The Hawaiian gazette., 1902-06-24
TOWNSEND
IN MINOANAO
Honolulu Teacher
Writes of the
Island.

EhltW ~ i'I--f. i'Ih'lH Mluua
mao has been so much OF a storm cen
ter for the past few WEEKS that your
readers viii be gi7i % have an expla-
nation OF the situation from one on the
ground.
TO 40 back q little into history, the
Malayans seem 90 he suffering from ar
rested development. the arrest having
occurred In their tribal stage of ad-
vancement 1t has never been the ge-
MUS of the race 10 furm great nations.
but rather to live In small tribes. loose
| ly bound together or entirely independ-
ent and therefore more or less hostile.
Ii is from such tribes as these that
the Philippine Islands were peopled
more than thousand years ago-how
! much more | shall not try to guess.
/ The point to be made is that about a
/ thousand years ago Arab missionaries
arrived in the Malay Peninsula, intent
on the conversion Of the people to the
religion OF Mohammed. In this they
were soon succes ,ful. as the Malayans
seem to have had mixed origin and
a shifting faith. Four hundred years
later, or, say, IN the year 1850, "A new
access of miss unary zeal sent Arab
missionaries to North Borneo, Sulu and
Mindanao, where they successfully
converted to their faith some vi the
! principal chiefs. The conversion Of the
people seems tn have progressed rap
idly in Borneo and Sulu. but IA more
difficult problem met them on Mindanao.
Here they and their successors have
worked at their task ever since. and
the net present result is Mohamme-
! dan population az the outside number
/ ing 100000.
Nearly 200 years later. Magellan
brought the first Christian priest to
Mindanao. but no active propagandism
of the Christian religion occurred un-
Ill the time of Philip III. This mon
arch, actuated with his usual religious
zeal, sent military force out here as
an escort Tor a band or missionaries,
and they made conquests in the islands
in the name of the cross, conquering
the people in order that they might
make Christians of them and thus in
/ sure their eternal welfare. Those OF
the loose agglomeration of tribes who
held To the weak religious faiths which
( their ancestors had brought with them
into the Islands, yielded readily to the
| arguments ana the force OF the span
iards. and thus became Christians. But
| those who had accepted Mohamme-
danism, strong new faith. forged in
the flames of religious controversy car
ried on with words and weapons. gave
them different problem. Thus the
| Christian Spaniard and the Mohamme-
| dan Malayan began a religious warfare
which kept continually breaking out
anew until the withdrawal of the Span
iards in 1898. During these wars 1t is
hardly necessary to say that the Mo-
hammedan tribes We're drawn close to-
Sether by the bonds of their common
faith and common cause. But for the
arrest of development mentioned above
this would have moulded these people
into a compact nation; but this was
not the result, though at times it SEEM
ed almost so. ...
The Americans came. and by storing
horse feed in the chapels, quartering
soldiers in the conventos and various
other acts convinced these Mohamme-
dams that ours is not a Christian ma
ton. Thus the bond which had held
them together was weakened and the
feudatories which had been built up
began to crumble. The Sultanate of
the Maguindanaos, perhaps the most
dgnifed of all these feudatories seems
to have forever disappeared from the
face of the earth.
The mass of these Mohammedans live
on an interior plateau of the island,
where they have hitherto had things
pretty nearly their own way. In the
early .nineties the Spaniards penetrated
this highland fastness and conquered
the people. Their plan for holding the
place was to people it with Christians.
and in order to do this resort to forced
immigration seemed to be necessary.
This brought on the rebellion in which
Aguinaldo first came into notice and
which lasted practically till the end of
the Spanish occupation. Thus was de-
veloped In the minds of these people
an anxiety for the safety of their lands,
the very garden, spot of this garden
island. When the Americans came. as
| have said, they soon removed all
fears from the minds of these people
on the religious question. but they re-
main exceedingly suspicious about
I tLair lands ,,,Jar 10 Door 7 ~, ba ,