[This is related by Diaz, continuing the above account, in his Conquistas, pp. 590–616 (book iii, chapters xxi–xxiv).]
That I may give a more satisfactory relation of the melancholy tragedy in the province of Ilocos, I have thought it best to defer for later mention the march of the fantastic “Conde” Don Pedro Gumapos to that province, where we shall find him in due time, and to follow the relation of all those occurrences which was sent to our father provincial, Fray Diego de Ordas, by his vicar in that province, father Fray Bernardino Márquez—adopting the simplicity of his mode of writing, that I may without exaggeration accurately describe the events of all that occurred there; for a uniform style cannot always be employed, especially when the accounts of others are followed.
On the sixteenth day of December in the year 1660, the father preacher Fray Luís de la Fuente, prior of that district, having left the village of Bauang—to which he had gone to make his confession—to go to his village of Agoo, learned on the route of the insurrection in the province of Pangasinán, and the raid of the Zambals into that of Ilocos. He returned to Bauang with that information, and communicated it fully to the father preacher Fray Bernardino Márquez,[39] prior of that convent and vicar-provincial of Ilocos; and at the same time asked permission to go up to Lamianán, which is the most northern district in that province. Father Fray Bernardino attempted to turn father Fray Luís from this purpose, telling him that it was not right to abandon one’s flock in time of tribulation—for which reason he was of opinion that Fray Luís should return to his ministry at Agoo; and in order to do so with safety he could go accompanied by an Indian chief named Don Pedro Hidalgo, who was much beloved by the Zambals. Father Fray Luís was as willing as prompt to comply with his superior’s wishes; but Don Pedro Hidalgo answered that it was not proper to expose father Fray Luís’s life to so evident a risk; and that it was better that he himself should first go to ascertain in what condition affairs were in the village of Agoo. This opinion of Don Pedro was approved by father Fray Bernardino, who thereupon gave permission to father Fray Luís to make his journey to Laminián. He set out for that place on the seventeenth of December, 1660, in company with a Spanish tax-collector named Juan de Silva, who had come [to Bauang] to escape the fury of the rebels in the province of Pangasinán.... On the sixteenth, father Fray Luís had warned Captain Aguerra and the alcalde-mayor of the province of Ilocos, Don Alonso de Peralta, of the disturbed condition in which those districts were; and on the same day a letter went by way of Bauang from Don Andrés Malóng, who styled himself king of Pangasinán. The letter was written to all the Indian chiefs of the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán, and he advised them therein to take up arms and slay all the Spaniards, as he had done in his kingdom of Pangasinán; and declared that if they did not do so, he would go thither with his soldiers and punish them as disobedient.
On the day of the Expectation of our Lady, which they reckon the eighteenth of December, father Fray Bernardino Márquez, while in his church at Bauang ... [was warned of the approach of the Zambals]. He found at the door of the church two Indian chiefs of that village, one of whom was named Don Juan Canangán; they told him not to be afraid, as they were there determined to defend the father from the fury of the Zambals, who were already near, even if it cost them their lives.... While he was saying mass, the Zambals arrived; their leader or captain was he who had been titled “Conde,” a native of the village of Agoo and married in Binalatongan, named Don Pedro Gumapos, who had been an associate of Don Andrés Malóng in that insurrection. The Zambals waited very quietly for the father to finish saying mass; and when he had returned thanks and begun to say the prayers, a message came to him from Don Pedro Gumapos asking permission to kiss his hand. Father Fray Bernardino gave it, and Gumapos came up accompanied by Zambals and Negritos, armed with balazaos[40] and catanas. He kissed father Fray Bernardino’s hand, and told him absurd things about his rebellion against the Spaniards, and at the same time he asked permission for his soldiers to search the convent, to see if any Spaniard were concealed there. Father Fray Bernardino, certain that no one was there, told him that he might do as he pleased; Gumapos ordered his companions to make the search, and if they met any Spaniard to kill him. The Zambals carried out this order of Gumapos, and in the course of the search looted whatever there was in the convent. While this was being done, Gumapos remained talking with father Fray Bernardino Márquez; and, when he asked where was father Fray Luís de la Fuente, father Fray Bernardino answered that he had gone up to Bagnotan to make his confession. Gumapos replied to this that he had come to kill Fray Luís, unless father Fray Bernardino would ransom him for 300 pesos. To this audacious proposition the father answered that he had not so much money, and that Gumapos should therefore take his life, or carry him away as a slave, and let father Fray Luís go. Gumapos replied to this that no injury of any kind would be done to the father, for he himself would rather suffer such harm in his own person; but this was no virtue of Gumapos, but [the result of] an order given to him by his little king Don Andrés Malóng, who was very fond of father Fray Bernardino Márquez.
