Provenance: : Don Pedro Alejandro Paterno (1857– 1911) and Doña Luisa Piñeyro de Lugo y Merino (Sra de Paterno, d. 1897)

ABOUT THE WORK

The document bearing the label “Diario de mi vida durante de mi prision” (diary of my life during my imprisonment) is a recounting of events by Antonio Ma. Regidor after his arrest and deportation to the Marianas in 1872. This diary must be appreciated in the context of the Cavite Mutiny, an uprising at the Cavite arsenal that happened on January 20, 1872. This event became an excuse made by the Spanish colonial government to suppress those Filipinos clamoring for governmental reform. Prominent members of the educated elite (the ilustrados) were accused of agitating the mutineers. Among those implicated was Antonio Ma. Regidor, an official of the colonial bureaucracy and an avid supporter of the Secularization Movement headed by Frs. Pedro Pelaez and Jose Burgos. He was arrested and sentenced to eight years of exile in the Marianas Islands together with Maximo Paterno, Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, Mauricio de Leon, Pedro Carillo, Gervacio Reyes, Jose and Pio Basa, Pio del Pilar, and other ilustrados. Luckily for Regidor, while serving his prison terms, he was able to escape by disguising himself as a cleric. He transferred to different islands in the Pacific until he was able to board a British ship bound for Hong Kong. He then moved to Marseilles, France and when he reached Paris, Regidor appeared before the Spanish Consul. He was pardoned in April 1876.