Note 17 — Chapter VII · Insurgent Rule in the Visayas and Elsewhere

“In Cavite, in Cavite Province, and probably in most of the other provinces, one of the first acts of the insurgents who gathered about Aguinaldo was to destroy all the land titles which had been recorded and filed in the Spanish administrative bureaus. In case the independence of the Philippines was won, the land of the friars, the land of the Spaniards and of those who still stood by Spain, would be in the gift of Aguinaldo or of any strong man who could impose his will upon the people. And the men who joined this leader would be rich in the chief riches of the country, and those who refused to do so would be ruined men.”17