[In 1653 Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara succeeded to the government of the Philippines.] One of his first undertakings was to establish peace with the ruler of Mindanao, Cachil Corralat, whom it was expedient to assure for the sake of the tranquillity of the Pintados Islands—which were more exposed than the others to the incursions of their armed fleets, since Manila had not enough soldiers and vessels with which our people could go forth to hinder the operations of the Moros. The governor sent as his ambassador Captain Don Diego de Lemus, and Father Francisco Lado of the Society of Jesus, who were very kindly received by the Moros; and he gave them to understand that no one desired peace more than he did, since the warning was still fresh that had been given him by the war which was waged against him by Governor Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera in person—which had obliged Corralat to wander as a fugitive through the lands of his enemy the king of Buhayen, exposed to many perils. It seems as if the desire which Corralat showed to maintain the peace might be regarded as sincere; for if he had chosen to avail himself of the opportunity afforded by the past years, when all our forces and power were fully occupied in resisting the cruel invasions of the Dutch, without doubt he could have made great ravages in the villages of the Pintados Islands; and therefore this must be attributed to an especial providence of the divine mercy. All [these dealings with the envoys] were cunning measures of the shrewd Moro to lull[5] our vigilance with feigned appearances of peace, for never was he further from pursuing it—partly through greed for the booty of slaves, a great part of which belonged to him; partly because his captains and other persons interested in these piratical raids persuaded him to avail himself of the opportunity furnished by the weakness of our forces. Corralat determined to renew his former hostile acts, and began by preparing vessels and supplies; and in order to cover up better his damnable intention, he sent to the governor of Manila an ambassador to confirm the peace. This man was called Banua, and was no less fraudulent than Simon the Greek. On the route he left many tokens of this; for in the village of Tunganan, among the Subanos, he treated very contemptuously[6] the father minister, Miguel Pareja of the Society of Jesus—who, as the pious religious that he was, turned the other cheek, as the gospel commands. Banua arrived at Manila in the year of 1655, where he discharged very well his office as ambassador, and even better that of spy—and well he knew his double trade; for among other things he demanded that restitution be made to Corralat of some Mindanao slaves, and of the pieces of artillery which Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera had taken from him in war; but this and other petitions of the ambassador had no satisfactory issue. Banua returned [to Mindanao], and Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara despatched to accompany him Captain Don Claudio de Rivera, and Father Alejandro Lopez of the Society of Jesus, who went with holy zeal for establishing in Mindanao the preaching of the true faith. They arrived at Zamboanga, where they had sufficient warnings of the danger to which they were going; but with fearless courage they continued their journey until they reached Corralat. He received them without any of the ostentation usual for an embassy, but rather with frowns and displeasure; and when he read the letters from the governor of Manila—which were excellent for an occasion in which our strength might be greater, but the present time demanded shrewder dissimulation—the Moro king was much disturbed, and displayed extreme anger. The end of this embassy (of which an excellent account is given by Father Francisco Combés in his Historia de Mindanao, book viii, chap. 3) was that Corralat ordered his nephew Balatamay to slay Father Alejandro Lopez and his associate, Father Juan de Montiel, and Captain Claudio de Rivera.[7] Corralat sent the letters of the governor to the kings of Joló and of Ternate, to incite them to make common cause in defense of their profession as Mahometans, but they did not choose to risk breaking the peace; on the contrary, the king of Ternate handed over the letters to the governor of our forts there, Francisco de Esteybar, who restored them to the governor of Manila. (Diaz, Conquistas, pp. 549–551.)
Corralat, fearing the vengeance of the Spaniards, wrote to the governor of Zamboanga throwing the responsibility for what had occurred on his nephew Balatamay, whom he could not chastise on account of the latter being so powerful. He also wrote to Manrique de Lara, attributing the deaths of the Jesuits and other Spaniards to imprudent acts committed by Father López, and entreated the governor that, mutually forgiving injuries, affairs might remain as they had previously been. But his complicity in the event came to be discovered, through another letter directed in June, 1656, to the sultan of Joló, exhorting the latter to unite with him for defending the religion which both professed. The Joloan monarch sent his letter to the governor of Zamboanga in order to demonstrate his loyalty. Similar assistance was solicited by Corralat from the Dutch and from the sovereigns of Macasar and Ternate; and to the latter, in order to stimulate him more, he sent the original letter of Manrique de Lara, presenting the question under the religious aspect only—a letter which the Spanish governor of Ternate was able to recover, and he sent it to its author. The captain-general of Filipinas, not considering his forces sufficient for waging war on the powerful sultan of Mindanao, notified the governor of Zamboanga[8] to accept Corralat’s excuses as sufficient until he could ascertain whether reënforcements were arriving from Nueva España and they could avenge so many injuries.
