Imperial Power

Throughout the prewar period, Buguias was subjugated territory. Not since the mid-1800s had it been a truly autonomous community. Colonial designs and exactions impinged on the village in several important areas. We have already examined the effects of American land-tenure policy and have noted the role of the colonialists in fostering the vegetable industry. Imperial administrators also influenced—or at least attempted to influence—other aspects of local life, most importantly by funneling highland resources toward the nascent enterprises of American residents.

Even though well-meaning colonial authorities devised plans that were potentially destructive, few of their designs came to fruition. Colonial policy often proved feckless, and in comparison with many other colonized places, the imperial tread fell lightly here. What the Americans did accomplish, to some extent inadvertently, was to enhance the position of the indigenous elite.

The Spaniards

All Spanish attempts to gain control of Benguet ended in failure until the middle of the nineteenth century, when a series of wellequipped military expeditions subdued virtually every village. Although the inhabitants of the Amburayan Valley continued to resist until the 1880s, Buguias and its neighbors resigned themselves to paying tribute shortly after mid-century (Scott 1974:306).

Evidently, the Spaniards maintained their position in Benguet

partly by scaling down their usual tribute demands: highlanders paid only one-seventh the dues exacted from lowlanders (Scott 1974:238). Yet even these relatively light demands heavily burdened the majority of Benguet's people. Commoners could not easily afford these "tokens of non-Christian vassalage," while the additional labor duties, purportedly for public works, were much abused and universally despised. It was mainly the elite who found advantages in Spanish hegemony, gaining further leverage over their subordinates as their political power was formalized, and encountering safer conditions for their trading endeavors (Scott 1974: 239; Wiber 1986: 17).

The American Regime

When American imperialists replaced the Spanish at the turn of the twentieth century, the Ibaloi of southern Benguet put up some resistance, and several local baknangs even sent cash to the independent Philippine government (Scott 1986:82). Benguet as a whole, however, was quickly brought under American rule.

The early American administrators, availing themselves of the stable political structure they had inherited, undertook a selfconscious "experiment with civil government" in Benguet as early as 1900 (see Philippine Commission 1901, v. 1:33,34). Although Dean Worcester (n.d.:4) assumed credit for "[establishing] a provincial government in Benguet and . . . small autonomous township governments," in actuality his office had simply recognized the existing local governments. Since official correspondents found the local presidentes able administrators (Philippine Commission 1901, v. 1:34), this was simply the most effective and least troublesome mode of administration.

American tax policy, in contrast to that of the Spaniards, was intended less to demonstrate vassalage than to finance local government and public projects. Yet the Benguet region continued to run chronic deficits—a situation tersely justified by Governor Pack's relegating of the Igorots to the status of "governmental wards" (Philippine Commission 1906, v. 1:199). The colonial government's overall fiscal design in Benguet was to facilitate resource exploitation by Americans and to foster economic "modernization." Local public works, such as bridges and trails, were financed by poll

taxes and through corvée requirements (two pesos or ten days annually [Worcester 1930:44]). Governor Pack insisted that labor dues, the earlier regime's greatest curse, were instituted by the Igorots themselves (Philippine Commission 1904, v. 1:410); one can only wonder what coercive tactics may have been employed to enforce them.

In theory, the municipal governments were autonomous. Local councils passed their own ordinances, subject to the provincial governor's approval. But present-day Cordilleran scholars argue that the municipal governments held no real legislative power, functioning merely to rubber-stamp American orders (HamadaPawid and Bagamaspad 1985:192). But aside from the critical areas of land and resource policy, the Americans interfered relatively little.

Such noninterference reflected the limits of colonial power more than a lack of interest. Benguet funeral ceremonies, for example, appalled the hygiene-obsessed American functionaries (Philippine Commission 1903, v. 2:225), yet villagers easily tricked the sanitary inspectors sent to stop them. The Benguet colonial government was similarly frustrated in trying to limit interest rates on local loans (Moss 1920a :225), and in proscribing range fires (Philippine Commission 1906, v. 1:178). Overall, the most concerted police actions were directed against gamblers and "unemployed Americans" (Philippine Commission 1906, v. 1:265; Lehlbach 1907:11). Few civil or criminal cases internal to Benguet society ever reached colonial courts; Governor Pack reported in 1903 that he had served as Justice of the Peace on only eight occasions, as he could rely instead on the tong tongan system (Philippine Commission 1903, v. 1: 795).

