Colonial Visions

To appreciate why colonial policy worked as it did one must examine imperial agents' assessments of their own roles and of the highlanders they presumed to rule. Most American administrators saw themselves as protectors and guides, bearers of civilization to a benighted land. As Benguet's Governor Pack saw it, the first Americans in the Cordillera found a group of "poor, timid and oppressed barbarians" (Philippine Commission 1907, v. 1:277). But officials stationed in the Cordillera, especially those in Benguet, quickly developed a deep respect for their hard-working "subjects." This—combined with a strong sense of frugality—contributed to the general policy of minimal interference, just as it led to prognostications of rapid economic development. At the same time, most Western observers thought that an unfortunate but inevitable concomitant of material progress was the destruction of indigenous culture—a forecast that turned out to be less prescient.

Many Spanish observers had regarded the Igorots as lowly beings indeed: filthy, vicious, scheming idolaters was the typical picture (see Scott 1974, especially p. 70). With the occupation of Benguet in the mid-nineteenth century, however—their dismal failure to missionize the area notwithstanding—local administrators began to report highly positive qualities. One Benguet governor praised the highlanders in quite extraordinary terms: "The character of the Benguet person is loyal, honorable, humble, and, above all, very respectful. His intelligence is lively, and his natural talent is superior to that of the lowlander [quoted in Perez 1902:317; translation by the author]."

Most American commentators also considered the highlanders superior in many respects to the lowland Filipinos. This reflected at once a racist disdain for Filipinos, compounded by scorn for Hispanicized culture and a "rough rider" respect for the rugged, disciplined, and sometimes belligerent highlanders (see Jenista 1978). In the early years of their rule, the Americans' tone was set by Dean Worcester, Secretary of the Philippine Interior. All the mountain people needed, Worcester was convinced, was American tutelage and protection from the lowland Filipinos.

The American administrators' admiration of the Benguet peoples is well expressed in an official report of the era: "In their town government the Igorrotes are considerate and just, and on the whole

conduct the business of the town intelligently and wisely [Philippine Commission 1904, v. 1:410]."

In part, Americans attributed the virtues of the Benguet people to a perceived meritocracy in their class stratification. Governor Pack reported that "[above the common Igorot there is at higher, richer, cleaner class—whose individuals think and study and somehow and from somewhere glean valuable information, and to this class all other classes render implicit faith and obedience [Philippine Commission 1904, v. 1:410]." It is thus hardly surprising that American policy bolstered the position of the indigenous elite.

The Future

Because of their perception of the Benguet Igorots as a hardworking people led by a capable elite and guided by a beneficent metropolitan power, the American officials foresaw a prosperous future.^[4] As Pack self-servingly and naively reported:

Owing to the public works being carried out by the insular government in Benguet Province, the Igorrotes have plenty of money with which to go to the coast and buy stock according to their ambitions, for the Igorrote is never a rich man (or Bocnong) no matter how much money he may have, unless he has animals to show for it. So the ambitious convert their hard-earned cash into hogs or cattle, and possessors of such may take a place among the counselors of their race. This traditionary custom will make these people wealth producers instead of consumers, and as they have a thorough appreciation of the protection of property afforded them by our American Government, they will become valuable allies in pushing our methods of progress still further over the mountains among our natives not yet wholly tamed [Philippine Commission 1904, v. 1:411].

The Keesings (1934:199) also saw a connection between class stratification and economic "progress": "The presence of baknangs in these mountain communities gives the people, in this sense, something of an advantage in the modern struggle toward a wider competence over many backward people whose customs are more communal."

Neither were such optimistic forecasts confined to American observers. Perez (1904:206) articulated the same sentiment in most unambiguous terms: ". . . no doubt, that within a few years Ben-

guet will be one of the richest areas of the Philippines [translation by the author]."

The Keesings (1934:196,219), at least, did worry that communal feasting might thwart economic growth (and harm the breeding stock), although they also appreciated its role in equalizing wealth. A more common forecast, however, saw Igorot culture as doomed by the forces of modernity. Its imminent demise had, in fact, been announced well before the American conquest: in 1890, Meyer (1890 [1975]: 128) declared that ". . . the Igorots are doomed like every other primitive race which comes into sudden contact with European civilization." Some observers thought that "Ilocanoization" would demolish local identity; in 1914, Robertson (1914:471) warned that with the lowlander influx, "pure culture" was disappearing and "real Igorots are becoming hard to study." Others thought their undoing would come at the hands of American sightseers: "[R]oads are to be built, automobiles, stage relays, etc. are to connect this place. Then come easy travel and tourists and then the prostituted work of the natives . . . [Simms 1906a ]."

Regardless of the postulated agent of change, indigenous religion was repeatedly predicted to be the first casualty. Several of the most discerning American Cordilleran scholars thought that they could already see this transformation at work in Benguet, the most advanced highland province. The Keesings (1934:228) found Paganism on the decline in Benguet; and as Barton (1930:123) wrote: "In Benguet foreign influences have been changing the culture and have introduced a laxity of religious observations."

As will be shown, the economic predictions of the early twentieth-century observers were remarkable for their accuracy; their corresponding cultural forecasts were remarkably erroneous. For the people of Buguias would accomplish what seemed impossible: to accept and indeed prosper in a Western economic framework while maintaining their indigenous beliefs, practices, and social identity. But before this was to happen, their old economy was to be utterly demolished in the flames of World War II.