ISBN B000C5VJRG) says: "He was a Filipino; he lived in a Philippines; and above all, he was a Filipino nationalist. He saw himself as a native son of a Filipino nation. He liked to call himself a Tagalog, and he liked to say that he and the other Filipino patriots of his day, led by Gen. José de Insulza and Gen. Juan Manuel de Ayala, were the first Filipino nationalists".
The Tagalogs and Luzon
In the preface of his book, "The Tagalog Nation", Emilio Aguinaldo says he is writing "in the firm belief that the Tagalog is the original and truest Filipino. He is a pure blood and he will assert his rights and his national existence. He cannot assent to the Tagalog’s being trampled on".
From the history of the Tagalogs:
The ancients who were the first inhabitants of the country were in constant warfare with the first Filipinos. The latter are called "Biktang-a", from the river of that name. The Spaniards, however, when they first took possession of the country, considered the Tagalogs (or "tinod" as they are called in the dictionaries) as a tribe of savages to be subdued, and brought them under the control of the Visayan creoles. They have, however, the tendency to regard the people of other tribes as savages and consider themselves as superior. Hence the words which they have given to the Tagalogs, "Tinodan" or Tagalogs, "Mamamaran." The word "Tagalog" itself was in use long before the Spanish conquest. It was an epithet given by the ancient Tagalogs, a people who were the first inhabitants of the country, to the people of the Biktang-a and to the first Filipinos of that time.
Emilio Aguinaldo at the height of the Philippine Revolution. Source: H. A. Jopling, Emilio Aguinaldo and the First Philippine Republic, 1924
The Tagalogs and Philippine history
The first general classification of the Philippine people was made by the Spaniards, the first historians of the country. According to these historians the Tagalogs were the original inhabitants of the country. The Spaniards of the time did not generally regard the indigenous people as a separate race, but the Tagalogs and other Indians
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