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The Bisayan Uprising

The Sumoroy or Bisayan Revolt of the years 1649-1650 may be considered as the first major rebellion to burst wide open during the first eighty-four year period of Hispanization and evangelization in the Philippine Islands. The uprising was very extensive, widespread and held the Island of Samar alone in its murderous and consuming grip for one full year and some three months.

This insurrection had its beginnings in the Pueblo of Palapag, Northern Samar or Ibabao, as this region was known in ancient times. On a Tuesday evening, June 1, 1649, two days before the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the castellan of the Palapag Fort, Agustin Sumoroy, plunged his murderous javelin through the heart of Father Miguel Ponce Barberan, initiating a revolt which would steadily gain momentum of unmanageable magnitude.

The mid-17th century manuscript presented here in its Spanish original and in translation appears in publication for the first time. Among the six known accounts, concerning this rebellion, our Relation here is the earliest record of this unfortunate event or episode in Philippine history. The account under consideration here is obviously an annual report and seemingly penned by the Rector of Palapag, Samar, who succeeded the martyred Miguel Ponce Barberan and Vicente Damian respectively. Such annual reports emanating from the provinces and mission stations of the Jesuits were forwarded to the Jesuit Provincial in Manila. In the provincialate, editing and summaries were made and again sent to the General of the Jesuit Society in Rome. Since the original archival material of the Jesuits in Manila is now nowhere to be found there is no absolute guarantee or certainly whether this Relation remained unedited.

The Alcina account of the Samar Rebellion may be considered as the second earliest narrative from among the six different accounts known thus far. It is found in ''Historia de las islas e indios de Bisayas. . . 1668'', and which was prepared in a preliminary draft long, long before its given date of 1668. In this, still only partially published manuscript, the author included some seven chapters of the finest, most detailed narrative concerning the rebellion of Sumoroy. Unfortunately, a major portion of these chapters in the original manuscript have been badly mutilated and some almost totally destroyed and non-extant.

The four other remaining accounts of this rebellion provide excellent and interesting details and episodes separately which one account or the other does not offer. They are the following: Francisco Combes, S.J., (1667), Juan de la Concepcion, O.A.R., (1788), Pedro Murillo Velarde, S.J., (1740) and Casimiro Diaz, O.S.A.. (1898).

The Relation has been heavily annotated with the wealth of details culled from the above-mentioned five historians so as to present the episode as complete and as descriptive as possible.