José Rizal

"Laong Laan" redirects here. For the railway station, see Laon Laan station.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Mercado and the second or maternal family name
is Realonda.

José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda[7] (Spanish: [xoˈse riˈsal, -ˈθal], Tagalog: [hoˈse ɾiˈsal];
June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath active at the end of
the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is considered a national hero (pambansang bayani) of
the Philippines.[8][9] An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the
Filipino Propaganda Movement, which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain.

Born

June 19, 1861[2]

Calamba, Laguna, Captaincy General of the Philippines, Spanish Empire[2]

Died

December 30, 1896 (aged 35)[3]

Bagumbayan, Manila, Captaincy General of the Philippines, Spanish Empire[3]

Cause of death

Execution by firing squad

Resting place

Rizal Monument, Manila

Monuments

Daet, Camarines Norte

Manila

Calamba, Laguna

Other names

Pepe, Jose (nicknames)[4][5]

Alma mater

Ateneo Municipal de Manila (BA)

University of Santo Tomas

Universidad Central de Madrid (MD)

Organization(s)

La Solidaridad, La Liga Filipina

Notable work

Noli Me Tángere (1887)

El filibusterismo (1891)

Movement

Propaganda Movement

Spouse

Josephine Bracken[6]

(m. 1896)

Parents

Francisco Rizal Mercado (father)

Teodora Alonso Realonda (mother)

Relatives

Saturnina Hidalgo (sister)

Paciano Rizal (brother)

Trinidad Rizal (sister)

Early life

José Rizal

José Rizal was born on June 19, 1861 to Francisco Rizal Mercado and Teodora Alonso Realonda y
Quintos in the town of Calamba in Laguna province. He had nine sisters and one brother. His parents
were leaseholders of a hacienda and an accompanying rice farm held by the Dominicans. Both their
families had adopted the additional surnames of Rizal and Realonda in 1849 after Governor General
Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption of Spanish surnames among the Filipinos for census
purposes (though they already had Spanish names).

Like many families in the Philippines, the Rizals were of mestizo origin. José's patrilineal lineage could be
traced to Fujian in China through his father's ancestor Lam-co, a Hokkien Chinese merchant who
immigrated to the Philippines in the late 17th century.[12][13][note 1][14] Lam-co traveled to Manila
from Xiamen, China, possibly to avoid the famine or plague in his home district, and more probably to
escape the Manchu invasion during the transition from Ming to Qing. He decided to stay in the islands as
a farmer. In 1697, to escape the bitter anti-Chinese prejudice that existed in the Philippines, he
converted to Catholicism, changed his name to Domingo Mercado and married the daughter of Chinese
friend Augustin Chin-co.

On his mother's side, Rizal's ancestry included Chinese and Tagalog. His mother's lineage can be traced
to the affluent Florentina family of Chinese mestizo families originating in Baliuag, Bulacan.[15] He also
had Spanish ancestry. Regina Ochoa, a grandmother of his mother, Teodora, had mixed Spanish,
Chinese, and Tagalog blood. His maternal grandfather was a half-Spanish engineer named Lorenzo
Alberto Alonzo.[16] José Rizal's maternal great-great-grandfather, Eugenio Ursua, was of Japanese
ancestry.[17][18]

From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned the alphabet from his mother at 3,
and could read and write at age 5.[13] Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he dropped
the last three names that made up his full name, on the advice of his brother, Paciano and the Mercado
family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio Rizal". Of this, he later wrote: "My family never paid
much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus giving me the appearance of
an illegitimate child!"[19] This was to enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his brother,
who had gained notoriety with earlier links to Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto
Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza), who had been accused and executed for treason.

José, as "Rizal", soon distinguished himself in poetry writing contests, impressing his professors with his
facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and later, in writing essays that were critical of the
Spanish historical accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine societies. By 1891, the year he finished his
second novel El filibusterismo, his second surname had become so well known that, as he writes to
another friend, "All my family now carry the name Rizal instead of Mercado because the name Rizal
means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be worthy of this family name..."[19]

The Mercado - Rizal Family

The Rizals is considered one of the biggest families during their time. Domingo Lam-co, the family's
paternal ascendant was a full-blooded Chinese who came to the Philippines from Amoy, China in the
closing years of the 17th century and married a Chinese half-breed by the name of Ines de la Rosa.

