Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 15.djvu/820

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. elected by the general suffrage of the married inhabitants of the pueblo, but in later years was chosen by a small body of thirteen electors. Within the pueblos the population was subdivided into little clan-like groups of forty or fifty families called barangays, a survival of the earlier native organization, each under a barangay headman (cabeza de barangay). Each family was assessed a tribute of 10 reals, about $1.25, and the headmen were responsible for its collection. The petty governors and headmen of barangays were Filipinos; the higher administrative officers were Spaniards. The inhabitants of these pueblos were all natives. No Spaniards were allowed to live in these mission villages except the friars, who exercised there the firm but ordinarily gentle sway of the parent or schoolmaster. In the few Spanish towns there existed the ordinary municipal organizations that prevailed in Spanish America. There was the town corporation ‘el Cabildo’ (chapter), consisting of two alcaldes (justices), eight regidores (aldermen), a registrar, and a constable. The members of the Cabildo held office permanently. Membership could be bought and sold or inherited.

At the head of the ecclesiastical administration stood the Archbishop of Manila, the Bishops of Cebú, Segovia, and Cáceres, and the Provincials of the four great Orders of friars (the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and barefooted Franciscans), and of the Jesuits. The members of these Orders (the regular clergy) greatly preponderated in numbers and influence over the secular clergy, who were mostly natives.

The economic development of the islands was rendered impossible by the manufacturers in Spain, who demanded protection against Asiatic competition in the markets of Mexico and Peru, and secured the restriction of the imports from the Philippines to the cargo of an annual ship. Under this handicap the islands never were a self-supporting, much less an income-yielding, dependency. They were always a burden upon the treasury of New Spain. Their principal trade was with China and was in the hands of the Chinese. The vast majority of the pueblos were simple self-supporting communities of farmers and small artisans.

Secluded from the outside world, the domestic history of the Philippines is distinctively parochial in its character. There is little progressive political or economic evolution from generation to generation. Progress is manifested by the extension of the missions and the amelioration of the life of the natives. Much of the internal history is made up of the various conflicts between the clergy and the political administration or between the Archbishop and the friars. The chief incidents in external history are the volcanic eruptions, the incursions of the Chinese or Moro pirates, the attacks of the Dutch, etc. The events of the great Seven Years' War rudely interrupted this placid life. Spain, drawn into the maelstrom of this conflict in the vain hope of recovering Gibraltar, lost the Floridas and saw Havana and Manila fall before English fleets. The preliminaries of peace, however, had been agreed upon before the news reached England of the capture of Manila, and the conquest was therefore relinquished to Spain. The reforming Government of Charles III. exerted its activities even to the remote Philippines. The Royal Philippine Company was chartered to carry on direct

trade between Spain and the islands (1785). Three years earlier the enterprising Governor-General Basco y Vargas, to make the colony self-supporting, introduced the Government tobacco monopoly (1782), by which lands suitable for growing tobacco were arbitrarily pressed into that service and the cultivators compelled by forced labor to produce stipulated amounts to be sold to the Government at fixed prices. This system of compulsory labor was practically the first attempt really to exploit the resources of the islands, and during the following century was fruitful in abuses and of the seeds of revolt. It was abolished in 1882. In this connection should be mentioned the polos y servicios, forty days' required labor on the roads, bridges, public buildings, etc., which was exacted of the natives in addition to their tribute. These requirements for public service could be canceled for from one to three dollars. The official class men were exempt from this burden.

The Mexican Revolution severed the ancient connection of New Spain with the ‘Western Islands,’ and the Spanish Constitution of 1812, which embodied the principles of the French Revolution, and which put all parts of the Spanish Empire on an equality and admitted the Philippines to representation in the Cortes, led the natives to believe that now they would be exempt from tribute and polos y servicios. Consequently, when the news came that Ferdinand VII. in 1814 had abolished the Constitution of 1812, the Ilocanos rose in rebellion. Henceforward the agitations of home politics and the example of the Spanish-American States steadily undermined the old-time stability of conditions in the Philippines. The mission system could not be maintained in its integrity. The number of Spaniards in the islands increased, the spirit of colonial exploitation grew, the monastic Orders which combined the functions of landlords and spiritual guides were more and more pervaded with the mercantile spirit. Nor did their predominant influence in the government of the islands at all diminish in an age progressively hostile to clerical control. The opening of the Suez Canal brought the Philippines relatively near to Europe and more than ever exposed them to the contending forces of modern thought. Promising young Filipinos completed their education in Europe. By a few weeks' voyage they found themselves in many respects transported from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth. That they should contentedly return to the earlier age was impossible. The Spaniards did not weather the transition. The final collapse began with the insurrection of 1896, which was primarily an agrarian revolt aimed at the expulsion of the Orders from their estates and the islands.

It seems to be agreed that the establishment of Masonic lodges in the islands and the admission to them later of prominent Filipinos and Mestizos of anti-clerical or liberal sentiments offered a nucleus for agitation, facilitated united action, and led immediately to the formation of the patriotic Asociación Hispano-Filipina, the Liga Filipina, and the revolutionary society, “el Katipunan.” The first Masonic lodges were founded about 1860, but it was over a quarter of a century before they became active centres of anti-clerical agitation. The Asociación Hispano-Filipina was devoted to promoting Filipino national aspirations through literary channels, and established an organ, La Solidaridad, in Barcelona.