Paris and Morga’s

Sucesos

REPORTED BY:
SHANNEN A. PABUNAN
BSED 4-9
• Spanish reaction to the Propaganda Movement
• Rizal explicit on separation from Spain
• Becerra’s reforms sterilized by Weyler
• Marcelo del Pilar editor of La Solidaridad
• Rizal a freemason
• Translations of his works in Europe
• Nelly Boustead
• La Solidaridad prospered, two-thirds of
its distribution being to the Philippines,
one-third to Spain and elsewhere.

• La Politica de España en Filipinas, a

periodical founded in 1891 with the
express purpose of confuting La
Solidaridad.

• Edited by Jose Feced, it had an

associate editor Wenceslao Retana.
 Wenceslao Retana Jose Feced

• The writers who in the aftermath of Spain’s defeat

carried out a soul-searching examination of its causes,
aimed at making Spain look at herself in a truer light.
• Retana
Rizal’s first biographer, far from being his admirer and he eventually
became.
One of Rizal’s arch-supporters.

• Spanish opposition to the Filipino claims does not in general

seem to have been publicly voiced by men of any particular
eminence.

• Considering the remoteness of the Philippines – the Spanish

general public was far more interested in Cuba and Puerto Rico.
• Blumentritt’s assessment of the tone and content of the
articles opposing its views was that the friars were
thoroughly frightened of it.

• When Rizal published his Morga edition, both Morga and

Rizal being condemned as un-Spanish.

• Francisco Pi y Margall, knew Rizal personally and had a

high opinion of him, in 1891 accused in the Cortes of
encouraging and justifying a Filipino rebellion.
• Rizal was deeply grateful to Blumentritt for his
contribution, but he genuinely hated seeing him do it.

Leave it to us to resolve our affairs; we are struggling for our rights, the
rights of mankind, and if there is a God he must help us… Your life and the
peace of your family are sacred to me, and I fear lest our situation bring them
misfortune… For me, it is somewhat different. Nature, if I am not mistaken,
has given me a tender and delicate heart; I am disposed to friendship and
would like to be the friend of all, yet in spite of this needs must that I hide my
sentiments that I must revile and even hate and make a hundred enemies for
every friend. If I were a free European I would now be married; I would have a
family and be able to live near my parents, dedicate myself to science, and
with my friends, in peace and tranquillity, contemplate and love this beautiful
world. If you only knew how I envy the poorest clerk here in London!
• Rizal’s political articles in La Solidaridad, most of them
written for the moment and to meet a given situation.

• Spanish polemical style, Rizal handled this medium with

unusual restraint, articles always vivid in their imageries,
contain fine passages, they cannot as a whole be classed
among his better writings.
• Filipinas Dentro de Cien
Años (The Philippines a
Century Hence), contains
political chances of the
Philippines being able to
stand on their own as an
independent country,
taking into consideration
the aims and possible
attitudes of neighbouring
states in Asia and of the
foreign powers with
interest in the East.
• The United States, only one of the great powers which so far
had not taken part for overseas possession, might be
aroused to similar desires.
• Since Rizal’s second departure from the Philippines he had
begun to speak and think more freely about complete
independence, and despite La Solidaridad’s policy of
assimilation he expressed his more radical views in the
periodical and put in its simplest form:

“If a colonizing nation cannot bring happiness to her

colonies, she must either abandon them or give them liberty.”
• In his writings for La Solidaridad he still did not press for
independence as a definite aim. But warned Spain
clearly, in the light of the changes he himself had set
afoot.

There is no instance in history that can be cited where a people on the way to
enlightenment has ever been made to retrogress. Decline does not come till after
the summit is reached. The waterfall does not rise; the fruit does not revert into
flower hood. Does the government wish to assure to itself the love of the
Philippines? Give her liberties; treat her as she deserves. Does it wish to lose her?
Then let it continue with its unjust repressions, close its ears to the clamours of
the people, and condemn them to slavery.
• The Propaganda Movement was winning the Filipinos
numerous friends among Spanish liberals, but this had
not yet produced anything concrete.

• May 1889, his friend Pardo de Tavera, returned to Paris

saying that life in the Philippines was becoming
impossible, and forecasting that unless conditions
improved, within ten years there would be a serious
revolution.
• Meanwhile, letters from Manila described a deteriorating
political climate, the city alive with rumours of impending
revolt. To the Spaniards it spelled danger.

• Weyler, advised by the friars, continued on his inflexible

course. 1889, he marked the issue from Madrid of two
important decrees concerning the Philippines, the first
(31 July) making the Civil Code applicable to the Islands,
second, (12 November) known as Becerra law,
introducing in the main towns of the Philippines a
substantial measure of local self-government on the
basis of elections.
• The Propaganda Movement now had its own secret
organization in Manila, looking after the distribution of La
Solidaridad and other pamphlets, raising funds, and
keeping in close touch with Barcelona.