The sultan, seeing that his insolent conduct did not receive the energetic and effectual punishment that it deserved, gained new courage, and sent out his people to make raids through the coasts of Zamboanga and Basilan—terminating the campaign by looting Tanganan, where they took captive the headman of that village, named Ampi, and twenty-three persons besides. In the Calamianes Islands also the Mindanaos committed horrible ravages. The governor of the Moluccas, Don Francisco de Esteybar, received orders to go to Zamboanga, conferring upon him, besides the command of the said post, the office of governor and captain-general of all the southern provinces of Filipinas. On the second of December of the said year 1656 he arrived at Zamboanga. When this valiant chief was informed of what had occurred, and learned that the pirates were equipping at Simuay [River] a squadron to invade the Visayas, he declared war on Corralat, without stopping to consider whether his forces were inferior or not to those of the enemy, trusting to the courage of his followers and the justice of his cause for the issue of the undertaking. In this document he ordered that ten caracoas should set out, under command of Don Fernando de Bobadilla; and these vessels went to sea on December 30. This commander detached Admiral Don Pedro de Viruega at the village of Sosocon, and Sargento-mayor Don Félix de Herrera at Point Taguima. Through his spies, Corralat knew of the departure of the squadron, and declined to send his boats against the Spanish armada; and during twenty days Bobadilla waited in vain for the pirate vessels. During this time the dato of Sibuguey, Mintun, went to Zamboanga, offering the aid of his people against Corralat, perhaps in order not to be the leader in paying for the losses of the war. It was reported that the sultan had sent four vessels to the village of that chief for rice, and Bobadilla set out to intercept this convoy (January 2, 1657). On arriving at La Silanga,[9] two small caracoas went ahead to reconnoiter the place; these boats conquered a large vessel; but their crews intimidated the Lutaos who were in the Spanish ship, telling them that they would soon be destroyed by Corralat, who was expected in Mintun with fifteen vessels. As the Lutaos of Bobadilla’s squadron were inclined toward the sultan, or were afraid of falling into his power, they threatened the commandant that they would abandon the field when the battle was at its height, if the Spaniards compelled them to fight against Corralat. In view of this, Bobadilla was obliged to return to Zamboanga, losing so propitious an opportunity to avenge the wicked perfidy of the old sultan. Nevertheless, he seized a considerable number of small boats, full of rice, and forty captives. The sultan, now a declared enemy, and attributing to our weakness the failure to punish the murder of the ambassadors, commanded his squadrons to commit piracies, under the command of Prince Balatamay. That deceitful Moro, after committing the most outrageous acts of violence in Marinduque and Mindoro, returned to Mindanao with a multitude of captives and very rich spoils.
While Balatamay was raiding the above-mentioned islands, a splendid squadron sailed from Cavite by order of the governor-general, in command of an officer whose name is not told in the histories, from whom brilliant conduct was expected, to judge from the valor of which he boasted in drawing-rooms; but, far from fulfilling his duty, he lingered in Balayan under pretext of securing supplies of rice, and then in Mindoro, carrying out his cowardly purpose of not encountering the Moros, notwithstanding that the forces under his command were more than sufficient to destroy the pirates. To the end that he might operate in conjunction with the said squadron, Esteybar ordered Alférez Luis de Vargas to scour the coasts of Mindanao; but as the commander of the squadron failed to carry out the instructions that he had received, Vargas, as he could not find him, confined his efforts to burning a village on the bay of Simuay, where he seized several captives. Bobadilla reduced to ashes the old capital of Corralat, Lamitan, its inhabitants having fled to the woods. Also in the said year of 1657 the dato Salicala of Mindanao scoured the seas with his squadron; the natives in consternation abandoned their villages without daring to resist him, and he carried away as captives more than a thousand Indians—his audacity going so far that he sailed into the bay of Manila.
