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Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot
Austin Craig
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Title: Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot
Author: Austin Craig
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LINEAGE LIFE AND LABORS
of
JOSE RIZAL
PHILIPPINE PATRIOT
A Study of the Growth of Free Ideas in the Trans-Pacific American
Territory
BY
AUSTIN CRAIG
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR ORIENTAL HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES
AUTHOR OF "THE STUDY OF JOSE RIZAL,"
"EL LINEAJE DEL DOCTOR RIZAL," ETC.
INTRODUCTION BY
JAMES ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, L.H.D.
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MANILA
1913
DEDICATION
To the Philippine Youth
The subject of Doctor Rizal's first prize-winning poem was The
Philippine Youth, and its theme was "Growth." The study of the growth
of free ideas, as illustrated in this book of his lineage, life and
labors, may therefore fittingly be dedicated to the "fair hope of
the fatherland."
Except in the case of some few men of great genius, those who are
accustomed to absolutism cannot comprehend democracy. Therefore our
nation is relying on its young men and young women; on the rising,
instructed generation, for the secure establishment of popular
self-government in the Philippines. This was Rizal's own idea, for
he said, through the old philosopher in "Noli me Tangere," that he
was not writing for his own generation but for a coming, instructed
generation that would understand his hidden meaning.
Your public school education gives you the democratic view-point,
which the genius of Rizal gave him; in the fifty-five volumes of
the Blair-Robertson translation of Philippine historical material
there is available today more about your country's past than the
entire contents of the British Museum afforded him; and you have the
guidance in the new paths that Rizal struck out, of the life of a
hero who, farsightedly or providentially, as you may later decide,
was the forerunner of the present regime.
But you will do as he would have done, neither accept anything because
it is written, nor reject it because it does not fall in with your
prejudices--study out the truth for yourselves.
Introduction
In writing a biography, the author, if he be discriminating, selects,
with great care, the salient features of the life story of the one whom
he deems worthy of being portrayed as a person possessed of preeminent
qualities that make for a character and greatness. Indeed to write
biography at all, one should have that nice sense of proportion that
makes him instinctively seize upon only those points that do advance
his theme. Boswell has given the world an example of biography that
is often wearisome in the extreme, although he wrote about a man
who occupied in his time a commanding position. Because Johnson was
Johnson the world accepts Boswell, and loves to talk of the minuteness
of Boswell's portrayal, yet how many read him, or if they do read him,
have the patience to read him to the end?
In writing the life of the greatest of the Filipinos, Mr. Craig has
ads:
displayed judgment. Saturated as he is with endless details of Rizal's
life, he has had the good taste to select those incidents or those
phases of Rizal's life that exhibit his greatness of soul and that
show the factors that were the most potent in shaping his character
and in controlling his purposes and actions.
A biography written with this chastening of wealth cannot fail to
be instructive and worthy of study. If one were to point out but
a single benefit that can accrue from a study of biography written
as Mr. Craig has done that of Rizal, he would mention, I believe,
that to the character of the student, for one cannot study seriously
about men of character without being affected by that study. As
leading to an understanding of the character of Rizal, Mr. Craig has
described his ancestry with considerable fulness and has shown how the
selective principle has worked through successive generations. But
he has also realized the value of the outside influences and shows
how the accidents of birth and nation affected by environment plus
mental vigor and will produced Jose Rizal. With a strikingly meager
setting of detail, Rizal has been portrayed from every side and the
reader must leave the biography with a knowledge of the elements
that entered into and made his life. As a study for the youth of the
Philippines, I believe this life of Rizal will be productive of good
results. Stimulation and purpose are presented (yet not didactically)
throughout its pages. One object of the author, I should say, has been
to show how both Philippine history and world history helped shape
Rizal's character. Accordingly, he has mentioned many historical
matters both of Philippine and world-wide interest. One cannot read
the book without a desire to know more of these matters. Thus the
book is not only a biography, it is a history as well. It must give
a larger outlook to the youth of the Philippines. The only drawback
that one might find in it, and it seems paradoxical to say it, is
the lack of more detail, for one leaves it wishing that he knew more
of the actual intimate happenings, and this, I take it, is the best
effect a biography can have on the reader outside of the instructive
and moral value of the biography.
JAMES A. ROBERTSON.
MANILA, P. I.
CONTENTS
Dedication. To the Philippine Youth
Introduction
I. America's Forerunner
II. Rizal's Chinese Ancestry
III. Liberalizing Hereditary Influences
IV. Rizal's Early Childhood
V. Jagor's Prophecy
VI. The Period of Preparation
VII. The Period of Propaganda
VIII. Despujol's Duplicity
IX. The Deportation to Dapitan
X. Consummatum Est
XI. The After Life In Memory
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of Rizal Frontispiece
Painted in oils by Felix Resurrection Hidalgo (in color).
Philippine Money and Postage Stamps
Portrait of Rizal
Painted in oils by Juan Luna in Paris. Facsimile (in color).
Columbus at Barcelona
From a print in Rizal's scrapbook.
Portrait Group
Rizal at thirteen. Rizal at eighteen. Rizal in London. The portrait
on the postage stamp.
The Baptismal Record of Domingo Lam-co
Facsimile.
Portrait Group
1. In Luna's home. 2. In 1890. 3. The portrait on the paper
money. 4. In 1891. 5. In 1892.
Pacific Ocean Spheres of Influence
Made by Rizal during President Harrison's administration.
Father of Rizal
Portrait.
Mother of Rizal
Portrait.
Rizal's Family-Tree
Made by Rizal when in Dapitan.
Birthplace of Jose Rizal
From a photograph.
Sketches by Rizal
A group made during his travels.
Bust of Rizal's Father
Carved in wood by Rizal.
The Church and Convento at Kalamba
From a photograph.
Father Leoncio Lopez
From a photograph.
The Lake District of Central Luzon
Sketch made by Rizal.
Rizal's Uncle, Jose Alberto
From a photograph.
Sir John Bowring, K.C.B.
From an old print.
Jose Del Pan of Manila
From a photograph.
Governor De La Torre
From an old print.
Archbishop Martinez
From an old print.
The Very Rev. James Burgos, D.D.
From a photograph.
Gen. F. T. Ward
From a photograph.
Monument to the "Ever-Victorious" Army, Shanghai
From a photograph.
Mrs. Rizal and Her Two Daughters
From a photograph.
Bilibid Prison
From an old print.
Model of a Head of a Dapitan Girl
From a photograph.
Memorial to Jose Alberto in the Church at Binan
From a photograph.
Books from Rizal's Library
From a photograph.
Rizal's Carving of the Sacred Heart
From a photograph.
Bust of Father Guerrico, S. J.
From a photograph.
Two Views of a Composite Statuette by Rizal
From photographs.
Model in Clay of a Dapitan Woman
From a photograph.
Sketch of Himself in the Training Class
Photograph from the original.
Oil Painting of Rizal's Sister, Saturnina
Photograph from the painting.
Rizal's Parting View of Manila
Pencil sketch by himself.
Sketches: 1. Singapore Lighthouse. 2. Along the Suez Canal.
3. Castle of St. Elmo
From Rizal's sketch book.
Studies of Passengers on the French Mail Steamer
From Rizal's sketch book.
Aden, May 28, 1882
From Rizal's sketch book.
Don Pablo Ortigas y Reyes
From a photograph.
First Lines of a Poem by Rizal to Miss Reyes
Facsimile.
Rizal in Juan Luna's Studio in Paris
From a photograph.
The Ruined Castle at Heidelberg
From a photograph.
Dr. Rudolf Virchow
From a photograph.
The House where Rizal Completed "Noli Me Tangere"
From a photograph.
Manuscript of "Noli Me Tangere"
Facsimile.
Portrait of Dr. F. Blumentritt
Pencil sketch by Rizal.
The Victory of Death over Life and of Science over Death
Statuettes by Rizal from photographs.
Jose T. De Andrade, Rizal's Bodyguard
From an old print.
Jose Maria Basa of Hongkong
From a photograph.
Imitations of Japanese Art
From Rizal's sketch book.
Dr. Antonio Maria Regidor
From a photograph.
A "Wheel of Fortune" Answer Book
Facsimile.
Dr. Reinhold Rost
From a photograph.
A Page from Andersen's Fairy Tales Translated by Rizal
Facsimile.
Dedication of Rizal's Translation of Andersen's Fairy Tales
Facsimile.
A Trilingual Letter by Rizal
Facsimile.
Morga's History in the British Museum
From a photograph of the original.
Application, Recommendation and Admission to the British Museum
From photographs of the originals.
"La Solidaridad"
From photograph of the original.
Staff of "La Solidaridad"
From a photograph.
Rizal Fencing with Luna in Paris
From a photograph.
General Weyler Known as "Butcher" Weyler
From a photograph.
Rizal's Parents during the Land Troubles
From photographs.
The Writ of Eviction against Rizal's Father
Facsimile of the original.
Room in which "El Filibusterismo" was Begun
Pencil sketch by Rizal.
First Page of the Manuscript of "El Filibusterismo"
Facsimile from the original.
Cover of the Manuscript of "El Filibusterismo"
Facsimile of the original.
Rizal's Professional Card when in Hongkong
Facsimile of the original.
Statuette Modeled by Rizal
From a photograph.
Don Eulogio Despujol
From an old print.
Proposed Settlement in Borneo
Facsimile of original sketch.
Rizal's Passport or "Safe Conduct"
Photograph of the original.
Part of Despujol's Private Inquiry
Facsimile of the original.
Case Secretly Filed against Rizal
Facsimile of the original.
Luis De La Torre, Secretary to Despujol
From an old print.
Regulations of La Liga Filipina
Facsimile in Rizal's handwriting.
The Calle Ilaya Monument to Rizal and La Liga Filipina
From a photograph.
Three New Species Discovered by Rizal and Named After Him
From an engraving.
Specimens Collected by Rizal and Father Sanchez
From photographs.
Statuette by Rizal, The Mother's Revenge
From a photograph.
Father Sanchez, S. J.
From a photograph.
Drawings of Fishes Caught at Dapitan
Twelve facsimiles of Rizal's originals.
Plan of the Water Works for Dapitan
Facsimile of Rizal's sketch.
Jewelry of Earliest Moro Converts
From a photograph.
Hill and Excavations where the Jewelry was Found
Facsimile of a sketch by Rizal.
List of Ethnographical Material
Facsimile.
The Blind Mr. Taufer
From a photograph.
Rizal's Father-in-Law
From a photograph.
Carved Portrait of Josefina Bracken
From a photograph.
Josefina Bracken's Baptismal Certificate
Facsimile of the original.
Josefina Bracken, Afterwards Mrs. Jose Rizal
From a photograph.
Leonora Rivera
Pencil sketch by Rizal.
Leonora Rivera at the Age of Fifteen
From a photograph.
Letter to His Nephew by Rizal
Facsimile.
Ethnographical Material Collected by Rizal
From a print.
Cell in which Rizal was Imprisoned
From a photograph.
Cuartel De Espana
From a photograph.
Luis T. De Andrade
From an old print.
Interior of Cell
From a photograph.
Rizal's Wedding Gift to His Wife
Facsimile of original.
Rizal's Symbolic Name in Masonry
Facsimile of original.
The Wife of Jose Rizal
From a photograph.
Execution of Rizal
From a photograph.
Burial Record of Rizal
Facsimile from the Paco register.
Grave of Rizal in Paco Cemetery, Manila
From a photograph.
The Alcohol Lamp in which the "Farewell" Poem was Hidden
From a photograph.
The Opening Lines of Rizal's Last Verses
Facsimile of original.
Rizal's Farewell to His Mother
Facsimile.
Monument at the Corner of Rizal Avenue
From a photograph.
Float in a Rizal Day Parade
From a photograph.
W. J. Bryan as a Rizal Day Orator
From a photograph.
Governor-General Forbes and Delegate Mariano Ponce
From a photograph.
The Last Portrait of Jose Rizal's Mother
From a photograph.
Accepted Model for the Rizal Monument
From a photograph.
The Rizal Monument in Front of the New Capital
From a sketch.
The Story of the Monkey and the Tortoise
Six facsimiles from Rizal's originals.
CHAPTER I
America's Forerunner
THE lineage of a hero who made the history of his country during its
most critical period, and whose labors constitute its hope for the
future, must be more than a simple list of an ascending line. The blood
which flowed in his veins must be traced generation by generation,
the better to understand the man, but at the same time the causes
leading to the conditions of his times must be noted, step by step,
in order to give a better understanding of the environment in which
he lived and labored.
The study of the growth of free ideas is now in the days of our
democracy the most important feature of Philippine history; hitherto
this history has consisted of little more than lists of governors,
their term of office, and of the recital of such incidents as were
considered to redound to the glory of Spain, or could be so twisted
and misrepresented as to make them appear to do so. It rarely occurred
to former historians that the lamp of experience might prove a light
for the feet of future generations, and the mistakes of the past
were usually ignored or passed over, thus leaving the way open for
repeating the old errors. But profit, not pride, should be the object
of the study of the past, and our historians of today very largely
concern themselves with mistakes in policy and defects of system;
fortunately for them such critical investigation under our changed
conditions does not involve the discomfort and danger that attended
it in the days of Doctor Rizal.
In the opinion of the martyred Doctor, criticism of the right
sort--even the very best things may be abused till they become
intolerable evils--serves much the same useful warning purpose
for governments that the symptoms of sickness do for persons. Thus
government and individual alike, when advised in time of something
wrong with the system, can seek out and correct the cause before
serious consequences ensue. But the nation that represses honest
criticism with severity, like the individual who deadens his symptoms
with dangerous drugs, is likely to be lulled into a false security
that may prove fatal. Patriot toward Spain and the Philippines alike,
Rizal tried to impress this view upon the government of his day,
with fatal results to himself, and the disastrous effects of not
heeding him have since justified his position.
The very defenses of Old Manila illustrate how the Philippines have
suffered from lack of such devoted, honest and courageous critics as
Jose Rizal. The city wall was built some years later than the first
Spanish occupation to keep out Chinese pirates after Li Ma-hong
destroyed the city. The Spaniards sheltered themselves in the old
Tagalog fort till reenforcements could come from the country. No one
had ever dared to quote the proverb about locking the door after the
horse was stolen. The need for the moat, so recently filled in, was
not seen until after the bitter experience of the easy occupation of
Manila by the English, but if public opinion had been allowed free
expression this experience might have been avoided. And the free
space about the walls was cleared of buildings only after these same
buildings had helped to make the same occupation of the city easier,
yet there were many in Manila who foresaw the danger but feared to
foretell it.
Had the people of Spain been free to criticise the Spaniards' way of
waiting to do things until it is too late, that nation, at one time the
largest and richest empire in the world, would probably have been saved
from its loss of territory and its present impoverished condition. And
had the early Filipinos, to whom splendid professions and sweeping
promises were made, dared to complain of the Peninsular policy of
procrastination--the "manana" habit, as it has been called--Spain
might have been spared Doctor Rizal's terrible but true indictment
that she retarded Philippine progress, kept the Islands miserably
ruled for 333 years and in the last days of the nineteenth century was
still permitting mediaeval malpractices. Rizal did not believe that
his country was able to stand alone as a separate government. He
therefore desired to preserve the Spanish sovereignty in the
Philippines, but he desired also to bring about reforms and conditions
conducive to advancement. To this end he carefully pointed out those
colonial shortcomings that caused friction, kept up discontent, and
prevented safe progress, and that would have been perfectly easy to
correct. Directly as well as indirectly, the changes he proposed were
calculated to benefit the homeland quite as much as the Philippines,
but his well-meaning efforts brought him hatred and an undeserved
death, thus proving once more how thankless is the task of telling
unpleasant truths, no matter how necessary it may be to do so. Because
Rizal spoke out boldly, while realizing what would probably be his
fate, history holds him a hero and calls his death a martyrdom. He
was not one of those popularity-seeking, self-styled patriots who are
ever mouthing "My country, right or wrong;" his devotion was deeper
and more disinterested. When he found his country wrong he willingly
sacrificed himself to set her right. Such unselfish spirits are rare;
in life they are often misunderstood, but when time does them justice,
they come into a fame which endures.
Doctor Rizal knew that the real Spain had generous though sluggish
intentions, and noble though erratic impulses, but it awoke too late;
too late for Doctor Rizal and too late to save the Philippines for
Spain; tardy reforms after his death were useless and the loss of
her overseas possessions was the result. Doctor Rizal lost when he
staked his life on his trust in the innate sense of honor of Spain,
for that sense of honor became temporarily blinded by a sudden but
fatal gust of passion; and it took the shock of the separation to
rouse the dormant Spanish chivalry.
Still in the main Rizal's judgment was correct, and he was the victim
of mistimed, rather than of misplaced, confidence, for as soon as
the knowledge of the real Rizal became known to the Spanish people,
belated justice began to be done his memory, and then, repentant and
remorseful, as is characteristically Castilian, there was little delay
and no half-heartedness. Another name may now be grouped with Columbus
and Cervantes among those to whom Spain has given imprisonment in
life and monuments after death--chains for the man and chaplets for
his memory. In 1896, during the few days before he could be returned
to Manila, Doctor Rizal occupied a dungeon in Montjuich Castle in
Barcelona; while on his way to assist the Spanish soldiers in Cuba
who were stricken with yellow fever, he was shipped and sent back to
a prejudged trial and an unjust execution. Fifteen years later the
Catalan city authorities commemorated the semi-centennial of this
prisoner's birth by changing, in his honor, the name of a street in
the shadow of the infamous prison of Montjuich Castle to "Calle del
Doctor Rizal."
More instances of this nature are not cited since they are not
essential to the proper understanding of Rizal's story, but let it be
made clear once for all that whatever harshness may be found in the
following pages is directed solely to those who betrayed the trust
of the mother country and selfishly abused the ample and unrestrained
powers with which Spain invested them.
And what may seem the exaltation of the Anglo-Saxons at the expense of
the Latins in these pages is intended only to point out the superiority
of their ordered system of government, with its checks and balances,
its individual rights and individual duties, under which men are
"free to live by no man's leave, underneath the Law." No human being
can be safely trusted with unlimited power, and no man, no matter
what his nationality, could have withstood the temptations offered by
the chaotic conditions in the Philippines in past times any better
than did the Spaniards. There is nothing written in this book that
should convey the opinion that in similar circumstances men of any
nationality would not have acted as the Spaniards did. The easiest
recognized characteristic of absolutism, and all the abuses and
corruption it brings in its train, is fear of criticism, and Spain
drew her own indictment in the Philippines when she executed Rizal.
When any nation sets out to enroll all its scholarly critics among
the martyrs in the cause of Liberty, it makes an open confession of
guilt to all the world. For a quarter of a century Spain had been
ruling in the Philippines by terrorizing its subjects there, and
Rizal's execution, with utter disregard of the most elementary rules
of judicial procedure, was the culmination that drove the Filipinos
to desperation and arrested the attention of the whole civilized
world. It was evident that Rizal's fate might have been that of any
of his countrymen, and the thinking world saw that events had taken
such a course in the Philippines that it had become justifiable for
the Filipinos to attempt to dissolve the political bands which had
connected them with Spain for over three centuries.
Such action by the Filipinos would not have been warranted by a
solitary instance of unjust execution under stress of political
excitement that did not indicate the existence of a settled
policy. Such instances are rather to be classed among the mistakes
to which governments as well as individuals are liable. Yet even such
a mistake may be avoided by certain precautions which experience has
suggested, and the nation that disregards these precautions is justly
open to criticism.
Our present Philippine government guarantees to its citizens as
fundamental rights, that no person shall be held to answer for a
capital crime unless on an indictment, nor may he be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life,
liberty or property without due process of law. The accused must have
a speedy, public and impartial trial, be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation, be confronted with the witnesses against him,
have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and have
the assistance of counsel for his defense. Not one of these safeguards
protected Doctor Rizal except that he had an "open trial," if that name
may be given to a courtroom filled with his enemies openly clamoring
for his death without rebuke from the court. Even the presumption of
innocence till guilt was established was denied him. These precautions
have been considered necessary for every criminal trial, but the
framers of the American Constitution, fearful lest popular prejudice
some day might cause injustice to those advocating unpopular ideals,
prohibited the irremediable penalty of death upon a charge of treason
except where the testimony of two reliable witnesses established some
overt act, inference not being admissible as evidence.
Such protection was not given the subjects of Spain, but still, with
all the laxity of the Spanish law, and even if all the charges had been
true, which they were far from being, no case was made out against
Doctor Rizal at his trial. According to the laws then in effect, he
was unfairly convicted and he should be considered innocent; for this
reason his life will be studied to see what kind of hero he was, and
no attempt need be made to plead good character and honest intentions
in extenuation of illegal acts. Rizal was ever the advocate of law,
and it will be found, too, that he was always consistently law-abiding.
Though they are in the Orient, the Filipinos are not of it. Rizal once
said, upon hearing of plans for a Philippine exhibit at a European
World's Fair, that the people of Europe would have a chance to see
themselves as they were in the Middle Ages. With allowances for the
changes due to climate and for the character of the country, this
statement can hardly be called exaggerated. The Filipinos in the
last half of the nineteenth century were not Orientals but mediaeval
Europeans--to the credit of the early Castilians but to the discredit
of the later Spaniards.
The Filipinos of the remoter Christian barrios, whom Rizal had in mind
particularly, were in customs, beliefs and advancement substantially
what the descendants of Legaspi's followers might have been had these
been shipwrecked on the sparsely inhabited islands of the Archipelago
and had their settlement remained shut off from the rest of the world.
Except where foreign influence had accidentally crept in at the
ports, it could truthfully be said that scarcely perceptible advance
had been made in three hundred years. Succeeding Spaniards by their
misrule not only added little to the glorious achievement of their
ancestors, but seemed to have prevented the natural progress which
the land would have made.
In one form or another, this contention was the basis of Rizal's
campaign. By careful search, it is true, isolated instances of
improvement could be found, but the showing at its very best was
so pitifully poor that the system stood discredited. And it was the
system to which Rizal was opposed.
The Spaniards who engaged in public argument with Rizal were
continually discovering, too late to avoid tumbling into them, logical
pitfalls which had been carefully prepared to trap them. Rizal argued
much as he played chess, and was ever ready to sacrifice a pawn to
be enabled to say "check." Many an unwary opponent realized after
he had published what he had considered a clever answer that the
same reasoning which scored a point against Rizal incontrovertibly
established the Kalamban's major premise.
Superficial antagonists, to the detriment of their own reputations,
have made much of what they chose to consider Rizal's historical
errors. But history is not merely chronology, and his representation
of its trend, disregarding details, was a masterly tracing of current
evils to their remote causes. He may have erred in some of his minor
statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much, but attempts to
discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect
upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself
to ridicule were he to complain of some famous historical painting
that it had not been drawn to exact scale. Rizal's writings were
intended to bring out in relief the evils of the Spanish system of
the government of the Filipino people, just as a map of the world
may put the inhabited portions of the earth in greater prominence
than those portions that are not inhabited. Neither is exact in its
representation, but each serves its purpose the better because it
magnifies the important and minimizes the unimportant.
