The foundation of the vicariate of Bataan, and the
early history thereof
Being now armed with the general ordinances and animated by the
fervent address of the vicar-general, whom they regarded as inspired
by the Lord, those who had received assignment went directly to the
duties to which he assigned them. Since that of Bataan was the first
in the neighborhood of Manila which was founded, not fifteen days
passed after the arrival of the brethren in those regions before
some of them were there, to whet the steel of their ardor on some of
those rough stones. Within two months after their arrival they were
regularly settled, and in charge of it, and were given exclusive
right to it by September 15, 1587. It was a post of much labor; and
on this account, and because there were many others where with less
effort greater results could be obtained and more souls converted,
it had been abandoned by the clergy who had previously had it. Secular
clergy, and members of the orders of St. Francis and of St. Augustine,
all had tried it, but none had persevered. It was no marvel that they
left it, because the few Indians who dwelt there, about seven hundred
inhabitants in all, were scattered in thirty villages situated at the
foot of some mountains toward the sea--in a land subject to overflow,
with many creeks or little rivers, to cross which the Indians did not
take the trouble to build bridges. There was no open road from one
village to another, and it was necessary for all of them to keep in
continual movement, in order to baptize, to confess, and to administer
the other sacraments to all. More ordinarily, however, they were called
on to go to the sick, to whom the ministers, when they were called,
could not excuse themselves. Since to attend to so many villages a
single man would not have had enough strength, while on account of
the lack of ministers not many could occupy themselves with so small
an Indian population, the labor came to be intolerable; and when this
region was compared with others in as great a need of service, but
requiring less labor, and giving a greater spiritual harvest, within
a few months those missionaries left this desert place, and went away
where they could reap a greater harvest with less effort. This is the
reason why the Indians in this district never had a settled ministry
before our religious entered it. Accordingly the ministers who went
there, being merely transient, had not been able to give it the care
and devotion required for new conversions; because the newly baptized,
being so new in the faith, are likely to fall away, and to return
to the vomit of the idolatrous devices which they had laid aside
for their baptism--if indeed they had laid these aside. For in the
case of one baptized so casually, the idolatries and superstitions
in which one has been educated all his life, are not laid aside but
are only concealed, unless he have help from without. This is still
more the case among those who live all their lives in the midst of
heathen and who know that the priest who baptizes them today will have
to go away tomorrow, as has happened to these poor Indians. There
was even one priest who was so slothful in this duty that without
teaching them what they were to believe, he baptized them by force,
making them bring all the boys and girls together, though they had
already reached adolescence, and gave them in writing the Christian
names which they were to have. With no further preparation than this,
he baptized on the second day those whom he had not scared away. These
were not a few; for since the baptism was not voluntary, but by force,
they ran away, because no great care was taken to keep them. To keep
themselves from being annoyed in this way again, they kept their names
and said they were Christians, so that in this way they might avoid
baptism and those who baptized them. They had the idea that baptism
was a curse poured out upon them; and they scarcely got out of the
hands of the baptizer before they bathed, and carefully washed off
the chrism and the holy oils, in which they believed the curses of
baptism consisted. Both classes returned to their idolatries, their
superstitions, and their sins, as if they had never been baptized;
and the priest went away well satisfied, leaving written on a piece
of wood the names of those whom he had baptized, and supposing that
he had done a great service to the Lord. Then he went on to perform as
many other baptisms, or sacrileges, in another village. In a district
so remote and so new, all this could easily and did happen. It was
this that afterward gave the religious the greatest trouble and the
most anxiety. On the one hand, in the first years there were many who,
without being baptized, acted as if they were Christians, confessing,
communicating, and receiving the other sacraments as if they were so
indeed; on the other hand, many of those who were baptized concealed
their baptisms, and acted in all things like heathens; and, since
the religious did not understand the language, it was very easy to
deceive them until in time they had learned it. Then by preaching
and talking with the Indians, they came little by little to learn of
these things; and though it took a great deal of effort, with the aid
of the Lord, they finally brought everything to the right order. When
they discovered the root of these maladies, they immediately applied
to them the proper remedy--declaring in their frequent sermons and
their private conversations the evil condition in which those were
who, without being Christians, acted as such; and likewise those,
on the contrary, who really were Christians and concealed the fact,
living as if they were not. They offered to both of these classes to
unburden their consciences without any penalty, and without affronting
or disgracing them in any way; because they promised to come to the
cure of their souls with perfect secrecy, without causing them to
lose their good reputation in any respect on this account. It was
this last that the natives feared, and that made them keep secret and
concealed. In this way our fathers helped many; for it was necessary
to baptize those who for many years had been receiving the holy
sacraments without being Christians, except in the superficial view
of the common people; while those who, though they were Christians,
concealed the fact, likewise profited by this kindness and gentle
management of their ministers, and found their remedy. As for the
others whose Christianity had really had a beginning, but without any
preparation or catechism, they were greatly improved. By all this it is
easy to see how great an amount of labor would be necessary to convert
a tribe so rude and so scattered, who lived in so rough a country,
