9Ibid., 44: 60.
There must have been opposition to the propagation of Christianity as we find that a fort was constructed in Línao10 some time after 1596. The headman, however, of the Línao region invited one Father Francisco Vicente to visit his people and it seems that "even the blacks11 visited him and gave him hopes of their conversion."12
10Línao was a town situated some miles to the south of Veruéla. It and the surrounding country subsided in recent times. Its former site is now under a maze of mad torrents that carry the waters from the upper to the middle Agúsan.
11We should bear in mind that Spanish historians frequently referred to the mountain people as little blacks (Negrillos), otherwise we might be led to believe that the ancestors of the present people living in the vicinity of the old townsite of Línao were Negritos.
12Ibid., 44: 60, et seq.
Morga in his Sucesos13 speaks of Butuán as being peaceable. He makes mention of the industry of obtaining civet from the civet cats.
13Ibid., 15.
1597
In the General History of the Discalced Augustinian Fathers, by Fray Andres de San Nicolas,14 we learn that missionaries had penetrated the district of Butuán as early as 1597, but that they had been unable to withstand the hostility of the mountain people.
14Ibid., 21.