lled
their minister, a zealous father of the Society, took their possessions
to the mountains, and commenced to gather to their following a great
number of rebels.

258. That decree caused a great disturbance in the island of Mindanao,
for of its five divisions scarcely one is reduced to obedience;
therefore those who live unsubdued in the mountains only wait for such
opportunities in order to foment disturbances and restlessness. Many
of the natives hid their property in the province of Caragha, and
proved so unquiet that although the Butuans were the most trustworthy
Indians, the father prior, Fray Miguel de Santo Thomas, had to work
hard to restrain them. Those of Linao descended to the last vileness,
and it is presumed that the same would have happened in the district
of Tandag if the alcalde-mayor, Bernabe de la Plaza, had not concealed
the decree. That was afterward approved by the auditors in Manila,
as they had experienced that that decree had been a seed-bed for
many troubles. All that disquiet continued to operate with the
manifest disturbance of the public peace, even at the news alone of
the above-mentioned decree. Even the hint of it succeeded in Linao
where the insurrection took place in the following manner.

259. There are certain wild Indians in the mountains of Butuan,
located in the province of Caragha, called Manobos. [28] They have
kinky hair, oblique eyes, a treacherous disposition, brutish customs,
and live by the hunt. They have no king to govern them nor houses to
shelter them; their clothing covers only the shame of their bodies;
and they sleep where night overtakes them. Finally, they are infidels,
and belie in everything, by the way in which they live, that small
portion that nature gives them as rational beings. Among so great a
rabble, but one village is known where some people are seen far from
human intercourse. They are a race much inclined to war, which they are
almost always waging against the Indians of the seacoast. There lived
Dabao, [29] who had become as it were a petty king, without other right
than that of his great strength, or other jurisdiction than that of his
great cunning. His wickedness was much bruited about, and he made use
of subtle deceits by which he committed almost innumerable murders. He
was often pursued by Spanish soldiers, but he knew quite well how to
elude them by his cunning. For on one occasion, in order to avoid the
danger, he went to the house of an eva