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The Methodist Response to Philippine Nationalism, 1899–1916

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Kenton J. Clymer
Kenton J. Clymer
Affiliation:
associate professor of history in theUniversity of Texasat El Paso. He wishes to express his appreciation for financial assistance from the University Research Institute, University of Texas at El Paso, and from the American Philosophical Society
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Extract

Although the United States had extensive commercial contacts with the Spanish-owned Philippine Islands early in the nineteenth century, interest in them declined sharply by the 1890s. But with the Spanish-American War of 1898 and Commodore George Dewey's defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila the Philippines reappeared on the American horizon. At the peace negotiations the United States demanded, and received, the islands.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 421 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1978

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References

1. Legarda, Benito Jr, “American Entrepreneurs in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 4 (1957): 142–159.Google Scholar

2. Gowing, Peter G., Islands Under the Cross (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1969), pp. 135–142Google Scholar. “It was a genuine people's movement,” writes Gowing (p. 137). See also Binsted, Norman S., “The Philippine Independent Church (Iglesia Filipina Independiense),” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 7 (1958): 213–215Google Scholar; Deats, Richard L., The Story of Methothsm in the Philippines (Manila, 1964), p. 34.Google Scholar

3. SisterClifford, Mary Dorita, B. V. M., “Iglesia Filipina Independiente: The Revolutionary Church,” in Studies in Philippine Church History, ed. Anderson, Gerald H. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969), pp. 228–230.Google Scholar

4. Ibid, pp. 230- 242; Binsted, , “The Philippine Independent Church,” pp. 209–246Google Scholar; Deats, Richard L., Nationalism and Christianity in the Philippines (Dallas, 1967), pp. 70–71.Google Scholar

5. Clifford, , “Iglesia Filipino Independiente,” p. 230Google Scholar: Stuntz, Homer C., The Philippines and the Far East (Cincinnati and New York, 1904), p. 416Google Scholar. Clifford, , “Iglesia Filipina independiente,” pp. 239–240Google Scholar; Stuntz, Homer C., “The Philippine Islands District Conference,” Christian Advocate, 78 (7 05 1903): 747Google Scholar; J. L. McLaughlin to A. B. Leonard, 7 January 1902, Mission Records: Philippine Islands Correspondence, file 74–11, United Methodist Archives, Lake Junaluska, NC. (All future references to material in the United Methodist Archives refers to Philippine Islands correspondence unless otherwise identified.) Eric Lund to Thomas F. Barbour, 29 March 1905, Missionary correspondence, microfilm reel 197, American Baptist Historical Society, Rochester, N.Y.

6. Clipping, William T. Ellis, “On the Trail of the American Missionary,” file 43, box 339 (Mrs. Harry Farmer folder), United Methodist Archives. Although Prautch was certainly involved with Aglipay, his claims to have engineered the whole matter must be viewed with caution. William Howard Taft once described him as “a man utterly unscrupulous, utterly lacking in any reputation for veracity.… There's hardly a man in the islands, Filipino or American, less credible as a witness than he.” Taft to Horace White, 21 November 1906, quoted in de Achutegui, Pedro S. and Bernad, Miguel, Religious Revolution in the Philippines: Ihe Life and Church of Gregorio Aglipay 1860–1960 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Manila, 1961): 1, 251n. See also p. 385.Google Scholar

7. Lund to Barbour, 29 March 1905, Missionary correspondence, microfilm reel 197, American Baptist Historical Society. Laubach, Frank C., The People of the Philippines (New York, 1925), p. 147Google Scholar. See also Gowing, , Islands Under the Cross, pp. 137, 141.Google Scholar

8. Report of McLaughlin, J. L., in Minutes of the Fourth Session of the District Conference of the Philippine Islands of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Manila, 1903), p. 28.Google Scholar

9. Stuntz, , The Philippines and the Far East, p. 495Google Scholar. See also Stuntz, Homer C., “The Philippine Independent Church,” Christian Advocate, 78 (16 04 1903): 623–624Google Scholar. For strong defense of Prautch, see Stuntz, , “The Philippine Islands District Conference,” p. 747Google Scholar. Oldham's reaction was, “we are greatly helped by the Aglipay movement … Ought we not to pour our agents into all the territory where their presence gives us the opportunity to begin evangelization under favorable circumstances?” Clipping, William F. Oldham. “The Philippines—the Duty of the Hour. II,” file 43, box 339 (Mrs. Harry Farmer folder), United Methodist Archives.

