San Sebastián, Spanish Congo, 19 January 1895
The group meeting would take place tonight, and José Rizal wanted no stone unturned.
Cycling from work, he couldn’t help but think of the hazards the event would entail: his home was set at the edge of the
Barrio Filipino, close to the jungle, so an easy escape for the guests would be… well, easy. Tomorrow would be the anniversary of the founding of the city, so the night would be free from the usual curfew. But even with that, the police officers would definitely smell a plot if they see over twenty bicycles strewn about on his front lawn.
But if they instead hid their bicycles amongst the trees...
“Rizal! Back from work early, I assume?”
He looked up. It was Antonio Luna, and his smile was something that somehow eased the exiled nationalist’s heart. It wasn’t easy making friends in the new environment, especially among those who differ from his ideas on political reform. Still, Luna was a man with a good heart, which is maybe why he is respected by almost all the
Ilustrados, even though he is part of San Sebastián’s police force.
Besides, he’s an Ilustrado exile himself. Speaking of which…
He stopped by the police officer. “I got myself an early leave from work. Good behaviour. Guess being straitlaced does being about some good. Besides that, can I have your ear?”
“Always.”
“Can you inform the others tonight to hide their bicycles behind my home? Amongst the trees? And can you make sure there are no nosy officers near my place?
“You have my word.” Luna replied, before walking off. The dark shade of his uniform was set sharp against the evening sky.
Cycling some more, Rizal soon glimpsed his residence and braked just short of the front porch. A strain of bemusement flitted through him;
Some exile. A bungalow, a bicycle, a job… the only thing left is a licence to travel. Someone in the city centre must have noted how a group of exiled, frustrated, and educated men could get dangerous if they were denied at least some form of comfort or occupation. But even then, the city officials would only bend so far, and the requests to venture upriver –
or to return back home – were rejected time and again.
Still… he mused, opening the front door.
That did not stop the news from home from reaching us. Or the abuses from the interior…
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Amilasan Tawasil, The Troublesome History of the Spanish Philippines (Tulip Press: 1987)
…Unsurprisingly, the arrival of Spanish authority in Sulu and Maguindanao was widely resented. Still, the ferocity in which the local Moro, Tausug and Sama-Bajau peoples opposed their conquerors was something the capital was underprepared for.
With the fall of Jolo and the signing of the 1878 Sulu Agreement, the Spanish Philippines were under great pressure to enforce its writ on the southern sultanates, especially in light of the recent recognition episodes of Johor and Aceh [1]. Forts and barracks were hastily constructed all across the Philippine south while cadres of soldiers and administrators were posted to properly enforce colonial law. Missionaries followed almost as quickly, with hut churches popping up like mushrooms all over the southern islands to convert the ‘heathen’ Muslims and tribal subgroups under the cross.
The locals had other plans. For Maguindanao, it was the start of a guerrilla campaign as aristocratic families and their camp followers retreated to the high mountains, bedevilling colonial troops by conducting sudden attacks – often at night – before dissolving back to the surrounding jungle. For Sulu, a small number of nobles continued their insurgency in the outlying islands and a few even decamped to mainland Borneo, nestling in the coastal forests and harassing both the Spanish navy and the new Italian administration of Sabah. The rebellion of Abdullah Salleh is perhaps the most famous, with his use of native auxiliaries inflicting massive damage to any unarmed naval transport that found itself alone amongst the islands and bays [2].
No less ferocious was the efforts of the local folk, whom often sheltered men and arms while colonial troops sifted through their homes on other places. Tax evasion was rampant across Sulu and Maguindanao, as were acts of individual terror; A Spanish sergeant might come to bed in one night and wake up the next morning to find his barrack troops howling in pain from venomous cobras released from wooden cages placed suspiciously nearby. Perhaps the most grisly were the
Juramentados: Radicalized men whom engage in public acts of violence against soldiers, clergymen, and Christian converts, often stabbing them with their
barong swords and expecting to be killed in return. While such acts of martyrdom were present since the earliest days of the Spanish Philippines, these often-suicidal attacks escalated sharply from the 1880’s onwards.
