Gadanes; 1621
[An account of this uprising is given by Aduarte in book
ii, chap. xvii, of his Historia; see our VOL. XXXII, pp. 113–120.]
In Bohol and Leyte; 1622
[See account of the Bohol revolt in VOL. XXIV, pp. 116–119; it also spread to Leyte. We
present here some further account, obtained from Murillo
Velarde’s Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 17, 18;
Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 132–136.
Concepción (in Hist. de Philipinas, v, pp.
20–25) adds nothing new.]
The majority of the ministers in the island of
Bohol1 had gone to Zebu, to celebrate the feasts of the
beatification of St. Xavier; in their absence Lucifer attempted to
possess himself again of those souls. The divata, or demon, appeared to
some Indians in the woods—its face covered, like that of one
taking the discipline—and commanded them to quit the [88]gospel
ministers and the Spanish vassalage, and take refuge in the hills; and
to build him a chapel, where he would aid them and give them whatever
they needed to pass their lives in happiness and abundance, without the
encumbrance of paying tribute to the Spaniards or dues to the churches.
Two or three Indians, who on account of their evil deeds were wandering
as fugitives, became priests of this divata, in order to persuade the
people to apostasy and rebellion; and, to take away the fear which they
naturally feel toward the Spaniards, these priests told them that, if
they would attack the Spaniards, the divata would cause the mountains
to rise against their foe; that the muskets of the latter would not go
off, or else the bullets would rebound on those who fired them; that if
any Indian should die, the demon would resuscitate him; that the leaves
of the trees would be converted into saranga (which is a large
fish); that when they cut bejucos, these would distil wine instead of
water; that from the banana-leaves they would make fine linen; and, in
short, that all would be pleasure, enjoyment, and delight. With these
magnificent promises, so attractive to men—and especially to the
Indians, who are so inclined to idleness and sloth—four villages
revolted; only Loboc (which is the chief village) and Baclayon remained
firm in the faith, and in loyalty to the king.
Information of this reached Zebu, and immediately Don
Juan de Alcarazo, alcalde-mayor of Zebu, went to quiet the
island;2 he invited them to make [89]peace,
for which the rebels did not care. Their boldness increasing, they
burned the four villages and their churches; they flung on the ground
the rosaries and crosses, and pierced an image of the blessed Virgin
eighteen times with javelins—although afterward in Zebu some
tried to make amends to her with the most affectionate demonstrations
of reverence, and she was placed in our church. Thereupon the chief
ordered troops from Zebu, fifty Spaniards and a thousand friendly
Indians,3 accompanied by a father; and on New Year’s
day, 1622, he began the march to the mountains, where the insurgents
were. For five days they traveled through rugged hills and deep
ravines, crossing marshes where the mud came to their knees, or even to
their waists, and shedding their blood on the thorns and briars. On the
fifth day, the insurgents killed a friendly Indian; this they
celebrated with loud shouts, and it greatly increased their arrogance.
On the following day, more than 1,500 rebel Indians attacked our
vanguard, which consisted of sixteen Spaniards and three hundred
Indians; but when our muskets were fired so many fell dead that the
rebels began to retreat to a bamboo thicket. When we followed them, a
heavy rain fell, which encouraged the rebels, for they said that our
muskets were then useless. But Heaven favored our cause with a marvel,
since, although the pans of the musket-locks were full of water, the
soldiers declared that the powder never failed to catch fire, nor did
the matches go out. At [90]this the rebels fled into the mountains; and
our men arrived at a village of more than a thousand houses, in the
midst of which was the temple of their divata. Our troops found there
much food, various jewels of silver and gold, and many bells of the
sort those people use—all which was given to our Indians. The
rebels were in a fortification of stone, in which they had placed many
stones and clods of earth to throw at our men; but the latter, covering
themselves with their shields, seized the redoubt, with the death of
many of the enemy,4 and in a fortnight returned to
Loboc. Captain Alcarazo, who was foremost in all these engagements,
commanded that some of the rebels be hanged, and published a pardon to
the rest; and he returned to Zebu,5 where the victory was
celebrated. This success had very important results, for it checked the
revolt of other islands and other villages—who were expecting the
favorable result which the demon had promised them, so that they could
shake off the mild yoke of Christ, and with it their vassalage to the
Spaniards. Many of them, now undeceived, accepted the pardon; but
others, who were stubborn, fortified themselves at the summit of a
rugged and lofty hill, difficult of access, and closed the road [to it]
with brambles and thorns.6 [91]They also filled the
paths with very sharp stakes driven into the soil, and placed among the
branches of the trees many crossbows,7 in order
that these, being discharged as our men passed them, might wound the
soldiers; and above they provided many stones to throw at the
Spaniards, hurling them from the top of the hill. Six months later the
same Don Juan Alcarazo returned, to dislodge those rebels with forty
Spaniards and many Indians. After suffering great hardships in making
the paths accessible, nearly all his men were hurt, by the time they
reached the fort, by the many stones which the enemy hurled down from
the summit; but our soldiers courageously climbed the ascent, firing
their muskets, and killed many of the rebels, putting the rest to
flight. Thus was dispersed that sedition, which was one of the most
dangerous that had occurred in the islands—not only because the
Boholans were the most warlike and valiant of the Indians, but on
account of the conspiracy spreading to many other tribes. Noble
examples of fidelity in this great disturbance are not lacking.
[Murillo Velarde here mentions two instances of this.]
The natives of Carigara in the island of Leyte became
impatient, and revolted without waiting for [92]the
result in Bohol, incited thereto by Bancao, the ruling chief of
Limasava—who in the year 15658 received with friendly
welcome Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and the Spaniards who came to his
island, supplying them with what they needed, for which Phelipe II sent
him a royal decree, thanking him for the kind hospitality which he
showed to those first Spaniards. He was baptised and, although a young
man, showed that he was loyal to the Christians; but, conquered by the
enemy [of souls], he changed sides in his old age.9 This man
lived in the island of Leyte, and with a son of his and another man,
Pagali (whom he chose as priest of his idolatry), erected a sacred
place to the divata, or devil; and they induced six villages in the
island to rebel. In order to remove from them their fear of the
Spaniards, these men told their followers that they could change the
Spaniards into stones as soon as they saw them, by repeating the word
bato, which signifies “stone;” and that a woman or a
child could change them into clay by flinging earth upon them. Father
Melchor de Vera went to Zebu to give warning of this sedition and
obtain aid to check it. Captain Alcarazo equipped an armada of forty
vessels, in which were embarked some Spaniards and many friendly
Indians, also the father rector of Zebu and Father Vera; these united
with the forces (both Spanish and Indian) that the alcalde of Leyte
had. They offered peace to the rebels, but the latter spurned it with
contempt. Our men, divided into [93]three bodies, attacked them;
and, when that which Don Juan de Alcarazo commanded came in sight of
the rebels, they fled to the hills. Our soldiers followed them, and on
the way put to the sword or shot those whom they encountered; and,
although the compassion of the Spaniards spared the children and
women,10 these could not escape the fury of the Indians.
Many of the rebels died, the enchantment not availing them by which
they had thought to turn the Spaniards into stone or clay; the rest
saved themselves by flight. The Spaniards came to a large building
which the rebels had erected for their divata; they encamped in it ten
days, and then burned it. Some one pierced with a lance Bancao, the
chief instigator of the rebellion, not knowing who he was, whom two of
his slaves were carrying on their shoulders and immediately his head
was placed on a stake as a public warning. He and his children came to
a wretched end, as a punishment for their infidelity and apostasy; for
his second son was beheaded as a traitor, and a daughter of his was
taken captive. To inspire greater terror, the captain gave orders to
shoot three or four rebels, and to burn11 one of
their priests—in order that, by the light of that fire, the
blindness in which the divata had kept them deluded might be removed.
The Spaniards [94]also cut off the head of an Indian who had robbed
Father Vinancio [i.e., Vilancio] and broken to pieces an image
of the Virgin, and kicked a crucifix; and his head was set up in the
same place where he had committed those horrible sacrileges. There were
many who, in the midst of so furious a tempest, remained constant in
their religious belief. [Several instances of this are related by the
author.]
Mandayas; 1625
[For particulars of this insurrection, see
Aduarte’s Historia, book ii, chaps, xxviii, xxx,
in our VOL. XXXII, pp. 147–152, 162. Cf.
Ferrando’s account, Hist. de los PP. Dominicos,
ii, pp. 114–117; and our VOL. XXII, pp.
69, 95.]
In Caraga and in Cagayan; 1629
[See VOL. XXIV, pp. 165, 175,
177, 216, 217, 229; and fuller account of that in Caraga, in
Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, v, pp.
163–179 (in our VOL. XXXV, pp.
89–91).]
In Nueva Segovia; 1639
[See Santa Cruz’s account (Hist.
Sant. Rosario) in our VOL. XXXV, pp.
47–51.]
In Pampanga, 1645; and in Bulacán,
1643
[The following is taken from Diaz’s Conquistas, pp. 483, 484:]
This fearful earthquake12 was general
in all these Filipinas, although it was more severe in some regions
than in others—for in the province of Cagayán, in [the
land of] one people called Maynanes, a great mountain was cleft open;
and the havoc made by it [97]extended as far as Maluco. In the
heights of Gapang,13 in the province of Pampanga, it
was very severe, and lasted several days. Even greater damage might
have been done by an uprising that was plotted by an Indian of evil
disposition in the villages of Gapang, Santor, Caranglán, and
Patabangán, exhorting the natives there to rebel and restore
themselves to their former liberty, by slaying the Spaniards and the
religious. He assured them that in Manila there were no Spaniards left,
because the earth had swallowed them, with the entire city, on the
night of the earthquake that occurred on St. Andrew’s day; and
that the demon, with whom he had compact and intercourse, had promised
him that he would aid the natives so that they might maintain
themselves without paying tribute, and might enjoy much prosperity, and
provided that they would slay the fathers and burn the churches. The
delusion of the Indians of Gapang went so far that they seized arms,
and summoned to their aid many heathen Zambals, and burned the churches
of Santor and Pantabangán. When this was known in Manila, the
encomendero of those villages, Admiral Rodrigo de Mesa, offered his
services to pacify them, and went to Gapang with Alférez
Callejas, their collectors of tribute, and some friendly Indians; but
the insurgents, who now were numerous, badly wounded the encomendero,
who fled on horseback, and a year later died from that wound at Manila.
They slew Alférez Callejas and many of the loyal Indians who
went in his company, and fortified themselves in the [98]mountains. The prior and minister, Fray Juan
Cabello, escaped by the aid of some other Indians who were not of the
hostile party, came to Manila, and gave information of the progress of
the rebellion. Opinions differed as to the methods which should be
employed in pacifying the insurgents; and our father provincial, Fray
Alonso Carbajal, decided to send the father lecturer Fray Juan de
Abarca,14 a religious for whom the natives of that district
had much affection and respect, since he had been their minister for
many years. With this commission this religious set out for Pampanga,
taking with him a companion, Master-of-camp Don Agustin Songsong, a
valiant Pampango, with as many soldiers of that people as seemed
necessary. They arrived at Gapang, and by means of father Fray Juan de
Abarca’s preaching and his earnest efforts—which would take
too long to relate, as would the many perils of death to which he
exposed himself—that sedition was finally quelled, and the
insurgents returned to their former quiet. But the Indian sorcerer, the
cause of this disturbance, did not make his appearance, notwithstanding
all the efforts that were made to find him.
Another rebellion, which threatened a great outbreak,
was checked (in the year 1643) by father Fray Cristobal Enriquez. In
the district of Malolos in the province of Bulacán, an Indian
named Don Pedro Ladía, a native of Borney, went about promoting
sedition; he proclaimed that to him belonged the right of being king
over the provinces of Tagalos, [99]alleging that he was a
descendant of Raja Matanda,15 the petty king whom the
Spaniards found at Manila in the year 1571. With these and other
impostures, aided by wine—the chief counselor in matters of
policy and war, among those natives—and with the consultations
with the demon which always figure on these occasions, he kept many
villages of that district disquieted. But the sagacious procedure of
father Fray Cristobal Enriquez intercepted all these misfortunes which
were threatening us, by furnishing a plan for the arrest of Don Pedro
Ladía—who already was styling himself “king of the
Tagálogs;” he was sent to Manila, where, he paid with his
life for his vain presumption. And thus this revolt, lacking even that
weak foundation, was entirely quieted.
In the Pintados; 1649–50
[The best authorities on this insurrection are the
Jesuit historians, since it arose in regions under their spiritual
charge. We select the earliest account, that of Combés, written
while the incidents of that time were fresh in men’s minds; it is
found in his Hist. de Mindanao, col. 489–498.
Murillo Velarde also relates these events, in Hist. de
Philipinas, fol. 171b–175. Cf. the Augustinian Diaz, in
Conquistas, pp. 517–523; and the Recollect
Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, vi, pp.
247–280.]
The queen of Joló, Tuambaloca, wrote at the same
time, asking permission to come to end her days in the island of
Basilan, and all was so secure from war that she remained as arbiter of
peace for all the islands of Samboangan; and, as such, even the
governor [100]of Manila availed himself of her power16 in order to pacify the disturbances in the
islands....
This occasion made sufficiently evident the greatness of
the benefit that the islands owe to the Society for the [treaties of]
peace made with these kings—thus finding the royal arms at
liberty for more pressing exigencies, and being set free, as regards
those kings, from the most painful anxiety lest their forces would be
allied with our dangers. With this, attention could be given to the
punishment of Burney, a pirate as cruel as impious; and to finding
external relief in the domestic losses and evils which had rendered our
safety so uncertain. [Our forces were thus ready] in an almost general
revolt of all the islands, in the provinces that were most subjugated
and had never tested the keenness of our arms; for they had yielded to
the echoes of our trumpets, receiving our troops in peace. But in these
recent years had been operating in these new worlds the influences of
that malign planet which was ruining Europe (and especially our
España), with revolts of entire kingdoms, and has caused rivers
of blood to run in the populous kingdom of China; and it reached these
islands, to wreak on them its fierceness. And God—permitting
evil, for the credit of virtue and the reward of the good—gave
warlike courage to the most pusillanimous tribes, and armed the
nakedness of these Indians to resist the unconquerable steel of our
Spaniards.
The first region to declare against us was the province
of Ibabao, which is in the island of Samar; [101]it
is the coast which faces the north, beaten by the sea of Nueva
España. There the Society has a new residence, which is occupied
by six fathers. All the villages connected with it revolted, following
the audacious stand of the chief among them, which is Palapag. This was
occasioned by the oppressions arising from our public works—which
is a motive that should appeal to them, since they were the ones
interested in the defense [of the coasts against their enemies]. But
the Indians, as barbarians, do not heed future perils, but rather
present fatigues; and to these their slothful nature opposes itself.
The losses of galleons made it necessary to maintain in that province a
shipyard. This drafted all the carpenters from Manila, and, in order to
supply those that were needed on that shore, it was necessary to demand
from each province a certain number—a quota of hardly one to each
village, and this so equitably that to worldly prudence these
allotments seemed advantageous, for which many would eagerly ask. But
as the Indians have grown up in their wretchedness and in the life of
brutes in their remote mountains, it seems to them that they are
maintaining their liberty. They resented greatly this political
compulsion to citizenship and the formation of a village, [so that they
would live] as men. Those in the provinces that were most civilized and
were nearest to Manila had obeyed the decree without opposition, but
these [remote] provinces immediately made such demonstrations of
displeasure that all of us perceived the difficulty [of enforcing the
demand], and several undertook to represent it [to the authorities].
Don Diego de Faxardo was the governor, a man so harsh in his methods,
and having so little pious regard for [102]the [religious]
ministers, that their intercessions only made him more cruel, on
account of the dogmatic opinion which he followed, that the ministers
are the ones who oppose the royal service. Accordingly they all gave up
any active opposition, but moderated in a thousand ways the execution
[of the decree] (which they saw could not be avoided), sometimes with
gifts, sometimes with considerations of utility. The men of Ibabao,
trusting in the ruggedness of their coast or the inaccessibility of
their mountains, or in the succor which had been positively promised to
them by the Dutch—who every year make port on their coasts,
awaiting with their armed fleets the relief [sent us] from Nueva
España—immediately declared themselves [against us]. At
the outset, in their stubbornness and disobedience, until their affairs
were settled and their retreat prevented, they talked of fleeing to the
mountains. This was their first opinion; but a malicious Indian
interfered in the discussion, and told them that they could not
accomplish anything by that course, because the village would not be
destroyed, nor would the promoters [of the rebellion] have the
following that they desired, unless they ordered that all should rebel,
and slay the father, and burn the church; for their guilt in such
action would intimidate all of them. As their councils were held in the
excitement of wine, all readily approved this extravagant proposal.
Immediately the demon offered them, for its execution, the
evilly-inclined mind of a vile Indian named Sumoroy, who, although he
had been much favored by the fathers as being a skilful pilot on the
sea, and on this account had always enjoyed immunity from tribute and
personal services, and was [103]actually the castellan of the
fortified residence that they had there, yet desired—because they
had removed an obstacle17 which for many years had kept
him at variance with and separated from his lawful wife—to find
an opportunity for vengeance. This man offered to kill the father; and,
confirming his resolve with many draughts to his success, and loud
shouts, they dreamed that they were already masters of the entire
world, and had slain all the Spaniards. He had already prejudiced their
minds against his enemy, telling each Indian in the village separately
that he had been assigned by the father to go to the Manila shore;
consequently, no one now repaired to mass or took notice of public
affairs. The father rector—who was Father Miguel Ponce Barberan,
a native of the kingdom of Aragon—saw plainly the hostile
disposition of the people, but never could have imagined so insane a resolve;
and if any one could most confidently throw aside anxiety it was this
father, for he had been, without contradiction, the most beloved and
cherished by the natives, of all the fathers who had itinerated
there—and, as well, the one who had spent most years in
ministering to those people. A Tuesday, then, the first day of June in
the year 1649, the traitor selected for his sacrilegious parricide;
and, as a thief in the house, who knew its avenues of entrance and
egress very well, he took his stand within, awaiting the father at the
top of the stairway, when he should ascend it after supper. While the
father halted on the stairs to say a prayer for the souls in
purgatory—for which, it happened, the bells were
ringing—Sumoroy hurled a javelin at him from [104]above, which pierced his breast and immediately
brought him to the ground; nor did he breathe again, spending his last
energy in pronouncing the sweet names of Jesus and Mary.
For two days the fathers remained at home in suspense,
without understanding the cause of this evil deed, or knowing who was
its author; and the rebels themselves delayed to commit sacrileges by
breaking with shame and declaring themselves [rebels]. Finally, on the
day of Corpus Christi, about noon, the murderer came in sight, leading
the multitude, and openly declared that it was he who had slain the
father, loudly defying the whole world. They gave the fathers and the
brother whom they found in the house the opportunity to leave it,
provided that they removed nothing from it; and immediately, as
barbarians and enemies of God—forgetting the faith and Christian
belief of so many years, in which they had grown up—they sacked
and burned the church and house, profaning the ornaments, and cutting
from them drawers and turbans according to their old-time usage. If
there were any of the faithful [among the crowd], they let themselves
be persuaded by the argument of the barbarians for their timidity, that
if they remained among the insurgents the anger of the Spaniards would
be moderated, and accordingly they followed the perverse ones. The
report of this sacrilegious act fanned the flame of infernal zeal
itself, and found the minds of the people so ready that, almost as if
there had been a general decision and they only awaited the signal for
putting it into execution, in almost all the villages on that coast
they burned their churches, the ministers fled, and the rebels
retreated to the [105]mountains, where they fancied they could
maintain their former brutal mode of life.
In the rest of the provinces—either because they
perhaps regarded it as somewhat discreditable that the men of Ibabao
should display their valor in order to oppose the Spaniards, and they
themselves not do so; or because all of them were (as some desire to
be) in communication with the Dutch—they proceeded to follow the
example and imitate the boldness of the men of Palapag. Our arms would
be found greatly embarrassed if those of the Dutch were to add
confidence to the insolence of the Indians; and, at the very least,
there would not remain a province which would not be up in arms, and no
minister or Spaniard of those who were scattered among them would
escape. But God our Lord, who chastised as a father, and chose to
correct with clemency the wickedness with which the Spaniards abuse the
subject condition of these natives—and as a warning to the
latter, to confirm them in the truth of our holy faith and disabuse
them of their errors—so adjusted the times that although the
Dutch fleets had not failed to come to the islands for ten years past,
about that very month [i.e., June], in this year the peace kept
them away, and the publication of it arrived here in good time, so that
our forces were left free for the punishment [of the rebels].
Immediately the province of Camarines, on the mainland
of Manila, declared itself against us, and the father guardian [of the
Franciscans] was banished from Solsogon; and their lead was followed by
their island of Masbate, where an alférez was put to death. This
presumptuous act disturbed the peace of Cebú Island; and its
natives also, without fearing [106]the strong fort and the city
to near them, also defied us, another officer being slain there. In the
province of Caraga, the men of Linao revolted, displaying their evil
intentions by the murder of the father prior (a discalced Augustinian),
and of the Spaniards in a small garrison which was kept there, some
dozen in number; but few escaped, and those were badly wounded. In the
province of Iligan, which borders on Caraga, the Manobos, a barbarian
tribe, seized the peaceable village of Cagayan. The entire coast
[i.e., of northern Mindanao], and the adjacent island of
Camigin, followed their example; in Camigin they bound the father prior
(also a discalced Augustinian), the impious Indians going so far as to
place their brutal feet on the neck of the holy religious. In the
jurisdiction of Samboangan, the Subanos went astray—their
principal village, named Siocon, releasing itself from obedience with
the sacrilegious parricide of Father Juan del Campo, and the atrocious
murder of his companions, as we shall afterward relate. The Boholans,
on account of their valor, retained their esteem for the faith. Thus,
for the punishment of so many atrocious deeds and for quelling the
insolence of the barbarians, there remained to us no other arms than
those of Samboangan, and no other auxiliaries than those people who had
been our friends for so few years.
Those of Ibabao aroused the utmost anxiety, their
insolence continually calling us to arms; for, not content with
atrocities in their own country, they went to disquiet another region.
They even disturbed those who dwelt on the opposite coast of Samar,
threatening them with ruin if they did not follow the lead of the
others. Their attempts began to [107]be dangerous, since they
stirred up the village of Paranas, which is only two leguas from the
seat of our jurisdiction there—Catbalogan, where the
alcalde-mayor resides; and in fact many fled to the mountains, without
regard to the war which menaced them, when the Spaniards were placed
under arms, two leguas from their abode. In the other villages [the
natives] were in arms, and regarded us all with apprehension. At the
outset, the alcalde-mayor was ready with such force as he could
assemble—adventurers in the province, mestizos, and Indians; but,
as the former were all collectors [of tribute] and the latter all
relatives [of the insurgents], some were not accustomed to arms and the
hardships of campaigning, and the others could not use weapons against
those of their own blood. Accordingly this, instead of checking their
fury, only rendered their boldness more insolent, and gave unwonted
force to their arms; and men who before did not find enough woods in
which to hide themselves from a Camucon ship, now went so far as to
make daybreak assaults on our troops, and slew our men before our eyes.
And as a final token of their contempt, when the captain demanded from
them the head of Sumoroy, by way of atonement for what he had done,
they sent down the river to him the head of a swine—although in
the end, worn out, they considered it good luck that they could again
secure peace.
[The authorities] in Manila, seeing that the revolt was
continually gathering strength, and that the insolence of the
insurgents was passing all bounds, recognized how important it was to
repress it, undertaking its chastisement in earnest. For this purpose
they despatched General Andres Lopez de [108]Azaldigui (who was
chief of the royal galleys of these islands), with the title of
lieutenant of the captain-general; and with this authority he levied
many Spaniards, being empowered to obtain them from all the fortified
posts. He made all the necessary arrangements for the enterprise, but
he soon recognized the danger that he incurred among the
natives—who all, regarding those of Palapag as restorers of their
liberty, were rejoicing over their successes—and that in our
reverses we had cause to fear them as enemies, since they were on the
watch to know what fortune those of Palapag had in order to follow it
if they were sure of the result. A large fleet of native boats was
needed for the transportation of provisions and military supplies; but,
the greater the number of these that were thus assembled, the more was
the danger increased. On this account the general wrote to Manila,
demanding galleys; and there, in order to avoid the expense of galleys
and the perils of seas so rough, they despatched orders that the armada
should come from Zamboangan—for the loyalty of those people
against the Bisayans, as against their old-time enemies, could not be
doubted. And with the support of these [auxiliaries] effective aid
might be rendered by those of the inland provinces, which had been
ruled without risk by the Spaniards because they did not go there
entirely in the hands of the natives.
