title: Unemployment

text: However the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic is not directly blamed for the Nazi rise. Hyperinflation occurred primarily in 1921 to 1923, the year of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Although hyperinflation has been blamed for damaging the credibility of democratic institutions, the Nazis did not assume government until 1933, ten years after the hyperinflation but in the midst of high unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Rising unemployment has traditionally been regarded by the public and the media in any country as a key guarantor of electoral defeat for any government that oversees it. That was very much the consensus in the United Kingdom until 1983, when Thatcher's Conservative government won a landslide in the general election, despite overseeing a rise in unemployment from 1.5 million to 3.2 million since the 1979 election.


title: Unemployment

text: The primary benefit of unemployment is that people are available for hire, without being headhunted away from their existing employers. That permits both new and old businesses to take on staff.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment is argued to be "beneficial" to the people who are not unemployed in the sense that it averts inflation, which itself has damaging effects, by providing (in Marxian terms) a reserve army of labour, which keeps wages in check. However, the direct connection between full local employment and local inflation has been disputed by some because of the recent increase in international trade that supplies low-priced goods even while local employment rates rise to full employment.


title: Unemployment

text: Before current levels of world trade were developed, unemployment was shown to reduce inflation, following the Phillips curve, or to decelerate inflation, following the NAIRU/natural rate of unemployment theory since it is relatively easy to seek a new job without losing a current job. When more jobs are available for fewer workers (lower unemployment), that may allow workers to find the jobs that better fit their tastes, talents and needs.


title: Unemployment

text: As in the Marxian theory of unemployment, special interests may also benefit. Some employers may expect that employees with no fear of losing their jobs will not work as hard or will demand increased wages and benefit. According to that theory, unemployment may promote general labour productivity and profitability by increasing employers' rationale for their monopsony-like power (and profits).


title: Unemployment

text: Optimal unemployment has also been defended as an environmental tool to brake the constantly-accelerated growth of the GDP to maintain levels that are sustainable in the context of resource constraints and environmental impacts. However, the tool of denying jobs to willing workers seems a blunt instrument for conserving resources and the environment. It reduces the consumption of the unemployed across the board and only in the short term. Full employment of the unemployed workforce, all focused toward the goal of developing more environmentally-efficient methods for production and consumption, might provide a more significant and lasting cumulative environmental benefit and reduced resource consumption.


title: Unemployment

text: Some critics of the "culture of work" such as the anarchist Bob Black see employment as culturally overemphasized in modern countries. Such critics often propose quitting jobs when possible, working less, reassessing the cost of living to that end, creation of jobs that are "fun" as opposed to "work," and creating cultural norms in which work is seen as unhealthy. These people advocate an "anti-work" ethic for life.


title: Unemployment

text: As a result of productivity, the work week declined considerably during the 19th century. By the 1920s, the average workweek in the US was 49 hours, but it was reduced to 40 hours (after which overtime premium was applied) as part of the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act. During the Great Depression, the enormous productivity gains caused by electrification, mass production, and agricultural mechanization were believed to have ended the need for a large number of previously-employed workers.


title: Unemployment

text: Societies try a number of different measures to get as many people as possible into work, and various societies have experienced close to full employment for extended periods, particularly during the post-World War II economic expansion. The United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s averaged 1.6% unemployment, and in Australia, the 1945 "White Paper on Full Employment in Australia" established a government policy of full employment, which lasted until the 1970s.


title: Unemployment

text: However, mainstream economic discussions of full employment since the 1970s suggest that attempts to reduce the level of unemployment below the natural rate of unemployment will fail but result only in less output and more inflation.


title: Unemployment

text: Increases in the demand for labour move the economy along the demand curve, increasing wages and employment. The demand for labour in an economy is derived from the demand for goods and services. As such, if the demand for goods and services in the economy increases, the demand for labour will increase, increasing employment and wages.


title: Unemployment

text: There are many ways to stimulate demand for goods and services. Increasing wages to the working class (those more likely to spend the increased funds on goods and services, rather than various types of savings or commodity purchases) is one theory that is proposed. Increased wages are believed to be more effective in boosting demand for goods and services than central banking strategies, which put the increased money supply mostly into the hands of wealthy persons and institutions. Monetarists suggest that increasing money supply in general increases short-term demand. As for the long-term demand, the increased demand is negated by inflation. A rise in fiscal expenditures is another strategy for boosting aggregate demand.


title: Unemployment

text: Providing aid to the unemployed is a strategy that is used to prevent cutbacks in consumption of goods and services, which can lead to a vicious cycle of further job losses and further decreases in consumption and demand. Many countries aid the unemployed through social welfare programs. Such unemployment benefits include unemployment insurance, unemployment compensation, welfare, and subsidies to aid in retraining. The main goal of such programs is to alleviate short-term hardships and, more importantly, to allow workers more time to search for a job.


title: Unemployment

text: A direct demand-side solution to unemployment is government-funded employment of the able-bodied poor. This was notably implemented in Britain from the 17th century until 1948 in the institution of the workhouse, which provided jobs for the unemployed with harsh conditions and poor wages to dissuade their use. A modern alternative is a job guarantee in which the government guarantees work at a living wage.


title: Unemployment

text: Temporary measures can include public works programs such as the Works Progress Administration. Government-funded employment is not widely advocated as a solution to unemployment except in times of crisis. That is attributed to the public sector jobs' existence depending directly on the tax receipts from private sector employment.


title: Unemployment

text: In the US, the unemployment insurance allowance is based solely on previous income (not time worked, family size, etc.) and usually compensates for one third of previous income. To qualify, people must reside in their respective state for at least a year and work. The system was established by the Social Security Act of 1935. Although 90% of citizens are covered by unemployment insurance, less than 40% apply for and receive benefits. However, the number applying for and receiving benefits increases during recessions. For highly-seasonal industries, the system provides income to workers during the off-season, thus encouraging them to stay attached to the industry.


title: Unemployment

text: According to classical economic theory, markets reach equilibrium where supply equals demand; everyone who wants to sell at the market price can do so. Those who do not want to sell at that price do not; in the labour market, this is classical unemployment. Monetary policy and fiscal policy can both be used to increase short-term growth in the economy, increasing the demand for labour and decreasing unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: However, the labor market is not 100% efficient although it may be more efficient than the bureaucracy. Some argue that minimum wages and union activity keep wages from falling, which means that too many people want to sell their labour at the going price but cannot. That assumes perfect competition exists in the labour market, specifically that no single entity is large enough to affect wage levels and that employees are similar in ability.


title: Unemployment

text: Advocates of supply-side policies believe those policies can solve the problem by making the labour market more flexible. These include removing the minimum wage and reducing the power of unions. Supply-siders argue that their reforms increase long-term growth by reducing labour costs. The increased supply of goods and services requires more workers, increasing employment. It is argued that supply-side policies, which include cutting taxes on businesses and reducing regulation, create jobs, reduce unemployment, and decrease labor's share of national income. Other supply-side policies include education to make workers more attractive to employers.


title: Unemployment

text: There are relatively limited historical records on unemployment because it has not always been acknowledged or measured systematically. Industrialization involves economies of scale, which often prevent individuals from having the capital to create their own jobs to be self-employed. An individual who cannot join an enterprise or create a job is unemployed. As individual farmers, ranchers, spinners, doctors and merchants are organized into large enterprises, those who cannot join or compete become unemployed.


title: Unemployment

text: Recognition of unemployment occurred slowly as economies across the world industrialized and bureaucratized. Before that, traditional self-sufficient native societies had no concept of unemployment. The recognition of the concept of "unemployment" is best exemplified through the well documented historical records in England. For example, in 16th-century, England no distinction was made between vagrants and the jobless; both were simply categorized as "sturdy beggars", who were to be punished and moved on.


title: Unemployment

text: The closing of the monasteries in the 1530s increased poverty, as the Roman Catholic Church had helped the poor. In addition, there was a significant rise in enclosures during the Tudor period. Also, the population was rising. Those unable to find work had a stark choice: starve or break the law. In 1535, a bill was drawn up calling for the creation of a system of public works to deal with the problem of unemployment, which were to be funded by a tax on income and capital. A law that was passed a year later allowed vagabonds to be whipped and hanged.


title: Unemployment

text: In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law: two years' servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second. During the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed. In the 1576 Act, each town was required to provide work for the unemployed.


title: Unemployment

text: The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, one of the world's first government-sponsored welfare programs, made a clear distinction between those who were unable to work and those able-bodied people who refused employment. Under the Poor Law systems of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a workhouse was a place people unable to support themselves could go to live and work.


title: Unemployment

text: By 1776, some 1,912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales and housed almost 100,000 paupers.


title: Unemployment

text: A description of the miserable living standards of the mill workers in England in 1844 was given by Fredrick Engels in "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844". In the preface to the 1892 edition, Engels noted that the extreme poverty he had written about in 1844 had largely disappeared. David Ames Wells also noted that living conditions in England had improved near the end of the 19th century and that unemployment was low.


title: Unemployment

text: The scarcity and the high price of labor in the US in the 19th century was well documented by contemporary accounts, as in the following:


title: Unemployment

text: As new territories were opened and federal land sales were conducted, land had to be cleared and new homesteads established. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually came to the US and found jobs digging canals and building railroads. Almost all work during most of the 19th century was done by hand or with horses, mules, or oxen since there was very little mechanization. The workweek during most of the 19th century was 60 hours. Unemployment at times was between one and two percent.


title: Unemployment

text: The tight labor market was a factor in productivity gains by allowing workers to maintain or to increase their nominal wages during the secular deflation that caused real wages to rise at various times in the 19th century, especially in its final decades.


title: Unemployment

text: There were labor shortages during World War I. Ford Motor Co. doubled wages to reduce turnover. After 1925, unemployment gradually began to rise.


title: Unemployment

text: The 1930s saw the Great Depression impact unemployment across the globe. In Germany and the United States, the unemployment rate reached about 25% in 1932.


title: Unemployment

text: In some towns and cities in the northeast of England, unemployment reached as high as 70%; the national unemployment level peaked at more than 22% in 1932. Unemployment in Canada reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933. In 1929, the U.S. unemployment rate averaged 3%.


title: Unemployment

text: In the US, the Works Progress Administration (1935–43) was the largest make-work program. It hired men (and some women) off the relief roles ("dole") typically for unskilled labor.


title: Unemployment

text: During the New Deal, over three million unemployed young men were taken out of their homes and placed for six months into more than 2600 work camps managed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment in the United Kingdom fell later in the 1930s as the Depression eased, and it remained low (in single figures) after World War II.


title: Unemployment

text: Fredrick Mills found that in the US, 51% of the decline in work hours was due to the fall in production and 49% was from increased productivity.


title: Unemployment

text: By 1972, unemployment in the United Kingdom had crept back up above 1,000,000, and it was even higher by the end of the decade, with inflation also being high. Although the monetarist economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government saw inflation reduced after 1979, unemployment soared in the early 1980s and in 1982, it exceeded 3,000,000, a level that had not been seen for some 50 years. That represented one in eight of the workforce, with unemployment exceeding 20% in some places that had relied on declining industries such as coal mining.


title: Unemployment

text: However, it was a time of high unemployment in all other major industrialised nations as well. By the spring of 1983, unemployment had risen by 6% in the previous 12 months, compared to 10% in Japan, 23% in the US, and 34% in West Germany (seven years before Reunification).


