El Caudillo Andrés Novales: An Alternate History Scenario

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While Spain was reeling from the loss of its American colonies and trying to recover from the devastation bought from the renewed conflict between the liberals and conservatives years after the Napoleonic wars has ended and Ferdinand V was restored as King of Spain, a mestizo was destined to changed the fate of then economically important but culturally backwater Spanish colony in the southeastern part of Asia called the Philippines.

His name was Andrés Novales, a 23-year-old captain of Spanish Army who personally experienced injustices both within and outside the military, he lead an army of combined forces of native Filipino soldiers and defected Spanish soldiers, almost half of whom were fellow mestizos like him, stormed the gates of Intramuros and proclaimed the independence of the Philippines on his birthday, the 12th of June, year 1823. Modern-day historians has agreed that his elder brother Mariano Novales was convinced by his younger brother to betray the former's superiors by explicitly telling Mariano not let his squadron shot on rebels and let the gates of the Intramuros open; this was confirmed by the first Captain General of the Philippine Army in his autobiography.

This is the story of the man who fought for freedom and liberty of the Philippines, while at the same time struggled to maintain his sanity and relevance against elements that he thought as hostile to his plan of an independent Philippines.
 
Yup, I've started an all-new alternate Philippines scenario, this time about a successful Novales Revolt of 1823 and its impact on the Philippines, its government and the society.

While some of you will notice that this scenario will be related to the long-running Philippine timeline (Filipinas: La Gloriosa y Más Allá, both the regular and full version), I admit that while some elements will be similar to my long-running scenario, I'll assure you that this scenario will be more or different from Filipinas: La Gloriosa y Más Allá, most specifically in Visayas and Mindanao.

Oh, by the way, I dedicate this TL to those who wrote other scenarios related to this episode in Philippine history.
 
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PROLOGUE

Andrés Novales was a captain of the Spanish Army who was born in Manila on the 12th of June, 1800. Hailed from a mestizo background, he became a cadet at the age of nine and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant five years later. In the midst of Napoleonic wars, he sought his superiors' consent to sent him to mainland Spain to fought alongside his colleagues in the Spanish Army. His dedication to the military was evident despite his demotion to an ordinary soldier once he was finally allowed by his superior to go to Madrid; he returned to the Philippines as a captain. However, his background was the subject of discrimination and other forms of injustice that he and other mestizos had suffered from their peninsular superiors and colleagues.

While he was in exile in the Mindanao fighting the pirates, the younger Novales concocted a plan that would surprise the colonial authorities in Intramuros, the center of Spanish colonial power in Asia; the said plan included the storming of the gates of the Walled City, in which include the famed citadel Fort Santiago, kill the two men who perpetrated the ongoing discrimination against the mestizo public officials and military personnel: Governor-General Juan Antonio Martínez and his deputy/predecessor Mariano Fernández de Folgueras, and proclaim the independence of the whole Philippine archipelago from the Spanish yoke. It was indeed evident that intellectuals such as Count Luis Rodríguez Varela, also an exile, participated in concocting the plan of the young mestizo captain of the Spanish Army.

Two and a half weeks before the actual revolt, Andrés secretly returned to Manila using a forged identity (Salvador Pastrana de Asis), he immediately went to his elder brother Mariano in order to convince the latter to join him in his fight against colonial tyranny. Because of his loyalty to Spain, the elder Novales was at first hesitant to accept his younger brother's offer; he suddenly changed his mind when Andrés promised his elder brother that he would become the Captain General of his army once his revolt was successful. In fact, the elder Novales has suggested that he would tell the troops that stationed in Fort Santiago not to shoot the rebels and let the gates of the citadel open, and he indeed later secretly told the Fort Santiago troops on the night of the 25th of May 1823, exactly a week before the planned rebellion. The explanation, Mariano Novales has explicitly told his soldiers, was "additional supplies" from Spain would be arrived directly at Fort Santiago, and added that the soldiers should be careful when they've been asked by their superiors, especially the peninsulares.

Simultaneously, Novales' sergeants across the country has recruited 800 men as soldiers, most of them native Filipinos; they were trained in both conventional and guerrilla training, as explicitly instructed by the Captain to his sergeants before they've start recruiting; his reason was that the rebellion could be spread across the country from Manila once the colonial government was overthrown and replaced by a Junta Provisional led by Novales.

A few days later, Count Luis Rodríguez Varela and other prominent
mestizo personalities secretly returned to Manila using a ship hired on the orders of Novales himself; they've pretended that they would bring the exiles to the city of Iloilo in the town of Panay. Upon their arrival in the capital on the night of the 28th of May, they were greeted by Novales and some of his sergeants.
 
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May God and Saint Michael see you through this! :D:D:D:D:D

I'll probably stick to Novales being President-for-Life situation

Hm. I have ideas for a timeline of the revolutionary war. Also, were there naval officers who supported the insurgency? Because if not, you may have to make up names from whole cloth.
 
Hm. I have ideas for a timeline of the revolutionary war. Also, were there naval officers who supported the insurgency? Because if not, you may have to make up names from whole cloth.
I don't know if there were any naval officers who supported the Novales insurgency, honestly. What I knew was that there were mestizo military officers, both in the Spanish Army and Navy, were dissatisfied because they were discriminated.
 
They'd probably keep Luzon as it was.

Isn't Luzon Tagalog name for the island not its Spanish Name? I am trying to find maps that call Luzon, Luzon pre 1823. Only maps I can find are named Lucon or New Castille. Nor can find texts that state that insulares/mestizos Luzon used as the name pre 1823 by mestizos and Insulares.
 
More of a Hispanized version of the Tagalog word lusong

There was no Lusong in the Prehispanic times, it was called as Gintu or Saludang(Indonesian term for Southern Luzon in order to differentiate it from Sumatra which is also called as Suvarnadvipa), the term Lusong came from LuSung which is a place in the Philippines known by the Chinese, some people say that Lusung is is Sulu.
 
There was no Lusong in the Prehispanic times, it was called as Gintu or Saludang(Indonesian term for Southern Luzon in order to differentiate it from Sumatra which is also called as Suvarnadvipa), the term Lusong came from LuSung which is a place in the Philippines known by the Chinese, some people say that Lusung is is Sulu.
Err, lusong was the Tagalog word for a type of mortar used to pound rice.
 
I can't wait to see what happens to Dagohoy's republic! That will define how the Creole conspiracy treats the Philippines for decades to come!

Also, the Moro sultanates.
 
It was, my friend. Blame it on the Portuguese.

The Term Lusung or Luçoes was first used by the Chinese which was adapted by the Portuguese and the Spanish, a friend told me that Lusung and Saludang is a contraction of Lucsuhin, a place in Batangas but another friend pointed out that Lusung is a corruption of 'Sulu' and it once referred to Sulu.
 
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