A second great American soldier now came forward to assume the government of the Moro territory. General Leonard Wood , who had served so successfully as military governor of Cuba, now took up the reins in Mindanao and Sulu as the first civil governor of the Moro province.

An organic act of the Insular Government authorized the formation of the Moro Province and defined the geographical limits of the territory effected. Certain powers were laid down to the administrators as follows:

1. The Moro Province was designed as including all of the territory of the Philippines lying south of the eight parallel of latitude, excepting the island of Palawan and the eastern portion of the northwest peninsula of Mindanao.
2. The province to be governed by a Legislative Council composed of the Governor, the Secretary, the Treasurer and the Attorney of the Province.
3. The enactment of laws for the local government of the Moros and other non-Christian tribes, conforming as nearly as possible to the lawful customs of such tribes, and vesting in their local or tribal rulers as nearly practicable, the same authority over their people as had hitherto obtained.
4. To enact laws for the abolition of slavery and the suppression of all slave-hunting and slave-trading.
5. The division of the Province into five territorial districts.

The district authorities were empowered to regulate the use of firearms, ammunition and edged weapons; to prohibit the passage of one headman or his tribesmen from one tribal ward to another; and various other purely legislative powers relating to the preservation of order.

General Wood soon found himself facing an intolerable situation. The terms of the Bates Treaty were repeatedly violated by the Moros and slave-trading was openly carried on in defiance of the law. Although American payments totaling some $6,750 annually were made to the Sultan and his retinue, conditions rapidly approached a breaking point.

The Moros cannot be censured too heavily for their failure to live up to their obligations. There was nothing in the whole history of the Moros' relations with foreigners to indicate to them that any foreigner can be trusted. Certainly their relations with the Spanish had been such that the Moros were filled with a profound distrust.

The Sultan, acting on the basis of the old negotiations with Spain, reached out for more authority. Before the year 1903 came to an end, the Bates Treaty had been violated in all of its terms. General Wood recommended the abrogation of the treaty during that year. As armed resistance against America was breaking out on all sides. The passage of the Cedula Act of 1903, providing for the purchase of an annual registration card, or cedula, by all inhabitants, was a source of bitter resentment to he Moros. The cedula smacked of tribute and the Moros saw no reason why they should register for the privilege of occupying their own territory. ¹

Cotta warfare flamed in Sulu where 10,000 Moro warriors prepared to resist to the death. Juramentado Moros again ran the streets of Jolo and the old reign of terror descended upon Sulu.

In November, 1903, an American survey party penetrated into interior Jolo, and their return to the city being past due, the Datu Hassan was called before the American governor to account for the party.

Hassan had evidently anticipated this summons for he arrived before the town of Jolo with a force of 4,000 well-armed krismen. It was apparent that an open rebellion was forming and that treachery was intended. After considerable parley outside the gates, Hassan was admitted within the walls with a force of forty guardsmen.

The American forces at Jolo were not sufficient to engage the Moros and Governor Scott therefore dispatched a hasty messenger to General Wood, who was engaged with the Moros in the Cotobato Valley. Upon receiving Scott's request for more troops for the defense of Jolo, Wood abandoned his Mindanao campaign and hastened in person to Jolo.

With the arrival of the troops under wood, a demand was sent to Hassan to surrender. Hassan, encamped outside the walls, sent a reply to the effect that he had no intention of submitting to American rule and "that if the Americans wanted him, they could come out and get him." With that message, he withdrew his troops into the jungle.

General Wood the led his troops down to Lake Seit where Hassan had retired, and a battle was fought which resulted in the death of sixty f the Moros. Hassan retreated, fighting a rear-guard action which developed into a campaign covering more than fifty miles.

The American troops assaulted cotta after cotta and the engagement came to an end eventually with the killing of more than 500 of the Moros and the capture of Hassan himself on November 14, 1903.

