Moro Scouts

[legionnaire]

Moro Scouts Pedro (Perry) and his Bolo Bayonet 1920's.





Capt. Pedro Javier The Real Glory! originally starred Gary Cooper. ;D

The four-day battle of Bagsak Mountain on Jolo Island in the Philippines took place from 11 to 15 June 1913. Americans of the 8th Infantry and the Philippine Scouts, personally lead by Brigadier General John J. Pershing, brought to an end years of bitter struggle against the Moro pirates. These Bolo men, outlaws of great physical endurance and savage fighting ability, were well organized under their Datus or chiefs. They had never been conquered during several centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines.
The U.S. Army .45-caliber pistol was developed to meet the need for a weapon with enough striking power to stop fanatical charges of lawless Moro tribesmen in hand-to-hand fighting.

[VeeVee]

Great impressions Perry! Say... that bolo bayonet was just photoshopped right? I saw one on ebay before... it sold for $2500.

[OneZero]

Great work Perry! and that's an awesome photoshop work!

[legionnaire]

Thank you gentlemen.

BTW The Uniform Perry is wearing is an Original 1920's Philippine Constabulary Tunic owned by the Ortegas. The buttons are new.

Philip

[99luftbalut]

back when i was active in the U.S. Army, i saw the painting above for the first time, entitled "knocking out the moros" by h. mcbarron jr. it open my eyes and made me feel even prouder to be a filipino. i didn't realize the ferocity of our people until that moment. to fight the biggest and one of the most powerful nation at that time with the most advanced technology, with nothing more than bladed weapons and a few rifles says a whole lot. the moros knew it was a no win situation, and yet to stand up against the invaders shows some serious fortitude.

what's disturbing is how the victor's history would distort the facts. calling it "years of bitter struggle against the Moro pirates" is really an insult to these people, to us. not a single moro was present when the treaty of paris was written, and the americans surely weren't invited to take over mindanao just because it was there.

i just hope that for the historians in this thread, realizes this.

[dimasalang]

Jun 17, 2008 21:45:25 GMT -5 legionnaire said:

Capt. Pedro Javier The Real Glory! originally starred Gary Cooper. ;D

The four-day battle of Bagsak Mountain on Jolo Island in the Philippines took place from 11 to 15 June 1913.
The U.S. Army .45-caliber pistol was developed to meet the need for a weapon with enough striking power to stop fanatical charges of lawless Moro tribesmen in hand-to-hand fighting.

HAHA I like this picture, it is a little off though. The 1911 pistol was not issued until early 1913 and the first batches went straight to the US Navy not the Army or the PC or PS in the Philippines. The 1911 was never tested against any Moro uprising since the Battle of Bagsak was the last. More then likely they were armed with the 1902 and/or 1907 Colt 45LC revolvers.

[dimasalang]

Jun 23, 2008 12:25:32 GMT -5 99luftbalut said:

back when i was active in the U.S. Army, i saw the painting above for the first time, entitled "knocking out the moros" by h. mcbarron jr. it open my eyes and made me feel even prouder to be a filipino. i didn't realize the ferocity of our people until that moment. to fight the biggest and one of the most powerful nation at that time with the most advanced technology, with nothing more than bladed weapons and a few rifles says a whole lot. the moros knew it was a no win situation, and yet to stand up against the invaders shows some serious fortitude.

what's disturbing is how the victor's history would distort the facts. calling it "years of bitter struggle against the Moro pirates" is really an insult to these people, to us. not a single moro was present when the treaty of paris was written, and the americans surely weren't invited to take over mindanao just because it was there.

i just hope that for the historians in this thread, realizes this.

So very true, what I do not like is how nearly all uprisings "South" of Luzon are grouped in with the Moro Wars. All of them are now listed as Moros and/or Muslims...which is far from the truth. The first true test was the 1902 Marine Expedition of Samar led by Maj Waller. It was not Muslim/Moros they faced, but Christian cult fanatics known as Pulajanes who sprung out of the jungle and also would not go down. The Pulajane Campaign also went on for years and it is vaguely remembered. And it is because of the Pulajanes, not the Moros, why Marines at that time would rise to their feet and yell "STAND, GENTLEMEN, HE SERVED ON SAMAR!" when a Marine survivor of Samar walked in.

