Global situation at the time of Rizal’s Advent

In 1861, the year when Rizal was born, the Philippines were browsing redolently beneath the shadow of the cross. Pax Hispanica reigned over the entire archipelago. The people, despite their bondage to Spain, were enjoying their serene, simple and Christian way of life. Comparatively speaking, they were better off than the subject peoples in the English, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies during that age. The Spanish Governor-General then was a good militarist, General Jose Lemery, whose achievement worthy of historical citation was the establishment of the Politico-Military Government of the Visayas and Mindanao. No bloody Muslim piratical raid, no serious native uprising, no frightful upsurge of banditry, and no threat of foreign invasion marred the general tranquility of the land.

            Beyond the frontiers of the Philippines, the world was seething in the throes of political strife, social upheavals, and international intrigues. Gargantuan China was prostrate, impotent to stop the predatory Western powers who were busy looting her riches. Her futile wars with England and France were ended by the infamous “Convention of Peking” (October 22, 1860), in which she lost more territories and was forced to grant more commercial concessions to the imperialist “foreign devils.” To worsen matters for the tottering Manchu dynasty, the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) was ravaging the rich provinces south of the Yangtze.

            The imperialist Western powers, flushed with their victories in China, tried to make a repeat performance in Japan, whose door was unlocked in 1854 to the world by the American commodore, Matthew C. Perry. Their efforts were, however, foiled by the valiant Japanese people, whose Bushido spirit outmatched the intruders’ superior fire-power.

            In Indo-China, the French troops of Emperor Napoleon III, Strangely aided by Filipino soldiers from Manila, were smashing down Annamese resistance. In 1858 Saigon was captured by the combined Filipino-French forces, and four years later France acquired Cochin China.

            By fire and sword, the British East India Company armies were establishing the British raj (rule) all over the sub-continent of India and beyond the western frontiers to Burma. The destructive Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, last serious resistance to British imperialism in India, was suppressed at a staggering cost of money and human lives. England had to fight three Burmese Wars (1824-26; 1862-63; and 1885-86) to subdue Burma.

            Spain, unlike England, fared ill under the rule of a woman--- Queen Isabella II (1833-68). She had lost her rich colonies decadence was accelerated by the chronic Carlist War, the ruinous political squabbles, and the bungling policies of her inept monarch.