Philippine–American War

Philippine-American War
Date 1899–1913 Location The Philippines Result U.S. victory; Continued U.S. annexation of the Philippines
Belligerents
United States	Philippines
Commanders and leaders
Elwell Stephen Otis	Emilio Aguinaldo
Strength
126,000 soldiers	80,000 soldiers
Casualties and losses
4,324 U.S. soldiers dead 2,840 wounded; 2,000 killed, dead, or wounded of the Philippine Constabulary	16,000 soldiers killed est. 250,000 to 1,000,000 civilians died of war, famine, or disease

The Philippine-American War was a conflict between the armed forces of the United States and nationalist groups in the Philippines from 1899 through 1913.

Origins of the war

In December 1898, the U.S., without consulting any Filipinos, purchased the Philippines and other territories from Spain at the Treaty of Paris for the sum of $20 million (USD), after the U.S. defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. The U.S. government made plans to make the Philippines an American colony. However, the Filipinos, fighting for their independence from Spain had already declared their independence on June 12, 1898. On August 14, 1898, 11,000 American ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines.

Background

Filipino power struggle

On July 7, 1892, Andrés Bonifacio, a warehouseman from Manila, founded the Kataastaasang Kagalanggalang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan ("The Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Sons of the Country"), or the Katipunan for short, a secret society which would later spark the Philippine Revolution of 1896 against Spanish rule.

When the Revolution erupted in 1896, Bonifacio proved an ineffectual military leader and suffered defeats at the hands of the Spanish. On the other hand, the Revolution was fought on many local and to some degree independent fronts, led by many local leaders; in particular, the rebels of Cavite province won early victories. One of the most influential and popular Caviteño leaders was Emilio Aguinaldo, mayor of Kawit, who now controlled much of eastern Cavite.

There were two rival Katipunan factions in Cavite - the Magdalo, led by Baldomero Aguinaldo, cousin to Emilio, and the Magdiwang, led by Mariano Alvarez, an in-law of Bonifacio. Leaders of both factions came from the elite upper class, in contrast to Bonifacio, who came from the lower middle class. The Caviteño leaders sent out a manifesto calling for a revolutionary government. Significantly, this was in direct defiance to Bonifacio's leadership, who had in fact already declared a revolutionary government of sorts called the Republika ng Katagalugan (Tagalog Republic) just before the start of the Revolution. He had reorganized the Katipunan high council into a Cabinet, with him as President.

Due to animosities between the Magdalo and Magdiwang, Bonifacio was called to Cavite to mediate between them, and he brought his two brothers and his wife with him, along with his men. In a first major meeting in Imus, the issue of whether the Katipunan should be replaced by a revolutionary government was brought up, and this eclipsed the rivalry issue. The rebel leaders held a convention in Tejeros on March 22, 1897 on the pretense of more discussion between the groups, but really to settle the issue of leadership of the movement. Bonifacio presided, though reluctantly, over the elections that followed. Before they started, however, he asked that all results be respected by all, and all agreed.

The Caviteños voted their own Emilio Aguinaldo President in absentia (he was actually in the battlefield at the time). Bonifacio, due to the lack of a power base in the province, was voted Director of the Interior. The Magdiwang men, who had favored him and the Katipunan earlier in the meeting at Imus, did not vote for him either for President or Vice-President. He was instead given the minor post of Direcor of the Interior. The Katipunan as a government was thus legally abolished and replaced by the Cavite-led government, later to be called Republica Filipina (Republic of the Philippines), the first by that name.

Even so, the Caviteño elite could not accept an "uneducated" man in government (in reality Bonifacio was self-educated, having had to stop formal studies after he was orphaned in childhood). Daniel Tirona, a Magdalo man, protested Bonifacio's election, saying that the post should not be occupied by a person without a lawyer's diploma, and suggested a prominent Caviteño lawyer for the position. Offended by this treatment and refusing to accept the demotion, Bonifacio declared:

"I, as chairman of this assembly and as President of the Supreme Council of the Katipunan, as all of you do not deny, declare this assembly dissolved, and I annul all that has been approved and resolved."

