In 1906, the Taosugs were quite disenchanted with their Sultan and prominent datus. They hated the Americans and their man-made laws. When the US military patrols come to collect tax, they ran for cover.
Bud Dajo, Philippines Located : Patikul, Jolo Sulu Region : Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Elevation : 620m Type : Cinder Cone Rock Type : Basalt Eruptions : 1641, 1897 |
By March 1906 A Complete Massacre in Mount Bud Dajo
It is called the Battle of Bud Dajo, more than a thousand Moros -- men, women and children, made their way to the crater. Gen. Wood would not have any of their nonsense. He ordered his officers to gather in Jolo. Col. Duncan with about 800 officers and men from the 6th and 19th infantry, the 4th Cavalry, the 28th Artillery Battery, the Sulu Constabulary and sailors from the gunboat Pampanga, with mountain guns, rifles, bayonets, fast-firing pistols and grenades launched the assault on March 5.
The thousand or so Moro men, women and children were armed with kris, barungs and spears. By March 7, the smoke of battle has cleared. The people in the crater fought bravely, to the last Moro. There were no survivors. The Americans lost two dozen men and some seventy wounded. It was a complete massacre.
Filipino Casualties in the 1st day of war... Filipino Muslim buried in the crater of Mount Bud Dajo. |
Background
The first battle at Bud Dajo happened during the final days of General Leonard Wood's term as governor of the Moro Province. Wood's term was a time of great reform. Some of these reforms, including the abolition of slavery and the imposition of the cedula - a registration poll tax - were less than popular with his Moro subjects. The cedula was especially unpopular, since the Moros interpreted it as a form of tribute, and according to Vic Hurley, Moro participation in the cedula was very low even after 30 years of American occupation.These reforms, coupled with the general resentment of foreign Christian occupiers, created a tense and hostile atmosphere during Wood's tenure, and the heaviest and bloodiest fighting during the American occupation of Mindanao and Sulu took place under his watch.
Although Moro hostilities died down during the latter days of Wood's governorship (the tenure of Wood's replacement, General Tasker H. Bliss, was a period of relative peace), it was in this tense atmosphere of Moro resentment that the events leading to the Battle of Bud Dajo played out. According to Hermann Hagedorn, the Moro rebels of Bud Dajo were "the rag-tag-and-bobtail remnants of two or three revolts, the black sheep of a dozen folds, rebels against the poll tax, die-hards against the American occupation, outlaws recognizing no datto and condemned by the stable elements among the Moros themselves." Vic Hurley, author of Swish of the Kris, adds that “the causes contributing to the battle of Bud Dajo were resentment over the curtailing of slave-trading, cattle-raiding, and women-stealing privileges of the Moros of Sulu."