventeen families. The commandant of the fort at Paynaoven [sic], when he learned of this departure, attacked the chief and his followers, and burned down the village of Aglao, of which the murderer Calignao and the said chief were natives, and which was near that of Balacbac, where at that time all lived. The said Calignao had many kinsmen, and, in order that these might not go away and flee to the mountains, father Fray Domingo endeavored to gain their good-will; he asked the commandant for a commission as adjutant for Calignao, which the commandant immediately gave him—adding, to pacify the Indians, that the killing by Calignao had been done in compliance with a command by the government that all those should be killed who would not come down to the settlements, etc. With this the men of Balacbac were calmed, but their quiet did not last long; for a relative of Calignao named Dagdagan, who accompanied the commandant and his soldiers, promised to attack the chief who had fled. Entering the woods to carry out this plan, he went but a few paces when he was slain by a Negrillo of the mountains; and, through the mischief-making of a wicked Indian, his relatives believed that the religious had occasioned this death. They assembled to celebrate his funeral rites with much wine-drinking (a common usage among these infidels); and their carousal resulted in an agreement to cut off the head of the servant of God, for which exploit Calignao offered himself, in return for the kind acts which father Fray Domingo had done for him. And now that we have this evil man under consideration [entre manos] it will be well to point out something of his life, in order that what remains to be told of him may not afterward cause surprise. Thomas Calignao was a native of the village of Aglao, distant two leguas from Balacbac, and was a Christian from his childhood—although of Christian he had only the name; for his life and habits were worse than those of a heathen. He never heard mass, or made a confession; he observed neither human nor divine nor even natural law; for his only endeavor was to cut off heads—even if they were those of children or women—without further cause or motive than his craving to kill for the sake of killing. On account of these and many other sins, the commandant often intended to put him to death; but he did not carry out this purpose, through the intercession of father Fray Domingo, for the servant of God said (and not unjustly): “If you kill this man, who has so large a following, many will return to the mountains; but if he is reclaimed to an upright life he will bring in and convert many Cimarrons, and can be very helpful to us in our ministry.” For these and other reasons, and for the salvation of that soul, father Fray Domingo made every effort to convert Calignao to a good life—now with advice, now with kind acts, again with examples, flattering words, and promises, and sometimes with threats—[telling Calignao] that unless he mended his ways, he would leave the commandant to do his duty. None of these methods sufficed to reclaim him, for, even when it seemed as if he were somewhat softened, if they summoned him to hear mass he became indignant, and heard it while seated and smoking tobacco (an impropriety unheard-of in this country); and if the father commanded him to kneel he was inflamed with anger and excitement—most of all, when the father commanded him to come for instruction in the [Christian] doctrine, his ignorance of which made him so bad a Christian. Father Fray Domingo, seeing how little attention Calignao paid to his counsels, availed himself of his relatives and other influential persons, in order that they might bring him to reason and to decent living. But all this was lost time, for besides not hearing mass on the feast-days, or attending instruction (as all did), all that he cared or watched for was to kill others and become drunk; and although he did this, as he thought, in secret, other persons told it to father Fray Domingo, who rebuked him for his cruel acts and his persistence in his evil ways. From this arose the hatred and ill-will which Calignao entertained for the servant of God; and in order to remove him thus, and not have in future any one who would rebuke him, he now offered to cut off the father’s head.