Researchers revealed that the Mercado-Rizal family had also traces of Japanese, Spanish, Malay and
Even Negrito blood aside from Chinese.

Jose Rizal came from a 13-member family consisting of his parents, Francisco Mercado II and Teodora
Alonso Realonda, and nine sisters and one brother.

FRANCISCO MERCADO (1818-1898)

Father of Jose Rizal who was the youngest of 13 offsprings of Juan and Cirila Mercado. Born in Biñan,
Laguna on April 18, 1818; studied in San Jose College, Manila; and died in Manila.

TEODORA ALONSO (1827-1913)

Mother of Jose Rizal who was the second child of Lorenzo Alonso and Brijida de Quintos. She studied at
the Colegio de Santa Rosa. She was a business-minded woman, courteous, religious, hard-working and
well-read. She was born in Santa Cruz, Manila on November 14, 1827 and died in 1913 in Manila.

SATURNINA RIZAL (1850-1913)

Eldest child of the Rizal-Alonzo marriage. Married Manuel Timoteo Hidalgo of Tanauan, Batangas.

PACIANO RIZAL (1851-1930)

Only brother of Jose Rizal and the second child. Studied at San Jose College in Manila; became a farmer
and later a general of the Philippine Revolution.
NARCISA RIZAL (1852-1939)

The third child. married Antonio Lopez at Morong, Rizal; a teacher and musician.

OLYMPIA RIZAL (1855-1887)

The fourth child. Married Silvestre Ubaldo; died in 1887 from childbirth.

LUCIA RIZAL (1857-1919)

The fifth child. Married Matriano Herbosa.

MARIA RIZAL (1859-1945)

The sixth child. Married Daniel Faustino Cruz of Biñan, Laguna.

JOSE RIZAL (1861-1896)

The second son and the seventh child. He was executed by the Spaniards on December 30,1896.

CONCEPCION RIZAL (1862-1865)

The eight child. Died at the age of three.

JOSEFA RIZAL (1865-1945)

The ninth child. An epileptic, died a spinster.

TRINIDAD RIZAL (1868-1951)

The tenth child. Died a spinster and the last of the family to die.

SOLEDAD RIZAL (1870-1929)

The youngest child married Pantaleon Quintero.

Education

Rizal, 11 years old, a student at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila

Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan, Laguna, before he was sent to Manila.[20] He
took the entrance examination to Colegio de San Juan de Letran, as his father requested, but he enrolled
at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila. He graduated as one of the nine students in his class declared
sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila to obtain a
land surveyor and assessor's degree and simultaneously at the University of Santo Tomas, where he
studied a preparatory course in law and finished with a mark of excelente, or excellent. He finished the
course of Philosophy as a pre-law.[21]

Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school
of Santo Tomas, specializing later in ophthalmology. He received his four-year practical training in
medicine at Ospital de San Juan de Dios in Intramuros. In his last year at medical school, he received a
mark of sobresaliente in courses of Patologia Medica (Medical Pathology), Patología Quirúrgica (Surgical
Pathology) and Obstretics.

Although known as a bright student, Rizal had some difficulty in some science subjects in medical school
such as Física (Physics) and Patología General (General Pathology).[22]
Rizal as a student at the University of Santo Tomas

Without his parents' knowledge and consent, but secretly supported by his brother Paciano, he traveled
alone to Madrid in May 1882 and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid. There he
earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. He also attended medical lectures at the University of Paris
and the University of Heidelberg. In Berlin, he was inducted as a member of the Berlin Ethnological
Society and the Berlin Anthropological Society under the patronage of pathologist Rudolf Virchow.
Following custom, he delivered an address in German in April 1887 before the Anthropological Society
on the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language. He wrote a poem to the city, "A las flores del
Heidelberg", which was both an evocation and a prayer for the welfare of his native land and the
unification of common values between East and West.

At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal completed his eye specialization in 1887 under the renowned
professor, Otto Becker. There he used the newly invented ophthalmoscope (invented by Hermann von
Helmholtz) to later operate on his mother's eye. From Heidelberg, Rizal wrote his parents: "I spend half
of the day in the study of German and the other half, in the diseases of the eye. Twice a week, I go to
the bierbraueriei, or beerhall, to speak German with my student friends." He lived in a Karlstraße
boarding house then moved to Ludwigsplatz. There, he met Reverend Karl Ullmer and stayed with them
in Wilhelmsfeld. There he wrote the last few chapters of Noli Me Tángere, his first novel, published in
Spanish later that year.

