The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 Part 18

The central plain with five provinces has already been fully described. If to this plain you add its two wings, above mentioned, you have the nine provinces of central Luzon you see on the map. And if to them you add the six provinces of the Ilocos country and the three of the Cagayan valley, you have clearly before you the political make-up of northern Luzon--eighteen provinces in all. When central Luzon was arranged by districts under the military occupation, it was divided into three parts, the Third, Fourth, and Fifth districts of the Department of Northern Luzon, the Third District being under General Jacob H. Smith of Samar fame, [286] the Fourth under General Funston, and the Fifth under General Grant. The Sixth and last district of northern Luzon was made up of the city of Manila and adjacent territory.

General Smith's district, the Third, comprised the provinces of

Province Area (sq. m.) Population

Zambales 2,125 104,549 Pangasinan 1,193 397,902 Tarlac 1,205 135,107 ----- ------- 4,523 637,558

Pangasinan with its near 400,000 people is the largest, in point of population, of the twenty-five provinces of Luzon, and the third largest of the archipelago.

General Funston's district, the Fourth, comprised the provinces of

Province Area (sq. m.) Population

Nueva Ecija 2,169 134,147 Principe [287] 331 15,853 ----- ------- 2,500 150,000

General Grant's district, the Fifth, comprised the provinces of

Province Area (sq. m.) Population

Bataan 537 46,787 Pampanga 868 223,754 Bulacan 1,173 223,742 ----- ------- 2,578 494,283

2,500 150,000 ===== ======= Totals, 4th and 5th Districts: 5,078 644,283

It will be seen from the foregoing that the Third District was nearly equal in area to the Fourth and Fifth added together, and that the same was true as to its population figure.

Just as the six provinces of the Ilocano country, first occupied by General Young and organized as "The First District of the Department of Northern Luzon," should some day evolve into a State of Ilocos, and the three provinces of the Cagayan valley, occupied by Colonel Hood as the Second District, into an ultimate State of Cagayan, so the provinces of General Smith's old district, the Third, should finally become a State of Pangasinan. [288] This Third District may be conveniently recollected as accounting for, roughly speaking, 4500 square miles of territory and 625,000 people. The total combined area of General Funston's old district, the Fourth, [289] and the adjacent one, the Fifth, General Grant's district, is--roughly--5000 square miles, and its total population 650,000. No reason is apparent why these two districts, the Fourth and Fifth, should not ultimately evolve into a State of Pampanga. The five original military districts, [290] which in 1900 const.i.tuted all of the Department of Northern Luzon except the city of Manila and vicinity, might make four ultimate states, with names, areas, and populations as follows:

State Area (sq. m.) Population

Ilocos 6,500 650,000 Cagayan 12,000 300,000 Pangasinan 4,500 625,000 Pampanga 5,000 650,000 ------ --------- 28,000 2,225,000

It may surprise the reader after all the blood and thunder to which his attention has hereinabove been subjected, apropos of northern Luzon and the winter of 1899-1900, to know that the insurgents were still bearding the lion in his den, i. e., General Otis in Manila, by operating in very considerable force in the village-dotted country within cannon-shot of the road from Manila to Cavite in January, 1900. Nevertheless such was the case.

On the 4th of January, 1900, General J. C. Bates was a.s.signed to the command of the First Division of the Eighth Army Corps, General Lawton's old division, and an active campaign was commenced in southern Luzon. The plan adopted was that General Wheaton with a strong force should engage and hold the enemy in the neighborhood of Cavite, while General Schwan, starting at the western horn of the half moon to which the great lake called Laguna de Bay has already been likened, should move rapidly down the west sh.o.r.e of the lake, and around its south sh.o.r.e to Santa Cruz near its eastern end, or horn, garrisoning the towns en route, as taken, instead of leaving them to be re-occupied by the insurgents. Santa Cruz is the same place where General Lawton had "touched second base," as it were, with a flying column in April, 1899.

This plan was duly carried out. The Schwan column started from San Pedro Macati, the initial rendezvous, a few miles out of Manila, on January 4, 1900, now garrisoning the towns en route, instead of leaving them to be fought over and captured again as heretofore. The first stiff fight we had in that campaign was at Binan, on January 6, 1900, one of the places General Lawton's expedition had taken when he fought his way over the same country the year before. O. K. Davis and John T. McCutcheon, who were in that fight and campaign--in fact one of them had the ice-cold nerve to photograph the Binan fight while it was going on, as I learned when we all went down to the creek near the town, after we took it, to freshen up--can testify that we did not then hear any nonsense about a "Tagal" insurrection, such as Secretary of War Root's Report for 1899, published shortly before, is full of, and that on the contrary the whole country was as much a unit against us and as loyal to the Aguinaldo government as northern Luzon had been. And inasmuch as I am doing some "testifying" along here myself, and a.s.suming to brush aside without the slightest hesitation, as wholly erroneous, information conveyed to the American public at the time in the state papers of President McKinley and Secretary of War Root, it is only due the reader, whose attention is being seriously asked, that "the witness" should "qualify" as to the opportunities he may have had, if any, to know whereof he speaks, concerning the character of the opposition. To that end, the following doc.u.ment, which General Schwan was kind enough to send me afterwards, is submitted as sent:

EXTRACT COPY.

Headquarters Detachment Macabebe Scouts.

The Adjutant General, Schwan's Expeditionary Brigade:

Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the Detachment of Macabebe Scouts, under my command, while forming a part of your Brigade.

The Detachment, consisting of five (5) officers and one hundred and forty (140) men, was divided into two companies, commanded by 1st Lt. J. Lee Hall, 33rd Inf., and 1st Lt. Blount, 29th Inf., left San Pedro Macati the afternoon of Jan. 4th, 1900 * * *.