The armada was despatched as promptly as possible by the
commandant [of Zamboanga]. Sargento-mayor Pedro Duran, with two
captains in active service—as chief, Captain Juan Muñoz,
who was commander of the armada; and as second in command Captain Juan
de Ulloa—with the most choice [109]and distinguished
soldiers of the Lutaos. As leader of these, since he was the military
chief of that people, was sent General Don Francisco Ugbo (whom I have
previously mentioned), with the master-of-camp, sargento-mayor, and
captains of the tribe, and as many as four hundred of its men. Father
Francisco Martinez had then arrived at Samboangan, to act as rector of
the new [Jesuit] college there—of which the official recognition
from our father general came in this same year—a religious who
deserved well of those Christian churches, for he had sustained them in
their earliest infancy, having labored in the arduous beginnings of
[the missions in] Joló and Samboangan. By this [departure of the
Lutaos] Father Alexandro Lopez found his occupation gone, and was
therefore able to embark with the armada, which needed his presence and
aid, as it was going for so important an enterprise—on the
fortunate result of which, as many thought, depended the fidelity of
all the provinces of Pintados. All fortified themselves with the holy
sacraments, as solicitously as Christians of very long standing could
do; and, as if they were such, on all occasions which arose in the
voyage and in the battle itself they made evident, by their reverence
for their holy name [of Christians] and appreciation of the danger, how
they felt these obligations in their hearts. The sargento-mayor of the
tribe (who belonged to its highest nobility) encountered a temptation
to his own perdition; but he put it behind him by saying that he was
going to war, and could not at that time discuss a matter which would
work injury to his soul.
Great was the rejoicing which this armada caused in all
the towns where it landed, notably in the city [110]of
Cebú, where the Lutaos were known (and most of them, especially
those who commanded the joangas, had the reputation of being pirates),
at seeing them, now Christians, repair to the churches with so much
devotion and attend divine worship with such reverence—those very
people who had ravaged the islands with fire, and damaged nearly all
the churches of Bisayas with their outrages and robberies; those who
yesterday were enemies, but today bearing arms in our aid; and those
who yesterday were cruel enemies to God, now the avengers of insults to
Him. Tears sprang to [the eyes of] all, and they did not cease to give
a thousand thanks to the fathers for their labors, so
effectual—not only in the conversion of that Moro people, but for
the benefit of these Christian communities, removing their terror and
turning their dread and mistrust of the Moro arms into joy and
expectation of success.
Arriving at Palapag by the month of May [i.e., in
1650], they found that the leader of the campaign was Captain Don
Xinés de Roxas; and that it had been much retarded on account of
the reputation which the men of Palapag had steadily gained by their
daring acts. They had fortified themselves on a height which was
regarded as impregnable by nature, as only one path was known by which
it could be ascended, and that very narrow and difficult. On this path
the enemy had built fortifications, and from loopholes therein they did
much damage to our men, without risk [to themselves]; they lost no
opportunity to fall suddenly on our troops, and any man who strayed
from the rest paid the penalty with his life, so sharply did they note
any negligence on our part; and, as masters of the land, they boldly
engaged us, [111]secure from being pursued. The captain wearied
himself much with various fortifications, and kept the men exhausted;
and he engaged in the same fatiguing labor those of the armada, until
the sargento-mayor of that tribe, Don Alonso Maconbon, was bold enough
to ask him, face to face, why he was wearing out the men in work which
was not important.
He told the captain that they had not come to haul logs,
but to fight in battle, and that he must contrive to employ them in
fighting; for, if he did not, they would go back to their homes. At
seeing the daring of this man, and the angry words that the soldiers of
Samboangan—who, as veterans, were eager to have an opportunity
for distinguishing themselves—flung at him, although he resented
their lack of respect he was rejoiced to see their courage; and he was
encouraged to make the assault, which, with the coxcombs and foppish
adventurers from Manila, seemed a dangerous enterprise. And, as those
of the armada, it seems, were boasting most of their valor, he assigned
them to the brunt of the battle, in order thus to employ their courage
in carrying out their own advice.
He made ready, then, the infantry of the armada, with
the Lutaos, for a day that he set for the assault, which they were
obliged to make over a precipitous ascent, exceedingly
dangerous—so that they could make their way up it only by giving
their weapons and their hands to each other.18 At
nightfall they [112]reached the slope, and in the darkness of the
night proceeded to ascend it. The enemy had their sentinels, but our
Lord easily diverted their attention by sending a heavy shower of
rain—which our men regarded as a misfortune, which made the
enterprise more difficult and the ascent all the more dangerous. But it
was altogether fortunate for the expedition; for the pass was so
difficult that the sentinel alone could defend it against a thousand
assailants, and the most feeble old man was sufficient for guarding it,
especially if the danger [from an attack] were known to the insurgents,
who had given all their attention to the troop of the commander Don
Xinés. The time while the rain fell was enough to enable all the
soldiers to reach the top without danger; and so careful were the men
that not one of them had his match extinguished. They halted there,
waiting for the daylight; and when the rain gave opportunity to the
sentinel he came back, waving a torch in order to light his path. Our
men could have slain him; but they let him go, so as not to raise an
alarm. Either because he heard their voices, or saw some lighted match,
he waited a little while, and then returned to inform the rest of it;
and the troops, seeing that they were discovered, marched toward the
fortifications. So quickly they reached them that the enemy at once
took to flight; our men pursued them with their arms, but the enemy
quickly escaped, by dangerous precipices and paths which they know
well. But the Spaniards did not choose to divert much of their
attention [to the fugitives], rather taking care to occupy promptly
their Rochelle;19 accordingly, they [113]erected their fortifications, and occupied them
with their artillery, supplies, and weapons. From that place they sent
for the commander, Captain Don Xinés de Roxas, who went up to
take possession of the gains made by the arduous efforts and daring
bravery of the men of Samboangan. In this enterprise Captain Francisco
de Leyba, then commander of the Samboangan armada, and Captain
Silvestre de Rodas, an old soldier of Terrenate, especially
distinguished themselves.
The Lutaos dispersed through the place, and, breaking
into a house, found the mother of the traitor and parricide Sumoroy;
and they dragged her out and tore her to pieces. Sumoroy had been sent
down [from their stronghold] the day before, secretly, in a hammock,
and all the children and women the rebels had already placed in safety;
for, from the day when they saw the Samboangan armada, they felt that
their cause was lost, and, lacking confidence in the outcome, they
forestalled the danger. Thus was ended this longed-for enterprise, and
the war in Ibabao; for the natives, now disarmed and divided, would
have no courage left, save for flight, and the hardships of a life so
full of fear [as that of fugitives] would oblige them to surrender, one
by one—as was actually the case. Accordingly, the armada [and its
men] took their departure, leaving the islands thankful for what they
had accomplished and edified by their good example. For in the heat of
conflict and in dangerous encounters (which is the time when the
natural disposition and the inner soul are displayed), those soldiers
did not fail to invoke the sweet names of Jesus and Mary, without
ceasing or neglecting this in the utmost confusion [114]and
ardor of battle, giving pious examples to the Christian
soldiery—to the admiration of the natives, [although they were]
accustomed to these [pious] observances; since the clamorous efforts
[of the soldiers], and solicitude for their danger, disturb the piety
of even the oldest veterans.
[We append to this the following account from
Diaz’s Conquistas (pp. 517–523), as being
more detailed and furnishing a somewhat different light on various
incidents of the insurrection. In order to place it in the present
document, as belonging to this special subject, it has been removed
from its place in Diaz’s history of his order and its missions
(see VOL. XXXVII, pp. 149–284).]
There was an Indian named Sumoroy in the village of
Palapag, who was regarded as one of the best, although he was one of
the very worst, and was as evil as his father—who, accredited
with the same hypocrisy, was a babaylán and priest of the devil,
and made the other Indians apostatize. He was greatly addicted to
drunkenness, and he had so promoted it [in others] that all the village
was contaminated with this vice, as well as that of lust—vices so
closely allied to idolatry, of which truth there are many examples in
Holy Writ. The inhabitants of Palapag were corrupted by those evil
habits at the time when Governor Don Diego Fajardo—with the
intention of relieving the near-by provinces of Tagalos and Pampanga
from the burden of working, at the harbor of Cavite, in the building of
galleons and vessels necessary for the conservation and defense of
these islands—had ordered the alcaldes of Leite and other
provinces to send men thence to [115]Cavite for that employment.
That was a difficult undertaking, because of the distance of more than
one hundred leguas, and the troubles and wrongs to the said Indians
that would result from their leaving their homes for so long a time.
The father ministers went to the alcaldes, and the latter to Manila, to
represent those troubles and wrongs; but the only thing that they
obtained was a more stringent order to execute the mandate without more
reply. Consequently they could do nothing else than obey the orders of
the superior government, although they feared what very soon occurred.
But what good end could so mistaken and pernicious a decision have?
As soon as the inhabitants of Palapag saw that the
alcaldes-mayor were beginning to collect men to send them to the harbor
of Cavite, they began to go oftener to the meetings in the house of
Sumoroy and his father, and to begin (when heated with wine, the
ordinary counselor of the Indians) to organize their insurrection. They
quickly appointed leaders, of whom the chief was Don Juan Ponce, a very
influential man and a bad Christian, but married to a wife from a
chief’s family in the village of Catubig; she was very different
from him in her morals, for she was very virtuous. The second leader
was one Don Pedro Caamug, and the third the above-named Sumoroy. Then
they discussed the murder of the father minister, Miguel Ponce of the
Society of Jesus, an Aragonese,20 at the suggestion of that
malignant [116]sorcerer and priest of the devil, the father of
Sumoroy, who charged that undertaking upon his son. On Tuesday evening,
the first of June, 1649, he went to the house of the father, who had
just eaten his dinner, and was ascending a narrow ladder to his house.
Sumoroy awaited him at that place, and hurling his lance, pierced his
breast from side to side, and left him dead, without more time than to
say “Jesus, Mary.” They spared the life of Father Julio
Aleni,21 a Roman, saying that he was not their minister,
but was dedicated to China, whence is inferred their motive in killing
the [former] father. Next day they despoiled the house and church of
its furniture and holy ornaments; profaned the altars and sacred
images; scattered the holy oils; and used the silver chrismatories for
the ajonjolí oil with which they anoint their hair.
It was the will of divine Providence to show forth the
devout fidelity of the women amid the infidelity [117]and
apostasy of the men; for, the day before that spoliation, Doña
Angelina Dinagungan, wife of Don Juan Ponce, accompanied by another
good Christian woman, Doña María Malón, went to
the church and saved some holy images and ornaments, besides a chest
belonging to the father, with the little that it contained, which they
afterward surrendered to him. Among the images that that devout woman
saved from the sacrilegious hands of the rebels was an image of our
Lady of the Conception, which was kept with great propriety in the
house of Doña María Malón, and which was often
seen to sweat abundantly and to shed tears, a miracle which spread
throughout the village. When the perfidious Sumoroy heard of it, he
said: “The Virgin Mary is weeping. Let us see if she will weep if
we burn the house;” and he went thither, with other men like
himself, and set fire to it. But Divine Clemency did not permit the
fire to catch in that house, although it was of bamboo and nipa like
the others. The husband of Doña María Malón,
called Don Gabriel Hongpón, was a head man [cabeza
de barangay]; and only he and all his people remained faithful to
God and to their king. God gave him courage to resist so many, who
always respected him as he was so influential a man in that village of
Palapag.
The insurgents incited the inhabitants of Catubig, who
also revolted. They killed a Spaniard, and burned the church and house
of the father minister, after having sacked it. The contagion having
spread to other villages, the people did the same at Pambohan, or
Bayugo, Catarman, and Bonan; and thence passed to infect the provinces
of Ibalón22 and [118]Camarines, where they killed
a Franciscan religious, the guardian of Sorsogón. They killed
Alférez Torres in Masbate. In Caraga, the inhabitants of the
village of Tinao revolted and killed their minister, a discalced
Augustinian, and a few Spanish soldiers of a small presidio established
there, the rest escaping the fury of the insurgents. In Iligán,
the village of Cagayán, a mission of our discalced religious,
revolted. In the adjacent island of Camiguín, a mission of the
same religious, they bound their minister and set their feet on his
neck. The Subanos mutinied in the jurisdiction of Zamboanga, in the
village called Siocon, where they killed Father Juan del Campo23 of the Society of Jesus. The villages of the
islands of Cebú and Bohol, who are warlike people, were wavering
in their loyalty. But Divine Clemency did not permit them to declare
themselves. Thus with the patience and tolerance of the father
ministers, who suffered many hardships and found themselves in great
danger, those fires—which could have consumed the loyalty of the
provinces of these islands—were soon extinguished. The first
village to rebel in the island of Leite was Bacor, where the church and
house of the father minister were burned, and the people joined the
inhabitants of Palapag, leaving the village deserted. The insurgents
pretended that two Dutch ships were [119]near, which were
coming to aid them as equals in their rebellion against the Church and
the vassalage due to their lawful king; and that pretense greatly aided
them in their evil design.
As soon as the alcalde-mayor of Leite heard of the
insurrection, he collected all the boats and men possible, but these
were very fragile means to oppose to so vast a multitude of insurgent
and desperate men. Consequently, although they went to Palapag with the
said alcalde-mayor, one Captain Don Juan Gómez de tres Palacios
y Estrado, they served no other purpose than to make the rebellion
worse, and to encourage the enemy. The latter intrenched themselves on
an impregnable hill called “the table of Palapag;” and what
is the greatest cause for surprise is that a Spaniard called Pedro
Zapata, who had married an Indian woman in Palapag (who must have
perverted him), went with them. But the insurgents gave him his pay by
killing him, in order to take away the woman, a worthy reward for his
incredible treason. They made trenches and strong stockades, with many
sharp stakes and snares, and many stone boulders suspended, which, by
being thrown upon the strongest army, would cause cruel injury. To work
greater harm, they gave command of their men to Don Pedro Caamug, who
descended the hill with two hundred insurgents and returned to the
village of Palapag, where he killed the father minister, Vicente
Damián,24 and two boys who were [120]serving him, who in their fear were clinging to
the father. They again burned the church, a chamber of nipa and bamboo
which Don Gabriel and his faithful followers had erected for the
celebration of mass, furnishing this additional bond to their apostasy
and rebellion. They returned to their impregnable hill after this,
which was in their eyes a great victory, and began to fortify
themselves much more strongly than they were, as they feared the war
that was expected from Manila.
Governor Don Diego Fajardo, seeing that the undertaking
of the reduction of the inhabitants of Palapag was an affair requiring
much care and consideration, because of the evil effects that would
result from any unfavorable event, after holding a council of war
determined to entrust this undertaking to the commander of the galleys,
Andrés López de Asaldigui (already named on many
occasions), as he had all the good qualities which can form a good
soldier; for he was very brave and prudent, fortunate in the
enterprises that had been entrusted to him, and a prime favorite with
the soldiers because of his great liberality. That commander left
Manila with the best men whom he could enlist, both Spaniards and
Pampangos, and went to Catbalogan, the capital of that province, where
he mustered thirteen oared vessels and two champans. His first order
was to send some vessels to Panay and Iloilo for food. Well informed of
the condition of the rebels of Palapag, he found that he needed more
war-supplies for that conquest; for the insurgents had extended their
revolt [121]to many villages of the island, and the other
neighboring islands were apparently prepared to follow their bold acts,
if they were at all fortunate. Therefore Andrés López de
Asaldegui sent to ask the governor for the galleys in his charge; but
the latter did not send them, in order to avoid the expense that would
be caused the royal treasury, which was very needy. But he sent order
instead that the fleet of Zamboanga should be at his disposal.
[At this juncture, Asaldigui is summoned by the governor
to investigate the loss of the galleon
“Encarnación,” and “entrusting the Palapag
enterprise to Captain Ginés de Rojas—a brave soldier, but
one who had little reputation and affection among the soldiers, who
regretted that order exceedingly, and would have returned home had they
been able. To such an extent does the reputation of the leader further
any enterprise.”]
Don Ginés de Rojas assembled the thirteen oared
vessels and the two champans, in the latter of which he stowed the
food. Likewise the fleet of Zamboanga came up with four caracoas and
some Spaniards, and four hundred Lutaos; these are Indians of that
region who have been recently converted to our holy faith from the
errors of the cursed sect of Mahomet, by the efforts and toil of the
religious of the Society. Their commandant was their master-of-camp Don
Francisco Ugbo, a Lutao, and a brave man; and their sargento-mayor Don
Alonso Macobo, of the same nation. The chief commander of that fleet
was Captain Juan Muñoz, the admiral was Juan de Ulloa, and the
captain was Suárez, who were veteran soldiers. In addition to
that succor there came from Cebú Captain Don Francisco de
Sandoval and Juan [122]Fernández de León, who
brought many men from Sialo, Caraga, and other provinces. When all
those forces were assembled in Catbalogan, Don Ginés de Rojas
divided them into three divisions, two under command of Sandoval and
León, and the third in his own charge. He ordered Captain
Sandoval to go to his encomienda at Catubig, and thence, with all the
men whom he could assemble, to go to reduce the village of Palapag.
Captain León was ordered to go with his men through Tubig,
Sulat, Borongán, and other villages—first, however, to go
to Guigán, to get as many men there as possible. Don
Ginés de Rojas chose the villages of Catarmán and Bobor,
where his encomienda lay.
All things were ready to undertake the conquest of the
impregnable hill. Nothing worthy of note happened to Captain Don
Francisco de Sandoval, but the Indians of Bacor prepared an ambush
against Juan Fernández de León in a very dangerous pass.
Juan de León de Paranas had gone out, embarking in the river of
Nasán, which is very rapid because of its great
current—and among other dangerous places is one more dangerous
than all, namely, a fall and cataract which is two spear-lengths in
height. Consequently, in order to proceed, one must unlade the boats;
and, after raising them with great toil by means of certain very thick
and strong rattans, must, after suspending or letting the boat down
thus, again lade it. There did the enemy set their ambush for Juan de
León, but it was disclosed by a friendly Indian. Our men firing
their muskets and arquebuses at that side, the Indians fled with great
loss; and our men proceeded to the bar of the river, where they
fortified themselves in a stout stockade. [123]Sandoval did the same
in Catubig, as did Don Silvestre de Rodas, whom Don Ginés sent
as a reënforcement to Sandoval.
Those leaders, having arranged matters in this manner,
continued to invite and pacify the many Indians who presented
themselves. But those who were entrenched on the hill, confident in
their fortress and defense, persisted obstinately in their revolt, and
tried to get the other villages not to declare in our favor. Don
Ginés fortified his post, and ordered each captain to do the
same with his, for he had resolved to blockade and capture the natives
on the hill by hunger. The natives learned from their spies that Don
Ginés had but few men in his quarters, as the rest had gone to
get provisions; and, having determined to use so favorable an
opportunity, many of them went at night, by the river, near the land.
When they thought that our men were very careless and sound asleep,
they pulled some stakes out of the fortification of Don Ginés,
and entered in a disorderly mob. But the sentinels hearing the noise,
sounded the alarm. Don Ginés, awaking, seized his sword and
buckler; and, accompanied by those who could follow him so hastily,
confronted the enemy, and drove them to flight with great loss—as
was judged from the abundance of blood that was seen in the camp in the
morning. But it was not without any harm to our men, some of whom were
wounded, although no one died. One ball struck Sumoroy on the shoulder,
but only one dead man was left in the camp; for our opponents dragged
the others away and threw them into the water. Don Ginés did not
care to pursue them, fearing some ambush, which would have been easy in
that darkness. [124]
The soldiers grumbled much at the great caution and
prudence of Don Ginés de Rojas, who thought only of
strengthening his fortifications, to the great labor of those who now
desired to busy themselves with the enemy, and not the trees of the
forest. That rose to such a pitch that the sargento-mayor of the
Lutaos, Don Francisco Macombo, went to Don Ginés impatiently,
and told him that neither he nor his men had come from Zamboanga to cut
timber but to fight with the enemies of Palapag. Don Ginés was
not displeased to see the willingness of his soldiers to fight, and
therefore, in order to employ it, he had the men called to arms, and
arranged the attack. He formed two divisions [for attack] from the
whole army, and left the third to guard the camp. The assault was made
in two parts—one by the open road, although it was better
defended by the opponents; and the other by a precipitous path which
was passable for the birds alone—for it was a huge steep rock,
and so narrow at the place where the camp of the insurgents was
established that only a single man could enter an opening made by
nature—a place called for that reason by the natives, in their
own language, “the eye of a needle.” The men climbed up by
that path, using feet and hands without carrying their arms; for these
were carried by him who followed, and afterward given to him who was
ahead; and so they did one with another. In addition to that, the
insurgents had posted a sentinel there to advise them of any new move,
for which a few coming to his aid would be sufficient to prevent many
from effecting an entrance.
Don Ginés entrusted that difficult undertaking to
Captain Silvestre de Rodas, a native of Rota, and a [125]soldier of great renown in his time, of whom are
recounted incredible exploits performed by him in Ternate. He gave him
command of the Lutao soldiers, with their commander Don Francisco
Macombo; for himself Don Ginés took the battalion of the
soldiers who attacked the hill in front. The vanguard and rearguard
were placed in command of Captains Sandoval and Juan Fernández
de León. The assault being planned in that form, Don
Ginés engaged the enemy with his men, with great valor, to the
sound of drums and trumpets, and went up the hill with great difficulty
and danger. For the insurgents, cutting the rattans by which the stones
and very large trunks of trees were fastened and kept back, would have
been able by rolling them down to do great damage to our men, had not
divine Providence directed these missiles to places where they could do
no damage. Our men went up most of the hill with this obstinacy, and
the enemy went out to meet them with so great valor that it seemed
rather desperation; and the damage inflicted upon them by our
arquebuses did not cool their obstinacy, for they tried to throw
themselves on our spears and swords in their anxiety to die while
killing [others]. The great advantage of the fortress of the hill
increased their courage, as it could have caused great loss to our men
to fight in the open and unsheltered. The fight lasted many hours, the
enemy often being relieved, for they had many brave and well-armed men
on the hill. Don Ginés de Rojas, seeing that the fury of the
enemy was invincible (for they were fighting more like lions than like
men), and that his men could not proceed with the undertaking, because
they had no further strength and were tired, [126]and
had many wounded, yielded for the time being, and sounded the retreat,
leaving more vigorous experience for another day. The enemy also
retired, satisfied at the resistance that they had shown, although much
to their cost.
Very different was the success of the brave Silvestre de
Rodas, with his Lutaos in charge of Don Francisco Ugbo and Don Alonso
Macombo, who on the second of July, 1650, made the assault in the most
difficult point—which was the eye of the needle in the rock, as
we have stated above, through which Silvestre de Rodas was the first to
go. He chose the silence of the night, a time when they were least
likely to be discovered. Climbing up one by one and without arms, with
the labor that was necessary, at the middle of the ascent an obstacle
occurred that could have blocked so great an enterprise. That was a
very heavy rain, which lasted a great part of the night, and which the
men endured without the slightest shelter, but with great vigilance and
care that fire for their matches should not be lacking—availing
themselves for that purpose of the shields of the Lutaos, which are
called carazas, and are made of long narrow pieces of
wood, with which they cover all the body at the side. The rain ceased
and, although they were soaking, they all resumed the ascent of the
hill; they reached the entrance of the rock at an opportune time, when
the sentinel, quite unsuspicious of such an assault, was absent, as he
had gone to get some fire (without the company of which those Indians
cannot live), or indeed have a smoke, for they think that that
furnishes them with fine company. On that account, Silvestre de Rodas
and some of the foremost, who were the most vigorous [127]were
enabled to enter. The sentinel returned with a brand in his hand, and
when he was near perceived the bad effect of his carelessness, and
believed that our camp was already upon him. He looked in astonishment,
and then, hurriedly taking flight, began to cry out and announce that
our men had already entered the hill by means of the rock. Not less was
the confusion of all, who were quite free from the dread of so
unexpected an assault. Confused and lacking in counsel, a panic terror
seized them and forced them into disorganized flight, so that Silvestre
de Rodas and the Lutaos were allowed to become masters of the field.