On a certain occasion Calignao killed a poor woman; and as the aggressor was unknown, as this happened in a hidden place, father Fray Domingo undertook, in order to learn who did it, to use the stratagem of feeling the pulse of every person in the village. All agreed to this, except Calignao, who, being present at this trial, escaped and fled to the woods for several days. Soon returning thence to the village, he went about visiting his relatives; he told them that he was going to the mountains, not to return; but that, before he went away, he must cut off some heads. He thereupon went to the house of an Indian, a nephew of the woman whom he had murdered, and in order to kill him unsheathed the ygua, which is worse than a butcher’s knife; but the Indian, who was seated, seized his dagger in his hand, and remained thus, quietly—at which Calignao was afraid, and did not dare to carry out his purpose. At the noise of this, all the people hastened thither, as did father Fray Domingo, who, seeing the perverse Calignao in the mood for cutting off heads, said to him: “Come here, thou wicked man. Are not the murders that thou committest at night enough, without trying to kill in daylight, and in sight of all?” To which he replied: “I am looking for thee, Father, for thee first of all; do thou come here.” Two Indians then approached to pacify him; but all was in vain, for he was blind with anger and fury; and when they tried to bring him to reason, he hastily went out and fled to the mountains. Soon afterward he returned to the village, and, passing in front of the convent at a time when the servant of God was at the window, Calignao began to defy him, with both words and gestures; but father Fray Domingo answered him: “Since thou knowest that the religious do not kill, or carry arms, thou talkest thus—as thou wouldst not talk or act with the soldiers.” This made Calignao very ugly, and, walking throughout the midst of the village, he declared that he would not halt until he had taken the head from father Fray Domingo; and no one dared say a word to him, because he was sheltered by his relatives. The commandant of the fort, having learned of the cruel and shameless acts of Calignao, sent seven Spanish soldiers to guard father Fray Domingo, and ordered them to arrest or kill that evil man; but, although they twice had the opportunity to do this, the servant of God prevented it, and, most of the soldiers having become sick, they returned to their fort without having accomplished anything. The commandant, at this, ordered the headman of Balacbac to seize or kill Calignao, who every day went in or out of the said village; but he did not carry out this order, for all feared him and showed him respect—rather, indeed, they watched over his safety.

For more than three years the servant of God went about, inquiring, with great solicitude into the idolatrous customs which the Zambals had; and for this he availed himself of the boys—whom he assembled together, and taught to read, and related to them the examples and lives of the saints, bestowing on them presents and kindnesses, with great affection. Then he questioned them as to the method and the times in which their parents and elders practiced idolatry, and they told him everything, with all details. This was especially true of the boy Diego, whom father Fray Domingo baptized in Abucay; he was a nephew of a priest of their idols, and was very well instructed in our holy faith; and he was not suspected of telling the father what conduced to the greater service and honor of God. Father Fray Domingo charged the rest of the boys to keep this secret, so that their parents should not flog them; and through fear of this they remained silent, so that it was never known that the boys were the ones who had revealed the practice of idolatry. Thus father Fray Domingo came to know that the chiefs of the villages were the priests of the idols, and that they found this profitable; for by [filling] this office they obtained their food, and had the advantage in any controversy, and, without this, they would fare ill. Also that the common people were in great subjection and obedience to the said priests, who could incite them to any daring act—especially since, as he was informed, all the people in the province, both infidels and Christians, had been bound by promise and oath not to reveal their idolatries, no matter how many inquiries the father should make, even though they were ruined or lost their lives by this silence. Accordingly the servant of God found this undertaking very arduous, and foresaw that it would cost him many hardships, and that he would in it expose himself to many dangers to his reputation, and honor, and even to his life. Notwithstanding, like another Elias, zeal for the honor of God flamed in him; and laying aside all fear for what might come, he directed his efforts and all his energies to the destruction of this infernal vice.

When Lent came around in the year 1683, he began his war against idolatry, having first commended to God this his undertaking. He summoned to his presence each one of the idolaters, and said to one: “Thou hast these and these instruments, and with them thou didst offer sacrifice on such a day, in company with N. and N.”[65] To another he said: “Thou art a priest of so many idols, and for these thou hast so many implements, kept in such and such a place—with which thou renderest to the demon the honor and reverence which are due to God alone, the Author of creation. As proofs of this, on such a day thou didst sacrifice in company with N. and N., and on such a day with N.” In this manner he went on, examining all the Zambals; and they, seeing these accurate proofs, regarded the servant of God as a soothsayer, and handed over to him the instruments of their idol-worship. Immediately he gave these to the boys, so that they could break in pieces and abuse them; and finally he commanded them to burn these articles in the sight of all. The spectators were amazed at seeing that neither the father nor the children died as a result of this desecration of their idols; for they had believed that he who should profane these instruments must perish. The father preached to them, and taught them what they must do in future. Having accomplished this in Baubuen, he proceeded to the villages of Balacbac and Alalang—where, although at the beginning he encountered some resistance, he finally succeeded in his purpose that these Indians also should surrender to him the implements of idol-worship that they possessed. Having placed all these in a little hut, he set fire to it, and all were burned, not without the surprise of these Indians also that no disaster happened to the father.

