The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 Part 3

Amid such glorious enterprises and tasks father Fray Pedro was employed for seven years, during which he reduced very many apostates, and baptized innumerable heathens, with whom he founded the three villages above mentioned, which are still in existence today after a period of more than sixty years. The other villages of the province were increased by those who descended from the mountains to live in them. But when the hopes of reducing all those pagans were greatest, the devil laid such snares and so many witnesses rose up against the father that it became necessary for this province to remove him from that ministry, and to transfer him to another one very distant from it. There without his rivals or least of all the devil designing it, G.o.d carried him to other reductions, of which an account will be given in due time. In the meanwhile that mission was taken charge of by other fathers who were also zealous workers, who made their raids into those mountains and the districts of the heathens from time to time, and led many of them by means of their inducements to descend to live in the settlement; in order that they might be better taught and instructed in what pertained to the welfare of their souls, until after the lapse of several years and [until]

all had been disabused of their error, and of the false opinion that they were laboring under against the innocence of the said religious, the province again placed him as minister of those new villages, in order that he might continue the former reduction. By his efforts the mission was rejuvenated and finally the father ended his days there, as will be related farther on when treating of his death.

During these latter years in which this account is written, that mission has been restablished with seemingly more success than ever; for although the attempt has been made several times to reduce all that paganism, it has been impossible to obtain it until now as the said heathens live in remote places and are separated from communication with other provinces. Therefore, they seem almost unconvertible, as the missionaries could not live among them without notable discomfort, lack of health, and even not without danger to their lives. For on eight or more occasions that the religious have entered those mountains for the purpose of reducing the heathens who live in them, sometimes escorted by soldiers, and at other times without that aid, in all of them, they have experienced lack of health and death of the missionaries and even of the soldiers who accompanied them. Hence, the reduction of all that paganism was deemed impracticable. But now during these latter years, the earnest solicitude of the prelates has made that land communicable by opening through it a road from the province of Pangasinan to that of Cagayan. Although very heavy expenses have been incurred in this, this province considers those expenses as excellently employed, since from them has followed the conquering of the impenetrability of that land, the thing that rendered the said reduction most difficult. That difficulty having been thus removed, there has been no difficulty in the missionaries living and dwelling there permanently, as at present some religious are doing, occupied in the conversion of those heathens. Many of the latter are now baptized and are founding many new villages which make a good province distinct from those of Pangasinan and Cagayan; and it is hoped that there will be a very plentiful harvest, according to the good condition of the crops which are now apparently ripe and only need the workers from Europa to gather the fruit of our labors.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

An intermediary congregation is celebrated in this province; notice of the mission of Vangag and of an Indian woman of especial merit.

[An intermediary chapter is held at Manila in May, 1680, at which notice is given of the entrance of the Dominicans into Zambales. The following houses of that province are accepted: Santiago of Bolinao; San Andres of Masinloc; Nuestra Seora de el Rosario, of Marivelez; Nuestra Seora de el Sagrario, of Nuevo Toledo; Nuestra Seora de la Soledad, of Paynaven; Nuestro Padre Santo Domingo, of Alalang; Santa Rosa, of Baubuen. Ten religious are a.s.signed to them. The house of San Thelmo, of Apparri, located at the port of the province of Cagayan, is also accepted. "The vicar of the house of Binmaley was given a vote in the provincial chapters, and the vicar of the island of the Babuyanes was given a vote in the intermediary a.s.semblies."]

One of the missions which flourished with great fruit in this province during that time was the mission of Palavig, which is the mission now called Vangac. This is a mission on the coast of Cagayan near the mountains of Parann which end at the cape called Engao [i.e., deceit]. The land of this island becomes more lofty as it approaches nearer the north. That mission is composed of Visayan Indians of the opposite coast of that province, who fleeing from the village of Parann and from other villages, inhabit those inaccessible mountains, where they are safe because of the inaccessibility of those ridges. Among them are some Christian apostates and many heathens who were born in the mountains. On the brow of those mountains that mission was founded in the year 1653 by the earnest and laborious efforts of the venerable father, Fray Juan Uguet, under the advocacy of St. Thomas of Aquinas. And when the mission was in a good condition, and there were many recently-baptized people in it, and others reconciled from their apostasy, they were frightened by the Indians of the village of Buguey, and they consequently returned immediately to the mountain, and the mission was abandoned and destroyed, and all the toil of the father came to nought through the persuasions of those bad citizens. It was G.o.d's will to have them reunite at the same site of Palavig, through the inducements of some zealous missionaries, but they afterward left it again because of the annoyances which they suffered annually from a commandant who goes to that district to watch for the ship from Acapulco. Under that pretext he usually causes considerable vexation to the Indians of the village of Buguey, and much more to those of the mission as they are naturally a very pusillanimous race. Hence, that mission has suffered its ups and its downs, for however much the fathers labored in it, the inhabitants of Buguey by their persuasions, and that commandant by his bad treatment, destroyed their labors. It is now about twenty-five years since they returned to settle on a creek called Bavag under the advocacy of St. Michael, who among other saints fell to their lot. Thence they moved to Vangag, in order to draw those people from the mountain whence they had gone. For the same reason, they were moved on another occasion to a site called Dao, which is the site where they still live, although still under the t.i.tle of Vangag.