[Gumapos orders the headman of Bauang to go after Fray Luís with a troop of Indians, Zambals, and Negritos; they kill the Spaniard who accompanies him, and carry the father back to Bauang. Gumapos, after vainly trying to exact a ransom from the friar, orders the Indian to kill him; but they take pity on him, and collect among themselves the sum of eight and a half taes of gold, “the greater part of this being given by Doña María Uañga, chieftainess of the visita of Balanac.” Finally Gumapos imprisons both the religious in a cell, where they remain under guard until the rebels go away.] All the time while the Zambals remained in Bauang, they were engaged in plundering and robbing the poor Indians, and did all the damage that they could. The religious emerged from their prison, half-dead from weakness, for they had remained almost three days without eating or drinking; but the Zambals had left nothing in the convent, and the religious therefore had to send to the Indians to beg food. That day father Fray Bernardino wrote a letter to father Fray Juan de[41] Isla, the commissary of the Inquisition in that province and his visitor, entreating him to notify the bishop—who then was bishop of Nueva Segovia, the illustrious Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas, belonging to the Order of St. Dominic, and a native of Lima; a man who excelled in virtue as well as in learning—and that both of them should ask the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, for the aid which those districts of Bauang and Agoo so greatly needed.
On the following day, the twentieth of December, nearly all the people in the village of Bauang confessed and received communion, most of those who had taken part in the murder of the Spaniard Juan de Silva doing penance—especially the headman, who, as he had a very quiet and peaceable disposition, had been constrained by fear of Gumapos to assist in such a crime. The fathers were greatly edified by the Christian spirit of the Indians, which is so great in this province of Ilocos. Father Fray Luís pursued his journey to Lamianán, accompanied by a native named Don Dionisio Maricdín—a friendly act which no other Indian is known to have performed on that occasion, as being disobedient to the orders of “Conde” Don Pedro Gumapos, of whom all had conceived so great fear. For this service he was afterward rewarded by General Sebastián Rayo Doria, who made the said Don Dionisio Maricdín sargento-mayor of the villages of Aringuey, Bauang, and Agoo, on July 5, 1661. Father Fray Luís reached the bar of Purao, and found there Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros, alguazil-mayor and deputy of the alcalde-mayor of the province of Ilocos; he had come with a troop of Indians from that province to set free the fathers, Fray Bernardino and Fray Luís, from the power of the Zambals. They all came to Bagnotán, from which place they notified father Fray Bernardino, who was in Bauang.
In consequence of the repeated advices of Zambal raids into Ilocos, the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, called a council of war at Vigan, to provide suitable measures for averting the many dangers which were threatening the province. At this council were present the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas, the father visitor Fray Juan de Isla, and all the Spaniards; and it was decided that the alcalde-mayor should go in person to the succor of those districts infested by Zambals, accompanied by father Fray Gonzalo de la Palma and father Fray José Polanco.[42] The lord bishop was to remain in Vigan, in company with father Fray Juan de Isla, with the charge of sending a troop of Ilocan and Cagayan Indians who were being levied, and of taking such other measures as might prove desirable. In order to render aid and confront the Zambals as quickly as possible, the alcalde-mayor sent ahead Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros, with such men as could be collected in so short a time; and soon Don Alonso de Peralta followed him, [with troops] lightly equipped [a la ligera], accompanied by the two fathers, Fray Gonzalo and Fray José, as far as Namacpacán, the first village of the province of Ilocos.
I have already related how father Fray Bernardino Márquez had remained at Bauang, where he received notice of the arrival of Lorenzo Arqueros at Bagnotán for the succor of those districts; and at the same time he had very accurate information that the Zambals were planning to make a second raid on the province of Ilocos. He immediately warned Lorenzo Arqueros of this, who was still at Bagnotán—asking that officer to go down to Bauang, if he thought it best, that he might from a nearer station check the designs of the Zambals. Father Fray Bernardino continued to receive reliable advices of the coming of the Zambals, and on that account decided one night to leave Bauang in a boat, with six Indians as a guard, to go in search of Lorenzo Arqueros. At the cost of much hardship the father found him near the visita of Dalangdang, on his march toward Bauang; the father joined the troop of Lorenzo Arqueros, and they continued the march to Bauang. They arrived there at daybreak, but found the village without inhabitants, because for fear of the Zambals they had fled to the woods.