and who positively loathed the faith, regarding baptism as a deadly
curse. And all this labor of the ministers was carried on entirely
without worldly comfort, or any sort of temporal support. But none
of these things discouraged them, or made them take a backward step,
not even the labor required of old and gray-haired religious in having
to learn the Indian language--and how difficult that is of itself,
he only knows who has tried it. But as they had come eager to suffer
for God, they licked their fingers over the hardships [comianse las
manos tras los trabaxos]. And, as the native language is absolutely
necessary to preach the gospel, they set about learning it with great
spirit, though the two eldest fathers went but a little way with it,
because they had already got beyond the time of learning; while the
father vicar, Fray Juan de Sancto Thomas, got on very slowly with it,
because he was much of the time sick. Only father Fray Domingo de Nieva
(who was then a deacon) learned it rapidly and well, and soon began
to preach to the Indians in it--to the great delight of himself and
of the fathers, and to the notable satisfaction of the Indians, who
in this way began to feel a great affection for all the religious. To
be sure, the deacon alone preached; but the rest of them accompanied
him, and by their example and good works constrained the Indians to
love them. The good deacon did not give over doing his duty by day
or by night, now in one village, now in another; and the holy old
men accompanied him, regarding themselves as very blessed in doing
so. They felt that, after all, they were thus rendering assistance
in the salvation of souls, which was what they desired. To the sick
who were to be baptized--who were then the majority, as they were
practically all heathen--the deacon did his office as a minister;
those who had to confess, he served as an interpreter. Sometimes
they went from one village to another by sea, in tiny boats; but
for much of the time it was necessary to go by land, through an
overflowed and muddy country, so that they thought it best to walk
barefooted and barelegged. After they arrived where they were going,
they prepared themselves to hear confession or to baptize, all wet
and muddy as they were, as indeed necessity compelled them to do. They
had no other food than a little rice, boiled with nothing but water,
and sometimes a little bit of fish to eat, if the Indians happened
to have any. They had the floor of an Indian hut for bed, and for
covers their wet apparel, and nothing else. They lived and labored
thus, in order to make these Indians understand that for all their
efforts they expected no other return than a harvest of souls for
God; and when the Indians saw them so disinterested, and perceived
that when they called upon the fathers on any account, whether by
day or by night, whether in rain or in thunder, their request never
was considered nor seemed to the fathers unreasonable, so that
they should put off coming to them, many began to desire baptism,
and others were eager to confess, in health or in sickness. Thus,
though the labor increased, it seemed lighter and even pleasanter;
and after they had tasted this refreshment they were not unready to
reach out further than their strength would permit. Hence they all
fell sick, one of them to death. This was father Fray Pedro Bolanos,
a man more than sixty years of age--who, at a time when others are
accustomed to take their ease, undertook these excessive labors with
more courage than strength. His efforts were such as would have been
very arduous even if they had only occasionally been made; but as the
work of every day they were mortal, as they turned out for father
Fray Pedro. This father was living in the very devout and strict
convent of Nuestra Senora de la Pena de Francia, when he heard with
great interest the mere rumor that religious were being collected to
establish a new province in the Philippinas and China, which was to
be placed by the founders on a footing of most strict observance,
as being undertaken by persons who were proposing to convert whole
nations of heathen. This came to father Fray Pedro as a voice from
heaven; and he consulted with the Virgin, to whom he was devoted,
and became more settled in the purpose of undertaking this pious
enterprise himself. But because he did not wish to be deceived he
talked the matter over with the wisest and most devout of the fathers
of that house. They dissuaded him from the undertaking because of
his great age, and because he would be obliged to undertake two long
sea-voyages on his way to the islands--efforts greater than at his
age, after he had spent his energies for the sake of his order, he
would be able to make. They went on to say that even after he had
completed the sea-voyage he would suffer so from the infirmities
of his years that when he reached the Philippinas he would not be
able to learn the language of the natives, or to be anything but a
hindrance. These arguments would have made him lay aside his purpose,
if devotion to that holy image had not at that time brought to that
country father Fray Antonio de Arcediano, one of the most useful
of those who had enlisted on this enterprise, who did not wish to
undertake it without having first received the blessing of this
Lady. On account of the learning and well-known virtue and prudence
of father Fray Antonio, father Fray Pedro consulted with him, telling
him the state of affairs with reference to his being called to this
mission, and the arguments which caused him to refrain, or by which
the other fathers kept him back. Father Fray Antonio listened to the
arguments and considered them, and answered as follows: "If we were
going to a province already established and formed, these would be
good arguments, but since it is still to be founded, they are not. It
is certain that it will be ill-established if it be entirely composed
of youths, however able and religious." He accordingly judged that it
would be very necessary to have among the pioneers of the order there
some gray-haired men, men well experienced in the practice of virtue;
since for the foundation of the province which was, as they asserted,
to have the rigor of the first fathers of our order, it was clear
that old religious, careful observers of the rules, men of tried
virtue, were of greater value than youths of good principles. Hence
he regarded his going as settled, and took great pleasure that it
was so. Hereupon the good old man determined to go, and did so; and
both on the voyages and in the islands he served his companions as
a great example of religious devotion, sedateness, and patience. He
was always firm under the difficulties to which we have referred,
