Of the noble and brave nation of the Dapitans
Of this island, which has given empires to so many kings, without doubt
the crown is the village of Dapitan; and, although it is so small at
present, it has been one of the most densely populated in the past,
the one most respected for its power, and in our times the whole,
both of these conquests and of their Christian churches. In a small
number, reduced to one single village, there is inclosed a nation
[37] apart from all the others, and superior to all those discovered
in nobility, valor, fidelity, and Catholicism. They are descended
from the island of Bool, where they anciently occupied the strait
made by that island and the island of Panglao, which remains dry at
low tide, but at high tide allows a galliot to pass. Therefore many
brazas in the sea stand, even today, certain columns of upright wood,
as honorable witnesses of the location so gloriously occupied by
this nation, and today the venerable ruins of poor although adequate
buildings which they sustained. They occupied both shores and the
entire island of Panglao. There they conquered the famous people
of Bohol; for as their nation was the less numerous in that island,
they were obliged to sustain their name by their deeds. The Boholans,
conquered and put to flight, abandoned the site which they occupied
from the shore of the strait to the coast of Baclayon and took refuge
on the river of Loboc, where their name is still preserved in a few
families descended from that stock which conquered that island, and
only the valor of the Dapitans subdued. [38] According to the ancient
law of the land the Dapitans can call the Boholans their slaves since
less title was sufficient for that in the days of their antiquity,
and the most authoritative reason was always that of war.
War exiled the Dapitans from their country, a proof of their valor
and the unforeseen accidents of their misfortunes; for they were the
only people of all the archipelago who were renowned among foreign
princes for their exploits, and to them alone were embassies made. It
happened then that in an embassy sent by the king of Terrenate,
the most warlike and powerful king known, his ambassador lost [due]
respect for the house of the Dapitan princes--then represented by
Dailisan and Pagbuaya, who were brothers--by making advances to
a concubine. They punished the crime more by the laws of offended
and irritated fury than by those of reason, with hideous and indeed
cruel demonstrations of contempt, by cutting off the noses and ears
of the ambassador and his men. When they had returned to Terrenate,
the horrid aspect of his subjects aroused the wrath of the king. He
armed all his power in twenty joangas to oppose the Dapitans. His
general, doubtful of the outcome, as he knew the valor of those
with whom he had to do, made use of a trick by which he assured a
deceitful victory. He sent his joangas in, one by one, giving out that
they were traders, and under the security of friendship--excusing the
above occurrence, in order to divert the attention [of the Dapitans],
with the laws of punishment, deserved because of the boldness of their
men. The Dapitans, seeing that the Ternatans were attending only to
the sale of their goods, lost their caution, and came up with the same
confidence as ever. When the Ternatans had all their fleet together,
and saw that of the Dapitans, they closed with them. Although the
latter placed themselves in a position of defense, they retreated
before that multitude, and the terror of arms to which they were
unaccustomed; for the Ternatans already had muskets and arquebuses,
the use of which they had before other nations, because of their
trade with the Portuguese. [39] The frightful effects of these,
as terrible by their ruin as by their novelty, worked on the minds
of the Dapitans. Dailisan was killed in that fray, and his brother
Pagbuaya was left the reigning prince. He, seeing how he was involved
with the Ternatans, and how much at the mercy of their new [arms]
[40] was the place occupied by the Dapitans--where the Ternatan
ships could succeed in anchoring under the houses of the Dapitans,
and using their arms, fight them in safety--resolved to seek another
place, better defended. He also thus resolved because these nations
regard as unlucky the place where fortune has once shown itself
hostile to them, and immediately abandon it as accursed. Even today,
in these islands, it is a fact that the house where a chief dies is
abandoned by his people and it remains alone, waiting its ruin. [41]
He sought then a place where, their valor and its ruggedness joining
hands, they could make up, aided by the strength of the site, for
the small number of their nation. As there were no hills on their
coasts, and they were unable to restrain their noble and warlike
nature to the confinement and gloomy prison of the retired mountains,
where they would be deprived of the trade and benefits of the sea,
they crossed to the island of Mindanao, a crossing of fifteen leguas,
and twenty from their village, and seized a small rugged hill, which
would allow itself to be monopolized by their valor.
