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The Philippine Islands

Name: The Philippine Islands
Author: Ramon Reyes Lala

by Ramon Reyes Lala

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Philippines -- Description and travel

In: History - Other

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #42726.

About this book

The work is a comprehensive survey of the Philippine Islands, written by Ramon Reyes Lala, a Filipino-born scholar who studied in England, Switzerland and later became an American citizen. In his opening pages he explains that the material comes chiefly from Spanish archives in Manila, supplemented by his own observations and photographs, and that he aims to present an impartial portrait of the country’s people, resources, and history. The book blends description of moral and intellectual character with practical data on agriculture, industry, labor and commerce, offering figures on prices, wages and methods of production for crops such as sugar, rice, hemp, tobacco and coffee. Lala also sketches the colonial legacy, from Magellan’s arrival through Spanish rule and the recent American intervention, positioning his narrative as a useful reference for anyone seeking factual, balanced insight into the archipelago’s past and present.

The tone is scholarly yet accessible, reflecting late‑nineteenth‑century American‑Philippine discourse. Lala writes in a measured, almost reportorial style, interweaving historical narrative with economic statistics and personal commentary. Readers interested in colonial history, economic development, or the cultural anthropology of Southeast Asia will find it rewarding, as will students, historians and professionals who need a factual grounding in the Philippines at the turn of the century.

Who appears in The Philippine Islands

Ramon Reyes LalaFilipino gentleman in late 19th‑century dark frock coat, waistcoat, cravat, moustache

The opening · free to read

The author, Mr. Ramon Reyes Lala, is a Filipino and was born in Manila. His collegiate education was completed in England and Switzerland. A long sojourn in Europe has instructed him in European thought, tendencies, and methods. He has lived in the United States for many years, and has become, by naturalization, a citizen of this country.

He collected the historical material for this work largely from the Spanish archives in Manila before the last rising of the people of Luzon in rebellion against Spain. His mastery of the English language is that of the thorough scholar. His qualifications for his work are those of the student, trained by many studies. He possesses by nativity the gift, incommunicable to any alien, of giving a true color and duly proportioned form to his delineations of his own people. These endowments have enabled him to produce a work of striking and permanent value.

The most meritorious feature of Mr. Lala's book is unquestionably its impartiality of statement and judgment. This is particularly apparent in his descriptions of the moral and intellectual character of his countrymen. No defect is extenuated, nor is there any patriotic exaggeration of merits. The capacities and limitations of the Filipinos are plainly and photographically depicted. The difficulties and the facilities of their political control by the United States are weighed in a just balance by the reader himself in considering these portrayals of national character.

This colorless truth of statement appears not alone in Mr. Lala's special descriptions of the character of his people. It is also manifest, as it is incidentally displayed, in his many expositions of the systems and methods of labor, of social usages, of domestic life, of civil administration, of military capacity, of popular amusements and of religious faith. The result is that he has communicated to the reader an unusually distinct conception of national and ethnic character. This is always a very difficult task. The most graphic portrayal in this respect most commonly enables the reader merely to perceive indistinctly, but not clearly to see.

The book is of a most practical character. Its statements of commercial history and methods, and of past and present business and industrial conditions, are most satisfactory. Such an exposition is at this time most indispensably needed. Everybody knows, in a general way, that the Philippine Islands produce sugar, rice, hemp, tobacco, coffee, and many other agricultural staples, and that they are rich in minerals and valuable woods. But heretofore it has been very difficult to obtain specific information upon these subjects. Mr. Lala has given this information. The practical man, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the miner is here informed concerning resources, methods, prices, labor, wages, profits, and roads. While this information is not technical, it is instructively full and is evidently reliable.

The descriptions of the processes of cultivating and preparing hemp, sugar, coffee, rice, and tobacco, and the suggestions of the ways by which these methods can be easily improved, and the products made more profitable, are, in every way, most satisfactory.

The Philippines began to come under European control with the administration of Legaspi, the first Governor-General, in 1565, long before the English had colonized any portion of North America.

For about three hundred and fifty years the Spanish system has been in contrast with that of every other colonizing nation. It has been worse than the worst of any of these. While there is no elaborate contrast of these systems in Mr. Lala's book, he nevertheless depicts so thoroughly the manifold and inveterate rapacity, cruelty, corruption, and imbecility of Spanish colonial administration, that he also discloses the vast possibilities of the better contrasted systems.

No war was ever yet waged in the interests of humanity, as the war against Spain unquestionably was, that did not produce consequences entirely unforeseen at its beginning. This truth was never more convincingly confirmed than by the war just ended. The United States demanded the evacuation by Spain of Cuba and Cuban waters. Compliance by Spain would have limited the consequences to the evacuation. She did not comply. She chose the arbitrament of war, and the result was her extirpation from her insular possessions in the West Indies and the Philippines.

