Manila Under Spanish Rule
Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is situated on the Island of Luzon at the mouth and on the left (south) bank of the Pasig River, at N. lat. 14° 36′ by E. long. 120° 52′. It is a fortified city, being encircled by bastioned and battlemented walls, which were built in the time of Governor Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, about the year 1590. It is said that the labour employed was Chinese. These walls measure about two miles and a quarter long, and bore mounted old-fashioned cannon. The fortifications are of stone, and their solid construction may rank as a chef dʼoeuvre of the 16th century. The earthquake of 1880 caused an arch of one of the entrances to fall in, and elsewhere cracks are perceptible. These defects were never made good. The city is surrounded by water—to the north the Pasig River, to the west the sea, and the moats all around. These moats are paved at the bottom, and sluices—perhaps not in good working order at the present day—are provided for filling them with water from the river.
The demolition of the walls and moats was frequently debated by commissions specially appointed from Spain—the last in October, 1887. It is said that a commission once recommended the cleansing of the moats, which were half full of mud, stagnant water, and vegetable putrid matter, but the authorities hesitated to disturb the deposit, for fear of fetid odours producing fever or other endemic disease.
These city defences, although quite useless in modern warfare with a foreign Power, as was proved in 1898, might any day have been serviceable as a refuge for Europeans in the event of a serious revolt of the natives or Chinese. The garrison consisted of one European and several native regiments.
There are eight drawbridge entrances to the Citadel[1] wherein were some Government Offices, branch Post and Telegraph Offices, the Custom-house (temporarily removed to Binondo since May 4, 1887, during the construction of the new harbour), Colleges, Convents, Monasteries, a Prison, numerous Barracks, a Mint, a Military Hospital, an Academy of Arts, a University, a statue of Charles IV. situated in a pretty square, a fine Town Hall, a Meteorological Observatory, of which the director was a Jesuit priest, an Artillery Dépôt, a Cathedral and 11 churches.[2] The little trade done in the city was exclusively retail. In the month of April or May, 1603, a great fire destroyed one-third of the city, the property consumed being valued at ₱1,000,000.
The Old Walls of Manila City
Manila City was a lifeless capital, with narrow streets all running at right angles with each other, of sombre, monastic aspect. It had no popular cafés, no opera-house or theatre; indeed absolutely no place of recreation. Only the numerous religious processions relieved the uniformity of city life. The whole (walled) city and its environments seem to have been built solely with a view to self-defence. Since 1887 it had been somewhat embellished by gardens in the public squares.
Besides the churches of the walled city, those of the suburbs are of great historical interest. In the Plaza de Santa Cruz is established the Monte de Piedad, or Public Pawnshop—a fine building—erected under the auspices of Archbishop Pedro Payo.
The great trading-centre is the Island of Binondo, on the right (north) bank of the Pasig River, where the foreign houses are established. On the city side of the river, where there was little commerce and no export or import trade whatever, a harbour was in course of construction, without the least hope of its ever being completed by the Spaniards. All the sea-wall visible of these works was carried away by a typhoon on September 29, 1890. To defray the cost of making this harbour, a special duty (not included in the Budget) of one per cent. on exports, two per cent. on imports, 10 cents per ton on vessels (besides the usual tonnage dues of eight cents per register ton), and a fishing-craft tax were collected since June, 1880. For eighteen yearsʼ dues-collection of several millions of pesos only a scrap of sea-wall was to be seen beyond the river in 1898, of no use to trade or to any one. In 1882 fourteen huge iron barges for the transport of stone from Angono for the harbour were constructed by an English engineer, Mr. W. S. Richardson, under contract with the Port Works, for ₱82,000.
The Port of Manila was officially held to extend for 27 miles westward from the mouth of the Pasig River. This tortuous river, about 14 miles long, flows from the Laguna de Bay.
The anchorage of the port was in the bay, two to two and a half miles south-west from the red light at the river-entrance, in about six fathoms. There was no special locality reserved for warships.
Ships at the anchorage communicated with the shore by their own boats or steam-launch, and the loading and discharging of vessels was chiefly effected in the bay, one to three miles off the river mouth, by means of lighters called cascoes.
Manila Bay has a circumference of 120 nautical miles, and is far too large to afford adequate protection to ships. The country around it is flat in character and has really nothing attractive.
On October 20, 1882, a typhoon drove 11 ships and one steamer ashore from their anchorage, besides dismasting another and causing three more to collide. When a typhoon is approaching vessels have to run to Cavite for shelter.
The entrance to the bay is divided into two passages by the small Island of Corregidor, on which was a lighthouse showing a revolving bright light, visible 20 miles off. Here was also a signal-station, communicating by a semaphore with a telegraph station on the opposite Luzon coast, and thence by wire with Manila. North of Corregidor Island is situated the once important harbour of Marivéles.[3]
The entrance to the Pasig River is between two moles, which run out westward respectively from the citadel on the south bank and from the business suburb of Binondo on the north bank. At the outer extremity of the northern mole was a lighthouse, showing a fixed red light, visible eight miles.
Vessels drawing up to 13 feet could enter the river. In the middle of 1887 a few electric lights were established along the quays from the river mouth to the first bridge, and one light also on that bridge, so that steamers could enter the river after sunset if desired. The wharfage is wholly occupied by steamers and sailing-craft trading within the Archipelago. The tides are very irregular. The rise and fall at springs may be taken to be five feet.
Up to 1887 ships needing repairs had to go to Hong-Kong, but in that year a patent slip was established at Cañacao Bay, near Cavite, seven miles southward from the Manila Bay anchorage. The working capacity of the hydraulic hauling power of the slip was 2,000 tons.
At Cavite, close by Cañacao, there was a Government Arsenal and a small slip, having a hauling power of about 500 tons.
Up to the year 1893 the streets of Manila City and suburbs were badly lighted—petroleum lamps, and sometimes cocoanut oil, being used. (The paving was perhaps more defective than the lighting.) In 1892 an Electric Light Company was formed, with a share capital of ₱500,000 (₱350,000 paid up) for illuminating the city and suburbs and private lighting. Under the contract with the Municipality the company received a grant of ₱60,000, and the concern was in full working order the following year. The poorest working class of Manila—fishermen, canoemen, day labourers, etc.—live principally in the ward of Tondo, where dwellings with thatched roofs were allowed to be constructed. In the wet season the part of this ward nearest to the city was simply a mass of pollution. The only drainage was a ditch cut around the mud-plots on which the huts were erected. Many of these huts had pools of stagnant water under them for months, hence it was there that the mortality from fever was at its maximum ratio in the dry season when evaporation commenced. Half the shore side of Tondo has been many times devastated by conflagrations and by hurricanes, locally termed báguios.
La Escolta—The principal street in Binondo, the commercial quarter of Manila.
Binondo presents an aspect of great activity during the day. The import and export trade is still largely in the hands of British merchants, and the retail traffic is, to a great extent, monopolized by the Chinese. Their tiny shops, grouped together in rows, form bazaars. At each counter sits a Chinaman, casting up accounts, with the ancient abacus[4] still serving him for practical reckoning. Another is ready at the counter to strike the bargain, whilst a third crafty Celestial lounges about the entrance to tout for custom, with a margin on his prices for haggling which is high or low according to whether the intending purchaser be American, European, half-caste, or native.
There is hardly a street without Chinese dealers, but their principal centre is the Rosario, whilst the finest American and European shops are to be found in the Escolta.[5]
In 1881 a great fire occurred in the Escolta, and since then the class of property in that important thoroughfare has been much improved. In October, 1885, a second serious fire took place in this street, and on the site of the ruins there now stands a fine block of buildings formerly occupied by the Central Post Office and Telegraph Station, and a row of good shops in European style.
During the working hours were to be seen hundreds of smart Chinese coolies, half-naked, running in all directions with loads, or driving carts, whilst the natives dreamily sauntered along the streets, following their numerous occupations with enviable tranquillity. In the doorways here and there were native women squatting on the flag-stones, picking lice from each otherʼs heads, and serving a purchaser between-times with cigars, betel-nut, and food, when occasion offered.
Certain small handicrafts are almost entirely taken up by the Chinese, such as boot-making, furniture-making, small smithʼs-work and casting, tin-working, tanning, dyeing, etc., whilst the natives are occupied as silversmiths, engravers, saddlers, water-colour painters, furniture-polishers, bookbinders, etc. A few years ago the apothecaries were almost exclusively Germans; now the profession is shared with natives, half-castes, and one British firm.
The thoroughfares were crowded with carriages during the whole day drawn by pretty native ponies. The public conveyance regulations in Spanish times were excellent. The rates for hiring were very moderate, and were calculated by the time engaged. Incivility of drivers was a thing almost unknown. Their patience was astonishing. They would, if required, wait for the fare for hours together in a drenching rain without a murmur. Having engaged a vehicle (in Manila or elsewhere) it is usual to guide the driver by calling out to him each turn he has to take. Thus, if he be required to go to the right—mano (hand) is the word used; if to the left—silla (saddle) is shouted. This custom originated in the days before natives were intrusted to drive, when a postilion rode the left (saddle) pony, and guided his right (hand) animal with a short rein.
Through the city and suburbs ran lines of tramway with cars drawn by ponies, and (from October 20, 1888 until 1905) a steam tramway operated as far as Malabon.
Fortunately, Easter week brought two days of rest every year for the ponies, namely, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. As in Spain also, with certain exceptions, such as doctors, urgent Government service, etc., vehicles were not permitted in the streets and highways on those days. Soldiers passing through the streets on service carried their guns with the muzzles pointing to the ground. The church bells were tolled with muffled hammers; hence, the vibration of the metal being checked, the peal sounded like the beating of so many tin cans. The shops were closed, and, so far as was practicable, every outward appearance of care for worldly concerns was extinguished, whilst it was customary for the large majority of the population—natives as well as Europeans—who went through the streets to be attired in black. On Good Friday afternoon there was an imposing religious procession through the city and suburbs. On the following Saturday morning (Sábado de Gloria), there was a lively scene after the celebration of Mass. In a hundred portals and alleys, public and private vehicles were awaiting the peal of the unmuffled church bells. The instant this was heard there was a rush in all directions—the clanking of a thousand poniesʼ feet; the rumbling sound of hundreds of carriages. The mingled shouts of the natives and the Chinese coolies showed with what bated anxiety and forced subjection material interest and the affairs of this life had been held in check and made subservient to higher thoughts.
An official computation in the year 1885 stated the average number of vehicles which passed through the main street of the city (Calle Real) per day to be 950; through the Escolta, the principal street of Binondo, 5,000; and across the bridge, connecting Binondo with Manila City (where the river is 350 feet wide), 6,000.
Sir John Bowring, in the account of his short visit to Manila in 1858, says he was informed on good authority that the average number of vehicles passing daily at that date through the Escolta amounted to 915; across the bridge, between Binondo and Manila, 1,256; so that apparently in 27 years the number of vehicles in use had increased by about five to one.
The Pasig River is navigable by steam-launches and specially-constructed steamers of light draught, which go up the whole distance into the Laguna de Bay. The river is crossed at Manila and suburbs by three bridges, the chief of which is the Puente de España.[6]
In the suburbs there were four Theatres, in none of which a dramatic company of any note would consent to perform. In one (the Teatro Filipino) the performance could be partly seen from the street; another (the Teatro de Tondo) was situated in a dirty thoroughfare in a low quarter; the third (the Teatro del Principe) usually gave an entertainment in dialect for the amusement of the natives; and the fourth (the Teatro Zorrilla), located in Tondo, was built to serve as theatre or circus without any regard to its acoustic properties; hence only one-third of the audience could hear the dialogue. There was a permanent Spanish Comedy Company (on tour at times in Yloilo and Cebú), and occasionally a troupe of foreign strolling players, a circus, a concert, or an Italian Opera Company came to Manila to entertain the public for a few weeks.
In 1880 there used to be a kind of tent-theatre, called the Carrillo where performances were given without any pretence to histrionic art or stage regulations. The scenes were highly ridiculous, and the gravest spectator could not suppress laughter at the exaggerated attitudes and comic display of the native performers. The public had full licence to call to the actors and criticize them in loud voices séance tenante—often to join in the choruses and make themselves quite at home during the whole spectacle. About a year afterwards the Carrillo was suppressed. The first Spaniards who systematically taught the Filipinos European histrionics were Ramon Cubero and his wife, Elisea Raguer (both very popular in their day), whose daughter married the Philippine actor and dramatic author José Carvajal. The old-fashioned native play was the “Moro Moro,” which continued in full vogue, in the provinces, up to the end of Spanish dominion.[7]
In the suburb of Paco there was a bull-ring, which did not generally attract the élite, as a bull-fight there was simply a burlesque upon this national sport as seen in Spain. I have witnessed a Manila espada hang on to the tail of his victim, and a banderillero meet the rush of the bull with a vault over his head, amidst hoots from the shady class of audience who formed the habitués of the Manila ring.
The Civil Governor of the Province had full arbitrary power to enforce the regulations relating to public performances, but it was seldom he imposed a fine. The programme had to be sanctioned by authority before it was published, and it could neither be added to nor any part of it omitted, without special licence. The performance was given under the censorship of the Corregidor or his delegate, whose duty it was to guard the interests of the public, and to see that the spectacle did not outrage morality.
The ostensible purpose of every annual feast all over the Colony was to render homage to the local patron Saint and give thanks for mercies received in the past year. Every town, village, and suburb was supposed to be specially cared for by its patron Saint, and when circumstances permitted it there was a religious procession, which was intended to impress on the minds of the faithful the virtue of the intercessors by ocular demonstration. Vast sums of money were expended from time to time in adornment of the images, the adoration of which seemed to be tinctured with pantheistic feeling, as if these symbols were part of the Divine essence.
Among the suburban feasts of Manila, that of Binondo was particularly striking. It took place in the month of October. An imposing illuminated procession, headed by the clergy, guarded by troops, and followed up by hundreds of native men, women and children carrying candles, promenaded the principal streets of the vicinity. But the religious feeling of the truly devoted was shocked by one ridiculous feature—the mob of native men, dressed in gowns and head-wreaths, in representation of the Jews who persecuted our Saviour, rushing about the streets in tawdry attire before and after the ceremony in such apparent ignorance of the real intention that it annulled the sublimity of the whole function.
