The election as provincial of father Fray Miguel Ruiz, and events in
the province at this time
On the first of May, 1621, father Fray Miguel Ruiz was elected as
provincial, to the great satisfaction of the province. He was a son
of the royal convent of Sancta Cruz at Segovia; and at the time of
his election was prior of the convent of Manila, which position he
had held twice. He exhibited in it and in other important dignities
the excellent qualities which are desired in a good superior--much
virtue and learning, great prudence, and natural gravity and kindness,
which, while rendering him much beloved, did not allow others to lose
respect for him. In this chapter many ordinances were enacted which
were helpful for the quiet and calm of the religious. During this
year two religious went from Nueva Segovia to Japon, and, after having
suffered much in that kingdom, they had the fortunate end of glorious
martyrdom--being burnt alive by a slow fire, as will be seen later. A
fortunate provincialate was promised because it had begun so joyfully;
for at that time the verification of a most famous miracle wrought
by our Lady of the Rosary was being concluded. She went, in her holy
image which she had in the convent of Manila, to give aid. (as she
did most marvelously) to a votary of hers by the name of Francisco
Lopez, who called upon her in the extreme necessity of his soul. The
narrative, with the most marvelous circumstances which accompanied her
act, has already been given in the part of this history which treats
of the foundation of this convent--where something has also been
narrated with regard to the great deeds of this most holy image, and
some account has been given of the innumerable miracles which it has
wrought and still works. Among them this, which was the most famous,
has been described. [26] On account of it, this most holy image was
brought out during the procession which was made to the cathedral
on the first Sunday of the chapter-meeting, and with its beauty and
the special joy of that day, the city was filled with delight and
devotion. The miracle was made the subject of sermons, and was painted
upon a canvas, and thus the devotion of all to this sovereign lady
was greatly increased; and she, as if by grace omnipotent, from that
day forward conferred more and greater favors on her votaries. She
so greatly multiplied the working of manifest miracles that, although
many of them have been recounted in the place referred to, there were
incomparably more which were omitted on account of their number; and
she has never ceased and will never cease to work the like marvels,
until the devotion of this city for her shall cease. This provincialate
was also very happy in the great number of holy martyrs which the
province had during it. A detailed account of them will be given,
so far as we have been able to learn the facts, though many great
and edifying matters must remain in silence because the disturbances
of the persecution gave no opportunity for verifying them. Yet that
which is certain is so much that it alone would be sufficient to
give glory to an entire religious order; and how much more to a small
province--so small that there were many convents in España which alone
contained more religious than this entire province. Under all these
circumstances, for the Lord to give so many and so great saints to
it is a special mercy; and however much we may strive to praise and
give thanks for it, our praise and gratitude will never reach the
obligation, which is far and beyond measure above our feeble strength.
All these new causes of joy were necessary to temper the sorrow
caused among the religious of this province by the rising of a large
number of Indians, which happened on the sixth of November in this
year in the most distant parts of the province of Nueva Segovia,
in the region known as Yrraya. On the Friday before, a very large
and beautiful cross had been set up in the court or cemetery of the
church in the largest village there, which was called Abuatan. At
this time the Indians gave every evidence of joy and pleasure and
even of devotion to the Lord who redeemed us on the cross; but on the
following Sunday, instigated by the devil, they burnt their churches
and villages, and avowed themselves enemies of the Spaniards, and even
of God, whom they left that they might return to their ancient sites
to serve the devil in exchange for the enjoyments of the liberties and
vices of their heathen state. Practically all those in this village,
and many of those in another near it called Pilitan, belonged to a
tribe called Gadanes. [27] This tribe was always regarded as one on
a lower plane of civilization than the others, and more devoted to
freedom, and enemies to subjection; for they were a race bred in the
most distant mountains and the wildernesses of that province, and they
had less communication and commerce than did the other tribes--not
only with the Spaniards, but even with the rest of the Indians. It
was these Gadanes, then, who became restless, and disquieted the
other inhabitants of that region, though these others had always
been very faithful to God and the Spaniards. They had even sustained
many bloody wars with the neighbors by whom they were surrounded that
they might not be lacking in the friendship which they had with the
Spaniards, or in the subjection which they had promised them. But now
these revolted and joined the insurgents, partly as the result of
force applied by the Gadanes--for the latter greatly excelled them
in numbers, and caught them unprepared for defense--and partly also