Bonifacio then set out to install a rival government several days later, drawing up documents of his own. As a countermeasure, the government under Aguinaldo ordered the arrest of Bonifacio. In the following skirmish, his house was surrounded, his brothers was killed and Bonifacio was wounded in the arm and in the neck, though eyewitness accounts on Bonifacio's side attest that he did not fight back himself. He and his other brother were captured. Weak and lying on a stretcher, he was brought to Naik, where he stood trial, accused of the betrayal of the revolution and trying to poison Aguinaldo.

Bonifacio was found guilty of treason and sedition and recommended to be executed. Aguinaldo commuted the sentence to deportation on May 8, 1897, but two generals, both former supporters of Bonifacio, upon learning of this, persuaded him to withdraw the order to preserve unity among the revolutionaries. They were supported by other leaders. Andres Bonifacio and his brother were executed on May 10, 1897 by a firing squad at Mt. Nagpatong.

Some historians such as Renato Constantino have called the trial a farce and a foregone conclusion, since the jury was made up of Aguinaldo's men, the charge of conspiracy was most likely fabricated and Bonifacio was indeed an obstacle to the Cavite elite's road to power. In their eyes, he was guilty of treason and sedition, though not to the greater cause of the Revolution, as Constantino argues. In Constantino's view, Bonifacio was totally outmaneuvered. Co-patriots of the Revolution regarded this an ugly blot laid at Aguinaldo's door, though in fairness Aguinaldo originally wanted them banished instead, but changed his mind due to the advice of Bonifacio's former generals.

Aguinaldo's exile and return

By December of 1897, the futility of the struggle was becoming apparent on both sides. Although Spanish troops were able to defeat insurgents on the battlefield, they could not suppress guerrilla activity. In August, armistice negotiations were opened between Aguinaldo and a new Spanish governor-general. By mid-December, an agreement was reached in which the governor would pay Aguinaldo 800,000 pesos in three installements if Aguinaldo would go into exile. Aguinaldo then established himself in Hong Kong. However, some Filipino revolutionaries continued guerilla warfare without Aguinaldo against Spain. Aguinaldo denounced the Revolution and declared Filipino combatants to be bandits.

Admiral George Dewey allowed Aguinaldo to return to the islands on May 19. In a matter of months, Aguinaldo and his resistance fighters conquered nearly all of the Spanish-held ground within the Philippines. With the exception of Manila, which was completely surrounded by Aguinaldo and his rebel army of 12,000, the Filipinos controlled the Philippines. Aguinaldo and his guerillas also turned over 15,000 Spanish prisoners to the Americans, offering them valuable intelligence. By the summer of 1898, the Spanish were completely defeated in the Philippines, as the Americans went on to occupy the city of Manila after a battle with the Spanish.

On January 1, 1899, Aguinaldo was declared the first President of the Philippines. He later organized a Congress at Malolos, Bulacan to draft a constitution.

Admiral Dewey later argued that he had promised nothing regarding the future:

"From my observation of Aguinaldo and his advisers I decided that it would be unwise to co-operate with him or his adherents in an official manner.... In short, my policy was to avoid any entangling alliance with the insurgents, while I appreciated that, pending the arrival of our troops, they might be of service."

US soldiers of the First Nebraska volunteers, company B, near Manila, 1899

The conventional war phase

The start of the war

Tensions between the Filipinos and the American soldiers on the islands existed because of the conflicting movements for independence and colonization, aggravated by the feelings of betrayal on the part of Aguinaldo, who had been brought to the islands by the American navy. Hostilities started on February 4, 1899 when an American soldier shot a Filipino soldier who was crossing a bridge into American-occupied territory in San Juan del Monte, an incident historians now consider to be the start of the war. U.S. President William McKinley later told reporters "that the insurgents had attacked Manila" in justifying war on the Philippines. The Battle of Manila (1899) that followed caused two thousand casualties for Filipinos and two hundred and fifty for the Americans.

The administration of U.S. President McKinley subsequently declared Aguinaldo to be an "outlaw bandit", and no formal declaration of war was ever issued. Two reasons have been given for this:

• One is that calling the war the Philippine Insurrection made it appear to be a rebellion against a lawful government. (Stanley Karnow, 'In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines').
• The other was to enable the American government to avoid liability to claims by veterans of the action.

