Arriving at Palapag by the month of May [i.e., in 1650], they found that the leader of the campaign was Captain Don Xinés de Roxas; and that it had been much retarded on account of the reputation which the men of Palapag had steadily gained by their daring acts. They had fortified themselves on a height which was regarded as impregnable by nature, as only one path was known by which it could be ascended, and that very narrow and difficult. On this path the enemy had built fortifications, and from loopholes therein they did much damage to our men, without risk [to themselves]; they lost no opportunity to fall suddenly on our troops, and any man who strayed from the rest paid the penalty with his life, so sharply did they note any negligence on our part; and, as masters of the land, they boldly engaged us, secure from being pursued. The captain wearied himself much with various fortifications, and kept the men exhausted; and he engaged in the same fatiguing labor those of the armada, until the sargento-mayor of that tribe, Don Alonso Maconbon, was bold enough to ask him, face to face, why he was wearing out the men in work which was not important.
He told the captain that they had not come to haul logs, but to fight in battle, and that he must contrive to employ them in fighting; for, if he did not, they would go back to their homes. At seeing the daring of this man, and the angry words that the soldiers of Samboangan—who, as veterans, were eager to have an opportunity for distinguishing themselves—flung at him, although he resented their lack of respect he was rejoiced to see their courage; and he was encouraged to make the assault, which, with the coxcombs and foppish adventurers from Manila, seemed a dangerous enterprise. And, as those of the armada, it seems, were boasting most of their valor, he assigned them to the brunt of the battle, in order thus to employ their courage in carrying out their own advice.
He made ready, then, the infantry of the armada, with the Lutaos, for a day that he set for the assault, which they were obliged to make over a precipitous ascent, exceedingly dangerous—so that they could make their way up it only by giving their weapons and their hands to each other.[18] At nightfall they reached the slope, and in the darkness of the night proceeded to ascend it. The enemy had their sentinels, but our Lord easily diverted their attention by sending a heavy shower of rain—which our men regarded as a misfortune, which made the enterprise more difficult and the ascent all the more dangerous. But it was altogether fortunate for the expedition; for the pass was so difficult that the sentinel alone could defend it against a thousand assailants, and the most feeble old man was sufficient for guarding it, especially if the danger [from an attack] were known to the insurgents, who had given all their attention to the troop of the commander Don Xinés. The time while the rain fell was enough to enable all the soldiers to reach the top without danger; and so careful were the men that not one of them had his match extinguished. They halted there, waiting for the daylight; and when the rain gave opportunity to the sentinel he came back, waving a torch in order to light his path. Our men could have slain him; but they let him go, so as not to raise an alarm. Either because he heard their voices, or saw some lighted match, he waited a little while, and then returned to inform the rest of it; and the troops, seeing that they were discovered, marched toward the fortifications. So quickly they reached them that the enemy at once took to flight; our men pursued them with their arms, but the enemy quickly escaped, by dangerous precipices and paths which they know well. But the Spaniards did not choose to divert much of their attention [to the fugitives], rather taking care to occupy promptly their Rochelle;[19] accordingly, they erected their fortifications, and occupied them with their artillery, supplies, and weapons. From that place they sent for the commander, Captain Don Xinés de Roxas, who went up to take possession of the gains made by the arduous efforts and daring bravery of the men of Samboangan. In this enterprise Captain Francisco de Leyba, then commander of the Samboangan armada, and Captain Silvestre de Rodas, an old soldier of Terrenate, especially distinguished themselves.
The Lutaos dispersed through the place, and, breaking into a house, found the mother of the traitor and parricide Sumoroy; and they dragged her out and tore her to pieces. Sumoroy had been sent down [from their stronghold] the day before, secretly, in a hammock, and all the children and women the rebels had already placed in safety; for, from the day when they saw the Samboangan armada, they felt that their cause was lost, and, lacking confidence in the outcome, they forestalled the danger. Thus was ended this longed-for enterprise, and the war in Ibabao; for the natives, now disarmed and divided, would have no courage left, save for flight, and the hardships of a life so full of fear [as that of fugitives] would oblige them to surrender, one by one—as was actually the case. Accordingly, the armada [and its men] took their departure, leaving the islands thankful for what they had accomplished and edified by their good example. For in the heat of conflict and in dangerous encounters (which is the time when the natural disposition and the inner soul are displayed), those soldiers did not fail to invoke the sweet names of Jesus and Mary, without ceasing or neglecting this in the utmost confusion and ardor of battle, giving pious examples to the Christian soldiery—to the admiration of the natives, [although they were] accustomed to these [pious] observances; since the clamorous efforts [of the soldiers], and solicitude for their danger, disturb the piety of even the oldest veterans.
[We append to this the following account from Diaz’s Conquistas (pp. 517–523), as being more detailed and furnishing a somewhat different light on various incidents of the insurrection. In order to place it in the present document, as belonging to this special subject, it has been removed from its place in Diaz’s history of his order and its missions (see VOL. XXXVII, pp. 149–284).]
