The Partido Federal, 1900-1907: Political collaboration in colonial Manila. (Volumes I and II).

Abstract

Philippine nationalist historiography and its tendency toward a Manichean view of the country's early political history has long impeded a systematic analysis of the Partido Federal, the Philippines first political party (1900-1907). By contrasting the federalistas' craven collaboration with American officials against the principled resistance of the later Partido Nacionalista, most historians have created a confused image of the Partido Federal's role in the first decade of the U.S. colonial rule. Moreover, the unexplained transformation of the federalista ilustrados (intellectuals) from patriots in the struggle against Spain into collaborators under American rule has distorted perceptions of Philippine politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through analysis of elite intellectual life, property holdings and colonial controls, this study portrays the Partido Federal as a coalition of factions drawn from a larger Manila intellectual and political elite, known as the ilustrados. This study then traces the continuity in political activity among the founders of the Partido Federal, from their experience of Spanish colonial repression to their campaign for participation under the American rule. Viewing colonialism as an interaction between two societies, this analysis focuses upon the political relations between leading federalistas and American officials to clarify the Filipino elite response to colonialism. By tracing the continuity of this collective elite experience, the study demonstrates that colonial repression, under both Spain and America, forced all elite factions to collaborate with the colonial state inside Manila's narrow confines. The Partido Federal's decline thus began in 1905 when it publicly opposed the U.S. Governor General. Its defeat in the 1907 legislative elections sprang then, not from a popular repudiation of collaboration, but rather from the U.S. regime's decision to invest its patronage in a more pliable set of collaborators, the militant of the Partido Nacionalista. This study is based primarily upon archival materials on Philippine society, property and governance under Spain; personal papers and correspondence of leading historical actors, American and Filipino; and interviews with surviving relatives of Partido Federal leaders.