The Inhabitants of the Philippines Part 57

They understand that they need protection, and are equally ready to make a present to the judge, to subscribe for a gilded altar for the church, or to render service to the governor, in order to be on good terms with the court, the priest, and the military.

Very few Chinese women come over, therefore the men have native wives or concubines, and are begetting Chinese half-castes on an extensive scale.

They are not averse to a little slave-dealing, and will casually buy a boy or girl from slave-hunters, or will order such a slave as they require from the slave-hunters, who then proceed to execute the order, which probably involves the sacrifice of several lives.

Thus they will order a smart boy, or a pretty girl, of fifteen or sixteen, and so forth.

Father Barrado, writing from Cotta-Bato, June 3rd, 1890, relates that a boy of eight years of age was purchased by a Chinaman for thirty dollars.

As soon as his master had brought him to the house, he fastened the door, and being a.s.sisted by four other Chinamen, tied the boy's hands and feet, and gagged him.

The four a.s.sistants then laid him out at full length on the ground, face downwards, and held him firmly, whilst his master took a red-hot marking-iron from the fire, and branded him on both thighs, just as if he was marking a horse or a cow.

Luckily, the boy escaped from the house, and found refuge with Father Barrado, who took charge of him, and administered a severe reprimand to the brutal Chinaman.

The Chinamen abominably cheat all those who are unable to protect themselves. Their business is based upon false weights and measures, and on adulteration. In the end, they spoil every business they enter upon, just as they have done the tea trade in their own country, and the tobacco and indigo trade in the Philippines.

They require to be closely looked after, and should be made to pay special taxes, which they can well afford.

Some of the Chinese become converts, not that their mean and sordid souls are in any degree susceptible to the influence of the Christian religion, but in order to obtain material advantages.

They hope to be favoured in business, and to be able to get a Christian wife, which otherwise might not be easy; for although a Visayas woman does not disdain a Chinaman, she would not care to marry a heathen.

In any case, the Chinaman most likely remains a heathen at heart, and if he returns to China he becomes a renegade.

CHAPTER XL

THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF MINDANAO, 1899.

Relapse into savagery--Moros the great danger--Visayas the mainstay--Confederation of Lake Lanao--Recall of the Missionaries--Murder and pillage in Davao--Eastern Mindanao--Western Mindanao--The three courses--Orphanage of Tamontaca--Fugitive slaves--Polygamy an impediment to conversion--Labours of the Jesuits--American Roman Catholics should send them help.

The present condition of the island is most lamentable. Nothing could be more dreadful; robbery, outrage and murder are rampant. Every evil pa.s.sion is let loose, and the labour of years has been lost. Mindanao, which promised so well, has relapsed into savagery, as the direct consequence of the Spanish-American war, and the cession of the Archipelago to the United States.

It should be understood that Spain, far from drawing any profit from Mindanao, has, on the contrary, expended annually considerable sums, derived from the revenues of Luzon and Visayas, in maintaining a squadron of gunboats to police the seas, and keep down piracy, in building and garrisoning forts to suppress the slave-trade, and in a.s.sisting the missionaries to attract the heathen, by providing them with seeds, implements of husbandry, and with clothing, also in giving them fire-arms and ammunition to protect themselves from the Moros.

Annuities were paid to friendly Moro dattos as rewards for services rendered, or as compensation for the cession of some of their rights.

The Moros have always been the great danger to the peace of the island, as the Visayas have always been the mainstay of Spanish authority.

Had it not been for the war with America, the Moros would have been, by this time, completely subdued.

Even as it was, half the island was practically free from danger from them. If you draw a line on the map from Cagayan de Misamis to the head of the Bay of Sarangani, it will roughly divide the island into halves. The Moros who lived to the eastward of this line were pacific, and some thousands of them had been baptized, and had given up polygamy and slave-trading.

Had they risen in arms--which was not at all likely--they could have been put down by the Visayas militia under the local authorities.

To the west of this line, until quite lately, the Spanish garrisons dotted along the banks of the Rio Grande from Polloc and Cotta-bato to Piquit and Pinto, dominated the Moro dattos of that region, and nearly joined hands with the forts and garrisons on the rivers running into the Bay of Macajalar.

The only remaining seat of the Moro power was the country around Lake Lanao, where the dattos had formed the Illana confederation to resist the advances of the Christians.

This lake has never been surveyed, and no two maps agree on its size, shape or position. It is, however, known to be very different from the other large lakes in Mindanao, which are shallow, whilst this, on the contrary, is deep; in some places, three or four fathoms will be found close in sh.o.r.e. At Lugud and Tugana the banks are steep.

There are five or six islands in it; the largest is called Nuza. It is high and flat-topped, situated near the middle of the lake, and on it are five hundred houses.

