How the Spaniards Won in Marawi but Lost in Cavite: Northern Mindanao Years of the Spanish Empire

How the Spaniards Won in Marawi but Lost in Cavite shows why and how history always repeats itself in Lanao-apparent in Marawi’s recent destruction-which has further inspired the author to give a definitive account of the Weyler and Blanco campaigns, two major Spanish military operations in Lanao, at the turn of the twentieth century. Those costly military campaigns in 1891 and 1895, respectively, had an impact on the 1896 Revolution’s outcome. Five of the seven Spanish Army regiments deployed to Mindanao then had drastically reduced the Spanish forces in the center, thus making them vulnerable. The result: Cavite province fell. On hindsight, the Spaniards could have triumphed eventually against the Katipunan rebels, had their forces not been weakened by the deployment in the south. By reliving Mindanao in the 1890s, the book fills the void in regional histories of northern Mindanao-it documents the role played by the Spanish religious orders there and recounts the suffering and hardships of the migrant settlers-amid the resistance by the Maranao for they are seen as instruments of Spanish colonization, in particular,
and against Spanish efforts to dominate Mindanao, in general. While delving in the distant past, this book gives both policymakers and stakeholders in the present some pieces of knowledge (or wisdom), even as they confront the issues and concerns in Mindanao today; and having been briefed thus about history’s many repeats then, they could now put a stop to them possibly and make fresh starts to let peace prevail on the island eventually.

Description: 222 pages ; 22.8 x 15 cm

Language: English

ISBN: 978-971-10-1362-2