Before I left, the whole island was seething with sedition. I was told by a credible American that the chief deputy sheriff of the court, an ex-insurgent officer, one of the “peace-at-any-price” policy appointees, had remarked among some of his own people where he did not expect the remark to be repeated: “I see no use persecuting our brethren in the hills.” The municipal officials of the provincial capital, Catbalogan, were suspected by the native provincial governor, and the latter in turn was suspected by the Manila government. In fact the whole political atmosphere of the island had become full of rumor and suspicion as to who was for the government, and who was against the government. I left Samar, November 8th, which was the day of the presidential election of 1904, determined to try no more insurrections. By that time nearly everybody in the island was more or less guilty of sedition, and I did not know the method of drawing an indictment against a whole people.
[1] Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 123.
[2] Ib., vol. i., p. 58.
[3] Says Brigadier-General Wm. H. Carter, in his annual report for 1905 covering the Samar outbreak of 1904–5: “Whatever may have been the original cause of the outbreak, it was soon lost sight of when success had drawn a large proportion of the people away from their homes and fields. Except in the largest towns it became simply a question of joining the pulajans or being harried by them. In the absence of proper protection thousands joined in the movement.” See War Department Report, 1905, vol. iii., p. 286.
[4] Bulao was situated on a high bluff on the left bank of a river called the Bangahon. The Pulajans entered before daybreak, on July 21st. There was a stiff fight at Bulao, also, between our native troops and the enemy on August 21st, but Calderon seems to have left it out of his list. See Gen. Wm. H. Carter’s Report for 1905, War Department Report, 1905, vol. iii., p. 290. Capt. Cary Crockett, a descendant of David Crockett, commanded the constabulary, and though badly wounded himself, as were also half his command, he defeated a force of Pulajans greatly outnumbering his, killing forty-one of them. Report U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 3, p. 90, Report of Col. Wallace C. Taylor. I think he was awarded a medal of honor for his work. He certainly earned it.
“Pulajan” means “red breeches,” the uniform of the mountain clans, worn whenever they set out to give trouble.
[5] Of March 23d of the previous year, already described in a previous chapter, where Luther S. Kelly—“Yellowstone” Kelly—saved the American women by gathering them and a few men in the Government House and bluffing the brigands off.
[6] The “Conant” peso, named for the noted fiscal expert, Mr. Conant. It was worth fifty cents American money.
[7] The Fourteenth U. S. Infantry was stationed in garrison just outside the town proper of Calbayog, which was three hours by steam launch from the provincial capital, Catbalogan. But the depredations might have been carried to just outside the line of the military reservation, and the military folk would not have dared to make a move save on request first made by the Civil Government at Manila. In other words the above three villages were burned under their noses.