Modern History Sourcebook:
R. L. Bullard:
Preparing Our Moros for Government, 1906
A CURIOUS and interesting process has been going on in Mindanao of the Philippines; the
West is being grafted upon the East; American government and ways are passing to Oriental
savages. The most troublesome and inaccessible tribe were the Lanao Moros, living about
the fine lake of that name high in the mountains and forests of the interior of Mindanao.
From thence in the past they had sallied forth when they pleased, in piratical and
slave-taking expeditions that made the name of Moro the terror of the Philippines.
Returning thither, their ways had seemed to close behind them. It was for the Americans to
open these ways: for here, as perhaps over all the earth, road-making was to be the first
step, and to merge with government-making and civilization. For the Malanaos, as these Moros called themselves, the two began together. United
States troops began laboriously to open a road from the north shores of Mindanao to the
borders of Lake Lanao. The work fell to the soldier; for, with the coming of civil
government to the other Philippines, the Moros, because of their long tradition of piracy,
lawlessness, and savagery, had been left to the care of the army. From this work, from his
part and charge thereof, and from his subsequent experience as first governor of Lanao,
the writer speaks. Having heard only fearful rumors of the military prowess and dire fanaticism of the
Moros, we came to find a numerous people in a native state of political chaos, to the
civilized mind incomprehensible, for reasonable beings incredible. Nothing, not even
pandemonium, could be said to reign in such disorder. An infinity of chiefs called dattos,
with pompous titles---sultan and rajah---suggesting power and authority, yet having none,
divided a fine country into many minute sovereign and independent followings, of uncertain
jurisdiction as to persons, places, and things. There were five tribes, which, however,
differed only in name, not in condition or characteristics. These tribes had their
traditional, hereditary sultans, doubled and trebled, perhaps, but always largely nominal,
and, except for their immediate personal following, with but little real authority. Over
their "sons"---the general people and the countless lesser dattos and sultans of
the tribe---they had influence, hardly control. The latter governed themselves, that is,
lived as they pleased, as they could, or as they were allowed by their neighbors. More,
probably, than any other man on earth the Moro did as he pleased; his only restraint was
his fear of others. With perhaps a dozen separate datto groups within a radius of a mile, with no common
superior to adjust differences, followers of different dattos wrangled, lay in wait for
one another, made war, or watched one another in a state of armed peace that was worse
than war. With no other means of squaring accounts than by war and aggression, these were
continual. Rivalry and jealousy were the predominant tones. Fear on the datto's part that,
if he were severe with his followers, they would leave him and, by joining some neighbors,
disturb the local balance of power, prevented the punishment of any but domestic offenses;
and so Moros everywhere were thieves, robbers, pirates, and slave-takers, in a state of
continual violence and wrong-doing toward one another and all men, so far as they dared.
They loved markets, trade, and intercourse, but for these there was no protection except
individual prowess. If wives or children went out without guard but a little way from
home, they were likely to be nabbed and run off into slavery by prowling man-hunters,
shifted about, sold quickly from hand to hand, and lost beyond all power of tracing. They
showed signs of industry, but for this virtue savagery offers no encouragement. Trained in
the use of the dagger, iris, two-handed sword and spear, all Moros were soldiers, proud,
quick-tempered, quarrelsome, ever on the lookout for opportunity to try their skill in
arms, without which, waking or sleeping, they were never caught. Such were the Moros. There was no government. The only suggestion of it was found in
the datto. Manifestly here not only had the foundations of government and order yet to be
laid, but the very places for them were to be made and prepared. From a few fights that
had preceded our coming, it had been made plain to the American authorities that with our
superior intelligence, arms, and organization we could, whenever desired, absolutely wipe
the Moros off the earth. There was, however, in such proceeding neither purpose nor glory,
and the policy was to grant opportunity to the Moros, if they would take it, for better
things in peace. Thence, logically, my first steps were to try to demonstrate to them our
good intentions, to place on exhibition before them the advantages, the benefits, of
peace, order, and government---things which they had not. Beginning then, the labor of soldiers slowly and painfully for four months worked a
road through jungle, forest, and mountain toward the heart of the Moro country. In this
time, though often invited and always treated with great consideration, but a few
straggling Moros came to visit me. With these, however, I spent time patiently, squatting
or sitting about camp, sometimes talking, often in silence, all day to the very night, so
long as they would stay, to allow them to look and learn, to observe us for themselves,
and satisfy their curiosity; then, as they went away, I invited them to come again
to-morrow. They came in little bunches, and the dattos talked. They rarely spoke directly
upon the subject which nevertheless I could see was uppermost in their thoughts---our
coming. They either disdained any show of interest in it that might imply concern or fear
about our presence---for a Moro is nothing if not proud---or else preferred to draw their
own conclusions from time and observation. In the outset of trying to establish friendly relations, ill luck befell.
