It was in this latter country that he produced his first novel,
Noli Me Tangere. He had been a contributor to the Filipino paper
published in Spain, "La Solidaridad," and, to further bring the
conditions and needs of his country to more public notice, he wrote
this novel dealing with Tagálog life as represented at his old home on
Laguna de Bay and in the city of Manila. Later he published a sequel,
El Filibusterismo, in which even more courageously and significantly
are set forth his ideas for reform.
His work made him many enemies, and on his return to Manila he found
himself in danger and was obliged to leave. He returned again in 1893,
and was immediately arrested and sentenced to deportation to Dapitan,
Mindanao. Here he remained quietly in the practice of his profession
for some years.
The Katipunan.--Meanwhile the ideas which had been agitated by the
wealthy and educated Filipinos had worked their way down to the
poor and humble classes. They were now shared by the peasant and
the fisherman. Especially in those provinces where the religious
orders owned estates and took as rental a portion of the tenants'
crop, there was growing hatred and hostility to the friars. The
"Liga Filipina" had been composed of cultivated and moderate men,
who while pressing for reform were not inclined to radical extremes,
nor to obtain their ends by violent means.
But there now grew up and gradually spread, until it had its
branches and members in all the provinces surrounding Manila, a
secret association composed largely of the uneducated classes, whose
object was independence of Spain, and whose members, having little to
lose, were willing to risk all. This was the society which has since
become famous under the name of "Katipunan." This secret association
was organized in Cavite about 1892. Its president and founder was
Andres Bonifacio. Its objects were frankly to expel the friars, and,
if possible, to destroy the Spanish government.
Rebellion of 1896.--A general attack and slaughter of the Spaniards
was planned for the 20th of August, 1896. The plot was discovered
by the priest of Binondo, Padre Gil, who learned of the movement
through the wife of one of the conspirators, and within a few hours
the government had seized several hundred persons who were supposed to
be implicated. The arrests included many rich and prominent Filipinos,
and at the end of some weeks the Spanish prisons contained over five
thousand suspects. Over one thousand of these were almost immediately
exiled to far-distant Spanish prisons--Fernando Po, on the west coast
of Africa, and the fortress of Ceuta, on the Mediterranean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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