Letter to Dr. Antonio Sanchez de Mora, Chief Archivist and Historian of Spain’s Archivo General de Indias, on the true site of the first Holy Mass on our shores in 1521An online forum entitled "The Confusion and Contention over Mazua" will be conducted via Zoom on March 16, 2021 (4:00 P.M.-6:00 P.M., Philippine Standard Time). It will have as principal speakers-discussants Dr. Antonio Sanchez de Mora of the Archivo General de Indias (AGI)* in Seville, Spain, and Fr. Antonio de Castro, SJ, of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University who is representing the Church Historians Association of the Philippines (CHAP). It will seek to call attention to the historical significance and relevance to our contemporary life of the birth of the the Philippines as a Christian nation in March 1521 or 500 years ago.
The letter below from Fr. Joesilo C. Amalla to Dr. Antonio Sanchez de Mora further clarifies some aspects of a recent correspondence between them on the first Mass site controversy. Fr. Amalla is the author of the recently published “An Island They Called Mazaua,” which presents a long chain of extant evidence and profuse historical, geomorphologic, and maritime proof that the lost island of Mazaua in the Mindanao landmass is the true site of the first Holy Mass—not the dubious and historically misfit Limasawa island in the Visayas.
Fr. Joesilo Amalla’s letter to Dr. Sanchez de Mora:March 13, 2021
Dr. Antonio Sanchez de Mora
Chief Archivist and Historian
Archivo General de IndiasSevilla, Spain
Dear Dr. Antonio:
Greetings from Butuan City in the Philippines!
I am forwarding to you a PDF copy of the first edition of my book
An Island They Called Mazaua** that I promised to share with you after our short exchange of text messages and chat with Dr. Andronico Alvizo*** last week. I am still doing some refinements on the book based on our discussions, but I firmly believe that reading its first edition would be an eye-opener for you and for some Filipino historians who are still at loggerheads about precisely where the first Holy Mass was officiated in the Philippine archipelago almost 500 years ago.
The environs of 1521 Butuan and map of Mazaua Island as drawn by Pigafetta in his chronica
This book took me 47 years of research from different archives and libraries in the Philippines, Asia, and Europe. As I mentioned to you, I even stayed about a week in Seville in Spain to do research at your
Archivo General de Indias. From there I was able to access and obtain valuable primary historiographic and cartographic documents of the Magellan, Villalobos, and Legaspi expeditions to the Philippine islands. With the vast materials I perused in your archives and in seven other countries in Europe, I came to the logical and inevitable conclusion that it was definitely not in Limasawa in the Visayas but in Butuan-Mazaua in the Mindanao landmass where the first Holy Mass in the Philippines took place.
The
portulan map of Legaspi in 1565 that you forwarded to Dr. Alvizo contained the islands of Maçagua, Calagan, and Butuan but did not depict any islands in the Visayas. Those islands were all in Mindanao
(que todo esto es en las Islas de Vindanao, Documentos de Ultramar - Filipinas, tomo 1, p. 291). They were all in the vicinity of
nueve grados, 9 degrees N. latitude, and obviously there are no islands in the Visayas at 9 degrees N. latitude. The solitary native in Limasawa was fearful when he saw the foreigners coming. He was jumping around in the rocky island with no
pueblo (“no hallaron casa, ni Indio, no otra cosa...,” Documentos de Ultramar, tomo 1, p. 275). He set on fire the lone house in it as a warning signal
(Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas 1565-1615, Fray Gaspar de San Agustin, OSA, 2nd Ed., Manila, 1998, p. 279). The frustrated men of Legaspi immediately left Limasawa because the place was hostile, unlike Mazaua in Butuan where Magellan and his men stayed for several happy days (
The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Blair and Robertson, vol. 33, p. 133).
Once he and his men reached Bohol, upon the advice of his fleet officers, Legaspi sent a reconnaissance trip to Butuan
(Conquistas…, p.283). This is fully explained in Chapter 6 of my book
An Island they Called Mazaua. And 22 years earlier, the Villalobos expedition of 1543 also mentioned
ysla de Butuan, ysla de Maçagua, ysla de Mindanao y minas de oro (Relación del Viaje que hizo por Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, Archivo General de Indias, Patronato 23, 10, pp. 0006-00012). Limasawa has no gold and spices for expeditioners to risk all in coming to our shores. Pigafetta observed no sharp rocks in Mazaua when he approached its shores (
The Philippine Islands, vol. 33, p. 117) unlike in Limasawa where big rocks were cited by the Legaspi expedition (
Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, 1565-1615, 2nd Ed., Manila, 1998, p. 277).
