Davao, January 20, 1885.
Pax Christi.
My well beloved in Christ, the Father Superior:
Several times I have designed to address your Reverence in regard to the Moros of this gulf, but after the observation of your Reverence of the second of last December, I have been unwilling to postpone longer to set about this matter.
I have read some statistical works, both official and semi-official, which treat of the population54 of this gulf, and I have noticed that in general more importance is given to the Moros of this district than is theirs, and a greater number of people than in reality exists. The reason for this general error lies in the fact that the Moros quite regularly live along the coasts and at the mouths of the large rivers, while the heathens of other races live as a general rule in the interior of the island. Consequently, the Moros form, as it were, a sort of barrier or screen which prevents the heathens from being seen, and worse yet, hinders us from becoming acquainted with them, and alluring and gaining them for God and the fatherland. That would be easy of attainment, if once this phantom of the Moros were laid. That can be easily attained if one remembers what the Moros of Dávao are, whom I shall endeavor to show forth in this letter.
We are making a bit of history, as one commonly says. Shortly before the conquest, which was concluded by Don José Oyangúren55 in the year 1848, the pontin56 “San Rufo,” which had been equipped by one of the commercial houses of Manila, had come to Dávao. The captain and second officer of the said boat were Spaniards, and in addition they were accompanied by an Italian who was a private trader. They had a letter of recommendation from the sultan of Mindanao, for the datos of the sea of Dávao, which charged those datos to receive those of the “San Rufo” as friends. The Moros of this place pretended to respect the letter of the sultan, and engaged in trade with the men of the boat, offering them friendship and a considerable quantity of wax in exchange for their effects. But taking advantage of the opportunity, when the majority of the crew were some distance from the boat fishing with the ship’s skiff, the Moros presented themselves armed with krises, spears, and balaraos, bringing with them, in order to conceal their mischievous intentions, considerable wax for barter. The interpreter informed the captain that so many Moros, so well armed on an occasion when there were scarcely any men in the boat gave rise to suspicions regarding their intentions. The captain replied that he did not fear the Moros. The pilot remonstrated, saying that it would not do any harm to take a few precautions. To this the captain replied: “Are you afraid of the Moros?” “Although we do not fear them,” added the pilot, “that is no reason why we should scorn the advice of the interpreter.” “Well, if you wish it,” said the captain, “have a sentinel posted with musket ready.” Accordingly the sentinel was posted, and in addition one of the Europeans and the interpreter prepared their arms also. All this time more and more Moros were continually arriving. They contrived to isolate the Europeans and separate them from one another. When they were most busily engaged in examining and weighing the wax, those assassins drew their krises at a given signal. Two reports rang out and two Moros fell dead, but in a few moments, the heads of the Christians rolled on the ground. The only ones left alive were two servants, that of the captain and that of the Italian, whom the Moros retained as slaves. These men after a few days, seized a baroto and escaped in it, made the crossing to Pundaguítan, whence they went to Surigao to give notice of what had occurred in the “San Rufo,” believing that the seamen who were fishing at the time of the attack, had also been assassinated. Those seamen on seeing what was occurring on the “San Rufo” escaped in a small boat to the Hijo River, whence they went overland to Línao (now Bunáuan). All of the above was told me by one of the two servants, who had been captured and had escaped. That servant returned later with Oyangúren, and acted on several occasions as my helmsman, and finally died in the shipwreck of Father Vivero.
When that crime was reported in Manila, satisfaction was demanded of the sultan of Mindanao. The latter answered that he had no subjects in Dávao, and that he did not consider the Moros of this bay as such, since they had disobeyed his orders; and accordingly that the Spanish government was to deal with them directly. By virtue of that, from that moment the Moros of Dávao must be considered as independent and separate from the rest of the Moros. Consequently, if the Spanish government has complete liberty of action anywhere in regard to the Moros, it is doubtless in this gulf of Dávao.
Thereupon the expedition of Oyangúren came, and had made the conquest of this gulf in a very short time, those Moros who had remained here after a great part of them had emigrated to the bay of Sarangani and the lake of Bulúan surrendering at discretion.
When Oyangúren came, the Moros were complete masters of the island of Sámal,57 whose inhabitants had risen en masse to unite with the Spanish against their oppressors the Moros. They also dominated the Mandayas, and collected tribute from all of them even from those of the ilaya58 of Caraga, and were engaged in continual war with the Bilanes, Manobos, and Atas.59 At present the Mandayas, who are in some manner subject to the Moros, number, according to my calculation, some seven thousand. One cannot estimate or approximate to the number of the Atas who pay tribute to them. The other races are not at all subject to the Moros and do not pay any tribute to them.
