Cagayan de Misamis in the 1870s

A.Paulita Roa

THE decade of the 1870s was full of rich historical events. On February 1871, Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre issued a decree that made Cagayan el chico (little Cagayan) the capital of the Second District of Mindanao, also known as the Misamis Province. The town was then officially  known as Cagayan de Misamis.

One of the factors cited by the Governor General for the choice of the capital town was the ideal geographical location for it is in the center of the northern coast of the island. The district was headed by a Spanish military governor whose office and residence was at the sprawling Casa Real. This building was constructed in 1831 and the area is occupied today by the City Executive House and it extends to the area fronting the JV Seriña Hall.

That decade also marked the start of what historian Filomeno M. Bautista called the “Golden Age of Arts and Literature” in Cagayan de Misamis.The military governor at that time was Lt. Col. Leopoldo Roldan and he was considered the numero uno patron of the town’s poets, painters, musicians and other artists.

Unfortunately, it was also a decade of great historical loss when Gov. Jose de Carvallo ordered the total demolition of the town’s old fort. Known as the Fureza Real de San Jose or the Royal Fort of St. Joseph, it was built in 1739 by the Spanish colonial government as a defense against the Moro raiders. Carvallo then used the stones taken from the fort to paved the streets of Cagayan.This is the same person who erected a monument near Butuan City on the site of where the first Mass was said in 1521. This marker exists to this day and has Carvallo’s name in it.

I was able to obtain from UP Diliman’s library a photocopy of an 1879 annual report written in Spanish on all the towns in Northern Mindanao that were under the friars that belonged to the Order of the Augustinian Recollects. I am grateful to Atty. Caridad Roa Valdehuesa (former national treasurer under the Ramos administration) for translating the report below about Cagayan to English.

THE TOWN OF CAGAYAN

After the apostles of Mindanao organized the Christianization of the outskirts of Butuan, they travelled forty kilometers looking of the Cagayan River whose inhabitants were reportedly more civil that the Caraga inhabitants. There they found the head, an Indio named Salansan, who was congenial with the missionaries, manifested benevolence, and gave favorable concessions to the requests they elevated to him.Soon they were able to erect a small chapel where they could celebrate the Holy Mass, and later they started to preach the faith; administered baptism on many Indios, the first of which was the prince Salansan, who subjected himself voluntarily to the Spanish kings. They built a strong house with balustrades to defend themselves against Moro invaders, after which they constructed a convent. The Indios followed suit, constructing their own homes.

This town is north of the island, with a pier where boats of various sizes could anchor because it was 25 to 30 fathoms deep.

On the east, is a township called Agusan and in the same direction but further is a province of the same name called Agusan. Its collateral towns on the northeast is Jasaan about six kilometers away. On the west, just about a kilometer is Iponan which have well paved roads, comfortable lodging places built of fine wood and shellcraft.

Its fields produced plenty of rice and corn, and also sugar cane and tobacco. Coconut trees abounded. There were fleets of carabaos, cows and pigs.

There was much trading in abaca and palay. Gold was produced from the hills up to 500 taels annually, were also traded. Six roads traversed the town which allowed travel by carriage. On the west side of the town was the river named Lanbago.

The parish was headed by Fr. Ramon Zueco de San Joaquin.

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There are two things that caught my interest in this report. The first one is about the gold that was mined on the hills of Cagayan at 500 taels a year. A check in an online encyclopedia about the tael shows that it is an ancient Chinese weight unit and that one tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.2 troy ounces. So 500 taels is equivalent to 18.75 grams or 41.3366742 pounds–that is really something! So there is truth to the stories that we used to hear from the old folks about the gold bars and nuggets that their parents used to store in their bauls and to think that we dismissed them as nothing but tall tales.

Could the Lanbago River be the present Cagayan de Oro River?