Tagum during the Spanish Period

To the modern-day Tagumenyos, much of the history of Tagum began when migrant settlers started their exodus down south to the territory in Mindanao, more particularly in the undivided Province of Davao. The migration of Christian Filipinos from places in the north, such as the islands of Luzon, Cebu, Bohol and Leyte, was predicated on the encouragement by the Insular Government for migrants to settle down and work within the vast lands of the southern island, including that of the Municipal District of Tagum that used to encompass what are now Davao City’s Lasang, and Panabo City at the south, Maco on the east and a portion of Mawab on the north. This state-sponsored immigration was hinged on the implementation of the government policy of developing and civilizing the Muslim and Tribal communities that dotted the municipal district of Tagum.

For the descendants of the Kagan Muslims and the Indigenous people, such as the Mandaya and the Mansaka who were the original settlers of Tagum, however, their people’s part of Tagum history happened before the turn of the 20th century, several decades earlier than when the migrant settlers came in droves from the north.

SPANISH PERIOD The oldest accounts of the happenings in Tagum were encapsulated in various letters of the Jesuit priests to the Father Superior of the Jesuit Mission to the Philippines. These letters were compiled to form several volumes of books published within a 20-year period and wholly written in Spanish.

A letter of Fr. Quirico More, S.J. to his mission’s Father Superior,written in January 20, 1885 was translated in English and included in

a book published in 1906. The account gave a clearer picture on what transpired in the area which led him to label the Muslim Rancheria along Tagum River as the most ungovernable and most famous of the Rancherias in the Davao Gulf due to the murders that were committed there (Blair & Robertson, 1906, p. 201).

From the lens of the Jesuit priest, these murders were borne out of deception carried out by the Muslim settlers of the northwestern coast of the Davao Gulf. Father More mentioned the murders of four Christians in July 1884 which happened in the Moro Rancheria of Tagum and committed by those who he said were pretending to be friends and brothers of those killed. He also recounted about how a nonbeliever of the Christian faith revealed to him a plot devised by a Muslim datu to kill him when he would meet with the indigenous people of Pagsabangan whom he wished to be the subject of reduction. His murder was planned to be executed by people armed with balaraos and limbuton who would appear just as Fr. More would ask for more Mandaya people to be reduced (Societas Iesu, 1887, p. 100).

As to the English-translated letter of Fr. More to his superior, it described that in 1861, Don Jose Pinzon y Purga, the sixth Spanish Governor of the District of Davao, wanted to establish numerous reductions of Mandayas at the mouth of the Tagum River. The reduction entailed the establishment and expansion of permanent settlements of the indigenous people in a particular area so as to reduce their tendency to scatter around and abandon their temporary communities when they feel the need to do so (Tiu, 2005, p. 25).

Since the Mandayas had had enough of being subjected to theabusive rule of the Moros of the Tagum Rancheria, they were amenable

to the proposal of the Spanish military governor just so they could awayfrom the clutches of the Muslims who ruled the area and exacted tributesfrom them which the Muslims considered their due.

The Muslims living along Tagum River had joined the resistance against the Spanish rule since they already had organized a semblance of government which oversaw politics, religion and civil matters. When the Spanish came to rule the people around the Davao Gulf, the settlers soon lost their political and religious power. Nevertheless, the hope to regain supremacy and control over their own people was never really lost; they endeavored to stock up on their efforts to maintain their own organization as a means of thwarting off the reaching arms of the Spanish rule from enfolding them (Blair & Robertson, 1906, p. 206).

The Moros were also unequivocally opposed to the reduction and gathering together of the Mandayas into formal villages and plotted to make the reduction plans of the governor ineffective. Their efforts, however, were all for nothing as the Mandayas were poised to become successfully settled permanently, thereby rendering their plots all but

in vain. This success on the part of the Spanish to bring the Mandayas along Tagum River over to their fold led the Moros of the Tagum Rancheria to become resolute in killing the military governor of the District of Davao.

The Muslims, in the guise of being amenable to Pinzon’s establishment and eventual inauguration of a village for the Mandayas, assembled at the mouth of Tagum River and proceeded to invite the governor on the day that he was to inaugurate the village to join them for a feast at one of their Rancherias. The feast, which the Muslims said was prepared to celebrate the founding of the new village, treated the military governor and his eight companions to dancing and the playing of kulintang.

Once the ceremony was over, Pinzon — at the invitation of a datu — went inside an apartment only to be stabbed violently at the back. While the governor was being beheaded by another datu using a two-handed blow, his eight companions were also killed by the other Moros in the lower part of the house.

In the said letter, Fr. More belied the claims made that had already started circulating: that the murders were caused by the urgency of Pinzon in having to wife the daughter of a datu of the Tagum Rancheria. As there had reportedly been not a single woman, of any shape and stature that could be seen at the Muslim village where the Spanish governor was killed, and since the Jesuit priest claimed to have spoken to people who were Pinzon during the event, he dismissed the idea as bereft of truth (Blair & Robertson, 1906, pp. 208-210).