As for the weakness of the 38 revolver, heres a quote from Colonel Louis A. LaGarde, M.D.
Antonio Caspi a prisoner on the Island of Samar, P.I. attempted to escape on Oct. 26, 1905. He was shot four times at close range in a hand-to-hand encounter by a .38 Colt's revolver loaded with U.S. Army regulation ammunition. He was finally stunned by a blow on the forehead from the butt end of a Springfield carbine. 1. Bullet entered chest near right nipple, passed upward, backwards and outwards, perforated lung and escaped through back passing through edge of right scapula. 2. Bullet entered chest through left nipple, passed upwards, backwards and inwards, perforating lung and lodging in subcutaneous tissues. 3. Bullet entered chest near left shoulder, passing downwards and backwards, perforating lung and lodged in back. 4. Bullet entered through palm of left hand and passed through subcutaneous tissues and escaped through wound on anterior surface of forearm. Treated at military hospital, Borongan, Samar. Turned over to civil authorities cured, Nov. 23, 1905.

[legionnaire]

Thanks for the addtional info on the Moro Wars and the 45 Auto. That historical background on the painting I found on the CMH ( center for Military History) which needs to have their info corrected.

Philip

[indiosbravos]

I'm doing a PS impressions and will do this now for the rest of my life. I would like to honor them and what they did for the country during WW2. But PS is not only WW2, but as earlier as 1901.

Now my dilemma, the things that I'm having difficulty reconciling to the point of concious dementia was their role in fight against our brothers in the south and earlier, their role in Philippine Insurrection ( which incidentally should be also corrected and be called Philippine Revolution instead )

I'm supposed we don't have a concept of nationhood yet so people from the south was not our " Brothers". I don't know.

It's like the Magdiwang- Magdalo conundrum and the issue of collaborations.

Sorry this is supposed to be a simple appreciation of the great Photoshop work. Mea Culpa, I was carried away.

Thanks for the input Dimasalang (my idol, I'm from Laguna).
I agree we're gonna have a problem there since I'm also into Sakay and his men.....

PS bataan and Corregidor that's me....

[dimasalang]

Jun 23, 2008 17:07:04 GMT -5 indiosbravos said:

I'm doing a PS impressions and will do this now for the rest of my life. I would like to honor them and what they did for the country during WW2. But PS is not only WW2, but as earlier as 1901.

Now my dilemma, the things that I'm having difficulty reconciling to the point of concious dementia was their role in fight against our brothers in the south and earlier, their role in Philippine Insurrection ( which incidentally should be also corrected and be called Philippine Revolution instead )

I'm supposed we don't have a concept of nationhood yet so people from the south was not our " Brothers". I don't know.

It's like the Magdiwang- Magdalo conundrum and the issue of collaborations.

Sorry this is supposed to be a simple appreciation of the great Photoshop work. Mea Culpa, I was carried away.

Indiosbravos(love the name by the way), the “Philippine Insurrection” was not a revolution. It was labeled “insurrection” because the U.S.(at the start of the war) did not recognize the government body of Aguinaldo. Gen. Otis drew a fine line there making no deals with any “insurrecto” parties, he went so far as to say his captured men were not prisoners of war, just stragglers who got kidnapped by bandits. But that changed when Aurthur MacArthur and Roosevelt stepped in and took over. It is key to note, Roosevelt ended “the war” in 1902…that alone changed the definition because Aguinaldos government would have to be recognized by the US government in order to be "in a war" and for an “official ending to a war”. But it took years for the name to change, and in 1999(100 years later) the U.S. Library of Congress officially changed the name of “Philippine Insurrection” to the “Philippine American War”.

And as for representing the early years of the PS, I really don’t know what to tell you. Hehe. That is a really tough decision. The PS chased, captured, and killed a LOT of our heroes. Sakay and all his men(+300), Julian Montalon and his men, Cornelio Felizardo, Luciano San Miguel and his entire brigade, Julian Santos, Faustino Guillermo, Artemio Ricarte, Ricarte’s Vigan PC revoltists, Vicente Lukban, Simeon Ola, Faustino Ablen, Felipe Salvador, the entire Moro nation…sheesh you can go on and on and on with names. Literally thousands of men captured and killed by the PS, most of whom the Philippines now recognize as heroes, and the early PS were branded for this. Personally, I’d stick to representing the WWII era.

[legionnaire]

The PS chased, captured, and killed a LOT of our heroes. Sakay and all his men(+300),

I could never find ANY clear info that the PHILPINE SCOUTS participated DIRECTLY in the "chased, capture and KILLED SAKAY and ALL HIS MEN!

If you could please show us true documented proof that the PS participated in this event and I want to focus on Macario Sakay as your first sweeping claims were done by the SCOUTS! AGAIN wildly exagerrated condemnation and distortions that the PS were "traitors and had an infamous past" in Philippine History!