In his disunited and abased countrymen, Rizal's writings aroused, as he
intended they should, the spirit of nationality, of a Fatherland which
was not Spain, and put their feet on the road to progress. What matters
it, then, if his historical references are not always exhaustive, and
if to make himself intelligible in the Philippines he had to write in
a style possibly not always sanctioned by the Spanish Academy? Spain
herself had denied to the Filipinos a system of education that
might have made a creditable Castilian the common language of the
Archipelago. A display of erudition alone does not make an historian,
nor is purity, propriety and precision in choosing words all there
is to literature.
Rizal charged Spain unceasingly with unprogressiveness in the
Philippines, just as he labored and planned unwearyingly to bring
the Filipinos abreast of modern European civilization. But in his
appeals to the Spanish conscience and in his endeavors to educate his
countrymen he showed himself as practical as he was in his arguments,
ever ready to concede nonessentials in name and means if by doing so
progress could be made.
Because of his unceasing efforts for a wiser, better governed and
more prosperous Philippines, and because of his frank admission that
he hoped thus in time there might come a freer Philippines, Rizal was
called traitor to Spain and ingrate. Now honest, open criticism is
not treason, and the sincerest gratitude to those who first brought
Christian civilization to the Philippines should not shut the eyes to
the wrongs which Filipinos suffered from their successors. But until
the latest moment of Spanish rule, the apologists of Spain seemed to
think that they ought to be able to turn away the wrath evoked by the
cruelty and incompetence that ran riot during centuries, by dwelling
upon the benefits of the early days of the Spanish dominion.
Wearisome was the eternal harping on gratitude which at one time was
the only safe tone for pulpit, press and public speech; it irritating
because it ignored questions of current policy, and it was discouraging
to the Filipinos who were reminded by it of the hopeless future for
their country to which time had brought no progress. But with all the
faults and unworthiness of the later rulers, and the inane attempts
of their parasites to distract attention from these failings, there
remains undimmed the luster of Spain's early fame. The Christianizing
which accompanied her flag upon the mainland and islands of the
New World is its imperishable glory, and the transformation of the
Filipino people from Orientals into mediaeval Europeans through the
colonizing genius of the early Castilians, remains a marvel unmatched
in colonial history and merits the lasting gratitude of the Filipino.
Doctor Rizal satirized the degenerate descendants and scored the
unworthy successors, but his writings may be searched in vain for
wholesale charges against the Spanish nation such as Spanish scribblers
were forever directing against all Filipinos, past, present and future,
with an alleged fault of a single one as a pretext. It will be found
that he invariably recognized that the faithful first administrators
and the devoted pioneer missionaries had a valid claim upon the
continuing gratitude of the people of Tupa's and Lakandola's land.
Rizal's insight discerned, and experience has demonstrated, that
Legaspi, Urdaneta and those who were like them, laid broad and firm
foundations for a modern social and political organization which
could be safely and speedily established by reforms from above. The
early Christianizing civilizers deserve no part of the blame for
the fact that Philippine ports were not earlier opened to progress,
but much credit is due them that there is succeeding here an orderly
democracy such as now would be impossible in any neighboring country.
The Philippine patriot would be the first to recognize the justice
of the selection of portraits which appear with that of Rizal upon
the present Philippine postage stamps, where they serve as daily
reminders of how free government came here.
The constancy and courage of a Portuguese sailor put these Islands into
touch with the New World with which their future progress was to be
identified. The tact and honesty of a civil official from Mexico made
possible the almost bloodless conquest which brought the Filipinos
under the then helpful rule of Spain. The bequest of a far-sighted
early philanthropist was the beginning of the water system of Manila,
which was a recognition of the importance of efforts toward improving
the public health and remains a reminder of how, even in the darkest
days of miseries and misgovernment, there have not been wanting
Spaniards whose ideal of Spanish patriotism was to devote heart,
brain and wealth to the welfare of the Filipinos. These were the
heroes of the period of preparation.
The life of the one whose story is told in these pages was devoted
and finally sacrificed to dignify their common country in the eyes
of his countrymen, and to unite them in a common patriotism; he
inculcated that self-respect which, by leading to self-restraint and
self-control, makes self-government possible; and sought to inspire
in all a love of ordered freedom, so that, whether under the flag
of Spain or any other, or by themselves, neither tyrants (caciques)
nor slaves (those led by caciques) would be possible among them.
And the change itself came through an American President who
believed, and practiced the belief, that nations owed obligations
to other nations just as men had duties toward their fellow-men. He
established here Liberty through Law, and provided for progress in
general education, which should be a safeguard to good government as
well, for an enlightened people cannot be an oppressed people. Then
he went to war against the Philippines rather than deceive them,
because the Filipinos, who repeatedly had been tricked by Spain with
unfulfilled promises, insisted on pledges which he had not the power to
give. They knew nothing of what was meant by the rule of the people,
and could not conceive of a government whose head was the servant
and not the master. Nor did they realize that even the voters might
not promise for the future, since republicanism requires that the
government of any period shall rule only during the period that it
is in the majority. In that war military glory and quick conquest
were sacrificed to consideration for the misled enemy, and every
effort was made to minimize the evils of warfare and to gain the
confidence of the people. Retaliation for violations of the usages of
civilized warfare, of which Filipinos at first were guilty through
their Spanish training, could not be entirely prevented, but this
retaliation contrasted strikingly with the Filipinos' unhappy past
experiences with Spanish soldiers. The few who had been educated out
of Spain and therefore understood the American position were daily
reenforced by those persons who became convinced from what they saw,
until a majority of the Philippine people sought peace. Then the
President of the United States outlined a policy, and the history
and constitution of his government was an assurance that this policy
would be followed; the American government then began to do what it
had not been able to promise.
The forerunner and the founder of the present regime in these Islands,
by a strange coincidence, were as alike in being cruelly misunderstood
in their lifetimes by those whom they sought to benefit as they were
in the tragedy of their deaths, and both were unjustly judged by many,
probably well-meaning, countrymen.
Magellan, Legaspi, Carriedo, Rizal and McKinley, heroes of the free
Philippines, belonged to different times and were of different types,
but their work combined to make possible the growing democracy of
to-day. The diversity of nationalities among these heroes is an added
advantage, for it recalls that mingling of blood which has developed
the Filipinos into a strong people.
England, the United States and the Philippines are each composed
of widely diverse elements. They have each been developed by
adversity. They have each honored their severest critics while yet
those critics lived. Their common literature, which tells the story
of human liberty in its own tongue, is the richest, most practical
and most accessible of all literature, and the popular education upon
which rests the freedom of all three is in the same democratic tongue,
which is the most widely known of civilized languages and the only
unsycophantic speech, for it stands alone in not distinguishing by
its use of pronouns in the second person the social grade of the
individual addressed.
The future may well realize Rizal's dream that his country should
be to Asia what England has been to Europe and the United States
is in America, a hope the more likely to be fulfilled since the
events of 1898 restored only associations of the earlier and happier
days of the history of the Philippines. The very name now used is
nearer the spelling of the original Philipinas than the Filipinas
of nineteenth century Spanish usage. The first form was used until
nearly a century ago, when it was corrupted along with so many things
of greater importance.
The Philippines at first were called "The Islands of the West," as
they are considered to be occidental and not oriental. They were made
known to Europe as a sequel to the discoveries of Columbus. Conquered
and colonized from Mexico, most of their pious and charitable
endowments, churches, hospitals, asylums and colleges, were endowed
by philanthropic Mexicans. Almost as long as Mexico remained Spanish
the commerce of the Philippines was confined to Mexico, and the
Philippines were a part of the postal system of Mexico and dependent
upon the government of Mexico exactly as long as Mexico remained
Spanish. They even kept the new world day, one day behind Europe,
for a third of a century longer. The Mexican dollars continued to be
their chief coins till supplanted, recently, by the present peso,
and the highbuttoned white coat, the "americana," by that name was
in general use long years ago. The name America is frequently to be
found in the old baptismal registers, for a century or more ago many
a Filipino child was so christened, and in the '70's Rizal's carving
instructor, because so many of the best-made articles he used were
of American manufacture, gave the name "Americano" to a godchild. As
Americans, Filipinos were joined with the Mexicans when King Ferdinand
VII thanked his subjects in both countries for their loyalty during
the Napoleonic wars. Filipino students abroad found, too, books about
the Philippines listed in libraries and in booksellers' catalogues
as a branch of "Americana."
Nor was their acquaintance confined to Spanish Americans. The name
"English" was early known. Perhaps no other was more familiar in
the beginning, for it was constantly execrated by the Spaniards,
and in consequence secretly cherished by those who suffered wrongs
at their hands.
Magellan had lost his life in his attempted circumnavigation of the
globe and Elcano completed the disastrous voyage in a shattered ship,
minus most of its crew. But Drake, an Englishman, undertook the same
voyage, passed the Straits in less time than Magellan, and was the
first commander in his own ship to put a belt around the earth. These
facts were known in the Philippines, and from them the Filipinos drew
comparisons unfavorable to the boastful Spaniards.
When the rich Philippine galleon Santa Ana was captured off the
California coast by Thomas Candish, "three boys born in Manila"
were taken on board the English ships. Afterwards Candish sailed into
the straits south of "Lucon" and made friends with the people of the
country. There the Filipinos promised "both themselves, and all the
islands thereabouts, to aid him whensoever he should come again to
overcome the Spaniards."
Dampier, another English sea captain, passed through the Archipelago
but little later, and one of his men, John Fitzgerald by name, remained
in the Islands, marrying here. He pretended to be a physician, and
practiced as a doctor in Manila. There was no doubt room for him,
because when Spain expelled the Moors she reduced medicine in her
country to a very low state, for the Moors had been her most skilled
physicians. Many of these Moors who were Christians, though not
orthodox according to the Spanish standard, settled in London, and
the English thus profited by the persecution, just as she profited
when the cutlery industry was in like manner transplanted from Toledo
to Sheffield.
The great Armada against England in Queen Elizabeth's time was an
attempt to stop once for all the depredations of her subjects on
Spain's commerce in the Orient. As the early Spanish historian, Morga,
wrote of it: "Then only the English nation disturbed the Spanish
dominion in that Orient. Consequently King Philip desired not only
to forbid it with arms near at hand, but also to furnish an example,
by their punishment, to all the northern nations, so that they should
not undertake the invasions that we see. A beginning was made in this
work in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight."
This ingeniously worded statement omits to tell how ignominiously
the pretentious expedition ended, but the fact of failure remained
and did not help the prestige of Spain, especially among her subjects
in the Far East. After all the boastings of what was going to happen,
and all the claims of what had been accomplished, the enemies of Spain
not only were unchecked but appeared to be bolder than ever. Some of
the more thoughtful Filipinos then began to lose confidence in Spanish
claims. They were only a few, but their numbers were to increase as
the years went by. The Spanish Armada was one of the earliest of those
influences which, reenforced by later events, culminated in the life
work of Jose Rizal and the loss of the Philippines by Spain.
At that time the commerce of Manila was restricted to the galleon
trade with Mexico, and the prosperity of the Filipino merchants--in
large measure the prosperity of the entire Archipelago--depended
upon the yearly ventures the hazard of which was not so much the
ordinary uncertainty of the sea as the risk of capture by English
freebooters. Everybody in the Philippines had heard of these daring
English mariners, who were emboldened by an almost unbroken series of
successes which had correspondingly discouraged the Spaniards. They
carried on unceasing war despite occasional proclamation of peace
between England and Spain, for the Spanish treasure ships were
tempting prizes, and though at times policy made their government
desire friendly relations with Spain, the English people regarded
all Spaniards as their natural enemies and all Spanish property as
their legitimate spoil.
The Filipinos realized earlier than the Spaniards did that torturing to
death shipwrecked English sailors was bad policy. The result was always
to make other English sailors fight more desperately to avoid a similar
fate. Revenge made them more and more aggressive, and treaties made
with Spain were disregarded because, as they said, Spain's inhumanity
had forfeited her right to be considered a civilized country.
It was less publicly discussed, but equally well known, that the
English freebooters, besides committing countless depredations
on commerce, were always ready to lend their assistance to any
discontented Spanish subjects whom they could encourage into open
rebellion.
The English word Filibuster was changed into "Filibusteros" by the
Spanish, and in later years it came to be applied especially to those
charged with stirring up discontent and rebellion. For three centuries,
in its early application to the losses of commerce, and in its later
use as denoting political agitation, possibly no other word in the
Philippines, outside of the ordinary expressions of daily life, was
so widely known, and certainly none had such sinister signification.
In contrast to this lawless association is a similarity of laws. The
followers of Cortez, it will be remembered, were welcomed in Mexico
as the long-expected "Fair Gods" because of their blond complexions
derived from a Gothic ancestry. Far back in history their forbears
had been neighbors of the Anglo-Saxons in the forests of Germany,
so that the customs of Anglo-Saxon England and of the Gothic
kingdom of Castile had much in common. The "Laws of the Indies,"
the disregard of which was the ground of most Filipino complaints
up to the very last days of the rule of Spain, was a compilation
of such of these Anglo-Saxon-Castilian laws and customs as it was
thought could be extended to the Americas, originally called the New
Kingdom of Castile, which included the Philippine Archipelago. Thus
the New England township and the Mexican, and consequently the early
Philippine pueblo, as units of local government are nearly related.
These American associations, English influences, and Anglo-Saxon ideals
also culminated in the life work of Jose Rizal, the heir of all the
past ages in Philippine history. But other causes operating in his
own day--the stories of his elders, the incidents of his childhood,
the books he read, the men he met, the travels he made--as later
pages will show--contributed further to make him the man he was.
It was fortunate for the Philippines that after the war of
misunderstanding with the United States there existed a character that
commanded the admiration of both sides. Rizal's writings revealed to
the Americans aspirations that appealed to them and conditions that
called forth their sympathy, while the Filipinos felt confidence,
for that reason, in the otherwise incomprehensible new government
which honored their hero.
Rizal was already, and had been for years, without rival as the idol
of his countrymen when there came, after deliberation and delay, his
official recognition in the Philippines. Necessarily there had to be
careful study of his life and scrutiny of his writings before the head
of our nation could indorse as the corner stone of the new government
which succeeded Spain's misrule, the very ideas which Spain had
considered a sufficient warrant for shooting their author as a traitor.
Finally the President of the United States in a public address at
Fargo, North Dakota, on April 7, 1903--five years after American
scholars had begun to study Philippine affairs as they had never
been studied before--declared: "In the Philippine Islands the
American government has tried, and is trying, to carry out exactly
what the greatest genius and most revered patriot ever known in the
Philippines, Jose Rizal, steadfastly advocated," a formal, emphatic
and clear-cut expression of national policy upon a question then of
paramount interest.
In the light of the facts of Philippine history already set forth
there is no cause for wonder at this sweeping indorsement, even
though the views so indorsed were those of a man who lived in
conditions widely different from those about to be introduced by
the new government. Rizal had not allowed bias to influence him in
studying the past history of the Philippines, he had been equally
honest with himself in judging the conditions of his own time, and
he knew and applied with the same fairness the teaching which holds
true in history as in every other branch of science that like causes
under like conditions must produce like results, He had been careful in
his reasoning, and it stood the test, first of President Roosevelt's
advisers, or otherwise that Fargo speech would never have been made,
and then of all the President's critics, or there would have been
heard more of the statement quoted above which passed unchallenged,
but not, one may be sure, uninvestigated.
The American system is in reality not foreign to the Philippines,
but it is the highest development, perfected by experience, of the
original plan under which the Philippines had prospered and progressed
until its benefits were wrongfully withheld from them. Filipino
leaders had been vainly asking Spain for the restoration of their
rights and the return to the system of the Laws of the Indies. At the
time when America came to the Islands there was among them no Rizal,
with a knowledge of history that would enable him to recognize that
they were getting what they had been wanting, who could rise superior
to the unimportant detail of under what name or how the good came as
long as it arrived, and whose prestige would have led his countrymen to
accept his decision. Some leaders had one qualification, some another,
a few combined two, but none had the three, for a country is seldom
favored with more than one surpassingly great man at one time.
CHAPTER II
Rizal's Chinese Ancestry
Clustered around the walls of Manila in the latter half of the
seventeenth century were little villages the names of which, in some
instances slightly changed, are the names of present districts. A
fashionable drive then was through the settlement of Filipinos in
Bagumbayan--the "new town" to which Lakandola's subjects had migrated
when Legaspi dispossessed them of their own "Maynila." With the
building of the moat this village disappeared, but the name remained,
and it is often used to denote the older Luneta, as well as the drive
leading to it.
Within the walls lived the Spanish rulers and the few other persons
that the fear and jealousy of the Spaniard allowed to come in. Some
were Filipinos who ministered to the needs of the Spaniards, but the
greater number were Sangleyes, or Chinese, "the mechanics in all trades
and excellent workmen," as an old Spanish chronicle says, continuing:
"It is true that the city could not be maintained or preserved without
the Sangleyes."
The Chinese conditions of these early days are worth recalling, for
influences strikingly similar to those which affected the life of Jose
Rizal in his native land were then at work. There were troubled times
in the ancient "Middle Kingdom," the earlier name of the corruption
of the Malay Tchina (China) by which we know it. The conquering
Manchus had placed their emperor on the throne so long occupied by
the native dynasty whose adherents had boastingly called themselves
"The Sons of Light." The former liberal and progressive government,
under which the people prospered, had grown corrupt and helpless,
and the country had yielded to the invaders and passed under the
terrible tyranny of the Tartars.
Yet there were true patriots among the Chinese who were neither
discouraged by these conditions nor blind to the real cause of their
misfortunes. They realized that the easy conquest of their country
and the utter disregard by their people of the bad government which
had preceded it, showed that something was wrong with themselves.
Too wise to exhaust their land by carrying on a hopeless war,
they sought rather to get a better government by deserving it,
and worked for the general enlightenment, believing that it would
offer the most effective opposition to oppression, for they knew well
that an intelligent people could not be kept enslaved. Furthermore,
they understood that, even if they were freed from foreign rule, the
change would be merely to another tyranny unless the darkness of the
whole people were dispelled. The few educated men among them would
inevitably tyrannize over the ignorant many sooner or later, and it
would be less easy to escape from the evils of such misrule, for the
opposition to it would be divided, while the strength of union would
oppose any foreign despotism. These true patriots were more concerned
about the welfare of their country than ambitious for themselves,
and they worked to prepare their countrymen for self-government by
teaching self-control and respect for the rights of others.
No public effort toward popular education can be made under a bad
government. Those opposed to Manchu rule knew of a secret society
that had long existed in spite of the laws against it, and they used
it as their model in organizing a new society to carry out their
purposes. Some of them were members of this Ke-Ming-Tong or Chinese
Freemasonry as it is called, and it was difficult for outsiders to
find out the differences between it and the new Heaven-Earth-Man
Brotherhood. The three parts to their name led the new brotherhood
later to be called the Triad Society, and they used a triangle for
their seal.
The initiates of the Triad were pledged to one another in a blood
compact to "depose the Tsing [Tartar] and restore the Ming [native
Chinese] dynasty." But really the society wanted only gradual reform
and was against any violent changes. It was at first evolutionary, but
later a section became dissatisfied and started another society. The
original brotherhood, however, kept on trying to educate its
members. It wanted them to realize that the dignity of manhood is
above that of rank or riches, and seeking to break down the barriers
of different languages and local prejudice, hoped to create an united
China efficient in its home government and respected in its foreign
relations.
* * * * *
It was the policy of Spain to rule by keeping the different elements
among her subjects embittered against one another. Consequently the
entire Chinese population of the Philippines had several times been
almost wiped out by the Spaniards assisted by the Filipinos and
resident Japanese. Although overcrowding was mainly the cause of
the Chinese immigration, the considerations already described seem
to have influenced the better class of emigrants who incorporated
themselves with the Filipinos from 1642 on through the eighteenth
century. Apparently these emigrants left their Chinese homes to avoid
the shaven crown and long braided queue that the Manchu conquerors
were imposing as a sign of submission--a practice recalled by
the recent wholesale cutting off of queues which marked the fall
of this same Manchu dynasty upon the establishment of the present
republic. The patriot Chinese in Manila retained the ancient style,
which somewhat resembled the way Koreans arrange their hair. Those who
became Christians cut the hair short and wore European hats, otherwise
using the clothing--blue cotton for the poor, silk for the richer--and
felt-soled shoes, still considered characteristically Chinese.
The reasons for the brutal treatment of the unhappy exiles and the
causes of the frequent accusation against them that they were intending
rebellion may be found in the fear that had been inspired by the
Chinese pirates, and the apprehension that the Chinese traders and
workmen would take away from the Filipinos their means of gaining a
livelihood. At times unjust suspicions drove some of the less patient
to take up arms in self-defense. Then many entirely innocent persons
would be massacred, while those who had not bought protection from
some powerful Spaniard would have their property pillaged by mobs that
protested excessive devotion to Spain and found their patriotism so
profitable that they were always eager to stir up trouble.
One of the last native Chinese emperors, not wishing that any of
his subjects should live outside his dominions, informed the Spanish
authorities that he considered the emigrants evil persons unworthy
of his interest. His Manchu successors had still more reason to be
careless of the fate of the Manila Chinese. They were consequently ill
treated with impunity, while the Japanese were "treated very cordially,
as they are a race that demand good treatment, and it is advisable
to do so for the friendly relations between the Islands and Japan,"
to quote the ancient history once more.
Pagan or Christian, a Chinaman's life in Manila then was not an
enviable one, though the Christians were slightly more secure. The
Chinese quarter was at first inside the city, but before long it became
a considerable district of several streets along Arroceros near the
present Botanical Garden. Thus the Chinese were under the guns of the
Bastion San Gabriel, which also commanded two other Chinese settlements
across the river in Tondo--Minondoc, or Binondo, and Baybay. They had
their own headmen, their own magistrates and their own prison, and no
outsiders were permitted among them. The Dominican Friars, who also
had a number of missionary stations in China, maintained a church and
a hospital for these Manila Chinese and established a settlement where
those who became Christians might live with their families. Writers
of that day suggest that sometimes conversions were prompted by the
desire to get married--which until 1898 could not be done outside the
Church--or to help the convert's business or to secure the protection
of an influential Spanish godfather, rather than by any changed belief.
Certainly two of these reasons did not influence the conversion of
Doctor Rizal's paternal ancestor, Lam-co (that is, "Lam, Esq."),
for this Chinese had a Chinese godfather and was not married till
many years later.
