Today in Manhunting History -- May 19, 1898: Aguinaldo's Homecoming

The morning sun still hung low over the horizon on 19 May, 1898, illuminating the rocky shores of Corregidor Island as the U.S.S McCulloch sailed into Manila Bay.  Over the next few hours the revenue cutter passed the spongy littoral marshes south of Cavite, the small peninsula jutting into the bay ten miles south of Manila.  As the ship passed the peninsula, passengers on the landward side could make out the twisted rigging and battered funnels of battleships protruding above the water line – the wreckage of the Spanish fleet destroyed by Admiral George Dewey’s squadron in a stunning naval victory less than three weeks earlier.

           

The “remnants and ruins” of the Spanish fleet were an especially powerful image for one of the McCullough’s passengers, Emilio Aguinaldo.  Barely 28 years old, Aguinaldo was not physically imposing, only five-foot-four and slight of build.  His face was handsome despite scars from a childhood bout of smallpox.  His wide, high brow suggested intelligence, and sat over clear, serene, and slightly Asiatic eyes.  Although the three day trip across the South China Sea from Hong Kong had been outwardly uneventful, the young man’s mind was in perpetual turmoil. 

Emilio Aguinaldo

Despite his youth, Aguinaldo was returning from exile in Hong Kong as the leader of the Philippine revolution against Spanish colonial rule in the archipelago.  As the McCullough traversed the waves, his waking hours had been spent in deep reflection: Would he find his people as ready to support his cause as before?  Had his acceptance of exile tainted his ability to lead?  And what about his family, and the families of his comrades in arms that had been left behind?  Had the Spanish honored their promises to guarantee their safety?  Or in the panic of war with the Americans would they take them as hostages, or worse, torture and perhaps kill them?

           

As these thoughts turned over and over in his mind, the red-tile roofs of the old city of Manila appeared over the horizon.  Just after noon, the McCulloch dropped anchor in Manila’s inner harbor.  Almost immediately, Admiral Dewey’s launch pulled up alongside to convey Aguinaldo to the Admiral aboard his flagship.  Accompanied by his aides Colonel Gregorio del Pilar and Lieutenant J. Leyba, he boarded the launch, and quickly found himself being piped over the Olympia, the cruiser which served as the Dewey’s flagship.  Upon boarding, he was enthusiastically greeted by a tall, slim man with wavy grey hair and a thick, white mustache.  Admiral Dewey was a 60 year old naval veteran of the Civil War who wore an immaculate, tailored dress-white uniform and polished high-instep boots.  Dewey immediately ushered Aguinaldo and his aides to his private quarters for discussions of the course ahead.

Dewey aboard the U.S.S. Olympia

           

Over the next twenty-four hours, Aguinaldo’s mind would be put to rest on several issues, as he received the American commander’s blessing to restart his revolution.  Although he could not know it that afternoon in Manila Bay, within two months he would be at the height of his power, the President of the nascent Republic of the Philippines in command of 30,000 troops and in control of almost the entire archipelago. 

           

Perhaps still more inconceivable, within a year Emilio Aguinaldo would become the most wanted man in the Philippines, with as many as 70,000 American troops possessing orders to capture or kill him.