  The number of islands in the Philippine group are believed to be upwards of fourteen hundred, with an aggregate land area (estimated on Domann’s map) of not less than 114,356 miles, situate in the southeast of Asia, extending from 40° 40' to 20° north latitude, and from 116° 40' to 126° 30' east longitude. The archipelago was discovered by Magellan on March 12, 1521, and named by him the St. Lazarus Islands. The discoverer was a Portuguese, who had sought service under Charles V. of Spain because he was ignored by the court of his own country. By the bull of Pope Alexander VI., of May 4, 1493, which was then universally recognised as law, the earth was divided into two hemispheres. All lands thereafter discovered in the Eastern Hemisphere were decreed to belong to Portugal; all the Western to Spain. The St. Lazarus Islands were well within Portugal’s rights, but as the use of the log and the variation of the compass were unknown, an error of fifty-two degrees in longitude was made, and to Spain the islands were given on the basis of that error. [pg 356]By whom the name of Philippines was given to the archipelago it is impossible to say. In 1567 it appears to have been used for the first time. The manufactures of the islands consist of silk, cotton, and piÑa fibres cloth, hats, mats, baskets, ropes, coarse pottery, and musical instruments. The northern islands of the archipelago lie in the region of the typhoon, and have three seasons,—the cold, the hot, and the wet. The first extends from November to February or March, when the atmosphere is bracing rather than cold. The hot season lasts from March to June, and the heat becomes very oppressive before the beginning of the southerly monsoon. Thunder-storms of terrific violence occur during May and June. The wet season begins with heavy rains, known by the natives as “collas,” and until the end of October the downpour is excessive. “Earthquakes are sufficiently frequent and violent in the Philippines to affect the style adopted in the erection of buildings; in 1874, for instance, they were very numerous throughout the archipelago, and in Manila and the adjacent provinces shocks were felt daily for several weeks. The most violent earthquakes on record in the Philippines occurred in July, 1880, when the destruction of property was immense, both in the capital and in other important towns of central Luzon.” Though situated in the equatorial region, the elevations of the mountains give a range of climate that allows the production of a great variety of valuable crops. Tobacco, sugar, hemp, and rice are the chief staples produced. The swamps and rivers are infested with crocodiles, and the dense woods with monkeys and serpents of many species. Rich deposits of gold are known to exist, but have been little developed. To quote from the Revue des Deux Mondes of Paris: [pg 357]In the same district are found Indians, Negritos, Manthras, Malays, Bicols, half-breed Indians and Spaniards, Tagalas, Visayas, Sulus, and other tribes. The Negritos (little negroes) are real negroes, blacker than a great many of their African conquerors, with woolly hair growing in isolated tufts. They are very diminutive, rarely attaining four feet nine inches in height, and with small, retreating skulls. This race forms a branch equal in importance to the Papuan. It is believed to be the first race inhabiting the Philippines, but, as well as everywhere else, except in the Andaman Islands, it has been more or less absorbed by the stronger races, and the result in the archipelago has been the formation of several tribes of half-breeds numbering considerably more than half a million. Side by side with them, and equally poor and wretched, are the Manthras, a cross between the Negritos and Malays and the degenerate descendants of the Saletes, a warlike tribe conquered by the Malayan Rajah Permicuri in 1411. Then come the Malay Sulus, all Mohammedans and still governed by their Sultan and their datos, feudal lords who, under the suzerainty of the Spaniards, have possessed considerable power. The soil is fully sufficient—indeed, more than sufficient—to support this population, whose wants are of the most limited character. The land is exceedingly fertile and bears in abundance all tropical products, particularly rice, sugar, and the abaca, a variety of the banana-tree. The fibres of the abaca are employed in making the finest and most delicate fabrics, of which from three to four million dollars’ worth are exported annually. The exports of sugar amount to about four millions and a half, of gold to two millions and a half, and of coffee and tobacco close on to a million and a quarter each. The rice is consumed at home. It forms the staple food of the people, and nearly three million dollars’ worth is imported yearly. The husbandman cannot [pg 358] In this archipelago of the Philippines, where races, manners, and traditions are so often in collision, the religious fanaticism of the Spaniards has, more than once, come into conflict with a fanaticism fully as fierce as that of the Mussulman. At a distance of six thousand leagues from Toledo and Granada, the same ancient hatreds have brought European Spaniards and Asiatic Saracens into the same relentless antagonism that swayed them in the days of the Cid and Ferdinand the Catholic. The island of Sulu, on account of its position between Mindanao and Borneo, was the commercial, political, and religious centre of the followers of the Prophet, the Mecca of the extreme Orient. From this centre they spread over the neighbouring archipelago. Dreaded as merciless pirates and unflinching fanatics, they scattered everywhere terror, ruin, and death, sailing in their