The Dominican landlords evicted José Rizal's family from Calamba in 1890, and the United States bought the friar estates in 1903

The Rizal-Mercado family held land at Calamba as tenants of an estate owned by the Dominican order. Francisco Mercado, José Rizal's father, had become a tenant there as a young man. Rizal's biographer Austin Craig wrote in 1913 that after Mercado refused the estate agent a gift of turkeys, his rent was doubled and then raised again until he went to court^†. Other tenants stopped paying the increases. A local judge ruled for the landlords and Mercado appealed. Craig writes that Governor-General Valeriano Weyler sent artillery to Calamba. Court agents evicted the tenants and ordered them to remove their buildings within 24 hours. When the tenants said their appeal was pending, they were told they could rebuild if they won. Craig puts the property destroyed at 150,000 pesos and the homeless families at 20 or more^†. Rizal went to Madrid in August 1890 to seek redress. His brother Paciano was exiled to Mindoro. Rizal was shot in Manila on 30 December 1896. On 22 December 1903 the American government of the islands contracted to buy about 164,000 hectares of friar estates in Laguna and seven other provinces for $7,239,784.66. Act No. 1120 let occupants lease and then buy their holdings in instalments. The Rizal house in Calamba is now a national shrine^†.