10. Homer C. Stuntz to W. H. Warren, 5 January 1905, file 74–11, United Methodist Archives; Official Journal of the First Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Manila, 1905), p. 12Google Scholar. Christian Advocate, 80 (13 07 1905); 1102.Google Scholar

11. Stuntz, , The Philippines and the Far East, p. 492Google Scholar; clipping, Oldham, “The Philippines.”

12. A. E. Chenoweth sent a detailed report to Homer C. Stuntz, a copy of which is attached to a letter from Stuntz to Leonard, 15 February 1905, file 74–11 (Stuntz folder), United Methodist Archives. Hereafter cited as Chenoweth, “Report.” The Aurora schism is discussed in Copplestone, J. Tremayne, History of Methodist Missions, Vol. 4, TwentiethCentury Perspectives (The Methodist Episcopal Church, 1896–1939) (New York, 1973), pp. 223–225.Google Scholar

13. Chenoweth, “Report.”

14. Copy, Oldham to Stuntz, 23 May 1905, file 43, box 339 (Mrs. Harry Farmer folder), United Methodist Archives.

15. Stuntz, , in Official Journal of the First Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Mission Conference [1905], p. 26Google Scholar; Chenoweth, “Report.”

16. Official Journal of the Second Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Mission Conference [1906], p. 24.Google Scholar

17. Deats, Richard L., “Nicholas Zamora Religious Nationalist,” in Studies in Philippine Church History, ed. Anderson. pp. 325–326Google Scholar; Laubach, , The People of the Philippines, p. 164Google Scholar; Devins, John B., An Observer in the Philippines (Boston, New York, and Chicago, 1905), pp. 305–306.Google Scholar

18. Deats, , “Nicholas Zamora,” pp. 329–330.Google Scholar

19. Eighty-Second Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the Year 1900 (New York, 1901), p. 238Google Scholar. See also Deats, , “Nicholas Zamora,” pp. 332–333.Google Scholar

20. Copy, Oldham to Stuntz, 23 May 1905, file 43, box 339 (Mrs. Harry Farmer folder), United Methodist Archives.

21. Official Journal of the Third Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Mission Conference [1907], p. 33.Google Scholar

22. Oldham to [Leonard], 23 February 1909, file 74–11, United Methodist Archives. Zamora's associate is quoted in a clipping, “Filipino Methodists Secede from Church,” identified as coming from the Cablenews-American, 4 March, 1909, W. Cameron Forbes Papers, Philippine Data, Political, Volume 6, p. 1584. Zamora is quoted in another clipping, “Bishop Says Move Is Much Needed Reformation,” identified as coming from the Cablenews-American, 6 Marcj, 1909, ibid., p 1585. The Forbes papers are in Houghton Library, Harvard University. I am indebted to Mr. Michael Cullinane for calling my attention to these clippings.

23. Official Journal of the Fourth Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Mission Conference [1908], p. 27.Google Scholar

24. Philippine Christian Advocate, 7 (11 1908): [31]Google Scholar; Zamora is quoted in Deats, , Story of Methodism, p. 44Google Scholar. See also Gowing, , Islands Under The Cross, pp. 131–133.Google Scholar

25. Stuntz to Harry Farmer, 30 April 1909, file 43, box 339, United Methodist Archives; Marvin Rader to Leonard, 12 March 1909, file 74–11 (Rader folder), ibid.

26. Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions for the Year 1909, p. 349.

27. Oldham to Leonard, 25 February 1909, File 74–11, United Methodist Archives.

28. “The Defection in the Philippines,” Christian Advocate, 84 (29 04 1909): 647Google Scholar, which quotes Oldham's letter of 6 March 1909; William F. Oldham, “The Philippine Situation,” ibid., 84 (6 May 1909): 701.

29. Oldham to Leonard, 7 September 1909, file 74–11 (Oldham folder), United Methodist Archives. Zamora died in 1914 at the age of thirty-nine, a victim of cholera. “I sincerely regret the death of Nicholas Zamora,” Oldham wrote on the occasion. “I liked the man in spite of all his weakness and he always did me personally the high honor of believing that in my treatment of him I was both sincere and kind.” Oldham to Farmer, 4 November 1914, file 43, box 339, ibid.