Simultaneously with the Americans there appeared amongst the Moros the most fearful of all
diseases, the Asiatic cholera, and straightway it was charged upon us. The white men were
in league with the Cholera Man, and had brought his devils to destroy the Moros. My few
friends dropped away out of sight, whence they had come. Prowling bands, even lone Moros,
beset the trails and camp, lying in wait and attacking with fury and bitterness lone
sentinels and small parties. A single old datto, Alandug, stayed. From his seacoast
village he had looked wider upon the world, and was wiser than his fellows. I did not need
to tell him, for he easily saw for himself, our mortal terror of the cholera, whose cause
we called germs, he, devils. He did not, however, understand why we were not dying like
the Moros. I showed him the soldiers boiling their water, and told him that before
drinking we thus drove the cholera forth from the water in which it lived. To my surprise
he never flinched at the statement, he swallowed it whole; this truth, so hard of
acceptance among wiser men, found ready belief with this savage. Long afterward I knew
why. It agreed with the Moro religious theory that all diseases are but devils that have
slipped from the outside into the body. Our theory and theirs, so different, yet the same,
proved a first bond, something common between white man and brown. Alandug told the other
Moros what a just theory the Americans had of the cholera, and how the awful disease had
killed butfewAmericans. In a short time my friends began to come back with him, bringing
all the ills of human flesh for cure by advice of the white man, in whose medical theories
they had quickly acquired confidence. Thenceforward medicine, and especially quinine,
became my ally, esteemed above right, reason, principal, and, upon occasions, even above
force. The labor of building a great road through mountain and tropical forest was slow. We
were still, after months, far from the Moro country, not among the people we had come to
reach. A weekly market at a coast settlement, and the season of salt-boiling, were,
however, bringing parties of Moros from the far interior past us to the coast. Curiosity
induced them to squat, talk and smoke with me, while they "sized up" the
Americans and admired their beautiful arms. Thus daily I spent hours with them. The first
thing ever in their eyes and thoughts was arms---firearms---but on this subject I would
not talk. They were greatly impressed with the quantity and variety of the things we had.
Here I was ready for them. The Moros were very poor, they said; they relied upon arms and
the religion of the Prophet; their sultans and dattos were mighty, and were not subject to
or ruled over by one another, or by any man, because they were brave, feared not death,
and their mountains covered them. I told them of the might, but assured them of the
friendly intentions, of the Americans; that we had not come to fight, but to open roads,
so that the Moros could come to buy sell, trade, work with the Americans and grow
rich---that we had come to bring the Moros all the valuable and useful things which they
saw we had. I ended with an offer to hire and pay them for working on the road Thereat
they professed much pleasure. In this, my thoughts were on work for peace, theirs on arms
for war, firearms, which in the Moro eye shut out sight and consideration of all things
else. Moved by the hope of getting these, some smaller dattos near, after much talk, declared
themselves ready to accept the offer of work. Old Alandug came first, with a handful of
ugly-looking followers, whom we treated like kings, and handled like infernal machines
ready to go off at any time. When at the end of the day they received their pay, their
thoughts turned upon the coin, the money in hand, in a sort of charmed, pleased surprise.
