The hero of the Filipinos The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyr
Don’t overlook the value to your country of new machinery and
industries.
Don’t cease at any time to work for the prosperity and welfare of
our native land.
CHAPTER XIV
THE EXILE OF DAPITAN
About this was nothing sinister, illegal, revolutionary, affrighting,
or incendiary, but the Spanish colony chose to view it with alarm. If
Rizal had organized a prayer meeting or a branch of the Young Men’s
Christian Association these nervous folk would have seen in it only
treason, stratagems, and spoils. On the Filipinos the effect was
different. To the deliberate judgment of the intelligentsia the plan of
the league appealed as the first practical suggestion of relief through
peaceful agitation. With a novel sensation of hope, they took it to
their bosoms. [170] Rapidly the membership increased; at last there was
a promise of union and directed effort. And then the powers that stood
behind the puppet governor-general and manipulated his movements
decided that the ripe time had come to spring the trap; before this
dangerous man should have back of him an organization able to realize
his dreams he must be put to silence. Despujol sent for Rizal, leaped
upon him as if from a machine with the leaflet, “The Poor Friars,” that
men said had been found in Lucia’s baggage, and without trial or
hearing ordered him to prison. From the spot where he stood in the
governor-general’s office a guard took him to Fort Santiago and thrust
him into a cell. Another generation will not believe that this was
done; and even in our own era, in which invasions of personal rights at
times of great public excitement are not unknown, an act of such rank
and impudent despotism seems improbable. There was not even a pretense
of any legal proceeding, no warrant, no magistrate, no commitment.
“Take this man to jail!” commands the governor-general. With an
obedient start the guard sweeps away the prisoner, helpless in a square
of rifles. It is enough to cause us to wonder if democracy and liberty
are or can be more than veneer upon any old frame of European monarchy
and whether time, in this conception of human society, must not
necessarily stand stock-still.
At Santiago guard was mounted [171] upon the mild reformer and man of
peace as if he had been some ferocious bandit captured red-handed and
likely to burst his bars. Sentinels stood day and night over his cell
door; no communication was allowed with his friends; and grown men in
the official service went through the theatrics of pretending that
there was danger of an attempt to rescue him.
The next day a decree was issued ordering his exile to Dapitan, a town
on the northeastern coast of the island of Mindanao. Upon what charge?
The charge of sacrilege and sedition made against him the day he sailed
from Hong-Kong, reinforced with Lucia’s damnable pillow-cases. On these
he had been adjudged guilty offhand, as one would drown cats or blind
puppies. He was not even allowed to know who were his accusers; for
that matter, he did not even know that he was accused. “This fellow has
committed sacrilege and sedition,” says some one in the ear of the
governor-general. “Exile him,” replies the governor-general, and signs
the order committing him to a living death. It is like the scene
between the governor-general and his secretary in “El Filibusterismo”;
if a man may have foreknowledge of his fate, Rizal had glimpsed this in
his novel.
There was the matter of the safe-conduct, the promise of protection,
given by this same governor-general, under which Rizal had left
Hong-Kong. It seems to have been not a feather-weight against the
Interests that cried for his blood. There need be no mystery as to the
source of these perfidies. Exile was the price Rizal paid for writing
“Noli Me Tangere”; the powers that now pushed him upon the savage coast
of Mindanao as an outcast sent there to die was the power of the
friars, enraged by these pictures of themselves. They demanded Rizal’s
blood; Despujol seems to have been incapable of the firing-squad and
only wicked enough to consent to exile.
A chorus of protest rose from the civilized world as soon as men
learned of this latest assault by a stupidly malignant Government upon
the foundation principles of modern liberty. In hugger-mugger Rizal
might be snatched away to banishment, but the time had gone by when
such things could continue to be hid. It was speedily known throughout
Europe that he had been decoyed from Hong-Kong by promises now shown to
have been deliberate inventions; that the governor-general had violated
his own safe-conduct; that, even if Lucia had possessed a seditious
document, proceedings should have lain against her and not against
Rizal; that in any society above that of the jungle he would have had a
hearing or some form of trial. Some such storm of resentment seems to
have been foreseen by Despujol. For the issue of the “Official Gazette”
that announced Rizal’s banishment he had prepared a long article
defending the Government’s course and describing Rizal as a dangerous
person. But he sufficiently betrayed himself by writing to the governor
of Santiago prison a personal letter instructing him to take every
precaution that Rizal should not see this number of the “Gazette,” and
beyond this in cowardice and infamy it seemed hardly possible to go.
[172]
For three days the victim of the aroused wrath of the governing class
lay in prison, being still denied any communication with friend or
relative. Then at night he was hustled aboard a steamer and started for
Dapitan.