I wish to invite your attention, especially, to the good work done in the fight at Binan by Lieut. Blount, 29th Inf., who led the line by at least twenty-five yards * * *.

Very Respectfully, Wm. C. Geiger, 1st Lt. 14th Inf., Com'd'g Det.

I hereby certify that the above is a true copy of extracts from the report of the operations of the Detachment of Macabebe Scouts forming part of an Expeditionary Brigade under my command, in the months of January and February, 1900.

Theo. Schwan, Brig. General, U. S. Vols.

Aug. 16, 1900.

The activities of Generals Bates and Wheaton, and the Schwan Expedition of January-February, 1900, extended the American occupation, so far as there were troops enough immediately available to go around, over the lake-sh.o.r.e portions and the princ.i.p.al towns of the two great provinces of southern Luzon bordering on the Laguna de Bay, viz., Cavite and Laguna; and over parts of the two adjacent provinces of Batangas and Tayabas.

Batangas bounds Cavite on the south, and is itself bounded on the south by the sea, where a fairly good port offered a fine gateway for smuggling arms into the interior from abroad. Tayabas province adjoins Laguna on the southeast. Cavite province has always been, since the opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, about 1869, and the agitations for political reform in Spain which culminated in the Spanish republic of 1873, quickened the thought of Spain's East Indies, the home of insurrection, the breeding place of political agitation. Aguinaldo himself was born within its limits in 1869. Laguna province comprehends most of the country lying between the southern and eastern lake-sh.o.r.e of the Laguna de Bay and the mountains which skirt that body of water in the blue distance, all parts of it being thus in easy and safe touch by water transportation by night with Cavite, the home and headquarters of insurgency.

Just as northern Luzon had been gradually organized into military districts as conquered, so was southern Luzon. The territory, over-run, as above described, by Generals Bates, Wheaton, and Schwan, was divided into two districts. [291] Colonel Hare commanded the First District, Cavite province and vicinity. General Hall commanded the Second District, Batangas, Laguna, and Tayabas. The area and population of these four provinces, according to the Census of 1903, were as follows:

Province Area (sq. m.) Population

Cavite 619 134,779 Batangas 1,201 257,715 Laguna 629 148,606 Tayabas 5,993 153,065 ----- ------- 8,442 694,165

For convenience of subsequent allusion, this group of provinces may be treated as representing roughly 8500 square miles of territory and 700,000 people. These four provinces group themselves together naturally from a military standpoint. As physical force is the final basis of all government, these four provinces const.i.tute a logical administrative governmental unit, as shown by the action of our military authorities in their extension of the American occupation. It would seem therefore that if there should ever be a Philippine republic, they would probably const.i.tute one of its states--the State, let us say, of Cavite.

The rest of southern Luzon below that part above described consists of a peninsula which, owing to its odd formation, is easy to remember. The mainland of Luzon, that is to-say, that part of the island which our narrative has already covered, remotely suggests, in shape, the State of Illinois. At least it resembles Illinois more than it does any other State of our Union, in that its length runs north and south, and its average length and width are nearer that of Illinois than any other. At the southeast corner of this mainland, the observer of the map will see, jutting off to the southeast from the mainland, the peninsula in question. It is about a hundred and fifty miles long, with an average width of possibly thirty miles--a minimum width of, say, ten miles, and a maximum of fifty,--and is separated from Samar by the narrow, swift, and treacherous San Bernardino Strait, which connects the Pacific Ocean with the China Sea. This peninsula is frequently called "the Hemp Peninsula." The importance of controlling the hemp ports prompted General Otis to send General Bates with an expedition to those ports on February 15, 1900. [292] This expedition did little more than occupy those ports. The great interior continued under insurgent control some time afterward. The report of the Secretary of War, Mr. Root, for 1900, goes on to describe an engagement, or two, sustained by the Bates Expedition shortly after it landed, and concludes, with a complacency almost Otis-like, by stating that shortly thereafter "the normal conditions of industry and trade relations with Manila were resumed by the inhabitants." Of course Mr. Root believed this, and so did Mr. McKinley. More the pity, as we shall later see. General Otis was now getting anxious to go home, and hastened to "occupy"

and organize the rest of the archipelago, on paper, at least, the hemp peninsula becoming, on March 20, 1900, the Third District of the Department of Southern Luzon, Brigadier-General James M. Bell commanding. The provinces comprised in this district, with their areas and populations as given by the Census of 1903, were as follows:

Province Area (sq. m.) Population

Camarines [293] 3,279 239,405 Albay 1,783 240,326 Sorsogon 755 120,495 ----- ------- 5,817 600,226

For convenience of subsequent allusion, these three provinces of the hemp peninsula which const.i.tuted the Third Military District of the Military Department of Southern Luzon in 1900, may be regarded as comprising, roughly, 6000 square miles of territory and 600,000 people. If the Philippine republic of the future which is the dream of the Filipino people, prove other than an idle dream, the hemp peninsula will probably some day const.i.tute a state of that republic, an appropriate and probable name for which would be the State of Camarines.

The Fourth District of southern Luzon--there were but four--was occupied by the 29th U. S. Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Colonel E. E. Hardin, one of the best executive officers General Otis had in his whole command. The Fourth District comprised a lot of islands unnecessary to be considered at length in this bird's-eye view of the panorama, but necessary to be mentioned in outlining the military occupation. The 29th, like the other twenty-four volunteer regiments, settled down with equanimity to the business of policing a hostile country, sang with zest, like the rest of the twenty-five volunteer regiments, that old familiar song, "d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n the Filipino,"

etc., and waited with the uniquely admirable stoicism of the American soldier for the season of their home-going to roll round, which, under the Act of Congress, [294] would be the spring of the following year.