Native Moros-Interior of Jolo.
Most implacable of all the races were the Moros of the Sulu Islands. Warlike, and despising labor, their terrible piracies had been curbed only within fifty years, and their depredations and slave raiding by land were never wholly prevented. They were suspiciously eager to “assist” our forces in subduing the insurgents. The American authorities negotiated a treaty with the Sultan and his dattos, involving their submission to the United States. A provision of this treaty excited reprobation, that permitting a slave to buy his freedom, a recognition of slavery in derogation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The provision was excused as an absolutely necessary makeshift to put off hostilities till the United States had a freer hand.
Spain never governed a colony well. Her whole record outre-mer was of a piece with the enslavement and extermination of the gentle Caribs, with which it began. In slavery and the slave trade Anglo-Saxon conquistadors shared Spain’s dishonor, but in sheer ugliness of despotism, in wholesale, systematic, selfish exploiting, and in corrupt and clumsy administration the Iberian monarchy surpassed all other powers ever called to deal with colonies. The truth of this indictment was, if possible, more manifest in the Philippines than anywhere else in the Spanish world.
The religious orders, which early achieved the conversion of Tagals, Visayas, and some other tribes, after generations of evangelical devotion, ceased to be aggressive religiously, growing opulent and oppressive instead. They were the pedestal of the civil government. Their word could, and often did, cause natives to be deported, or even put to death. One of their victims was that beautiful spirit, Dr. Rizal, author of Noli me Tangere, the most learned and distinguished Malay ever known. He had taken no part whatever in rebellion or sedition, yet, because he was known to abominate clerical misrule, he was, without a scintilla of evidence that he had broken any law, first expatriated, then shot. This murder occurring December 30, 1896, did much to further the rebellion then spreading.
“Once settled in his position, the friar, bishop, or curate usually remained till superannuated, being therefore a fixed political factor for a generation, while a Spanish civil or military officer never held post over four years. The stay of any officer attempting a course at variance with the order’s wishes was invariably shortened by monastic influence. Every abuse leading to the revolutions of 1896 and 1898 the people charged to the friars; and the autocratic power which each friar exercised over the civil officials of his parish gave them a most plausible ground for belief that nothing of injustice, of cruelty, of oppression, of narrowing liberty was imposed on them for which the friar was not entirely responsible. The revolutions against Spain began as movements against the friars.” [footnote: Abridged from Report of Taft Commission.]
Senator Hoar wrote: “I should as soon give back a redeemed soul to Satan as give back the people of the Philippine Islands to the cruelty and tyranny of Spain.”
Freemasonry in the Philippines was a redoubtable antagonist to the orders. There were other secret leagues, like the Liga Filipina, with the same aim, most of them peaceful. Not so the “Katipunan,” which adopted as its symbol the well-known initials, “K. K. K.,” “Kataas-Tassan, Kagalang-Galang, Katipunan,” “sovereign worshipful association.” If the Ku-Klux Klan did not give the hint for the society’s symbol the programmes of the two organizations were alike. The Katipunan was probably the most potent factor in the insurrection of 1896. Its cause was felt to be that of the whole Filipino people.
In December, 1897, the conflict, as in Cuba, had degenerated into a “stalemate.” The Spaniard could not be ousted, the Filipino could not be subdued. Spain ended the trouble for the time by promising reform, and hiring the insurgent leaders to leave the country. Only a small part, 400,000 Mexican dollars, of the promised sum was ever paid. This was held in Hong-Kong as a trust fund against a future uprising.
Emilio Aguinaldo.