Unfurling their victorious banners, they took possession of the
lodgings, trenches, and food of the enemy. Don Ginés de Rojas
ascended the hill with his whole army, and destroyed the insurgent
quarters by setting fire to them. Having published a general pardon,
those who had been insurgents before, presented themselves in
peace.
The chief leader Sumoroy and his sorcerer father refused
to put in an appearance, or to talk of peace. But the very ones whom he
had caused to rebel killed him, and carried his head to Don
Ginés de Rojas, although they had been so loyal to him before
that when the alcalde-mayor of Leite went at the beginning to reduce
them to peace, and asked them as the first condition to deliver to him
the head of Sumoroy, they, making light of the request, sent him the
head of a swine. But afterward, as a token of their true obedience,
they delivered the head, without any one asking for it. Don Juan Ponce
remained in hiding in the island of Cebú for a long time, but
after having obtained pardon he returned to Palapag; [128]there he committed crimes that were so atrocious
that the alcalde-mayor seized him and sent him to Manila, where he paid
for those crimes on the scaffold. He who had the best end was Don Pedro
Caamug; for he was the first to present himself, and showed great
loyalty in the reduction of the others. He continued all his life to be
very quiet, and was governor of his village, where he was highly
esteemed; and it was proved that he was not the one who had killed
Father Vicente with his hands, although he was captain of that band.
Moreover, it was found to be advisable to overlook much on that
occasion, as the quiet of all the Pintados Islands, who were awaiting
the end of the rebels of Palapag, depended on it.
[The following additional information is obtained from
Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, vi, pp.
247–280:]
[p. 254:] From here [i.e., Cebú] leaped
more than sparks to the province of Caraga, where there had been some
causes for resentment between the alcalde-mayor and the father minister
of Tandag. The father had rebuked the alcalde for oppressions inflicted
on the Indians, and, perceiving that his exhortations were unheeded, he
carried his complaints to the supreme tribunal, where hearing was given
to them. The alcalde-mayor was angry at being prodded from Manila, and
found means to take his revenge. Governor Faxardo, vigilant in
defending the provinces from the Dutch, gave orders to reconnoiter the
harbors and fortify the military posts; and, that he might take
seasonable precautions, he solicited accurate information [from the
officials]. [129]The alcalde-mayor, in the anger that he felt,
availed himself of this opportunity. He informed the governor that the
fort of Tandag was in condition to make a vigorous defense, to which
the only hindrance was the church and convent—a very strong
edifice, which dominates the castle—and that he considered it
very necessary to demolish it. In virtue of this report, it was decided
in the military and fiscal councils that those buildings should be
demolished, as well as all others that might be on that coast which
were of like materials, in order that the Dutch might not find in them
means of offense or defense. This order arrived at Tandag, where now
there was another governor. Captain Don Juan Garcia did not make it
known, and held a council in the fort regarding its execution, and
therein was decided the suspension of the order—for, in case that
the enemy came, the buildings could be easily torn down and burned,
since the walls were weak and the roofs of nipa or straw—until
the supreme government should make some other arrangement.
Representations were made to that government of the great sorrow that
the natives felt at the destruction [of those buildings], from which it
was feared that if another church were not built, at a greater
distance, the natives would take flight to the mountains.
Notwithstanding this second information, the former order for
demolition was confirmed. [See account of this measure, and of the
revolt of the Indians, and of its being quelled by Spanish troops, in
VOL. XXXVI, in Santa Theresa’s narrative.
Concepción continues, p. 262:] This father minister25 sent a despatch to Manila, communicating this
melancholy information; [130]on receiving it, Señor
Faxardo immediately sent to Tandag Captain Gregorio Dicastillo with a
detachment of Spanish infantry, so that, in conjunction with Bernabe de
la Plaza, alcalde-mayor of that province, they might try all measures,
even though they might be severe, for reducing the insurgents. They
went to Butuan, where they established a military base or headquarters.
In order to justify the severity of war, a general amnesty was
published. Many Indians came to present themselves, of whom several
were hanged; a few of those who came down from the mountains gained
their liberty, the rest remaining as slaves. It was a wicked act of
those who executed [the governor’s orders] that they shamefully
broke the promise made in the name of the king, and in so august a name
committed perfidy. Manila and its suburbs were full of slaves. The
royal Audiencia made formal inquiry into these illegal acts, and took
the residencia of the principal persons concerned in them. One was put
to the torture, and confessed; he was sentenced to decapitation. The
property of another was confiscated, after two years of imprisonment;
and another found himself reduced to extreme poverty. He who was
commissioned by the supreme government for the trial of these suits,
Licentiate Don Manuel Suarez de Olivera, the military auditor-general,
declared in favor of the Indian slaves, setting all of them free. In
order that this decree might be effective, those included under its
provisions were registered by father Fray Augustin—then secretary
of his province, and known by the name of “Padre Capitan”
[i.e., [131]“Father Captain”]—who included
in the list many Indians whose names were not contained in the official
documents. He presented it to the governor, and asked for a mandatory
decree for their liberty, which was promptly issued; and then he went
with the notary through all the houses in which the Indians were
distributed, enforcing the execution of the decree. This proceeding
cost him many fatigues and annoyances; for since those who had paid out
their money for the Indians were left without slaves, there was hardly
a house where he came where he would not hear opprobrious language. It
also caused him great expenses; but his efficient management of the
business came out successfully. He collected all the slaves, and
furnished them with transportation to carry them back to their homes
and their native land. This benefaction rendered it easy for the Indian
chiefs of Linao, who had left their village and were fugitives, to
return to their due obedience and vassalage....
[pp. 273–281: After the rebellion was put down in
Leyte], the Indians of Bisayas remained more quiet; by those so costly
experiences they had been undeceived, and had learned that it is
impossible to shake off the Spanish yoke, by force or by fraud; their
wildness subdued by trade and intercourse [with us], they recognize
that they ought not to thrust aside what produces so many advantages
for them in being treated by our sovereign as his children. These
tribunals treat them with charity, mildness, and justice, besides
bearing with their troublesome traits and their weaknesses, without
adding injury to their wretched condition.
Don Francisco Ugbo returned from the Palapag
[132]expedition wounded, and attacked by a serious
malady, which was declared mortal. This commander, learning that his
last hour was at hand, showed how deeply rooted was the Christian
religion in his heart, although it was of recent growth; he received
the holy sacraments with extraordinary devotion and reverence, exhorted
all his family and acquaintances to become good Christians, and in the
midst of his intense pains endured them without complaint or anger. In
his testament he commanded, as his last wishes, that his property
should be shared between his relatives and his soul [i.e., in
saying masses for its repose]; and he died while offering fervent acts
of contrition, to the admiration and consolation of those who were
present.
By the death of Father Juan de el Campo the [religious]
administration of La Caldera and Siocon was left forsaken. The
provincial of the Society sent to that conversion Father Francisco
Combes, who applied his efforts to gathering those wild natures into a
social group; with this basis he undertook their instruction in our
supreme mysteries, and they gradually became accustomed to a rational
and civilized life. On the river of Sibuco there was an Indian named
Ondol, so cruel that he would kill any person without further cause
than his own whim; and this man had a brother of the same barbarous
habits, who kept a great number of women in his power that he might
abuse them. Ondol sought to kill Father Adulfo de Pedrosa, and also
threatened Father Combes; but the latter discreetly took no notice of
it, and Ondol went on, trusting to this. Consequently, before he
realized it he was seized, and sent a prisoner to Samboangan; the
governor [133]there received him gladly, at seeing in his
power an Indian who had made so much mischief. His brother continued to
rouse disturbances, and an armada was sent against him, but
accomplished nothing. This, however, warned him to avoid the blow, and
he hid among the woods and hills. The guards of Father Combes seized by
stratagem more than fifteen relatives of this evil man, and sent them
to Samboangan; love for his people, and their danger, brought this
bloody man to the church, to beg mercy from the father. The latter
gladly admitted him, and proposed to him the conditions, [of his
pardon]—he and all his people, who were Lutaos, must live in
range of the artillery of the fort, and render service in the armada.
He also obtained, by diligent efforts, the ascendency over the
insurgents of Siocon. Father Combes entered that village, landing there
with his men; they asked for the bones of Father Campo’s
companions, which they found lying among the brier-patches. These they
buried together, and placed a cross over the tomb. Father Combes took
from that place a hermit, who, dressed as a woman, punctually observed
the natural law, and professed celibacy; he was named Lavia de
Manila.26 This man was converted to the law of Christ, and
spent the remainder of his life as a faithful servant [of God].
[134]
In Basilan, affairs were more difficult. Most of the
people of that island had been subdued by Father Francisco
Lado,27 who with the aid of the governor of Samboangan
had driven from it all the panditas,28 and the
vicious and suspicious characters. Only one of these was left, who by
his malice stirred up much disquiet; this was one Tabaco, who incited
the natives of the island to revolution. All who desired to be freed
from the tribute and other obligations repaired to him, and at once
found in him their patron. His faction rapidly increased, and at
Samboangan it was decided to intercept this danger. Diligent were their
efforts, for the very Basilanos whom it was necessary for the Spaniards
to employ warned this man of all that they did; and with their
information he mocked the utmost efforts of the Spaniards. An adjutant
undertook a raid, with a considerable number of Spaniards and
Pampangos, and burned his grain-fields; but he did not encounter
Tabaco, and had to return. Father Lado went to find him, and asked him
to wait for him in a certain place; the father made such
representations that he succeeded in inducing this man to leave the
mountains. He went with the father to see the governor of Samboangan,
and gave the latter such assurances of his desires for peace and quiet
that to him was entrusted the reduction of the natives. He returned to
Basilan, and to his perverse mode of life—so much [135]so,
that he tried to kill Father Lado, in order to remove that obstacle to
his evil designs. The father knew his depraved intentions, and fled
from the blow that was aimed at him; and at Samboangan there was
discussion, in a military council, of the most effective measure for
restraining those seditious natives. Among the speakers was an
alférez, Don Alonso Tenorio, who said that it was a fruitless
trouble and fatigue to transport [to Basilan] arms and troops, since
these carried with them the warning to the rebels to place themselves
in safety; that efforts should be made to kill Tabaco, and the rest
would be subdued, and thus this source of evil would be stopped without
wearing out either Spaniards or Indians. The governor, who supposed
that Don Alonso spoke without experience, and that the arrogance of
youth led him too far, said to him: “Then, your Grace, go and
kill him.” Tenorio was not a man to jest, or one to form
speculative projects which others might carry out; he took this order
quite in earnest, and immediately set out for Basilan with some
companions. He summoned Tabaco to a certain place, in which he must
communicate to him an important matter, which would be to his
advantage. Tabaco went to the place designated, with several of his
most valiant companions; and Tenorio also arrived with his friends. The
Indian awaited him without fear, at seeing him destitute of forces
adequate to his own; and Tenorio, having talked about the subject that
had been agreed upon, said to him, in a most resolute voice,
“Tabaco, unless thou desirest me to kill thee, give thyself up as
a prisoner.” Tabaco, without showing any alarm, rose to his feet,
holding his lance, in order to reply with it; [136]Tenorio attacked him with astonishing courage,
and the companions of both engaged in the fight. Our men killed Tabaco,
and seven of his braves; and on our side one Spaniard and two Indians
were slain. Tenorio cut off Tabaco’s head, and those of his seven
companions, and in forty hours29 was already on his return
to Samboangan with these trophies. Thus promptly was concluded an
exploit which pledged [the safety of] all the forces of the garrison;
with the death of Tabaco his followers lost their courage, and the
island remained entirely quiet. Such is the power of an heroic
resolution. It is certain that conversions of the Moros are difficult,
but those which are successful are stable; they steadfastly maintain
the true religion, when they cast aside the errors of their false
belief. The following instance is an edifying one, and goes far to
confirm our statement. When the Joloans were conquered and reduced to
quiet, the turbulent and cruel Achen—a dato, and a notorious
pirate—was not pacified. He made a voyage to Borney, in order to
stir up the natives there, and to make them companions and auxiliaries
in his robberies. He carried with him his wife Tuam Oley,30 daughter of Libot; the latter was a
urancaya or petty king of the Lutaos of the Siocon [137]coast, and was a Mahometan by profession.
Enlightened within and from above, he had received holy baptism, and
very strictly maintained its innocence. Achen became very sick in
Borney, and, reduced to the last extremity, as a last farewell he made
his wife swear that she would never abandon the doctrine of Mahoma.
After Achen’s death, Oley began to feel the sorrows of an
afflicted widowhood, and she sadly wrote to her father, Libot, asking
him to go to carry her away from that wretched exile. His paternal
affection made him resolve, although he was now old and feeble, to go
to console his daughter. The governor [of Samboangan] tried to prevent
this voyage, on account of Libot’s age, and because, as the
latter had grown up in the errors of that sect, it was feared that
there was danger of his perversion [from the Christian faith]. The
governor therefore proposed to him measures which were sufficient for
removing his daughter from that country. Libot assured him of his
constancy in the faith, and in proof of his firmness, gave a
contribution of a hundred pesos to the church; as it was not easy to
detain him, they acquiesced in the voyage. He arrived at the court of
Borney, where, on account of his advanced age and the hardships of the
journey, he fell ill, and this sickness proved to be mortal. The king,
seeing Libot, exhorted him to abandon the new religion and return to
his former faith; but Libot remained steadfast. Then the king sent him
his panditas, or learned doctors, in order to convince him; but they
found that their efforts were in vain. The king was angered at this
constancy, and threatened to take Libot’s property from him, make
his daughter a slave, and fling his dead [138]body into the open
field. All this Libot scorned, and charged his daughter to bury him as
a Christian, without using the ceremonies of the Moors [i.e.,
Mahometans] in their funerals, or even mingling these [with Christian
rites]; and so he died, in a very Christian frame of mind. The prince
took possession of all Libot’s property, and ordered that his
daughter Oley be imprisoned; but she, availing herself of her many
slaves, forced her way out of her prison, and risked going as a
fugitive to Samboangan. The king, furious, undertook to avenge this
affront on the corpse of her father, and commanded that it be
disinterred; but through Supreme Providence they were never able to
find it, although they attempted to, with the closest search, and they
believed that his daughter had carried the body with her. Oley arrived
at Samboangan safely, and soon fell ill, not without suspicion of some
deadly poison. The fathers went to her, to see if they could convert
her to the faith of Jesus Christ, but their persuasions were vain. In
compassion, the governor and other persons opposed such obstinacy, with
both promises and threats; but they could not make her change her
opinion in the least. The victory was won by the [native]
master-of-camp, Don Pedro Cabilin, a very influential and respected
man, who pledged himself to persuade Oley to become a Christian. She
listened to him attentively on account of his nobility, and because he
was of her own kinsfolk and blood. With these recommendations, and his
effectual arguments, that obstinacy was conquered, and she received
holy baptism, to the universal joy of the entire garrison. Her
godmother was the wife of the governor, Doña Cathalina
Henriquez, and the [139]newly-baptized convert took that
lady’s name. Oley had an excellent intellect, and put it to good
use in her last moments, continually invoking God up to her last
breath. The Spaniards gave her a very solemn burial. The chiefs carried
her body on their shoulders up to the door of the church, where the
governor and the officers of the garrison took it, carrying it in the
same manner to the burial-place, and afterward to the tomb—this
magnificent display causing edification to all.
[See Santa Theresa’s account (in VOL. XXXVI) of one of the outer waves of this insurrection,
that among the Manobos of Mindanao.]
In Pampanga and Pangasinan; 1660–61
[The following account of this revolt is taken (partly
in synopsis) from Diaz’s Conquistas, pp.
568–590. These events are also related in Santa Cruz’s
Hist. Sant. Rosario, pp. 331–341; Murillo
Velarde’s Hist. de Philipinas, fol.
253b–256; Concepción’s Hist. de
Philipinas, vii, pp. 9–35; and Ferrando’s Hist. de los PP. Dominicos, iii, pp. 67–74.]
[p. 568:] All the ten years of the government of the
prudent and magnanimous governor Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara were a
melancholy period of troubles and misfortunes, greater and more
continual than these islands had ever before suffered; and without
doubt they would have been more painful and intolerable if they had not
been ameliorated and diminished by the discretion, affable behavior,
and clemency of this great governor—so that it seems as if divine
Providence (or, in heathen phrase, Fortune) had trained Don Sabiniano
for a governor in [140]such times. [Diaz then enumerates several
of these disasters, notably the losses of richly-laden galleons.]
[p. 571 et seq.] So frequent were these
losses that Don Juan Grau de Monfalcón, procurator in Madrid for
the city of Manila, in a curious treatise which he presented to the
royal and supreme Council of Indias makes a computation of them for
sixty-five years, and finds that only fifteen of these were exempt from
such misfortunes. But they were almost continual in this calamitous
term of office, although Don Sabiniano met all these disasters with
serenity and steadfastness, and apparently with cheerfulness; this he
did through prudence, in order that the sorrow [of the people] might
not extend to despair.... But no art could long veil so much misery.
The more warlike provinces of these islands ascertained the unusual
events which had caused our forces to be so small, however much
prudence dissimulated these; and they sought to avail themselves of so
good an opportunity, deeming it a suitable time for recovering their
liberty, a gift of priceless value. Subjugation is always a matter of
coercion, and this in turn needs other and greater violence that it may
repress this natural inclination; and in natives whose condition makes
them abject this desire increases more vehemently. They did not realize
that the Spaniards had freed them from the harsh captivity of their
barbarous tyranny, transferring them to an honorable subjection which
made them more the masters of their liberty, because these rebels had
not endured that tyranny. They came to know our lack of strength, and
from that passed to despising it; they presumed more on their own
strength than they ought, and rashly went on, without consideration,
[141]looking only at the end and forgetting the means
[to attain it].
The first who decided to try fortune by experience were
the Pampangos, the most warlike and prominent people of these islands,
and near to Manila. [Their rebellion was] all the worse because these
people had been trained in the military art in our own schools, in the
fortified posts of Ternate, Zamboanga, Joló, Caraga, and other
places, where their valor was well known; but it needed the shelter of
ours, and therefore it was said that one Spaniard and three Pampangos
were equal to four Spaniards. This people were harassed by repeated
requisitions for cutting timber, for the continual building of
galleons, and they received no satisfaction for many purchases of rice
for which the money was due them. The province of Pampanga is in our
charge in spiritual matters, and there we have sixteen convents and
doctrinas, among the best which there are in this field of
Christianity. The convents are: Bacolor (which is the head of them
all), Baua, Lubao, Sexmoan, Betis, Porac, Mexico, Minalin, Macabebe,
Apalit, Candava, Arayat, Magalang, Gapan, and Santor. Then in the
hill-country beyond these places we have large missions of warlike
peoples who are being converted to our holy faith, called Italones,
Abacaes, and Calonasas, and Ituríes, and various others, who
have been induced to settle in several villages. These are continually
increasing, and we expect in God that they will attain much growth if
it is not interfered with by subjecting them to tribute and personal
services, of which they have a great horror. These are the hindrances
which delay the conversions of these numerous peoples, some
[142]heathens and others recently converted; for
among these tribes of low condition the appetite for liberty increases
with great force—spurred on by the envy which is aroused in them
at seeing the freedom which is enjoyed by other peoples as being more
noble or vigorous, or because the cultivation of their mental powers
procures it for them. Many peoples were conquered because they did not
know their own strength until they found that they were subdued. In
these islands we find by experience that in no province do the people
live more peaceably than in those which received us with hostility, and
in none have they attempted a change [of rule] except in those which
invited us with [offers of peace]—and the most pusillanimous of
these have most strenuously endeavored to throw off the curb of
subjection. Those immediately surrounding Manila were the last to do
so, because in them our hands had seized the reins. Some were
intimidated by the contact with our power, and others were restrained
by a sense of honor, seeing themselves admitted to the privilege of
[carrying] our arms, and honored by the confidence which up to this
time had been merited by the fidelity of the Pampango people. On this
occasion they were the first who broke away, because even our esteem
could not remove from them their mean nature.
The Pampangos, determined to break the bonds of
subjection and throw off the yoke of the Spanish dominion, carried out
that resolve with valor. In their opinion, they had just cause for this
action, in the timber-cutting that was being done in their forests, in
the place called Malasinglo and Bocoboco; they alleged as their first
pretexts some acts of oppression [143]committed on them by Juan de
Corteberria,31 chief overseer of the said
timber-cutting—which lasted eight months, a thousand Pampango men
assisting in the work, levied in the usual repartimientos. In the early
days of October, 1660, the loyal population of Pampanga made their
first rebellious movements—the people being exasperated against
the overseers of the wood-cutting, who had been ill-treating them.
Setting fire to the huts in which they had lodged, they declared, by
the light of the fierce flames, their rash intention; and as leader of
their revolt they appointed an Indian chief named Don Francisco
Maniago, a native of the village of Mexico, who was master-of-camp for
his Majesty. The post of chaplain for the said wood-cutting was filled
by a religious of the Order of St. Dominic, named father Fray Pedro
Camacho;32 he made all possible efforts to pacify them, but
all in vain. On this account he decided to come to Manila and report
everything to Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, to whom he represented
that he did not regard as prudent the idea that he must proceed with
rigor against the ringleaders of the sedition. At the same time when
the information of that fire reached Don Sabiniano there came also
advices from the alcalde-mayor of the province of Pampanga, Don Juan
[144]Gomez de Payva, that he had exhausted all
measures for restoring security. In consequence of this, Don Sabiniano
again despatched father Fray Pedro Camacho with a message for those
people, that he on his part would assure them of pardon and relief if
they would return and resume their work. Don Sabiniano rightly guessed
the burden imposed by the circumstances of the occasion; for the revolt
was in one of the most warlike nations of these islands, and the
garrison at Manila was drained of soldiers by the continual
reënforcements sent to Maluco, and by the aid [furnished from it]
to the relief that had come from Nueva España. This had been
brought in the patache “San Damián,” in charge of
Admiral Don Manuel de Alarcon, sent by the viceroy, Conde de
Baños, and had been secreted on the coast opposite the port of
Lampón; and therefore Don Sabiniano, although he put on an
appearance of assurance, in reality experienced the utmost anxiety. He
wrote secretly to our father Fray José Duque, who was then prior
of the convent of Sexmoán, and to father Fray Isidro
Rodríguez, prior of the convent of Baua, to ask that they, with
the authority which they had acquired during so many years as ministers
in that province, would endeavor to persuade those people to return to
their obedience. Those religious labored to that end, with all the
greater eagerness on account of what was risked in the revolt; but the
only effect was to set spurs to the boldness of the insurgents, who
attributed to the governor’s fear of them the peaceable measures
that were proposed. The result showed this, for, tearing off at once
the mask which they had worn, they presented themselves, armed, in the
village of Lubao, under the command of the above-named [145]Don
Francisco Maniago, although many of the mutineers had gone to their own
villages. Others gathered in a strong force in the village of Bacolor,
closing the mouths of the rivers with stakes, in order to hinder the
commerce of that province with Manila; and they wrote letters to the
provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, urging them to follow their
example and throw off the heavy yoke of the Spaniards, and to kill all
of the latter who might be in those provinces. Information of this
reached Don Sabiniano at night, and, without stopping to wait for
daylight, he embarked in company with the twelve military leaders, and
set out at daybreak for the village of Macabebe.