American escalation

US troops in the Philippines, 1899

A large American military force (126,000 soldiers) was needed to conquer the country, and would be regularly engaged in war against Filipino forces for another decade. Also, Macabebe Filipinos were recruited by the United States Army. Twenty-six of the 30 American generals who served in the Philippines from 1898 to 1902 had fought in the Indian Wars.

By the end of February, 1899, the Americans had prevailed in the struggle for Manila, and the Philippine Army of Liberation was forced to retreat north. Hard-fought American victories followed at Quingua (April), Zapote Bridge (June), and Tirad Pass (December). With the June assassination of General Antonio Luna by rivals in the Philippine leadership, conventional military leadership was weakened. Filipino Brigadier General Gregorio del Pilar fought a heroic delaying action at Battle of Tirad Pass to allow Aguinaldo to escape but del Pilar was killed in the final attack. For the Filipinos, this battle remains their Thermopylae. After this battle and the loss of two of their best generals, the Filipinos' ability to fight a conventional war rapidly diminished.

Aguinaldo's strategy

Estimates of the insurgent forces vary between 80,000 and 100,000, with tens of thousands of auxiliaries. Lack of weapons and munitions was a significant impediment to the insurgents. U.S. troop strength was 40,000 at the start of hostilities and peaked at 126,000 two years later. Typically only 60 percent of American troops were combat troops. With a field strength ranging from 24,000 to 44,000, this force was able to defeat an opponent many times its size.

The goal, or end-state, sought by the Filipino insurgency was a sovereign, independent, socially stable Philippines led by the illustrado oligarchy. Local chieftains, landowners, and businessmen were the principales who controlled local politics. The insurgency was strongest when illustrados, principales, and peasants were unified in opposition to annexation. The peasants, who provided the bulk of guerilla manpower, had interests different from their illustrado leaders and the principales of their villages. Coupled with the ethnic and geographic fragmentation, unity was a daunting task. The challenge for Aguinaldo and his generals was to sustain unified Filipino public opposition; this was the revolutionaries strategic center of gravity.

The Filipino operational center of gravity was the ability to sustain its force of 100,000 irregulars in the field. The Filipino General Francisco Macabulos described the insurrection's aim as, "not to vanquish the US Army but to inflict on them constant losses." They sought to initially use conventional (later guerilla) tactics and an increasing toll of US casualties to contribute to McKinley's defeat in the 1900 presidential election. Their hope was that as President the avowedly anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan would withdraw from the Philippines. They pursued this short-term goal with guerilla tactics better suited to a protracted struggle. While targeting McKinley motivated the insurgents in the short term, his victory demoralized them and convinced many undecided Filipinos that the United States would not depart precipitately.

The guerrilla war phase

As of 1900, Aguinaldo ordered his army to engage in guerrilla warfare, a means of operation which better suited them and made American occupation of the Philippine archipelago all the more difficult over the next few years. In fact, during just the first four months of the guerrilla war, the Americans lost nearly 500 men who were either killed or wounded. The Filipino resistance fighters began staging bloody ambushes and raids. Most infamous were the guerrilla victories at Pulang Lupa and Balangiga. At first, it even seemed as if the Filipinos would fight the Americans to a stalemate and force them to withdraw. This was even considered by President McKinley at the beginning of the phase.

The shift to guerrilla warfare, however, only angered the Americans into acting more ruthlessly than before. They began taking no prisoners, burning whole villages, and routinely shooting surrendering Filipinos. Much worse were the concentration camps that civilians were forced into, after being suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Thousands of civilians died in these camps. In nearly all cases, the civilians suffered much worse than the actual Filipino guerrillas.

The subsequent American repression towards the population tremendously reduced the materials, men, and morale of many Filipino resistance fighters, compelling them in one way or another to surrender.

Aguinaldo Captured; downfall of the Philippine Army

The Philippine Army continued suffering defeats time and time again by the better armed Americans when fighting conventional warfare, forcing Aguinaldo to continuously change his base of operations, which he did off and on for nearly the length of the entire war.