carried away by their own natural desire for liberty, to which they
were invited by the safety of the mountains to which they proposed to
go. The mountains, being very rough, offered opportunities for easy
defense; and, being very fertile, promised them an abundant living. The
Gadanes had planned this revolt far ahead, and had appointed a day
for it to occur some time later. Their purpose was to try to get
back first certain chiefs who were held as hostages in the city of
the Spaniards; and they had already sent there one of their chiefs,
named Saquin, who had the influence of a father over the rest, that he
might bring away these chiefs, with great dissimulation and pretended
arguments of necessity. It happened that the father vicar of Abuatan
had grown weary of his work, and wished to resign his office. He had
gone down at that time to the city to ask the father provincial, who
happened to be there then, to give this office to someone else and
to permit him to take some rest by being under his directions. The
Gadanes, accused by their own bad consciences, supposed that he
had detected their purpose of rising, and had gone down to ask for
soldiers to prevent it. In fear of interference, they hastened on
their treacherous act; and, without waiting for the appointed period,
or for the return of him who had gone down for the hostages (their
relatives), they decided to rise at once. Without further deliberation
or delay, they began active operations. Father Fray Alonso Hernandez,
who was at Abuatan, heard the tumult; and being above measure sad at
what was happening, he tried his best to quiet them. He told them
how foolish their proceedings were, and how they were deceived by
the devil, not only as to the good of their souls, but also as to
the many temporal advantages, which they possessed in their trade,
with the Spaniards as well as with the rest of the Indians--in which
they gained so much that they were the richest and most prosperous
Indians in all that region. All this, he said, and their own quiet,
peace, and comfort would be destroyed by their rising; while if they
would keep quiet they would preserve it all, for he assured them that
no harm would happen to them for what they intended to do. But the
chiefs who led the insurgents said to him that he should not waste
his time by talking about this; and that it was now too late, since
they were determined to carry on what they had begun. "What is it
that moves you," said the religious, "to so imprudent an act? If the
religious have done you any wrong, you have me here in your power;
revenge it upon me, take my life in pay for it, and do not cast away
your souls." "It is not because of any wrong from the religious,
or resentment toward them," said the Indians, "but because we are
weary of the oppressive acts of the Spaniards. Depart hence in peace;
for though it is true that our rising is not against the religious,
we cannot promise that some drunken Indian may not try to take off
your head." The religious perceived the obstinacy of the Gadanes,
and the fact that arguments would be useless in this matter, and
went away to watch over the village of Pilitan, which was under
his care. He found it quiet, but that peace continued for a very
short time; for presently--this was early Sunday morning--he heard
a very great noise and a loud Indian war-cry. They came in a crowd,
after their ancient custom, naked, and thickly anointed with oil,
and with weapons in their hands. It was the insurgents from Abuatan,
coming to force the Indians of Pilitan to join the uprising, in order
that they might have more strength to resist the Spaniards when the
latter should make war upon them to bring them to subjection. One of
the chiefs who were leading the insurgents, named Don Phelippe Cutapay,
a young man of about twenty-three, came forward. He had been brought
up from infancy in the church with the religious, and when he was a
mere child had aided in mass as sacristan, and afterward as cantor;
and at this time he was governor of Abuatan. He went direct to the
church to speak to the religious, intending to inform him as to what
they were about to do, and to advise him to go down the river, for
fear that someone might get beyond control and harm him. While he
was talking with the religious in the cloister, his elder brother,
named Don Gabriel Dayag, who was acting as guide to the others, came
in. Being somewhat nervous and excited, he approached the religious
with little courtesy; Cutapay rebuked him for the way in which
he was acting, saying to him that he should remember that he was
before the father, to whom he owed more respect. The elder brother
answered: "Cutapay, if our minds are divided we shall do nothing;"
however, he grew calm and behaved respectfully in the presence of
the religious. The shouting increased, and there were now in the
courtyard of the church about eight hundred Indians armed and prepared
for battle. The religious roused his courage, and, laying aside all
fear, went out to them; and standing in the midst of this multitude,
as a sheep among wolves, he caused them to sit down, and addressed
them for more than an hour. He urged upon them what would be for
their good, and strove to persuade them to see the great error into
which they were falling. Among other things in the utterances which
the Lord is accustomed to impart under such circumstances, he said:
"My sons, among whom I have so long been, and to whom I have so
many years preached the true doctrine, which you ought to follow,
and have taught you that which you ought to observe for the good
of your souls, I am greatly grieved to see the mistaken path which