All Saintsʼ Day—November 1—brought a large income to the priests in the most frequented parish churches. This is one of the days on which souls can be got out of Purgatory. The faithful flocked in mobs to the popular shrines, where an effort was made to place a lighted wax candle at the foot of the altar, and on bended knee to invoke the Saintsʼ aid on behalf of their departed relatives and friends. But the crowd was so great that the pious were not permitted this consolation for more than two or three minutes. Sacristans made them move on, to leave room for new-comers, and their candles were then extinguished and collected in heaps, Chinese infidel coolies being sometimes employed to carry away the spoil to the parish priestʼs store. The wax was afterwards sold to dealers. One church is said to have collected on November 1, 1887, as much as 40 cwts., valued at ₱37 per cwt. This day was a public holiday, and in the afternoon and evening it was the custom to visit the last resting-places, to leave a token of remembrance on the tombs of the lamented.
The Asylum for Lepers, at Dalumbayan, in the ward of Santa Cruz, was also visited the same day, and whilst many naturally went there to see their afflicted relations and friends, others, of morbid tastes, satisfied their curiosity. This Asylum, subsidized by Government to the extent of ₱500 per annum, was, in the time of the Spaniards, under the care of Franciscan friars.
In January or February the Chinese celebrate their New Year, and suspend work during a week or ten days. The authorities did not permit them to revel in fun to the extent they would have done in their own country; nevertheless, Chinese music, gongs, and crackers were indulged in, in the quarters most thickly populated by this race.
The natives generally have an unbounded passion for cock-fighting, and in the year 1779 it occurred to the Government that a profitable revenue might be derived from a tax on this sport. Thenceforth it was only permitted under a long code of regulations on Sundays and feast days, and in places officially designated for the “meet” of the combatants. In Manila alone the permission to meet was extended to Thursdays. The cock-pit is called the Gallera, and the tax was farmed out to the highest bidding contractor, who undertook to pay a fixed annual sum to the Government, making the best he could for himself out of the gross proceeds from entrance-fees and sub-letting rents in excess of that amount. In like manner the Government farmed out the taxes on horses, vehicles, sale of opium, slaughter of animals for consumption, bridge-tolls, etc., and, until 1888, the market dues. Gambling licences also brought a good revenue, but it would have been as impossible to suppress cock-fighting in the Islands as gambling in England.[8]
The Spanish laws relating to the cock-pit were very strict, and were specially decreed on March 21,1861. It was enacted that the maximum amount to be staked by one person on one contest should be 50 pesos. That each cock should wear only one metal spur. That the fight should be held to be terminated on the death of one or both cocks, or when one of them retreated. However, the decree contained in all a hundred clauses too tedious to enumerate. Cock-fighting is discussed among the natives with the same enthusiasm as horse-racing is in England. The majority of sportsmen rear cocks for several years, bestowing upon them as much tender care as a mother would on her infant. When the hope of the connoisseur has arrived at the age of discretion and valour, it is put forward in open combat, perhaps to perish in the first encounter. And the patient native goes on training others.
Within twenty minutesʼ drive from Manila, at Nagtájan, on the right bank of the Pasig River, there was a good European club (since removed to Ermita), of which the members were chiefly English-speaking merchants and employees. The entrance-fee was [Pesos]30; the monthly subscription was [Pesos]5, and [Pesos]1 per month extra for the use of a fairly good library.
The principal hotel—the “Hotel de Oriente”—was opened in Binondo in January, 1889, in a large two-storeyed building, with 83 rooms for the public service, and stabling for 25 horses. It was the first building specially erected in the Colony for an hotel. The accommodation and board were good. It ranked with the best hotels in the East. [In 1903 the building was purchased by the (American) Insular Government for public offices.] In Manila City and Binondo there were several other Spanish hotels where the board was tolerable, but the lodging and service abominable. There was a telephone system established throughout the city and its environs.
The press was represented by five dailies—El Diario de Manila, La Oceania Española, three evening papers, El Comercio, La Voz de España, and (from March 3, 1889) La Correspondencia de Manila—also a bi-weekly, La Opinion. Some good articles appeared at times in the three dailies first mentioned, but as newspapers strictly so-called, the information in all was remarkably scant, due to the strict censorship exercised jointly by a priest and a layman. There was also a purely official organ—the Gaceta de Manila.
The first news-sheet published in Manila appears to have been the Filántropo, in the year 1822, which existed only a few years. Others followed and failed in a short time. The first Manila daily paper was the Estrella, which started in 1846 and lasted three years. Since then several dailies have seen the light for a brief period. The Diario de Manila, started in 1848, was the oldest newspaper of those existing at the end of the Spanish regime.
In Spain journalism began in the 17th century by the publication, at irregular intervals, of sheets called “Relaciones.” The first Spanish newspaper, correctly so called, was established in the 18th century. Seventy-eight years ago there was only one regular periodical journal in Madrid. After the Peninsula War, a step was made towards political journalism. This led to such an abuse of the pen that in 1824 all, except the Gaceta de Madrid, the Gaceta de Bayona, the Diario, and a few non-political papers were suppressed. Madrid has now scores of newspapers, of which half a dozen are very readable. The Correspondencia de España, founded by the late Marquis de Santa Ana as a Montpensier organ, used to afford me great amusement in Madrid. It contained columns of most extraordinary events in short paragraphs (gacetillas), and became highly popular, hundreds of persons eagerly waiting to secure a copy. In a subsequent issue, a few days later, many of the paragraphs in the same columns were merely corrections of the statements previously published, but so ingeniously interposed that the hoax took the public for a long time. Newspapers from Spain were not publicly exposed for sale in Manila; those which were seen came from friends or by private subscription, whilst many were proscribed as inculcating ideas dangerously liberal.
There was a botanical garden, rather neglected, although it cost the Colony about ₱8,600 per annum. The stock of specimens was scanty, and the grounds were deserted by the general public. It was at least useful in one sense—that bouquets were supplied at once to purchasers at cheap rates, from 25 cents and upwards.
In the environs of Manila there are several pleasant drives and promenades, the most popular one being the Luneta, where a military band frequently played after sunset. The Gov.-Generalʼs palace[9] and the residences of the foreign European population and well-to-do natives and Spaniards were in the suburbs of the city outside the commercial quarter. Some of these private villas were extremely attractive, and commodiously designed for the climate, but little attention was paid until quite the latter days to architectural beauty.
Very few of the best private residences have more than one storey above the ground-floor. The ground-floor is either uninhabited or used for lodging the native servants, or as a coach-house, on account of the damp. From the vestibule main entrance (zaguan) one passes to the upper floor, which constitutes the house proper, where the family resides. It is usually divided into a spacious hall (caida), leading from the staircase to the dining and reception-rooms; on one or two sides of these apartments are the dormitories and other private rooms. The kitchen is often a separate building, connected with the house by a roofed passage; and by the side of the kitchen, on the same level, is a yard called the azotea—here the bath-room is erected. The most modern houses have corrugated-iron roofs. The ground-floor exterior walls are of stone or brick, and the whole of the upper storey is of wood, with sliding windows all around. Instead of glass, opaque oyster-shells (Tagálog, cápis) are employed to admit the light whilst obstructing the sunʼs rays. Formerly the walls up to the roof were of stone, but since the last great earthquake of 1880 the use of wood from the first storey upwards has been rigorously enforced in the capital and suburbs for public safety. Iron roofs are very hot, and there are still some few comfortable, spacious, and cool suburban residences with tile roof or with the primitive cogon-grass or nipa palm-leaf thatching, very conducive to comfort although more liable to catch fire.
In Spanish times there were no white burglars, and the main entrance of a dwelling-house was invariably left open until the family retired for the night. Mosquitoes abound in Manila, coming from the numerous malarious creeks which traverse the wards, and few persons can sleep without a curtain. To be at oneʼs ease, a daily bath is indispensable. The heat from 12 to 4 p.m. is oppressive from March to May, and most persons who have no afternoon occupation, sleep the siesta from 1 to 3 oʼclock. The conventional lunch-hour all over the Colony is noon precisely, and dinner at about 8 oʼclock. The visiting hours are from 5 to 7 in the evening, and réunions and musical soirées from 9. Society was far less divided here than in the British-Asiatic Colonies. There was not the same rigid line drawn as in British India between the official, non-official, and native. Spaniards of the best families in the capital endeavoured, with varying success, to europeanize the people of the country, and many of them exchanged visits with half-breeds, and at times with wealthy pure natives. Spanish hospitality in the Philippines was far more marked than in Europe, and educated foreigners were generally received with great courtesy.
Since the year 1884 the city and suburbs are well supplied with good drinking-water, which is one of the most praiseworthy modern improvements undertaken by the Spanish Government. To provide for this beneficial work, a Spanish philanthropist, named Carriedo—a late commander of an Acapulco galleon—left a sum of money in the 18th century, in order that the capital and accumulated interest might one day defray the expense. The water supply (brought from Santólan, near Mariquina), being more than sufficient for general requirements, the city and suburbs were, little by little, adorned with several public fountains. Although Manila lies low the climate is healthy, and during several years of personal observation I found the average maximum and minimum temperature at noon in the shade to be 98° and 75° Fahr. respectively. The climate of Manila may be generally summed up as follows, viz.:—December, January, and February, a delightful spring; March, April, and May, an oppressive heat; June, July, August, and September, heavy rains and more tolerable heat; October and November, doubtful—sometimes very wet, sometimes fairly dry. Briefly, as to climate, it is a pleasant place to reside in.
In 1593 Manila already had a coat-of-arms, with the title of “Muy Insigne y siempre leal Ciudad” and in the beginning of the 17th century King Philip III. conferred upon it the title of “La muy noble Ciudad ”; hence it was lately styled “La muy noble y siempre leal Ciudad” (the very noble and always loyal city).
According to Gironnière,[10] the civilized population of this Colony in 1845 was as follows, namely:—
| Europeans (including 500 Friars) | 4,050 |
| Spanish-native half-breeds | 8,584 |
| Spanish-native-Chinese half-breeds. | 180,000 |
| Chinese | 9,901 |
| Pure natives | 3,304,742 |
| Total civilized population | 3,507,277 |
In the last Spanish census, taken in 1876, the total number of inhabitants, including Europeans and Chinese, was shown to be a little under 6,200,000, but a fixed figure cannot be relied upon because it was impossible to estimate exactly the number of unsubdued savages and mountaineers, who paid no taxes. The increase of native population was rated at about two per cent, per annum, except in the Negrito or Aeta tribes, which are known to be decreasing.
In Manila City and wards it is calculated there were in 1896 about 340,000 inhabitants, of which the ratio of classes was approximately the following, namely:—
| Per cent. | |
| Pure natives | 68.00 |
| Chinese half-breeds | 16.65 |
| Chinese | 12.25 |
| Spaniards and Creoles | 1.65 |
| Spanish half-breeds | 1.30 |
| Foreigners (other than Chinese) | 0.15 |
| 100.00 |
The walled city alone contained a population of about 16,000 souls.
Typhoons affect Manila more or less severely about once a year, nearly always between April and middle of December, and sometimes cause immense destruction to property. Roofs of houses are carried away; the wooden upper-storey frontages are blown out; ships are torn from their moorings; small craft laden with merchandise are wrecked, and the inhabitants flee from the streets to make fast their premises, and await in intense anxiety the conclusion of the tempest. A hurricane of this description desolated Manila in October, 1882, and, at the same time, the wind was accompanied by torrents of rain, which did great damage to the interiors of the residences, warehouses, and offices. A small house, entirely made of wood, was blown completely over, and the natives who had taken refuge on the ground-floor were left, without a momentʼs notice, with the sky for a roof. Two Chinamen, who thought to take advantage of the occasion and economically possess themselves of galvanized-iron roofing, had their heads nearly severed by sheets of this material flying through the air, and their dead bodies were picked up in the Rosario the next morning. I was busy with the servants all that day in my house, in the unsuccessful attempt to fasten the windows and doors. Part of the kitchen was carried away; water came in everywhere; and I had to wait patiently, with an umbrella over me, until the storm ceased. The last similarly destructive hurricane, affecting Manila, occurred on September 26, 1905.
Manila is also in constant danger of destruction from earthquakes. The most serious one within the last century occurred in June, 1863. The shock lasted half a minute, and the falling débris of the upheaved buildings caused 400 deaths, whilst 2,000 persons were wounded. The total loss of property on that occasion was estimated at ₱ 8,000,000. Official returns show that 46 public edifices were thrown down; 28 were nearly destroyed; 570 private buildings were wrecked, and 528 were almost demolished. Simultaneously, an earthquake occurred in Cavite—the port and arsenal south-west of Manila—destroying several public buildings. In 1898 many of the ruins caused by this earthquake were still left undisturbed within the City of Manila. In 1863 the best buildings had heavy tiled roofs, and many continued so, in spite of the severe lesson, until after the shock of 1880, when galvanized corrugated iron came into general use for roofing, and, in fact, no one in Manila or Binondo now builds a house without it.
In 1880 no lives were lost, but the damage to house property was considerable. The only person who suffered physically from this calamity was an Englishman, Mr. Parker, whose arm was so severely injured that it was found necessary to amputate it.
Prior to 1863 the most serious earthquakes recorded happened in November, 1610; November, 1645; August, 1658; in 1675; in 1699; in 1796, and in 1852. Consequent on the shock of 1645, all the public buildings were destroyed excepting one monastery and two churches, some 600 persons were killed, and the Gov.-General was extricated from the ruins of his palace. [11]According to the Jesuit Father Faura, Director of the Manila Observatory, the following slight quakes occurred in 1881, viz.:—3 in July, 7 in August, 10 in September, and 3 in October. Earth-tremors almost imperceptible are so frequent in these Islands that one hardly heeds them after a few monthsʼ residence.
