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Samar in the Late Eighteenth Century*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In 1767 Charles III issued his famous decree expelling the Jesuits from Spain and the Spanish colonies around the world. The repercussions of this edict were felt even on Samar, a large but relatively unimportant province in the eastern Visayas in the Philippine colony (see Map One) whose missions, later parish churches, had been staffed by Jesuit missionaries from the last few years of the sixteenth century until the order of expulsion arrived on Samar in September 1768. The Jesuits were replaced by Augustinians in the pueblos of Guivan, Balangiga, and Basey; and in the rest of the pueblos by Franciscans (see Map Two).
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1980
Footnotes
*
Bruce Cruikshank is an honorary fellow in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The research for this essay was supported originally by a Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award in 1972-1973. Subsequent work was supported partially by grants from the University of Wisconsin East Asia Studies Department, the University Graduate School, and the History Department.
References
1 Pueblos are best translated as municipalities or municipal districts rather than as towns. In the Philippines populations could be quite dispersed, as we will see, so it is important to distinguish the area of the municipality from its core, the población, where the municipal offices, church, parish house, jail, plaza, and houses of the principal citizens were usually located. Around the poblaciones were residence areas known as visitas, barrios, rancherías, and sitios, generally ranging in size from the more settled and larger visitas (usually with a chapel for the use of a visiting priest) to two or three houses loosely clustered together called a sitio.
2 Samareño as I use it in this essay refers to non-Spanish and non-Chinese residents of Samar, but its use is not meant to suggest that there was a feeling of Samar-wide sentiment or citizenship on Samar.
3 Both are from the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, Madrid, formerly known as the Archivo de la Provincia Franciscana de San Gregorio Magno in Pastrana. The first is from AFIO, legajo (bundle) number 95/expediente (report) number 5, and is entitled Descripción de los pueblos de Samar, por P. Joaquín José Martínez; the second, AFIO, 95/6, is by the same friar (acting as provincial inspector-delegate) and is entitled Relación de la visita hecha a Samar. Both are collections of friar reports organized by municipality or by parish; unless clear from the context I will include the parish or municipality information in my citations. I want to thank the Franciscans in Pastrana for their courtesy and aid during my stay there, especially Fathers José Álvarez, Pedro Gil, Apolinar Pastrana, and Cayetano Sánchez; special thanks are due to Fr. Antolín Abad in Madrid and Toledo for his help and to Dr. Cantius Kobak in the Philippines for the gift of xerox copies of these and other manuscripts.
4 Municipal administration in the Spanish colonial system was in the hands of a gobernadorcillo, literally “little governor,” or capitán. He was elected by principale (a term equivalent to principal male citizens), who were usually past gobernadorcillos and men in charge of groups of families (a barangay) called cabezas (“Heads”) de barangay, who made up the ruling group in a municipality, called the principalía.
5 Datu is a pre-Spanish term meaning “chief” or “chieftan.” As we will see, it is significant that the term was still in use after two hundred years of Spanish rule.
6 Indio can mean either “indian” or “native,” both of which have unfortunate connotations. Its use here is only in the context of accurate quotation of Spanish materials and neither it nor its meanings in English should be taken in a derogatory sense.
7 AFIO, 95/6, Bangajon. Bangajon is now known as Gandara and the pueblo of Villareal was previously known as Umauas.
8 AFIO, 95/6, Borongan. Other examples of actions against the friars may be gleaned from AFIO, 95/5, Capul, Calbayog, Umauas/Calbiga (two pueblos combined into one parish), Borongan, and Palapag. Leyte examples may be found in AFIO, 95/6, Borongan.
9 Museo Naval (MN), Madrid, Ms. 1774, Doc. 41, f. 74v. I wish to thank the staff for their aid in my research there in 1973.
10 The lack of plows was noted in the ms. in the Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Seville, Filipinas section, legajo 627, expediente number 31. The staff of the AGI must also be thanked for their help in my work. The lack of carabaos is mentioned in this ms. as well as in AFIO, 95 /11.
11 Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Philippinarum, volume 12, ff. lv and 2, 24 June 1660 letter. This material is available on microfilm at the Vatican Library in Saint Louis, Missouri (reel 165). The translation here is taken from de la Costa, Horacio S. J., The Jesuits in the Philippines: 1581–1768 (Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967), p. 459.Google Scholar
12 de Pagès, Pierre Vicomte, Travels round the world in the years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1779, 1771 (London: J. Murray, 1793),Google Scholar reprinted in Travel Accounts of the Islands (1513–1787) by Pires, Tome [et al.] (Manila: The Filipiniana Book Guild, 1971), p. 150.Google Scholar
13 See especially AFIO, 95/6, passim: AFIO, 95/8; and AFIO, 95/11.
l4 Pagès, , Travels, p. 150.Google Scholar See Costa, , Jesuits, pp. 162–63 and 316Google Scholar, for references to locusts, famines, and droughts on Samar in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Fr. Francisco Ignacio de Alcina, S. J., remarks on the frequent attention rice fields needed against wild boars and weeds (“Historia natural del sitio, fertilidad y calidad de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas,” 1668, translated by Dr. Paul Lietz, Book 13, Chapter 5). I am grateful to Dr. Lietz for allowing me access to this manuscript and his translation as he prepares them for publication.
