Father Fray Juan de Rueda and de los Angeles, who died a martyr
[Father Fray Juan de Rueda was a native of the mountains of Burgos,
and had assumed the habit in San Pablo at Valladolid, whence he came to
the Philippinas in the year 1603, being sent, as soon as he arrived,
to the kingdom of Japon. Here he assumed the name of Fray Juan de
los Angeles. When the priests were banished, father Fray Juan was
one of those who remained in hiding to aid and fortify the Christians
there. In 1619 he came to Manila in order to obtain more religious. He
reaped a great harvest in Arima. He was devoted to the holy rosary. He
translated into Japanese the devotion of the holy rosary while he was
in Manila. His anxiety to return was such that he strove to make his
way back by the islands of the Lequios, where his arguments in favor
of Christianity convinced those who heard them that he was a Spanish
priest. He was therefore imprisoned for a time in an island called
Avaguni, where he profaned a thicket which was dedicated to an idol,
and for this suffered death, but on what day was never known.
While this provincial chapter was being held in Manila, there died
in Nueva Segovia father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho, a native of
Caceres in Estremadura. He was a son of the convent of San Estevan
at Salamanca. He volunteered for the Philippinas in 1594, and in
Mexico was elected a superior of the company, the vicar who had led
them having died; he was assigned to Nueva Segovia. He was a most
devoted minister, a diligent student of the language of that nation,
and a most zealous and devoted religious. He prayed the Lord that he
might not die a superior, and his prayer was granted; for after he
had been vicar of many convents, vicar-provincial of Nueva Segovia,
prior of the convent of Manila, and twice provincial of the province,
the Lord called him to himself when he was living in Masi, one of
the first villages which he converted. He died suddenly, on the
twenty-fifth of April. The Indians of the villages of Abulug, Masi,
Pata, and Cabacungan gave him the most costly funeral honors within
their power, and made up a subscription for more than five hundred
masses, which at four reals apiece come to more than two thousand. This
they did as a token of their great love for him, and the great debt
which they owed him for bringing them to the Catholic faith.]
On the eighth of June, the first Sunday after the most Holy Trinity, a
great misfortune occurred in the revolt of some Indians of the province
of Nueva Segovia. Turning their backs on the faith, they gave it up
and fled to the mountains--a thing which caused great grief to the
ministers of the holy gospel. In that province, above a village named
Abulug, near a river which comes down from the mountain, two villages
had been formed by gathering the inhabitants together. They were
called Nuestra Señora del Rossario de Fotol, as has been recounted
in this history, and San Lorenço de Capinatan. In the latter there
lived some Indians known as Mandayas, a wild and fierce tribe whose
native abode was in mountainous places about the bay of Bigan in
Ylocos. The religious ministered to them and assisted them in their
necessities, taught them the law of God, and baptized many people,
for these people generally asked holy baptism from them. Their evil
nature, which was perverse and restless, and their affection for
their ancient places of abode so attracted them that it seemed as
if in that village they were caught fast by the hair. Three times
they endeavored to escape to the mountains; and though they were
prevented twice, and their efforts came to nothing, this last time
they so planned their attempt, and kept it so secret, that they
carried out their evil purpose. With this object, they stirred up the
old inhabitants of Capinatan, and persuaded those of Fotol, bringing
them to join them by means of threats and prayers. Some of the people
of Fotol became so obstinate that they were worse than the Mandayas,
the first movers of the insurrection. Afterward the Mandayas who were
in Capinatan rose; and two of them, Don Miguel Lanab and another chief
named Alababan, set the enterprise in motion by going to the church to
speak to the religious who was there at the time. This was father Fray
Alonso Garcia, [35] a son of the convent of San Pablo at Valladolid,
who had said a first mass in the village of Fotol, and a second in
Capinatan, and was now at dinner with brother Fray Onofre Palao, a
lay religious from the convent of Manila. They were seated at their
meal in a little corridor of the house. Their assailants came up, and
each one standing beside the religious whom he was to decapitate, they
made a pretense of asking permission to go to some villages on their
ancient lands. Father Fray Alonso, who had but recently come, referred
the request to the regular minister of the village, and asked them to
wait till he should come, because he was in another village. At this
point Alababan raised his arm, and with his balanao or knife he struck
such a blow on the neck of Fray Onofre that he cut off his head to the
backbone, leaving it hanging by only a little bit of skin. Don Miguel
Lanab, who had not acted so promptly, lifted his knife, and father Fray
Alonso naturally raised his hand to protect his head. The knife cut
