1112. The bishop and governor convinced, then, in this matter, despatched the fitting provisions in November 1686 in order that our reformed branch might take charge of those souls. This plan was of great moment to the province, for the said islands, besides being the necessary passage way and very suitable station for those who voyage from Manìla to Carhaga and Zebù, are the stopping place of the ships which sail from Cavìte to Acapulco and return from Nueva España to Philipinas. It is very common for the ships to stop in their ports to get fresh supplies, and await suitable winds. On that account there originated the greatest convenience in possessing them in our custody, because of what makes for the spiritual: for the provincials, when they sail out upon their visits; for the commissioners when they come to España for missions; for the missions themselves when they arrive at the islands; and for the multitude of our religious who journey from one part to another, employed in the holy commerce of souls. Without doubt those reasons somewhat aided the zeal with which our tireless workers in those countries have always procured the good teaching of the faithful, and the conversion of the faithless, at the cost of their own very great fatigue and of great penalties. On that account it was determined in the intermediary chapter of 1687 to accept the charge of that reasonable territory to whose labor God called them by the mouth of the bishop. And more when it was learned that, although the number of the Christians was greatly diminished, the interiors of the islands of Masbàte and Burìas were densely inhabited with innumerable Indians, apostates from the faith and assembled there not only from their villages, but also from other parts, in whose reduction a great service would be done to God and the king, and with this fruit the sweatings of the spiritual administration would be eased, which by themselves alone gave much to grieve over.
1113. Finally matters having been arranged, fathers Fray Juan de San Phelipe, the outgoing provincial, and Fray Juan de la Encarnacion, with another associate, of whose name we are ignorant, left Manila in May 1678 [i.e., 1688] to take charge of the above-mentioned district. They went to the village of Ticào, where they met the cura, then Bachelor Don Christoval Carvallo, who had been notified by the suitable acts in the month of August. The latter agreed without the least repugnance to surrender the churches and his administration. He did it gracefully on September 2 of the same year in the village of Mobo, a site in the island of Masbàte, which was, and is, the chief village of all the others, and that mission remained from that time on subject to our discalced order. The Indians received the religious with signs of the greatest rejoicing. It is a fact that they knew our holy habit some years before, because some of our gospel missionaries had stopped in their port on account of storms, when they were passing by Masbàte on their way to their destinations, and had attended to instructing them and even administering them the sacraments. From that came the almost general joy with which the discalced Augustinians were received there; and from that reception originated the great fruit which they obtained with their preaching. The fathers endeavored to have the love shown them by the Indians increase, not being unaware that the good-will of the hearers is a very plausible disposition so that the work of the preachers may be useful. Knowing also that the good opinion of the evangelical minister gives great force to his words, in order that theirs might be increased they aimed to confirm them with works. They bore themselves as saints in private and public in order to give a good example in all things. With that method, one can believe the great number of Christians that were gathered to Catholicism in the said islands, as we shall relate later.
1114. But since it was necessary for this attainment to found some convent, they erected it that same year in the village of Mobo, which had the most inhabitants. It has Nuestra Señora de los Remedios [i.e., our Lady of Remedies] as titular, and a very costly church is being built which abounds in reredoses and other adornments with a sacristy provided with vestments [? jocalias] and ornaments. The house is very capacious and has all the necessary rooms and has moreover cells for the religious who generally live in it. That convent was the refuge of the gospel ministers who lived in it in suitable number to look after the Christians in spiritual matters and to allure the apostates to the bosom of the Christian religion which they had abandoned. Thence, as swift moving clouds, they went out to fertilize the other villages with the water of their doctrine and having become hunters of souls, to overrun the deserts and mountains. Although there were not more than six villages in the three islands when our discalced religious entered to administer them, in a few years they established three more where they could shelter those who were being reduced to our holy faith. And hence the workers of that mission with inexplicable toil cared for a great number of souls who dwelt in the capital of Mobo, and in its annexed villages or visitas of Ticào, Burìas, Balino, Palànog, Habuyoàn, Tagmasùso, Buracàn, and Limbojan. In that extensive territory not few times did God explain His mercies with repeated miracles in confirmation of the faith which Ours were preaching. Some received with baptism the health of the body, and others found themselves freed from their pains by the prayers of the ministers, accompanied by the laying on of hands. However, inasmuch as the manuscripts give us these notices without specification, we cannot name the individual miracles.
1115. A very lamentable event for the islands which happened in the year 1726, was the reason for the founding of another convent in Ticào. It happened as follows. The galleon “Santo Christo de Burgos,” while making its voyage to Nueva España, anchored at the port of Ticào in order to await good weather before taking to the open sea. But it was shipwrecked there by a storm which came upon it. On board that vessel was Don Julian de Velasco, a minister assigned to the Audiencia of Mexico. He managed to obtain his spiritual improvement from that disaster so transcendental to all classes of Philipinas by the practice of good works. He did not care to return to Manìla, although he could have done so, but remained with all his family in the said port until he could get passage the next year. Among what he was able to save of his lost possessions, he placed his first attention in seeing that the holy image of the holy Christ of Burgos which was on the ship as its titular, should not be lost; for it was his intention to place it at his own expense in some church, so that it might have public veneration for the benefit of souls. Scarcely, then, did he have that celestial treasure in his hands, when he exposed it to worship on the high altar of the church of Ticào with ornaments suitable to his devout affection. Thereafter followed the assignment of some income so that there might be a resident evangelical minister there, both so that a chaplain might not at least be wanting to the holy image, and so that the Indians might not lack more continual teaching. For that reason, the province afterward determined to found a convent in Ticào. To it were assigned the villages situated in the islands of Ticào and Burìas, and to the convent of Mobo those of the island of Masbate. The ministers were thus able to obtain more relief because their number had increased, although they still had much to do in order to attend to everything.
