The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912

by James H. Blount

Within a few days after the rendition of the annual report for last year[7] a serious outbreak occurred in the Gandara valley, Samar. This was followed by disorders in all the other large islands of the department, Negros, Panay, Cebu, and Leyte.

Nowhere in the civil government reports do you find the slightest recognition that these disorders had any relation to each other, or to the fundamental problem of public order, or any political significance whatsoever, each being treated as a purely local issue, the idea that the circumstance of Samar’s having been thrown into pandemonium by the successes of the enemies of the American Government might have encouraged its enemies in the neighboring islands, never seeming to occur to the authors of the said reports. General Carter’s report goes on to state that within five months after the Samar outbreak of July, 1904, seven hundred native troops had been put in the field in that turbulent island. In December, 1904, troops began to be poured into Samar, so that it was not long before the seven hundred native troops had become seventeen hundred or eighteen hundred, and, says General Carter, “in order to free them from garrison work in the towns, sixteen companies of the 12th and 14th Infantry were distributed about the disaffected coasts to enable the people who so desired to come from their hiding places”—whither they had gone because the American flag afforded them no protection—“and undertake the rebuilding of their burned homes.” General Carter avoids touching on the civil government’s (to him well-known) obsession about its popularity, a state of mind which could see no “political” significance in outbreaks of any kind. But he does use this very straightforward language about Samar:

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.

Early in 1905, Hon. George Curry, of New Mexico, who was an officer of Colonel Roosevelt’s regiment in Cuba, and had gone out to the Philippines with a volunteer regiment in 1899, remaining with the civil Government after 1901, was made Governor of Samar. Governor Curry has since been Governor of the Territory of New Mexico, and is now (1912) a member of Congress from the recently admitted State of New Mexico. Governor Curry has told me since he was elected to Congress that it took him all of 1905 and most of 1906, aided by several thousand troops, native and regular, to put down that Samar outbreak. Yet a certificate signed March 28, 1907, by the Governor-General and his associates of the Philippine Commission states that “a condition of general and complete peace” had continued in the Islands for two years previous to the date of the certificate.[8] We will come to this certificate in its chronological order later. How many and what sort of uprisings were blanketed in that “forget-it” certificate of 1907 is material to the question whether or not the National Administration has ever been or is now frank with the country about the universality of the desire of the Philippine people for independence and local self-government, and pertinent to the insistently recurring query: “Why should we make of the Philippines an American Ireland?” But inasmuch as, in addition to the Samar uprising which raged all through 1905, another insurrection occurred in that year, which was duly “forgotten” by said certificate, this last movement must now claim our attention.

The provinces which were the theatre of the outbreak last above mentioned were all near Manila. They were: Cavite, a province of 135,000 people almost at the gates of Manila; Batangas, a province of 257,000 inhabitants adjoining Cavite; and Laguna, a province of 150,000 people adjoining both. Some five hundred brigands headed by cut-throats claiming to be patriots were terrorizing whole districts. Far be it from me to lend any countenance to the idea that the leaders of this movement, Sakay, Felizardo, Montalon, and the rest of their gang, were entitled to any respect. But they certainly had a hold on the whole population akin to that of Robin Hood, Little John, and Friar Tuck. In refusing in 1907 to commute Sakay’s death sentence after he was captured, tried, and convicted, Governor-General James P. Smith gives some gruesome details concerning the performance of that worthy, and his followers, yet in dealing with the nature and extent of the trouble they gave the Manila government he says they “assumed the convenient cloak of patriotism, and under the titles of ‘Defenders of the Country’ and ‘Protectors of the People’ proceeded to inaugurate a reign of terror, devastation, and ruin in three of the most beautiful provinces in the archipelago.”[9]

It has already been made clear that, during the time of the insurrection against both the Spaniards and Americans, the insurrecto forces were maintained by voluntary contributions of the people. Major D. C. Shanks, Fourth U. S. Regular Infantry, who was Governor of Cavite Province in 1905, after calling attention to this fact, adds[10]:

When the insurrection was over a number of these leaders remained out and refused to surrender. Included among them were Felizardo and Montalon. The system of voluntary contributions, carried on during the insurrecto period, was continued after establishment of civil government.

Again Governor Shanks says, with more of frankness than diplomacy, considering that he was a provincial governor under the civil government:

The establishment of civil government of this province was premature and ill-advised. Records show the capture or surrender since establishment of civil government of nearly 600 hostile firearms.