Complicating the matter was the web of smugglers and traders spread profusely throughout the two sultanates. The preceding Sulu Affair had built up an enormous network of smugglers and blockade runners, ferrying food, arms, and information from bases as far away as Malaya while bring protected under the banner of neighbouring states or European empires. With the Affair over, many of these smugglers – often of Chinese makeup and operating under legitimate businesses – simply melded into the swarm of international vessels which are now plying the Sulu Sea – as per the 1878 Agreement. The preceding Affair had also linked up these smugglers to the greater trade web of the
Peranakan class, granting them with even more money and capital to buy black market armaments and ship them for the two kingdoms. The price for these items? Local slaves, which by this era were young children and youths kidnapped or sold by their parents due to mounting debt – to man the ships and to be sold in China. In effect, the local push against Spanish colonialism has revived the southern Philippine slave trade.
As such, it was no wonder that colonial response was so heavy-handed. Families of
Juramentados would often find themselves being interned for a considerable length of time while any captured
imams would be either stripped of their holy books or be forcibly exiled. Rebel-sheltering villages would be destroyed by Spanish Philippine troops with their populations then relocated to new grounds where they could be ‘observed’ with ease. Catholic missionaries would then try and forcibly convert the captured locals, often with mixed success. Whole swathes of rainforest were burned or cut down to prevent guerrilla raiders from escaping, though this often resulted in the army clashing with Spanish timber and wild rubber concessionaries over what the latter parties saw as a “waste of resources”. To break up the web of smugglers and their
Peranakan backers, Spanish Philippine businesses were prioritised while any Chinese traders were expelled from any territories the army controlled.
In some ways, the subjugation of Sulu and Maguindanao can be compared to the Aceh War that raged over 3,000 kilometres away. But while Aceh received deliverance in the form of the Ottoman Navy, Manila ordered for the total interception of her enemies’ communications with the Porte and for its armed forces to escalate the conflict, even going so far as to redirect infrastructure funds in the capital to push through the now full-blown rebellion [3].
But it wouldn’t be until 1892 for the authorities to find any significant headway in the conflict. Under the advice of several Augustinian friars, missionaries and envoys were sent to the indigenous tribes of Mindanao, whom had long chafed under the rule of the sultanates. With the capture of their co-ethnics into slavery, the Manobo, Bukidnon, T’boli, and other tribal subgroups have since lost their trust in the Islamic rebellion and were eager to fight against their attackers and child-sellers. Although there were many who were sceptical of the friars’ ‘salvation through Catholicism’, the subgroups were equipped with modern rifles and were encouraged to attack any villages or forts that contained the Moro, Tausug, and Sama-Bajau fighters.
The tables had turned. Faced with multiple groups whom can conduct the same type of disorganized warfare as them, the Sulu nobles and especially the Maguindanao court were paralysed. Sudden strikes – mostly at night – became a new and constant threat while village raids became a nightmare as the native peoples made fortresses out of their settlements. Any attacks that were
successful would be quickly passed through informants to the Manila press, who would then lambast the southern rebellion in their papers and exalt the resistance of the indigenous tribes….
Benigno Aquino III, The Evolution of the Spanish Philippines (Corazón: 1984)
…To say that Philippine nationalism in the 1890’s was a fully-fledged fire is somewhat premature. While there was a growing sense of nationhood among the elites and even the local notables, it was tempered with local and regional affiliations among the mass peasantry, often to ethnic and linguistic lines. The Franciscan and Augustinian priesthood was especially notable for checking any sort of nationalist aspiration, often through informing the authorities of dissent among their confessors. Nevertheless, the late 1880’s saw an increase in the number of political groups formed among the upper class, calling for reforms in the colonial system. Of particular note were the
Ilustrados; young, educated men whose reformist leanings often veer from the conciliatory to the radical.
This rise in nationalist thought was set amongst a sea of drastic change. The onset of the 1890’s marked a tumultuous time in the Spanish Philippines, with the colony receiving massive attention from Madrid than in previous decades. The exploitation of the Spanish Congo led to a surge in revenues for the Spanish colonial empire, and the archipelago received some of the benefits. Infrastructural investment flowed into the main cities to better facilitate commerce while foreign firms planted themselves to better exploit the rich resources of the islands.
