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Updated: June 23, 2025
The Jolo Archipelago, formed of some 160 islands, is situated southwest of Mindanao and south of Basilan. It is bounded on the south by the Jolo Sea, on the northeast by Mindanao and on the west and southwest by Borneo.
They could be seen on the hills around Jolo with torches moving about all night. When we first went to Jolo and saw these torches at night we thought they were signals, and close watch was kept on their movements.
This it appeared very difficult to do on that occasion, not only because the governor found himself without any kind of rowing vessels or ships with high freeboard, with which to put to sea, but also because he had few soldiers in the camp, for the majority of them were with Captain and Sargento-mayor Joan Xuarez Gallinato in the Pintados provinces, together with galleys, galliots, and other craft, for the purpose of defending the natives against the ships of the Mindanaos and Joloans, who were continually making plundering expeditions against them, and of preparing for the expedition which it was thought would be made from Jolo at the first monsoon, and which could no longer be deferred.
We passed through straits and seas, by Iloilo on the Island of Panay, Cebu, Negros Island, through the sea of Jolo to Zamboanga on the Island of Mindanao, and to Jolo. The group of islands forming the Sulu Archipelago is the southern islands of the Philippines. The "Leon" sailed into the Jolo Bay in the evening on the nineteenth of May.
When Gallinato saw that the rains were fast setting in, that his men were becoming ill, and that his provisions were failing, without his having accomplished the desired task, and that it could not be accomplished with his remaining resources; and that the enemy from Mindanao with other allies of theirs were boasting that they were gathering a large fleet in order to drive the Spaniards from Jolo: he sent news of all that had occurred to the governor of Manila, with a plan of the island and fort and a relation of the difficulties which the enterprise presented.
It will also be possible to arrive at the point agreed upon, as a general rendezvous, in twenty, or five-and-twenty days, which place, for many reasons, ought to be the fortress of Zamboanga, situated in front of Jolo and at moderate distance from that Island; it being from this port that, in former times, the Philippine governors usually sent out their armaments, destined to make war against the Basilanese and Jolonese.
I have known of recruits on going into Jolo express their delight at the idea of doing duty in such a fine place, and wish they could stay there the three years of service for which they had enlisted. But in less than two months, seeing the same things every day, they wanted to get away, and would have given anything for an opportunity to go to another post.
Still another of the picturesque characters with whom I foregathered nightly on the after-deck of the Negros during our stay at Jolo was a former soldier, John Jennings by name. He was an operative of the Philippine Secret Service, being engaged at the time in breaking up the running of opium from Borneo across the Sulu Sea to the Moro islands.
Now, if the Governor had permitted such open defiance to pass unnoticed, the entire population of Jolo, always ready for trouble, promptly would have gotten out of hand. So, accompanied by five troopers of the constabulary, he rode out to the outlaw's house and attempted to reason with him.
Captain Pratt was in command, and Company E was ordered out to the block house, which stands about one thousand yards back of Jolo, and towards the mountains. A guard detail was made out, and the Spanish soldiers were relieved. I relieved the first Spanish of his post at Jolo.
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