The next day saw their numbers grow; succeeding days new groups were added, with growing
confidence, but armed, always armed, stuck all over with daggers and krises. A few days'
work, however, and my old friend, Alandug, fell from me for a while on the arms question.
A stray Moro, a low-bred, common fellow, taking advantage of the datto's absence at work
with me, had eloped at one fell swoop with two of the datto's young wives. The datto must
have revenge, and, to obtain it, rifles from me, his brother, who had come to do the Moros
good. Disappointed at my refusal, he went away sulking; but, as I had expected, his people
in a day or two sneaked back to work without him, to get from the Americans the sure pay
and regular food which made them forget their datto's anger. It was an augury of good
which, as time passed, I was to see more and more realized. The market-goers and salt-makers carried the news of the money-getting to the interior,
and other strangers appeared, strengthening the number of our laborers and friends, and
weakening the ranks of the hesitating or hostile. Pay for work was sure, and the burning
desire for arms began to be forgotten in an awakened love of gain. A new force was at work
among Moros, and what, in civilized men we rail at as low and vile, became in these
savages a saving virtue, making for peace and progress. The followers of the Datto Alag
and the men of Pugaan, who, on account of a damsel bought and paid for but never
delivered, had for years been attacking one another on sight, and dared not now, as they
loved their lives, meet on market or trail, wiped the score from memory to come and earn
money together on the American road. The sultan of Balet and the sultan of Momungan,
next-door neighbors who, in a way to rack the nerve and wreck the best men ever built, had
long been either at war or in a state of continual guard night and day against each
other's raids, forgot the old cannon that had been the cause of the trouble, and came to
work on the road without friction. Men to whom it had been discredit, if not dishonor, to
be found without arms, gradually came to lay them aside at the white man's insistence, for
a short time at least, while they labored. Harder still for a Moro---whose law is an eye
for an eye, conduct for conduct to all generations---a datto, a favorite of mine, under
the same influence, came after six months to look, if not with forgiveness, at least
without excitement and feverish desire to kill, upon a Moro road laborer of mine, some of
whose people in long-gone times had fought and wounded the datto's grandfather. A boyhood spent among simple, ignorant plantation negroes, later experience as officer
over them and others like them, the Filipinos, had strongly impressed upon me the distrust
which such people always feel toward middlemen of all kinds, especially interpreters.
Direct speech alone satisfies them. With the Moros the constant effort and practice of our
all-day seances had in a few months obviated alike the need of interpreter and the
possibility of distrust: I had learned their own tongue. They could talk with me directly,
and they soon were coming oftener and farther to do it. From the beginning among these
visitors had appeared many panditas, scribes and priests---men of solemn dignity and
preoccupied mien. They made a great show of silence; but notwithstanding this, I could see
that in reality by look, gesture, and occasional word, they generally directed the speech
of the datto whom they accompanied. They touched so often upon religious matters and
customs that I had quickly felt the need of being informed on the subject of Mohammedan
teaching, especially concerning conduct and foreign relations.I accordingly "primed" myself at once, and was soon astonishing the panditas,
who were themselves really ignorant of their religion, with my learned talk crammed for
the occasion from Sales's translation of the Koran. With the Moros in Spanish times,
religion had been the greatest stumbling-block. In their view the Koran was the whole law,
established long ago in the days of theProphet, so that change and innovation in anything that it governed (and it governed
all things) were not only unnecessary, but wrong. Now we, the Americans, had not like the
Spaniards, come talking a new religion. We had the correct Moro theory of disease.