Rizal was a polymath, skilled in both science and the arts. He painted, sketched, and made sculptures
and woodcarving. He was a prolific poet, essayist, and novelist whose most famous works were his two
novels, Noli Me Tángere (1887) and its sequel, El filibusterismo (1891).[note 2] These social
commentaries during the Spanish colonial period of the country formed the nucleus of literature that
inspired peaceful reformists and armed revolutionaries alike.

Rizal was also a polyglot, conversant in twenty-two languages.[note 3][note 4][23][24]

Rizal's numerous skills and abilities was described by his German friend, Adolf Bernhard Meyer, as
"stupendous."[note 5] Documented studies show Rizal to be a polymath with the ability to master
various skills and subjects.[23][25][26] He was an ophthalmologist, sculptor, painter, educator, farmer,
historian, playwright and journalist. Besides poetry and creative writing, he dabbled, with varying
degrees of expertise, in architecture, cartography, economics, ethnology, anthropology, sociology,
dramatics, martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting. Skilled in social settings, he became a Freemason,
joining Acacia Lodge No. 9 during his time in Spain; he became a Master Mason in 1884.[27]

Personal life, relationships and ventures

Rednaxela Terrace, where Rizal lived during his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong (photo taken in 2011)

José Rizal's life is one of the most documented of 19th-century Filipinos due to the vast and extensive
records written by and about him.[28] Almost everything in his short life is recorded somewhere. He was
a regular diarist and prolific letter writer, and much of this material has survived. His biographers have
faced challenges in translating his writings because of Rizal's habit of switching from one language to
another.

Biographers drew largely from his travel diaries with his comments by a young Asian encountering the
West for the first time (other than in Spanish manifestations in the Philippines). These diaries included
Rizal's later trips, home and back again to Europe through Japan and the United States,[29] and, finally,
through his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong.

Shortly after he graduated from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila (now Ateneo de Manila University),
Rizal (who was then 16 years old) and a friend, Mariano Katigbak, visited Rizal's maternal grandmother
in Tondo, Manila. Mariano brought along his sister, Segunda Katigbak, a 14-year-old Batangueña from
Lipa, Batangas.

It was the first time Rizal had met her, whom he described as

"rather short, with eyes that were eloquent and ardent at times and languid at others, rosy-cheeked,
with an enchanting and provocative smile that revealed very beautiful teeth, and the air of a sylph; her
entire self diffused a mysterious charm."

His grandmother's guests were mostly college students and they knew that Rizal had skills in painting.
They suggested that Rizal should make a portrait of Segunda. He complied reluctantly and made a pencil
sketch of her. Rizal referred to her as his first love in his memoir Memorias de un Estudiante de Manila,
but Katigbak was already engaged to Manuel Luz.[30]
Business card showing José Rizal is an ophthalmologist in Hong Kong

From December 1891 to June 1892, Rizal lived with his family in Number 2 of Rednaxela Terrace, Mid-
levels, Hong Kong Island. Rizal used 5 D'Aguilar Street, Central district, Hong Kong Island, as his
ophthalmology clinic from 2 pm to 6 pm. In this period of his life, he wrote about nine women who have
been identified: Gertrude Beckett of Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill, Camden, London; wealthy and
high-minded Nelly Boustead of an English-Iberian merchant family; Seiko Usui (affectionately called O-
Sei-san), last descendant of a noble Japanese family; his earlier friendship with Segunda Katigbak;
Leonor Valenzuela, and an eight-year romantic relationship with Leonor Rivera, a distant cousin (she is
thought to have inspired his character of María Clara in Noli Me Tángere).

Affair

In one account detailing Rizal's 1887 visit to Prague, Maximo Viola wrote that Rizal had succumbed to a
'lady of the camellias'. Viola, a friend of Rizal's and an early financier of Noli Me Tángere, was alluding to
Dumas's 1848 novel, La dame aux camelias, about a man who fell in love with a courtesan. While noting
Rizal's affair, Viola provided no details about its duration or nature.[31][32][note 6]

Association with Leonor Rivera

A crayon portrait of Leonor Rivera by José Rizal

Leonor Rivera is thought to have inspired the character of María Clara in Noli Me Tángere and El
Filibusterismo.[33] Rivera and Rizal first met in Manila when Rivera was 14 years old and Rizal was 16.
When Rizal left for Europe on May 3, 1882, Rivera was 16 years old. Their correspondence began after
Rizal left a poem for her.[34]

