My very dear Friend: I accept your kind invitation, which so honors me and I'm going

to write you a few lines instead of a prologue. I'm not afraid of the difficulties of
writing in a language which I don't master; I'm not afraid because I follow the
impulses of my heart and the heart knows how to overeome grammatical and
lexicographic obstacles. It is not the purpose of these lines to present a dish to those
who relish the rich phraseology of the majestie language of Cervantes, no; my
purpose is to thank you in the name of the international republic of scholars, in the
name of the Philippines, in the name of Spain, for the publication of this most
important chronicle of the dear country in which you were born and whose adopted
son I consider myself to be. With this reprinting you have erected a mone-mentum
aere perennius' to the name Rizal. Morga's book always enjoyed the fame of being the
best chronicle of the "conquest" of the Philippines. Spaniards and foreigners are
agreed on this opinion, on this esti-mate. No historian of the Philippines can disregard
with impunity the wealth of data that sparkle in the work of the renowned justice; but
neither can it satisfy his desires, because Morga's Sucesos is a rare book, so rare a
book that the very few libraries that have it guard it with the same solicitude as if it
were a treasure of the Incas. It must be supposed that the Spaniards rendered the just
tribute of gratitude to the noble com-patriot, to the upright representative of the
metropolis in the Far East, to the gallant defender of the glorious Spanish flag, to the
greatest chronicler of the Philip-pines, but the expectations of the scientific world
were not fulfilled in the country bathed by the Tajo and the Guadalquivir. Not one
Spaniard could be found who, following the inspiration of a noble and prudent
patriotism, admired the work of the author who possessed in his character and soul the
best virtues of his nation and whose pen proved to be the precious pen of an excellent
author of lofty ideas. The Spaniards did nothing; the Spaniards who always boasted of
their patriotism and Hispanism; thus they lost an opportune moment of renewing the
glories of the glorious past. In view of this regrettable indifference of Spanish
Philipinologists, a foreigner (boldness) ! meddled in the transited the our ery age orie
lod, he Sunle work of the great Spaniard, applauded by the world of foreign
orientalists, but did not receive an honorable mention from that nation whose duty it
was not to leave the laurels of his undertaking to a foreigner. The scientific world was
satisfied; every orientalist, every Philippiniste, ought to understand English, and the
numerous notes and appendices of the translation did not hurt the value of the
"resurrection" of the Sucesos de Filipinas. Thanks to that translation, we foreigners
did not believe in the necessity or at least in the urgent need for the reprinting of the
Spanish original. this resignation and modesty of the outside warld, with this
indifference and apathy of Spain. In your heart, which is truly noble and generous,
you have felt the extent of national ingratitude, and you, the elder son of the Tagalog
nation, you, the martyr of a loyal and active patriotism, you were the one who paid the
debt of the nation— of the very nation whose degenerate sons mock your race and
deny them intellectual endow-ments. I admire this proof of patriotic nobility and
generous patriotism. The parasites, the friars, and the Spanish gods of the Filipino
world call you filibustero; thus you have been slandered by those who, for their
madness for greatness, for the sake of their pockets, and for the bandage of their
passions, are the indefatigable grave-diggers of the integrity of the mother country.
You have shown them who knows how to fulfill the duties of a patriot: The Filipino
scholar who renews the laurels of a great author, statesman, and fighter of Spain and
calls the attention of the government to the evils of the mother country or they who
sow racial hatred in the breast of the Filipinos by their jeers and irritating expressions
of contempt. You know already that you will be attacked cruelly by the crowd of
Spaniards who consider an educated Intered the wol of scholas, i that Filpine scholar
not only fulfills the duties that Spaniards first of all ought to fulfill, but also censures
the conduct of the European colonizers and civilizers, then the Malayan author can
consider himself lucky if only the anathema and curses of all those who believe
themselves superior beings, infallible and untouchable, should rain over him on
account of the place of his birth and the sickly color of his skin. But you have not
written your book for them. The new edition of the Sucesos is dedicated to scholars
and patriots. Both groups will be grateful to you. l have no doubt that your notes, so
scholarly and well-thought out, will stir the European world. More than 150 years ago
the just and Christian protest against the cruelties committed by the European
discoverers in the New World stopped spreading, its precursor being a noble
Spaniard, the venerable prelate, Las Casas. This mion and cominion, bu in he
succeeded only in stol ping the traffic of Negro slaves. The French idealists of the last
century protested against the maltreatment of the "colored" man" as a result of their
idea that the savage and the uncivilized man represent the ago of innocence of
humankind. Thus to the school of Rousseau as well as to various Spaniards the
colored man seemed a grown-up child with the difference that the latter deduced from
their theory the right to oppress him while the French idealists were in favor of apply.
