In general, the datos and their families do not work. At the most they fish and hunt for sport, and to stifle the pangs of hunger. Their chief and most honorable receipts are from the tributes which they collect from their subjects and from the heathens whom they have subdued. That tribute is called the pagdato. Although that source of wealth is the chief, it is not the only source. Although the Moros of this gulf are conquered and subdued, they have not completely forgotten their former customs of piracy. Slavery and captivity with their awful accompaniment of murders, thefts, poisons, and violence of every sort, and further, the human sacrifices which accompany them at times, form a very productive source of wealth for the ever exhausted chests of their treasuries. I could write a very thick volume of the deeds of this particular people which are very well known to me.
All the heathens dominated by the Moros, and even many of the Moros themselves, on approaching me, through the little confidence that my person inspires, molest me by the relation of the Moro misdeeds, telling me of the troubles and injustice which they suffer from the Moros, and the acts of inhumanity of which they are the victims; for they hope that I will protect them by causing that the guilty ones will be given their deserts.
As a proof of what I have said, and of the many things which I could add, I give below the relation of what happened to me about one year ago. I was on my way from Cuaba to Mati, and was accompanied by a young man of about twenty years of age of the Mandaya race. He together with his mother and two younger sisters had formerly been captured by the Moro datos of the bay of Mayo. When we reached Valete, pointing to a gagátpat tree,[64] he said to me: “Father, they bound my mother by the hands and neck to that branch, and left her half hanging there while they ate and rested.” “And what was their reason for binding your mother there in so inhuman a manner,” I asked. “In order that, since she would be tired out,” he replied, “by the forced position in which they kept her, she might not have the strength to escape on the journey from this place to Súmlug.” I believe that that unfortunate woman is no longer living. The Moros took her to Daron and no more has been heard of her, in spite of the repeated efforts which her son has made to find her. The latter having escaped from that bondage and having become a Christian, has not ceased to employ all the resources that his filial love has roused in him in order to see whether he can discover the abiding-place of his dear mother. He thinks that the Moros of Daron sold her to the Bagabos, and that the latter sacrificed her according to their custom.
That slave trade, sa pag sucad, as it is graphically expressed by Moros and heathen, or something to cover their necessities, is not yet the worst thing of the Moro race. More mischievous to my way of thinking is it for the progress and stability of this district, both in religious matters and in civil and political matters, that the Moros of this part have not yet lost their hope of being able to recover their ancient power. They show this openly whenever any opportunity arises. On that account they endeavor by all their efforts to maintain their own organization in the very face of our government. They call the dato of their choice Principal [i.e., Chief] and the captain or gobernadorcillo and the other agents of justice appointed among them by the governor of the district, they call Salíling, which is equivalent to our Interino [i.e., incumbent of an office ad interim]. At times they simply call the members of justice appointed by the governor for them interinos, and consider them as secondary or entrusted authorities. For as they say of themselves in their manner of speech, “We are friendly to the Castilians, through force.” Consequently, they endure our rule for the present, but do not accept it.
One of the recent occurrences which place in relief this desire of the Moros in opposing our domination and recovering their lost prestige, is found in the island of Sámal. Those islanders who on seeing the boats of Oyangúren remove the Mahometan yoke, and had passed over en masse to the Spanish camp, gradually allowed their affection toward us to cool, and again took the advice of their ancient masters, and have opposed all the attempts that have been made for their formal and real reduction. Taúpan, who was, as it were, the dato or petty king of the Sámals, and who during the last year of his life, had kept at a certain distance from the Spaniards, although he did not for all that return entirely to the Moros, whom he had considered as a very bad lot, died. His eldest son, named Severo, although a heathen, showed us affection and respect, and had expressed to a Visayan in his confidence his desire to have one of his children baptized. The conversion of Severo would have been a great defeat for the party of the Moros in Sámal. Consequently, the eminent men among the Moro faction took alarm before the thought of Severo converted. No less than fourteen Moro datos of this gulf went to Sámal, and when they were all assembled, they elected as dato or chief of the Sámals not Severo to whom it belonged by hereditary right to succeed his father, according to the custom of the Sámals, but one who was thoroughly trusted by the Moros. That was one Captain Batúnun, that old man whom your Reverence saw in Sámal, and who talking as a Moro with Father Juanmartí, held that long spear in front of the governor of the district. Now then, there are two gobernadorcillos in Sámal: Severo, who besides being the legitimate successor of his father, was appointed captain or gobernadorcillo by Governor Don Joaquin Rajal; and Batúnun, elected by the Moro datos, as I have related, and that later than the official appointment of Severo. That means that they are resisting the orders of our government directly, in order to oppose our domination, and in order to recover the Moro practice of intermeddling in the matters of the interior of the island of Sámal. It is to be noted that throughout the island of Sámal, and along its coasts, there does not exist any ranchería or group of Moros. Those who exercise that baleful influence over the Sámals are the Moros from other points, of which I have already made mention.
