Note 10 — The Augustinian Recollects in the Philippines

After the deed of arms above mentioned, the Recollect missionaries, with the necessary permits from the bishop and the royal vice-patron, founded the first convent and village of Tandag, and then the convent and village of Jigaquit; a third village and convent on the river of Butuan, whence they continued their conquests and went up the river of Butuan to the interior of the island, to a lake called Linao; and the fourth village and convent, fifty leguas from Butuan. Then they went to Cagayan,10 where they also founded a church and convent; whence they crossed to the island of Camiguin, where they did the same; and lastly in the island of Surigao and Bislig. Eight settlements, perfectly organized in the social order, with churches suitable for the public worship of our true religion, with convenient buildings for the habitation of their ministers—where they could practice the exercises of the monastic life, and whence issued the splendors of their edifying holiness to illumine the dark shades of idolatry and paganism, served as the original basis for the spread of the faith. After that, they continued to found many other villages dependent on the first, which were then considered as visitas or subject villages. Some of those villages came in later times to be the residences of our Recollect ministers, according to the available number of religious that the corporation possessed, or according as the necessities or growth of population in the said subject villages demanded.