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment in the United Kingdom remained above 3,000,000 until the spring of 1987, when the economy enjoyed a boom. By the end of 1989, unemployment had fallen to 1,600,000. However, inflation had reached 7.8%, and the following year, it reached a nine-year high of 9.5%; leading to increased interest rates.


title: Unemployment

text: Another recession occurred from 1990 to 1992. Unemployment began to increase, and by the end of 1992, nearly 3,000,000 in the United Kingdom were unemployed, a number that was soon lowered by a strong economic recovery. With inflation down to 1.6% by 1993, unemployment then began to fall rapidly and stood at 1,800,000 by early 1997.


title: Unemployment

text: The official unemployment rate in the 16 European Union (EU) countries that use the euro rose to 10% in December 2009 as a result of another recession. Latvia had the highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 22.3% for November 2009. Europe's young workers have been especially hard hit. In November 2009, the unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15–24 was 18.3%. For those under 25, the unemployment rate in Spain was 43.8%. Unemployment has risen in two thirds of European countries since 2010.


title: Unemployment

text: Into the 21st century, unemployment in the United Kingdom remained low and the economy remaining strong, and several other European economies, such as France and Germany, experienced a minor recession and a substantial rise in unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: In 2008, when the recession brought on another increase in the United Kingdom, after 15 years of economic growth and no major rises in unemployment. In early 2009, unemployment passed the 2 million mark, and economists were predicting it would soon reach 3 million. However, the end of the recession was declared in January 2010 and unemployment peaked at nearly 2.7 million in 2011, appearing to ease fears of unemployment reaching 3 million. The unemployment rate of Britain's young black people was 47.4% in 2011. 2013/2014 has seen the employment rate increase from 1,935,836 to 2,173,012 as supported by showing the UK is creating more job opportunities and forecasts the rate of increase in 2014/2015 will be another 7.2%.


title: Unemployment

text: The 2008–2012 global recession has been called a "mancession" because of the disproportionate number of men who lost their jobs as compared to women. The gender gap became wide in the United States in 2009, when 10.5% of men in the labor force were unemployed, compared with 8% of women. Three quarters of the jobs that were lost in the recession in the US were held by men.


title: Unemployment

text: A 26 April 2005 "Asia Times" article noted, "In regional giant South Africa, some 300,000 textile workers have lost their jobs in the past two years due to the influx of Chinese goods". The increasing US trade deficit with China cost 2.4 million American jobs between 2001–2008, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). From 2000–2007, the United States lost a total of 3.2 million manufacturing jobs. 12.1% of US military veterans who had served after the September 11 attacks in 2001 were unemployed as of 2011; 29.1% of male veterans aged 18–24 were unemployed. As of September 2016, the total veteran unemployment rate was 4.3 percent. By September 2017, that figure had dropped to 3 percent.


title: Unemployment

text: About 25,000,000 people in the world's 30 richest countries lost their jobs between the end of 2007 and the end of 2010, as the economic downturn pushed most countries into recession. In April 2010, the US unemployment rate was 9.9%, but the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate was 17.1%. In April 2012, the unemployment rate was 4.6% in Japan. In a 2012 story, the "Financial Post" reported, "Nearly 75 million youth are unemployed around the world, an increase of more than 4 million since 2007. In the European Union, where a debt crisis followed the financial crisis, the youth unemployment rate rose to 18% last year from 12.5% in 2007, the ILO report shows." In March 2018, according to US Unemployment Rate Statistics, the unemployment rate was 4.1%, below the 4.5–5.0% norm.


title: Manx language

text: Manx ( or , pronounced or ), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx people.


title: Manx language

text: Although only few children native to the Isle of Man speak Manx as a first language, there has been a steady increase in the number of speakers since the death of Ned Maddrell in 1974. He was considered to be the last speaker to grow up in a Manx-speaking community environment. Despite this, the language has never fallen completely out of use, with a minority having some knowledge of it as a heritage language, and it is still an important part of the island's culture and cultural heritage.


title: Manx language

text: Manx is often cited as a good example of language revival efforts; in 2015, around 1,800 people had varying levels of second-language conversational ability. Since the late 20th century, Manx has become more visible on the island, with increased signage, radio broadcasts and a Manx-medium primary school. The revival of Manx has been made easier because the language was well recorded, e.g. the Bible and the "Book of Common Prayer" had been translated into Manx, and audio recordings had been made of native speakers.


title: Manx language

text: The endonym of the language is /, which shares the same etymology as the word "Gaelic", as do the endonyms of its sister languages Irish (; , and ) and Scottish Gaelic (). Manx frequently uses the forms / (with definite article), as do Irish () and Scottish Gaelic ().


title: Manx language

text: To distinguish it from the two other forms of Gaelic, the phrases "Gaelic of Mann" and "Manx Gaelic" are also used. In addition, the nickname "the mother tongue, lit. the mother's tongue" is occasionally used.


title: Manx language

text: The language is usually referred to in English as "Manx". The term "Manx Gaelic" is often used, for example when discussing the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx) or to avoid confusion with Manx English, the form of English spoken on the island. A feature of Manx English deriving from Gaelic is the use of the definite article, e.g. "the Manx", "the Gaelic", in ways not generally seen in standard English.


title: Manx language

text: The word "Manx", often spelled historically as "Manks" particularly by natives of the island, means "Mannish" and originates from Old Norse . The Isle of Man is named after the Irish god Manannán mac Lir, thus "Ellan Vannin" ("Mannanán's Island", Irish: "Mannanán's Island").


title: Manx language

text: Manx is a Goidelic language, closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. On the whole it is partially mutually intelligible with these, and native speakers of one find it easy to gain passive, and even spoken, competency in the other two.


title: Manx language

text: It has been suggested that a little-documented Brythonic language (i.e. related to modern Welsh, Cornish and Breton) may have been spoken on the Isle of Man before the arrival of Christian missionaries from Ireland in the early Middle Ages. However, there is little surviving evidence about the language spoken on the island at that time.


title: Manx language

text: The basis of the modern Manx language is Primitive Irish (like modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic). The Island either lends its name to, or takes its name from "Manannán", the Brythonic and Gaelic sea god who is said in myth to have once ruled the island. Primitive Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used the Latin script and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts, but there are no extant examples from the Isle of Man.


title: Manx language

text: Latin was used for ecclesiastical records from the establishment of Christianity in the Isle of Man in the 5th century AD. Many lexical items concerning religion, writing and record keeping entered Manx at this time.


title: Manx language

text: The Isle of Man was conquered by Norse Vikings in the 9th century. Although there is some evidence in the form of runic inscriptions that Norse was used by some of these settlers, the Vikings who settled around the Irish Sea and West Coast of Scotland soon became Gaelic speaking Norse-Gaels. During the 9th century AD, the Gaelic of the inhabitants of the Isle of Man, like those Scotland and the North of Ireland, may have been significantly influenced by Norse speakers. While Norse had very little impact on the Manx language overall, a small number of modern place names on the Isle Of Man are Norse in origin, e.g. Laxey (Laksaa) and Ramsey (Rhumsaa). Other Norse legacies in Manx include loanwords and personal names.


title: Manx language

text: By the 10th century, it is supposed that Middle Irish had emerged and was spoken throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.


title: Manx language

text: The island came under Scottish rule in 1266, and alternated between Scottish and English rule until finally becoming the feudal possession of the Stanley family in 1405. It is likely that up until this point, except for scholarly knowledge of Latin and courtly use of Anglo-Norman, that Manx was the only language spoken on the island. Since the establishment of the Stanleys on the Isle of Man, first Anglo-Norman, and later, the English language have been the chief external factors in the development of Manx, until the 20th century, when Manx speakers became able to access Irish and Scottish Gaelic media.


title: Manx language

text: Manx had diverged considerably from the Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland between 1400 and 1900. The seventeenth century Plantation of Ulster, the decline of Irish in Leinster and extinction of Galloway Gaelic led to the geographic isolation of Manx from other dialects of Gaelic. The development of a separate orthography also led Manx to diverge from Irish and Scottish Gaelic.


title: Manx language

text: In the 17th century, some university students left the Isle of Man to attend school in England. At the same time, teaching in English was required in schools founded by governor Isaac Barrow. Barrow also promoted the use of English in churches; he considered that it was a superior language for reading the Bible; however, because the majority of ministers were monolingual Manx speakers, his views had little practical impact.