ing to the "big children" all the inexhaustible and in-dulgent love that a father
professed toward his child.' So we observe that this affection toward the "colored
men" at bottom was a manifestation of the madness for greatness of the European race
because their supposition (erroneous) was that, with the exception of the white race,
of the Chinese and Japanese, all the other nations and races of the world are either
savages, primitive men, or at least men whom the providence of the Supreme Being
endowed with a childish and limited intelligence. Following this theory and the other
that modern civilization was a poison, the French ideal- an eternal tutorship of the
"colored to be so indulgent and so benign that everything would be permitted the
"colored men" while the white man was to play the role of nurse or governess of the
child whose bad conduct had to be excused and even praised. A good example was
the German Forster. On an islet in eastern Oceania, the natives stole his hat (if I
remember rightly.) Forster did not complain against the thieves; on the contrary, he
accused himself of having aroused the feeling of rapacity of the natives by using a
beautiful hat. He was a model for numerous others. If the ideas of those deluded men
had been realized, colored men would not have to thank their benevolent protectors,
because they proposed not only to protect them against the brutalities of our race but
also to protect and even nourish their vices and immoralities. The ugly nakedness of
reality ended the beautiful dream of the deluded men who forgot that in the breast of
every man slumbers the beast, that beast which, like the noxious bacilli that are killed
through disinfection, is killed only through the spread of education. But the illusions
of those enthusiasts did not remain sterile. The idea of the emancipation of slaves
originated in these illusions. I only regret that the noble and generous nation, the
Spanish nation, had ceded the laurels of the emancipation of the Negroes to a nation
who bears the surname of "mercantile" — the English nation. In the following epoch,
the cruelties committed by us Europeans were attacked, not for noble motives but for
national rivalries and vain glory. Then the English accused the Spaniards, the
Germans the Portuguese, the Dutch the French, etc., of having been barbarous and
cruel toward the natives of their colonies while they kept silent about the cruelties
committed by themselves either for malice or for being blinded by national love. The
modern era, in short, with its democratic ideas, ended by looking with other eyes on
their colored brothers. The new European generation proclaims, or rather recognizes,
not only the equality of races but also that of whole mankind. To us the colored man
is no longer a mystery or a human curiosity; the colored man is the same man as we
are. Now through the diffusion and advancement of geographical, ethnogra-phical,
and historical knowledge, we are ashamed of the period when we denied to those
brothers the full rights of man. Now we regret the errors, the crimes, the miseries that
stain the pages of the history of the European race. Now we confess with the
frankness of a repentant sinner our guilt and as the modern generation is not a deluded
generation but an active genera-tion, we extend our arms to our brothers asking them
to forgive the faults of our ancestors and we try to make up for the errors and crimes
of centuries past. So then, your observations on the conduct of the European
conquerors and civilizers are in general not new to the historian. The Germans
specially discussed this theme almost in the same manner as you do, and let no one
tell me that the Germans can talk about the cruelties committed by other nations
because they nave had no colonies, for Emperor Charles transferred to the bankers of
Augsburg, to the Welsers (the Bal-zaros of the Spaniards) the territory that is now
called Republic of Venezuela, and though German rule lasted only a few years,
German cruelties were no different from those committed by other nations and the
German historians rightly condemn with the greatest harshness the crimes of their
fellow nationals. So in general the accusations in your notes are not a novelty. But
with-out doubt it interests us how the picture of these days of discovery and
civilization is presented to the descend. ants of the maltreated, to the victims of
European in-tolerance. Naturally I have found out that you have painted it from other
points of view different from ours and that you have discovered things which have
escaped the attention of the Buropeans, because even the most impartial among us
could not renounce all the inveterate preoccupations of race and nationality. And
these new points of view give your notes an imperishable value, an undeniable value
even for those who dream of an inaccessible superiority of race or nationality. The
scholar will salute with enthusiasm your crudite anno-tations, the colonial politician
with gratitude and res-pect. Through those lines run a flood of serious observa tions
