Boral, Kristel Anne L.

BSIT 308 Rizal’s Life and Works

The Cavite Munity

I. Brief Overview
a. What is the Cavite Mutiny?

❖ The Cavite Mutiny, (January 20, 1872), was a brief uprising of 200 Filipino troops and
workers at the Cavite arsenal that served as justification for Spanish repression of the
fledgling Philippine nationalist movement. The harsh reaction of the Spanish
authorities, ironically, served to further the nationalist cause.
b. What are the general events that led to the martyrdom of the GomBurZa?

❖ Fathers Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora were sentenced to death by
garrotte on February 15, 1872, by Spanish colonial authorities in Bagumbayan,
Philippines, for treason, sedition, and subversion. They were executed two days after
their verdict. The charges against Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora stemmed from
their alleged involvement in the Cavite Naval Yard workers' uprising. Governor Rafael
Izquierdo believed that the Filipinos would form their own government, and three
priests were allegedly nominated as the leaders of the planned government in order to
break free from the Spanish government.
❖ The death of GomBurZa instilled strong feelings of rage and resentment among
Filipinos. They grilled Spanish officials and demanded reforms in response to the Spanish
authorities' unfavorable governance. Ironically, the martyrdom of the three priests
aided in the formation of the Propaganda Movement, which sought reforms and
informed the Spanish people about the abuses of its colonial authorities in the Philippine
Islands.
❖ Aside from the execution of GomBurZa, the military court sentenced 41 mutineers to
death on January 28, 1872. The next day, however, Governor Rafael Izquierdo pardoned
28 mutineers and sentenced the rest. On February 6, 1872, Governor Izquierdo
commuted the death sentences of 11 mutineers to life imprisonment. Along with the
three martyrs, Enrique Paraiso, Maximo Innocencio, and Crisanto Delos Reyes were
sentenced to ten years in prison.

II. People Involved

a. Who was Fernando La Madrid?
❖ Ferdinand La Madrid was a mestizo sergeant who led the mutiny after Spanish
authorities subjected his Engineering and Artillery Corps colleagues to personal taxes
from which they had previously been exempted. The taxes required them to pay a
monetary sum as well as perform "polo y servicio," or forced labor.

b. Who was Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera?

❖ Trinidad Hermenegildo José Mara Juan Francisco Pardo de Tavera y Gorricho (13 April
1857 – 26 March 1925) was a Filipino physician, historian, and politician of Spanish and
Portuguese descent. He wrote the Filipino version of the bloody incident in Cavite.

c. Who was Jose Montero y Vidal?

❖ According to Jose Montero y Vidal, a Spanish historian, the Mutiny was an attempt to
remove and overthrow the Spanish colonizers in the Philippines. His account was
corroborated by Governor General Rafael Izquidero y Gutierrez, the governor-general
of the Philippine Islands at the time of the Mutiny. They stated that the mutiny was led
by a group of indigenous clergies.
 d. Who was Carlos Maria de la Torre y Navacerrada?

❖ Was a Spanish soldier and politician, he served as Governor-General of the Philippines

from 1869 to 1871 and is the most beloved of the Spanish Governors- General ever
assigned in the Philippines. The reforms of Governor-General Carlos Maria de la Torre y
Navacerrada that endeared him to the educated Filipinos were the abolishment of
censorship of the press, removal of flogging as punishment and solving the problem of
agrarian unrest in Cavite.

e. Who was Rafael Geronimo Cayetano Izquierdo y Gutierrez?

❖ Was a Spanish Military Officer, politician, and statesman. He served as Governor-

General of the Philippines from 4th of April 1871 to 8th of January 1873. He was famous
for his use of “Iron Fist” type of government. He was the Governor- General during the
1872 Cavite Mutiny which led to execution of 41 of the mutineers, including the
GOMBURZA martyrs.
 f. Who was Fr. Mariano Gomez?

❖ Mariano Gomes de los Angeles, often referred to by his original birth name Mariano Gomez de
los Angeles, was a Filipino Catholic priest, who was falsely accused of mutiny by the Spanish
colonial authorities in the Philippines in the 19th century.

g. Who was Fr. Jose Burgos?

❖ Jose Apolonio Burgos y Garcia was a Filipino Catholic priest, part of the GOMBURZA, a trio of
priests who were falsely accused of mutiny by the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippines
in the 19th century.
 h. Who was Fr. Jacinto Zamora?

❖ Jacinto Zamora y del Rosario was a Filipino priest, part of the GOMBURZA, a trio of priests who
were falsely accused of mutiny by the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippines in the 19th
century.

i. Who was Francisco Zaldua?

