The Philippines: Past and Present Volume II Part 15

run through Bondurant's mind that last afternoon when he was following Moro outlaws through a foul mangrove swamp, while his senses reeled with the fever which was so soon to end his life?

In his wonderful quadruplet of stanzas Kipling has fixed one criterion of manhood which it is hard indeed to meet:--

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools."

I beg my fellow-countrymen to remember that the non-Christians of the Philippines const.i.tute an eighth of the population; that the work undertaken for their physical, mental and moral advancement has succeeded far beyond the hopes of those who initiated it; that its results would go down like a house of cards if American control were prematurely withdrawn. Shall the men who have devoted their lives to these things be forced to watch them broken, and then be denied the poor privilege of building them up again? If the splendid results of so much efficient, faithful, self-sacrificing and successful effort were to be lost, would not the dead who gave their lives for them turn in their graves?

The greatest of the non-Christian tribe problems in the Philippines at present is, "Shall the work go on?"

There is one satisfaction which no man can take from those of us who have worked for the advancement of these backward and hitherto neglected peoples. We have shown what can be done!

CHAPTER XXV

SLAVERY AND PEONAGE

Chattel slavery existed in the Philippine Islands when Magellan discovered them in 1521. It exists there to-day.

Morga, who was in the Philippines from 1595 to about 1608, and is admittedly the most reliable chronicler of the events of those early days, has given the following interesting account of the conditions then existing: [62]--

"There are three cla.s.ses of persons among the natives of these Islands, by which the commonwealth is divided: princ.i.p.ales, of whom I have spoken before; timawa which is the same as plebeians, and slaves, of princ.i.p.ales as well as of timawa. These slaves were of various cla.s.ses: some are in entire servitude and slavery, like those which we have, and these are called sagigilir; they served in the interior of the houses and so also the children descended from them; others, who have their own dwellings, which they inhabit with their family, away from the house of their master, and these come in at times to help the latter in their fields and crops, as also aboard the vessel when they embark, and in the construction of their houses whenever they erect such, and they also serve in their houses whenever there is a guest of some distinction, and they are under obligation, whenever the master has them called, to come to his house and to serve him in this ministry without pay or other stipend; these are called namamahai, and their children and descendents are slaves of the same condition. Of these slaves sagigilir and namamahai there are some who are slaves entirely, and others who are only half slaves, and others who are slaves only for a fourth part. This originates thus: if either the father or the mother was free and they had a single child, the latter was half free and half slave. If they had more than one child, the children were distributed in this way: the first followed the condition of the father, be he free or a slave, and the second that of the mother; and if the number was uneven, the last child was half free and half slave; and those descended from such child, if they had a free father or a free mother, remained slave only for a fourth part, because they were children of a free father, or mother, and of a half slave. These half or quarter slaves, namamahai or sagigilir, serve their masters only every second month, respectively, in proportion to their condition as slave.

"Among the natives the ordinary price of a slave sagigilir used to be, if much, ten taes of good gold, worth 80 pesos, and if he is a namamahai half of that, and thus in proportion the others, taking into account the personality and age.

"It cannot be established as a principle from where these cla.s.ses of servitude among the natives arose, for they are all of the islands and not foreigners; it is understood that they made them in their wars and differences; and the most certain is that those who were most powerful made and took as slaves the others for slight causes and occasions, and most often through loans and usurious contracts current amongst them, the payment, risk and debt increasing with the lapse of time until they became slaves; and thus all these forms of servitude have their violent and unjust origin, and it is about them that there arise the greater part of the lawsuits that exist among the natives and with which they keep busy the judges in the forum of the court, and the confessors in that of the conscience."

To the last of the preceding paragraphs Rizal makes the following annotation, which, mutatis mutandis, should give leading Filipinos of to-day matter for reflection:--

"This cla.s.s of slaves exists even now in many parts, and before all in the province of Batangas, but it must be confessed that their condition is very different from that of a slave in Greece, or Rome, from that of the negro, and even of those made in later times by Spaniards....

"Filipinas, in spite of so many centuries of christianization, in spite of the efforts of some few n.o.ble minds, priests as well as civilians, continues still, and is desired to continue, almost in the same state as formerly, for those who direct the country look more to the present than to the future, and because they are guided not by confidence, but by fear. The efforts of the religious corporations to improve this state of things have never been as efficacious, nor as strenuous, as might have been expected from them."

Morga continues: [63]--

"These slaves are the greatest wealth and capital which the natives of these islands possess, because they are to them very useful and necessary for their labors and farms; and among them they are sold, exchanged, and made objects of contract, like any other merchandise, from one pueblo to the other, from one province to the other, and likewise from one island to the other. For which reason, and in order to avoid so many lawsuits that would arise, if the question of these servitudes, their origin and beginning, were taken up, they [the slaves, Tr.] are retained and kept as they were kept formerly."

Rizal comments on this pa.s.sage as follows:--

"Thus catholicism not only did not liberate the poor cla.s.s from the tyranny of the oppressive, but with its advent in the Philippines increased the number of tyrants. Time alone, and instruction, which with it brings suaver customs, will ultimately redeem the Pariahs of the Philippines, for we see that the apostles of the peace did not find in themselves sufficient valour to battle with the oppressors, and this in times of great faith; on the contrary, they rather contributed indirectly to their misery, as we see from the foregoing."