The governor took with him, besides his alférez
Francisco de Roa and others, the following recently-created officers:
Generals Don Felipe de Ugalde, Juan Enrique de Miranda, and Don Juan de
Vergara; Admirals Don Diego Cortés and Don Felix de Herrera
Robachero; Sargentos-mayor Don Pedro Tamayo, Martín Sanchez de
la Cuesta, and Pedro Lozano; Captains Don Pedro Carmona, Don Juan de
Morales, Don José Cascos de Quirós, Don Alonso de las
Casas, Don Alonso de Quirante, Don Gabriel Niño de
Guzmán, Juan Diaz Yañez, Silvestre de Rodas; and for his
secretaries General Sebastian Rayo Doria and Juan de Padilla. The
government notaries were Captain Juan Fijado and Captain Simón
de Fuentes; and the aides-de-camp, Pedro Méndez de Sotomayor and
Francisco Iglesias. With this detachment, who numbered at most 300 men,
in eleven small champans and with four pieces of artillery, each
carrying four-libra balls, Don Sabiniano began his journey; and he
reached the village [146]of Macabebe at six in the afternoon of the
following day, having been delayed a long time by removing the stakes
with which the insurgents had closed the entrances to the rivers. All
the islands were imperiled by this war, since all the tribes were on
the watch for its outcome—which, in case it were adverse to the
Spaniards, would give to this [Pampango] people a great reputation, and
to the rest so much confidence that not one of them would forego the
opportunity for their fancied relief. A very hazardous corrective was
that of resort to arms; for, whether [we remained] victorious or
conquered, in any event the Spanish power would be left diminished and
weakened. For, although only 200 infantry had been taken from the
Manila garrison for this expedition, it was necessary that the
deficiency should be made good by the ecclesiastical estate in that
city—which was left in charge of Master-of-camp Don Domingo de
Ugarte. As we have stated, Don Sabiniano arrived at Macabebe, a rich
and populous village in that province; he came opportunely, as on that
very day the people in that village had made ready their vessels and
weapons to go to join the mutineers. Those of Macabebe received the
governor with affected friendliness, the presence of the Spaniards so
well armed having taken away their courage; and all their anxiety was
to hide the tokens of their disorder. The governor was lodged in the
house of Don Francisco Salonga, as it was the best in the village,
although the convent was offered to him by father Fray Enrique de
Castro (who was its prior), observant of the civilities requisite to
guests so honored, although unexpected. He also endeavored that all the
women should be kept out of sight, [147]so that the wanton conduct of
the soldiers might not give any occasion for new dangers; and Don
Sabiniano gave the men strict orders, with heavy penalties for the
transgressors, so that they might not render the Spanish name more
odious through fault of ours. This unexpected arrival diverted the
course of the resolution made by the Macabebe natives, and therefore
they revoked it, dissimulating with affected protestations of loyalty;
but those who were found with arms did not neglect to hasten to hide
their weapons, in order that their recent inconstancy might not render
suspicious, by so manifest a token of rebellion, the loyalty which
their respectful behavior pledged. Don Sabiniano well understood it
all, but, feigning affable manners, and careful to show confidence, he
made a virtue of the occasion. The obsequious solicitude of the
Macabebe men rendered doubtful the resolution of the others, who in the
village of Apalit took away the despatches that had been given to Don
Agustin Pimintuan, the intended ambassador of the rebels for conspiring
in the provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, their near
neighbors—fearing that he who bore them would place them in the
hands of the governor, that he might with the names of the conspirators
blot his own from the list of the traitors. All were afraid at the so
close proximity of the governor, imagining that they already had upon
them the entire Spanish power, which discouraged the former ardor of
all. It was worth much to Don Sabiniano that he had made sure of one
individual, named Don Juan Macapagal, a chief of the village of Arayat,
since it was necessary to pass through there to reach the province of
Pangasinán; and, this being assured, we were free from the
danger that the [148]Indians of the two provinces might unite
their forces. Don Sabiniano wrote a letter to Don Juan Macapagal, in
which, assuming his fidelity to his Majesty, he ordered that chief to
come to confer with him at Macabebe. Don Juan Macapagal immediately
left his home, and, passing through the camp of the rebels, went to
assure Don Sabiniano of his obedience, offering his life in the service
of his Majesty. Don Sabiniano treated him with great kindness,
accompanied with promises [of reward], with which the fidelity of
Macapagal was easily secured. Don Sabiniano made him master-of-camp of
his people, and, as pledges for his constancy, asked him for his
children and wife, on the pretext of assuring in Manila their safety
from the rebels—thus mingling his confidence with measures of
suspicion, but veiling this with pretexts of protection. The Pampango,
quite contrary to what was believed, accepted this so harsh condition;
but when once the resolution of a nobleman has been declared, any
alteration brings in greater distrust. Don Sabiniano sent Captain
Nicolás Coronado with twenty-five soldiers, ordering him to
construct a fort in Arayat, as was afterward done, and also to hasten
the coming of the wife and children of Macapagal. [The mutineers send
an envoy to Macapagal to secure his support, but he kills the envoy and
compels his followers to turn back.] The chiefs and leaders of the
mutiny were already finding that their followers had grown remiss, and
the courage of those who supported them had diminished, and they
despaired of the constancy of these. They were still more depressed by
the news which they received of the extreme honors which the governor
paid to the wife and children [149]of Don Juan
Macapagal—sending them to Manila with great distinction, and
entrusting them to the gallant care of General Don Francisco de
Figueroa, the alcalde-mayor of Tondo—and of their entertainment
and kind reception, in which they were served with a display beyond
what their condition and nature required. At this demonstration the
envy of the rebels guessed the superior position to which
Macapagal’s fidelity would raise him, above all those of his
people. By the honors paid to this chief, the governor allured the
ambition of the rest, and introduced discord in order to separate by
craft that body which ambition held together. Our religious availed
themselves of this opportunity, and like thieves in the house, since
they understood the natural disposition of the Indians, they neglected
no occasion to persuade some and allure others with promises—an
endeavor which, although the governor had not charged it upon them,
they prosecuted with great earnestness, on account of the great risk
which was incurred by the Christian church in such disturbances. All
the ministers of that province accomplished much, especially the father
definitors Fray José Duque and Isidro Rodríguez, also
Fray Jose de Vega (the prior of Guagua), Fray Andres de Salazar, and
Fray Enrique de Castro, and others—whom those natives reverenced,
as their abilities deserved. Soon the results of these efforts became
available; for the chief promoters of the rebellion, finding the
courage of their followers so weakened, began to search for paths for
their own safety. They despatched our father Fray Andrés de
Salazar with a letter to Don Sabiniano, in which they alleged, as an
excuse for the disturbance, the arrears of pay [150]which were due them for their services, together
with the loans of their commodities which had been taken to Manila for
the support of the paid soldiers; they entreated his Lordship to
command that these dues be paid, so that their people, delighted with
this payment and therefore laying aside their fury, could be disarmed
by their chiefs and sent back to their homes. Don Sabiniano allowed
himself to be influenced by the arguments which they placed before him,
considering that the anger of the people is not easily quenched by
resorting to another force, and so he agreed to grant them a part of
what they demanded; and they were pacified by his paying some part of
the debt—although the authorities must contract fresh obligations
to do this, as the royal treasury was exhausted on account of not
having received even the interest on the money which had been landed at
a place one hundred leguas from Manila. In view of this, the governor
offered them 14,000 pesos, on account of what was due them, which
amounted to more than 200,000 pesos. For this he sent his secretary,
General Sebastian Rayo Doria, to authorize two other commanders,
Generals Juan Enriquez de Miranda and Felipe de Ugalde, to establish
peace and publish the general amnesty for the past which he granted to
all that people. When the writ of amnesty was drawn up, and the words
were repeated to them in their own language by the amanuensis (who was
one of the Pampango tribe), in reading to them these words, “In
the name of his Majesty I grant pardon, for the sake of avoiding all
bloodshed,” he altered the sense of this sentence, telling them
the very opposite [of what it said]. Then, slipping out of the
conference, he went among the crowd to tell [151]them
[this false statement], and from this resulted fresh disturbances. The
effect of this was the detention of our generals as prisoners, and the
choice of a new head, or master-of-camp, for the mutiny, Don
Nicolás Mañago—who immediately issued a
proclamation that on the following day all should be on hand, with
their arms ready for use. That day’s interval gave opportunity
for the labors of our religious, who did everything in their power to
undeceive the people and dispel the error under which they were
laboring—making known to them the true meaning of the terms of
the amnesty; and thereupon those timid creatures began to grow calm.
Nor was the governor negligent meanwhile; for, as soon as he was
informed of the condition of the generals whom he had sent, he
commanded that the drums should immediately call the troops to arms,
and they should move against the rebels—for his very desire for
peace had made him keep his forces in readiness and at their stations;
but, as a good officer, he knew that the most suitable means of
securing an honorable peace is to make more formidable the preparations
for war. The troops—[as yet] in peace, but well armed—were
encamped very near the rebels; they traveled through the open country,
as is possible in the settled part of that province (which is all
rivers and bayous), conveyed in boats that were adequate for their
numbers. The mountain route was taken by Captain Don Luis de Aduna and
Don Sebastian Villareal with the cavalry, in order to embarrass the
enemy’s retreat, and deprive them of their accustomed refuge,
which is the mountains. Don Juan Macapagal, who with loyal ardor took
the field in his Majesty’s service, was sent to his own
[152]village of Arayat, that he might, in conjunction
with the people from the farms about that village, prevent the enemy
from using that route to go to Pangasinán—a matter which
caused the governor much anxiety, as those natives are warlike. On the
same day, at sunset, Don Sabiniano met his secretary, General Sebastian
Rayo Doria, whom the rebels had sent back with entreaties, that he
might delay the just wrath of his Lordship, and they accompanied these
with submissions and offerings. Most of our success in quieting this
second revolt is due to the many efforts made by the fathers who were
ministers in that province, not only with the common rebels but with
their leaders—offering to the former amnesty, and to the latter
rewards, on the part of his Majesty. With only the near approach of the
army, its march being directed toward the rebels, and with no other
writ of requisition than its fearful reputation which threatened them
with chastisement, affairs assumed another guise; and those who before
looked at any plan for peace with distrust now solicited it, having
lost their expectation of any more favorable arrangement.
As Don Sabiniano understood the desire which led them,
he spoke to them with affected severity, and despatched a courier to
give them orders that they must immediately send him the two generals
(whom they had detained to secure a settlement favorable to their
fears), with their weapons, furnishings, and clothing, without a thread
being missing. He said that if any one of these articles should be
lacking, a duel would be enacted in honor of it, which would be
satisfied [only] with the fire from weapons that were already
intolerable in the hands [of the soldiers]; and that, if their valor
could ill endure the [153]bridle of clemency so ill recompensed, if
they did not accept it he would now proceed to exchange it for
severity. At the distance of a few paces the courier met Generals
Sebastian Rayo Doria and Juan Enriquez de Miranda, whom the rebels had
set at liberty through the persuasions of the father ministers. As
their fear was not quieted by any means whatever, they made haste to
the safety which imagination suddenly presented to them; they feared
that the illegal detention of the Spanish generals would add fire to
our indignation. The governor, seeing our honor thus satisfied, and
discretion triumphant, turned to the alcalde-mayor of that province,
and told him that on the following day he must surrender to him its
chief men. Those who were present looked at one another in surprise,
wondering that the governor should not know the condition in which the
chiefs still were, united and armed in so great a number that their
submission was not to be expected at a mere summons. It is a fact that
in the excuses which the chiefs had given for their resolution they
cast the blame on the villages, attempting thus to confuse their own
malice with [that of] the multitude. Accordingly, it was expedient that
the governor should follow their usage, by making them think that he
had not fathomed their purposes, so that they could not guess that he
was dissimulating. The result corresponded to the ingenious scheme,
skill obtaining what guile had concealed. For the chiefs, seeing that
their excuses were so readily received, attempted to carry them
further; and therefore at one o’clock at night they arrived, with
all the people of the revolted villages, in eighty vessels, at the
village of Macabebe. The military officers felt [154]anxiety, not only at their coming at a
suspicious hour of the night, but at the multitude, a great impediment
to negotiations for peace; in view of this the governor deferred until
the next day giving them audience. But as there are cases in which
confidence is safer than mistrust, especially when one is intent on
giving security to distrust and calming fear, the governor commanded
that all should enter his presence, and that our armada and troops
should, without any outcry or demonstration of anxiety, watch very
attentively the actions of these people. It was the effect of fear,
which is with difficulty laid aside when conscience itself accuses,
that these rebels came armed to capitulate, concealing by the
submission that they tendered the cunning with which they acted. Many
things have to be tolerated in an enemy when there are certain
expectations of gaining one’s end. The governor overlooked their
being armed, and granted what they asked; and his efforts succeeded in
allaying the fears of those people. He commanded the chiefs to make the
people go away, so that they might resume their industries; and, in
testimony of the fidelity which their authority guaranteed in the
common people, he ordered them to continue sending the men necessary
for the timber-cutting for the galleons, the only source of life for
these islands. The multitude gladly took their departure, and the
governor, although he was victorious and armed, did not choose for that
time that the chiefs who had incited the rebellion should make amends
for their fault; instead, he granted them all that they asked, and
afterward talked with them quite familiarly—endeavoring to
convince their minds, although he saw their strength conquered at his
feet. To the chiefs [155]who were humble and repentant he said:
“I cannot deny that in demanding the payment of what was due you,
you asked what was just; but as little can you deny that you did not
ask it in a just way. Not only because, when the manner in which you
act must be so costly both to yourselves and to the king, he who
solicits justice by such means is the aggressor, more cruel than is
justice, perverting peace and introducing war (in which this virtue [of
justice] is always lacking), but because in war all the wealth that one
had intended to increase is destroyed; and it is more cruel than kind
to employ, in order to show anger at the wealth which recognizes a
debt, what will cause the ruin of property and lives. Who has ever
grown rich through war? and who has not lost in war that which in peace
he held secure? Many are they who with the wealth that they possessed
had not yet been able to attain the success at which they aimed; and
those who had attained it were subjected to a lamentable
misery—the villages burned, the countries depopulated, and their
customs trampled under foot. It is not, then, justice to bring in
general ruin as the price of so limited an expectation, which vanishes
through the very means by which it is secured. If this mode [of
obtaining what you demand] is so harsh, your purpose is no less unjust.
You make an arrogant demand upon the king, when you know that he cannot
pay you; and in order to expedite it you oblige him to incur greater
expenses, thus doing more to render his efforts impossible. Ignorance
may serve other provinces as an excuse, but not you, whom our continual
intercourse with you has rendered more intelligent. You know very well
the scantiness of the relief which has come [156]from
Nueva España during my term of office; and you are not ignorant
of the unavoidable expenses which this government is obliged to meet
for the preservation of the country, which much exceed the aid
received. One galleon alone demands half of the money, even when the
wages and other expenses are reduced to what is absolutely necessary.
The [expenses of the] fortified posts, which are paid for by all the
native peoples, amount to five thousand [pesos]; while the aid [sent],
averaging one year with another, hardly amounts to 5,000 pesos. The
king has no other wealth than that of his vassals, and his own is in
the amount that their defense requires, when the necessities of these
islands are so great; for with you [Indians] he does not avail himself
of this right, which is that of all kings and commonwealths. Many times
have I written to his Majesty to ask that he regulate this matter; and
from his clemency I am expecting the relief for which I have been so
anxious, which I am sure he will furnish. Must his Majesty, since the
peace of these islands and the maintenance of the faith in them are all
so costly to his royal treasury, make up the omissions of the officials
in Nueva España? Your patience would be greater than ours if
your gratitude more quickly recognized our kindness in employing our
forces for your defense, and our arms in watching over your peace. I
ask you to consider, not the powerful enemies who oppose our forces,
but the wretched condition in which you formerly lived without our
arms—in continual wars, within even your own homes, one village
against another; without liberty having two leguas of extent, and being
waylaid by your own tyranny, without any [157]right save might, or
further justification than deeds of violence. Let me remind you of the
way in which you lived; your huts were the taller trees, like
bird’s nests,33 your sleep was disturbed by the
nightmare of anxiety, because danger confronted you, so near that it
was no farther away than from one house to another. Cast your eyes on
the Spanish infantry; consider the hardships which they endure on sea
and land; and see what support they receive, only the fourth part of
the wages assigned them, which still does not bring them to the
condition which among your people is misery. See how they give to the
king, as a loan, each year much more than this, and of much more
importance—since they deprive themselves of life itself, without
any opportunity remaining to them for supplying their needs. They serve
as if they were slaves, and would be fortunate if we paid them as we do
our servants. And finally, consider that the king taxes himself in
enormous sums, for your safety and defense alone, while the rest of the
nations in the world obey him and pay him tribute. They all enrich his
treasures, yet he willingly lavishes these here, for you people.
Understand these reasons, and you will see how little cause you had for
so ungrateful a resolution. Your natives must be blamed for the
ungrateful way in which they have acted, since they have shown no
patience with a nation which has endured so much for you, or for its
king, who has so generously spent his money for your welfare. Notify
them also that I acknowledge the docility with which they have returned
to their obedience, more in humility than in distrust; for I
[158]would grieve much if we came to blows, since if
fighting began I could not restrain the soldiers from compelling me,
against my wishes, to behold your entire ruin. You know very well that
there is no people in these islands who can resist their valor in the
field, and no hope could render you secure [from them]. The open
country [would be] clear of obstructions, the ground level, the
villages wide open; and you would have to flee to the mountains,
wherever necessity guided you lost creatures, or else the ashes of your
villages must be mingled with those of your bodies. I have had a
greater struggle with the Spanish valor, to check its ardor, than even
with your thoughtlessness [in trying] to bring you to a full knowledge
of your error. Now let your behavior blot out that error, since I have
forgiven you for what is past; and beware that you do not repeat your
faithless ingratitude.”
Thus did the discreet and sagacious governor, Don
Sabiniano, destroy the infernal seed that discord had sowed in the
hearts of the Pampangos, alluring them with [the idea of] liberty, more
potent than the apple of gold flung down at the marriage of Peleus and
Thetis....
Don Sabiniano received all their excuses with his usual
affability, and in the name of his Majesty restored them to his favor
and to the condition of faithful vassals, and gave them in due form, in
writing, a general amnesty. He commanded the alcalde-mayor to
distribute to them with exactness and care the sum which he had, by
contracting new obligations, brought for their relief; and to order
them in testimony of their repentance—now that he had brought
them back to their former fidelity, and as [159]this
outbreak had been [the result of] their anxiety, in grief rather than
in rebellion—to repair, as before, with men to the wood-cutting
for the construction of the ships. They asked from him time to repair
their houses, and permission to attend to their cultivation of the
soil; and this was granted, to their satisfaction. The affairs of the
province were immediately put in order. The governor commanded Juan
Camacho de la Peña to retire, and left as governor of the
province General Don Francisco de Atienza y
Báñez—an old soldier whose valor was equal to the
wisdom gained by his experiences in the governments which he had held
in these islands, in Caraga and Zamboanga—with orders that he
must exercise vigilance in regard to every indication of disturbance,
and by prudent action and kind treatment constrain the natives to
prefer their own tranquillity.
He sent a despatch by Adjutant Francisco Amaya,
accompanied by seven soldiers, to the province of Pangasinán, to
notify the alcalde-mayor, named Francisco Gómez Pulido, of the
outcome in Pampanga, in order that he might with this example be on the
alert in his own province. Don Sabiniano also ordered him to
communicate this information to the alcaldes-mayor of Ilocos (Don
Alonso de Peralta) and of Cagayán, and warn them to keep watch
on the movements of the natives, and to endeavor that the submission of
the Pampangos should confirm the others in their tranquillity. Nor was
the governor content with this activity only; but he sent a sealed
letter to the sargento-mayor of the royal regiment in Manila, Francisco
Pedro de Quirós, with orders that he should deliver it, in a
well-equipped [160]champan with twelve soldiers, to a thoroughly
reliable person; and that the latter, when two leguas beyond Mariveles,
should open the letter, and execute the orders that he should find
therein. These were, that he should take the route to
Pangasinán, and deliver the letters which he had sent to the
alcalde-mayor, in which he warned him by the events in Pampanga of the
danger which he had cause to suspect in the province which was in his
charge, and of the watchful care that he must exercise over the actions
of the natives therein; and that if any Pampangos should be dispersed
through his villages—and he regarded it as certain that such had
been sent, in order to form conspiracies among those natives—he
should by suitable plans arrest them and send them to Manila. Having
made these arrangements, the governor returned to the capital, taking
in his company Don Francisco Mañago, under pretext of employing
him in the office of master-of-camp for those of his tribe in that
city. Under the pretext of honoring this chief, he cloaked his anxiety
to remove from the sight of the Pampangos the man to whom all eyes were
directed on account of his authority and power, and from whom, it was
understood, their resolution took new breath; for, if their regard for
peace grew weak, his prestige and authority might not be lacking for
seditions—although this alone was not the sole incentive which
moved them, since it was accompanied by the influence of José
Celis, a native of that province, who was incited by the laws that he
had learned, which had been taught to him by the auditor Don Francisco
Samaniego y Cuesta, under whom he had served. At the same time he
carried with him others of the more guilty, whom [161]he
attracted with the hope of greater rewards; there was no discussion of
other modes of satisfaction, as the occasion did not allow them.
After the return of the governor to Manila, affairs were
so skilfully arranged that the Pampangos themselves demanded that two
garrisons be placed in their province, as necessary to their
security—one in Lubao, to free themselves from the invasions
which in that direction they are continually suffering from the blacks
of the hill-country; and the other in Arayat, as a precaution against
the fears which arise from the Pangasinans—and that these should
be in charge of officers thoroughly satisfactory to the governor. This,
the very thing that the governor desired, was quickly agreed to, and he
stationed in Arayat Captain Nicolás Coronado, and in Baras
(which is Lubao) Captain Juan Giménez de Escolástica,
soldiers of great valor. This step was of great importance on account
of the commotions (which will be considered further on) in the
provinces of Pangasinán and Ilocos, the results of which were so
lamentable that up to this day they have not ceased to arouse grief.
Very different were they from the events in Pampanga, for in the latter
province there was not experienced any death, or ravaging of churches,
or burning of villages, but merely threats of disobedience to their
chiefs; but in the other provinces, all these things occurred, and many
of each kind.
The alcalde-mayor, Francisco Gómez Pulido,
replied to the governor’s letter that the natives in his province
maintained remarkable peace, and that the alcalde-mayor of Ilocos, Don
Alonso Peralta, had made the same report to him; and with this the
anxiety that was felt in regard to those provinces was [162]partly dissipated. But his vigilance was
deceived; for in a fortnight from that time, in the village of
Malunguey in the province of Pangasinán, from some slight cause
was raised a sedition which compelled the alcalde-mayor to hasten out
with the soldiers whom the governor had sent him in the champan. Those
first disturbances were quieted, more because the fruit of rebellion
was not yet matured than because other endeavors were made [by the
Spaniards]. The alcalde-mayor was more easily satisfied than he should
have been with the dissembled tranquillity, and sent a report of the
whole affair to Manila. However much the ashes of dissimulation hid the
fire, it did not fail to make its presence known, by the smoke that it
sent forth, or by the flames which arose at every breath of wind. One
is wont in such case to curb caution, even though he has not yet the
wood ready for keeping up the fire of his strength; but if one is sure
of safety without having turned over the ashes, a fire that cannot be
checked will leap upon him in his sleep.
