St. Francis Xavier’s legend

St. Francis Xavier (1506 1552) was a missionary of the Society of Jesus who worked principally in India (Goa, Malabar), the Moluccas, Japan and attempted to enter China. He died of fever on Dec. 3, 1552 on the island of Shangchuan, China, and never made it to the Chinese mainland.

Historical and scholarly sources indicate his journeys were mostly around the Portuguese East Indies and East Asia, and there is no documented itinerary pointing to Mindanao or Davao.

There are legendary or local oral traditions, however, suggesting that Xavier visited the Philippines, especially the region around Davao). In ‘Labor Evangelica,’ a work originally written by Fr. Pedro Chirino, S.J., in 1604, rewritten by Father Francisco Colin, S.J., in 1660, and reedited and annotated by Father Pablo Pastells, S.J., in 1900, “claims that Xavier preached the Gospel in Mindanao during the months of September, October and November, 1546.” As proof of the visit, the local tradition points to the altar stone by the shore of Cape San Agustin, where St. Francis supposedly celebrated a Mass.

The documented missions and letters of St. Francis, though, do not list a voyage to Mindanao or the far east of the Philippines as part of his itinerary. The Philippines were only sporadically visited by European missionaries in his time — and if he had visited a region in East Mindanao (such as Davao Oriental), it would likely have been noted in contemporary correspondence or Jesuit mission records; no credible such record has surfaced.
‘Xavier sailed from Malacca, on the Malay Peninsula, to Amboyna (evidently coming down through the Strait of Malacca, and skirting the north shores of Sumatra, Java and the small islands of the Malay Archipelago); from Amboyna, he went to the Moluccas, which, as he says, are “sixty leagues distant”—that is, about 350 miles to the north, according to pre-sent maps. From Ternate in the Moluccas, he sailed “another sixty leagues” to the island “of the Moros”. The coast of Mindanao lies about 370 miles almost directly north of Ternate. If his description is accurate, Xavier’s ship must have hit square on the nose the tapering peninsula of southern Davao, which points towards the Moluccas. He couldn’t have missed an is-land as large as Mindanao.’

Citing St. Francis’ own letter, however, Thomas B. Cannon, S.J., in ‘History of the Jesuits in the Philippines: A Brief Sketch, wrote:

“According to his own letter, Xavier sailed from Malacca, on the Malay Peninsula, to Amboyna (evidently coming down through the Strait of Malacca, and skirting the north shores of Sumatra, Java and the small islands of the Malay Archipelago); from Amboyna, he went to the Moluccas, which, as he says, are ‘sixty leagues distant’—that is, about 350 miles to the north, according to present maps. From Ternate in the Moluccas, he sailed “another sixty leagues” to the island ‘of the Moros.’ The coast of Mindanao lies about 370 miles almost directly north of Ternate. If his description is accurate, Xavier’s ship must have hit square on the nose the tapering peninsula of southern Davao, which points towards the Moluccas. He couldn’t have missed an island as large as Mindanao.’

The Mindanao Historical Journal, in its October-December 1961 edition, made a strong case against this interesting Xavier narrative, stating that Fr. James Brodrick, SJ, in a solid work, discussed that the only possible time that Xavier could have come to Mindanao very closely was from Jan. 1, 1546 to July 15, 1547, and made it almost impossible for him to have reached Davao. Using only a large banca, the korakora, as transport, the trip would have been disastrous. And given the fact that he was a Spaniard working with the Portuguese, it was unlikely he would break the rules by travelling to southern Philippines which was under Spanish claim.

Given the Jesuit discipline to follow the vow of obedience and to honor always the orders of their superiors, St. Francis could have only advanced to his next destination–Japan.