1. The speaker provides the Spanish perspective on the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 based on primary Spanish sources from that time period.
2. According to these sources, the Spanish saw the mutiny as a minor civil disturbance rather than a nationalist uprising. The ringleaders like La Madrid and the priests were referred to by their castes rather than as "Filipino".
3. The speaker hypothesizes that the Spanish crown did not yet see the growing sense of Philippine nationhood that began emerging in the wake of the mutiny. It was the first time different groups united and saw themselves as one nation in the face of execution.
1. The speaker provides the Spanish perspective on the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 based on primary Spanish sources from that time period.
2. According to these sources, the Spanish saw the mutiny as a minor civil disturbance rather than a nationalist uprising. The ringleaders like La Madrid and the priests were referred to by their castes rather than as "Filipino".
3. The speaker hypothesizes that the Spanish crown did not yet see the growing sense of Philippine nationhood that began emerging in the wake of the mutiny. It was the first time different groups united and saw themselves as one nation in the face of execution.
1. The speaker provides the Spanish perspective on the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 based on primary Spanish sources from that time period.
2. According to these sources, the Spanish saw the mutiny as a minor civil disturbance rather than a nationalist uprising. The ringleaders like La Madrid and the priests were referred to by their castes rather than as "Filipino".
3. The speaker hypothesizes that the Spanish crown did not yet see the growing sense of Philippine nationhood that began emerging in the wake of the mutiny. It was the first time different groups united and saw themselves as one nation in the face of execution.
3rd Speaker of Opposing side (Spanish Account Side)
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I am Noven Villaber
the 3rd speaker of the opposing side which is the Spanish account. It would be interesting to know the perspectives of the Spanish. A good source would be Wenceslao Retana, Jose Rizal’s peninsular nemesis and staunch defender of the crown. After 1898, Retana was remorseful of the loss of the Philippines and wrote had they listened to the clamors for reforms in the colony. By 1872, a growing number of colonists were calling themselves “Filipinos” on top of the usual peninsulares, insulares, mestizo, Indio, sangley. However, if you observe the primary and secondary sources, the term “Filipino” is being rarely used. The leader of the mutiny, Sergeant La Madrid, was referred to as “insulares” and his men were written as “artillerymen of the arsenal”; barely using the term Filipino. The word “Filipino” will not appear until the chapters on “Propaganda Movement” that resulted from the mutiny. According to a newspaper in 1872, on the day of the execution, Burgos and Zamora were written as “Spaniards born in the Philippines” and Gomez “Mestizo de Sangley”. Saldua was also executed, a soldier from the Cavite Arsenal. None in the text ever referred to him as “Filipino” nor “Spaniard”. A century later, it was only then that elementary text books on Tagalog would call GomBurZa, La Madrid and the soldiers as “Pilipino” and victims of racial discrimination. However, the more scholarly original manuscripts and the secondary manuscripts written for college students (and based on original manuscripts) barely mention the word “Filipino” but rather their caste or job titles. Let me give a hypothesis on the Spanish perspective, based on what they wrote during that time. 1. It seems that for the Spaniards, the mutiny was simply a civil disturbance; judging from how the newspapers described the priests as “Spaniards born in the Philippines”
2. La Madrid, Burgos, Zamora and possibly Saldua were
creoles; 1872 was a time that the creoles were more troublesome than their obedient and mostly loyal indio counterparts.
3. Philippines was not alone in experiencing chaos from the
secularization issue and war conflict between liberals and royalists, the root of the mutiny. In Spain, the mightier country itself was literally in arms against each other, kings and queens being replaced violently by a revolution after the other, fighting happening in the streets; men, women, children dead. Philippines did not have a monopoly of liberals and reformists; liberals and reformists were also being executed in Spain. In fact, the Philippine Revolution and Latin American Revolutions was an overflow of the chaos in Spain. Spain will finally erupt to a full blown fighting war in the 1930s between royalists and liberals, ending in Francisco Franco’s victory.