The fire, covered during two months, steadily spread,
through the hidden passage of the intercourse between different
villages, until its effects became so serious that the alcalde-mayor
Francisco Gómez Pulido was undeceived, and had to give up his
groundless confidence. A spark flew over to the province of Ilocos, and
left matters there ready for the operations that afterward were
seen.... It took two months, as I have said, after apparent quiet was
secured, to explode the mine which the faithlessness of the Pangasinans
had covered, [and this occurred] with a fearful crash. On the fifteenth
of December, 1660, this perilous volcano was revealed [163]in
Lingayén, the chief town of that province. The reason why its
effects were so long delayed was the great bulk which it had acquired
through the diligence of Don Andrés Malóng, his
Majesty’s master-of-camp for that tribe, a native of
Binalatongan. The first proceeding of mob ferocity was to go to the
house of the alguazil-mayor34 and kill him and all his
family, and then set fire to his house. From here the multitude went,
hoisting their sails, under the guidance of Malóng to conquer
the villages—by the cruel acts of armed force gaining those who
would not voluntarily have surrendered to them. Encouraged by their
large following, which was hourly increasing, Malóng directed
his efforts to capture by force the village of Bagnotan, one of the
richest and most populous of that province, whose inhabitants had thus
far refused to range themselves on the side of the traitors. The
loyalty of those people proved very costly to them; for they were
suddenly attacked one night by Don Andres Malóng, followed by
more than four thousand rebels. They sacked the town, and after having
committed many inhuman murders set fire to it, and reduced it to
ashes—the voracity of the flames not sparing the convent and
church, a magnificent edifice which was one of the finest that the
fathers of St. Dominic possessed in that province. The father minister
thought himself fortunate that he could escape with his life, fleeing
on a swift horse from the barbarous cruelty of the
assailants—who, on learning that the alcalde-mayor Francisco
Gómez Pulido had left Lingayén in flight, flew thither on
the wings of their fury. He had embarked with all his family, and with
the soldiers whom the governor [164]had sent him, in the champan
of a ship-master named Juan de Campos; but, as unfortunately they could
not pass over that bar on account of the ebb-tide, they had to wait for
high tide, and this gave the insurgents time to arrive. Attempting to
attack the champan, they found such resistance from the firearms of
those within it that they had to curb their first fury; but they were
soon freed from this hindrance by the malicious cunning of some
Sangleys, who imparted to them a scheme for success. This was, to cover
some small boats with many branches of trees, when they could safely
attack those on the champan—which plan they carried out so
effectively that a great number of little boats in entire safety made
an assault on the champan. Those who were in it could make no
resistance to such a multitude, and were all put to the
sword—among them the alcalde-mayor, who did wonderful things in
the defense, until, covered with wounds from arrows and javelins, and
faint from loss of blood, his strength failed. The rebels killed his
wife, who had recently become a mother, and his sister-in-law, a young
girl, and all those in his service—soldiers, servants, and other
people—no one being able to escape from this barbarous cruelty
except a little girl and a little boy (the latter only a few days old),
the children of the alcalde-mayor. Their lives were saved by the
efforts of a friendly Indian from the village of Binalatongan; Don
Sabiniano afterward rewarded him, and gave the girl an encomienda for
the services rendered by her father. With this deed, which seemed a
victory to Don Andrés Malóng, he persuaded himself that
he had closed the account with the entire Spanish nation, his arrogant
confidence believing [165]that the Spaniards would not return there
on account of their punctilious regard for honor. Carried away by his
vanity, he caused himself to be acclaimed king of Pangasinán,
with much drinking of wine; and he bestowed the title of Conde on Don
Pedro Gumapos, a native of the village of Agoo. In order to perpetuate
by might his new but tyrannical dignity, he summoned to his aid the
Zambal tribe—a people who know no more civilized mode of life
than the savage abode of the mountains and rocks; and without
recognizing any one as king save him who, most barbarous of all,
distinguishes himself as most courageous. They accepted the invitation,
attracted more by the desire to plunder than by friendship, a relation
which they recognize with no one. With this succor, Malóng
easily persuaded himself that he was invincible; his arrogance
therefore led him to send letters to all the chiefs of the provinces of
Ilocos and Cagayán, commanding that they immediately acknowledge
him as their lord, and slay all the Spaniards whom they might find in
those provinces, unless they wished to experience chastisement from his
power. He sent other letters, similar to these, to Pampanga, and
especially to Don Francisco Mañago; these were seized from the
messengers by the wary artifice, inspired by loyalty, of an Indian, a
native of Magalang, who offered to the messengers to place the letters
safely in the hands of Don Francisco Mañago. He delivered them
to the commandant of the fort at Arayat, Captain Nicolás
Coronado, who without delay sent them to the governor, who received
them on the twentieth of the same month of December. When he opened
these, he found that their contents were, in brief, to tell
[166]Don Francisco Mañago that, if he did not
undertake to arouse the province of Pampanga to take sides with
Malóng, killing the Spaniards who were found therein, he would
send for the chastisement of that province Don Melchor de Vera, with
six thousand men who were already under his command. This assertion was
not a false one; for so great was the multitude of adherents who were
coming to him—some attracted by the novelty, others by their
eagerness for plunder, and others by inconstancy or fear—that he
was able to divide his men into three parts. To Don Melchor de Vera he
gave orders to descend on Pampanga with six thousand men, and conquer
the villages; to Don Pedro Gumapos he assigned three thousand
Pangasinans and Zambals, with orders to reduce the provinces of Ilocos
and Cagayán; and he himself was left with two thousand men, to
furnish aid wherever necessity required it.
This information was received by the governor without
surprise, as if he had been expecting it; and on that very afternoon he
despatched, to fortify the post at Arayat, Captain Silvestre de
Rodas—an old soldier of experience and reputation in many
encounters, in which his valor always obtained the advantage over the
enemy. The governor gave him fifty infantry, so that in case Don
Melchor de Vera arrived with the rebel army he could maintain his
position, going out to encounter them until the arrival of General
Francisco de Esteybar with the Spanish army. The latter was on the same
day appointed commander-in-chief of the troops and lieutenant of the
governor and captain-general, with all the body of soldiers who, under
the pressure of necessity, could be detached from the scanty garrison
of [167]Manila. On the same day Don Sabiniano appointed,
as commander of the armed fleet which he resolved to equip and despatch
against the rebels, General Felipe de Ugalde—a man of unusual
prudence, and distinguished by heroic deeds in the army of Ternate,
where he was sargento-mayor. To this he added a commission as
commander-in-chief of Pangasinán and Ilocos, in order that he
might be able to act independently, wherever he might be, and, in the
lack of a governor for those provinces, carry out their pacification
through their fear of punishment. In this army went the following
officers: Sargento-mayor Diego de Morales, and Captains Simón de
Fuentes, Alonso Castro, Juan de San Martín, Don Juan de Morales,
Don Juan Francisco. In it were also the company of Merdicas (who are
Malays), and their master-of-camp Cachil Duco, the prince of Tidori;
Don Francisco García; the company of creole negroes,35 with their master-of-camp Ventura Meca; and the
Japanese of Dilao. They had four pieces of artillery, which carried
four-libra balls.
On December 22 General Esteybar began the march by land;
on the twenty-fourth General Don Felipe de Ugalde set out by sea, with
four champans and under their protection a joanga. With the former went
two hundred infantry, and other troops of all nationalities, Japanese
and Merdicas; while Ugalde took seventy Spaniards and some thirty
Pampangos—with Captains Don Alonso Quirante, Don Juan de
Guzmán, Juan Díaz Yáñez, [168]Don
Diego de Lemos; the adjutant Diego Sánchez de Almazán,
Miguel Roldan, and Cristobal Romero; Captains Nicolás Blanco and
Lorenzo Coronado. Ugalde carried orders to land at Lingayén, the
chief town in the jurisdiction of Pangasinán, and fortify a post
from which he could inflict injury on the enemy. This was compassed by
the activity of General Ugalde; for, having stationed a force in
Bolinao, he assured [the loyalty of] that village,36 which
had been doubtful. Although those natives had not yet committed the
cruelties of those of Pangasinán, they carried out the orders
sent them by Malóng; and they had captured a Spanish woman, and
slain a Spaniard named Pedro Saraspe, the collector for
Bolinao—which was an encomienda of Admiral Pedro Duran
Monforte—and had sent his head to Don Andrés
Malóng. General Ugalde quieted all their fear of the
chastisement which they saw threatening their heads, and, placing the
government of the village in the hands of a chief who had shown himself
most steadfast in loyalty, Don Luis Sorriguen, he left Bolinao secured
for the service of his Majesty. Then he pursued his way, and came in
sight of the bar at Lingayén on January 6, 1661; although he
strove, at the risk of his armada, [169]to enter it against the
severity of the storm that opposed him, the weather prevailed, and
compelled him to make port two leguas to leeward of the bar, at Suali.
He sent the joanga (which is an oared vessel) to make soundings at the
bar, with orders to summon him by signals, so that he could approach
with this opportunity near enough to reconnoiter the fortifications of
the rebels. He discovered a large crowd of people, who made him no
other reply than that of bullets and arrows; and he observed the haste
with which they were building fortifications, working behind a shelter
which they had made of gabions. The foresight of the general suspected
that they had not closed the bar against him, and he again strove,
although without avail, to enter it on the eighth of the same month.
Then, seeing that the weather was steadily becoming more favorable to
the enemy, he proposed to assault the village by land. This idea of his
was opposed by all the military leaders, and he therefore had to repeat
his attempt by sea, on the ninth; but they had hardly set sail when
they encountered a messenger from the minister of Lingayén,
Father Juan Camacho,37 of the Order of St. Dominic. He
informed them that the usurping “king,” Malóng, had
despatched soldiers with orders to cut off the head of the governor of
that village, named Don Pedro Lombey, to burn the church, and to carry
the religious as prisoners to him at Binalatongan, [170]where he was waiting far them; for with this
severity he expected to compel the few people whom that governor and
the religious were keeping peaceable, to take sides with his faction.
At the same time, that religious related the grievous injuries, the
plundering of property, and the burning of buildings, that had been
inflicted by the cruelty of the insurgents, and those which must result
if the above order were carried out; for then that village and the
Christian church which had been maintained under its protection would
be finally destroyed.
General Ugalde immediately formed another resolution,
without submitting it to the opinions of other men; since in critical
moments, when reputation and the common welfare are at stake, such
opinions serve rather as a hindrance than as an advantage to success.
He commanded the infantry to disembark, without allowing them to take
with them anything save their weapons. He despatched the armada in
charge of Captain Don Diego de Lemos, commanding him to contend once
more against the severity of the elements [for an entrance to the
river], and, if he could not overcome their hostility, to return to the
harbor, and there await the result and new orders. He ordered the
adjutant, Diego Sánchez de Almanzán, to enter the river
with the joanga, at all risks, as its passage was so important for the
security of the people against the enemy, who were awaiting them on the
other side; and told him that if the joanga should be wrecked they
would find him and his troops at a post convenient for securing the
people from invasion by the enemy. Ugalde divided his soldiers into
three bodies; one of these went ahead as vanguard, under command of
Captain [171]Miguel Rendón. The battalion was given to
Captain Cristobal Romero, and the rearguard to Captain Juan Díaz
Yáñez. Captains Nicolás Blanco and Lorenzo
Coronado were sent forward with some arquebusiers, to reconnoitre the
field. The general gave public orders to the men of the rearguard to
shoot the first soldier who should retreat from his post. He was
awaited at the bar by the forces of the insurgents, who supposed that
he had come in the champans which they saw endeavoring to occupy the
bar. By this precaution he took them by surprise, so little ready for
it that, seeing themselves assailed and the drums sounding the call to
arms behind them on the land, this second danger so terrified them that
their defensive array was thrown into confusion; and their fear giving
them no leisure for other plans, it sent them headlong and dispersed
them in precipitate flight. The army of Ugalde arrived at the river
without encountering the enemy, at four in the afternoon, and
continuing the march, he entered the village of Lingayén at
sunset, with all his men. The only persons whom he found alive there
were the father ministers and four chiefs; but they saw in front of the
royal buildings, impaled on stakes, the heads of Alcalde-mayor
Francisco Gómez Pulido, Nicolás de Campos, Pedro Saraspe,
and the wife and the sister-in-law of Pulido—which the rebels, in
their confusion, could not hide. When those people rebel, and see that
they involve themselves in danger, they try to lead the rest to engage
in destruction, in order thus to persuade the rabble and those who are
easily deluded that, if they remain in the villages, they expose
themselves to the blows of the vengeance which will be executed on
those whom the sword encounters. [172]For the same reason, they try
to burn the churches and kill the priests, thinking that with such
atrocious deeds the crime becomes general, even though it has been
committed by only a few. Thus fear, which so easily finds place in
their pusillanimous natures, drives them to flee as fugitives; and
necessity makes them take refuge with those who are traitors, fearing
their cruelties. It was this that had caused most [of the people of
Lingayén] to flee, since their hands were free from such crimes.
On the same night when General Ugalde arrived, four agents of Don
Andrés Malóng came, in accordance with the warning of
Father Camacho which had hastened the general’s decision; they
came to set fire to the church and seize the religious; and, as they
did not find the men whom they had left in defense of the bar, or any
one of their faction in the village who could warn them in time, they
easily fell into the power of Ugalde’s men. He immediately
ordered that their heads should be cut off and suspended from hooks on
the road to Binalatongan, in order that these might be tokens of the
severity that would be experienced by those who were stubborn in their
rebellion. By this means General Felipe de Ugalde so quickly pushed his
good fortune that when the military commander-in-chief arrived, which
was on January 17, only two villages in the entire province of
Pangasinán, those of Malunguey and Binalatongan, persisted in
their rebellion; and most of the inhabitants of the villages had
returned to their homes, remaining in their shelter and peace.
The commander-in-chief, Francisco de Esteybar, although
he at first set out by land, was detained for some time because he
halted at Arayat, to wait for [173]the Pampango troops who were
being levied for this campaign—until on the sixth day he was
constrained to begin the march by the news which he received about the
natives of Magalang, the furthest village in Pampanga, by a chief from
Porac named Don Andrés Manacuil. This man had been snared and
captured by Malóng, with eleven companions who were lying dead
from lance-thrusts, and he alone had escaped. He declared that Don
Melchor de Vera was approaching with an army of six thousand
Pangasinans, and that they would reach that village on the following
day; that it was not strong enough to resist the enemy, and therefore
it would be necessary for the Spaniards, unless they received
reënforcements, to abandon the village and take refuge in the
mountains. The general’s reply was prompt action; he gave the
signal to march with all the energy and promptness that the emergency
demanded, and on the same day reached Magalang, at nightfall. There he
learned that the rebel army had lodged that night at Macaulo, a hamlet
two leguas distant. Francisco de Esteybar proposed to push ahead, but
this was opposed by the leading officers, on account of the men being
exhausted with marching all day long. The cavalry captain Don Luis de
Aduna offered to go, with the freshest of the men, proceeding until he
encountered the enemy, so as to ascertain how strong they were, and
doing them what damage he could. The commander-in-chief gladly accepted
the offer, and, adding a detachment of thirty foot-soldiers to the
cavalry troop, he despatched them very quickly. The enemy Don Melchor
de Vera came to meet the army, ignorant and unsuspecting that he would
find it so near and in the [174]field; and the night, the fatigue
of his men, and the present hostile attitude of the people, rendered
futile the activities of his spies. The troop of Don Luis de Aduna
marched in good order, and, although he sent forward men to explore the
road, when daylight came he found himself in the midst of the enemy,
who were stretched out in a pleasant open field—nearly all of
them lying on the ground, either from their natural sloth or overcome
by sleep. The Pangasinans raised an alarm, uttering a loud shout, a
signal with which all these peoples begin their battles, in order to
arouse their own courage and weaken that of the enemy; but such was not
the effect of their activity on this occasion, for apprehension awoke,
without enlivening their courage, and, their fear of unforeseen danger
prevailing, it made them run away in disorderly flight from the perils
that they dreaded. As for our men—whether the horses, frightened
by the unaccustomed shouting, could not be held in by the curb; or
their riders, at sight of that frightful multitude armed, felt the
natural effect in their hearts; or their ears were deafened by the
hideous shouts, of for some other reason—the cavalry of the
squadron turned their backs, with the same haste as did the enemy,
without either side waiting to prove the danger with their weapons. Who
doubts that Don Luis de Aduna, already informed of the multitude of
those whom he was going to seek, had carefully considered the hazard?
But it is not the same thing to look at the danger from afar, and to
consider it while in the midst of it, if the leader has known danger
beforehand from similar experiences. If he had fought in other
campaigns, he would have known that mere numbers do not make these
peoples [175]more valiant; for they do not know how to wage
war except in their ambuscades, where they are quite safe, and in the
open field they cannot, for lack of military discipline, maintain
battle for an instant. At last the cavalry arrived in safety at the
camp, to report to their commander, General Francisco de Esteybar,
without having accomplished anything worthy of note.
The commander, not only to proceed with the foresight
which the remoteness of the country and the laborious march required,
but to make sure that the enemy’s army should not leave Pampanga,
waited there a week, going round a hill opposite, which had a spring on
the other side. Don Melchor de Vera, although he had seen his own men
take to flight, as he saw that our soldiers did the same thing,
attributed to his own valor that panic of terror of which the incidents
are perhaps noted among the barbarous exploits of these peoples, in
recording the events of war in these islands. Don Melchor de Vera
returned to the presence of his [superior, the] usurping king, and
assured him that he had left the Spaniards conquered, and cut off the
heads of three hundred of them and more than a thousand Pampangos,
without losing a single man of his own. But all the exploit that he had
performed was to cut off the heads of three Indians from the village of
Cambuy (a visita of Arayat), whom Don Juan Macapagal had sent on
business to the village of Telbán; their bodies were found this
side of the village of Paniqui. What these peoples gain easily they
regard with credulity and confidence; accordingly they supposed that
the failure of the Spaniards to follow them was a recognition of their
power. This delay, which [176]they attributed to fear, gave them
assurance; and as General Felipe de Ugalde had not yet set his troops
in motion for Lingayén, they all considered themselves safe, and
talked of following up their enterprise, to which they were led by
their eagerness to make an actual raid on the province of Ilocos; for
it was rich in gold, and its inhabitants had little courage. They were
encouraged to this by the favorable result of the raid which
“Conde” Don Pedro Gurcapos had effected a few days before,
although he only went as far as Bauang; but now, with their troops
still further reënforced, they wished to go as far as
Cagayán, to stir up the minds of those natives, so that, if they
succeeded, they could induce those people to join them. For this
purpose, they detached from the best troops of the rebel army as many
as four thousand men, Zambals and Pangasinans, and placed them under
command of Don Jacinto Macasiag, a native of Binalatongan, for the new
conquest—which they supposed would be very easy, as the minds of
some of the chiefs there, with whom they had held correspondence, were
prepared for it.
Soon Don Andrés Malóng repented of having
separated so large a number of troops from the main body of his army,
when, on the ninth of January, General Ugalde gave the signal for
hostilities by way of Lingayén; and on the seventeenth of the
same month the commander, Francisco de Esteybar, came unexpectedly with
all the strength of the Spanish army. The rebels of Binalatongan had
torn down and burned the bridge, which was built of planks—a
difficulty which might prove an obstacle to the courage of Francisco de
Esteybar; but a courageous [177]soldier named Cristóbal de
Santa Cruz, with two bold Merdicas, made the crossing easy. The latter
leaped into the water, swimming, and the Spaniard walked upon their
shields or bucklers; and in this way, fastening together all the logs
and bamboos that they could collect, they made a raft large enough to
transport on it the infantry. Malóng sent to summon Don Melchor
de Vera, and in the interval, urged on more by the fear arising from
their guilt than by the number of the Spanish soldiery (which, compared
with that of the rebels, was much smaller), all the rebels took refuge
in Binalatongan; but this did not last them long, for the two generals,
having united their forces, marched forward to attack them and thus end
the war at once. Don Andrés Malóng, having been informed
of this intention, would not wait to confront the chances of fortune.
He set fire to the village of Binalatongan, and plundered it of
everything; and he burned the church and convent, the images of the
saints which were therein becoming the prey of that barbarous
multitude, who trampled on them and broke them in pieces, venting on,
these figures of the saints the fury and madness which obliged them to
retreat to the mountains. This they did in such haste that many fell
into the hands of the soldiers whom the commander-in-chief, observing
their flight, quickly sent for this purpose. The main body of the
troops—not only the cavalry but the infantry—followed the
rebels, as far as the ground allowed them to, killing, while the
pursuit lasted, more than five hundred Zambals and rebels. After this
the army not being able to continue the pursuit, returned to
Lingayén in order to aid the other provinces wherever necessity
might require. [178]Soon afterward, troops of Indians began
arriving, to cast themselves at the feet of the commander-in-chief,
entreating pardon; and he in virtue of the powers with which he had
been invested, detained those whom he considered guilty, and allowed
the rest to go to their villages. The natives, in order to check the
just wrath of the Spaniards, thought best to offer themselves to bring
in Don Andrés Malóng a prisoner; and Francisco de
Esteybar, having learned where this man had concealed
himself—which was in a forest between Bagnotan and
Calasiao—sent Captain Simon de Fuentes and Alférez Alonso
de Alcántara with sixty soldiers, fifteen Spaniards, with
fifteen Merdicas and creoles, and Sargento-mayor Pedro Machado of
Ternate and some Pangasinans, who served as guides. They found the hut
of Don Andrés Malóng, where they arrested him and his
mother, Beata de Santo Domingo; they also took away a girl of ten
years, a sister-in-law of Francisco Pulido, whom he had kept a captive
for the purpose of marrying her. They found a large quantity of gold,
pearls, and silver, which Malóng had taken with him. Carrying
him to Binalatongan, they placed him in prison, under close guard. It
is quite worth while to note what happened to Don Francisco de Pacadua,
one of the principal rebels, who in this farce played the role of judge
to the king Don Andrés Malóng. They had carried him a
prisoner to Binalatongan; and, as he was very rich he formed a plan to
escape from the prison by bribing the guards with much gold. He
succeeded in this, and in his flight, while crossing the river, a
crocodile seized him; but it did him no further harm than to carry him
held fast in [its [179]mouth], to the mouth of the river of
Binalatongan, where some soldiers were on guard, and to leave him
there, half-dead with fear, with only some slight wounds from the
creature’s claws. The soldiers ran up to see who he was, and
recognized Pacadua; they took him prisoner, and in due time he atoned
for his crime on the gallows. They conveyed him to the presence of
General Francisco de Esteybar, who ordered that he be carefully guarded
until his punishment should be duly adjudged; for in the province of
Ilocos very lamentable events were making pressing calls upon the
Spanish forces—since, as will be seen in the proper place, the
natives there had slain two religious.
Francisco de Esteybar was informed how, among the
ravages and cruelties which the rebels had committed in the village of
Malunguey, they had demolished the church and convent in order to use
the planks in these for making their fortifications; and in a thicket
had been found an image of the mother of God, [that had been taken]
from that church, showing marks of ill-treatment, and with its hands
cut off. Francisco de Esteybar went to Malunguey with most of his army,
and they carried the sacred image in a triumphal procession to
Binalatongan, where it was reverently deposited. It is said that the
rebels used the hands of the sacred image as spoons for eating their
cooked rice [morisqueta]—an act of insolence
which was made known as being insurrection and rebellion against both
Majesties. It is also related that they trampled on the rosaries and
committed other impious acts, tokens of their apostasy. The fathers of
St. Dominic labored much in reducing and pacifying the insurgents,
displaying [180]the ardor and energy in insurrection which they
are accustomed to exert in their missions and ministries; but as the
hearts of the Pangasinans were so cold, and their wills were so
obstinate in their treacherous rebellion, they would not be affected
even by blows from the hammer of the strongest Cyclop. But many
withdrew from the ranks of the insurgents through the counsel and
persuasion of father Fray Juan Camacho—Don Carlos Malóng,
the brother of the usurping king Don Andrés, and many
others—who, being tractable, in time embraced his wholesome
counsels.
Thus was finally extinguished this fire which rebellion
kindled in the province of Pangasinán, which threatened great
destruction—although it wrought no slight havoc in the burning of
the two villages Bagnotan and Binalatongan, which were the most
important in that province; and up to the present time they have not
been able to recover the wealth and population that they formerly had.
That the outbreak of these rebels was no more extensive is due to the
fact that the governor undertook so promptly to apply the remedy,
sending out by land and sea officers so valiant, and so experienced in
conquest—as [for instance], Francisco de Esteybar, who was one of
the most fortunate soldiers who have been known in these regions. In a
printed history38 I have seen mention of this rebellion in
Pangasinán with much solicitude to exonerate the [181]insurgents, and omitting many circumstances
which aggravate it. But I am not influenced by prejudice, for I do not
feel it; but I am guided by the relations of it made by disinterested
persons of that period, and of soldiers who took part in the said
reduction. Some of these are still alive, among them Captain Alonso
Martín Franco, who was present in all the revolutions, those of
Pampanga, Pangasinán, and Ilocos, and gives an account of all
the events above mentioned and of those which are related in the
following chapters. In the latter are recounted the ravages wrought by
Don Pedro Gumapos, by order of his king Don Andrés
Malóng, in the province of Ilocos, aided by the Zambals, a cruel
and barbarous people, who inflicted so much harm on that province that
it is deplored even to this day.
Raid of the Pangasinans and Zambals into the province
of Ilocos; 1660–61
[This is related by Diaz, continuing the above account,
in his Conquistas, pp. 590–616 (book iii,
chapters xxi–xxiv).]
That I may give a more satisfactory relation of the
melancholy tragedy in the province of Ilocos, I have thought it best to
defer for later mention the march of the fantastic “Conde”
Don Pedro Gumapos to that province, where we shall find him in due
time, and to follow the relation of all those occurrences which was
sent to our father provincial, Fray Diego de Ordas, by his vicar in
that province, father Fray Bernardino Márquez—adopting the
simplicity of his mode of writing, that I may without exaggeration
accurately describe the events of all that occurred there; for a
uniform style cannot always be [182]employed, especially when the
accounts of others are followed.