General Frederick Funston was able to use Aguinaldo's poor security against him, when Funston on March 23, 1901 in northern Luzon, faked capture with the help of some Filipinos who had joined the Americans' side. Once Funston and his "captors" entered Aguinaldo's camp, they immediately fell upon the guards and quickly overwhelmed them and the weary Aguinaldo. On April 1, 1901, at the Malacañang palace in Manila Aguinaldo swore an oath accepting the authority of the United States over the Philippines and pledging his allegiance to the American government. Three weeks later he publicly called on his followers to lay down arms. "Let the stream of blood cease to flow; let there be an end to tears and desolation," Aguinaldo said. "The lesson which the war holds out and the significance of which I realized only recently, leads me to the firm conviction that the complete termination of hostilities and a lasting peace are not only desirable but also absolutely essential for the well-being of the Philippines."

The capture of Aguinaldo dealt a severe blow to the Filipino cause, but not as much as the Americans had hoped. The less competent General Mariano Trias succeeded him, but surrendered shortly after.

Command then fell to highly regarded General Miguel Malvar, who originally had taken a defensive stance against the Americans, now launched all out offensives against the American-held towns in the Batangas region. Though his victories were small, they were a testament that the war was not yet over.

In response, General J. Franklin Bell performed tactics that countered Malvar's guerilla strategy perfectly. Forcing civilians to live in hamlets, interrogating suspected guerillas (and regular civilian alike), and his execution of scorched earth campaigns took a heavy toll on the Filipino revolutionaries.

Bell also relentlessly pursued Malvar and his men, breaking ranks, dropping morale, and forcing the surrender of many of the Filipino fighters. Finally, in April of 1902, after barely escaping capture, Malvar with his sick wife and children along with some of his most trusted officers who stood with him until the end, surrendered. By the end of the month, nearly 3,000 of Malvar's men also gave into the inevitable and surrendered.

With the surrender of Malvar, the last truly capable general of the Philippine Army, the Filipino fight began to dwindle even further. Command changed hands frequently, as each general, one after another, was killed, captured, or just surrendered.

The United States declared the insurgency officially over in 1902. The Filipino leaders for the most part, accepted that the Americans had won.

However, some Filipino nationalist historians consider the war to have continued for nearly a decade, since bands of guerillas, quasi-religious armed groups and other resistance groups continued to roam the countryside, still clashing with American Army or Philippine Constabulary patrols. These groups, which included Macario Sakay, a senior Katipunan member and general who attempted to form a new Tagalog Republic, and the pulajanes, colorum or Dios-Dios groups of assorted provinces, were dismissed as bandits, fanatics or cattle rustlers.

American opposition to the war

Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines. Other Americans mistakenly thought that the Philippines wanted to become part of the United States. Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had betrayed its lofty goals of the Spanish-American War by becoming a colonial power, merely replacing Spain in the Philippines. Other anti-imperialists opposed annexation on racist grounds. Among those who opposed annexation were individuals such as Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who feared that annexation of the Philippines would lead to an influx of non-white immigrants, thus undermining white racial purity in America. As news of atrocities committed in subduing the Philippines arrived in the United States, support for the war flagged.

Mark Twain famously opposed the war by using his influence in the press. He felt it betrayed the ideals of American Democracy by not allowing the Filipino people to choose their own destiny.

"There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands -- but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation."

Some later historians, such as Howard Zinn, cite the Philippine-American War as an example of American imperialism.

Casualties

During the war 4,324 American soldiers died, only 1,000-1,500 of which were due to actual combat; the remainder died of disease. 2,818 were wounded. There were also 2,000 casualties that the Philippine Constabulary suffered during the war, over a thousand of which were fatalities. Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 with 16,000 actually counted, while civilian deaths numbered between 250,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos. These numbers take into account those killed by war, malnutrition[1] and a cholera epidemic that raged during (and after) the war. The American military and Philippine Constabulary still suffered periodic losses combating small bands of Moro guerillas in the far south until 1913.

