Note 4 — Glorious Victories against the Moros of Mindanao

The great island of Mindanao is one of the largest in the archipelago of the Filippinas Islands, which seem to be almost innumerable; and it has even been said that there are over eleven thousand of them.4 I believe that if one counts islands large and small, inhabited and desert, the above estimate is not far from the truth. In size, Mindanao rivals the island of Manila, the chief and head of the others, for it is almost three hundred leguas in circumference. Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa, one of the first leaders in the conquest of those islands, and one of the most valorous soldiers who has been in them, made an agreement with his Majesty to conquer this island at his own cost and charges, and subject it to his royal crown—his Majesty awarding him as tributary vassals, ten thousand of the first Mindanaos whom he should subdue and choose for himself, and granting him other favors which he sought. His Majesty accepted the agreement; and, with the title of governor and captain-general, Don Esteban assembled at his own cost a goodly army of Spaniards, which (as I have heard) numbered about four hundred, and over four thousand Indians. They were all embarked in a fleet of caracoas, which are oared vessels much used in the Filippinas, carrying from fifty to one hundred rowers apiece. There are larger ones, which are called juangas, and carry from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty rowers. They sailed from the island of Oton, where the fleet was fitted out and collected. They reached Mindanao and the army disembarked. When the enemy saw such a force, they began to flee, and a victory was declared for España; but our satisfaction was soon disturbed, for a wretched Mindanao audaciously resolved—it is said, after he had taken opium, with which these people intoxicate themselves—to assassinate our captain-general, even though he should die in the attempt. The deed was to be done with his campilan, a weapon something like a cutlass, with a lead weight at the hilt. The weight makes its blows so terrible that it will cleave a man through the middle. He hid in some bushes near the road on which our men were marching in triumph. When General Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa reached a place abreast of the bush where the Mindanao was hidden, the latter leaped out unexpectedly and struck the general so fierce a blow on his head with his campilan that it cleft his skull from ear to ear. I can account myself a witness of this, because, although I did not see that event, and did not go to the Filippinas until many years after, yet in 1632 I saw the skull, when they disinterred the bones of this famous but unfortunate captain from the old church of our college at Manila (which he founded, and where his body was brought for burial), to transfer them to the church which we have recently built. The skull shows very plainly the cruel blow of the campilan, so that even I said, as I held it in my hands, with great grief, “Our founder will not deny the blow of the campilan.” Those who accompanied our general killed the Mindanao on the spot, without much difficulty. They sounded the retreat, and abandoned their pursuit of the enemy. This was the origin and the beginning of the misfortunes and calamities which for so many years have caused us so much sorrow in the Filippinas. Our army, having lost its leader and captain-general, did nothing further. The Spaniards retreated, and fortified themselves in a place on that river, where they remained in garrison; and Father Juan del Campo, a fervent man and a great minister of the gospel, gave instruction to several villages, until he died there. Many of the Indians along this river had rendered obedience, and were paying tribute to his Majesty. Afterward the garrison moved to another place, called La Caldera, where the Spaniards remained several years. Although they made no conquest of that country, they served as a check to the enemy, because the latter could not sail out with their fleets on plundering expeditions. As Don Pedro de Acuña afterward decided, when he was governor in the Filippinas, this garrison was withdrawn from La Caldera, which resulted in the utter ruin of the islands, because land and sea remained in the possession of the enemy.