The length of the lake may be about 14 miles, and its greatest breadth about the same.

There is a road all round it, reported to be in good condition for vehicles, except at Taraca, where the ground is soft. This road may be about fifty miles long, and is said to have houses on both sides of it nearly all the way. The accompanying sketch, from D. Jose Nietos' map, shows forty-three towns cl.u.s.tered round the lake, but in reality it is only one vast town, and the names are those of districts or parishes, each under the rule of a datto. The Sultan lives at Taraca.

The land about the lake is very fertile, and is cultivated by the slaves.

The produce is of excellent quality, and the Moros not only supply themselves, but export annually about 1000 tons of rice, and 900 tons of coffee.

The River Agus, which drains the lake, is not navigable.

Although it has a great body of water, the impetuosity of the current, rushing amongst rocks, forms dangerous rapids.

The surface of the lake must be considerably above the sea-level.

The approaches to the northern end of the lake on both sides of the river were defended by many cottas, or forts. Most of those were taken and destroyed by the Spanish forces in 1894-96, but they are now probably being rebuilt.

Half-way between the lake and the Bay of Iligan stands Fort Weyler, which had a strong garrison of infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers, and was impregnable to any Moro attack. To the south of the lake, on the sh.o.r.es of Illana Bay, stand Forts Corcuera and Baras, whilst to the westward, between Illana Bay and Panguil Bay, lie four forts across the narrow isthmus called Alfonso XIII., Infanta Isabel, Santas Paz, and Eulalia and Maria Cristina.

These, with the trocha, or military road of Tucuran, cut off the Illano Moros from communication with their brethren of Sibuguey, or with their former victims, the Subanos.

Further to the northward, Fort Almonte kept watch over the quondam pirates of the Liangan River.

These forts and posts were garrisoned by nearly 3000 regular troops, all natives, except the artillery (see List of Posts in Mindanao, p. 386), and in addition a field force of several thousand men, also of the regular army, was encamped at Ulama, Pantar, and other places to the north of the lake, and three small steam-vessels had been transported overland in sections, and launched upon the lake.

Thus everything was ready for the final blow, for the Moros were completely hemmed in by Spanish garrisons or Jesuit reducciones; but the breaking out of the Tagal insurrection, in 1896, obliged General Blanco to withdraw, not only the field army, but to reduce the garrisons in order to hold Manila and Cavite until the Peninsular troops could arrive.

Later on, the war between the United States and Spain, and the immediate destruction of the Spanish naval forces by the American squadron, caused the Spanish authorities to sink the flotilla in the lake, to abandon all the posts on the north coast of Mindanao, the trocha of Tucuran, and all the forts on the Rio Grande, and to concentrate their whole force at Zamboanga, leaving the recently-converted heathen and the missionaries to defend themselves against the Moros as best they could.

The missionaries of the district of Cotta-bato have taken refuge in Zamboanga, fearing to fall into the hands of the Moros, who would exact a heavy ransom for their delivery. As for the hundreds of liberated slave children, both girls and boys, who were gathered together under the protection of the missionaries at the asylum of Tamontaca, they are doubtless once more in the hands of the cruel Moros of Lake Lanao; some, perhaps, have been sold by these wretches to the heathen tribes for twenty or thirty dollars each, to be offered up as sacrifices to Tag-busan, the G.o.d of war of the Man.o.bos, or to Dewata, the sanguinary house-G.o.d of the Guiangas.

The missionaries of the north of Mindanao were recalled by the Father Superior to Manila; but in some of the towns the native converts and Visayas have detained them by force, and keep a watch on them to prevent their escape. They treat them well, and allow them to exercise their ministry.

As there are no Moros in that part of the island, the missionaries are not in danger, for they are much beloved by their converts, whose only desire is to keep them amongst them.

The district of Davao has been, like other localities, the scene of murder and pillage since the withdrawal of the Spanish authorities. At midnight of February 6th, the bad characters and outlaws of the chief town, under the leadership of Domingo Fernandez, a native of Zamboanga, and formerly interpreter and writer in the office of the Governor of Davao, rose in arms, and attacked the house of Don Bonifacio Quidato, sub-lieutenant of the local militia. They cut his throat, and bayoneted his wife as she lay in her bed. They then attacked all the well-to-do people of the place, committing many barbarous acts, and plundering their houses.

Most of the Spanish residents escaped from the town in a lorcha, and, after a terrible voyage of sixteen days, suffering from hunger, and undergoing many severe privations, arrived in Zamboanga more dead than alive. The veteran missionary, Father Urios, and three other Spaniards, could not escape, and remained in the power of the bandits.

This is only one instance of what is going on all over the island. In the words of one who knows the country well, Mindanao has become a seething h.e.l.l, and is in a condition more dreadful than ever before in historic times.