Note: The U.S. Navy officially recognized the Star Spangled Banner in 1889, though otherwise official recognition came in 1915 from President Woodrow Wilson and in 1931 by the U.S. Congress. Furthermore the Navy had been observing morning and evening colors since 1843 and set morning colors at 8:00 am in 1876. With respect
to the scenes referring to morning and evening colors and the Star Spangled Banner, which was not yet the national anthem, these guidelines were followed. |
Spain in the Philippines
Fort San Pedro, Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines |
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Magellan, famous for leading the first exploration expedition to circumnavigate the world reached the Philippine Archipelago in 1521, but was killed there. Years later when the Spanish returned they began three plus centuries of colonization and castilianization. The result of this sociopolitical marriage was a beautiful culture embracing a beautiful people and endowing them with innumerable assets. The Catholic faith, the musical tradition, the hybrid cuisine and fashion left the world with one of its greatest homelands an destinations. Sadly, the Hispanic systems of nepotism and patronage followed the intrepid Spanish sailors across the sea as well. Perhaps those and the inherent authoritarianism of many traditional societies doomed the people to the squabbles and petty corruption that hold some back a bit to this day. |
But the strong and capable Filipino people find ways, and so many of them rise above the few who make the struggle of life harder. They become skilled and educated, and they are among the world's hardest working and most tenacious workers, spreading around the world as the most professionally competent, religiously faithful, and responsible of immigrant citizens.
In Spanish colonial times, authoritarianism and corruption in both the civil and Church administrations took their toll, and those Filipinos who thought in national terms and wanted the chance to succeed on their own merits rebelled. They only desired the chance to be free and to be respected for their race rather than to be denigrated for it. A compassionate America sought to help but the rising imperialistic America saw opportunity.
In Spanish colonial times, authoritarianism and corruption in both the civil and Church administrations took their toll, and those Filipinos who thought in national terms and wanted the chance to succeed on their own merits rebelled. They only desired the chance to be free and to be respected for their race rather than to be denigrated for it. A compassionate America sought to help but the rising imperialistic America saw opportunity.
America in the Philippines
And so American forces go to the islands to 'help' the revolutionary freedom fighters with dreams of sugar plum fairies (in the form of naval coaling stations and the prestige of a far flung colony) in their leaders' heads.
Were the first shots fired and the first fighting intentional? and, who caused them? Maybe no one knows, but a war soon raged between the 'little brown brothers' we went to help (who were often more refined than the average Yank) and the U.S. forces. When the field forces of the Filipino Rebellion were generally defeated, a guerrilla war as bloody as any began and took its toll on everyone involved. In those wars the biggest problem is identification of the enemy, and America found the most brutal of solutions, one they borrowed from their former enemy the Spanish whom they had criticized for the same technique.
The concentration camp was not a Nazi German invention, and this writer is not sure who is the creator, perhaps the Romans. What is clear is that the Spanish used it in Cuba to control the people and maybe in the Philippines too. The U.S. criticized the practice but, in desperation, used the same system to control the hidden 'insurgents' who were often unidentifiable. The idea was that: if you do not know who among the population is going to attack you, simply lock up everyone in a particular village, town, or province. Of course another solution might have been to just not attack another people in their own native land halfway around the world from your homeland.
Nevertheless, the American leadership decided to stay and used the camp method. The term means simply what it says: concentrate populations together in order to observe and control them. Such practices, without very good planning, supply, management, compassion, and weather, can be disastrous; and they were. History records between 200,000 and 600,000 noncombatant, civilian, Filipino deaths. The U.S. even admits to the smaller number.
The newly 'free' Filipino people, who may or may not have considered themselves a national people, needed America's protection. for the Germans, perhaps the British, and others had their eyes on possession of the Archipelago. An awakening and rising Japan would have surely sought the place if no one else did. The answer would have been an American protectorate label for the new country, with the U.S. having various coaling station rights and the like. This is certainly a story in which one wishes they could have been there or could travel back in time and be in the position of a decision maker or contributor.
These facts just related set the stage for our book, Sailing to Windward and Rosario's story, as well as that of her sister Teresa. They also are the general underlying facts of the setting for our series, Magandang Pilipinas. Those characters who survive the events in the first few volumes will see, in the last one or two, a happier relationship between the Great Democracy and Dr. Jose Rizal's Pearl of the Orient Seas.