The Story of the Philippines
Natural Riches, Industrial Resources, Statistics of Productions, Commerce and Population; The Laws, Habits, Customs, Scenery and Conditions of the Cuba of the East Indies and the Thousand Islands of the Archipelagoes of India and Hawaii, With Episodes of Their Early History
The Eldorado of the Orient
Personal Character Sketches of and Interviews with Admiral Dewey, General Merritt, General Aguinaldo and the Archbishop of Manila.
History and Romance, Tragedies and Traditions of our Pacific Possessions.
Events of the War in the West with Spain, and the Conquest of Cuba and Porto Rico.
By Murat Halstead,
War Correspondent in America and Europe, Historian of the Philippine Expedition.
Splendidly and Picturesquely Illustrated with Half-Tone Engravings from Photographs, Etchings from Special Drawings, and the Military Maps of the Philippines, Prepared by the War Department of the United States.
Our Possessions Publishing Co.
1898
The engravings in this volume were made from original photographs, and are specially protected by copyright; and notice is hereby given, that any person or persons guilty of reproducing or infringing upon the copyright in any way will be dealt with according to law.
Inscribed
To the Soldiers and Sailors
of
The Army and Navy of the United States,
With Admiration for Their Achievements
In the War With Spain;
Gratitude for the Glory They Have Gained for the American Nation,
And Congratulations That All the People of All the
Country Rejoice in the Cloudless Splendor of Their Fame
That is the Common and Everlasting
Inheritance of Americans.
Author’s Preface.
The purpose of the writer of the pages herewith presented has been to offer, in popular form, the truth touching the Philippine Islands. I made the journey from New York to Manila, to have the benefit of personal observations in preparing a history for the people. Detention at Honolulu shortened my stay in Manila, but there was much in studies at the former place that was a help at the latter. The original programme was for me to accompany General Merritt, Commander-in-Chief of the Philippine Expedition, but illness prevented its full realization, and when I arrived in Manila Bay the city had already been “occupied and possessed” by the American army; and the declaration of peace between the United States and Spain was made, the terms fully agreed upon with the exception of the settlement of the affairs of the Philippines. While thus prevented from witnessing stirring military movements other than those attending the transfer of our troops across the Pacific Ocean, an event in itself of the profoundest significance, the reference of the determination of the fate of the Philippine Islands to the Paris Conference, and thereby to the public opinion of our country, in extraordinary measure increased the general sensibility as to the situation of the southern Oriental seas affecting ourselves, and enhanced the value of the testimony taken on the spot of observers of experience, with the training of journalism in distinguishing the relative pertinence and potency of facts noted. Work for more than forty years, in the discussion from day to day of current history, has qualified me for the efficient exercise of my faculties in the labor undertaken. It has been my undertaking to state that which appeared to me, so that the reader may find pictures of the scenes that tell the Story that concerns the country, that the public may with enlightenment solve the naval, military, political, commercial and religious problems we are called upon by the peremptory pressure of the conditions local, and international, to solve immediately. This we have to do, facing the highest obligations of citizenship in the great American Republic, and conscious of the incomparably influential character of the principles that shall prevail through the far-reaching sweep of the policies that will be evolved. I have had such advantages in the assurance of the authenticity of the information set forth in the chapters following, that I may be permitted to name those it was my good fortune to consult with instructive results; and in making the acknowledgments due. I may be privileged to support the claim of diligence and success in the investigations made, and that I am warranted in the issue of this Story of the Philippines by the assiduous improvement of an uncommon opportunity to fit myself to serve the country.