title: Manx language

text: Thomas Wilson began his tenure as Bishop of Mann in 1698 and was succeeded by Mark Hildesley. Both men held positive views of Manx; Wilson was the first person to publish a book in Manx, a translation of "The Principles and Duties of Christianity" ("Coyrie Sodjey"), and Hildesley successfully promoted the use of Manx as the language of instruction in schools. The New Testament was first published in Manx in 1767. In the late 18th century, nearly every school was teaching in English. This decline continued into the 19th century, as English gradually became the primary language spoken on the Isle of Man.


title: Manx language

text: In 1848, J.G. Cumming wrote, "there are ... few persons (perhaps none of the young) who speak no English." Henry Jenner estimated in 1874 that about 30% of the population habitually spoke Manx (12,340 out of a population of 41,084). According to official census figures, 9.1% of the population claimed to speak Manx in 1901; in 1921 the percentage was only 1.1%. Since the language was used by so few people, it had low linguistic "prestige", and parents tended to not teach Manx to their children, thinking it would be useless to them compared with English.


title: Manx language

text: Following the decline in the use of Manx during the nineteenth century, (The Manx Language Society) was founded in 1899. By the middle of the twentieth century, only a few elderly native speakers remained (the last of them, Ned Maddrell, died on 27 December 1974), but by then a scholarly revival had begun and a few people had started teaching it in schools. The Manx Language Unit was formed in 1992, consisting of three members and headed by Manx Language Officer Brian Stowell, a language activist and fluent speaker, "which was put in charge of all aspects of Manx language teaching and accreditation in schools." This led to an increased interest in studying the Manx language and encouraged a renewed sense of ethnic identity. The revival of Manx has been aided by the recording work done in the twentieth century by researchers. Most notably, the Irish Folklore Commission was sent in with recording equipment in 1948 by Éamon de Valera. Also important in preserving the Manx language was work conducted by the late Brian Stowell, who is considered personally responsible for the current revival of the Manx language. The Manx Language Strategy was released in 2017, outlining a five-year plan for the language's continued revitalisation. Culture Vannin employs a Manx Language Development Officer (Manx: "Yn Greinneyder") to encourage and facilitate the use of the language.


title: Manx language

text: In 2009, UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger declared Manx an extinct language, despite the presence of hundreds of speakers on the Isle of Man. Since then, UNESCO's classification of the language has changed to "critically endangered".


title: Manx language

text: In the 2011 census, 1,823 out of 80,398 Isle of Man residents, or 2.27% of the population, claimed to have knowledge of Manx, an increase of 134 people from the 2001 census. These individuals were spread roughly uniformly over the island: in Douglas 566 people professed an ability to speak, read or write Manx; 179 in Peel, 146 in Onchan, and 149 in Ramsey.


title: Manx language

text: Traditional Manx given names have experienced a marked resurgence on the island, especially and (Mary), (William), (from the Manx king Godred Crovan of Norse origin), (Bridget), (Alice), (Jack), (John), (Joan), (Fionnuala), (Patrick) and (from the Norse goddess) remain popular.


title: Manx language

text: Manx is not officially recognised by any national or regional government, although its contribution to Manx culture and tradition is acknowledged by some governmental and non-governmental bodies. For example:


title: Manx language

text: The Standing Orders of the House of Keys provide that: "The proceedings of the House shall be in English; but if a Member at any point pronounces a customary term or sentence in Manx Gaelic or any other language, the Speaker may call upon the Member for a translation." An example was at the sitting on 12 February 2019, when an MHK used the expression , stated to mean "nonsense".


title: Manx language

text: Manx is used in the annual Tynwald ceremony and Manx words are used in official Tynwald publications.


title: Manx language

text: For the purpose of strengthening its contribution to local culture and community, Manx is recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and in the framework of the British-Irish Council.


title: Manx language

text: The Isle of Man comprised the one site for the Manx language in the Atlas Linguarum Europae, a project that compared dialects and languages across all countries in Europe.


title: Manx language

text: Manx is taught as a second language at all of the island's primary and secondary schools. The lessons are optional and instruction is provided by the Department of Education's Manx Language Team which teach up to A Level standard.


title: Manx language

text: The Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, a primary school at St John's, has 67 children, as of September 2016, who receive nearly all of their education through the medium of the language. Children who have attended the school have the opportunity to receive some of their secondary education through the language at Queen Elizabeth II High School in Peel.


title: Manx language

text: The playgroup organisation Mooinjer Veggey, which operates the , runs a series of preschool groups that introduce the language.


title: Manx language

text: Bilingual road, street, village and town boundary signs are common throughout the Isle of Man. All other road signs are in English only.


title: Manx language

text: Business signage in Manx is gradually being introduced but is not mandated by law; however, the 1985 Tynwald Report on the use of Manx states that signage should be bilingual except where a Manx phrase is the norm.


title: Manx language

text: Manx never had a large number of speakers, so it would not have been practical to mass produce written literature. However, a body of oral literature did exist. The "Fianna" tales and others like them are known, including the Manx ballad , commemorating Finn MacCumhail and Oisín. With the coming of Protestantism, Manx spoken tales slowly disappeared, while a tradition of carvals, Christian ballads, developed with religious sanction.


title: Manx language

text: There is no record of literature written distinctively in Manx before the Reformation. By that time, any presumed literary link with Ireland and Scotland, such as through Irish-trained priests, had been lost. The first published literature in Manx was "The Principles and Duties of Christianity (Coyrie Sodjey)", translated by Bishop of Sodor and Man Thomas Wilson.


title: Manx language

text: The "Book of Common Prayer" was translated by John Phillips, the Welsh-born Anglican Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1605 to 1633. The early Manx script has some similarities with orthographical systems found occasionally in Scotland and in Ireland for the transliteration of Gaelic, such as the Book of the Dean of Lismore, as well as some extensive texts based on English and Scottish English orthographical practices of the time. Little secular Manx literature has been preserved.


title: Manx language

text: The New Testament was first published in 1767. When the Anglican church authorities started to produce written literature in the Manx language in the 18th century, the system developed by John Philips was further "anglicised"; the one feature retained from Welsh orthography was the use of to represent /ə/ (e.g. "horse" and "help" as well as (e.g. "knowledge"), though it is also used to represent , (e.g. "John" (vocative), "fish").


title: Manx language

text: Other works produced in the 18th and 19th centuries include catechisms, hymn books and religious tracts. A translation of "Paradise Lost" was made in 1796.


title: Manx language

text: A considerable amount of secular literature has been produced in the 20th and 21st centuries as part of the language revival. In 2006, the first full-length novel in Manx, ("The Vampire Murders") was published by Brian Stowell, after being serialised in the press. There is an increasing amount of literature available in the language, and recent publications include Manx versions of the "Gruffalo" and "Gruffalo's Child".


title: Manx language

text: Two weekly programmes in Manx are available on medium wave on Manx Radio: on Monday and "Jamys Jeheiney" on Friday. The news in Manx is available online from Manx Radio, who have three other weekly programmes that use the language: "Clare ny Gael"; "Shiaght Laa" and "Moghrey Jedoonee". Several news readers on Manx Radio also use a good deal of incidental Manx.


title: Manx language

text: The first film to be made in Manx, 22-minute-long "The Sheep Under the Snow", premiered in 1983 and was entered for the 5th Celtic Film and Television Festival in Cardiff in 1984. It was directed by Shorys Y Creayrie (George Broderick) for Foillan Films of Laxey, and is about the background to an early 18th-century folk song. In 2013, a short film, Solace in Wicca, was produced with financial assistance from Culture Vannin, CinemaNX and Isle of Man Film. A series of short cartoons about the life of Cú Chulainn which were produced by BBC Northern Ireland are available as are a series of cartoons on Manx mythology. Most significant is a 13-part DVD series Manx translation of the award-winning series "Friends and Heroes".


title: Manx language

text: The Bible was first produced in Manx by a group of Anglican clergymen on the island. The Gospel of Matthew was printed in 1748. The Gospel and were produced in 1763 and 1767, respectively, by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK). In 1772 the Old Testament was printed, together with the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) from the Apocrypha.


title: Manx language

text: There was a translation of the ("Psalms of David") in metre in Manx by the Rev John Clague, vicar of Rushen, which was printed with the Book of Common Prayer of 1768. Bishop Hildesley required that these Metrical Psalms were to be sung in churches. These were reprinted by in 1905.


title: Manx language

text: The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) published the "New Testament" in 1810 and reprinted it in 1824. "The Holy Bible" of the Old Testament and New Testament (without the two books of the Apocrypha) was first printed as a whole in 1819. BFBS last printed anything on paper in Manx in 1936 when it reprinted "the Gospel of St John"; this was reprinted by in 1968. The Manx Bible was republished by Shearwater Press in July 1979 as (Manx Family Bible), which was a reproduction of the BFBS 1819 Bible.


title: Manx language

text: Manx has not been used in Mass since the late 19th century, though holds an annual Christmas service on the island.


title: Manx language

text: Manx is one of the three daughter languages of Old Irish (via Middle Irish), the other two being Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It shares a number of developments in phonology, vocabulary and grammar with its sisters (in some cases only with certain dialects) and shows a number of unique changes. There are two attested historical dialects of Manx, Northern Manx and Southern Manx. A third dialect may have existed in-between, around Douglas.


title: Manx language

text: Manx and Scottish Gaelic share the partial loss of phonemic palatalisation of labial consonants; while in Irish velarised consonants contrast phonemically with palatalised . A consequence of this phonemic merger is that Middle Irish unstressed word-final (- in Irish and Gaelic) has merged with (-), in Manx; both have become (-), e.g. "to stand" (Irish ), "religion" (Irish ), "fainting" (Early Modern Irish , lit. "in clouds"), and "on you (pl.)" (Irish ).


