Note 5 — Chapter XXVIII

It happened, then, in the year 1676, that the alcalde-mayor of Pampanga, then Sargento-mayor Don Francisco de Texada, and Sargento-mayor Alonso Fernandez Pacheco, former chief commandant of the fort of Balas, began communication with the Zambal Indians of Buquil and having gained their good will with their zeal for the welfare of their souls, persuaded them to become baptized, for as abovesaid, most of the people of Buquil were heathens. They answered that they would become baptized if they were given Dominican ministers; for they wished to be administered by them alone. Having received that petition and proposal of the Indians, the said alcalde and commandant informed the governor of these islands, then the master-of-camp, Don Manuel de Leon. He desirous of the reduction of those infidels, petitioned the father provincial of this province, then father Fray Phelipe Pardo, to send some religious to Zambales as missionaries for those mountains, in order to ascertain whether the effect of reducing those barbarians to the faith of Christ could be obtained in that way—a matter that all desired greatly. By virtue of that, the father provincial sent father Fray Pedro de Alarcon5 and father Fray Domingo de Escalera to the place called Buquil. To another place called Balacbac, which is located behind the mountains of Abucay, he sent the father vicar of the said village, namely, Father Domingo Perez. The latter immediately departed for Balacbac and having assembled some Indians there, baptized nine, and returned to Abucay, bringing five Zambals with him whom he afterward catechised and baptized. One of them was the nephew of the priest of the idols, and the father taught him to read and write, for he was more clever than the others. That Indian was very useful, and afterward was of much help to the said father in the reduction of the Zimarrones of the mountains, and in telling their customs and idolatries. The two fathers who were at Buquil, assembled some Indians into a place which they called Nuestra Señora de Atocha, where they baptized some and catechised others. But the governor having died at the beginning of the following year, the former ministers of that province began to complain to the father provincial that we were entering their administration. Notwithstanding that he had a sound reply that the vice-patron of those fields of Christendom had entrusted the matter to us, the father provincial in order to avoid anger between both orders, enjoined the fathers to return. That was the end of that first entrance which our religious made in Zambales. The provincial chapter was held after that, and in it the said father Fray Domingo Perez was elected vicar of Samal. The latter, by virtue of the order which was enacted in the said provincial chapter for all the father vicars of the houses near the mountains where there were any heathens to reduce, to endeavor to make entrances among them in order to allure them to the faith of Christ, did in that part what was ordered, by making some entrances among those mountains in order to reduce some Negritos, who are called Zambals.6 Although the father worked with energy in that attempt, and went to great expense in kindnesses to them, he could obtain nothing from them because of their great barbarity and other reasons which it is not the present purpose to mention.