Artist’s rendition of the assassination of Don Jose Pinzon y Purga, the sixth Spanish Governor of the District of Davao in 1861 by the Moros of Tagum Rancheria. Art by Othniel Inis, 2018.

the history of a place must be viewed from the lens of the people who areindigenous to the area and not from those who came to wrest the controlaway from its original settlers.

Davao historian Macario Tiu talked about how the silence of the Kagans in relation to the 1861 assassination of Pinzon in order to protect those who had a hand in the execution of the Spanish governor had led to the adoption of the point of view of the Spaniards as the local history, with Pinzon being seen more sympathetically while the struggle and resistance of the people of this part of the Davao Gulf was viewed belittlingly.

Dr. Tiu wrote that the account about Pinzon wanting to marrya Muslim maiden, which Fr. More dismissed in his letter to his superiors,was affirmed in the oral history in Bincungan where the descendants of

the people of the Spanish-era Tagum Rancheria live. In one of his many interviews with the descendants of the heroes of the Davao Gulf who fend off the Spanish encroachers, Tiu was able to talk to Tanudan Noah Lubama and related part of their conversation in this wise:

Pinzon saw the sister of Datu Maug and was smitten by her beauty. He told Maug, “I want to marry her.” The datus were alarmed because it was unheard of that the Moros would allow their women, and of royal blood at that, to marry a Spaniard. On the day that the governor demanded for the maiden to be surrendered to him, the datus directed him to the room where the woman was placed inside a mosquito net. As the Spaniard lifted the mosquito net, a datu rushed at him and struck his forehead with a sapiyo (pinuti, in Bisaya, a heavy knife resembling a bolo).

Tiu stated that the above-mentioned datu who struck Pinzon was named Lubama, Noah’s grandfather. He further informed that the Spanish leader of the District of Davao was killed in the land of the Maugs at Bincungan and that the woman who he wanted to marry was Maug’s sister, a beautiful woman nicknamed Ugis. This bit about the sister of Maug being the object of Pinzon’s affection was culled from the 2002 interview Dr. Tiu had with Abubakar Lubama, the cousin of Noah’s who lived in Carmen, Davao del Norte. The local historian noted that Abubakar refused to reveal what the Spanish era- Lubama did exactly and would not confirm Noah’s account that their forefather struck Pinzon in the forehead with the sapiyo (Tiu, 2005, pp. 189-190).

The stance of silence taken by the families of the brave Muslimmen of the Tagum River whose exhibition of resisting the foreign rule

involved the beheading of Davao’ Spanish leader had been carried on and maintained by their descendants over the course of a hundred years. This is the underlying reason why only the historians from Davao City whose research on the history of their place and on the lives of the heroes of Davao such as Datu Bago gave them the opportunity to get their hands on the information about the killing of Pinzon at the hands of the Moros in the Tagum Rancheria. Incredibly, what could have been seen as a triumph of a group of people against the threat of foreigners lording over their politics, religion and dominion were not made known to the migrant settlers who helped shape most of Tagum’s development today, or the indigenous people who were the original owners/possessors of the vast lands that were acquired and later developed by the settlers from the north.

Whether or not the role of the early Tagumenyos as local heroes had been scrapped from the annals of Tagum’s history was because of the personal choices of the families of those involved in killing the encroaching foreign leader is something that remains to be seen up to this day.

The reduction of the Mandayas still continued on after the death of Pinzon. This paved the way for the people of the said tribe to be formed into a community that was converted into the Christian faith. In 1892, Fr. Saturnino Urios, while he was staying in Tagum, had written to his mission superior about how the Moros in Tagum River had overtaken the Mandayas, killing them and taking their children and brothers captive. This war waged against the indigenous tribe by the Kalagans paved the way for the Mandayas to turn and welcome for their protection the missionaries who said that the best results can be had if the infidels are shown with love (Societas Iesu, 1895, p. 147).

The success of the mission of the Jesuits in reducing the Mandayas, particularly in Pagsabangan, into a community had been a precursor for the conversion of the different tribes under the indigenous cultural communities here in Tagum. Presently, except for the elders of the tribe, the majority of the people who carried in their blood the culture and heritage of their indigenous ascendants had ceased to exercise their cultural beliefs and traditions as they became practicing Christians. It was only after the passage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) that the present-day Tagumenyos with blood lineage of the indigenous tribes started to take ownership of said culture and heritage.

A part of the history of Tagum is also intertwined with the history of Davao. Its biggest hero, Datu Bago, whose kuta extended from present-day Quezon Boulevard to Generoso Bridge in Bangkerohan, had been subjected to the relentless assault spearheaded by Jose Uyanguren in 1848. After three months of fighting off the advances of the marauding Spaniards, Datu Bagu finally became cognizant that he would be unable to defend his kuta. This led him to flee to the north, in Tagum, where he later died and was buried in Pagsabangan (Tiu, 2005, pp. 172-176).