Note 45 — INSURRECTIONS BY FILIPINOS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

On the following day, the twentieth of January, the Zambals arrived at Vigán. [The bishop waits for them to come, prepared to say mass for their benefit, since they have sent him word that they wish to hear it, “a singular mode of hostility, and a still more rare mode of devotion, which looks more like craft than simplicity, although all traits at once are possible in these people.” A number of the Zambals, including their leaders, hear mass with much reverence, and even confess to the priests, saying that many of their men have come on this raid through fear, rather than their own inclination. Most of the troop, however, proceed to loot the village; the people take refuge in the bishop’s house and the church, thus saving their lives, although they endure great suffering and privation by being shut up indoors for two days, with little food or drink. Finally the fathers persuade the Zambals to let the people return to their houses.] On that day the enemy appointed Don Juan Celiboto headman of the village, and from that time the Zambals made great haste to seize as many Indians as they could, both men and women, to be their slaves. Only the sacristans had been left on guard in the church; the Zambals slew them together in the baptistery, and plundered it of all the ornaments and cloth that they found; and there they also killed a negro who tried to avail himself of the church to escape from their hands. Many Ilocans died in various places on that day—so many that when the number was reckoned it was found that the village of Bantay alone had eighty45 dead, whose bodies they hid among the hills, so that they might not be seen by the fathers. In those villages all was confusion, outcries, the ringing of bells, the discharge of arquebuses, and shouts; and among the ecclesiastics all was affliction and grief at seeing so many calamities, without being able to remedy them.