The people who elected to follow Pagbuaya numbered one thousand
families of freemen, his subjects, without taking into account the
unmarried men. In these nations, where there is a law of dowry--or
rather a law for the purchase of wives--there are many men who are
denied the bonds of matrimony because of their poverty. Neither do
we reckon the slaves of the prince, who exceeded five hundred, and
many other families of the Lutao nation, who as they now live under
the protection of the kings of Mindanao and Jolo, lived then also
under the protection of the Dapitan princes.
They had occupied the new site but a short time when their renown
caused anxiety to the most remote princes, who were fearful of
their power. Consequently, the king of the great island of Burney
was the first to send his ambassador with two joangas, soliciting
their friendship. While they were yet awaiting the resolution of the
Dapitans, the brave Magallanes sighted their coasts with his squadron,
as we shall relate in the second book. They immediately made peace
with him, being pleased, as brave men, with the valor which they
recognized in the unknown people. [42] The Borneans were sent away
with the message that the Dapitans wished no other friendship than
that of their new guests. They have preserved that friendship to
this day, as noble people, without any complaint [arising] of their
loyalty, even to the lowest slave; and their exploits in favor of
our arms have deserved much praise. For the son of that Pagbuaya,
called Manooc, following the fidelity of his father, and surpassing
it with the good fortune of being a Christian, aided the Spaniards in
their first conquests of these islands--especially in the conquest of
Manila, the capital of all these islands; and later in the conquest
of Camarines, taking at their own expense, in all these feats of arms,
their men and the nations subject to them.
That prince, who, as he was the first to become acquainted with
the Spaniards (having shared the knowledge of them which his father
acquired with the first sight of the squadron of Magallanes), was the
first to receive the blessing of acquaintance with our holy faith,
giving renown equally to his own banners and to those of our king and
sovereign, and receiving the name Don Pedro Manuel Manooc--continued
the greatness of his deeds. For besides the services rendered in
Manila and the province of Camarines, he sustained war against
Mindanao and Jolo, and attacked them with his fleets in their very
houses. On one occasion, when among others he went to attack Jolo,
he met the king himself, who was also going out with his fleet
of twelve joangas. Manooc defeated him and captured his flagship,
and, at the cost of many killed, the king escaped as a fugitive, by
hastening to the land. He made war on the Caragas, who were the terror
of the islands at that time. He subdued the village of Bayug of the
Malanao [43] nation, who were subject to the Mindanaos, without our
arms having any other protection amid so many enemies than that of his
valor which made easy so many undertakings. That prince was the father
of Doña Maria Uray, who is today living as an example and ornament
of these nations because of the perfection of her virtues--which she
prefers to a better fortune, for she has spurned marriage with the
kings of Jolo in order that she might not subject her faith to the
outrages of barbarous and faithless princes. Don Pedro Manuel Manooc
left orders that he was to be buried in the city of Cebú, as he had
ordered in his will that his bones be taken to that cathedral. His
children carried out his orders, thereby showing both their affection
to us and their devotion to him.
The women were not inferior in merit. For Doña Madalena Baloyog, the
sister of Don Pedro Manuel Manooc, had so great authority among the
barbarous Subanos that she alone by her discretion reduced more of
them than did the arms of her people by their valor and courage. She
obtained the name of pacifier, mistress, and sovereign of the hard
hearts of the chiefs of the Subanos. Her authority was so manifest
to our men that, the natives of the river of Butuan having rebelled,
and killed their alcalde-mayor and their minister, a secular priest,
who was then in charge of it, [44] it was sufficient for her to assure
them of pardon for the deed, and to secure to us their pacification
and due obedience forever.
The cousin of Don Pedro Manuel Manooc was Laria, who competed in all
things for the greatness of his cousin. He served in the conquest of
Maluco with the same nobility and valor, and would receive no pay or
rations for his men. In the seven times when the island of Jolo was
attacked in war, he took part in all of those conflicts, always showing
himself remarkable for his princely actions and soldierly valor.