The most frequent cause, already mentioned above, from which these conditions of servitude arose, is again pointed out by Morga in the following pa.s.sage: [64]--

"Loans with interest were in very common practice, excessively high rates of interest being current, so that the debt doubled and multiplied all the time during which the payment was deferred, until there was taken from the debtor what he possessed as capital, and, when ultimately nothing more was left, his person and his children."

Of these statements Rizal says:--

"This is the sad truth, and so much the truth that it subsists until now. In many provinces, and in many towns, there is taking place, word for word, what Morga says, it being to be lamented that at present not only Indios [Filipinos, Tr.] continue this usury, but also the mestizos, the Spaniards, and even various priests. And it has come to this that the Government itself not only permits it, but in its turn exacts the capital and the person in payment of the debt of others, as occurs with the cabeza de barangay."

It would be easy to compile pa.s.sages similar to the preceding from other authors, but those given are explicit and authoritative enough to make it clear, first, that slavery existed in the Philippines at the time of the conquest as a general tribal inst.i.tution of social and economical character and in minutely regulated form; and, second, that although it lost, with the advent of the Spaniards, the character of an inst.i.tution, and indeed was formally abolished by early edicts from Spain, it continued to exist as an unauthorized practice, so that Rizal, writing at the close of the nineteenth century could say that slaves still existed in many parts of the country.

In a statement recently published in the New York Evening Post, Senor Quezon, Resident Delegate from the Philippines to Congress, has said:--

"Since there is not, and there never was, slavery in the territory inhabited by the Christian Filipinos, which is the part of the Islands subject to the legislative control of the a.s.sembly, this House has refused to concur in the anti-slavery bill pa.s.sed by the Philippine Commission."

Whom will the American public believe, Morga, the historian, and Rizal, the Filipino patriot, or Quezon, the Filipino politician?

While I entertain no doubt as to the answer, I shall nevertheless discuss at length the more recent history and present status of slavery and peonage in the Philippines, because of the vital importance of full knowledge of the facts to intelligent consideration of the claim that the Filipinos have arrived at a stage of civilization comparable with that of the more advanced nations of the world, and are capable of establishing and maintaining a just and humane government.

The Spanish Penal Code did not prohibit or penalize slavery, or the purchase or sale of human beings. It did contain provisions against forcible detention of individuals and the abduction of minors, but in the Philippines at least they were more honoured in the breach than in the observance during the Spanish regime.

The Moros raided the towns of the peaceful Filipino inhabitants of the Visayan Islands and of Luzon until within quite recent times. An unhappy fate awaited the prisoners whom they took. Men were frequently compelled to harvest for their captors the crops which they themselves had planted, and were then mercilessly butchered. Women, girls and boys were carried away into slavery, the former to serve as household drudges or as concubines, and the latter to be brought up as slaves pure and simple. Some men met a similar fate. The only reason that more were not enslaved was that it was usually considered too much trouble to make full-grown individuals work. Slaves were held as chattels if it suited the convenience of their masters to retain them, and otherwise were sold, bartered or given away. Zamboanga was at the outset largely populated by escaped Moro slaves who had sought the protection of the Spanish garrison there. Coming originally from widely separated parts of the archipelago, these unfortunates had no common native dialect, hence there arose among them a Spanish patois now known as Zamboangueno.

The American occupation brought many and brusque changes in political conditions. The att.i.tude of Americans toward slavery and peonage was very different from that of the easy-going Spaniards, who had never sanctioned it but had never made any determined effort to break it up.

From the effective establishment of United States sovereignty in 1899 until July 4, 1901, the Philippines were under military rule, which has one great advantage: its methods usually bring quick results.

Doubtless the majority of the slaves then held in the islands were too timid, and too suspicious of the character and purposes of Americans, to appeal to them for protection; but there were not a few whose lives had become so unbearable that they were prepared to take almost any risk on the chance of securing release. People of this cla.s.s ran away from their masters and sought the protection of army officers. I am glad to say that in every such instance which has come to my knowledge it was promptly given. Not only were they advised that they could not be held in bondage, and were free to go where they pleased, but when practicable their masters were warned against attempting to regain control over them. It is probable that the large majority of such cases were never officially reported. Most of the army officers concerned were in some doubt as to their legal status in the premises, but they knew that the const.i.tution of the United States prohibits slavery; their sympathies went out to the wretched human beings who appealed to them for aid, and they decided to be a law unto themselves.

After the establishment of civil government some army officers continued to exercise arbitrary powers in dealing with such cases of slavery as came to their attention, while others contented themselves with reporting them to the civil authorities.

The conditions which prevailed in the Moro Province in 1902 are concisely described by its military governor, General George W. Davis, in a report written on August 25 of that year. He said:--

"With a people who have no conception of government that is not arbitrary and absolute; who hold human life as no more sacred than the life of an animal; who have become accustomed to acts of violence; who are constrained by fear from continuing the practice of piracy; who still carry on slave trade; who habitually raid the homes of mountain natives and enslave them; who habitually make slaves of their captives in war--even when of their own race; who not uncommonly make delivery of their own kindred as slaves in satisfaction of a debt for liquidation of which they have not the ready money; who habitually observe the precepts of the Koran, which declares that female slaves must submit to their masters,--it is useless to discuss a plan of government that is not based on physical force, might, and power."

Senor Quezon, in describing conditions in the Moro country, has said: [65]--