Caquenga's Revolt

Background

In 1595, the creation of the Nueva Segovia diocese in the Cagayan Valley brought many European Catholic missionaries to the area. According to Dominican records, a local chief named Pagulayan had long sought contact with these missionaries. Friar Pedro accepted the invitation and traveled to Nalfotan, where he found a church already built and the Malaueg people ready to convert.

However, Andrés Caquenga, an indigenous animist priestess, intervened. She saw Christianity as a direct threat to her own beliefs, which Spanish authorities were working to destroy. In response, Caquenga gathered followers and led a revolt against the friar.

Revolt

One night, following protests for liberty, Caquenga and her Malaueg followers tore down their houses, killed their livestock, destroyed their fields, and fled to the mountains. In the mountains, they joined Nalfotan's enemy village and made plans to fight against the Catholic missionaries and their supporters. Aware of a potential attack, Pedro and Pagulayan sent a Nalfotan local to talk to the enemy village's leader, Furaganan. The local convinced Furaganan to go to Nalfotan and talk to Pedro and Pagulayan.

The three men made peace, and the two villages did not fight. Furaganan made the claim that Caquenga was a slave that formerly belonged to his mother. Seeing that as an opportunity to dispose of Caquenga, Pagulayan gave Caquenga over to Furaganan and she entered back into slavery. Despite this peace treaty, the rebels resumed fighting.

Caquenga's followers entered the Catholic Church in Nalfotan, desecrated the sacred relics, and burned the structure down. The Dominican historian Diego Aduarte said of the desecration: "They tore the ornaments of the mass into pieces, to wear as head-cloths, or as ribbons. They tore the leaves out of the missal, and drank from the chalice, like a people without God, governed by the devil." One rebel took the image of the Virgin Mary and shot it with arrows, mocking the Christian God while doing so.

These rebels were eventually apprehended, and the belligerent who shot the image of the Virgin Mary was publicly executed, presenting a threatening reminder to the people of what would happen to them if they continued to rebel and defile the sacred objects of the Catholic Church. However, neither this execution nor the enslavement of Caquenga stopped the rebellions. More revolts broke out in surrounding villages, and the missionaries and colonial officials struggled to quell them. The Dominicans attributed all of these rebellions to Caquenga, "a sorceress priestess of [the devil]."

Did You Know?

• The revolt was triggered by the arrival of Fray Pedro, a Dominican friar, who found a church already built and the Malaueg people waiting to adopt Catholicism.
• After nineteen years of proselytization in Nalfotan, the Dominicans claimed to have baptized 4,670 people, with help from Pagulayan and his sister Balinan.