15 Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (Madrid: Gráficas Ultra, 1943 (reprint of 1791 ed.), Book 6, Title 5, Law 1.
l6 MN, Ms. 1774, Doc. 41, f. 75v.
17 Philippine National Archives (PNA), section entitled Provincia de Samar, unnumbered legajo with documents ranging from 1786 to 1897: logbook of administrative orders for Samar for the years 1824-52. I am extremely grateful for the aid and cooperation I received from the staff, especially from the late Dr. Domingo Abella, Mrs. Rizalina Concepcion, and Miss Evelyn Dizon. I was aided as well by Rev. Jose Dacudao, Miss Concertina S. Masindo, Mr. Augustus T. Bacabac, and Mr. Godofredo D. Arellano.
18 PNA, Provincia de Samar, unnumbered legajo, 1804–1890: 1858 document.
19 See criticisms of the governor's attention to trade rather than administration in AFIO, 95/5, Umauas/Calbiga and Borongan; AFIO, 95/6, Borongan and Bangajon. For general pictures of provincial governors in the Spanish colonial Philippines, see Corpuz, O. D., The Bureaucracy in the Philippines (Maniaa: Institute of Public Administration, Univ. of the Philippines, 1957), pp. 92–105 Google Scholar; Cushner, Nicholas P. S. J., Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest to Revolution (Quezon City: Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila Univ., 1971), pp. 175–77 Google Scholar; and Robles, Eliodoro G., The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1969), pp. 19–20, 98–107, and 199–210.Google Scholar
20 de Solorzano, Juan y Pereyra, , Política Indiana (Madrid and Buenos Aires: Compañía Ibero-Americana, 1930 (first published in 1647 from translations of Latin texts of 1629 and 1939)), v. 1, p. 372,no. 2; p. 373, no. 10Google Scholar; and passim. Also see Phelan, John Leddy, The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565–1700 (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1959), p. 44.Google Scholar
21 AFIO, 95/5, Catubig. For other contemporary views of this situation, see AGI, Filipinas, legajo 366, exp. 7; and AGI, Filipinas, legajo 372.
22 AFIO, 95/5, Catbalogan; also see AFIO, 95/6, Catbalogan.
23 The term moro is a well-established form of historical shorthand in the literature and history of the Philippine archipelago. The term was brought by the Spanish from North Africa and has been adopted as a way to designate the quite different Muslim societies of western Mindanao and the Sulu Island world. The definitive work on these raids is the recently completed dissertation by Warren, Jim (Trade-Raid-Slave: The Socio-Economic Patterns of the Sulu Zone, 1770–1898, Australian National Univ., 1975).Google Scholar There are important qualifications to be made concerning moro-induced dispersion since, apparently, in some areas the friars were able to congregate the Samareños due to availability of weapons and fortifications; see my unpublished dissertation, A History of Samar Island, the Philippines, 1768–1898 (Univ. of Wisconsin, 1975), pp. 66–68, 72–81, and 253–80.
24 His name comes from AFIO, 95/6, Tubig, and AGI, Filipinas, leg. 690. His birthplace is from AFIO, 95/5, Paranas and Catarman as are the areas of his influence; also see AFIO, 95/5, Umauas/Calbiga, Borongan, Sulat, Laoang, and AFIO, 95/6, Capul. The content of his teachings is from AFIO, 95/6, Catbalogan. Fr. Cantius Kobak, O.F.M., informs me that the memory of this man is still venerated on Biliran Island as a saint; offerings and prayers are made to him even today by the older residents (private letter to me, 20 Oct. 1974). The honorific “Don” was used in the documents by the friars and may indicate upper class or mestizo status for the priest.
25 AFIO, 95/5, Catubig; AGI, Filipinas, leg. 690; and AFIO, 95/6, Capul.
26 The statistics and sources may be found in Appendices 1 and 2 of my dissertation, pp. 224-29. The figure of one-fourth comes from AFIO, 95/6, Bangajon, and the one for one-sixth is from AFIO, 95/5, Catarman. Also see AFIO, 95/11, and AFIO, 95/7.