The Indians of these villages requested that those of the village of Masingloc should not be told that the former had surrendered their implements, because all had sworn an oath not to do so, and, if it were known that they had given up these articles, the others would come to attack, them. Notwithstanding this petition, the servant of God proceeded to do the same at Masingloc, three or four times; there he encountered an old chief, who was the Bayoc, or head priest, who delegated jurisdiction to the rest in order that they could sacrifice to their idols. With this diabolical man, possessed by a demon, the servant of God labored without measure, preaching to him, and convincing him with arguments; but in no way could he be cured of his obstinacy, even when one day father Fray Domingo went so far as to cast himself at his feet and kiss them—watering them with his tears, which ran in streams over his cheeks—begging him for the love of God to give up that practice [of idolatry] and be converted to God with all his heart, and relating to him many instances that were pertinent to the subject; but the old man, obstinate and possessed by a demon, showed himself rebellious, hard, and stubborn. The chiefs of Masingloc, seeing the activity of the servant of God, and the earnestness with which he went about that business, sent nine of their number to Manila, who presented a petition to the government saying that they had been Christians for ninety years[66] and had never kept idols; and now father Fray Domingo Perez had given them the reputation of being idolaters, taking away their good name, etc. This caused the servant of God to suffer much in regard to his own reputation; for in Manila, as people had not kept the matter in mind, each one considered it according to his own personal feelings and the most moderate called it indiscreet zeal, and others lack of judgment. At that time the suits against Señor Pardo were at their height, since about this time he was arrested; accordingly, all those who were governing had a poor opinion of the Dominican friars. And now with the petition of these Indians they were more confirmed in their opinion, treating us as violators of the peace, and disturbers of the people; and all this was charged to the servant of God, as, to appearances, the origin and cause of all the trouble. Accordingly, very severe letters were written to him from Manila, censuring him for imprudent conduct, etc. But the commandant at the fort at Paynaven, as soon as he learned of the result, wrote to the governor, telling him the entire truth, and asking him to arrest those Indians; but when this despatch reached Manila, the petition had been already presented, and representations had been made against the servant of God, and in favor of the Zambal Indians. Notwithstanding this, the governor did what the commandant asked him, placing the Indians in the fort [of Santiago]. When this was known by the people of Masingloc, they immediately surrendered a hundred and fifty implements with which they served and adored their idols; and the commandant again wrote to the governor, asking him to release the nine Indians. This was done, but on the return to their village one of them died after a brief illness; he was the chief minister of the idols, although he did not make this known up to the hour of his death. The others also quickly became ill, and they died one after another, God punishing their insolence, and defending the honor of His servant.

Most of the Indians were reclaimed, and confirmed in our holy faith, by the words and deeds of father Fray Domingo; and they therefore voluntarily gave up the instruments with which they formerly sacrificed to the demon—although many did so because they could not resist, especially those who were priests and had obtained their living by those practices; these were the chief men of the villages. They remained grieved and angry, and with little love for the servant of God; and each one of them would, if he had had the power, have taken the father’s life—or a thousand of them, if he could have had so many—but they were made cowards by their fear of the soldiers at the fort. [Angered at what Fray Domingo had done to uproot their idolatries, these chiefs conspire against him, and resolve to take his life—for which deed Calignao offers his services. At the time (July, 1683), the father is in Manila soliciting contributions for building churches in the Zambal country; his head, which a year before had showed hardly a gray hair, is now almost white, at the age of forty-five—an effect of his unusual toils above described. On November 12 of that same year Fray Domingo is treacherously slain, on his return from Baubuen to Balacbac, by Calignao and an infidel Negrillo named Quibácat, with poisoned arrows. Some friendly Indians convey him to Balacbac, where he dies three days later. The commandant of the fort wishes to go to punish the Zambals for this murder, but a friar dissuades him, saying that if he leaves the fort, the Zambals would get possession of it, “and no religious or Spaniard would be left in all Playa Honda.” Soldiers are sent to seize the assassin, but he cannot be taken, for he is protected by the natives in the village, “who all were present at the funeral more from joy at seeing the father dead than from compassion, or sadness at having lost him, thinking that with the death of father Fray Domingo they could again revive their idol-worship.”]