He was a native of the Chinchew district, where the Jesuits first, and
later the Dominicans, had had missions, and he perhaps knew something
of Christianity before leaving China. One of his church records
indicates his home more definitely, for it specifies Siongque, near
the great city, an agricultural community, and in China cultivation
of the soil is considered the most honorable employment. Curiously
enough, without conversion, the people of that region even to-day
consider themselves akin to the Christians. They believe in one god
and have characteristics distinguishing them from the Pagan Chinese,
possibly derived from some remote Mohammedan ancestors.
Lam-co's prestige among his own people, as shown by his leadership of
those who later settled with him in Binan, as well as the fact that
even after his residence in the country he was called to Manila to
act as godfather, suggests that he was above the ordinary standing,
and certainly not of the coolie class. This is bogne out by his
marrying the daughter of an educated Chinese, an alliance that was
not likely to have been made unless he was a person of some education,
and education is the Chinese test of social degree.
He was baptized in the Parian church of San Gabriel on a Sunday in June
of 1697. Lam-co's age was given in the record as thirty-five years,
and the names of his parents were given as Siang-co and Zun-nio. The
second syllables of these names are titles of a little more respect
than the ordinary "Mr." and "Mrs.," something like the Spanish Don
and Dona, but possibly the Dominican priest who kept the register
was not so careful in his use of Chinese words as a Chinese would
have been. Following the custom of the other converts on the same
occasion, Lam-co took the name Domingo, the Spanish for Sunday, in
honor of the day. The record of this baptism is still to be seen in
the records of the Parian church of San Gabriel, which are preserved
with the Binondo records, in Manila.
Chinchew, the capital of the district from which he came, was a
literary center and a town famed in Chinese history for its loyalty;
it was probably the great port Zeitung which so strongly impressed
the Venetian traveler Marco Polo, the first European to see China.
The city was said by later writers to be large and beautiful and to
contain half a million inhabitants, "candid, open and friendly people,
especially friendly and polite to foreigners." It was situated forty
miles from the sea, in the province of Fokien, the rocky coast of which
has been described as resembling Scotland, and its sturdy inhabitants
seem to have borne some resemblance to the Scotch in their love of
liberty. The district now is better known by its present port of Amoy.
Altogether, in wealth, culture and comfort, Lam-co's home city far
surpassed the Manila of that day, which was, however, patterned after
it. The walls of Manila, its paved streets, stone bridges, and large
houses with spacious courts are admitted by Spanish writers to be due
to the industry and skill of Chinese workmen. They were but slightly
changed from their Chinese models, differing mainly in ornamentation,
so that to a Chinese the city by the Pasig, to which he gave the name
of "the city of horses," did not seem strange, but reminded him rather
of his own country.
Famine in his native district, or the plague which followed it,
may have been the cause of Lam-co's leaving home, but it was more
probably political troubles which transferred to the Philippines
that intelligent and industrious stock whose descendants have proved
such loyal and creditable sons of their adopted country. Chinese had
come to the Islands centuries before the Spaniards arrived and they
are still coming, but no other period has brought such a remarkable
contribution to the strong race which the mixture of many peoples
has built up in the Philippines. Few are the Filipinos notable in
recent history who cannot trace descent from a Chinese baptized in
San Gabriel church during the century following 1642; until recently
many have felt ashamed of these really creditable ancestors.
Soon after Lam-co came to Manila he made the acquaintance of two
well-known Dominicans and thus made friendships that changed his career
and materially affected the fortunes of his descendants. These powerful
friends were the learned Friar Francisco Marquez, author of a Chinese
grammar, and Friar Juan Caballero, a former missionary in China,
who, because of his own work and because his brother held high office
there, was influential in the business affairs of the Order. Through
them Lam-co settled in Binan, on the Dominican estate named after
"St. Isidore the Laborer." There, near where the Pasig river flows
out of the Laguna de Bay, Lam-co's descendants were to be tenants
until another government, not yet born, and a system unknown in his
day, should end a long series of inevitable and vexatious disputes by
buying the estate and selling it again, on terms practicable for them,
to those who worked the land.
The Filipinos were at law over boundaries and were claiming the
property that had been early and cheaply acquired by the Order as
endowment for its university and other charities. The Friars of
the Parian quarter thought to take those of their parishioners in
whom they had most confidence out of harm's way, and by the same act
secure more satisfactory tenants, for prejudice was then threatening
another indiscriminate massacre. So they settled many industrious
Chinese converts upon these farms, and flattered themselves that
their tenant troubles were ended, for these foreigners could have no
possible claim to the land. The Chinese were equally pleased to have
safer homes and an occupation which in China placed them in a social
position superior to that of a tradesman.
Domingo Lam-co was influential in building up Tubigan barrio, one
of the richest parts of the great estate. In name and appearance
it recalled the fertile plains that surrounded his native Chinchew,
"the city of springs." His neighbors were mainly Chinchew men, and
what is of more importance to this narrative, the wife whom he married
just before removing to the farm was of a good Chinchew family. She
was Inez de la Rosa and but half Domingo's age; they were married
in the Parian church by the same priest who over thirty years before
had baptized her husband.
Her father was Agustin Chinco, also of Chinchew, a rice merchant,
who had been baptized five years earlier than Lam-co. His baptismal
record suggests that he was an educated man, as already indicated,
for the name of his town proved a puzzle till a present-day Dominican
missionary from Amoy explained that it appeared to be the combined
names for Chinchew in both the common and literary Chinese, in each
case with the syllable denoting the town left off. Apparently when
questioned from what town he came, Chinco was careful not to repeat
the word town, but gave its name only in the literary language,
and when that was not understood, he would repeat it in the local
dialect. The priest, not understanding the significance of either in
that form, wrote down the two together as a single word. Knowledge
of the literary Chinese, or Mandarin, as it is generally called,
marked the educated man, and, as we have already pointed out,
education in China meant social position. To such minute deductions
is it necessary to resort when records are scarce, and to be of value
the explanation must be in harmony with the conditions of the period;
subsequent research has verified the foregoing conclusions.
Agustin Chinco had also a Chinese godfather and his parents were
Chin-co and Zun-nio. He was married to Jacinta Rafaela, a Chinese
mestiza of the Parian, as soon after his baptism as the banns could
be published. She apparently was the daughter of a Christian Chinese
and a Chinese mestiza; there were too many of the name Jacinta in that
day to identify which of the several Jacintas she was and so enable us
to determine the names of her parents. The Rafaela part of her name
was probably added after she was grown up, in honor of the patron of
the Parian settlement, San Rafael, just as Domingo, at his marriage,
added Antonio in honor of the Chinese. How difficult guides names
then were may be seen from this list of the six children of Agustin
Chinco and Jacinta Rafaela: Magdalena Vergara, Josepha, Cristoval de
la Trinidad, Juan Batista, Francisco Hong-Sun and Inez de la Rosa.
The father-in-law and the son-in-law, Agustin and Domingo, seem to
have been old friends, and apparently of the same class. Lam-co must
have seen his future wife, the youngest in Chinco's numerous family,
grow up from babyhood, and probably was attracted by the idea that
she would make a good housekeeper like her thrifty mother, rather
than by any romantic feelings, for sentiment entered very little into
matrimony in those days when the parents made the matches. Possibly,
however, their married life was just as happy, for divorces then were
not even thought of, and as this couple prospered they apparently
worked well together in a financial way.
The next recorded event in the life of Domingo Lam-co and his wife
occurred in 1741 when, after years of apparently happy existence in
Binan, came a great grief in the loss of their baby daughter, Josepha
Didnio, probably named for her aunt. She had lived only five days,
but payments to the priest for a funeral such as was not given to
many grown persons who died that year in Binan show how keenly the
parents felt the loss of their little girl. They had at the time but
one other child, a boy of ten, Francisco Mercado, whose Christian
name was given partly because he had an uncle of the same name,
and partly as a tribute of gratitude to the friendly Friar scholar
in Manila. His new surname suggests that the family possessed the
commendable trait of taking pride in its ancestry.
Among the Chinese the significance of a name counts for much and it
is always safe to seek a reason for the choice of a name. The Lam-co
family were not given to the practice of taking the names of their
god-parents. Mercado recalls both an honest Spanish encomendero
of the region, also named Francisco, and a worthy mestizo Friar,
now remembered for his botanical studies, but it is not likely that
these influenced Domingo Lam-co in choosing this name for his son. He
gave his boy a name which in the careless Castilian of the country was
but a Spanish translation of the Chinese name by which his ancestors
had been called. Sangley, Mercado and Merchant mean much the same;
Francisco therefore set out in life with a surname that would free
him from the prejudice that followed those with Chinese names,
and yet would remind him of his Chinese ancestry. This was wisdom,
for seldom are men who are ashamed of their ancestry any credit to it.
The family history has to be gleaned from partially preserved parochial
registers of births, marriages and deaths, incomplete court records,
the scanty papers of the estates, a few land transfers, and some stray
writings that accidentally have been preserved with the latter. The
next event in Domingo's life which is revealed by them is a visit
to Manila where in the old Parian church he acted as sponsor,
or godfather, at the baptism of a countryman, and a new convert,
Siong-co, whose granddaughter was, we shall see, to marry a grandson
of Lam-co's, the couple becoming Rizal's grandparents.
Francisco was a grown man when his mother died and was buried with
the elaborate ceremonies which her husband's wealth permitted. There
was a coffin, a niche in which to put it, chanting of the service and
special prayers. All these involved extra cost, and the items noted in
the margin of her funeral record make a total which in those days was
a considerable sum. Domingo outlived Mrs. Lam-co by but a few years,
and he also had, for the time, an expensive funeral.
CHAPTER III
Liberalizing Hereditary Influences
The hope of the Binan landlords that by changing from Filipino to
Chinese tenantry they could avoid further litigation seems to have
been disappointed. A family tradition of Francisco Mercado tells of
a tedious and costly lawsuit with the Order. Its details and merits
are no longer remembered, and they are not important.
History has recorded enough agrarian trouble, in all ages and in all
countries, to prove the economic mistake of large holdings of land by
those who do not cultivate it. Human nature is alike the world over,
it does not change with the centuries, and just as the Filipinos
had done, the Chinese at last obiected to paying increased rent for
improvements which they made themselves.
A Spanish iudge required the landlords to produce their deeds, and,
after measuring the land, he decided that they were then taking rent
for considerably more than they had originally bought or had been
given. But the tenants lost on the appeal, and, as they thought it
was because they were weak and their opponents powerful, a grievance
grew up which was still remembered in Rizal's day and was well known
and understood by him.
Another cause of discontent, which was a liberalizing influence,
was making itself felt in the Philippines about the time of Domingo's
death. A number of Spaniards had been claiming for their own countrymen
such safeguards of personal liberty as were enjoyed by Englishmen,
for no other government in Europe then paid any attention to the rights
of the individual. Learned men had devoted much study to the laws and
rights of nations, but these Spanish Liberals insisted that it was the
guarantees given to the citizens, and not the political independence
of the State, that made a country really free. Unfortunately, just
as their proposals began to gain followers, Spain became involved in
war with England, because the Spanish King, then as now a Bourbon
and so related to a number of other reactionary rulers, had united
in the family compact by which the royal relatives were to stamp out
liberal ideas in their own dominions, and as allies to crush England,
the source of the dissatisfaction which threatened their thrones.
Many progressive Spaniards had become Freemasons, when that ancient
society, after its revival in England, had been reintroduced into
Spain. Now they found themselves suspected of sympathy with England
and therefore of treason to Spain. While this could not be proved,
it led to enforcing a papal bull against them, by which Pope Clement
XII placed their institution under the ban of excommunication.
At first it was intended to execute all the Spanish Freemasons, but
the Queen's favorite violinist secretly sympathized with them. He used
his influence with Her Majesty so well that through her intercession
the King commuted the sentences from death to banishment as minor
officials in the possessions overseas.
Thus Cuba, Mexico, South and Central America, and the Philippines were
provided with the ablest Spanish advocates of modern ideas. In no other
way could liberalism have been spread so widely or more effectively.
Besides these officeholders there had been from the earliest days
noblemen, temporarily out of favor at Court, in banishment in the
colonies. Cavite had some of these exiles, who were called "caja
abierta," or carte blanche, because their generous allowances, which
could be drawn whenever there were government funds, seemed without
limit to the Filipinos. The Spanish residents of the Philippines were
naturally glad to entertain, supply money to, and otherwise serve
these men of noble birth, who might at any time be restored to favor
and again be influential, and this gave them additional prestige in the
eyes of the Filipinos. One of these exiles, whose descendants yet live
in these Islands, passed from prisoner in Cavite to viceroy in Mexico.
Francisco Mercado lived near enough to hear of the "cajas abiertas"
(exiles) and their ways, if he did not actually meet some of them
and personally experience the charm of their courtesy. They were as
different from the ruder class of Spaniards who then were coming to
the Islands as the few banished officials were unlike the general run
of officeholders. The contrast naturally suggested that the majority of
the Spaniards in the Philippines, both in official and in private life,
were not creditable representatives of their country. This charge,
insisted on with greater vehemence as subsequent events furnished
further reasons for doing so, embittered the controversies of the
last century of Spanish rule. The very persons who realized that the
accusation was true of themselves, were those who most resented it,
and the opinion of them which they knew the Filipinos held but dared
not voice, rankled in their breasts. They welcomed every disparagement
of the Philippines and its people, and thus made profitable a
senseless and abusive campaign which was carried on by unscrupulous,
irresponsible writers of such defective education that vilification
was their sole argument. Their charges were easily disproved, but they
had enough cunning to invent new charges continually, and prejudice
gave ready credence to them.
Finally an unreasoning fury broke out and in blind passion innocent
persons were struck down; the taste for blood once aroused,
irresponsible writers like that Retana who has now become Rizal's
biographer, whetted the savage appetite for fresh victims. The
last fifty years of Spanish rule in the Philippines was a small
saturnalia of revenge with hardly a lucid interval for the governing
power to reflect or an opportunity for the reasonable element to
intervene. Somewhat similarly the Bourbons in France had hoped to
postpone the day of reckoning for their mistakes by misdeeds done
in fear to terrorize those who sought reforms. The aristocracy of
France paid back tenfold each drop of innocent blood that was shed,
but while the unreasoning world recalls the French Revolution with
horror, the student of history thinks more of the evils which made
it a natural result. Mirabeau in vain sought to restrain his aroused
countrymen, just as he had vainly pleaded with the aristocrats to end
their excesses. Rizal, who held Mirabeau for his hero among the men of
the French Revolution, knew the historical lesson and sought to sound
a warning, but he was unheeded by the Spaniards and misunderstood by
many of his countrymen.
At about the time of the arrival of the Spanish political exiles
we find in Manila a proof of the normal mildness of Spain in
the Philippines. The Inquisition, of dread name elsewhere, in the
Philippines affected only Europeans, had before it two English-speaking
persons, an Irish doctor and a county merchant accused of being
Freemasons. The kind-hearted Friar inquisitor dismissed the culprits
with warnings, and excepting some Spanish political matters in which
it took part, this was the nearest that the institution ever came to
exercising its functions here.
The sufferings of the Indians in the Spanish-American gold mines, too,
had no Philippine counterpart, for at the instance of the friars the
Church early forbade the enslaving of the people. Neither friars nor
government have any records in the Philippines which warrant belief
that they were responsible for the severe punishments of the period
from '72 to '98. Both were connected with opposition to reforms
which appeared likely to jeopardize their property or to threaten
their prerogatives, and in this they were only human, but here their
selfish interests and activities seem to cease.
For religious reasons the friar orders combatted modern ideas which
they feared might include atheistical teachings such as had made
trouble in France, and the Government was against the introduction of
latter-day thought of democratic tendency, but in both instances the
opposition may well have been believed to be for the best interest
of the Philippine people. However mistaken, their action can only be
deplored not censured. The black side of this matter was the rousing
of popular passion, and it was done by sheets subsidized to argue;
their editors, however, resorted to abuse in order to conceal the fact
that they had not the ability to perform the services for which they
were hired. While some individual members of both the religious orders
and of the Government were influenced by these inflaming attacks,
the interests concerned, as organizations, seem to have had a policy
of self-defense, and not of revenge.
The theory here advanced must wait for the judgment of the reader
till the later events have been submitted. However, Rizal himself
may be called in to prove that the record and policy is what has been
asserted, for otherwise he would hardly have disregarded, as he did,
the writings of Motley and Prescott, historians whom he could have
quoted with great advantage to support the attacks he would surely
have not failed to make had they seemed to him warranted, for he
never was wanting in knowledge, resourcefulness or courage where his
country was concerned.
No definite information is available as to what part Francisco
Mercado took during the disturbed two years when the English held
Manila and Judge Anda carried on a guerilla warfare. The Dominicans
were active in enlisting their tenants to fight against the invaders,
and probably he did his share toward the Spanish defense either with
contributions or personal service. The attitude of the region in
which he lived strengthens this surmise, for only after long-continued
wrongs and repeatedly broken promises of redress did Filipino loyalty
fail. This was a century too early for the country around Manila,
which had been better protected and less abused than the provinces
to the north where the Ilokanos revolted.
Binan, however, was within the sphere of English influence, for
Anda's campaign was not quite so formidable as the inscription on his
monument in Manila represents it to be, and he was far indeed from
being the great conqueror that the tablet on the Santa Cruz Church
describes him. Because of its nearness to Manila and Cavite and
its rich gardens, British soldiers and sailors often visited Binan,
but as the inhabitants never found occasion to abandon their homes,
they evidently suffered no serious inconvenience.
Commerce, a powerful factor, destroying the hermit character of
the Islands, gained by the short experience of freer trade under
England's rule, since the Filipinos obtained a taste for articles
before unused, which led them to be discontented and insistent, till
the Manila market finally came to be better supplied. The contrast
of the British judicial system with the Spanish tribunals was also a
revelation, for the foulest blot upon the colonial administration of
Spain was her iniquitous courts of justice, and this was especially
true of the Philippines.
Anda's triumphal entry into the capital was celebrated with a wholesale
hanging of Chinese, which must have made Francisco Mercado glad that
he was now so identified with the country as to escape the prejudice
against his race.
A few years later came the expulsion of the Jesuit fathers and the
confiscation of their property. It certainly weakened the government;
personal acquaintance counted largely with the Filipinos; whole
parishes knew Spain and the Church only through their parish priest,
and the parish priest was usually a Jesuit whose courtesy equalled that
of the most aristocratic officeholder or of any exiled "caja abierta."
Francisco Mercado did not live in a Jesuit parish but in the
neighboring hacienda of St. John the Baptist at Kalamba, where there
was a great dam and an extensive irrigation system which caused the
land to rival in fertility the rich soil of Binan. Everybody in his
neighborhood knew that the estate had been purchased with money left
in Mexico by pious Spaniards who wanted to see Christianity spread in
the Philippines, and it seemed to them sacrilege that the government
should take such property for its own secular uses.
The priests in Binan were Filipinos and were usually leaders among
the secular clergy, for the parish was desirable beyond most in the
archdiocese because of its nearness to Manila, its excellent climate,
its well-to-do parishioners and the great variety of its useful and
ornamental plants and trees. Many of the fruits and vegetables of
Binan were little known elsewhere, for they were of American origin,
brought by Dominicans on the voyages from Spain by way of Mexico. They
were introduced first into the great gardens at the hacienda house,
which was a comfortable and spacious building adjoining the church,
and the favorite resting place for members of the Order in Manila.
The attendance of the friars on Sundays and fete days gave to the
religious services on these occasions a dignity usually belonging to
city churches. Sometimes, too, some of the missionaries from China
and other Dominican notables would be seen in Binan. So the people
not only had more of the luxuries and the pomp of life than most
Filipinos, but they had a broader outlook upon it. Their opinion
of Spain was formed from acquaintance with many Spaniards and from
comparing them with people of other lands who often came to Manila and
investigated the region close to it, especially the show spots such
as Binan. Then they were on the road to the fashionable baths at Los
Banos, where the higher officials often resorted. Such opportunities
gave a sort of education, and Binan people were in this way more
cultured than the dwellers in remote places, whose only knowledge of
their sovereign state was derived from a single Spaniard, the friar
curate of their parish.
Monastic training consists in withdrawing from the world and living
isolated under strict rule, and this would scarcely seem to be
the best preparation for such responsibility as was placed upon the
Friars. Troubles were bound to come, and the people of Binan, knowing
the ways of the world, would soon be likely to complain and demand the
changes which would avoid them; the residents of less worldly wise
communities would wait and suffer till too late, and then in blind
wrath would wreak bloody vengeance upon guilty and innocent alike.
Kalamba, a near neighbor of Binan, had other reasons for being known
besides its confiscation by the government. It was the scene of an
early and especially cruel massacre of Chinese, and about Francisco's
time considerable talk had been occasioned because an archbishop had
established an uniform scale of charges for the various rites of the
Church. While these charges were often complained of, it was the poorer
people (some of whom were in receipt of charity) who suffered. The
rich were seeking more expensive ceremonies in order to outshine the
other well-to-do people of their neighborhood. The real grievance was,
however, not the cost, but the fact that political discriminations
were made so that those who were out of favor with the government
were likewise deprived of church privileges. The reform of Archbishop
Santo y Rufino has importance only because it gave the people of the
provinces what Manila had long possessed--a knowledge of the rivalry
between the secular and the regular clergy.
The people had learned in Governor Bustamente's time that Church and
State did not always agree, and now they saw dissensions within the
Church. The Spanish Conquest and the possession of the Philippines
had been made easy by the doctrine of the indivisibility of Church
and State, by the teaching that the two were one and inseparable,
but events were continually demonstrating the falsity of this early
teaching. Hence the foundation of the sovereignty of Spain was
slowly weakening, and nowhere more surely than in the region near
Manila which numbered Jose Rizal's keen-witted and observing great
grandfather among its leading men.
Francisco Mercado was a bachelor during the times of these exciting
events and therefore more free to visit Manila and Cavite, and he was
possibly the more likely to be interested in political matters. He
married on May 26, 1771, rather later in life than was customary in
Binan, though he was by no means as old as his father, Domingo, was
when he married. His bride, Bernarda Monicha, was a Chinese mestiza
of the neighboring hacienda of San Pedro Tunasan, who had been early
orphaned and from childhood had lived in Binan. As the coadjutor priest
of the parish bore the same name, one uncommon in the Binan records
of that period, it is possible that he was a relative. The frequent
occurrence of the name of Monicha among the last names of girls of
that vicinity later on must be ascribed to Bernarda's popularity
as godmother.
Mr. and Mrs. Francisco Mercado had two children, both boys, Juan and
Clemente. During their youth the people of the Philippines were greatly
interested in the struggles going on between England, the old enemy
of Spain, and the rebellious English-American colonies. So bitter was
the Spanish hatred of the nation which had humiliated her repeatedly
on both land and sea, that the authorities forgot their customary
caution and encouraged the circulation of any story that told in favor
of the American colonies. Little did they realize the impression that
the statement of grievances--so trivial compared with the injustices
that were being inflicted upon the Spanish colonials--was making upon
their subjects overseas, who until then had been carefully guarded from
all modern ideas of government. American successes were hailed with
enthusiasm in the most remote towns, and from this time may be dated
a perceptible increase in Philippine discontent. Till then outbreaks
and uprisings had been more for revenge than with any well-considered
aim, but henceforth complaints became definite, demands were made
that to an increasing number of people appeared to be reasonable,
and those demands were denied or ignored, or promises were made in
answer to them which were never fulfilled.
