Narito ang
ilang saliksik hinggil sa Battle of Bud Bagsak:
OPINION: The Battle of Bud
Bagsak
Amir Mawallil
Posted at Jun
16 2016 12:07 AM
Forget the name. But why should we not forget the
name?
For people from Zamboanga City, Gen. John
"Black Jack" Pershing is a popular park located right at the heart of
the city, a city that is only about 8 hours from Sulu by slow boat.
And so we try to remember that what happened in
Sulu between the Moro people and the American soldier who was memorialized by
Zamboanga.
It’s clear that to memorialize the man was part of
the deal — to also memorialize legend that surrounded his exploits in Sulu
archipelago. It was a totem of gratitude from the people of Zamboanga City, an
offensive against those who fought hard against the colonizer.
Ironically, to remember General Pershing was our
participation in the construction of a grand Filipino narrative, which is
Philippine history.
Last week, in a national newspaper, Senator Sonny
Angara urged the government to educate young Filipinos about the Moro history
by enacting a law that mandates integrating indigenous peoples and Moro
history, culture, and identity in the curriculum of both basic and higher
education.
The key word was integration. Perhaps through this
law, Pershing and his exploit in the Battle of Bud Bagsak in 1913 will now be
highlighted in the mainstream national cultural and intellectual production
through memorializing and remembrance in aid of education as a state apparatus.
The Battle of Bud Bagsak was fought between June 11
and 15, 1913. Moro freedom fighters led by Datu Amil, together with their wives
and children, were fortified in the mouth of a dead volcano, the Bud Bagsak, to
resist American forces in the province aided by the local Moro leaders and
natives.
Pershing had observed that whenever the American
forces advanced, the Moro freedom fighters retreated to Bud Bagsak, carrying
with them non-combatants, women and children, refusing inclusion and
subjection.
Pershing, a veteran general whose expertise in
pacifying natives extending back to the Sioux Indians rebellion in the Iowa in
1890s, devised a plan on how to penetrate the fortified Moro camp at the mouth
of a volcano that was protected by a steep slope ringed by several cotta forts.
Bud Bagsak is a testament to the ageless narrative
of warfare that deception is an indispensable tool to victory.
In January of the same year, Datu Amil was able to
reinforce almost 3,000 Moro freedom fighters in Bud Bagsak. In February,
Pershing brought in the 8th Infantry to Jolo to capture Bud Bagsak. In the
guise of retreat and helplessness to engage Moros in a battle in their own
territory, Pershing postponed the attack on Bud Bagsak, prolonging the standoff
between the two parties for several months.
During the standoff, Pershing intended to separate
the rebels first from the non-combatants as genocide in the archipelago
(because of the past military operations), the collateral of the US imperialist
project, reached the mainstream media in the homeland that sparked debates on
the US presence in the Philippines.
Datu Amil fell into the trap because of hubris or
miscalculation; no one can really tell. Perhaps he thought that the Americans
were weak and their refusal to engage in battle was an impending sign of
defeat.
This lasted for five months, too long for the Moro
leader to stand. When Pershing finally attacked Bud Bagsak, Datu Amil retreated
to the mountain with now reduced to 500 Moros with him.
For five months of game-playing and deterrence, his
supporters were reduced in numbers as the long period of Pershing’s silent
campaign against Datu Amil affected and disrupted the economy, trade, and
agriculture on the island that forced some Moros to abandon Bud Bagsak.
It was in mid-June that Pershing and his men were
able to penetrate the mouth of the mountain, killing almost 500 Moro combatants
together with their women and children. The battle claimed 14 American lives.
It was the last bloody Moro resistance in Sulu archipelago in the annals of
Philippine history.
Philippine history as a grand narrative is an exercise
of remembering. But how to forget or to remember with prejudice and
selectivity, depending on how these processes, will serve the interests of the
grand narrative.
Remembering, as a national activity, is seldom
subjected to examination and uncovering of the truth. Because of this, the
remembering is often reduced to ‘remembering how to forget’ — when half of the
process should be intended to accept, recompense and correct, forgive, and
heal.
What General Pershing’s name pushes us to remember
is how to forget the Battle of Bud Bagsak.
"To remember how to forget" is how this
macabre story of the battle between American soldiers, aided by locals and Moro
recruits, and the supporters of Datu Amil is being constructed in the national
imagination, if at all there is an attempt for its inclusion in retelling it to
the Filipino nation.
We remember how the Americans "contained"
the Moro rebellion in Mindanao, how they were able to successfully assimilate
the Moros to the Filipino body politic through the sweetness of their promises
of emancipation through their benevolence as a colonial master.
We remember how the Americans introduced education,
established the local governance and bureaucracies in the archipelago, and
civilized these various ethno-linguistic groups that resisted
"civilization" and the promises of US benevolence.
What we have forgotten, however, is this: the Moro
freedom fighters' resistance against colonialism as a tool for conquest and a
system of domination against the US imperialist project that included creating
a homogenous Filipino nation under the American rule and with its local
complicit partners of nationalist comprador elites and landlords.