A son worthy the nobility of such a father was Don Gonçalo Maglenti,
the husband of Doña Maria Uray, whom we mentioned above, and the
father of Don Pedro Cabelin. The latter is still living and is
nowise inferior in his deeds and fidelity to his forbears, as he was
reared from childhood with so good merits of nobility and Christian
warfare--accompanying his father from the age of seven years, on all
occasions of danger; thus he came to despise danger so thoroughly
that at the age of thirty (his present age) the enemies of God and
of our king whom he has killed in hand-to-hand combats, in various
frays, surpass two hundred. Don Gonçalo, then, the father of so
illustrious a son, left him enough examples to emulate his valor,
for in accordance with his surname (which means "he who hurls down
thunderbolts"), his valor hurled them in a constant shower. He opposed
the might of the Mindanaos at the time of their greatest arrogance,
when they threatened all these islands with their arms. He always went
in pursuit of their fleets and of those of the Malanaos which were
sent by way of the bay of Pangil [45] to aid the Mindanaos, for he
was an ally for the defeat of their plans. He subdued from the bay of
Pangil to the village of Sidabay, ten leguas from Samboangan, all of
the villages scattered through sixty leguas along the coast (formerly
many more and superior in number). His care watched perpetually over
the islands, and of his own accord he despatched advices to Cebú and
Oton at the first rumor of hostile fleets, by means of which the evil
designs of the enemies might be frustrated. That care merited for
his nation exemption from the tribute and from all personal service,
which its natives enjoy today by concession from his Majesty.
In this site the Dapitans--now reduced to the enterprises of his
valor to so small a number that they scarce exceed one hundred
families--alone and strangers, have defended themselves from the
power of all the pirates of these islands, all of whom, pursuing them
with their vengeance and injuries, have attempted to extirpate them
entirely. And as they have the land so at their mercy, with nations
who have inherited so much internal hatred [to the Dapitans] at being
subdued by this noble nation, the former have been unable to get one
single captive out of their hands, and their sieges are always left
crowned with triumphs. For Buhisán, the father of Corralat, and the
most warlike of the kings of Mindanao, with one hundred joangas and
the incentive of his own person and presence, returned within fifteen
months, his haughtiness undeceived. The Joloans, notwithstanding
their power, had no better fortune, and left behind seven joangas in
the enterprise that they attempted--although the opportunity was so
in their favor, when there were scarcely ten men in the stronghold,
as the majority had gone to various places for their trade.
Among the Subanos--the ports of their conquest, which surround
them on all sides--their valor is so accredited, that a Dapitan has
nothing to fear among a hundred of them. For if they see him ready
for them, they do not dare to attack him, however thirsty for his
blood their hatred makes them; for the Subanos are all the triumphs of
the arms of the Dapitans, of which the sound and rigorous execution
has drawn the former from their mountains, and made settlements of
men from savages scattered among the thickets, who are reduced to
more civilized life. Thus has been established a province which, in
our time, has been given separate an alcalde-mayor, namely, that of
Iligan; and by that province is secured to our arms an opening for
the conquest of Mindanao and Jolo, as we have thereby had soldiers,
pilots, and most skilful sailors, who are better than all those who
sail in these islands. Their village remains as a stronghold opposed
to the petty rulers of those peoples.
They are a very prudent race, and are quite Hispanicized in their
customs, and by the modesty of their bearing naturally deserved
respectable. Thus they do not endure the outrages that the other
subdued nations endure, now from the boldness of the soldiers,
now from the exigencies of our necessities; for they attend
to all things willingly, considering it an honor to satisfy our
desires. Consequently, in respect and esteem they are the princes of
these islands.
In matters of the Christian faith they yield in no wise to the most
pious European nation or to the loyalty of the most distinguished. They
are the ones who guard religion. The minister who visits the ports
of their coast, with four Dapitans whom he takes as a guard goes as
safely as if he were taking an infantry regiment; and no misfortune
has ever happened to such an arrangement. For although misfortunes
have been experienced in the infidelity of the native Subanos, yet
they have been invited by the confidence of the father missionaries,
who have gone among them without that valiant guard, as will be seen
in the course of this history. Finally, the faith of this island and
those near by is owing to the Dapitans; and, to their fidelity and
valor, the glorious confidence of our arms.