ed Zambales. [14]

This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and
the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of
Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General
Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila
May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao,
where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a
chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives
from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who
were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this
act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.

It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing
the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say
that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo's
traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the
natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the
gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at
the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One
of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal
dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during
the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin,
Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more
than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans
undertook the active evangelization of the district.

Let us now examine [continues the historian [15]] the state
of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries
sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the
topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea
of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the
larger part of the aboriginal population: "The principal cause,"
he said, "of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which
prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted,
is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult
that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find
it impossible to exercise any influence over them."

Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families,
united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring
th