Their correspondence helped Rizal stay focused on his studies in Europe. They employed codes in their
letters because Rivera's mother did not favor Rizal. In a letter from Mariano Katigbak dated June 27,
1884, she referred to Rivera as Rizal's "betrothed". Katigbak described Rivera as having been greatly
affected by Rizal's departure, and frequently sick because of insomnia.
Before Rizal returned to the Philippines on August 5, 1887, Rivera and her family had moved back to
Dagupan, Pangasinan. Rizal's father forbade the young man to see Rivera in order to avoid putting her
family in danger. Rizal was already labeled by the criollo elite as a filibustero or subversive[34] because
of his novel Noli Me Tángere. Rizal wanted to marry Rivera while he was still in the Philippines because
she had been so faithful to him. Rizal asked permission from his father one more time before his second
departure from the Philippines, but he never met her again.

In 1888, Rizal stopped receiving letters from Rivera for a year, although he continued to write to her.
Rivera's mother favored an Englishman named Henry Kipping, a railway engineer who fell in love with
Rivera.[34][35] The news of Leonor Rivera's marriage to Kipping devastated Rizal.

His European friends kept almost everything he gave them, including doodlings on pieces of paper. He
had visited Spanish liberal, Pedro Ortiga y Pérez, and impressed the man's daughter, Consuelo, who
wrote about Rizal. In her diary, she said Rizal had regaled them with his wit, social graces, and sleight-of-
hand tricks. In London, during his research on Antonio de Morga's writings, he became a regular guest in
the home of Reinhold Rost of the British Museum, who referred to him as "a gem of a man."[28][note 7]
The family of Karl Ullmer, pastor of Wilhelmsfeld, and the Blumentritts in Germany saved even napkins
that Rizal had made sketches and notes on. They were ultimately bequeathed to the Rizal family to form
a treasure trove of memorabilia.

Relationship with Josephine Bracken

Josephine Bracken was Rizal's common-law wife whom he reportedly married shortly before his
execution.

In February 1895, Rizal, 33, met Josephine Bracken, an Irish woman from Hong Kong. She had
accompanied her blind adoptive father, George Taufer, to have his eyes checked by Rizal.[36] After
frequent visits, Rizal and Bracken fell in love. They applied to marry but, because of Rizal's reputation
from his writings and political stance, the local priest Father Obach would hold the ceremony only if
Rizal could get permission from the Bishop of Cebu. As Rizal refused to return to practicing Catholicism,
the bishop refused permission for an ecclesiastical marriage.[6]

After accompanying her father to Manila on her return to Hong Kong, and before heading back to
Dapitan to live with Rizal, Josephine introduced herself to members of Rizal's family in Manila. His
mother suggested a civil marriage, which she believed to be a lesser sacrament but less sinful to Rizal's
conscience than making any sort of political retraction in order to gain permission from the Bishop.[37]
Rizal and Josephine lived as husband and wife in a common-law marriage in Talisay in Dapitan. The
couple had a son, but he lived only a few hours. Rizal named him after his father Francisco.[38]

In Brussels and Spain (1890–1892)

In 1890, Rizal, 29, left Paris for Brussels as he was preparing for the publication of his annotations of
Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609). He lived in the boarding house of the sisters,
Catherina and Suzanna Jacoby, who had a niece Suzanna ("Thil"), age 16. Historian Gregorio F. Zaide says
that Rizal had "his romance with Suzanne Jacoby, 45, the petite niece of his landladies." Belgian Pros
Slachmuylders, however, believed that Rizal had a romance with the 17-year-old niece, Suzanna Thil, as
his other liaisons were all with young women.[39] He found records clarifying their names and ages.