light proas up the narrow channels and animated with implacable hatred for those conquering invaders, to whom they never gave quarter and from whom they never expected it; constantly beaten in pitched battle, they as constantly took again to the sea, eluding pursuit of the heavy Spanish vessels, taking refuge in bays and creeks where no one could follow them, pillaging isolated ships, surprising the villages, massacring the old men, leading away the women and the adults into slavery, pushing the audacious prows of their skiffs even up to within three hundred miles of Manila, and seizing every year nearly four thousand captives. Between the Malay creese and the Castilian carronade [pg 359] One of the characteristic qualities of the Malays is their contempt of death. They have transmitted it with their blood to the Polynesians, who see in it only one of the multiple phenomena and not the supreme act of existence, and witness it or submit to it with profound indifference. Travellers have often seen a Canaque stretch his body on a mat, while in perfect health, and without any symptom of disease whatever, and there wait patiently for the end, convinced that it is near, and refuse all nourishment and die without any apparent suffering. His relatives say of him, “He feels he is going to die,” and the imaginary patient dies, his mind possessed by some illusion, some superstitious idea, some invisible wound through which life escapes. When to this absolute indifference to death is united Mussulman fanaticism, which gives to the believer a glimpse of the gates of a paradise where the abnormally excited senses revel in endless and numberless enjoyments, a long[pg 360] The laws of Sulu make the bankrupt debtor the slave of his creditor, and not only the man himself, but his family also are enslaved. To free them there is only one means left to the husband, the sacrifice of his life. Reduced to this extremity he does not hesitate, he takes the formidable oath. From that time forward he is enrolled in the ranks of the juramentados, and has nothing to do but await the hour when the will of his superior shall let him loose upon the Christians. Meanwhile the panditas, or priests, subject him to a system of enthusiastic excitement that will turn him into a wild beast of the most formidable kind. They madden his already disordered brain, they make still more supple his oily limbs, until they have the strength of steel and the nervous force of the tiger or panther. They sing to him their rhythmic impassioned chants, which show to his entranced vision the radiant smiles of intoxicating houris. In the shadow of the lofty forests, broken by the gleam of the moonlight, they evoke the burning and sensual energies of the eternally young and beautiful companions who are calling him, opening their arms to receive him. Thus prepared, the juramentado is ready for everything. Nothing can stop him, nothing can make him recoil. He will accomplish prodigies of valour. Though stricken ten times he will remain on his feet, will strike back, borne along by a buoyancy that is irresistible, until the moment when death seizes him. He will creep with his companions into the city that has been assigned to him; he knows that he will never leave it, but he knows also that he will not die [pg 361] An eminent scientist, Doctor Montano, sent on a mission to the Philippines by the French government, describes the entry of eleven juramentados into Tianggi. Divided into three or four bands, they managed to get through the gates of the town bending under loads of fodder for cattle which they pretended to have for sale, and in which they had hidden their creeses. Quick as lightning they stabbed the guards, then, in their frenzied course, they struck all whom they met. Hearing the cry of “Los juramentados!” the soldiers seized their arms. The juramentados rushed on them fearlessly, their creeses clutched in their hands. The bullets fell like hail among them. They bent, crept, glided, and struck. One of them, whose breast was pierced through and through by a bullet, rose and flung himself on the troops. He was again transfixed by a bayonet; he remained erect, vainly trying to reach his enemy, who held him impaled on the weapon. Another soldier had to run up and blow the man’s brains out before he let go his prey. When the last of the juramentados had fallen, and the corpses were picked up from the street which consternation had rendered empty, it was found that these eleven men had, with their creeses, hacked fifteen soldiers to pieces, not to reckon the wounded. “And what wounds!” exclaims Doctor Montano; “the head of one corpse is cut off as clean as if it had been done with the sharpest razor; another soldier is almost cut in two! The first of the wounded to come under my hands was a soldier of the Third Regiment, who was mounting guard at the gate through which some of the assassins entered. His left arm was fractured in three places; his shoulder and breast were literally cut up like mince-meat; [pg 362] It is easily seen how precarious and nominal has been Spanish rule on most of the islands of this vast archipelago. In the interior of the great island of Mindanao there is no system of control, no pretence even of maintaining order. It is a land of terror, the realm of anarchy and cruelty. There murder is a regular institution. A bagani, or man of might, is a gallant warrior who has cut off sixty heads. The number is carefully verified by the tribal authorities, and the bagani alone possesses the right to wear a scarlet turban. All the batos, or chiefs, are baganis. It is carnage organised, honoured, and consecrated; and so the depopulation is frightful, the