The erection of some churches, which took place at this time
The religious who were coming to the province, although they had
been diminished in number by the savages of Guadalupe, were of great
use. They were fourteen in number, and, that they might immediately
begin that which they had sought over so many seas and through so
many hardships, they were assigned to their duties. The newly-elected
provincial took with him four for the province of Nueva Segovia,
where at that time the conversions were going on rapidly, because the
country was large and nearly all the inhabitants were heathen. When
they reached the cape known as Cabo del Bojeador, a place which is
ordinarily a difficult one, the provincial saw that a small cloud which
covered the peaks of some mountains near there was moving toward the
sea, which began to be unquiet and rough. The pilot thought it best
that the sails should be lowered somewhat, in order better to resist
the attack of the wind and the waves which threatened them. While he
was striving to do this, the tempest anticipated him; and the wind came
with such force that wind and wave turned the vessel on its side, and
the water entered over the sides of the ship. It was necessary for the
religious to put their hands to the oars, while the rest went to work,
with great difficulty, to get in the sails--nothing being left but the
courses, in order to make it possible to steer. Although the amount of
sail was so small, the wind was so powerful that, lifting the vessel on
one side, it forced the other under the water. The religious repeated
the exorcisms against the tempest, upon which it subsided a little;
but when the exorcism was completed it came back with as much force as
at first, almost capsizing the vessel, and making it ship water. When
the exorcism was renewed, the tempest moderated itself anew; but when
the exorcism was completed, its fury returned as before. Thus they
perceived that this tempest was not merely a tempest of wind and of
waves, but was aided by the devil--who at the words of the exorcism
lost his strength, and as soon as that ceased received it again,
to hinder the ministers of the gospel. Four times they repeated the
exorcism, and four times the same thing happened, upon which the
father provincial, recognizing the author of this evil, said: "Since
I see that ministers are to be given to the villages of the heathen,
and that the devil, who unjustly keeps them under his tyranny, is
about to be banished from them, I promise to build a church under
the patronage of the guardian angels, that they may aid us against
this cursed enemy who is so clearly making war against us." As soon
as he had made this promise, it seemed that the guardian angels took
upon themselves the protection of the fragata; for the tornado began
to disappear, and they continued their voyage. On the following day
they rounded the cape, by rowing against a slight contrary wind which
had arisen; and when this wind had quieted down, the fragata came to
some billows where a number of opposing currents met. The waves were
so high that the little boat put its side under water. A religious
threw into the sea some relics of St. Raymond, repeating the glories
of the saint, and the sea was immediately calmed--just as when water
boils too violently in the kettle, and a little water is poured into
it; and by the kindness of the saint a fair wind was given to them,
with which they continued their voyage.
When they reached Nueva Segovia, a minister was provided for the
village of Nasiping, which had been accepted ten years before, but
for which it had been impossible previously to provide a minister
because the supply of them was so scanty. Even now there was so much
requiring the attention of the religious, and they were so few, that
half a miracle was necessary for the missionary to be given. Father
Fray Francisco de la Cruz, or Jurado, [40] was taken dangerously
ill. He was a religious of much virtue, of whom they had great
hopes. The father provincial, fearing to lose him, promised to give a
minister to Nasiping if the sick man recovered. Father Fray Francisco
recovered, and the provincial fulfilled his vow and named the church
after St. Michael. This village is on the banks of the great river
[i.e., of Cagayán], five or six leguas higher up than the city of
the Spaniards. In the year 1625, twenty-one years after it received
ministers, there had been baptized in it more than three thousand
four hundred persons, as is certified by the baptismal records; and,
in addition to this, many were baptized in sickness who, because
of their immediate death, were not entered on the records. To this
village there came an Indian from Tuguegarao, which is distant two
days' journey by water. He very earnestly desired the religious to
confess him, and to give him the other holy sacraments. The religious
confessed him and gave him the communion, more that he might assist
his devotion than because he supposed he was in danger. He had come
on foot and seemed strong, so that it seemed that he was very far
from being in such a state of necessity; but after he had received the
sacrament he died. This was something at which the religious wondered,
and which aroused in him great devotion and joy when with his eyes he
saw so plainly the power of divine predestination, carried out in ways
so hidden and mysterious. Father Fray Pedro Muriel, [41] who is still
living, has testified as an eye-witness that when he was minister in
that village, in the year 1631, the locusts were more in number than
the natives had ever seen before. In the fields of that village they
were in such numbers that they spread over a space three leguas in
length and a quarter of a legua in breadth, covering the earth and the
trees so that the ground could not be seen, so thickly did they cover
it; and they ravaged the fields as if they had been burnt. [The Indians
did what they could to frighten away the locusts, but in vain; and the
Lord heard the prayers of one of the Indians that He would drive away
the locusts during the night. At dawn, when he expected to find all of
his fields desolated, he found that just half of them had been eaten,
and that all the rest had been left. The Lord showed a similar grace to
a poor woman who prayed for His aid in protecting her field of maize.]
