Appendix D:
Franciscan Views and the Question of the Use of Force
Mission work carried special meaning for the Franciscans. In letters back to Spain they represented their work in the hills and mountains. Here is a strong statement from 1738:[1]
… the apostolic life and the most important tradition [altissimo Instituto]
of this evangelical Province[2] is the glory of God through the conversion of
the pagans in its many missions inside and outside these islands (along with
the maintenance [in the faith] of those already converted). It is only through
this divine task with the Missions that we survive and grow, without them
we decay and deteriorate …. The missions are all, the life of this province,
and all the rest (be what it may be) without the Missions is nothing … and
the Province will die.
These words notwithstanding, Franciscan work in the Philippine colony overwhelmingly centered on parish administration in lowland municipalities. Highland efforts and mission work were in fact of secondary importance. Highland work involved fewer Franciscans and reached far fewer Christians and “pagans” than the Franciscan parish work in the lowlands. Even with the greatest exaggeration, taking the potential for the real, as in this circa 1745 example, the Franciscan effort was overwhelmingly centered on the lowlands, where they had seventy-two churches[3]
where they educate the poor folk of these islands. This is where the priests
of this Province teach the Doctrina Christiana and administer the holy
sacraments with the results so well-known and admirable. There are about
140,000 people who live in the Catholic faith, but some do not know that in
the mountains of these islands there are also eight missions or places where
these same priests attempt to convert innumerable pagan souls. No matter
the fatigue of the task, the deserted and difficult trails [they must follow],
these priests have succeeded so far in bringing almost 8,000 of these pagans
to embrace and follow our holy faith.
I am not sure where the figure of 8,000 came from, but it seems inflated for the royal administration and religious readers in Spain. Generally one would say that for most areas of missionary work by the Franciscans in the highland Philippines, the results measured in permanent settlements of significant of resident, Christian converts would seem to have been meager. As P. Fr. Juan Rino de Brozas, an experienced Franciscan who would serve and live in the Philippines for over fifty years, observed in 1736:[4]
[the highlanders] usually join with two other families and cross from river[bed]
to river bed, going … through the mountains without a definite goal, and if by
chance they find some place good they usually join with other [families] there.
Usually these rancherias have ten or twelve families, some others have twenty,
and when the priest hears of such a settlement in his district he endeavors to go
there in order to collect them by one means or another (but not by force). Some
come with him, others do not. Of those who come, usually after about a year
they escape another time to the mountains and are never seen again. This is why
the honorable hunters are always walking, seeking these rude folk [fieras, literally
wild animals or beasts].
Another reason the Franciscan emphasized work in the highlands was cultural. The Spanish view was that only in settled communities could one attain full humanity, that sin policía or without polity one could not attain civilization and move from the realm of beasts to that of full humanity. This view was always behind the Franciscan efforts to congregate Filipinos closer to the church and plaza of the poblaciones (with of course the concomitant colonial benefits of control, church attendance, and taxes[5]). Sometimes in discussing missionary work in the highlands, one finds Spanish Franciscan views based on this Iberian mindset expressed in strong terms. For instance, in a 1760 letter-report to the Comisario General of the Franciscans in Mexico, the Provincial of the Franciscans in the Philippines casually expressed himself and revealed some of his values by saying:[6]
… of the missionaries who arrived [on the galleon] in 1759, nine were
sent to the new missions in the mountains of these islands. The people
[who live there] are brutish and barbarous, little different than the beasts
[es gente Brutal, y Barbara, que se distinguen poco de las Bestias].
The missionaries have to work hard to bring them to our Holy Law, maintain
them in it. It is even more difficult to get them to relinquish their barbarous
customs of killing, stealing, and other obscenities.
In this same period another Franciscan, talking of the Filipinos in and around Calumpan and Daraetan in the Tanay region, bluntly observed that the highlanders there lived “like irrational brutes, without creed (doctrina) nor polity.” Those who converted to Christianity wanted to be so “in their own way and irrational usage (queria ser Christiana a su modo, y usanza irracional).”[7]
Clearly the Franciscans (and other Spaniards) thought of mountain dwellers as literally beyond the pale of civilization and civilized behavior. Resistance by the highlanders to settle and behave according to the norms propagated by the missionaries must have puzzled them. Generally they seemed to conclude that that resistance was characteristic both of highlander character as well as more fundamentally the work of the devil trying to hinder the Christianization of the islands. In this 1759 statement from the Franciscan Provincial there is a clear linkage between customs and the devil: “this people born and raised in the mountain strongholds, with ancient customs of thievery and killing … whatever the Devil dictates and teaches ….”[8]
A writer in the 1720s casually ratified Franciscan presuppositions in describing a settlement of “Simarrones” near Palanan: “no matter how vigilant and zealous the missionary may be, they cannot be attracted [to settle in Palanan where there is] rational company and sociability …; neither with love much less harshness can they be drawn from their miserable and brutal life in the mountains. It appears they are humans only in physical appearance.” They only participate in the obligatory church sacraments and rituals “when they want and how they want, which is very rare.” The Franciscans adds that they “only appreciate liberty, with which they have a good time with their irrational way of life.”[9]
This view of intractable highlanders may have been why the Franciscans accepted the use of government military force in the hills and mountains around their missions. There are in fact three issues here—
· soldiers posted in the missions as protection against raids from other highlanders,
· soldiers making forays into the hills to defeat unconverted and unvanquished highlanders and compel peace, and
· Franciscan advocacy of punitive forays to compel congregation in the missions and pueblos.