This providential and revolutionary event imposed upon the United States duties unforeseen, but none the less imperious. As to the Philippines, those duties are complicated by the irresistible tendencies which seem to make certain the dismemberment of China, and the subjection of that immemorial empire to all the influences of Western civilization. This is an event not inferior in importance to the discovery of America by Columbus, and the interest of the United States in its consequences is of incalculable importance. With this interest its relations to the Philippines is inseparably connected, and those relations present for consideration policies which disenchant the situation of all idealism and make it intensely practical. To this possible result the war waged against the United States by Aguinaldo and his followers has decisively contributed.

But, in any event, whatever the relations of the United States to the Philippines may finally become, the book of Mr. Lala will undoubtedly influence and assist the considerate judgment of those whose duty shall call them to determine the momentous questions which are now enforcing themselves for solution upon the attention of the American people.

[Cushman Kellogg Davis, U. S. Senate, Minnesota, 1887 to ----; Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations; Member of the Commission that met at Paris, September 1898, to arrange terms of peace between the United States and Spain.]

PREFACE.

About twenty years ago, when a student at St. John's College, London, I was frequently asked by people I met in society for information regarding the Philippines and the Filipinos. Many also, who showed considerable interest, and who wished, for various reasons, to carry their investigations further, complained that there was in English no good book on the subject. Afterward, when I continued my studies at a French college in Neûchatel, Switzerland, I met with many similar inquiries, and here too in America I found demand for a comprehensive, reliable work upon my country.

But it was not until I had traveled considerably through Europe, studying the history of the various States and peoples, that the idea of writing a history of my own fatherland occurred to me. It was mortifying then to think that the glories of my native land were no better known. Accordingly, I resolved to become the chronicler, and I began at once to collect material for a work on the Philippines, that should, I trusted, be deemed a permanent contribution to historical literature.

Upon my return to Manila from Europe, I immediately began a study of the Colonial archives in the office of the Governor-General. From these I gathered many valuable data about the early history of the colony, and also much information that would be locked to the curious traveler. And on account of my knowledge of Spanish, and because of my friendship with the Governor-General Moriones, I was enabled to do this thoroughly. Thus I gradually laid the foundation for the present work.

When, a few years later,--in 1887,--because of my sympathy with the rising cause of the insurgents, Spanish tyrants banished me from my country and my kindred, I carried away all the manuscripts I had already written, resolved to finish the task I had set before me amid a more congenial environment.

I came to the United States. Of this country I, in due time, became a citizen. However, I kept up my relations with friends in Manila; for I still felt an interest in the fate of my native land. Though I have since revisited the Orient, I preferred to retain my American citizenship, rather than again put myself under the iron yoke of Spain. I have, nevertheless, kept pace with the march of events in the colony, and had, indeed, about completed my history when Dewey's grand victory denoted a new era for the Filipinos, and, hence, made the addition of several chapters necessary. I have thus added much of supreme interest to Americans; bringing the book to the capture of Manila by the American forces.

My acquaintance with the leading insurgents,--Rizal, Aguinaldo, Agoncillo, the Lunas, and others,--has also enabled me to speak with authority about them and the cause for which they have fought.

In writing this work I have consulted all previous historians, the old Spanish chroniclers, Gaspar de San Agustin, Juan de la Concepcion, Martinez Zuñiga, Bowring, Foreman, and various treatises, anthropological and historical, in French, Spanish, and English.

To all these writers I am indebted for many valuable facts.

It has been my aim to give--rather than a long, detailed account--a concise, but true, comprehensive, and interesting history of the Philippine Islands; one, too, covering every phase of the subject, and giving also every important fact.

And my animating spirit of loyalty for my own countrymen makes me feel that I cannot more clearly and fully manifest my affection for them and my native land than by writing this book.

Many of the pictures are photographs taken by myself. The rest were selected from a great number of others, that were accessible, as being most typical of Philippine life and scenery.

The student of history, and he that would learn something about the customs of the people, and the natural resources of the country, may, I trust, find the perusal of this work not without profit and interest.

I desire to attest here my gratitude for the many courtesies shown me, and for the hearty manner in which I have been received, in this great, free country.

Everywhere it was the same.

And I would say to all loyal, ardent Filipinos, that I believe that they eventually will not regret the day when Commodore Dewey sundered the galling chains of Spanish dominance, and when General Merritt, later, hoisted the Stars and Stripes over the Archipelago.

They will, rather, most surely live to recognize and appreciate the unsullied manifold advantages and benefits incident to American occupation and to a close contact with this honest, vigorous type of manhood.

The Author.

New York December, 1898.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE ISLANDS.

Discovery and Conquest.

When Magellan in the spring of 1521 took formal possession of Mindanao, one of the largest of the Philippine group, he was surrounded by crowds of the curious brown-skinned natives of that island; with sensations of awe, they watched their strange white visitors, believing them to be angels of light. It was Easter-week, and the Spanish discoverers, with all the ritualistic splendor of the mass, dedicated the newly-found islands to God and the Church.

The natives, too, manifested great friendliness to the tempest-tossed mariners. Indeed, one of their most prominent chieftains himself piloted the exploring party to Cebú, where thousands of natives, arrayed in all the barbarous paraphernalia of savagery, stood on the beach, and, with their spears and shields, menaced the strangers.

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