With Hassan under close guard of files of American infantrymen, the troops took up the march back to the Sulu capital. As the city gates were swinging open to receive the returning Americans, a detachment of krismen burst from the concealment of a nipa house and in a moment they were upon the force bearing Hassan a captive. With ear-shattering yells, the wedge of krismen drove through the American column to their captured leader. Screams and shots mingled with the thud of the kris. In a moment Hassan was free, and vanished into the jungle. Major Scott, who commanded the American force, was so badly cut in the hand that it was necessary to amputate several of his fingers.

Hassan was such a serious threat to the peace of the archipelago that troops under Scott took the field again in March, 1904, to run the outlaw to earth. Scott led the men in spite of the wounds which made it impossible for him to hold a weapon.

The Moros returned the offensive and sent charge after charge against the American troops during a pursuit which lasted several weeks. As a result of losses sustained in these terrific attacks, Hassan's force decreased in number and he was forced to seek refuge in a strong cotta. In the Moro fortress of Pang-Pang, he came to bay with eighty men, being opposed by an immensely superior American force.

Breaches were made in the cotta walls by artillery fire and most of the Moro garrison was killed by shrapnel. Hassan, with only two followers, escaped to the crater of an extinct volcano, where he made a last brave stand. His two men were quickly picked off by expert riflemen, and Hassan himself, badly wounded, at last pitched down the slope. He was riddled with bullets during a vain attempt to get into hand-to-hand fighting with the American troops.

Coincident with these campaigns against Hassan, the 28^th Infantry commenced operations in the vicinity of Taraca in Mindanao. Guerilla conditions prevailed. The troops established a fortified camp close to the disturbance area and sent out an outpost composed of Sergeant Stevens and Privates Bowser, Burke and Kiethley.

The men of the outpost cleared a small area in the dense jungle and settled down to an heroic and terrible sentry duty. In the early morning hours, the rush came. Twenty krismen leaped from the jungle. In the first savage attack, all of the men except Private Kiethley were hacked to death on the kris. Kiethley received a terrible wound.

This young American soldier performed an almost impossible feat of valor. Gathering the rifles of his dead mates, he fell back slowly, pouring a steady and accurate fire to keep the Moros at bay. For three-quarters of a mile, he fought off the rushes of the krismen, reaching the post with the four rifles, to fall at last before the awful slashes of the kris.

Young Kiethley's experience was duplicated by hundreds of American solders during the course of the Moro campaigns. The Taraca campaigns were ones of close and desperate work against a bush that was alive and slew suddenly, without warning. These early campaigns accomplished nothing, for the destruction of one Moro band was followed by the springing of another across the mountain range. The fighting was terrific and deadly, for it was veiled by a screen of almost impenetrable jungle. The silence of the night was disturbed by the scream of the juramentado and the cutting of tent ropes. The dawn showed a camp of fallen tents with the canvas stained red by the slashes of the kris.

The winning of Mindanao marked an epoch of terror and blood!

It was not until eight years after the death of Kiethley that forces of the 6^th Infantry penetrated the jungle to capture Sultan Cauayan and others of his band who led the attack on the outpost at Taraca.

With the coming of actual warfare, the Bates Treaty was abrogated during the opening months of 1904 and the payment to the Sultan were discontinued. America picked up the discarded sword of Spain in earnest and troops poured into Mindanao.

General Wood himself wrote of this period:

"The fact was generally recognized that the Sultan of Sulu had, before the year was up, broken the treaty in a dozen different ways. He and other Datus had signed to keep order, yet the Sulus, when I arrived, were in a decidedly outlaw state. Murder and raids were of frequent occurrence and terrible conditions in general prevailed. There was no law and order."

Cotta warfare of increasing intensity developed during the succeeding months and it was soon decided to restore the payments to the Sultan of Sulu. With the Moro ruler definitely antagonistic to the United States, the difficulties of the campaign were multiplied enormously. Fighting with the sanction of the Sultan, the Moros were far more dangerous than when led by guerilla leaders.