The first two are fairly straightforward; the third, however, seems to have been a minority view only occasionally advanced by some Franciscans during the period of Spanish rule in the Islands.
On the first point, Franciscans seem to have regularly acquiesced in having soldiers and Filipino “escorts” in the missions to protect the settled Filipinos and themselves from attack from highlanders hostile and resistant to such missions. In 1702 the Royal Audiencia in Manila provided for an escort (escolta) of Filipinos to be provided for each Franciscan missionary in Bulacan [sic—probably for the missions in what is now Nueva Ecija], Laguna, and the Camarines. The Baler/Palanan missions were not mentioned. Each Filipino soldier was to receive one peso per month along with one cavan of husked rice as well as exemptions from polos and servicios personales.[10] It is probable that this decree was issued in response to a Franciscan request. Such escorts seem to have been fairly standard practice in the Franciscan missions, judging by the references in passing to their existence.[11]
Conversely, when hostility became too violent and government protection was not forthcoming, the Franciscans sometimes felt they had no option but to withdraw the missionary priests from the missions, particularly in the Baler/Palanan area where by 1789 the Franciscans pulled their missionaries back due to danger and hostilities. Henceforth, in the Baler area, they worked by making missionary excursions to scattered highland populations from nearby pueblos:[12]
Due to the lack of security for the missionaries in the interior of the mountains
and the return of the Ilongots to the mountains due to fatigue with the tranquil
life of the pueblos, the missionaries will henceforth make periodic forays from,
and be based in, [the more secure settlements] of Baler, Binatangan and San
José de Casignan.
At times the Spanish government made plans for soldiers to advance into the hills and mountains to defeat hostile highlanders and compel peace. One Franciscan observed, though, that given the rough terrain and nearly impenetrable mountains where the highlanders lived in the Baler/Palanan area, armed forays by Spaniards would be unsuccessful. “Only a Conquest at the powerful hand of the Almighty when such is His will” would succeed since “human forces” were doomed to failure.[13] Spanish soldiers making such expeditions into the mountains might indeed have more effect on mission populations than on their ostensible enemies in the hills. In 1708 a Franciscan observed that the Franciscans had found by experience in the Camarines missions that the mere rumor or the reality of soldiers [gente de armas] would be enough for mission inhabitants “to withdraw from the missions, not just the newly converted but also some of the long-time Christians.”[14] In 1803 a Franciscan mentioned such a plan in the Baler area but said it had not yet taken place.[15]
There seems to have been real fear in the highlands whenever soldiers from the lowlands approached or were rumored to be approaching, perhaps because of the obligations to assist and accompany them that would be imposed when they came. We saw this earlier in the overview section on the discussion of the theme of population diversity. I will repeat some of the relevant material here. In April of 1809 fifty-nine persons, “all of the Ilongot nation” and all formerly resident in the mission of Casignan fled “to the mountain.”[16] Four former pueblo [sic] officials responded to an inquiry that “an Ilongot from the visita of Lublud came to Casignan with the news that soldiers were coming to draft guides to enter the mountain.” From fear of this compelled service and excursion, they left the mission. Conversely, there was an 1872 request from Dipaculao notables requesting that the military detachment be returned in order to protect the mission from “pagan” highlanders—the signatories requested at least six soldiers or they might have to relocate to a place with more security.[17]
A statement in 1856 speaks to the ineffectiveness of such attempts by soldiers from the lowlands to capture, punish, and congregate highlanders; it also mentions the deleterious consequences that could occur, from increased attacks on settled Christians in the highlands to loss of prestige, as we see from this 1856 case and the administrative creation of a military district in the Baler/Palanan region:[18]
The goal of this military district was to protect the already civilized pueblos
from the mobs and outrages of the savages in these mountains, to excise all
of this pernicious influence by minimizing [necessary] force and attracting
them to the pathway of civilization. Still, one has to confess that although
charged with such noble and elevated desires, little or nothing has been done
to fulfill faithfully the charge, leaving at this time the savages just as insolent
as before. If, when the missionaries and their superiors in the Province of San
Gregorio [had] requested armed protection from the government in the eighteenth
century to safeguard new settlements, [that support, even with Filipino troops,
had been forthcoming], surely [by now] the innumerable rancherias in these dense
mountains would have entered the way of true progress [while] embracing
Christianity. However, since [now] the missionaries see themselves completely
abandoned; and the Christians, instead of prospering, are decreasing in number,
victims of the pagans, it is with immense grief that the Province of San Gregorio
finds itself forced to withdraw its priests to safe places.