So far as we can determine now, even in these conditions he lost
nothing of that serenity that has made him so admirable to some
investigators and so inexplicable to others. “Sustained and soothed by
an unfaltering trust” seems to have been literally the state of this
brown man from the ends of the earth. Many a white man far less tried
might have envied his self-possession. Dwell with some patience and
care, if you will, upon this his own record of his arrest and
deportation and see if you do not deem this remarkable that in such
conditions not a complaint, not a suggestion of resentment or of
bitterness, not a hint of fear occurs in his narrative. It is a plain,
blunt story written only for his friends. Here if anywhere he would
have exhibited wrath; and the story reads with a kind of chill, so
perfect is the unconcern. You can hardly say it reads as if it were
written about the sufferings of somebody else. For anybody else in the
like conditions this man would have made protest. Concerning himself he
had nothing to say except to record the facts. Here is what his
memorandum says of all this:
Wednesday he [the governor-general] asked me if I persisted in my
intention of returning to Hong-Kong. I told him “yes.” After some
conversation he said that I had brought political circulars in my
baggage. I replied that I had not. He asked me who was the owner of
the roll of pillows and petates [173] with my baggage. I said that
they belonged to my sister. He told me that because of them he was
going to send me to Fort Santiago. Don Ramón Despujol, his nephew
and aide, took me in one of the palace carriages. At Fort Santiago,
Don Enrique Villamor, the commander, received me. The room assigned
to me was an ordinary chamber. It had a bed, a dozen chairs, a
table, a wash-stand, and a mirror. There were three windows. One,
without bars, looked out on a court; another had bars, and
overlooked the wall and beach; the third served also as a door and
had a padlock. Two artillerymen were on guard as sentinels. These
had orders to fire on any one that tried to make signs from the
beach. I could neither write nor converse with the officer of the
guard.
Don Enrique Villamor, the commander of the fort, gave me books from
the library.
Each day the corporal of the guard proved to be a sergeant. They
cleaned the room every morning. For breakfast, I had coffee with
milk, a roll, and coffee-cake. Luncheon at 12:30 was of four
courses. Dinner was at 8:30 and similar to the luncheon. Commander
Villamor’s orderly waited on me.
On Thursday, the 14th, about 5:30 or 6 P.M., the nephew notified me
that at 10 that night I should sail for Dapitan. I prepared my
baggage, and at 10 was ready, but as no one came to get me, I went
to sleep.
At 12:15, the aide arrived with the same carriage that had brought
me there. By way of Santa Lucia Gate, they took me to the Malecon,
where there were General Ahumada and some other people. Another
aide and two of the Guardia Veterana were awaiting me in a boat.
The Cebu sailed in the morning at 9. They gave me a good
state-room, on the upper deck. Above the doors could be read,
“Chief.” Next my cabin was that of Captain Delgras, who had charge
of the party.
Ten soldiers from each branch of the military service comprised the
expedition. There were artillery, infantry of five regiments,
carbineers, cavalry, and engineers, and the Civil Guard.
We were carrying prisoners, loaded with chains, among whom were a
sergeant and a corporal, both Europeans. The former was to be shot
for having ordered the tying up of his superior officer who had
misbehaved while in Mindanao. The officer, for having let himself
be tied, was dismissed from the service. The soldiers who obeyed
orders, were sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment.
It appears that the misbehavior noted here by Rizal consisted of the
seduction of the sergeant’s wife by the officer, and the tying up of
the officer was the sergeant’s revenge. It is an interesting side-light
on the prevailing code that the officer was dismissed from the service
for allowing himself to be tied but not for dishonoring the poor
sergeant, whose recompense was to be shot. The privates were to be
punished for laying hands upon an officer, although they were but
obeying orders. [174]
I ate in my state-room, the food being the same as the officers
had. I always had a sentinel and a corporal on guard. Every night
Captain Delgras took me for a promenade till 9 o’clock. We passed
along the east coast of Mindanao and the west coast of Panay. We
came to Dapitan on Sunday at 7 in the evening.
Captain Delgras and three artillerymen accompanied me in a boat
rowed by eight sailors. There was a heavy sea.
The beach seemed very gloomy. We were in the dark, except for our
lantern, which showed a roadway grown with weeds.
In the town we met the governor or commandant, Captain Ricardo
Carnicero. There was also a Spanish exile, and the practicante,
[175] Don Cosme. We went to the town hall, which was a large
building.
That is all there is of this laconic narrative. Under the conditions it
can hardly be equaled for philosophical phlegm. “The beach seemed very
gloomy”; “As no one came to get me, I went to sleep.” It sounds like
casual notes on a holiday jaunt. In point of fact, he was in danger at
all times of assassination and knew it well. He must have rather
wondered at his fortune when he saw the beach at Dapitan and realized
that he had arrived without being murdered. [176]
It was a little town on the border of a savage country, known to be
unhealthful, and at that time so difficult of access from Manila that
he might have been nearer at Yokohama. It is charitable but hardly
necessary to believe that the men that consigned him to such a place
were unaware of its repute. With so little concealment they had sought
in other ways for his life, we have no reason to think now of a sudden
they had acquired mercy. To a thousand places more salubrious he might