[To this account may be added the following information regarding the Franciscan order in the Philippines, previous to 1640, from La Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, v, pp. 199–201:]
6. On the occasion of the conquest of the island Hermosa, and the establishments therein, the province of San Gregorio resolved to found their own convent there, in order that it might serve them as a way-station to Japon and China. For that purpose their provincial sent father Fray Gaspar de Alenda, and as his associate the lay brother Fray Juan de San Marcos. Furnished with the necessary licenses and despatches, they established in accordance with these a church and convent, which they dedicated to their glorious father St. Francis; and they maintained themselves there until the Dutch drove them thence, with the death of their founder, father Fray Gaspar. Those fathers had their troubles in Philipinas in their chief administration of Camarines. By the death of Don Fray [Pedro] Mathias, the one chosen to succeed him was the most illustrious Don Fray Pedro Godines, a Franciscan, who did not come over to that church. The most illustrious and reverend Don Fray Diego de Guevara, an Augustinian, who had been prior of their convent of Manila, the first vicar-general of Japon, was appointed. That prelate governed that church justly for three years, when he suddenly departed this life. He was succeeded by the most illustrious Don Fray Luis de Cañizares, a Minim, by virtue of a royal decree of appointment and presentation; but in Mexico another decree reached him, making him bishop of Honduras. As incumbent of the vacant see in Camarines was substituted the most illustrious and most reverend Don Fray Francisco de Zamudio, an Augustinian by profession, from the province of Mechoacan. He began to govern in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-three and continued in his office until that of thirty-nine, when he died suddenly. During his government he tried to despoil the discalced Franciscans of various missions in the province of Camarines and that of Ibalon or Albay. The Franciscans defended themselves against that spoliation, and opposed the decisions of the provisors of Manila and of Zebù in degree of appeal, which were favorable to the bishop. They proceeded afterward with their suit before the archbishop, Don Fernando Guerrero, and he annulled those sentences, notwithstanding that favor [by the provisors], in order to obviate quarrels and scandals, which were inevitable in [attempting to] rectify affairs after such spoliation. As the firm nature of the most illustrious Zamudio would not permit him to comply with the archbishop’s decree, the Franciscans yielded, voluntarily and humbly, their rights declared and confirmed by sentence of that court. The bishop also claimed [the right] to subject them to the [diocesan] visitation and examination, in his execution of briefs and decrees. That knotty question was discussed in the Audiencia. The most illustrious Don Fray Diego Aduarte, bishop of Nueva Segovia, having been summoned, responded to that tribunal, renouncing his favorable right—which, although it was in favor of the miter, was greatly injurious to the Indians. In order to avoid greater injuries he renounced inferior rights, setting aside all these for the good administration of his subjects.[33] That response was sufficient to cause all former prejudicial litigations to cease.
[1] Probably the name of that religious province of the Order of St. John of God from which these brethren were obtained. See Vol. XXVIII, p. 143, note 63.
[2] Sebastián de San José was born in Medina del Campo, January 19, 1566, and at an early age was sent to the university of Salamanca. At the age of nineteen (1585), he took the Franciscan habit at the convent of Zamora. He reached the Philippines in 1605, where he began to study the Tagálog and Japanese languages, in the convent of Santa Ana of Sapa. He was appointed conventual preacher of the Manila convent in 1608, and the following year was appointed commissary-provincial for the islands of Maluco, arriving at Ternate in February, 1610. In June of the same year he went to the island of Macasar where he had great success. On returning from that island to get aid for his missionary labors, he was attacked by the hostile natives of the island of Tagolanda, and killed June 18, 1610. See Huerta’s Estado, pp. 381, 382.
[3] Antonio de Santa Ana was born in Garrobillas in Estremadura in 1582, and took the Franciscan habit in 1602. He arrived at the Philippines in 1609, and went in December of that same year to the missions of the Moluccas, where, having been made a prisoner by the Dutch, he was ransomed by the Spanish residents of Ternate. He was captured the following year by the natives of Tagolanda who had killed Sebastián de San José, whom he had accompanied on the mission to Macasar. He was killed by the woman as related in the text (June 28, 1610). See Huerta, ut supra, pp. 382, 383.
[4] But one Franciscan of this name is recorded by Huerta—the noted Plasencia (Vol. VII, p. 185) whose writings appear in Vols. VII and XVI of this series. The reference in the text is either to some other friar of that name, or is an erroneous statement.
[5] Francisco de Santa Maria came to the Philippines in June, 1577, and spent several years in missions there. In 1581 he went to China, and afterward to Malaca. Returning to Manila in 1585, he set out two years later for Spain; but his ship, fleeing from the Dutch, was obliged to make port in Borneo. There he was slain by the natives (December, 1587), the first martyr among the missionaries, of all orders, sent to the Philippines (Huerta, pp. 370, 371).
[6] Blas Palomino was a native of Audújar and professed in the Franciscan province of Granada, where he became master of novitiates. Going to the Philippines in 1609, he was assigned to the province of Ituy where he established the village of Ituy. In 1617 he went to the village of Binangonan de Lampon, and in 1619 to the Moluccas; but after arriving at Ternate he went to the island of Macasar. Having been ordered to return to Ternate, he embarked in a Portuguese vessel, but being treacherously entreated by some of the natives to return, he went back to the shore (in the territory of Manados), where he was immediately killed (August 30, 1622). See Huerta, ut supra, pp. 386, 387.