There is always the open question of whether Ct is a distinct PCS variant or a mere transplant of Zm.
The summary of data which follows will trace the possible process of creolization that may have taken place in the formation of Ct. Significant data were extracted from Madigan and Cushner's (1961) entitled, 'Tamontaka Reduction: A Community Approach to Mission Work'.[6]
During the Spanish occupation of the Philippines in the latter nineteenth century, Tamontaka, a poplación some three miles south of the townsite of Cotabato (Cotabato City now) was the headquarters of a Spanish military garrison and center of Spanish authority over Central Mindanao.
In 1869, the Jesuit Superior of the Philippine Mission conceived the idea of a Catholic village community (referred to as reducción, patterned after the Jesuit project in Paraguay) which was to be composed of Muslim converts located in the heart of Muslim land. This community was conceived, would be made of exemplary Catholic men and woman who would win the Muslims to the Faith by sheer force of their example. Because the village would be situated in or near the center of the Muslim territory, they would be on familiar terms with the Muslim of their neighborhood.
It was not until 1872 that funds were solicited from generous benefactors from Manila and the project began to take shape. The Jesuit Fathers located the new institution at Tamontaka where ten years earlier they had set up a mission for the Tiruray, a pagan minority of the place.
With funds in their hands, the missionaries ransomed the first group of children from the slave market on September 9, 1872.[7] These became the nucleus of the ideal Christian village as envisioned in 1861. The ransoming of slaves was made possible because slavery was practiced among the Muslim chieftains, and slave children could be purchased at almost any desired age. By 1875, there were 100 boys and girls in the orphanage built for this purpose, with boys completely segregated from girls.
When the funds ran low, the Fathers decided to start a farm at Tamontaka to help solve the problem of sustenance. Along this line was the practice of providing a piece of land together with some basic farming implements and a beast of burden to the wards of the orphanage. This is done when those of marriageable age expressed their desire to marry. A good number of libertos (the liberated, as they were called) married the partners chosen for them by their spiritual guardians. The marriages in general, worked out well.
Tr=Ternate Chabacano Cv=Cavite Chabacano Zm=Zamboanga Chabacano Ct=Cotabato Chabacano
[6] There are available to this researcher, historical sources from works of Combes, Pastels, and Cartas Edificantes de los Misioneros de la Compaña de Jesus en Filipinas which are duly annotated in the Bibliography. However, for the purpose of summarizing pertinent data in this study, the English translation of the Madigan-Cushner paper was used. The latter drew heavily from the above-mentioned sources. [get back]
[7] The Mindanaos (as the natives were identified in historical documents) were known to be pirates who invaded and burned down coast towns and villages in Luzon and the Visayas. They also captured people. (Blair and Robertson 18:126) [get back]
It is this writer's assumption that among the children ransomed by the missionaries, there were those who were captured during piratical raids. If such were the case then the children brought into the Tamontaka Orphanage, aside from Muslims, were made up of native speakers of other Philippine languages. These languages were non-intelligible to each other and Spanish had to be the dominant and common language of communication. Therefore, the situation of languages in contact as a possible point of reference for an influencing factor in the formation of pidgin and/or creole was indeed present in the Tamontaka situation.