It is difficult to fix exactly the number of the Moros who live on this gulf at present. Their nomadic customs and the ease with which they change their habitation, sometimes moving to a great distance, make a little less than impossible an exact list of them. However, I believe that their approximate number is 4,000. If they exceed that number, I do not believe that they reach 5,000, and as well I do not believe that they are less than 3,000. The place that they generally choose for their home, as I have before suggested, is the coast or the mouth of rivers navigable for their small boats.
When any governor of this district urges them with instance to make a village, they make, as it were, an excuse for a settlement, carrying out the plan which the governor himself, or some Spaniard in the name of the governor, or some other intelligent person, gives them. They will construct, if it is desired, their so-called houses at the distances which are marked out for them, but they will never reconcile themselves with any kind of cultivation, or with cleanliness, or the repair of what gets out of order. In reality, in the short time that their villages have form, the filth, the nakedness, and the general wretchedness, cause them to present so repugnant an aspect, that no one can show a desire for their preservation; and as soon as the governor ceases to investigate them, those villages melt away like salt in water.
To the right of Dávao, several attempts have been made to form the Moro village of Daron by bringing together the small Moro rancherías of Taúmo, Baludo, and Obango, which are the only rancherías between Dávao and the point of Culáman in sight of Sarangani. That village, in the days of its greatest apogee, would lodge at most one hundred Moro families, who always tend to be split up into small rancherías.
On the other side of Point Bánus, from which one can begin to descry the islands of Sarangani there was another ranchería of Sanguil.60 Moros of about one hundred families. That ranchería was settled there under the protection of an Indian, who had served his time in the navy, who fixed his residence there in the quality of agent or abonado [i.e., representative] of the traders of Dávao. At the present time that petty trader has moved his residence to Núin opposite the islands of Sarangani, and it appears that those Moros have followed him. But wherever they have fixed their residence, left to themselves, they are threatened with destruction. For that swarm of Bilanes, Manobos, and Tagacaolos61 which surrounds them, warlike races who have never been subdued by the Moros, will always consider them as enemies, and will always reckon them in the first line to give an end to their personal and racial vengeance.
In support of my assertion, I shall tell your Reverence an episode just as it was told to me a long while ago. Some years before the conquest of Dávao, the Moros, pursuing the piratical habits peculiar to their race, knifed the crew of a banca which was on its way from Pundaguítan, a Christian village at Cape San Agustin, to the tortoise-shell fisheries at the island of Olaníban, the third and smallest island of the Sarangani. It was a coincidence that the said banca was manned by members of the most influential families of both shores of this gulf from San Agustin and Culáman. Vengeance in the Manobo style was not long delayed. The members of the latter race beheaded as many of the Moros as they could find alone. But later some sort of a settlement was made among them. The Moros paid the fine imposed on them by the other races, but the latter did not cease to be hostile for all that. They have reduced the few Mahometans remaining between Malálag and Sarangani to so precarious a situation that, according to my mode of thinking, their greatest and only guaranty is in the respect that those heathens profess for the Spanish banner.
It is not my design to discuss now the islands and bay, or harbor of Sarangani, places which formed my gilded dream for many years. I shall not be many months in writing to your Reverence a letter with the data which I have gathered, and other data which I am acquiring in regard to those islands and that bay.62 In that letter I will relate my opinion of those kindly heathens who left so pleasing an impression on the minds of us five missionaries who have visited them, namely Fathers Lluch, Bové, Púntas, Vivero, and the writer.
Just a few words now concerning the Moros to the left of Dávao. One legua from this capital, and along the beach, lies the Moro village of Lánang, which has passed through the same sudden changes as has the village of Daron. The said village is formed by the malcontents of the various datarías63 of this gulf, beginning with the ilayas of Dávao. Their progress and setbacks have been proportioned to the tact and vigilance of the governors. Some cultivation of cocoas is seen on that coast, in part by the Moros and in part by the Christians of the vicinity. At the present time there are no more than twenty-five houses (if their huts can be so called), of which very few are finished. The greater part of them remain since a long time ago in process of construction.
Following the same coast toward the north of the gulf, and some three leguas distant, one encounters the ranchería of the river Lásan. The most remarkable thing about that ranchería is that it shelters one of the most famous of the directors of Moro politics in this gulf, namely, one Lásad. Some Christians from Cagayan in Misamis have come to their ilaya, according to report. The Moros have never even formed an excuse for a village there, but live scattered in tiny hamlets, or in miserable huts more or less contiguous to one another over a territory spread out over two or three leguas up stream.
