The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 32, 1640 / Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.

[In the course of time arose a persecution of the Christians in the island of Hermosa. An Indian chief in Tanchuy excited some villages to rebel, and to kill some Spaniards from an ambush. They first employed their weapons upon the holy martyr Fray Francisco de Sancto Domingo, who had never done them anything but kindness, and who had just rescued from prison the man who excited all the others. This man had been placed there because his evil purposes had been detected. Father Fray Francisco was a native of Portugal, and a son of the convent of Zamora in the province of España, whence he went in 1615 to study theology in the royal convent of Sancto Thomas at Avila. He came in my company on the second expedition which I made with religious from España to this country. He was assigned to duty in Nueva Segovia, where he learned the language of the natives, and labored gloriously among them for some years. He was a lean man but had very good health and great strength. He was taken by the father provincial, Fray Bartholome Martinez, as his companion, and the conversion of the island of Hermosa was begun. He suffered from headache, in addition to which he subjected himself to the most severe penances. He was most kindly and charitable, especially to the Indians. When the Indians attacked him, he sank on his knees before them; and they shot at least fifty arrows into his body. The Indians cut off his head, leaving the tongue and lower jaw on the body; and with the head and the right hand they went to the mountains, to celebrate the festival of head-cutting. On the way the head wept miraculously, and there was a dreadful earthquake, so that the Indians in alarm cast the head into the river. The holy martyr died January 27, 1633, the Lord working miracles upon his body after his death.

In this same year, there died in Great China father Fray Angel de San Antonio, who before coming to this province used his family name, which was Quoqui (or Cocci). He was of noble Florentine descent. Some mention of his virtues has been already made, when I spoke of the entrance of our order into the kingdom of China. By the assistance of miracles, he succeeded in carrying out the great desire of the province to preach the gospel in that most populous and wealthy country, the people of which have so much intelligence and such fine natural gifts. He was minister to the Indians of Bataan, whose language he understood; but by the direction of his superiors he undertook the study of the Chinese language, and, in spite of its difficulty, he obeyed with alacrity and promptness. Before he had thoroughly mastered this language he was sent to Hermosa, from which the governor, Don Juan de Alcaraso, sent him on an embassy to the viceroy of Ucheo. The treachery of the Chinese on the way has already been described; and an account has been given of the events which occurred in China. In the year in which the order sent him a companion (1633), he was taken sick, and died.]