In chapter viii of decade x the Recollect labors in the islands of Masbate, Ticao, and Burias are reviewed. These islands which have been conquered during the early years of Legazpi’s arrival in the archipelago are an important way-station for ships plying between Nueva España and the islands. The faith is introduced into Masbate by the Augustinians under Alonso Jimenez, who is called the “apostle of Masbate.” The Augustinians, however, abandon that island and Ticao in 1609, and seculars have charge of the mission work there from that year until 1688. In the latter year the Recollects are substituted for the seculars in accordance with the plan of the bishop of Nueva Cáceres, that the district be given to a regular order. A decree of August 13, 1685 grants the islands to the Recollects as well as certain villages in Luzón. The latter are resigned by that order to the Franciscans, as they can be administered more easily by them, but the islands of Masbate, Ticao, and Burias are accepted by them in 1687. In 1688 the cession is made by the secular in charge at Mobó in the island of Masbate, to the content of the natives who welcome the Recollects. A good convent is founded in Mobó and three new villages, in addition to the six existing when the Recollects enter, are established. In 1726 another convent is founded in the district after the wreck of a galleon in order that the image of the Santo Cristo of Burgos which is carried by that ship and which is saved through the diligence of one of the passengers on the vessel, Julian de Velasco, may be properly housed. In reply to a petition of the Recollects in 1724 asking royal confirmation of the Masbate missions, a report on their work there is ordered. It is found that the number of families has increased from 187 in 1687 to 585 in 1722, an increase of 398 families or 1,592 persons. In 1738, there are 5,000 persons in the islands, and three new villages, one in Ticao, and two in Masbate. This means that the order has formed six villages and brought 3,252 persons to the bosom of the Church in the time that they have had control of this district. The number has been lessened by the invasions of the Moros. The conversions have been made among heathens, apostates, refugees from other islands—all of whom represent the worst elements. The Recollects have had to fight against the forces of nature, the Moros, and sorcery. They have persevered in the face of all manner of hardships—hardships that cause some of the missionaries who have been there to say that the Masbate territory offers more suffering than any other mission field.
The extracts from Concepción cover in part the same field as the history by San Francisco de Assis; except the third, which tells of the restoration of the missions of Zambales to the Recollects, and gives a brief account of the judicial proceedings between that order and the Dominicans.
The first extract concerns the enforced transfer of the Zambal missions to the Dominicans. This comes about directly from the representation made in the Council of the Indias by Diego de Villaroto, to the effect that the conversion of the island of Mindoro would progress much more rapidly if given to the religious order best suited therefor, and if the seculars in charge of the curacies there be appointed to chaplaincies. Royal attention is given this petition and in 1677 a royal decree orders the governor and archbishop to make the transfer. In consequence, Felipe Pardo, the archbishop, quick to seize the opportunity, aided by the governor, compels the unwilling Recollects to give up their missions among the Zambals and take the island of Mindoro, in order that the Dominicans might take the former. Such an arrangement is very convenient for the Dominicans, as it enables them to better concentrate their missions in Pangasinan, and affords them easier communication among their various missions. The protests of the Recollects that the Zambals prefer their order and that the people of Mindoro will prefer their old missionaries the Jesuits, and that the two districts will be disturbed and restless has no weight, and the governor sees that they are kept quiet through the Spanish officials there. The three Recollects assigned to Mindoro are Diego de la Madre de Dios, Diego de la Resurrection, and Eugenio de los Santos, and they are each given one assistant. A description of Mindoro and its people follows, and a résumé of its early conquest and of missionary labors there. Since the Jesuits have abandoned that field (with the going of Luis San Vítores to the Marianas) the seculars have had ecclesiastical charge of the island, but it is a poor place and scarcely can any secular be found who cares to accept it. After the entrance of the Recollects, the number of Christians steadily rises, evangelization making progress among the Mangyans, Negritos, and other peoples. Four convents are established, each of them with several visitas, and the mission to the Mangyans on the bay of Ilog, in the last of which none of the apostatized Christians are allowed to enter lest they pervert the new plants. “But that fine flower-garden [i.e., the island of Mindoro] has been trampled down and even ruined by the Moros.” The Dominicans bend their energies to the work in their newly-acquired missions of Zambales. With malicious satisfaction, Concepción reports that their efforts have resulted mainly in failure. Believing that the eleven villages which they have received from the Recollects are too many for the best administration of the district, they endeavor to consolidate and move some of them. Bolinao, which under the Recollect regime was located on a small island off the coast of Zambales, is moved across the channel to the barren coast where “many inconveniences but no advantages” are possessed. Agno is moved inland from the coast; Sigayen is also moved, the only advantage made by the changed site being the river of fresh water on which it is located. Paynavén is moved inland to the site of Iba, to which its name is changed, and Iba becomes the capital of the district, but in order that it may become so, some families are moved from Bolinao. The villages of Cabangán and Subic are made from the consolidation of several others, and the places left vacant by refugees are tilled by families from Pangasinan, whence the natives can be moved easier as that province is so densely populated that there is not sufficient room for all of them. The inference is that the evil caused by the administration of the Dominicans is greater than the good, in discontent among the Zambals and the flight of many families to Ilocos and to the mountains.