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[1] “Bohol, pertaining to the government of Zebú, and its spiritual administration to the fathers of the Society of Jesus, who in this island have in their charge six [sic] villages, the most important of which are Loboc, Baclayón, Inabangan, Malabago, Malabohoc” (Diaz’s Conquistas, p. 132).

A note by Diaz’s editor, Fray Tirso López, states that Bohol “now [1890] belongs to the Recollects.” [↑]

[2] “He made ready four caracoas, with such Spaniards as he could find, and Indians from Sialo (which is the coast of Zebú), a very warlike people; and set out for Bohol, not entrusting to any one else an expedition so important” (Diaz, p. 133).

Diaz has evidently obtained most of his information from Murillo Velarde. We present (in notes) only such matter as he gives additional to the latter. [↑]

[3] Diaz states (p. 133) that these were both Pampango and Sialo Indians, and numbered more than a thousand. [↑]

[4] “The insurgents fled to the mountain, where for four days our men pursued them, slaying all that they encountered. They found many persons who had died for lack of food, as they had made but scanty provision of it, confiding in the promises of the demon, who had promised them that he would change the leaves on the trees into rice.” (Diaz, p. 134.) [↑]

[5] “Laden with spoil and captives,” and “leaving a garrison of Spaniards and Pampangos” (Diaz, p. 134). [↑]

[6] Spanish, zarzas y espinas; probably meaning branches of thorny shrubs, and trees. The defense of pointed stakes driven into the ground (VOL. XXVII, p. 275) is called in Tagal suyac. Cf. description of this in Ling Roth’s Natives of Sarawak (London, 1896), i, p. 444, and ii, pp. 110–115. [↑]

[7] Spanish, ballestones; but the contrivance mentioned in the text refers to a trap used throughout the archipelago for hunting large game; it is called belatic or balantic, and as it is sprung discharges a sharp javelin or arrow. See description and illustration of this trap in Reed’s Negritos of Zambales (Manila, 1904), pp. 45, 46; and of a similar device used by the Dyaks and Malays of Borneo, in Ling Roth’s Natives of Sarawak, i, pp. 437–442. Cf. Diaz’s mention (Conquistas, p. 134) of these ballestones, “which they are wont to set as snares for hunting deer.” [↑]

[8] Fifty-seven years previously; Bancao must have been, then, at least seventy-five years old at the time of this revolt; Diaz says (p. 134) that Bancao was “very old and decrepit.” [↑]

[9] According to Diaz (p. 135). “desiring to be king of the island of Leyte.” [↑]

[10] “For with the enemy came many women clad in white, and many children, in order to pick up bits of earth and scatter them on the wind, as the demon had told them—believing that if they did so the Spaniards would fall dead; but the test of this proved very costly to them. The demon had also promised them that he would resuscitate those slain in battle; but, when they carried some of the dead to his temple for him to do this, he replied, with ridiculous excuses, that he could not do it.” (Diaz, p. 135.) [↑]

[11] According to Diaz (p. 136), he was shot and then burned; also many of the rebels were hanged or shot. [↑]

[12] See description of this earthquake in VOL. XXXV, pp. 217–226. [↑]

[13] Gapán (or Gapang) is a town in the southern part of Nueva Ecija, Luzon, near San Isidro and the Rio Grande de la Pampanga. [↑]

[14] Juan de Abarca, a native of Madrid, came to the islands in the Augustinian mission of 1635, and was a minister in Pampangan and Visayan villages during twenty years, except at times filling official posts in Manila. He died there in 1656. [↑]

[15] See account of the conquest of Luzón, in VOL III, pp. 141–172; but the name Matanda does not occur therein. [↑]

