SLAVERY IN THE PHILIPPINES.
COLONEL J. N. MORRISON, Judge Advocate U. S. A., is well known in the West. Colonel Morrison was a Missouri lawyer who, in 1893, was appointed by President Cleveland to be a clerk in the judge advocate’s office at Washington. When a vacancy occurred in the office of judge advocate, Morrison was appointed to the place with the rank of major. During the Philippine trouble he was assigned to duty in the Philippine Islands, and recently was promoted to the rank of colonel. The New York World has discovered that more than one year ago Colonel Morrison made a report to Washington relative to the conditions of the slave trade in the Philippines. This report was suppressed, and was not made public until the World printed it in its issue of July 21. Colonel Morrison’s report deals in full with slavery in the Philippines, and, according to the World, bears every evidence of careful inquiry. Here are some of the most pertinent of the results of his observations:— The slavery here has all of the essentials of the negro slavery formerly existing in the United States. For instance, a person—man, woman, or child—will be captured in war or kidnapped (privately and secretly or otherwise) in time of absolute peace; or one person will owe another a debt that he fails to pay, and the creditor will thereupon take the debtor’s child—son or daughter—or his sister or brother as a slave. These are the usual methods of converting free people into slaves, but not the only ones. When a slave is obtained in any way, he is simply the property of the owner. The owner will find him and otherwise take care of him. It is to his interest to do so, for the same reason that it is to his interest to take care of a horse or a carabao that belongs to him—i. e., because he is his and is property that has a value. The master has the same right to sell him that he would have to sell a horse, and they are constantly being bought and sold everywhere on the island, except among the Zamboangenians in the Zamboanga district. The offspring of slaves belong to the masters of the parents. Generally in this island the father and mother belong to the same person, and in cases where they do not it is the rule among some of the peoples for the offspring to belong to the owner of the father, while with others they belong to the owner of the mother. Among the Christian Visayans on this island slaves over twenty-one years old who become Christians are liberated by direction of the Catholic priests after they shall have been baptized by them. As was also the case in the former slave States of the United States, owners do not have the right to kill slaves because they belong to them. I am not quite sure that this is the case everywhere here, but the opinion I have formed from what I have learned is that it is. Moros enslave Moros, as well as pagans, and pagans enslave other pagans. But I do not think that there are any pagans who enslave people of their own tribe, except in cases where bad men steal the children of others of their own tribe, and run them off and sell them to Moros or Christians, or to pagans of other tribes. Among the people newly enslaved the young boys and girls sell for more than men and women do, unless the women have children that are enslaved, and which they will not run away from and leave in slavery. The men are very apt to escape, and therefore will sell for very little. Twenty-five Mexican dollars (worth $12.50 in American gold) is about the average price for a good boy or girl, according to my information. Men are of so little value that I am told that those who fall into the hands of slave-takers along with the women and children are apt to be killed rather than taken.—Commoner.