What we try to forget is that Bud Bagsak was a
bloody pacification project to reject the Moro assertions or the compromise of
their own narratives in the construction of a homogenous archipelagic nation.
The right to self-determination is among its conditions.
What we should always remember is that Bud Bagsak
is a narrative of resistance against all forms of colonial domination,
including that of Filipinos.
To remember then is to betray the cause. To forget
is an act of defiance against appropriation.
What we try to remember now is how to forget that
Moros resisted foreign domination as far back as the American colonial
occupation of the archipelago.
What Philippine history, this insidious grand
narrative, will not tell us is that Moro rebellion in Mindanao, even up to this
day, has a long history of struggle, and it has a narrative of its own apart
from the dominant narratives woven at the center: the Filipino nationalist
narrative of a homogenous nation.
What we also try to remember is how to forget that
Bud Bagsak, a Moro’s narrative for resistance, is a historical text critical
and ambivalent to be included in the narratives of the victors, as the Scouts,
local soldiers of the Philippine infantry, Moro and Filipino leaders in
Mindanao and Manila and their perfidious relationship with the colonial master
were direct and complicit partners in the gruesome murder of Moro freedom
fighters and their families in Bud Bagsak.
The act of remembrance, in a country that is still
haunted by its colonial past, is to continuously build those narratives that
favor the center and to appropriate the peripheries or to silence the
counter-narratives that will derail the grand narrative to reach its
completion.
In times like these, when a bill in Philippine
Congress is being pushed so Moro history can now be integrated in the
curriculum on Philippine history— the act of forgetting, as in the tradition of
Bud Bagsak and the Moro freedom fighters and non-combatants who fell in the
battle, is an act of a non-committal form of resistance against the domination
of an exclusive nationalist remembrance.
Amir
Mawallil, 27, is a member of the Young Moro Professionals Network, the
Philippines' biggest organization of Muslim professionals.
The Battle of Bud Bagsak
(June 11-15, 1913)
Pershing's Disarmament Campaign:
Sunday,
April 16, 1911 1t Lt. Walter H. Rodney, a recently arrived young officer of the
6th Cavalry, was out for a stroll with his five year old daughter on a wide
boulevard outside the walls of the Jolo garrison. As the pair walked by a
cockpit, thronged with excited, screaming spectators watching a cockfight, a
lone, young male Tausug approached from the opposite direction. As they passed
one another, the Tausug suddenly pulled a barong from his shirt, whirled about,
and repeatedly slashed the hapless officer about the head and shoulders. Rodney
staggered to the side of the road, mortally wounded. His daughter, though
traumatized, was left unharmed as the man quickly discarded his weapon and
attempted to hide in the nearby crowd. Cries of "juramentado" went up
from the cockpit and hundreds ran for the safety of the guarded village gate.
The commanding officer of the garrison, by chance only a few yards away in a
passing carriage, yelled for the gate sentries who, assisted by the crowd,
confronted the assailant and shot him to death. Three days later, at the
Asturias guardhouse, at the opposite end of the road, the sergeant of the guard
began to search two young Moros for weapons, when both suddenly drew barongs
from hiding and killed him instantly. Another guard shot both men, killing one
and mortally wounding the other.
This was the first such incident in five years, and
General Pershing concluded that, while Rodney's death was unfortunate, the real
blame lay with the newly-arrived garrison commander who had failed to enforce a
long standing order that no officers and men were to be permitted to go outside
the garrison walls unless armed. Not only Rodney, but the commanding officer
himself and several other nearby officers had been unarmed and might have been
able to intervene. But to their dismay, in reporting on the incident the
American press faulted Pershing and Bell, claiming they had been "too soft
and weak" on the Moros. It turned out that a few Americans in the
Philippines had anonymously written Rodney's father, a retired Army
General, falsely claiming that the real
reason Rodney and the others had been unarmed was due to a direct order from
Pershing forbidding them to carry weapons. The letters further claimed Pershing
had claimed in to pressure from the datus. In in his grief, Rodney's father had
written angry letters to the Taft administration and members of Congress raging
over the "stupidity" and "calumny" of the "civil
government" of Moroland. Uncharacteristically and for reasons unclear,
Pershing panicked and reacted to the outside pressure even though his superiors
fully supported him and knew the accusations to be false. Over the astonished
objections of the Constabulary and Scouts, the very people he relied upon to
maintain public order, on September 8, 1911 Pershing issued Executive Order No.
24 ordering the total and immediate disarmament of Moro Province, an action he
had strongly opposed only a few weeks before.