And, finally, we have over the years individual Franciscans actively advocating government military force to defeat, uproot, and forcibly compel resettlement in and around the missions or lowland pueblos. We have a brief record of some missionaries advocating force against highlanders--not just escorts of soldiers to protect missionaries and settled highlanders from attack but active imposition of armed might. The most notable expressions are the following:
In 1703, a Franciscan said regarding the Manguirin mission: “there are many pagans in and around Mount Isarog there, for whose congregation one needs some force.”[19]
In 1708, a Franciscan argued for a three-pronged approach in and around the Camarines missions. On the one hand, that “only through gentle means [medios de Suavidad] can the apostates and pagans be congregated.” Once that has been tried, then the missionary priests can go into the mountains to reach out to “apostates, since the people in the mountains are neither fierce nor inclined to murder the missionaries. Without fear of assassination or poor treatment the priests can bring them out of the mountains and congregate them in the missions.” Still, some armed incursions by soldiers might be necessary, depending on the will of his majesty and the available revenues in the treasury if the work and sweat of the missionary priests does not suffice.[20]
In 1722, a Franciscan in the Baler/Palanan area, apparently frustrated by highlander resistance to congregations in and near pueblos and missions, wrote to the Provincial saying “The remedy by way of the Governor General would be to subjugate and humiliate them; and that God send such a calamity that would destroy their fields and cause such a hunger” to cause them to submit and come out of the mountains.[21]
The Franciscan Provincial in 1782 recommended “force and more force” to congregate the remontados in Samar “in view of the parish priests and of Justice.” To avoid grievous spiritual harm to those living in the mountains of Samar, “it is in my view indispensable that necessary force by good soldiers of verified Christian faith [necessarias fuerzas con buenos soldados, y sujetos de conocido Christianidad…][22] be used to force them to live in the pueblos.
These comments are both brief and evocative of the frustration some highland Franciscan missionaries must have experienced in their work in the mountains. It seems fair to characterize the situation as reflecting the generally successful resistance by highlanders towards resettlement under Spanish religious and civil authority. Given the stakes according to the Franciscan world view—salvation through Roman Catholic Christianity, polity, and subjection to Spanish imperial rule—it is fair to opine that the frustration was more than personal but literally a matter of [eternal] life and death. Two Franciscans are notable in this regard since they combined their understanding of what I called the “stakes” of the attempts to relocate and expose the highlanders to Christianity and Spanish rule on the one hand with, on the other, full-fledged expositions of the situation and how they thought the Franciscan Province should endorse the seemingly ruthless use of force against those living beyond the pale in these highland mission areas. While it appears their views were not accepted by their brethren (more on this below), it is useful to present in summary form the two Franciscan expositions regarding highlanders who refused to resettle and submit.
Perhaps the longest essay advocating force against these highlanders was the monograph (240 hand-written pages) by P. Fr. Francisco Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnacion. Pérez de los Cobos argued that the supreme necessity of leading highlanders to the Christian beliefs and thus gain for them the possibility of Christian salvation justified a variety of means to compel resettlement and sustained exposure to missionary efforts:[23]
Since the highlanders do not wish to congregate or resettle in the lowland
pueblos, instead responding to gentle and pacific overtures with menaces
and intimidation, [it is necessary] to destroy their fields and crops, burn
their huts and houses. Through the use of these just pressures the mountain
dwellers will leave the highlands for a life of civility and polity in the pueblos.
The result will be that they will learn the Christian and Catholic life and leave
off from their persistent hostility and the roiling of the calm of the surrounding
groups and even the missions themselves. By these means religion will
triumph and enable the State to flourish.
This Franciscan felt that priests were obligated to congregate and make all in the Islands adopt a social life in a polity—and that to achieve this one could compel and forcibly constrain through the use of weapons Filipinos to adopt such a life, all for the Public Good (Bien Público) (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 173-174). The Church, using the civil powers of government, could compel by armed force heretics and apostates to resettle, even to the point of removing baptized children from pagan parents to ensure that the youngsters would be raised in a Christian context (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 178-180). If gentle and pacific means did not work, one would be justified in employing rigorous and legal means—the ends justify the means--since the goodness of the best interests of the highlanders was fundamental (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 184). There was nothing wrong in requesting the aid of soldiers, though of course with all due measures taken against killing or otherwise hurting the highlanders, “unless they resist and do not wish to resettle” in the missions and pueblos (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 198). Of course one could not compel conversion but one could properly compel residence in a Christian setting where exposure to polity and Christianity would be ensured (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 201-203). Soldiers were not only licit to compel resettlement but also to ensure that they “comply with all the obligations and laws of the Catholic Religion, even to the use of force and violence if gentle and pacific means are insufficient” (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 203). Ultimately one hopes that they would “embrace the Catholic Religion for its own sake, not through the force and violence of military weapons, flogging, or the stocks [del palo, which might more accurately be translated as fastened to a pole in public], but through the virtues and force of the sweet light of the truth of the evangelical preaching” (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 203). With all due precautions, one could thus extract many souls from the clutches of the hellish Wolf, those who are strongly held [now] in the evil and cruel claws of the fiery Dragon” and in the process ensure peace and free passage in these areas (Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785, 209-210).