equally interesting and important to historians and ministers of overseas colonies
alike. My great esteem for your notes does not hinder me from confessing that more
than once I have observed that you suffer from the error of many modern historians
who censure the occurrences of centuries past in accordance with the concepts that
correspond to contemporary ideas. This ought not to be so. The historian ought not to
impute to the men of the XVI century the broad horizon of ideas that stirs the XIX
century. The second point with which I don't agree is some unbosoming against
Catholicism. I believe that the origin of numerous occurrences regrettable to religion,
to Spain, and to the good name of the European race should be sought in the harsh
behavior and abuses of many priests. Until this point I have referred only to your
historical notes. Their very perusal inspires great interest in every man devoted to the
scientific or political study of the colonial regime of the Spaniards as well as of the
other Europeans. This interest naturally increases when you speak of present-day
affairs, defending your compatriots and condemning the bad condition of the country.
I recommend the perusal of these annotations to all Spaniards who love the
Philippines and desire the preservation of the Archipelago. Even those who deny that
the Indio possesses natural human intelligence ought to read these lines in which an
Indio speaks of the errors and illusions of "superior beings." I don't expect that those
demi-gods can be cured of their pre-judices; to them your work is like your Tagalog
novel:
Enter
You sent
A mene, tokel, upharsian.' But — thank God —there is a sufficient number of
Spaniards who do not need the operation of the cataract or who suffer from gout and
these will follow attentively your suggestions. Every educated man knows by now
that the French adage applies to the questions of the colonial regime: Les jours de fete
sont pases.' The brutal exploitation of the natives cannot now find sufficient pretexts
to appease the very sensitive public morality of the present generation. Neither
religion nor civilization nor the glory of kings and nations now permits the conversion
of the natives into servants without rights, without liberties. Even those states which
hase their regime on the prestige of their race take very great care not to offend the
feelings of the ruled, because they know well that colonies cannot be preserved if the
mother country does not know how to inspire her children overseas If not with
affection, at least with the respect that one contracting party shows the other, to say
the truth, who contests the greater part part of the advantage of the contract, but at
least observes it scrupulously in all points. It is impossible now to regard colonies as a
rich grazing-ground for the adventures or for the enfants perdus of the mother coun-
try. The best men, the best talents, the most noble characters, ought to go out to fill
the positions overseas to be able to thus serve as leaders and supporters of the
integrity of the mother country and to restore, not the prestige, but the good name of
the European race. The Philippines forms a colony sui generis, inhabited by millions
of men whose religion is like ours, whose civilization is the child of our own, and
whose diverse peoples amalgamate with the bond of the Spanish lan-guage. Those
millions now aspire through the voice of their most enlightened sons to the
assimilation of their country by the mother country and hope for the redemption of
their country and the guarantee of the integrity of the mother country, not from the
magnanimity and nobility of the Spanish nation but from her sense of justice and
prudence. The best reforms that are introduced into the Philippines will remain sterile
if the policy of governmental terrorism continues, which places in danger the freedom
of every Filipino liberal and smothers brutally public discussion of the ills of the
country. The same policy in Russia created nihilism and in the Philippines it will be
indisputably the godmother of separatist ideas. Thus the present polley serves only to
compromise Spanish rule. The misfortune of Spain and the Philippines is that the
majority of the Spaniards do not want to recognize this truth. Some cannot recognize
it for their egotistic interests; others because they live on illusions or they regard the
colonies overseas with the boasted national indifference. To the first group belong the
friars and those government employees who do not govern or administer the country
but exploit its inhabitants. Every Hispanization or assimilation of the Filipinos or of
the Philippines disturbs the cireles of those predominant and powerful castes. To them
the slogan "The Philippines for Spain!" means "Filipino gold into our pockets!" They
fear the discussion of their abuses in the press of the country and in the Cortes of the
kingdom; so they work with all the strength of their soul and of their gold to foment
the traditional suspicion of the rest of the Spaniards, nourishing that hapless and
hysterical suspicion by means of calumnies, denouncing every truly pro-Spanish