§ II
Relation of the progress made by Catholicism in those islands by the preaching of our laborers; and the great hardships that they suffered for that end.
1116. In the year 1724, the province of Philipinas begged the king to confirm, by special decree, the possession that had been given them in his royal name of the islands of Masbàte. His Majesty ordered the governor of Philipinas and the bishop of Nueva Cáceres, on the eleventh of February, 1725, to make no innovation in regard to the spiritual administration of the said district until he should provide what was needful in his royal Council. He ordered them also to inform him of the progress that had been made by the faith in that territory since it had been in our charge. On that account some juridical investigations were made in Manìla in order to inform the king with acts. By them it appeared that, although there had been only one single parish priest in all the district of Masbàte before, since it had been placed in charge of the Recollect fathers, three religious at least had always lived there; and that, as was proved by the books of the royal treasury, in the year 1687, anterior to our possession, there were only one hundred and eighty-seven families in the whole mission, while in the year 1722, there were five hundred and eighty-five: so that in the space of thirty-four years they had increased by three hundred and ninety-eight. For that reason the governor, Marquès de Torrecampo, gave his king June 30, 1727, a very favorable report of our discalced order in the terms of this honorable clause. “The district of Masbàte, in charge of the discalced Augustinians, has had an increase of 398 whole tributes through the apostolic zeal of those ministers. They, not only in that district, but also in the rest of these islands, dedicate themselves to the propagation of our holy Catholic faith with the greatest toil and with the most visible fruit.”
1117. These increases will be of greater moment if we consider that, if the families be reduced to the number of four persons each, as is customary there, the said district consisted, at the time it was given to us, of 748 souls, and in thirty-eight years it had increased to 2,340, the increase amounting to 1,592 persons. But sixteen years later (namely, the year 1738, when father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio printed the first volume of the history of his seraphic province of Philipinas), those increases were almost doubled.[53] Then directing his pen to the end that leads to truth, he assures us that there are new villages in the island of Masbàte with three thousand three hundred and forty-five souls; in that of Ticào, two, with four hundred and seventy-five persons; and one in that of Burìas, with one hundred and eighty. Whence it is inferred that three more villages were newly established: namely, in Masbàte, those of Navangui and Baraga; and in Ticào, that of San Jacinto, at the port so named, where the ships now stop for fresh supplies, before taking to the open sea. Also the number of souls has increased to one thousand six hundred and sixty by the impulses of the preaching of our reformed branch, aided efficaciously by divine grace. All the increase of this district since it has been in our charge has been six newly-created villages, and three thousand two hundred and fifty-two souls brought to the Catholic bosom. And we even ought to infer that many more have been converted, for by the invasions of the Moros, which are told at length in the third volume,[54] the number of the Christians could not but be lessened.
1118. It only remains now to ascertain whence proceeded those Indians who so increased the above-mentioned villages. It was stated in another place in the third volume[55] that there was a great number of mountain Indians in the islands of Masbàte and Burìas, who are there called Zimarrones. They were feared, for they lived without God, or king, and were given up to the liberties of paganism. Those were certain men, if they can be called so, who having apostatized the faith, had taken to the deserts and high places, where they defended their native barbarity at every step, against those who were trying to reduce them and to procure their own good. They had gathered there, either they or their ancestors, from the villages of the same islands, as well as from Zebù, Leyte, and others, to escape the punishment due them for their crimes. Consequently, they were people especially fierce. Among them were found to be many heathens, as they had been born in those places where the sound of the preaching did not penetrate. The others were still worse, as they had abandoned Christianity. They did notable damage to the villages, and they even robbed the boats that were anchored in the ports or bays, treacherously taking many lives. The matter had assumed such proportions that one could not cross those islands by their interiors; and to approach their shores was the same thing as putting in at an enemy’s port. But at present all the Zimarrones are reduced to the faith, and to the obedience of the king without any exception. Hence one can travel through the islands without the slightest risk, and boats can go thither even to the uninhabited places. From that and from no other beginnings have come the increase of that church, and there is not small praise to our reformed branch from it.
1119. That progress of the faith was preceded by many hardships that were suffered by the religious, some of which I shall state, noting that innumerable others are omitted, in order not to bore our readers by their relation, and because they resemble those that we shall relate. It has already been stated, then, that for the space of more than thirty years there was but one convent in the three islands, which was established in the village of Mobo, whence the gospel laborers went out to administer all the settlements of the district. For that purpose, it was absolutely necessary for them to sail many leguas by boisterous seas, or to travel by land in some parts by rough mountains, threatened in the one place with shipwreck and in the other by continual dangers. Since the new convent was established in the island of Ticào, the administration is more tolerable, although it is always accompanied by indescribable fatigues. For the religious of Mobo have to sail completely about the island of Masbàte in order to fulfil their obligations, or if they prefer to journey by land, as they are able, to one or two villages, they have to do it afoot with the greatest discomfort, through inaccessible mountains, and exposed to dangers wellnigh insupportable. The missionaries of Ticào, besides having to coast a great part of that island have to go many times during each year to that of Burìas, crossing the very stout currents of the sea from the rapidity of which some of the missionaries have found themselves in the utmost consternation. On the other hand, all the time that the Indians remained Zimarrones, they allowed no passage to the zealous laborers without them risking their lives to innumerable dangers; and even after they had been reduced, the Moros were a substitute for them on the outside, and inside many sorcerers, who tried, some by violence, and others by their diabolical arts, to drive thence, and even from the world, the ministers of souls. And who can tell all that they suffered from all these causes? It was so great that some religious, never more alive than when they were dead, came to die in the campaign like good soldiers.