In a cosmopolitan city like Manila—the temporary home of so many different races—it was interesting to observe the varied wearing-apparel in vogue. The majority of the Spaniards wore the European costume; the British generally dressed in white drill, with the coat buttoned up to the neck, and finished off with a narrow collar of the same material. The Chinese always preserved their own peculiar national dress—the most rational of all—with the pig-tail coiled into a chignon. The pure natives and many half-breeds wore the shirt outside the trousers. It was usually white, with a long stiff front, and cut European fashion; but often it was made of an extremely fine yellow-tinted expensive material, called piña (vide p. [283]). Some few of the native jeunesse dorée of Manila donned the European dress, much to their apparent discomfort. The official attire of the headman of a Manila ward and his subordinates was a shirt with the tail outside the trousers, like other natives or half-breeds, but over which was worn the official distinction of a short Eton jacket, reaching to the hips. All this is now changing, with a tendency to imitate the Americans.
A native woman wore, as she does now, a flowing skirt of gay colours—bright red, green, and white being the common choice. The length of train, and whether the garment be of cotton, silk, or satin, depends on her means. Corsets are not yet the fashion, but a chemisette, which just covers her breast, and a starched neckcloth (pañuelo) of piña or husi stuff are in common use. The pañuelo is square, and, being folded triangularly, it hangs in a point down the back and stands very high up at the neck, in the 17th century style, whilst the other two points are brooched where they meet at the top of the chemisette décolletée. To this chemisette are added immensely wide short sleeves. Her hair is brushed back from the forehead, without a parting, and coiled into a tight, flat chignon. In her hand she carries a fan, without which she would feel lost. Native women have an extravagant desire to possess jewellery—even if they never wear it. The head is covered with a white mantle of very thin material, sometimes figured, but more often this and the neckcloth are embroidered—a work in which they excel. Finally, her naked feet are partly enveloped in chinelas—a kind of slipper, flat, like a shoe-sole with no heel, but just enough upper in front to put four toes inside. Altogether, the appearance of a Philippine woman of well-to-do family dressed on a gala day is curious, sometimes pretty, but, in any case, admirably suited to the climate.
Since 1898 American example, the great demand for piña muslin, at any price, by American ladies, and the scarcity of this texture, due to the plants having been abandoned during the wars, have necessarily brought about certain modifications in female attire.
There is something very picturesque in the simple costume of a peasant woman going to market. She has no flowing gown, but a short skirt, enveloped in a tápis, generally of cotton. It is simply a rectangular piece of stuff; as a rule, all blue, red, or black. It is tucked in at the waist, drawn very tightly around the loins, and hangs over the skirt a little below the knees, the open edges being at the back.
At times the better class wear the more becoming short skirt and tápis of silk or satin, with gold-lace embroidered chinelas. This dress is elegant, and adds a charm to the wearer.
The tápi is smaller. It is not used in the street; it is a sort of négligé apparel worn in the house only, or for going to the bath. The poorest classes go to the river-side to bathe in it. It is drawn all around from the waist downwards.
The patadiong is more commonly worn by the Visaya than the northern woman. It is somewhat like the tápis, but is drawn round the waist from the back, the open edges meeting, more or less, at the front. In Luzon Island the old women generally prefer this to the tápis.
On feast days and special occasions, or for dances, the young women who can afford it sport the gaudy flowing gown of bright particoloured striped silk or satin, known as the saya suelta, with the train cut in a peculiar fashion unknown in Europe.
The figure of a peasant woman is erect and stately, due to her habit from infancy of carrying jars of water, baskets of orchard produce, etc., on her head with a pad of coiled cloth. The characteristic bearing of both sexes, when walking, consists in swinging the arms (but more often the right arm only) to and fro far more rapidly than the stride, so that it gives them the appearance of paddling.
A “first class” Manila funeral, before the American advent, was a whimsical display of pompous ignorance worth seeing once. There was a hideous bier with rude relics of barbarism in the shape of paltry adornments. A native driver, with a tall “chimney pot” hat, full of salaried mournfulness, drove the white team. The bier was headed by a band of music playing a lively march, and followed by a line of carriages containing the relations and friends of the deceased. The burial was almost invariably within twenty-four hours of the decease—sometimes within six hours.
There is nothing in Manila which instantly impresses one as strikingly national, whether it be in artistic handicraft, music, painting, sculpture, or even diversions. The peculiar traditional customs of an Eastern people—their native dress, their characteristic habits, constitute—by their originality and variation, the only charm to the ordinary European traveller. The Manila middle-class native, in particular, possesses none of this. He is but a vivid contrast to his vivacious Spanish model, a striking departure from his own picturesque aboriginal state, and an unsuccessful imitator of the grace and easy manners of his Western tutor. In short, he is neither one thing nor the other in its true representation compared with the genial, genuine, and natural type to be found in the provinces.
Many yearsʼ residence in Manila, or in any one particular locality of the Archipelago, will not enable either the alien or the native to form a just opinion of the physical, social, or economic conditions of the Colony; they can only be understood after extensive travelling through and around the Islands. Nor will three or four tours suffice for the intelligent inquirer, because first impressions often lead to false conclusions; information obtained through one source must needs be verified by another; the danger of mistaking isolated cases for general rules has to be avoided, and, lastly, the native does not reveal to the first-time traveller the intricacies of Philippine life. Furthermore, the traveller in any official capacity is necessarily the least informed person concerning the real thought and aspirations of the Filipino or true Philippine life; his position debars him from the opportunity of investigating these things.
A Riverside Washing-scene
It would be beyond the scope of this work to take the reader mentally through the thousand or more miles of lovely scenery, and into the homes of the unsophisticated classes who still preserve, unalloyed, many of their natural characteristics and customs. But within half a dayʼs journey from the capital there are many places of historical interest, among which, on account of its revived popularity since the American advent, may be mentioned Los Baños, on the south shore of the Laguna de Bay.
Los Baños (the baths) owes its origin to the hot springs flowing from the volcanic Maquíling Mountain, which have been known to the natives from time immemorial when the place was called Maynit, which signifies “hot.”
At the close of the 16th century these mineral waters attracted the attention of Martyr Saint Pedro Bautista (vide p. [64]), who sent a brother of his Order to establish a hospital for the natives. The brother went there, but shortly returned to Manila and died. So the matter remained in abeyance for years. Subsequently a certain Fray Diego de Santa Maria, an expert in medicine and the healing art, was sent there to test the waters. He found they contained properties highly beneficial in curing rheumatism and certain other maladies, so thenceforth many natives and Spaniards went there to seek bodily relief. But there was no convenient abode for the visitors; no arrangements for taking the baths, and the Government did nothing. A Franciscan friar was appointed chaplain to the sick visitors, but his very incommodious residence was inadequate for the lodging of patients, and, for want of funds, the priest abandoned the project of establishing a hospital, and returned to Manila. In 1604 the Gov.-General, Pedro Bravo de Acuña, gave his attention to this place, and consented to the establishment of a hospital, church, and convent. The hospital was constructed of bamboo and other light material, and dedicated to Our Lady of Holy Waters.
Fray Diego de Santa Maria was appointed to the vicarage and the charge of the hospital. The whole was supported by gifts from the many sick persons who went there, but the greatest difficulty was to procure food. Several natives made donations of lands, with the produce of which the hospital was to be maintained. These gifts, however, proved insufficient. The priests then solicited permission from the villagers of Pila (on the lake shore near Santa Cruz) to pasture cattle on the tongue of land on the opposite coast called Jalajala, which belonged to them. With their consent a cattle-ranche was established there; subsequently, a building was erected, and the place was in time known as the Estancia de Jalajala. Then the permission was asked for and obtained from the Pila natives to plant cocoanut palms, fruit-trees, and vegetables. Later on the Austin and Franciscan friars quarrelled about the right of dominion over the place and district called Maynit, but eventually the former gave way and ceded their alleged rights in perpetuity to the Franciscans.
In 1640 Los Baños (formerly a dependency of Bay, under the Austin friars) was constituted a “town.” The Franciscans continued to beg one concession after another, until at length, in 1671, stone buildings were commenced—a church, convent, hospital, bathing-pond, vapour-house, etc., being constructed. Natives and Europeans flocked in numbers to these baths, and it is said that people even came from India to be cured. The property lent and belonging to the establishment, the accumulated funds, and the live-stock had all increased so much in value that the Government appointed an administrator. Thenceforth the place declined; its popularity vanished; the administrator managed matters so particularly for his own benefit that food again became scarce, and the priest was paid only 10 pesos per month as salary. In Jalajala a large house was built; the land was put under regular cultivation; tenants were admitted; but when the property was declared a royal demesne the Pila inhabitants protested, and nominally regained possession of the lent property. But the administrator re-opened and contested the question in the law-courts, and, pending these proceedings, Jalajala was rented from the Government. During this long process of legal entanglements the property had several times been transferred to one and another until the last holder regarded it as his private estate.
At the beginning of last century Jalajala came into the possession of M. Paul de la Gironnière, from whom it passed to another Frenchman, at whose death a third Frenchman, M. Jules Daillard, became owner. On his decease it became the property of an English Bank, from whom it was purchased by the Franciscan friars, in 1897, for the sum of ₱.50,000, and re-sold by them to a Belgian firm in 1900.
The bathing establishment was gradually falling into decay, until its complete ruin was brought about by a fire, which left only the remnant of walls. The priest continued there as nominal chaplain with his salary of 10 pesos per month and an allowance of rice. The establishment was not restored until the Government of Domingo Moriones (1877–80). A vapour bath-house and residence were built, but the hospital was left unfinished, and it was rotting away from neglect when the Spaniards evacuated the Islands.
The portion of the Hospital of Los Baños which remained intact, and the house attached thereto, which the natives called “the palace,” served to accommodate invalids who went to take the cure. These baths should only be taken in the dry season—December to May.
Besides the convent and church the town simply consisted of a row of dingy bungalows on either side of the highroad, with a group of the same on the mountain side. Since the American advent the place has been much improved and extended.
On his way from Manila to Los Baños the traveller will pass (on the left bank of the Pasig River) the ruins of Guadalupe Church, which mark the site of a great massacre of Chinese during their revolt in 1603 (vide p. [114]). The following legend of this once beautiful and popular church was given to me by the Recoleto friars at the convent of the Church of La Soledad, in Cavite:—During the construction of the world-famed Escorial, by order of Philip II., the architectʼs nephew, who was employed by his uncle on the work, killed a man. The King pardoned him on condition that he be banished to the Philippines. He therefore came to Manila, took holy orders, and designed and superintended the building of Guadalupe Church, from the scaffolding of which he fell, and having been caught by the neck in a rope suspended from the timbers he was hanged.
During the wars of the Rebellion and Independence this ancient building was destroyed, only the shot-riddled and battered outer walls remaining in 1905.
[1] The city walls were undoubtedly a great safeguard for the Spaniards against the frequent threats of the Mindanao and Sulu pirates who ventured into the Bay of Manila up to within 58 years ago. Also, for more than a century, they were any day subject to hostilities from the Portuguese, whilst the aggressive foreign policy of the mother country during the 17th century exposed them to reprisals by the Dutch fleets, which in 1643 threatened the city of Manila. Formerly the drawbridges were raised, and the city was closed and under sentinels from 11 oʼclock p.m. until 4 oʼclock a.m. It continued so until 1852, when, in consequence of the earthquake of that year, it was decreed that the city should thenceforth remain open night and day. The walled city was officially styled the Plaza de Manila, its last Spanish military governor being General Rizzo, who left for Europe in December, 1898. The most modern drawbridge entrance was the Puerta de Isabel II, (1861), facing the Pasig River.
[2] The Cathedral has been destroyed four times by fire and earthquake, and rebuilt by successive archbishops.
[3] Marivéles.—Much historical interest is attached to this place. It was the chief port of the Jurisdiction of Marivéles under the old territorial division which comprised the island now called Corregidor. Marivéles is now included in the Province of Bataán.
The first Spanish missionary who attempted to domesticate the natives of the Marivéles coast was stoned by them, and died in Manila in consequence. An insubordinate Archbishop was once banished to Marivéles. Through the narrow channel between this port and Corregidor Island, known as Boca chica, came swarms of Asiatic trading-junks every spring for over two centuries. Forming the extreme point of Manila Bay, here was naturally the watchguard for the safety of the capital. It was the point whence could be descried the movements of foreign enemies—Dutch, British, Mahometan, Chinese, etc.; it was the last refuge for ships about to venture from the Islands to foreign parts. Yet, with all these antecedents, it is, to-day, one of the poorest and most primitive villages of the Colony. From its aspect one could almost imagine it to be at the furthermost extremity of the Archipelago. Its ancient name was Camaya, and how it came to be called Marivéles is accounted for in the following interesting legend:—About the beginning of the 17th century one of the Mexican galleons brought to Manila a family named Vélez, whose daughter was called Maria. When she was 17 years of age this girl took the veil in Santa Clara Convent (vide p. [81]), and there responded to the attentions of a Franciscan monk, who fell so desperately in love with her that they determined to elope to Camaya and wait there for the galleon which was to leave for Mexico in the following July. The girl, disguised in a monkʼs habit, fled from her convent, and the lovers arrived safely in Camaya in a hired canoe, tired out after the sea-passage under a scorching sun. The next day they went out to meet the galleon, which, however, had delayed her sailing. In the meantime the elopement had caused great scandal in Manila. A proclamation was published by the town-crier calling upon the inhabitants to give up the culprits, under severe penalties for disobedience. Nothing resulted, until the matter oozed out through a native who was aware of their departure. Then an alderman of the city set out in a prahu in pursuit of the amorous fugitives, accompanied by a notary and a dozen arquebusiers. After searching in vain all over the island now called Corregidor, they went to Camaya, and there found the young lady, Maria, on the beach in a most pitiable condition, with her dress torn to shreds, and by her side the holy friar, wearied and bleeding from the wounds he had received whilst fighting with the savage natives who disputed his possession of the fair maiden. The search-party found there a canoe, in which the friar was conveyed to Manila in custody, whilst the girl was taken charge of by the alderman in the prahu. From Manila the sinful priest was sent to teach religion and morality to the Visaya tribes; the romantic nun was sent back to the City of Mexico to suffer perpetual reclusion in a convent.
From these events, it is said, arose the names of Corregidor (Alderman) Island, which lies between the rocks known as Fraile (Friar) and Monja (Nun), whilst the loversʼ refuge thenceforth took the name of Marivéles (Maria Vélez).
