Caraga Antigua*1

A Short History of the Church in Caraga Antigua*1 by Ángel Martínez Cuesta OAR Proem Through his papal bull Quo plenius, Pope Paul VI erected on 16 June 1978 the Diocese of Tandag, assigning to it the territory of Surigao del Sur province, which had belonged since 1939 to the Diocese of Surigao and, previously, to those of Cebu (1595-1910), Zamboanga (1910-1933) and Cagayan de Oro (1933-1939). The 25th anniversary of the diocese is a good occasion to retrace a short synthesis of its history. Since Tandag was always closely related with the history of the dioceses of Butuan, Surigao and Mati, the origin and development of Christianity in that territory cannot be understood if such link is done away with. All that made me put the historical account within a framework that includes the whole region known until 1848 as Caraga, i.e., the land area occupied by the provinces of Davao Oriental, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur. The beginnings, 1622-1700 In 1622 eight Augustinian Recollect missionaries arrived at Tandag. A year before, on 1 March 1621, the bishop of Cebu had entrusted to the Recollects the evangelization of “the encomiendas and districts of Butuan, Sampongan and Caraga” with all the towns, rivers and mountains, “the small islands of Siargao up to Tandag, where a Spanish garrison was erected, as well as the encomienda of Bislig and Cateel” (Bullarium OAR 1, 467-68). Two Recollects remained in Tandag where a military detachment was stationed. For a century and a half, Tandag would be the center of the mission and seat of its superior. The rest of the missionaries spread out and headed north. A small group, composed probably of three religious, went to Butuan and from there they proceeded towards Cagayan and Linao which was situated upstream of Agusan River. Another small group traveled to the northern shores of Surigao where they gave rise to the doctrinas of Gigaquit, Bacuag and Cantilan as well as to those of the adjoining island of Siargao. Still a much 1 *Written for the 25thAnniversary of the Diocese of Tandag in 2003. 170 Ángel Martínez Cuesta, OAR smaller group of missionaries later trekked to the southern region of Caraga Bay. The work of the missionary was not easy. The region was not yet pacified, and its inhabitants viewed all the Spaniards with suspicion. With the exception of the Butuan natives, with whom several Jesuits from Bohol and Cebu had worked sporadically from 1596 to 1614, it can be said that the natives knew no other Spaniards but the soldiers, who in 1609 had built an intimidating fort at Tandag, as well as the encomenderos and tribute-collectors. It was too hard for them to differentiate the Church and missionaries from the conquest and encomenderos. The ministers had to face the obstacles of the psychological and religious sphere, like the polygamous practices of village chiefs, the possession of slaves and inordinate attachment to religious rituals and traditions. The violent death of the first two missionaries tragically gives us an idea of the gravity of these barriers. In 1623 Father Juan de la Madre de Dios ended his earthly life at the hands of Datu Suba upstream in Tago River. The datu was irritated by the Recollect minister’s insistence on the deliverance of a woman from slavery. He pierced the missionary’s body with a lance. In the following year Brother Juan de San Nicolás perished in a sinking incident caused by the natives of Gigaquit. Even so, evangelization rapidly progressed until July 1631 when it was brusquely disrupted by the widespread rebellion of the “Caragas.” In a few days’ time the rebels sacked the pueblos, razed kumbentos to the ground, desecrated sacred vessels, slew four missionaries—Jacinto de Jesús María in Cateel, Juan de Santo Tomás and Alonso de San José in Tandag, and Pedro de San Antonio in Surigao—and captured two, namely, Lorenzo de San Facundo and Francisco de San Fulgencio. These missionaries saved their lives through the unexpected protection of Mangabo, one of the rebel leaders. Traditional historiography deemed the four religious as martyrs. But the motives which aroused the rebels’ fury and forced them to take up arms were not perhaps totally religious in nature. Lying side by side with the corpses of the religious were several dead soldiers and encomenderos. During the exaction of the tribute, small boats owned by the Recollects and loaded with rice were found. Their evangelization method was similar to what was adopted in other regions of the archipelago. At the outset, with the assistance of the Tandag fort, they worked as roving missionaries, traversing shores, rivers and estuaries, in search of natives scattered in the countryside and fields. They later established some pueblos where they erected in each a simple