Moreover, we had as it were, slipped up on their weak human side by appealing to their
love of gain, and by keeping them employed had even kept their thoughts from the usual
fanatical channels into which they were wont to turn on meeting new things. In short,
before the Moros knew it, they had been surprised, juggled out of their usual position,
and on this one point of religion, where we had expected the greatest difficulty, we were,
on account of a little study and pains (I almost said trick), not only to have none, but
were to meet with real assistance in getting control of the bulk of the Moros. Religion is
the one thing if there is any, that faintly holds together the incoherent groups of the
race. After many visits from less important priests, came the chief and most reverend one in
all Lanao, an old and very shrewd man. I received and treated him with great dignity and
show of respect, and talked the Koran with him as long as he pleased. Delighted with his
first reception, he came again and often. In a few months he was my stanch friend, and was
sending letters and messages to his people, many of whom were now either preparing for war
or had already been committing acts of war against the Americans. He told them that he
spoke the will of Allah-'ta-Allah (God); it was that they live in peace and accept the
Americans. He assured them that the Americans also, like the Moros, knew the will of
Allah-'ta-Allah and the words of the Prophet. With this old man I advised on many
subjects, and one of his last acts with me was to rise, to my great surprise, in a grand
assembly of his people a year after our first meeting, and solemnly announce it as the
will of God, made known to him, that the Americans rule over the Moro people and tax them
to the fifth of all their goods! He could have given no greater proof of loyalty, for the
rock on which his people split was taxes. For nearly a year the presence of the Americans, contact with them, observation, the
example they offered of order, obedience, and government, the practice which in working
with the Americans the Moros themselves received in obedience, order, industry, and
responsibility, were lessons to the Moros preparatory to government, which was to follow.
On many these lessons were unmistakably having the desired effect; on others, not. The
latter committed against the Americans every aggression that treachery and stealth could
devise. Sentinels were stabbed in the dark, lone soldiers ambushed, cut up, and killed,
small parties attacked, tents, tools, and arms stolen and carried away. Our patience long
left these things unpunished, hoping that with time and a better comprehension of us the
Moros would of themselves see the folly of continuing such acts. On the contrary, as the
road went deeper and deeper into the Moro country, these aggressions became worse and more
frequent. Our enemies, and even our friends, began to think we were afraid. Unpunished,
enjoying to the full at our expense the gratification of their Moro love of lawlessness,
our enemies taunted our friends with a foolish self-denial in abstaining from the sport.
The friends felt and protested that we were making no difference between good and bad,
between friend and foe. They demanded, and indeed it was right, that a distinction should
be made. There was, therefore, better feeling when one morning all learned that we had surprised
in his mountains, captured the arms, destroyed the rendezvous, and scattered the band of
Datto Matuan, whose followers, as all Moros knew, had beset and robbed the American camps.
This was emphasized when, a few days later, after wandering all night through the forest
and mountains and wading lake and marshes, we had captured the fort and had utterly wiped
out the band of the sultan of Birimbingan. His people under pretense of selling fruit had
treacherously approached, cut up, and disabled for life an American soldier. Jeeringly
referring to the American slowness to act against their enemies, he had answered my demand
for redress by saying that he would take my message under consideration for some months,
and then let me know whether he would talk about the matter at all. But respect grew when
the news spread of a score dead in the town of Bacayauan, whose people had killed a
soldier for the purpose of robbery, and who, when called upon for justice, had first
ignored, and then, fortifying the town, had defied the Americans. Nothing that happened
between Americans and Moros was hidden. For the sake of instruction and effect Moros were
made to know or hear all, and in these expeditions the effect was increased in Moro eyes
by the fact that the Americans had distinguished well, and no friendly Moro had suffered
at their hands. There was in consequence a wider call for American flags as a symbol of
friendship. It was enough. Punitive measures were thereupon stopped. They were stopped out
of policy also, with a view to the future pacification of even the bad Moros, on the
knowledge that with them it is revenge, an eye for an eye to the end of time, without
regard to how justly he who first lost an eye deserved to lose it. For this reason a