Nearly all Army officers who had previously served
in Moroland thought Pershing was out of his mind; particularly since it
specified not just a total ban on firearms but the carrying of any and all
edged weapons of more than six inches in length. This struck at the very heart
of the Moro warrior culture and the reality that, despite a formal American
system of laws and policing, the average Moro still looked upon his or her
datu for protection, redress, and
justice, not the government. How could a datu enforce the traditional communal
beliefs of right and wrong and preserve stability without arms? Even hard-line
Leonard Wood, now Army chief of Staff, felt Pershing had bitten off more than
he could chew. Holding out both a carrot and a stick, Pershing offered cash
bounties on all proscribed weapons turned in before the end of 1911, but with
the threat of heavy fines and incarceration for those caught with contraband
weapons after that date. Those arrested were held indefinitely until relatives
were able to raise money to pay the fines.
As expected the Moros were outraged, and in many
cases took out their anger at what they saw as the impotency of their headmen
by switching allegiances to younger,
vocal firebrands who, nursed a growing sense of shame and outrage that the
older generation of leaders had so willingly acquiesced to a long period of
control by foreigners. Particularly restive were the Maranaos of Lake Lanao and
the Tausugs of Jolo. Violent incidents between Americans and Moros multiplied,
resulting in a steady stream of small skirmishes in Lanao between the
Constabulary and the Maranaos and the 2nd Battle of Bud Dajo on Jolo during
Christmas Week of 1911. Random shots fired at night into the Jolo garrison
became so common that the wives and dependents of the garrison were evacuated
to Zamboanga. But in early 1912, as tensions were at a high point, word came
down from the War Department for Pershing to back off from enforcement of the
disarmament order until after the November US presidential elections.
Temporary Suspension of the Disarmament Order:
The U.S.
Presidential election of 1912 ranks as one of the more consequential in the
nation’s history. The three-way battle between Taft, Roosevelt, and Woodrow
Wilson had an impact on the future of the nation and, in turn, altered the
great experiment in transplanting “Americanism” to the Philippine Islands, and
solving its most intractable problem, Moroland. Pershing suspended enforcement,
announced a new deadline for compliance after the November polling date, and
renewed and increased the bounty offer for firearms. Wisely, he backed away
from the ban on bladed weapons. Violence subsided. At first the Americans were
at buoyed by seeing a dramatic increase in the number of weapons surrendered.
But it soon became apparent that the new Tausug leadership were combing the
populace for thousands of older, obsolete rifles, shotguns, and pistols,
turning them in and using the proceeds to purchase modern, high-powered,
bolt-action models from arms dealers. In effect, they were using the lull
to better their arms.
Renewal of the Disarmament Campaign:
Following
the election and in the substantial power vacuum that existed between then and
the inauguration in March of 1913, the new deadline expired and Pershing issued
orders to the Constabulary and Scouts to resume enforcement. But by now the
Tausugs had coalesced behind a single, charismatic leader and Moro nationalist
named Naquib Amil. When confronted by government agents over his known
accumulation of a hidden a cache of at least 300 new, high-powered rifles, Amil
simply shrugged and replied, “Tell the soldiers to come on and fight.”
Pershing
took up the challenge, sending three companies of Scouts, one company of
Constabulary, a battery of mountain guns, and a troop of the 8th Cavalry to
surround the small cotta of Amil’s deputy Datu Sahipa, suspected of being the
hiding place of the arms. Although greatly outnumbered, 65-70 well-armed
Tausugs, led by Amil and Sahipa, put up a stiff fight, repelling the initial
assault, and inflicting 20% casualties on the American side and killing the
American commander. Although two-thirds of the defenders died, Amil, Sahipa,
and many others escaped with the arms cache through hidden passageways while a
second assault was under preparation. Ominously, the American edge in
firepower--and marksmanship—seemed to have eroded. A few days later a ferocious
night attack was made by eight juramentados, religiously-motivated suicide
warriors, on Camp Steever at Siet Lake. In the days that followed, several
times snipers fired into the Jolo
garrison at night, forcing Pershing to once again evacuate badly spooked
American dependents from the island.
Amidst
this fighting, an estimated more than 6,000 Moros loyal to Amil, almost ten
times the number of those on Bud Dajo, gathered on a second dormant volcano,
Bud Bagsak. With five separate summits, Bagsak posed a knottier tactical
problem than Bud Dajo. Governor-General Forbes ordered Pershing to nip the
insurgency in the bud, but Pershing feared an inadvertent blood bath, a repetition
of 1st Bud Dajo on a larger scale. He knew that, as at Bud Dajo, two-thirds of
those on the mountain were probably women and children. Using the Sultan of
Sulu and a number of the older datus as intermediaries a bichara was arranged
with Amil. Pershing promised to suspend the disarmament effort if Amil and his
people would leave Bagsak, return to the villages, and keep the peace. The
tensions briefly subsided and Pershing quietly suspended enforcement.
However
Governor General Forbes, seeking reappointment by the new Wilson administration
and not wanting to appear weak, ordered Pershing to reinstitute the disarmament
campaign. Reluctantly, Pershing
complied, but even many previously friendly Moros now refused to
cooperate. Few firearms came in and the level of resistance ratcheted up. In early June of 1913, Pershing received word
that Amil had quietly returned to Bud Bagsak with between 300-400 well-armed
men and built fortifications on its highest summit. Believing a showdown was
now inevitable and fearing even more that there could be a pell-mell rush to
the mountain of the large number of women and children from nearby coastal
villages, Pershing devised a secret plan.
