View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS THE “SPANISH COLONIAL PAST” IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MODERN PHILIPPINE HISTORY: A CRITICAL INQUIRY INTO THE (MIS)USE OF SPANISH SOURCES MARIA GLORIA CANO GARCIA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2005 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have participated in this long pilgrimage since I started in 2002. I hope not to forget any of them and if I have, I ask for their understanding. My greatest acknowledgement goes to my parents, Juan Cano and Sabina Garcia. They have always unconditionally supported all that I have decided to undertake in my life. They have been suffering my absence from Spain, and they have invested their whole life to offer me what I need. I do expect to repay their sacrifice and I hope they feel proud of this work. My pre-field-work was in Manila. I have a utang na lóob (debt of gratitude) to Dr. Filomeno Aguilar from Ateneo de Manila, and Dr. Rico José , chairman of the Department of History at the University of the Philippines. Dr Jose helped me to get permission to do my research in the library of U.P. I thank everyone from the library for their kind help. I thank as well the director of the National Archives of the Philippines, Ricardo L. Manapat, and the chief Archivist, Teresita R. Ignacio, for their predisposition to help me during the short time I was in Manila. I have a special acknowledgement for Dr. Bernardita Churchill who shared with me some documents, which turned out to become indispensable for some arguments in this thesis. I thank the Asian Research Institute for funding my trip to do my main research in the United States. It was a long pilgrimage to different i universities in which I met interesting people and above all I found friends. My first stage was Chicago. I left three friends who made my life very easy and comfortable. The first one is Jim who allowed me to live in his beautiful house during my stay in Chicago; the second one is Barbara and the third Maria. All of them, thank you. As for my research, I worked for seventeen days in Newberry library. Mr. John S. Aubrey showed his kindness when I sent him an email informing him I was to go to the Newberry. He was very glad someone was interested again in the Philippine Collection which has been forgotten by the scholars. The rest of the staff had to work very hard everyday to provide me the books, manuscripts and documents I needed. My thanks to John Brady, Susan Fagan and Caroline Siedmann. My next stage was Ann Arbor. Adelwisa Agas Weller offered me her house during my stay in Michigan. She was my moral supporter, becoming completely involved in this project. She introduced me to the Filipino Community in Ann Arbor which received me as a member of their community. I feel very proud to belong to them. Mike Price was immediately interested in my work and he drew my attention to important rare books which have become essential for this thesis. I want to make special mention of the person who organized a seminar for me who was unable to attend and he will not be able to read my thesis despite his enthusiasm. Les Adler, wherever you are, thank you! ii Moreover I want to thank all the staff from the Harlan Hatcher Library, Special Collections, who each day prepared the books, boxes and documents I needed in order not to make me waste my time. The same acknowledgement goes to the staff of the Bentley Library. The third stage of my pilgrimage was to Yale University. I want to specially acknowledge Molly Silang who offered me her house during my stay in New Haven. I want to thank Dr. Michael Montesano for introducing me to Rich Richard, curator of the Sterling Library, Southeast Asia section. Rich and Erlinda provided me with a beautiful place to work in peace at the library, with all the books I needed. The fourth stage of my pilgrimage was to Duke University in North Carolina. My acknowledgement goes to all the staff of the special collections since they looked after my lodgings and they prepared all the manuscripts I needed upon my arrival. My trip ended in Madison, Wisconsin. There I had the chance to meet Dr. Ruby Paredes, Dr. Michael Cullinane and Professor Alfred McCoy from whom I learnt about their works and research. They gave me a warm welcome and treated me as a member of the University of Wisconsin Southeast Asia Program. To all of them, my respect and esteem. As for my fieldwork in Spain, I want to thank the the staff of Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya in Barcelona, Museu-Biblioteca Victor Balaguer, and Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid. A special acknowledgment goes to Silvia Losa and Sergi Rosés from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, who have been supporting me since I was in Barcelona