with that of certain Masonic Lodges. Miguel Morayta, the editor of La Solidaridad, was the head of the Grand Lodge of Madrid called the Orienté Español. It is certain that the Filipinos adopted a system of Masonic secret lodges in order to carry on their work. Under the authority of the Orienté Español a "Grand Regional Lodge" was organized in Manila with subordinate lodges throughout the islands. It is not material for present purposes whether these lodges were true Masonic bodies. or merely political secret societies organized on the model of Masonic Lodges. Whatever their character they were agencies for the dissemination of revolutionary ideas among the Filipinos of the better class.8

In 1892, with the consent of the authorities, Rizal returned to Manila to find himself the bête noir of the friars whom he had attacked and flouted in his novels, and an object of suspicion to Governor-General Despujol, who, although not a protégé of the friars, was much under their influence. While in Manila attempting, without concealment, to organize the Liga Filipina, he was suddenly ordered deported to Dapitan, a small village on the northeast coast of Mindanao. There he remained for four years quietly engaged in practising his profession and in various ways improving the condition of the people of the village.

For some time before Rizal's return to the Philippines many of the leaders of the propaganda had begun to feel the necessity for an organization which would more effectually reach the masses of the people. Del Pilar, although naturally a conserva

8 It is claimed that these lodges were all spurious, as the Grand Lodge of Spain only had authority to represent the Freemasonry of England and Scotland in Spain and in the Spanish possessions. The lodges organized in the Philippines under its authority took no part in the political propaganda. See a pamphlet by Viriato Diaz-Perex, entitled Los Frailes de Filipinas (Madrid, 1904) and an article in La Epoca, Aug. 15, 1896. For an arraignment of masonry, see Friar Edouardo Navarro's Filipinas; Estudios de algunos asuntos de actualidad (Madrid, 1907); St. Clair, The Katipunan, or The Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune (Manila, 1902).

"Only slight familiarity with Filipino character and history is needed to comprehend how such a secret organization, with its signs, symbols, mysteries of initiation, etc., would, even were its special aims not at the time constantly in the minds of the Filipino leaders, spread with exceeding facility. It called into play certain characteristics and propensities for secret, one might almost say blackhanded, procedure in which the Filipinos sometimes seem to revel." Le Roy, The Americans in the Philippines, Vol. I, p. 81.

tive and opposed to violence, had broken with Rizal and gone over to the more belligerently inclined faction, which was attempting to organize a popular body which would supplement and if necessary supplant the Liga Filipina.

Immediately after Rizal's exile to Dapitan the Supreme Council of the Katipunan was organized in Manila with a brother-inlaw of Del Pilar at its head. Designed to reach the lower orders, the Katipunan soon passed under the control of one of that class, Andres Bonifacio, a porter in the warehouses of a German exporting firm. Bonifacio was a Tagalog who seems to have read considerably in the literature of French and German socialism and political philosophy.

He planned to organize an armed revolt against the Spanish government. Rizal, who at first sympathized with and probably joined the society, refused peremptorily to countenance its program, but it had reached the popular heart and was encouraged by certain wealthy Filipinos who had long been contributing money for the propaganda and were beginning to look for results. Rizal's reply to the request for his support was suppressed and the work of organizing subordinate lodges proceeded so rapidly that the society soon had from one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand members, who were pledged by fearful oaths and bound by the ancient pacte de sangre, or blood covenant. There is no question but that the Katipunan was organized for the purpose of rebellion and revolt, and Bonifacio and the great mass of its ignorant members intended that the uprising should be a bloody one. While it can not justly be called a mere murder society, it certainly contemplated a secret blow at the community and the death of every Spaniard within its reach, just as a few years later the leaders of the revolt against the Americans plotted the destruction of the city of Manila and its white residents. The ghastly oaths which the initiates were required to take need not be taken too seriously by those who are familiar with the initiation ceremonies of perfectly innocent and innocuous secret societies in other countries. Nevertheless, the majority of the impressionable and ignorant members un

doubtedly took such matters seriously and supported with enthusiasm a plan which was designed "to shake off their masters, get rid of the whites, and divide up the big estates not only of the friars but of Filipino landlords as well.”

On June 12, 1896, the Supreme Council of the Katipunan issued an order which contained the following instructions.

"When once the signal of H. 2. Sep. is given, every brother will fulfill the duty which this Grand Regional Lodge has imposed upon him, assassinating all the Spaniards, their wives and sons, without considerations of any sort, whether relationship, friendship, gratitude, etc."

Detailed instructions were given for the accumulation of the bodies of the slain on Bagumbayan field, where they were to be buried at a place where a monument should in the future be erected in honor of the independence of the country.10 The bodies of the friars were directed to be burned. This document is probably authentic, although the original seems not to have been produced. It finds confirmation in many similar documents captured during the subsequent insurrection against the United States.