Lorenzo Arqueros ordered his men to beat the drums, and soon the village was full of people. Father Fray Bernardino talked to the Indians, and sent notice of this aid [just received] to the village of Agoo. Those people replied by informing him that the Zambals were ready to make a second raid; and that in any case the Spaniards ought to see that Don Miguel Carreño was hanged. He was a native of the visita of Aringuey, and the father of Don Pedro Gumapos, the head of the conspirators, to whom he communicated all the operations of the loyal Indians. In consequence of this advice, Lorenzo Arqueros ordered Master-of-camp Don Lorenzo Peding, a valiant Ilocan, to go with a hundred men to arrest Don Miguel Carreño. [Carreño is seized and hanged; the Zambals of his command, dispirited by losing him, are defeated and take to flight.]
Lorenzo Arqueros reported all this to his captain the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, who was still at Namacpacán—asking at the same time that he would come to his aid, since he knew with certainty that the Zambals, with much larger numbers, were coming in search of him. At this, Don Alonso de Peralta resolved to go in person to the succor of his lieutenant; but this resolution was opposed by the fathers, not only because it was not right for him to go on so important a relief expedition with only six or seven Spanish mestizos, who accompanied him, but also because he ought not to leave his jurisdiction, which extended only as far as Namacpacán. They told him that it would be better to wait for the soldiers whom the bishop was to send from Vigan, so that he could with this reënforcement go to look for the enemy; but the alcalde-mayor, urged on by the letters of Lorenzo Arqueros, and, besides, encouraged by the latter’s previous success, pursued his resolution, and marched for Bauang, accompanied by father Fray José Blanco[43] and father Fray Gonzalo de la Palma. As soon as he encountered Lorenzo Arqueros, he ordered the latter to set out for the village of Agoo, to succor Master-of-camp Don Lorenzo Peding. [Arrived at Agoo, Arqueros finds the Zambals in sufficient force to render more aid necessary; and his urgent request brings Peralta to Agoo. The latter brings with him two jars [tibores] of gunpowder, which had been kept in the convent at Bauang. Arqueros advises Peralta to retreat, since their auxiliaries are all undisciplined, and the Ilocans somewhat timid, while the enemy are superior in numbers—having more than five thousand men, while the Ilocans did not exceed one thousand five hundred. Peralta refuses to do this, especially as the Ilocans have firearms, “which the Zambal so greatly dreads.” The Ilocans go, without orders, across the river, to form an ambush against the foe; Arqueros goes to their aid, followed by Peralta. “The fathers disguised themselves, fearing that the Zambals, if they should be victorious, would, angered by having seen fathers in battle, slay the Dominican fathers of the province of Pangasinán, who were in their power.” At daybreak the enemy come to the attack; the Ilocans are soon overcome by fear, and take flight, neither the officers nor the friars being able to restrain them. Don Lorenzo Peding dies bravely fighting, after having slain many of his assailants; and all the guns and other weapons, and the gunpowder, of the Ilocans are captured by the Zambals. Peding’s death utterly destroys the little remnant of courage in his followers, and they flee pell-mell, trampling on and drowning each other in the ford of the river. “The most pitiable thing was to see the children and old men in flight, and especially the women—some of whom gave birth to children, and others suffered abortion through fear, the infants being abandoned in the camp. The children were drowned, and the old people were overcome by exhaustion; all were in most pitiable condition. Those who felt it most keenly were the fathers, who aided some but could not help all, since all the people had fled.” The Spanish leaders attempt to rally the Indians at Agoo, and afterward at Bauang, but all in vain; they are compelled to return to Namacpacán, where they arrive on January 4, 1661. Finding that they can obtain neither men nor arms, they continue their retreat to Vigan. On the route, they stop at Narbacán, and order “the Indians of that village, with those of Santa Catalina, a visita of Bantay, to erect a stockade and rampart in Agayayos[44] to prevent the Zambals from passing through there for Vigán and Cagayán. He garrisoned this post with a body of Indians, in command of one of them, named Don Pedro de la Peña, a native of Santa Catalina, and continued his journey to Vigán.”]