On the sixteenth day of December in the year 1660, the
father preacher Fray Luís de la Fuente, prior of that district,
having left the village of Bauang—to which he had gone to make
his confession—to go to his village of Agoo, learned on the route
of the insurrection in the province of Pangasinán, and the raid
of the Zambals into that of Ilocos. He returned to Bauang with that
information, and communicated it fully to the father preacher Fray
Bernardino Márquez,39 prior of that convent and
vicar-provincial of Ilocos; and at the same time asked permission to go
up to Lamianán, which is the most northern district in that
province. Father Fray Bernardino attempted to turn father Fray
Luís from this purpose, telling him that it was not right to
abandon one’s flock in time of tribulation—for which reason
he was of opinion that Fray Luís should return to his ministry
at Agoo; and in order to do so with safety he could go accompanied by
an Indian chief named Don Pedro Hidalgo, who was much beloved by the
Zambals. Father Fray Luís was as willing as prompt to comply
with his superior’s wishes; but Don Pedro Hidalgo answered that
it was not proper to expose father Fray Luís’s life to so
evident a risk; and that it was better that he himself should first go
to ascertain in what condition affairs were in the village of Agoo.
This opinion of Don Pedro was approved by father Fray Bernardino, who
thereupon gave permission to [183]father Fray Luís to make
his journey to Laminián. He set out for that place on the
seventeenth of December, 1660, in company with a Spanish tax-collector
named Juan de Silva, who had come [to Bauang] to escape the fury of the
rebels in the province of Pangasinán.... On the sixteenth,
father Fray Luís had warned Captain Aguerra and the
alcalde-mayor of the province of Ilocos, Don Alonso de Peralta, of the
disturbed condition in which those districts were; and on the same day
a letter went by way of Bauang from Don Andrés Malóng,
who styled himself king of Pangasinán. The letter was written to
all the Indian chiefs of the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán,
and he advised them therein to take up arms and slay all the Spaniards,
as he had done in his kingdom of Pangasinán; and declared that
if they did not do so, he would go thither with his soldiers and punish
them as disobedient.
On the day of the Expectation of our Lady, which they
reckon the eighteenth of December, father Fray Bernardino
Márquez, while in his church at Bauang ... [was warned of the
approach of the Zambals]. He found at the door of the church two Indian
chiefs of that village, one of whom was named Don Juan Canangán;
they told him not to be afraid, as they were there determined to defend
the father from the fury of the Zambals, who were already near, even if
it cost them their lives.... While he was saying mass, the Zambals
arrived; their leader or captain was he who had been titled
“Conde,” a native of the village of Agoo and married in
Binalatongan, named Don Pedro Gumapos, who had been an associate of Don
Andrés Malóng in [184]that insurrection. The
Zambals waited very quietly for the father to finish saying mass; and
when he had returned thanks and begun to say the prayers, a message
came to him from Don Pedro Gumapos asking permission to kiss his hand.
Father Fray Bernardino gave it, and Gumapos came up accompanied by
Zambals and Negritos, armed with balazaos40 and
catanas. He kissed father Fray Bernardino’s hand, and told him
absurd things about his rebellion against the Spaniards, and at the
same time he asked permission for his soldiers to search the convent,
to see if any Spaniard were concealed there. Father Fray Bernardino,
certain that no one was there, told him that he might do as he pleased;
Gumapos ordered his companions to make the search, and if they met any
Spaniard to kill him. The Zambals carried out this order of Gumapos,
and in the course of the search looted whatever there was in the
convent. While this was being done, Gumapos remained talking with
father Fray Bernardino Márquez; and, when he asked where was
father Fray Luís de la Fuente, father Fray Bernardino answered
that he had gone up to Bagnotan to make his confession. Gumapos replied
to this that he had come to kill Fray Luís, unless father Fray
Bernardino would ransom him for 300 pesos. To this audacious
proposition the father answered that he had not so much money, and that
Gumapos should therefore take his life, or carry him away as a slave,
and let father Fray Luís go. Gumapos replied to this that no
injury of any kind would be done to the father, for he himself would
rather suffer such harm in his own person; [185]but
this was no virtue of Gumapos, but [the result of] an order given to
him by his little king Don Andrés Malóng, who was very
fond of father Fray Bernardino Márquez.
[Gumapos orders the headman of Bauang to go after Fray
Luís with a troop of Indians, Zambals, and Negritos; they kill
the Spaniard who accompanies him, and carry the father back to Bauang.
Gumapos, after vainly trying to exact a ransom from the friar, orders
the Indian to kill him; but they take pity on him, and collect among
themselves the sum of eight and a half taes of gold, “the greater
part of this being given by Doña María Uañga,
chieftainess of the visita of Balanac.” Finally Gumapos imprisons
both the religious in a cell, where they remain under guard until the
rebels go away.] All the time while the Zambals remained in Bauang,
they were engaged in plundering and robbing the poor Indians, and did
all the damage that they could. The religious emerged from their
prison, half-dead from weakness, for they had remained almost three
days without eating or drinking; but the Zambals had left nothing in
the convent, and the religious therefore had to send to the Indians to
beg food. That day father Fray Bernardino wrote a letter to father Fray
Juan de41 Isla, the commissary of the Inquisition in that
province and his visitor, entreating him to notify the bishop—who
then was bishop of Nueva Segovia, the illustrious Don Fray Rodrigo de
Cárdenas, belonging to the Order of St. Dominic, and a native of
Lima; a man who excelled in virtue as well as in learning—and
that both of them should ask the [186]alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de
Peralta, for the aid which those districts of Bauang and Agoo so
greatly needed.
On the following day, the twentieth of December, nearly
all the people in the village of Bauang confessed and received
communion, most of those who had taken part in the murder of the
Spaniard Juan de Silva doing penance—especially the headman, who,
as he had a very quiet and peaceable disposition, had been constrained
by fear of Gumapos to assist in such a crime. The fathers were greatly
edified by the Christian spirit of the Indians, which is so great in
this province of Ilocos. Father Fray Luís pursued his journey to
Lamianán, accompanied by a native named Don Dionisio
Maricdín—a friendly act which no other Indian is known to
have performed on that occasion, as being disobedient to the orders of
“Conde” Don Pedro Gumapos, of whom all had conceived so
great fear. For this service he was afterward rewarded by General
Sebastián Rayo Doria, who made the said Don Dionisio
Maricdín sargento-mayor of the villages of Aringuey, Bauang, and
Agoo, on July 5, 1661. Father Fray Luís reached the bar of
Purao, and found there Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros, alguazil-mayor
and deputy of the alcalde-mayor of the province of Ilocos; he had come
with a troop of Indians from that province to set free the fathers,
Fray Bernardino and Fray Luís, from the power of the Zambals.
They all came to Bagnotán, from which place they notified father
Fray Bernardino, who was in Bauang.
In consequence of the repeated advices of Zambal raids
into Ilocos, the alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, called a council
of war at Vigan, to provide [187]suitable measures for averting the
many dangers which were threatening the province. At this council were
present the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Don Fray Rodrigo de
Cárdenas, the father visitor Fray Juan de Isla, and all the
Spaniards; and it was decided that the alcalde-mayor should go in
person to the succor of those districts infested by Zambals,
accompanied by father Fray Gonzalo de la Palma and father Fray
José Polanco.42 The lord bishop was to remain
in Vigan, in company with father Fray Juan de Isla, with the charge of
sending a troop of Ilocan and Cagayan Indians who were being levied,
and of taking such other measures as might prove desirable. In order to
render aid and confront the Zambals as quickly as possible, the
alcalde-mayor sent ahead Alférez Lorenzo Arqueros, with such men
as could be collected in so short a time; and soon Don Alonso de
Peralta followed him, [with troops] lightly equipped [a la
ligera], accompanied by the two fathers, Fray Gonzalo and Fray
José, as far as Namacpacán, the first village of the
province of Ilocos.
I have already related how father Fray Bernardino
Márquez had remained at Bauang, where he received notice of the
arrival of Lorenzo Arqueros at Bagnotán for the succor of those
districts; and at the same time he had very accurate information that
the Zambals were planning to make a second raid on the [188]province of Ilocos. He immediately warned
Lorenzo Arqueros of this, who was still at Bagnotán—asking
that officer to go down to Bauang, if he thought it best, that he might
from a nearer station check the designs of the Zambals. Father Fray
Bernardino continued to receive reliable advices of the coming of the
Zambals, and on that account decided one night to leave Bauang in a
boat, with six Indians as a guard, to go in search of Lorenzo Arqueros.
At the cost of much hardship the father found him near the visita of
Dalangdang, on his march toward Bauang; the father joined the troop of
Lorenzo Arqueros, and they continued the march to Bauang. They arrived
there at daybreak, but found the village without inhabitants, because
for fear of the Zambals they had fled to the woods.
Lorenzo Arqueros ordered his men to beat the drums, and
soon the village was full of people. Father Fray Bernardino talked to
the Indians, and sent notice of this aid [just received] to the village
of Agoo. Those people replied by informing him that the Zambals were
ready to make a second raid; and that in any case the Spaniards ought
to see that Don Miguel Carreño was hanged. He was a native of
the visita of Aringuey, and the father of Don Pedro Gumapos, the head
of the conspirators, to whom he communicated all the operations of the
loyal Indians. In consequence of this advice, Lorenzo Arqueros ordered
Master-of-camp Don Lorenzo Peding, a valiant Ilocan, to go with a
hundred men to arrest Don Miguel Carreño. [Carreño is
seized and hanged; the Zambals of his command, dispirited by losing
him, are defeated and take to flight.] [189]
Lorenzo Arqueros reported all this to his captain the
alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso de Peralta, who was still at
Namacpacán—asking at the same time that he would come to
his aid, since he knew with certainty that the Zambals, with much
larger numbers, were coming in search of him. At this, Don Alonso de
Peralta resolved to go in person to the succor of his lieutenant; but
this resolution was opposed by the fathers, not only because it was not
right for him to go on so important a relief expedition with only six
or seven Spanish mestizos, who accompanied him, but also because he
ought not to leave his jurisdiction, which extended only as far as
Namacpacán. They told him that it would be better to wait for
the soldiers whom the bishop was to send from Vigan, so that he could
with this reënforcement go to look for the enemy; but the
alcalde-mayor, urged on by the letters of Lorenzo Arqueros, and,
besides, encouraged by the latter’s previous success, pursued his
resolution, and marched for Bauang, accompanied by father Fray
José Blanco43 and father Fray Gonzalo de la
Palma. As soon as he encountered Lorenzo Arqueros, he ordered the
latter to set out for the village of Agoo, to succor Master-of-camp Don
Lorenzo Peding. [Arrived at Agoo, Arqueros finds the Zambals in
sufficient force to render more aid necessary; and his urgent request
brings Peralta to Agoo. The latter brings with him two jars [tibores] of gunpowder, which had been kept in the convent at
Bauang. Arqueros advises Peralta to retreat, since their auxiliaries
are all undisciplined, and the Ilocans somewhat timid, while the enemy
are superior in numbers[190]—having more than five
thousand men, while the Ilocans did not exceed one thousand five
hundred. Peralta refuses to do this, especially as the Ilocans have
firearms, “which the Zambal so greatly dreads.” The Ilocans
go, without orders, across the river, to form an ambush against the
foe; Arqueros goes to their aid, followed by Peralta. “The
fathers disguised themselves, fearing that the Zambals, if they should
be victorious, would, angered by having seen fathers in battle, slay
the Dominican fathers of the province of Pangasinán, who were in
their power.” At daybreak the enemy come to the attack; the
Ilocans are soon overcome by fear, and take flight, neither the
officers nor the friars being able to restrain them. Don Lorenzo Peding
dies bravely fighting, after having slain many of his assailants; and
all the guns and other weapons, and the gunpowder, of the Ilocans are
captured by the Zambals. Peding’s death utterly destroys the
little remnant of courage in his followers, and they flee pell-mell,
trampling on and drowning each other in the ford of the river.
“The most pitiable thing was to see the children and old men in
flight, and especially the women—some of whom gave birth to
children, and others suffered abortion through fear, the infants being
abandoned in the camp. The children were drowned, and the old people
were overcome by exhaustion; all were in most pitiable condition. Those
who felt it most keenly were the fathers, who aided some but could not
help all, since all the people had fled.” The Spanish leaders
attempt to rally the Indians at Agoo, and afterward at Bauang, but all
in vain; they are compelled to return to Namacpacán, where they
arrive on January 4, 1661. Finding [191]that they can obtain neither
men nor arms, they continue their retreat to Vigan. On the route, they
stop at Narbacán, and order “the Indians of that village,
with those of Santa Catalina, a visita of Bantay, to erect a stockade
and rampart in Agayayos44 to prevent the Zambals from
passing through there for Vigán and Cagayán. He
garrisoned this post with a body of Indians, in command of one of them,
named Don Pedro de la Peña, a native of Santa Catalina, and
continued his journey to Vigán.”]
The father visitor, Fray Juan de la Isla, had considered
it expedient to command the father ministers to retreat to
Vigán; they obeyed, although against the dictates of their
paternal charity, which was unwilling to abandon their spiritual sons.
Some fathers thought that they ought not to obey this mandate; and one
of them made his way through the middle of the enemies, to go to his
ministry of Taguding, and others to the hills, to which the Ilocans had
retreated, for fear of the Zambals.
[Arriving at Vigan, the Spaniards hold a conference
regarding the threatening dangers.] The alcalde-mayor, Bishop Don Fray
Rodrigo Cárdenas, and father Fray Juan de Isla were of opinion
that the most prudent measure was to place in a ship all the father
ministers and all the Spaniards who were there, and send them to
Manila, so that they might not experience the worst severity of
ill-fortune. For, although it could not be doubted that aid would come
from Manila, it was very uncertain whether [192]information of the disordered condition of those
provinces had reached the supreme government, while it was most evident
that the Zambal army would soon come [to Vigan], aided, as was already
conjectured, by their communication with some Indian chiefs of that
province. Many forcible arguments were brought forward against this
opinion by the father ministers, especially Fray Bernardino Márquez, Fray José
Arias, and Fray Gonzalo de la Palma, who were followed by all the other
ministers. They concluded by saying that if the ministers were to
retreat, it would be utter ruin to the province, in regard, not only to
God but to the king; for the Indians who yet maintained their faith and
loyalty would abandon all if they had not the fathers—either
through fear, or carried away by their heathen customs. In that council
it was also resolved to build a fort at Vigan, so that they could
resist the Zambals until aid from Manila should arrive. This work was
begun, but not carried out; for the Indians who worked at it were
continually disappearing. The alcalde-mayor, therefore, Don Alonso de
Peralta, finally decided to give orders that all the Spaniards who were
in the province—except Lorenzo Arqueros, who refused to
embark—and all the father ministers, both secular and religious,
who wished to go to Manila, should go aboard the champans which he had
at the bar there. He himself embarked in a champan with the father
visitor Fray Juan de Isla and father Fray Luís de la Fuente, the
bishop promising to follow them. The retreat of Don Alonso Peralta
caused great injuries to that poor province, although the rest of the
religious remained in Vigán, in company with the bishop and
[193]in his house; he had at his side only two
secular priests—one named Don Gerónimo de Leyva, the
judge-provisor and commissary of the Inquisition for that bishopric;
and the other, father Don Miguel de Quiros.
I have already told how the governor, Don Sabiniano
Manrique de Lara, hearing at Manila of the uprising and disturbances in
the province of Pangasinán, commanded that an army and some
vessels be assembled as promptly as possible, so that our arms might by
land and sea punish the conspirators; and how he appointed as commander
of the land forces Francisco de Esteybar—a valiant and fortunate
soldier, a native of the town of Mondragon, in the province of
Guipúzcoa—and of the armed fleet Felipe de Ugalde, also a
brave soldier, and a native of the same province of Guipúzcoa.
Don Sabiniano gave them orders that, in the emergencies that might
arise in the campaign, each might act for himself, without waiting for
the opinion of the other commander—for this reason, that often
excellent opportunities in war are liable to miscarry. The instructions
of Don Sabiniano were so judicious and clear that to this, more than
any other cause, is due the speedy pacification of those provinces. At
this time the Zambals—who, eager to plunder the rich province of
Ilocos, and encouraged by the victory over its alcalde-mayor, had
continued the pursuit of the conquered—arrived at Narvacan, where
they waited some time through fear of the resistance which they would
meet in the pass of Agayayos; but they were soon relieved from this
fear by the very man, Don Pedro de la Peña, who had remained for
the guard and defense of that pass. He tore down the stockade,
[194]and very gladly went to offer them a free
passage; accordingly, they went on without further hindrance. This
treason of Don Pedro de la Peña was the whole cause of the
Zambals being able to raid the villages of Ilocos, from Vigan on; for
this post of the Agayayos is so difficult of passage that it only
affords easy entrance to one man, and a horse can go through with
difficulty, between two great cliffs, which are inaccessible by the
summits. And since the Zambals must pass through it one by one, it
would have been impossible for them to succeed in penetrating it, with
even a very few men to defend the entrance. But this traitor to his
country was like Conde Don Julián in España, who gave
free passage to the enemies. Don Pedro paid for it with his life, on
the gallows; but that province even now bewails the harm [that he
caused it].
On that same day letters arrived at Vigán from
General Felipe de Ugalde, written to the alcaldes-mayor of Ilocos and
Cagayán, informing them of his arrival by sea for the succor of
the province of Pangasinán, and of the arrival of General
Francisco de Esteybar by land. On account of the absence of the
alcalde-mayor, Don Alonso, the letter which came for him was opened by
the bishop, and his illustrious Lordship and his companions were
delighted at the good news, and full of hopes that they would soon
enjoy peace; but their joy was quenched by the information which soon
followed that the Zambals had already arrived at Santa Catalina, a
visita of Vigán.
On the following day, the twentieth of January, the
Zambals arrived at Vigán. [The bishop waits for them to come,
prepared to say mass for their benefit, since they have sent him word
that they wish [195]to hear it, “a singular mode of hostility,
and a still more rare mode of devotion, which looks more like craft
than simplicity, although all traits at once are possible in these
people.” A number of the Zambals, including their leaders, hear
mass with much reverence, and even confess to the priests, saying that
many of their men have come on this raid through fear, rather than
their own inclination. Most of the troop, however, proceed to loot the
village; the people take refuge in the bishop’s house and the
church, thus saving their lives, although they endure great suffering
and privation by being shut up indoors for two days, with little food
or drink. Finally the fathers persuade the Zambals to let the people
return to their houses.] On that day the enemy appointed Don Juan
Celiboto headman of the village, and from that time the Zambals made
great haste to seize as many Indians as they could, both men and women,
to be their slaves. Only the sacristans had been left on guard in the
church; the Zambals slew them together in the baptistery, and plundered
it of all the ornaments and cloth that they found; and there they also
killed a negro who tried to avail himself of the church to escape from
their hands. Many Ilocans died in various places on that day—so
many that when the number was reckoned it was found that the village of
Bantay alone had eighty45 dead, whose bodies they hid
among the hills, so that they might not be seen by the fathers. In
those villages all was confusion, outcries, the ringing of bells, the
discharge of arquebuses, and shouts; and among the ecclesiastics all
was [196]affliction and grief at seeing so many
calamities, without being able to remedy them.
Some Indian chiefs, for greater security, had brought to
the bishop’s house the gold, silver, and other valuables which
they possessed; and the amount thus brought together was so great that
there was not space for them in the rooms above, and much property was
even placed below the house. The Zambals cast their eyes on this wealth
with eager desire, and their sentinels therefore watched very closely
the house of his illustrious Lordship; this was a source of great
anxiety to him and to the fathers, lest the poor owners should lose
their property. The commander Don Jacinto [Macasiag] had promised to
confer with the bishop about providing safety for these things, but did
not keep his promise; his illustrious Lordship therefore commanded
father Fray Gonzalo to go to talk with Don Jacinto in his quarters. The
father did not shun making these journeys, because he lost no time on
the road, hearing some confess, and baptizing others, even of the
Zambals themselves. At the same time he gained the opportunity of
seeing one of the champans of General Felipe de Ugalde arrive at the
bar; it had been sent to reconnoitre those coasts, under the appearance
of selling merchandise. Under the pretext of looking at the goods,
father Fray Gonzalo went aboard this vessel, and informed the captain
of the wretched condition in which they all were. Nothing was gained,
however, by this effort, as the champan, on its return, was maliciously
steered away from the place where the commander was who had sent it;
but the ecclesiastics were left with the consolation that aid would
soon come. [197]
The Zambals came, plundering and killing, as far as the
slope of Baduc, but they could not pass from that place to the province
of Cagayán, on account of the resistance made by Alférez
Lorenzo Arqueros with a troop of Ilocans and Cagayans. The bishop and
the fathers were well aware of the greedy anxiety of the Zambals to
plunder the valuables that were in the house of his illustrious
Lordship—who, hearing reports of the abominations, thefts, and
murders which they had committed in the churches, summoned them before
him, and, when most of them were assembled, publicly cursed and
excommunicated all those who should hereafter kill, or meddle with
things belonging to the churches or to his house. Immediately after
this, a sermon was preached to them by the father vicar-provincial,
Fray Bernardino Márquez, rebuking them for the evil that they
did instead of keeping the law of the Christians—for such were
the greater part of the Zambal army. They listened very attentively to
the sermon, much to the satisfaction of the bishop; and, as he always
did when affairs of importance came before his illustrious Lordship, he
availed himself of the Augustinian religious (especially of father Fray
Gonzalo de la Palma), on account of the secular clergy being
unacceptable to the Zambals. Nor is it to be doubted that not only the
clerics but his illustrious Lordship would have perished, if it had not
been for our religious, as is fully proved by letters written to the
supreme government by the illustrious Don Fray Rodrigo de
Cárdenas.
As soon as the coming of the Zambals was known, much
silver belonging to the churches, and much silver and gold of private
persons, were buried in [198]different places; but on Wednesday
afternoon the Zambals began to open [these] tombs, until no silver or
gold was left. Our Lord granted that some of the church silver should
afterward be restored; but all the gold and silver of private persons
was lost. Father Fray Gonzalo asked permission of the Zambal leader,
Don Jacinto, to dig up the silver belonging to the church of Taguding;
Don Jacinto gave this, and promised that he would, for the
father’s greater safety, assist him in person. He did so, as he
had promised; but while they were engaged in digging up the silver the
Zambals rushed to the house of the bishop, and pillaged whatever
hampers and chests they found under the house—with so much
violence and clamor that the religious, affrighted, took refuge in the
apartments of his illustrious Lordship.
[The eagerness of the Zambals for plunder soon induces
them to send the bishop and the priests to Santa Catalina, so that they
may loot the bishop’s house and whatever of value remains in it.
On the way they see many corpses of Indians slain by the foe; the
village of Bantay is burned, only the church and convent, and a tiled
house, are left standing. Arrived at Santa Catalina, the Zambals who
escort the priests proceed to plunder and burn that village; and the
fathers are unable to procure any food until the next day, save a
little rice, and are compelled to flee for their lives from the
flames—finally spending the second day with no shelter save a
tree, and no food save what is given them by the Zambals from whom they
beg it as alms.]
