This province is located in the island of Luzón, and is bounded on the north by the provinces of Pampanga and Zambales, on the east by the bay of Manila, and on the south and west by the sea of China. It is governed by an alcalde, and is in charge of the Dominican fathers, with the exception of Mariveles, Bagac, and Morong, which are in charge of the Recollect fathers.
The missionaries of our corporation performed their first labors of conquest in this territory. Here were founded the oldest villages on our list; and here took place the first persecutions of our long-suffering predecessors, who had the glory of watering with their blood the country that they were evangelizing, the one that furnished to the province of San Nicolás their protomartyr.
Fray Miguel de Santa Maria, accompanied by Father Pedro de San José (who, although he had been a calced Augustinian, had become a Recollect in Manila), and by brother Fray Francisco de Santa Mónica, were the first to leave the convent of San Juan de Bagumbayan; and prepared by prayer and penance, and full of the spirit of God, set forth to announce His mysteries to the idolaters and heathen, sent legitimately to the mountains of Mariveles to illumine its inhabitants with the light of the Catholic faith. They found those natives enveloped in the most barbarous idolatry, adoring the sun, the moon, the cayman, and other filthy animals. These people regarded certain old men, as corrupt and as deceived as the divinities whom they were serving, as the ministers of those deceitful gods. The customs of those people were very analogous to the doctrines that directed them. Every kind of superstition was practiced; homicide was a praiseworthy and meritorious action; and their sacrifices on some occasions were human lives. In that vineyard so filled with wickedness the above-mentioned fathers announced the triune and one God, the mystery of the incarnation, and the eternal duration of the future life. The missionaries suffered more than one can tell from the inhabitants, who were opposed to and stubborn toward their teaching. In their bodies did they submit to hunger, and to the intemperance and inclemency of the elements; and in their truly apostolic spirit they suffered mortal anguish because of the blindness of their neighbors, which was in proportion to the great love of God and the zeal for His glory which glowed brightly in their hearts.
[The Recollects have charge of the villages of Mariveles, with 588 tributes, and 1,852 souls; Morong, with 870 tributes, and 3,154 souls; and Bagac, with 496½ tributes, and 1,743 souls.]
Province of Zambales
This province is located in the island of Luzón, north of Manila. It is bounded on the north by the gulf of Lingayen and the province of Pangasinan, on the east by the chain of mountains called Mariveles, on the south by Bataan, and on the west by the Chinese Sea; and is more than thirty leguas long in a north and south direction, and seven wide.
The preaching of the Recollects in this territory is mingled with the beginnings of that religious family in the Filipino archipelago. One may say that this was the region where the first discalced missionaries and the parishes established by them tasted the first-fruits of their evangelizing zeal, those first-fruits being offered to the Catholic church as a testimony of the purity of their doctrine, and submitted to the crown of España as its most faithful and disinterested vassals, Although they arrived at these shores in the year one thousand six hundred and six, in the following year they had already overrun this province—to whose inhabitants they taught the mysteries of our religion, and gave helpful instructions in the social life, in contradistinction to their barbarous state.
The first who sowed the seed of the gospel in the province of Zambales were the calced Augustinian fathers. Because of the lack of the above religious, the captain-general of these islands and their metropolitan cabildo entreated the vicar-provincial of the Recollects to assign religious for the spiritual cultivation of that unfilled vineyard. In the year one thousand six hundred and nine, our laborers went to Zambales, although visits had been made two years previously by those who were laboring in the province of Bataan, in order to increase the gospel seed. The meekness and resignation of the fathers in the midst of so much wretchedness and hardship arrested the attention of those barbarians; and the fathers succeeded in catechizing and converting many through their gentleness and kind treatment, and reduced them to settlements.
The Recollect fathers were charged with the spiritual administration of this province until the year one thousand six hundred and seventy-nine. In that year, being obliged to go to take charge of the province of Mindoro, and to preach the holy gospel there, they were forced to hand over the missions of Zambales—eleven in number—to the Dominican fathers, who assumed charge of them.
After the lapse of some years, and without explanation of the causes which could induce the above-mentioned Dominican fathers to cease to give spiritual food to those Christian communities with their accustomed zeal, it is a fact that the discalced Augustinians again took charge of that province, by the month of October, one thousand seven hundred and twelve; and again undertook the direction and continuation of their spiritual conquests until the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five, when they were compelled once more to leave it, for lack of religious. The secular priests assumed the missions, with the exception of the mission of Botolan, which was retained by the Recollects until one thousand eight hundred and fourteen. There was a residence for the missionaries in each of the villages, and even in various visitas there were suitable churches and convents of cut stone, when we left this province in the last century. On assuming it anew in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, the father provincial of the Recollects, Fray Blás de las Mercedes, attested that only ruins and desolation were found. Since that time they have labored without ceasing in the beautifying and adorning of the house of God, restoring the old ruins and building anew; until they have succeeded in making the churches worthy the majesty of the Catholic worship—already having, besides, suitable edifices for the residences of their missionaries.