Gabriel de Ribera

By order of the captain: 

Benito de Mendiola, notary of the fleet

Collated with the original: 

Benito de Mendiola, notary of the fleet

In the port of Cavite, on the fourteenth of April, one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine, after his arrival at this port, the illustrious Gabriel de Ribera, captain of infantry and of the fleet and people who came to pacify the islands of Mindanao and Jolo, by order of the very illustrious governor of these islands, saw in this port three vessels manned with Joloans.  These vessels contained about fifty persons from the said island of Jolo.  The said captain summoned them to his presence, and through the said interpreters, Laquian and Miguel Godines, asked them who they were.  They replied that, when the captain was going to the river of Mindanao, he had sent a Boholan Indian to notify them to collect the tribute, as the said captain would come for it on his return.  Therefore they, as soon as they heard this, went thither to confer with the said captain.  The said captain asked them why they had left their village, and [had not] collected their tribute, since he had sent to tell them that they should have it ready; whereupon they all answered with one voice that the chief named Rasea had gone to Borney, four months ago, with a galliot and four vireys full of people, to the number of about three hundred.  These had gone with the said chief to settle in Borney.  Those left were about two hundred men, who were all reduced to despair through the great famine which they are suffering and have suffered since Esteban Rodriguez was in their village, and because of the damage inflicted upon them by the said Esteban Rodriguez.  The said Esteban Rodriguez had told them that they would not be assessed tribute for two years.  For this reason the people had gone to look for food in other islands.  They had collected fifty-seven tributes, which they brought, with the request that his Grace would not go to the said village of Jolo because of the severe famine there; if he did, they must all abandon it.  The said captain asked them if they had caught the elephants as the said captain Esteban Rodriguez had ordered and which they had promised to his Lordship.  They said they knew nothing of this and that if elephants had been promised, it was by Raja Yloi; but he had gone to Borney and it was impossible for them to catch any alive.  The said captain went outside secretly, and informed himself, through the said interpreters, from the Boholan who had been sent, and from the people of this port of Cavite, regarding the famine from which the said Indians asserted they were suffering.  These declared that it was very well known and true, and was current talk on this coast, that the said Raja Ylo had gone to Borney with the people above mentioned; and that, in the opinion of the people who came from the island of Jolo, there will be much famine in the future.