you take, casting yourselves over precipices where destruction is
certain, and from which your rescue is difficult. If your wish to
run away is on account of the bad treatment which you have received
from us religious--and from me in particular, as being less prudent
than others--here you have me alone and defenseless. Slay me then,
slay me, and do not cast away your souls. Let me pay with my life
the evil which you are about to do; and do not lose your faith and
your hope of salvation, nor pay in hell for the sin of this uprising,
and for the many sins which you will add to it in your revolt." Some
of them made the same answer as before; that they had not done this
because of ill-will toward the religious; but on the contrary, they
felt for them affection and love, and therefore did not intend to do
them any harm. This they said was plain because, although they had him
alone in the midst of them, no one was rude to him, but even in the
midst of the tumult showed him respect. "The reason of our uprising,"
they said, "is that we are weary of the oppressions of the Spaniards;
and if you or any other religious desire to come to our villages, any
one of you may come whenever he pleases, providing he does not bring
a Spaniard." The religious responded by offering that the Spaniards
would do them no harm, especially for what they had already done,
promising himself to remain among them as security, so that they might
take away his life if the least harm should come to them from that
cause. But they were very far indeed from accepting this good advice;
and some of them went away and set fire to some houses, upon which
a great outcry arose in the village. Cutapay stood up and greatly
blamed what had been done, saying that it was very ill considered
and a daring outrage to set fire. "I call your attention," he said,
"to the fact that the father is in the village; and so long as he is
here nothing should be done to grieve him;" and he commanded people
to go and put out the fire and to calm the village. The religious
began to preach to them again; but, though there were so many people
before him, he was preaching in the desert, and hence could accomplish
nothing with them. They asked the father to depart, and to take with
him the silver and ornaments of the sacristy of this church and of
that of Abuatan. This was no small generosity from an excited body of
insurgents. They provided him with boats, and men to row them, and the
friars went down the river to the friendly villages. The insurgents
immediately began to commit a thousand extravagances. They set fire to
the houses, they drank, and they annoyed the people in the village. If
any were unwilling to join them, they threatened them with death by
holding lances to their breasts. The result was that many joined them,
being forced by the fear of instant death, and waiting for a better
time when they could again have religious. A few of them succeeded in
hiding, and going down the river after the fathers, some leaving their
sons and others their fathers. There was one chief who, despising
his wealth and his gold, left it all and came with the religious,
taking with him only his wife. His name was Don Bernabe Lumaban. Doña
Agustina Pamma, who was a member of one of the most noble families
of the region and the wife of one of the chiefs, hid herself in a
marsh--standing in it up to her neck that she might be left behind,
and might go to a Christian village. However, she was discovered,
and was taken along by the insurgents. But the Lord did not fail to
reward her pious desires, for within a few years she accomplished
them, and lived for a long time, as she desired, in the church. The
insurgents did not cease until they had roused all the villages in
their vicinity. As men abandoned of God and directed by the devil,
they were guilty of horrible sacrileges. In the village of Abuatan
they sacked the church and the sacristy, and made a jest and derision
of the things which they found there. They treated irreverently
that which they had a little before reverenced: the women put on the
frontals as petticoats [sayas], and of the corporals and the palls of
the chalices they made head-kerchiefs. They dressed themselves in the
habits of the religious, and even went so far as to lose their respect
for the image of the Virgin. The feet and hands of this image were of
ivory, and it was one of the most beautiful in all that province and
in all the islands. There was one man who dared to give it a slash
across the nose, saying, "Let us see if she will bleed." They also
committed other sacrileges, and even greater ones, as a barbarous
tribe of apostates. Afterward an Indian, finding an opportunity to
flee from them to a Catholic region, did so; and he went not alone,
for he carried with him the holy image of the Virgin of the Rosary
which had been slashed across the face. Although it was received with
great rejoicings by the Christians, they could but shed many tears to
see it so outraged. All this grieved the hearts of the religious who
had trained and taught them, and who now saw them lost irremediably
and without reason; for although they said that they could not endure
the oppressions of the Spaniards, these were not so great but that the
profit which the Indians gained by their commerce with them was very
much greater. The man who at that time used to collect the tributes
was so kind a man and so good a Christian that, confident of his own
innocence and of the fact that he had never wronged them, he went
up when he heard this news, to try to bring them back by argument;
but they no sooner saw him than they killed him.