4. Although the colonists began to call themselves
“Filipinos”, this did not pose much threat to the crown as late as 1872. The likes of Varela, Pelaez, Burgos were probably considered “a few troublemakers”. When Andres Novales revolted in 1823 and declaŕed Philippine Independence, accounts say that the people were cheering Novales and his army as he marched towards Fort Santiago, but that was as far as they went, nobody did made any move. In fact, it was Novales’ own brother who quelled the rebellion like a minor civil disturbance. It was in 1872 that government officials realized that the crowd before the gallows were for the first time united as a nation. It was the first time a crowd knelt in unity to pray for the executed “convicts” as if they were one of them. To increase the paranoia of the government and church officials, the crowd included Indio’s whom they had counted on for loyalty against the creoles (note that the creole dons must have been cruel themselves, Burgos himself had accounts of punishing Indio priests for insubordination against a creole or peninsular priest). But that morning of 1872, a crowd of Indio’s, mestizos, creoles and even peninsulars -who consìdered Philippines their homes, developed a sense of nationhood. The Cavite Mutiny sparked the beginning of emotional divorce between Spain and its colony and little did they know will be the beginning of their demise.
5. The brother of Rizal, Paciano, was closely linked to
Burgos as his student and border. Rizal’s activism would be sparked by Paciano’s subversive thoughts from Burgos. In 1892, Rizal organised the La Liga Filipina, a society of reformists from Manila High Society. In the same year, the league broke into two -the conservative and peaceful Los Cuerpos Compromisarios under Apolinario Mabini. Radical members led by Andres Bonifacio formed the Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (Los Hijos Del Pais), adopting the namesake of the early creole insurrections before them.
On the other side as well with Jose Montero Y Vidal’s account.
Jose Montero y Vidal is a Spanish Historian, who interpreted that the Mutiny was an attempt to remove and overthrow the Spanish Colonizers in the Philippines. His account, corroborated with the account of Governor - General Rafael Izquidero y Gutierrez, the governor-general of the Philippine Islands during the Mutiny. They mentioned that the mutiny was powered by a group of native clergy. He pointed out the three main points that the Cavite Mutiny is an aim of natives to get rid of the Spanish government in the Philippines, due to the removal of privileges enjoyed by the laborers of the Cavite arsenal such as exemption from the tribute and forced labor. The democratic and republican books and pamphlets, the speeches and preaching of the apostles of these new ideas in Spain and the outburst of the American publicists and the cruel policies of the insensitive governor whom the reigning government sent to govern the country. Filipinos put into action these ideas where the occurring conditions which gave rise to the idea of achieving their independence.
With the account of Governor-General Rafael Izquierdo y
Gutiérrez. He insisted that the mutiny is stimulated and prepared by the native clergy, mestizos and lawyers as a signal of objection against the injustices of the government such as not paying provinces for tobacco crops, pay tribute and rendering of forced labor. It is not clearly identified if Indios planned to inaugurate a monarchy or a republic because they don't have a word in their own language to describe this different form of government, whose leader in Filipino would be called "hari". However, it turned out that they would set at the supreme of the government a priest, that the leader selected would be Jose Burgos or Jacinto Zamora which is the plan of the rebels who guided them, and the means they counted upon its realization. Furthermore, the Mutiny implicated three (3) priests; these three were Indio’s (no Pinoy yet that time). The mutiny was in the arsenal (munitions), very important for the Castillians. So, what to expect? The firing squads were busy. You can check Zaide and Agoncillo books. The three priests were executed by strangulation or the old, nasty way of garrote or tightening your neck till you breathe no more. The Castillians strangled the priests because they were Indios, so the propaganda goes. In another generation, Castillian heads were severed from their necks. And the map of Islas Filipinas disappeared from the Spanish globe. The Mutiny and the repression that follows created a new generation that aimed to kick out Spain. When the norte americanos came, Spain was only in control of a few cities and Manila. By losing to the norte americanos, the Castillians saved their necks from Pinoy bolos. That was in the 1890s. Relevance today is that there is no arsenal in Cavite now. The Mutiny is history. But its significance was that there is no need to talk to the Castillians. Now to any Pinoy thinking of mutiny or rebellion, the standard answer is Don’t. But if you have started it, then Win!. Otherwise you will get the garrote or the firing squad. To the Vanquish, tears.
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