LUKBAN
Since not everyone could be accommodated in the tribunal, two other contingents were to be accommodated in separate houses near the plaza. The families of Belaez and Salazar gave up theirs since these were near the plaza, both visible from the tribunal and within hailing distance. These became the quarters of Sgts. Frank Breton and George Markley and their respective contingents. 6
That night, the captain called a meeting of the inhabitants of the town, where the organization of a municipal police force was ordered, leaving to the discretion of the town leaders the selection and appointment of those who were to compose the police body. The next day, August 12, a meeting was also held in the house of the presidente municipal where Valeriano Abanador, a delegate of police in the revolutionary government, was appointed chief of police with 46 municipal policemen. 7
For about a month, the occupation of Balangiga went on without any untoward incident. Then Capt. Connell told the local leaders about the need to clean up the town since the surrounding jungle seemed to be creeping up to the settlement. It was necessary to clear the underbrush that was growing around, he said. The local leaders grudgingly complied and mobilized able-bodied men for the job. The results did not satisfy Connell. He saw that the people did not like what they were told to do. Then something happened that increased the growing animosity between the Americans and the native population.
The mauling incident
This happened on September 21. In the account of Pedro Duran, one of the town leaders, two American soldiers, both already drunk, visited a tuba( local wine fermented from coconut) store tended by Catalina Catalogo, a native girl. They talked to her in English, and she responded by laughing, not having understood any word in that language. The soldiers mistook the girl’ s laughter for an insult, and they soon started to drag her out of the store( at bayonet point, according to one account.) The girl cried for help and was rescued by her two brothers, who engaged the two soldiers in a fistfight. The Americans ended up virtually mauled by their local opponents. 8 The next day, Connell ordered two Sibley tents put up at the northwest corner of the tribunal facing the plaza, and surround the town and arrest every able-bodied male and put them in the two tents. This was to avenge the mauling of his soldiers.
One of the survivors, William J. Gibbs, 9 of Springfield, Massachusetts, described this during a subsequent Senate Committee inquiry:
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