Francisco Mercado was well to do, if we may judge from the number of
carabaos he presented for registration, for his was among the largest
herds in the book of brands that has chanced to be preserved with the
Binan church records. In 1783 he was alcalde, or chief officer of the
town, and he lived till 1801. His name appears so often as godfather
in the registers of baptisms and weddings that he must have been a
good-natured, liberal and popular man.
Mrs. Francisco Mercado survived her husband by a number of years,
and helped to nurse through his baby ailments a grandson also named
Francisco, the father of Doctor Rizal.
Francisco Mercado's eldest son, Juan, built a fine house in the center
of Binan, where its pretentious stone foundations yet stand to attest
how the home deserved the pride which the family took in it.
At twenty-two Juan married a girl of Tubigan, who was two years his
elder, Cirila Alejandra, daughter of Domingo Lam-co's Chinese godson,
Siong-co. Cirila's father's silken garments were preserved by the
family until within the memory of persons now living, and it is likely
that Jose Rizal, Siong-co's great-grandson, while in school at Binan,
saw these tangible proofs of the social standing in China of this
one of his ancestors.
Juan Mercado was three times the chief officer of Binan--in 1808, 1813
and 1823. His sympathies are evident from the fact that he gave the
second name, Fernando, to the son born when the French were trying
to get the Filipinos to declare for King Joseph, whom his brother
Napoleon had named sovereign of Spain. During the little while that the
Philippines profited by the first constitution of Spain, Mercado was
one of the two alcaldes. King Ferdinand VII then was relying on English
aid, and to please his allies as well as to secure the loyalty of his
subjects, Ferdinand pretended to be a very liberal monarch, swearing
to uphold the constitution which the representatives of the people
had framed at Cadiz in 1812. Under this constitution the Filipinos
were to be represented in the Spanish Cortes, and the grandfather of
Rizal was one of the electors to choose the Representative.
During the next twenty-five years the history of the connection of the
Philippines with Spain is mainly a record of the breaking and renewing
of the King's oaths to the constitution, and of the Philippines
electing delegates who would find the Cortes dissolved by the time
they could get to Madrid, until in the final constitution that did
last Philippine representation was left out altogether. Had things
been different the sad story of this book might never have been told,
for though the misgovernment of the Philippines was originally owing
to the disregard for the Laws of the Indies and to giving unrestrained
power to officials, the effects of these mistakes were not apparent
until well into the nineteenth century.
Another influence which educated the Filipino people was at work during
this period. They had heard the American Revolution extolled and its
course approved, because the Spaniards disliked England. Then came
the French Revolution, which appalled the civilized world. A people,
ignorant and oppressed, washed out in blood the wrongs which they had
suffered, but their liberty degenerated into license, their ideals
proved impracticable, and the anarchy of their radical republic was
succeeded by the military despotism of Napoleon.
A book written in Tagalog by a friar pointed out the differences
between true liberty and false. It was the story of an old municipal
captain who had traveled and returned to enlighten his friends at
home. The story was well told, and the catechism form in which, by
his friends' questions and the answers to them, the author's opinions
were presented, was familiar to Filipinos, so that there were many
intelligent readers, but its results were quite different from what
its pious and patriotic author had intended they should be.
The book told of the broadening influences of travel and of education;
it suggested that liberty was possible only for the intelligent, but
that schools, newspapers, libraries and the means of travel which the
American colonists were enjoying were not provided for the Filipinos.
They were further told that the Spanish colonies in America were
repeating the unhappy experiences of the French republic, while
the "English North Americans," whose ships during the American
Revolution had found the Pacific a safe refuge from England,
had developed considerable commerce with the Philippines. A kindly
feeling toward the Americans had been aroused by the praise given to
Filipino mechanics who had been trained by an American naval officer
to repair his ship when the Spaniards at the government dockyards
proved incapable of doing the work. Even the first American Consul,
whose monument yet remains in the Plaza Cervantes, Manila, though,
because of his faith, he could not be buried in the consecrated ground
of the Catholic cemeteries, received what would appear to be a higher
honor, a grave in the principal business plaza of the city.
The inferences were irresistible: the way of the French Revolution
was repugnant alike to God and government, that of the American
was approved by both. Filipinos of reflective turn of mind began to
study America; some even had gone there; for, from a little Filipino
settlement, St. Malo near New Orleans, sailors enlisted to fight
in the second war of the United States against England; one of them
was wounded and his name was long borne on the pension roll of the
United States.
The danger of the dense ignorance in which their rulers kept the
Filipinos showed itself in 1819, when a French ship from India having
introduced Asiatic cholera into the Islands, the lowest classes of
Manila ascribed it to the collections of insects and reptiles which
a French naturalist, who was a passenger upon the ship, had brought
ashore. However the story started, the collection and the dwelling
of the naturalist fared badly, and afterwards the mob, excited by
its success, made war upon all foreigners. At length the excitement
subsided, but too much damage to foreign lives and property had been
done to be ignored, and the matter had an ugly look, especially as
no Spaniard had suffered by this outbreak. The Insular government
roused itself to punish some of the minor misdoers and made many
explanations and apologies, but the aggrieved nations insisted, and
obtained as compensation a greater security for foreigners and the
removal of many of the restraints upon commerce and travel. Thus the
riot proved a substantial step in Philippine progress.
Following closely the excitement over the massacre of the foreigners
in Manila came the news that Spain had sold Florida to the United
States. The circumstances of the sale were hardly creditable to the
vendor, for it was under compulsion. Her lax government had permitted
its territory to become the refuge of criminals and lawless savages
who terrorized the border until in self-defense American soldiers under
General Jackson had to do the work that Spain could not do. Then with
order restored and the country held by American troops, an offer to
purchase was made to Spain who found the liberal purchase money a
very welcome addition to her bankrupt treasury.
Immediately after this the Monroe Doctrine attracted widespread
attention in the Philippines. Its story is part of Spanish history. A
group of reactionary sovereigns of Europe, including King Ferdinand,
had united to crush out progressive ideas in their kingdoms and
to remove the dangerous examples of liberal states from their
neighborhoods. One of the effects of this unholy alliance was to
nullify all the reforms which Spain had introduced to secure English
assistance in her time of need, and the people of England were greatly
incensed. Great Britain had borne the brunt of the war against Napoleon
because her liberties were jeopardized, but naturally her people could
not be expected to undertake further warfare merely for the sake of
people of another land, however they might sympathize with them.
George Canning, the English statesman to whom belonged much of the
credit for the Constitution of Cadiz, thought out a way to punish
the Spanish king for his perfidy. King Ferdinand was planning, with
the Island of Cuba as a base, to begin a campaign that should return
his rebellious American colonies to their allegiance, for they had
taken advantage of disturbances in the Peninsula to declare their
independence. England proposed to the United States that they, the two
Anglo-Saxon nations whose ideas of liberty had unsettled Europe and
whom the alliance would have attacked had it dared, should unite in
a protectorate over the New World. England was to guard the sea and
the United States were to furnish the soldiers for any land fighting
which might come on their side of the Atlantic.
World politics had led the enemies of England to help her revolting
colonies, Napoleon's jealousy of Britain had endowed the new nation
with the vast Louisiana Territory, and European complications saved the
United States from the natural consequences of their disastrous war of
1812, which taught them that union was as necessary to preserve their
independence as it had been to win it. Canning's project in principle
appealed to the North Americans, but the study of it soon showed that
Great Britain was selfish in her suggestion. After a generation of
fighting, England found herself drained of soldiers and therefore she
diplomatically invited the cooeperation of her former colonies; but,
regardless of any formal arrangement, her navy could be relied on to
prevent those who had played her false from transporting large armies
across the ocean into the neighborhood of her otherwise defenseless
colonies. That was self-preservation.
President Monroe's advisers were willing that their country should run
some risk on its own account, but they had the traditional American
aversion to entangling alliances. So the Cabinet counseled that the
young nation alone should make itself the protector of the South
American republics, and drafted the declaration warning the world
that aggression against any of the New World democracies would be
resented as unfriendliness to the United States.
It was the firm attitude of President Monroe that compelled Spain to
forego the attempt to reconquer her former colonies, and therefore
Mexico and Central and South America owe their existence as republics
quite as much to the elder commonwealth as does Cuba.
The American attitude revealed in the Monroe Doctrine was especially
obnoxious to the Spaniards in the Philippines but their intemperate
denunciations of the policy of America for the Americans served only
to spread a knowledge of that doctrine among the people of that little
territory which remained to them to misgovern. Secretly there began
to be, among the stouter-hearted Filipinos, some who cherished a
corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the Philippines for the Filipinos.
Thoughts of separation from Spain by means of rebellion, by sale
and by the assistance of other nations, had been thus put into the
heads of the people. These were all changes coming from outside,
but it next to be demonstrated that Spain herself did not hold her
noncontiguous territories as sacred as she did her home dominions.
The sale of Florida suggested that Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines
were also available assets, and an offer to sell them was made to
the King of France; but this sovereign overreached himself, for,
thinking to drive a better bargain, he claimed that the low prices
were too high. Thereupon the Spanish Ambassador, who was not in accord
with his unpatriotic instructions, at once withdrew the offer and
the negotiations terminated. But the Spanish people learned of the
proposed sale and their indignation was great. The news spread to the
Spaniards in the Philippines. Through their comments the Filipinos
realized that the much-talked-of sacred integrity of the Spanish
dominions was a meaningless phrase, and that the Philippines would
not always be Spanish if Spain could get her price.
Gobernadorcillo Mercado, "Captain Juan," as he was called, made a
creditable figure in his office, and there used to be in Binan a
painting of him with his official sword, cocked hat and embroidered
blouse. The municipal executive in his time did not always wear the
ridiculous combination of European and old Tagalog costumes, namely, a
high hat and a short jacket over the floating tails of a pleated shirt,
which later undignified the position. He has a notable record for his
generosity, the absence of oppression and for the official honesty
which distinguished his public service from that of many who held
his same office. He did, however, change the tribute lists so that
his family were no longer "Chinese mestizos," but were enrolled as
"Indians," the wholesale Spanish term for the natives of all Spain's
possessions overseas. This, in a way, was compensation (it lowered
his family's tribute) for his having to pay the taxes of all who
died in Binan or moved away during his term of office. The municipal
captain then was held accountable whether the people could pay or not,
no deductions ever being made from the lists. Most gobernadorcillos
found ways to reimburse themselves, but not Mercado. His family,
however, were of the fourth generation in the Philippines and he
evidently thought that they were entitled to be called Filipinos.
A leader in church work also, and several times "Hermano mayor" of
its charitable society, the Captain's name appears on a number of
lists that have come down from that time as a liberal contributor
to various public subscriptions. His wife was equally benevolent,
as the records show.
Mr. and Mrs. Mercado did not neglect their family, which was rather
numerous. Their children were Gavino, Potenciana (who never married),
Leoncio, Fausto, Barcelisa (who became the wife of Hermenegildo
Austria), Gabriel, Julian, Gregorio Fernando, Casimiro, Petrona
(who married Gregorio Neri), Tomasa (later Mrs. F. de Guzman), and
Cornelia, the belle of the family, who later lived in Batangas.
Young Francisco was only eight years old when his father died, but
his mother and sister Potenciana looked well after him. First he
attended a Binan Latin school, and later he seems to have studied
Latin and philosophy in the College of San Jose in Manila.
A sister, Petrona, for some years had been a dressgoods merchant in
nearby Kalamba, on an estate that had recently come under the same
ownership as Binan. There she later married, and shortly after was
widowed. Possibly upon their mother's death, Potenciana and Francisco
removed to Kalamba; though Petrona died not long after, her brother
and sister continued to make their home there.
Francisco, in spite of his youth, became a tenant of the estate as did
some others of his family, for their Binan holdings were not large
enough to give farms to all Captain Juan's many sons. The landlords
early recognized the agricultural skill of the Mercados by further
allotments, as they could bring more land under cultivation. Sometimes
Francisco was able to buy the holdings of others who proved less
successful in their management and became discouraged.
The pioneer farming, clearing the miasmatic forests especially, was
dangerous work, and there were few families that did not buy their
land with the lives of some of its members. In 1847 the Mercados
had funerals, of brothers and nephews of Francisco, and, chief
among them, of that elder sister who had devoted her life to him,
Potenciana. She had always prompted and inspired the young man, and
Francisco's success in life was largely due to her wise counsels and
her devoted encouragement of his industry and ambition. Her thrifty
management of the home, too, was sadly missed.
A year after his sister Potenciana's death, Francisco Mercado married
Teodora Alonzo, a native of Manila, who for several years had been
residing with her mother at Kalamba. The history of the family of
Mrs. Mercado is unfortunately not so easily traced as is that of her
husband, and what is known is of less simplicity and perhaps of more
interest since the mother's influence is greater than the father's,
and she was the mother of Jose Rizal.
Her father, Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo (born 1790, died 1854), is said
to have been "very Chinese" in appearance. He had a brother who was
a priest, and a sister, Isabel, who was quite wealthy; he himself
was also well to do. Their mother, Maria Florentina (born 1771, died
1817), was, on her mother's side, of the famous Florentina family of
Chinese mestizos originating in Baliwag, Bulacan, and her father was
Captain Mariano Alejandro of Binan.
Lorenzo Alberto was municipal captain of Binan in 1824, as had been his
father, Captain Cipriano Alonzo (died 18O5), in 1797. The grandfather,
Captain Gregorio Alonzo (died 1794), was a native of Quiotan barrio,
and twice, in 1763 and again in 1768, at the head of the mestizos'
organization of the Santa Cruz district in Manila.
Captain Lorenzo was educated for a surveyor, and his engineering books,
some in English and others in French, were preserved in Binan till,
upon the death of his son, the family belongings were scattered. He
was wealthy, and had invested a considerable sum of money with the
American Manila shipping firms of Peele, Hubbell & Co., and Russell,
Sturgis & Co.
The family story is that he became acquainted with Brigida de Quintos,
Mrs. Rizal's mother, while he was a student in Manila, and that she,
being unusually well educated for a girl of those days, helped him
with his mathematics. Their acquaintance apparently arose through
relationship, both being connected with the Reyes family. They had five
children: Narcisa (who married Santiago Muger), Teodora (Mrs. Francisco
Rizal Mercado), Gregorio, Manuel and Jose. All were born in Manila,
but lived in Kalamba, and they used the name Alonzo till that general
change of names in 1850 when, with their mother, they adopted the
name Realonda. This latter name has been said to be an allusion to
royal blood in the family, but other indications suggest that it
might have been a careless mistake made in writing by Rosa Realonda,
whose name sometimes appears written as Redonda. There is a family
Redondo (Redonda in its feminine form) Alonzo of Ilokano origin, the
same stock as their traditions give for Mrs. Rizal's father, some
of whose members were to be found in the neighborhood of Binan and
Pasay. One member of this family was akin in spirit to Jose Rizal,
for he was fined twenty-five thousand pesos by the Supreme Court of
the Philippine Islands for "contempt of religion." It appears that he
put some original comparisons into a petition which sought to obtain
justice from an inferior tribunal where, by the omission of the word
"not" in copying, the clerk had reversed the court's decision but
the judge refused to change the record.
Brigida de Quintos's death record, in Kalamba (1856), speaks of her
as the daughter of Manuel de Quintos and Regina Ochoa.
The most obscure part of Rizal's family tree is the Ochoa branch, the
family of the maternal grandmother, for all the archives,--church,
land and court,--disappeared during the late disturbed conditions
of which Cavite was the center. So one can only repeat what has been
told by elderly people who have been found reliable in other accounts
where the clews they gave could be compared with existing records.
The first of the family is said to have been Policarpio Ochoa, an
employe of the Spanish customs house. Estanislao Manuel Ochoa was his
son, with the blood of old Castile mingling with Chinese and Tagalog
in his veins. He was part owner of the Hacienda of San Francisco de
Malabon. One story says that somewhere in this family was a Mariquita
Ochoa, of such beauty that she was known in Cavite, where was her home,
as the Sampaguita (jasmine) of the Parian, or Chinese, quarter.
There was a Spanish nobleman also in Cavite in her time who had
been deported for political reasons--probably for holding liberal
opinions and for being thought to be favorable to English ideas. It
is said that this particular "caja abierta" was a Marquis de Canete,
and if so there is ground for the claim that he was of royal blood;
at least some of his far-off ancestors had been related to a former
ruling family of Spain.
Mariquita's mother knew the exile, since, according to the custom
in Filipino families, she looked after the business interests of her
husband. Curious to see the belle of whom he had heard so much, the
Marquis made an excuse of doing business with the mother, and went to
her home on an occasion when he knew that the mother was away. No one
else was there to answer his knock and Mariquita, busied in making
candy, could not in her confusion find a coconut shell to dip water
for washing her hands from the large jar, and not to keep the visitor
waiting, she answered the door as she was. Not only did her appearance
realize the expectations of the Marquis, but the girl seemed equally
attractive for her self-possessed manners and lively mind. The nobleman
was charmed. On his way home he met a cart loaded with coconut dippers
and he bought the entire lot and sent it as his first present.
After this the exile invented numerous excuses to call, till
Mariquita's mother finally agreed to his union with her daughter. His
political disability made him out of favor with the State church,
the only place in which people could be married then, but Mariquita
became what in English would be called a common-law wife. One of their
children, Jose, had a tobacco factory and a slipper factory in Meisic,
Manila, and was the especial protector of his younger sister, Regina,
who became the wife of attorney Manuel de Quintos. A sister of Regina
was Diega de Castro, who with another sister, Luseria, sold "chorizos"
(sausages) or "tiratira" (taffy candy), the first at a store and
the second in their own home, but both in Cavite, according to the
variations of one narrative.
A different account varies the time and omits the noble ancestor by
saying that Regina was married unusually young to Manuel de Quintos to
escape the attentions of the Marquis. Another authority claims that
Regina was wedded to the lawyer in second marriage, being the widow
of Facundo de Layva, the captain of the ship Hernando Magallanes,
whose pilot, by the way, was Andrew Stewart, an Englishman.
It is certain that Regina Ochoa was of Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog
ancestry, and it is recorded that she was the wife of Manuel de
Quintos. Here we stop depending on memories, for in the restored
burial register of Kalamba church in the entry of the funeral of
Brigida de Quintos she is called "the daughter of Manuel de Quintos
and Regina Ochoa."
Manuel de Quintos was an attorney of Manila, graduated from Santo Tomas
University, whose family were Chinese mestizos of Pangasinan. The
lawyer's father, of the same name, had been municipal captain of
Lingayan, and an uncle was leader of the Chinese mestizos in a
protest they had made against the arbitrariness of their provincial
governor. This petition for redress of grievances is preserved in
the Supreme Court archives with "Joaquin de Quintos" well and boldly
written at the head of the complainants' names, evidence of a culture
and a courage that were equally uncommon in those days. Complaints
under Spanish rule, no matter how well founded, meant trouble for the
complainants; we must not forget that it was a vastly different thing
from signing petitions or adhering to resolutions nowadays. Then the
signers risked certainly great annoyance, sometimes imprisonment,
and not infrequently death.
The home of Quintos had been in San Pedro Macati at the time of Captain
Novales's uprising, the so-called "American revolt" in protest against
the Peninsulars sent out to supersede the Mexican officers who had
remained loyal to Spain when the colony of their birth separated
itself from the mother country. As little San Pedro Macati is charged
with having originated the conspiracy, it is unlikely that it was
concealed from the liberal lawyer, for attorneys were scarcer and
held in higher esteem in those days.
The conservative element then, as later, did not often let drop
any opportunity of purging the community of those who thought for
themselves, by condemning them for crime unheard and undefended,
whether they had been guilty of it or not.
All the branches of Mrs. Rizal's family were much richer than the
relatives of her husband; there were numerous lawyers and priests
among them--the old-time proof of social standing--and they were
influential in the country.
There are several names of these related families that belong among
the descendants of Lakandola, as traced by Mr. Luther Parker in
his study of the Pampangan migration, and color is thereby given,
so far as Rizal is concerned, to a proud boast that an old Pampangan
lady of this descent makes for her family. She, who is exceedingly
well posted upon her ancestry, ends the tracing of her lineage from
Lakandola's time by asserting that the blood of that chief flowed
in the veins of every Filipino who had the courage to stand forward
as the champion of his people from the earliest days to the close of
the Spanish regime. Lakandola, of course, belonged to the Mohammedan
Sumatrans who emigrated to the Philippines only a few generations
before Magellan's discovery.
To recall relatives of Mrs. Rizal who were in the professions may
help to an understanding of the prominence of the family. Felix
Florentino, an uncle, was the first clerk of the Nueva Segovia
(Vigan) court. A cousin-german, Jose Florentino, was a Philippine
deputy in the Spanish Cortes, and a lawyer of note, as was also
his brother, Manuel. Another relative, less near, was Clerk Reyes,
of the Court of First Instance in Manila. The priest of Rosario,
Vicar of Batangas Province, Father Leyva, was a half-blood relation,
and another priestly relative was Mrs. Rizal's paternal uncle,
Father Alonzo. These were in the earlier days when professional
men were scarcer. Father Almeida, of Santa Cruz Church, Manila,
and Father Agustin Mendoz, his predecessor in the same church, and
one of the sufferers in the Cavite trouble of '72--a deporte--were
most distantly connected with the Rizal family. Another relative,
of the Reyes connection, was in the Internal Revenue Service and had
charge of Kalamba during the latter part of the eighteenth century.
Mrs. Rizal was baptized in Santa Cruz Church, Manila, November 18,
1827, as Teodora Morales Alonzo, her godmother being a relative by
marriage, Dona Maria Cristina. She was given an exceptionally good
fundamental education by her gifted mother, and completed her training
in Santa Rosa College, Manila, which was in the charge of Filipino
sisters. Especially did the religious influence of her schooling
manifest itself in her after life. Unfortunately there are no records
in the institution, because it is said all the members of the Order
who could read and write were needed for instruction and there was
no one competent who had time for clerical work.
Brigida de Quintos had removed to the property in Kalamba which Lorenzo
Alberto had transferred to her, and there as early as 1844 she is
first mentioned as Brigida de Quintos, then as Brigida de Alonzo,
and later as Brigida Realonda.
CHAPTER IV
Rizal's Early Childhood
JOSE PROTASIO RIZAL MERCADO Y ALONZO REALONDA, the seventh child of
Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and his wife, Teodora
Morales Alonzo Realonda y Quintos, was born in Kalamba, June 19, 1861.