[Salazar relates the steadfastness of a native girl at the above mission, who was of considerable use to the missionaries. Two fathers while on an expedition concerned with the mission, are carried across a river by Negritos, of which race Salazar says:]

Those blacks of those mountains are very barbarous and ferocious, above all the other inhabitants of Cagayan.... Those black men of the mountain flee from the water even more than from fire; for every night in order to go to sleep, they make a fire in the open, and sleep on the cinders or hot ashes, but they will never bathe or wash, in order not to get wet, although they stand so greatly in need of it, and bathing is a common and daily thing among the other natives of this country. [10]

[The Negritos' hatred of bathing makes our author imagine that those who carried the fathers across the river are spirits sent by G.o.d to aid His chosen ones in their trouble. The chapter ends with an account of a pious Indian woman who dies in Abucay. Following this chapter, the missions of the Asiatic mainland and the Pardo troubles and controversy are discussed in chapters x.x.xv-xlviii; and the lives and deaths of various Dominicans in chapters xlix-lxii, of which chapters l-lv treat of Fray Domingo Perez (see VOL. x.x.xIX, pp. 149-275).]

CHAPTER LXIII

A new band of religious arrives in the province, one of whom dies at sea

[More than two hundred religious went to the Philippines in 1684, as recruits for the orders of St. Francis, St. Augustine (both calced and discalced), and St. Dominic. Those for the last-named order number forty-nine, "which is the most abundant succor which has reached this province since its foundation." [11] Those missionaries are as follows:]

The said father, Fray Jacinto Jorva, son of the convent of Santa Catharina Martyr, of Barcelona.

Father Fray Francisco Miranda, of the convent of San Pablo, of Valladolid, and collegiate of San Gregorio of the same city.

Father Fray Pedro Mexorada, of the convent of San Estevan, of Salamanca.

Father Fray Diego Piero, of the province of Andalucia.

Father Fray Diego Velez, of the province of Espaa.

Father Fray Juan Truxillo, of the convent of Santo Domingo, of Xerez.

Father Fray Miguel de la Villa, of the convent of San Pablo, of Sevilla.

Father Fray Sebastian de el Castillo, of the same convent.

Father Fray Francisco Marquez, of the convent of San Pablo, of Cordova.

Father Fray Thomas Croquer, of the convent of Santo Domingo, of Xerez.

Father Fray Thomas de Gurruchategui, of the convent of San Estevan, of Salamanca.

Father Fray Antonio Beriain, of the convent of Santo Domingo, of Victoria.

Father Fray Joseph Beltroli.

Father Fray Jacobo de el Munt.

Father Fray Juan de Soto, of the convent of San Pablo, of Palencia.

Father Fray Pedro Martin.

Father Fray Diego Casanueva.

Father Fray Gaspar Carrasco.

Father Fray Manuel Ramos, of the convent of San Estevan, of Salamanca.

Father Fray Miguel de San Raymundo.

Father Fray Raymundo de Santa Rosa.

Father Fray Sebastian Bordas, of the convent of Santo Domingo, of Mexico.

Father Fray Juan de Abenojar.

Father Fray Diego Vilches, of the convent of San Pablo, of Sevilla.

Father Fray Antonio de Santo Thomas, a Pole.

Father Fray Francisco de la Vega.

Father Fray Nicolas de el Olmo, of the convent of San Estevan, of Salamanca.

Father Fray Francisco Morales, of the same convent.

Father Fray Gabriel Serrano, of the same convent.

Father Fray Santiago de Monteagudo, of the convent of Santiago, of Galicia.

Father Fray Francisco Ruiz.

Father Fray Julian de la Cruz.

Father Fray Juan de la Barrera.

Father Fray Joseph Plana, of the convent of Xirona.