While I entertain no doubt as to the answer, I shall nevertheless discuss at length the more recent history and present status of slavery and peonage in the Philippines, because of the vital importance of full knowledge of the facts to intelligent consideration of the claim that the Filipinos have arrived at a stage of civilization comparable with that of the more advanced nations of the world, and are capable of establishing and maintaining a just and humane government. The Spanish Penal Code did not prohibit or penalize slavery, or the purchase or sale of human beings. It did contain provisions against forcible detention of individuals and the abduction of minors, but in the Philippines at least they were more honoured in the breach than in the observance during the Spanish régime. The Moros raided the towns of the peaceful Filipino inhabitants of the Visayan Islands and of Luzón until within quite recent times. An unhappy fate awaited the prisoners whom they took. Men were frequently compelled to harvest for their captors the crops which they themselves had planted, and were then mercilessly butchered. Women, girls and boys were carried away into slavery, the former to serve as household drudges or as concubines, and the latter to be brought up as slaves pure and simple. Some men met a similar fate. The only reason that more were not enslaved was that it was usually considered too much trouble to make full-grown individuals work. Slaves were held as chattels if it suited the convenience of their masters to retain them, and otherwise were sold, bartered or given away. Zamboanga was at the outset largely populated by escaped Moro slaves who had sought the protection of the Spanish garrison there. Coming originally from widely separated parts of the archipelago, these unfortunates had no common native dialect, hence there arose among them a Spanish patois now known as Zamboangueño. The American occupation brought many and brusque changes in political conditions. The attitude of Americans toward slavery and peonage was very different from that of the easy-going Spaniards, who had never sanctioned it but had never made any determined effort to break it up. From the effective establishment of United States sovereignty in 1899 until July 4, 1901, the Philippines were under military rule, which has one great advantage: its methods usually bring quick results.