The cavalcade of successful American hemp planters that dominated the Davao landscape before Japanese investors arrived includes both well-chronicled and less recognized faces in the then booming abaca industry, the backbone of Davao’s plantation economy. One such lesser known profile is George Reinsford L. Pond.
A native of Hollister, San Benito Country, California, Pond arrived in Davao as a member of the Army hospital corps in October 1902. Shortly thereafter, he sought discharge from the Army and did not leave Davao since then. His reason for quitting the service was the potentials he saw in cultivating the jungle, which was adjacent to the gulf, into a farming estate.
Pond started his venture by acquiring a 16-hectare homestead, which he cultivated. To clear the land, he hired Japanese labor, which impressed him for their industry. Later, he applied for an extra eight hectares, which was allowed under the Bureau of Lands guidelines. To his credit, the homesteads became a huge success, yielding an annual P7,500 income.
In hiring Japanese labor, Pond offered an interesting compensation package. The American Chamber of Commerce Journal, in an article (‘Independence on Down Homestead—What May Be Done with Sixteen Hectares’), in its January 1026 issue, described the scheme:
[The Japanese] cleared off the jungle and planted the place to coconuts. For every palm planted, Pond gave them fifty centavos. For every palm living at the end of one year, he gave them another half peso; for every one living at the end of two years, a peso; and for every one living at the end of three years, another peso, making three pesos per palm brought to the age of three years, at which time plantings are out of danger and begin to thrive with very little further cultivation. In this way the whole place planted up. Some 2000 coconuts are growing on it.
The first homestead hosted roughly 2,000 coconuts that yielded 500 piculs of copra each year, or a net income of P5,000 per year. The additional lot, which was smaller, contributed another P2,500 annually.
Pond’s other interests included the Bongabong Plantation Co., which he fully owned, and the 1,005-hectare Moro Improvement & Trading Co. (MITC), where he was an investor. MITC was based in sitio Tagnanan, Mampising, Mabini, Davao de Oro; it was first managed by Charles M. Simmons, part owner, when it started operation in 1906.
The MITC agricultural estate, under lease, commenced with 100,000 hills of hemp and 3,000 coconuts. Moros from nearby villages were recruited and jobseekers from the northern provinces were brought in to do labor. In 1918, an application to purchase the land was filed, which meant depositing the purchase price of the plantation with the government while the documents were being processed.
Until 1926, nothing came out of the application, which was “either tangled in red tape or equally confused by other absurd impediments making delays interminable.” By then, the plantation had already 120,000 hills of hemp but now without the coconut palms.
George, who died in the US due to tuberculosis, married twice. In his first marriage, he had seven children, namely William, Russell, Robert, Adolf, Billy, and daughters Anita and Margarette. His second wife was Clara Dangyao who bore him a brood of five, namely Theodore, Rodley, David, Roy, and daughter Dolores.
It is also worth considering that the Mabini-Pantukan corridor, in the first decade of U.S. occupation, was heavy with American-owned farms. Outside Pond’s plantation and MITC, there was Tagdangua Plantation Co., Gulf Plantation Co., Pindasan Plantation Co., Tagnanan Plantation Co., Mampising Plantation Co., and Moro Plantation Co., among others.
Pindasan Plantation Co. (owned by Leonard C. Schoppe; later sold to the Japanese), Mampising Plantation Co. (Schoppe’s but managed by a Filipino), Moro Plantation Co. (Frank A. Crowhurst), MITC (Pond, Simmons, and William Gill, manager), and Tagnanan Plantation Co. (owned by a U.S. firm but managed by Simmons) were situated in Mabini, Davao de Oro, while Gulf Plantation Co. (Herschel H. Ames and William A. Reece), Magnaga Plantation Co. (Charles Lindsley, manager), Rogers Plantation Co. (I.H. Rogers owner-manager), Bongabong Plantation Co. (Pond), and Tagdangua Plantation Co. (David Jacobson), were in Pantukan, Davao de Oro.
Rogers’ plantation was the oldest of hemp plantations on the east side of Davao Gulf. It was home to roughly 50,000 hills of hemp. Gulf Plantation Co. was later taken over by the Philippine National Bank in the 1920s after it failed to pay its mortgage.
