Mateo Cariño
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Owner of Kafagway rancheria
- Mateo Cariño doctrine
Mateo Cariño | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1841[1] |
| Died | June 6, 1908 (aged 66–67) |
| Occupation | Chieftain |
| Known for |
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Mateo Cariño was an Ibaloi chieftain[2] who owned the land that was to become Baguio. He led a successful revolt against the Spanish garrison in La Trinidad and was proclaimed the Capitan Municipal of Baguio by President Emilio Aguinaldo.
Cariño owned vast tracts of land which covered the area which would later be known as Baguio as early as the Spanish colonial period.[3] Titles over the land were given to him by the Spanish colonial government in exchange for his conversion to Christianity. His surname was adopted after his conversion.[2] The land was a rancheria known as Kafagway and was the residence of the Cariño clan and the rest of the Ibaloi community.[4]
In 1901, Cariño was selected as representative of Baguio to chief executive of the US Insular Government over the Philippines.[4]
Cariño reportedly gave Emilio Aguinaldo, President of the Revolutionary Government of the Philippines who was fleeing to Hong Kong, refuge. This is said to have caused the American colonial authorities who took over the Philippines to issue military decrees that mandated the confiscation of Cariño's lands. Cariño involved himself in a legal dispute seeking for the voiding of the decrees until his death in 1908. He had a favorable posthumous legal victory when in February 1909 the US Supreme Court, through Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, recognized his "native title" over his lands which was established through testimonies that the land was utilized, owned, and occupied by indigenous populations.[2][5][6]