Strong words, but if anything the means advocated by another Franciscan are even more draconian. This unnamed author, who wrote a twenty-one paragraph treatise around 1757, seems to have had substantial mission experience in and around the missions of Baler, with particular statistics given for Etmolen, Tabueyon, and smaller sites.[24] He has positive comments to make regarding the Ilongots, describing them as “more industrious than the Tagalogs,” with the Ilongot women even harder working (p. 205, section 2). He adds that some Ilogots are “capable, particularly in politics” but then rather undercuts this by saying that others are not so much [… ay Ylongotes de capacidad, y politicos en sumodo, otros no lo son tanto] (p. 206, section 3). He asserts that the Ilongot population is low because of the animosities and murders that are frequent there; and the difficult both of contracting marriage along with harsh punishments against “simple fornication” (p. 206, section 3). It is p. 208, section 9, where he details his plan to stop the murders. Issue a blanket amnesty for past offenses, including murders. Then issue a strong proclamation forbidding future killings. If someone broke this rule, the pueblo [sic] of the killer would be obligated to turn him over to the missionary of the pueblo or ranchería of the dead person for punishments such as whipping or imprisonment. If the settlement where the murderer lives does not hand him over for punishment, for whatever reason, then other Ilongots would be permitted to avenge the murder by destroying the settlement and its fields. “All would be good [with this plan] if the Governor General were to sanction it.”[25]
These are remarkable recommendations by Franciscan missionaries in the Philippines. Clearly they were borne out of experience and frustration. Conditions were not always safe. Sometimes there were conditions of active danger to other highlanders as well as to Franciscan priests. Murders occurred, apparently not infrequently, with innocents as likely to be killed as wrongdoers. Missionary sacrifice in the face of danger, difficult terrain, isolation away from other priests, disease, an enervating climate, and repeated frustration at doing ones best to attract and Christianize only to be avoided or faced with flight must have been at times almost overwhelming. And yet these are Franciscans, whose missionary philosophy and faith commitment were quite different from the Franciscans just quoted.
A sixteenth century French Franciscan who worked in Mexico wrote extensively about the duties, methods, and goals of the missionary in the Americas. Among other points, he emphasized that the missionary’s primary method was
to attract pagans with great amounts of affability, showing through word and
works the knowledge of the true God and making them understand their own
vices contrasted with the virtues, punishments, and glory of the other way.
Try through all means, through favors and benefits without count to excite in
their hearts the love of God and compliance with the king. [26]
Though he is primarily speaking of work in the lowlands in the flush of the early missionary efforts in the newly conquered lands of New Spain, his emphases and methods are still of note subsequently in missionary work on the plains and in the mountains in the Philippines. The emphasis is through attraction based on inducements such as music and the loving acts and generous nature of the priest.[27] This Franciscan priest, P. Fr. Juan Focher, refers to “comforting them with admonitions, pleas, corrections, reprimands [reprensiones] ….” Force is clearly not of prime importance as a means of congregation and conversion. His writings and message were still part of the missionary formation in subsequent decades, both in the Americas and in the Philippines.
But still we have the references to ‘justified’ force in Franciscan work in the Philippine highlands. I would argue that as significant as they are, it seems reasonably clear that these were exceptional expressions. The very fact of being repeated and advocated seems clearly to indicate that active force was not a normal tool in the work kit for highland, Franciscan missionaries. One can with some confidence go further: I have seen no indication that the Franciscan Province ever endorsed these recommendations either as general policy or as ad hoc tactics. Perhaps to have done so would have been directly in conflict with Franciscan values and well-established missionary practices. There are but a few indications of the more pacific approach explicitly set out in the documents—one from 1776 by a Franciscan missionary priest working in Bicol, for instance, saying that “it is only with the Cross, patience, affability, [our] true weapons for attracting these poor souls [to mission life and Christianity].[28] I concede that I am somewhat assuming reasons without much basis in the documentary record for a Franciscan discussion of the use of active force against highlanders.[29] I see these advocates of force as exceptional. Not only would records of forceful strategies be documented in civil as well as Franciscan manuscripts, highlanders would undoubtedly have responded with flight as well as counterattacks.
We can build on this last observation. We need not posit Spanish Franciscans in the colonial Philippines radiating love, mercy, forgiveness, and pacifism. I am not an apologist for the Franciscans or other priests in the colonial Philippines. Franciscan and other priests before 1899, Spanish and Filipino, were in fact agents of “two majesties,” believers on the one hand that there was a possibility of eternal life and only one way to this salvation; and active collaborators with the imperial state on the other. Awareness that they were colonial agents as well as priests means that we cannot, should not, project our sense of “proper” Franciscan behavior back in a time when we might fairly acknowledge that they had made compromises in order to serve the State in a colonial context. Clearly too there was a range of Franciscan opinion on the questions of the use of force in the colonial Philippines. We should also be aware know that
· some Franciscans in the pueblos and missions of the colonial state ordered
whippings for Filipinos,
· we know that the slapping of Filipinos was not uncommon, and
· we know that some Franciscans took up arms against Moros and other threats
to life and Spanish rule.
There are other and probably more compelling reasons or pragmatic constraints why I think draconian approaches endorsed by some Franciscans were ultimately not supported by the Franciscan Province and the community of Franciscan priests serving in the Islands:
· the financial cost to the Crown of mobilizing such a series of military expeditions
· the difficulties of effecting them in such daunting terrain, humidity, and weather
· the lack of adequate military forces to carry out such operations,
· the unrest that would have been generated and the consequent disruptions to the very
peace and ready access to the hinterlands trumpeted by at least one of the
proponents of such military action,
· the expense to maintain highland garrisons and to carry out subsequent sweeps against
recidivism, and
· the lack of adequate missionary priests to consolidate the new settlements and population
relocations as agents of the Spanish imperial state
These constraining and pragmatic reasons would have made the possibility of “force and more force” too expensive and the outcome of such campaigns problematic.