Ships arriving from foreign or Philippine infected ports were quarantined off Marivéles, under Spanish regulations. During the great cholera epidemic of 1882 a Lazaretto was established here.
[4] The abacus consists of a frame with a number of parallel wires on which counting-beads are strung. It is in common use in China.
[5] Escolta (meaning Escort), the principal thoroughfare in the business quarter (Binondo), is said to have been so named during the British occupation (1762–63), when the British Commander-in-Chief passed through it daily with his escort.
[6] On the site of this last bridge the Puente de Barcas (Pontoon Bridge) existed from 1632 to 1863, when it was destroyed by the great earthquake of that year. The new stone bridge was opened in 1875, and called the Puente de España.
[7] The burthen of a native play in the provinces was almost invariably founded on the contests between the Mahometans of the South and the Christian natives under Spanish dominion.
The Spaniards, in attaching the denomination of Moros to the Mahometans of Sulu, associated them in name with the Mahometan Moors who held sway over a large part of Hispania for over seven centuries (711–1492). A “Moro Moro” performance is usually a drama—occasionally a melodrama—in which the native actors, clad in all the glittering finery of Mahometan nobility and Christian chivalry, assemble in battle array before the Mahometan princesses, to settle their disputes under the combined inspirations of love and religious persuasion. The princesses, one after the other, pining under the dictates of the heart in defiance of their creed, leave their fate to be sealed by the outcome of deadly combat between the contending factions. Armed to the teeth, the cavaliers of the respective parties march to and fro, haranguing each other in monotonous tones. After a long-winded, wearisome challenge, they brandish their weapons and meet in a series of single combats which merge in a general mêlée as the princes are vanquished and the hand of the disputed enchantress is won.
The dialogue is in the idiom of the district where the performance is given, and the whole play (lasting from four to six nights) is brief compared with Chinese melodrama, which often extends to a month of nights.
Judged from the standard of European histrionism, the plot is weak from the sameness and repetition of the theme. The declamation is unnatural, and void of vigour and emphasis. The same tone is maintained from beginning to end, whether it be in expression of expostulatory defiance, love, joy, or despair. But the masses were intensely amused; thus the full object was achieved. They seemed never to tire of gazing at the situations created and applauding vociferously the feigned defeat of their traditional arch-foes.
[8] The favourite game of the Tagálogs is Panguingui—of the Chinese Chapdiki.
[9] The Government House, located in the city, which was thrown down in the earthquake of 1863, has not been rebuilt. Its reconstruction was only commenced by the Spaniards in 1895. The Gov.-General therefore resided after 1863 at his suburban palace at Malacañan, on the river-side.
[10] “Aventures dʼun gentilhomme Breton aux Iles Philippines,” par Paul de la Gironnière. Paris, 1875.
[11] Vide “Terremotos de Nueva Vizcaya en 1881,” by Enrique Abella y Casariega Published in Madrid.
The Tagálog Rebellion of 1896–98
First Period
After the Napoleonic wars in Spain, the “Junta Suprema Central del Reino” convened the famous “Córtes de Cádiz” by decree dated September 12, 1809. This junta was succeeded by another—“El Supremo Consejo de la Regencia”—when the Córtes passed the first Suffrage Bill known in Spain on January 29, 1810. These Córtes assembled deputies from all the Colonies—Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, Santa Fé, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, etc.; in fact, all those dependencies which constituted the four Viceroyalties and the eight Captain-Generalships of the day. The Philippine deputy, Ventura de los Reyes, signed the Act of Constitution of 1812. In 1820 the Córtes again admitted this Colonyʼs representatives, amongst whom were Vicente Posadas, Eulalio Ramirez, Anselmo Jorge Fajárdos, Roberto Pimental, Esteban Marqués, José Florentino, Manuel Saez de Vismanos, José Azcárraga, and nine others. They also took part in the parliamentary debates of 1822 and 1823. The Constitution was shortly afterwards suspended, but on the demise of Ferdinand VII. the Philippine deputies, Brigadier Garcia Gamba and the half-breed Juan Francisco Lecáros, sat in Parliament. Again, and for the last time, Philippine members figured in the Córtes of the Isabella II. Regency; then, on the opening of Parliament in 1837, their exclusion, as well as the government of the Ultramarine Provinces by special laws, was voted.
The friars, hitherto regarded by the majority of Filipinos as their protectors and friendly intermediaries between the people and the civil rulers, had set their faces against the above radical innovations, foreseeing in them a death-blow to their own preponderance. Indeed, the “friar question” only came into existence after the year 1812.
In 1868 Queen Isabella II. was deposed, and the succeeding Provisional Government (1868–70), founded on Republican principles, caused an Assembly of Reformists to be established in Manila. The members of this Junta General de Reformas were five Filipinos, namely, Ramon Calderon, Bonifacio Saez de Vismanos, Lorenzo Calvo, Gabriel Gonzalez Esquibel, and Joaquin Pardo de Tavera; eleven civilian Spaniards, namely, Joaquin J. Inchausti, Tomàs Balbas y Castro, Felino Gil, Antonio Ayala, with seven others and five Spanish friars, namely, Father Fonseca, Father Domingo Trecera, Rector of the University, (Dominicans), one Austin, one Recoleto and one Franciscan friar. This junta had the power to vote reforms for the Colony, subject to the ratification of the Home Government. But monastic influence prevailed; the reforms voted were never carried into effect, and long before the Bourbon restoration took place (1874) the Philippine Assembly had ceased to exist. But it was impossible for the mother country, which had spontaneously given the Filipinos a taste of political equality, again to yoke them to the old tutelage without demur. Alternate political progress and retrogression in the Peninsula cast their reflex on this Colony, but the first sparks of liberty had been gratuitously struck which neither reaction in the Peninsula nor persecution in the Colony itself could totally extinguish. No Filipino, at that period, dreamed of absolute independence, but the few who had been taught by their masters to hope for equal laws, agitated for their promulgation and became a thorn in the side of the Monastic Orders. Only as their eyes were spontaneously opened to liberty by the Spaniards themselves did they feel the want of it.
The Cavite Rising of 1872 (vide p. [106]), which the Philippine Government unwisely treated as an important political movement and mercilessly avenged itself by executions and banishment of many of the best Manila families, was neither forgotten nor forgiven. To me, as a foreigner, scores of representative provincial natives did not hesitate to open their hearts in private on the subject. The Government lost considerably by its uncalled-for severity on this occasion. The natives regarded it as a sign of apprehension, and a proof of the intention to rule with an iron rod. The Government played into the hands of the Spanish clergy, and all the friars gained by strengthening their monopoly of the incumbencies they lost in moral prestige. Thinking men really pitied the Government, which became more and more the instrument of the ecclesiastics. Since then, serious ideas of a revolution to be accomplished one day took root in the minds of influential Filipinos throughout the provinces adjacent to Manila. La Solidaridad, a Philippine organ, founded in Madrid by Marcelo Hilario del Pilar, Mariano Ponce, Eduardo Leyte and Antonio Luna for the furtherance of Philippine interests was proscribed, but copies entered the Islands clandestinely. In the villages, secret societies were formed which the priests chose to call “Freemasonry”; and on the ground that all vows which could not be explained at the confessional were anti-christian, the Archbishop gave strict injunctions to the friars to ferret out the so-called Freemasons. Denunciations by hundreds quickly followed, for the priests willingly availed themselves of this licence to get rid of anti-clericals and others who had displeased them. In the town of Malolos (which in 1898 became the seat of the Revolutionary Congress) Father Moïses Santos caused all the members of the Town Council to be banished, and when I last dined with him in his convent, he told me he had cleared out a few more and had his eye on others. From other villages, notably in the provinces around the capital, the priests had their victims escorted up to Manila and consigned to the Gov.-General, who issued the deportation orders without trial or sentence, the recommendation of the all-powerful padre being sufficient warrant. Thus hundreds of families were deprived of fathers and brothers without warning or apparent justification;—but it takes a great deal to rouse the patient native to action. Then in 1895 came the Marahui campaign in Mindanao (vide p. [144]). In order to people the territory around Lake Lanao, conquered from the Moros, it was proposed to invite families to migrate there from the other islands, and notifications to this effect were issued to all the provincial governors. At first it was put to the people in the smooth form of a proposal. None volunteered to go, because they could not see why they should give up what they had to go and waste their lives on a tract of virgin soil with the very likely chance of a daily attack from the Moros. Peremptory orders followed, requiring the governors to send up “emigrants” for the Ylígan district. This caused a great commotion in the provinces, and large numbers of natives abandoned their homes to evade anticipated violence. I have no proof as to who originated this scheme, but there is the significant fact that the orders were issued only to the authorities of those provinces supposed to be affected by the secret societies. Under the then existing system, the governors could not act in a case like this without the co-operation of the parish priests; hence during the years 1895 and 1896 a systematic course of official sacerdotal tyranny was initiated which, being too much even for the patient Filipino, was the immediate cause of the members of the Katipunan secret society hastening their plans for open rebellion, the plot of which was prematurely discovered on Thursday, August 20, 1896. The rebellion in Cuba was calling for all the resources in men and material that Spain could send there. The total number of European troops dispersed over these Islands did not exceed 1,500 well armed and well officered, of which about 700 were in Manila. The native auxiliaries amounted to about 6,000. The impression was gaining ground that the Spaniards would be beaten out of Cuba; but whilst this idea gave the Tagálogs moral courage to attempt the same in these Islands, so far as one could then foresee, Spainʼs reverse in the Antilles and the consequent evacuation would have permitted her to pour troops into Manila, causing the nativesʼ last chance to vanish indefinitely.
Several months before the outbreak, the Katipunan sent a deputation to Japan to present a petition to the Mikado, praying him to annex the Philippines. This petition, said to have been signed by 5,000 Filipinos, was received by the Japanese Government, who forwarded it to the Spanish Government; hence the names of 5,000 disaffected persons were known to the Philippine authorities, who did not find it politic to raise the storm by immediate arrests.
The so-called “Freemasonry” which had so long puzzled and irritated the friars, turned out, therefore, to be the Katipunan, which simply means the “League.”[1] The leaguers, on being sworn in, accepted the “blood compact” (vide p. [28]), taking from an incision on the leg or arm the blood with which to inscribe the roll of fraternity. The cicatrice served also as a mark of mutual recognition, so that the object and plans of the leaguers should never be discussed with others. The drama was to have opened with a general slaughter of Spaniards on the night of August 20, but, just in the nick of time, a woman sought confession of Father Mariano Gil (formerly parish priest of Bigaá, Bulacan), then the parish priest of Tondo, a suburb of Manila, and opened the way for a leaguer, whose heart had failed him, to disclose the plot on condition of receiving full pardon. With this promise he made a clean breast of everything, and without an hourʼs delay the civil guard was on the track of the alleged prime movers. Three hundred supposed disaffected persons were seized in Manila and the Provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan within a few hours, and, large numbers being brought in daily, the prisons were soon crowded to excess. The implacable Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda advocated extermination by fire and sword and wholesale executions. Gov.-General Ramon Blanco hesitated to take the offensive, pending the arrival of reinforcements which were called for. He informed the Home Government that the rising was of no great importance, but that he required 1,000 more troops to be sent at once. The reply from Madrid was that they were sending 2,000 men, 2,000,000 cartridges, 6,000 Remington rifles, and the gunboats Isla de Cuba and Isla de Luzon. Each steamer brought a contingent of troops, so that General Blanco had a total of about 10,000 Spanish regulars by the end of November. Spainʼs best men had been drafted off to Cuba, and these were chiefly raw levies who had all to learn in the art of warfare.
Meanwhile, the rebellion had assumed alarming proportions. Among the first to be seized were many of the richest and most prominent men in the Colony—the cream of Manila society. There was intense excitement in the capital as their names gradually leaked out, for many of them were well known to us personally or by repute. No one who possessed wealth was safe. An opulent Chinese half-caste, Don Pedro P. Rojas, who was popularly spoken of as the prime supporter of the rebellion, was a guest at Government House two days before the hour fixed for the general slaughter. It cost him a fortune to be allowed to leave the Islands. He took his passage for Europe in the Isla de Panay, together with Dr. Rizal, but very prudently left that steamer at Singapore and went on in the French mail to Marseilles and thence to Paris, where he was still residing in 1905. No documentary evidence could be produced against him, and on June 1, 1897, the well-known politician, Romero Robledo, undertook his defence in the Córtes, in Madrid, in a brilliant speech which had no effect on his parliamentary colleagues. For the Spaniards, indeed, the personal character of Pedro P. Rojas was a matter of no moment. The Manila court-martial, out of whose jurisdiction Rojas had escaped, held his estates, covering over 70,000 acres, under embargo, caused his numerous steam cane-mills to be smashed, and his beautiful estate-house to be burnt, whilst his 14,000 head of cattle disappeared. Subsequently the military court exonerated Pedro P. Rojas in a decree which stated “that all those persons who made accusations against him have unreservedly retracted them, and that they were only extracted from such persons by the tortures employed by the Spanish officials; that the supposed introduction of arms into the Colony through an estate owned by Pedro P. Rojas is purely fantastical, and that the only arms possessed by the rebels were those taken by them in combat from the Spanish soldiers.”[2] But his second cousin, Francisco L. Rojas, a shipowner, contrabandist, and merchant, was not so fortunate. He was also one of the first seized, and his trial was pending until General Blanco left the Islands. During this period Rojasʼ wife besought the General to release him, but he could not do so without incurring public censure, in view of the real or fictitious condemnatory evidence brought against him by the court-martial. The chief accusation was that of importing arms for the rebellion. It even became a current topic, for a few weeks, that some German merchants had made a contract with Rojas to sell him the arms, but the Spanish authorities had sufficient good sense, on this occasion, not to be guided by public outcry. When General Polavieja arrived, Francisco L. Rojasʼ fate became a certainty, and he was executed as a traitor. The departure of Pedro P. Rojas and the serenity of General Blanco aroused great indignation among the civilian Spaniards who clamoured for active measures. A week passed before it was apparent to the public that he had taken any military action. Meanwhile, he was urged in vain by his advisers to proclaim martial law. The press censor would not allow the newspapers to allude to the conspirators as “rebels,” but as “brigands” (tulisanes). The authorities were anxious to stifle the notion of rebellion, and to treat the whole movement as a marauding affair. On August 23 the leading newspaper published a patriotic appeal to the Spaniards to go en masse the next day to the Gov.-General to concert measures for public safety. They closed their shops and offices, and assembled before Government House; but the General refused to receive them, and ordered the newspaper to pay a fine of ₱500, which sum was at once raised in the streets and cafés.
