The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 1670-1700 / 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

Chapter XXXV

Foundation of the mission of Santa Cruz in Cagayan; and the death of two most virtuous hermits in this province.

In the year 1693, the mission of Santa Cruz was established at a place called Gumpat, near a visita of Malaveg, called Santa Cruz, whence the mission took its name. It was founded by father Fray Joseph Galfaroso,[20] or de la Santissima Trinidad, son of the convent of Pamplona, a man most zealous for the welfare of souls. While vicar of Malaveg, he, not being satisfied with the administration of the said village, made various entrances through the neighboring mountains in search of the heathens who lived in them, in order to lure them to the bosom of our holy faith. Those mountains are rough and broken, and the heathen who inhabit them are very brave, and give the Christian villages much to do with their continual raids and assaults with which they keep them terrified. Among those heathens of the mountain, a chief named Don Joseph Bucayu, who was the terror of all those mountains and of the neighboring villages, was prominent for his valor and courage, and was feared by all. This man God wished to take as the instrument for the foundation of that mission, for with the authority and respect that all had for him, he could attract many to his side, and taking example from him whom they considered their leader, many should embrace our holy faith.

[Through the grace of God, the fierce heart of this chief is softened and he embraces the faith, and by the force of his example draws many after him. He becomes the chief pillar of the new mission that is formed at Santa Cruz. Great success attends that mission until the year of the insurrection in Cagayan (1718), when that place is also deserted and its inhabitants take to the mountains. The remainder of this chapter is concerned with the life and death of Domingo Pinto of the tertiary branch of the Dominicans, who had lived as a hermit for twenty-three years; and information concerning a man known as Diego Peccador (i.e., Sinner), a Spaniard presumably of good blood, who lived as a hermit close beside the church at San Juan del Monte, for five or six years, practicing the most austere penances and mortifications, after which he disappeared and nothing else was heard of him.]