Reflecting upon the advantageous conditions by which the character of those peoples has been modified, and how they have been completely withdrawn from those untamable and savage forms of life which lasted until the last century, and that they have at present become fond of work, respectful to authority, and grateful in their social intercourse, we can infer that the ministers of the order who are at present watching over the necessities of their souls are laboring tirelessly in the confessional, are preaching the word of God without cessation, and are consoling the sick in their most remote dwellings. In the midst of so many lofty occupations of the religious ministry, the Recollects have been able to study even the physical necessities of their protegés, and the ingenious manner of making these lighter. To their direction is owing the different industries proceeding from the products of the earth, which, prepared and elaborated with due intelligence, furnish other kinds of business, permitted and honorable, which afford abundant means for the life and support of those natives. If agriculture does not furnish most abundant products, because of the nature of the soil in Bohol, those natives do not for that reason sleep in inactivity; they go to seek their living where they can find it. They do not abhor work, which is the true fount of all means of subsistence. They undertake voyages by land and sea, with the praiseworthy purpose of making their living by virtue of their fatigues and labors. This is the exact description of the inhabitants of Bohol; and this is what has been obtained from those people (from whom religion and the country expected so little) by the province of San Nicolás de Tolentino, by means of the worthy children of its bosom whom it sent to that land, and through those who have continued, furthered, and perfected the arduous attempt at the culture and civilization of those natives....
The Recollects of Mindanao
[The entrance of the Recollects into Mindanao, and the earlier years of their preaching there, have been already given in preceding volumes of this series.]
Division of parishes in Mindanao
Although it is clear that the fathers of the Society of Jesus entered this land in the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-six to procure its spiritual conquest, by permission of the cabildo governing the vacant see of Manila, and that the call of the gospel resounded in the site Tampacan [misprinted Jampacan], when our soldiers retired the fathers of the Society had to do the same. In the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the Observantine Augustinians took this vineyard in their charge, and father Fray Francisco Xaraba[9] went to cultivate it with a companion; but undeceived, [and seeing] that only war could open the way for their preaching, because of the exceeding ferocity of the people, they abandoned the undertaking and returned to Cebú. The missionaries of the Society returned [to Mindanao], and preached on the river of Butuan; and those who were then converted by them formed a visita of a village in Bohol.
After the deed of arms above mentioned, the Recollect missionaries, with the necessary permits from the bishop and the royal vice-patron, founded the first convent and village of Tandag, and then the convent and village of Jigaquit; a third village and convent on the river of Butuan, whence they continued their conquests and went up the river of Butuan to the interior of the island, to a lake called Linao; and the fourth village and convent, fifty leguas from Butuan. Then they went to Cagayan,[10] where they also founded a church and convent; whence they crossed to the island of Camiguin, where they did the same; and lastly in the island of Surigao and Bislig. Eight settlements, perfectly organized in the social order, with churches suitable for the public worship of our true religion, with convenient buildings for the habitation of their ministers—where they could practice the exercises of the monastic life, and whence issued the splendors of their edifying holiness to illumine the dark shades of idolatry and paganism, served as the original basis for the spread of the faith. After that, they continued to found many other villages dependent on the first, which were then considered as visitas or subject villages. Some of those villages came in later times to be the residences of our Recollect ministers, according to the available number of religious that the corporation possessed, or according as the necessities or growth of population in the said subject villages demanded.
Our predecessors also succeeded in getting to the lake of Malanao, and the village of Iligan, and Bayug. As there were certain questions regarding the spiritual jurisdiction, his Majesty defined them, marking out the limits of religious zeal between the two families (who were equally inflamed with the desire for the salvation of souls), by drawing a line from the point of Suloguan to the cape of San Agustin, and assigning the administration on its western side to the most religious fathers of the Society of Jesus, while our peaceful possession was marked on the eastern side. Lastly, when the reverend Jesuit fathers left the islands, the administration of Zamboanga was adjudged to us in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight, as well as the villages of Lubungan, Dapitan, and Misamis (and consequently their barrios—some of which, as time went on, came to be villages).
Present administration of the Recollects
Her Majesty Doña Isabel II decreed the establishment of the house of Loyola on October nineteen, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, with permission to go to the missions of Mindanao and Joló. September ten, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, another royal order was issued, declaring that the missionaries of the Society of Jesus have exclusive rights in the planting and successive development of the effective missions in Mindanao; and that the same were to take charge of the administration of the curacies and missions already reduced by the Recollect Augustinian religious as fast as these were vacated by the death or transfer of those who serve them with canonical collation or under title of temporary incumbent. Her Majesty, desiring at the same time to concede an indemnification, and to give proof of the appreciation with which she views the services bestowed on the Church and on the state by the above-mentioned Augustinian religious, has been pleased to grant to the province of San Nicolás de Tolentino the administration of the curacies of the province of Cavite or of the diocese of Manila which are served by the native clergy.
May nineteen, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, another royal order was issued, dictating instructions for the compensation of curacies accorded to the province of San Nicolás de Tolentino in return for those in Mindanao which they were to surrender to the Jesuit missionaries. In that order it was decided that in every certified instance of a vacancy in Mindanao, and its surrender to and occupation by the Jesuit fathers, indemnification therefor was to be made to the Recollect fathers, in Cavite and the diocese of Manila, with the curacy which might be vacant at that time, even if it were in charge of a temporary incumbent; and if there were more than one curacy vacant, then the wishes of the vice-patron were to be followed, after first hearing the very reverend archbishop, the provincial of the order, and the council of administration. Should there not be any curacy vacant, then [indemnification was to be made] with the first which should become vacant. As obedient subjects to the orders of her Majesty, from that date we relinquished, in the same order in which they fell vacant, the ministries that we held in Mindanao; and we handed over Zamboanga, Tetuan, Lubungan, Dapitan, Butuan, Surigao, Jigaquit, Davao, Bislig, Cattabato, Mainit, Dinagat, Balingasag, Alubijid. In exchange we received the curacies in the district of Morong—namely, Antipolo and Taytay; the village of La Hermita, in the province of Manila; Calauan, in Laguna; Cavite port, and Rosario, in the province of Cavite; Boac, in the island of Marinduque; and the villages of Rosario, Santo Tomás, Balayan, and Lobo, in the province of Batangas. The sacrifice made by the Recollect corporation by ceding parishes created by it and watered with the sweat and blood of its most eminent members, nourished by the doctrine of apostolic men to be revered by us, and very worthy of our imitation, is equal to the respect with which the Recollects have always received the orders of their august monarchs, and to the obedience and adhesion with which they have always served in this archipelago as Catholic priests, and in the shade of our Spanish banner.