On August 26, 1,000 rebels made a raid on Coloocan, four miles outside the capital. They killed a few Chinese, and seized others to place them in the van of their fighting men. The armed crowd was kept at bay by a posse of civil guards, until they learnt that a cavalry reinforcement was on the way from Manila. Then the rebels, under cover of darkness, fled towards the river, and were lost sight of. The next morning I watched the troopers cross over the Puente de España. There was mud up to the poniesʼ bellies, for they had scoured the district all around. The hubbub was tremendous among the habitual saunterers on the Escolta—the Rialto of Manila. For the next few days every Spaniard one met had some startling news to tell, until, by the end of the week, a reaction set in, and amidst jokes and copitas of spirits, the idea that the Coloocan affair was the prelude to a rebellion was utterly ridiculed. The Gov.-General still refused to proclaim martial law, considering such a grave measure unnecessary, when suddenly the whole city was filled with amazement by the news of a far more serious attack near Manila.
About 4 a.m. on Sunday, August 30, the rebels concentrated at the village of San Juan del Monte, distant half an hour on horseback from the city gates. They endeavoured to seize the powder magazine. One Spanish artilleryman was killed and several of the defenders were badly wounded whilst engaged in dropping ammunition from window openings into a stream which runs close by. Cavalry and infantry reinforcements were at once sent out, and the first battle was fought at the entrance to the village of San Juan del Monte. The rebels made a hard stand this time under the leadership of Sancho Valenzuela (a hemp-rope maker in a fairly good way of business), but he showed no military skill and chiefly directed his men by frantic shouts from the window of a wooden house. Naturally, as soon as they had to retreat, Valenzuela and his three companions were taken prisoners. The rebels left about 80 dead on the field and fled towards the Pasig River, which they tried to cross. Their passage was at first cut off by gunboats, which fired volleys into the retreating mob and drove them higher up the bank, where there was some hand-to-hand fighting. Over a hundred managed to get into canoes with the hope of reaching the Lake of Bay; but, as they passed up the river, the civil guard, lying in ambush on the opposite shore, fired upon them, and in the consequent confusion every canoe was upset. The loss to the rebels in the river and on the bank was reckoned at about 50. The whole of that day the road to San Juan del Monte was occupied by troops, and no civilian was allowed to pass. At 3 p.m. the same day martial law was proclaimed in Manila and seven other Luzon provinces.
The next morning at sunrise I rode out to the battlefield with the correspondent of the Ejército Español (Madrid). The rebel slain had not yet been removed. We came across them everywhere—in the fields and in the gutters of the highroad. Old men and youths had joined in the scrimmage and, with one exception, every corpse we saw was attired in the usual working dress. This one exception we found literally upside down with his head stuck in the mud of a paddy-field. Our attention was drawn to him (and possibly the Spaniardsʼ bullets, too) by his bright red baggy zouave trousers. We rode into the village, which was absolutely deserted by its native inhabitants, and stopped at the estate-house of the friars where the Spanish officers lodged. The padre looked extremely anxious, and the officers advised us not to go the road we intended, as rebel parties were known to be lurking there. The military advice being practically a command, we took the highroad to Sampáloc on our way back to the city.
In the meantime the city drawbridges, which had probably not been raised since 1852 (vide p. [343], footnote), were put into working order—the bushes which had been left to flourish around the approaches were cut down, and the Spanish civilians were called upon to form volunteer cavalry and infantry corps. So far the rebel leaders had issued no proclamation. It was not generally known what their aims were—whether they sought independence, reforms, extermination of Spaniards or Europeans generally. The attitude of the thoroughbred native non-combatants was glum silence born of fear. The half-castes, who had long vaunted their superior birth to the native, found themselves between two stools. If the natives were going to succeed in the battle, they (the half-castes) would want to be the peaceful wire-pullers after the storm. On the other hand, they had so long striven to be regarded as on a social equality with the Spaniards that they could not now abstain from espousing their cause against the rebels without exciting suspicion. Therefore, in the course of a few days, the half-castes resident in the capital came forward to enlist as volunteers. But no one imagined, at that time, how widespread was the Katipunan league. To the profound surprise of the Spaniards it was discovered, later on, that many of the half-caste volunteers were rebels in disguise, bearing the “blood compact” mark, and presumably only waiting to see which way the chances of war would turn to join the winning side.
Under sentence of the court-martial established on August 30, the four rebel leaders in the battle of San Juan del Monte were executed on September 4, on the Campo de Bagumbayan, facing the fashionable Luneta Esplanade, by the seashore. Three sides of a square were formed by 1,500 Spanish and half-caste volunteers and 500 regular troops. Escorted by two Austin and two Franciscan friars, the condemned men walked to the execution-ground from the chapel within the walled city, where they had been confined since the sentence was passed. They were perfectly self-composed. They arrived on the ground pinioned; their sentence was read to them and Valenzuela was unpinioned for a minute to sign some document at a table. When he was again tied up, all four were made to kneel on the ground in a row facing the open sea-beach side of the square. Then amidst profound silence, an officer, at the head of 16 Spanish soldiers, walked round the three sides of the square, halting at each corner to pronounce publicly the formula—“In the name of the King! Whosoever shall raise his voice to crave clemency for the condemned shall suffer death.” The 16 soldiers filed off in fours and stood about five yards behind each culprit. As the officer lowered his sword the volley was fired, and all but Valenzuela sank down and rolled over dead. It was the most impressive sight I had witnessed for years. The bullets, which had passed clean through Valenzuelaʼs body, threw up the gravel in front of him. He remained kneeling erect half a minute, and then gradually sank on his side. He was still alive, and four more shots, fired close to his head, scattered his brains over the grass. Conveyances were in readiness to carry off the corpses, and the spectators quitted the mournful scene in silence. This was the first execution, which was followed by four others in Manila and one in Cavite in General Blancoʼs time, and scores more subsequently.
Up the river the rebels were increasing daily, and at Pasig a thousand of them threatened the civil guard, compelling that small force and the parish priest to take refuge in the belfry tower. On the river-island of Pandácan, just opposite to the European Club at Nagtájan, a crowd of armed natives, about 400 strong, attacked the village, sacked the church, and drove the parish priest up the belfry tower. In this plight the padre was seen to wave a handkerchief, and so drew the attention of the guards stationed higher up the river. Aid was sent to him at once; the insurgents were repulsed with great loss, but one European sergeant was killed, and several native soldiers wounded. The rebellion had spread to the northern province of Nueva Ecija, where the Governor and all the Europeans who fled to the Government House in San Isidro were besieged for a day (September 8) and only saved from capture by the timely arrival from Manila of 500 troops, who outflanked the insurgents and dispersed them with great slaughter. In Bulacan the flying column under Major Lopez Arteaga had a score of combats with the rebels, who were everywhere routed. Spaniards and creoles were maltreated wherever they were found. A young creole named Chofré, well known in Manila, went out to Mariquina to take photographic views with a foreign half-caste friend of his named Augustus Morris. When they saw the rebels they ran into a hut, which was set fire to. Morris (who was not distinguishable as a foreigner) tried to escape and was shot, whilst Chofré was burnt to death. From Maragondón a Spanish lady was brought to Manila raving mad. At 23, Calle Cabildo (Manila), the house of a friend of mine, I several times saw a Spanish lady who had lost her reason in Mariquina, an hourʼs drive from Manila.
Crowds of peaceful natives swarmed into the walled city from the suburbs. The Gov.-General himself abandoned his riverside residence at Malacañan, and came with his staff to Calle Potenciana. During the first four months quite 5,000 Chinese, besides a large number of Spanish and half-caste families, fled to Hong-Kong. The passport system was revived; that is to say, no one could leave Manila for the other islands or abroad without presenting himself personally at the Civil Governorʼs office to have his cédula personal viséd.
The seditious tendency of a certain Andrés Bonifacio, a warehouse-man in the employ of a commercial firm in Manila, having come to the knowledge of the Spaniards, he was prematurely constrained to seek safety in Cavite Province which, thenceforth, became the most important centre of the rebellion. Simultaneously Emilio Aguinaldo[3] rallied his fighting-men, and for a short while these two organizers operated conjointly, Bonifacio being nominally the supreme chief. From the beginning, however, there was discord between the two leaders as to the plan of campaign to be adopted. Bonifacio advocated barbarous persecution and extermination of the Europeans, whilst Aguinaldo insisted that he was fighting for a cause for which he sought the sympathy and moral support of friends of liberty all the world over and that this could never be obtained if they conducted themselves like savages. Consequent on this disagreement as to the modus operandi, Bonifacio and Aguinaldo became rivals, each seeking the suppression of the other. Aguinaldo himself explains[4] that Bonifacio having condemned him to death, he retaliated in like manner, and the contending factions met at Naig. Leaving his armed followers outside, Aguinaldo alone entered the house where Bonifacio was surrounded by his counsellors, for he simply wished to have an understanding with his rival. Bonifacio, however, so abusively confirmed his intention to cut short Aguinaldoʼs career that the latter withdrew, and ordered his men to seize Bonifacio, who was forthwith executed, by Aguinaldoʼs order, for the prosperity of the cause and the good of his country.
The Province of Cavite
Bonifacioʼs followers were few, and, from this moment, Emilio Aguinaldo gradually rose from obscurity to prominence. Born at Cauit[5] (Cavite) on March 22, 1869, of poor parents, he started life in the service of the incumbent of San Francisco de Malabon. Later on he went to Manila, where, through the influence of a relative, employed in a humble capacity in the capital, he was admitted into the College of San Juan de Letran under the auspices of the Dominican friars. Subsequently he became a schoolmaster at Silan (Cavite), and at the age of twenty-six years he was again in his native town as petty-governor (Municipal Captain). He is a man of small frame with slightly webbed eyes, betraying the Chinese blood in his veins, and a protruding lower lip and prominent chin indicative of resolve. Towards me his manner was remarkably placid and unassuming, and his whole bearing denoted the very antithesis of the dashing warrior. Throughout his career he has shown himself to be possessed of natural politeness, and ever ready with the soft answer that turneth away wrath. He understands Spanish perfectly well, but does not speak it very fluently. Aguinaldoʼs explanation to me of the initial acts of rebellion was as follows:—He had reason to know that, in consequence of something having leaked out in Manila regarding the immature plans of the conspirators, he was a marked man, so he resolved to face the situation boldly. He had then been petty-governor of his town (Cauit) sixteen months, and in that official capacity he summoned the local detachment of the civil guard to the Town Hall, having previously arranged his plan of action with the town guards (cuadrilleros). Aguinaldo then spoke aside to the sergeant, to whom he proposed the surrender of their arms. As he quite anticipated, his demand was refused, so he gave the agreed signal to his cuadrilleros, who immediately surrounded the guards and disarmed them. Thereupon Aguinaldo and his companions, being armed, fled at once to the next post of the civil guard and seized their weapons also. With this small equipment he and his party escaped into the interior of the province, towards Silan, situated at the base of the Sun͠gay[6] Mountain, where the numerous ravines in the slopes running towards the Lake Bómbon (popularly known as the Lake of Taal) afforded a safe retreat to the rebels. Hundreds of natives soon joined him, for the secret of Aguinaldoʼs influence was the widespread popular belief in his possession of the anting-anting (vide p. [237]); his continuous successes, in the first operations, strengthened this belief; indeed, he seemed to have the lucky star of a De Wet without the military genius.
On August 31, 1896, eleven days after the plot was discovered in Manila, he issued his pronunciamiento simultaneously at his birthplace, at Novaleta, and at San Francisco de Malabon. This document, however, is of little historic value, for, instead of setting forth the aims of the revolutionists, it is simply a wild exhortation to the people, in general vague terms, to take arms and free themselves from oppression. In San Francisco de Malabon Aguinaldo rallied his forces prior to their march to Imus,[7] their great strategic point. The village itself, situated in the centre of a large, well-watered plain, surrounded by planted land, was nothing—a mere collection of wooden or bamboo-and-thatch dwellings. The distance from Manila would be about 16 miles by land, with good roads leading to the bay shore towns. The people were very poor, being tenants or dependents of the friars; hence the only building of importance was the friarsʼ estate-house, which was really a fortress in the estimation of the natives. This residence was situated in the middle of a compound surrounded by massive high walls, and to it some 17 friars fled on the first alarm. For the rebels, therefore, Imus had a double value—the so-called fortress and the capture of the priests. After a siege which lasted long enough for General Blanco to have sent troops against them, the rebels captured Imus estate-house on September 1, and erected barricades there. Thirteen of the priests fell into their hands. They cut trenches and threw up earthworks in several of the main roads of the province, and strengthened their position at Novaleta. Marauding parties were sent out everywhere to steal the crops and live-stock, which were conveyed in large quantities to Imus. Some of the captured priests were treated most barbarously. One was cut up piecemeal; another was saturated with petroleum and set on fire, and a third was bathed in oil and fried on a bamboo spit run through the length of his body. There was a Requiem Mass for this event. During the first few months of the rising many such atrocities were committed by the insurgents. The Naig outrage caused a great sensation in the capital. The lieutenant had been killed, and the ferocious band of rebels seized his widow and daughter eleven years old. The child was ravished to death, and they were just digging a pit to bury the mother alive when she was rescued and brought to Manila in the steam-launch Mariposa raving mad, disguised as a native woman. Aguinaldo, personally, was humanely inclined, for at his headquarters he held captive one Spanish trooper, an army lieutenant, a Spanish planter, a friar, and two Spanish ladies, all of whom were fairly well treated. The priest was allowed to read his missal, the lieutenant and trooper were made blacksmiths, and the planter had to try his hand at tailoring.
