Notoriety
Considering the black colored defector’s erroneous strategy so you can standard, guerilla competitors today handled your just like the “Heneral” Fagen. From the following the weeks, account toward challenging Western proliferated. An enthusiastic unsubstantiated facts portrayed Fagen since a cold-blooded executioner. However, several put out POWs later on confronted instance characterizations and testified so you can Fagen’s kindness while they were in his custody.
The brand new You.S. Army’s famous “guerilla catcher,” Col. Frederick Funston, turned obsessed with the fresh new get of renegade and you will decried a good missed options: “I experienced a pretty a beneficial look at the notorious Fagen at the a radius of a hundred yards, but unfortunately, had currently emptied my personal carbine. So it wretched kid got into two hours composed me personally impudent and you may improperly spelled letters. Fagen is ‘entitled to a similar procedures as a mad dog’.”
Funston captured Aguinaldo instead-as a consequence of a complicated ploy-for the March 23. Two weeks afterwards, the new Filipino commander swore allegiance with the United states and you will ordered their pushes so you’re able to call it quits 
instantly. In Nueva Ecija, Standard Lacuna or other guerilla leadership obeyed its frontrunner. Lacuna, although not, refused to give-up Fagen, and you may emerged down on the slopes together with officers immediately after opening the brand new American out of their demand. Funston today embarked to the a the majority of-out hunt for “your head of your Western Negro.”
On the mid-day off December six, 1901, it looked that the wily Funston fundamentally bagged their quarry. Anastacio Bartolome, an old guerilla, whom today earned a living as a deer huntsman, inserted brand new Army barracks inside the Bongabong, Nueva Ecija, not as much as Lt. R.C. Corliss. The guy applied a canvas sack on the ground and you will recited particular occurrences of your previous days, that the American administrator submitted because the an enthusiastic affidavit.
The new hunter claimed he had been angling having a couple friends on Umiray River you to day, whenever Fagen showed up which have a couple Negrito friends with his indigenous girlfriend. He greet Fagen along with his team to talk about a lunch out-of fish and you may rice. This new affidavit reads: “While every was indeed dinner, Anastacio and his team quickly turned on Fagen with his guys with bolos. Fagen was mortally wounded and you may went from the one hundred meters and you can decrease deceased. The two Negritos fled poorly wounded. Fagen’s partner ran for the water, popped in the and you will sunken herself.”
Bartolome told you the guy buried Fagen’s human anatomy towards the riverbank, just after cutting off their lead. The guy opened their sack to reveal evidence, a good “improperly decomposed direct, that have Negroid features.” Because the subsequent evidence, Bartolome registered a worn out photograph of Urbano Lacuna included in Fagen’s nipple pouch and you will Lt. Alstaetter’s West Area category ring. The latest You.S. Military closed the ebook on Pvt. David Fagen.
Veracity Questioned
While this has remained the official membership, historians Michael Robinson and David Schubert typed in the 1974 a post thinking the veracity. Inside the a battle in which every dime, nickel and you will mule try carefully taken into account by U.S. Army, indeed there remains zero checklist out-of a great $600 bounty provided to Bartolome. The historians and discovered multiple credible said sightings of Fagen of the Armed forces troops months immediately after his advertised death.
You can expect to the latest deer hunter’s account was in fact a proper-designed area hatched because of the Lacuna and you may Bartolome to store the newest black defector alive? You can expect to he has lived-in this new jungles from Luzon without Jim crow and Frederick Funston, even after new cessation regarding hostilities?
Are you aware that remainder of Fagen’s comrades exactly who stayed faithful so you’re able to the American banner, over a thousand registered in which to stay the hawaiian islands abreast of the launch at the war’s specialized prevent to the July cuatro, 1902. Mentioning their “racial attraction” with the residents, of a lot intermarried having Filipino women and you may settled all-around Central Luzon. They truly became clerks, teachers, short growers and you will storeowners.
Captain Frank Steward turned this new provost courtroom out of San Pablo, Laguna, if you find yourself W. Nearly 100 years after, its Ebony descendants exists throughout the Philippine diaspora, regarding Pangsinan to help you Pennsylvania-and you will Bay area, in which they first started its historic excursion and you may where an earlier black guy sailed on the their novel devote Philippine record.