During the spring and summer of 1896 rumors of plots and uprisings were rife. Governor-General Blanco sympathized with the legitimate aspirations of the people, but he was already in the bad books of the friars and was unable to do more than steady the situation. For once the danger was real. The Katipunan leaders had determined to resort to arms, but before they were ready the plot was discovered by one Mariano Gil, the Augustinian curate of the Tondo parish of Manila. A sister of

See the documents in full in Sastron, p. 54, and in Nozaleda's Defense Obligada, Appendix 9; Archivo, III, No. 19, Documentos politicos de actualidad, and in English as an appendix to St. Clair's book entitled The Katipu nan, or The Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune (Manila, 1902); Le Roy (I, p. 99, note) pronounces this work utterly unreliable, even questioning the existence of such a person as "Arthur St. Clair," notwithstanding the accompanying portrait of the author. It will be understood that the Filipinos deny the authenticity of this document. They generally claim that the Katipunan was an innocent patriotic society and have recently erected a monument to Bonifacio, as the "hero of the common man."

10 The Rizal monument erected by the government in 1913 stands very near the place selected in 1896 by the Katipunan.

one of the members of the society, a workman in the government printing office, had told the story in the confessional. The government struck promptly. On August thirtieth martial law was declared in Manila and the surrounding provinces. Many arrests were made, five hundred in Manila on the first day after the disclosure. Soon the prisons of Manila were crowded. At one time over four thousand prisoners were crowded into the suffocating jails awaiting trial before the military tribunals. When Blanco resigned early in December, nearly one thousand Filipinos had been deported to the Mariana Islands and the Spanish penal colonies near Africa.

Bonifacio had received timely warning and escaped to Calloocan, where, notwithstanding the surprise and condition of unreadiness, he ordered hostilities to commence. Fighting of a desultory character followed in the vicinity of Manila and to some extent throughout Luzon and elsewhere. The movement soon centered in Cavite Province, where it developed under the leadership of an active young Tagalog named Emilio Aguinaldo. But the uprising was far from general. It was confined almost entirely to the Tagalogs and many of their leading men hastened to assure the Spanish authorities of their loyalty. "While it is beyond question," says Le Roy,11 "that there was a general and a natural race feeling of sympathy for the insurgents, it is also true that there was a very general feeling on the part of the more conservative and capable Filipinos, of practically all the educated men who ought in any national movement to be the leaders, that the revolt was wholly premature."

At the time of the uprising there were about fifteen thousand regular troops scattered throughout the Archipelago, of whom three hundred Spanish artillerymen and two thousand five hundred loyal native infantry were in Manila. In addition there were about four thousand of the Civil Guard who constituted a sort of constabulary force. Uncertainty as to the attitude of the native troops for a time paralyzed active military operations. During the period when an effort was being made to assimilate 11 Le Roy, I, p. 93.

the Philippines with Spain the native regiments had been numbered as though actually incorporated in the regular Spanish army. For a time these regiments loyally sustained the burden of the fighting, and some of them remained loyal to Spain until the end. The lack of unanimity of opinion in support of the insurgents is shown by the ease with which voluntary military organizations of various kinds were raised throughout the islands. General Blanco, still hoping for the success of his policy of attraction and conciliation, issued on October eleventh a circular in which he directed the provincial governors "to take care not to order imprisonments unless they are justified by serious complications." Upon the arrival of some new troops from Spain, General Aquirre led them through the towns of Laguna and Batangas for the purpose of participating in a series of balls and banquets where Spaniards and Filipinos pledged undying affection and loyalty. This evidence of a desire to deal fairly with the people brought upon Blanco's head the wrath of those who were demanding the full penalty of death and confiscation. On December 9, 1897, he was recalled to Spain, where he spent much of the time during the succeeding years trying to explain why he had not crushed the rebellion by greater severities.

The reign of his successor, General Camilio Polavieja, was brief. It opened inauspiciously by the ill-advised execution of Rizal, an act which so stirred the people as to render any hope of sincere reconciliation with Spain thereafter impossible.

Rizal, with the consent of General Blanco, had returned from Dapitan and had been granted permission to join the Spanish army in Cuba as a surgeon. Carrying a letter from Blanco which exonerated him of any part in the insurrection, he sailed for Spain. But it was not intended that he should escape. At Barcelona he was arrested and returned to Manila, where he was held in prison until after Blanco left the country. A military commission, convened on December twenty-sixth, found him guilty of rebellion, sedition and illicit associations, and sentenced him to death. The proceedings as far as form and record are concerned were in all respects legal under Spanish laws, but the secrecy and