Note 1 — Chapter III · Of Military Justice

Extreme interest was naturally taken by all Europeans in the miserable fate of the thousands of Spanish soldiers and civilians who had fallen into the rebels hands up to the capitulation of Manila.1 Held captive in groups at different places in the Island of Luzon, many of them passed a wretched existence, with bad food, scant clothing, and deprived of every pleasure in life beyond the hope of one day seeing their native land. Many of them died, either from natural causes or the effect of their privations (some of starvation in Tayabas), or as a result of brutal treatment. A minority of them received as good treatment as possible under the circumstances. The fate of the majority depended chiefly upon the temperament of the native commander of the district. There were semi-savage native chiefs, and there were others, like Aguinaldo himself, with humane instincts. Amongst the former, for instance, there was Major Francisco Braganza, who, on February 28, 1900, in Camarines Sur, ordered one hundred and three Spanish soldiers to be tied up to trees and cut and stabbed to death with bowie-knifes and their bodies stripped and left without burial. He was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be hanged, September 26, 1901, and the sentence was carried out at Nueva Cáceres (Camarines Sur) on November 15 following. Many prisoners managed to escape, no doubt with the aid or connivance of natives, until Aguinaldo issued a decree, dated Malolos, November 5, 1898, imposing a penalty of twenty yearsʼ imprisonment on whomsoever should give such aid. Aguinaldo told me he was personally inclined to liberate these prisoners, or, at least, those civilians accustomed to an easy office life who, if they went free, would have had no inclination whatever to fight, but would have done their best to embark for Spain. The few who might have broken their parole would have been easily caught again “for the last time in their lives,” and the women and children were an obstacle to military operations. Indeed, from time to time, Aguinaldo did liberate small groups of civilians, amongst whom were some of my old friends whom I afterwards met in Spain. Aguinaldoʼs Prime Minister, Apolinario Mabini (vide p. 546), was, however, strongly in favour of retaining the Spaniards as hostages until the Spanish Government should officially recognize the Philippine Republic. It will be clearly seen from the negotiations entered into between the respective parties that this recognition was the condition which the rebels most pertinaciously insisted upon, whilst the Spaniardsʼ offers of millions of dollars were always met by much larger demands, which practically implied a refusal to treat on a money basis. The facts in the negotiations certainly support Aguinaldoʼs statement to me that the rebels never sought money, but political advantage, by the retention of the prisoners.