Note 5 — Chapter VI

One of the most notable names in Philippine missionary annals is that of Agustín de San Pedro (his family name Rodriguez), born in Portugal in 1599. He was a student in the university of Salamanca, but, desiring to enter the religious life, he assumed the habit of a Recollect Augustinian at Valladolid, and made his profession at the age of twenty. Three years later, he set out for the Philippine mission, and soon after reaching Manila was sent to Mindanao. There he labored with the Indians in the districts of Butuan, Habongan, Linao, Cagayan, Tandag, and Romblon; and accompanied the expedition of Atienza Ibáñez (1639) to Lake Malanao. Retana and Pastells (in their edition of Combés’s Hist. Mindanao, col. 725) state that this missionary converted some 10,000 natives to Catholicism. More than that, he aided in the defense of his converts, several times fighting at their head against their heathen and piratical enemies; and, having been as a student proficient in mathematics and military science, he constructed forts in the Christian villages which enabled them to repel their invaders, and taught the natives the art of fortification. Fray Agustín died in Romblon, in 1653. See accounts of his life and exploits in Prov. S. Nicolas de Tolentino, pp. 290–292; and La Concepción’s Hist. Philipinas, v, pp. 362–391 (which will appear in a later volume of this series).