The age-herald., 1898-10-23
Copyright, 1S9S.1

MANY strange peoples will come NH under the protection of the
 stars and stripes if Uncle ' N Sam's commissioners, now in
 Paris negotiating a treaty of peace with Spain, shall decide to re- tain possession of the Philippine is- lands. Not only will the United States have to take under its wing some of the host peculiar beings that live, but some who have sailed under the black flag of The pirates whose depredations in that section of the world are only equaled by those of the freebooters who once infested the Spanish main. The inhab- hants of these islands, which occupy large space in the eastern seas, are composed of many different tribes and mixed races. While little is known of the history of the people found there by the Spanish explorers it is believed That they were negroes, small in stat nre, but very powerful. Now nearly every race or kind of people can be lound there, from the civilized white man, to the savage whose traits and Characteristics are similar to the abo- igines. The islands, more than 1,200 in Humber, are situated near the main and of China, Siam and the Malay pen- nsula, while to the south and east are lhe islands of Java, Sumatra, New Euinea and Borneo, from which f1ocked ldventurers and the lower class of criminals and desperadoes in search of (ehes that were supposed to be stored n abundance in the hills and mountains If the Philippines. These people. not i1ly pillaged the natives within the borders of their land, but sent out pi- lates from their shores to prey upon
 .e merchant marine of the surround ng country.
 , It may be said that there was little Eork other than piracy among the bibes people at that time, and from khat can be learned of them they also jsized each others vessels and destroy Id each others property. The islands lave been the center of piracy ever Dince they were known, and records Dhow that the deeds of desperate dar- ng committed by some of the chiefs or tings were only equaled by the famous Black Flags of China (some of whose members and descendants are supposed . 10 have emigrated to the islands), the pirates of the Barbary states on the aorth coast of Africa and those of the Spanish main.
 Hc OpduleTQS mdSclidu oiS- lowered the islands in the early part of the sixteenth century. In 1865 they btarted to establish colonies and con- tuer the natives. Their struggle to get hontrol is so well known that it would be useless to chronicle it here. For more than three centuries Spain has been fighting to get rid of the pirates and subdue the natives of that section of the world, and now that her nominal sovereignty at least over some of them Is to cease 1t may be truthfully stated that many of the tribes, especially those in Mindanao, Tawi Tawi and some of the smaller islands are as in- dependent of Spanish rule today as they were when Magellan first set foot ,n zebu, the first of the group to be dis covered.
 There are nine large and more than l,200 small islands. The large ones are Luzon, Panay, Zebu, Leyte, Bohol, Ne gros, Samar, Mindanao and Mindoro. There are nearly as many different tribes as there are islands. The Chi nese and Malays next to the native fagals and Visayas predominate. Wild Malay tribes, from whom sprung some If the early pirates, are found in large