wretchedness unspeakable. The Mandayas are forced to seek a refuge from would-be baganis by perching on the tops of trees like birds, but their aerial abodes do not always shelter them from their enemies. They build a hut on a trunk from forty to fifty feet in height, and huddle together in it to pass the night, and to be in sufficient numbers to repulse their assailants. The baganis generally try to take their victims by surprise, and begin their attack with burning arrows, with which they endeavour to set on fire the bamboo roof. Sometimes the besiegers form a testudo, like the ancient Romans, with their locked shields, and advance under cover up to the posts, which they attack with their axes, while the besieged hurl down showers of stones upon their heads. But, once their ammunition is exhausted, the hapless Mandayas have nothing to do but witness, as impotent spectators, the work of destruction, until the moment comes when their habitation topples over and falls. Then the captives are divided among the assailants. The heads of the old men and of the wounded are cut off, and the women and children are led away as slaves. [pg 363]The genius of destructiveness seems incarnate in this Malay race. The missionaries alone venture to travel among these ferocious tribes. They, too, have made the sacrifice of their lives, and, holding life worth nothing, they have succeeded in winning the respect of these savages in evangelising and converting them. They work for God and for their country, and the poorest and most wretched among the natives are not unwilling to accept the faith and to submit to Spain; but the missionaries insist on their leaving their homes and going to another district, to which, for many reasons, the neophytes gladly consent. After several days’ journey a pueblo is founded. These villages have multiplied for many years past, forming oases of comparative peace and civilisation amid the barbarism by which they are surrounded, and are open to all who choose to seek a shelter in them. The more neophytes the pueblo holds, the less exposed it is to hostile incursions. Doctor Montano gives a very striking account of one of these daring missionaries, Father Saturnino Urios, of the Society of Jesus, who, in a single year, converted and baptised fifty-two hundred people. There are thirty-one islands of considerable size in the Philippine group. Their area exceeds that of Great Britain. Pine and fir-trees are abundant. Large areas are suitable for wheat. There are eight ports open to commerce. The principal exports are hemp, sugar, rice, tobacco, cigars, coffee, and cocoa. Previous to the rebellion the annual value of the sugar output was $30,000,000. Now it is almost nothing. The population of the islands is about eight million, of which more than three million are in Luzon, the insurgent stronghold. “Under the administration of Spain the Philippines were subject to a governor-general with supreme powers, assisted [pg 364] The largest island in the archipelago is Luzon, with an area of 40,885 square miles, and on which is situated the city of Manila. The population of Manila, as given in the consular reports for 1880, is in the walled town 12,000, and in the suburbs from 250,000 to 300,000. The city was founded in 1571, and is situated on the eastern shore of a circular bay 120 nautical miles in circumference. It looks like a fragment of Spain transplanted to the archipelago of Asia. On its churches and convents, even on its ruined walls, overturned in the earthquake of 1863, time has laid the brown, sombre, dull gold colouring of the mother country. The ancient city, silent and melancholy, stretches interminably along its gloomy streets, bordered with convents whose flat faÇades are only broken here and there by a few narrow windows. But there is also a new city within the ramparts of Manila; it is sometimes called the Escolta, from the name of its central quarter, and this [pg 365] Here all sorts of nationalities elbow one another,—Europeans, Chinese, Malays, Tagalas, Negritos, in all some 260,000 people of every known race and of every known colour. In the afternoon, in the plain of Lunetto, carriages and equipages of every kind drive past, and pedestrians swarm in crowds around the military band stand in the marvellously picturesque square, lit up by the slanting rays of the setting sun, which purples the lofty peaks of the Sierra de Marivels in the distance, unfolds its long, luminous train on the ocean, and tinges with a dark reddish shade the sombre verdure of the city’s sloping banks. This is the hour when all the inhabitants hold high festival, able at length to breathe freely after the heat of the noontide. The primary cause of the Philippine rebellion was excessive taxation by Spain to raise money to carry on the war in Cuba. The islands were already overburdened with assessments to enrich Spanish coffers and to support the native poor. The additional money required for Cuba was the last straw. Extreme cruelties began when General Aguirre arrived from Spain with reinforcements. He did not undertake to penetrate the mountains, but massacred the native population in the towns. When he took Santa Clara del Laguna he spared neither man, woman, nor child. The people in the mountains heard of this. They were almost wild with fury, but they were helpless. It is stated, on what seems to be good authority, that ten thousand dead prisoners had been taken from prison in a year. [pg 366]Three years ago it cost the government a little more than half a cent to collect every dollar of taxation. In Luzon, it now costs ninety-five cents. The only taxes that can be profitably collected are those in Manila. The rich islands