title: Manx language

text: Medial and final * have generally become and in Manx, thus "shiu" 'you pl.' (Irish and Scottish Gaelic , Northern Irish , South Connacht Irish ; Lewis Gaelic ), "bitter" (Scottish , Irish (Northern/Western) , (Southern) ), "river" (Scottish , Irish ), "hand" (Scottish , Irish (Northern) , (Western) , (Southern) ), "summer" (Scottish , Irish (Northern) , (Western/Southern) ). Rare retentions of the older pronunciation of include , "Dublin", Middle Irish "Duibhlinn" .


title: Manx language

text: Moreover, similarly to Munster Irish, historical () and (nasalised ) tend to be lost word medially or finally in Manx, either with compensatory lengthening or vocalisation as resulting in diphthongisation with the preceding vowel, e.g. "winter" (Irish ; Southern Irish: ) and "mountains" (Irish: ; Southern Irish: ). Another similarity to Munster Irish is the development of the Old Irish diphthongs before velarised consonants ( in Irish and Scottish Gaelic) to , as in "carpenter" and "narrow" (Irish and Scottish and ).


title: Manx language

text: Like Connacht and Ulster Irish (cf. Irish phonology) and most dialects of Scottish Gaelic, Manx has changed the historical consonant clusters to , e.g. Middle Irish "mockery" and "women" have become and respectively in Manx. The affrication of slender "" sounds is also common to Manx, Northern Irish, and Scottish Gaelic.


title: Manx language

text: Unstressed Middle Irish word-final syllable (-) has developed to (-) in Manx, as in "buy" (cf. Irish ) and "apparatus" (cf. Gaelic ), like Northern/Western Irish and Southern dialects Scottish Gaelic (e.g. Arran, Kintyre).


title: Manx language

text: Another property Manx shares with Ulster Irish and some dialects of Scottish Gaelic is that rather than appears in unstressed syllables before ( in Manx), e.g. "straight" (Irish ), "to remember" (Scottish Gaelic ).


title: Manx language

text: Like Southern and Western Irish and Northern Scottish Gaelic, but unlike the geographically closer varieties of Ulster Irish and Arran and Kintyre Gaelic, Manx shows vowel lengthening or diphthongisation before the Old Irish fortis and lenis sonorants, e.g. "children" , "brown" and "butter" correspond to Irish/Scottish Gaelic , , and respectively, which have long vowels or diphthongs in Western and Southern Irish and in the Scottish Gaelic dialects of the Outer Hebrides and Skye, thus Western Irish , Southern Irish/Northern Scottish , , ), but short vowels and 'long' consonants in Ulster Irish, Arran, and Kintyre, , and .


title: Manx language

text: Another similarity with Southern Irish is the treatment of Middle Irish word-final unstressed (- in Irish and Scottish Gaelic). In nouns (including verbal nouns), this became in Manx, as it did in Southern Irish, e.g. "war" , "to praise" (cf. Irish and (Southern Irish) and ). In finite verb forms before full nouns (as opposed to pronouns) became in Manx, as in Southern Irish, e.g. "would praise" (cf. Irish (Southern Irish) ).


title: Manx language

text: Linguistic analysis of the last few dozen native speakers reveals a number of dialectal differences between the North and the South of the island. Northern Manx was spoken from Maughold in the northeast to Peel on the west coast. Southern Manx was spoken in the sheading of Rushen. It is possible that written Manx represents a 'midlands' dialect of Douglas and surrounding areas.


title: Manx language

text: In Southern Manx, older , and in some cases , became . In Northern Manx the same happened, but sometimes remained as well, e.g. "day" (cf. Irish ) was in the South but or in the North. Old is always in both dialects, e.g. "young" (cf. Irish ) is in both dialects. and lengthened before became , as in "paayrt" '"part" , "ard" "high" , "jiarg" "red" , "argid" "money, silver" and "aarey" "gold gen." .


title: Manx language

text: In Northern Manx, older before in the same syllable is diphthongised, while in Southern Manx it is lengthened but remains a monophthong, e.g. "head" (cf. Irish ) is in the North but in the South.


title: Manx language

text: Words with , and in some cases , in Irish and Scottish are spelled with in Manx. In Northern Manx, this sound was , while in Southern Manx it was , , or , e.g. "wind" (cf. Irish ) is in the north and in the South, while "coal" (cf. Irish ) is in the North and , , or in the South.


title: Manx language

text: In both the North and the South, there is a tendency to insert a short before a word-final in monosyllabic words, as in for "whole" and for "woman". This is known as pre-occlusion. In Southern Manx, however, there is also pre-occlusion of before and of before , as in for "walking" and for "ship". These forms are generally pronounced without pre-occlusion in the North. Pre-occlusion of before , on the other hand, is more common in the North, as in "heavy", which is in the North but in the South. This feature is also found in Cornish.


title: Manx language

text: Southern Manx tended to lose word-initial before , which was usually preserved in the North, e.g. "glen" and "knee" are and and in the South but and in the North.


title: Manx language

text: Stress generally falls on the first syllable of a word in Manx, but in many cases, stress is attracted to a long vowel in the second syllable. Examples include:


title: Manx language

text: The voiceless plosives are aspirated. The dental, postalveolar and palato-velar plosives affricate to in many contexts.


title: Manx language

text: Manx has an optional process of lenition of plosives between vowels, where voiced plosives and voiceless fricatives become voiced fricatives and voiceless plosives become either voiced plosives or voiced fricatives. This process introduces the allophones . The voiced fricative may be further lenited to , and may disappear altogether. Examples include:


title: Manx language

text: Another optional process is pre-occlusion, the insertion of a very short plosive before a sonorant consonant. In Manx, this applies to stressed monosyllabic words. The inserted consonant is homorganic with the following sonorant, which means it has the same place of articulation. Long vowels are often shortened before pre-occluded sounds. Examples include:


title: Manx language

text: The trill is realised as a one- or two-contact flap at the beginning of syllable, and as a stronger trill when preceded by another consonant in the same syllable. At the end of a syllable, can be pronounced either as a strong trill or, more frequently, as a weak fricative , which may vocalise to a nonsyllabic or disappear altogether. This vocalisation may be due to the influence of Manx English, which is non-rhotic. Examples of the pronunciation of include:


title: Manx language

text: The status of and as separate phonemes is debatable, but is suggested by the allophony of certain words such as "is", "women", and so on. An alternative analysis is that Manx has the following system, where the vowels and have allophones ranging from through to . As with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, there is a large amount of vowel allophony, such as that of . This depends mainly on the 'broad' and 'slender' status of the neighbouring consonants:


title: Manx language

text: Like most Insular Celtic languages, Manx is a VSO language. However, most finite verbs are formed periphrastically, using an auxiliary verb in conjunction with the verbal noun. In this case, only the auxiliary verb precedes the subject, while the verbal noun comes after the subject. The auxiliary verb may be a modal verb rather than a form of ("be") or ("do"). Particles like the negative ("not") precede the inflected verb. Examples:


title: Manx language

text: When the auxiliary verb is a form of ("do"), the direct object precedes the verbal noun and is connected to it with the particle :


title: Manx language

text: As in Irish (cf. Irish syntax#The forms meaning "to be"), there are two ways of expressing "to be" in Manx: with the substantive verb , and with the copula. The substantive verb is used when the predicate is an adjective, adverb, or prepositional phrase. Examples:


title: Manx language

text: Where the predicate is a noun, it must be converted to a prepositional phrase headed by the preposition ("in") + possessive pronoun (agreeing with the subject) in order for the substantive verb to be grammatical:


title: Manx language

text: Otherwise, the copula is used when the predicate is a noun. The copula itself takes the form or in the present tense, but it is often omitted in affirmative statements:


title: Manx language

text: Like all modern Celtic languages, Manx shows initial consonant mutations, which are processes by which the initial consonant of a word is altered according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. Manx has two mutations: lenition and eclipsis, found on nouns and verbs in a variety of environments; adjectives can undergo lenition but not eclipsis. In the late spoken language of the 20th century the system was breaking down, with speakers frequently failing to use mutation in environments where it was called for, and occasionally using it in environments where it was not called for.


title: Manx language

text: In the corpus of the late spoken language, there is also one example of the eclipsis (nasalisation) of : the sentence ("I have found the lamb"), where is pronounced . However, probably this was a mis-transcription; the verbal noun in this case is not "get, fetch", but rather "find".


title: Manx language

text: Manx verbs generally form their finite forms by means of periphrasis: inflected forms of the auxiliary verbs "to be" or "to do" are combined with the verbal noun of the main verb. Only the future, conditional, preterite, and imperative can be formed directly by inflecting the main verb, but even in these tenses, the periphrastic formation is more common in Late Spoken Manx.


title: Manx language

text: The fully inflected forms of the regular verb "to throw" are as follows. In addition to the forms below, a past participle may be formed using : "thrown".


title: Manx language

text: 3. Used with all other persons, meaning an accompanying subject must be stated, e.g. "he will throw", "they will throw"


title: Manx language

text: There are a few peculiarities when a verb begins with a vowel, i.e. the addition of in the preterite and in the future and conditional dependent. Below is the conjugation of "to grow".


title: Manx language

text: Like the other Insular Celtic languages, Manx has inflected prepositions, contractions of a preposition with a pronominal direct object, as the following common prepositions show. Note the sometimes identical form of the uninflected preposition and its third person singular masculine inflected form.


title: Manx language

text: Numbers are traditionally vigesimal in Manx, e.g. "twenty", "forty" ("two twenties"), "sixty" ("three twenties").


title: Manx language

text: Manx orthography is based on Early Modern English, and to a lesser extent Welsh, developed by people who had an education in English (and Welsh until the 16th century). The result is an inconsistent and only partially phonemic spelling system, similar to English orthography, unlike that of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, which both use similar spelling systems derived from Classical Gaelic, the written language of the educated Gaelic elite of both Ireland and Scotland until the mid-19th century, which makes them very etymological. Both use only 18 letters to represent around 50 phonemes. While Manx uses 24 letters (the ISO basic Latin alphabet, excluding and ), covering a similar range of phonemes, all three making use of many digraphs and trigraphs. T. F. O'Rahilly expressed the opinion that Manx spelling is inadequate, being neither traditional nor phonetic, and that if the traditional Gaelic orthography had been preserved the relationship between Manx, Irish and Scottish Gaelic would be obvious to readers at first sight.


