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]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 48

Caranglan, San Miguel, Santa Rita, Bolo, Pantabangan, San Juan, and Santo Thomas; in the valleys,
Tayog, Umingan, Lupao, San Joseph, Palosapes (or
Urorin), San Agustin, and Santa Monica. Perhaps
the greatest among the Augustinian missionaries was
Alexandro Cacho, who died in I745. After him
came Fray Agustin Barriocanal,26 a man of great
zeal, who formed a village called Ambayavan; in
the flower of his youth he was drowned while trying
to ford a swollen stream (June 5, I747). Another
noted missionary was Pedro Freyre; he converted
eighty families in the Jumangi tribe, and gathered
them into a village, with their own church; and he
converted great numbers from the Italon, Abaca,
Ibilao, Irapi, and Ilongot tribes, and even some of
the blacks (Negritos). Mozo cites their labors in
order to show that the missionary spirit was then
even more active and aspiring than in the early days
of the conquest; and confirms it by describing the
mode of life of these mountain tribes, and the consequent difficulties in missionary labor among them,
saying:]
The tribes converted by the early missionaries
were more civilized, dwelt on the plains, and had a
26 Agustin Barrio Canal was born in the province of Burgos,
and made profession in the Augustinian convent of Salamanca
in I733, at the age of nineteen. He came to the islands in I737,
and became a missionary in western and central Luzon, where
he died as related in Mozo's text.
Pedro Freyre was born in the province of Lugo, and entered
the Augustinian order at Burgos. He came to the Philippines
in I737, and labored among the tribes of central Luzon until
1753; he then became a minister in Pampanga, where he spent
nearly twenty years. In 177I he was removed by force from his
post there, for refusing to accept the diocesan visit; the rest of
his life was spent at Manila, where he died in I790. (Perez's
Catdlogo.)