through this and the blow went on and reached his head. Father Fray
Alonso rose from the table and fell on his knees like a gentle lamb;
and the Mandaya traitor repeated the blow, giving him another on the
head. The Indian boys who served at the table began to scream; and the
transgressors, that they might not be caught in so perfidious an act,
made their escape. Some Indians who were ignorant of the conspiracy
came, and took father Fray Alonso to the house of a chief, where some
medicines were applied to the wound. As they were preparing a barge
in which to take him down to the village of Abulug, the Mandayas came,
and prevented them from doing so by threats. They took him back to the
house of the chieftainess: and while father Fray Alonso was exhorting
the people to come back to obedience, and expounding to them the
evil of which they were guilty in apostatizing from the faith, three
Mandayas came in, and with their keen balanaos or knives cut to pieces
the confessor of Christ. They afterward threw out the pieces from the
house, to be eaten by the swine who were there. As a result of this
atrocious deed, the Mandayas rose in a body and roused the Capinatas;
and, coming down to Fotol, they forced the people there by menaces to
flee with them to the mountains. They set fire to the churches, and,
as members of Satan, they defiled them by a thousand sacrileges. They
struck off the head of a Christ, and cut the body down the middle,
dividing it into two parts, which were afterward found by the religious
who came to bring them back to obedience. The religious buried these,
the uprising of the Mandayas (of whose severe punishment we shall soon
hear) allowing no opportunity for anything else. With regard to Fray
Alonso Garcia, several matters worthy of remark were noted. The first
was this. Some months before, while he was living in the convent in
Capinatan, he one night had put himself into the posture of prayer in
the dormitory, with his breviary in his hand. At this time the convent
was disturbed by an imp who caused so much trouble that he would not
give the religious any rest, and from whose visitations there was
not in all the convent any place that was free. He disturbed them
in the dormitory, he made a noise in the cells, he feigned the noise
of a struggle in the church; and sometimes he let himself fall with
a clatter that was heard in the village, and he would throw himself
down from the choir. He used to walk up and down in the church, and
he made his appearance in the larders, where he broke all the plates
there were; he made a noise under the beds, and struck the heads of the
bedsteads; and sounded the strings of a harp which they had for use at
masses on some feasts. This disturbance lasted until the breaking-out
of the uprising, and must have been a prognostication of it, and
a sign of what the devil was devising to disquiet the Christians
of this village. Now while father Fray Alonso was praying, the imp
came to him, invisible to everyone in the dormitory, and struck the
father a heavy blow, so that he felt pain in the same hand and wrist,
in the place where the blow afterward fell which cut it off. This was
the first of the things referred to. The second was that he thought
so little of himself, and had so little confidence in his own works,
that he was accustomed to say that if he did not die by some fortunate
blow which should take away his life and despatch him to heaven,
he did not know whether he should go there. This he said because of
his humility, and the event was as he said.
Another matter was that, although father Fray Alonso was not a very
skilful linguist, and not one of those who had made the greatest
progress in speaking the language of that tribe, yet when he was
wounded by the first blows and was urging the Indians not to flee,
and telling them of the harm which would come to them if they did so,
he spoke with such elegance and precision that the Indians were amazed
to hear him; and they noted this as a striking fact at the time, and
told of it afterward. He was very charitable, and was in the habit
of praising all and of speaking of the defects of himself alone. He
came to the Philippinas in the year 1622, and lived in the province of
Nueva Segovia--where, in his third year, he met with the happy death
which keen knives, directed by hands of apostates from the faith,
bring to ministers of the holy gospel. The intermediate chapter of
1628 made mention of these two religious in the following words: "In
the province of Nueva Segovia father Fray Alonso Garcia, a priest, and
brother Fray Onofre Palao, a lay brother, died happily by the hands of
impious apostates, an uprising of the Indians to whom they ministered
having occurred." In the place where father Fray Alonso was cut to
pieces, there was afterward raised in his honor a small shrine. The
Indians were brought back in the following year, and this tribe used
devoutly to frequent this shrine. The dwelling of the religious had
stood where Fray Onofre had been killed, and here it was erected
again. Since the first building was burned, it was supposed that the
fire had consumed his body at the same time--although some Spaniards
have some small bones which they value, believing that these are his,
because they found them where he was decapitated.