In the afternoon came Don Marcos Macasián to
notify the fathers of the order given by his chief, [199]Don
Jacinto, that the bishop and the rest who were with him should go on
with the rebel army, which included three hundred Ilocan
Indians—some forced to join them, and others who were traitors;
counting these with the Pangasinans and Zambals, the whole number was
about three thousand. He brought some talabones46 in which the bishop and the fathers were
accommodated—although but poorly, on account of the few men
available to carry them, and the ill-will of the bearers. On this
account, and so that they might aid the bishop, who was in poor health,
the religious and the priests were reduced to traveling on foot over
most of the route from Santa Catalina to Narbacán—where it
is necessary to go through the Agayayos, which are certain cliffs very
difficult of passage.... In the middle of the [second] day they reached
Agayayos, and at nine in the night they entered Narbacán. At the
entrance to this village the Zambals had a skirmish with the Indians of
that district, who, allied with the Tinguianes, did all the harm that
they could to the Zambals. So daring were they that they seized and
carried away one of the men who were escorting the fathers, and,
without his companions being able to prevent it, the assailants cut off
his head, and ran into the woods. In this manner more than four hundred
Zambals had already died. Moreover, they had thickly planted the road
from Narbacán with sharp stakes, in order that the Zambals might
not use it; and for this reason [200]the fathers suffered greatly,
because they traveled on foot. As soon as they arrived at
Narbacán, they notified the native governor [gobernadorcillo], (who was the father of the traitor Don Juan
de Pacadua), who gave the fathers sufficient cause to fear; for between
him and his blacks he held the fathers fast, unwilling to let them go,
by saying that he preferred that they should be entertained in his own
house, which was quite spacious, and not in the convent, which was ill
supplied. The fathers would not go anywhere except to the convent, and
thus the contest lasted until the arrival of the bishop; he also
insisted on going to the convent, with which they gained their point;
and the captain of the village went with them, to escort them and light
the way. They arrived at the convent, where they found not even water
to drink; then the father went out to get some, and to find also a
little rice [morisqueta] for the bishop, of which he
was in great need.
On the following day, January 31, the entire Zambal army
encamped in Narbacán; it had been awaited by the leader, Don
Jacinto Macasiag, who had been detained in Vigan by his plan of
attacking a champan sent by Don Felipe de Ugalde with more than twenty
soldiers. Don Jacinto returned to Narbacán, without having been
able to carry out the intention which had delayed him; and found at
Narbacán a letter from his kinglet, Don Andrés
Malóng. The latter informed him of the arrival of the Spanish
forces in his kingdom, for which reason Don Jacinto must make haste to
go there with troops under him, so that they and his own men might
together put an end to the “Spanish rabble;” and he must
carry thither with him the Indian chiefs of the villages that
[201]they had conquered, so that these might be
witnesses of the rebels’ valor against the Spaniards. Many were
the letters and papers written by that infernal monster to all the
Indian chiefs in all the provinces; and in the last ones written to Don
Jacinto Macasiag, which the bearers concealed without giving them to
him, he ordered Don Jacinto to burn all the villages with their
churches and convents, and to retreat to the woods with the Zambals,
since he had already conquered the Spaniards. But the result was quite
different; for when he wrote it Don Jacinto had already fled and taken
refuge in the hills, and the Spaniards were pursuing him.
When the Zambals saw the letter from Malóng, they
began to clamor against the natives of Narbacán, on account of
the injuries which they had received from the latter; and they swore
that for this cause they would kill them and burn their village. But
they did not fulfil the latter threat, nor dare to carry out the first,
not only because the Indians had concealed themselves in the woods, but
on account of the fear that the Zambals had conceived of
them—especially of the Indian who led them in battle, named Don
Felipe Madamba, a native of the village of Bringas; he was so loyal to
his Majesty, and so valiant, that he dashed alone, on horseback, among
the Zambals and Calanasas, cutting off their heads, without any one
being able to resist him. He was able to escape from these affrays, but
his horse and he were covered with the arrows which they shot at him,
although not one of these caused him any injury worth mention.
On the same day (that of St. Ignatius the martyr), the
army of the Zambals set out to go to Pangasinán, [202]leaving part of the village of Narbacán
in flames; the fathers, having compassion for those people, entreated
the leader, Don Jacinto, to order his men to put out the fire. He did
so, by a public order; and immediately they extinguished the flames.
Litters and carriers were already provided for the bishop and the
fathers, that they might follow the army; but they all, with one voice
and opinion, told the guards that they would not depart from
Narbacán, even though it should cost them their lives. When the
guards perceived their firm resolution, they notified their chief, Don
Jacinto Macasiag, who was willing that the fathers should remain; but
when this decision was learned by Gumapos, who had marched ahead, he
commanded his arquebusiers to go there and slay the bishop and all the
ecclesiastics. They would have carried out this order, if Don Marcos
Macasián had not dissuaded Gumapos from it—the latter
saying that the fathers did not serve in the army, and that they were
more of a hindrance than anything else, and it was therefore better to
kill them.
[On the third day after the departure of the enemy, the
people of Narbacán return to their homes. The bishop is
accidentally hurt, and Fray Bernardino becomes ill—both cases
being aggravated by the sufferings which they endured while in the
hands of the Zambals.] Generals Francisco de Esteybar and Felipe de
Ugalde were in Pangasinán, uncertain in what part of the country
the enemy might still be, in order to send thither their forces; for,
although General Ugalde had sent two champans to reconnoiter the coasts
of the provinces of Ilocos and Cagayán, they had not returned
with their report. By land, he had no letter from either the alcaldes
[203]or the religious of those provinces. With this,
and the assurances of the fathers of St. Dominic in the province of
Pangasinán that those of Ilocos and Cagayán were free
from enemies, the commanders were perplexed, and almost determined to
withdraw their forces from those provinces. Our Lord permitted that,
the champan in which Alcalde-mayor Don Alonso de Peralta and the father
visitor Fray Juan de Isla were sailing having landed at Bolinao, they
should learn there how the Spanish armada was in Pangasinán;
accordingly, they directed their course thither, and, having arrived,
found the commanders and related to them the wretched condition in
which that province of Ilocos was left. In consequence of this
information, Francisco de Esteybar at once gave orders that the army
should set out for that province. Before Francisco de Esteybar departed
from Binalatongan, he left the place fortified, with a stronghold in
the court of the church; it had four sentry-posts, four pieces of
bronze artillery carrying four-libra balls, and four
officers—Captains Don Alonso Quirante, Juan Diaz
Ibáñez, Don Juan de Guzmán, and Nicolás
Serrano. As chief commander he left Sargento-mayor Domingo
Martín Barrena, with some infantry—Spaniards, Merdicas,
and creole negroes [criollos morenos]. The
alcalde-mayor returned in his champan to Vigán, and fathers Fray
Juan de Isla and Fray Luis de la Fuente marched with the Spanish army,
which on its way reached the village of Santa Cruz. The Zambals left
Narbacán, and, reaching the village of Santa María,
sacked and burned it, as well as the convent; they did the same at San
Esteban and the village of Santiago—to whose patron [i.e.,
St. James] was attributed [204]their failure to burn the church,
although they set fire to it. They burned and plundered the villages of
San Pedro and Candón, going from the latter to that of Santa
Cruz. There they learned that the Spaniards were at Santa Lucía;
then they collected many of the valuables and cloths which they had
plundered and set fire to them, and they set out in search of the
Spaniards, who also were coming with the same object. The latter,
ignorant of the enemy’s proximity, learned of it by an accident;
this was, that father Fray Juan de la Isla, having pushed ahead of the
Spanish army, encountered a party of Zambals, from whom he escaped by a
miracle. Father Fray Juan warned the Spaniards of the Zambals’
approach, and they forthwith set out to fight the enemy. The armies
came into sight of each other between the villages of Santa Cruz and
Santa Lucía, and General Francisco de Esteybar at once commanded
that the signal for attack be given. The Zambals twice engaged our men,
with fierceness and loud shouts; but they were finally conquered by the
Spaniards—more than four hundred Zambals being killed, and the
greater part of their force taken prisoners. One of these was Don Pedro
Gumapos, holding in his hand the staff of the bishop, thus being
fulfilled what the holy prelate had prophesied to him.
The victory completed, Francisco de Esteybar withdrew
with his army to Namacpacán, where he had left Captain
Simón de Fuentes with a division of the army; they took with
them Gumapos and many other prisoners, and afterward sent them to
Vigán. There, in company with others, they hanged the rebel
leader, and after his death cut off that sacrilegious [205]hand, which was fastened near the house of the
bishop. The loss of the Spaniards was very small, but a circumstance
worthy of admiration was noted; it was that, not only in this battle
but in other encounters which had occurred, all those of the Zambal
army who were slain lay face downward, and all the dead of the Spanish
army had their faces turned upward—as if by this God had chosen
to show that the Zambals died under the curse and excommunication of
the bishop. On account of this so fortunate success, Generals Francisco
de Esteybar and Felipe de Ugalde talked of returning to Manila,
believing that now everything was quiet; but information came to them
of the new uprising by the Indians of Bacarra, and Francisco de
Esteybar at once ordered the army to march to that village. The manner
in which those Indians revolted is as follows: I have already pointed
out the multitude of letters and documents which the usurping king
Malóng wrote [to the leading men] everywhere—more
especially to Don Juan Magsanop and Don Pedro Almazán. The
latter was a very rich chief, a native of the village of San
Nicolás (then a visita of Ilauag), and so bitterly hostile to
the Spaniards that he kept in his house as many pairs of fetters as
there were fathers and Spaniards in the entire province, in order to
fasten these on them when he should have opportunity. This Don Pedro
Almazán formed an alliance with Don Juan Magsanop, a native of
Bangi, a visita of the village of Bacarra; and with Don Gaspar
Cristóbal, headman of Ilauag, and a native of that village. The
former, in order to make sure of Don Gaspar Cristóbal, asked him
for his daughter, to marry her to his own oldest son; and [206]these three Indians, as being so influential,
continually stirred up others to join their conspiracy, and called in
the Calanasa tribe to aid them.
The Calanasas were heathen barbarians who lived in the
clefts of the mountains and other rocky places, and their only
occupation was the killing of men and animals. Feeling safe with such
aid as this, the leaders of the conspiracy undertook to make Don Pedro
Almazán king of the province of Ilocos, and they swore
allegiance to his son as prince; the latter celebrated his wedding with
the daughter of Don Gaspar Cristóbal, as they had agreed. In
order that the [former] function might be celebrated with all solemnity
and not lack what was requisite, they plundered the church in the
village of Ilauag, and with the crown which they took from the head of
the Queen of Angels (who is venerated in that church) they crowned Don
Pedro Almazán as king and the married pair as princes. All these
proceedings were carried on so secretly that they could never be
traced; and in this condition of their plot the letter of Don
Andrés Malóng found them, in which he notified them that
he had conquered the Spaniards. As now they were free, in their own
opinion, from that danger, and safe from the Zambals, who were on their
march from Pangasinán, it seemed to them now time to bring to
light their depraved intentions. Before doing so, Don Juan Magsanop
wrote from Bacarra a letter to Don Gaspar Cristóbal, in which he
asked what opinion the latter had reached, and that he be informed of
it. The reply which Don Gaspar Cristóbal gave was to take a
fagot of reeds in his hand, and himself set fire to the church in
Ilauag; and he ordered the bearer of the [207]letter to carry back
that reply. When this was known to Magsanop, he made himself known,
with banners displayed, at Bacarra at the end of January, 1661, and
sent word to the Calanasas to come down with all speed to his aid. In
the rebel league were joined the villages of Pata and
Cabicungán, administered by the fathers of St. Dominic, their
minister at that time being father Fray José Santa María;
hearing the tumult and the shouts of the rebels, he went out of the
convent, against the advice of a Spaniard (whose name is not known) who
had taken refuge in it. Father Fray José persisted in his
resolution, but as soon as the rebels saw him many attacked him; and,
piercing him with many javelins they cut off his head, and with great
delight went to sack the convent. They made the attack by way of the
church, the doors of which were locked; but the brave Spaniard, now
bereft of the father, when he heard their clamor from within fastened
all the windows and doors that he could reach, and loaded two guns that
he had inside. The servants of the father who had remained there kept
loading the guns for him, and, aiming through some loopholes or
apertures, they allowed the multitude to come close to the building,
and then fired, without a shot failing to hit. He accomplished so much
that the rebels, persuaded that some company of soldiers were inside
the church, retreated without executing their purpose of sacking and
burning the church and convent.
On the first of February this melancholy tidings reached
the village of Narbacán, where there were nine religious of the
order of our father St. Augustine, exchanging congratulations and
expressions of joy over the freedom that they were beginning to
[208]enjoy with the departure, that day, of the
Zambal army. All their joy was changed into sadness and perplexity by
the news of what had occurred at Ilauag; but the one who felt this most
was father Fray José Arias, at that time prior of the village of
Bacarra. [Feeling that duty calls him to go back, there, he does so,
although against the entreaties of his brethren. His people welcome his
return, but at the news that the Calanasas are approaching all take to
flight, carrying the friar with them; but later they leave him in the
house of a native helper. “The streets were full of rebels and
Calanasas, who with loud shouts and yells acclaimed Don Pedro
Almazán as king, and threatened all the Spaniards with
death.” Fray José and the helper plan to escape by night,
but an envoy from the rebels warns the latter to drive the friar from
his house, or they will kill him and his family; frightened at this, he
carries the father to another house. “In a little while Don
Tomás Bisaya, one of the heads of the conspiracy, sent a mulatto
named Juan (who had been a servant of the fathers) with some men, and
an order to Fray José to enter a petaca47, so that he
could escape to the village of Ilauag.” He does this, and the
party set out for that village; but on the way they meet a party of
rebels, who kill the father, cut off his head, and carry it to
Magsanop. Diaz here copies the relation of this affair which was sent
to the Augustinians throughout the province, a letter from the
provincial, Fray Diego de Ordás, citing the account sent to him
by Bishop Cárdenas. “Magsanop and the other tyrants
celebrated this victory, all drinking from the skull of the venerable
father, which served in their [209]barbarous proceedings as a
precious vase.... After several days his head was ransomed, and
interred with his body.”]
The army of General Francisco de Esteybar marched to
Bacarra, but the first to arrive was Lorenzo Arqueros, with a
detachment of more than a thousand men, Ilocans and Cagayans; the
rebels and the Calanasas, not daring to face these, retreated with all
speed to the woods, but Lorenzo Arqueros did not fail to search for
them, in whatever places they had concealed themselves. He seized
Magsanop, who, angered at seeing himself a prisoner, drew a dagger and
killed himself with it, a worthy punishment for his sacrilegious
perfidy. Don Pedro Almazán, who had taken horse to flee, burst
into a fury, and died raging;48 and all his children met
wretched deaths.
General Francisco de Esteybar arrived with all his army
at the village of Bacarra, but Lorenzo Arqueros had it already reduced
to quiet, so that the general had nothing to do, except to order that a
fort be built in Bacarra and garrisoned with soldiers, so as to secure
the province from other disturbances. General Sebastián Rayo
Doria gave orders for the execution of the commission which he bore, by
agreement of the royal Audiencia, to administer justice to those who
were most guilty; his military judge was Licentiate Don Juan de
Rosales, and the notary was Nicolás de Herrera, who began their
official duties, bringing legal proceedings [against the rebels]. The
penalties of justice were inflicted as follows: In Vigán, Don
Pedro Gumapos was [210]shot through the back, and afterward the
hand with which he took the staff from the bishop was cut off; and Don
Cristóbal Ambagán, Don Pedro Almazán, Don
Tomás Boaya,49 Don Pedro de la Peña,
and others, to the number of sixteen, were hanged. In Binalatongan was
erected a square gallows, as in Vigán, and the following were
hanged: Don Melchor de Vera, Don Francisco de Pacadua, Don Francisco
Along, and Don Jacinto Macasiag; a Sangley mestizo, named Domingo
Isón, although he said that he died innocent; a man of
half-Malabar blood, named Lorenzo; and others, to the number of
fourteen. It is quite remarkable that, when the sacristans were in the
[church] tower with orders from the father ministers to toll the bells
as soon as each of those who were hanged was dead, when it came to the
turn of Domingo Isón they rang a peal instead of tolling,
without having had an order for it; in this it seems as if the divine
Majesty chose to demonstrate his innocence, as it was afterward
ascertained. They promptly shot Don Andrés Malóng, placed
in the middle, seated on a stone; and this was the end of his unhappy
reign in Pangasinán. Afterward, in Mexico, punishment was
inflicted on Don Francisco and Don Cristóbal Mañago, who
were shot; and some were hanged—Don Juan Palasigui, Don Marcos
Marcasián, Sargento-mayor Chombillo, Supil and Baluyot of
Guagua, the amanuensis, and many others. José Celis, the lawyer,
was carried to Manila, where he was hanged. After these executions,
Licentiate Manuel Suárez de Olivera, [211]the
senior advocate of the royal Audiencia, printed a treatise against Don
Juan de Rosales, in which he condemned the excessive rigor of these
punishments. This was answered by Don Juan de Rosales with another
pamphlet—very learned, which also was printed—whose theme
was Feci judicium et justitiam, non tradas me
calumniantibus me, drawn from Psalm 118,50 justifying
his proceedings to the satisfaction of those who were free from
prejudice.
Thus was quenched that infernal fire which kindled
discord in the hearts of the natives of the provinces of Pampanga and
Pangasinán, and of the Indians of the village of Bacarra in
Ilocos—a fire which threatened to consume the peace and obedience
of the other provinces of these islands, whose people were on the watch
for its outcome, in order to declare themselves [rebels] and prove
Fortune, and to gain what seemed to them liberty. But this would have
been, quite to the contrary, their entire perdition; for, escaping from
their civilized subjection to the Spaniards, they would have fallen
back into the barbarous tyranny of their own people—which, like
chips from the same log,51 is what most hurts, as
experience shows; and the natives themselves know this. They were
continually experiencing this in the tumult in Pampanga, for the
tyrannical acts and the extortions which they suffered from the
principal leaders of the revolt were more grievous than those which
they experienced or could fear from subjection to the Spaniards. So
true is [212]this that in the village of Guagua it was said
by an old chief who survived that time, named Don Pedro Anas, that so
great was the confusion and lawlessness, and so tyrannical were the
leaders of the outbreak, that if the governor Don Sabiniano Manrique de
Lara had not come so promptly with his troops, the Indians themselves
would have gone to Manila to make their submission at his feet; some of
them could not unite with the others, and, although all desired
liberty, they did not work together to secure the means for attaining
it, and therefore they experienced a heavier [yoke of] subjection. And
among the peoples whom God seems to have created that they may live in
subjection to others who govern them with justice and authority are
those of these Filipinas Islands; for when the Spanish arms conquered
them with so great facility they were living without a head, without
king or lord to obey—being only tyrannized over by him who among
them displayed most courage; and this subjection was continually
changing, other men, of greater valor and sagacity, gaining the
ascendency.
Nor was the least cause of their reduction the diligent
efforts of the religious who were ministers in these provinces, with
their notable assiduity in preaching to the natives and exhorting them,
with the arguments that we have already stated; and in this task they
suffered the greatest hardships and dangers to life. In the province of
Ilocos, fathers Fray Bernardino Márquez, Fray Gonzalo de la
Palma, Fray Luís de la Fuente, and Fray Juan de Isla. In
Pampanga, the following fathers were very prominent in the reduction:
in Bacolor, Fray Francisco de Medina Basco; in Guagua, Fray Luís
de la [215]Vega; in Lubao, Fray José Botoño;
in Mexico, Fray José Cornejo; in Candaba, Fray Pedro de Eguiluz;
in Apalit, Fray José de Tapia; in Macabebe, Fray Enrique de
Castro; but, more than all, Fray José Duque and Fray Isidro
Rodríguez, whose authority among the natives could overcome the
greatest difficulties. Information to this effect was given to the
royal and supreme Council of the Indias by Don Sabiniano Manrique de
Lara himself, in Madrid, after his return from his government in the
year 1667—when father Fray Isidro Rodríguez was at the
same court as procurator for this province, soliciting the numerous
mission which he conducted hither, and in which I came, the least of
its members.
[Notable among the losses and injuries caused by the
Zambal raid was the death of the bishop of Nueva Segovia, Don Fray
Rodrigo de Cárdenas, of whom Diaz gives a biographical sketch.
He died at Manila, early in May, 1661.]
In Otón (Panay); 1663
[As related by Diaz in his Conquistas,
pp. 640–644.] At the time when this conflagration52—which threatened to destroy what Spanish
constancy had gained in these islands during a hundred and ten
years—had just been extinguished, another and new one began to
burn in the province of Ogtong in Pintados; and, if timely measures had
not been taken to check it, this one would have caused greater ravages
than the previous rebellions in the provinces of Pampanga,
Pangasinán, and Ilocos. This entire province [216]is
in charge of our religious. We have in it eight convents and
doctrinas—Antique, Guimbal, Tigbauan, Ogtong, Jaro, Dumangas,
Laglag, and Pasig53—which belong to the jurisdiction of
the alcalde-mayor who resides in Iloilo, where there is a good supply
of artillery, with two companies of Spaniards, and one of Pampangos.
This province and that of Panay are united in one island, yielding a
great abundance of rice; it is the Sicilia of Filipinas for its
fertility, and also resembles that island in its extent, and in having
three promontories such as gave it the name Trinacria. This island is
called Panay, so even its name suits it; for in it there grows so great
an abundance of rice, which is the bread of this country. It contains
two provinces, governed by two alcaldes-mayor—that of Iloilo,
already mentioned, and that of Panay; the latter rules over nine large
villages. Of these, six are in charge of the order of our father St.
Augustine—Capiz, Panay, Batan, Mambusao, Dumalag, and
Dumarao;54 two are administered by secular priests,
Aclán and Ibahay; and the island of Romblón is a doctrina
of the discalced religious [i.e., Recollects] of our father St.
Augustine. [Diaz here refers to the description of Panay and the
Augustinian houses therein which [217]is given by Medina, and to
the foundation of their convent at Laglag.55] This
ministry and doctrina comprises five visitas and dependent churches:
two on the river that is called Araut, named Sibucao and Sumandig; and
three in the mountains, Misi, Camantugan, and Malonor. These were a
cruel and rude people, and greatly addicted to superstitions and
heathen rites on account of living so separated from intercourse with
the gospel ministers—who throughout the year share, in their
turn, in the instruction and administration of these visitas. It cost
the first religious many hardships to tame these mountaineers and
instruct them in the holy faith; for what they gained with the utmost
toil in a week was dissipated during the absence of the religious from
their ministry. The village of Malonor always had disguised
babaylanes—which is the same as “priests of the
demon,” by whose direction the sacrifices which they made
proceeded. They offered up swine, birds, and various kinds of food
produced by the ground; and held solemn drinking-feasts—the main
purpose of the universal enemy [of souls], since from this vice
resulted many acts of lewdness and [other] abominations, all which
tended to the perdition of their souls.
The prior and minister of that district in this year of
1663 was father Fray Francisco de Mesa—a native of the city of
Manila,56 and who had professed [218]in
our convent of San Pablo; a religious of great virtue, and most zealous
and diligent in fulfilling the obligations of his office. In the visita
of Malonor there was at this time a malicious Indian, a noted sorcerer
and priest of the demon, who lived in concealment in the dense forest;
and there he called together the Indians, telling them that he was
commanded by the nonos—who are the souls of their first
ancestors who came over to people these Filipinas—in whose name
he assured them that the demon had appeared to them in trees and caves.
This minister of Satan was named Tapar, and went about in the garb of a
woman, on account of the office of babaylán and priest of the
demon, with whom they supposed that he had a pact and frequent
communication. Moreover, he wrought prodigies resembling the miracles,
with which he kept that ignorant people deluded.
With these impostures and frauds Tapar obtained so much
influence that the people followed him, revering him as a prophet, and
he taught them to worship idols and offer sacrifices to Satan. Seeing
that he had many followers, and that his reputation was well
established, he made himself known, declaring that he was the Eternal
Father; and he invented a diabolical farce, naming one of his most
intimate associates for the Son, and another for the Holy Ghost, while
to a shameless prostitute they gave the name of María Santisima
[“Mary most holy”], as the name of Mary had been given her
in [219]baptism.57 Then he appointed
apostles, and to others he gave titles of pope and bishops; and in
frequent assemblies they committed execrable abominations, performed
with frequent drinking-bouts, in which there were shocking fornications
among the men and women, both married and unmarried. This debauchery
ended with the sacrifice to the demon, who, they said, gave them
replies, although confused ones; but all were for their greater
perdition; at other times, they believed, the demon appeared to them in
various forms. All these things were done in the most retired part of
the mountains, which there are very craggy. For a long time this
infernal epidemic remained concealed; but finally spread as far as the
visitas of the villages of Jaro and Pasig, although those who were
infected by it were not so many there as in the village of Malonor,
where the morals of those wretched people; deluded by the demon, were
more corrupt.