The Battle:
Orders
were posted temporarily suspending all field operations, including disarmament
activities, stating General Pershing would be absent for several weeks in order
to enjoy a vacation with his family at Lake Lanao. That night with much fanfare
and ceremony, Pershing departed Zamboanga by an Army transport, accompanied
only by his aide de camp. But once away from the city the running lights were
doused and the vessel headed to two nearby islands to pick up waiting companies
of Philippine Scouts. Arriving in Jolo near midnight, he walked into the middle
of a raucous party of the Army’s 8th Infantry at the officer’s club. Pershing
ordered them to sober up and assemble their men, their assignment to guard
Jolo.
Pershing
quickly assembled an expeditionary force of 883 officers and men, however only
one infantry company (50 men from Company M) and a demolition detail from the
8th Cavalry (25 men) were US Army Regulars. Over 90% of the force consisted of
eight companies of Philippine Scouts (including the two that were all Moro).
Two thirds of the expedition piled onto large barges pulled by steam launches,
traveling 15 miles along the coast to land at a trail leading directly up to
Bud Bagsak. The other third marched 20 miles overland to flank the opposite
side of the mountain. By early the next morning, Bud Bagsak had been surrounded
and the trails that could bring reinforcements, supplies, and the huge expected
surge of villagers from the coast had been blocked. As a result, few if any
additional warriors and almost no women and children reached the mountain
during the battle that followed. However, Amil and his small band of 300-400,
while surprised, were dug into defensive positions and prepared with abundant
ammunition.
The large
crater of Bagsak was horseshoe-shaped, closed on three sides and open at
one-end. Three smaller summits within the crater stood just behind the opening
and guarded the entrance. An immediate, simultaneous assault took the three
smaller hills in the early morning hours, with minimal casualties. Amil made a
serious, and fatal, tactical mistake by concentrating most of his men and
firepower on the higher, main summit and too few on these three lesser rocky
promontories, where they could have brought a deadly cross-fire to bear and
possibly blocked Pershing’s men from entering the crater or at least made them
pay a higher price. The defenders only
briefly resisted and then fled to trenches on the side of a fourth, but lower,
summit named Pujagan, further back in the crater. From these heights, two mountain
guns, the 8th Infantry company, and two Scout companies pummeled the trapped
Tausugs for the rest of the day and through the night, inflicting many
casualties and gradually rendering Pujagan untenable. In desperation, the
survivors made a last desperate, suicidal charge in successive waves of 12 to
20 men each, getting as close as 40-50 feet from the American lines but no
further. An American officer recounted, “None of the charging Moros reached our
lines alive.” A day later in burying the bodies, the corpse of Amil was found.
But Sahipa and about half of the defenders still commanded the ridges and
summit of Bud Bagsak.
For the
next two days, Pershing carefully maneuvered his forces into position for a
final assault. However, highly accurate, long-range Tausug sniper fire from
well up the mountain hindered the effort and caused the death of Captain Taylor
Nichols, who led both Moro companies. Pershing selected the two all-Moro Scout
companies (170 men total and now under the command of Captain George Charlton)
to make the final assault. On June 15, the 51st Scouts, Maguindanaos from
Cotabato, and the 52nd Scouts, Maranaos from Lanao, attacked up through lines
of trenches and barricades, straight up a steep, partly open , curving slope
for 450 yards (415m) to eventually capture a large stone cotta at the top. The
51st and 52nd were backed up by the 24th (Ilocano) and 31st (Tagalog) Scouts,
Christian companies from the northern Philippines. The intense fighting that
followed lasted nine hours, and became the fiercest, hardest-fought military
action to take place in Moroland during the entire period of direct American
rule. But nearly all of the fighting on the American side, although directed by
white officers, would be carried out by Moro or Filipino foot soldiers and
non-coms, supported by three mountain guns of an American battery. The 8th
Infantry company would watch, not participate in the pivotal final battle.
At 1:30
PM, two-thirds the way up the slope, the assault began to stall. Pershing
rushed to the front line and took personal charge. He wrote his wife Frankie a
few days later, “It looked for a time as though we should not be able to carry
it…. I am a wreck today.” He rallied the Scouts just in time. Sensing a
counter-attack, Captain George Charlton, ordered his men back to a defensive
position just in time to meet a furious charge from above. Firing without stop,
the Moro Scouts inflicted heavy losses on the defending Tausugs, but as both
sides ran low on ammunition rifles were flung aside and Moros on both sides
reverted to their ancient form of warfare; a desperate hand-to-hand battle of
kris, barong, and kampilan, see-sawing back and forth for another two hours.