movement of the Filipinos as filibusterismo. I don't he-lieve that all the partisans of
this anti-Filipino league are so blinded by their passions that they cannot see the
consequences of their behavior - the inevitable separation of the Philippines, or at
least, a series of uprisings that will cost Spain much blood and much more money: but
perhaps they trust in that "Apres nous le deluge", for they know by the Holy
Scriptures that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children until the fourth
generation. The friars at least know well that their power, their rule, will surely fall
with or without the will of Spain and so they try by all means and with the help of
pious frauds to postpone the end of their downfall. If this is brought about against the
will of Spain, that is, by the separation of the country, it would not matter to them,
because the orders of St. Augustine, St. Dominic, and St. Francis are international and
they remain Augustinians, Domi-nicans, even if the Philippines does not remain
Spanish territory, and in this case the friars either enter into an agreement with the
Filipinos or emigrate to the place indicated by their general who resides at Rome. If
the friars consent to the assimilation of the Philip-pines, they would do a patriotic act,
but a very im• prudent act with respect to the interests of their busi-ness. The ideas of
the friars are the following: "If we agree to assimilation, the consequence will be that
Filipino deputies will ask for the expulsion of the friars from the Philippines and they
will get it; so it will be suicide to agree to the parliamentary representation of the
Philippines and to other attributes of assi-milation; if we take advantage of the state of
ignorance of the country that prevails in the circles of the central government, we can
at least retard our downfall for some years to the benefit of our pockets." Filipino
radicals contributed greatly toward the development of this friar tactics, because they
proclaim the slogan "Out with the Friars!", thus placing the friars in the dilem-ma:
Either to renounce voluntarily and immediately not only their omnipotent influence
but also all their temporal property (which does not seem to them worth-less) or retard
their ruin at the expense of the integrity of the mother country and the welfare of the
Philip-pines. Thus the Filipino radicals, adopting the intolerance of the friars,
compelled them to follow the Latin adage oderint, dum metuant." The reasoning of
the exploiting employee is identical with that of the friars. To them assimilation is
their ruin, and naturally the interests of the stomach are greater than the interests of
the mother country. Thus the Philippines count on an army of enemies, so much more
fearful as they have in Spain the fame of being the support, the only support, of
Spanish rule and the only ones who know the coun try. According to my modest
opinion, the exploiting employees form an uncompromising party while the friars
would renounce much if they are guaranteed the rest.... I have said the adversaries of
the assimilation of the Philippines count on a large number of deluded persons.
Among them in the first place are those who suffer from the madness of the greatness
of the European race. Everything that does not smell of their country is repugnant to
them. The climate and the culinary art of the country seem to them hellish, and the
noses and the color of the skin of the Filipino Malays and Mestizos are horrifying to
them. It is true that those hapless representatives of our European race do not belong
to the haute rolee of the educated class, but in political questions the most educated
persons do not play an important role; so we will have to count on these speciments of
the genus humanum. They belong to the uncompromising class, because de gustibus
non est disputandum," and it is a disgrace for Spain that they form a very large class.
It is the fault of the government of the metropolis because it did not know how to
infuse in the minds of the Spanish youth in school dynamic love for their brothers
overseas; it cultivated dangerous national pride which is provocative and suicidal; but
it forgot to imbue the children with love and enthusiasm for all countries and all races
that form and inhabit the Spanish kingdom. If Spain did not have millions of colored
subjects, it would be well and very good to educate the Spanish youth in proud
illusions that every man who is not a Spaniard is inferior or repugnant, but as Spain
still preserves remnants of her old colonial empire, it seems more than imprudent for
the Spanish youth in the peninsula to forget that at least one third of Spanish subjects
do not have the phenomenal luck of having been born in the penin-sula. That national
and European pride is very aggressive and irritating and it is the greatest enemy of
Spain because it establishes as indisputable the superiority of the Castilas (Spaniards)
and does not allow either the realization of the aspirations of the Filipinos or even the
discussion of Philippine questions in a sense favorable to the desires of the country.