"kill and burn" policy can never succeed with Moros, can do nothing more than
destroy them.These object-lessons had gradually, with the passage of time, brought many villages and
settlements to peaceful recognition of the American commander as their common superior. As
this process went on it brought to light the miserable conditions under which these
savages had always lived---willing, yet of themselves helpless--to throw them off. I was
overwhelmed with a flood of complaints, requests to adjudicate claims, settle disputes and
differences between different dattos and villages, punish countless robberies, burnings,
murders, and woundings, for which there had never in Moro history been any other tribunal
than war and counter-aggression. The story led back as far as tradition goes, and opened a
broad field of work, too broad for one man. It was plain that here, at least, near the road, the preparations for government had
outrun the provision of machinery for its operation. However, something had to be done. I
therefore quietly assumed the functions of lawmaker, ruler, and judge, ruled and settled
disputes and differences on my own judgment and knowledge of conditions. The law was
scarcely of record---neither was the old English Common Law---and the government was
somewhat informal; but, like all simple folk, Moros seemed to prefer personality to form
in government. Fortunately, too, with my clients exact justice according to civilized
ideas was not necessary, nor in demand. Moro ideas of justice were, from their history,
tradition, and lives, naturally hazy and faint, not to say nil. It was more important here
that there be some law than that it be perfect, some decision and end of controversy than
that they be just. My dictum was therefore accepted in general by the Moros near. Soon, however, the rumor
of these things spreading, acts in intentional contempt and defiance of them as
representing the growing American authority began to be committed by remoter dattos.
Military men stationed among them need never seek occasions of quarrels with Moros. Moro
ignorance, folly, and perversity can be relied upon to furnish plenty of occasions, and
such occasions as cannot be ignored or pardoned. Two such were now forced upon me. The
sultan of Detse-en, amongst the most powerful Moros, under threat of war to the bitter
end, was required to make full apology, and to cut off his son from the succession to the
sultanate, for public and boastful abuse of the American flag. It was a fit and effective
though severe punishment. The second was even worse. One morning I surprised and captured,
and soon had tried and sentenced to seventeen years' imprisonment, two dattos who, to show
their disregard and contempt of what the Americans had enjoined, had made, against
Filipinos, a successful slave-taking expedition by sea, under the American flag, which
they had somehow managed to get hold of. With the Moros restraint of personal liberty is
the most grievous of all things; it is inflicted for no crime, however great, and is
allowed for but one cause---insanity. The punishment of the two dattos, therefore, spoke
straight to the Moro heart, and all were made to hear it. Death were far preferable. The
abused flag came into my hands along with the dattos. That was the latest, no doubt it
will be the last, time that the American flag will cover a slave-taking expedition. The road had now been finished. In its concluding stages the competition among the
Moros for the work, for the opportunity to earn money, had become so sharp as to be
troublesome. Dattos were quarreling with one another about it, and, once started at work
at a given point, they were so self-willed and determined that they could hardly be
stopped to be directed elsewhere. The road work ended, the danger of idleness arose, for
it had now become evident to me that Moros could be managed in two ways only---by putting
them at work and keeping them at work, or by putting them in fear and keeping them in
fear. There is no possibility of living in quiet with unoccupied or uncowed Moros. I
preferred the method of work. On my offer to hire them now to fetch supplies from the seacoast, there were repeated
all the doubt, hesitation, and delay of the time when they first began work upon the road,
complicated this time by fear that the Americans might try to make them carry bacon or
something that contained some product of the hog, to the Mohammedan the lowest and vilest
of things, accursed of God and the Prophet. After repeated reassurances on this point,
they began. At first, to make sure, they would carry only flour, but the work proved
profitable and became most popular. Then they took boxed stuff, then canned stuff, then
ceased to question what---every man wisely curbing his curiosity, holding his tongue,
carrying all things that came, and bacon at last among the rest! Assuredly the leaven of new ideas was working. Gradually, in the past few months, the
Moros had accepted much; and this demonstrated their readiness to accept more, of what was
American. The time seemed opportune to give more form to this beginning of control.
