636 



PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



and especially the penalty of confiscation that the 

 authorities enforce frequently and arbitrarily, sud- 

 denly stripping of all their possessions active and 

 prosperous men who have fallen under their ban or 

 perhaps excited their cupidity. The Cuban insur- 

 rection seemed to offer to the natives an opportu- 

 nity to throw off the Spanish yoke. The spirit of 

 rebellion was everywhere rife, and the friends of 

 revolution were sure of the sympathy or support of 

 the whole Malay and mestizo population, of the na- 

 tive army, and of the Chinese and Japanese and 

 most of the European mercantile community. 



A secret revolutionary society was formed, de- 

 noted by the Spanish officials as Free Masons. The 

 object was to drive the Spaniards from the coun- 

 try and set up a republic. The movement was di- 

 rected from Hong-Kong, where the headquarters of 

 the society were established. There were other 

 leaders in Japan and in Spain, and a connection 

 was formed with some of the Cuban revolutionists. 

 One of the features of the conspiracy was the sign- 

 ing of blood brotherhood between the members, 

 done by making an incision in the left arm or left 

 knee with a penknife and signing a compact with 

 the mingled blood. The plot was as secret, deep- 

 laid, widely ramified, and bloody as any of the 

 characteristic Malay conspiracies. The plan was to 

 fall suddenly upon the Spanish posts and convents 

 and massacre all the officials and priests, and then 

 invest the fortress at Manila and reduce it before 

 the Spanish Government could send relief. The 

 secret was revealed by the wife of Pedro Roxas, the 

 most liberal financial supporter and the most am- 

 bitious leader of the revolution, who aspired to be 

 president or emperor of the new nation. The 

 woman disclosed the plot to a priest in the confes- 

 sional, and he communicated it to the Governor, 

 Marshal Blanco, who sent a request to Madrid for 

 re-enforcements, ostensibly to cope with the Malays 

 of Mindanao, who had been in rebellion for months 

 and held the whole country outside of the Spanish 

 lines. The authorities proceeded to make whole- 

 sale arrests among the ablest, richest, and best edu- 

 cated people of the islands. Pedro Roxas and his 

 cousin, F. L. Roxas, two of the wealthiest planters 

 of the Philippines, were arrested and their property 

 was confiscated. Among the 300 persons .arrested 

 was an American, Thomas T. Collins, who had an 

 old claim against the Spanish Government for arbi- 

 trarily destroying his business and confiscating his 

 assets in 1874. In Spain members of the Philippine 

 Club, of Madrid, and other persons connected with 

 the islands were placed under arrest. The Govern- 

 ment dispatched at once 2,000 re-enforcements. The 

 existence of a vast organization of secret revolu- 

 tionary societies to secure liberty for the Philip- 

 pines, having newspaper organs in Hong-Kong and 

 Yokohama, branches in Manila, Iloilo, and Cebir, 

 and agents in Madrid, New York, and San Fran- 

 cisco, was asserted in a newspaper of Saragossa just 

 before the outbreak. The plan of the Manila con- 

 spirators was to murder Capt.-Gen. Blanco on Sept. 

 15, and to massacre the officials and seize the town, 

 and, if possible, the citadel on the occasion of his 

 funeral. 



The arrest of the leaders precipitated the insur- 

 rection, which broke out on Aug. 20 in the suburbs 

 of Manila, Callocan. Santa Mesa, Pandacan, and 

 Maytubig. The insurgents planned to seize the 

 electric-light works, and to massacre the Spaniards 

 after throwing the city into darkness. The Span- 

 ish Governor enrolled volunteers, and English and 

 other foreigners formed a corps to assist the troops 

 in defending the city. The Government forces 

 were stronger and better armed, and after three 

 days of fighting, in which many fell on both sides, 

 the rebels retired into the provinces. Fresh arrests 



were made every day among the citizens of Manila, 

 and under martial law prisoners were brought out 

 and shot in sight of the people on the public plaza. 

 The prisons of Manila were crowded, and between 

 300 and 400 prisoners were deported to the Caroline 

 Islands. About 4.000 poorly armed rebels were 

 driven into the mountains, where fresh recruits 

 joined their ranks daily. They took possession of 

 Cavite, the Spanish naval station, 8 miles from 

 Manila, where they obtained a supply of Mauser 

 rifles, and of Matabon on the other side, and held 

 all the provinces beyond. The immediate vicinity 

 of Manila was held by the Spaniards, who concen- 

 trated all their forces there that were not shut up 

 by the rebels in the citadels of the provinces. In 

 their attacks on the suburbs of Manila, the last one 

 of which was made on Aug. 30 by 2.000 men, who 

 were repelled with a loss of 60 killed, the rebels 

 discriminated between foreigners, whom they had 

 no desire to injure, and the Spaniards, whom they 

 treated everywhere with indescribable cruelty. The 

 Spaniards, who were instructed from home to show 

 no mercy, committed atrocities as horrible and 

 malignant as the ingenious cruelties of the Malays. 

 They confined 169 prisoners in a dungeon under the 

 bastions of the fort of San Sebastion. where the rising 

 of the tide stopped the small ventilating aperture, 

 with the result that 54 were smothered to death 

 during the night and 16 succumbed later. Other 

 prisoners were packed so closely on steamers that 

 many perished of suffocation. The tortures of the 

 Spanish Inquisition, such as the thumbscrew, the 

 dripping of water drop by drop on the head, driv- 

 ing nails through the fingers, etc., were practiced 

 on prisoners to extort confessions. On both sides 

 such Oriental horrors as mutilation and disembowel- 

 ing alive were common. The Spanish troops cut 

 down a native band that had surrendered, in retali- 

 tion for which a Spanish lieutenant was seized by a 

 mob of Indians and, his native bodyguard desert- 

 ing-, was pinned to a tree and tortured to death and 

 his wife and daughter were maltreated. The Span- 

 iards disabled their native foes by shooting them 

 in the legs in order to subject them later to torture. 

 The most shocking barbarities were committed on 

 the friars who fell into the hands of the revolution- 

 ists, who dismembered some, a limb each day, and 

 hung others to trees, saturated their clothing, and 

 sri iliern on fire. Such was the fate of nearly 100 

 Dominican monks and others. After a while the 

 Spaniards took no prisoners in their skirmishes with 

 the rebel forces, killing all who surrendered. The 

 arrests were continued in the capital, and every other 

 day prisoners were shot in public in order to spread 

 terror among the native population. On one morn- 

 ing 30 were shot. The Chinese merchants departed 

 for Singapore and Hong-Kong as fast as the steam- 

 ers could carry them. On Sept. 1 1 were shot 13 

 native Government officials, rich proprietors, pro- 

 fessional men, and merchants. 



Although the regular garrison was strengthened 

 by 1,700 Spanish volunteers, Gen. Blanco would not 

 venture to attack the rebels who concentrated in 

 Cavite, for fear that the native troops would revolt 

 in a body. These troops were not taken into ac- 

 tion, because they were reluctant to fire upon their 

 own people, and escaped when they got a chance to 

 join the insurrection. Weapons were supplied to 

 the rebels by merchants of Hong-Kong. Amoy. and 

 Singapore after the insurrection started, until they 

 had about 8,000 Mauser rifles, besides old ones and 

 the long knives called bolos in abundance. There 

 were 25,000 or more insurgents under arms in the 

 provinces of Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva 

 Ecija, Tarlac, Laguna, Batangas, and Manila. The 

 Spanish gunboats bombarded Imus and other places 

 where movements of the rebel forces could be de- 