[16] Alluding to the fact that it was the Lutaos—who lived in Basilan, Joló, and other islands south of Mindanao—who aided the Spaniards to quell this insurrection. [↑]

[17] That is, the missionaries had interfered with an illicit amour of Sumoroy’s (Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, vi, p. 251). [↑]

[18] Meaning that at a certain part of the ascent, where but one man at a time could pass, each had to use both hands and feet for climbing, leaving his weapons with the man next to him, the latter handing them up afterward; and so on, with each in turn. See Murillo Velarde’s Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 174. [↑]

[19] An allusion to La Rochelle, considered the most strongly fortified town in France. [↑]

[20] Miguel Ponce, S.J., was born in Peñaroya in Aragon, in the archbishopric of Zaragoza, and attended the university of Alcalá de Henares where he studied philosophy and theology. His endeavors to enter the Society met with failure. Inspired to a mission life, he set out for Madrid to join the mission then forming for the Philippines, but found the procurator already gone. Following afoot, he overtook him at Carmona, but was so worn out with his difficult journey and so tanned that he resembled a negro in color. For that reason the procurator refused to accept him, “for in Indias, color is an accident of great importance to the Indians.” But Ponce, in his eagerness to go, offered to accompany the missionaries as a servant or slave; and he was finally taken in the capacity of servant, embarking with the secular habit. He was admitted into the Society at Mexico in 1631, and after four months sailed from Acapulco for the Philippines. His studies were completed at Manila, and he was finally ordained a priest. For eleven months he labored in eastern Samar and was later appointed rector of Palapag. He was killed as above described, June 11, 1649. See Murillo Velarde, fol. 175, 176a. [↑]

[21] Giulio Aleni, S.J., was born at Brescia in 1582 and entered the Society in 1600, being sent almost immediately after professing the humanities to China. He landed at Macao in 1610 and entered China in 1613, where he labored until 1649, the year of his death. As the text shows, he must have made a journey to the Philippines. He left many writings, a number in the Chinese tongue. See Sommervogel’s Bibliothèque. [↑]

[22] Of Albay, which some called Ibalón, from a village and port of that name.—Rev. Tirso López, O.S.A. [↑]

[23] Juan del Campo, S.J., was born in March, 1620, in Villanueva de la Vera, near Jarandilla, his father being Juan del Campo, a familiar of the Holy Office. Having studied in the Jesuit college at Oropesa, he entered the Society (1636) contrary to the wish of his parents. He went to Mexico in 1642, and thence to Manila (1643). His superiors sent him to Mindanao among the Subanos, where he labored zealously. He suffered martyrdom in that island January 7, 1650, during the insurrections. See Murillo Velarde, fol. 178–179 verso. [↑]

[24] Vicente Damian, S.J., was born in the city of Mecina, October 13, 1613, and after studying in a Jesuit college, entered the Society, March 20, 1630. After many vain efforts, he finally obtained permission to go to the Philippines, where he arrived in 1643. After completing his theological studies in Manila, he was sent to the Ibabao missions, where his preaching and works caused visible effects. After the death of Miguel Ponce, he was appointed rector in his place. He met death October 11, 1649 at the hands of the insurgents. See Murillo Velarde, fol. 176–178. [↑]

[25] The Recollect Fray Miguel de Santo Tomás, minister at Butuan; it was he who cared for the survivors of the insurgents’ attack on Linao (VOL. XXXVI, p. 136). [↑]

[26] This name is quite erroneous. The person here referred to was Tuto, a member of the curious class among the Subanons of Mindanao who are called labias (see description post, in VOL. XL.) For Manila read Malandi (or Malandeg), the name of an ancient village on the coast near Zamboanga which disappeared after the abandonment of the fortress there. Tuto was baptized by Combés under the name of Martin, and often aided that missionary when he visited Tuto’s village of Malandi. (See Combés’s Hist. Mindanao, col. 63, 64, 514, 756, 786.) [↑]