One of the authors whose proposals I worked with extensively earlier, P. Fr. Francisco Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnación, requested early release from the usual ten-year obligation to serve in the Philippines. After eight years in the Islands he departed in 1787 for Mexico to return to Spain, two years after submitting his 240 page Manifiesto canónico-politico-moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres missions de Puncan, Caranglan and Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Cristiano y civil to the Franciscan Province in the Philippines.[30] Unfortunately I came across no records of a discussion of these issues in the Franciscan records. However, Pérez de los Cobos’ early departure from the Province suggests that the Franciscans in the Philippines recognized about this time that those highlanders who rejected Spanish civil and religious inducements to resettle and live within Spain’s rules would in effect be able to continue to do so without a massive military intervention by the Spanish government in the Franciscan regions of mission work.
[1] AFIO 17/95. Santa Ana, 25 July 1738, del Definitorio de San Gregorio al P. General y cada una de las
Provincias Dezcalzas, f. 1.
[2] Throughout this essay I capitalize Province when I refer to the Franciscan organization in the Islands,
properly called la Provincia de S. Gregorio el Magno in the documents. Lower case p is used for the civil administrative units such as Samar, Leyte, Albay, Camarines, Sorsogon, Laguna, and so forth.
[3] AFIO 7/34. P. Fr. Manuel Cañizar, Recurso de nuestro Procurador pidiendo una mission de sesenta
religiosos. Impr., [1745?], p. 1.
[4] AFIO 17/81. P. Juan Rino de Brozas, Copia de la carta al P. Bernardo de Santa Maria. … Modo de vivir
varios pueblos filipinoas. Manila, 2 July 1736, f. 1.
[5] For instance, from 1720: “…cuyo exercicio es de Missioneros [sic] de Montes, y lugares retirados entre los infieles Indios y aunque sin Pueblos y modo de Vivir politico, no dexan de convertirse bastantes; y en el modo,
que pueden los Religiosos, obligar a dichos Indios a formar algun genero de Pueblos, para el fin de que, viviendo juntos, puedan ser administrados en qualquier tiempo.” AFIO 17/21. Minuta de Carta del Provincial al Rvmo. de Nueva España comunicando su elección y da entre otras cosas…. Manila, 14 July 1720.
[6] Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropología e Historia, vol. 151, f. 235, 20 July 1760,
P. Fr. Francisco de Santa Rosa to the Comisario General, New Spain.
[7] AFIO 90/72. Informe de Fr. Francisco Maceyra, O.F.M., sobre las misiones de Calumpan y Daraetan.
Daraetan, 17 July 1764, 13ff.; here, f. 5v.
[8] Fondo Franciscano, Biblioteca Nacional del Museo de Antropología e Historia, vol. 151, ff. 128-128v,
16 July 1759 letter of the Philippine Franciscan Provincial to the Franciscan Comisario General of New Spain.
[9] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-623: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversion de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic]. Manila, 6 July 1720. Ms., [11] ff.—listed as having 10 folios, but one of the numbers on the folios is duplicated, leading to the undercount—here, ff. 621v-622. The information based on first-hand recollections would have been based on his two trips to the area in 1718-1719.
[10] AFIO 68/7. Real Audiencia, Manila. Resolución concediendo a nuestros misioneros de Filipinas arroz y escolta, por cuenta de los pueblos. Pagsanghan, 25 February 1702. Firmado. 4ff. There is also a reference to rations for the escolta for the missions of Pantabangan, Carranglan, and Pungcan in P. Fr. Francisco José Pérez Cobos o de la Encarnación [name on the manuscript is Francisco, Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnación, O.F.M.], Manifiesto canónico-politico-moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres missions de Puncan, Caranglan and Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Cristiano y civil. Ms., 240 leaves, dated 14 September 1785, Puncan, copy provided through the courtesy of the Santa Barbara [California] Mission Archives, pp. 13 and 14.
[11] For instance, there is a casual reference in AFIO 7/38. Informe al Rey sobre el descubrimiento de las nuevas misiones … en los montes de Baler. Ms., [no day given] July 1754. A fuller explanation, also from the 1750s, is in Antolín Abad [Pérez], O.F.M. and Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Los últimos de Filipinas. Tres heroes franciscanos,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 16:63 (1956), 286-287; here, 283-284: “En los primeros años, al ver los misioneros la docilidad con que se les presentaban los habitants del bosque, fueron contrarios a que se protegiesen las misiones con fuerza armada; pero bien pronto la experiencia los demostró la necesidad de domeñar los instintos feroces de aquellas razas que, llevadas de sus antiguas enemistades y de sus costumbres paganas, con frecuencia hicieron victimas de sus instintos sanguíneos a los que se habían acogido a la sombra de la cruz, por lo que, a ruegos de los mismos misioneros, el Gobernador del Archipiélago ordenó, en 14 de marzo de 1759, que el Cabo del presidio de Buhay protegiera a los misioneros Franciscanos siempre que pidiesen auxilio. En 26 de mayo de 1766 decretó la Provincia de San Gregorio, en vista de las continuas Matanzas que los infieles hacían entre los cristianos, con peligro de la vida de los mismos misioneros, pedir al Gobierno un destacamento de soldados para que protegiesen aquellas nuevas cristiandades; pero, por la escasez del elemento militar, no pudo el Gobernador General complacer a los misioneros.” Four years later, in 1770, the Franciscan P. Fr. Juan Beltrán was assassinated while serving in Tabueyon.