and on the first mission to the heathen he was one of those sent to
Bataan. Here his kindness and gentleness were such as to gain the
good-will of the Indians. To attract the older ones, he began with the
children, established a school of reading and writing, and taught both
to the little ones. Those who were a little older he taught to sing,
that, performing the office of angels, they might praise the Lord in
the church. He was so desirous of the salvation of souls that when
the deacon went to catechize, or to baptize the sick, he went also
and accompanied him--choosing this labor for himself to relieve his
companions of it, for he regarded them as more useful than he, because
they learned the language better. His age was so great and the labor
so heavy that walking through the water produced an affection of the
bowels. The severity of the disease was such that, unable longer to
withstand it, he was day and night in continual pain. They took him
to Manila to the Franciscan convent (ours being not yet built), where
they took care of him with great devotion and attention. He recovered,
and returned to his laborious duties, but the same infirmity attacked
him with such violence that he died in the same convent, whither they
had taken him the second time; and here he was interred, leaving his
companions very sad on account of his absence. Yet they were very
confident that he who had carried for the Lord so heavy a cross up to
death, would likewise follow Him in His glory, which according to His
word is granted therewith. He was prepared with the holy sacraments,
and confessed very minutely and with great frequency; and singing he
invited death, praying God to take him away in peace, now that he had
beheld this holy province established as a light for so many tribes,
whom he had seen already coming to the church and being baptized. He
bade farewell to the Franciscan fathers, thanking them for their great
kindness and the hospitality which they had shown him; he encouraged
his companions to proceed with that which they had begun assuring
them that, however great the difficulty and labor, even to those in
health, there was still greater consolation, and confirmation of the
hope of reward, in the perils of sickness and death in which he was;
and declaring to them that the confidence in which he departed was a
most sufficient reward for having left, in his last years, his quiet
and his cell for this and for other greater sufferings.
After the death of this father the labor to be done fell more heavily
upon his companions, because it had to be divided among a smaller
number. It might be said that almost the whole burden fell upon
the deacon, who was, as it were, the whole of this ministry. From
this it may easily be inferred that though young friars are of less
dignity in such missions, they are more useful for them--that is,
in cases where the sufficiency of virtue and learning makes up for
the lack of age. This is what happened not only on this occasion,
but on many others, as this province has learned by experience. For
the labors of new conversions are very great, so great indeed as to
surpass the power of youth; so that few or no such conversions have
been made without costing the death of some religious. When the father
vicar observed this, and found himself, though he had poor health,
provided with some command of the language, he began to relieve his
companions--unraveling the entanglements (which are many among the
heathen Indians) in matters of matrimony, usury, and the oppression
which the chief men employ toward their inferiors, making them slaves
without reason or justice. He gave to this matter very great care and
no less labor, being present at the investigation of such things by
day and by night, and thus greatly reducing the amount of labor of
his companions, because when they met with a case of this kind, they
referred it to him as a matter of his jurisdiction. In the confessions
they had greater labor during this first year; because in the whole
year the priests were not able to make themselves masters of the
Indian language so as to be able to hear confession independently,
and to understand the Indians as they ought. To be sure, the deacon, if
he had been a priest, would have been very well able to confess them;
and the vicar-general had authority to dispense with the required age
in a case of such necessity, so that he might be ordained priest. His
great virtue and indefatigable industry deserved this favor; but the
vicar-general could never bring himself to the point of granting
it, because he did not wish the province which was to be founded
with such strictness to begin by having a dispensation in so grave
a matter. Accordingly the deacon was obliged to wait until he had
attained the required age, which was in September of the following
year, 1588, and then he was ordained priest. By this means, and by
the help of another priest called Fray Juan de la Cruz, who came to
join their company--and who, being young, succeeded very well with
the language--this district improved greatly. They both began to hear
confessions, and immediately there were manifested by experience
the great efficacy and the excellent results of this sacrament--a
remedy for souls that are sick, and even for those that are dead. In
all regions where it is systematically followed the most valuable
results are obtained; but its effects are principally seen among
Indians, who are simple and have no duplicity. To such its secrecy
is very edifying, and it strongly affects their souls. This it is,
particularly, that directs and teaches them; hence at the beginning
of the Christian training of this tribe the general amendment was
sensibly perceived. It was possible to read on their very faces the
great efficacy of this most beneficial medicine for their souls. Only
in the case of the vice of drunkenness was it impossible to find a
remedy that would suffice for the great excesses produced by it; for
although all the Indians are very faulty in this particular, those
of this region surpassed those of the rest of the country, and were
famous for this vice among their neighbors. It seemed impossible to
remedy the fault, because it was the hereditary vice of their fathers
and their grand-fathers before them; and they had, as it were, grown
into it by continual use. Still God revealed to the father vicar a
remedy for this, so gentle that without blood or violence it brought
them to reason, and so efficaciously that in a short time it achieved
what was intended. This was to give orders, under light penalties,
that any man who became intoxicated was not to be received in any
house, and was not to be visited in his own house; that no one was
to communicate to him or talk to him, or have any dealings with him.