• By June, Lopez Jaena, was pulling his weight less and less
as editor of La Solidaridad. Del Pilar was practically
editing the paper, and a week or so later he took over
entirely.
• It was the year of the Paris Exhibition, of which the Eiffel Tower
stands as the memorial, and Rizal suggested that the remaining
propagandists might want to hold a conference.

• In September, Del Pilar, came to meet Rizal, whom he informed his

plans to move La Solidaridad to Madrid and make it into a weekly.

• Del Pilar, eleven years older that Rizal, turned out to be short and
stocky with a tough moustache and a commanding manner. The
most able propagandist the Filipinos had in Spain, and his
friendship and collaboration were essential.
• Rizal recently become a freemason.

• The circumstances of his induction are unknown, as also

are his motives, but in the opposition of the Spanish
Church, this move on his part cannot but suggest the
adoption of a more extreme position in respect of the
Church; and remembering that the political problem of the
Philippines was predominantly an ecclesiastical one, the
move may in part reflect his diminished faith in the policy
of assimilation.
• Whatever his personal views on this, he had by becoming
a mason formally allied himself with a group of men whom
the Spanish Church regarded as their sworn enemies.

• His formation in Paris of a Filipino organization called the

Indios Bravos, its aim were to keep the Filipino colony
united and to encourage manly sports.
• Within it was a secret inner group, beneath the concealment
of the code letters Rd.L.M, was pledged to be made good
first in the Philippines, later to be extended to the
inhabitants of Borneo, Indonesia and Malaya.

• On his Paris visit, Del Pilar became a member of this inner

group, another member being Basa in Hongkong.
• In January 1890, Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas, newly brought to light and annotated by Rizal, with a
preface by Blumentritt, was published in Spanish by Garnier
Freres in Paris.

• Rizal paid for the publication with his own little money.

• Rizal severed all connection with Regidor.

• Del Pilar was at loss to understand it, even wondering if Rizal’s

motive was a racial one.
• Rizal was very touchy on certain matters concerning his
family and with honour.

• It is also another indication of the strain which he was

working, the main cause of it was anxiety about his family
in their persecuted and cholera-stricken town.

• Another deep cause, Rizal was carrying in his mind the

sinister character of Simoun, the hero of his second novel,
the macabre atmosphere of which was already around him.
• Rizal’s annotations to Morga, scholarly and achieving their aim of
broadening the Filipino’s knowledge of their past. The fact
remains that the edition achieved its immediate political and
educational aim.
• The bulk of copies were sent to Basa in Hongkong, within a
month or two, the author had the satisfaction of learning that the
book was in demand, selling at double its published price.

• At the same time as the Sucesos he published his Tagalog

Orthography.
• Blumentritt had already translated Noli Me Tangere into German.
• Rizals’ 3 large literary projects was left at the beginning of
1890 with the one which, having now already dealt in the present
Noli Me Tangere, and with the past with Morga’s Sucesos, would
deal with the future. His second novel El Filibusterismo,
dealing with revolution.

• During Rizal’s stay in Paris, he lived first in a series of hotels

before moving on July 1889 to lodge with Valentin Ventura
on the Rue de Maubeuge, close to the Gare du Nord.
• Eduardo Boustead, wealthy
Anglo-Filipino, son of the most
famous of Britain’s East India
merchants.

• Eduardo came to claim the

inheritance in London, wherein
the English Family was not aware
of his existence. He was unable to
prove his legitimacy.
• Nelly Boustead considered herself a Filipina
‘though for the present I am an English
subject’.

• She was more handsome than beautiful.

Had her grandfathers’ determined mouth,
strong nose and jaw. Rule out her eyes and
hair, and hers was a boy’s face, the face of
the boy that perhaps her parents wanted.
Something masterful about her appearance
and character. Enjoyed men’s sports. She
thought nothing but fencing with Rizal.
• Nelly Boustead was a thinker like Rizal and his grandfather,
by nature religious and overriding sense of honour. She
was the closest woman to Rizal’s life in character.

• In the autumn of 1889, Nelly left Paris with her parents and
went to Biarritz. It seemed to his friends that he is
interested and perhaps even in love with her.

• Rizal was under an impression that Antonio Luna was

standing in his own way.
• In a frank letter written, discovering the situation, Luna
said that the two of them must not allow themselves to be
the victims of misinformation.

• In the following letter, both, was interested in Nelly.

• As to the direction of her own sentiments, the young lady

remained an enigma.