[12] Informe del estado de las Misiones de Baler, por el Padre Juan Sardón, fechado en 1789. Published by Antolín Abad [Pérez], O.F.M. and Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Los Últimos de Filipinas: tres héroes franciscanos,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 16: 63 (1956), 283-284: “en atención a la poca seguridad que en el interior del Caraballo tenían los misioneros, y en vista de que los ilongotes, cansados de la vida tranquila de los pueblos, se retiraban a sus antiguas viviendas de los bosques, se replegaran los misioneros a Baler, Binatangan y San José de Casignan, encargándoles que desde estos pueblos hicieran periódicamente sus excursiones a las misiones abandonadas.” Huerta (568) suggests that the missions abandoned in 1789 were Bonabue and Etmolen, due at least in the case of Bonabue to a “shortage of missionaries.” In 1775 the Franciscans pulled out of Alevec and Tabueyan (Huerta, 566-568)—in the case of Alevec because the Filipinos there “did not want to cease the fatal inclination to cut off heads” (568).
[13] Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. Ms. 11,014, ff. 614-623: Vincente Inglés, O.F.M., Informe sobre el progreso de la conversion de los indios de la isla de Tarabas [sic]. Manila, 6 July 1720. Ms., [11] ff.; here, f. 616v. Without specifying a date, this same writer mentions that Baler itself was attacked at one time. While many attackers were killed, the church and rectory were burned.
[14] AFIO 7/14. Informe al Gobernador sobre la cobranza de tributos en la Provincia de Camarines y sobre las misiones de la misma. 1708, 2ff. Another instance, from AFIO 17/81 (P. Juan Rino de Brozas, Copia de la carta al P. Bernardo de Santa Maria. … Modo de vivir varios pueblos filipinoas. Manila, 2 July 1736), from 1736: “Bien es verdad, que se suelen hacer entradas con gente de Armas, en algunos parages; pero son los menos adonde esto se puede conseguir; y assi solo cazando los de la forma que dexo dicha, se puede ir adelantando esta materia, y pensar otra cosa es no entender lo que es esta tierra; ni en la conformidad que esta.”
[15] AFIO 8/16, Informe al Gobernador General sobre Misiones. Ms., 2ff., 9 August 1803: “no se ha echo hasta aora entrada alguna con la tropa, a aquellos montes para sacar de ellos, y reducer a poblado a la infelices infieles, y malos Christianos huidos de los de los Pueblos, que no sirven de otra cosa que de invader los poblanos, y quitar la vida a varios Christianos; como segun noticia ha sucedido, no mucho tiempo hace entre Baler y Dipaculao, en donde mataron a algunos, sin otros que, han asesinado, o muerto en otros sitios, aun despues de estar allí la fuerza, lo que hace ver el poco, o ningun cuidado que ha puesto, y pone el Corregidor, para la defense de aquellos Pueblos contra los infieles. ….”
[16] AFIO 89/85, Casignan, Oficio a su matriz Baler, sobre la fuga de varios individuos de este pueblo a los montes. Mss., varios papeles sin firma, 2ff., 1809.
[17] AFIO 89/43, Carta de los Cristianos de Dipaculao, suplicando al misionero se interese ante las Autoridades de Manila para que les devuelvan el Destacamento de soldados que les han quitado, por no tener seguridad sin ellos a causa de los infieles. Dipaculao, 1 October 1872. There is no record of the result of this petition, written in Spanish and with eleven signatures.
[18] There is a 20th-century comment in Antolín Abad [Pérez], O.F.M. and Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Los últimos de Filipinas. Tres heroes franciscanos,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 16:63 (1956), 286-287, when government military support was effected in the Baler region but in fact made the situation of hostility worse, leading to the loss of missions: “Desde el año de 1856, en que se erigió este distrito, fué gobernado por un Comandante-politico-militar, de ordinario Capitán de Infantería, quien tenia a su servicio un pequeño destacamento de Guardia Civil, compuesto de un Cabo peninsular y diez o doce números indígenas. El fin que se propuso el Gobierno al crear esta Comandancia fué para proteger a los pueblos ya civilizados contra las tropelías y desmanes de los salvajes de aquellos montes, para quitar a éstos toda influencia perniciosa, restarles fuerzas y ver el modo de atraerles a la senda de la civilización. Si asi fué, como parece, preciso es confesar que los encargados de llevar a la práctica tan nobles y elevados deseos, poco o nada hicieron para llenar fielmente su cometido, pues los salvajes permanecieron hasta última hora tan insolentes como al principio. Si, cuando los misioneros y los Superiores de la Provincia de San Gregorio pidieron al Gobierno, en el siglo XVIII, la protección armada para proteger aquellas nuevas reducciones, les hubieran favorecido con algunos militares, aunque fueran del element indígena, seguramente que las innumerable rancherías que habitan aquellos fragosos montes hubieran entrado en las vías del verdadero progreso, abrazando la religion cristiana; pero como los misioneros de vieron completamente abandonados, y sus cristiandades, en lugar de prosperar, iban en disminución, debido a las víctimas que los infieles hacían entre los cristianos, con harto dolor, se vió la Provincia de San Gregorio en la precision de retirar a lugar seguro a sus religiosos.”