Rizal's Brussels stay was short-lived; he moved to Madrid, giving the young Suzanna a box of chocolates.
She wrote to him in French: "After your departure, I did not take the chocolate. The box is still intact as
on the day of your parting. Don't delay too long writing us because I wear out the soles of my shoes for
running to the mailbox to see if there is a letter from you. There will never be any home in which you are
so loved as in that in Brussels, so, you little bad boy, hurry up and come back…"[39] In 2007,
Slachmuylders' group arranged for an historical marker honoring Rizal to be placed at the house.[39]

He published Dimanche des Rameaux (Palm Sunday), a socio-political essay, in Berlin on November 30,
1886. He discussed the significance of Palm Sunday in socio-political terms:

"This entry [of Jesus into Jerusalem] decided the fate of the jealous priests, the Pharisees, of all those
who believed themselves the only ones who had the right to speak in the name of God, of those who
would not admit the truths said by others because they have not been said by them. That triumph,
those hosannas, all those flowers, those olive branches, were not for Jesus alone; they were the songs of
the victory of the new law, they were the canticles celebrating the dignification of man, the liberty of
man, the first mortal blow directed against despotism and slavery".[40]

Shortly after its publication, Rizal was summoned by the German police, who suspected him of being a
French spy.[41]

The content of Rizal's writings changed considerably in his two most famous novels, Noli Me Tángere,
published in Berlin in 1887, and El Filibusterismo, published in Ghent in 1891. For the latter, he used
funds borrowed from his friends. These writings angered both the Spanish colonial elite and many
educated Filipinos due to their symbolism. They are critical of Spanish friars and the power of the
Church. Rizal's friend Ferdinand Blumentritt, a professor and historian born in Austria-Hungary, wrote
that the novel's characters were drawn from life and that every episode could be repeated on any day in
the Philippines.[42]

Blumentritt was the grandson of the Imperial Treasurer at Vienna in the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire and a staunch defender of the Catholic faith. This did not dissuade him from writing the preface
of El filibusterismo, after he had translated Noli Me Tángere into German. As Blumentritt had warned,
these books resulted in Rizal's being prosecuted as the inciter of revolution. He was eventually tried by
the military, convicted, and executed. His books were thought to contribute to the Philippine Revolution
of 1896, but other forces had also been building for it.

Leaders of the reform movement in Spain. Left to right: Rizal, del Pilar, and Ponce (c. 1890).

As leader of the reform movement of Filipino students in Spain, Rizal contributed essays, allegories,
poems, and editorials to the Spanish newspaper La Solidaridad in Barcelona (in this case Rizal used pen
names, "Dimasalang", "Laong Laan" and "May Pagasa"). The core of his writings centers on liberal and
progressive ideas of individual rights and freedom; specifically, rights for the Filipino people. He shared
the same sentiments with members of the movement: Rizal wrote that the people of the Philippines
were battling "a double-faced Goliath"—corrupt friars and bad government. His commentaries reiterate
the following agenda:[note 8]

That the Philippines be made a province of Spain (The Philippines was a province of New Spain – now
Mexico, administered from Mexico City from 1565 to 1821. From 1821 to 1898, it was administered
directly from Spain.)

Representation in the Cortes

Filipino priests instead of Spanish friars – Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans – in parishes and
remote sitios

Freedom of assembly and speech

Equal rights before the law (for both Filipino and Spanish plaintiffs)

The colonial authorities in the Philippines did not favor these reforms. Such Spanish intellectuals as
Morayta, Unamuno, Pi y Margall, and others did endorse them.
In 1890, a rivalry developed between Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar for the leadership of La Solidaridad
and the reform movement in Europe.[43] The majority of the expatriates supported the leadership of
del Pilar.

Wenceslao Retana, a political commentator in Spain, had slighted Rizal by writing an insulting article in
La Epoca, a newspaper in Madrid. He implied that Rizal's family and friends had been evicted from their
lands in Calamba for not having paid their due rents. The incident (when Rizal was ten) stemmed from
an accusation that Rizal's mother, Teodora, tried to poison the wife of a cousin, but she said she was
trying to help. With the approval of the Church prelates, and without a hearing, she was ordered to
prison in Santa Cruz in 1871. She was forced to walk the ten miles (16 km) from Calamba. She was
released after two-and-a-half years of appeals to the highest court.[26] In 1887, Rizal wrote a petition on
behalf of the tenants of Calamba, and later that year led them to speak out against the friars' attempts
to raise rent. They initiated litigation that resulted in the Dominicans' evicting them and the Rizal family
from their homes. General Valeriano Weyler had the tenant buildings on the farm torn down.

Upon reading the article, Rizal sent a representative to challenge Retana to a duel. Retana published a
public apology and later became one of Rizal's biggest admirers. He wrote the most important biography
of Rizal, Vida y Escritos del José Rizal.[44][note 9]