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By Go Bon Juan
Editor’s note: The Sixth Dr.
Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence awarding ceremony will be held
at 2 p.m., June 14, at the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage Center on Anda
and Cabildo streets, Intramuros, Manila.
Sugar was once used as an
ingenuous weapon in a fight. It happened in an actual warfare
involving the Chinese in the Philippines against the Dutch.
In the 17th century, the
Philippines was under Spanish occupation, but harassment by the
Dutch and British often happened then. Dutch and British pirate
ships raided Chinese sampans entering Manila Bay or the galleons
leaving Manila for Acapulco.
In 1621, under an English
commander, a fleet of nine British and Dutch ships formed a blockade
against Manila. The embargo started in February and lasted until the
following year. Several Chinese sampans were easily captured by the
pirates.
One Chinese sampan resisted and
fought the pirates. With no weapon on hand, the innovative crew of
this Chinese sampan used big cauldrons to boil sugar, and then threw
the boiling molasses to the enemies. It was reported that 14
Dutchmen were killed in this way.
A Jesuit correspondent recorded
this incident vividly: “They sent 14 Dutchmen to hell in the form
of candy.” Unfortunately, molasses is no match for artillery. The
Chinese sampan was finally captured. In revenge, the enraged
Dutchmen killed all the Chinese in that sampan, numbering 220 in
all.
This incident, while rarely
reported, was recorded in The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581-1768
by Fr. Horacio de la Costa, published in 1961.
Wrote de la Costa, “Manila was
accordingly blockaded in 1621 by a combined Anglo-Dutch squadron of
nine vessels under an English commander. The blockade began in early
February and lasted well into the following year. A number of
Chinese junks were captured easily enough, but one showed unexpected
fight. The crew defended themselves by the highly original method of
boiling sugar in cauldrons and throwing it at the enemy’
‘whereby,’ the Jesuit newsletter of this year inform us, ‘they
sent 14 Dutchmen to hell in the form of candy.’ But molten sugar
proved to be no match against standard weapons; the junk was taken
and the furious Dutchmen avenged their sugar-coated companions by
massacring the Chinese aboard—all 220 of them.
“In spite of these ferocious
methods the blockade was not very successful. Chinese ingenuity soon
found a way of beating it. The junks took to covering their hulls
and masts with bough and palm fronds and creeping close inshore,
where they melted against the lush green vegetation of the coastline
. . . the Manilans did not find it necessary to send out a fleet, as
in former years, and some time in the middle of 1622, the
Anglo-Dutch squadron sailed away in disgust.”
This vivid chronicle highlights
the fact that the history of the Chinese in Philippines is indeed
filled with tears and blood. Not only did the early Chinese suffer
from massacre and persecution by the Spanish colonial rulers, they
were also victims of the raiding Dutch and British pirates.
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