Philip

[legionnaire]

calling it "years of bitter struggle against the Moro pirates" is really an insult to these people, to us.

I'm sorry but this part I don't see it that way. Since when in the entire Philippine History did the Moro's EVER claim to be with us, even to this day with Christian Filipinos or "infidels" inpure as we are labeled? I find it an insult that we are called that and they believe they are THE ONLY " culture & religion"?


and the americans surely weren't invited to take over mindanao just because it was there.

Yes The Americans were not invited but that was part of the spoils of war since the Philippine Islands was a colony of Spain which they defeated in the SpanAm war if you still remember. And the same with the Spanish for past several hundred years have tried to and the Japanese later tried it too take over since it is part of the Philippine Islands ever since it was discovered and colonized.

Philip

[99luftbalut]

Jun 24, 2008 0:07:04 GMT -5 legionnaire said:

calling it "years of bitter struggle against the Moro pirates" is really an insult to these people, to us.

I'm sorry but this part I don't see it that way. Since when in the entire Philippine History did the Moro's EVER claim to be with us, even to this day with Christian Filipinos or "infidels" inpure as we are labeled? I find it an insult that we are called that and they believe they are THE ONLY " culture & religion"?


and the americans surely weren't invited to take over mindanao just because it was there.

Yes The Americans were not invited but that was part of the spoils of war since the Philippine Islands was a colony of Spain which they defeated in the SpanAm war if you still remember. And the same with the Spanish for past several hundred years have tried to and the Japanese later tried it too take over since it is part of the Philippine Islands ever since it was discovered and colonized.

Philip

hi philip,

thank you.
i try to think of our history started way before magellan landed in our soil. you are right that when our nation became known as The Philippines, the moros were never with us. the prehispanic history stayed in that island unmolested. but then again, save for the last 40 years of the the 19th century and beyond, and a few key years from 1521 to 1898, we never had our own history to speak of; it was more of the Spanish history, with the indios as supporting characters in the background. as far as our people's history during the prehispanic era, understand that the people from luzon has strong ties with the southern islands, and vice versa, going as far as borneo (see the Laguna Copperplate). i won't go into details as to how the spaniards conquered 2/3rds of the islands as this is common knowledge. what i would like to point out though is remember, it was that conquest that divided our archipelago. when the spaniards tried to conquer the moros, they have stirred the hornet's nest, so to speak. this lead to the intense piratical expeditions that we have heard so much, mostly in the visayan region but stretching all the way to luzon. but here's a little known history of our people, and as barbarically as it sound, this was a common practice by everyone, and not just the moros, way before the arrival of the spaniards (Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino, william henry scott). we can see that the spaniards did a thorough job in dividing the archipelago by means of religion, that to this day, we don't get along.

as far as the second part of your response:
mindanao was never part of the spanish colony save for a few hectars of land in jolo, a walled port in zamboanga and perhaps the northern part of the island bordering the visayan region. so how can that be a part of the so called "spoils of war"? it was their (the spaniards) malicious addition of that part of the philippines in the treaty of paris so the incoming americans would relieve what few ragtag men they have left inside the wall city in jolo.

ron

[VeeVee]

Jun 23, 2008 17:07:04 GMT -5 indiosbravos said:

I'm doing a PS impressions and will do this now for the rest of my life. I would like to honor them and what they did for the country during WW2. But PS is not only WW2, but as earlier as 1901.

Now my dilemma, the things that I'm having difficulty reconciling to the point of concious dementia was their role in fight against our brothers in the south and earlier, their role in Philippine Insurrection ( which incidentally should be also corrected and be called Philippine Revolution instead )

I'm supposed we don't have a concept of nationhood yet so people from the south was not our " Brothers". I don't know.

It's like the Magdiwang- Magdalo conundrum and the issue of collaborations.

Sorry this is supposed to be a simple appreciation of the great Photoshop work. Mea Culpa, I was carried away.

Thanks for the input Dimasalang (my idol, I'm from Laguna).
I agree we're gonna have a problem there since I'm also into Sakay and his men.....

PS bataan and Corregidor that's me....

I myself reflected on this a lot. I decided that the Fil-Am war and WW2 are different times and different worlds and fought by different sets of people. Whenever Filipinos fought against fellow Filipinos for different motivations, reasons, and beliefs in our history, it's almost no different from the American civil war. Who knows why the first 1900's era Scouts joined the US forces? What were their motivations? Food? Pay? Love of soldiering? I don't know. I don't know the context.