The Christian Scouts rushed ammunition from below to their Muslim compatriots
and the end came with a climactic, final rifle assault by the Moro Scout
companies on the stone cotta, its screaming defenders making a last, furious
counter-charge at 4:40 PM. “A few escaped but the remainder fought with
fanatical fury until life was extinct” (wrote 1st Lt. James Collins who stood
beside Pershing).
The
American expeditionary force lost fifteen dead and twenty-nine wounded, roughly
a 5% casualty rate (author’s count made from unit reports). An official body
count was not made of the Tausug dead, although it was reliably estimated that
from 300 to 400 male warriors had been on the mountain at the outset of the
battle and there had been no reinforcements. Escape tunnels had been
incorporated into the trenches and cottas, and the two blocking companies had
been pulled away from their flanking positions. As the fighting neared an end,
a large number of defenders were observed fleeing, perhaps as many as one-third
who were on the field. Few rifles were recovered from the battlefield, most
having been carried off. Thus, although there was no official count, it appears
likely between 200 to 300 Tausugs were killed in the battle. The climactic
final assault was largely a Moro-versus-Moro fight, Maguindanaos and Maranaos
against Tausugs, although the dangerous task of carrying ammunition and water
up the exposed slope fell to Christian Filipinos.
Aftermath:
Perhaps
because of few American deaths and the public focus on the upcoming transfer of
political power, the battle received little attention in the American press.
But one month later a former civilian employee of the Quartermaster Corps named
John McLean got off a boat from Manila, went immediately to the offices of a
small San Francisco newspaper, and leveled the charge that he had been present
on Jolo during the battle and claimed as fact that 1,600 Moros, mostly women
and children, had been massacred by (white) American troops. He further
asserted that Pershing had placed three newspaper reporters under arrest in
order to suppress the story. The front-page headline read “BUTCHERED MOROS HE
SAYS.” But other newspapers, skeptical of the source, were unable to find
verification and refused to publish it. Gaping holes were discovered in
McLean’s story. He had not been on Jolo at the time but was in Manila, having
earlier been fired from his job and ordered off the island. He had skipped the
Philippines behind an assumed name, leaving behind a wife, a mistress, many
children and a large amount of unpaid bills. His former boss scathingly
dismissed his story, “the truth is not in him and we never took seriously
anything that he said.” The story died. However, two months later, The
International Socialist Review repeated the false charges in an inflammatory
and dissembling article, without providing any new factual support. Ironically,
this flawed article, its highly inflated body count, and the claims of a
massacre, have been cited as factual by later historians and is often quoted on
current-day Muslim separatist web sites as if it were the true picture.
In the
official history of the US Army, the Battle of Bud Bagsak is cited as the last
Moro resistance to American rule. This is simply untrue. A large number of
Tausugs escaped the mountain, taking their weapons with them. There were two
additional battles fought entirely by the Constabulary and Scouts only a few
months later, one easily equaling that at Bud Bagsak. A far larger battle was
fought by the Constabulary and Scouts against the Maranaos in Lanao in 1917. In
fact it was five years later before the last American died fighting the Moros;
1st Lt. Charles C. LaRouche of the Constabulary in September of 1918. The only
period with an absence of Moro resistance to American (and the Philippine
Commonwealth government) was during WWII, when they fiercely turned their
attention to a new set of occupiers, the Japanese.
The Battle of Bud Bagsak - June 11-15, 1913
The Rodney Affair and Disarmament Campaign which
led up to the battle
Lt. Rodney's killer, lying dead on Asturias Road
Another dead attacker on an unrelated attack on the
Sergeant of the Guard at Asturias Gate three days later
More than
5,000 firearms were turned in during the second bounty offer, but most were old
or obsolete. Defeating the purpose of the bounty, the Tausugs used the money to
buy new high-powered, bolt action rifles from arms dealers in nearby Singapore
- in effect rearming. Above are weapons either turned in or confiscated in
Lanao District.
Two Moro soldiers of the 52nd Company Philippine
Scouts, with Springfield M1903 rifles and "bolo" bayonets.
52nd Company Philippine Scouts in 1912 (Library of
Congress)
Beginning
in 1907, the number of American soldiers in Moroland was steadily and
deliberately reduced by a build up in Philippine Scouts. The Scouts consisted
of Filipino enlisted ranks with American officers. The officers consisted of
volunteers from the Regular Army, from both commissioned and non-commissioned
ranks, who were given special four-year temporary commissions. By 1912 Scouts outnumbered Army Regulars by 4
to 1 and the Regular Army's role had reverted to being a backup reserve. Being
a Scout officer was quite attractive. It invariably meant a temporary promotion
of one or two rungs for a Regular officer and a commission for a sergeant, all
at the Regular pay scale and full credit for their temporary rank at
retirement. It also was where the action was. Filipino soldiers also had major
incentives. They were recruited into companies organized by native language or
dialect and received far higher pay, allowances, and benefits than their
counterparts in the Constabulary. Pershing received permission from General
Bell to form the first two (and only) all-Moro Scout companies; the 51st
(Maguindanaos from Cotabato) and the 52nd (Maranaos from Lanao). Since the Moro
Constabulary had long been distinguished by the red fez, the Moro Scouts
adopted its own distinctive brimless headgear (in photos above) copied from
that of British Muslim troops in India and Malaya.