In regard to the Mandayas, whom the Moros will by no means recognize as freed [from their rule], they will neither recognize them as independent authorities, even with official titles which are sent by the governor of the district, and are stamped with the seal of the government, if the latter when appointed, do not communicate with them by means of the Moro datos. If the Mandayas show a decided desire to break that secular slavery, the Moros tell them without circumlocutions that they will disappear without knowing how; and they cause them to know underhandedly that the means which they will use to finish them, will be by the poisons which they possess—some of them feigned and named only to terrify the Mandayas, but others only too real and true.
As the crown to what I have related, and in order that your Reverence may be convinced of the resolute will of these Moros of opposing by all means the reduction of the heathens and the gathering of themselves together into formal villages, I will mention the most transcendent deed that has happened in this district since the coming of Oyangúren. This is the unfortunate killing and awful murder committed by the Moros of Tágum on the person of Governor Don José Pinzon y Purga and those who were with him.
By certain ill-informed persons, that tragic event has been ascribed to the urgency with which Pinzon, it is said, begged to wife the daughter of a dato of Tágum. But being well informed by trustworthy persons contemporaneous with the event, who accompanied the governor on that sad journey, I am able to state that that idea is a calumny and destitute of every foundation of truth. The deed as is related by those persons, happened in the following manner. Señor Pinzon had proposed to establish a numerous reduction of Mandayas at the mouth of the Tágum River; and worked at it with great enthusiasm and good success. Everything was ready and the heathens were summoned for a given day, on which the said governor intended to go to inaugurate the said reduction. The Moros, seeing that the project was succeeding, and that all their plots in order to frustrate it were in vain, called in the rest of their malice, and resolved to kill the governor. In effect, they feigned that they were friendly to and desired the reduction. On the appointed day they assembled at the place where the Mandayas were to await the governor in order to plan the village. The first chief of the village arrived and the datos received him with great and feigned demonstrations of joy, and consented in all things to what the governor proposed. Then they invited him to one of their rancherías, where they said that they had prepared feasts in order to serve him and to solemnize the inauguration of the new village, with another unworthy offering, but one very suitable to the degrading customs of the Moros. There were not lacking those so bold as to advise the governor not to trust the Moros, for they were plotting some trick against him. But they say that he laughed at everything, and replied “I want to see whether what they tell me is true.” Therefore he took eight companions and went with the datos to their ranchería. A feast was held there, and there was playing on culintángan, dances, etc., but not a woman, large or small, was to be seen in the whole ranchería. At the end of the ceremony, a dato invited the governor to enter an apartment, and when the latter was about to lift the curtain, at that moment the dato stabbed him violently in the back with his kris. Pinzon turned, and wounded as he was, advanced toward the murderer. Already did he have the latter at his mercy and unarmed, but before he could rise, another dato ran in, and cut off Pinzon’s head with a two-handed blow. Meanwhile the other Moros were murdering the eight companions of the unfortunate Pinzon in the lower part of the house.
Such is the blackest event registered by the annals of this gulf, which paralyzed for many years the reduction of the heathens.
In my opinion the means that will resist the evil influence of the Moros are: 1. To eliminate the offices of dato and pandita, implanting in their stead in the Moro villages the legislation in force in the Christian villages by naming municipalities with which the government will deal directly. 2. The exclusion of holding public offices to those who have been datos or panditas and their children. 3. Absolute prohibition to the datos to continue the collection of tribute from their own people and the heathens of other races. 4. The stipulation and publication of the autonomy of the heathens in regard to the Moros, prohibiting the latter absolutely from meddling in the affairs of the heathens. 5. The intimation to all the heathens and Moros of their obligation as men and as subjects of the crown of España, to live in villages in a civilized manner. 6, and last. To reduce the Moros into the least possible number of groups and away from the mouths of the Tágum and Hijo rivers, where the members of the Mandaya race must construct their villages, that being the nearest location.