[19] AFIO 8/16, Informe al Gobernador General sobre Misiones. Ms., 9 August 1803, f. 2v: … la Mision de Manguirin que se halla a la falda del monte Ysarog en la Provincia de Camarines, en cuyo monte se hallan muchissimos infieles; para cuya reduccion se necesita de alguna fuerza….
[20] AFIO 7/14. Informe al Gobernador sobre la cobranza de tributos en la Provincia de Camarines y sobre las misiones de la misma. 1708, 2ff. The Spanish text reads in part: “… solos los medios de Suavidad, sino que
es preciso el que para conseguir las reducciones de los Apostatas e infieles … la gente de dichos montes de su natural no feroz, ni inclinada a homicidios, puedan los religiosos penetrar los Montes (como lo hazen) sin rezelo
de ser muertos, ni mal tratados, mas para que dicha gente salga de los montes, y se reduzga a las missions es tan necessario aya algunas entradas de gente de armas, que sin ellas nunca se vera logrado el intent de su Magestad
los gastos de su real hacienda ni los trabajos, y Sudores de los Ministros….”
[21] AFIO 89/64. Carta del P. Santiago de Jesus Maria, al Provincial dandole cuenta del estado de la mission. Casiguran, 8 March 1722. 1 fol., ms., orig. My translation is rather impressionistic; the original Spanish reads
“La medicina, que nos embio el Señor Governador, que estan aora todos sugetados, y humillados, que tambien
Dios Les embio su azote, por que se les destruyeron todas sus sementeras … y la hambre los haze estar humillados ….” Another reference dates from 1771, but I was unable to review the essay when writing this essay: Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Maceyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila” (Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-97), 378.
[22] AFIO 95/7. Copia de la carta informe del Provincial P. Rosendo de la Transfiguracion al Gobierno sobre la union de Samar y Leyte y la reducción y conversion de los naturales. San Francisco de Manila, 12 August 1782.
[23] P. Fr. Francisco José Pérez Cobos o de la Encarnación [name on the manuscript is Francisco, Pérez de los Cobos y Maestre de la Encarnación, O.F.M.], Manifiesto canónico-politico-moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres missions de Puncan, Caranglan and Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Cristiano y civil. Ms., 240 leaves, dated 14 September 1785, Puncan, copy provided through the courtesy of the Santa Barbara [California] Mission Archives, pp. 198-199 Referenced in this section henceforth as Pérez Cobos Manifiesto, 1785. The original Spanish (my translation is a bit loose) reads “…sino paraque aquellos que de los dichos montes resistieren o no se quisieren reducer e incorporar en los Pueblos de estas Missiones de abaxo, mediante los medios suaves y pacificos les amenazen, los amedranten, les destruian sus montuosas y encumbradas sementexillas, les quemen y consuman sus chocillas, y casas, chicas y grandes, paraque con estas Justas opresiones de deen [sic] a partido, y dexando sus montes, sierras, y cumbres, y saliendo de sus breñas, barrancos, y madrigueras, se reduzcan a vivir en estos dichos Pueblos con civilidad y policia, havilitandose de este modo para aprender vida Christiana y Catholica, y paraque no turben con sus perniciosas hostilidades la paz, sosiego y tranquilidad de sus vecinas Naciones, y aun de los mismos suyos, paraque de esta suerte triunfe en todos la Religion y florezca el Estado.”
[24] Ynforme, que sobre la Visita, que hize de las Missiones de los Montes, ofrezco a N.C.H. Provincial Fr. Juan Rino de Brozas, para que con facilidad pueda tener presente el estado actual de las dichas Missiones, y el que puede esperarse en adelante. Found on pp. 205-215 of AFIO 145/1, edited by P. Fr. Casimiro Pitarque, Resoluciones y conferencias morales propuestas por varios Presidentes, en diferentes conventos de la Provincia de San Gregorio. Ms., 593pp., bound volume. The author might have been any one of the following—or someone else entirely since the writer would not have had to be the priest at either of the missions of Etmolen or Tabueyon: P. Fr. Manuel Rodriguez Blanco de Jesus, P. Fr. José de San Pascual, P. Fr. Manuel de San Agustin. A good possibility for the author would be P. Fr. Antonio Maceyra, since he served in Baler and is the author of significant reports (e.g., AFIO 90/72 and AFIO 90/73) and particularly the report published by P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Francisco Antonio Macyra sobre varios puntos de los que convendría tratar en el Concilio provincial de Manila,” Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 375-397 (AFIO 2/16), in which (378) Father Francisco that Filipinos “are more responsive to fear than from love” [Estos montaraces, como lo comun de los indios, son mas llevados por miedo que por amor….].