In this same year, 1604, the provincial sent three religious to the
estuary of Lobo and the country of Ytabes, [42] in the province of
Nueva Segovia. All those Indians are heathen; and though by nature they
are very tractable and easy to deal with, simple and free from malice,
and concerned with nothing but their agriculture, still the outrages
of those who took tribute from them were so great that they enraged
the natives and obliged them to take up arms, to the great loss of the
Spaniards. As they were few and the multitude of the Indians many,
the few, although they were very courageous, came to their death by
the hands of the many; or, rather, the unjust came to death by the
hands of divine justice, which in this way was pleased to chastise
and end their injustices. And as we very seldom reckon rightly,
the chastisement which God wrought by the hands of these Indians was
attributed by the Spaniards to the courage and valor of this tribe;
and thus they were very fearful of them until the holy gospel declared
by the Dominican religious changed them from bloodthirsty wolves to
gentle sheep--the Lord aiding by manifest miracles to give credit to
His faith and to His ministers, to the end that they might be able
to do that which without this or similar assistance from the Lord it
would have been impossible to achieve. One of the three religious who
entered these heathen villages to undertake their conversion said,
in giving an account of what happened: "Since the hand of the Lord
has been so plainly succoring these Indians by the hands of those
religious who dwelt among them, their reformation has been great and
marvelous. They have gone from one extreme to the other, almost without
any intermediate stage, since the religious took them under their
care. Before that they were so free, so completely without God or law,
without king or any person to respect, that they gave themselves up
freely to their desires and their passions. Evidence of this is found
in those wars which they were continually waging among themselves,
without plan or order; and in the drunkenness and the outrages of
which they were guilty, without regard to God or man. He who was most
esteemed among them was the greatest drunkard, because, as he was the
richest, he could obtain the most liquor. He who slew the greatest
number of men was regarded as superior to all the rest. They married
and unmarried daily, with one or many wives. In a word, they were a
barbarous race, given up to all sorts of shameless conduct. In spite
of all this, when the missionary came among them they were as docile
as if they had during all their lives been learning to obey, which
is something very difficult even in religious orders. This was true,
although the religious instantly laid a general interdict upon all
their ancient vices; obliged them to consort solely with their lawful
wives; even forced many to abandon their land and their old villages,
that they might come where teaching was given them; and, in a word,
compelled them to enter all at once, and in a body, into ordered ways
of living, in matters both divine and human. They had not a thought of
opposing a single command; and this has been achieved without stripes
or penalties, but simply by kindness and gentleness. The result has
been that those who did not understand anything except killing, and
drinking till they could not stand, and running without any restraint
after every sort of vice, now never think of doing these things--as I
have seen in these first three villages in this district of Ytabes. The
day we went among them we found all the men lying about the streets,
dead drunk; since that day there has not been one drunk enough to
lose his senses. The same reformation has been achieved in all other
matters, for they were not compelled to do all this by fear of the
Spaniards. Quite otherwise; the Spaniards regarded these Indians as
so indomitable and intrepid that, for fear of them, they did not dare
go up the river as far as their villages; but after the religious went
among them, they were gathered into large villages that they might be
more easily instructed in the faith, having been previously scattered
among many small ones, like so many farmsteads [in Spain]. There
were three villages thus formed: one of about five hundred tributes,
named Taban, the church of which was called San Raymundo; and the
other two of more than a thousand tributes each--one called Pia, its
church Santa Ynes de Monte Policiano, afterwards known as San Domingo;
and the last one, named Tuao, the church of which was dedicated to the
holy guardian angels because of the incident referred to above. Thus
all those people were brought together and united, to reduce them
to settlements, and to a civilized mode of life and government; and
to the church; but this result was obtained at no small cost to the
religious. Of three of them, two immediately fell very sick, and the
third still more so, for he died as a result of the illness. This was
father Fray Luis de Yllescas, a son of the convent of Sancto Domingo at