Some two leguas farther, and following the coast, and near the Tugánay River is situated the Moro ranchería of Tágum, a name which is derived from the largest river of this bay which empties near the Tugánay. That ranchería is the most ungovernable and the most famous for the gloomy tragedies that have happened there from time immemorial even to our days. When the murders of four Christians in July of last year happened, the Moros of that ranchería had a village of about forty houses in process of construction, but it is now almost entirely abandoned.
Some two leguas farther following the same coast are found the river and ranchería of Madáum, which contains, it is reported, about one hundred families.
A very short distance from the preceding lies the ranchería of the Hijo River, which is famous for having been the last bulwark of the Moros at the time of the conquest of Dávao. Señor Oyangúren and a distinguished chief of our militia went there in the steamboat “Elcano.” It is said that after the Moros had surrendered, and while Oyangúren and the datos were arranging the conditions of submission, a young Mahometan snatched the sword from the hands of the leader alluded to, and took to his heels without the balls of the sentinels being able to reach him. That was a boldness that gave the Christians much to think over. A few years ago I was told that they still preserved the hilt of the said sword. At present that ranchería is governed by Dato Nónong, one of the most highly-considered Moros of this gulf. It has scarcely one hundred families, and the attempt has been made several times to make that dato form a village.
The small rancherías of Cupiat and Lají which may be considered as small suburbs or barrios of Hijo and Matiao respectively have absolutely no importance.
Matiao, famed during these last few years for the frequent sacrifices of heathen Mandayas, is the landing-place for the small boats that ply from Liboac in the northern part of Sámal to the eastern shore of the gulf. There are about one hundred Moro families there, who have never formed a village, but live scattered along both sides of the Matiao River, and in the neighboring places of Quínquin and Canipa. Dato Lásad, of whom I have already made mention, is, as it were, lord of the lives and possessions, not only of his Moro subjects, but as well of those unfortunate Mandayas who live in the vicinity of Matiao.
On the other side of the mountains called Línao, whose spurs reach the sea, is found a large plain, extending from the salt-water river called Pisó to Cuabu. Scattered through that plain and especially on the banks of the rivers there, live also about one hundred and twenty Moro families, who are under the datos Tumárus, Compao, and Patarandan.
On the beach and near the mouth of the Súmlug River, lies an excuse for a Moro village, which consists of about twenty houses which were built by order, and under the general conditions of the Moro villages of this gulf.
Your Reverence knows already that there is not a single Moro family in all the peninsula of San Agustin. It remains for me, then, to tell your Reverence of the last and most numerous Moro ranchería of this district of Dávao. It is the ranchería of Mayo, so called because it took its name from the bay of Mayo, the point where its most principal datos live. However, in appearance all those Moros owe homage to Dato Tumárus of Súmlug. Including all the Moros of the harbor of Mati, the bay of Mayo, and the Baguan River to the other side of Point Tagóbon, there are about one hundred and fifty families. They have never formed a village. Some years back a governor ordered all those Moros to form a village in Súmlug, but they had sufficient cunning to frustrate that just and wise order, in order that they might continue to live in the manner in which they had lived thitherto.
The Moros who live about this large gulf, Father, are the remains of those powerful and warlike Moros who in the not distant past collected tribute from the Mandayas and other heathens as far as those living on the Caraga River, and who extended their piratical raids to the villages of the Pacific. But they were completely conquered by worthy Don José Oyangúren in the year 1848.
Two classes in the manner of two races must be distinguished among these Moros: that of the datos which is, as it were, the aristocracy; and that of the plebeians who obey the datos. The panditas (for so do they call the priests of their false religion) are included among both classes, although it is more general for them to belong to the first. They form, as it were, an hereditary priesthood.
In general, the datos and their families do not work. At the most they fish and hunt for sport, and to stifle the pangs of hunger. Their chief and most honorable receipts are from the tributes which they collect from their subjects and from the heathens whom they have subdued. That tribute is called the pagdato. Although that source of wealth is the chief, it is not the only source. Although the Moros of this gulf are conquered and subdued, they have not completely forgotten their former customs of piracy. Slavery and captivity with their awful accompaniment of murders, thefts, poisons, and violence of every sort, and further, the human sacrifices which accompany them at times, form a very productive source of wealth for the ever exhausted chests of their treasuries. I could write a very thick volume of the deeds of this particular people which are very well known to me.