Indebtedness for kind consideration in this work is gratefully acknowledged to Major-General Merritt, commanding the Philippine Expedition; Major-General Otis, who succeeds to the duties of military and civil administration in the conquered capital of the islands; Admiral George Dewey, who improved, with statesmanship, his unparalleled victory in the first week of the war with Spain, and raised the immense questions before us; General F.V. Greene, the historian of the Russo-Turkish war, called by the President to Washington, and for whose contributions to the public intelligence he receives the hearty approval and confidence of the people; Major Bell, the vigilant and efficient head of the Bureau of Information at the headquarters of the American occupation in the Philippines; General Aguinaldo, the leader of the insurgents of his race in Luzon, and His Grace the Archbishop of Manila, who gave me a message for the United States, expressing his appreciation of the excellence of the behavior of the American army in the enforcement of order, giving peace of mind to the residents in the distracted city of all persuasions and conditions, and of the service that was done civilization in the prevention, by our arms, of threatened barbarities that had caused sore apprehension; and, I may add, the Commissioner of the Organized People of the Philippines, dispatched to Washington accompanying General Greene; and of the citizens of Manila of high character, and conductors of business enterprises with plants in the community whose destiny is in the hands of strangers.
These gentlemen I may not name, for there are uncertainties that demand of them and command me to respect the prudence of their inconspicuity. This volume seems to me to be justified, and I have no further claim to offer that it is meritorious than that it is faithful to facts and true to the country in advocacy of the continued expansion of the Republic, whose field is the world.
Steamship China, Pacific Ocean, September 20, 1898.
The Origin of this Story of the Philippines.
The letter following is the full expression by the author of this volume of his purposes and principles in making the journey to the East Indies.
Going to the Philippines.
Washington City, D.C., July 18.
With the authorization of the Military Authorities, I shall go to the Philippine Islands with General Merritt, the Military Governor, and propose to make the American people better acquainted with that remarkable and most important and interesting country. The presence of an American army in the Philippines is an event that will change broad and mighty currents in the world’s history. It has far more significance than anything transpiring in the process of the conquest of the West India possessions of Spain, for the only question there, ever since the Continental colonies of the Spanish crown won their independence, has been the extent of the sacrifices the Spaniards, in their haughty and vindictive pride, would make in fighting for a lost Empire and an impossible cause with an irresistible adversary. That the time was approaching when, with the irretrievable steps of the growth of a living Nation of free people, we would reach the point where it should be our duty to accept the responsibility of the dominant American power, and accomplish manifest Destiny by adding Cuba and Porto Rico to our dominion, has for half a century been the familiar understanding of American citizens. Spain, by her abhorrent system, personified in Weyler, and illustrated in the murderous blowing up of the Maine with a mine, has forced this duty upon us; and though we made war unprepared, the good work is going on, and the finish of the fight will be the relegation of Spain, whose colonial governments have been, without exception, disgraceful and disastrous to herself, and curses to the colonists, to her own peninsula. This will be for her own good, as well as the redemption of mankind from her unwholesome foreign influences, typified as they are in the beautiful city of Havana, which has become the center of political plagues and pestilential fevers, whose contagion has at frequent intervals reached our own shores.
In the Philippine Islands the situation is for us absolutely novel. It cannot be said to be out of the scope of reasonable American expansion and is in the right line of enlarging the area of enlightenment and stimulating the progress of civilization. The unexpected has happened, but it is not illogical. It must have been written long ago on the scroll of the boundless blue and the stars. The incident of war was the “rush” order of the President of the United States to Admiral Dewey to destroy the Spanish fleet at Manila, for the protection of our commerce. The deed was done with a flash of lightning, and lo! we hold the golden key of a splendid Asiatic archipelago of a thousand beautiful and richly endowed islands in our grip. This is the most brilliant and startling achievement in the annals of navies. Never before had the sweep of sea power, ordered through the wires that make the world’s continents, oceans and islands one huge whispering gallery, such striking exemplification. There was glory and fame in it, and immeasurable material for the making of history. We may paraphrase Dr. Johnson’s celebrated advertisement of the widow’s brewery by saying: Admiral Dewey’s victory was not merely the capture of a harbor commanding a great city, one of the superb places of the earth, and the security of a base of operations to wait for reinforcements commensurate with the resources of the United States of America—the victorious hero fixed his iron hand upon a wonderful opportunity it was the privilege of our Government to secure at large, according to the rights of a victorious Nation for the people thereof—a chance for the youth of America, like that of the youth of Great Britain, to realize upon the magnificence of India; and this is as Dr. Johnson said of the vats and barrels of the Thrale estate—“the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.” It is a new departure, but not a matter for the panic or apprehension of conservatism, that the Stars and Stripes float as the symbol of sovereignty over a group of islands in the waters of Asia, that are equal to all the West Indies. If we are strangers there now we shall not be so long. We have a front on the Pacific Ocean, of three great States—Washington, equal to England; Oregon, whose grandeur rolls in the sound of her famous name, and incomparable California, whose title will be the synonym of golden good times forever. The Philippines are southwest from our western front doors. They have been the islands of our sunsets in the winter. Now they look to us for the rosy dawn out of which will come the clear brightness of the white light of mornings and the fullness of the ripening noons, all the year around. With our bulk of the North American continent bulging into both the great oceans, it was foreordained since the beginning when God created the earth, that we, the possessors of this imperial American zone, should be a great Asiatic Power. We have it now in evidence, written in islands among the most gorgeous of those that shine in the Southern seas—islands that are east from the Atlantic and west from the Pacific shores of the One Great Republic—that we may personify hereafter, sitting at the head of the table when the empires of the earth consult themselves as to the courses of empire. Our Course of Empire is both east and west.