❖ Francisco Zaldua had been the principal informer against the three priests. His statement had
been the main basis for the convictions, and he had been promised a pardon in exchange for
his testimony, however, he was condemned along with the three. He was the first to be
executed among them on February 17, 1872.
a. “Defense” (Filipino side)
A Response to Injustice: The Filipino Version of the Incident

❖ The Filipino version of the bloody incident in Cavite was written by Dr. Trinidad Hermenigildo Pardo de
Tavera, a Filipino scholar, and researcher. According to him, the incident was merely a mutiny by native
Filipino soldiers and laborers at the Cavite arsenal who were dissatisfied with the loss of their privileges.
Tavera indirectly blamed Gov. Izquierdo's cold-blooded policies, such as the elimination of privileges for
workers and native army members at the arsenal, and the prohibition on the establishment of schools of
arts and trades for Filipinos, which the general saw as a cover-up for the formation of a political club.
On January 20, 1872, about 200 soldiers, arsenal workers, and Cavite residents led by Sergeant Lamadrid
rose in arms and assassinated the commanding officer and all Spanish officers in sight. Unfortunately, the
insurgents did not receive support from most of the army. When word of the mutiny reached Manila,
Gen. Izquierdo immediately ordered reinforcements of Spanish troops in Cavite. The mutiny was officially
declared over after two days.
Tavera believed that the Spanish friars and Izquierdo used the Cavite Mutiny as a powerful lever to
overthrow the Spanish government in the Philippines by magnifying it as a full-fledged conspiracy
involving not only the native army but also residents of Cavite and Manila, and most importantly, the
native clergy. It is worth noting that at the time, the Central Government in Madrid declared its
intention to deprive the friars of all powers of intervention in matters of civil government as well as the
direction and management of educational institutions. According to Tavera, the friars' desperate desire
to maintain power in the Philippines prompted them to do something drastic.
Meanwhile, the Central Government of Spain welcomed an educational decree authored by
Segismundo Moret that promoted the merger of sectarian schools run by friars into a school called the
Philippine Institute. The decree proposed raising the standard of education in the Philippines by
requiring competitive examinations for teaching positions in such schools. Despite the native clergy's
enthusiasm for secularization, most Filipinos welcomed this improvement.
Fearing that their influence in the Philippines would dwindle, the friars exploited the incident and
presented it to the Spanish government as a vast conspiracy organized across the archipelago with the
goal of destroying Spanish sovereignty. Tavera confirmed that the Madrid government came to believe
that the scheme was true without investigating the true facts or the scope of the alleged "revolution"
reported by Izquierdo and the friars.
Convicted educated men who took part in the mutiny received life sentences, whereas members of the
native clergy led by the GOMBURZA were tried and executed by garrote. This episode precipitates the
rise of nationalism and, ultimately, the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution of 1896. The account of the
French writer Edmund Plauchut supplemented the account by confirming that the event occurred due
to discontent among the arsenal workers and soldiers in Cavite fort. The Frenchman, on the other hand,
focused on the execution of the three martyr priests, which he witnessed.

b. “Prosecution” (Spanish side)

1872 Cavite Mutiny: Spanish Perspective

❖ The event was documented and highlighted as an attempt by the Indio’s to overthrow the Spanish
government in the Philippines by Jose Montero y Vidal, a prolific Spanish historian. Meanwhile, Gov. Gen.
Rafael Izquierdo's official report exaggerated the incident and used it to implicate the indigenous clergy,
which was then active in the secularization movement. The two accounts complemented and
corroborated one another, with the exception that the general's report was more scathing. Both Montero
and Izquierdo initially stated that the abolition of privileges enjoyed by Cavite arsenal workers, such as
nonpayment of tributes and exemption from forced labor, were the main reasons for the "revolution," as
they called it; however, other causes were enumerated by them, including the Spanish Revolution, which
overthrew the secular throne, dirty propaganda proliferated by the unrestrained press, democratic,
liberal, and republican books and pamphlets. Izquierdo, in particular, blamed the unruly Spanish press
for "stockpiling" malicious propaganda seized by Filipinos. He informed the King of Spain that the
 "rebels" intended to destabilize the Spanish government to install a new "Hari" in the form of Fathers
Burgos and Zamora. The general went on to say that the native clergy enticed other participants by
promising them charismatic assurances that their fight would not fail because God was with them, along
with handsome promises of rewards such as employment, wealth, and army ranks. In his report,
Izquierdo slammed the Indios for being gullible and having an innate proclivity for stealing.
The two Spaniards believed that the event of 1872 had been planned and was the result of a large
conspiracy involving leaders, mestizos, abogadillos or native lawyers, residents of Manila and Cavite, and
native clergy. They implied that the Manila and Cavite conspirators intended to execute high-ranking
Spanish officers before slaughtering the friars. The alleged pre-planned signal among Manila and Cavite
conspirators was the firing of rockets from Intramuros' walls.
According to the two accounts, on January 20, 1872, the district of Sampaloc celebrated the feast of the
Virgin of Loreto; however, participants in the feast celebrated the occasion with the usual fireworks
displays. According to reports, those in Cavite mistook the fireworks for an attack, and just as planned,
the 200-man contingent led by Sergeant Lamadrid launched an attack on Spanish officers on sight and
seized the arsenal.
When the news reached the iron-fisted Gov. Izquierdo, he immediately ordered the reinforcement of
Spanish forces in Cavite to put down the rebellion. When the expected reinforcement from Manila did
not arrive, the "revolution" was easily crushed. Major instigators, including Sergeant Lamadrid, were
killed in the clash, while the GOMBURZA was tried and sentenced to death by strangulation by a court
martial. Patriots such as Joaquin Pardo de Tavera and Antonio Ma Regidor, Jose, and Pio Basa, and
other abogadillos were barred from practicing law by the Audencia (High Court), arrested, and
sentenced to life imprisonment on Marianas Island. Furthermore, Governor Izquierdo disbanded the
native artillery regiments and directed the formation of a Peninsulares artillery force.