Battle of Bud Bagsak
The Battle of Bud Bagsak as depicted from U.S. Army
Poster No. 21-48 dated 1963.
The Battle of Bud Bagsak, fought from 11 June to 15
June 1913, was a battle-turned massacre which took place in the Moroland of
Jolo, southern Philippines. This four-day battle was led by U.S. Brigadier
General John “Black Jack” J. Pershing of the 8th Infantry and Philippine Scouts
against Moro fighters armed with traditional weapons such as kris, barong,
spear and guns they collected from defeated Americans.
Contents [hide]
1 Background
2 Battle
3 Aftermath
4 See Also
5 External Link
6 References
7 Citation
Background
Several months before the actual assault of the
crater, a band of Moros (about 6,000 to 10,000) of Lati fortified themselves at
the top of Mount Bagsak. Since the Spanish period, outlaws, such as remontados
and vagamundos, found home in the wilderness, and so until the American period,
the government officials and the military were continuously chasing these
“bandits.”
The Moros were watching over the military. Whenever
the American troops were inactive, they send their children and women in the
fields to work and to supply their band with food. They also had their eyes on
General John J. Pershing – a simple visit of the General to Jolo already
alerted the Moros
The American military led by Gen. Pershing, were
faced by problems. First, they do not know how to get the women and children
off the mountain before they attack the Moro outlaws in it. Another is the
“unstoppable bravery” of the Moros only armed with a number of local blades and
overflowing courage. This led to the invention of U.S. Army Colt 0.45 caliber
pistol.
Battle
Gen. Pershing then had a secret plan – a tactic he
kept to himself. On 5 June, a telegram was sent to the commanding officer of
Jolo ordering all field operations off and commanding the troops into the
barracks. After four days, he made a public announcement that he'll be at Camp
Kiethley in Mindanao to visit his family. But the General has something on his
mind. Evening of 9 June, he sailed from Zamboanga and when the ship was a
distance away from the island, the course was changed to Basilan and to Siasi,
where they picked up the 51st and 52nd Scout Companies, respectively.
Silently, their ship sailed for Jolo and harbored
on the night of 10 June. Around 5 o'clock in the morning of 11 June, the troop
advanced on Mount Bagsak. The Americans had difficulty penetrating the the
mountain as the main cotta was formidably defended by stone fortress. Five
forts support the main cotta – Pujacabao, Bunga, Matunkup, Languasan and
Pujagan. The only way to reach the summit was to do a simultaneous assault of
all the smaller defensive forts.
The troop was divided into different directions.
They positioned themselves in strategic locations and started the attacks on
the forts. Of the five supporting forts, the cotta of Lagusan was captured
without difficulty.
For the next two days, the attacks continued
bringing casualties to both parties. On the fourth day, the American troops
prepared for their final assault. For two hours, the troop conducted a barrage
to the Moro fort after which they moved up the hill for the attack.
Sharpshooters were scattered in the area. They reached the top of the hill
while gunmen fired on the fort nonstop. At the fort, the Moros stood on its
walls with their sharp, bladed weapons in one hand. By 5 o'clock in the
afternoon, Gen. Pershing commanded Captain Charleton for their final attack.
They successfully took over the fort, and the savage battle ended.
Aftermath
During the final assault, the 13 men of the
American troops were killed, and the entire battle caused the lives of 2,000
Moros, of which 196 were women and 340 were children. Although defeated, the
Moros only showed that they did not, and will never, fear death. In the words
of General Pershing :
Battle of Bud Bagsak in Sulu
They are absolutely fearless, and once committed to
combat they count death as a mere incident."
From January-June, the whole Moro ward of Lati with
a population of between 6,000 to 10,000, fortified themselves in a cotta in Mt.
Bagsak.
On June 11, 1913 Gen. John Pershing ordered the
attack with the assistance of Charlie Schuck who reported that it was easy to
attack the Moro Fort. General Pershing and his American military attacked the
Fort at Bud Bagsak. The Muslim led by their Nakil Amil bravely defended their
Fort, first with guns and bullets and knives and bolos.
The four-day battle was personally led by U.S.
Brigadier General John "Black Jack" J. Pershing of the 8th Infantry
and Philippine Scouts against Moro resistance fighters armed mostly with kris,
barongs, spears and few guns. In many other battles in the Morolands, the U.S.
Army Colt 0.45 caliber pistol was tested and perfected as an effective
"man stopper" against the brave Moro fighters.
During the battle Pershing came up to the front
line and: "Stood so close to the trench, directing operations, that his
life was endangered by flying barongs and spears which were being continually
hurled from the Moro stronghold." At this point in the battle, Pershing
sent American officers into the front lines to lead the attack.