Father Fray Francisco de Mesa received word of the
unhappy condition in which were the souls of those parishioners of his;
and, knowing that that cancer, which was spreading so far, needed to be
severely cauterized, he gave information of all this to the
purveyor-general of Pintados, the alcalde-mayor of that province,
Admiral Pedro Duran de Monforte—a valiant soldier, whom we have
mentioned [220]in this history at various times. That officer,
with the promptness that was necessary, sent Captains Gregorio de
Peralta, Nicolás Becerra, and Francisco Duarte, and Adjutants
Pedro Farfán and Pedro Brazales, with some Spaniards, Pampangos,
and Merdicas from Siao (which is an island of Maluco)—a brave
people, but cruel, which is a vice of cowards.
While the people were on their way to the village of
Malonor, father Fray Francisco de Mesa decided to risk the attempt to
prove whether he could through his preaching persuade them to accept
better counsels, and, repentant, to put an end to that abominable farce
of apostates; for it seemed to him that he would not fulfil his
obligation if he did not make this endeavor. He encountered much
opposition from the chiefs of the village of Laglag, who were not
accomplices in the sedition by those of Malonor; but with intrepid
courage to confer with the rebels. He reached the village and sent word
to them to assemble in some convenient place, where he would go to
discuss with them what concerned the deliverance of their souls, in
case they were unwilling to come to the place where father Fray
Francisco was. They replied “that they would not go out of the
place where” (on account of its being rugged) “they had
taken refuge for the sake of their safety—not, however, for fear
of the Spaniards, whom they esteemed but lightly, for they themselves
were accompanied by all the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and
all the apostles, who would defend them by working miracles.”
They also said that they did not need father ministers, because they
had popes and bishops and priests who could minister to [221]them
in their own way, although it was very different from that which the
fathers used; and “that Fray Francisco should be content with
this, that they did not undertake to do harm to the other Christians
who, deluded, followed him—although they could do these much harm
with the power of God the Father, who assisted them”—and in
this fashion they uttered other execrable blasphemies.
Father Fray Francisco, grieved at the perdition of those
souls, with intrepid heart determined to go to the place where the
rebels were (which was almost inaccessible on account of its
ruggedness), where they had erected a shed which served them as a
temple in which to offer their sacrifices to the demon and to hold
their infamous assemblies. But he did not venture to do so, being
dissuaded by the peaceable Indians of Laglag, and by Fray Martín
de Mansilla, the prior of Pasig; for that would be to search
imprudently for danger, without hope of accomplishing even the least
good, since the people of Malonor were so obstinate. The prior told him
that it was better to wait for the coming of the Spaniards. But this
was not enough to prevent him from going to the said Laglag.58
The father arrived, very late in the day, at the house
which he had in the village, close to the church, with the intention of
obtaining better information regarding the condition of those misguided
people, so as to see if he could make any endeavor for the good of
their souls. In case he could not do so, he intended to return to
Laglag the next day, and there await the coming of the Spaniards.
[222]The rebellious apostates consulted the demon as
to what they should do; and in consequence resolved to put Father
Francisco to death; and they proceeded to carry out this decision. It
was about midnight when they all came down to the village in a mob; and
some surrounded the house, which was made of bamboo, and others began
to thrust their lances through the openings in the floor, between the
bamboos, wounding father Fray Francisco, and uttering many abusive
words. The father religious, alarmed at his peril, sprang up intending
to jump out at the windows, as the house stood very low, not
considering the greater danger of this. As he leaped, the insurgents
ran toward him, and received him on the points of their lances; and all
he could do was to reach the cross which stood in the cemetery, next to
the church. He embraced it tenderly, and in this position received many
lance-thrusts; and thus, his arms flung round the holy cross, and
uttering loving and devout words, he rendered his soul to the
Lord—to go, as we may piously believe, to enjoy eternal
peace.59 The insurgents burned the house and the church,
but they did not dare to profane the body of the venerable father, and
retreated to the most secluded part of those mountains.
On the same day when the news that the apostates had
killed the father reached the village of Laglag the Spaniards and
soldiers arrived whom Admiral Pedro Durán had sent; and with
them came the [223]notary-public of the province and Lorenzo Tallez
Mucientes to make an investigation [of the murder], although there was
some delay in the arrival of the alcalde-mayor, Pedro Durán, in
person. Two days after the death of the venerable father, they went to
the village of Malonor, and found the body of the venerable father at
the foot of the cross—quite ruddy and without corruption, and the
blood dropping from it as if the murderers had but that instant slain
him (as the notary Bernabé López has assured me at
various times); and it remained in the same incorruption, and without
the blood coagulating, until the third day, when they buried it in the
church of Laglag. Pedro Durán proceeded, as both a soldier and a
judge, to search for the aggressors; and a considerable time after the
death of the venerable father, and after many endeavors, and having
employed adroit spies, the Spaniards seized the principal actors in the
diabolical farce. Others defended themselves and were slain; but their
corpses were brought in, and carried with the criminals to the port of
Iloilo. There justice was executed upon them; they were fastened to
stakes in the river of Araut,60 and the body of the accursed
woman who played the part of the Blessed Virgin was impaled on a stake
and placed at the mouth of the river of Laglag.
In Otón; 1672
[This is related by Diaz in his Conquistas, pp. 696–697.] [224]
The spirit of discord also roamed through the mountains
of the province of Ogtong in the island of Panay, causing a disturbance
which had an aspect more ridiculous than serious; and if I have
concluded to set it down here it is only to show the pliability of
disposition in these Indians in believing every new thing, even when it
is groundless, simply because fear persuades them to believe whatever
is inimical to the Spaniards, and especially if it is to their
discredit. In the villages of Miagao and other visitas of Tigbauan, the
collector of tributes for the king was a soldier born in Nueva
España, of a merry and jesting disposition; he without heeding
what would result, told among the Indians this exceedingly absurd
story: “That the king of España had gone out to the
seashore for recreation, so heedless of danger and so lightly attended
that he had been captured by some Turkish galleys that landed at that
shore, and had been carried away to the court of the Grand Turk, who
demanded for his ransom an enormous number of slaves; and that to
comply with this demand he had sent many ships, which were to carry all
the natives of that province to him, so that he could deliver them to
the Turks.” The soldier told them that several ships had come for
this purpose, which were already in the harbor of Iloilo; and that the
alcalde-mayor Don Sebastián de Villarreal and other Spaniards
had to go with the ships, in order to make this delivery. This foolish
and so perverse story was so thoroughly believed by the Bisayan
Indians61 that it caused a great disturbance [225]and
commotion among the inhabitants of the villages of Tigbauan, Miagao,
Guimbal, and their visitas—so that, abandoning their homes and
villages, they fled to the woods without concerted action, publishing
the story that the Turks were already close by to seize them, and would
carry the natives to their king as prisoners. The father ministers, as
being nearest to them, experienced great perplexity, not being able to
bring back the fugitives, as they did not know the cause of their
disturbance; for when the natives perceived any religious they only
took to flight, crying out, “Turks!” and thus the villages
were being depopulated.
When the said alcalde-mayor learned this, he gathered
all the soldiers that he could find, and reënlisted many veteran
soldiers; and, in company with the father ministers Fray Marcos
Gabilán, Fray Marcos González, and Fray Agustín de
Estrada, he set out with all speed to see if he could check the
disturbance; for he did not know of the falsehood uttered by the demon
through the lips of the soldier. [226]But this measure tended to
fan the flames and to give further confirmation to that lie; they
found, therefore, the villages deserted, and feared that this was a
general rebellion. At last, the absurd cause which had influenced the
natives was ascertained; and in a conference of the father ministers
and the sensible Spaniards they chose the more prudent measure of
withdrawing the troops, and allowing the natives to be undeceived by
the course of events. The soldier, who must have been more knave than
dolt, succeeded in concealing himself so well that nothing was known of
him for a long time, because he left the island. The end of this
revolution was, that gradually the Indians became undeceived, and
ascertained that the whole thing was a lie; and through the agency of
father Fray Agustín de Estrada, of whom they had a very high
opinion, they were pacified, and brought back to their villages and
homes. This is written only that some idea may be formed of the
readiness with which these natives believe any lie; and the
difficulties experienced by the religious who live among them as
ministers, and the danger to the lives of the fathers if the demon
concocts some fiction which, like this, is to their detriment or to the
discredit of the Spaniards.
In Playa Honda; 1681
[From Diaz’s Conquistas, pp.
747–748.]
The governor, Don Juan de Vargas, in view of the many
ravages, murders, and thefts which the revolted Zambals of Playa Honda
had committed—infesting the road from Pangasinán to
Ilocos, and harassing the adjoining villages that were subject to the
Spanish dominion—determined to curb their [227]audacity by some exploit which would inspire
them with fear, and to restrain for the future their insolence and
daring. For this purpose he sent Captain Alonso Martín Franco
and Captain Simón de Torres, with a suitable number of
Spaniards, Pampangos, and Merdicas (who are Ternatans and Malays), and
gave them the orders that were desirable for the success of so useful
an expedition—that Simón de Torres and Alonso
Martín Franco, each with half of the soldiers, should go in
opposite directions, beating the woods, and fighting with any Zambals
whom they might encounter. They did so, compelling the rebels to
retreat as far as the place where their companions were; and on St.
James’s day the two captains joined their forces, the signal
being the discharge of three exploding rockets, and fought with the
Zambal insurgents. They carried out their orders and fought against
these enemies, who are indeed a warlike people, and killed many of
them, not without some loss of our men. Their leader was a valiant
Zambal named Tumalang, to whom the inhabitants of those mountains
rendered obedience; this man, seeing the death of an associate of his
in whom he greatly trusted, whom Alonso Martín Franco had slain,
and influenced by some higher feeling, declared that he wished to be a
friend of the Spaniards, and with his people to establish villages
where he would be under Spanish rule. A very convenient location was
set apart, and therein was founded a handsome village called Nueva
Toledo, and some others near a fort that is called
Pignamén,62 which Don Manuel de León ordered to
[228]be founded—in which, by order of the
governor, Captain Alonso Martín Franco remained as commandant,
with a larger garrison; and this fort has been most efficacious for
averting such losses as they then experienced. Chief Tumalang received
holy baptism, and was named Don Alonso; and he declared that it was he
who had cut off the head of Don Felipe Ugalde,63 whose skull
he had in his possession as a trophy. This he surrendered to
Martín Franco, that he might bury it in consecrated ground. The
command of this fort is today an office that is conferred on a very
meritorious officer; he has jurisdiction in all those villages of Playa
Honda, and appoints in them governors who administer justice, as do the
alcaldes-mayor of these islands in their [respective] provinces.
In Zambal villages; 1683
[The following account is taken from Salazar’s
Hist. de Sant. Rosario, pp. 300–311. It was a
revolt against ecclesiastical authority, and would have ended in the
liberation of the Zambals from all Spanish rule, had they not been in
awe of the fort and garrison of Paynauen. Salazar’s relation is
interesting in regard to native character and missionary methods.]
There was in the village of Balacbac an Indian
[229]chief named Dulinen, to whose following belonged
a great part of the village; although he came down [from the hills] to
live in a settlement, it was more from worldly considerations than from
affection for a Christian mode of life, and he therefore left in the
mountains all his valuables, and a nephew of his for a guard over them.
This was learned by an Indian named Calignao, who went to the mountain
and slew the nephew of Dulinen—who, incensed at this, urged his
followers to go with him to the mountain to avenge the death of his
nephew. When this came to the knowledge of the servant of God,64 he made every effort to prevent this flight, and
although he restrained some of them he could not entirely prevent it;
accordingly, that chief went back to the mountains, followed by
seventeen families. The commandant of the fort at Paynaoven
[sic], when he learned of this departure, attacked the chief and
his followers, and burned down the village of Aglao, of which the
murderer Calignao and the said chief were natives, and which was near
that of Balacbac, where at that time all lived. The said Calignao had
many kinsmen, and, in order that these might not go away and flee to
the mountains, father Fray Domingo endeavored to gain their good-will;
he asked the commandant for a commission as adjutant for Calignao,
which the commandant immediately gave him—adding, to pacify the
Indians, that the killing [230]by Calignao had been done in
compliance with a command by the government that all those should be
killed who would not come down to the settlements, etc. With this the
men of Balacbac were calmed, but their quiet did not last long; for a
relative of Calignao named Dagdagan, who accompanied the commandant and
his soldiers, promised to attack the chief who had fled. Entering the
woods to carry out this plan, he went but a few paces when he was slain
by a Negrillo of the mountains; and, through the mischief-making of a
wicked Indian, his relatives believed that the religious had occasioned
this death. They assembled to celebrate his funeral rites with much
wine-drinking (a common usage among these infidels); and their carousal
resulted in an agreement to cut off the head of the servant of God, for
which exploit Calignao offered himself, in return for the kind acts
which father Fray Domingo had done for him. And now that we have this
evil man under consideration [entre manos] it will be
well to point out something of his life, in order that what remains to
be told of him may not afterward cause surprise. Thomas Calignao was a
native of the village of Aglao, distant two leguas from Balacbac, and
was a Christian from his childhood—although of Christian he had
only the name; for his life and habits were worse than those of a
heathen. He never heard mass, or made a confession; he observed neither
human nor divine nor even natural law; for his only endeavor was to cut
off heads—even if they were those of children or
women—without further cause or motive than his craving to kill
for the sake of killing. On account of these and many other sins, the
commandant often intended [231]to put him to death; but he did
not carry out this purpose, through the intercession of father Fray
Domingo, for the servant of God said (and not unjustly): “If you
kill this man, who has so large a following, many will return to the
mountains; but if he is reclaimed to an upright life he will bring in
and convert many Cimarrons, and can be very helpful to us in our
ministry.” For these and other reasons, and for the salvation of
that soul, father Fray Domingo made every effort to convert Calignao to
a good life—now with advice, now with kind acts, again with
examples, flattering words, and promises, and sometimes with
threats—[telling Calignao] that unless he mended his ways, he
would leave the commandant to do his duty. None of these methods
sufficed to reclaim him, for, even when it seemed as if he were
somewhat softened, if they summoned him to hear mass he became
indignant, and heard it while seated and smoking tobacco (an
impropriety unheard-of in this country); and if the father commanded
him to kneel he was inflamed with anger and excitement—most of
all, when the father commanded him to come for instruction in the
[Christian] doctrine, his ignorance of which made him so bad a
Christian. Father Fray Domingo, seeing how little attention Calignao
paid to his counsels, availed himself of his relatives and other
influential persons, in order that they might bring him to reason and
to decent living. But all this was lost time, for besides not hearing
mass on the feast-days, or attending instruction (as all did), all that
he cared or watched for was to kill others and become drunk; and
although he did this, as he thought, in secret, other persons told it
to father Fray Domingo, who rebuked him for his cruel [232]acts
and his persistence in his evil ways. From this arose the hatred and
ill-will which Calignao entertained for the servant of God; and in
order to remove him thus, and not have in future any one who would
rebuke him, he now offered to cut off the father’s head.
On a certain occasion Calignao killed a poor woman; and
as the aggressor was unknown, as this happened in a hidden place,
father Fray Domingo undertook, in order to learn who did it, to use the
stratagem of feeling the pulse of every person in the village. All
agreed to this, except Calignao, who, being present at this trial,
escaped and fled to the woods for several days. Soon returning thence
to the village, he went about visiting his relatives; he told them that
he was going to the mountains, not to return; but that, before he went
away, he must cut off some heads. He thereupon went to the house of an
Indian, a nephew of the woman whom he had murdered, and in order to
kill him unsheathed the ygua, which is worse than a
butcher’s knife; but the Indian, who was seated, seized his
dagger in his hand, and remained thus, quietly—at which Calignao
was afraid, and did not dare to carry out his purpose. At the noise of
this, all the people hastened thither, as did father Fray Domingo, who,
seeing the perverse Calignao in the mood for cutting off heads, said to
him: “Come here, thou wicked man. Are not the murders that thou
committest at night enough, without trying to kill in daylight, and in
sight of all?” To which he replied: “I am looking for thee,
Father, for thee first of all; do thou come here.” Two Indians
then approached to pacify him; but all was in vain, for he was blind
with anger and fury; [233]and when they tried to bring him to reason,
he hastily went out and fled to the mountains. Soon afterward he
returned to the village, and, passing in front of the convent at a time
when the servant of God was at the window, Calignao began to defy him,
with both words and gestures; but father Fray Domingo answered him:
“Since thou knowest that the religious do not kill, or carry
arms, thou talkest thus—as thou wouldst not talk or act with the
soldiers.” This made Calignao very ugly, and, walking throughout
the midst of the village, he declared that he would not halt until he
had taken the head from father Fray Domingo; and no one dared say a
word to him, because he was sheltered by his relatives. The commandant
of the fort, having learned of the cruel and shameless acts of
Calignao, sent seven Spanish soldiers to guard father Fray Domingo, and
ordered them to arrest or kill that evil man; but, although they twice
had the opportunity to do this, the servant of God prevented it, and,
most of the soldiers having become sick, they returned to their fort
without having accomplished anything. The commandant, at this, ordered
the headman of Balacbac to seize or kill Calignao, who every day went
in or out of the said village; but he did not carry out this order, for
all feared him and showed him respect—rather, indeed, they
watched over his safety.
For more than three years the servant of God went about,
inquiring, with great solicitude into the idolatrous customs which the
Zambals had; and for this he availed himself of the boys—whom he
assembled together, and taught to read, and related to them the
examples and lives of the saints, bestowing [234]on
them presents and kindnesses, with great affection. Then he questioned
them as to the method and the times in which their parents and elders
practiced idolatry, and they told him everything, with all details.
This was especially true of the boy Diego, whom father Fray Domingo
baptized in Abucay; he was a nephew of a priest of their idols, and was
very well instructed in our holy faith; and he was not suspected of
telling the father what conduced to the greater service and honor of
God. Father Fray Domingo charged the rest of the boys to keep this
secret, so that their parents should not flog them; and through fear of
this they remained silent, so that it was never known that the boys
were the ones who had revealed the practice of idolatry. Thus father
Fray Domingo came to know that the chiefs of the villages were the
priests of the idols, and that they found this profitable; for by
[filling] this office they obtained their food, and had the advantage
in any controversy, and, without this, they would fare ill. Also that
the common people were in great subjection and obedience to the said
priests, who could incite them to any daring act—especially
since, as he was informed, all the people in the province, both
infidels and Christians, had been bound by promise and oath not to
reveal their idolatries, no matter how many inquiries the father should
make, even though they were ruined or lost their lives by this silence.
Accordingly the servant of God found this undertaking very arduous, and
foresaw that it would cost him many hardships, and that he would in it
expose himself to many dangers to his reputation, and honor, and even
to his life. Notwithstanding, like another Elias, zeal for the honor of
God [235]flamed in him; and laying aside all fear for
what might come, he directed his efforts and all his energies to the
destruction of this infernal vice.
When Lent came around in the year 1683, he began his war
against idolatry, having first commended to God this his undertaking.
He summoned to his presence each one of the idolaters, and said to one:
“Thou hast these and these instruments, and with them thou didst
offer sacrifice on such a day, in company with N. and
N.”65 To another he said: “Thou art a priest of
so many idols, and for these thou hast so many implements, kept in such
and such a place—with which thou renderest to the demon the honor
and reverence which are due to God alone, the Author of creation. As
proofs of this, on such a day thou didst sacrifice in company with N.
and N., and on such a day with N.” In this manner he went on,
examining all the Zambals; and they, seeing these accurate proofs,
regarded the servant of God as a soothsayer, and handed over to him the
instruments of their idol-worship. Immediately he gave these to the
boys, so that they could break in pieces and abuse them; and finally he
commanded them to burn these articles in the sight of all. The
spectators were amazed at seeing that neither the father nor the
children died as a result of this desecration of their idols; for they
had believed that he who should profane these instruments must perish.
The father preached to them, and taught them what they must do in
future. Having accomplished this in Baubuen, he proceeded to the
villages of Balacbac and Alalang[236]—where, although at the
beginning he encountered some resistance, he finally succeeded in his
purpose that these Indians also should surrender to him the implements
of idol-worship that they possessed. Having placed all these in a
little hut, he set fire to it, and all were burned, not without the
surprise of these Indians also that no disaster happened to the
father.
The Indians of these villages requested that those of
the village of Masingloc should not be told that the former had
surrendered their implements, because all had sworn an oath not to do
so, and, if it were known that they had given up these articles, the
others would come to attack, them. Notwithstanding this petition, the
servant of God proceeded to do the same at Masingloc, three or four
times; there he encountered an old chief, who was the Bayoc, or head
priest, who delegated jurisdiction to the rest in order that they could
sacrifice to their idols. With this diabolical man, possessed by a
demon, the servant of God labored without measure, preaching to him,
and convincing him with arguments; but in no way could he be cured of
his obstinacy, even when one day father Fray Domingo went so far as to
cast himself at his feet and kiss them—watering them with his
tears, which ran in streams over his cheeks—begging him for the
love of God to give up that practice [of idolatry] and be converted to
God with all his heart, and relating to him many instances that were
pertinent to the subject; but the old man, obstinate and possessed by a
demon, showed himself rebellious, hard, and stubborn. The chiefs of
Masingloc, seeing the activity of the servant of God, and the
earnestness with which he [237]went about that business, sent
nine of their number to Manila, who presented a petition to the
government saying that they had been Christians for ninety
years66 and had never kept idols; and now father Fray
Domingo Perez had given them the reputation of being idolaters, taking
away their good name, etc. This caused the servant of God to suffer
much in regard to his own reputation; for in Manila, as people had not
kept the matter in mind, each one considered it according to his own
personal feelings [238]and the most moderate called it indiscreet
zeal, and others lack of judgment. At that time the suits against
Señor Pardo were at their height, since about this time he was
arrested; accordingly, all those who were governing had a poor opinion
of the Dominican friars. And now with the petition of these Indians
they were more confirmed in their opinion, treating us as violators of
the peace, and disturbers of the people; and all this was charged to
the servant of God, as, to appearances, the origin and cause of all the
trouble. Accordingly, very severe letters were written to him from
Manila, censuring him for imprudent conduct, etc. But the commandant at
the fort at Paynaven, as soon as he learned of the result, wrote to the
governor, telling him the entire truth, and asking him to arrest those
Indians; but when this despatch reached Manila, the petition had been
already presented, and representations had been made against the
servant of God, and in favor of the Zambal Indians. Notwithstanding
this, the governor did what the commandant asked him, placing the
Indians in the fort [of Santiago]. When this was known by the people of
Masingloc, they immediately surrendered a hundred and fifty implements
with which they served and adored their idols; and the commandant again
wrote to the governor, asking him to release the nine Indians. This was
done, but on the return to their village one of them died after a brief
illness; he was the chief minister of the idols, although he did not
make this known up to the hour of his death. The others also quickly
became ill, and they died one after another, God punishing their
insolence, and defending the honor of His servant.
Most of the Indians were reclaimed, and confirmed
[239]in our holy faith, by the words and deeds of
father Fray Domingo; and they therefore voluntarily gave up the
instruments with which they formerly sacrificed to the
demon—although many did so because they could not resist,
especially those who were priests and had obtained their living by
those practices; these were the chief men of the villages. They
remained grieved and angry, and with little love for the servant of
God; and each one of them would, if he had had the power, have taken
the father’s life—or a thousand of them, if he could have
had so many—but they were made cowards by their fear of the
soldiers at the fort. [Angered at what Fray Domingo had done to uproot
their idolatries, these chiefs conspire against him, and resolve to
take his life—for which deed Calignao offers his services. At the
time (July, 1683), the father is in Manila soliciting contributions for
building churches in the Zambal country; his head, which a year before
had showed hardly a gray hair, is now almost white, at the age of
forty-five—an effect of his unusual toils above described. On
November 12 of that same year Fray Domingo is treacherously slain, on
his return from Baubuen to Balacbac, by Calignao and an infidel
Negrillo named Quibácat, with poisoned arrows. Some friendly
Indians convey him to Balacbac, where he dies three days later. The
commandant of the fort wishes to go to punish the Zambals for this
murder, but a friar dissuades him, saying that if he leaves the fort,
the Zambals would get possession of it, “and no religious or
Spaniard would be left in all Playa Honda.” Soldiers are sent to
seize the assassin, but he cannot be taken, for he is protected by the
natives in the village, “who all [240]were present at the
funeral more from joy at seeing the father dead than from compassion,
or sadness at having lost him, thinking that with the death of father
Fray Domingo they could again revive their idol-worship.”]
[241]