On November 12, 1904, the Philippine Commission passed an act providing for payments of $3,000 annually to the Sultan, $900 annually to Hadji Butu and $450 annually to each of the Hadjis, Tahib, Mohammet and Abdulla; to Panglima Bandahala and to Datus Jolkarnin and Kalbi.

To the credit of the Sultan of Sulu, it must be said that following this arrangement he never again took part in the armed rebellion against the United States. The fighting which took place during the next thirteen years was not directed by the Sultan, but was in the hands of minor Datus who refused to submit to American authority.

America was discovering, as Spain had discovered, that the Moros would have to be reduced with hand-to-hand fighting in each barrio. The power of the Sultan was not sufficiently inclusive to insure peace in the Moro Province.

America had one great advantage over Spain. Her relations with the Moros were not marred by interference in religious customs. There were certain disagreements over the question of slavery but there were no fanatical priests working hand-in-hand with the American soldiers as had been the case with Spain. The Moros were assured from the first day of American occupation that there would be no interference with their religion. When the Moros found this to be true and the Americans had proven themselves worthy of trust, the peace of Mindanao and Sulu became assured. Bullets could not, and did not, conquer the Moros. They would have fought against the United States to the last man if religious questions had been involved. Tolerance and fair treatment brought the Moros into subjection where the arquebuses of Spain had failed.

Shortly after the American occupation of Jolo, it was decided to occupy the southern points of Bongao and Siasi in order to discourage piracy, which showed evidence of breaking out anew. These old Spanish stations were occupied with a force composed of one infantry company. Bongao was on the Island of Tawi Tawi, in a dense, fever-ridden jungle country, avoided by all except a few Moro pirates. The Spaniards had maintained two posts on Tawi Tawi, one at Tataan and the other at Bongao, but America contented herself with only the small post at Bongao. The small concrete block house of the Spaniards was located on a rocky peninsula extending some hundreds of yards into the sea. Here the Spaniards had lived, confined within the walls of the fort.

The American forces under the command of Captain S. A. Cloman, made no such mistake. The concrete block house was converted into a storeroom and the troops soon convinced the Moros that they had no intention of being confined to the stone walls of a fortress. Expeditions were conducted to all of the small islands of the southern group and American law made itself felt in districts never penetrated by Spain. Many islands were found where Moro children had never before seen a white man.

One of the first duties of the American forces was to round up a notorious pirate named Selungun who was operating on Simunul Island in cooperation with the Maharajah Tawassil. The capture of Selungun was accomplished without bloodshed, and he was turned over to guardsmen of the Sultan of Sulu to be transported to Maybun to answer charges of murdering some of the henchmen of the Sultan. Tawassil died in prison while awaiting trial for piracy and opium smuggling.

En route to Maybun, Selungun escaped and made his way to Celebes, where he became a potent figure in the pirate activities of the East Indian coast. The English and the Americans had expeditions in the fields against him. One American party of several hundred soldiers pursued him for weeks on the coast of Mindanao but he escaped, to pass unpunished into a pirate's grave.

Cloman's party had several brushes with the Moros, including one terrible ambush of the American soldiers which cost several lives.

A detachment of soldiers was sent into Tawi Tawi on a wild boar hunt to replenish the food supply. The hunting party, composed of Sergeant De Wolf and Privates Mygatt, Greathouse, Gibbons and Carter, encamped on a hill top in interior Tawi Tawi.

A small crowd of natives accompanied them and a tent was pitched as a permanent hunting camp. When darkness fell, the American soldiers settled down to camp routine, four of the party sitting at the camp fire, while Mygatt strolled to the beach to take a bath.

