[The early details of this mission have been fully given in previous volumes. The villages and missions of this province (a number of which are islands) in charge of the Recollects are as follows: Cuyo, with 2,392 tributes, and 9,475 souls; Agutaya, with 519½ tributes, and 2,258 souls; Paragua, with 618½ tributes, and 3,219 souls; Dumaran, with 785 tributes, and 1,416 souls; Puerto-Princesa, with 573 souls; Culion or Calamian, with 871½ tributes, and 2,438 souls; and Balabac, with 581 souls. The Recollect martyrs of the province of Calamianes are as follows: Francisco de Jesus María; Juan de San Nicolás, 1638; Alonso de San Agustin; Francisco de Santa Mónica, 1638; Juan de San Antonio; Martin de la Ascension; Antonio de San Agustin, 1658; Manuel de Jesus y María, 1720; Antonio de Santa Ana, 1736. The fathers of this province held in captivity were Onofre de la Madre de Dios, Juan de San José, Francisco de San Juan Bautista, and Pedro Gibert de Santa Eulalia.]
Bishopric of Cebu
Province of Cebú
[The Recollects land at Cebú on their first arrival from Spain, and are later conceded a chapel by Bishop Pedro de Arce near the city, where they found a convent. We translate:]
... In later times, the edifice has been improved and modified; the most notable of these changes was that of a few years ago, which has made the convent larger and more beautiful, thus making it possible for it to attain its object—namely, the entertainment of the religious who go to Visayas, and of the sick, who are compelled to go to Cebú to be cured of their ailments. The church is also very large, and suitable for the celebration of religious functions with the solemnity and splendor of the Catholic worship. The faithful of Cebú and of the immediate village of San Nicolás attend that church, in order to fulfil the Christian precepts and receive the sacraments. As there are always religious instructed in the Visayan language, many devout persons daily frequent the church of the Recollects....
In the beginning of its foundation, this convent had in charge the spiritual administration of the souls in the island of Maripipi, by concession of the above-mentioned bishop; but later, through the force of various circumstances that occurred, the natives of the said island went to the curacy of Bantayan, and the convent remained free and without any obligation so far as they were concerned. At present the religious of the community labor as far as possible in the welfare of the souls of those near by, moved only by reasons of charity, and by the greater glory of God, which they seek in its entirety.
[The Recollect villages in this province are as follows: Danao, with 2,797½ tributes, and 13,012 souls; Mandaue, with 2,408 tributes, and 11,034 souls; Liloan, with 1,385½ tributes, and 6,962 souls; Consolación, with 982½ tributes, and 4,277 souls; Compostela, with 3,830 tributes, and 4,856 souls; Catmon, with 965½ tributes, and 4,988 souls; Carmen, with 4,259½ tributes, and 5,588 souls; Camotes Islands, with 1,158 tributes, and 5,660 souls; Pilar, with 1,145½ tributes, and 5,600 souls; and San Francisco, with 1,304 tributes, and 5,831 souls.]
Island of Bohol
Situated in the center of the Visayas Islands, and bordered on its eastern part by the island of Leyte, having the great island of Mindanao on its southern side, and being very near the island of Cebú on the north, Bohol formed an integral part of the territory of that province until the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, when a royal order dated July twenty-two was received in which the creation of the new province of Bohol was decreed.
The true beliefs of our holy order were received in that territory from the first time of the preaching of the gospel in this archipelago. The people of Bohol believed in the God of the Christians as quickly as He was announced to them, and became docile sons of the Catholic church without opposing that obstinate resistance to the good news which was experienced in the other islands, and which cost the life of one of its first apostles. If they remained in their first heathendom, it had not come to take the gross forms of a corrupted idolatry, applying the great idea of the divinity to despicable objects. Free of this inconvenience, when the majesty and grandeur of our God was manifest to them, they revered His adorable perfections. Even though there were perverse inclinations in the hearts of those natives, they were not given to polygamy; and when the holy law of God was explained to them, and the respect that the sanctity of marriage (which was elevated by Jesus Christ to the dignity of a sacrament) merits among Christians, they received these doctrines without any repugnance, since they were already free from the great obstacles which perversity and corruption, elevated to their highest power—namely, to have polytheism and idolatry as their foundation and support—can present against those doctrines. In the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-five, the Jesuit fathers, Torres and Sanchez,[3] came to this island, and very soon established the Catholic religion in Baclayon. Later, they founded a church and convent in Loboc; and then went to a site called Talibon, and overran the rest of the island, where they were able to conquer the difficulties which presented themselves in the way of submitting to their rule—born rather of repugnance to the Spaniards than of systematic opposition to the Christian faith. When Legaspi passed by Bohol and anchored at Jagna[4] in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-four, he already had occasion to observe that same thing; and the explanation given him by a Moro from Borneo whom he had found there trading, was, that two years before eight vessels from the Molucas had committed great outrages, and those pirates had said that they were Castilians; and since they were of the same color and bore the same arms [as the Spaniards], the people of Bohol imagined that the Spaniards would do the same thing to them as the men of the eight Portuguese boats had done.[5] When Christianity had acquired a great increase in that island, hell, angered by those spiritual improvements, availed itself of the instrumentality of certain Moros of Mindanao, in order, if possible, to choke the seed of the gospel. Knowing that the best means of attaining that object was to make them rebel against the Spaniards, who had brought to them the happiness of their souls, hell stirred up a rebellion which had the same causes, and was invested with the same forms as the insurrection of Caraga, and was of more lasting effect. The missionaries having absented themselves in order to celebrate in Cebú the beatification of St. Francis Javier, which was celebrated in the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-one, two or three criminals who were wandering through the mountains seduced the tribes, as the messengers of the diguata [i.e., divinity], to refuse obedience to the Spaniards, to abandon their settlements, and to unite together on the heights in groups, to make themselves feared. Of six villages formed by the Jesuit fathers, only two remained faithful[6] to the king of España; while the rest took arms against the constituted authorities, and formed bands which displayed a hostile attitude in the hills and high places—so that it was necessary to employ force and violent measures, in order to make them return to the fulfilment of their duty. Exemplary punishments were inflicted, which procured a partial result. But that subversive idea was one of fatal consequences, and produced some pernicious fruits so lasting that they have come down almost to our own days.