One of those who were most grieved by this disastrous uprising was
father Fray Pedro de Sancto Thomas, for he had dwelt for a long
time among this tribe, and had been the vicar and superior of those
churches, and loved each one of the insurgents as his spiritual
son. Hence this misfortune hurt his soul, and he determined to
strive to remedy this great evil as completely as he could, without
shrinking from any danger or effort for the purpose. The places
where the insurgents had betaken themselves had been selected as
particularly strong and secure, and were in the midst of mountains
so high and so craggy that they might be defended from the Spaniards,
if the latter should try to bring them back or to punish them. Hence
the journey to them was long and excessively difficult. Yet in spite
of this, without hesitating at the hardships of the road, and at
the great danger which he ran by passing through villages of other
Indians--with whom he was not acquainted, and who were generally
looking out for an opportunity to cut off some head without running
any risk--he made his way through everything, went among them alone,
and tried to arrange for bringing them back, and made agreements with
them. No Spaniard dared appear among them, for they were certain
to kill him, but father Fray Pedro was admitted and entertained;
and in the following year, 1622, he brought back in peace with him
some three hundred households of those who had rebelled. These had
gone with the body of insurgents from the villages of Pilitan and
Bolo. Most of them had been compelled to do so, as has been said,
and they were accordingly brought back as a result of the earnest
efforts and the courageous boldness of father Fray Pedro. Returning
to a pacified region, they were settled at the mouth of the river of
Maquila. After this was accomplished, he went further up the river
of Balisi, where it was most difficult, with the alcade-mayor and
the troops who were advancing against the rebels. He went before,
trusting in God, to speak with the enemy; and he was so confident
that he was able to say, like St. Martin among the highwaymen, that
he had never had less fear in all his life, because fear had been
taken from him by the Lord, for whose sake he had placed himself in
this situation. The leader of the revolted enemy, Don Gabriel Dayag,
came to him and kissed his scapular with great reverence, and embraced
him. Repenting for what he had done, Don Gabriel planned to return;
and although at that time he did not carry out this project, he
finally came down in peace later, and revealed to the father some
ambuscades on the road in some dangerous passes where the Indians
intended to kill the Spanish soldiers, which danger was avoided by
his information. At that time this father was vicar-provincial, and,
that he might be able to have more time to attend to these necessary
and arduous labors, the provincial relieved him from the office--to the
great satisfaction of father Fray Pedro, who esteemed most highly that
which was most laborious and least honorable. He paid little attention
to his bodily health, all his solicitude being given to the spiritual
health of himself and his fellow-men. He treated himself very ill,
and would take no comfort even when he needed it. He never complained
when he was suffering from illness, until the increase of the disease
obliged him to keep his bed, in a condition of such infirmity that,
even when in bed, he was unable to move. The hardships which he endured
at this time by going (always on foot) over very difficult paths were
most trying. The heat of the sun was terrible; he was obliged to be
awake much; and he had but little food, and that bad--so that nothing
could be looked for except a severe illness or death. He was reduced
to skin and bones, and yet he strove to give himself spirit to return
to that destroyed vineyard, that he might restore it to its ancient
beauty and verdure; but his exhausted strength was insufficient to
resist so severe a disease, and they accordingly had him carried down
to be cared for in the city of Nueva Segovia. The medicines, however,
came so late that he was no longer susceptible to them. Being nothing
but skin and bone, he was like a living image of death. He was greatly
grieved by his sickness, and his grief was greater since the disease
immediately exhibited its deadly malice; yet it was not a rapid one,
and hence he had time for preparation for the dreadful journey. He
received the holy sacraments very calmly, and he made his confession
quite at leisure. Since it was the last one, and there were now no
stumbles to be feared, he declared that he went from this world in
the virginal purity with which he had entered it. He died on the day
of St. Peter the Apostle; on that day he assumed the religious habit;
and finally, on that day he ended this miserable life, in the hope
of going to eternal felicity by the aid of that same holy apostle,
to whom he had always been devoted. This father was a son of the
convent of Villaescusa, and, after a life in España in which he had
a special reputation for virtue, he continued the same course in
this province, with great spiritual progress, for more than twenty
years. He was always beloved by all, and always distinguished in his
labors for the spiritual good of his fellow-men--not only in Yrraya,
but wherever he lived. This was especially true in the district of
Malagueg, where another uprising occurred, and where, though he was
in great danger of being slain by the insurgents, he showed great
courage and readiness to die for the holy gospel. But here the Lord
delivered him for more labors, greater merits, and higher glory. In
the provincial chapter which followed, the following record was
entered on the minutes: "In the convent of our father St. Dominic at
Nueva Segovia, died the reverend father Fray Pedro de Sancto Thomas,
an aged priest and father, vicar of Yrraya. He was beloved by God and
man, and most observant of the rules of the order; and, although he
suffered from disease, yet he underwent the greatest hardships for
the conversion of the Indians and for sustaining them in the faith."