Note 1 — First Period

The so-called “Freemasonry” which had so long puzzled and irritated the friars, turned out, therefore, to be the Katipunan, which simply means the “League.”1 The leaguers, on being sworn in, accepted the “blood compact” (vide p. 28), taking from an incision on the leg or arm the blood with which to inscribe the roll of fraternity. The cicatrice served also as a mark of mutual recognition, so that the object and plans of the leaguers should never be discussed with others. The drama was to have opened with a general slaughter of Spaniards on the night of August 20, but, just in the nick of time, a woman sought confession of Father Mariano Gil (formerly parish priest of Bigaá, Bulacan), then the parish priest of Tondo, a suburb of Manila, and opened the way for a leaguer, whose heart had failed him, to disclose the plot on condition of receiving full pardon. With this promise he made a clean breast of everything, and without an hourʼs delay the civil guard was on the track of the alleged prime movers. Three hundred supposed disaffected persons were seized in Manila and the Provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan within a few hours, and, large numbers being brought in daily, the prisons were soon crowded to excess. The implacable Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda advocated extermination by fire and sword and wholesale executions. Gov.-General Ramon Blanco hesitated to take the offensive, pending the arrival of reinforcements which were called for. He informed the Home Government that the rising was of no great importance, but that he required 1,000 more troops to be sent at once. The reply from Madrid was that they were sending 2,000 men, 2,000,000 cartridges, 6,000 Remington rifles, and the gunboats Isla de Cuba and Isla de Luzon. Each steamer brought a contingent of troops, so that General Blanco had a total of about 10,000 Spanish regulars by the end of November. Spainʼs best men had been drafted off to Cuba, and these were chiefly raw levies who had all to learn in the art of warfare.