Thereupon the expedition of Oyangúren came, and had made the conquest of this gulf in a very short time, those Moros who had remained here after a great part of them had emigrated to the bay of Sarangani and the lake of Bulúan surrendering at discretion.
When Oyangúren came, the Moros were complete masters of the island of Sámal,[57] whose inhabitants had risen en masse to unite with the Spanish against their oppressors the Moros. They also dominated the Mandayas, and collected tribute from all of them even from those of the ilaya[58] of Caraga, and were engaged in continual war with the Bilanes, Manobos, and Atas.[59] At present the Mandayas, who are in some manner subject to the Moros, number, according to my calculation, some seven thousand. One cannot estimate or approximate to the number of the Atas who pay tribute to them. The other races are not at all subject to the Moros and do not pay any tribute to them.
It is difficult to fix exactly the number of the Moros who live on this gulf at present. Their nomadic customs and the ease with which they change their habitation, sometimes moving to a great distance, make a little less than impossible an exact list of them. However, I believe that their approximate number is 4,000. If they exceed that number, I do not believe that they reach 5,000, and as well I do not believe that they are less than 3,000. The place that they generally choose for their home, as I have before suggested, is the coast or the mouth of rivers navigable for their small boats.
When any governor of this district urges them with instance to make a village, they make, as it were, an excuse for a settlement, carrying out the plan which the governor himself, or some Spaniard in the name of the governor, or some other intelligent person, gives them. They will construct, if it is desired, their so-called houses at the distances which are marked out for them, but they will never reconcile themselves with any kind of cultivation, or with cleanliness, or the repair of what gets out of order. In reality, in the short time that their villages have form, the filth, the nakedness, and the general wretchedness, cause them to present so repugnant an aspect, that no one can show a desire for their preservation; and as soon as the governor ceases to investigate them, those villages melt away like salt in water.
To the right of Dávao, several attempts have been made to form the Moro village of Daron by bringing together the small Moro rancherías of Taúmo, Baludo, and Obango, which are the only rancherías between Dávao and the point of Culáman in sight of Sarangani. That village, in the days of its greatest apogee, would lodge at most one hundred Moro families, who always tend to be split up into small rancherías.
On the other side of Point Bánus, from which one can begin to descry the islands of Sarangani there was another ranchería of Sanguil.[60] Moros of about one hundred families. That ranchería was settled there under the protection of an Indian, who had served his time in the navy, who fixed his residence there in the quality of agent or abonado [i.e., representative] of the traders of Dávao. At the present time that petty trader has moved his residence to Núin opposite the islands of Sarangani, and it appears that those Moros have followed him. But wherever they have fixed their residence, left to themselves, they are threatened with destruction. For that swarm of Bilanes, Manobos, and Tagacaolos[61] which surrounds them, warlike races who have never been subdued by the Moros, will always consider them as enemies, and will always reckon them in the first line to give an end to their personal and racial vengeance.
In support of my assertion, I shall tell your Reverence an episode just as it was told to me a long while ago. Some years before the conquest of Dávao, the Moros, pursuing the piratical habits peculiar to their race, knifed the crew of a banca which was on its way from Pundaguítan, a Christian village at Cape San Agustin, to the tortoise-shell fisheries at the island of Olaníban, the third and smallest island of the Sarangani. It was a coincidence that the said banca was manned by members of the most influential families of both shores of this gulf from San Agustin and Culáman. Vengeance in the Manobo style was not long delayed. The members of the latter race beheaded as many of the Moros as they could find alone. But later some sort of a settlement was made among them. The Moros paid the fine imposed on them by the other races, but the latter did not cease to be hostile for all that. They have reduced the few Mahometans remaining between Malálag and Sarangani to so precarious a situation that, according to my mode of thinking, their greatest and only guaranty is in the respect that those heathens profess for the Spanish banner.
It is not my design to discuss now the islands and bay, or harbor of Sarangani, places which formed my gilded dream for many years. I shall not be many months in writing to your Reverence a letter with the data which I have gathered, and other data which I am acquiring in regard to those islands and that bay.[62] In that letter I will relate my opinion of those kindly heathens who left so pleasing an impression on the minds of us five missionaries who have visited them, namely Fathers Lluch, Bové, Púntas, Vivero, and the writer.
Just a few words now concerning the Moros to the left of Dávao. One legua from this capital, and along the beach, lies the Moro village of Lánang, which has passed through the same sudden changes as has the village of Daron. The said village is formed by the malcontents of the various datarías[63] of this gulf, beginning with the ilayas of Dávao. Their progress and setbacks have been proportioned to the tact and vigilance of the governors. Some cultivation of cocoas is seen on that coast, in part by the Moros and in part by the Christians of the vicinity. At the present time there are no more than twenty-five houses (if their huts can be so called), of which very few are finished. The greater part of them remain since a long time ago in process of construction.
Following the same coast toward the north of the gulf, and some three leguas distant, one encounters the ranchería of the river Lásan. The most remarkable thing about that ranchería is that it shelters one of the most famous of the directors of Moro politics in this gulf, namely, one Lásad. Some Christians from Cagayan in Misamis have come to their ilaya, according to report. The Moros have never even formed an excuse for a village there, but live scattered in tiny hamlets, or in miserable huts more or less contiguous to one another over a territory spread out over two or three leguas up stream.