Francisco, in spite of his youth, became a tenant of the estate as did some others of his family, for their Biñan holdings were not large enough to give farms to all Captain Juan’s many sons. The landlords early recognized the agricultural skill of the Mercados by further allotments, as they could bring more land under cultivation. Sometimes Francisco was able to buy the holdings of others who proved less successful in their management and became discouraged.
The pioneer farming, clearing the miasmatic forests especially, was dangerous work, and there were few families that did not buy their land with the lives of some of its members. In 1847 the Mercados had funerals, of brothers and nephews of Francisco, and, chief among them, of that elder sister who had devoted her life to him, Page 56Potenciana. She had always prompted and inspired the young man, and Francisco’s success in life was largely due to her wise counsels and her devoted encouragement of his industry and ambition. Her thrifty management of the home, too, was sadly missed.
| Mother of Rizal. |
A year after his sister Potenciana’s death, Francisco Mercado married Teodora Alonzo, a native of Manila, who for several years had been residing with her mother at Kalamba. The history of the family of Mrs. Mercado is unfortunately not so easily traced as is that of her husband, and what is known is of less simplicity and perhaps of more interest since the mother’s influence is greater than the father’s, and she was the mother of José Rizal.
Her father, Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo (born 1790, died 1854), is said to have been “very Chinese” in appearance. He had a brother who was a priest, and a sister, Isabel, who was quite wealthy; he himself was also well to do. Their mother, Maria Florentina (born 1771, died 1817), was, on her mother’s side, of the famous Florentina family of Chinese mestizos originating in Baliwag, Bulacan, and her father was Captain Mariano Alejandro of Biñan.
Lorenzo Alberto was municipal captain of Biñan in 1824, as had been his father, Captain Cipriano Alonzo (died 1805), in 1797. The grandfather, Captain Gregorio Alonzo (died 1794), was a native of Quiotan barrio, and twice, in 1763 and again in 1768, at the head of the mestizos’ organization of the Santa Cruz district in Manila.
Page 57Captain Lorenzo was educated for a surveyor, and his engineering books, some in English and others in French, were preserved in Biñan till, upon the death of his son, the family belongings were scattered. He was wealthy, and had invested a considerable sum of money with the American Manila shipping firms of Peele, Hubbell & Co., and Russell, Sturgis & Co.
The family story is that he became acquainted with Brigida de Quintos, Mrs. Rizal’s mother, while he was a student in Manila, and that she, being unusually well educated for a girl of those days, helped him with his mathematics. Their acquaintance apparently arose through relationship, both being connected with the Reyes family. They had five children: Narcisa (who married Santiago Muger), Teodora (Mrs. Francisco Rizal Mercado), Gregorio, Manuel and José. All were born in Manila, but lived in Kalamba, and they used the name Alonzo till that general change of names in 1850 when, with their mother, they adopted the name Realonda. This latter name has been said to be an allusion to royal blood in the family, but other indications suggest that it might have been a careless mistake made in writing by Rosa Realonda, whose name sometimes appears written as Redonda. There is a family Redondo (Redonda in its feminine form) Alonzo of Ilokano origin, the same stock as their traditions give for Mrs. Rizal’s father, some of whose members were to be found in the neighborhood of Biñan and Pasay. One member of this family was akin in spirit to José Rizal, for he was fined twenty-five thousand pesos by the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands for “contempt of religion.” It appears that he put some original comparisons into a petition which sought to obtain justice from an inferior tribunal where, by the omission of the word “not” in copying, Page 58the clerk had reversed the court’s decision but the judge refused to change the record.
Brigida de Quintos’s death record, in Kalamba (1856), speaks of her as the daughter of Manuel de Quintos and Regina Ochoa.
The most obscure part of Rizal’s family tree is the Ochoa branch, the family of the maternal grandmother, for all the archives,—church, land and court,—disappeared during the late disturbed conditions of which Cavite was the center. So one can only repeat what has been told by elderly people who have been found reliable in other accounts where the clews they gave could be compared with existing records.