However, the rise in economic growth also accentuated the disparity of wealth, with the upper class commissioning exquisite mansions to show-off their newfound wealth. Things were very different for the poor, with many landless peasants ending up as employees for the mining firms and forestry companies of Luzon and the Visayas. These jobs were most often dangerous and backbreaking, with wages that could only be described as deplorable. Nonetheless, for the first time in Philippine history, a sizable working class began to form.
As much as the Spanish establishment welcomed the profits of changing times, they also feared the social disruption that followed with it. Besides the perennial fear of the southern sultanates linking up with the wider Muslim world – especially after the independence of Aceh, they also feared the fact that several
Ilustrado groups were actively campaigning for Philippine reform and even independence in mainland Europe. Therefore, it wasn’t much a surprise that the Manila press was put under the heel of the Governor-General by mid-1893, with many local newspapers practicing self-censorship in order to maintain their publishing rights. News that discussed anything regarding local nationalism were either curtailed or written in unflattering terms.
As for the educated class, both Manila and Madrid had their own ideas on keeping them quiet, but faraway events began to align the separate interests together. Awarded to Spain at the Conference of Brussels, the Congo Basin in Africa had become a money-making enterprise, with exports of timber, ivory, and wild rubber filling the pockets of their concessionaire exploiters. However, the territory also came with malaria, sleeping sickness, and the accursed bite of the tsetse fly, making any placements for the colonial administrative system a challenge. Chief among those who suffered were the junior clerks, accountants, and lower-level civil service staff – all of whom were Spanish-born – whom would suffer the diseases within weeks of arrival.
Whomever first suggested the idea has been lost to rumour, but the end of 1892 brought forth a new idea in the Spanish capital: what if, instead of staffing the region with ill-suited Spanish men, educated notables from the Philippines and the West Indies would be placed instead? And what if they were the more troublesome of the lot, placed far away where they could not cause any trouble?
And so it was that the most infamous policy of Spanish Philippine counter-reformism was born: administrative exile [4]. There were several ways in which this was done, but the most common form was of
Ilustrado groups with nationalist sentiments being approached by the authorities, whom would offer them civil service jobs in the colonial government, or in Madrid. Later, it was revealed that those jobs would include a trip far away from the Philippines, and in fact would entail working in a different continent altogether. Often, the news would be espoused as the unlucky persons were already on a vessel, which the men thought was chugging for Europe. One wonders the reaction of these men when they realized they were being transported instead to Equatorial Africa…
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Around 9:00 pm that night.
It was under a moonlit sky that the men arrived.
By ones and twos, they appeared from the murky gloom and made their way to the lit house. From his watch by the back door, Rizal welcomed every entrant as warmly as he could. Most of them addressed him as a friend, but there were others who looked at him as if he would tell on the authorities the following day.
No need of that. If they ever come, the back door shall see us off.
The sound of footsteps broke him out from his thoughts as another figure materialized before him.
“Nice night, isn’t it?”
It was Eduardo, and from the light in the entranceway Rizal could see the glint of his crucifix bouncing on his dark skin. An orphan, he was among the first of the local boys to be recruited to the seminary. Before the cross, he was the first in his village who could read and write. And with that, he was the first to question why his village had lost a quarter of its residents in just eight months.
“It is. How are the records?”
“I have them here.” Eduardo answered, showing off a stack of papers on his right arm.
“Good. I think you’re the last one to arrive. Come.”
Closing the door, Rizal followed his friend through the kitchen and looked at the group of
Ilustrados and Congolese locals assembled in the morning room. His heart clenched; the
Peninsulares thought they could muzzle his voice by 'promoting' him to a pen-pushing post in Africa. They never thought of him not giving up the fight… or caring about local injustices.
“Now, shall we begin?”
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Notes:
1. See post #651
2. See post #929
3. This was actually done OTL, where the funds for Manila’s ports were redirected to combat the rebellion.
4. Manila sometimes used exile as a punishment for Philippine nationalists IOTL, as it did to Antonio Luna in 1897. In this case, there is now a new territory in which pesky illustrators can be dumped off.
5. San Sebastián = OTL Kinshasa.