title: Manx language

text: Manx uses only one diacritic, a cedilla, which is (optionally) used to differentiate between the two phonemes represented by :


title: Manx language

text: The following examples are taken from Broderick 1984–86, 1:178–79 and 1:350–53. The first example is from a speaker of Northern Manx, the second from Ned Maddrell, a speaker of Southern Manx.


title: Manx language

text: Manx vocabulary is predominantly of Goidelic origin, derived from Old Irish and has cognates in Irish and Scottish Gaelic. However, Manx itself, as well as the languages from which it is derived, borrowed words from other languages, especially Latin, Old Norse, French (particularly Anglo-Norman), and English (both Middle English and Modern English).


title: Manx language

text: The following table shows a selection of nouns from the Swadesh list and indicates their pronunciations and etymologies.


title: Manx language

text: Loanwords are primarily Norse and English, with a smaller number coming from French. Some examples of Norse loanwords are "garden" (from "enclosure") and "sea rock" (from ). Examples of French loanwords are "danger" (from ) and "advantage" (from ).


title: Manx language

text: English loanwords were common in late (pre-revival) Manx, e.g. "boy", "badger", rather than the more usual native Gaelic and . In more recent years, there has been a reaction against such borrowing, resulting in coinages for technical vocabulary. Despite this, calques exist in Manx, not necessarily obvious to its speakers. To fill gaps in recorded Manx vocabulary, revivalists have referred to modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic for words and inspiration.


title: Manx language

text: Some religious terms come ultimately from Latin, Greek and Hebrew, e.g. "holy" (from Latin ), "church" (from Greek / "assembly") and "abbot" (from Hebrew / "father"). These did not necessarily come directly into Manx, but via Old Irish. In more recent times, has been borrowed from modern Hebrew. Many Irish and English loanwords also have a classical origin, e.g. "television" (Irish ) and "telephone". Foreign language words (usually via English) are used occasionally especially for ethnic food, e.g. chorizo and spaghetti.


title: Manx language

text: Going in the other direction, Manx Gaelic has influenced Manx English (Anglo-Manx). Common words and phrases in Anglo-Manx originating in the language include "tholtan" "ruined farmhouse", "quaaltagh" "first-foot", "keeill" "(old) church", "cammag", "traa-dy-liooar" "time enough", and Tynwald ("tinvaal"), which is ultimately of Norse origin, but comes via Manx. It is suggested that the House of Keys takes its name from "Kiare as Feed" (four and twenty), which is the number of its sitting members.


title: Manx language

text: The Lord's Prayer has been translated into all of the Gaelic languages (and Old Irish). Although not direct, it is a good demonstration of the differences between their orthographies.


title: Manx language

text: Óir is leatsa an Ríocht agus an Chumhacht agus an Ghlóir, trí shaol na saol ("alt." le saol na saol / go síoraí).


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro (, ; November 30, 1863May 10, 1897) was a Filipino Freemason and revolutionary leader. He is often called "The Father of the Philippine Revolution", and considered one of the national heroes of the Philippines. He was one of the founders and later the "Kataastaasang Pangulo" (Supreme President, "Presidente Supremo" in Spanish, often shortened by contemporaries and historians to just "Supremo") of the "Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan" or more commonly known as the "Katipunan", a movement which sought the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Tagalog Revolution. With the onset of the Revolution, Bonifacio reorganized the "Katipunan" into a revolutionary government, with himself as President ("Pangulo") of a nation-state called "Haring Bayang Katagalugan" ("Sovereign Nation of the Tagalog People" or "Sovereign Tagalog Nation"), also "Republika ng Katagaluguan" ("Tagalog Republic", "Republica Tagala" in Spanish), where in "Tagalog" referred to all those born in the Philippine islands and not merely the Tagalog ethnic group. Hence, some historians have argued that he should be considered the First President of the Tagalogs instead of the Philippines; that is why he is not included in the current official line of succession.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro was born on November 30, 1863, in Tondo, Manila, and was the first of six children of Catalina de Castro, a Spanish Mestiza, and Santiago Bonifacio, an Alcalde of Tondo. He learned the alphabet through his aunt. He was later enrolled in Guillermo Osmeña's private school, and learned English while employed as a clerk-messenger by a British firm. Some sources assert that he was orphaned at an early age, but, considering the existence of an 1881 record that has Bonifacio's parents listed as living in Tondo, it is disputed by others.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: To support his family financially, Bonifacio made canes and paper fans which he and his young siblings sold (after they were orphaned, according to the traditional view). He also made posters for business firms. This became their thriving family business that continued when the men of the family, namely Andres, Ciriaco, Procopio, and Troadio, were employed with private and government companies, which provided them with decent living conditions.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In his late teens, he worked as a "mandatario" (agent) for the British trading firm Fleming and Company, where he rose to become a "corredor" (broker) of tar, rattan and other goods. He later transferred to Fressell and Company, a German trading firm, where he worked as a "bodeguero" (storehouse keeper) responsible for warehouse inventory. He was also a theater actor and often played the role of Bernardo Carpio, a fictional character in Tagalog folklore.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Not finishing his formal education, Bonifacio turned to self-education by reading books. He read books about the French Revolution, biographies of the presidents of the United States, books about contemporary Philippine penal and civil codes, and novels such as Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables", Eugène Sue's "Le Juif errant" and José Rizal's "Noli Me Tángere" and "El filibusterismo". Aside from Tagalog and Spanish, he could speak and understand English, which he learned while working at J.M. Fleming and Co.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Bonifacio's first wife, Monica (surname unknown), was his neighbor in Palomar, Tondo. She died of leprosy and they had no recorded children.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In 1892, Bonifacio, a 29-year-old widower, met the 18-year-old Gregoria de Jesús through his friend Teodoro Plata, who was her cousin. Gregoria, also called Oriang, was the daughter of a prominent citizen and landowner from Caloocan. Gregoria's parents did not agree at first to their relationship, for Andrés was a Freemason, and Freemasons were at that time considered enemies of the Catholic Church. Her parents eventually acquiesced, and Andrés and Gregoria were married in a Catholic ceremony in Binondo Church in March 1893 or 1894. The couple also were married through Katipunan rites in a friend's house in Santa Cruz, Manila on the same day of their church wedding.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In 1892, Bonifacio was one of the founding members of José Rizal's La Liga Filipina, an organization which called for political reforms in Spain's colonial government of the Philippines. However, La Liga disbanded after only one meeting, for Rizal was arrested and deported to Dapitan in the Western Mindanao region. Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini and others revived La Liga in Rizal's absence and Bonifacio was active at organizing local chapters in Manila. He would become the chief propagandist of the revived Liga.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: La Liga Filipina contributed moral and financial support to the Propaganda Movement of Filipino reformists in Spain.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: On the night of July 7, 1892, the day after Rizal's deportation was announced, Bonifacio and others officially "founded" the "Katipunan", or in full, "Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan" ("Highest and Most Respected Society of the Country's Children"; "Bayan" can also denote community, people, and nation). The secret society sought independence from Spain through armed revolt. It was influenced by Freemasonry through its rituals and organization, and several members including Bonifacio were also Freemasons. Within the society Bonifacio used the pseudonym "May pag-asa" ("There is Hope"). Newly found documents though suggest that Katipunan has already been existing as early as January 1892.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: For a time, Bonifacio worked with both the "Katipunan" and "La Liga Filipina". "La Liga" eventually split because some members like Bonifacio lost hope for peaceful reform and stopped their monetary aid. The more conservative members, mostly wealthy members, who still believed in peaceful reforms set up the "Cuerpo de Compromisarios", which pledged continued support to the reformists in Spain. The radicals were subsumed into the "Katipunan". From Manila, the "Katipunan" expanded to several provinces, including Batangas, Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, and Nueva Ecija. Most of its members, called "Katipuneros", came from the lower and middle classes, and many of its local leaders were prominent figures in their municipalities. At first exclusively male, membership was later extended to females, with Bonifacio's wife Gregoria de Jesús as a leading member.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: From the beginning, Bonifacio was one of the chief "Katipunan" officers, although he did not become its "Presidente Supremo" (Supreme President) until 1895. He was the third head of the "Katipunan" after Deodato Arellano and Román Basa. Prior to this, he served as the society's comptroller and then as its 'fiscal' (advocate/procurator). The society had its own laws, bureaucratic structure and elective leadership. For each province involved, the "Katipunan" Supreme Council coordinated with provincial councils in charge of public administration and military affairs, and with local councils in charge of affairs on the district or barrio level.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Within the society, Bonifacio developed a strong friendship with Emilio Jacinto, who served as his adviser and confidant, as well as a member of the Supreme Council. Bonifacio adopted Jacinto's "Kartilya" primer as the official teachings of the society in place of his own "Decalogue", which he judged as inferior. Bonifacio, Jacinto and Pío Valenzuela collaborated on the society's organ, "Kalayaan" (Freedom), which had only one printed issue. Bonifacio wrote several pieces for the paper, including the poem "Pag-ibig sa Tinubúang Lupà" (approx. "Love for One's Homeland) under the pseudonym "Agapito Bagumbayan". The publication of "Kalayaan" in March 1896 led to a great increase in the society's membership. The "Katipunan" movement spread throughout Luzon, to Panay in the Visayas and even as far as Mindanao. From less than 300 members in January 1896, it had 30,000 to 40,000 by August 1896.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: The rapid increase in "Katipunan" activity drew the suspicion of the Spanish authorities. By early 1896, Spanish intelligence was aware of the existence of a seditious secret society, and suspects were kept under surveillance and arrests were made. On May 3, Bonifacio held a general assembly of "Katipunan" leaders in Pasig, where they debated when to start the revolution. While some officers, especially Bonifacio, believed a revolution was inevitable, some members, especially Santiago Alvarez and Emilio Aguinaldo both of Cavite, expressed reservations and disagreement regarding the planned revolt due to lack of firearms. The consensus was to consult José Rizal in Dapitan before launching armed action, so Bonifacio sent Pío Valenzuela to Rizal. Rizal turned out to be against the revolution, believing it to be premature. He recommended more preparation, but suggested that, in the event the revolution did break out, they should seek the leadership of Antonio Luna, who was widely regarded as a brilliant military leader.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: The Spanish authorities confirmed the existence of the "Katipunan" on August 19, 1896. Hundreds of Filipino suspects, both innocent and guilty, were arrested and imprisoned for treason. José Rizal (José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Realonda) was then on his way to Cuba to serve as a doctor in the Spanish colonial army in exchange for his release from Dapitan. When the news broke, Bonifacio first tried to convince Rizal, quarantined aboard a ship in Manila Bay, to escape and join the imminent revolt. Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and disguised themselves as sailors and went to the pier where Rizal's ship was anchored. Jacinto personally met with Rizal, who rejected their rescue offer. Rizal himself was later arrested, tried and executed.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Eluding an intensive manhunt, Bonifacio called thousands of "Katipunan" members to a mass gathering in Caloocan, where they decided to start their uprising. The event, marked by the tearing of "cedulas" (personal identity documents) was later called the "Cry of Balintawak" or "Cry of Pugad Lawin"; the exact location and date of the Cry are disputed. The Supreme Council of the "Katipunan" declared a nationwide armed revolution against Spain and called for a simultaneous coordinated attack on the capital Manila on August 29. Bonifacio appointed generals to lead rebel forces to Manila. Other "Katipunan" councils were also informed of their plans. Before hostilities erupted, Bonifacio reorganized the "Katipunan" into an open "de facto" revolutionary government with him as Supremo of the rebel army and the Supreme Council as his cabinet. On August 28, Bonifacio issued the following general proclamation:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: This manifesto is for all of you. It is absolutely necessary for us to stop at the earliest possible time the nameless oppositions being perpetrated on the sons of the country who are now suffering the brutal punishment and tortures in jails, and because of this please let all the brethren know that on Saturday, the 29th of the current month, the revolution shall commence according to our agreement. For this purpose, it is necessary for all towns to rise simultaneously and attack Manila at the same time. Anybody who obstructs this sacred ideal of the people will be considered a traitor and an enemy, except if he is ill; or is not physically fit, in which case he shall be tried according to the regulations we have put in force.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: On August 30, 1896, Bonifacio personally led an attack on San Juan del Monte to capture the town's powder magazine and water station (which supplied Manila). The defending Spaniards, outnumbered, fought a delaying battle until reinforcements arrived. Once reinforced, the Spaniards drove Bonifacio's forces back with heavy casualties. Bonifacio and his troops regrouped near Marikina, San Mateo and Montalban. Elsewhere, fighting between rebels and Spanish forces occurred in Mandaluyong, Sampaloc, Santa Ana, Pandacan, Pateros, Marikina, Caloocan, Makati and Taguig. The conventional view among Filipino historians is that the planned general "Katipunan" offensive on Manila was aborted in favor of Bonifacio's attack on San Juan del Monte, which sparked a general state of rebellion in the area. However, more recent studies have advanced the view that the planned offensive did push through and the rebel attacks were integrated; according to this view, Bonifacio's San Juan del Monte battle was only a part of a bigger whole – an unrecognized "Battle for Manila". Despite his reverses, Bonifacio was not completely defeated and was still considered a threat. Further, the revolt had spread to the surrounding provinces by the end of August.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Influenced by Freemasonry, the "Katipunan" had been organized with "its own laws, bureaucratic structure and elective leadership". For each province it involved, the Supreme Council coordinated provincial councils which were in charge of "public administration and military affairs on the supra-municipal or quasi-provincial level" and local councils, in charge of affairs "on the district or barrio level". In the last days of August, the "Katipunan" members met in Caloocan and decided to start their revolt (the event was later called the "Cry of Balintawak" or "Cry of Pugad Lawin"; the exact location and date are disputed). A day after the Cry, the Supreme Council of the Katipunan held elections, with the following results:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: The above was divulged to the Spanish by the "Katipunan" member Pío Valenzuela while in captivity. Teodoro Agoncillo thus wrote:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Milagros C. Guerrero and others have described Bonifacio as "effectively" the commander-in-chief of the revolutionaries. They assert:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: One name for Bonifacio's concept of the Philippine nation-state appears in surviving "Katipunan" documents: "Haring Bayang Katagalugan" ("Sovereign Nation of Katagalugan", or "Sovereign Tagalog Nation") – sometimes shortened into "Haring Bayan" ("Sovereign Nation"). "Bayan" may be rendered as "nation" or "people". Bonifacio is named as the president of the "Tagalog Republic" in an issue of the Spanish periodical "La Ilustración Española y Americana" published in February 1897 (""Andrés Bonifacio – Titulado "Presidente" de la República Tagala""). Another name for Bonifacio's government was "Repúblika ng Katagalugan" (another form of "Tagalog Republic") as evidenced by a picture of a rebel seal published in the same periodical the next month.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Official letters and one appointment paper of Bonifacio addressed to Emilio Jacinto reveal Bonifacio's various titles and designations, as follows:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Later, in November 1896, while encamped at Balara, Bonifacio commissioned Julio Nakpil to compose a national anthem. Nakpil produced a hymn called "Marangal na Dalit ng Katagalugan" ("Honorable Hymn of the Tagalog Nation/People").