[27] Francisco Lado, a native of Sardinia, was born on June 2, 1617, and at the age of sixteen entered the Jesuit order. He died at San Pedro Macati, on May 19, 1677. (Retana and Pastells’s edition of Combés, col. 713.) [↑]

[28] A Sanskrit word, meaning “a learned man”—apparently borrowed by the Malays and used to designate their Mahometan teachers. [↑]

[29] Spanish, à las quarenta horas; a phrase usually referring to the devotion of forty hours in connection with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (usually occurring in times of public danger or distress). As nothing is said in the text of such exposition, the apparent meaning is that Tenorio finished his enterprise within forty hours after leaving Samboangan—a rendering for which the Spanish form is an unusual one, but not more so than many other expressions in Concepción’s pages. [↑]

[30] This name is said (Retana and Pastells’s Combés, col. 739) to mean “lady who will be queen”—uley being a variant of uraya, the future of raia or raja (“king” or “queen”). Urancaya (ut supra, col. 787) is from orang (“man”) and kaya (“rich”). [↑]

[31] Concepción states (Hist. de Philipinas, vii, p. 9) that an insufficient amount of timber was furnished for a ship then on the stocks, and Cortaberria urged on the overseers of the woodcutting, and they in turn their gangs of men, but with so much harshness that the latter mutinied. [↑]

[32] Pedro Camacho came from the Dominican convent at Sevilla, in the mission of 1648. He ministered to the Indians in and near Manila, and was director of the school of San Juan de Letran; he finally returned to Spain in 1659. (Reseña biográfica, p. 466.) [↑]

[33] For description of tree-dwellings—made, however, by the natives of Mindanao—see VOL. XXI, pp. 239–241. [↑]

[34] This was Nicolas de Campo. [↑]

[35] Spanish, morenos criollos. “There are creoles, or morenos, who are black negroes, natives of the country; there are many Cafres, and other negroes from Angola, Congo, and Africa” (Murillo Velarde, Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 5). [↑]

[36] In Bolinao was a chief named Sumulay, a relative of Malóng, who tried to further the latter’s ambitious schemes; Sumulay was opposed by the missionary there, a discalced Augustinian named Juan Blancas. On January 5 Ugalde arrived at Bolinao, and conferred with Blancas. As the chief strength of the insurgents lay in their poisoned arrows, which caused mortal wounds, the friar induced a friendly chief to supply the Spanish troops with an antidote for this poison. Ugalde also procured there supplies of various kinds—among them, small boats which could enter the creeks, and hides of cattle with which to form shelters against the enemy’s arrows. (Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, vii, pp. 16, 26, 27.) [↑]

[37] Juan Camacho made his profession in the Dominican convent of Almagro, April 19, 1638, and came to the Philippines in 1648. Most of his remaining years were spent in the Pangasinán missions; but in 1668 he became prior of the Manila convent, and a year later provincial. In his old age, he was summoned to Mexico by the Inquisition on a scandalous charge; his innocence being declared after four years, he returned to the islands, and died at Manila in 1700. (Reseña biográfica, i, p. 471.) [↑]

[38] Probably alluding to Santa Cruz’s Hist. Sant. Rosario; he mentions the insurgent leader Malóng as dying “a very good Christian” (p. 340), and the insurgents as deluded and misled. His account of the rebellion is much shorter than Diaz’s. It will be remembered that the Dominicans had spiritual charge of Pangasinán. [↑]

[39] Bernardino Márquez, a native of Galicia, made his profession in the convent of Toro, and came to the islands in 1645. He spent the rest of his life mainly in the Ilocan missions, and died in 1680. (Pérez’s Catálogo, p. 120.) [↑]

[40] A misprint for balarao (or bararao), another name for the kris—see VOL. XVI, p. 81, and VOL. XXVIII, p. 55. [↑]

[41] Thus in the text, in most places; but in Pérez’s Catálogo the name is written “de la Isla.” [↑]

[42] Juan Polanco was a native of the hill-country of Burgos, and professed in the Dominican convent at Valladolid in 1639. He came to the islands in 1658, and, after learning the Chinese language, went to China; he spent two years there, suffering persecutions and torture. He was then appointed procurator-general of his order at Madrid and Rome, in which service he sent to the Philippines the mission of 1666. He died at Sevilla, on December 2, 1671. [↑]