30. Rader to Oldham, 15 November 1912, record group 43, file 66–12 (Rader folder), ibid.

31. Copy, Farmer to Oldham, 27 January 1909, file 43, box 339, ibid.; Oldham to Dr. Waldorf, 26 September 1910, Malaya correspondence, file 74–11, ibid.

32. Copy, Oldham to Rader, 20 November 1912, record group 43, file 66–12 (Rader folder), ibid.

33. Oldham to William P. Eveland, 19 November 1912, record group 43, file 67 (Eveland folder), ibid.

34. Oldham to Rader, 10 December 1913, record group 43, file 66–12 (Rader file), ibid.

35. For example, Rader to Oldham, 7 November 1913 and 23 October 1913, ibid.

36. The quotation is from Philippine Observer 3 (01 1913): 10Google Scholar. See also ibid., (May 1913): 19. Examples of Rader's lack of enthusiasm for Filipinization and independence include issues of the Philippine Observer 3, for the following dates: January 1913: 8–10; March 1913: 5–6; June 1913: 12–13; August 1913: 10–13.

37. Eveland to Oldham, 26 December 1913, record group 43, file 67 (Eveland folder), United Methodist Archives.

38. Eveland to Earl Taylor, 7 March 1913, ibid.

39. Such sentiments appear regularly in the Philippine Observer. See especially the Observer, 3, for the following dates: June 1913: 12–13; August 1913: 8–9; September 1913: 7. See also Eveland's report in Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions for the year 1915. p. 166. I have discussed Methodist attitudes toward American colonialism more fully in “Methodist Missionaries and American Colonialism in the Philippine Islands, 1899- 1913,” Pacific Historial Review (forthcoming).

40. Philippine Observer, 3 (03 1913): 5.Google Scholar

41. Ibid. (August 1913): 8–9. This is the fullest expression of Rader's position, but the same theme is outlined repeatedly in the Observer during 1913.

42. Stuntz, Homer C., “Filipino Independence,” Christian Advocate, 88 (15 05 1913): 666Google Scholar; James M. Thoburn, “Philippine Independence,” ibid., 89 (27 August 1914): 1206.

43. Oldham, William F., India, Malaysia, and the Philippines: A Practical Study in Missions (New York and Cincinnati, 1914), pp. 251–277Google Scholar. The quotations appear on pp. 266–267.

44. Report of the Thirty-First Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, October 22, 23, and 24, 1913, pp. 123–130. See also Christian Advocate, 89 (11 06 1914): 830.Google Scholar

45. Stanley, Peter W., A Nation in the Making: The Philippines and the united States, 1899–1921 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974), p. 212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. The above information is found in Robert E. Speer to Dr. Reed, 3 November 1913, record group 85, box I, file 6, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, and in the accompanying newspaper clippings and other enclosures. See also Stanley, , A Nation in the Making, p. 189.Google Scholar

47. J. M. Groves to Sherwood Eddy, 29 June 1914, Philippine Islands records, Y.M.C.A. Historical Library, New York City.

48. Official Journal of the Seventh Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Manila, 1913), p. 26Google Scholar. Eveland to Oldham, 13 June 1914, record group 43. file 67 (Eveland folder), United Methodist Archives.

49. Official Journal of the Seuenth Annual Session of the Philippine Islands Annual Conference [1913], p. 70.Google Scholar

50. Harry Farmer to Oldham, 13 June 1914, file 43, box 339, United Methodist Archives.

51. Philippine Observer, 6 (09 1916): 21.Google Scholar

52. See, for example, ibid., p. 22.

53. For example, Huddleston, Oscar in Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions for the Year 1915, p. 178.Google Scholar

54. See Klinefelter, D. H. in Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions for the Year 1916, p. 207.Google Scholar

55. Philippine Observer, 6 (01 1916): 8Google Scholar. For criticism of Harrison in 1915, see ibid., 5 (March 1915): 8 and (February 1915): 4.

56. Ernest T. Lyons to Frank Mason North, 7 August 1916, record group 43, file 66–9 (Lyons folder), United Methodist Archives.

57. Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Mission for the Year 1915, p. 166.

58. Rader to Mr. Donohugh, 24 October 1916, record group 43, file 66–12 (Rader folder), United Methodist Archives.

59. Philippine Observer, 6 (10 1916): 10–11, 15–17.Google Scholar