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Eventually, an 1897 power struggle in Cavite led to command of the revolution shifting to Emilio Aguinaldo at the Tejeros Convention, where a new government was formed. Bonifacio was executed after he refused to recognize the new government. The Aguinaldo-headed Philippine Republic (), usually considered the "First Philippine Republic", was formally established in 1899, after a succession of revolutionary and dictatorial governments (e.g. the Tejeros government, the Biak-na-Bato Republic) also headed by Aguinaldo.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: By December 1896, the Spanish government recognized three major centers of rebellion: Cavite (under Mariano Alvarez, Emilio Aguinaldo and others), Bulacan (under Mariano Llanera) and Morong (under Bonifacio). The revolt was most successful in Cavite, which mostly fell under rebel control by September–October 1896.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: While Cavite is traditionally regarded as the "Heartland of the Philippine Revolution", Manila and its surrounding municipalities bore the brunt of the Spanish military campaign, becoming a no man's land. Rebels in the area were generally engaged in hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against Spanish positions in Manila, Morong, Nueva Ecija and Pampanga. From Morong, Bonifacio served as tactician for rebel guerrillas and issued commands to areas other than his personal sector, though his reputation suffered when he lost battles he personally led.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: From September to October 1896, Bonifacio supervised the establishment of "Katipunan" mountain and hill bases like Balara in Marikina, Pantayanin in Antipolo, Ugong in Pasig and Tungko in Bulacan. Bonifacio appointing generals for these areas, or approving selections the troops themselves made.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: On November 7, 1896, Bonifacio led an assault on San Mateo, Marikina and Montalban. The Spanish were forced to retreat, leaving these areas to the rebels, except for the municipal hall of San Mateo where some Spanish troops had barricaded. While Bonifacio's troops laid siege to the hall, other "Katipunan" forces set up defensive lines along the nearby Langka (or Nangka) river against Spanish reinforcements coming from the direction of Marikina. After three days, Spanish counterattacks broke through the Nangka river lines. The Spanish troops thus recaptured the rebel positions and surprised Bonifacio in San Mateo, who ordered a general retreat to Balara. They were pursued, and Bonifacio was nearly killed shielding Emilio Jacinto from a Spanish bullet which grazed his collar.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In late 1896, Bonifacio, as the recognized overall leader of the revolution, was invited to Cavite province by rebel leaders to mediate between them and unify their efforts. There were two "Katipunan" provincial chapters in Cavite that became rival factions: the "Magdalo", headed by Emilio Aguinaldo's cousin Baldomero Aguinaldo, and the "Magdiwang", headed by Mariano Álvarez, uncle of Bonifacio's wife. Leaders of both factions came from the upper class, in contrast to Bonifacio, who came from the lower middle class. After initial successes, Emilio Aguinaldo issued a manifesto in the name of the "Magdalo" ruling council which proclaimed a provisional and revolutionary government – despite the existence of the "Katipunan" government. Emilio Aguinaldo in particular had won fame for victories in the province. The "Magdalo" and "Magdiwang" clashed over authority and jurisdiction and did not help each other in battle. After multiple letters were sent to Bonifacio urging him to come, in December 1896 he traveled to Cavite accompanied by his wife, his brothers Procopio and Ciriaco, and some troops, including Emilio Jacinto, Bonifacio's secretary and right-hand man. Jacinto was said to be against Bonifacio's expedition to Cavite.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Upon his arrival at Cavite, friction grew between Bonifacio and the "Magdalo" leaders. Apolinario Mabini, who later served as Emilio Aguinaldo's adviser, writes that at this point the "Magdalo" leaders "already paid little heed to his authority and orders." Bonifacio was partial to the "Magdiwang", perhaps due to his kinship ties with Mariano Álvarez, or more importantly, due to their stronger recognition of his authority. When Aguinaldo and Edilberto Evangelista went to receive Bonifacio at Zapote, they were irritated with what they regarded as his attitude of superiority. In his memoirs Aguinaldo wrote that Bonifacio acted "as if he were a king". Another time, Bonifacio ordered the arrest of one "Katipunan" general from Laguna named Vicente Fernandez, who was accompanying the "Magdalo" leaders in paying their respect to Bonifacio, for failing to support his attack in Manila, but the other "Magdalo" leaders refused to surrender him. Townspeople in Noveleta (a "Magdiwang" town) acclaimed Bonifacio as the ruler of the Philippines, to the chagrin of the "Magdalo" leaders, (Bonifacio replied: "Long live Philippine liberty!"). Aguinaldo disputed with Bonifacio over strategic troop placements and blamed him for the capture of the town of Silang. The Spanish, through Jesuit Superior Pio Pi, wrote to Aguinaldo about the possibility of peace negotiations. When Bonifacio found out, he and the "Magdiwang" council rejected the proposed peace talks. Bonifacio was also angered that the Spanish considered Aguinaldo the "chief of the rebellion" instead of him. However, Aguinaldo continued to arrange negotiations which never took place. Bonifacio believed Aguinaldo was willing to surrender the revolution.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Bonifacio was also subject to rumors that he had stolen "Katipunan" funds, his sister was the mistress of a priest, and he was an "agent provocateur" paid by friars to foment unrest. Also circulated were anonymous letters which told the people of Cavite not to idolize Bonifacio because he was a Mason, a mere Manila employee, allegedly an atheist, and uneducated. According to these letters, Bonifacio did not deserve the title of "Supremo" since only God was supreme. This last allegation was made despite the fact that "Supremo" was meant to be used in conjunction with "Presidente", i.e. "Presidente Supremo" (Supreme President, Kataas-taasang Pangulo) to distinguish the president of the "Katipunan" Supreme Council from council presidents of subordinate "Katipunan" chapters like the "Magdalo" and "Magdiwang"; in other words, while Mariano Álvarez was the "Magdiwang" president, and Baldomero Aguinaldo was the "Magdalo" president, Bonifacio was the Supreme President. Bonifacio suspected the rumor-mongering to be the work of the "Magdalo" leader Daniel Tirona. He confronted Tirona, whose airy reply provoked Bonifacio to such anger that he drew a gun and would have shot Tirona if others had not intervened.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: On December 31, Bonifacio and the "Magdalo" and "Magdiwang" leaders held a meeting in Imus, ostensibly to determine the leadership of Cavite in order to end the rivalry between the two factions. The issue of whether the Katipunan should be replaced by a revolutionary government was brought up by the "Magdalo", and this eclipsed the rivalry issue. The "Magdalo" argued that the "Katipunan", as a secret society, should have ceased to exist once the Revolution was underway. They also held that Cavite should not be divided. Bonifacio and the "Magdiwang" contended that the "Katipunan" served as their revolutionary government since it had its own constitution, laws, and provincial and municipal governments. Edilberto Evangelista presented a draft constitution for the proposed government to Bonifacio but he rejected it as it was too similar to the Spanish Maura Law. Upon the event of restructuring, Bonifacio was given "carte blanche" to appoint a committee tasked with setting up a new government; he would also be in charge of this committee. He tasked Emilio Aguinaldo to record the minutes of the meeting and requested for it to establish this authority, but these were never done and never provided.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: On March 22, 1897, the revolutionary leaders held an important meeting in a Friar Estate Residence at Tejeros to resume their discussions regarding the escalating tension between the "Magdalo" and "Magdiwang" forces; And also to settle once-and-for-all the issue of governance within the Katipunan through an election. Amidst implications on whether the government of the "Katipunan" should be established as a monarchy or as a republic, Bonifacio maintained that it should be established as a republic. According to him, they were all in opposition to the King of Spain, and all of the government's members of any given rank should serve under the principle of liberty, equality, and fraternity, upon which republicanism was founded. Despite Bonifacio's concern on the lack of officials and representatives from other provinces, he was obliged to proceed with the election.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Before the election began, he asked that the results be respected by everyone, and all agreed. The Magdalo faction voted their own Emilio Aguinaldo President "in absentia", as he was involved in the battle of Perez Dasmariñas, which was then ongoing. The resulting revolutionary government established at Tejeros, calling itself the "Republica de Filipinas" (Republic of the Philippines) around a month later, was later superseded by a number of reorganized revolutionary governments also headed by Aguinaldo. These included the "Republica de Filipinas" of November 1897, commonly known today as the "Republic of Biak-na-Bato", the Hong Kong Junta government-in-exile, the dictatorial government under which Philippine independence was proclaimed on June 12, 1898, and the revolutionary government now commonly known as the First Philippine Republic or "Malolos Republic", inaugurated on January 23, 1899 as the "Republica Filipina" (Philippine Republic). The 1899 government is now officially considered to be the true "first" Republic of the Philippines, with the present-day government of the Philippines thus being the "fifth" Republic.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Bonifacio received the second-highest number of votes for president. Though it was suggested that he be automatically be awarded the Vice Presidency, no one seconded the motion and the Election continued. Mariano Trías of the Magdiwang was elected vice president. Bonifacio was the last to be elected, as Director of the Interior. Daniel Tirona, protested Bonifacio being appointed as Director of the Interior on the grounds that the position should not be occupied by a person without a lawyer's diploma. Tirona suggested a prominent lawyer for the position such as Jose del Rosario. Insulted and angered, Bonifacio demanded an apology, since the voters had agreed to respect the election results. Tirona ignored Bonifacio's demand for apology which drove Bonifacio to draw his gun and again he nearly shot Tirona, who hid among the people, but he was restrained by Artemio Ricarte of the "Magdiwang", who had been elected Captain-General. Bonifacio declared: "In my capacity as chairman of this convention, and as "Presidente Supremo" of the Most Venerable Katipunan of the Sons of the People, which association is known and acknowledged by all, I hereby declare null and void all matters approved in this meeting." He then promptly left the premises.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: On March 23, 1897, the day after the Tejeros convention, Aguinaldo surreptitiously took his oath of office as president in a chapel officiated by a Catholic priest Cenon Villafranca who was under the authority of the Pope in Rome. According to Gen. Santiago Alvarez, guards were posted outside with strict instructions not to let in any unwanted partisan from the Magdiwang faction while the oath-taking took place. Artemio Ricarte also took his office "with great reluctance" and made a declaration that he found the Tejeros elections "dirty or shady" and "not been in conformity with the true will of the people."


