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ABSTRACT
In 1908, Dean C. Worcester, Secretary of the Interior for the Philippine colonial government, published an article in the New York Times lauding the results of the American government’s efforts to advance the conditions of the Philippine ‘wild tribes’. Titled ‘Headhunters Under the Stars and Stripes’, Worcester’s article summarized the colonial government’s ‘civilizing efforts’ and the ‘astonishing’ progress which in just a few years led to a ‘degree of self-government’ for the non-Christian tribes of the Cordillera. This paper revisits that article and the historical basis for Worcester’s claims. Criticism of colonial historiography has, with justification, centred on the colonizers’ attempts at embellishing their accomplishments while hiding the less laudatory means and results of the colonization. With the gift of hindsight, I analyse Worcester’s narrative for both its accuracy and intent. I find that, while imperfect, his narration is generally accurate as history, and most of his self-congratulation was warranted based on a significant improvement in the living conditions of the indigenous people of the Cordillera. His intent, however, remains controversial. This article discusses his espousal of a Christian/non-Christian animus as the basis for denying Philippine independence.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Churchill is also credited with ‘History will be kind to me because I will write it’, illustrating the self-serving nature of the maxim. There is no evidence that Churchill made either statement.
2 Jose Rizal’s (Citation1890) annotation of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609) was published 281 years after the original.
3 Gemma Cruz Araneta claims this aphorism was coined by her mother, the writer Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil (Manila Bulletin, August 30, 2018, https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/08/30/in-her-own-words/).
4 Cordillera is the term generally applied to the mountainous area between the western coast of northern Luzon and the valley of the Cagayan River. Its specific boundaries have changed over the years but today include the provinces of Benguet, Ifugao, Mountain Province, Kalinga, Abra and Apayao, collectively organized as the Cordillera Administrative Region.
5 The original armed conflict, which occupied the years from 1896 to 1901, was replaced by peaceful agitation in the halls of government and in the press, both in the Philippines and in the US.
6 ‘The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule’ (McKinley Citation1898).
7 Technically this is a misnomer. The US Congress did not ratify the American purchase (The Treaty of Paris) until two days after the war began. In the interim a constitutionally created Philippine government had been seated, making the US an invader rather than an established government fighting an insurgency.
8 ‘ … it is the flag of liberty, and wherever the flag goes there go character, education, American intelligence, American civilization, and American liberty’ (McKinley Citation1900a, Citation1900b, 288).
9 Schurman, a graduate of the University of London, was a philosophy professor and President of Cornell University (http://president.cornell.edu/jacob-gould-schurman).
10 ‘It is also believed that the general substitution throughout the archipelago of civil for military government would do more than any other single occurrence to reconcile the Filipinos to American sovereignty … ’ (Philippine Commission Citation1900, Vol. I, 90).
11 Wright would succeed Taft as Civil Governor in January 1904 and his title was changed to Governor-General in 1905 (Blount Citation1912, 446).
12 Prime Minister Pedro Paterno and Benguet Governor Juan Cariño.
13 Hereafter referred to as ‘Headhunters’. Worcester quotes not otherwise attributed are from this article.
14 Sixto Lopez, in a Citation1911 pamphlet distributed by the Anti-Imperialist League, argued that the ‘wild tribes’ were simply natives adjusting their lifestyle to their environment.
15 Reviews of the Spanish administration of the Cordillera by non-Spaniards were published by Scheerer (Citation1931) and more extensively by Scott ([Citation1974] 2006) and others. Scott included a bibliographic essay that is an invaluable guide to the Spanish records on the Cordillera.
16 The word ‘Igorot’ is not used in this text except when it is part of a quote. The name is imprecise – half the population indicated by the term do not consider themselves to be Igorot – and the word has a pejorative connotation among Filipinos dating at least to the Madrid Exposition of 1887 if not earlier. See Scott (Citation[1974] 2006, 276–278) and Scheerer (Citation1905, 97).
17 In an undated, untitled document held in the collection of Dean C. Worcester papers. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
18 Organic Act of the Philippine Islands. July 1, 1902, available at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/miun.aex3168.0001.001
19 Quezon was an officer in the Republican army and Osmena was a journalist assigned to Prime Minister Pedro Paterno. See Quezon (Citation1946, 47) and Pacis (Citation1971, 7–8).
20 An English translation of ‘Aves de Rapina’ is included in United States v. Martin Ocampo, et al. Supreme Court G.R. No. L-5527, December 22, 1910 (available at https://www.lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1910/dec1910/gr_l-5527_1910.html).
21 Identified as H.R. 17856, the Jones Bill passed the House of Representatives in 1913 but contentious hearings in the Senate delayed its passage until August 1916.
22 Because Brent decided not to proselytize the Catholic population, his activities centred on the pagans of the Cordillera, and many of his missionaries made significant contributions to Cordillera studies (Clymer Citation1980, 89).
23 Charles Brent, Letters to Dean C. Worcester, Dean C. Worcester papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
24 The ‘polo’ was a system of forced, unpaid labour which in the Cordillera meant serving as a carrier, or ‘polista’. Worcester decreed a road tax of 2 pesos per year in the Cordillera with equivalent labour as the alternative. The ‘polo’ was reinstated by Commission Act 1511 which mandated five days unpaid labour or a fine of equivalent value (Public Laws Citation1906, Act 1511).
25 Although Mark Rice (Citation2014, 168) claims that this photograph was ‘almost certainly faked’, another photograph from the same event indicates that the head was almost certainly real.
26 For example, ‘To treat the Philippine native with the seriousness we accord to white races is absurd’, wrote Phelps Whitmarsh, Governor of Benguet (Citation1900, 389–390); or, ‘The white man and the Malay have always distrusted and misunderstood one another’ in the Congressional testimony of David Barrows (United States Senate Citation1902, 692).
27 Both men recounted life-threatening experiences in confrontations with natives and in negotiating rugged terrain. (Barrows Citationn.d., 79, 85) and (Worcester, Citation1914a, 535–556).
28 Many examples are found in Ignacio et al. (Citation2010).
29 Schurman writes ‘They possess admirable domestic and personal virtues … ’ (Philippine Commission Citation1900, Vol. 1, 120). Arthur McArthur described the Filipinos as ‘intelligent, generous and flexible’ (quoted in United States Senate Citation1902, 135).
30 In counterpoint, Manuel Quezon proudly declared ‘I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans’ (Citation1939).
31 One notable exception was Worcester’s statement ‘With the Bontoc Igorots the soldiers got on well. They committed no abuses … ’. Barrows writes of an incident where an American sergeant sold twenty-two of his prisoners to the Bontoc of Talubin, who immediately decapitated all of them (Barrows Citation1902, 21).
32 Stanley titled his essay ‘The Voice of Worcester is the Voice of God’ (Citation1984, 117). Sullivan reports that at times Worcester’s ‘triumphal’ tours had an undercurrent of coercion (Citation1999, 157).
33 Blount christened Worcester ‘the P.T. Barnum of the ‘non-Christian tribe’ industry’ (Citation1912, 578). Blount’s book was financed by Quezon (Salman Citation2001, 184–85).
34 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, 1987, Article X, section 15–21. https://lawphil.net/consti/cons1987.html.
35 Sullivan writes that ethnic identification in the Cordillera was a Worcester invention that persists to this day (Citation1999, 154).