[25] “9. Tambien me parece muy proposito, y facil de conseguir, que todos los Ylongotes se perdonen las injurias pasadas, y prohiban con rigor, que nadie mate. Y que si alguno quebrantare esta ley, el Pueblo del matador este obligado a entregarle al Misionero del Pueblo, o Rancheria del difunto, para que este con azote, reclusion, ayunos, etc. le castigue. … Que si el Pueblo del matador, o por miedo, o por otro motive, despues de amonestado, no entregase al reo, pudiesen los otros Ylongotes (que para esto siempre estaran promptos) vengar la muerte, destruyendo el Pueblo, y sementeras del Pueblo, que no cumplio con la ley de entregar al matador. Todo esto fuera Bueno, que lo confirmase el Señor Governador.”
[26] Juan Focher, O.F.M., Itinerario del Misionero en América. Texto Latino con Version Castellana, Introducción
y Notas del P. Antonio Eguiluz, O.F.M. (Madrid: Librería General Victoriano Suarez, 1960), Parte Tercera, Los Nuevos Cristianos, “Capitulo VI, De las reducciones de los Indios,” pp. 371-375. The full original and some additional sections reads (italics in the original):
Su costumbre es tartar primeramente de atraer a los gentiles con suma afabilidad, manifestada en palabras
y obras, a los gentiles al conocimiento del verdadero Dios, dándoles a entender los vicios y las virtudes, la pena y
la gloria: y esto una y otra vez. Procuran por todos los medios, mediante favores y beneficios sin cuento, exciter en sus corazones el amor a Dios y el acatamiento al Rey. Una vez captada su Amistad y tenerlos benévolos y sumisos, el segundo cuidado pastoral es concentrarlos a todos, formando pueblos y ciudades. Viviendo en su plan primitive, disperses por los montes, podían volver al vómito de la gentilidad. Por eso, creo que es esto de todo punto necesario, no tan solo para poderles instruir major y más provechosamente en la fe, sino también para que la Buena semilla, prendida todavía con débil raíz, no sea arrancada de sus corazones siguiendo su vida vagabunda. Resulta, pues, ventajosísimo el congregarlos por pueblos de lugar en lugar. Debe tambien conseguirse que se ayuden unos a otros en la edificación de los pueblos, para que así surja en ellos el amor a la comunidad y vean los más pudientes la obligación de ayudar a los necesitados. Así se obtendrá también sin duda alguna, el que vaya aumentando de día en día la sumisión y reverencia de los neófitos hacia los misioneros, cuando por una experiencia inequivoca comprendan que les asisten así en los spiritual como en lo temporal.
[27] Focher continues in the previous cited section by speaking of “…enseñando la doctrina Cristiana y los rudimentos de nuestra santa fe … Deben ser instruídos asimismo en lo referente al culto divino, como también en
el cultivo de su personalidad. Así enseñaron nuestros religiosos a los neófitos a cantar y a tocar toda clase de instrumentos músicos, a leer y a escribir y también artes declamatorias y mecánicas. … …a los demás que viven disperses, recorriendo sus lugares de un lado para otro, visitándolos, consolándolos con amonestaciones, ruegos, correcciones, reprensiones, socorriéndoles en lo possible, oyendo sus confesiones asidua e incansablemente, reconciliando a unos con otros, apaciguando sus rencillas, celebrando matrimonios, bautizos y misas; en una palabra, tratando en todo y por todo de hacerles el bien, haciéndonos todo para todos, con el fin de ganarlos a todos para Cristo. Esta es la mission de los ministros de la Iglesia de Dios.”
[28] AFIO 93/20. Informe sobre las misiones de Isarog. Manguirin, 28 April 1776. Acompaña carta del Comisario Provincial Fr. José Casañes pidiendole el informe. Naga, 23 April 1776. In P. Fr. Lorenzo Pérez, O.F.M., “Informe del P. Provincial, Fr. Juan Bautista Martinez, al Gobernador General de las Islas Filipinas, D. Alonso de Abella y Fuertes, sobre la conversion de los infieles” (Archivo Ibero-Americano, 3 (1915), 126-130) there is a reference to a 27 February 1690 unsigned manuscript, then shelved in Cajón 3, legajo 2, Archivo de Pastrana, which may have been lost since, perhaps during the Spanish Civil War: “… señalando ministros de propósito en reducer dichos infieles y atraerlos al yugo suave de nuestra santa fe…” (127).
[29] Outside of the mission areas discussed in this essay, in 1853 concerning Samar there was “… an extended discussion of whether to congregate the Samareños by physical or by moral force, by the government and its army or by the priests and their peregrinations and influence. Two Franciscan vicars forane, the governor, and the Franciscan provincial all agreed that the moral force was more effective, that the Samareño remontados were not violent nor hostile, and that more Franciscans, either as separate missionaries or as parish priests in interior pueblos, could manage the conversion.” Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society (Pub. no. 41), 1985), 142n15, citing AFIO 95/13. Informes sobre el estado de los pueblos. Mss., 11ff., 1853.
[30] In addition to the Santa Barbara Mission copy, there is also a copy in AFIO 292/12, Manifiesto Canonico-Politico-Moral en que se hace ver lo vil y precioso del presente estado de las tres misiones de Puncan Caranglan y Pantabangan y se proponen los medios que mas pueden conducer a sus mejoras en lo Christiano y Civil. Puncan [sic], 50 points, 227ff., 14 September 1785. Somewhat fragile, encuadernado. I did not compare the California copy with the copy in Spain and cannot explain the disparity in length. I used the California copy.