church made of bamboo, wood and nipa, and a parochial house or kumbento. They further encouraged a few more natives who had agreed to abandon their fields A Short History of the Church in Caraga Antigua 171 to build houses. Ordinarily, only from this moment did the minister administer the sacrament of baptism. In the 17th century, the missionaries who worked diligently in the whole Caraga region were rarely more than ten. In 1655 the ten missioners were distributed among five residences from where they exercised spiritual supervision over some 10,000 Christians, scattered in about thirty communities occupying several thousand square kilometers. The ministers of Tandag administered likewise the garrison or fort of the place and the towns of Marihatag, Lianga, Tago and Cantilan which was then created out of two villages named Calagdan and Bayoyo or Palasao. The Recollects of Butuan served the communities of Jabonga, Amongan, Arwayan, Linao, Hibong and Odyongang. The missionaries of Cagayan reached as far as Iponan, Tagoloan, Compot and Camiguin Island. The ministers of Siargao attended to the needs of the villages in the islands of Dinagat and Siargao—Sapao [renamed Santa Monica], Cabuntog [present-day Luna] and Cacub or Caolo [Del Carmen today]—, Bacuag, Gigaquit, Bolor and Surigao, while those of Bislig administered Hinatuan, Cateel, Baganga and Caraga. All of them had under their jurisdiction groups—more or less numerous—of heathens and undocumented people. In 1671 a missionary fixed his residence in Cateel in order to support the evangelization of the Mandayas in the area in collaboration with the doctrineros of Bislig. Within a few days, they successfully reduced over a thousand. With the Christians of the coastal area, the Mandayas shared a common hatred towards the Moro who was starting to seriously vex their daily lives. However, the Moro systematic raids against Caraga did not begin until the 18th century. A decade of terror During the 18th century, Christian life of the region went on around four ministries carried over from the preceding century. But their geographic situation was not always the same and in some periods, more or less lengthy, it counted on other centers of evangelization. In 1753 the minister of Siargao moved his residence to Surigao which after years of hesitation was promoted as cabecera of the doctrina and administrative capital of the province. In 1755 Tubay, Jabonga and Mainit were separated from Butuan in order to form a new doctrina which survived only until 1767 or 1768. Still more ephemeral were those of Calagdan and Gigaquit, erected in 1746 and suppressed three years after. The doctrina of Siargao, re-established in 1748, was again closed in 1761. In 1768 five or six religious worked in the area. These missionaries attended to about 10,000 souls who lived in four traditional doctrinas. 172 Ángel Martínez Cuesta, OAR The plight of these ministries was getting worse year after year. After the re-opening of the garrison of Zamboanga in 1719, the Moros renewed their raids against the Christian communities of the Visayas. Year after year, the natives of Jolo, the Maguindanaos, the Maranaos, and the Tirons put out to sea and fell upon the unprotected Christian pueblos, sowing desolation and death. Nonetheless, except for a certain year (1722) when they laid siege against the fort of Cateel, at the outset the eastern coast of Mindanao was relatively free from raids. But in 1749 the missionaries already grieved over the destruction of a good number of visitas of Butuan and Siargao. The kumbentos, churches and houses of Tubay, Sapao and Cabuntog “were reduced to ashes, and the [Moros] captured more than 3,000 people from the entire province of Caraga.” The 1750s were even more tragic. In 1755 the Moros razed to the ground the pueblo of Caraga where they desecrated the Blessed Sacrament and torched the districts of Siargao and Butuan together with their ten visitas. Tandag and Bislig were kept incommunicado. The most difficult moment was the surrender of the Tandag garrison in October 1754, a victim more of famine and internal disputes than of a Moro raid. In the ensuing years, the fort was successfully rebuilt, but it never regained the strength it enjoyed in earlier decades. Tandag entered the phase of decadence that was hastened by the British Invasion of Manila in 1762 and by new Moro attacks against the fort in 1761 and 1767. In 1791 the Recollects opted to move the cabecera of the doctrina to Cantilan. In 1768 Caraga region was on the verge of collapse. With impunity, the Moros traversed its shores and pillaged its pueblos, too small and defenseless to pose an effective resistance. The Manila government did not have the situation under control. The sole resistance stemmed from the missionaries.

Load more