The high Filipino casualty figures are due mostly to the combination of superior arms and even more superior numbers of the Americans, who were equipped with the most modern, up-to-date weapons in the world, including superb bolt-action rifles and machine guns, and who were also well-led. Furthermore, U.S. warships stood ready to destroy Philippine positions when needed. In contrast, the Filipinos were armed with a motley collection of rifles, a number of which were taken from dead Spanish or American soldiers or smuggled into the country by their fellow Filipinos. Their artillery was not much better, consisting mostly of worn-out artillery pieces captured from the Spanish. Although they did have a few Maxim and Gatling machine guns, along with a few modern Krupp artillery pieces, these were highly prized and taken to the rear for fear of capture before they could play any decisive role. Ammunition and rifles became more scarce as the war dragged on, and Filipinos were forced to manufacture their own, like the homemade paltik. Still most did not even have firearms. Many used bolo, spears, and lances in fighting, which also contributed to high casualty figures when such obsolete weapons were used against the Americans' superior arms. However the Filipinos did have the advantage of knowing their own country and rough terrain well, in contrast to the Americans who were fighting on foreign terrain.

In recognition of United States military service during the Philippine-American War, the United States military created two service decorations which were known as the Philippine Campaign Medal and the Philippine Congressional Medal.

In 1916 the United States granted the Philippines self-government and promised eventual independence, which came in 1946.

War Crimes

American torture and scorched-earth campaigns

General Jacob H. Smith's infamous order, "Kill everyone over ten," was the caption in the New York Journal cartoon on May 5, 1902. The Old Glory draped an American shield on which a vulture replaced the bald eagle. Caption is: "Criminals because they were born ten years before we took the Philippines."

In 1908, Manuel Arellano Remondo, in a book entitled General Geography of the Philippine Islands, wrote: "The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number."

U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into "protected zones" (concentration camps). Many of the civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine. Reports of the execution of U.S. soldiers taken prisoner by the Filipinos led to savage reprisals by American forces. Many American officers and soldiers called war a "nigger killing business".

American soldiers' letters and response

From almost the beginning of the war, soldiers wrote home describing, and usually bragging about, atrocities committed against Filipinos, soldiers and civilians alike. Increasingly, such personal letters, or portions of them, reached a national audience as anti-imperialist editors across the nation reproduced them.

Once these accounts were widely reproduced, the War Department was forced to demand that General Otis investigate their authenticity. For each press clipping, he forwarded it to the writer’s commanding officer, who would then convince the soldier to write a retraction.

Private Charles Brenner of the Kansas regiment resisted such pressure. He insisted that Colonel Funston had ordered that all prisoners be shot and that Major Metcalf and Captain Bishop enforced these orders. Otis was obliged to order the Northern Luzon sector commander, General MacArthur, to look into the charge. Brenner confronted MacArthur’s aide with a corroborating witness, Private Putman, who confessed to shooting two prisoners after Bishop or Metcalf ordered, “Kill them! Damn it, Kill them!” MacArthur sent his aide’s report on to Otis with no comment. Otis ordered Brenner court-martialed “for writing and conniving at the publication of an article which... contains willful falsehoods concerning himself and a false charge against Captain Bishop." The judge advocate in Manila convinced Otis that such a trial could open a Pandora’s box, as “facts would develop implicating many others.”

General Otis sent the Brenner case to Washington writing: “After mature deliberation, I doubt the wisdom of court-martial in this case, as it would give the insurgent authorities a knowledge of what was taking place and they would assert positively that our troops had practiced inhumanities, whether the charge should be proven or not, as they would use it as an excuse to defend their own barbarities;” and Otis went on, justifying the war crimes, “and it is not thought that his charge is very grievous under the circumstances then existing, as it was very early in the war, and the patience of our men was under great strain.”

Towards the end of 1899, General Otis attempted to repair his battered image. He began to work to win new friends among the journalists in Manila and bestowed favors on any journalist who gave him favourable press.

Concentration camps

As one historian wrote about Marinduque, the first island with concentration camps: "The triple press of concentration (camps), devastation, and harassment led Abad (the Marinduque commander) …to request a truce to negotiate surrender terms… The Army pacified Marinduque not by winning the allegiance of the people, but by imposing coercive measures to control their behavior and separate them from the insurgents in the field. Ultimately, military and security measures proved to be the (essential element) of Philippine pacification." This assessment could probably be applied to all of the Philippines.