The insurgents occupied Parañaque and Las Piñas on the outskirts of Manila, and when General Blanco had 5,000 fresh troops at his disposal he still refrained from attacking the rebels in their positions. Military men, in conversation with me, excused this inaction on the ground that, to rout the rebels completely without having sufficient troops to garrison the places taken and to form flying columns to prevent the insurgents fleeing to the mountain fastnesses, would only require them to do the work over again when they reappeared. So General Blanco went on waiting in the hope that more troops would arrive with which to inflict such a crushing defeat on the rebels as would ensure a lasting peace. The rebels were in possession of Imus for several months. Three weeks after they took it, artillery was slowly carried over to Cavite, which is connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus, so the rebels hastened to construct a long line of trenches immediately to the south of this (vide map), whereby communication with the heart of the province was effectually cut off. Not only did their mile and a half of trenches and stockade check any advance into the interior from the isthmus, but it served as a rallying-point whence Cavite itself was menaced. The Spaniards, therefore, forced to take the offensive to save Cavite falling into rebel hands, made an attack on the Novaleta defences with Spanish troops and loyal native auxiliaries on November 10. The next day the Spaniards were repulsed at Binacayan with the loss of one-third of the 73rd Native Regiment and 60 Spanish troops, with 50 of both corps wounded. The intention to carry artillery towards Imus was abandoned and the Spaniards fell back on Dalahican, about a mile north of the rebel trenches of Novaleta, where they established a camp at which I spent a whole day. They had four large guns and two bronze mortars; in the trench adjoining the camp they had one gun. The troops numbered 3,500 Spaniards under the command of General Rios. The 73rd Native Regiment survivors had quarters there, but they were constantly engaged in making sorties on the road leading to Manila. No further attempt was made in General Blancoʼs time to dislodge the rebels from their splendidly-constructed trenches, which, however, could easily have been shelled from the sea side.
A number of supposed promoters of the rebellion filled the Cavite prison, and I went over to witness the execution of 13 of them on September 12. I knew two or three of them by sight. One was a Chinese half-caste, the son of a rich Chinaman then living. The father was held to be a respectable man of coolie origin, but the son, long before the rebellion, had a worthless reputation.
In the Provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan, north of Manila, the rebel mob, under the command of a native of Cabiao (Nueva Ecija) named Llaneras, was about 3,000 strong. To oppose this Major Lopez Arteaga had a flying column of 500 men, and between the contending parties there were repeated encounters with no definite result. Whenever the rebels were beaten off and pursued they fled to their strongholds of San Mateo (Manila, now Rizal) and Angat (Bulacan). The Spaniards made an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the enemy at Angat, whilst at San Mateo, where they were supposed to be 5,000 strong, they were left undisturbed. The rebels attacked Calumpit (Bulacan), pillaged several houses, decapitated an Englishmanʼs cook, and drove the civil guard and the parish priest up the belfry tower. On the other side of the river, Llaneras visited the rice-mills of an Anglo-American firm, took some refreshment, and assured the manager, Mr. Scott, that the rebels had not the least intention to interfere with any foreigners (as distinguished from Spaniards), against whom they had no complaint whatever.
At length a plan of campaign was prepared, and expeditionary forces were to march in two directions through the disaffected provinces south of Manila, and combine, according to circumstances, when the bulk of the rebels could be driven together. One division operated from the lake town of Viñan, whilst General Jaramillo took his troops round to Batangas Province and worked northwards. Before the lake forces had gone very far they met with a reverse at the hands of the rebels in the neighbourhood of Carmona, but rallied and pushed on towards the rebel quarters near Silan, where the enemy was apparently concentrating for a great struggle. The combined columns under General Jaramillo at length opened the attack. A pitched battle was fought, and no quarter was given on either side. This fierce contest lasted a whole day, and the Spaniards were forced to retire with considerable loss. The combined operations accomplished nothing decisive, and served only to check an advance on the capital by the rebels, who were already in practical possession of the whole of Cavite province excepting the port, arsenal, and isthmus of Cavite.
In Manila the volunteers mounted guard whilst the regulars went to the front. For a while the volunteers were allowed to make domiciliary search, and they did very much as they liked. Domiciliary search was so much abused that it had to be forbidden, for the volunteers took to entering any house they chose, and roughly examined the persons of natives to see if they had the Katipunan brand. Crowds of suspects were brought into Manila, and shiploads of them were sent away in local steamers to the Caroline Islands and Mindanao, whilst every mail-steamer carried batches of them en route for Fernando Po. On October 1 the s.s. Manila sailed with 300 Filipinos for Chafarinas Islands, Ceuta, and other African penal settlements. In the local steamers many of them died on the way. The ordinary prisons were more than full, and about 600 suspects were confined in the dungeons of Fort Santiago at the mouth of the Pasig River, where a frightful tragedy occurred. The dungeons were over-crowded; the river-water filtered in through the crevices in the ancient masonry; the Spanish sergeant on duty threw his rug over the only light- and ventilating-shaft, and in a couple of days carts were seen by many citizens carrying away the dead, calculated to number 70. Provincial governors and parish priests seemed to regard it as a duty to supply the capital with batches of “suspects” from their localities. In Vigan, where nothing had occurred, many of the heads of the best families and moneyed men were arrested and brought to Manila in a steamer. They were bound hand and foot, and carried like packages of merchandise in the hold. I happened to be on the quay when the steamer discharged her living freight with chains and hooks to haul up and swing out the bodies like bales of hemp. From Nueva Cáceres (Camarines), the Abellas and several other rich families and native priests were seized and shipped off. Poor old Manuel Abella, like scores of others, was tortured in Bilibid prison and finally shot. He was a notary, unfortunately possessed of a fine estate coveted by an impecunious Spaniard, who denounced Abella, and was rewarded by being appointed “Administrator” of his property, out of which he so enriched himself that he was able, in a few months, to return to Spain in a good financial position. A friend of mine, a native planter of Balayán, was imprisoned for months, and then sent back to his town declared innocent. He had been a marked man since 1895, just after his son Quintin, a law student, had had a little altercation with his clerical professors in Manila. Thousands of peaceful natives were treated with unjustifiable ferocity. The old torture-chamber on the ground-floor of the convent of Baliuag (Bulacan) is still shown to visitors. The court-martial, established under the presidency of a colonel, little by little practised systematic extortion, for, within three months of the outbreak, hundreds of the richest natives and half-castes in Manila were imprisoned for a few days and released conditionally. From the lips of my late friend, Telesforo Chuidian, a wealthy Chinese half-caste, known to all Manila society, I heard of the squalid misery and privations to which he and others of his class were subjected, but the complete list would fill a page. Some were even re-arrested for the same nefarious purpose, and the daily papers published their names on each occasion. Archbishop Nozaleda and Gov.-General Blanco were at variance from the beginning of the revolt, and in accordance with historical precedent it could only end in one way, namely, that the clerical party advised the Cánovas Ministry to recall the General and appoint in his stead another who would be obedient to the friars.
General Blanco was not sufficiently sanguinary for the monks. As a strategist he had refused, at the outset, to undertake with 1,500 European troops a task which was only accomplished by his successor with 28,000 men. But the priests thought they knew better, and Blanco left for Spain in December, 1896. The relative positions of the parties at this crisis stood as follows:—The rebels were in possession of the whole of the Province of Cavite excepting the city and arsenal of Cavite and the isthmus connecting that city with the mainland. They were well fortified at Imus with trenches and stockades extending from the estate-house fort in several directions, defended by an army of 6,000 to 7,000 men. Their artillery was most primitive, however, consisting only of a few small guns called lantacas, some new guns of small calibre roughly cast out of the church bells, and iron waterpipes of large diameter converted into mitrailleuse mortars. They were strongly entrenched behind a mile and a half of strategically constructed earthworks defending the town of Novaleta, which they held. They were supposed to have at least 20,000 men in occupation there. Including San Francisco de Malabon, Silan, Perez Dasmariñas, and the several other places they held, their total force in the whole province was estimated at 35,000 men. About one-fifth of that number was armed with rifles (chiefly Maüsers), the remainder carrying bowie-knives and bamboo lances. The bowie-knife was irresistible by the Spaniards when the native came to close-quarter fighting. The rebels had ample supplies of rice, buffaloes, etc., stolen from the non-combatant natives. To my personal knowledge they had daily communication with Manila, and knew everything that was going on there and the public feeling in the capital. They had failed in the attempt to seize the town of Santa Cruz (La Laguna), where they killed one Spaniard and then retreated. Loyal natives in Viñan organized volunteer forces to keep them out of that town. Those Manila volunteers known as the Guerrilla á muerte battalion, with a few regulars, frequently patrolled the lake coast in steam-launches from Manila, and kept the rebels from occupying that district. North of Manila the rebellion reached no farther than Bulacan and Pampanga Provinces, where Llanerasʼs flying column, together with the rebels in the mountain fastnesses of Angat and San Mateo, amounted to about 10,000 men. Llaneras notified the Manila-Dagúpan (English) Railway officials that they were to cease carrying loyal troops on their line; but as those orders were not heeded, a train was wrecked on November 19 about 20 miles up from the capital. The locomotive and five carriages were smashed, the permanent-way was somewhat damaged, five individuals were wounded, and the total loss sustained was estimated at ₱40,000. In the last week of November the friarsʼ estate-house at Malinta, some five miles north of Manila, was in flames; we could see the blaze from the bay. The slightest reverse to Spanish arms always drew a further crowd of rebels into the field.
The total European force when General Blanco left was about 10,000 men. In Cavite Province the Spaniards held only the camp of Dalahican, and the city and arsenal of Cavite with the isthmus. The total number of suspects shipped away was about 1,000. I was informed by my friend the Secretary of the Military Court that 4,377 individuals were awaiting trial by court-martial. The possibility of the insurgents ever being able to enter the capital was never believed in by the large majority of Europeans, although from a month after the outbreak the rebels continued to hold posts within a couple of hoursʼ march from the old walls. The natives, however, were led to expect that the rebels would make an attempt to occupy the city on Saint Andrewʼs Day (the patron-saint day of Manila, vide p. [50]). The British Consul and a few British merchants were of opinion that a raid on the capital was imminent, and I, among others, was invited by letter, dated Manila, November 16, 1896, and written under the authority of H.B.M.ʼs Consul, to attend a meeting on the 18th of that month at the offices of a British establishment to concert measures for escape in such a contingency. In spite of these fears, business was carried on without the least apparent interruption.
When General Blanco reached Spain he quietly lodged at the Hotel de Roma in Madrid, and then took a private residence. Out of courtesy he was offered a position in the Cuarto Militar, which he declined to accept. For several months he remained under a political cloud, charged with incompetency to quell the Philippine Rebellion. But there is something to be said in justification of Blancoʼs inaction. He was importuned from the beginning by the relentless Archbishop and many leading civilians to take the offensive and start a war à outrance with an inadequate number of European soldiers. His 6,000 native auxiliaries (as it proved later on) could not be relied upon in a civil war. Against the foreign invader, with Spanish prestige still high, they would have made good loyal fighting-material. Blanco was no novice in civil wars. I remember his career during the previous twenty-five years. With his 700 European troops he parried off the attacks of the first armed mobs in the Province of Manila (now Rizal), and defended the city and the approaches to the capital. Five hundred European troops had to be left, here and there, in Visayas for the ordinary defence. Before the balance of 300 could be embarked in half a dozen places in the south and landed in Manila, the whole Province of Cavite was in arms. He could not leave the defence of the city entirely in the hands of untrained and undrilled volunteers and march the whole of his European regular troops into another province. A severe reverse, on the first encounter, might have proved fatal to Spanish sovereignty. Blanco had the enormous disadvantage (one must live there to appreciate it) of the wet season, and the rebels understood this. He had, therefore, to damp the movement by feigning to attach to it as little importance as possible. Lastly, Blanco was a man of moderate and humane tendencies; a colonial governor of the late Martinez Campos school, whose policy is—when all honourable peaceful means are exhausted, use force.
The Cánovas party was broken up by the assassination of the Prime Minister on August 8, 1897. This ministry was followed by the provisional Azcárraga Cabinet, which, at the end of six weeks, was superseded by the Liberal party under the leadership of Práxedes Sagasta, who, to temporize with America, recalled the inflexible General Weyler from Cuba, and on October 9 appointed General Ramon Blanco, Marquis de Peña Plata, to take the command there.
General Camilo Polavieja (Marquis de Polavieja) arrived in Manila in December, 1896, as the successor of Blanco and the chosen Messiah of the friars. He had made a great name in Cuba as an energetic military leader, which, in Spanish colonies, always implied a tinge of wanton cruelty. In Spain he was regarded as the right arm of the ultra-clericals and a possible supporter of Carlism. He was accompanied by General Lachambre, whose acquaintance I made in Havana. In the same steamer with General Polavieja came 500 troops, whilst another steamer simultaneously brought 1,500. Polavieja, therefore, on landing, had about 12,000 European troops and 6,000 native auxiliaries; but each steamer brought fresh supplies until the total European land forces amounted to 28,000. By this time, however, the 6,000 native troops were very considerably reduced by desertion, and the remainder could hardly be relied upon. But Polavieja started his campaign with the immense advantage of having the whole of the dry season before him. General Lachambre, as Deputy Commander of the forces, at once took the field against the rebels in Cavite Province. It would be tedious to relate in detail the numerous encounters with the enemy over this area. Battles were fought at Naig, Maragondón, Perez Dasmariñas, Nasugbú, Taal, Bacoor, Novaleta, and other places. Imus, which in Manila was popularly supposed to be a fortress of relative magnitude, whence the rebels would dispute every inch of ground, was attacked by a large force of loyal troops. On their approach the rebels set fire to the village and fled. Very few remained to meet the Spaniards, and as these few tried to escape across the paddy-fields and down the river they were picked off by sharp-shooters. It was a victory for the Spaniards, inasmuch as their demonstration of force scared the rebels into evacuation. But it was necessary to take Silan, which the rebels hastened to strengthen, closely followed up by the Spaniards. The place was well defended by earthworks and natural parapets, and for several hours the issue of the contest was doubtful. The rebels fought bravely, leaping from boulder to boulder to meet the foe. In every close-quarter combat the bowie-knife had a terrible effect, and the loyal troops had suffered heavily when a column of Spaniards was marched round to the rear of the rebelsʼ principal parapet. They were lowered down with ropes on to a rising ground facing this parapet, and poured in a continuous rifle fire until the rebels had to evacuate it, and the general rout commenced with great slaughter to the insurgents, who dispersed in all directions. Their last stronghold south of Manila having been taken, they broke up into small detachments, which were chased and beaten wherever they made a stand. The Spaniards suffered great losses, but they gained their point, for the rebels, unable to hold any one place against this onslaught, were driven up to the Laguna Province and endeavoured unsuccessfully to hold the town of Santa Cruz. It is interesting to remark, in order to show what the rebel aim at that time really was, that they entered here with the cry of “Long live Spain; Death to the Friars!” After three monthsʼ hard fighting, General Lachambre was proclaimed the Liberator of Cavite and the adjoining districts, for, by the middle of March, 1897, every rebel contingent of any importance in that locality had been dispersed.