Mexico, a very humble religious, very obedient and beloved by all. He
received the holy sacraments for his departure with great devotion;
and went away to enjoy, as may be presumed, the reward of his labors,
which had been many in a short time. Yet neither this death nor the
failure of health in the rest caused them to withdraw their hands
from the work upon which they had begun. On the contrary, the great
good which they beheld, wrought by the Lord among these Indians,
served as medicines and remedies for the ills from which they suffered;
and for their convalescence, though they had no worldly luxuries,
that fruit was much better which, more and more every day, was borne by
this new plant of the church. From it they recovered health, strength,
and new courage to carry on the work which they had begun. To give
them still greater spirit, the Lord came to them working miracles. The
first mass which was celebrated in the village of Pia took place on
St. Bartholomew's day, the twenty-fourth of August. [Before the end
of the month, a sick person who wished to be baptised beheld some
fierce and abominable forms which dissuaded him from baptism, and
reminded him of the rights and customs of his ancestors, charging
him not to change the faith in which his fathers and grandfathers
had lived. These dreadful forms were driven away by three persons,
clad in black cloaks with white garments beneath. The sick man was
often asked if he knew these three persons who had delivered him, and
he said "no." When he was asked if they were religious of our order
he also said "no," because he had never seen any of the religious
wearing their cloaks. He always declared that he had been awake and
not asleep; and the narrative was accepted as certain. At one time,
a religious who was himself in poor health was left in charge of
thirteen newly-converted Christians, who were all confined to their
beds by sickness. Being unable to give them the care which he desired,
he placed upon the abdomen of each of them a little roasted rice-bran,
very hot, begging the Lord to make up by His pity for the lack of
medicine. When he came back the next day to visit them, all but two
were well, and had gone to work in the field; and the others soon
recovered. The same treatment given by another Indian or by the sick
man to himself had no effect; and thus it is plain that the healing was
due to the desire of the Lord to honor and to give authority to the
hand which applied the remedy. The Indians themselves observed that,
after they had religious, far fewer died than before they had them. In
their ancient days of superstition, when a man fell sick he generally
died, because he was treated only by the witchcraft of the aniteras,
whose sole purpose was to get gold from the sick persons by false
promises. The sorcerers did them no good and indeed rather harmed them,
since cures came from our worst enemy, the devil; while now the Lord
was giving them, by means of the religious, health that was health
indeed. One of the religious in this region, father Fray Juan Naya,
[43] fell ill, and grew worse so rapidly that he was given up as a
consumptive. By the advice of another religious, he made a vow to
our Lady to serve in that province among the heathen, if she should
be pleased to grant him sufficient health for him to carry on this
work. He made the vow for seven consecutive years from the day of the
Visitation, July 2, 1605. During all this time he had his health;
but at the end of the seven years he was attacked by a very severe
and dangerous illness, which left him when he renewed his vow for
four years more. Similar experiences have been frequent among the
religious. It has even happened to some who were not very devoted
to this work, and who desired to go to other provinces where the
Lord might be served with less severity and with somewhat greater
comfort, that they have been afflicted with diseases, which gave
place to miraculous health as soon as they made vows to remain and
minister to the Indians whom they wished to leave. In this region the
Lord manifested His goodness and gave authority to his ministers,
curing a sick woman who was at the point of death, by means of the
sacrament of holy baptism. In this same village it happened to father
Fray Juan Naya that a poisonous snake entered his shoe without any evil
effect. An Indian in this same village called upon God in his illness,
and, when it did not seem good to the divine Providence to heal him,
he called upon the devil whom he had previously served. The Lord
punished him with dreadful visions, from which he was delivered upon
praying to the Lord for His protection; and he was finally cured,
after making his confession. A child was miraculously healed in
the town of Pia at the time when father Fray Juan Sancta Ana was
vicar there. A woman who did not seem to be dangerously ill prayed
so earnestly to be baptized that the father granted her wish. She
died almost immediately after, the Lord having shown her a marvelous
kindness in causing the religious to baptize her immediately.]