And this is the more regrettable as a favorable solution of the Philippine question is
certain, time only being insecure and the question of whether the solution will be for
or against Spain. This depends upon the Spaniards in the peninsula. If the features and
customs of the Filipinos seem to them so repugnant that it is not possible for them to
embrace them as brothers, the Filipinos will separate from them without doubt. A
Castila god of Manila, on the occasion of my humble defense of your Noli me
tángere, furious, wrote a little article in which this passage is found: "Are we not
Spaniards, Spaniards of a good race and ready for every sacrifice?" Congra-tulations,
I agree and I hope that this is not just a hollow phrase. The first duty of a Spaniard
who desires to preserve the country ought to be: Sacrifice the folly for greatness of the
European race and national vani-ties for the welfare and integrity of the mother coun
try; but, if I know those gentlemen, they will sacrifice their life, their money, and a
hundred Philippines, Cu-bas, and Puerto Ricos before they will renounce their
national vanities, as the fatuous and ruined nobleman sacrifices to his pride and vanity
the few properties that remain to him from his grandparents: Trahit quem-que sua
voluptas, stat pro ratione vanitas,l If Hispa-nism does not want to be converted into
big children's prattle, the Spaniards have to overcome their aversion to the flat noses
of the Indios and salute them as bro-thers; if that is not possible, they should authorize
the Filipinos to begin the war for independence. The interests of Spain deserve more
attention than the aesthetic concepts that certain lordlings form of the Indios. I repeat:
The Philippines can be preserved only with, never against, the Filipinos The second
group of deluded Spaniards is formed by those who are opposed to assimilation,
because they believe that it is not timely to grant it for the following reasons: Ist, the
country has numerous savage tribes; 2nd, even the Christian and civilized Indios are
still in a low level of education and culture. This is true, but it does not Impede the
realization of Phillppine aspirations. The numerous savage tribes do not matter
because they have a small number of souls, and the Filipinos do not claim the
extension of constitutional liberties to the savage tribes. Yes, it is true that in general
the Filipino Indios have little education, but the example of Bulgaria proves that
constitutional government does not depend upon the number of illiterates and
literates. Still it must be added that this is not the time to discuss the question whether
or not it is better to postpone the time for constitutional emancipa-tion, If we do not
want to provoke the danger of His-pania deliberante Philippinae perierunt." No one
should forget that the present state of the Philippines is intoler-able for any man who
has sufficient dignity in his breast and even to the last peasant, because wherever he
looks, he sees oppression, injustice, and offensive and injurious humiliation, and over
this the impossibility of defending oneself, because the last Spanish criminal believes
himself and considers himself superior even to the best and most noble son of the
country, while every Filipino who does not keep quiet and says "Amen" to every
despotic and corrupt act of the ruling caste receives the appelation of filibustero and
runs the danger of being deported and not only he but also his friends; for in the
Philippines, it is not only the criminal who is punished but also his whole family,
physically and spiritually, as the vexations of your family prove. That peaceful and
governable mass hears with greater pleasure what its educated sons tell it than what
the friars preach, beenuse naturally they have more confidence in the men of their
own race than in those of another, who always boast of their superior-ity. Thus the
Philippines will get by force, if they don't get them gratuitously, their parliamentary
representation and their rights to live free and respected. But I doubt if the Filipinos
would go to Madrid as deputies in the first case. Certainly the deluded ones of this
group trust in the painting of the Indio by the friars and the majority of Spanish
writers: The first ones disfigure it out of passion, the second because, blinded by their
pride, they do not know that thus a very unpleasant awakening awaits them. The third
and last group of deluded men hold the ideas of the first two groups; but their national
and European pride is not exaggerated to the point of degenerating into folly for
greatness, neither is it aggressive nor injurious. Thus they are better than the first
group but worse than the second, because the latter at least promises to the coming
generation what the present generation asks, while the third group says: "Never!" It is
composed of the routinists and doctrinaires who believe that the purpose of colonies is
to provide the Spaniard with employment and money and that the children of the
country must subordinate the interests of their country not to the interests of Spain but
to the well-being of a handful of Spaniards. As doctrinaires, they are not satisfied with
this rather bold and improvident pretension but they demand in addition the gratitude
of the Filipinos because the superior beings permit them to be born, to live, to suffer,
to pray, to pay, and to die ad majorem Hispanae gloriam." To be just, we must say
that the deluded men of the third group are against every kind of abuse and never will
permit a violation of the laws and honor to be covered up with the prestige of the
white race. But as their very ideas are nothing more than the codification of the abuses
of power and of the prestige of our race (according to those who believe in the innate
superiority of the Buropeans), so they create finally a regime that demands from its
employees justice and honesty while it is founded on an unjust and immortal basis.
