Note 8 — Chapter XXXII

A full account of this revolt and its cause and progress may be found in Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, xiv, pp. 79–107; and of its punishment by Lechuga, in xi, pp. 40–43. In writing the latter volume, he had not any adequate information regarding the causes of the rebellion; but later he obtained a detailed account of this from the Recollect fathers in Bohol who took charge of the natives after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768. According to them, the immediate occasion of the revolt was the arbitrary conduct of the Jesuit, Father Morales, who was, in 1744, in charge of the district of Inabangan. He sent out a native constable to arrest a renegade Indian, but the latter slew the constable, whose brother, Francisco Dagóhoy, obtained the corpse, and carried it into his village. Morales refused to bury it in consecrated ground, and it lay for three days unburied and rotting. Angered at this arbitrary and harsh treatment, especially as Morales had been the cause of the constable’s death, Dagóhoy swore vengeance on the Jesuit, and persuaded the natives of his district to join him therein; 3,000 of them followed him, abandoning their homes and fortifying an inaccessible retreat in the mountains. On their way they plundered a large and valuable estate in that vicinity, named San Xavier, belonging to the Jesuits, which was well stocked with cows, carabaos, horses, and other animals. Soon afterward, Dagóhoy bribed an Indian to kill the Jesuit minister of Hagna, Father Lamberti; and afterward Morales was also assassinated by natives. The insurgents were numerously recruited through various acts of injustice and tyranny by the Spaniards, and the rebellion was assuming dangerous proportions. Bishop Espeleta of Cebú endeavored to persuade the insurgents to return to their allegiance, and offered them secular priests instead of the Jesuits; but they took this for timidity on the part of the government, and became only more emboldened. Twenty years later, Recollect missionaries were sent to Bohol in place of the expelled Jesuits, and in the district of Baclayon was stationed Fray Pedro de Santa Barbara; he laid plans for reclaiming and reconciling the insurgents, and was partially successful; Dagóhoy and several other datos “returned to God and to the church” with their followers, several hundred being baptized and making then confessions. Nevertheless, they did not go much further, and although Bishop Espeleta endeavored in person to secure their Christian administration, “he could not secure from Dagóhoy any more than that he would build a church, in order to comply with his Christian obligations; but, as he was attracted by the lawless life which he had led during so many years, and by the gratification of being obeyed, the undertaking was delayed until the present time. Nothing was done save to erect the foundation posts, which had to serve for the present church.” This last volume of Concepción’s was published in 1792, and his later information was obtained probably in 1789, in which year he wrote this account. (Espeleta’s last remonstrance with Dagóhoy was made, as stated by our writer, “in the year sixty-two;” but the context would indicate that it occurred after the labors of the Recollects began, and therefore the date is more probably “seventy-two,” the word sesenta being printed for setenta, by one of the typographical errors so frequent in Conception’s pages.) Fray Pedro de Santa Barbara was so delighted at his first success that he persuaded the civil authorities to withdraw the troops from most of the Bohol stations, and to publish a general amnesty (this was not later than 1770); but the result was, that the insurgent chiefs would not allow any of their followers to leave their strongholds under pain of death, and continued their habits of raids on their neighbors, plundering, and murder. Concepción expresses indignant surprise that this rebellion had been allowed to go long unpunished, with so great loss and injury to the peaceable part of the population. ↑