doing my Doctorandus. iii Each time I have come back, they have been able to borrow for me all the materials I needed. Dr. Yoshiko Nagano and Dr. Michael Salman provided me with wise advice for this thesis, and Dr. Nagano even sent me valuable information. My most profound thanks also goes to the Southeast Asian Studies Programme and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, for their confidence in me when I applied for a scholarship in 2002. Six persons deserve special recognition, esteem and respect for giving me their moral support. They have believed in me from the beginning and they have helped me even during difficult times: Dr. Vatthana Pholsena who has been always interested in my topic and whose friendship I cherish; Dr. Teofilo Daquila, probably one of the kindest persons I have ever met; Dr. Maurizio Peleggi of the History department for his friendship from the beginning; Miss Dayaneetha de Silva for being my friend and unconditional supporter; Miss Lucy Tan, without whose help I could not have finished this thesis; and Professor Josep M. Delgado who has been encouraging me from a distance. And last but not least, I dedicate this thesis to the person who believed in me a long time ago, in 2000, when I got in touch with him for the first time: Professor Reynaldo C. Ileto. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements i Table of Contents v Summary viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Genesis of the American Construction of Philippine 18 History After the War with Spain: The US “Acquisition” of the 23 Philippines Chapter 2: Genealogy of the Discourse – The Schurman 51 Commission Background of the Commission 51 The Schurman Commission as Catalyst of the Taft 59 Commission Revisiting the “Dark Age” of the Spanish Regime 75 Chapter 3: James Alfred LeRoy, Maker of Philippine History 90 LeRoy: A sketch of a short life 98 LeRoy and his Filipino friends: Enter the “collaborators” 105 and ‘caciques” LeRoy’s last years: A definite policy of historical 118 reconstruction Le Roy as Taft’s brain 120 LeRoy and his subtle indictment against El Renacimiento 127 Chapter 4: Configuring The “Dark Age” of Spanish Rule – The 139 Americans in the Philippines The Americans in the Philippines: A gift for scholars 144 The underside of this Dark Age: The 1872 prelude 158 v The Cavite events: The birth of an evolutionary history 162 The Versality of Retana: The reforms not a dead letter 167 Chapter 5: LeRoy, Retana, and the Spectre of Spanish Reformism 171 Deliberate misinterpretation of Retana’s works 180 Chapter 6: LeRoy, the Filipino Reformists, and the Katipunan 198 La Solidaridad and other Filipino publications 202 End of Spanish colonial restructuring, the triumph of 213 ‘obscurantism” What LeRoy never explained about 1897-1898 223 Epilogue: LeRoy’s account of the U.S. occupation of 228 the Philippines Chapter 7: LeRoy and a Curse Called “Caciquism” 235 Our Spanish inheritance in the Philippines 241 Our Spanish inheritance versus The United States in the 251 Philippines The myths of the Spanish Inheritance and the Spanish 272 cacique Caciquismo as a Spanish phenomenon: what American 277 historiography has silenced The Impact of our Spanish Inheritance in the Philippines 284 Chapter 8: Encapsulating Medieval Philippines in Latin America 298 - The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 The Philippines Islands,1493-1898: its gestation and 300 editors Emma Helen Blair (1851-1911) 304 James Alexander Robertson (1873-1939) 306 The First Criticism of The Philippine Islands 1493-1898 315 LeRoy as collaborator in the penumbra 324 A surreptitious and subtle discourse 338 vi Edward Gaylord Bourne 339 Affairs in the Philippine Islands 346 The case of the Audiencia 350 LeRoy on the Philippines, 1860-1898 364 Epilogue 374 Chapter 9: The Close of an Era 378 Worcester’s crusade to paralyze the process of 379 independence The Odyssey of the Philippine Commission and The 396 Philippine Problem Worcester: The Philippines Past and Present 405 Worcester’s press campaign 417 Worcester and the special report of Wood-Forbes 423 Chapter 10: Conclusion - Triumph and Perpetuation of the 430 Discourse The United States and the Philippines 432 The Isles of Fear 437 The Philippines: A Study in National Development 444 the culmination of the discourse Epilogue 459 Glossary 466 Bibliography 469 vii SUMMARY The 1880’s witnessed the birth of a new Spanish colonial model which the government tried to apply to their remaining colonies. If we could summarize in a single word the last years of Spanish rule in the Philippines, this would be “reformism.” Conventional accounts, however, insist on characterizing this period as a form of “medievalism.” The reformist convulsion was reflected in a frantic publication of books and newspapers in the late-nineteenth century.