1855 AGAT KONBENTO

We have no photos of the Agat Konbento in 1855. But houses in those days tended to look something like this.

Between 1849 and 1855, the village of Hågat (Agat) was getting a new priest house, or konbento. This was certainly needed, since the konbento of Agat was specifically mentioned in Father Ibáñez's chronicle as having suffered damage in the earthquake of January, 1849.

In those days, under the Spanish, the men of the community had to put in a certain amount of hours working on public projects such as the building of roads, bridges and buildings. This was to substitute for taxes, which were not collected in the Marianas, since the people didn't have much money to speak of and whose harvests were not big enough to be treated as a government resource.

Since Catholicism was the state religion under the Spanish in those days, the building of a priest house was a public works project. Sometimes, the konbento was the only stone house in the village. The best they could do in those days was make houses using a mixture of coral rock and mortar, called mampostería.

We have the list of men who worked on the konbento project in Hågat. We don't know exactly what each one did, except for the more skilled ones with titles. The others, we can assume, did the more basic work of carrying, lifting and so forth. It is not certain all these men worked at the same time, or were rather spread out over the six year time period of this project.

SKILLED WORKERS

MASTER CARPENTER	José Mendiola
CARPENTER	José Santos
	Francisco Taitano
	Gregorio Alejo (1)
SAWYER	Gregorio Mendiola
	Basilio Crisóstomo
BRICKLAYER	José Tanoña (2)
	Marcelino Demapán (3)
	Ramón Cruz

I could be wrong, but these skilled laborers were, perhaps, not all from Hågat.  At least, some of their surnames are not found in documents concerning that village, and other surnames in this list are so common that they could be from Hågat but just as possibly from other places. Since they were skilled workers, perhaps they were hired from Hagåtña or other villages, while the laborers below were Hågat people. 

LABORERS

AGUIGUI, José

AGUIGUI, Manuel

AGUIGUI, Sirilo

AQUININGOC, Ramón

BABAUÑA, José (4)

BABAUÑA, Mariano

BABAUÑA, Silvestre

CHARFAUROS, José

CHARFAUROS, Juan

CHARFAUROS, Rafael

CRUZ, Aniceto

EÑAO, Alvino (5)

HOCOG, José (6)

LAGUAÑA, Alvino

LAGUAÑA, Francisco

LASCANO, Manuel (7)

NEDEDOG, José

NEDEDOG, Senén

PINAULA, Fulgencio

PINAULA, Paulino

QUINTANILLA, Anastacio

QUINTANILLA, Blas

QUINTANILLA, Tiburcio

QUITAUJE, Mariano (8)

RODRÍGUEZ, José

ROSA, Francisco de la

SAN NICOLÁS, Ángel

SAN NICOLÁS, Domingo

SAN NICOLÁS, Francisco

SAN NICOLÁS, Ignacio

SAN NICOLÁS, Joaquín

SAN NICOLÁS, José de

SAN NICOLÁS, Rosauro

TAEÑAO, Alejandro

TAISIGO, Ciriaco (9)

TAISIGO, Clemente

TAITIGUAN, Domingo (10)

TAITIGUAN, Manuel

TERLAJE, Juan

Of the 20 surnames listed among the laborers, 14 are Chamorro names.

(1) I have not come across Alejo as a family name before. Unsure who he is. Chamorro? Filipino?

(2) The Tanoña family died out eventually, but there were people with this last name not too long ago.

(3) Some of the Demapans moved to Saipan, where they became more numerous. The branch that remained on Guam was not so numerous.

(4) There was, at one time, a family in Hågat named Babauña. That family name disappeared, though Babauta survived. They are two different families. In old Chamorro, babao meant something like a flag, or banner, or symbol.

(5) Another family that disappeared.

(6) When we hear this name, we think of Luta (Rota) but Hågat also had its own Hocog family, but it died out.

(7) More Lascanos are found in Humåtak. Maybe this one was from Humåtak but moved to Hågat. Or did the Lascano originate in Hågat and some moved to Humåtak? Even the Lascanos in Humåtak died out.

(8) Another old Chamorro family that died out.

(9) A family that died out. Could come from the word sugo' (to stop by, to pass the while, to enter).

(10) Another family whose name faded away. Meaning unsure. 

Many names were spelled differently in those days, and there was inconsistency many times, as well. Terlaje was sometimes spelled Tarlaje; Dimapan for Demapan; Jocog for Hocog; Nededoc for Nededog; Tayañao for Taeñao.

Lastly....the project seems to have been completed by 1855. The next year, in 1856, a smallpox epidemic devastated the island, killing off half the population. Many of the men listed here would have been among the dead.