Like every other Spanish general in supreme command abroad, Polavieja had his enemies in Spain. The organs of the Liberal party attacked him unsparingly. Polavieja, as everybody knew, was the chosen executive of the friars, whose only care was to secure their own position. He was dubbed the “General Cristiano.” He was their ideal, and worked hand-in-hand with them. He cabled for more troops to be sent with which to garrison the reconquered districts and have his army corps free to stamp out the rebellion, which was confined to the Northern Provinces. Cuba, which had already drained the Peninsula of over 200,000 men, still required fresh levies to replace the sick and wounded, and Polaviejaʼs demand was refused. Immediately after this he cabled that his physical ailments compelled him to resign the commandership-in-chief, and begged the Government to appoint a successor. The Madrid journals hostile to him thereupon indirectly attributed to him a lie, and questioned whether his resignation was due to ill-health or his resentment of the refusal to send out more troops. Still urging his resignation, General Fernando Primo de Rivera was gazetted to succeed him, and Polavieja embarked at Manila for Spain on April 15, 1897. General Lachambre, as the hero of Cavite, followed to receive the applause which was everywhere showered upon him in Spain. As to Polaviejaʼs merits, public opinion was very much divided, and as soon as it was known that he was on the way, a controversy was started in the Madrid press as to how he ought to be received. El Imparcial maintained that he was worthy of being honoured as a 19th century conquering hero. This gave rise to a volley of abuse on the other side, who raked up all his antecedents and supposed tendencies, and openly denounced him as a dangerous politician and the supporter of theocratic absolutism. According to El Liberal of May 11, Señor Ordax Avecilla, of the Red Cross Society, stated in his speech at the Madrid Mercantile Club, “If he (the General) thought of becoming dictator, he would fall from the heights of his glory to the Hades of nonentity.” His enemies persistently insinuated that he was really returning to Spain to support the clericals actively. But perhaps the bitterest satire was levelled against him in El Pais of May 10, which, in an article headed “The Great Farce,” said: “Do you know who is coming? Cyrus, King of Persia; Alexander, King of Macedonia; Cæsar Augustus; Scipio the African; Gonzalo de Córdova; Napoleon, the Great Napoleon, conqueror of worlds. What? Oh, unfortunate people, do you not know? Polavieja is coming, the incomparable Polavieja, crowned with laurels, commanding a fleet laden to the brim with rich trophies; it is Polavieja, gentlemen, who returns, discoverer of new worlds, to lay at the feet of Isabella the Catholic his conquering sword; it is Polavieja who returns after having cast into obscurity the glories of Hernan Cortés; Polavieja, who has widened the national map, and brings new territories to the realm—new thrones to his queen. What can the people be thinking of that they remain thus in silence? Applaud, imbeciles! It is Narvaez who is resuscitated. Now we have another master!” No Spanish general who had arrived at Polaviejaʼs position would find it possible to be absolutely neutral in politics, but to compare him with Narvaez, the military dictator, proved in a few daysʼ time to be the grossest absurdity. On May 13 Polavieja arrived in Barcelona physically broken, half blind, and with evident traces of a disordered liver. His detractors were silent; an enthusiastic crowd welcomed him for his achievements. He had broken the neck of the rebellion, but by what means? Altogether, apart from the circumstances of legitimate warfare, in which probably neither party was more merciful than the other, he initiated a system of striking terror into the non-combatant population by barbarous tortures and wholesale executions. On February 6, 1897, in one prison alone (Bilibid) there were 1,266 suspects, most of whom were brought in by the volunteers, for the forces in the field gave little quarter and rarely made prisoners. The functions of the volunteers, organized originally for the defence of the city and suburbs, became so elastic that, night after night, they made men and women come out of their houses for inspection conducted most indecorously. The men were escorted to the prisons from pure caprice, and subjected to excessive maltreatment. Many of them were liberated in the course of a few days, declared innocent, but maimed for life and for ever unable to get a living. Some of these victims were well known to everybody in Manila; for instance, Dr. Zamora, Bonifacio Arévalo the dentist, Antonio Rivero (who died under torture), and others. The only apparent object in all this was to disseminate broadcast living examples of Spanish vengeance, in order to overawe the populace. Under General Blancoʼs administration such acts had been distinctly prohibited on the representation of General Cárlos Roca.
Dr. José Rizal
The Philippine Patriot, executed Dec. 30, 1896.
Polaviejaʼs rule brought the brilliant career of the notable Filipino, Dr. José Rizal y Mercado, to a fatal end. Born in Calamba (La Laguna), three hoursʼ journey from Manila, on June 19, 1861, he was destined to become the idol of his countrymen, and consequently the victim of the friars and General Polavieja. Often have I, together with the old native parish priest, Father Leoncio Lopez, spent an hour with Joséʼs father, Francisco Mercado, and heard the old man descant, with pride, on the intellectual progress of his son at the Jesuitsʼ school in Manila. Before he was fourteen years of age he wrote a melodrama in verse entitled Junto al Pasig (“Beside the Pasig River”), which was performed in public and well received. But young José yearned to set out on a wider field of learning. His ambition was to go to Europe, and at the age of twenty-one he went to Spain, studied medicine, and entered the Madrid University, where he graduated as Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy. He subsequently continued his studies in Paris, Brussels, London, and at several seats of learning in Germany, where he obtained another degree, notwithstanding the fact that he had the difficulty of a foreign language to contend with. As happened to many of his confrères in the German Universities, a career of study had simultaneously opened his eyes to a clearer conception of the rights of humanity. Thrown among companions of socialistic tendencies, his belief in and loyalty to the monarchical rule of his country were yet unshaken by the influence of such environment; he was destined only to become a disturbing element, and a would-be reformer of that time-worn institution which rendered secular government in his native land a farce. To give him a party name, he became an anti-clerical, strictly in a political and lawful sense. He was a Roman Catholic, but his sole aim, outside his own profession, was to save his country from the baneful influence of the Spanish friars who there held the Civil and Military Government under their tutelage. He sought to place his country on a level of material and moral prosperity with others, and he knew that the first step in that direction was to secure the expulsion of the Monastic Orders. He sympathized with that movement which, during his childhood, culminated in the Cavite Conspiracy (vide p. [106]). He looked profoundly into the causes of his countryʼs unhappiness, and to promote their knowledge, in a popular form, he wrote and published in Germany, in the Spanish language, a book entitled “Noli me tángere.” It is a censorious satirical novel, of no great literary merit, but it served the authorʼs purpose to expose the inner life, the arrogance, and the despotism of the friars in their relations with the natives. On his return to the Islands, a year after the publication of this work, we met at the house of a mutual friend and conversed on the subject of “Noli me tángere,” a copy of which he lent to me.
Don Felipe Agoncillo
Ex-High Commissioner in Europe for the Philippine Republic.
As an oculist Rizal performed some very clever operations, but he had another mission—one which brought upon him all the odium of the clerical party, but which as quickly raised him in popular esteem in native circles. He led a party in his own town who dared to dispute the legality of the Dominican Orderʼs possession of a large tract of agricultural land. He called upon the Order to show their title-deeds, but was met with a contemptuous refusal. At length prudence dictated a return to Europe. I often recall the farewell lunch we had together at the Restaurant de Paris, in the Escolta. During his absence his own relations and the chief families in his town became the objects of persecution. They were driven from the lands they cultivated and rented from the Religious Order, without compensation for improvements, and Spaniards took their holdings. In 1890 Rizal saw with his own eyes, and perhaps with envy, the growing prosperity of Japan; but the idea of annexation to that country was distasteful to him, as he feared the Japanese might prove to be rather harsh masters. On his return to Europe he contributed many brilliant articles to La Solidaridad, the Madrid-Philippine organ mentioned on p. [363]; but, disgusted with his failure to awaken in Spain a sympathetic interest in his own countryʼs misfortunes, he left that field of work and re-visited London, where he found encouragement and very material assistance from an old friend of mine, a distinguished Filipino. Rizalʼs financial resources were none too plentiful, and he himself was anxious for a position of productive activity. It was proposed that he should establish himself in London as a doctor, but with his mind always bent on the concerns of his country he again took to literary work. He edited a new edition of Dr. Antonio de Morgaʼs work on the Philippines[8] (the original was published in Mexico in 1609), with notes, and wrote a new book in the form of romance, entitled “El Filibusterismo,”[9] the purpose of which was to show how the Filipinos were goaded into outlawry.
About this time two priests, C—— and C——, who had seceded from the Roman Catholic Church, called upon my Philippine friend to urge him to take an interest in their projected evangelical work in the Islands. They even proposed to establish a new Church there and appoint a hierarchy—an extremely risky venture indeed. My friend was asked to nominate some Filipino for the archbishopric. It was put before Rizal, but he declined the honour on the ground that the acceptance of such an office would sorely offend his mother. Finally, in 1893, a Pampanga Filipino, named C——, came on the scene and proposed to furnish Rizal with ample funds for the establishment of a Philippine college in Hong-Kong. Rizal accepted the offer and set out for that colony, where he waited in vain for the money. For a while he hesitated between following the medical profession in Hong-Kong and returning to Manila. Mutual friends of ours urged him not to risk a re-entry into the Islands; nevertheless, communications passed between him and the Gov.-General through the Spanish Consul, and nothing could induce him to keep out of the lionʼs mouth. Rizal avowed that he had been given to understand that he could return to the Islands without fear for his personal safety and liberty. He arrived in Manila and was arrested. His luggage was searched in the Custom-house, and a number of those seditious proclamations referred to at p. [204] were found, it was alleged, in his trunks. It is contrary to all common sense to conceive that a sane man, who had entertained the least doubt as to his personal liberty, would bring with him, into a public department of scrutiny, documentary evidence of his own culpability. He was arraigned before the supreme authority, in whose presence he defended himself right nobly. The clerical party wanted his blood, but Gov.-General Despujols would not yield. Rizal was either guilty or innocent, and should have been fully acquitted or condemned; but to meet the matter half way he was banished to Dapítan, a town on the north shore of Mindanao Island. I saw the bungalow, situated at the extremity of a pretty little horse-shoe bay, where he lived nearly four years in bondage. His bright intelligence, his sociability, and his scientific attainments had won him the respect and admiration of both the civil and religious local authorities. He had such a well-justified good repute as an oculist that many travelled across the seas to seek his aid. The Cuban insurrection being in full operation, it opened the way for a new and interesting period in Rizalʼs life. Reading between the lines of the letters he was allowed to send to his friends, there was evidence of his being weighed down with ennui from inactivity, and his friends in Europe took the opportunity of bringing pressure on the Madrid Government to liberate him. In a house which I visit in London there were frequent consultations as to how this could be effected. In the end it was agreed to organize a bogus “Society for the Liberation of Prisoners in the Far East.” A few ladies met at the house mentioned, and one of them, Miss A——, having been appointed secretary, she was sent to Madrid to present a petition from the “Society” to the Prime Minister, Cánovas del Castillo, praying for the liberation of Rizal in exchange for his professional services in the Spanish army operating in Cuba, where army doctors were much needed. Hints were deftly thrown out about the “Societyʼs” relations with other European capitals, and the foreign lady-secretary played her part so adroitly that the Prime Minister pictured to himself ambassadorial intervention and foreign complications if he did not grant the prayer of what he imagined to be an influential society with potential ramifications. The Colonial Minister opposed the petition; the War Minister, being Philippine born, declined to act on his own responsibility for obvious reasons. Repeated discussions took place between the Crown advisers, to whom, at length, the Prime Minister disclosed his fears, and finally the Gov.-General of the Philippines, Don Ramon Blanco, was authorized to liberate Rizal, on the terms mentioned, if he saw no objection. As my Philippine friend, who went from London to Madrid about the matter, remarked to the War Minister, “Rizal is loyal; he will do his duty; but if he did not, one more or less in the rebel camp—what matters?” The Gov.-General willingly acted on the powers received from the Home Government, and Rizalʼs conditional freedom dated from July 28, 1896. The governor of Dapítan was instructed to ask Rizal if he wished to go to Cuba as an army doctor, and the reply being in the affirmative, he was conducted on board the steamer for Manila, calling on the way at Cebú, where crowds of natives and half-castes went on board to congratulate him. He had become the idol of the people in his exile; his ideas were then the reflection of all Philippine aims and ambitions; the very name of Rizal raised their hopes to the highest pitch. Most fantastic reports were circulated concerning him. Deeds in Europe, almost amounting to miracles, were attributed to his genius, and became current talk among the natives when they spoke sotto voce of Rizalʼs power and influence. He was looked up to as the future regenerator of his race, capable of moving armies and navies for the cause of liberty. Their very reverence was his condemnation in the eyes of the priests.
There were no inter-island cables in those days, and the arrival of Rizal in the port of Manila was a surprise to the friars. They expostulated with General Blanco. They openly upbraided him for having set free the soul of disaffection; but the general would not relinquish his intention, explaining, very logically, that if Rizal were the soul of rebellion he was now about to depart. The friars were eager for Rivalʼs blood, and the parish priest of Tondo arranged a revolt of the caudrilleros (guards) of that suburb, hoping thereby to convince General Blanco that the rebellion was in full cry, consequent on his folly. No doubt, by this trick of the friars, many civilian Spaniards were deceived into an honest belief in the ineptitude of the Gov.-General. In a state of frenzy a body of them, headed by Father Mariano Gil, marched to the palace of Malacañan to demand an explanation of General Blanco. The gates were closed by order of the captain of the guard. When the general learnt what the howling outside signified he mounted his horse, and, at the head of his guards, met the excited crowd and ordered them to quit the precincts of the palace, or he would put them out by force. The abashed priest[10] thereupon withdrew with his companions, but from that day the occult power of the friars was put in motion to bring about the recall of General Blanco. In the meantime Rizal had been detained in the Spanish cruiser Castilla lying in the bay. Thence he was transferred to the mail-steamer Isla de Panay bound to Barcelona. He carried with him letters of recommendation to the Ministers of War and the Colonies, courteously sent to him by General Blanco with the following letter to himself:—
(Translation.)