The American authorities, like the Spaniards before them, did encounter one persistent military challenge in Benguet: the busols , or bandits, of the Palatang region northeast of Buguias. The busols ("enemies"), according to Buguias lore, were less a distinct community of people than a gang of thugs who plundered and terrorized their Southern Kankana-ey, Ibaloi, and Kalanguya neighbors. The American bureaucrats totally misunderstood the "busol problem," yet by the second decade of the century the brigands had been dispersed and pacified. Whether this was owing to the steadfast actions and conciliatory negotiations of the American

military, as its chroniclers would have it (see Philippine Commission 1906, v. 2:265), or to the unyielding opposition of Benguet citizens, newly fortified with a few shotguns, is another matter. Benguet elders insist that the busols disbanded only after one Carbonel, treasurer of Atok, dispatched their leader, Samiclay, with a well-aimed blast.

Education, Religion, and Economics

Hampered as they may have been in other policy areas, American officials directed considerable attention toward public education. The Spaniards had constructed a few schools, but because the graduates—automatically regarded as nuevo Christianos —became subject to full taxation (Philippine Commission 1901, FF:545), education had not been popular with the highlanders (see also Russell 1983:271). American secular schools, by contrast, were accepted in almost every Benguet district; the leaders of Buguias even offered to build a schoolhouse without state assistance (Philippine Commission 1901, FF:547–548). Within a decade, local residents educated in village schools began to replace Ilocanos as teachers and municipal secretary-treasurers throughout the Cordillera (Fry 1983:68).

American missionary activity largely bypassed northern Benguet, ensuring religious continuity and concord throughout the prewar period. Buguias Christians today argue that missionaries neglected their region because it was too peaceful; the bellicose central Cordillerans presented a more urgent target. But whatever the motives behind it, this bypassing of Buguias by church agents was to have significant consequences for subsequent cultural change.

American capitalists were a more potent force in the area. They excavated several gold mines in southern Benguet, inherited a Spanish copper mine at Mankayan, and for a period mined gold at Suyoc. They also claimed vast stands of pine to supply supports and headworks for their many mining operations. These actions were to have damaging repercussions on the indigenous peoples in the postwar period, but before the war their effects in Buguias proper were relatively benign. Most mine workers were immigrants from the more densely populated central Cordillera, and they presented a good market for Buguias traders during their periodic trips home. American mineral operations in the Suyoc/Mankayan

area simply bolstered the Buguias economy; the indigenous diggings were left to their rightful owners, and the laborers brought in to work the deeper American mines formed a new set of customers.

The American rulers also sought to "create new wants" among the Benguet people to spur development, but it is uncertain how they hoped to accomplish this (Fry 1983:100). If Buguias prospered during the American period it was because of local initiative rather than American agency. Overall, the generally well-meaning administrators had poor understandings of the local economy; Governor Pack, for instance, hopefully proclaimed in 1907 that the cattle industry was "only in its infancy" (Philippine Commission 1907, v. 1:278), evidently unaware that most suitable pasture areas had long since been developed.

The Geography of Imperial Rule

The remote Kallahan/Kalanguya-speaking areas of the southeast Cordillera were for the most part ignored by American officials, and the local residents, largely unsubdued by the Spaniards, had no desire to submit to the new authorities. Some efforts were made in the early years to bring the relatively accessible village of Kayapa into the imperial fold, but the de facto American policy was to leave the entire area alone. In 1934, J. W. Light reported that the Kayapa people were peaceful and industrious, and although they paid no taxes and did not want a school, they presented no problem for the state. The northern Kalanguya (many of whom lived within the Buguias economic sphere) were even less bothered by colonial interference. The American hope was that these "wild" people would be gradually "civilized" through contact with their Benguet neighbors.

The American policy makers hoped to encourage both economic development and social integration in the Cordillera by constructing an extensive system of graded trails (Fry 1983:77). (A trailbuilding program had been initiated by the Spaniards, but as late as 1906, S. C. Simms (1906b) found it necessary to take a detour through Cervantes when traveling from Baguio to Kiangan.) The rationale behind the transportation program was given dramatic expression by Governor Early in 1931 (Early 1931:41): "[to coalesce] the warring mountain tribes into a homogenous society which will have solidarity of interests in the next generation as it has found peace and mutual understanding in this."