Filipino atrocities

To counter the bad press back in America, General Otis stated that insurgents tortured American prisoners in “fiendish fashion”, some of whom were buried alive, or worse, up their necks in anthills to be slowly devoured. Others were castrated, had the removed parts stuffed into their mouths, and were then left to suffocate or bleed to death. It was also stated that some prisoners were deliberately infested with leprosy before being released to spread the disease among their comrades. Spanish priests were horribly mutilated before their congregations, and natives who refused to support Emilio Aguinaldo were slaughtered by the thousands. American newspaper headlines announced the “Murder and Rapine” by the “Fiendish Filipinos.” General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler insisted that it was the Filipinos who had mutilated their own dead, murdered women and children, and burned down villages, solely to discredit American soldiers.

Other atrocities included those by General Vicente Lukban, the Filipino commander who masterminded the surprise attack in the Balangiga Massacre, that killed over fifty American soldiers. Media reports stated that many of the bodies were mutilated.

Sergeant Hallock testified in the Lodge committee said natives were given the water cure, “…in order to secure information of the murder of Private O'Herne of Company I, who had been not only killed, but roasted and otherwise tortured before death ensued.”

Reporters and Red Cross accounts contradict Otis

During the closing months of 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo attempted to counter General Otis’s account by suggesting that neutral parties—foreign journalists or representatives of the International Red Cross inspect his military operations. Otis refused, but Emilio Aguinaldo managed to smuggle in four reporters—two English, one Canadian, and a Japanese into the Philippines. The correspondents returned to Manila to report that American captives were “treated more like guests than prisoners,” were “fed the best that the country affords, and everything is done to gain their favor.” The story went on to say that American prisoners were offered commissions in the Philippine army and that three had accepted. The four reporters were expelled from the Philippines as soon as their stories were printed.

Emilio Aguinaldo also released some American prisoners so they could tell their own stories. In a Boston Globe article entitled “With the Goo Goo’s” Paul Spillane described his fair treatment as a prisoner. Emilio Aguinaldo had even invited American captives to the christening of his baby and had given each a present of four dollars, Spillane recounted.

Naval Lieutenant J.C. Gilmore, whose release was forced by American cavalry pursuing Aguinaldo into the mountains, insisted that he had received “considerable treatment” and that he was no more starved than were his captors. Otis responded to these two articles by ordering the “capture” of the two authors, and that they be “investigated”, therefore questioning their loyalty.

When F.A. Blake of the International Red Cross arrived at Emilio Aguinaldo’s request, Otis kept him confined to Manila, where Otis’s staff explained all of the Filipinos' violations of civilized warfare. Blake managed to slip away from an escort and venture into the field. Blake never made it past American lines, but even within American lines he saw burned out villages and “horribly mutilated bodies, with stomachs slit open and occasionally decapitated.” Blake waited to return to San Francisco, where he told one reporter that “American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight.”

Ratio of Filipinos wounded

The most conclusive evidence that the enemy wounded were being killed, came from the official reports of Otis and his successor, General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., which claimed fifteen Filipinos killed for every one wounded. In the American Civil War, the ratio had been five wounded for every soldier killed, which is close to historical norm. Otis attempted to explain this anomaly by the superior marksmanship of rural southerners and westerners who had hunted all their lives.

MacArthur added a racial twist, asserting that Anglo-Saxons do not succumb to wounds as easily as do men of "inferior races."

Consequences

Filipino casualties on the first day of war. National Archives Photo No. 111-RB-1037.

Muslims

In the south, Muslim Filipinos resisted until 1913— the so-called Moro rebellion. They were never part of Aguinaldo's movement. During this conflict, the Americans realized a need to be able to stop a charging tribesman with a single shot. To fill this need, the Colt M1911 Handgun was developed for its larger .45 caliber ammunition (45 ACP), resulting in additional stopping power.

English education and the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was disestablished, and a considerable amount of church land was purchased and redistributed. However, the bulk of the land was quickly bought up by American companies with little going to Filipino peasants.

During the U.S. occupation, English was declared the official language, although the languages of the Philippine people were Spanish, Visayan, Tagalog, Ilokano, Pangasinan and other native languages. Also, six hundred American teachers were imported aboard the USS Thomas. The first task of the Thomasites was to reform the education system to one that maintained an anti-Spanish curriculum but glossed over existing American atrocities.