There was an Indian named Sumoroy in the village of Palapag, who was regarded as one of the best, although he was one of the very worst, and was as evil as his father—who, accredited with the same hypocrisy, was a babaylán and priest of the devil, and made the other Indians apostatize. He was greatly addicted to drunkenness, and he had so promoted it [in others] that all the village was contaminated with this vice, as well as that of lust—vices so closely allied to idolatry, of which truth there are many examples in Holy Writ. The inhabitants of Palapag were corrupted by those evil habits at the time when Governor Don Diego Fajardo—with the intention of relieving the near-by provinces of Tagalos and Pampanga from the burden of working, at the harbor of Cavite, in the building of galleons and vessels necessary for the conservation and defense of these islands—had ordered the alcaldes of Leite and other provinces to send men thence to Cavite for that employment. That was a difficult undertaking, because of the distance of more than one hundred leguas, and the troubles and wrongs to the said Indians that would result from their leaving their homes for so long a time. The father ministers went to the alcaldes, and the latter to Manila, to represent those troubles and wrongs; but the only thing that they obtained was a more stringent order to execute the mandate without more reply. Consequently they could do nothing else than obey the orders of the superior government, although they feared what very soon occurred. But what good end could so mistaken and pernicious a decision have?
As soon as the inhabitants of Palapag saw that the alcaldes-mayor were beginning to collect men to send them to the harbor of Cavite, they began to go oftener to the meetings in the house of Sumoroy and his father, and to begin (when heated with wine, the ordinary counselor of the Indians) to organize their insurrection. They quickly appointed leaders, of whom the chief was Don Juan Ponce, a very influential man and a bad Christian, but married to a wife from a chief’s family in the village of Catubig; she was very different from him in her morals, for she was very virtuous. The second leader was one Don Pedro Caamug, and the third the above-named Sumoroy. Then they discussed the murder of the father minister, Miguel Ponce of the Society of Jesus, an Aragonese,[20] at the suggestion of that malignant sorcerer and priest of the devil, the father of Sumoroy, who charged that undertaking upon his son. On Tuesday evening, the first of June, 1649, he went to the house of the father, who had just eaten his dinner, and was ascending a narrow ladder to his house. Sumoroy awaited him at that place, and hurling his lance, pierced his breast from side to side, and left him dead, without more time than to say “Jesus, Mary.” They spared the life of Father Julio Aleni,[21] a Roman, saying that he was not their minister, but was dedicated to China, whence is inferred their motive in killing the [former] father. Next day they despoiled the house and church of its furniture and holy ornaments; profaned the altars and sacred images; scattered the holy oils; and used the silver chrismatories for the ajonjolí oil with which they anoint their hair.
It was the will of divine Providence to show forth the devout fidelity of the women amid the infidelity and apostasy of the men; for, the day before that spoliation, Doña Angelina Dinagungan, wife of Don Juan Ponce, accompanied by another good Christian woman, Doña María Malón, went to the church and saved some holy images and ornaments, besides a chest belonging to the father, with the little that it contained, which they afterward surrendered to him. Among the images that that devout woman saved from the sacrilegious hands of the rebels was an image of our Lady of the Conception, which was kept with great propriety in the house of Doña María Malón, and which was often seen to sweat abundantly and to shed tears, a miracle which spread throughout the village. When the perfidious Sumoroy heard of it, he said: “The Virgin Mary is weeping. Let us see if she will weep if we burn the house;” and he went thither, with other men like himself, and set fire to it. But Divine Clemency did not permit the fire to catch in that house, although it was of bamboo and nipa like the others. The husband of Doña María Malón, called Don Gabriel Hongpón, was a head man [cabeza de barangay]; and only he and all his people remained faithful to God and to their king. God gave him courage to resist so many, who always respected him as he was so influential a man in that village of Palapag.
The insurgents incited the inhabitants of Catubig, who also revolted. They killed a Spaniard, and burned the church and house of the father minister, after having sacked it. The contagion having spread to other villages, the people did the same at Pambohan, or Bayugo, Catarman, and Bonan; and thence passed to infect the provinces of Ibalón[22] and Camarines, where they killed a Franciscan religious, the guardian of Sorsogón. They killed Alférez Torres in Masbate. In Caraga, the inhabitants of the village of Tinao revolted and killed their minister, a discalced Augustinian, and a few Spanish soldiers of a small presidio established there, the rest escaping the fury of the insurgents. In Iligán, the village of Cagayán, a mission of our discalced religious, revolted. In the adjacent island of Camiguín, a mission of the same religious, they bound their minister and set their feet on his neck. The Subanos mutinied in the jurisdiction of Zamboanga, in the village called Siocon, where they killed Father Juan del Campo[23] of the Society of Jesus. The villages of the islands of Cebú and Bohol, who are warlike people, were wavering in their loyalty. But Divine Clemency did not permit them to declare themselves. Thus with the patience and tolerance of the father ministers, who suffered many hardships and found themselves in great danger, those fires—which could have consumed the loyalty of the provinces of these islands—were soon extinguished. The first village to rebel in the island of Leite was Bacor, where the church and house of the father minister were burned, and the people joined the inhabitants of Palapag, leaving the village deserted. The insurgents pretended that two Dutch ships were near, which were coming to aid them as equals in their rebellion against the Church and the vassalage due to their lawful king; and that pretense greatly aided them in their evil design.