Introduction
The nationalist ideology began to grow in the Philippines in the early 19th century, when the Spanish colony was opened to world market. Among the massive influx of foreign goods that arrived upon Manila's shores were books written during the Age of Enlightenment, containing liberal ideas. As the economy expands, a new middle class was born from the rising number of new businessmen and entrepreneurs who gained enourmous wealth from the global trade. The inevitable result, these same people became financially capable to give their offsprings access to higher degrees of education; first from the most respected educational institutions of the land, and then to Europe's best universities.
Thus, the next generation of this middle class went to Europe, where they learned new ideas that they never knew existed and, the more crucial, realized the difference of European societies compared to their own. These men would later return to their homeland with the mission to change their archaic, feudal and unjust society and banded together to form a group of liberal-minded intellectuals: the ilustrados.
The term "Filipino" was first coined by the Spanish Jesuit missionary, Pedro Chirino, in his book Relación de las Islas Filipinas. It was said to refer to all of the inhabitants of the islands. But as the Spanish government imposed the casta system, the term became synonymous to the insulares (colony-born Spaniards) and the mestizos (persons of mixed European and native descent), while the pure-blooded natives are called indios. The term regained popularity in the mid-1800s, as the ilustrados began to refer themselves as such, but in a similar manner to the Castillians, Aragonese, Catalans and Basque.
The ilustrados began to campaign for reforms, such as equal rights and secularization of the church, among others. During the Peninsular War in Spain, the Philippines gained representation in the Cortes, as stipulated by the 1812 Spanish Constitution, but didn't last last long when Fernando VII abolished it. During the crackdown against the liberalism in the late 1810s, some Spanish liberals found their way into the Philippines, strengthening the liberal movement.
The first blow against the ilustrados came in 1823, when the mestizo Captain Andrés Novales staged a rebellion in Manila, which ended up in failure. Several liberalists were arrested and exiled to the penal colonies of Guam and in Africa.
The ilustrados' cause had a resurgence in 1868, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution that turned Spain into a republic, when the liberal Carlos María de la Torre became Governor-General. De la Torre enacted several reforms and prepared the Philippines to become a Spanish province. All those plans were aborted when de la Torre was replaced by Rafael de Izquierdo in 1871. Izquierdo was the complete opposite of his predecessor, and abolished all the reforms, suppressed the ilustrados and introduced harsh policies to the detriment of his subjects.
One such policy is the abolition of tax exemption of the military. This earned the ire of the colonial soldiers. Adding fuel to the fire, Izquierdo had extended the mandatory labor policy (polo y servicio) to the soldiers. This culminated into a turning point in Philippine history that shaped the island's political and social landscape in many years.
On January 20, 1872 a mutiny broke out at Fort San Felipe in Cavite Nuevo. Led by a mestizo sergeant Fernando la Madrid, hundreds of soldiers and laborers took over the fort and killed several Spanish officers. This sparked a major uprising in northern Cavite that threatened to become a nationwide revolution. But the Manila acted quickly. Izquierdo send an army under Felipe Ginovés to quell the insurrection. In the ensuing battle the mutineers were quickly defeated and the fort was recaptured. Some of the captured mutineers were executed on the spot while the others were sent to prison.
The colonial government used the incident to silence the ilustrados. Several prominent reformists were implicated in the plot, including the leaders of the secularization movement - Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora - and were arrested and tried for rebellion. The priests were convicted (due to the conservative clergy's power and influence) and sentenced to death. However, Izquierdo commuted the sentence to exile and hard labor, not wanting to make martyrs for the dissidents to rally behind. The three priests were excommunicated by the Archbishop of Manila and were exiled to Guam on February 28, 1872.
This incident had planted the first seeds of secessionist sentiments, which would later culminate into the first revolution in Asia: the Philippine Revolution.