A moment later there were screams from the camp, and Mygatt, diving into the water, heard the natives running on the beach in search for him. After a long night of terror alone on the beach, the soldier returned to the camp early in the morning. He found De Wolf sprawled across the ashes of the camp fire, dead from a kris wound in the neck. Gibbons had a severed left hand and was critically wounded by a gash in the head, in addition to forty-four other wounds. Carter and Greathouse were lying in a pool of blood, alive but terribly slashed with kris wounds.

Mygatt sailed the boat back to the post at Bongao, arriving in a state of collapse with two dead men and two seriously wounded mates who eventually succumbed.

A party of forty-five men took up the pursuit of the murderers and they were eventually apprehended at Bilimbing. The reports of this expedition indicate that the American government was saved the expense of a trial. The murderers, ten in all, were tied to takes when the troops went into camp. The next morning, when the prisoners were released to begin the journey back to Bongao, there occurred a desperate break for liberty but the ten Moros failed to run the gauntlet of fire to the jungle edge. One wonders if the attempted escape was not welcomed and possibly aided by the American troops. At any rate, the punishment of the murderers was just, and there appears to have been little trouble thereafter in Tawi Tawi.

While these campaigns in Sulu were in progress, American forces in Mindanao were penetrating the hitherto inaccessible Lake Lanao region. Captain McCoy conducted an expedition against Datu Ali, the "will-o-the-wisp" of Cotobato. Ali was the most formidable of the early Moro insurgents.

The forces of Captain McCoy, working with the aid of trusted Moro guides, succeeded in penetrating the very cotta of Ali before the Moros were aware of the presence of the American troops. Ali made a brave stand but he was shot down, together with several hundred of his men, in the bloodiest battle of the early occupation. There was some criticism directed at this engagement due to the numbers of women and children killed by the artillery and rifle fire of the American troops.

A previous expedition against the redoubtable Ali had failed. Troops under Captain White had gone out months earlier after the elusive Moro, to toil through the jungle all the way from Port Lebak to the Cotobato Valley. White's men had followed closely in the historic path cut by Corcuera, but they had been forced to return through inability to secure trustworthy guides.

During the expedition of McCoy which had resulted in the extermination of Ali, another sore sport in Cotobato was removed. Datu Matabaloo, who had threatened to kill any Moro paying the cedula tax, was surrounded in his cotta and killed after a bloody charge with fixed bayonets.

In examining the American occupation of Mindanao and Sulu from the viewpoint of the Moros, one must question the legality of our claim on this country. The transfer of money from America to Spain meant selling out the Moro's own country from underneath them. The transfer was effected without their knowledge or their consent. The Moros had no part in the welter of politics and sugar disputes that provoked the Spanish-American war. The tile of the seller of Mindanao and Sulu was impaired, for Spain had failed to conquer this country. She had held sovereignty by proclamation -- not by force of arms.

That the Moro was a barbarian. Is admitted. But he was an invaded barbarian, fighting on his own soil for the defense of that soil. Spain crossed the ocean to enter the territory of the Moros. America crossed the ocean to force the jungle trails of Mindanao and Sulu.

The Moro had the right to resistance. As in the campaigns against Spain, the Moro was entitled to the choice of weapons in his conflict with America. It was a war not of his choosing; America brought the war to Mindanao. If the Moro chose to fight his way, from the shelter of his jungle bush, it remained for the invader of that soil to take his own chances.

Maudlin sympathy, however, would be wasted upon the Moros. They do not need condolences. They are among the hardiest of all the races of man. But the fact remains that this little group of unorganized Malays went against the Gatling guns and artillery of the most powerful nation in the world. They died on their own soil before the superior weapons and armament of an invading army. They pitted a kris against a krag rifle. They raised a barong against the fire of mountain artillery. If they cut and slashed in the night and ambushed from beside a jungle trail, they were well within their rights.

For these reasons, the severity of some of the campaigns against the Moros are to be condemned rather than condoned. The American was equally as culpable as the Spaniard. The Spaniard brought religion at the point of an arquebus. The American brought law to an inferior and minor people a the point of a krag.