He was a typical Filipino, for few persons in this land of mixed
blood could boast a greater mixture than his. Practically all
the ethnic elements, perhaps even the Negrito in the far past,
combined in his blood. All his ancestors, except the doubtful
strain of the Negrito, had been immigrants to the Philippines, early
Malays, and later Sumatrans, Chinese of prehistoric times and the
refugees from the Tartar dominion, and Spaniards of old Castile and
Valencia--representatives of all the various peoples who have blended
to make the strength of the Philippine race.
Shortly before Jose's birth his family had built a pretentious new home
in the center of Kalamba on a lot which Francisco Mercado had inherited
from his brother. The house was destroyed before its usefulness had
ceased, by the vindictiveness of those who hated the man-child that
was born there. And later on the gratitude of a free people held the
same spot sacred because there began that life consecrated to the
Philippines and finally given for it, after preparing the way for the
union of the various disunited Chinese mestizos, Spanish mestizos,
and half a hundred dialectically distinguished "Indians" into the
united people of the Philippines.
Jose was christened in the nearby church when three days old, and as
two out-of-town bands happened to be in Kalamba for a local festival,
music was a feature of the event. His godfather was Father Pedro
Casanas, a Filipino priest of a Kalamba family, and the priest who
christened him was also a Filipino, Father Rufino Collantes. Following
is a translation of the record of Rizal's birth and baptism: "I, the
undersigned parish priest of the town of Calamba, certify that from
the investigation made with proper authority, for replacing the parish
books which were burned September 28, 1862, to be found in Docket No. 1
of Baptisms, page 49, it appears by the sworn testimony of competent
witnesses that JOSE RIZAL MERCADO is the legitimate son, and of lawful
wedlock, of Don Francisco Rizal Mercado and Dona Teodora Realonda,
having been baptized in this parish on the 22d day of June in the year
1861, by the parish priest, Rev. Rufino Collantes, Rev. Pedro Casanas
being his godfather."--Witness my signature. (Signed) LEONCIO LOPEZ.
Jose Rizal's earliest training recalls the education of William
and Alexander von Humboldt, those two nineteenth century Germans
whose achievements for the prosperity of their fatherland and the
advancement of humanity have caused them to be spoken of as the most
remarkable pair of brothers that ever lived. He was not physically
a strong child, but the direction of his first studies was by an
unusually gifted mother, who succeeded, almost without the aid of
books, in laying a foundation upon which the man placed an amount
of well-mastered knowledge along many different lines that is truly
marvelous, and this was done in so short a time that its brevity
constitutes another wonder.
At three he learned his letters, having insisted upon being
taught to read and being allowed to share the lessons of an elder
sister. Immediately thereafter he was discovered with her story book,
spelling out its words by the aid of the syllabary or "caton" which
he had propped up before him and was using as one does a dictionary
in a foreign language.
The little boy spent also much of his time in the church, which was
conveniently near, but when the mother suggested that this might be
an indication of religious inclination, his prompt response was that
he liked to watch the people.
To how good purpose the small eyes and ears were used, the true-to-life
types of the characters in "Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo"
testify.
Three uncles, brothers of the mother, concerned themselves with
the intellectual, artistic and physical training of this promising
nephew. The youngest, Jose, a teacher, looked after the regular
lessons. The giant Manuel developed the physique of the youngster,
until he had a supple body of silk and steel and was no longer a
sickly lad, though he did not entirely lose his somewhat delicate
looks. The more scholarly Gregorio saw that the child earned his candy
money--trying to instill the idea into his mind that it was not the
world's way that anything worth having should come without effort; he
taught him also the value of rapidity in work, to think for himself,
and to observe carefully and to picture what he saw.
Sometimes Jose would draw a bird flying without lifting pencil from the
paper till the picture was finished. At other times it would be a horse
running or a dog in chase, but it always must be something of which
he had thought himself and the idea must not be overworked; there was
no payment for what had been done often before. Thus he came to think
for himself, ideas were suggested to him indirectly, so he was never
a servile copyist, and he acquired the habit of speedy accomplishment.
Clay at first, then wax, was his favorite play material. From these he
modeled birds and butterflies that came ever nearer to the originals
in nature as the wise praise of the uncles called his attention to
possibilities of improvement and encouraged him to further effort. This
was the beginning of his nature study.
Jose had a pony and used to take long rides through all the surrounding
country, so rich in picturesque scenery. Besides these horseback
expeditions were excursions afoot; on the latter his companion was
his big black dog, Usman. His father pretended to be fearful of some
accident if dog and pony went together, so the boy had to choose
between these favorites, and alternated walking and riding, just as
Mr. Mercado had planned he should. The long pedestrian excursions
of his European life, though spoken of as German and English habits,
were merely continuations of this childhood custom. There were other
playmates besides the dog and the horse, especially doves that lived
in several houses about the Mercado home, and the lad was friend
and defender of all the animals, birds, and even insects in the
neighborhood. Had his childish sympathies been respected the family
would have been strictly vegetarian in their diet.
At times Jose was permitted to spend the night in one of the curious
little straw huts which La Laguna farmers put up during the harvest
season, and the myths and legends of the region which he then heard
interested him and were later made good use of in his writings.
Sleight-of-hand tricks were a favorite amusement, and he developed
a dexterity which mystified the simple folk of the country. This
diversion, and his proficiency in it, gave rise to that mysterious awe
with which he was regarded by the common people of his home region;
they ascribed to him supernatural powers, and refused to believe that
he was really dead even after the tragedy of Bagumbayan.
Entertainment of the neighbors with magic-lantern exhibitions was
another frequent amusement, an ordinary lamp throwing its light on
a common sheet serving as a screen. Jose's supple fingers twisted
themselves into fantastic shapes, the enlarged shadows of which on
the curtain bore resemblance to animals, and paper accessories were
worked in to vary and enlarge the repertoire of action figures. The
youthful showman was quite successful in catering to the public taste,
and the knowledge he then gained proved valuable later in enabling
him to approach his countrymen with books that held their attention
and gave him the opportunity to tell them of shortcomings which it
was necessary that they should correct.
Almost from babyhood he had a grown-up way about him, a sort of dignity
that seemed to make him realize and respect the rights of others and
unconsciously disposed his elders to reason with him, rather than scold
him for his slight offenses. This habit grew, as reprimands were needed
but once, and his grave promises of better behavior were faithfully
kept when the explanation of why his conduct was wrong was once made
clear to him. So the child came to be not an unwelcome companion even
for adults, for he respected their moods and was never troublesome. A
big influence in the formation of the child's character was his
association with the parish priest of Kalamba, Father Leoncio Lopez.
The Kalamba church and convento, which were located across the way
from the Rizal home, were constructed after the great earthquake of
1863, which demolished so many edifices throughout the central part
of the Philippines.
The curate of Kalamba had a strong personality and was notable
among the Filipino secular clergy of that day when responsibility
had developed many creditable figures. An English writer of long
residence in the Philippines, John Foreman, in his book on the
Philippine Islands, describes how his first meeting with this priest
impressed him, and tells us that subsequent acquaintance confirmed
the early favorable opinion of one whom he considered remarkable for
broad intelligence and sanity of view. Father Leoncio never deceived
himself and his judgment was sound and clear, even when against
the opinions and persons of whom he would have preferred to think
differently. Probably Jose, through the priest's fondness for children
and because he was well behaved and the son of friendly neighbors,
was at first tolerated about the convento, the Philippine name for
the priest's residence, but soon he became a welcome visitor for his
own sake.
He never disturbed the priest's meditations when the old clergyman
was studying out some difficult question, but was a keen observer,
apparently none the less curious for his respectful reserve. Father
Leoncio may have forgotten the age of his listener, or possibly was
only thinking aloud, but he spoke of those matters which interested
all thinking Filipinos and found a sympathetic, eager audience in
the little boy, who at least gave close heed if he had at first no
valuable comments to offer.
In time the child came to ask questions, and they were so sensible
that careful explanation was given, and questions were not dismissed
with the statement that these things were for grown-ups, a statement
which so often repels the childish zeal for knowledge. Not many
mature people in those days held so serious converse as the priest
and his child friend, for fear of being overheard and reported,
a danger which even then existed in the Philippines.
That the old Filipino priest of Rizal's novels owed something to the
author's recollections of Father Leoncio is suggested by a chapter in
"Noli Me Tangere." Ibarra, viewing Manila by moonlight on the first
night after his return from Europe, recalls old memories and makes
mention of the neighborhood of the Botanical Garden, just beyond
which the friend and mentor of his youth had died. Father Leoncio
Lopez died in Calle Concepcion in that vicinity, which would seem to
identify him in connection with that scene in the book, rather than
numerous others whose names have been sometimes suggested.
Two writings of Rizal recall thoughts of his youthful days. One tells
how he used to wander down along the lake shore and, looking across
the waters, wonder about the people on the other side. Did they,
too, he questioned, suffer injustice as the people of his home town
did? Was the whip there used as freely, carelessly and unmercifully by
the authorities? Had men and women also to be servile and hypocrites
to live in peace over there? But among these thoughts, never once
did it occur to him that at no distant day the conditions would be
changed and, under a government that safeguarded the personal rights
of the humblest of its citizens, the region that evoked his childhood
wondering was to become part of a province bearing his own name in
honor of his labors toward banishing servility and hypocrisy from
the character of his countrymen.
The lake district of Central Luzon is one of the most historic regions
in the Islands, the May-i probably of the twelfth century Chinese
geographer. Here was the scene of the earliest Spanish missionary
activity. On the south shore is Kalamba, birthplace of Doctor Rizal,
with Binan, the residence of his father's ancestors, to the northwest,
and on the north shore the land to which reference is made above. Today
this same region at the north bears the name of Rizal Province in
his honor.
The other recollection of Rizal's youth is of his first reading
lesson. He did not know Spanish and made bad work of the story of the
"Foolish Butterfly," which his mother had selected, stumbling over the
words and grouping them without regard to the sense. Finally Mrs. Rizal
took the book from her son and read it herself, translating the tale
into the familiar Tagalog used in their home. The moral is supposed
to be obedience, and the young butterfly was burned and died because
it disregarded the parental warning not to venture too close to the
alluring flame. The reading lesson was in the evening and by the
light of a coconut-oil lamp, and some moths were very appropriately
fluttering about its cheerful blaze. The little boy watched them as
his mother read and he missed the moral, for as the insects singed
their wings and fluttered to their death in the flame he forgot
their disobedience and found no warning in it for him. Rather he
envied their fate and considered that the light was so fine a thing
that it was worth dying for. Thus early did the notion that there
are things worth more than life enter his head, though he could not
foresee that he was to be himself a martyr and that the day of his
death would before long be commemorated in his country to recall to
his countrymen lessons as important to their national existence as
his mother's precept was for his childish welfare.
When he was four the mystery of life's ending had been brought home to
him by the death of a favorite little sister, and he shed the first
tears of real sorrow, for until then he had only wept as children do
when disappointed in getting their own way. It was the first of many
griefs, but he quickly realized that life is a constant struggle and
he learned to meet disappointments and sorrows with the tears in the
heart and a smile on the lips, as he once advised a nephew to do.
At seven Jose made his first real journey; the family went to Antipolo
with the host of pilgrims who in May visit the mountain shrine of Our
Lady of Peace and Safe Travel. In the early Spanish days in Mexico
she was the special patroness of voyages to America, especially while
the galleon trade lasted; the statue was brought to Antipolo in 1672.
A print of the Virgin, a souvenir of this pilgrimage, was, according
to the custom of those times, pasted inside Jose's wooden chest when
he left home for school; later on it was preserved in an album and
went with him in all his travels. Afterwards it faced Bougereau's
splendid conception of the Christ-mother, as one who had herself
thus suffered, consoling another mother grieving over the loss of a
son. Many years afterwards Doctor Rizal was charged with having fallen
away from religion, but he seems really rather to have experienced a
deepening of the religious spirit which made the essentials of charity
and kindness more important in his eyes than forms and ceremonies.
Yet Rizal practiced those forms prescribed for the individual even
when debarred from church privileges. The lad doubtless got his
idea of distinguishing between the sign and the substance from a
well-worn book of explanations of the church ritual and symbolism
"intended for the use of parish priests." It was found in his library,
with Mrs. Rizal's name on the flyleaf. Much did he owe his mother,
and his grateful recognition appears in his appreciative portrayal
of maternal affection in his novels.
His parents were both religious, but in a different way. The father's
religion was manifested in his charities; he used to keep on hand
a fund, of which his wife had no account, for contributions to the
necessitous and loans to the irresponsible. Mrs. Rizal attended to
the business affairs and was more careful in her handling of money,
though quite as charitably disposed. Her early training in Santa
Rosa had taught her the habit of frequent prayer and she began early
in the morning and continued till late in the evening, with frequent
attendance in the church. Mr. Rizal did not forget his church duties,
but was far from being so assiduous in his practice of them, and the
discussions in the home frequently turned on the comparative value of
words and deeds, discussions that were often given a humorous twist
by the husband when he contrasted his wife's liberality in prayers
with her more careful dispensing of money aid.
Not many homes in Kalamba were so well posted on events of the outside
world, and the children constantly heard discussions of questions
which other households either ignored or treated rather reservedly, for
espionage was rampant even then in the Islands. Mrs. Rizal's literary
training had given her an acquaintance with the better Spanish writers
which benefited her children; she told them the classic tales in style
adapted to their childish comprehension, so that when they grew older
they found that many noted authors were old acquaintances. The Bible,
too, played a large part in the home. Mrs. Rizal's copy was a Spanish
translation of the Latin Vulgate, the version authorized by her Church
but not common in the Islands then. Rizal's frequent references to
Biblical personages and incidents are not paralleled in the writings
of any contemporary Filipino author.
The frequent visitors to their home, the church, civil and military
authorities, who found the spacious Rizal mansion a convenient resting
place on their way to the health resort at Los Banos, brought something
of the city, and a something not found by many residents even there, to
the people of this village household. Oftentimes the house was filled,
and the family would not turn away a guest of less rank for the sake of
one of higher distinction, though that unsocial practice was frequently
followed by persons who forgot their self-respect in toadying to rank.
Little Jose did not know Spanish very well, so far as conversational
usage was concerned, but his mother tried to impress on him the beauty
of the Spanish poets and encouraged him in essays at rhyming which
finally grew into quite respectable poetical compositions. One of
these was a drama in Tagalog which so pleased a municipal captain of
the neighboring village of Paete, who happened to hear it while on
a visit to Kalamba, that the youthful author was paid two pesos for
the production. This was as much money as a field laborer in those
days would have earned in half a month; although the family did not
need the coin, the incident impressed them with the desirability of
cultivating the boy's talent.
Jose was nine years old when he was sent to study in Binan. His master
there, Justiniano Aquino Cruz, was of the old school and Rizal has left
a record of some of his maxims, such as "Spare the rod and spoil the
child," "The letter enters with blood," and other similar indications
of his heroic treatment of the unfortunates under his care. However,
if he was a strict disciplinarian, Master Justiniano was also a
conscientious instructor, and the boy had been only a few months
under his care when the pupil was told that he knew as much as his
master, and had better go to Manila to school. Truthful Jose repeated
this conversation without the modification which modesty might have
suggested, and his father responded rather vigorously to the idea
and it was intimated that in the father's childhood pupils were not
accustomed to say that they knew as much as their teachers. However,
Master Justiniano corroborated the child's statement, so that
preparations for Jose's going to Manila began to be made. This was
in the Christmas vacation of 1871.
Binan had been a valuable experience for young Rizal. There he had
met a host of relatives and from them heard much of the past of his
father's family. His maternal grandfather's great house was there, now
inhabited by his mother's half-brother, a most interesting personage.
This uncle, Jose Alberto, had been educated in British India, spending
eleven years in a Calcutta missionary school. This was the result of
an acquaintance which his father had made with an English naval officer
who visited the Philippines about 1820, the author of "An Englishman's
Visit to the Philippines." Lorenzo Alberto, the grandfather, himself
spoke English and had English associations. He had also liberal ideas
and preferred the system under which the Philippines were represented
in the Cortes and were treated not as a colony but as part of the
homeland and its people were considered Spaniards.
The great Binan bridge had been built under Lorenzo Alberto's
supervision, and for services to the Spanish nation during the
expedition to Cochin-China--probably liberal contributions of money--he
had been granted the title of Knight of the American Order of Isabel
the Catholic, but by the time this recognition reached him he had died,
and the patent was made out to his son.
An episode well known in the village--its chief event, if one might
judge from the conversation of the inhabitants--was a visit which
a governor of Hongkong had made there when he was a guest in the
home of Alberto. Many were the tales told of this distinguished
Englishman, who was Sir John Bowring, the notable polyglot and
translator into English of poetry in practically every one of the
dialects of Europe. His achievements along this line had put him
second or third among the linguists of the century. He was also
interested in history, and mentioned in his Binan visit that the
Hakluyt Society, of which he was a Director, was then preparing to
publish an exceedingly interesting account of the early Philippines
that did more justice to its inhabitants than the regular Spanish
historians. Here Rizal first heard of Morga, the historian, whose
book he in after years made accessible to his countrymen. A desire
to know other languages than his own also possessed him and he was
eager to rival the achievements of Sir John Bowring.
In his book entitled "A Visit to the Philippine Islands," which was
translated into Spanish by Mr. Jose del Pan, a liberal editor of
Manila, Sir John Bowring gives the following account of his visit to
Rizal's uncle:
"We reached Binan before sunset .... First we passed between
files of youths, then of maidens; and through a triumphal
arch we reached the handsome dwelling of a rich mestizo, whom
we found decorated with a Spanish order, which had been granted
to his father before him. He spoke English, having been educated
at Calcutta, and his house--a very large one--gave abundant
evidence that he had not studied in vain the arts of domestic
civilization. The furniture, the beds, the table, the cookery, were
all in good taste, and the obvious sincerity of the kind reception
added to its agreeableness. Great crowds were gathered together
in the square which fronts the house of Don Jose Alberto."
The Philippines had just had a liberal governor, De la Torte, but even
during this period of apparent liberalness there existed a confidential
government order directing that all letters from Filipinos suspected
of progressive ideas were to be opened in the post. This violation
of the mails furnished the list of those who later suffered in the
convenient insurrection of '72.
An agrarian trouble, the old disagreement between landlords and
tenants, had culminated in an active outbreak which the government
was unable to put down, and so it made terms by which, among other
things, the leader of the insurrection was established as chief
of a new civil guard for the purpose of keeping order. Here again
was another preparation for '72, for at that time the agreement
was forgotten and the officer suffered punishment, in spite of the
immunity he had been promised.
Religious troubles, too, were rife. The Jesuits had returned from
exile shortly before, and were restricted to teaching work in those
parishes in the missionary district where collections were few and
danger was great. To make room for those whom they displaced the better
parishes in the more thickly settled regions were taken from Filipino
priests and turned over to members of the religious Orders. Naturally
there was discontent. A confidential communication from the secular
archbishop, Doctor Martinez, shows that he considered the Filipinos had
ground for complaint, for he states that if the Filipinos were under a
non-Catholic government like that of England they would receive fairer
treatment than they were getting from their Spanish co-religionaries,
and warns the home government that trouble will inevitably result if
the discrimination against the natives of the country is continued.
The Jesuit method of education in their newly established "Ateneo
Municipal" was a change from that in the former schools. It treated the
Filipino as a Spaniard and made no distinctions between the races in
the school dormitory. In the older institutions of Manila the Spanish
students lived in the Spanish way and spoke their own language, but
Filipinos were required to talk Latin, sleep on floor mats and eat
with their hands from low tables. These Filipino customs obtained in
the hamlets, but did not appeal to city lads who had become used to
Spanish ways in their own homes and objected to departing from them in
school. The disaffection thus created was among the educated class,
who were best fitted to be leaders of their people in any dangerous
insurrection against the government.
However, a change had to take place to meet the Jesuit competition,
and in the rearrangement Filipino professors were given a larger
share in the management of the schools. Notable among these was
Father Burgos. He had earned his doctor's degree in two separate
courses, was among the best educated in the capital and by far the
most public-spirited and valiant of the Filipino priests.
He enlisted the interest of many of the older Filipino clergy and
through their contributions subsidized a paper, El Eco Filipino,
which spoke from the Filipino standpoint and answered the reflections
which were the stock in trade of the conservative organ, for the
reactionaries had an abusive journal just as they had had in 1821
and were to have in the later days.
Such were the conditions when Jose Rizal got ready to leave home for
school in Manila, a departure which was delayed by the misfortunes of
his mother. His only, and elder, brother, Paciano, had been a student
in San Jose College in Manila for some years, and had regularly failed
in passing his examinations because of his outspokenness against
the evils of the country. Paciano was a great favorite with Doctor
Burgos, in whose home he lived and for whom he acted as messenger
and go-between in the delicate negotiations of the propaganda which
the doctor was carrying on.
In February of '72 all the dreams of a brighter and freer Philippines
were crushed out in that enormous injustice which made the mutiny of a
few soldiers and arsenal employes in Cavite the excuse for deporting,
imprisoning, and even shooting those whose correspondence, opened
during the previous year, had shown them to be discontented with the
backward conditions in the Philippines.
Doctor Burgos, just as he had been nominated to a higher post in the
Church, was the chief victim. Father Gomez, an old man, noted for
charity, was another, and the third was Father Zamora. A reference
in a letter of his to "powder," which was his way of saying money,
was distorted into a dangerous significance, in spite of the fact
that the letter was merely an invitation to a gambling game. The
trial was a farce, the informer was garroted just when he was on
the point of complaining that he was not receiving the pardon and
payment which he had been promised for his services in convicting
the others. The whole affair had an ugly look, and the way it was
hushed up did not add to the confidence of the people in the justice
of the proceedings. The Islands were then placed under military law
and remained so for many years.
Father Burgos's dying advice to Filipinos was for them to be educated
abroad, preferably outside of Spain, but if they could do no better,
at least go to the Peninsula. He urged that through education only
could progress be hoped for. In one of his speeches he had warned the
Spanish government that continued oppressive measures would drive the
Filipinos from their allegiance and make them wish to become subjects
of a freer power, suggesting England, whose possessions surrounded
the Islands.
Doctor Burgos's idea of England as a hope for the Philippines was
borne out by the interest which the British newspapers of Hongkong
took in Philippine affairs. They gave accounts of the troubles and
picked flaws in the garbled reports which the officials sent abroad.
Some zealous but unthinking reactionary at this time conceived the idea
of publishing a book somewhat similar to that which had been gotten
out against the Constitution of Cadiz. "Captain Juan" was its name;
it was in catechism form, and told of an old municipal captain who
deserved to be honored because he was so submissively subservient to
all constituted authority. He tries to distinguish between different
kinds of liberty, and the especial attention which he devotes to
America shows how live a topic the great republic was at that time in
the Islands. This interest is explained by the fact that an American
company had just then received a grant of the northern part of Borneo,
later British North Borneo, for a trading company. It was believed that
the United States had designs on the Archipelago because of treaties
which had been negotiated with the Sultan of Sulu and certain American
commercial interests in the Far East, which were then rather important.