He caused to be proclaimed in church those who were most guilty of
this vice, commanding all others to avoid them, as has been said,
regarding them as enemies of God and despisers of His doctrine,
and of the teaching of the fathers; and this way of depriving them
of intercourse with the rest was sufficient to make them ashamed of
themselves. The result was that they renounced their custom and evil
habit, and strove so to make themselves fit for the sacrament that,
in order to avoid drunkenness, they gave up wine as an ordinary
beverage. If they drank it occasionally, either because of need or
desire, they drank by rule and measure. So far did they depart from
their old excess that they not only blotted out their former evil
reputation, but obtained for themselves a good one--which up to today
they maintain, to the great joy of their ministers. The same thing is
true of the other vices that they had, not only when they were heathen,
but even after they were baptized, on account of the bad system of
which we have given an account. For lack of teaching they had remained
in their idolatries as before, without giving up usury, oppression,
false swearing, and the feuds in which they had been brought up to
have perpetual enmities. But soon after these religious learned their
language, and began to give them instruction, the change which was to
be seen in them was extraordinary; for the root of all these vices
was plucked up, and that so completely that they themselves aided
in their own reformation--for they gave the ministers information
in regard to sins and idolatries by showing them who they were that
committed them, and where they were committed. Thus it was easy to
find some little idols that they kept hidden, which were handed over
to the Christian boys to drag about through the whole village, and
at last were burned. By this means and by the punishment of a few
old women who acted as priestesses, and who were called catalonans,
the idolatry of the whole region was brought to an end. In the
matters of restitution of usury, and maltreatment of slaves, and
other oppressions, there was some difficulty; for, as the evil had
been converted into the flesh and blood of the wrongful holders of
the property, it was the same as to strip off their flesh and drain
their blood to talk about their returning that which they unjustly
held. Still so great was the power that the teaching of the religious
had over them, and so deep root had it taken in their hearts, that
they broke through everything, and by the aid of the Lord brought
themselves to the point. Thus at the beginning of their Christian
life they did something which would hardly have been done by those
grown old in Christianity, who had sucked it in with their mother's
milk. They gave liberty to many slaves deprived thereof unjustly, they
restored the usury they had taken, and everything that they unjustly
held. And this they did with so good a grace that it was enough for
the father to propose it, after having verified the case. There was
one man who gave up everything that he had, because he found that it
was all unjustly held; and who did this without anything more having
been done to influence him than the mere speaking of the word. Such
a marvel as this God alone can work, who knows how to give so great
an efficacy to such gentle means as have been described. Though
in some cases no owners were known, to whom restitution could be
made, they did not fail to make restitution on that account; but,
collecting all the debts of this kind, they made a common deposit
of them for common needs, and for the poor. There were many who
could not be found to receive the satisfaction made in this way,
and the application of the amount was made to the common necessity,
as has been said. The great force that brought about this result was
the obvious disinterestedness of the religious, who did not desire to
apply anything to the benefit of the churches, on the ground that they
were of common importance, but regarded these as being their special
charge, so that in this way they might assure the Indians that in
all this there was no other purpose than their own good, and might
avoid every occasion for their imagining the contrary. That district
reached this happy point in less than one year from the time when
these ministers took charge of it, though it had been in the wretched
state which we have described for the lack of some one systematically
and regularly to care for the souls of the inhabitants. These people,
who were always bringing suits and forming factions, have from that
time lived so peaceably that they undertake few or no lawsuits. They
prefer coming to an agreement before their minister (who takes no
fees or bribes from them), to appearing before the courts, where
they consume their property, and usually spend more than the case
is worth. This is so true that when the alcalde-mayor came there to
make his visit, he and his company were fain to hasten away from that
district, for where there are no fees there are no profits; and they
arranged to go on to a place where their profits would be certain,
because the population were not so peaceable as in this region.