Esteybar then equipped a small squadron of caracoas and vintas, which departed from Zamboanga on January 1, 1658, resolved to chastise the pirate severely. He spread the report that they were going to Sibuguey. He reached that river in seven days and, placing part of his forces in charge of Sargento-mayor Itamarren, he destroyed the village of Namucan, and at Luraya burned many boats. Four pilans captured the joanga which had carried Father López to Simuay, manned by Moros from Mintun. Suddenly changing his course, he took the route to Punta de Flechas, in order to go to the capital of Corralat, but sent beforehand thirty Spaniards, with Captain Don Pedro de Viruega, to the district of Butig. Its chief Matundin, at the head of five hundred men, was defeated, the grain-fields ravaged, and the village reduced to ashes. The tilled land of this district was exceedingly rich, since it is the principal source of supply for rice in Mindanao. Great damage was also done in La Sabanilla by Captain Don Juan González Carlete. On the nineteenth of January the squadron encountered a large Dutch ship surrounded by some pirate vessels. Esteybar attempted to secure a free passage without bringing on a contest, to which end he hoisted a white flag; but the commander of the Dutch ship displayed a red flag, firing all his cannon against the Spanish vessels. Then, without heeding the superiority of the enemy, Bobadilla came against the ship, all his men rowing as hard as they could; and Esteybar attacked it at the stern. The Spaniards then were going to board the ship with a rush, when a ball fired from the vessel of Esteybar set on fire the Santa Barbara [i.e., powder-magazine] of the Dutch ship, thus blowing it into pieces. Only twenty-four of its crew survived, and these were drawn out of the sea and made prisoners. Esteybar continued his voyage to Simuay, the bar of which was fortified with heavy stockades; moreover, at its ends were two forts, garrisoned by Malays, Macassars, and Dutchmen. This did not frighten Esteybar, and he made preparations to capture the posts of the enemy, in spite of advice to the contrary from his captains. While he was deciding the best method of accomplishing this, he passed with his squadron to the river of Buhayen, sending in by one of its entrances the valiant Bobadilla with some vessels, and by the other Sargento-mayor Itamarren. The former sacked the villages and ravaged the grain-fields of Tannil and Tabiran, the latter those of Lumapuc and Buhayen; they destroyed a powerful armada which had been prepared for raiding the islands, and carried away as spoil many versos, muskets, campilans, crises, and all kinds of weapons.
In the village of Buhayen resided Prince Hamo, son of Moncay, from whom the kingdom had been usurped; he mounted a white flag and a cross above his house, being desirous of forming an alliance with the Spaniards, but they, being warned by experience with the treasons of the Moros, continued the hostilities, without attaching any importance to that signal. While they constructed rafts with which to attack the fortress of Corralat, Captain Antonio de Palacios went to destroy the village of Tampacan and its environs; and Adjutant Antonio Vázquez disembarked with orders to cut off the retreat of the enemy’s spies. These were twenty in number, thoroughly armed; Vázquez rushed upon them, and at the first encounter killed five and wounded six of them, and the rest were shot to death in the woods. Esteybar returned to the bar of Buhayen; he knew that at a day’s journey from there was a village of Lutaos, called Maolo, and, desirous to chastise that settlement and obtain information about that coast, he sent Sargento-mayor Itamarren—who, finding it deserted, set fire to the village, killed four Moros, and captured two others, the only ones who waited for the attack.
Notwithstanding these provocations, and others that were directly offered to Corralat in the environs of his fortifications, it was impossible to draw him out into the open country. Having constructed a number of rafts, on which were placed pieces of artillery, the governor went aboard the largest of them, and with the aid of the vessels cannonaded the fort of Corralat for the space of four hours, but he defended it well. It was evident that the difficulties of assaulting it were insuperable, and that the artillery was operating with but little result, on account of the condition of the sea; accordingly it was decided to retire to the bar of Buhayen. The squadron went to La Sabanilla on the seventeenth of February; here Esteybar received orders to return to Molucas, and he proceeded to Zamboanga. Notwithstanding the well-known valor of this chief, and the injuries inflicted on the Moros during the two months of the campaign, this retreat gave much satisfaction to Corralat, since it freed him from [the danger of] going as a wanderer through the hills, as on previous occasions.
The valiant Esteybar had been replaced as governor of the military post of Zamboanga by Don Fernando de Bobadilla—a chief no less courageous and resolute—with the same titles and preeminences as the former. Corralat, in order better to secure his dominions against the aggressions of the Spaniards, made Namu, king of Buhayen, establish a fort at the mouth of the river, the opposite shore of which was likewise fortified by Corralat; he entrusted to Marundin the defense of the bar of Simuay, and to the Basilan chiefs Ondol and Boto the construction of a fortification at the entrance of the estuary of Zamboanga. Don Diego Zarria Lazcano took the place of Bobadilla, the former remaining at the head of the armada.
The datos Linao and Libot of Joló, and Sacahati of Tawi-Tawi, with thirteen vessels, scoured the coasts of Bohol, Leyte, and Masbate. Near Luban they put to death father Fray Antonio de San Agustin, who on account of his ailments could not retreat to the interior of that island as did the rest who were going with him in their vessel. A squadron sailed from Manila in command of Don Pedro Duran de Monforte; they went to Luban, Mindoro, Panay, and Gigantes without discovering the pirates, and returned to the capital. The Moros were able to return to Joló with many spoils and eighty captives; but the sultan of that island sent back the said captives, in order to prove that he desired peace with the Spaniards. (Montero y Vidal. Hist. piratería, i, pp. 236–244. Cf. Combés, Hist. Mindanao, col. 533–549, 570–587.)