All the heathens dominated by the Moros, and even many of the Moros themselves, on approaching me, through the little confidence that my person inspires, molest me by the relation of the Moro misdeeds, telling me of the troubles and injustice which they suffer from the Moros, and the acts of inhumanity of which they are the victims; for they hope that I will protect them by causing that the guilty ones will be given their deserts.
As a proof of what I have said, and of the many things which I could add, I give below the relation of what happened to me about one year ago. I was on my way from Cuaba to Mati, and was accompanied by a young man of about twenty years of age of the Mandaya race. He together with his mother and two younger sisters had formerly been captured by the Moro datos of the bay of Mayo. When we reached Valete, pointing to a gagátpat tree,64 he said to me: “Father, they bound my mother by the hands and neck to that branch, and left her half hanging there while they ate and rested.” “And what was their reason for binding your mother there in so inhuman a manner,” I asked. “In order that, since she would be tired out,” he replied, “by the forced position in which they kept her, she might not have the strength to escape on the journey from this place to Súmlug.” I believe that that unfortunate woman is no longer living. The Moros took her to Daron and no more has been heard of her, in spite of the repeated efforts which her son has made to find her. The latter having escaped from that bondage and having become a Christian, has not ceased to employ all the resources that his filial love has roused in him in order to see whether he can discover the abiding-place of his dear mother. He thinks that the Moros of Daron sold her to the Bagabos, and that the latter sacrificed her according to their custom.
That slave trade, sa pag sucad, as it is graphically expressed by Moros and heathen, or something to cover their necessities, is not yet the worst thing of the Moro race. More mischievous to my way of thinking is it for the progress and stability of this district, both in religious matters and in civil and political matters, that the Moros of this part have not yet lost their hope of being able to recover their ancient power. They show this openly whenever any opportunity arises. On that account they endeavor by all their efforts to maintain their own organization in the very face of our government. They call the dato of their choice Principal [i.e., Chief] and the captain or gobernadorcillo and the other agents of justice appointed among them by the governor of the district, they call Salíling, which is equivalent to our Interino [i.e., incumbent of an office ad interim]. At times they simply call the members of justice appointed by the governor for them interinos, and consider them as secondary or entrusted authorities. For as they say of themselves in their manner of speech, “We are friendly to the Castilians, through force.” Consequently, they endure our rule for the present, but do not accept it.
One of the recent occurrences which place in relief this desire of the Moros in opposing our domination and recovering their lost prestige, is found in the island of Sámal. Those islanders who on seeing the boats of Oyangúren remove the Mahometan yoke, and had passed over en masse to the Spanish camp, gradually allowed their affection toward us to cool, and again took the advice of their ancient masters, and have opposed all the attempts that have been made for their formal and real reduction. Taúpan, who was, as it were, the dato or petty king of the Sámals, and who during the last year of his life, had kept at a certain distance from the Spaniards, although he did not for all that return entirely to the Moros, whom he had considered as a very bad lot, died. His eldest son, named Severo, although a heathen, showed us affection and respect, and had expressed to a Visayan in his confidence his desire to have one of his children baptized. The conversion of Severo would have been a great defeat for the party of the Moros in Sámal. Consequently, the eminent men among the Moro faction took alarm before the thought of Severo converted. No less than fourteen Moro datos of this gulf went to Sámal, and when they were all assembled, they elected as dato or chief of the Sámals not Severo to whom it belonged by hereditary right to succeed his father, according to the custom of the Sámals, but one who was thoroughly trusted by the Moros. That was one Captain Batúnun, that old man whom your Reverence saw in Sámal, and who talking as a Moro with Father Juanmartí, held that long spear in front of the governor of the district. Now then, there are two gobernadorcillos in Sámal: Severo, who besides being the legitimate successor of his father, was appointed captain or gobernadorcillo by Governor Don Joaquin Rajal; and Batúnun, elected by the Moro datos, as I have related, and that later than the official appointment of Severo. That means that they are resisting the orders of our government directly, in order to oppose our domination, and in order to recover the Moro practice of intermeddling in the matters of the interior of the island of Sámal. It is to be noted that throughout the island of Sámal, and along its coasts, there does not exist any ranchería or group of Moros. Those who exercise that baleful influence over the Sámals are the Moros from other points, of which I have already made mention.
