Note 67 — Chapter IV

1. The Zambal Indians, of an intractable disposition, people of wild customs, and little or not at all content, were furious with the Dominican ministers in the reductions; they were groaning under the yoke of a life more regulated than their inclinations permitted. This made them think of insurrections and uprisings. The presidio of Painaven, well reënforced, restrained them; and the raids of the commandant, with detachments of men, into the mountains, intimidated them in their plans. They thought that the government of the Recollect fathers was milder, and hence they sighed for it. Those fathers tolerated their barbarous customs among a people so ferocious, and succeeded by their patience in softening and reducing them. Not so with the Dominican fathers, who learned the Zambals’ tenacity at their own cost. In the village of Balacbac was an Indian chief named Dalinen; although he lived in that village, he kept his valuables in the mountains under charge of a nephew. Another Indian, a Cimarron, named Calignao, killed the latter treacherously. In order to avenge that murder, Dalinen retired with many of his followers to the dense woods. Father Fray Domingo Perez,67 who was the minister of that mission, tried to prevent that flight, but was quite unable to remedy it; for seventeen families fled with Dalinen. The commandant of the fort attacked them with his men and burned the ranchería of Aglao, the next village to Balacbac, to which the murderer and the injured man belonged.