Our claim on Mindanao and Sulu was weak indeed.

But the subjugation of Moroland went ahead. Governor Scott took the field against Datu Usap. Usap's cotta at Laksamana was destroyed by artillery fire from the mountain guns. Usap had refused to allow American forces to pass through his territory, notwithstanding Scott's announcement that the mission of the troopers was one of peace for the purpose of surveying the country. The troops entered in spite of Usap's protests and were fired upon from an entrenched cotta.

In the hand-to-hand conflict which resulted in the destruction of the cotta of Laksamana, Lieutenant Jewell was killed as he scaled the cotta walls at the head of his men. Usap and one hundred Moros were left dead on the field after the passage of the American troops.

The mountain guns and quick-firing Gatlings of the American troops, supplemented by the krag riflemen, made the struggles almost no contest. There was some criticism in the United States at the slaughter of the Moros, as it was believed that a great deal of conflict could have been averted by using diplomatic measures. Certain it is that at times the United States piled up an unnecessarily large casualty list with the superior weapons at their command. The Moros were never expert in the use of firearms. They relied upon the kris, and in the best hands an edged weapon is poor defense against a Gatling gun.

The disparity in weapons resulted in the breaking up of the Moro resistance into the worst form of guerilla warfare. Bands of krismen penetrated the American lines, satisfied to die if they could take an American or two with them to Paradise.

A great deal of the trouble was stirred up by the Mohammedan priests, who did a profitable business in anting-antings and other charms calculated to inspire disdain of the American weapons. Usap himself, now lying stiff in death on the walls of the cotta of Laksamana, had purchased from the Hadji Habib Muhamad Masdali a charm warranted to make him invulnerable to the bullets of the Americans.

The Moros were quite willing to die and the history of this whole period is filled with cases of krismen rushing out, blade in hand, to fall riddled with bullets long before they came into contact with American soldiers. Among the warriors of Usap, taken at the storming of Laksamana, was one individual, shot four times, who was carried to the hospital at Zamboanga for treatment. While on the operating table, this terrible warrior regained consciousness for a moment, hurled his betel-nut box at the American surgeon attending him, cursed him violently in the name of Allah and turned on his side to die.

In the middle of 1905, conditions in Sulu had reached such a state that actual warfare in force became necessary. The Moros fortified themselves upon the crests of Mount Talipao and Bud Dajo, where assaults of magnitude were conducted by American troops. Several hundred Moros were killed and severe casualties were inflicted upon the attacking Americans.

The aggressive attacking policy of the Americans was gradually gaining the respect of the Moros. The old days when the Moros could surround a fort and hurl insults to a miserable garrison were gone. The Americna troops refused to be confined to stone walls as the Spaniards had been, and the continuous field excursions were building American prestige among the fierce Mohammedans.

The American soldiers themselves were incomprehensible to the Moros, who had been accustomed to the religious solemnity of the Spaniards. The Moros found the Americans an antagonist who also made a game of war.

Morga's "Official History of the Philippines" contains an account of the perplexity of the Moros over these American who slew them on week days and played like children on Sunday:

"when the 23^rd Regiment went to Jolo, the Catholic cathedral was taken as barracks, under the strain of military necessity. This was startling to the Moros and a blow to intended juramentados. The Moros asked themselves whether a people who slept with their boots on, and who marched with guns to a house that had been sacred to the Spaniards, could themselves be Christians.

"Moreover, on the first day of the week, when the Spaniards had marched in long processions to the holy place and their priests had chanted and waved little lamps of brass, these Americans were wont to come out tot he meadow outside the city wall and throw a ball at each other and hit it with a heavy stick and knock it a great distance, and then shout so that the echo therefrom could be heard half-way to Maybun.

"What could it profit a man if he shaved his head and his eyebrows and slew these people?"

Filipiniana Reprint Series © 1985 Cacho Hermanos, Inc.

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