3. The parties [i.e., the Recollects and Franciscans] having come to an agreement, and between themselves the governor and bishop, the two latter despatched suitable measures so that the Recollects could take charge of those souls. In the distribution the Recollects had their proportionate advantages, for those islands are a way-station which is necessary to pass in going to Caraga and Zebù, where this order had distant missions. The bishop obtained them [for that order] because, that district having been reduced to one single secular, the latter proved insufficient for its administration. Consequently, in the space of twelve years, only four persons had died with the sacraments, although one hundred and eighteen had passed from this life without that important benefit. The baptism of children was postponed for many months, as the cura went to the visitas in the distant villages but seldom. For it was not easy for one single individual to acquit himself of so laborious cares; consequently, this is not to admit that they were ill administered. The government was interested in them, as was also commerce, as Ticao was an anchorage for the Acapulco ships in its famous port of San Jazinto,[65] on both the outward and return trips, where fresh supplies were procured, wood and water provided, and winds awaited to take them out of the dangerous currents of the Embocadero of San Bernardino. The Recollect fathers accepted that charge, and were received affectionately by the Indians. They founded their headquarters in Mobo,[66] a famous village of Masbate. They built a church there, under the advocacy of Our Lady of Remedies. It was a costly edifice, adorned with good reredoses, and had a sacristy well supplied with vestments, besides a capacious house with its suitable quarters and dormitories for the resident and transient religious. Thence they made their apostolic excursions for the conversion of the heathens, who were still numerous, and the reduction of fugitive apostates. The settlements already established numbered six, and three new villages were established with the increase of those who settled down.
4. This province of San Nicolas petitioned his Majesty in the year one thousand seven hundred and twenty-four to confirm that possession which had been conferred on it in his royal name. His Majesty ordered the governor of Philipinas and the bishop of Nueva Caceres to make no innovation in the spiritual administration of that district until his royal Council should provide what was suitable. He also ordered them to report on the progress of the faith in that territory since it had been under their charge. Judicial investigations were made in Manila by the government, in order to inform the king with reports. From them it appeared that, although the entire district of Masbate had formerly had only one parish priest, since the Recollect fathers had taken charge of it, three religious at least had lived there. It was proved also by the books of the royal accountancy, that in the year preceding their possession, that is, in the year eighty-seven, the entire ministry contained only one hundred and eighty-seven families; while in the year seven hundred and twenty-two there were five hundred and eighty-five families. Consequently, the present governor, the Marquís de Torre Campo, reported that the district of Masbate had had an increase of three hundred and ninety-eight whole tributes through the apostolic zeal of those ministers. The Recollects not only in those districts, but also in the remainder of these islands, devote themselves to the spread of our holy Catholic faith with the greatest toil and with the most visible fruit.
5. That progress was not made without great toil and hardship. They had to do with a great number of mountain Indians and Zimarrones, who became fearsome when abandoned to liberty. Apostates from the faith and from civilized life, they had taken to the deserts and to the roughest mountains, where they defended their barbarous mode of life at all hazards, by resisting with arms those who tried to reduce them. Various people had also gathered there from other islands, fleeing from the settled villages and from the punishment due their atrocities. Consequently, the latter were extraordinarily fierce. Many heathen were numbered among them, accustomed long since to that rudeness of life and savagery, and they were all the worst kind of people. They committed notable depredations on the civilized villages, robbed the boats that anchored in the ports and bays, and treacherously committed many murders. Their boldness rose to such a pitch that one could not cross through the interior of those islands, and to arrive at their shores was the same as to make port in a land of enemies. It was also a laborious and dangerous task to navigate along the coasts, trying to find those rancherías. Consequently, Father Fray Ildefonso de la Concepcion was twice overturned in the sea, and another time had his boat dashed to pieces on some reefs. In that shipwreck he miraculously escaped with his life, although some of his companions perished in the water. Those dangers came to him in his visits to a new village established on the opposite coast. In order to avoid such dangers and visit that village more frequently, the father opened a road through the interior from Mobo over rough mountains, where many other risks were run because of the heathens. In that continual crossing the father fell grievously sick, his pains having originated from the hardships of such a road, with the showers and heat. He died at last, succumbing to such fatigues. But those sufferings were continued by others, who conquered that stubbornness by their constancy and fervent application, although with the well-known risk of losing their lives. Consequently, those ministers who were there in the beginning say that, although they have been many years in other doctrinas and missions, they had not so much to suffer and endure in any of them as in that of Masbate.
[The third extract from Concepción’s Historia is from vol. ix, pp. 123–150, and comprises all of the fourth chapter except the last paragraph.]
Chapter IV
By sentence of the royal Audiencia, the province of Zambales is restored to its first conquistadors, the discalced Augustinian Recollect fathers.