But, after four days, the Fort at Bud Bagsak, along
with every warrior fell. General Pershing in a letter to his wife, he wrote:
"THE FIGHTING WAS THE FIERCEST I HAVE EVER SEEN. "
The Moros fought like Devils. They justified the
observation Pershing had made of them: "They are absolutely fearless, and
once committed to combat they count death as a mere incident."
http://www.bangsamoro.info/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=1
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Swish of the Kris
Kris versus Krag
The Battle of Bud Bagsak
The battle of Bagsak had its beginnings several
months before the actual assault of the crater. The mountain peak had been for
some time the rendezvous of the outlaw element of all of the southern islands,
and the big problem the Americans faced was that of getting the women and
children off the hill before the final clean-up was made.
So long as the Moros saw that the American troops
were inactive and in barracks many of the women and children would be sent down
to work in the fields, but at the first suggestion of an American expedition
all of the non-combatants would be recalled to the mountain. As General
Pershing had stated, when the Moro makes his last stand, he wishes his women
and children with him. The Moros kept a very close check on General Pershing,
for every visit of the General to Jolo was the signal for a stampede to Bagsak.
Pershing soon discovered that the taking of Bagsak without the slaughter of
women and children would have to be an undertaking planned with the greatest
secrecy. In planning the campaign, Pershing exercised rare judgment.
To begin with, he kept his plans absolutely to
himself, not even confiding in his closest officers. On June 5 he sent a
telegram to the commanding officer at Jolo calling off all field operations and
ordering the troops into barracks. Four days later he announced publicly that
he would visit his family at Camp Kiethley in Mindanao and with that apparent
plan in mind he sailed from Zamboanga on the evening of June 9. When the
transport Wright was well out of sight of Zamboanga the course was changed and
the ship picked up the 51st Company of Scouts at Basilan, proceeding on to
Siasi to load the 52nd Scout Company.
With lights out and the smokestack muffled, the
Wright then crept into Jolo harbor late on the night of June 10. The maneuver
was wholly unexpected and the General found the American soldiers at a moving
picture show. The call to arms was sounded and in an incredibly short time the
troops were en route to Bagsak.
All of the forces were concentrated at Bun Bun on
the beach and by five o'clock in the morning the advance on Bagsak had begun.
The mountain crest was defended by formidable
cottas crowned by the stone fortress of Bagsak at the summit. Supporting the
main cotta were five subsidiary forts admirably located for defensive purposes.
These five cottas, namely, Pujacabao, Bunga, Matunkup, Languasan and Pujagan,
were grouped about the huge stone fort of Bagsak in such a manner that a
simultaneous assault of all of the cottas was necessary in order to prevent a
great loss of life on the part of the attackers.
The American force was divided into two wings and
very explicit attacking directions were issued. The right wing, consisting of
the 8th Infantry and the 40th Company of mountain guns, was under the command
of Major Shaw, and its objective was the cottas of Languasan and Matunkup. The
left wing, composed of the 51ist and 52nd Companies of Scouts and a mountain
gun detachment, was under command of Van Natta, and were ordered to attack the
cottas of Pujacabao and Bunga. Pujagan and Bagsak were to be taken after these
assaults had been successfully executed.
After a heavy preliminary shelling by the mountain
guns, the columns moved to attack. While the attack was in progress, Captain
Moylan was ordered with the 24th and 31st Companies of Scouts, to take a
position on the south slope of Bagsak to cut off the retreat of the Moros,
Captain Nichols led his company against Matunkup, which fell at noon of the
first day's fighting. In taking Matunkup, the attacking force was compelled to
climb a sheer cliff one hundred feet high, pulling themselves up the precipice by
clinging to vines, while in the face of a heavy fire. There were eight
casualties in the American force before the summit was finally gained. Captain
Nichols then led his company on to the cotta of Pujacabao, the men opening up
on the Moros at close range and then dropping within the cotta walls to battle
hand to hand.
The terrific shelling Pujacabao had received from
the mountain battery had eliminated many of the Moro defenders. Amil, the Moro
leader, was severely wounded by a shell fragment, whereupon he retreated to
Pujagan, where he was killed the following day.
The cotta of Languasan was captured without
difficulty with a loss of one man, but the American forces had eight casualties
during the period of Moro counter-attacks made in an effort to recover the
fortress.
With three of the cottas in American hands, the
surviving Moros retreated to Bagsak, Pujagan and Bunga and the first day's
operations came to an end.
On Thursday, June 12, the American forces poured a
continuous fire from rifles and mountain artillery upon the cottas of Bunga and
Pujagan, and there was a great deal of skirmishing. The Moros began a series of
rushes upon the American troops holding Languasan. The Mohammedans would rush
out in groups of ten to twenty, charging madly across 300 yards of open country
in an effort to come hand to hand with the Americans. Amil, his son, and the
Data Jami led three of the attacks; in each instance, the charging Moros were
accounted for long before they reached the American trenches. It was during one
of these charges that Captain Nichols was killed by a bullet through the heart
from a high-powered rifle.