Americans, too, had become known in the Philippines through a soldier
of fortune who had helped out the Chinese government in suppressing
the rebellion in the neighborhood of Shanghai. "General" F. T. Ward,
from Massachusetts, organized an army of deserters from European ships,
but their lack of discipline made them undesirable soldiers, and so
he disbanded the force. He then gathered a regiment of Manila men,
as the Filipinos usually found as quartermasters on all ships sailing
in the East were then called. With the aid of some other Americans
these troops were disciplined and drilled into such efficiency that the
men came to have the title among the Chinese of the "Ever-Victorious"
army, because of the almost unbroken series of successes which they
had experienced. A partial explanation, possibly, of their fighting
so well is that they were paid only when they won.
The high praise given the Filipinos at this time was in contrast to the
disparagement made of their efforts in Indo-China, where in reality
they had done the fighting rather than their Spanish officers. When
a Spaniard in the Philippines quoted of the Filipino their customary
saying, "Poor soldier, worse sacristan," the Filipinos dared make
no open reply, but they consoled themselves with remembering the
flattering comments of "General" Ward and the favorable opinion of
Archbishop Martinez.
References to Filipino military capacity were banned by the censors and
the archbishop's communication had been confidential, but both became
known, for despotisms drive its victims to stealth and to methods
which would not be considered creditable under freer conditions.
CHAPTER V
Jagor's Prophecy
RIZAL'S first home in Manila was in a nipa house with Manuel
Hidalgo, later to be his brother-in-law, in Calle Espeleta, a street
named for a former Filipino priest who had risen to be bishop and
governor-general. This spot is now marked with a tablet which gives
the date of his coming as the latter part of February, 1872.
Rizal's own recollections speak of June as being the date of the
formal beginning of his studies in Manila. First he went to San Juan
de Letran and took an examination in the Catechism. Then he went back
to Kalamba and in July passed into the Ateneo, possibly because of
the more favorable conditions under which the pupils were admitted,
receiving credit for work in arithmetic, which in the other school,
it is said, he would have had to restudy. This perhaps accounts for
the credit shown in the scholastic year 1871-72. Until his fourth
year Rizal was an externe, as those residing outside of the school
dormitory were then called. The Ateneo was very popular and so great
was the eagerness to enter it that the waiting list was long and two
or three years' delay was not at all uncommon.
There is a little uncertainty about this period; some writers have
gone so far as to give recollections of childhood incidents of which
Rizal was the hero while he lived in the house of Doctor Burgos,
but the family deny that he was ever in this home, and say that he
has been confused with his brother Paciano.
The greatest influence upon Rizal during this period was the sense of
Spanish judicial injustice in the legal persecutions of his mother,
who, though innocent, for two years was treated as a criminal and
held in prison.
Much of the story is not necessary for this narrative, but the mother's
troubles had their beginning in the attempted revenge of a lieutenant
of the Civil Guard, one of a body of Spaniards who were no credit
to the mother country and whom Rizal never lost opportunity in his
writings of painting in their true colors. This official had been in
the habit of having his horse fed at the Mercado home when he visited
their town from his station in Binan, but once there was a scarcity
of fodder and Mr. Mercado insisted that his own stock was entitled
to care before he could extend hospitality to strangers. This the
official bitterly resented. His opportunity for revenge soon came, and
was not overlooked. A disagreement between Jose Alberto, the mother's
brother in Binan, and his wife, also his cousin, to whom he had been
married when they were both quite young, led to sensational charges
which a discreet officer would have investigated and would assuredly
have then realized to be unfounded. Instead the lieutenant accepted
the most ridiculous statements, brought charges of attempted murder
against Alberto and his sister, Mrs. Rizal, and evidently figured
that he would be able to extort money from the rich man and gratify
his revenge at the same time.
Now comes a disgruntled judge, who had not received the attention at
the Mercado home which he thought his dignity demanded. Out of revenge
he ordered Mrs. Rizal to be conducted at once to the provincial prison,
not in the usual way by boat, but, to cause her greater annoyance,
afoot around the lake. It was a long journey from Kalamba to Santa
Cruz, and the first evening the guard and his prisoner came to
a village where there was a festival in progress. Mrs. Rizal was
well known and was welcomed in the home of one of the prominent
families. The festivities were at their height when the judge, who
had been on horseback and so had reached the town earlier, heard that
the prisoner, instead of being in the village calaboose, was a guest
of honor and apparently not suffering the annoyance to which he had
intended to subject her. He strode to the house, and, not content to
knock, broke in the door, splintered his cane on the poor constable's
head, and then exhausted himself beating the owner of the house.
These proceedings were revealed in a charge of prejudice which
Mrs. Rizal's lawyers urged against the judge who at the same time
was the one who decided the case and also the prosecutor. The Supreme
Court agreed that her contention was correct and directed that she be
discharged from custody. To this order the judge paid due respect and
ordered her release, but he said that the accusation of unfairness
against him was contempt of court, and gave her a longer sentence
under this charge than the previous one from which she had just been
absolved. After some delay the Supreme Court heard of this affair and
decided that the judge was right. But, because Mrs. Rizal had been
longer in prison awaiting trial than the sentence, they dated back
her imprisonment, and again ordered her release. Here the record
gets a little confused because it is concerned with a story that
her brother had sixteen thousand pesos concealed in his cell, and
everybody, from the Supreme Court down, seemed interested in trying
to locate the money.
While the officials were looking for his sack of gold, Alberto
gave a power of attorney to an overintelligent lawyer who worded
his authority so that it gave him the right to do everything
which his principal himself could have done "personally, legally
and ecclesiastically." From some source outside, but not from the
brother, the attorney heard that Mrs. Rizal had had money belonging
to Alberto, for in the extensive sugar-purchasing business which she
carried on she handled large sums and frequently borrowed as much as
five thousand pesos from this brother. Anxious to get his hands on
money, he instituted a charge of theft against her, under his power of
attorney and acting in the name of his principal. Mrs. Rizal's attorney
demurred to such a charge being made without the man who had lent the
money being at all consulted, and held that a power of attorney did
not warrant such an action. In time the intelligent Supreme Court
heard this case and decided that it should go to trial; but later,
when the attorney, acting for his principal, wanted to testify for him
under the power of attorney, they seem to have reached their limit,
for they disapproved of that proposal.
Anyone who cares to know just how ridiculous and inconsistent the
judicial system of the Philippines then was would do well to try to
unravel the mixed details of the half dozen charges, ranging from
cruelty through theft to murder, which were made against Mrs. Rizal
without a shadow of evidence. One case was trumped up as soon as
another was finished, and possibly the affair would have dragged on
till the end of the Spanish administration had not her little daughter
danced before the Governor-General once when he was traveling through
the country, won his approval, and when he asked what favor he could do
for her, presented a petition for her mother's release. In this way,
which recalls the customs of primitive nations, Mrs. Rizal finally
was enabled to return to her home.
Doctor Rizal tells us that it was then that he first began to lose
confidence in mankind. A story of a school companion, that when
Rizal recalled this incident the red came into his eyes, probably
has about the same foundation as the frequent stories of his weeping
with emotion upon other people's shoulders when advised of momentous
changes in his life. Doctor Rizal did not have these Spanish ways,
and the narrators are merely speaking of what other Spaniards would
have done, for self-restraint and freedom from exhibitions of emotion
were among his most prominent characteristics.
Some time during Rizal's early years of school came his first success
in painting. It was the occasion of a festival in Kalamba; just at
the last moment an important banner was accidentally damaged and there
was not time to send to Manila for another. A hasty consultation was
held among the village authorities, and one councilman suggested that
Jose Rizal had shown considerable skill with the brush and possibly he
could paint something that would pass. The gobernadorcillo proceeded to
the lad's home and explained the need. Rizal promptly went to work,
under the official's direction, and speedily produced a painting
which the delighted municipal executive declared was better than the
expensive banner bought in Manila. The achievement was explained to
all the participants in the festival and young Jose was the hero of
the occasion.
During intervals of school work Rizal found time to continue his
modeling in clay which he procured from the brickyard of a cousin at
San Pedro Macati.
Rizal's uncle, Jose Alberto, had played a considerable part in his
political education. He was influential with the Regency in Spain,
which succeeded Queen Isabel when that sovereign became too malodorous
to be longer tolerated, and he was the personal friend of the Regent,
General Prim, whose motto, "More liberal today than yesterday, more
liberal tomorrow than today," he was fond of quoting. He was present in
Madrid at the time of General Prim's assassination and often told of
how this wise patriot, recognizing the unpreparedness of the Spanish
people for a republic, opposed the efforts for what would, he knew,
result in as disastrous a failure as had been France's first effort,
and how he lost his life through his desire to follow the safer
course of proceeding gradually through the preparatory stage of a
constitutional monarchy. Alberto was made by him a Knight of the Order
of Carlos III, and, after Prim's death, was created by King Amadeo a
Knight Commander, the step higher in the Order of Isabel the Catholic.
Events proved Prim's wisdom, as Alberto was careful to observe, for
King Amadeo was soon convinced of the unfitness of his people for even
a constitutional monarchy, told them so, resigned his throne, and bade
them farewell. Then came a republic marked by excesses such as even
the worst monarch had not committed; among them the dreadful massacre
of the members of the filibustering party on the steamer Virginius
in Cuba, which would have caused war with the United States had not
the Americans been deluded into the idea that they were dealing with
a sister republic. America and Switzerland had been the only nations
which had recognized Spain's new form of government. Prim sought an
alliance with America, for he claimed that Spain should be linked
with a country which would buy Spanish goods and to which Spain could
send her products. France, with whom the Bourbons wished to be allied,
was a competitor along Spain's own lines.
During the earlier disturbances in Spain a party of Carlists were
sent to the Philippine Islands; they were welcomed by the reactionary
Spaniards, for devotion to King Carlos had been their characteristic
ever since the days when Queen Isabel had taken the throne that in
their opinion belonged to the heir in the male line. Rizal frequently
makes mention of this disloyalty to the ruler of Spain on the part
of those who claimed to be most devoted Spaniards.
Along with the stories of these troubles which Rizal heard during his
school days in Manila were reports of how these exiles had established
themselves in foreign cities, Basa in Hongkong, Regidor in London,
and Tavera in Paris. At their homes in these cities they gave a warm
welcome to such Filipinos as traveled abroad and they were always ready
to act as guardians for Filipino students who wished to study in their
cities, Many availed themselves of these opportunities and it came to
be an ambition among those in the Islands to get an education which
they believed was better than that which Spain afforded. There was some
ground for such a belief, because many of the most prominent successful
men of Spanish and Philippine birth were men whose education had been
foreign. A well-known instance in Manila was the architect Roxas,
father of the present Alcalde of Manila, who learned his profession
in England and was almost the only notable builder in Manila during
his lifetime.
Paciano Rizal, Jose's elder brother, had retired from Manila on the
death of Doctor Burgos and devoted himself to farming; in some ways,
perhaps, his career suggested the character of Tasio, the philosopher
of "Noli Me Tangere." He was careful to see that his younger brother
was familiar with the liberal literature with which he had become
acquainted through Doctor Burgos.
The first foreign book read by Rizal, in a Spanish translation,
was Dumas's great novel, "The Count of Monte Cristo," and the story
of the wrongs suffered by the prisoner of the Chateau d'If recalled
the injustice done his mother. Then came the book which had greatest
influence upon the young man's career; this was a Spanish translation
of Jagor's "Travels in the Philippines," the observations of a German
naturalist who had visited the Islands some fifteen years before. This
latter book, among other comments, suggested that it was the fate of
the North American republic to develop and bring to their highest
prosperity the lands which Spain had conquered and Christianized
with sword and cross. Sooner or later, this German writer believed,
the Philippine Islands could no more escape this American influence
than had the countries on the mainland, and expressed the hope that
one day the Philippines would succumb to the same influence; he felt,
however, that it was desirable first for the Islanders to become better
able to meet the strong competition of the vigorous young people of the
New World, for under Spain the Philippines had dreamed away its past.
The exact title of the book is "Travels | in the | Philippines. |
By F. Jagor. | With numerous illustrations and a Map | London: |
Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. | 1875." The title of the Spanish
translation reads, "Viajes | por | Filipinas | de F. Jagor | Traducidos
del Aleman | por S. Vidal y Soler | Ingeniero de Montes | Edicion
illustrada con numerosos grabados | Madrid: Imprenta, Estereopidea
y Galvanoplastia de Ariban y Ca. | (Sucesores de Rivadencyra) |
Impresores de Camara de S. M. | Calle del Duque de Osuna, num 3. 1875,"
The following extract from the book will show how marvelously the
author anticipated events that have now become history:
"With the altered condition of things, however, all this has
disappeared. The colony can no longer be kept secluded from the
world. Every facility afforded for commercial intercourse is a blow
to the old system, and a great step made in the direction of broad
and liberal reforms. The more foreign capital and foreign ideas and
customs are introduced, increasing the prosperity, enlightenment,
and self-esteem of the population, the more impatiently will the
existing evils be endured.
England can and does open her possessions unconcernedly to the
world. The British colonies are united to the mother country by
the bond of mutual advantage, viz., the produce of raw material by
means of English capital, and the exchange of the same for English
manufactures. The wealth of England is so great, the organization of
her commerce with the world so complete, that nearly all the foreigners
even in the British possessions are for the most part agents for
English business houses, which would scarcely be affected, at least
to any marked extent, by a political dismemberment. It is entirely
different with Spain, which possesses the colony as an inherited
property, and without the power of turning it to any useful account.
Government monopolies rigorously maintained, insolent disregard and
neglect of the half-castes and powerful creoles, and the example
of the United States, were the chief reasons of the downfall of the
American possessions. The same causes threaten ruin to the Philippines;
but of the monopolies I have said enough.
Half-castes and creoles, it is true are not, as they formerly were
in America, excluded from all orificial appointments; but they feel
deeply hurt and injured through the crowds of place-hunters which
the frequent changes of Ministers send to Manilla. The influence,
also, of the American element is at least visible on the horizon,
and will be more noticeable when the relations increase between the
two countries. At present they are very slender. The trade in the
meantime follows in its old channels to England and to the Atlantic
ports of the United States. Nevertheless, whoever desires to form an
opinion upon the future history of the Philippines, must not consider
simply their relations to Spain, but must have regard to the prodigious
changes which a few decades produce on either side of our planet.
For the first time in the history of the world the mighty powers
on both sides of the ocean have commenced to enter upon a direct
intercourse with one another--Russia, which alone is larger than
any two other parts of the earth; China, which contains within its
own boundaries a third of the population of the world; and America,
with ground under cultivation nearly sufficient to feed treble the
total population of the earth. Russia's further role in the Pacific
Ocean is not to be estimated at present.
The trade between the two other great powers will therefore be
presumably all the heavier, as the rectification of the pressing need
of human labour on the one side, and of the corresponding overplus
on the other, will fall to them.
"The world of the ancients was confined to the shores of the
Mediterranean; and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans sufficed at one
time for our traffic. When first the shores of the Pacific re-echoed
with the sounds of active commerce, the trade of the world and
the history of the world may be really said to have begun. A start
in that direction has been made; whereas not so very long ago the
immense ocean was one wide waste of waters, traversed from both points
only once a year. From 1603 to 1769 scarcely a ship had ever visited
California, that wonderful country which, twenty-five years ago, with
the exception of a few places on the coast, was an unknown wilderness,
but which is now covered with flourishing and prosperous towns and
cities, divided from sea to sea by a railway, and its capital already
ranking the third of the seaports of the Union; even at this early
stage of its existence a central point of the world's commerce, and
apparently destined, by the proposed junction of the great oceans,
to play a most important part in the future.
In proportion as the navigation of the west coast of America
extends the influence of the American element over the South Sea,
the captivating, magic power which the great republic exercises over
the Spanish colonies[1] will not fail to make itself felt also in the
Philippines. The Americans are evidently destined to bring to a full
development the germs originated by the Spaniards. As conquerors of
modern times, they pursue their road to victory with the assistance
of the pioneer's axe and plough, representing an age of peace and
commercial prosperity in contrast to that bygone and chivalrous age
whose champions were upheld by the cross and protected by the sword.
A considerable portion of Spanish America already belongs to the
United States, and has since attained an importance which could not
possibly have been anticipated either under the Spanish Government
or during the anarchy which followed. With regard to permanence,
the Spanish system cannot for a moment be compared with that of
America. While each of the colonies, in order to favour a privileged
class by immediate gains, exhausted still more the already enfeebled
population of the metropolis by the withdrawal of the best of its
ability, America, on the contrary, has attracted to itself from all
countries the most energetic element, which, once on its soil and,
freed from all fetters, restlessly progressing, has extended its power
and influence still further and further. The Philippines will escape
the action of the two great neighbouring powers all the less for the
fact that neither they nor their metropolis find their condition of
a stable and well-balanced nature.
It seems to be desirable for the natives that the above-mentioned
views should not speedily become accomplished facts, because their
education and training hitherto have not been of a nature to prepare
them successfully to compete with either of the other two energetic,
creative, and progressive nations. They have, in truth, dreamed away
their best days."
This prophecy of Jagor's made a deep impression upon Rizal and
seems to furnish the explanation of his life work. Henceforth it was
his ambition to arouse his countrymen to prepare themselves for a
freer state. He dedicated himself to the work which Doctor Jagor had
indicated as necessary. It seems beyond question that Doctor Rizal,
as early as 1876, believed that America would sometime come to the
Philippines, and wished to prepare his countrymen for the changed
conditions that would then have to be met. Many little incidents
in his later life confirm this view: his eagerness to buy expensive
books on the United States, such as his early purchase in Barcelona
of two different "Lives of the Presidents of the United States"; his
study of the country in his travel across it from San Francisco to
New York; the reference in "The Philippines in a Hundred Years"; and
the studies of the English Revolution and other Anglo-Saxon influences
which culminated in the foundation of the United States of America.
Besides the interest he took in clay modeling, to which reference
has already been made, Rizal was expert in carving. When first
in the Ateneo he had carved an image of the Virgin of such grace
and beauty that one of the Fathers asked him to try an image of the
Sacred Heart. Rizal complied, and produced the carving that played so
important a part in his future life. The Jesuit Father had intended to
take the image with him to Spain, but in some way it was left behind
and the schoolboys put it up on the door of their dormitory. There it
remained for nearly twenty years, constantly reminding the many lads
who passed in and out of the one who teachers and pupils alike agreed
was the greatest of all their number, for Rizal during these years was
the schoolboy hero of the Ateneo, and from the Ateneo came the men who
were most largely concerned in making the New Philippines. The image
itself is of batikulin, an easily carved wood, and shows considerable
skill when one remembers that an ordinary pocketknife was the simple
instrument used in its manufacture. It was recalled to Rizal's memory
when he visited the Ateneo upon his first return from Spain and was
forbidden the house by the Jesuits because of his alleged apostasy,
and again in the chapel of Fort Santiago, where it played an important
part in what was called his conversion.
The proficiency he attained in the art of clay modeling is evidenced by
many of the examples illustrated in this volume. They not only indicate
an astonishing versatility, but they reveal his very characteristic
method of working--a characteristic based on his constant desire
to adapt the best things he found abroad to the conditions of his
own country. The same characteristic appears also in most of his
literary work, and in it there is no servile imitation; it is careful
and studied selection, adaptation and combination. For example, the
composition of a steel engraving in a French art journal suggested
his model in clay of a Philippine wild boar; the head of the subject
in a painting in the Luxembourg Gallery and the rest of a figure in
an engraving in a newspaper are combined in a statuette he modeled
in Brussels and sent, in May, 1890, to Valentina Ventura in place
of a letter; a clipping from a newspaper cut is also adapted for
his model of "The Vengeance of the Harem"; and as evidence of his
facility of expressing himself in this medium, his clay modeling of
a Dapitan woman may be cited. One day while in exile he saw a native
woman clearing up the street in front of her home preparatory to
a festival; the movements and the attitudes of the figure were so
thoroughly typical and so impressed themselves on his mind that he
worked out this statuette from memory.
In a literary way Rizal's first pretentious effort was a melodrama in
one act and in verse, entitled "Junta al Pasig" (Beside the Pasig),
a play in honor of the Virgin, which was given in the Ateneo to the
great edification of a considerable audience, who were enthusiastic
in their praise and hearty in their applause, but the young author
neither saw the play nor paid any attention to the manner of its
reception, for he was downstairs, intent on his own diversions and
heedless of what was going on above.
Thursday was the school holiday in those days, and Rizal usually spent
the time at the Convent of La Concordia, where his youngest sister,
Soledad, was a boarder. He was a great friend of the little one
and a welcome visitor in the Convent; he used to draw pictures for
her edification, sometimes teasing her by making her own portrait,
to which he gave exaggerated ears to indicate her curiosity. Then he
wrote short satirical skits, such as the following, which in English
doggerel quite matches its Spanish original:
"The girls of Concordia College
Go dressed in the latest of styles--
Bangs high on their foreheads for knowledge--
But hungry their grins and their smiles!"
Some of these girls made an impression upon Jose, and one of his diary
entries of this time tells of his rude awakening when a girl, some
years his elder, who had laughingly accepted his boyish adoration,
informed him that she was to marry a relative of his, and he speaks
of the heart-pang with which he watched the carromata that carried
her from his sight to her wedding.
Jose was a great reader, and the newspapers were giving much attention
to the World's Fair in Philadelphia which commemorated the first
centennial of American independence, and published numerous cuts
illustrating various interesting phases of American life. Possibly
as a reaction from the former disparagement of things American, the
sentiment in the Philippines was then very friendly. There was one
long account of the presentation of a Spanish banner to a Spanish
commission in Philadelphia, and the newspapers, in speaking of the
wonderful progress which the United States had made, recalled the
early Spanish alliance and referred to the fact that, had it not been
for the discoveries of the Spaniards, their new land would not have
been known to Europe.
Rizal during his last two years in the Ateneo was a boarder. Throughout
his entire course he had been the winner of most of the prizes. Upon
receiving his Bachelor of Arts diploma he entered the University of
Santo Tomas; in the first year he studied the course in philosophy
and in the second year began to specialize in medicine.
The Ateneo course of study was a good deal like that of our present
high school, though not so thorough nor so advanced. Still, the method
of instruction which has made Jesuit education notable in all parts
of the world carried on the good work which the mother's training
had begun. The system required the explanation of the morrow's
lesson, questioning on the lesson of the day and a review of the
previous day's work. This, with the attention given to the classics,
developed and quickened faculties which gave Rizal a remarkable power
of assimilating knowledge of all kinds for future use.
