A History of the Philippines

by David P. Barrows

Rebellion of 1896.—A general attack and slaughter of the Spaniards was planned for the 20th of August, 1896. The plot was discovered by the priest of Binondo, Padre Gil, who learned of the movement through the wife of one of the conspirators, and within a few hours the government had seized several hundred persons who were supposed to be implicated. The arrests included many rich and prominent Filipinos, and at the end of some weeks the Spanish prisons contained over five thousand suspects. Over one thousand of these were almost immediately exiled to far-distant Spanish prisons—Fernando Po, on the west coast of Africa, and the fortress of Ceuta, on the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile the Katipunan was organizing its forces for struggle. On the 26th of August, one thousand insurgents attacked Caloocan, and four days later a pitched battle was fought at San Juan del Monte. In this last fight the insurgents suffered great loss, their leader, Valenzuela, was captured and, with three companions, shot on the Campo de Bagumbayan. The rising continued, however, and the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, and Nueva Ecija were soon in full rebellion. The center of revolt, however, proved to be Cavite, This province was almost immediately cleared of Spaniards, except the long neck of land containing the town of Cavite and protected by the fleet. Here the insurgents received some organization under a young man, who had been prominent in the Katipunan—Emilio Aguinaldo.

The governor-general, Blanco, a humane man, who afterwards for a short time commanded in Cuba, was recalled, and General Polavieja replaced him. The Spanish army at the beginning of the revolt had consisted of but fifteen hundred troops, but so serious was the revolt regarded that Spain, although straining every energy at the moment to end the rebellion in Cuba, strengthened the forces in the Philippines, until Polavieja had an army of twenty-eight thousand Spaniards assisted by several loyal Filipino regiments. With this army a fierce campaign in Cavite province was conducted, which after fifty-two days’ hard fighting ended in the defeat of the insurgents and the scattering of their forces.

Emilio Aguinaldo.

Death of Dr. Rizal.—For the moment it looked as though the rebellion might pass. Then the Spanish government of Polavieja disgraced itself by an act as wanton and cruel as it was inhuman and impolitic.

Four years Dr. Rizal had spent in exile at Dapitan. He had lived quietly and under surveillance, and it was impossible that he could have had any share in this rebellion of 1898. Wearied, however, with his inactivity, he solicited permission to go as an army doctor to the dreadful Spanish hospitals in Cuba. This request was granted in July, and Rizal had the misfortune to arrive in Manila at the very moment of discovery of the rebellion in August. Governor Blanco hastened to send him to Spain with a most kindly letter to the minister of war, in which he vouched for his independence of the events which were taking place in Manila.

His enemies, however, could not see him escape. Their persecution followed him to the Peninsula, and, upon his arrival in Spain, Rizal was at once arrested and sent back to Manila a prisoner. His friend Blanco had gone. Polavieja, the friend and tool of the reactionary party, was busy punishing by imprisonment, banishment or death all Filipinos who could be shown to have the slightest part or association in the movement for reform. And by this clique Dr. Rizal was sentenced to execution. He was shot early on the morning of December 30, 1896.[9] At his death the insurrection flamed out afresh. It now spread to Pangasinan, Zambales, and Ilocos.

End of the Revolt by Promises of Reform.—Polavieja returned to Spain, and was succeeded by Gen. Primo de Rivera, who arrived in the spring of 1897. The Spanish troops had suffered several recent reverses and the country swarmed with insurgents. The policy of Primo de Rivera was to gain by diplomacy where the energy of his predecessor had failed. In July, 1897, an amnesty proclamation was issued, and in August the governor-general opened negotiations with Aguinaldo, whose headquarters were now in the mountains of Angat in Bulacan. Primo de Rivera urged the home government to make some reforms, which would greatly lessen the political importance of the friars. He was vehemently opposed by the latter, but it was probably upon the promise of reform that Aguinaldo and his fellow-insurgents agreed, for the payment of 1,700,000 pesos, to surrender their arms, dismiss the insurgent forces, and themselves retire from the Islands. This agreement was made, and on December 27, 1897, Aguinaldo left the port of Sual for Hongkong.

The Spanish Misrule Ended.—Conditions in the provinces still continued very unsatisfactory, and in its very last hours the Spanish government lost the remnant of its prestige with the people by a massacre in Calle Camba, Binondo, of a company of Bisayan sailors. Ten days after this occurrence a revolt blazed out on the island of Cebu. Had events taken their course, what would have been the final conclusion of the struggle between Spaniards and Filipinos it is impossible to say. On the 25th day of April the United States declared war upon Spain, and the first day of May an American fleet reached Manila harbor, and in the naval fight off Cavite, Spanish dominion, which had lasted with only one brief interruption for 332 years, was broken.