The English requirement barred many from political office and ensured a dependency on American administrators.

Quotes

In the fall of 1899, MacArthur, who was still loyal to General Otis, said to reporter H. Irving Hannock:

When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that Aguinaldo’s troops represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon—the native population that is—was opposed to us and our offers of aid and good government. But after having come this far, after having occupied several towns and cities in succession, and having been brought much into contact with both insurrectos and amigos, I have been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads.

Further reading

• Agoncillo, Teodoro A (1997). Malolos: The crisis of the republic. University of the Philippines Press. ISBN 9715420966. Kenton J. Clymer States "The book provides the best account to date of the inner dynamics of the Filipino side of the war." — Review: Not so Benevolent Assimilation: The Philippine-American War, Reviews in American History Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 547–552
• Brands, H. W. (1992). Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Deady, Timothy K.; "Lessons from a Successful Counterinsurgency: The Philippines, 1899-1902" Parameters, Vol. 35, 2005
• Gates, John M. (1973). Schoolbooks and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898–1902. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0837158184.
• Gates, John. "War-Related Deaths in the Philippines, 1898-1902", Pacific Historical Review 53:367+ (1983)
• Gates, John M., The US Army and Irregular Warfare, Chapter 3: The Pacification of the Philippines
• Linn, Brian McAllister (2000). The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899–1902. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807849480.
• May, Glenn Anthony (1991). Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300048505.
• Miller, Stuart Creighton (1982). "Benevolent Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300026978. Kenton J. Clymer States "The War Miller describes is a more believable one than the one Gates pictures."
• Schirmer, Daniel B. (1972). Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. Schenkman. ISBN 087073105X.
• Schirmer, Daniel B. Stephen Rosskamm Shalom (1987). The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance. South End Press. ISBN 089608275X.
• Shaw, Angel Velasco (2002). Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899–1999. New York University Press. ISBN 0814797911.
• Smallman-Raynor, Matthew, and Andrew D Cliff. "The Philippines Insurrection and the 1902-4 cholera epidemic: Part I-Epidemiological diffusion processes in war" Journal of Historical Geography, v 24, n 1, January, 1998, p. 69-89
• T.A. Agoncillo / M.C. Guerrero, History of the Filipino People, Quezon City,1987, pp. 159
• Twain, Mark and Jim Zwick (1992). Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815602685.
• Zwick, Jim. Friends of the Filipino People Bulletin
• Zwick, Jim. Militarism and Repression in the Philippines
• Zwick, Jim. "Prodigally Endowed with Sympathy for the Cause:" Mark Twain's Involvement with the Anti-Imperialist League" (Ephemera Society of America (January 1, 1992) ASIN B0006R8RJ8
• Young, Kenneth Ray; The General's General: The Life and Times of Arthur Macarthur Westview Press, 1994

Government and contemporary sources

• The Philippine "Lodge committee" hearings (A.K.A. Philippine Investigating Committee) and a great deal of documentation were published in three volumes (3000 pages) as S. Doc. 331, 57th Cong., 1st Session An abridged version of the oral testimony can be found in: American Imperialism and the Philippine Insurrection: Testimony Taken from Hearings on Affairs in the Philippine Islands before the Senate Committee on the Philippines--1902; edited by Henry F Graff; Publisher: Little, Brown; 1969. ASIN: B0006BYNI8
• See the extensive Anti-imperialist summary of the findings of the Lodge Committee/Philippine Investigating Committee on wikisource. Listing many of the atrocities and the military and government reaction.

See also

• Battles of the Philippine-American War
• Black Legend
• History of the Philippines
• Lodge Committee
• Philippine Scouts
• Vietnam War
• George Dewey
• Katagalugan
• Timeline of Philippine-American War
• Vicente Lukban

External links

• "Images from the Philippine-United States War". historicaltextarchive.com. Retrieved 2006-05-20.
• "The Philippine Centennial Celebration". MSC Computer Training Center. Retrieved 2006-05-20.
• A brief description of the war between the United States and the Philippines which began in 1899. From the History Guy Website