The story is told that Rizal was undecided as to his career, and wrote
to the rector of the Ateneo for advice; but the Jesuit was then in
the interior of Mindanao, and by the time the answer, suggesting that
he should devote himself to agriculture, was received, he had already
made his choice. However, Rizal did continue the study of agriculture,
besides specializing in medicine, carrying on double work as he took
the course in the Ateneo which led to the degree of land surveyor and
agricultural expert. This work was completed before he had reached
the age fixed by law, so that he could not then receive his diploma,
which was not delivered to him until he had attained the age of
twenty-one years.
In the "Life" of Rizal published in Barcelona after his death a
brilliant picture is painted of how Rizal might have followed the
advice of the rector of the Ateneo, and have lived a long, useful
and honorable life as a farmer and gobernadorcillo of his home town,
respected by the Spaniards, looked up to by his countrymen and filling
an humble but safe lot in life. Today one can hardly feel that such
a career would have been suited to the man or regret that events took
the course they did.
Poetry was highly esteemed in the Ateneo, and Rizal frequently made
essays in verse, often carrying his compositions to Kalamba for his
mother's criticisms and suggestions. The writings of the Spanish poet
Zorilla were making a deep impression upon him at this time, and while
his schoolmates seemed to have been more interested in their warlike
features, Jose appears to have gained from them an understanding of how
Zorilla sought to restore the Spanish people to their former dignity,
rousing their pride through recalling the heroic events in their past
history. Some of the passages in the melodrama, "Junta al Pasig,"
already described, were evidently influenced by his study of Zorilla;
the fierce denunciation of Spain which is there put in the mouth of
Satan expresses, no doubt, the real sentiments of Rizal.
In 1877 a society known as the Liceo Literario-Artistica (Lyceum of
Art and Literature) offered a prize for the best poem by a native. The
winner was Rizal with the following verses, "Al Juventud Filipino"
(To the Philippine Youth). The prize was a silver pen, feather-shaped
and with a gold ribbon running through it.
To the Philippine Youth
Theme: "Growth"
(Translation by Charles Derbyshire)
Hold high the brow serene,
O youth, where now you stand;
Let the bright sheen
Of your grace be seen,
Fair hope of my fatherland!
Come now, thou genius grand,
And bring down inspiration;
With thy mighty hand,
Swifter than the wind's volation,
Raise the eager mind to higher station.
Come down with pleasing light
Of art and science to the fight,
O youth, and there untie
The chains that heavy lie,
Your spirit free to blight.
See how in flaming zone
Amid the shadows thrown,
The Spaniard's holy hand
A crown's resplendent band
Proffers to this Indian land.
Thou, who now wouldst rise
On wings of rich emprise,
Seeking from Olympian skies
Songs of sweetest strain,
Softer than ambrosial rain;
Thou, whose voice divine
Rivals Philomel's refrain,
And with varied line
Through the night benign
Frees mortality from pain;
Thou, who by sharp strife
Wakest thy mind to life;
And the memory bright
Of thy genius' light
Makest immortal in its strength;
And thou, in accents clear
of Phoebus, to Apells dear;
Or by the brush's magic art
Takest from nature's store a part,
To fix it on the simple canvas' length;
Go forth, and then the sacred fire
Of thy genius to the laurel may aspire;
To spread around the fame,
And in victory acclaim,
Through wider spheres the human name.
Day, O happy day,
Fair Filipinas, for thy land!
So bless the Power today
That places in thy way
This favor and this fortune grand.
The next competition at the Liceo was in honor of the fourth centennial
of the death of Cervantes; it was open to both Filipinos and Spaniards,
and there was a dispute as to the winner of the prize. It is hard
to figure out just what really happened; the newspapers speak of
Rizal as winning the first prize, but his certificate says second,
and there seems to have been some sort of compromise by which a
Spaniard who was second was put at the head. Newspapers, of course,
were then closely censored, but the liberal La Oceania contains a
number of veiled allusions to medical poets, suggesting that for the
good of humanity they should not be permitted to waste their time in
verse-making. One reference quotes the title of Rizal's first poem in
saying that it was giving a word of advice "To the Philippine Youth,"
and there are other indications that for some considerable time the
outcome of this contest was a very live topic in the city of Manila.
Rizal's poem was an allegory, "The Council of the Gods"--"El consejo de
los Dioses." It was an exceedingly artistic appreciation of the chief
figure in Spanish literature. The rector of the Ateneo had assisted
his former student by securing for him needed books, and though
Rizal was at that time a student in Santo Tomas, the rivalries were
such that he was still ranked with the pupils of the Jesuits and his
success was a corresponding source of elation to the Ateneo pupils and
alumni. Some people have stated that Father Evaristo Arias, a notably
brilliant writer of the Dominicans, was a competitor, a version I once
published, but investigation shows that this was a mistake. However,
sentiment in the University against Rizal grew, until matters became
so unpleasant that he felt it time to follow the advice of Father
Burgos and continue his education outside of the Islands.
Just before this incident Rizal had been the victim of a brutal assault
in Kalamba; one night when he was passing the barracks of the Civil
Guard he noted in the darkness a large body, but did not recognize
who it was, and passed without any attention to it. It turned out
that the large body was a lieutenant of the Civil Guard, and, without
warning or word of any kind, he drew his sword and wounded Rizal in the
back. Rizal complained of this outrage to the authorities and tried
several times, without success, to see the Governor-General. Finally
he had to recognize that there was no redress for him. By May of 1882
Rizal had made up his mind to set sail for Europe, and his brother,
Paciano, equipped him with seven hundred pesos for the journey, while
his sister, Saturnina, intrusted to him a valuable diamond ring which
might prove a resource in time of emergency.
Jose had gone to Kalamba to attend a festival there, when Mr. Hidalgo,
from Manila, notified him that his boat was ready to sail. The
telegram, asking his immediate return to the city, was couched in
the form of advice of the condition of a patient, and the name of
the steamer, Salvadora, by a play on words, was used in the sense of
"May save her life." Rizal had previously requested of Mr. Ramirez,
of the Puerta del Sol store, letters of introduction to an Englishman,
formerly in the Philippines, who was then living in Paris. He said
nothing more of his intentions, but on his last night in the city,
with his younger sister as companion, he drove all through the walled
city and its suburbs, changing horses twice in the five hours of
his farewell. The next morning he embarked on the steamer, and there
yet remains the sketch which he made of his last view of the city,
showing its waterfront as it appeared from the departing steamer. To
leave town it was necessary to have a passport; his was in the name
of Jose Mercado, and had been secured by a distant relative of his
who lived in the Santa Cruz district.
After five days' journey the little steamer reached the English colony
of Singapore. There Rizal saw a modern city for the first time. He was
intensely interested in the improvements. Especially did the assured
position of the natives, confident in their rights and not fearful of
the authorities, arouse his admiration. Great was the contrast between
the fear of their rulers shown by the Filipinos and the confidence
which the natives of Singapore seemed to have in their government.
At Singapore, Rizal transferred to a French mail Steamer and seems to
have had an interesting time making himself understood on board. He
had studied some French in his Ateneo course, writing an ode which
gained honors, but when he attempted to speak the language he was
not successful in making Frenchmen understand him. So he resorted to
a mixed system of his own, sometimes using Latin words and making
the changes which regularly would have occurred, and when words
failed, making signs, and in extreme cases drawing pictures of what
he wanted. This versatility with the pencil, for many of his offhand
sketches had humorous touches that almost carried them into the cartoon
class, interested officers and passengers, so that the young student
had the freedom of the ship and a voyage far from tedious.
The passage of the Suez Canal, a glimpse of Egypt, Aden, where East and
West meet, and the Italian city of Naples, with its historic castle,
were the features of the trip which most impressed him.
CHAPTER VI
The Period of Preparation
Rizal disembarked at Marseilles, saw a little of that famous port, and
then went by rail to Barcelona, crossing the Pyrenees, the desolate
ruggedness of which contrasted with the picturesque luxuriance
of his tropical home, and remained a day at the frontier town of
Port-Bou. The customary Spanish disregard of tourists compared very
unfavorably with the courteous attention which he had remarked on his
arrival at Marseilles, for the custom house officers on the Spanish
frontier rather reminded him of the class of employes found in Manila.
At Barcelona he met many who had been his schoolmates in the Ateneo
and others to whom he was known by name. It was the custom of the
Filipino students there to hold reunions every other Sunday at the
cafe, for their limited resources did not permit the daily visits
which were the Spanish custom. In honor of the new arrival a special
gathering occurred in a favorite cafe in Plaza de Catalonia. The
characteristics of the Spaniards and the features of Barcelona were
all described for Rizal's benefit, and he had to answer a host of
questions about the changes which had occurred in Manila. Most of his
answers were to the effect that old defects had not yet been remedied
nor incompetent officials supplanted, and he gave a rather hopeless
view of the future of their country. Somewhat in this gloomy mood,
he wrote home for a newly established Tagalog newspaper of Manila,
his views of "Love of country," an article not so optimistic as most
of his later writings.
In Barcelona he remained but a short time, long enough, however, to
see the historic sights around that city, which was established by
Hannibal, had numbered many noted Romans among its residents, and in
later days was the scene of the return of Columbus from his voyages in
the New World, bringing with him samples of Redskins, birds and other
novel products of the unknown country. Then there were the magnificent
boulevards, the handsome dwellings, the interest which the citizens
took in adorning their city and the pride in the results, and above
all, the disgust at all things Spanish and the loyalty to Catalonia,
rather than to the "mother-fatherland."
The Catalan was the most progressive type in Spain, but he had no
love for his compatriots, was ever complaining of their "manana"
habits and of the evils that were bound to exist in a country where
Church and State were so inextricably intermingled. Many Catalans were
avowedly republicans. Signs might be seen on the outside of buildings
telling of the location of republican clubs, unpopular officials
were hooted in the streets, the newspapers were intemperate in their
criticism of the government, and a campaign was carried on openly
which aimed at changing from a monarchy to a democracy, without any
apparent molestation from the authorities. All these things impressed
the lad who had seen in his own country the most respectfully worded
complaints of unquestionable abuses treated as treason, bringing not
merely punishment, but opprobrium as well.
He, himself, in order to obtain a better education, had had to leave
his country stealthily like a fugitive from justice, and his family, to
save themselves from persecution, were compelled to profess ignorance
of his plans and movements. His name was entered in Santo Tomas at the
opening of the new term, with the fees paid, and Paciano had gone to
Manila pretending to be looking for this brother whom he had assisted
out of the country.
Early in the fall Rizal removed to Madrid and entered the Central
University there. His short residence in Barcelona was possibly for
the purpose of correcting the irregularity in his passport, for in
that town it would be easier to obtain a cedula, and with this his
way in the national University would be made smoother. He enrolled in
two courses, medicine, and literature and philosophy; besides these
he studied sculpture, drawing and art in San Carlos, and took private
lessons in languages from Mr. Hughes, a well-known instructor of the
city. With all these labors it is not strange that he did not mingle
largely in social life, and lack of funds and want of clothes, which
have been suggested as reasons for this, seem hardly adequate. Jose had
left Manila with some seven hundred pesos and a diamond ring. Besides,
he received funds from his father monthly, which were sent through
his cousin, Antonio Rivera, of Manila, for fear that the landlords
might revenge themselves upon their tenant for the slight which his
son had cast upon their university in deserting it for a Peninsular
institution. It was no easy task in those days for a lad from the
provinces to get out of the Islands for study abroad.
Rizal frequently attended the theater, choosing especially the higher
class dramas, occasionally went to a masked ball, played the lotteries
in small amounts but regularly, and for the rest devoted most of
his money to the purchase of books. The greater part of these were
second-hand, but he bought several standard works in good editions,
many with bindings de luxe. Among the books first purchased figure
a Spanish translation of the "Lives of the Presidents of the United
States," from Washington to Johnson, morocco bound, gilt-edged,
and illustrated with steel engravings--certainly an expensive book;
a "History of the English Revolution;" a comparison of the Romans
and the Teutons, and several other books which indicated interest in
the freer system of the Anglo-Saxons. Later, another "History of the
Presidents," to Cleveland, was added to his library.
The following lines, said to be addressed to his mother, were written
about this time, evidently during an attack of homesickness:
"You Ask Me for Verses"
(Translated by Charles Derbyshire)
You bid me now to strike the lyre,
That mute and torn so long has lain;
And yet I cannot wake the strain,
Nor will the Muse one note inspire!
Coldly it shakes in accents dire,
As if my soul itself to wring,
And when its sound seems but to fling
A jest at its own low lament;
So in sad isolation pent,
My soul can neither feel nor sing.
There was a time--ah, 'tis too true--
But that time long ago has past--
When upon me the Muse had cast
Indulgent smile and friendship's due;
But of that age now all too few
The thoughts that with me yet will stay;
As from the hours of festive play
There linger on mysterious notes,
And in our minds the memory floats
Of minstrelsy and music gay.
A plant I am, that scarcely grown,
Was torn from out its Eastern bed,
Where all around perfume is shed,
And life but as a dream is known;
The land that I can call my own,
By me forgotten ne'er to be,
Where trilling birds their song taught me,
And cascades with their ceaseless roar,
And all along the spreading shore
The murmurs of the sounding sea.
While yet in childhood's happy day,
I learned upon its sun to smile,
And in my breast there seemed the while
Seething volcanic fires to play.
A bard I was, and my wish alway
To call upon the fleeting wind,
With all the force of verse and mind:
"Go forth, and spread around its fame,
From zone to zone with glad acclaim,
And earth to heaven together bind!"
But it I left, and now no more--
Like a tree that is broken and sere--
My natal gods bring the echo clear
Of songs that in past times they bore;
Wide seas I cross'd to foreign shore,
With hope of change and other fate;
My folly was made clear too late,
For in the place of good I sought
The seas reveal'd unto me naught,
But made death's specter on me wait.
All these fond fancies that were mine,
All love, all feeling, all emprise,
Were left beneath the sunny skies,
Which o'er that flowery region shine;
So press no more that plea of thine,
For songs of love from out a heart
That coldly lies a thing apart;
Since now with tortur'd soul I haste
Unresting o'er the desert waste,
And lifeless gone is all my art.
In Madrid a number of young Filipinos were intense enthusiasts over
political agitation, and with the recklessness of youth, were careless
of what they said or how they said it, so long as it brought no danger
to them. A sort of Philippine social club had been organized by older
Filipinos and Spaniards interested in the Philippines, with the idea
of quietly assisting toward improved insular conditions, but it became
so radical under the influence of this younger majority, that its
conservative members were compelled to drop out and the club broke
up. The young men were constantly holding meetings to revive it, but
never arrived at any effective conclusions. Rizal was present at some
of these meetings and suggested that a good means of propaganda would
be a book telling the truth about Philippine conditions and illustrated
by Filipino artists. At first the project was severely criticised;
later a few conformed to the plan, and Rizal believed that his scheme
was in a fair way of accomplishment. At the meeting to discuss the
details, however, each member of the company wanted to write upon the
Filipino woman, and therest of the subjects scarcely interested any of
them. Rizal was disgusted with this trifling and dropped the affair,
nor did he ever again seem to take any very enthusiastic interest in
such popular movements. His more mature mind put him out of sympathy
with the younger men. Their admiration gave him great prestige, but
his popularity did not arise from comradeship, as he had but very
few intimates.
Early in his stay in Madrid, Rizal had come across a second-hand
copy, in two volumes, of a French novel, which he bought to improve
his knowledge of that language. It was Eugene Sue's "The Wandering
Jew," that work which transformed the France of the nineteenth
century. However one may agree or disagree with its teachings and
concede or dispute its literary merits, it cannot be denied that it
was the most powerful book in its effects on the century, surpassing
even Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which is usually credited
with having hurried on the American Civil War and brought about
the termination of African slavery in the United States. The book,
he writes in his diary, affected him powerfully, not to tears, but
with a tremendous sympathy for the unfortunates that made him willing
to risk everything in their behalf. It seemed to him that such a
presentation of Philippine conditions would certainly arouse Spain,
but his modesty forbade his saying that he was going to write a book
like the French masterpiece. Still, from this time his recollections
of his youth and the stories which he could get from his companions
were written down and revised, till finally the half had been prepared
of what was finally the novel "Noli Me Tangere."
Through Spaniards who still remembered Jose's uncle, he joined a
lodge of Masons called the "Acacia." At this time few Filipinos in
Spain had joined the institution, and those were mostly men much more
mature than himself. Thus he met leaders of Spanish national life who
were men of state affairs and much more sedate, men with broader views
and more settled opinions than the irresponsible class with whom his
school companions were accustomed to associate. A distinction must
be made between the Masonry of this time and the much more popular
institution in which Filipinos later figured so largely when Professor
Miguel Morayta became head of the Grand Lodge which for a time was
a rival of that to which the "Acacia" owed allegiance, and finally
triumphed over it.
In 1884 Rizal had begun his studies in English; he had been studying
French during and since his voyage to Spain; Italian was acquired
apparently at a time when the exposition of Genoa had attracted Spanish
interest toward Italy, and largely through the reading of Italian
translations of works which he knew in other languages. German, too,
he had started to study, but had not advanced far with it. Thus Rizal
was preparing himself for the travels through Europe which he had
intended to make from the time when he first left his home, for he
well knew that it was only by knowing the language of a country that
it would be possible for him to study the people, see in what way
they differed from his own, and find out which of their customs and
what lessons from their history might be of advantage to the Filipinos.
A feature in Rizal's social life was a weekly visit to the home of
Don Pablo Ortigas y Reyes, a liberal Spaniard who had been Civil
Governor of Manila in General de La Torre's time. Here Filipino
students gathered, and were entertained by the charming daughter of
the home, Consuelo, who was the person to whom were dedicated the
verses of Rizal usually entitled "a la Senorita C. O. y R."
In Rizal's later days he found a regular relaxation in playing chess,
in which he was skilled, with the venerable ex-president of the
short-lived Spanish republic, Pi y Margal. This statesman was accused
of German tendencies because of his inclination toward Anglo-Saxon
safeguards for liberty, and was a champion of general education as
a preparation for a freer Spain.
Rizal usually was present on public occasions in Filipino circles
and took a leading part in them, as, for example, when he delivered
the principal address at the banquet given by the Madrid Filipino
colony in honor of their artist countrymen, after Luna and Hidalgo
had won prizes in the Madrid National exposition. He was also at the
New Year's banquet when the students gathered in the restaurant to
bid farewell to the old and usher in the new year, and his was the
chief speech, summarizing the remarks of the others.
In 1885, having completed the second of his two courses, with his
credentials of licentiate in medicine and also in philosophy and
literature, Rizal made a trip through the country provinces to
study the Spanish peasant, for the rural people, he thought, being
agriculturists, would be most like the farmer folk of his native
land. Surely the Filipinos did not suffer in the comparison, for the
Spanish peasants had not greatly changed from the day when they were
so masterfully described by Cervantes. It seemed to Rizal almost like
being in Don Quixote's land, so many were the figures who might have
been the characters in the book.
The fall of '85 found Rizal in Paris, studying art, visiting the
various museums and associating with the Lunas, the Taveras and
other Filipino residents of the French capital, for there had been
a considerable colony in that city ever since the troubles of 1872
had driven the Tavera family into exile and they had made their home
in that city. In Paris a fourth of "Noli Me Tangere" was written,
and Rizal specialized in ophthalmology, devoting his attention to
those eye troubles that were most prevalent in the Philippines and
least understood. His mother's growing blindness made him covet the
skill which might enable him to restore her sight. So successfully
did he study that he became the favorite pupil of Doctor L. de
Weckert, the leading authority among the oculists of France, and
author of a three-volume standard work. Rizal next went to Germany,
having continued his studies in its language in the French capital,
and was present at Heidelberg on the five hundredth anniversary of
the foundation of the University.
Because he had no passport he could only attend lectures, but could
not regularly matriculate. He lived in one of the student boarding
houses, with a number of law students, and when he was proposed for
membership in the Chess Club he was registered in the Club books as
being a student of law like the men who proposed him. These Chess
Club gatherings were quite a feature of the town, being held in the
large saloons with several hundred people present, and the contests
of skill were eagerly watched by shrewd and competent judges. Rizal
was a clever player, and left something of a record among the experts.
The following lines were written by Rizal in a letter home while he
was a student in Germany:
To the Flowers of Heidelberg
(translation by Charles Derbyshire)
Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers,
Sown by the traveler on his way;
And there beneath its azure sky,
Where all of my affections lie;
There from the weary pilgrim say,
What faith is his in that land of ours!
Go there and tell how when the dawn,
Her early light diffusing,
Your petals first flung open wide;
His steps beside chill Neckar drawn,
You see him silent by your side,
Upon its Spring perennial musing.
Saw how when morning's light,
All your fragrance stealing,
Whispers to you as in mirth
Playful songs of love's delight,
He, too, murmurs his love's feeling
In the tongue he learned at birth.
That when the sun on Koenigstuhl's height
Pours out its golden flood,
And with its slowly warming light
Gives life vale and grove and wood,
He greets that sun, here only upraising,
Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing.
And tell there of that day he stood,
Near to a ruin'd castle gray,
By Neckar's banks, or shady wood,
And pluck'd you from beside the way;
Tell, too, the tale to you addressed,
And how with tender care,
Your bending leaves he press'd
'Twixt pages of some volume rare.
Bear then, O flowers, love's message bear;
My love to all the lov'd ones there,
Peace to my country--fruitful land--
Faith whereon its sons may stand,
And virtue for its daughters' care;
All those beloved creatures greet,
That still around home's altar meet.
And when you come unto its shore,
This kiss I now on you bestow,
Fling where the winged breezes blow;
That borne on them it may hover o'er
All that I love, esteem, and adore.
But though, O flowers, you come unto that land,
And still perchance your colors hold;
So far from this heroic strand,
Whose soil first bade your life unfold,
Still here your fragrance will expand;
Your soul that never quits the earth
Whose light smiled on you at your birth.
From Heidelberg he went to Leipzig, then famous for the new studies
in psychology which were making the science of the mind almost as
exact as that of the body, and became interested in the comparison
of race characteristics as influenced by environment, history and
language. This probably accounts for the advanced views held by Rizal,
who was thoroughly abreast of the new psychology. These ideas were
since popularized in America largely through Professor Hugo Munsterberg
of Harvard University, who was a fellow-student of Rizal at Heidelberg
and also had been at Leipzig.
A little later Rizal went to Berlin and there became acquainted with
a number of men who had studied the Philippines and knew it as none
whom he had ever met previously. Chief among these was Doctor Jagor,
the author of the book which ten years before had inspired in him his
life purpose of preparing his people for the time when America should
come to the Philippines. Then there was Doctor Rudolf Virchow, head of
the Anthropological Society and one of the greatest scientists in the
world. Virchow was of intensely democratic ideals, he was a statesman
as well as a scientist, and the interest of the young student in the
history of his country and in everything else which concerned it,
and his sincere earnestness, so intelligently directed toward helping
his country, made Rizal at once a prime favorite. Under Virchow's
sponsorship he became a member of the Berlin Anthropological Society.