The second extract recounts, quite similarly to the version given by San Francisco de Assis, the work in Recollect missions in the islands of Masbate, Ticao, and Burias. These islands are a part of the bishopric of Nueva Cáceres, and are under the civil control of the alcalde of Albay. Masbate, the largest, has traces of gold and some fine copper mines, but the gold has never paid well. All three islands possess excellent timber and many civet-cats. The early history of the islands and their early spiritual conquests are told. Through the efforts of the bishop, Andres Gonzales, O. P., the islands are given to the Recollects, the secular priest in charge there being given a chaplaincy instead. Certain villages of Luzón, which were also to be given to the Recollects, are given instead to the Franciscans who contest them with the former. The islands are important both from a secular and religious point of view, for they are a way-station for the Acapulco ships, and also for the Recollect missions in Cebú and Mindanao. As related above, the Recollects ask royal confirmation of the missions of these islands in 1724, and the subsequent report rendered shows that their work has resulted in great progress, and that they have made the islands a safe place where before they were most dangerous both on the coast and in the interior.
The third extract concerns the work of the Dominicans in the missions of Zambales and the restoration of that district to the Recollects. From Concepción’s account (which must be read in connection with that by Salazar, the Dominican), the Dominican order did not have the success of their predecessors among the fierce Zambals, and ended rather in alienating them by their aggressive treatment; while the Recollects have, on the contrary, employed gentle means by which they have won the hearts and minds of the Zambals. The presidio at Paynavén which has been increased, is injudiciously allowed to make raids among the natives upon any occasion. The trouble comes to a head with the murder of the nephew of one of the chiefs, Dalinen, by another chief Calignao, the latter of whom appears to have been a thoroughly unreliable and malicious man. Dalinen, in order to avenge the murder in accordance with Zambal traditions, takes to the wilds, but with his followers, is pursued by the soldiers of the garrison. As Calignao has not fled, the missionary Domingo Pérez, O.P., in order to win him over, indiscreetly announces that the murder of Dalinen’s nephew has been by command of the government, which has ordered that all those who refuse to reduce themselves to village life be killed. Calignao, as another act in the tragedy, plans to kill Dalinen, and by the aid of a Negrito, accomplishes that design. Then, in order to show in full light his character, he compasses the death of Domingo Pérez, wounding the latter so severely that he dies through lack of efficient care. Although the Dominicans claim certain miraculous occurrences as happening at the death of the above father, Concepción disproves them all. The remainder of the extract has to do with the suits between the Recollects and the Dominicans in regard to the Zambal missions, which last spasmodically from the time the Recollects are compelled to abandon them until the time of their restoration in 1712. The Recollects claim throughout that they have been despoiled unjustly of the missions, and that although they accepted the missions of Mindoro, they have had no other alternative, and have not accepted them as a compensation for the loss of the Zambal missions. Indeed they have never renounced their claim to those missions, but have regularly appointed ministers for them (who of course have not labored in those missions). The Dominicans, on the other hand assert that they have merely taken over those missions in response to commands from the archbishop and the governor to that effect. The suit drags on wearily, each side asserting its rights, and the matter being delayed by such proceeding until it seems unending. Finally the Dominicans, with a change of procurator, shift their tactics, and allege that they are not at all a parry to any suit, and since they have received the missions at the order of the governor, they are ready to resign them if requested so to do. The Recollects maintain the opposite, namely, that the Dominicans are a party to the suit; and the verdict is at length given to them, and the Dominicans are ordered in 1690 to appear before the Audiencia within three days to plead their right. The summons is neglected until the year 1710, when the attorney for the Recollects again stirs up the matter, and notwithstanding the fact that the Dominicans still adhere to their former statements that they are not a party to the suit, the matter is brought to court, and the missions of the Zambals turned over to the Recollects by special sentence.