[43] Thus in text; apparently a misprint for Polanco. [↑]

[44] This name is not found in the gazetteers of the present time; but it must have been in the mountains east of Vigán, from which Narvacán is thirteen miles southeast. [↑]

[45] Concepción makes this number eight hundred (vii, p. 31), as does Murillo Velarde (fol. 256). Both they and Diaz give the numbers in words, not figures. [↑]

[46] Talabón: a name given to a sort of litter (also known as petaca—which also means “a covered box or basket”—and lorimón), which is usually conveyed by four men in their hands or on their shoulders, after the fashion of a silla gestatoria (a portable chair used by the pope on great occasions), but closed.—Rev. Tirso López, O.S.A. [↑]

[47] See preceding note on talabón (p. 199). [↑]

[48] This statement does not agree with that in the next paragraph which states that this chief was hanged at Vigán. [↑]

[49] Elsewhere printed Bisaya. The Tagal word buaya means “crocodile,” which gives some basis for the conjecture that Boaya was the chief’s name, as persons are often named for animals, among barbarous peoples. [↑]

[50] Verse [121]: “I have done judgment and justice; give me not up to them that slander me.” [↑]

[51] Spanish, como cuñas del mismo palo; alluding to the proverb, No hay peor cuña que la del mismo palo, equivalent to “there is no worse enemy than an alienated friend.” [↑]

[52] Alluding to the threatened invasion of the Philippines by Kue-sing, the Chinese adventurer, and the consequent disturbances among the Chinese in the islands, with the ravages made by the Moro pirates—all in 1662. See accounts in VOL. XXXVI. [↑]

[53] These houses were founded in the following order: Ogtóng (Otón), 1572; Tigbauan, 1575; Dumangas, 1578; Antique, 1581; Jaro, 1587; Guimbal, 1590; Passi (Pasig), 1593; Laglag, 1608. (In regard to Laglag, cf. our VOL. XXIII, p. 293.) For these dates, see Coco’s chronological table at end of Medina’s Historia, pp. 481–488. [↑]

[54] These houses were thus founded: Panay and Dumárao, 1581; Dumalag (or Ayombón), 1506; Batán, 1601; Mambúsao, 1606; Cápiz, 1707. Aclán was founded by the Augustinians, in 1581; and Ibahay, in 1611. See table mentioned in note 100, above. [↑]

[55] Laglag is now named Dueñas. This wretched custom of changing the old names, substituting for them new ones which have no connection with the place to which they are applied nor with Filipinas, has unfortunately become general in those islands; and for the sake of pleasing or flattering some captain-general, alcalde, or cura, history is grievously obscured.—Rev. Tirso López, O.S.A. [↑]

[56] Pérez says (Catálogo, p. 199) that Mesa was a native of Mexico, but made his profession (1644) in the convent of San Pablo at Manila. In 1656 he became minister at Dumalag, and in 1659 at Laglag. [↑]

[57] This mingling of religion and idolatry was frequent among the newly-converted Indians, who by not living conformably to the just severity of the gospel precepts, apostatized from the faith; and even today cases of similar amalgamation occur. The Indians of Filipinas did not offer sacrifices to the demon because they believed that he was some divinity, for they had knowledge of his being an evil spirit: but through fear, so that by keeping him satisfied he should do them no harm, or else that he might aid them to carry out some depraved purpose.—Rev. Tirso López, O.S.A. [↑]

[58] Thus in the text, but evidently an error; it should doubtless be regarded as an error for Malonor. [↑]

[59] A similar death was the fate of that most pious father Fray Isidro Badrena—on April 9 in the year 1874, in the hills near the town of Tubungan—when he was exhorting some apostate Indians to desist from offering an idolatrous sacrifice.—Rev. Tirso López, O.S.A.

