Chapter 7

Early Filipino Revolts

Hello there! Do you know why the early Filipinos started to revolts against the Spanish
government? Here are some reasons. The integration of the Philippines into the Spanish empire resulted to
the implementation of forced labor, oppressive taxation, indulto de commercio, encomienda system, and
government monopolies, control and restrictions on the property, economy and life of the Filipinos resulted
to the hardship and misery experienced by the Filipinos. Owing to this hardship, the Filipinos started to air
their grievances against the Spanish government and eventually they were clamoring for equality, freedom
and later on freedom from foreign control. Although, we won't tackling the different early resistance of the
Filipinos one by one but we try to read and analyze the primary sources below regarding the early revolts of
the Filipinos.

At the end of this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Identify the causes of the early Filipino revolts
2. Explain the result of the early revolts

The Bancao rebellion of 1622 in Carigara, Leyte

Posted under General History
Friday January 06, 2012 (6 years ago)

The rebellion of 1621 1622 in Carigara, Leyte broke out while the Bohol uprising of Babaylan Tamblot was
going on. To the Spaniards their success in Bohol was very important for it would check revolts from other
villages and other islands. Chief Bancao of Carigara, Leyte however became impateint.

The Spaniards believed Bancao was at least 75 years old at the time of the revolt. The Spaniards noted
that Bancao was "very old and decrepit".

Below is how the Spaniards described the Bancao rebellion.

The natives of Carigara in the island of Leyte became impatient, and revolted without waiting for
the result in Bohol, incited thereto by Bancao, the ruling chief of Limasava (Limasawa), who in the year
1565 received with friendly welcome Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and the Spaniards who came to his island,
supplying them with what they needed, for which Phelipe II (Philip II) sent him a royal decree, thanking him
for the kind hospitality which he showed to those first Spaniards. He was baptized and, although a young
man, showed that he was loyal to the Christians; but, conquered by the enemy [of souls], he changed sides
in his old age.
This man lived in the island of Leyte, and with a son of his and another man, Pagali (whom he
chose as priest of his idolatry), erected a sacred place to the divata, or devil, and they induced six villages
in the island to rebel.
In order to remove from them their fear of the Spaniards, these men told their followers that they
could change the Spaniards into stones as soon as they saw them, by repeating the word bato, which
signifies "stone" and that a woman or a child could change them into clay by flinging earth upon them.
 Father Melchor de Vera went to Zebu (Cebu) to give warning of this sedition and obtain aid to
check it. Captain Alcarazo equipped an armada of forty vessels, in which were embarked some Spaniards
and many friendly Indians, also the father rector of Zebu and Father Vera; these united with the forces
(both Spanish and Indian) that the alcalde of Leyte had. They offered peace to the rebels, but the latter
spurned it with contempt.
Our men, divided into three bodies, attacked them; and, when that which Don Juan de Alcarazo
commanded came in sight of the rebels, they fled to the hills. Our soldiers followed them, and on the way
put to the sword or shot those whom they encountered; and, although the compassion of the Spaniards
spared the children and women, these could not escape the fury of the Indians. Many of the rebels died,
the enchantment not availing them by which they had thought to turn the Spaniards into stone or clay; the
rest saved themselves by flight.
The Spaniards came to a large building which the rebels had erected for their divata; they
encamped in it ten days, and then burned it. Some one pierced with a lance Bancao, the chief instigator of
the rebellion, not knowing who he was, whom two of his slaves were carrying on their shoulders and
immediately his head was placed on a stake as a public warning. He and his children came to a wretched
end, as a punishment for their infidelity and apostasy; for his second son was beheaded as a traitor, and a
daughter of his was taken captive.
To inspire greater terror, the captain gave orders to shoot three or four rebels, and to burn 8 one of
their priests-in order that, by the light of that fire, the blindness in which the divata had kept them deluded
might be removed. The Spaniards also cut off the head of an Indian who had robbed Father Vinancio (
Vilancio) and broken to pieces an image of the Virgin, and kicked a crucifix; and his head was set up in the
same place where he had committed those horrible sacrileges. There were many who, in the midst of so
furious a tempest, remained constant in their religious belief.