Through nearly all of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, those islands, especially and most the Visayan, suffered greatly from the frequent and cruel raids of the Moro pirates from Mindanao and other islands south of it. Some account of these is a necessary part of this work; but our limits of space will not allow us to reproduce verbose and detailed relations like that of Combés (in his Hist. de Mindanao), especially as this and some others of similar tenor cover but a short period of time. In an appendix to this volume we present a brief summary of this subject, down to the end of the seventeenth century; the first part is an outline merely, drawn from our previous volumes, giving full citations therefrom, which show the relations existing between the Spaniards and the Mahometan Malays from 1565 to 1640. The second part covers the same subject for the rest of the century; it is composed of the accounts given by Murillo Velarde, Diaz, and other historians, arranged in chronological order—sometimes synopsized, sometimes translated in full, according to the prolixity or the relative importance of each. From the beginning were evident various elements of hostility—racial, religious, and commercial—between the Spaniards and the Moros, which were soon aggravated by the Spanish desire for conquest and the Moro greed for plunder and bloodshed. The unfortunate natives of the northern islands who had been subjugated by the Spaniards were unable to defend themselves from their enemies, and the Spanish power was often inadequate to protect them or to punish the invaders. The pirates were intimidated and curbed for a long time by Corcuera’s brilliant campaigns in Mindanao and Joló (1637–38); and other punitive expeditions had a like though often temporary effect in later years. In the latter part of the century peace prevailed between these enemies for a long time, probably because no one of the Moro chiefs had the ability and force of the noted Corralat.
In 1639 Almonte subdues the fierce Guimbanos, a mountain people in Sulu. Later, they and the Joloans rebel, and in 1643–44 Agustín de Cepeda again chastises them, defeating the natives in several battles and ravaging their country. One of these expeditions is related in detail by a Jesuit in Joló, who, as usual, ascribes the success of the Spaniards to the favor of St. Ignatius and the Virgin Mary. In Mindanao, Corcuera’s invasion (1637) long restrains Corralat; but in 1655 he treacherously causes the murder of three Spanish envoys sent to him and attempts (but in vain) to stir up the other Moro rulers to rebellion against the Spaniards. The latter are not strong enough to wage war with him, and therefore overlook his insolence; this encourages him to begin anew his piratical raids against other islands. At this, several attempts are made to curb them, most proving ineffectual—although in January–February, 1658, Esteybar with a squadron of armed vessels, destroys several Mindanao villages. Finally (in 1662) the Manila authorities decide to abandon their forts in Mindanao and Joló; this causes the loss of Spanish dominion there, and the christianized Moros soon relapse into their former heathenism. Some of the Joloan chiefs make unauthorized raids on the northern islands, but their king punishes them and restores the captives. Corralat meanwhile, in his old age, maintains peace, and charges his heir to do the same—an example which is followed by the king of Joló. The Camucones are kept in awe by the light galleys which are built at Manila for this purpose. Thus the latter part of the century is a time of comparative peace, so far as the relations of the Spaniards and Visayans with the Moros are concerned.
The Editors
July, 1906.