volume 2, pages 47-48).

"The population of the Sulu Archipelago is reckoned at 120,000, mostly domiciled in the island of Jolo, and numbers 20,000 fighting men. Hostilities would be unfortunate for all parties concerned, would be very expensive to the United States in men and money, and destructive of any advancement of the Moros for years to come. Spain's long struggle with these people and their dislike for the former dominant race in the Philippines, inherited, it would seem, by each rising generation during three centuries, furnishes an instructive lesson. Under the pending agreement General Bates, assisted by the officers of the Navy, quietly placed garrisons of one company each at Siassi and at Bongao, on the Tawai Tawai group of islands, where they were well received by the friendly natives. With the approval of the agreement, the only difficulty to a satisfactory settlement of the Sulu affairs will arise from discontent on the part of the Sultan personally because of a supposed decrease in anticipated revenues or the machinations of the insurgents of Mindanao, who are endeavoring to create a feeling of distrust and hostility among the natives against the United States troops.

"The Sultan's government is one of perfect despotism, in form at least, as all political power is supposed to center in his person; but this does not prevent frequent outbreaks on the part of the datos, who frequently revolt, and are now, in two or three instances, in declared enmity. All Moros, however, profess the Mohammedan religion, introduced in the fourteenth century, and the sacredness of the person of the Sultan is therefore a tenet of faith. This fact would prevent any marked success by a dato in attempting to secure supreme power. Spain endeavored to supplant the Sultan with one of his most enterprising chiefs and signally failed. Peonage or a species of serfdom enters largely into the social and domestic arrangements and a dato's following or clan submits itself without protest to his arbitrary will. The Moro political fabric bears resemblance to the state of feudal times—the Sultan exercising supreme power by divine right, and his datos, like the feudal lords, supporting or opposing him at will, and by force of arms occasionally, but not to the extent of dethronement, as that would be too great a sacrilege for a Mohammedan people to seek to consummate. The United States must accept these people as they are, and endeavor to ameliorate their condition by degrees, and the best means to insure success appears to be through the cultivation of friendly sentiments and the introduction of trade and commerce upon approved business methods. To undertake forcible radical action for the amelioration of conditions or to so interfere with their domestic relations as to arouse their suspicions and distrust would be attended with unfortunate consequences."

_Report of General Otis, August 31, 1899 (Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,