1. The Zambal Indians, of an intractable disposition, people of wild customs, and little or not at all content, were furious with the Dominican ministers in the reductions; they were groaning under the yoke of a life more regulated than their inclinations permitted. This made them think of insurrections and uprisings. The presidio of Painaven, well reënforced, restrained them; and the raids of the commandant, with detachments of men, into the mountains, intimidated them in their plans. They thought that the government of the Recollect fathers was milder, and hence they sighed for it. Those fathers tolerated their barbarous customs among a people so ferocious, and succeeded by their patience in softening and reducing them. Not so with the Dominican fathers, who learned the Zambals’ tenacity at their own cost. In the village of Balacbac was an Indian chief named Dalinen; although he lived in that village, he kept his valuables in the mountains under charge of a nephew. Another Indian, a Cimarron, named Calignao, killed the latter treacherously. In order to avenge that murder, Dalinen retired with many of his followers to the dense woods. Father Fray Domingo Perez,[67] who was the minister of that mission, tried to prevent that flight, but was quite unable to remedy it; for seventeen families fled with Dalinen. The commandant of the fort attacked them with his men and burned the ranchería of Aglao, the next village to Balacbac, to which the murderer and the injured man belonged.
2. Calignao had an extensive and strong kindred. Because they did not flee with him, father Fray Domingo endeavored to win them over. He asked for an adjutant’s staff from the commandant of the fort, and dignified Calignao with it. Then in order to restrain the other side, it was published that the murder of the nephew [of Dalinen] was by the command of the government, which had ordered that all who would not reduce themselves to village life should be killed. That method, however, was insufficient to quiet them, but, on the contrary, roused the factions to a higher pitch. To please the commandant and to give stronger force to his faction, Calignao promised to assault Dalinen. He went into the mountain to put that promise into execution, and after a short time, Dalinen was killed by a Negrito. His relatives were persuaded that the father had had a hand in that murder, and determined to pay him back. The same Calignao offered to do the deed, for this is what it means to benefit apostatized evil-doers. He sought an opportune occasion for the execution of his wicked intent, and found it in a journey which the father made to Baubuen to visit a communal house which he was building for strangers, and in order to confess father Fray Juan de Rois,[68] who was the minister there. During the absence of the father, Calignao descended the mountain, visited his relatives, and was informed that the minister would return in three days. He left his relatives, and in company with a faithless Negrito went to await the father at the bank of a large river, by which it was necessary to pass. When Father Perez reached that place, Calignao discharged an arrow, which passed before the father’s breast without doing him any harm and lodged in a neighboring tree. When the father quite naturally turned his head to see who was firing at him, the Negrito Quibacat discharged his arrow, which, entering the father’s body three fingers below the left breast, came out more than four fingers at the right side of his back. It was a twisted arrow, and when father Fray Domingo pulled on it, the wound became worse. With the most intense pain that he suffered, he broke out into “Jesus, be with me! Let them commend me to God, for I am dying.”
3. He spurred on his horse, which ran until the father perceived that sight was failing him. Then he alighted, stretched himself at the foot of an agoso tree,[69] and, amid the outpouring of his blood, begged pardon from God for his sins. An Indian who accompanied him came up to him, and found him unconscious from great loss of blood. The father recovered consciousness, but for so brief a time that he could not tell the Indian what to do. He fainted once more, so completely that the Indian thought that he was yielding up his life. He again recovered consciousness, and sent the servant to Balacbac in order to get people to carry him thence. The Indian went to carry out that instruction. Meanwhile a man and three women arrived, and stayed with the father until the arrival of the men from the village who were very slow. For the Indian who had been sent could find no one who cared to take that charitable office upon himself, either the ministers of justice, the fiscals, or the sacristans. He was able to get three serving-lads in the convent, who made a hammock from a blanket, and carried the wounded religious in it. The latter, charging his messenger to go to Baubuen to advise Father Rois of his mishap, set out on his way to his village, where he arrived at nine o’clock at night. Father Rois, as soon as he received the news, got ready to go to the relief of his associate. After many frights, for everything was in an uproar, and his person ran no less risk [than that of Father Domingo], he reached the village at daybreak. He entered the cell of the wounded father, whom he found embracing a holy crucifix, and bathed in tears. Father Rois asked him “What is this, Father Vicar-prior?” “This means death,” answered the sufferer. “I shall die; there is no relief.” He was confessed, and received the sacred viaticum. He lived three days after that, without having his bed made, for his extreme pains would not permit it. Had they tended him well at the beginning, he would have recovered, for the wound was not mortal, and the Indians have medicines which cure other things more dangerous. But the greatest care was not exercised in this. The third day after nightfall, the pains attacked him much more fiercely, and convulsions and paroxysms followed. He received extreme unction, after which he lost his speech, and remained remarkably quiet; and in that calm he yielded his spirit to the Creator.
4. The malicious Calignao, after having wounded the father, went to Balacbac, and made an effort to enter the convent in order to kill the servants of father Fray Domingo. The servants barred the doors on the inside until the wounded father arrived, and during all the three days while the latter lived, the murderer remained in the village, without anyone daring to raise a hand against him. During that time Calignao assaulted the convent several times, but could effect nothing, because of the vigilance of Father Rois. The commandant of the fort desired to go in person to punish the treachery, but he was prevented from it by the other religious, for the reason that if he were killed the fort was in danger; and, if that presidio were captured by the Zambals, there would not be a father or a Spaniard in Playahonda who would not be sacrificed to their fury. He sent indeed a detachment of men, with orders to arrest or kill Calignao; but they were unable to do so, as all the village was interested in his liberty. They were present at the funeral, which took place in the church on the following day, with all possible propriety. A year and a half later the father’s bones were moved to the church of his convent at Manila.