Tubungan is seventeen miles west-northwest of Iloilo. [↑]

[60] The modern form of this name is Jalaur; this fine river, with its numerous affluents, waters the northeastern part of the province of Iloilo, Panay. The “river of Laglag” is evidently the Ulián, which flows into the Jalaur near Laglag (the modern Dueñas). Apparently the culprits, both living and dead, were fastened to stakes in the river, to be eaten by crocodiles. [↑]

[61] Delgado relates this incident (Hist. de Filipinas, p. 280) as a specimen of the credulity of the natives, and adds this other instance: “While I was in the village of Lipa, the discovery was made in the village of Tanauan of a mine which was said to be of silver. Officials and workmen were sent to examine it, and test the ore, by the governor Don Fausto Cruzat y Góngora; they did so diligently, but the mine said only, Argentum et aurum non est mihi [i.e., “Silver and gold have I none”]. At that time the devil caused some arrant knave to spread the lying tale that the miners declared that the mine would not yield silver until this were done: all the Visayans of Comintan must be seized and their eyes gouged out, and these must be mixed with other ingredients, and the ore-vein of the mine rubbed with that compound. This was so thoroughly believed that every one was anxious and tearful, and the old women hid themselves in the grain-fields; and it took a long time to quiet them, with much labor of the [religious] ministers (whom they did not believe, because these were Castilians), until in the course of time they were undeceived.” [↑]

[62] Apparently a misprint, as Diaz usually makes it Pignauen, but both forms seem improbable, as compared with Paynauén—cf. that name in next section of this document, and in Concepción (viii, p. 14)—and suggest carelessness in transcription from the MS. of Diaz. It is written Paynaven in various documents cited in Reseña biográfica, i, p. 490, et seq. Neither name appears in modern gazetteers. [↑]

[63] He was killed in the expedition against the Igorrotes, about 1666; Diaz says (p. 654) that Ugalde went with four thousand pesos to pay the troops, without sufficient escort, and was waylaid and slain by Zambals. Paynauén was founded at that time. [↑]

[64] Domingo Pérez was born in 1636 near Santillana, and professed in the Dominican convent at Trianos, at the age of twenty-three. He came to the islands in 1666, and in the following year was sent to the Bataan missions, and soon afterward to those among the Zambal tribes; the rest of his life, save during 1677–79, was spent among the Zambals. He wrote an “account of the customs and superstitions of the Zambals.” (Reseña biográfica, ii, pp. 34–43.) [↑]

[65] “N” in Spanish stands for some proper name unknown, or not intended to be expressed, like the English “Mr. Blank,” or “So-and-So.” [↑]

[66] The missions to the Zambals were previously in the hands the Augustinian Recollects. A royal decree dated June 18, 1677 commanded the archbishop of Manila to place the missions of Mindoro in charge of one of the religious orders. Concepción states (Hist. de Philipinas, viii, pp. 4–16) that Pardo thereupon compelled the Recollects to give up the Zambal missions to the Dominicans, receiving in exchange therefor those of Mindoro that the natives in the latter desired to have Jesuits sent to them, and that the Zambals preferred the Dominicans, but that the opposition of both was overcome by the persuasions of government officials; and that the Dominicans, in their zeal for condensing the scattered Zambal population, made several blunders by removing certain villages to very unsuitable and disadvantageous locations.

The compiler of Reseña biográfica asserts that Concepción’s statements are incorrect. He claims that the Zambal in 1676 asked for religious instruction, stipulating that Dominican missionaries be sent them, which was done; that soon the Recollects began to complain of this, as an intrusion on their field of labor, and the Dominicans therefore withdrew their laborers; that this field was afterward given to the Dominicans by Archbishop Pardo (1679), on account of its being neglected by the Recollects; that the attempt to carry on the Zambal missions cost the Dominicans great loss of money and men, without producing satisfactory results, and therefore they offered several times to give up this charge; and that finally (1712) they did actually renounce and surrender the Zambal missions. In proof of these statements he cites not only Salazar’s Historia, but various documents and records from the Dominican archives at Manila. (See Reseña biográfica, i, pp. 486–504; this resumé is accompanied by an interesting report of the work accomplished by the Dominicans in those missions during the years 1680–90, made by Fray Gregorio Jiraldez, June 2, 1690.) [↑]