The Magellanic expedition to the
Islas Especerias [Spice Islands] had no intention of going above 9 degrees latitude, for the Moluccas Islands were and still are in the south of Mindanao. I have read all the extant primary records of Pigafetta. Regarding the question of the
Primera Misa in the Philippines, this I can say: the Italian chronicler cited Butuan and Calagan 4 times,
balanghai boats 5 times, and Mazaua 13 times. In contrast, there wasn’t even a single line in Pigafetta’s
chronica mentioning Limasawa; you won’t find any mention of Limasawa at all even if you search or count the names of the islands manually in the entire
chronica.
The
legua issue (
Trattato della Sfera, In: Il primo viaggio intorno al mondo, Vicenza, Neri Pozza Editore, 1994, p. 194 says:
“ogni lega per mare e quarto millia e per terra tre”) cannot support Limasawa either as the site of the first Mass; in fact, Philippine historians are silent in plotting that island’s actual position in a nautical map (NAMRIA map # 4719) and none of the Magellanic pilots (neither the Genoese pilot nor Antonio de Brito) had testified where Limasawa was at that time in 1521. Yes, navigational figures of pilots do not lie, and the language of mathematics couldn’t be of help to the pro-Limasawans in this particular instance.
The
Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada itself states:
“... manteniéndose en la tradición española que celebraron la primera en este archipielago en Butuan (Mindanao) en vez de Limasaua el 31 de marzo 1521” (Enc. Univ. Illus., tomo 32, p. 58) and this was fortified further in vol. 9, p. 1574 which states:
“Butuan: en ella Magallanes proclamó la soberania española sobre las Filipinas y ordenó celebrar la Primera Misa en dicha aquel pais.” Nothing was said about a first Mass in Limasawa (vol. 30, p. 757).
Moreover, the Taberna Libraria, the Circulo Cientifico and the Universidad de Salamanca, through Dr. Jose Maria Sanz Hermida and Senor Dionisio Redondo (letter from Taberna Libraria and Circulo Cientifico,
La Primera Vuelta al Mondo, 2018) supported the Butuan advocacy for its claim as the true site of the First Mass; they presented cartographic data supporting the claim during a symposium held in Butuan on January 30, 2019.
Even the oldest church records in the Philippines, the
Anales Ecclesiasticos de Philipinas, cited Butuan as the true site in when it clearly states:
“y el dia de Pascua de Flores passó á celebrar la Primera MISSA con su capellan en Butuan” (Anales Ecclesiasticos de Philipinas, Archivo de Arzobispado de Manila, Intramuros, 1994, p. 27). And there are still a lot of records that we can present to vouch for the truth that we would like to defend and preserve. My book
An Island They Called Mazaua will tell you where the Butuanon people got it right and where pro-Limasawa historians got it wrong.
Lastly, I believe that historians, cartographers, and archivists should not tamper with nor revise records of history. The conservation of historical documents is an imperative need; that a historian would attempt to do this would be a grave offense to our ancestors and collective memory (“The Pastoral Function of Church Archives,” Vatican City, 1997, pp. 29-31). It is our duty to preserve historical documents. Committing mistakes and concealing the truth of history is a great disservice to our people, and historians would be immoral and irresponsible if they attempt to revise history just to conform to urgings of certain sectors of our society.
What you have in Spain’s libraries and archives are records of the evangelization attempts of Spanish kings in other parts of the world. Without the providential ventures of expeditioners and missionaries over the centuries, our country the Philippines would not have received the gift of faith nor its birth as a Christian nation, twin blessings that it shall be celebrating come this March 31, 2021.
With my best wishes and fond hopes that the Truth and nothing but the Truth about the
Primera Misa will emerge and get affirmed on Tuesday, March 16, during your online symposium on “The Confusion and Contention over Mazaua”!
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Joesilo C. Amalla
Diocese of Butuan, Butuan City
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The forum will be conducted online via the National Quincentennial Commission of the Philippines (NQC) portal and streamed in the UP History Department Facebook Page and the Youtube Account of the UP History Department. Details about the forum and how to participate in it can be obtained by logging on to the Facebook page of the UP Department of History.***
*The Archivo General de Indias, in English the “General Archive of the Indies,” is the repository of extremely valuable archival documents illustrating the history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and the Philippines.
**The first edition of An Island They Called Mazaua is available at 15 Rex Book Retail outlets in Metro Manila and in key cities nationwide; click this link for the list of those Rex retail outlets. The Solidaridad Bookshop in Ermita, Manila, also carries the book. Orders for home or office delivery can be made through Lazada (lazada.com.ph]), and single-copy and limited bulk orders for delivery to Luzon and Mindanao can also be made by sending e-mail to truesite1521@gmail.com.[/i]
***Dr. Andronico Alvizo Jr. is a leading proponent of the Filipinas Quincentenario Project.
