Vic Hurley's memoir, Southeast of Zamboanga, chronicles his experience during the mid-1930s on the Philippine island of Mindanao. The work details the year the author spent attempting to establish a remote coconut plantation on the Cotabato coast, a region he describes as a wild, isolated, and largely unexplored area of the Philippine Archipelago. The book provides a candid, non-romanticized account of the physical and mental hardships of life as an expatriate in the tropics, contrasting the bush life with the relative comfort and social dynamics of the American community in Zamboanga. It includes observations on local life, the system of barter trade with the indigenous Bilaan hill people, interactions with Moros, and the challenges faced by Americans seeking to settle and develop land in the southern Philippines during the American colonial period.
Southeast of Zamboanga