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Meanwhile, Bonifacio met with his remaining supporters and drew up the Acta de Tejeros, wherein they gave their reasons for not accepting the election results. Bonifacio alleged the election was fraudulent due to cheating and accused Aguinaldo of treason for his negotiations with the Spanish. In their memoirs Santiago Álvarez (son of Mariano) and Gregoria de Jesús both alleged that many ballots were already filled out before being distributed, and Guillermo Masangkay contended there were more ballots prepared than voters present. Álvarez writes that Bonifacio had been warned by a Cavite leader Diego Mojica of the rigged ballots before the votes were canvassed, but he had done nothing. The Acta de Tejeros was signed by Bonifacio and 44 others, including Artemio Ricarte, Mariano Alvarez and Pascual Alvarez. Then, in a later meeting on April 19 in Naic, another document, the Naic Military Agreement, was drawn up which declared that its 41 signatories, "... having discovered the treason committed by certain officers who have been sowing discord and conniving with the Spaniards [and other offensive acts]", had "agreed to deliver the people from this grave danger" by raising an army corps "by persuasion or force" under the command of General Pio del Pilar. The document's 41 signatories included Bonifacio, Ricarte and del Pilar. The meeting was interrupted by Aguinaldo and del Pilar. Mariano Noriel and others present then promptly returned to Aguinaldo's fold. Aguinaldo attempted to persuade Bonifacio to cooperate with his government, but Bonifacio refused and proceeded to Indang, Cavite planning to get out of Cavite and proceed back to Morong.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In late April, Aguinaldo fully assumed the presidential office after consolidating his position among the Cavite elite – most of Bonifacio's "Magdiwang" supporters shifting allegiance to Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo's government then ordered the arrest of Bonifacio, who was then moving out of Cavite.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In April 1897, Aguinaldo ordered the arrest of Bonifacio after he received a letter alleging that Bonifacio had burned down a village and ordered the burning of the church of Indang after townspeople refused to give him provisions. Many of the principal men of Indang, among them Severino de las Alas, presented Emilio Aguinaldo with several complaints against Bonifacio that the Supremo's men stole carabaos (water buffaloes) and other work animals by force and butchered them for food. On April 25, a party of Aguinaldo's men led by Colonel Agapito Bonzón and Major José Ignacio "Intsik" Paua caught up with Bonifacio at his camp in barrio Limbon, Indang. The unsuspecting Bonifacio received them cordially. Early the next day, Bonzón and Paua attacked Bonifacio's camp. Bonifacio was surprised and refused to fight against "fellow Tagalogs", ordering his men to hold their fire, but shots were nevertheless exchanged. Bonifacio was shot in the arm by Bonzón, and Paua stabbed him in the neck but was prevented from striking further by one of Bonifacio's men, who offered to die in Bonifacio's place. Andrés's brother Ciriaco was shot dead, while his other brother Procopio was beaten, and his wife Gregoria may have been raped by Bonzón. From Indang, a half-starved and wounded Bonifacio was carried by hammock to Naic, which had become President Aguinaldo's headquarters.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Bonifacio's party was brought to Naic initially and then to Maragondon, Cavite, where he and Procopio stood trial on May 5, 1897, on charges of sedition and treason against Aguinaldo's government and conspiracy to murder Aguinaldo. The jury was composed entirely of Aguinaldo's men and even Bonifacio's defence lawyer himself declared his client's guilt. Bonifacio was barred from confronting the state witness on the charge of conspiracy to murder on the grounds that the latter had been killed in battle. However, after the trial the witness was seen alive with the prosecutors.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: The Bonifacio brothers were found guilty, despite insufficient evidence, and were recommended to be executed. Aguinaldo commuted the sentence to deportation on May 8, 1897, but Pío del Pilar and Mariano Noriel persuaded him to withdraw the order for the sake of preserving unity. In this they were seconded by Mamerto Natividád and other "bona fide" supporters of Aguinaldo. The Bonifacio brothers were executed on May 10, 1897, in the mountains of Maragondon. Apolinario Mabini wrote that Bonifacio's death demoralized many rebels from Manila, Laguna and Batangas who had come to help those in Cavite, and caused them to quit. In other areas, Bonifacio's close associates like Emilio Jacinto and Macario Sakay continued the Katipunan and never recognized Aguinaldo's authority.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: The historical assessment of Bonifacio involves several controversial points. His death is alternately viewed as a justified execution for treason, and a "legal murder" fueled by politics. Some historians consider him to be the rightful first President of the Philippines instead of Aguinaldo. Some historians have also advocated that Bonifacio share or even take the place of José Rizal as the (foremost) Philippine national hero. The purported discovery of Bonifacio's remains has also been questioned.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Historians have condemned the trial of the Bonifacio brothers as unjust. The jury was entirely composed of Aguinaldo's men; Bonifacio's defense lawyer acted more like a prosecutor as he himself declared Bonifacio's guilt and instead appealed for less punishment; and Bonifacio was not allowed to confront the state witness for the charge of conspiracy on the grounds that the latter had been killed in battle, but later the witness was seen with the prosecutors.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Teodoro Agoncillo writes that Bonifacio's declaration of authority in opposition to Aguinaldo posed a danger to the revolution, because a split in the rebel forces would result in almost certain defeat by their united and well-armed Spanish foe. In contrast, Renato Constantino contends that Bonifacio was neither a danger to the revolution in general for he still planned to fight the Spanish, nor to the revolution in Cavite since he was leaving; but Bonifacio was definitely a threat to the Cavite leaders who wanted control of the Revolution, so he was eliminated. Constantino contrasts Bonifacio who had no record of compromise with the Spanish with the Cavite leaders who did compromise, resulting in the Pact of Biak-na-Bato whereas the revolution was officially halted and its leaders exiled, though many Filipinos continued to fight especially "Katipunan" leaders used to be close to Bonifacio (Aguinaldo eventually, unofficially allied with the United States, did return to take charge of the revolution during the Spanish–American War).