The contact of American and Asiatic civilization in the Philippines, with the American army there, superseding the Spaniards, will be memorable as one of the matters of chief moment in the closing days of the nineteenth century, and remembered to date from for a thousand years. It is my purpose to write of this current history while it is a fresh, sparkling stream, and attempt something more than the recitation of the news of the day, as it is condensed and restrained in telegrams; to give it according to the extent of my ability and the advantages of my opportunity, the local coloring, the characteristic scenery; the pen pictures of the people and their pursuits; sketches of the men who are doers of deeds that make history; studies of the ways and means of the islanders; essays to indicate the features of the picturesque of the strange mixture of races; the revolutionary evolutions of politics; the forces that pertain to the mingling of the religions of the Occident and the Orient, in a chemistry untried through the recorded ages. It is a tremendous canvas upon which I am to labor, and I know full well how inadequate the production must be, and beg that this index may not be remembered against me. It is meant in all modesty, and I promise only that there will be put into the task the expertness of experience and the endeavor of industry.
Murat Halstead.
Author’s Preface
The Origin of This Story of the Philippines
Chapter I
Admiral Dewey on His Flagship
A Stormy Day on Manila Bay—Call on Admiral Dewey—The Man in White—He Sticks to His Ship—How He Surprised the Spaniards—Every Man Did His Duty on May-Day—How Dewey Looks and Talks—What He Said About War With Germany in Five Minutes—Feeds His Men on “Delicious”
Fresh Meat from Australia—Photography Unjust to Him
Chapter II
Life in Manila
Character of the Filipinos—Drivers Lashing Laboring Men in the Streets—What Americans Get in Their Native Air—The Logic of Destiny—Manila as She Fell Into Our Hands—The Beds in the Tropics—A Spanish Hotel—Profane Yells for Ice—Sad Scenes in the Dining Room—Major-General Calls for “Francisco”—A Broken-Hearted Pantry Woman
Chapter III
From Long Island to Luzon
Across the Continent—An American Governor-General Steams Through the Golden Gate—He is a Minute-Man—Honolulu as a Health Resort—The Lonesome Pacific—The Skies of Asia—Dreaming Under the Stars of the Scorpion—The Southern Cross
Chapter IV
Interview With General Aguinaldo
The Insurgent Leader’s Surroundings and Personal Appearance—His Reserves and Ways of Talking—The Fierce Animosity of the Filipinos Toward Spanish Priests—A Probability of Many Martyrs in the Isle of Luzon
Chapter V
The Philippine Mission
Correspondence with Aguinaldo About It—Notes by Senor Felipe Agoncillo—Relations Between Admiral Dewey and Senor Aguinaldo—Terms of Peace Made by Spanish Governor-General with Insurgents, December, 1897—Law Suit Between Aguinaldo and Arlacho—Aguinaldo’s Proclamation of May 21, 1898
Chapter VI
The Proclamations of General Aguinaldo
June 16th, 1898, Establishing Dictatorial Government—June 20th, 1898, Instructions for Elections—June 23d, 1898, Establishing Revolutionary Government—June 23d, 1898, Message to Foreign Powers—June 27th, 1898, Instructions Concerning Details—July 23d, 1898, Letter from Senor Aguinaldo to General Anderson—August 1st, 1898, Resolution of Revolutionary Chiefs Asking Recognition—August 6th, 1898, Message to Foreign Powers Asking Recognition
