In 1854 there was an uprising in Nueva Ecija (nö ā´vä ā thē’hä). This uprising was headed by a Spanish-Mestizo named Cuesta (kö ēs´tä), a young man of great ability and promise. He had been educated in Spain, and while there had been received at court, and had even been shown great favor by Queen Isabella. He had been much with members of the Liberal Party, then gaining strength in Spain, and had caught the new ideas of political freedom and human rights.
Cuesta came home with an earnest desire to help his people. He was made commandante of carabineros in Nueva Ecija, but before he had been long in command he incited his troops to rebellion. They attacked the Spanish officials in the province, and made war upon the friars. The revolt was put down, however, and Cuesta, with several others, was executed. Still others, who had been concerned in the uprising, were banished from the country.
All these things increased the anxiety of the Spanish over the situation in the Philippines. Young Filipino men were discouraged from going to Spain; students in the seminarios who desired to leave these schools and finish their education in Spain were refused permission to do so. The country was poor and was overrun with bandits. Natives guilty of minor offenses against the law were treated so severely that they took to the jungle, becoming outlaws. Everywhere oppression and tyranny ruled, with all the evils that these bring in their train.
THE PARIAN GATE.
The tobacco monopoly was killing all other agricultural enterprise, and the Chinese control of the trades and small business industries was keeping the people from earning money at these. The Filipinos had for some years realized the evil of allowing the Chinese thus to monopolize the trades and minor occupations, but they were powerless at that time to prevent such monopoly. They could not conduct this business for themselves; the Spanish had never been a trading people, and the islanders had had no chance to learn business methods from them.
The Spanish government in the islands had always been military, but in 1860 a civil government was formed for the province of Manila. Civil government is government by laws upheld by civil, or citizen, officials, instead of by military force. It punishes offenders through the courts, instead of by armed power.
In this same year, by command of the governor-general, the Parian, the great building where nearly all the Chinese in Manila were quartered, was destroyed. This act of the government was bitterly opposed by the Chinese and by some others; but it was carried out, in spite of great difficulties. The only reminder of the Parian now left is the Parian Gate, which gives entrance to the walled city near the point where the building once stood.
These years were marked, as well, by numerous severe earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. One or two new volcanoes were formed, and there were great disturbances in Luzon and the islands near by. In 1863 came the great earthquake of Manila—the severest that the country has ever known. Thousands of people were killed in the city and the surrounding country. The cathedral was destroyed, and the city was reduced to a mere mountain of ruins. Only the great wall, St. Augustine Church, and a few other structures withstood the shock.
After this, trouble deepened for the country. The treasury was drained to rebuild the city; the land was pinched to the last possible limit to raise tribute for the Crown; and the people were nearly desperate. The government could not meet its payments, but insisted upon the tobacco crop being cultivated each year; and great quantities of tobacco had to be sold to raise money for the needs of the moment. In 1864 lightning set fire to the general storehouse of tobacco and caused a loss of $2,000,000 to the colonial treasury.