c. Governor-General Notes

❖ Izquierdo replaced Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre some months before in 1871 and
immediately rescinded Torre’s liberal measures and imposed his iron-first rule. He was opposed to any
hint of reformist or nationalistic movements in the Philippines. He was in office for less than two years,
but they will be remembered for his cruelty to the Filipinos and the barbaric execution of the three
martyrs- priests blamed for the mutiny.

IV. Aftermath
a. “End of the Mutiny”
❖ In the immediate aftermath of the mutiny, some Filipino soldiers were disarmed and later sent into exile
on the southern island of Mindanao. Those suspected of directly supporting the mutineers were arrested
and executed. The mutiny was used by the colonial government and Spanish friars to implicate three
secular priests, Mariano Gómez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, collectively known as Gomburza. They
were executed by garrote in Luneta, also known in Tagalog as Bagumbayan, on February 17, 1872. These
executions, particularly those of the Gomburza, were to have a significant effect on people because of
the shadowy nature of the trials. José Rizal, whose brother Paciano was a close friend of Burgos,
dedicated his work, El filibusterismo, to these three priests.
On January 27, 1872, Governor-General Rafael Izquierdo approved the death sentences on forty-one of
the mutineers. On February 6, eleven more were sentenced to death, but these were later commuted to
life imprisonment. Others were exiled to other islands of the colonial Spanish East Indies such as Guam,
and the Mariana Islands, including the father of Pedro Paterno, Maximo Paterno, Antonio M. Regidor y
Jurado, and José María Basa. The most important group created a colony of Filipino expatriates in
Europe, particularly in the Spanish capital of Madrid and Barcelona, where they were able to create
 small insurgent associations and print publications that were to advance the claims of the seeding
Philippine Revolution.
Finally, a decree was made, stating there were to be no further ordinations/appointments of Filipinos as
Roman Catholic parish priests. Despite the mutiny, the Spanish authorities continued to employ large
numbers of native Filipino troops, carabineros, and civil guards in their colonial forces through the 1870s-
1890s until the Spanish-American War of 1898.

b. “Rizal and the Mutiny”

❖ The execution of three Filipino priests, one of whom was an octogenarian, for something no one thought
they had anything to do with in the first place fueled a current of sympathy for the martyrs and
revulsion against the alien rulers who could bring the ax down on the innocent. After three and a half
centuries of foreign domination marked by unenlightened government, outright exploitation of people
and natural resources, and sporadic and desultory resistance on the part of the governed, the common
enemy now took shape, and the people felt united in their fight for the right to rule themselves, shape
their own destinies, and bear the consequences.

REFERENCES:

❖ Chandler, David P. In search of Southeast Asia: a modern history. University of Hawaii

Press. ISBN 0-8248-1110-0.
❖ Fleming, E. (2021) What are the reforms of Governor- General Carlos Maria de la Torre that
endeared him to the educated Filipinos. Retrieved from
https://www.sidmartinbio.org/what-were-the-reforms-of-governor-general-carlos-maria-de-la-
torre-that-endeared-him-to-the-educated-filipinos/
❖ Koh, E. (2021). The 1872 Cavite Mutiny. Retrieved from https://filipinojournal.com/the-
1872-cavite-mutiny/
❖ Unknown. (2021). Today In Philippine History, January 20, 1972, the Cavite Mutiny took
place. Retrieved from https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/891/today-in-philippine-
history-january-20-1872-the-cavite-mutiny-took-place
❖ Foreman, J., 1906, The Philippine Islands, A Political, Geographical, Ethnographical, Social,
and Commercial History of the Philippine Archipelago, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons