According to Father Bouwens’ annual report for 1684-1685, however, Quiroga, “the Hernán Cortés of the Northern Marianas,” had to undertake a series of offensive sorties to meet repeated attempts by Chamorros (“who were,” Bouwens wrote, “gigantic in body but cowardly in heart and spirit”) to overrun the Saipan garrison. Frequently describing Chamorro warriors as being amazed at the “valor” of Quiroga and his small number of soldiers and thus temporarily driven to retreat, Bouwens also recounted Quiroga’s orderly retreat back to the garrison on several occasions where he exhorted his men to trust in God and revenge an imagined annihilation of the Hagåtña garrison. (“There is nothing in this life that I am afraid of,” Bouwens quotes Quiroga as saying, “except the offense to God, not death.”) During one sortie, Quiroga and fifteen men sent Chamorros “squalling to the woods...with such a great push that the insurgents withdrew toward the mountains so aghast and in terror that they did so in a disorderly fashion.” This trust in God was evident, according to Bouwens, by the fact that Quiroga and his men saw “spears break up in mid-air as they fell down at their feet.” Bouwens took pains to stress that Quiroga spared (“moved to compassion”) wounded Chamorros who he thought could be Christianized. Nevertheless, he ordered the burning of their canoes and grain fields and looting of “provisions enough for two years” which were brought back to the garrison. In attacking the Hagåtña garrison on 23 July 1684, Chamorro warriors on Guam had taken advantage of the absence of at least half of the Spanish soldiers normally stationed on the island, who were campaigning in the northern Mariana Islands. Led by “Antonio” Yura (or Yula) from the village of Apotguan in Hagåtña, the warriors managed to conceal themselves among other parishioners at mass on the same day that Father Bouwens invited several priests for a meeting at his house. Following the mass, the warriors broke into two groups, one sent to assassinate the governor and the others to attack the priests. Governor Damian de Esplana was severely wounded but survived. Several priests were also wounded and two were killed, including Mission Superior Father Emmanuel de Solόrzano. Yura was killed by Spanish soldiers during the attack on Governor Esplana. It is certainly possible that if left to their own defenses, the Spanish garrison would have fallen to Yura’s forces, leading most probably to the Chamorro overthrow of the Spanish government.
70 ・ Marianas History Conference 2012