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LAND SITUATION DURING SPANISH RULE Introduction Spanish Era.

The policy of the Spanish government was to recognize all lands in the Philippines as part of the public domain. During this era the Spanish crown was free to give vast tracts of Philippine land, including the resources and inhabitants, to loyal civilians and military servants as rewards. During this period Encomienda System was practiced with respect to how land is distributed. 1. Encomienda In 1570, the encomienda was introduced to the Philippines when Legaspi distributed lands in Cebu to loyal Spanish subjects.The word encomienda is derived from the verb meaning to commend or to charge ones care.The encomienda is a labor system that was employed by the Spanish crown during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines. In the encomienda, the crown granted a person a specified number of natives for whom they were to take responsibility. The receiver of the grant was to protect the natives from warring tribes and to instruct them in the Spanish language and in the Catholic faith. In return, they could exact tribute from the natives in the form of labor, gold or other products, such as in corn, wheat or chickens. Originally, the encomiender was e feudal institution used in Spain during the reconquista to reward deserving generals and conquerors. The encomienda system was not a land grant. It was an administrative unit for the purpose of exacting tribute from the natives. Each encomiendero had a threefold responsibility: to protect the natives by maintaining peace and order within thr encomienda; to support the missionaries in their work of converting the people to Catholicism; and to help in the defense of the colony. In return to these services, the Crown authorized the encomiendero to collect tribute of eight reales annually from all males inhabitants of his encomienda between ages of nineteen and sixty. 2.Inquilinos The Dominican fathers having leased their lands to mestizos, these hold them as inquilinos on condition of each one paying for three or four years, after which they were to pay five cavans of rice for every cavalita of irrigated land. The estate owners are not allowed to increase the ground rent, even though the prices of everything else have increased enormously. Neither are they allowed to lease the land to others, unless the leaseholders fail to pay the rent for two consecutive years. This is a policy of which the inquilino play unfairly by disposing of the lands as though they owned them.They sell them, or mortgage it to those wealthier than they pay; and by the mere fact of being inquilinos, without doing a stroke of work, they make more than the estate owners themselves.

3.Friar lands A large part of the land of the islands was in the hands of three orders of friars, the Dominicans, Recoletos and Augustinians. Associated with these orders was that of the Franciscans, which, however, is not permitted to hold property, except convents and schools. The land held by the three orders in question was officially estimated as follows: Dominicans 161,593 acres Augustinians 151,742 acres Recoletos 93,035 acres

4.Early rebellion Resistance against Spain did not immediately cease upon the conquest of the Austronesian cities. After Tupas of Cebu, random native nobles resisted Spanish rule. The longest recorded native rebellion was that of Francisco Dagohoy which lasted a century. During the British rule in the 1760s, Diego Silang was appointed governor of Ilocos and after his assassination by fellow natives, his wife Gabrielacontinued to lead the Ilocanos. Resistance against Spanish rule was regional in character, based on ethnolinguistic groups. Hispanization of sorts, did not spread to the mountainous center of northern Luzon, nor to the inland communities of Mindanao. The highlanders were more able to resist the Spanish invaders than the lowlanders. The Moros, most notably the sultanates, had a more advanced political system than their counterparts in the Visayas and Luzon. Spanish cities in Mindanao were limited to the coastal areas of Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro. Why all these revolts failed? =Absence of national leader Lukewarm spirit of nationalism among Filipinos = Inadequate training and preparation for warfare

5.Phillipine Revolution By 1896 the Katipunan had a membership by the thousands. That same year, the existence of the Katipunan was discovered by the colonial authorities. In late August Katipuneros gathered in Caloocan and declared the start of the revolution. The event is now known as the Cry of Balintawak or Cry of Pugad Lawin, due to conflicting historical traditions and official government positions. Andrs Bonifacio called for a general offensive on Manila and was defeated in battle at the town of San Juan del Monte. He regrouped his forces and was able to briefly capture the towns of Marikina, San Mateo and Montalban. Spanish counterattacks drove him back and he retreated to the mountains of Balara and Morong and from there engaged in guerrilla warfare. By August 30, the revolt had spread to eight provinces. On that date, Governor-General Ramon Blanco declared a state of war in these provinces and placed them under martial law. These were Manila,Bulacan, Cavite, Pampanga, Bataan, Laguna, Batangas, and Nueva Ecija. They would later be represented in the eight rays of the sun in the Filipino flag.Emilio Aguinaldo and the Katipuneros of Cavite were the most successful of the rebels and they controlled most of their province by September-October. They defended their territories with trenches designed by Edilberto Evangelista. Many of the educated ilustrado class such as Antonio Luna and Apolinario Mabini did not initially favor an armed revolution. Rizal himself, whom the rebels took inspiration from and had consulted beforehand, disapproved of a premature revolution. He was arrested, tried and executed for treason, sedition and conspiracy on December 30, 1896. Before his arrest he had issued a statement disavowing the revolution, but in his swan song poem Mi ltimo adis he wrote that dying in battle for the sake of one's country was just as patriotic as his own impending death. While the revolution spread throughout the provinces, Aguinaldo's Katipuneros declared the existence of an insurgent government in October regardless of Bonifacio's Katipunan, which he had already converted into an insurgent government with him as president in August.Bonifacio was invited to Cavite to meditate between Aguinaldo's rebels, the Magdalo, and their rivals the Magdiwang, both chapters of the Katipunan. There he became embroiled in discussions whether to replace the Katipunan with an insurgent government of the Cavite rebels' design. To this end, the Tejeros Convention was convened, where Aguinaldo was elected president of the new insurgent government. Bonifacio refused to recognize this and he was executed for treason in May 1897. By December 1897, the revolution had resulted to a stalemate between the colonial government and rebels. Pedro Paterno mediated between the two sides for the signing of the Pact of Biak-na-

Bato. The conditions of the armistice included the self-exile of Aguinaldo and his officers in exchange for $800,000 to be paid by the colonial government. Aguinaldo then sailed to Hong Kong for self exile. In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out. Emilio Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines with American aid, that is the blockading of Manila Bayfrom Spanish reinforcements. However, this aid was unnecessary as the Spanish reinforcements wouldn't have made it anyway as their Cazadoreswere tied down in Cuba both quelling a similar revolt and fighting the SpanishAmerican War there, and later the Americans turning against the Filipino patriots in the end after all. By 1898, the patriots have liberated much of the country from colonial rule. They declared independence in 1898 and established the First Philippine Republic, and then laid siege to Manila and prepared to invade the city. Aguinaldo however failed to conclude the revolution by invading Manila. The United States had promised to recognize Philippine independence and the Americans requested Aguinaldo to wait for American reinforcements so that they could enter the city together. The Americans had asked Aguinaldo to turn over vital entries to the capital city over to the Americans, which he did so in good faith to their alliance. In a sudden twist of fate, the Americans secretly entered into a pact with the Spanish governor-general in which the latter agreed to fight a mock battle before surrendering Manila to the Americans. In Paris, the Spanish reluctantly agreed to sell the Philippines to the United States for $20 million and turn over Guam and Puerto Rico . With this action, Spanish rule in the Philippines formally ended. With Manila taken, the Americans waited for reinforcements until hostilities opened up between them and the declared Philippine Republic.

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