Chapter VII
Interview With Archbishop of Manila
Insurgents’ Deadly Hostility to Spanish Priests—The Position of the Archbishop as He Defined It—His Expression of Gratitude to the American Army—His Characterization of the Insurgents—A Work of Philippine Art—The Sincerity of the Archbishop’s Good Words
Chapter VIII
Why We Hold the Philippines
The Responsibility of Admiral Dewey—We Owe It to Ourselves to Hold the Philippines—Prosperity Assured by Our Permanent Possession—The Aguinaldo Question—Character Study of the Insurgent Leader—How Affairs Would Adjust Themselves for Us—Congress Must Be Trusted to Represent the People and Firmly Establish International Policy
Chapter IX
The Philippine Islands as They Are
Area and Population—Climate—Mineral Wealth—Agriculture—Commerce and Transportation—Revenue and Expenses—Spanish Troops—Spanish Navy—Spanish Civil Administration—Insurgent Troops—Insurgent Civil Administration—United States Troops—United States Navy—United States Civil Administration—The Future of the Islands
Chapter X
Official History of the Conquest of Manila
The Pith of the Official Reports of the Capture of Manila, by Major-General Wesley Merritt, Commanding the Philippine Expedition; General Frank V. Greene, General Arthur McArthur, and General Thomas Anderson, with the Articles of Capitulation, Showing How 8,000 Americans Carried an Intrenched City with a Garrison of 13,000 Spaniards, and Kept Out 14,000 Insurgents—The Difficulties of American Generals with Philippine Troops
Chapter XI
The Administration of General Merritt
The Official Gazette Issued at Manila—Orders and Proclamation of Major-General Wesley Merritt, Who, as Commander of the Philippine Expedition, Became, Under the Circumstances of the Capture of Manila, the Governor of That City
Chapter XII
The American Army in Manila
Why the Boys Had a Spell of Homesickness—Disadvantages of the Tropics—Admiral Dewey and His Happy Men—How Our Soldiers Passed the Time on the Ships—General Merritt’s Headquarters—What Is Public Property—The Manila Water Supply—England Our Friend—Major-General Otis, General Meritt’s Successor
Chapter XIII
The White Uniforms of Our Heroes in the Tropics
The Mother Hubbard Street Fashion in Honolulu, and That of Riding Astride—Spoiling Summer Clothes in Manila Mud—The White Raiment of High Officers—Drawing the Line on Nightshirts—Ashamed of Big Toes—Dewey and Merritt as Figures of Show—The Boys in White
Chapter XIV
A Martyr to the Liberty of Speech
Dr. Jose Rizal, the Most Distinguished Literary Man of the Philippines, Writer of History, Poetry, Political Pamphlets, and Novels, Shot on the Luneta of Manila—A Likeness of the Martyr—The Scene of His Execution, from a Photograph—His Wife Married the Day Before His Death—Poem Giving His Farewell Thoughts, Written in His Last Hours—The Works That Cost Him His Life—The Vision of Friar Rodriguez
Chapter XV
Events of the Spanish-American War
No Mystery About the Cause of the War—The Expected and the Inevitable Has Happened—The Tragedy of the Maine—Vigilant Wisdom of President McKinley—Dewey’s Prompt Triumph—The Battles at Manila and Santiago Compared—General Shafter Tells of the Battle of Santiago—Report of Wainwright Board on Movements of Sampson’s Fleet in the Destruction of Cervera’s Squadron—Stars and Stripes Raised Over Porto Rico—American and Spanish Fleets at Manila Compared—Text of Peace Protocol