A detailed account of the Sumuroy rebellion as told by a Spaniard

There was an Indian named Sumoroy in the village of Palapag (a municipality in the present day
province of Northern Samar), who was regarded as one of the best, although he was one of the very worst,
and was as evil as his father-who, accredited with the same hypocrisy, was a babaylan and priest of the
devil, and made the other Indians apostatize. He was greatly addicted to drunkenness, and he had so
promoted it [in others] that all the village was contaminated with this vice, as well as that of lust - vices so
closely allied to idolatry, of which truth there are many examples in Holy Writ. The inhabitants of Palapag
were corrupted by those evil habits at the time when Governor Don Diego Fajardo - with the intention of
relieving the near-by provinces of Tagalos and Pampanga from the burden of working, at the harbor of
Cavite, in the building of galleons and vessels necessary for the conservation and defense of these islands
- had ordered the alcaldes of Leite and other provinces to send men thence to Cavite for that employment.
That was a difficult undertaking, because of the distance of more than one hundred leguas, and the
troubles and wrongs to the said Indians that would result from their leaving their homes for so long a time.
The father ministers went to the alcaldes, and the latter to Manila, to represent those troubles and wrongs;
but the only thing that they obtained was a more stringent order to execute the mandate without more reply.
Consequently they could do nothing else than obey the orders of the superior government, although they
feared what very soon occurred. But what good end could so mistaken and pernicious a decision have ?
As soon as the inhabitants of Palapag saw that the alcaldes-mayor were beginning to collect men
to send them to the harbor of Cavite, they began to go oftener to the meetings in the house of Sumoroy and
his father, and to begin (when heated with wine, the ordinary counselor of the Indians) to organize their
insurrection. They quickly appointed leaders, of whom the chief was Don Juan Ponce, a very influential
man and a bad Christian, but married to a wife from a chief's family in the village of Catubig; she was very
different from him in her morals, for she was very virtuous. The second leader was one Don Pedro
Caamug, and the third the above-named Sumoroy. Then they discussed the murder of the father minister,
Miguel Ponce of the Society of Jesus, an Aragonese, at the suggestion of that malignant sorcerer and
priest of the devil, the father of Sumoroy, who charged that undertaking upon his son.
The chief leader Sumoroy and his sorcerer father refused to put in an appearance, or to talk of
peace. But the very ones whom he had caused to rebel killed him, and carried his head to Don Gines de
Rojas, although they had been so loyal to him before that when the alcalde-mayor of Leite went at the
beginning to reduce them to peace, and asked them as the first condition to deliver to him the head of
Sumoroy, they, making light of the request, sent him the head of a swine. But afterward, as a token of their
true obedience, they delivered the head, without any one asking for it. Don Juan Ponce remained in hiding
in the island of Cebu for a long time, but after having obtained pardon he returned to Palapag; there he
committed crimes that were so atrocious that the alcalde-mayor seized him and sent him to Manila, where
he paid for those crimes on the scaffold. He who had the best end was Don Pedro Caamug; for he was the
first to present himself, and showed great loyalty in the reduction of the others. He continued all his life to
be very quiet, and was governor of his village, where he was highly esteemed; and it was proved that he
was not the one who had killed Father Vicente with his hands, although he was captain of that band.
Moreover, it was found to be advisable to overlook much on that occasion, as the quiet of all the Pintados
Islands, who were awaiting the end of the rebels of Palapag, depended on it.

Sources:
https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/857/the-bancao-rebellion-of-1622-in-carigara-leyte
https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/736/a-detailed-account-of-the-sumuroy-rebellion-as-told-by-a-
spaniard