On November 27, 1899, Aguinaldo’s representative in this province wrote him that the inhabitants were preparing to kill all the Tagalogs and revolt against Insurgent rule. [329] Later when some of the latter were anxious to get the people of one of the northern settlements to take them on a short boat journey, these Visayans consented to give them a lift only on condition that they first allow themselves to be bound, and then took them out to sea and threw them overboard.

Another thing which Blount would have found it inconvenient to discuss is the conduct of the people of Cuyo, at one time the capital of the province.  On this island, which contains but twenty-one square miles, there were in 1903 no less than 7545 inhabitants.  They hated and feared the people of Mindoro and sent messengers to Iloilo, after the Americans had occupied that place, to beg for a garrison of American troops, and to say that if furnished with an American flag they themselves would defend it.  For some reason they were not given the flag, and the sending of a garrison was long delayed.  Having grown weary of waiting, they made an American flag of their own, hoisted it, and when the Insurgents from Mindoro came intrenched themselves and defended it.  They were actually being besieged when the American garrison finally arrived.  Here is one more fact inconsistent with the theory that the Filipino people were a unit at Aguinaldo’s back, and of course the easiest way to get around such an occurrence is to forget to mention it!

Mindanao

And now we come to the great island of Mindanao, which all but equals Luzon in size, having an area of 36,292 square miles as against the 40,969 of Luzon.  Blount’s first mention of it is peculiar.

In connection with the words “the other six islands that really matter,” in the passage above cited on page 116 of his book, he has inserted a foot-note reading as follows:—­

“The six main Visayan Islands.  Mohammedan Mindanao is always dealt with in this book as a separate and distinct problem.” [330]

But it was hardly possible for him to dismiss this great island, which is a little continent by itself, quite so cavalierly and I will quote the more important of his further and later statements regarding it:—­

“While the great Mohammedan island of Mindanao, near Borneo, with its 36,000 square miles of area, requires that the Philippine archipelago be described as stretching over more than one thousand miles from north to south, still, inasmuch as Mindanao only contains about 500,000 people all told, half of them semi-civilized, the governmental problem it presents has no more to do with the main problem of whether, if ever, we are to grant independence to the 7,000,000 Christians of the other islands, than the questions that have to be passed on by our Commissioner of Indian Affairs have to do with the tariff.  Mindanao’s 36,000 square miles constitute nearly a third of the