Father Fray Juan de Rueda and de los Angeles, who died a martyr
[Father Fray Juan de Rueda was a native of the mountains of Burgos, and had assumed the habit in San Pablo at Valladolid, whence he came to the Philippinas in the year 1603, being sent, as soon as he arrived, to the kingdom of Japon. Here he assumed the name of Fray Juan de los Angeles. When the priests were banished, father Fray Juan was one of those who remained in hiding to aid and fortify the Christians there. In 1619 he came to Manila in order to obtain more religious. He reaped a great harvest in Arima. He was devoted to the holy rosary. He translated into Japanese the devotion of the holy rosary while he was in Manila. His anxiety to return was such that he strove to make his way back by the islands of the Lequios, where his arguments in favor of Christianity convinced those who heard them that he was a Spanish priest. He was therefore imprisoned for a time in an island called Avaguni, where he profaned a thicket which was dedicated to an idol, and for this suffered death, but on what day was never known.
While this provincial chapter was being held in Manila, there died in Nueva Segovia father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho, a native of Caceres in Estremadura. He was a son of the convent of San Estevan at Salamanca. He volunteered for the Philippinas in 1594, and in Mexico was elected a superior of the company, the vicar who had led them having died; he was assigned to Nueva Segovia. He was a most devoted minister, a diligent student of the language of that nation, and a most zealous and devoted religious. He prayed the Lord that he might not die a superior, and his prayer was granted; for after he had been vicar of many convents, vicar-provincial of Nueva Segovia, prior of the convent of Manila, and twice provincial of the province, the Lord called him to himself when he was living in Masi, one of the first villages which he converted. He died suddenly, on the twenty-fifth of April. The Indians of the villages of Abulug, Masi, Pata, and Cabacungan gave him the most costly funeral honors within their power, and made up a subscription for more than five hundred masses, which at four reals apiece come to more than two thousand. This they did as a token of their great love for him, and the great debt which they owed him for bringing them to the Catholic faith.]
On the eighth of June, the first Sunday after the most Holy Trinity, a great misfortune occurred in the revolt of some Indians of the province of Nueva Segovia. Turning their backs on the faith, they gave it up and fled to the mountains—a thing which caused great grief to the ministers of the holy gospel. In that province, above a village named Abulug, near a river which comes down from the mountain, two villages had been formed by gathering the inhabitants together. They were called Nuestra Señora del Rossario de Fotol, as has been recounted in this history, and San Lorenço de Capinatan. In the latter there lived some Indians known as Mandayas, a wild and fierce tribe whose native abode was in mountainous places about the bay of Bigan in Ylocos. The religious ministered to them and assisted them in their necessities, taught them the law of God, and baptized many people, for these people generally asked holy baptism from them. Their evil nature, which was perverse and restless, and their affection for their ancient places of abode so attracted them that it seemed as if in that village they were caught fast by the hair. Three times they endeavored to escape to the mountains; and though they were prevented twice, and their efforts came to nothing, this last time they so planned their attempt, and kept it so secret, that they carried out their evil purpose. With this object, they stirred up the old inhabitants of Capinatan, and persuaded those of Fotol, bringing them to join them by means of threats and prayers. Some of the people of Fotol became so obstinate that they were worse than the Mandayas, the first movers of the insurrection. Afterward the Mandayas who were in Capinatan rose; and two of them, Don Miguel Lanab and another chief named Alababan, set the enterprise in motion by going to the church to speak to the religious who was there at the time. This was father Fray Alonso Garcia,[29] a son of the convent of San Pablo at Valladolid, who had said a first mass in the village of Fotol, and a second in Capinatan, and was now at dinner with brother Fray Onofre Palao, a lay religious from the convent of Manila. They were seated at their meal in a little corridor of the house. Their assailants came up, and each one standing beside the religious whom he was to decapitate, they made a pretense of asking permission to go to some villages on their ancient lands. Father Fray Alonso, who had but recently come, referred the request to the regular minister of the village, and asked them to wait till he should come, because he was in another village. At this point Alababan raised his arm, and with his balanao or knife he struck such a blow on the neck of Fray Onofre that he cut off his head to the backbone, leaving it hanging by only a little bit of skin. Don Miguel Lanab, who had not acted so promptly, lifted his knife, and father Fray Alonso naturally raised his hand to protect his head. The knife cut through this and the blow went on and reached his head. Father Fray Alonso rose from the table and fell on his knees like a gentle lamb; and the Mandaya traitor repeated the blow, giving him another on the head. The Indian boys who served at the table began to scream; and the transgressors, that they might not be caught in so perfidious an act, made their escape. Some Indians who were ignorant of the conspiracy came, and took father Fray Alonso to the house of a chief, where some medicines were applied to the wound. As they were preparing a barge in which to take him down to the village of Abulug, the Mandayas came, and prevented them from doing so by threats. They took him back to the house of the chieftainess: and while father Fray Alonso was exhorting the people to come back to obedience, and expounding to them the evil of which they were guilty in apostatizing from the faith, three Mandayas came in, and with their keen balanaos or knives cut to pieces the confessor of Christ. They afterward threw out the pieces from the house, to be eaten by the swine who were there. As a result of this atrocious deed, the Mandayas rose in a body and roused the Capinatas; and, coming down to Fotol, they forced the people there by menaces to flee with them to the mountains. They set fire to the churches, and, as members of Satan, they defiled them by a thousand sacrileges. They struck off the head of a Christ, and cut the body down the middle, dividing it into two parts, which were afterward found by the religious who came to bring them back to obedience. The religious buried these, the uprising of the Mandayas (of whose severe punishment we shall soon hear) allowing no opportunity for anything else. With regard to Fray Alonso Garcia, several matters worthy of remark were noted. The first was this. Some months before, while he was living in the convent in Capinatan, he one night had put himself into the posture of prayer in the dormitory, with his breviary in his hand. At this time the convent was disturbed by an imp who caused so much trouble that he would not give the religious any rest, and from whose visitations there was not in all the convent any place that was free. He disturbed them in the dormitory, he made a noise in the cells, he feigned the noise of a struggle in the church; and sometimes he let himself fall with a clatter that was heard in the village, and he would throw himself down from the choir. He used to walk up and down in the church, and he made his appearance in the larders, where he broke all the plates there were; he made a noise under the beds, and struck the heads of the bedsteads; and sounded the strings of a harp which they had for use at masses on some feasts. This disturbance lasted until the breaking-out of the uprising, and must have been a prognostication of it, and a sign of what the devil was devising to disquiet the Christians of this village. Now while father Fray Alonso was praying, the imp came to him, invisible to everyone in the dormitory, and struck the father a heavy blow, so that he felt pain in the same hand and wrist, in the place where the blow afterward fell which cut it off. This was the first of the things referred to. The second was that he thought so little of himself, and had so little confidence in his own works, that he was accustomed to say that if he did not die by some fortunate blow which should take away his life and despatch him to heaven, he did not know whether he should go there. This he said because of his humility, and the event was as he said.
Another matter was that, although father Fray Alonso was not a very skilful linguist, and not one of those who had made the greatest progress in speaking the language of that tribe, yet when he was wounded by the first blows and was urging the Indians not to flee, and telling them of the harm which would come to them if they did so, he spoke with such elegance and precision that the Indians were amazed to hear him; and they noted this as a striking fact at the time, and told of it afterward. He was very charitable, and was in the habit of praising all and of speaking of the defects of himself alone. He came to the Philippinas in the year 1622, and lived in the province of Nueva Segovia—where, in his third year, he met with the happy death which keen knives, directed by hands of apostates from the faith, bring to ministers of the holy gospel. The intermediate chapter of 1628 made mention of these two religious in the following words: “In the province of Nueva Segovia father Fray Alonso Garcia, a priest, and brother Fray Onofre Palao, a lay brother, died happily by the hands of impious apostates, an uprising of the Indians to whom they ministered having occurred.” In the place where father Fray Alonso was cut to pieces, there was afterward raised in his honor a small shrine. The Indians were brought back in the following year, and this tribe used devoutly to frequent this shrine. The dwelling of the religious had stood where Fray Onofre had been killed, and here it was erected again. Since the first building was burned, it was supposed that the fire had consumed his body at the same time—although some Spaniards have some small bones which they value, believing that these are his, because they found them where he was decapitated.
Chapter XXIX
The foundation of a church in the island of Hermosa and the holy deaths of some religious
[The Order of St. Dominic has always had its eyes fixed upon Great China; and father Fray Bartholome Martinez was especially anxious for the conversion of that great realm. In this conversion he was like Moses, who came in sight of the promised land; for he carried religious and planted the faith in the island of Hermosa, from which that most populous realm is almost in sight. This island had been greatly coveted by Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Dutch. The king of España was the first to undertake to conquer it; and by his order there were prepared two ships of moderate size with a force of two hundred soldiers and sailors. The leader was Don Juan Zamudio, who came to the Philippinas in 1593. He chose the time of his voyage unfortunately, and was driven back to the coast of Batan; but he was rescued by the intervention of our Lady of the Rosary. The emperor of Japon in 1615, after his victory over Fideyori, sent an expedition against the island. It left Nangasaque in 1616 and wintered in the Lequios Islands. Setting sail again in the following November [sic], it was scattered by storms upon the coast of China. The Dutch, desirous of weakening the power of España and of interfering with the work of the preachers of the holy gospel, had taken possession of an uninhabited island called Island de Pescadores,[30] which lay off the coast of China. This was in 1624. By the Chinese the Dutch were persuaded to go thence to another island (Formosa) running from northeast to southwest, sixty-four leguas in length, and extending from latitude twenty-one to latitude twenty-five, and being thus twenty leguas in breadth. They established themselves at the southern point, in latitude twenty-three, in a port called Taiban, opposite Hayteng in Chincheo. From this post they could scour the seas and capture the vessels sailing from China. Here they built a small fort from which they could do much damage to the inhabitants of Manila and might close very important gateways to the holy gospel.[31]
In the year 1625 Don Fernando de Silva was governor of the Philippinas. He determined to send a fleet to take possession of a port in the island of Hermosa, in the name of the king of España, that the designs of the Dutch might be frustrated. He counseled with the provincial of the Order of St. Dominic, Fray Bartholome Martinez, who promised to go to the island of Hermosa and to take religious there, hoping in this way to gain an entry into China. In order to keep the design secret it was said that the troops were going to pacify the rebellious Indians of Yrraya, who had fled to the mountains. On February 8, 1626, the fleet sailed from the port of Cavite; it was composed of twelve champans and two galleys. There were three captains of infantry and their companies, and the force was under the command of the sargento-mayor, Antonio Carreño de Valdes. The ecclesiastical authority was in the hands of the provincial, Fray Bartholome Martinez, who took with him five religious, including those whom he later brought from Nueva Segovia. They anchored in the port of Nueva Segovia on the fifteenth of March, and remained there for some time. During the interval troops were sent to the river of the Mandayas, the Indians of which had rebelled in the previous June, as was said in the foregoing chapter. In order to reduce them, a great number of palms were cut down, that they might more easily be brought to subjection for lack of food. Since the reduction of the Mandayas took more time than was expected, and the voyage to the island of Hermosa was urgent, this matter was left without being brought to a conclusion. To carry out their principal purpose they sailed on the fourth of May, coming in sight of the island on the seventh of the same month. They coasted the island for three days, and on the tenth of May anchored on an estuary which they named Sanctiago. The provincial and Pedro Martin Garay, the chief pilot, went in two small vessels to the northern headland, exploring the coast. Within five hours they discovered a port which they called La Sanctissima Trinidad. They took back the news to the fleet, which came on to the port and in the divine name of the most Holy Trinity took the port under the protection of España. They built a fort upon an islet[32] a little more than a legua in circumference. This they called San Salvador. They also constructed a rampart on the top of a hill three hundred feet or more in height, which made the place impregnable. The Dominicans erected a humble church, dedicating it to St. Catharine of Siena. Here they heard the confessions of the Spaniards, preached, taught, and filled the office of parish priests, up to the year 1635. The inhabitants of this region had fled from fear of the arquebuses of the Spaniards, and desired to avenge themselves for the wrong which they felt that they had suffered because the soldiers made use of the rice which the natives had left behind them. To quiet and satisfy them, the religious set about learning their language; and, although they knew very little of it, they began to communicate with the natives, caressing them and giving them presents. The Lord prospered their work, and the barbarians, who had lived the lives of savages, drinking the blood of their neighbors, and eating the flesh of their enemies, were tamed by the treatment of the religious. They brought their wives and children to be baptized. The first fruits were delicate and tender children, many of whom, after being laved in the baptismal font, went to enjoy the possession to which they had acquired a right from the waters of the holy Jordan. The convent of All Saints of the island of Hermosa was accepted in the intermediate chapter of the year of our Lord 1627, and was erected into a vicariate, father Fray Francisco Mola[33] being appointed as its vicar and superior.