Those three groups of deluded men exist in reality — the first is composed of many
Spaniards in Ma-nila; the second is represented by a series of benevolent ministers to
whom the country owes many laudable reforms but reforms that, in view of despotism
and terrorism, are like an excellent velocipede that is presented to a prisoner; the third
group includes a large number of Spanish senators and deputies to which we can also
add General Salamanca in view of his speeches in the Senate of the kingdom, though
unwitting agents provocalcurs" of filibusterismo, while the second functions like a
good Samaritan who bandage the wounds of a wounded gladiator so that he can come
out quickly again to the arena ad majus gaudium of the sovereign people. The lions
and tigers that attack the gla-diator are the friars and other Castilas, and the manager
of the performance is the third group of deluded Spa-niards. Though it seems
paradoxical, I believe that the indifferent persons among the Spaniards constitute the
hope of the country, for, as they have no anti-Filipino prejudices, it is supposed that
some day they may fraternize with those from the Philippines, if they are informed of
their true condition. But for this the help of the government is also needed to see to it
that the youth of the kingdom is taught the geography and ethnography of the
Philippines. It is very sad, and perhaps more than sad, to note that the youth of
countries which have no colonies, like my country Austria, is in general better
informed about the Philippines than the Spanish youth and in part even the Spanish
bureau-cracy. It is very sad, and perhaps even more than very sad, that Spain who
reigns over 6 or 8 million Malays, does not have either a college or academy for
Malay or oriental studies, the seminaries of the friars being the exclusive enterprises
of private or international corporations. It is imprudent, and perhaps even more than
imprudent, that the employees in the Philippines work like apprentices, for they do
not know the languages and ideas of their subjects, unable to graduate from the status
of apprentices because even when their terms of office have not expired yet, they
retire after staying a few years in their post, the governors a mere three years. It is a
monstrosity of transcendental consequences if every Petition of Right of the Filipinos
is considered a filibustero act that endangers the integrity of the mother country. All
this only serves to nourish filibuateriamo and to separate the colony from her
metropolis. All the enemies and adversaries of the assimilation of Filipinos will get
the same thing that the counselors of King Charles X of France obtained in 1830.
These observations are the fruit of the perusal of your notes, and it is the desire of my
soul that your book find in Spain a circle of readers who will not burst into
imprecations but will know how to deduce from its perusal that the Filipinos in reality
are not like those in the disfigured picture painted by the friars and your enemies. If
then they do not attend to the Filipinos, the Philippines will be lost, but through their
fault. They pretend to be noble but they do not know how to be just; they pretend to
be a superior nation and they do not know how to follow a prudent policy; they fear
separatist ideas and they compel the Filipinos to seek refuge in revolution. May God
will that these prophecies be not realized; but it seems that the govern. ments of Spain
lack the aptitude for that of paral tueri:" habent sua fata non solum libelli, sed etiam
regna.Is Finally, I reiterate my expressions of gratitude for the precious gift with
which you have tavored your mother country, and the whole civilized world. I hope
that you may continue your studies that honor Spain and the Philippines and glorify
your name and with it the name Tagalog. I conclude these lines wishing justice for
your work. Ferdinand Blumentritt Leitmeritz, Austria 9 November 1889