Accordingly the writer was duly appointed governor of the Lanao Moros, with a small staff,
and a scheme of government somewhat like that obtaining over the rest of the Philippines.
Its defects were manifest at the very first effort to put it in operation. It failed to
turn to account, to place itself at the head of the weak, but only organization in all
Moro-land, the datto group, and to lay hold of the only power known to Moros, the
authority of the datto. On a small scale and imperfectly I had already had a government in operation in the
only way that government can for years be operated among the Moros---one-man power without
formality, backed by force and a knowledge of the conditions, and exercised upon the
people through their dattos. As the law for the new government did not contain these
essential provisions, it would not work; but the little machinery of government which had
previously been set up went on working quietly, until the new law by amendment adapted
itself to the requirements of conditions, and the governor became de jure what he had
already long been de facto: father, adviser, judge, sheriff, ruler, lawmaker, with the
dattos as his subalterns and assistants. Formal acceptance of government was naturally regarded by the Moros as a serious step,
even where they had already in effect been living under that same government for some
months. Reasons were demanded. I therefore held meetings to explain and satisfy all.
Argument was made as varied and as different as the dattos themselves. Here came in
profitably the knowledge which I had gradually been acquiring of each and every one's
circumstances and history. For one, it was sufficient to point out that Americans had not
bothered his religion or his women; for another, that he had suffered no injustice from us
as he had from other Moros, Filipinos, or Spaniards; for this one, that tribal wars in
which his people had almost been wiped out had been stopped by the Americans; for that
one, that we had suppressed the thieves who had been robbing him of his women and goods.
It was enough to remind the sultan of Sungud how he and his people had prospered by the
Americans, and the datto of Punud that he was wearing rich clothes since we came. It
satisfied some that we had not come and tried to place over them the Filipinos, upon whom
the Moros look with contempt as the immemorial source of their slave supply, and with
hatred as their traditional enemies; and others, that we had already adjusted and would go
on adjusting---it was the purpose of the government to adjust---differences, and punishing
wrongs between the different groups of the Moros, and so wipe out the sudden deadly
attacks by one another from which all had suffered, and of which all stood in constant
dread before the Americans came among them. "Why do you want this, and what do you come here for, anyhow?" questioned, at
one of these meetings, the old sultan of Bayabao, after I had just finished dealing out
quinine to him and his begging retinue one raw, rainy day. "We are satisfied as we
are," he added vehemently, as he sat shivering in bare feet, thin shirt, and flimsy
trousers before me, well, warmly, and dryly clad. "Have you such shoes and clothes as
I to warm your body and protect your feet? Or have you such medicines as I have just given
you to cure your sickness?" I answered. "Do you know how to make them?" He
was silent and the great crowd listened. "We do, and have come to show you. That is
why." To this day he and his people have not fought the Americans, nor resisted their
government. It pleased and convinced many when I pointed out and emphasized, what they already
knew, that now, with a security hitherto unknown to them they were able to travel through
all Lanao. Such were the reasons given, and they were pointed out and patiently repeated
as the direct good which had already come, and of which more was to be expected, from the
power and authority of the Americans. They won over gradually, without war, half of all
the Malanaos, and government went on taking on more form; but the most numerous, warlike,
and inaccessible tribe, under the most influential hereditary sultan of all, remained
stubbornly hostile and aggressive. In twos and threes, his people prowled about, and by
cunning, stealth, and lying in wait, lost no opportunity to rob, assault, stab, kill. They
would accept nothing the Americans said, for while with most men it is credulity, with
Moros it seems to be incredulity, that goes with ignorance of the world. To them,
accustomed to see men governed only by desires and passions, it was inconceivable that the
Americans bore these aggressions from any other cause than fear or weakness. Tradition and
experience were all against such an idea. To them, whose largest example of power had been
a datto who could muster a few hundred men, it was wholly incredible, and they ridiculed
the idea, that the United States could bring against them any more men or arms than they
had already brought. To them it was inconceivable that any man who could would not without
more ado destroy his enemy. That the Americans had not done this meant therefore that the
Americans could not do it. To talk to them of power without exercising it, or of
punishment without executing it, was taken as mere vaporing. To my persuasion, demands,
and threats alike, therefore, their dattos sent jeering replies or answered me with worse
aggressions. The last straw was the murder of four soldiers by stealth, to secure their
arms. Then followed a deadly punitive expedition. It carried surprise and astonishment, a
fearful lesson to foolish, boastful savages whose ideas of war were one thousand, and of
power three thousand years behind their age. This was the last argument, and to my next
invitation not only those who had been punished, but the few others who had stood aloof,
declared their readiness, and in a short time came under the new government. In organizing them, wherever they could be won over and had made full submission, those
dattos who had led in hostility were appointed to authority over their people under the
United States; for history shows that such men, under the conqueror, and whether the
conqueror wills it or no, remain the strong spirits and real rulers of their country.