The American forces holding Languasan were
subjected all day long to a merciless fire from the cotta of Bunga.
Notwithstanding the aid of the mountain artillery, the American forces were
unable to capture any of the Moro positions during the fighting of the second
day.
On the morning of the third day Captain Moylan was
ordered to take the cotta of Bunga. The capture of this fortress was absolutely
necessary in order to secure a position from which the tremendous stone cotta
of Bagsak could be shelled. Captain Moylan took Bunga after a five-hour attack,
which was supported by sharpshooters and artillery. Among his casualties was
one man who was cut in two by a barong. The balance of the third day was
devoted to hauling the heavy guns up the steep slope of Bunga.
On Saturday morning, the fourth day of the battle, Captain
Charleton and Lieutenant Collins were sent with 51st and 52nd Companies and a
detachment of cavalry to reconnoiter the rim of the crater and to find a
position from which the infantry could launch a final assault on Bagsak cotta.
The rest of the day was devoted to digging the troops in, in a position about
600 yards from the Moro fort, while the mountain guns fired constantly into the
cotta.
Sunday morning brought preparations for the final
assault. The mountain guns opened up for a two-hour barrage into the Moro fort,
and at nine o'clock in the morning the troops moved up the ridge for the
attack. The heavy American artillery shelled the Moros out of the outer
trenches supporting the cotta of Bagsak and the sharpshooters picked them off
as they retreated to the fortress. After an hour's hard fighting, the advance
reached the top of the hill protected by the fire of the mountain guns, to a
point within seventy-five yards of the cotta.
To cover that last seventy-five yards required
seven hours of terrific fighting. The Moros assaulted the American trenches
time after time only to be mowed down by the entrenched attackers.
General Pershing came in person to the firing line
early in the attack, exposing himself to the full fire of the cotta. At 4:45 in
the afternoon, the American forces were within twenty-five feet of the cotta.
The Moros realized that their time on earth was short. They stood upright on
the walls and hurled their barongs and krises at the troops beneath them,
wounding four of the attacking force.
At five o'clock General Pershing gave the order for
the final assault, and standing within twenty-five feet of the walls he watched
Captain Charleton take his men over the walls and the battle of Bud Bagsak was
won. Thirteen men were lost in the final assault.
About 500 Moros occupied the cottas at the
beginning of the battle of Bagsak and with few exceptions they fought to the
death.
With this battle, the organized resistance of the
Moros was broken and the episode of "Kris versus Krag" came virtually
to an end. There were a few more minor battles, but never again did the Moros
place a formidable force in the field against the Americans. The Mohammedans
fought a grand fight at Bagsak against superior weapons. They showed the
Arnercans, as they had showed the Spaniards, that they were not afraid to die.
http://www.bakbakan.com/swishk/swk3-24.html
Related links :
Swish of the Kris
http://www.bakbakan.com/swishk/swk3-24.html
MILF
http://www.mnlf.net/History/bud_bagsak450_1.htm
A long-buried war with the Moros.
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/win2006/feature_04.php
From Bates Treaty to Bud Bagsak
http://www.angelfire.com/on4/zambalesforum/batestreaty.htm
Pershing
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-leaders/ww1/pershing.htm
Photos of Sulu Archipelago during the American Era
- circa 1910 -1020
Posted by Emmanuel Esber at 10:29 AM
4 comments:
AnonymousNovember 18, 2007 at 4:42 PM
My Great Uncle was Captain Taylor A Nichols, killed
at Bagsak on June 12, 1913. Could you please correct your spelling of our last
name? When referencing my Uncle, please spell his name Nichols, not Nicholls
(only one L). Thanks so much, and thank you for your articles. Since my earlist
recollection I listened with fascination to my Father speak of his Uncle
Taylor, who lead a very interesting and honorable life and died too young. I
continue to this day to absorb any and all information I can find on this fine
man. Uncle Taylor's death took a great toll on the family, as he was a beloved
son, brother and uncle and a fine soldier.
Thank you for your post.
L Nichols
Reply
Replies
Dan NicholsDecember 2, 2013 at 10:26 AM
I have been doing some family research and I
believe that we may be related in a long lost way.
I think Taylor A. Nichols is the nephew to my
Great, Great Grandfather, Oliver David Nichols.
If you see this and can, please respond to try and
confirm this and discuss other things.
You can contact me at the following...
dan_nichols01@att.net
or,
dan@foremachine.com
Thanks,
Dan Nichols
Reply
JeannieJune 16, 2009 at 9:19 AM
I just found out that my Grandfather, Elijah H.
Hubbard, was at the Battle of Bud Bagsak. So I am interested in finding
information on this.
Reply
Mat Salleh MuhammadJanuary 1, 2013 at 2:15 AM
Yeah whatever. they are killer. The moro didnt
start the war. The Moro didn't even go to America to start the war. the Moro
only using the swords and shields they still don't and forced the American Army
have to Fall back. The American Killed the Women and child there. All i found
on this blog was sadness of the American did to the Moro.
Reply
