efer their old missionaries the
Jesuits, and that the two districts will be disturbed and restless has
no weight, and the governor sees that they are kept quiet through the
Spanish officials there. The three Recollects assigned to Mindoro are
Diego de la Madre de Dios, Diego de la Resurrection, and Eugenio de
los Santos, and they are each given one assistant. A description of
Mindoro and its people follows, and a resume of its early conquest
and of missionary labors there. Since the Jesuits have abandoned
that field (with the going of Luis San Vitores to the Marianas) the
seculars have had ecclesiastical charge of the island, but it is a
poor place and scarcely can any secular be found who cares to accept
it. After the entrance of the Recollects, the number of Christians
steadily rises, evangelization making progress among the Mangyans,
Negritos, and other peoples. Four convents are established, each of
them with several visitas, and the mission to the Mangyans on the bay
of Ilog, in the last of which none of the apostatized Christians are
allowed to enter lest they pervert the new plants. "But that fine
flower-garden [i.e., the island of Mindoro] has been trampled down
and even ruined by the Moros." The Dominicans bend their energies
to the work in their newly-acquired missions of Zambales. With
malicious satisfaction, Concepcion reports that their efforts have
resulted mainly in failure. Believing that the eleven villages which
they have received from the Recollects are too many for the best
administration of the district, they endeavor to consolidate and move
some of them. Bolinao, which under the Recollect regime was located on
a small island off the coast of Zambales, is moved across the channel
to the barren coast where "many inconveniences but no advantages" are
possessed. Agno is moved inland from the coast; Sigayen is also moved,
the only advantage made by the changed site being the river of fresh
water on which it is located. Paynaven is moved inland to the site
of Iba, to which its name is changed, and Iba becomes the capital of
the district, but in order that it may become so, some families are
moved from Bolinao. The villages of Cabangan and Subic are made from
the consolidation of several others, and the places left vacant by
refugees are tilled by families from Pangasinan, whence the natives
can be moved easier as that province is so densely populated that
there is not sufficient room for all of them. The