Violent changes were thus avoided. All had now come under American authority, and the work
of inducing them to accept government was practically finished. There was, however, one
thing that still stuck in the throats of all, choking and gagging even those who willingly
and peacefully had long been living under the new order. This was the question of
taxation---a delicate subject, a last test with Moros, because it is a matter of religion.
There had been much talk and murmur of this through all the tribes and groups. Therefore I
again held a meeting, at which were assembled all the sultans dattos, and men of
consequence, for question and discussion. I laid before them all the reasons. It appealed
to the dattos who had been appointed to offices over their people, to say that we must
have money to pay them, but these were very few. Again, for the common good, I said---to
punish criminals and catch thieves; but the common good had little meaning for men who had
known no government, no res publica, nothing common; let every man care for
himself, was their idea. In all their experience taxes stood for what had been wrung for
selfish purposes by the strong from the weak, by conqueror from conquered, by master from
his bondman; and money paid for any other cause than direct barter and sale meant tribute,
a horrible thing of subjection, dishonor, and slavery. That good should be alleged of
taxation was incomprehensible; that it was intended for the good of those who paid it was
past belief. All their experience and tradition were contrary to such a thing. Public
spirit could not be appealed to, for long habit of life in minute communities had
effectually throttled the budding of such a feeling, and left only selfishness. Yet I felt no uncertainty as to the ultimate outcome of the matter;.for by experience I
had learned that in all things whatsoever, to the last, the white man outclasses, and can
always find some intellectual way to go around, a Moro. In this matter it came thus: The
Moros, like all other natives of the Philippines, are possessed of a consuming desire to
carry a "pass"---some sort of an official certificate as to character, home,
business, and the like, of the bearer---and they are willing to pay any amount therefor,
and never think of it as taxation. On this weak point the Moros showed the first signs of
yielding. Then the plan of indirect taxation caught, pleased, and overcame them, as it
catches wiser men than they. Imported cotton cloth paying duty at the custom house had
long been reaching the Moros through a few coast traders, and was now in large use among
all Moros. Touching the jacket of the nearest datto, "You are a lot of foolish and
ignorant children," I said. "You are haggling about paying taxes when you have
already been doing it for years, and have actually been giving the Americans money to pay
me, to pay the interpreter and all my soldiers." This at once caught their attention.
The explanation followed. They understood it remarkably quickly. They saw the humor and
the truth of the thing, and, wondering at the finesse that had been able to make
them contribute to their own subjugation, yielded in a sort of non-plussed way, feeling,
no doubt, that it was useless to hope to escape a people who could devise such a smart
system of getting money from other people without the latter's even knowing it. To my help
also at this juncture came my old friend, the priest Noskalim, the Metropolitan, as it
were, of Lanao, with, if not a revelation, something better--wisdom---to his people:
"It is the will of Allah-'ta-Allah, The Merciful, who has many names." In these ways government and civilization have gained upon them.
Source:From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's
Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art, Volume I: China, Japan, and
the Islands of the Pacific, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), pp. 542-562.Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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