of Leyte and Mindanao contribute practically nothing. The first islands to revolt were Luzon, Mindanao, and Leyte. About one year and a half ago, agents of the insurrectionists appealed to the government at Washington to interfere in their behalf. The petition was received and filed. In the hot season, during the greater part of the day, the heat is so intense that Europeans frequently fall with heat apoplexy. Even the Spaniards do their business in the early hours, whiling away the heat of the day in sleep. Late in the afternoon Manila begins to awaken. The Escolta, or principal street, is crowded with loungers of all ranks and colours, each with a segarito stuck pen-like behind his ear. Caromattas, a species of two-wheeled hooded cabriolets peculiar to the natives, crowd the roadway, together with the buggies and open carriages of the foreign element. At sunset the various tobacco stores close, and their thousand of employees turn out into the streets. They form a motley yet effective feature among the wayfarers. The Malay girls are usually very pretty, with languishing eyes, shaded by long lashes, and supple figures, whose graceful lines are revealed by their thin clothing. In fine weather their bare feet are thrust into light, gold-embroidered slippers. In wet weather they raise themselves on high clogs, which necessitates a very becoming swinging of the hips. There is not a bonnet to be seen. Women of the better classes affect lace and flowers, those of the lower wear their own hair flowing down their backs, in a long, blue-black wave. Jewelry is profusely worn. Every woman sparkles [pg 367] The Spaniards classify all the Philippine islanders under three religious groups,—the infidels, who have held to their ancient heathen rights, the Moors, who retain the Mahometan religion of their first conquerors, and the infinitely larger class of Catholics. An important, though numerically small, element in the population of the larger cities are the mestizos, or half-breeds, the result of admixture either between the Chinese or the Spanish and the natives. These mestizos occupy about the same social position as the mulattos of the United States. But they are the richest and most enterprising among the native population. The most important personage is the cura, or parish priest. He is in most instances a Spaniard by birth, and enrolled in one or other of the three great religious orders, Augustinian, Franciscan, or Dominican, established by the conquerors. At heart, however, he is usually as much, if not more, of a native than the natives themselves. He is bound for life to the land of his adoption. He has no social or domestic tie, no anticipated home return, to bind him to any other place. Next to the church, the greatest Sunday and holiday resort in a Philippine village is the cock-pit, usually a large building wattled like a coarse basket and surrounded [pg 368] The diet of the Philippines has something to do, undoubtedly, with their gentle and non-aggressive qualities. They eschew opium and spirituous liquors. Their chief sustenance, morning, noon, and eve, is rice. The rice crop seldom fails, not merely to support the population, but to leave a large margin for export. Famine, that hideous shadow which broods over so many a rice-subsisting population, is unknown here. Even scarcity is of rare occurrence. In the worst of years hardly a sack of grain has to be imported. It is this very abundance which stands in the way of what the world calls progress. The Malay, like other children of the tropics, limits his labour by the measure of his requirements, and that measure is narrow indeed. Hence it is often difficult to obtain his services in the development of the tobacco, coffee, hemp, and sugar industries, which might make the archipelago one of the wealthiest and most prosperous portions of the earth’s face. Manila has been once before captured from Spain. The English were its captors, although they held it only a few months. It was in 1762, a few weeks after the English capture of Havana. Spain had been rash enough to side with France in the war usually known in this country as the French and Indian war. She was speedily punished for it. The expedition against Manila was the plan of Colonel William Draper; he was made a brigadier-general for the expedition and put in command, with Admiral Cornish as [pg 369] On September 24, 1762, these forces were disembarked just south of Manila. The Archbishop of Manila, who was also governor-general of the island, collected and armed some ten thousand natives, as a reinforcement to the Spanish garrison of eight hundred. During the progress of the siege some daring attempts were made by the British to prevent the further construction of defences, but the assailants were repulsed with great slaughter. A desperate sally was made by a strong body of natives, who “ran furiously on the ranks of the besiegers and fought with almost incredible ferocity, and many of them died, like wild beasts, gnawing with their teeth the bayonets by which they were transfixed.” On October 6th a breach was effected in the Spanish works, the English carried the city by storm, and gave it up for several hours to the ravages of a merciless soldiery. The Archbishop and his officers had retired to the citadel, but this could not be defended, and a capitulation was agreed upon, by which the city and port of Manila, with several ships and the military stores, were surrendered, while for their private property the Spanish agreed to pay as a ransom $2,000,000 in coin, and the same in bills on the treasury at Madrid. This last obligation was never paid. |
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