ABOUT THE BOOK

This volume contains a translation of selected dispatches of the French consuls assigned to the Philippines during the Philippine Revolution. The consular dispatches span the period 1896-1901.

The French consular dispatches provide us a first hand account of the dynamics prevailing then among the Filipinos (who were referred to as insurgents in the dispatches), the Spaniards (who were preparing to leave a colony they held for more than 300 years) and the Americans (who were preparing to administer a colony). Historians stand to gain from the insights and observations made in the dispatches of consuls, like Consul Berard, who took their task seriously.

The accounts of the French consuls oftentimes reveal information not often mentioned in standard sources of the Philippine Revolution. They reveal the obsession of the. Filipinos for independence no matter how elusive it was at that moment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MA. LUISA T. CAMAGAY is chairperson of the Department of History, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines. She obtained her doctorat de troisieme cycle at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. It was in the course of writing her dissertation that she discovered the consular dispatches at the Archives of the Foreign Affairs at Quai D’Orsay and at the Archives of the Navy at Vincennes.

Her books Kasaysayan Panlipunan ng Maynila (1765- 1898) and Working Women of Manila in the 19th Century won the 1993 and 1995 National Book Award in history respectively.