Manila, 30th August, 1896.
Dr. Jose Rizal.
My Dear Sir,—
Enclosed I send you two letters, for the Ministers of War and the Colonies respectively, which I believe will ensure to you a good reception. I cannot doubt that you will show me respect in your relations with the Government, and by your future conduct, not only on account of your word pledged, but because passing events must make it clear to you how certain proceedings, due to extravagant notions can only produce hatred, ruin, tears and bloodshed. That you may be happy is the desire of Yours, etc.,
Ramon Blanco.
He had as travelling companion Don Pedro P. Rojas, already referred to, and had he chosen he could have left the steamer at Singapore as Rojas did. Not a few of us who saw the vessel leave wished him “God speed.” But the clerical party were eager for his extermination. He was a thorn in the side of monastic sway; he had committed no crime, but he was the friarsʼ arch-enemy and bête noire. Again the lay authorities had to yield to the monks. Dr. Rizal was cabled for to answer certain accusations; hence on his landing in the Peninsula he was incarcerated in the celebrated fortress of Montjuich (the scene of so many horrors), pending his re-shipment by the returning steamer. He reached Manila as a State prisoner in the Colon, isolated from all but his jailors. It was materially impossible for him to have taken any part in the rebellion, whatever his sympathies may have been. Yet, once more, the wheel of fortune turned against him. Coincidentally the parish priest of Mórong was murdered at the altar whilst celebrating Mass on Christmas Day, 1896. The importunity of the friars could be no longer resisted; this new calamity seemed to strengthen their cause. The next day Rizal was brought to trial for sedition and rebellion, before a court-martial composed of eight captains, under the presidency of a lieutenant-colonel. No reliable testimony could be brought against him. How could it be when, for years, he had been a State prisoner in forced seclusion? He defended himself with logical argument. But what mattered? He was condemned beforehand to ignominious death as a traitor, and the decree of execution was one of Polaviejaʼs foulest acts. During the few days which elapsed between sentence and death he refused to see any priest but a Jesuit, Padre Faura, his old preceptor, who hastened his own death by coming from a sick bed to console the pupil he was so proud of. In his last moments his demeanour was in accordance with his oft-quoted saying, “What is death to me? I have sown the seed; others are left to reap.” In his condemned cell he composed a beautiful poem of 14 verses (“My last Thought”), which was found by his wife and published. The following are the first and last verses.
Mi Ultimo Pensamiento.
Adios, Pátria adorada, region del sol querida,
Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido Eden.
A dárte voy alegre la triste mústia vida,
Y fuera mas brillante, mas fresca, mas florida,
Tambien por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.
Adios, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mia.
Amigos de la infancia en el perdido hogar.
Dad gracias que descanso del fatigoso dia;
Adios, dulce extrangera, mi amiga, mi alegria,
Adios, queridos seres, morir es descansar.
The woman who had long responded to his love was only too proud to bear his illustrious name, and in the sombre rays which fell from his prison grating, the vows of matrimony were given and sanctified with the sad certainty of widowhood on the morrow. Fortified by purity of conscience and the rectitude of his principles, he felt no felonʼs remorse, but walked with equanimity to the place of execution. About 2,000 regular and volunteer troops formed the square where he knelt facing the seashore, on the blood-stained field of Bagumbayan. After an officer had shouted the formula, “In the name of the King! Whosoever shall raise his voice to crave clemency for the condemned, shall suffer death,” four bullets, fired from behind by Philippine soldiers, did their fatal work. This execution took place at 6 a.m. on December 30, 1896. An immense crowd witnessed, in silent awe, this sacrifice to priestcraft. The friars, too, were present en masse, many of them smoking big cigars, jubilant over the extinction of that bright intellectual light which, alas! can never be rekindled.
The circumstances under which Rizal, in his exile, made the acquaintance of Josephine Taufer, who became his wife, are curious. The account was given to me by Mrs. Rizalʼs foster-father as we crossed the China Sea together. The foster-father, who was an American resident in Hong-Kong, found his eyesight gradually failing him. After exhausting all remedies in that colony, he heard of a famous oculist in Manila named Rizal, a Filipino of reputed Japanese origin. Therefore, in August, 1894, he went to Manila to seek the great doctor, taking with him a Macao servant, his daughter, and a girl whom he had adopted from infancy. The Philippine Archipelago was such a terra incognita to the outside world that little was generally known of it save the capital, Manila. When he reached there he learnt, to his dismay, that the renowned practitioner was a political exile who lived in an out-of-the-way place in Mindanao Island. Intent on his purpose, he took ship and found the abode of Dr. Rizal. The American had been forsaken by his daughter in Manila, where she eventually married a young native who had neither craft nor fortune. The adopted daughter, therefore, was his companion to Dapítan. When they arrived at the bungalow the bright eyes of the lovely Josephine interested the doctor far more than the sombre diseased organs of her foster-father. The exile and the maiden, in short, fell in love with each other, and they mutually vowed never to be parted but by force. The old manʼs eyes were past all cure, and in vain he urged the girl to depart with him; love dissented from the proposition, and the patient found his way back to Manila, and thence to Hong-Kong, with his Macao servant—a sadder, but a wiser man. The foster-child remained behind to share the hut of the political exile. When, an hour after her marriage, she became Widow Rizal, her husbandʼs corpse, which had received sepulture in the cemetery, was guarded by soldiers for four days lest the superstitious natives should snatch the body and divide it into a thousand relics of their lamented idol. Then Josephine started off for the rebel camp at Imus. On her way she was often asked, “Who art thou?” but her answer, “Lo! I am thy sister, the widow of Rizal!” not only opened a passage for her, but brought low every head in silent reverence. Amidst mourning and triumph she was conducted to the presence of the rebel commander-in-chief, Emilio Aguinaldo, who received her with the respect due to the sorrowing relict of their departed hero. But the formal tributes of condolence were followed by great rejoicing in the camp. She was the only free white woman within the rebel lines. They lauded her as though an angelic being had fallen from the skies; they sang her praises as if she were a modern Joan of Arc sent by heaven to lead the way to victory over the banner of Castile. But she chose, for the time being, to follow a more womanly vocation, and, having been escorted to San Francisco de Malabon, she took up her residence in the convent to tend the wounded for about three weeks. Then, when the battle of Perez Dasmariñas was raging, our heroine sallied forth on horseback with a Mäuser rifle over her shoulder, and—as she stated with pride to a friend of mine who interviewed her—she had the satisfaction of shooting dead one Spanish officer, and then retreated to her convent refuge. Again, she was present at the battle of Silan, where her heroic example of courage infused new life into her brother rebels. The carnage on both sides was fearful, but in the end the rebels fell back, and there, from a spot amidst mangled corpses, rivulets of blood, and groans of death, Josephine witnessed many a scene of Spanish barbarity—the butchery of old inoffensive men and women, children caught up by the feet and dashed against the walls, and the bayonet-charge on the host of fugitive innocents. The rebels having been beaten everywhere when Lachambre took the field, Josephine had to follow in their retreat, and after Imus and Silan were taken, she, with the rest, had to flee to another province, tramping through 23 villages on the way. She was about to play another rôle, being on the point of going to Manila to organize a convoy of arms and munitions, when she heard that certain Spaniards were plotting against her life. So she sought an interview with the Gov.-General, who asked her if she had been in the rebel camp at Imus. She replied fearlessly in the affirmative, and, relying on the security from violence afforded by her sex and foreign nationality, there passed between her and the Gov.-General quite an amusing and piquant colloquy. “What did you go to Imus for?” inquired the General. “What did you go there for?” rejoined Josephine. “To fight,” said the General. “So did I,” answered Josephine. “Will you leave Manila?” asked the General. “Why should I?” queried Josephine. “Well,” said the General, “the priests will not leave you alone if you stay here, and they will bring false evidence against you. I have no power to overrule theirs.” “Then what is the use of the Gov.-General?” pursued our heroine; but the General dismissed the discussion, which was becoming embarrassing, and resumed it a few days later by calling upon her emphatically to quit the Colony. At this second interview the General fumed and raged, and our heroine too stamped her little foot, and, woman-like, avowed “she did not care for him; she was not afraid of him.” It was temerity born of inexperience, for one word of command from the General could have sent her the way many others had gone, to an unrevealed fate. Thus matters waxed hot between her defiance and his forbearance, until visions of torture—thumb-screws and bastinado—passed so vividly before her eyes that she yielded, as individual force must, to the collective power which rules supreme, and reluctantly consented to leave the fair Philippine shores in May, 1897, in the s.s. Yuensang, for a safer resting-place on the British soil of Hong-Kong.
The execution of Dr. Rizal was a most impolitic act. It sent into the field his brother Pasciano with a large following, who eventually succeeded in driving every Spaniard out of their native province of La Laguna. They also seized the lake gunboats, took an entire Spanish garrison prisoner, and captured a large quantity of stores. Pasciano rose to the rank of general before the rebellion ended.[11]
General Fernando Primo de Rivera, Marquis de Estella, arrived in Manila, as the successor of General Camilo Polavieja, in the spring of 1897. He knew the country and the people he was called upon to pacify, having been Gov.-General there from April, 1880, to March, 1883. A few days after his arrival he issued a proclamation offering an amnesty to all who would lay down their arms within a prescribed period. Many responded to this appeal, for the crushing defeat of the rebels in Cavite Province, accompanied by the ruthless severity of the soldiery during the last Captain-Generalcy, had damped the ardour of thousands of would-be insurgents. The rebellion was then confined to the north of Manila, but, since Aguinaldo had evacuated Cavite and joined forces with Llaneras, the movement was carried far beyond the Provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga. Armed mobs had risen in Pangasinán, Zambales, Ilocos, Nueva Ecija, and Tárlac. Many villages were entirely reduced to ashes by them; crops of young rice too unripe to be useful to anybody were wantonly destroyed; pillage and devastation were resorted to everywhere to coerce the peaceful inhabitants to join in the movement. On the other hand, the nerves of the priests were so highly strung that they suspected every native, and, by persistently launching false accusations against their parishioners, they literally made rebels. Hence at Candon (Ilocos Sur), a town of importance on the north-west coast of Luzon, five influential residents were simply goaded into rebellion by the frenzied action of the friars subordinate to the Bishop of Vigan, Father José Hévia de Campomanes. These residents then killed the parish priest, and without arms fled for safety to the mountain ravines. A few months before, at the commencement of the rebellion, this same Austin friar, Father Rafael Redondo, had ignominiously treated his own and other native curates by having them stripped naked and tied down to benches, where he beat them with the prickly tail of the ray-fish to extort confessions relating to conspiracy. In San Fernando de la Union the native priests Adriano Garcés, Mariano Gaerlan, and Mariano Dacanaya were tortured with a hot iron applied to their bodies to force a confession that they were freemasons. The rebels attacked Bayambang (Pangasinán), drove out the Spanish garrison, seized the church and convent in which they had fortified themselves, made prisoner the Spanish priest, burnt the Government stores, Court-house, and Spanish residences, but carefully avoided all interference with the British-owned steam rice-mill and paddy warehouses. Troops were sent against them by special train from Tárlac, and they were beaten out of the place with a loss of about 100 individuals; but they carried off their clerical prisoner. General Monet operated in the north against the rebels with Spanish and native auxiliary forces. He attacked the armed mobs in Zambales Province, where encounters of minor importance took place almost daily, with no decisive victory for either party. He showed no mercy and took no prisoners; his troops shot down or bayoneted rebels, non-combatants, women and children indiscriminately. Tillage was carried on at the risk of oneʼs life, for men found going out to their lands were seized as spies and treated with the utmost severity as possible sympathizers with the rebels. He carried this war of extermination up to Ilocos, where, little by little, his forces deserted him. His auxiliaries went over to the rebels in groups. Even a few Spaniards passed to the other side, and after a protracted struggle which brought no advantage to the Government, he left garrisons in several places and returned to Manila. In Aliaga (Nueva Ecija) the Spaniards had no greater success. The rebels assembled there in crowds, augmented by the fugitive mobs from Pangasinán, and took possession of the town. The Spaniards, under General Nuñez, attacked them on two sides, and there was fought one of the most desperate battles of the north. It lasted about six hours: the slaughter on both sides was appalling. The site was strewn with corpses, and as the rebels were about to retreat General Nuñez advanced to cut them off, but was so severely wounded that he had to relinquish the command on the field. But the flight of the insurgents was too far advanced to rally them, and they retired south towards Pampanga.
In Tayabas the officiousness of the Governor almost brought him to an untimely end. Two well-known inhabitants of Pagsanján (La Laguna) were accused of conspiracy, and, without proof, court-martialled and executed. The Governor went to witness the scene, and returning the next day with his official suite, he was waylaid near Lucbang by a rebel party, who killed one of the officers and wounded the Governor. Filipinos returning to Manila were imprisoned without trial, tortured, and shipped back to Hong-Kong as deck passengers. The wet season had fully set in, making warfare in the provinces exceedingly difficult for the raw Spanish recruits who arrived to take the place of the dead, wounded, and diseased. Spain was so hard pressed by Cuban affairs that the majority of these last levies were mere boys, ignorant of the use of arms, ill clad, badly fed, and with months of pay in arrear. Under these conditions they were barely a match for the sturdy Islanders, over mountains, through streams, mud-pools, and paddy-fields. The military hospitals were full; the Spaniards were as far off extinguishing the Katipunan as the rebels were from being able to subvert Spanish sovereignty. The rebels held only two impregnable places, namely Angat and San Mateo, but whilst they carried on an interminable guerilla warfare they as carefully avoided a pitched battle. The Gov.-General, then, had resort to another edict, dated July 2, 1897, which read thus:—