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Memoir and biography · book
Myself and a Few Moros
- Publisher
- Doubleday, Page & Company
- Year
- 1923
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 180
- Availability
- Free to read
Published free: the link opens the whole book.
About the book
The memoir of a US Army officer posted to Sulu at the start of American rule, and what he made of the datus and the people he was sent to govern. Out of copyright and free to read.
Sydney A. Cloman was a US Army officer who, in 1899, landed at Bongao in Tawi-Tawi with 3 officers, a contract surgeon and 185 men of the 23rd Infantry. American forces were then busy fighting in Luzon, and Cloman's small garrison was sent to take over from the departing Spanish in the far south of the Sulu archipelago. This memoir tells of his time there.
The book is made up of 10 light, anecdotal chapters, among them "Bongao", "A Trip Among My Islands", "My First Bribe, and Others", "Selungun", "Moro Romances" and "Visits to Royalty". They describe his dealings with local datus, traders and the Sultan of Sulu. Photographs show Jolo, Siasi, Sitangkai and Samal villages, Sultan Jamalul Kiram II and Hadji Butu.
Cloman says in his foreword that he wrote it for 2 young relatives and favoured a good story over strict accuracy. His colonial-era views of the Moro people show throughout, so it reads best as a record of how an American officer saw Sulu, not as a history of it.
From archive.org.
Memoir and biographyColonial period
Cover from Open Library, shown to identify the book; its rights stay with the publisher.
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