Andrs Bonifacio

Education and early life[edit]

Bonifacio learned his alphabet through his mother's sister and he was first enrolled in a private
school of one Guillermo Osmea where he learned Latin and mathematics though his normal
schooling was cut short when he dropped out at about fourteen years old to support his siblings after
both of their parents died of illness one year apart.
Bonifacio was blessed with good hands in craftsmanship and visual arts that he made canes and
paper fans, which he and his young siblings sold, and he made posters for business firms. This
became their thriving family business that continued on when the men of the family, Andres, Ciriaco,
Procopio and Troadio, became employed with private and government companies which provided
them decent living condition.
In his late teens, he worked as a mandatorio for the British trading firm Fleming and Company,
where he rose to become a corregidor of tar, rattan and other goods. He later transferred to Fressell
and Company, a German trading firm, where he worked as a bodeguero (storehouse keeper) where
he is responsible for warehouse inventory. Bonifacio also founded a theater company with his
friends, Macario Sakay and Aurelio Tolentino, where he was also a part-time actor performing
in moro-moro plays.
Not finishing his normal education, Bonifacio enriched his natural intelligence with self-education. He
read books about the French Revolution, biographies of thePresidents of the United States, books
about contemporary Philippine penal and civil codes, and novels such as Victor Hugo's Les
Misrables, Eugne Sue's Le Juif errant and Jos Rizal's Noli Me Tngere and El Filibusterismo.
Aside from Tagalog and Spanish, he could speak and understand a little English, which he learned
while working at J.M. Fleming and Co.