27 MN, Ms. 1774, Doc. 41, f. 75.
28 I have appropriated the term from Lynch, Frank S.J., Social Class in a Bikol Town, Philippine Studies Program, Research Series, no. 1 (Chicago: Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Chicago, 1959), p. 118 Google Scholar and passim. Also see the two articles by Scott, Jim, “The Erosion of patron-client bonds and social change in rural Southeast Asia,” JAS,32:1 (1972), pp. 5–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia,” APSR, 66(1972), pp. 91–113.
29 AFIO, 95/6, Sulat; also see AFIO, 95/11.
30 Alcina, “Historia Natural,” Book 4, chapter 7. Also see an Augustinian view from 1770 in AGI, Filipinas, leg. 627, exp. 31.
31 AFIO, 95/5, Borongan; also see AFIO, 95/6, Borongan and Catbalogan.
32 AFIO, 95/5, Tubig; and AFIO, 95/6, Bangajon. Also see AFIO, 95/5, Borongan.
33 These quotations are from Bulatao, Jaime C. S. J., “Hiya,” Philippine Studies, 21:3 (1964), pp. 424–438,Google Scholar passim.
34 AFIO, 95/5, Calbayog, Alcina, “Historia Natural,” Book 3, Chapter 21, also comments on their “almost indelible rancor and hate.” Also see AFIO, 95/11; and AFIO, 95/6, Sulat.
35 Alcina, “Historia Natural,” Book 3, chapter 22.
36 AFIO, 95/6, Capul. Vagabonds are also mentioned in 1785 by another Franciscan; see AFIO, 95/11.
37 AFIO, 95/6, Capul. Clearly the Biliran priest ordained people of authority. Whether the people hid Lacheca because he was an important person in his own right or because of the priest’s blessing is a moot point. Incidentally, the threats against the Basey Augustinian were made by a man who was said to be the “governor” of Biliran, appointed by Don Gaspar.
38 This was not unusual. See Corpuz, , Bureaucracy, p. 114.Google Scholar
39 PNA, Erección de Pueblos, Samar, leg. 122: no. 15 (1834); no. 16 (1834–35); and no. 17 (1834–35); and PNA, Provincia de Samar, unnumbered legajo, 1786-1897: 1824-1852 logbook. These sources report neither the recapture of the former gobernadorcillo nor other information on his fate.
40 AFIO, 95/5, Umauas/Calbiga. Also see AFIO, 95/5, Paranas; and AFIO, 95/6, Capul and Bangajon.
41 There are repeated accusations by both the Augustinians and Franciscans that the principales used their autonomy to defy both the secular and the religious Spanish authorities. The latter we have seen. The former consisted of the concealment of potential tribute payers in the outskirts of the pueblo from the governor while carrying on a secret trade for their benefit with these outliers. This pattern, given the nature of dispersed population settlement, pueblo socio-political structure, economic incentives, and lack of sustained Spanish secular administrative presence in the pueblo, seems plausible. See, for instance, AGI, Filipinas, legajo 366, exp. 7; AFIO, 95/5, Bangajon, Borongan, Tubig, Laoang, and Catubig; and AFIO, 95/6, Capul and Bangajon.
42 Costa, ,Jesuits, pp. 589–90,Google Scholar quoting “Destierro de los jesuítas de la provincia de Filipinas el ano de 1768,” a “contemporary account by an anonymous Jesuit,” ms. copy in Archivo de la antigua provincia de Aragón de la Compañía de Jesús, Barcelona, ff. 18–20, translation by Costa. Also see Cushner, Nicholas P. S.J., Philippine Jesuits in Exile: The Journals of Francisco Puig, S.J., 1768–1770, Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S.I., v. 24 (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1964), pp. 66–67.Google Scholar
43 AFIO, 19/56. Also see AFIO, 95/8; AGI, Filipinas, leg. 627, exp. 31, gives an example of Augustinian criticism of Jesuit educational methods.
44 The comment about datus is from Alcina, “Historia Natural,” Book 4, chapter 8. The 1660 description is from ARSI, Phil., 12 (microfilm roll 165).
45 This pattern, referring only to the trade through the governors, was gleaned from AFIO, 95/5, Bangajon and Borongan; and from AFIO, 95/6, Bangajon and Capul.
46 AFIO, 95/5, Sulat. The jail in Catbalogan seems to have been remarkably porous.
47 See Cruikshank, Samar Island, chapters five and six, for a discussion of the spread and penetration of Spanish administrative control on the one hand and the rebellions in the 1880s on the other. Parenthetically I might add that the right of governors to trade was rescinded in the 1840s.
48 AFIO, 95/6, Capul. Also see the other case noted there and the reference to ten unspecified murders of Samareños by other Samareños in AFIO, 95/6, Bangajon; as well as AFIO, 95/5, Calbayog and Sulat. This is not to imply that there were no intra-pueblo feuds separate from Spanish demands or that these murders may not have been part of such feuds as well.