The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 48]

175I-I765] LATER AUGUSTINIAN MISSIONS

67

glan,'6 have founded five villages, to wit: Santo
Tomas de Villanueva, which is composed of eighty
families; Santo Christo de Burgos, one hundred
families; San Agustin, one hundred and sixty; San
Pablo, one hundred and forty; San Joseph, seventy
families. They all have accepted the faith of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy sacrament of baptism has been administered to four hundred and
seventy-nine persons, all adults, who are instructed
and taught in the Christian doctrine and the mysteries of our holy faith; and those who at present are
being catechized and instructed for baptism number
more than eight hundred persons.
16 "The missions of Pantabangan were administered by the
Augustinians until they surrendered them to the Franciscans in
order that the latter might unite these to their missions of Baler,
which lies on the further coast that is called by that name. They
maintain in these missions two or three religious, who minister to
Pantabangan, where there are 60 houses; Puncan, which has 56
houses; and Carranglan, 82. Very little progress is made in
these missions, on account of the misgovernment among the Indians
and the lack of policy on the part of the Spaniards." (Zunfiiga's
Estadismo, Retana's ed., i, p. 473.)
Vindel describes in his Catalogo, t. ii, no. 328, a rare pamphlet
(apparently not mentioned elsewhere): Relacion del descubrimiento y entrada de los religiosos de N. S. P. S. Francisco..
en los pueblos 6 rancherias de los montes altos de Baler; it is
undated, but was probably published at Manila, about I755. In
it, "Fathers Manuel de San Agustin and Manuel de Jesus Maria
Fermoselle report to their provincial, Fray Alejandro Ferrer
[who held that office during 1753-56], the condition in which
they found those villages." San Agustin labored in Baler and
neighboring villages during 1747-60. The mission of Baler was
founded in I609 by Franciscan missionaries, but half a century
later was ceded, through scarcity of laborers, to the Recollects;
the latter order abandoned that district in I703, for the same reason, and the Franciscans resumed the charge of it. Baler was
formerly situated on the right bank of the San Jose River, near
the sea; but on December 27, 1735, it was utterly destroyed by
a tidal wave, and the surviving inhabitants removed the village
farther inland, to higher ground. (Huerta, Estado, pp. 280,
477.)