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Historians have also discussed the motives of the Cavite government to replace Bonifacio, and whether it had the right to do so. The Magdalo provincial council which helped establish a republican government led by one of their own was only one of many such councils in the pre-existing Katipunan government. Therefore, Constantino and Alejo Villanueva write that Aguinaldo and his faction may be considered counter-revolutionary as well – as guilty of violating Bonifacio's constituted authority just as they considered Bonifacio to violate theirs. Aguinaldo's own adviser and official Apolinario Mabini writes that he was "primarily answerable for insubordination against the head of the "Katipunan" of which he was a member". Aguinaldo's authority was not immediately recognized by all rebels. If Bonifacio had escaped Cavite, he would have had the right as the "Katipunan" leader to prosecute Aguinaldo for treason instead of the other way around. Constantino and Villanueva also interpret the Tejeros Convention as the culmination of a movement by members of the upper class represented by Aguinaldo to wrest power from Bonifacio who represented the middle and lower classes. Regionalism among the Cavite rebels, dubbed "Cavitismo" by Constantino, has also been put forward as motivation for the replacement of Bonifacio. Mabini considered the execution as criminal and ""assassination...the first victory of personal ambition over true patriotism."" He also noted that "All the electors [at the Tejeros Convention] were friends of Don Emilio Aguinaldo and Don Mariano Trías, who were united, while Bonifacio, although he had established his integrity, was looked upon with distrust only because he was not a native of the province: this explains his resentment."


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Writing retrospectively in 1948, Aguinaldo explained that he initially commuted the sentence of death but rescinded his commutation at the urging of Generals Mariano Noriel and General Pio del Pilar.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: There are differing accounts of Bonifacio's manner of execution. The commanding officer of the execution party, Lazaro Macapagal, said in two separate accounts that the Bonifacio brothers were shot to death, which is the orthodox interpretation. Macapagal's second account has Bonifacio attempting to escape after his brother is shot, but he is also killed while running away. Macapagal writes that they buried the brothers in shallow graves dug with bayonets and marked by twigs.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: However, another account states that after his brother was shot, Bonifacio was stabbed and hacked to death. This was allegedly done while he lay prone in a hammock in which he was carried to the site, being too weak to walk. This version was maintained by Guillermo Masangkay, who claimed to have gotten this information from one of Macapagal's men. Also, one account used to corroborate this version is of an alleged eyewitness, a farmer who claimed he saw five men hacking a man in a hammock. Historian Milagros Guerrero also says Bonifacio was bayoneted, and that the brothers were left unburied. After bones said to be Bonifacio's – including a fractured skull – were discovered in 1918, Masangkay claimed the forensic evidence supported his version of events. Writer Adrian Cristobal notes that accounts of Bonifacio's captivity and trial state he was very weak due to his wounds being left untreated; he thus doubts that Bonifacio was strong enough to make a last dash for freedom as Macapagal claimed. Historian Ambeth Ocampo, who doubts the Bonifacio bones were authentic, thus also doubts the possibility of Bonifacio's death by this manner.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Some historians such as Milagros Guerrero, Emmanuel Encarnación, Ramón Villegas and Michael Charleston Chua have pushed for the recognition of Bonifacio as the first President of the Philippines instead of Aguinaldo, the officially recognized one. This view emphasizes that Bonifacio was not just the leader of the "Katipunan" as a revolutionary secret society, as traditional historiography has emphasized, but that he also established and headed a revolutionary government through the "Katipunan" from 1896 to 1897, before a revolutionary government headed by Aguinaldo was first formed at the Tejeros Convention. Guerrero writes that Bonifacio had a concept of the Philippine nation called "Haring Bayang Katagalugan" ("Sovereign Tagalog Nation") which was displaced by Aguinaldo's concept of "Filipinas". In documents predating Tejeros and the First Philippine Republic of 1899, Bonifacio is called the president of the "Sovereign [Tagalog] Nation" and the "Tagalog Republic".


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: The term "Tagalog" historically refers to an ethnic group, their language, and script. Historians have thus viewed Bonifacio's concept of the Philippine nation as restricted to the Tagalog-speaking regions of Luzon, as compared to Aguinaldo's view of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (comprising the modern Philippines).


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: In their memoirs, Emilio Aguinaldo and other Magdalo people claim Bonifacio became the head of the Magdiwang, receiving the title "Harì ng Bayan" ("King of the Nation") with Mariano Álvarez as his second-in-command. Historians such as Carlos Quirino and Michael Charleston Chua suggest these claims stem from a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of Bonifacio's neologism "Haring Bayan" ("Sovereign Nation") as referring to Bonifacio himself instead of his concept of the nation, as was in truth reflected in his title "Pangulo ng Haring Bayang Katagalugan" ("President of the Sovereign Tagalog Nation"), sometimes shortened to "Pangulo ng Haring Bayan" ("President of the Sovereign Nation"). Santiago Álvarez (son of Mariano) distinguishes between the "Magdiwang" government and the "Katipunan" Supreme Council headed by Bonifacio.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: According to historian Chua, the "first President" issue has been confounded by over a century of Philippine historiography most often referring to Bonifacio as "The Supremo" and taking it to mean "The Supreme Leader", thus ultimately taking him to have had dictatorial or monarchist ambitions as opposed to the later democratic and republican Philippine Presidents, when in fact "Supremo" was only a contraction of Spanish "Presidente Supremo" - a translation of Bonifacio's actual title as head of the Katipunan in Tagalog, "Kataas-taasang Pangulo" (Supreme President) - and based on surviving documents, Bonifacio generally did not call himself by the plain term "Supremo" despite other people's usage, but instead styled himself "Pangulo", i.e. President. Chua further writes:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: ...even inside the Katipunan, Bonifacio struggled to make people understand his concept of the Haring Bayan not as an individual or a King, but as something else... Haring Bayan really meant the King, or the power, is the people (Haring Bayan), which is basically "The Sovereign Nation"... So when he signed himself as Pangulo ng Haring Bayan past 24 August 1896, that means he intended to be president of a national revolutionary government which aimed to be a democracy.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: José Rizal is generally considered the foremost of the national heroes of the Philippines and often "the" national hero, albeit not in law, but Bonifacio has been suggested as a more worthy candidate on the grounds of having started the Philippine Revolution. Teodoro Agoncillo notes that the Philippine national hero, unlike those of other countries, is not "the leader of its liberation forces". Renato Constantino writes that Rizal is a "United States-sponsored hero" who was promoted as the greatest Filipino hero during the American colonial period of the Philippines – after Aguinaldo lost the Philippine–American War. The United States promoted Rizal, who was taken to represent peaceful political advocacy, instead of more radical figures whose ideas could inspire resistance against American rule. Specifically, Rizal was selected over Bonifacio who was viewed as "too radical" and Apolinario Mabini who was "unregenerate."


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Historian Ambeth Ocampo gives the opinion that arguing for Bonifacio as the "better" hero on the grounds that he, not Rizal, began the Philippine Revolution, is moot since Rizal inspired Bonifacio, the Katipunan, and the Revolution. Even prior to his banishment to Dapitan, Rizal was already regarded by the Filipino people as a national hero, having been elected as honorary president by the "Katipunan". Other historians also detail that Bonifacio was a follower of Rizal's La Liga Filipina. León María Guerrero notes that while Rizal did not give his blessing to the Katipunan because he believed the time was premature, he did not condemn the aim of independence per se. Teodoro Agoncillo gives the opinion that Bonifacio should not replace Rizal as national hero, but they should be honored "side by side".


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Despite popular recognition of Rizal as ""the" Philippine national hero", the title itself has no explicit legal definition in present Philippine law. Rizal and Bonifacio, however, are given the implied recognition of being national heroes because they are commemorated annually nationwide – "Rizal Day" on December 30 and "Bonifacio Day" on November 30. According to the website of the National Center for Culture and the Arts:


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Despite the lack of any official declaration explicitly proclaiming them as national heroes, [Rizal and Bonifacio] remain admired and revered for their roles in Philippine history. Heroes, according to historians, should not be legislated.


title: Andrés Bonifacio

text: Their appreciation should be better left to academics. Acclamation for heroes, they felt, would be recognition enough.