The revolt began in Central and Northern Negros in the morning and by
the afternoon had spread to other towns such as San Miguel and Cadiz. In Silay, Lt. Maximiano Correa, commanding the Spanish garrison, had ten Spanish cazadores (Spanish, literally, "hunters")
and seven Filipino civil guards. They were entrenched inside the
municipal building, but surrendered without a fight when they realized
that the townspeople were determined to burn the building to the ground
should there be resistance.
The Silay parish priest, Eulogio Saez, a
businessman named Juan Viaplana, and José Ledesma persuaded the Spanish
forces to lay down their arms, but in order to save face, the lieutenant
had it appear in the official records that the capitulation was the
result of a bloody battle with "dead and wounded littered all over the
field of battle".
Ten Mauser and seven Remington rifles were surrendered by the garrison. Later, a flag similar to the design of the Filipino flag embroidered by Olympia Severino and her sisters was hoisted by the victorious townspeople.
In Bacolod, the governor of the province, Isidro de Castro, sent a force of 25 cazadores
and 16 civil guards to engage a swarm of rebels seen camping near the
Matab-ang River. After a brief skirmish, they withdrew, leaving two of
their number dead. The Governor decided to make a stand in the Bacolod
Convent (presently the Bishop's Palace, the rectory of the San Sebastian Cathedral), where hundreds of Spanish families had taken refuge. They waited for the attack, but it did not come.
The Negros Revolution, now commemorated and popularly known as Al Cinco de Noviembre or Negros Day, was a political movement that in 1898 created a government in Negros Island in the Philippines, informally ending Spanish control of the island and resulting in a government run by the Negrense natives, at least for that part of the archipelago and for a relatively short period. The newly established Negros Republic would last for approximately three months. American forces landed on the island unopposed on February 2, 1899, ending the island's independence.
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