Catholicization of Davao

A decree issued on July 30, 1860 by Queen Isabel II led to the creation of a politico-military government in Mindanao and its neighboring islands. Under Article 13 of the edict, which was published in the Gaceta of Madrid on August 5, Mindanao was subdivided into six districts, including Davao, and gave the Jesuits the task to “engage in the spiritual care of the island and will replace the present parish priests with missionaries of its own in accordance with the increase in available personnel and conform to the way it deems convenient.”

Expounding this provision was another royal order issued on September 10, 1861 that gave the Jesuits “exclusive task of founding and thereafter developing mission stations and… they will be charged with the administration of the parishes and missions stations which have already been established by the Augustinian Recollects.”

The order also stated that if no Jesuits could momentarily take over the parishes if these are vacated, the ministerial function would remain with the Recollects, unless “actually vacated and entrusted to the Society of Jesus.”

The first Jesuit to set foot in Davao on March 5, 1860 was Fr. Jose Fernandez Cuevas, the first mission superior of the restored Society. He took the ship Elcano, the steamer used in the Oyanguren campaign, from Polloc, a port in Maguindanao. His arrival, which took place before the royal order was signed, was significant given that during the past two months Davao did not have a priest. The Recollect parish priest had earlier died from a malignant fever without even receiving the last rites for lack of communication with the next nearest mission. For a few days, Cuevas administered sacraments before returning to Polloc.

Cuevas’ visit was awe-inspiring. He did not only get a distant view of the sulfurs of Mount Apo which was described as looking “like snowfields in the sunshine,” his arrival was welcomed by the commander of the tercio civil and the vice governor of Zamboanga who was at the gulf on a special mission. He was also brought to the main settlement situated just a few hundred meters upstream from the mouth of the river where he observed filth that could have caused the death of the Recollect priest. At the time Davao had only about 830 residents “distributed between the capital [Davao] and the visita of Sigaboy.” Some of them were former exiled convicts who joined the Oyanguren expedition and were amply rewarded with appointments in the police force.

Unwilling to construct their own domiciles, they also refused to till the land or embrace agriculture but contented in subsisting on meager salaries allotted from the tributes or from earnings from small barters. Years after Datu Bago’s fall, the settlement remained sluggish, and was remotely visited by colonial managers from Manila.

Fr. Peter Schreurs, MSC wrote about the condition at the time:

“There was only one poor school in the village, which was run by somebody calling himself a teacher, who was allotted a salary of two pesos a month. For the defense of the stockade, which was built of light materials, there was a garrison of one hundred men of the tercio civil under the command of four officers from the ranks of sergeants and corporals of the regular army. Their captain earned a pay of twenty pesos a month, the lieutenant of seven-teen pesos and the soldiers of three pesos. In four years, not a single steam-propelled warship had been in the waters of the gulf and only once a year it was visited by an interisland ship.”

By 1873, the Jesuits started taking over the Recollect missions outside Davao. During this period, Fr. Francisco Martin Luengo, the parish priest of Surigao, made a reconnaissance trip to Sigaboy, and, upon reaching the coastal village of Caraga, he was impressed by the beauty of the place. He wrote: “Caraga, o que nombre este! Y cuantas ideas me despiera!” (Caraga, what a name! And how many thoughts does it rouse in me!)