Rizal lived in the third floor of a corner lodging house not very
far from the University; in this room he spent much of his time,
putting the finishing touches to what he had previously written of
his novel, and there he wrote the latter half of "Noli Me Tangere"
The German influence, and absence from the Philippines for so long a
time, had modified his early radical views, and the book had now become
less an effort to arouse the Spanish sense of justice than a means of
education for Filipinos by pointing out their shortcomings. Perhaps a
Spanish school history which he had read in Madrid deserves a part of
the credit for this changed point of view, since in that the author,
treating of Spain's early misfortunes, brings out the fact that
misgovernment may be due quite as much to the hypocrisy, servility
and undeserving character of the people as it is to the corruption,
tyranny and cruelty of the rulers.
The printer of "Noli Me Tangere" lived in a neighboring street, and,
like most printers in Germany, worked for a very moderate compensation,
so that the volume of over four hundred pages cost less than a fourth
of what it would have done in England, or one half of what it would
cost in economical Spain. Yet even at so modest a price, Rizal was
delayed in the publication until one fortunate morning he received a
visit from a countryman, Doctor Maximo Viola, who invited him to take a
pedestrian trip. Rizal responded that his interests kept him in Berlin
at that time as he was awaiting funds from home with which to publish
a book he had just completed, and showed him the manuscript. Doctor
Viola was much interested and offered to use the money he had put
aside for the trip to help pay the publisher. So the work went ahead,
and when the delayed remittance from his family arrived, Rizal repaid
the obligation. Then the two sallied forth on their trip.
After a considerable tour of the historic spots and scenic places
in Germany, they arrived at Dresden, where Doctor Rizal was warmly
greeted by Doctor A. B. Meyer, the Director of the Royal Saxony
Ethnographical Institute. He was an authority upon Philippine matters,
for some years before he had visited the Islands to make a study of
the people. With a countryman resident in the Philippines, Doctor
Meyer made careful and thorough scientific investigations, and his
conclusions were more favorable to the Filipinos than the published
views of many of the unscientific Spanish observers.
In the Museum of Art at Dresden, Rizal saw a painting of "Prometheus
Bound," which recalled to him a representation of the same idea
in a French gallery, and from memory he modeled this figure, which
especially appealed to him as being typical of his country.
In Austrian territory he first visited Doctor Ferdinand Blumentritt,
whom Rizal had known by reputation for many years and with whom he had
long corresponded. The two friends stayed at the Hotel Roderkrebs,
but were guests at the table of the Austrian professor, whose wife
gave them appetizing demonstrations of the characteristic cookery
of Hungary. During Rizal's stay he was very much interested in a
gathering of tourists, arranged to make known the beauties of that
picturesque region, sometimes called the Austrian Switzerland, and
he delivered an address upon this occasion. It is noteworthy that
the present interest in attracting tourists to the Philippines, as
an economic benefit to the country, was anticipated by Doctor Rizal
and that he was always looking up methods used in foreign countries
for building up tourists' travel.
One day, while the visitors were discussing Philippine matters with
their host, Doctor Rizal made an off hand sketch of Doctor Blumentritt,
on a scrap of paper which happened to be at hand, so characteristic
that it serves as an excellent portrait, and it has been preserved
among the Rizal relics which Doctor Blumentritt had treasured of the
friend for whom he had so much respect and affection.
With a letter of introduction to a friend of Doctor Blumentritt in
Vienna, Nordenfels, the greatest of Austrian novelists, Doctor Viola
and Doctor Rizal went on to the capital, where they were entertained
by the Concordia Club. So favorable was the impression that Rizal
made upon Mr. Nordenfels that an answer was written to the note of
introduction, thanking the professor for having brought to his notice
a person whom he had found so companionable and whose genius he so
much admired. Nordenfels had been interested in Spanish subjects,
and was able to discuss intelligently the peculiar development of
Castilian civilization and the politics of the Spanish metropolis as
they affected the overseas possessions.
After having seen Rome and a little more of Italy, they embarked for
the Philippines, again on the French mail, from Marseilles, coming
by way of Saigon, where a rice steamer was taken for Manila.
CHAPTER VII
The Period of Propaganda
The city had not altered much during Rizal's seven years of
absence. The condition of the Binondo pavement, with the same holes
in the road which Rizal claimed he remembered as a schoolboy, was
unchanged, and this recalls the experience of Ybarra in "Noli Me
Tangere" on his homecoming after a like period of absence.
Doctor Rizal at once went to his home in Kalamba. His first operation
in the Philippines relieved the blindness of his mother, by the removal
of a double cataract, and thus the object of his special study in
Paris was accomplished. This and other like successes gave the young
oculist a fame which brought patients from all parts of Luzon; and,
though his charges were moderate, during his seven months' stay
in the Islands Doctor Rizal accumulated over five thousand pesos,
besides a number of diamonds which he had bought as a secure way of
carrying funds, mindful of the help that the ring had been with which
he had first started from the Philippines.
Shortly after his arrival, Governor-General Terrero summoned Rizal by
telegraph to Malacanan from Kalamba. The interview proved to be due
to the interest in the author of "Noli Me Tangere" and a curiosity
to read the novel, arising from the copious extracts with which the
Manila censors had submitted an unfavorable opinion when asking for
the prohibition of the book. The recommendation of the censor was
disregarded, and General Terrero, fearful that Rizal might be molested
by some of the many persons who would feel themselves aggrieved by his
plain picturing of undesirable classes in the Philippines, gave him for
a bodyguard a young Spanish lieutenant, Jose Taviel de Andrade. The
young men soon became fast friends, as they had artistic and other
tastes in common. Once they climbed Mr. Makiling, near Kalamba,
and placed there, after the European custom, a flag to show that
they had reached the summit. This act was at first misrepresented by
the enemies of Rizal as planting a German banner, for they started
a story that he had taken possession of the Islands in the name of
the country where he was educated, which was just then in unfriendly
relations with Spain over the question of the ill treatment of the
Protestant missionaries in the Caroline Islands. This same story was
repeated after the American occupation with the variation that Rizal,
as the supreme chief and originator of the ideas of the Katipunan
(which in fact he was not--he was even opposed to the society as it
existed in his time), had placed there a Filipino banner, in token
that the Islands intended to reassume the independent condition of
which the Spanish had dispossessed them.
"Noli Me Tangere" circulated first among Doctor Rizal's relatives;
on one occasion a cousin made a special trip to Kalamba and took
the author to task for having caricatured her in the character of
Dona Victorina. Rizal made no denial, but merely suggested that the
book was a mirror of Philippine life, with types that unquestionably
existed in the country, and that if anybody recognized one of the
characters as picturing himself or herself, that person would do well
to correct the faults which therein appeared ridiculous.
A somewhat liberal administration was now governing the Philippines,
and efforts were being made to correct the more glaring abuses in
the social conditions. One of these reforms proposed that the larger
estates should bear their share of the taxes, which it was believed
they were then escaping to a great extent. Requests were made of the
municipal government of Kalamba, among other towns, for a statement
of the relation that the big Dominican hacienda bore to the town,
what increase or decrease there might have been in the income of the
estate, and what taxes the proprietors were paying compared with the
revenue their place afforded.
Rizal interested the people of the community to gather reliable
statistics, to go thoroughly into the actual conditions, and to leave
out the generalities which usually characterized Spanish documents.
He asked the people to cooeperate, pointing out that when they
did not complain it was their own fault more than that of the
government if they suffered injustice. Further, he showed the folly
of exaggerated statements, and insisted upon a definite and moderate
showing of such abuses as were unquestionably within the power of
the authorities to relieve. Rizal himself prepared the report, which
is an excellent presentation of the grievances of the people of his
town. It brings forward as special points in favor of the community
their industriousness, their willingness to help themselves, their
interest in education, and concludes with expressing confidence
in the fairness of the government, pointing out the fact that they
were risking the displeasure of their landlords by furnishing the
information requested. The paper made a big stir, and its essential
statements, like everything else in Rizal's writings, were never
successfully challenged.
Conditions in Manila were at that time disturbed owing to the
precedence which had been given in a local festival to the Chinese,
because they paid more money. The Filipinos claimed that, being in
their home country, they should have had prior consideration and were
entitled to it by law. The matter culminated in a protest, which was
doubtless submitted to Doctor Rizal on the eve of his departure from
the Islands; the protest in a general way met with his approval, but
the theatrical methods adopted in the presentation of it can hardly
have been according to his advice.
He sailed for Hongkong in February of 1888, and made a short stay in
the British colony, becoming acquainted there with Jose Maria Basa, an
exile of '72, who had constituted himself the especial guardian of the
Filipino students in that city. The visitor was favorably impressed by
the methods of education in the British colony and with the spirit of
patriotism developed thereby. He also looked into the subject of the
large investments in Hongkong property by the corporation landlords
of the Philippines, their preparation for the day of trouble which
they foresaw.
Rizal was interested in the Chinese theater, comparing the plays with
the somewhat similar productions which existed in the Philippines;
there, however, they had been given a religious twist, which at
first glance hid their debt to the Chinese drama. The Doctor notes
meeting, at nearby Macao, an exile of '72, whose condition and patient,
uncomplaining bearing of his many troubles aroused Rizal's sympathies
and commanded his admiration.
With little delay, the journey was continued to Japan, where Doctor
Rizal was surprised by an invitation to make his home in the Spanish
consulate. There he was hospitably entertained, and a like courtesy
was shown him in the Spanish minister's home in Tokio. The latter
even offered him a position, as a sort of interpreter, probably,
should he care to remain in the country. This offer, however, was
declined. Rizal made considerable investigation into the condition
of the various Japanese classes and acquired such facility in the
use of the language that with it and his appearance, for he was "very
Japanese," the natives found it difficult to believe that he was not
one of themselves. The month or more passed here he considered one of
the happiest in his travels, and it was with regret that he sailed
from Yokohama for San Francisco. A Japanese newspaper man, who knew
no other language than his own, was a companion on the entire journey
to London, and Rizal acted as his interpreter.
Not only did he enter into the spirit of the language but with
remarkable versatility he absorbed the spirit of the Japanese artists
and acquired much dexterity in expressing himself in their style,
as is shown by one of the illustrations in this book. The popular
idea that things occidental are reversed in the Orient was amusingly
caricatured in a sketch he made of a German face; by reversing its
lines he converted it into an old-time Japanese countenance.
The diary of the voyage from Hongkong to Japan records an incident to
which he alludes as being similar to that of Aladdin in the Tagalog
tale of Florante. The Filipino wife of an Englishman, Mrs. Jackson,
who was a passenger on board, told Rizal a great deal about a
Filipino named Rachal, who was educated in Europe and had written a
much-talked-of novel, which she described and of which she spoke in
such flattering terms that Rizal declared his identity. The confusion
in names is explained by the fact that Rachal is a name well known
in the Philippines as that of a popular make of piano.
At San Francisco the boat was held for some time in quarantine because
of sickness aboard, and Rizal was impressed by the fact that the
valuable cargo of silk was not delayed but was quickly transferred to
the shore. His diary is illustrated with a drawing of the Treasury
flag on the customs launch which acted as go-between for their boat
and the shore. Finally, the first-class passengers were allowed to
land, and he went to the Palace Hotel.
With little delay, the overland journey was begun; the scenery through
the picturesque Rocky Mountains especially impressed him, and finally
Chicago was reached. The thing that struck him most forcibly in that
city was the large number of cigar stores with an Indian in front of
each--and apparently no two Indians alike. The unexpressed idea was
that in America the remembrance of the first inhabitants of the land
and their dress was retained and popularized, while in the Philippines
knowledge of the first inhabitants of the land was to be had only
from foreign museums.
Niagara Falls is the next impression recorded in the diary, which has
been preserved and is now in the Newberry Library of Chicago. The
same strange, awe-inspiring mystery which others have found in the
big falls affected him, but characteristically he compared this
world-wonder with the cascades of his native La Laguna, claiming for
them greater delicacy and a daintier enchantment.
From Albany, the train ran along the banks of the Hudson, and he was
reminded of the Pasig in his homeland, with its much greater commerce
and its constant activity.
At New York, Rizal embarked on the City of Rome, then the finest
steamer in the world, and after a pleasant voyage, in which his spare
moments were occupied in rereading "Gulliver's Travels" in English,
Rizal reached England, and said good-by to the friends whom he had
met during their brief ocean trip together.
Rizal's first letters home to his family speak of being in the free
air of England and once more amidst European activity. For a short
time he lived with Doctor Antonio Maria Regidor, an exile of '72,
who had come to secure what Spanish legal Business he could in the
British metropolis. Doctor Regidor was formerly an official in the
Philippines, and later proved his innocence of any complicity in the
troubles of '72.
Doctor Rizal then boarded with a Mr. Beckett, organist of St. Paul's
Church, at 37 Charlecote Crescent, in the favorite North West residence
section. The zooelogical gardens were conveniently near and the British
Museum was within easy walking distance. The new member was a favorite
with all the family, which consisted of three daughters besides the
father and mother.
Rizal's youthful interest in sleight-of-hand tricks was still
maintained. During his stay in the Philippines he had sometimes amused
his friends in this way, till one day he was horrified to find that
the simple country folk, who were also looking on, thought that he
was working miracles. In London he resumed his favorite diversion, and
a Christmas gift of Mrs. Beckett to him, "The Life and Adventures of
Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist," indicated the interest his friends
took in this amusement. One of his own purchases was "Modern Magic,"
the frontispiece of which is the sphinx that figures in the story of
"El Filibusterismo."
It was Rizal's custom to study the deceptions practiced upon the
peoples of other lands, comparing them with those of which his
own countrymen had been victims. Thus he could get an idea of the
relative credulity of different peoples and could also account
for many practices the origin of which was otherwise less easy to
understand. His investigations were both in books and by personal
research. In quest of these experiences he one day chanced to visit
a professional phrenologist; the bump-reader was a shrewd guesser,
for he dwelt especially upon Rizal's aptitude for learning languages
and advised him to take up the study of them.
This interest in languages, shown in his childish ambition to be
like Sir John Bowring, made Rizal a congenial companion of a still
more distinguished linguist, Doctor Reinhold Rost, the librarian of
the India Office. The Raffles Library in Singapore now owns Doctor
Rost's library, and its collection of grammars in seventy languages
attests the wide range of the studies of this Sanscrit scholar.
Doctor Rost was born and educated in Germany, though naturalized
as a British subject, and he was a man of great musical taste. His
family sometimes formed an orchestra, at other times a glee club, and
furnished all the necessary parts from its own members. Rizal was a
frequent visitor, usually spending his Sundays in athletic exercises
with the boys, for he quickly became proficient in the English sports
of boxing and cricket. While resting he would converse with the father,
or chat with the daughters of the home. All the children had literary
tastes, and one, Daisy, presented him with a copy of a novel which
she had just translated from the German, entitled "Ulli."
Some idea of Doctor Rizal's own linguistic attainments may be gained
from the fact that instead of writing letters to his nephews and nieces
he made for them translations of some of Hans Christian Andersen's
fairy tales. They consist of some forty manuscript pages, profusely
illustrated, and the father is referred to in a "dedication,"
as though it were a real book. The Hebrew Bible quotation is in
allusion to a jocose remark once made by the father that German was
like Hebrew to him, the verse being that in which the sons of Jacob,
not recognizing that their brother was the seller, were bargaining
for some of Pharaoh's surplus corn, "And he (Joseph) said, How is
the old man, your father?" Rizal always tried to relieve by a touch
of humor anything that seemed to him as savoring of affectation,
the phase of Spanish character that repelled him and the imitation
of which by his countrymen who knew nothing of the un-Spanish world
disgusted him with them.
Another example of his versatility in language and of its usefulness
to him as well, is shown in a trilingual letter written by Rizal in
Dapitan when the censorship of his correspondence had become annoying
through ignorant exceptions to perfectly harmless matters. No Spaniard
available spoke more than one language besides his own and it was
necessary to send the letter to three different persons to find out
its contents. The critics took the hint and Rizal received better
treatment thereafter.
Another one of Rizal's youthful aspirations was attained in London,
for there he began transcribing the early Spanish history by Morga of
which Sir John Bowring had told his uncle. A copy of this rare book
was in the British Museum and he gained admission as a reader there
through the recommendation of Doctor Rost. Only five hundred persons
can be accommodated in the big reading room, and as students are
coming from every continent for special researches, good reason has
to be shown why these studies cannot be made at some other institution.
Besides the copying of the text of Morga's history, Rizal read
many other early writings on the Philippines, and the manifest
unfairness of some of these who thought that they could glorify Spain
only by disparaging the Filipinos aroused his wrath. Few Spanish
writers held up the good name of those who were under their flag,
and Rizal had to resort to foreign authorities to disprove their
libels. Morga was almost alone among Spanish historians, but his
assertions found corroboration in the contemporary chronicles of
other nationalities. Rizal spent his evenings in the home of Doctor
Regidor, and many a time the bitterness and impatience with which his
day's work in the Museum had inspired him, would be forgotten as the
older man counseled patience and urged that such prejudices were to be
expected of a little educated nation. Then Rizal's brow would clear as
he quoted his favorite proverb, "To understand all is to forgive all."
Doctor Rost was editor of Truebner's Record, a journal devoted to the
literature of the East, founded by the famous Oriental Bookseller and
Publisher of London, Nicholas Truebner, and Doctor Rizal contributed
to it in May, 1889, some specimens of Tagal folklore, an extract from
which is appended, as it was then printed:
Specimens of Tagal Folklore
By Doctor J. Rizal
Proverbial Sayings
Malakas ang bulong sa sigaw, Low words are stronger than loud words.
Ang laki sa layaw karaniwa 'y hubad, A petted child is generally naked
(i.e. poor).
Hampasng magulang ay nakataba, Parents' punishment makes one fat.
Ibang hari ibang ugail, New king, new fashion.
Nagpuputol ang kapus, ang labis ay nagdurugtong, What is short cuts
off a piece from itself, what is long adds another on (the poor gets
poorer, the rich richer).
Ang nagsasabing tapus ay siyang kinakapus, He who finishes his words
finds himself wanting.
Nangangako habang napapako, Man promises while in need.
Ang naglalakad ng marahan, matinik may mababaw, He who walks slowly,
though he may put his foot on a thorn, will not be hurt very much
(Tagals mostly go barefooted).
Ang maniwala sa sabi 'y walang bait na sarili, He who believes in
tales has no own mind.
Ang may isinuksok sa dingding, ay may titingalain, He who has put
something between the wall may afterwards look on (the saving man
may afterwards be cheerful).--The wall of a Tagal house is made of
palm-leaves and bamboo, so that it can be used as a cupboard.
Walang mahirap gisingin na paris nang nagtutulogtulugan, The most
difficult to rouse from sleep is the man who pretends to be asleep.
Labis sa salita, kapus sa gawa, Too many words, too little work.
Hipong tulog ay nadadala ng anod, The sleeping shrimp is carried away
by the current.
Sa bibig nahuhuli ang isda, The fish is caught through the mouth.
Puzzles
Isang butil na palay sikip sa buony bahay, One rice-corn fills up
all the house.--The light. The rice-corn with the husk is yellowish.
Matapang ako so dalawa, duag ako sa isa, I am brave against two,
coward against one.--The bamboo bridge. When the bridge is made of
one bamboo only, it is difficult to pass over; but when it is made
of two or more, it is very easy.
Dala ako niya, dala ko siya, He carries me, I carry him.--The shoes.
Isang balong malalim puna ng patalim, A deep well filled with steel
blades.--The mouth.
The Filipino colony in Spain had established a fortnightly review,
published first in Barcelona and later in Madrid, to enlighten
Spaniards on their distant colony, and Rizal wrote for it from the
start. Its name, La Solidaridad, perhaps may be translated Equal
Rights, as it aimed at like laws and the same privileges for the
Peninsula and the possessions overseas.
From the Philippines came news of a contemptible attempt to reach
Rizal through his family--one of many similar petty persecutions. His
sister Lucia's husband had died and the corpse was refused interment
in consecrated ground, upon the pretext that the dead man, who had been
exceptionally liberal to the church and was of unimpeachable character,
had been negligent in his religious duties. Another individual with
a notorious record of longer absence from confession died about
the same time, and his funeral took place from the church without
demur. The ugly feature about the refusal to bury Hervosa was that the
telegram from the friar parish-priest to the Archbishop at Manila in
asking instructions, was careful to mention that the deceased was a
brother-in-law of Rizal. Doctor Rizal wrote a scorching article for
La Solidaridad under the caption "An Outrage," and took the matter
up with the Spanish Colonial Minister, then Becerra, a professed
Liberal. But that weakling statesman, more liberal in words than in
actions, did nothing.
That the union of Church and State can be as demoralizing to religion
as it is disastrous to good government seems sufficiently established
by Philippine incidents like this, in which politics was substituted
for piety as the test of a good Catholic, making marriage impossible
and denying decent burial to the families of those who differed
politically with the ministers of the national religion.
Of all his writings, the article in which Rizal speaks of this
indignity to the dead comes nearest to exhibiting personal feeling and
rancor. Yet his main point is to indicate generally what monstrous
conditions the Philippine mixture of religion and politics made
possible.
The following are part of a series of nineteen verses published in
La Solidaridad over Rizal's favorite pen name of Laong Laan:
To my Muse
(translation by Charles Derbyshire)
Invoked no longer is the Muse,
The lyre is out of date;
The poets it no longer use,
And youth its inspiration now imbues
With other form and state.
If today our fancies aught
Of verse would still require,
Helicon's hill remains unsought;
And without heed we but inquire,
Why the coffee is not brought.
In the place of thought sincere
That our hearts may feel,
We must seize a pen of steel,
And with verse and line severe
Fling abroad a jest and jeer.
Muse, that in the past inspired me,
And with songs of love hast fired me;
Go thou now to dull repose,
For today in sordid prose
I must earn the gold that hired me.
Now must I ponder deep,
Meditate, and struggle on;
E'en sometimes I must weep;
For he who love would keep
Great pain has undergone.
Fled are the days of ease,
The days of Love's delight;
When flowers still would please
And give to suffering souls surcease
From pain and sorrow's blight.
One by one they have passed on,
All I loved and moved among;
Dead or married--from me gone,
For all I place my heart upon
By fate adverse are stung.
Go thou, too, O Muse, depart,
Other regions fairer find;
For my land but offers art
For the laurel, chains that bind,
For a temple, prisons blind.
But before thou leavest me, speak:
Tell me with thy voice sublime,
Thou couldst ever from me seek
A song of sorrow for the weak,
Defiance to the tyrant's crime.
Rizal's congenial situation in the British capital was disturbed
by his discovering a growing interest in the youngest of the three
girls whom he daily met. He felt that his career did not permit him
to marry, nor was his youthful affection for his cousin in Manila an
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