LUKBAN
Daza who added that 50 rifles were taken from the dead with as much ammunition, and one gunboat with a rapid firing gun sank. The uprising happened because some residents were about to be deported to Guam. The entire town sympathized with them. 9
In the town of San Julian on that coast. Daza also reported that 1,040 cartridges were taken from the enemy. 10
But Lukban may not have seen the overall picture in island and outside of it. With the appointment of Gen. Jacob Smith came some 300 Marines, many of them veterans of the Boxer Rebellion in China who understood how to quell similar mass uprisings. General Chaffee gave Smith substan tial reinforcements, assigning twelve battalions of regular infantry and seven companies of Filipino scouts, or approximately 4,000 men. 11 These were now carrying his orders of mass extermination and of pillage and destruction never before done by previous commanders. Smith had scoffed at the soft-hearted approach of his predecessors and had resolved to turn things around, regardless of public opinion. He actually basked in the description newspaper reports had of him and couldn’ t care less, so long as he was winning his war.
In this Smith was making headway. Food blockade caused suffering to many Samareños, especially those who had not shifted from abaca cultivation. Even if they had money, there was nothing to buy. The Americans were confiscating and destroying boatloads of food supplies to Samar. To survive, unarmed civilians had to submit themselves to the concentration hamlets under American protection where food was more accessible. Slowly but steadily, the insurgents’ important base of support was being eroded as the town centers, erstwhile Lukban’ s firm supporters, buckled under pressure.
Then on the first week of December, it was reported in the New York Times that Lukban had sent surrender feelers to Smith, which the latter accordingly rejected, saying the time to negotiate was over. If this was true, it was a complete turnaround of Lukban’ s previous pronouncements never to give up. In the same news article, the NYT reported that some 500 natives of Catbalogan volunteered to fight the insurgents in order to bring peace to Samar. Of these, 100 were accepted but they were not given rifles. Instead they were armed with bolos and spears, and did scouting duty under the command of Lt. Compton. 12 Evidently, American propaganda had succeeded. Lukban’ s base was being eroded.
Smith also kept on pressuring civilians to be more actively pro- Americans. He ordered many male residents of coastal towns to leave for the interior, and they were to return only if they were able to bring guns, prisoners or information on the whereabouts of insurgents. 13
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