ioned two Filipinos, Esteban de la
Rama and Pedro Regalado, [225] to proceed to Negros and negotiate
terms of surrender to the Americans. For the moment nothing further
was demanded than a recognition of American supremacy, and it was
not proposed to subvert their local organization or depose their
president. Aniceto Lacson accepted these terms, and General Miller
formally appointed him Governor of the Island in March, 1899. It
is evident, therefore, that no union existed between the local
government of Negros and Aguinaldo's Republic in Luzon. In fact,
when the Tagalog fighting-men, who were everywhere defeated in Panay,
made their escape to Negros and raised the cry of insurrection against
the Americans, Lacson was constrained to appeal to General Miller to
send over troops to quell the movement. Thereupon Colonel Smith was
deputed to take troops over to Negros to pursue the common enemy,
whilst, in perfect accord with the native governor Lacson, he acted
as military governor of the Island. The great cordillera which runs
through the centre of the Island from north to south forms a sort
of natural barrier between the people of Occidental and Oriental
Negros. There are trails, but there are no transversal highroads
from one coast to the other, and the inhabitants on each side live
as separated in their interests, and, to a certain degree, in their
habits, as though they were living in different islands. The people
on the eastern side have always strongly opposed anything approaching
governmental cohesion with the other side. Moreover, for many years
past, the south-eastern district of Negros Island has been affected by
sporadic apparitions of riotous religious monomaniacs called _Santones_
(_vide_ p. 189). These conditions, therefore, favoured the nefarious
work of the cunning Tagalog and Panay refugees, who found plenty
of plastic material in the Negros inhabitants for the fruitful
dissemination of the wildest and most fantastic notions anent the
horrors awaiting them in the new Anglo-Saxon domination. They found no
sympathy with the native government of Occidental Negros, which was as
much their enemy as the American troops sent to pursue them, but they
entertained the hope that by raising riot in Negros they would draw off
troops from Panay, and so favour the movement in that Island. Armed
groups rose everywhere against the Americans and the established
government. In the south-east the notorious Papa Isio appeared a