What I do know is fast forward 40 years later and the US and the Philippines were good friends -- brothers in arms with intertwined histories. Regardless of the tumultuous start, the loyalty of the Filipinos to their American brothers must have reflected good things that happened in the past 40 years between the two. There must have been a lot of good that righted many wrongs for such loyalty in such a short time.

Either way, I do believe that even though the PS may have drawn their equipment and pay from Uncle Sam, they fought and sacrificed for every single Filipino's freedom in Bataan. They fought for their people, their families, they fought for what is right. If the political color is taken out of the picture, that's what it boils down to. That is enough to win my admiration and respect.

[dimasalang]

Jun 23, 2008 22:34:47 GMT -5 legionnaire said:

The PS chased, captured, and killed a LOT of our heroes. Sakay and all his men(+300),

I could never find ANY clear info that the PHILPINE SCOUTS participated DIRECTLY in the "chased, capture and KILLED SAKAY and ALL HIS MEN!

If you could please show us true documented proof that the PS participated in this event and I want to focus on Macario Sakay as your first sweeping claims were done by the SCOUTS! AGAIN wildly exagerrated condemnation and distortions that the PS were "traitors and had an infamous past" in Philippine History!

Philip

Philip,

I will certainly provide you "documented proof" on this topic. Please allow me time to look at the documents I have as there are several reports I will be looking through, and I will highlight each one for you. Afterwards, I will re-edit this post and post my findings.

Kevin

[legionnaire]

Hi Ron,

Was there a National government? NO was there a National Army? NO, in these 7,00 plus islands to even represent it as a sovereign Nation under one flag? NO even before the Spanish conquest. As you mention it was common practice for all these pirate expeditions to attack each other. So everything was clearly open for the taking to any foreign invader to try and colonized the entire archiphelago as one. Which the Spanish did.

Mindanao is GEOGRAPHICALLY part of the Philippine Archiphelago anyone looks at the map you can see it is part of these group of islands. So from a conquerors point of view that is all part of the territory unclamied by the any recognize form of National government.

This is so way off topic from what I had originally posted and again pointless gripes of history nobody can change for the sake of false patriotic "nationalism".

Philip

[legionnaire]

Kevin,

I will certainly provide you "documented proof" on this topic.

Please show clear documented proof that the PS took part on this 1st claim about Sakay and his followers by your recklessly claims.

The fact that you made this quick, extensive, and specific list of names that were the work of the PS and yet you do not have the proof about one example SAKAY right now? And have to take time to make a research shows your reckless claim was exagerrated!

Philip

[VeeVee]

Whoa... take it easy guys. It's just history. It is what it is. It's not farfetched that the early PS did what Dimasalang says. After all they were part of the American forces in those troubled times. (shrug)

[indiosbravos]

Sorry to have started this. This will be like chicken and egg discussions as I said before hand.

Vic was right, the important thing was to focus and value the contributions of the PS specially in WW2.

The concept of nationhood and the Muslim issue, that will always be tricky.

How about who are "Filipinos"? during the spanish times. How about the "Tagalogs"?

What ever said and done, me personally will never diminished my respect and admirations to those people who offer their lives and did they part in what we call now " Philippines". May they be PS or PA or civilians "throwing food and nursing soldiers to their health", acting on their own volition or influenced by "others."

In History there will always be bitter pills to swallow, nation will be define on how they they rises up from the taint of this part in their History.

I'm a Filipino. I'm a PS reenactor. I'm a Katipunero reenactor. I hope to stay this way....

[26th]

Hi Guys:

I love coming to this site.
Sure is some fireworks going on and July 4th is not even here.

As you guys know my dad served in between those dates. He did what was told to him as a soldier of the American Army. No pay, lousy food and trying to be loyal to a country [USA) that they thought would make the country better than the Spanish did.

I also have Apache blood and some say we fought on the US side in that also. Those apache scouts brought in Geronimo thinking it would help make them citizens. They fought each other just like the filipino's did.

Anyone remember the 45 or 57th infantry mutiny put down by the filipino's and regular army in the 20's.

Their is so much history and stories of why some native people did what they did against their own, but what it was, was some wanted to be part of what was happening at the time.

Look at us now, trying to be someone that did it for what they believed in, not like us, just history.

Face it Philip the Filipino's killed each other, they still do it now.
We are people mixed and confused and only 65 years old on our own.

It is best to listen to others and what they might know. We can learn. 7000 Island, many languges, religon and so many different stories from different times.

I have 4 kinds blood that fought against America.
Spanish, Mexican, Filipino and Apache. We lost them all, but this family adapted to all of them. I am just an American with history for blood.

Peace Out all and keep it coming.

Rudy/26Cav/Blood of Scouts (Indain and Filipino)