In regard to the Mandayas, whom the Moros will by no means recognize as freed [from their rule], they will neither recognize them as independent authorities, even with official titles which are sent by the governor of the district, and are stamped with the seal of the government, if the latter when appointed, do not communicate with them by means of the Moro datos. If the Mandayas show a decided desire to break that secular slavery, the Moros tell them without circumlocutions that they will disappear without knowing how; and they cause them to know underhandedly that the means which they will use to finish them, will be by the poisons which they possess—some of them feigned and named only to terrify the Mandayas, but others only too real and true.
As the crown to what I have related, and in order that your Reverence may be convinced of the resolute will of these Moros of opposing by all means the reduction of the heathens and the gathering of themselves together into formal villages, I will mention the most transcendent deed that has happened in this district since the coming of Oyangúren. This is the unfortunate killing and awful murder committed by the Moros of Tágum on the person of Governor Don José Pinzon y Purga and those who were with him.
By certain ill-informed persons, that tragic event has been ascribed to the urgency with which Pinzon, it is said, begged to wife the daughter of a dato of Tágum. But being well informed by trustworthy persons contemporaneous with the event, who accompanied the governor on that sad journey, I am able to state that that idea is a calumny and destitute of every foundation of truth. The deed as is related by those persons, happened in the following manner. Señor Pinzon had proposed to establish a numerous reduction of Mandayas at the mouth of the Tágum River; and worked at it with great enthusiasm and good success. Everything was ready and the heathens were summoned for a given day, on which the said governor intended to go to inaugurate the said reduction. The Moros, seeing that the project was succeeding, and that all their plots in order to frustrate it were in vain, called in the rest of their malice, and resolved to kill the governor. In effect, they feigned that they were friendly to and desired the reduction. On the appointed day they assembled at the place where the Mandayas were to await the governor in order to plan the village. The first chief of the village arrived and the datos received him with great and feigned demonstrations of joy, and consented in all things to what the governor proposed. Then they invited him to one of their rancherías, where they said that they had prepared feasts in order to serve him and to solemnize the inauguration of the new village, with another unworthy offering, but one very suitable to the degrading customs of the Moros. There were not lacking those so bold as to advise the governor not to trust the Moros, for they were plotting some trick against him. But they say that he laughed at everything, and replied “I want to see whether what they tell me is true.” Therefore he took eight companions and went with the datos to their ranchería. A feast was held there, and there was playing on culintángan, dances, etc., but not a woman, large or small, was to be seen in the whole ranchería. At the end of the ceremony, a dato invited the governor to enter an apartment, and when the latter was about to lift the curtain, at that moment the dato stabbed him violently in the back with his kris. Pinzon turned, and wounded as he was, advanced toward the murderer. Already did he have the latter at his mercy and unarmed, but before he could rise, another dato ran in, and cut off Pinzon’s head with a two-handed blow. Meanwhile the other Moros were murdering the eight companions of the unfortunate Pinzon in the lower part of the house.
Such is the blackest event registered by the annals of this gulf, which paralyzed for many years the reduction of the heathens.
In my opinion the means that will resist the evil influence of the Moros are: 1. To eliminate the offices of dato and pandita, implanting in their stead in the Moro villages the legislation in force in the Christian villages by naming municipalities with which the government will deal directly. 2. The exclusion of holding public offices to those who have been datos or panditas and their children. 3. Absolute prohibition to the datos to continue the collection of tribute from their own people and the heathens of other races. 4. The stipulation and publication of the autonomy of the heathens in regard to the Moros, prohibiting the latter absolutely from meddling in the affairs of the heathens. 5. The intimation to all the heathens and Moros of their obligation as men and as subjects of the crown of España, to live in villages in a civilized manner. 6, and last. To reduce the Moros into the least possible number of groups and away from the mouths of the Tágum and Hijo rivers, where the members of the Mandaya race must construct their villages, that being the nearest location.
In my opinion the above are the means which, if faithfully followed out, will reduce the pernicious influence of the Moros to a cipher, and in a few years would cause an infinite number of villages to flourish, which could be formed from the great multitude of heathens of the various races who are scattered about the extensive gulf of Dávao. With that system, I also shelter the hope that very many Moros, who do not belong to the class of the datos and panditas, will enter, if it is not delayed, the net of Jesus Christ.
With the half company which is on duty here, together with the cuadrilleros and the marine forces who guard these waters, there is more than sufficient for the accomplishment of all that I have stated in the present letter.
I commend myself many times to the holy prayers of your Reverence.
Your Reverence’s servant in Christ,