1899-1902

Filipino-American War

Filipino-American War

• also known as the Philippine War of Independence or The Philippine

Insurrection.• It was an armed military conflict between the

Philippines and the United States which arose from the struggle of the First Philippine

Republic to gain independence following annexation by the United States.

Background

• Philippine Revolution-Emilio Aguinaldo was elected and isofficially considered the First President of the Philippines in 1897, while Bonifacio was executed.

• Aguinaldo’s exile & return - August 1897, negotiations between Aguinaldo and

Fernando Primo de Rivera, the current Spanish Governor General, were opened.

-The Pact of Biak-na-Bato a truce between Spanish Gov’t and revolutionary leaders which was signed November 1897

•Aguinaldo’s exile and return

- Aguinaldo wrote retrospectively in 1899 that he had met with U.S. Consuls E. Spencer Pratt & Rounceville Wildman in 1898 between April 22-25.

- Meanwhile, Pratt communicating with Admiral George Dewey, the U.S. Navy’s Asiatic squadron commander, by telegram, passing assurances from Dewey to Aguinaldo that the U.S. would at least recognize the independence of the Philippines, under the protection of the U.S. Navy.

- Aguinaldo agreed to return to the Philippines. And on May 19, he arrived in Cavite.

•Aguinaldo’s exile and return- In a matter of months after Aguinaldo’s return, the

Philippine army conquered nearly all of Spanish-held ground within the Philippines.

- On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo declared independence at his house in Cavite El Viejo.

-On August 13, with American commanders unaware that a peace protocol had been signed between Spain and the

United States on the previous day, American forces captured the city of Manila from the Spanish. Governor-General Fermin Jaudenes had made a secret agreement with Dewey and General Wesley Merritt.

•Aguinaldo’s exile and return- On the eve of the mock battle, General Thomas M. Anderson telegraphed Aguinaldo, “Do not let your troops enter Manila without the permission of the American commander. On this side of the Pasig River you will be under fire”.

- The June 12 declaration of Philippine independence had not been recognized by either the United States or Spain.

- The Treaty of Paris signed on December 10, 1898

- On January 1, 1899, Aguinaldo was declared President of the Philippines.

•Aguinaldo’s exile and return

- 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."

War against the United States

• Conflict origins- Filipino historian Teodoro Agoncillo writes of "American

Apostasy", saying that it was the Americans who first approached Aguinaldo in Hong Kong and Singapore to persuade him to cooperate with Dewey in wresting power from the Spanish.

- Agoncillo concludes that the American attitude towards Aguinaldo "... showed that they came to the Philippines not as a friend, but as an enemy masking as a friend."

• Conflict origins

- On December 21, 1898, President McKinley issued a Proclamation of Benevolent Assimilation. General Otis delayed its publication until January 4, 1899

- However, General Marcus Miller, then in Iloilo and unaware that an altered version had been published by Otis, passed a copy of the unabridged proclamation to a Filipino official there.

• Conflict origins

- on January 5, Agunaldo issued a counter-proclamation:

"My government cannot remain indifferent in view of such a violent and aggressive seizure of a portion of its territory by a nation which arrogated to itself the title of champion of oppressed nations. Thus it is that my government is disposed to open hostilities if the American troops attempt to take forcible possession of the Visayan islands. I

denounce these acts before the world, in order that the conscience of mankind may pronounce its infallible verdict as to who are true

oppressors of nations and the tormentors of mankind.”

- In a revised proclamation issued the same day, Aguinaldo protested "most solemnly against his intrusion of the United States Government on the sovereignty of these islands. "

• Conflict origins

- On the evening of February 4, two American sentries on guard duty at Manila's San Juan del Monte bridge fired the shots which began the 1899 Battle of Manila.

-The following day, General Arthur MacArthur, without investigating the

cause of the firing, ordered his troops to advance against Filipino troops, beginning a full-scale armed clash.

• First Philippine Commission

*The Schuman Commission- On January 20, 1899, President McKinley had appointed

Dr. Jacob Gould Schuman to chair a commission, with Dean C. Worcester, Charles H. Denby, Admiral Dewey, and General Otis as members.

- Fighting had erupted between U.S. and Filipino forces in February, and the non-military commission members found General Otis looking on the commission as an infringement upon his authority when they arrived in March.

• First Philippine Commission

*The Schuman Commission- In the report that they issued to the president the following year, the commissioners acknowledged Filipino aspirations

for independence; they declared, however, that the Philippines was not ready for it. Specific recommendations included :

1) the establishment of civilian control over Manila 2) creation of civilian government as rapidly as possible, especially

in areas already declared “pacified” 3) establishment of a bicameral legislature,4) autonomous governments on the provincial and municipal levels,5) a system of free public elementary schools

• First Philippine Commission*The Schuman Commission

- On November 2, 1900 Dr. Schurman signed the following statement:

"Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the commission believe that the government of the Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy, which would excuse, if it did not necessitate, the intervention of other powers and the eventual division of the islands among them. Only through American occupation, therefore, is the idea of a free, self-governing, and united Philippine commonwealth at all conceivable. And the indispensable need from the Filipino point of view of maintaining American sovereignty over the archipelago is recognized by all intelligent Filipinos and even by those insurgents who desire an American protectorate. The latter, it is true, would take the revenues and leave us the responsibilities. Nevertheless, they recognize the indubitable fact that the Filipinos cannot stand alone. Thus the welfare of the Filipinos coincides with the dictates of national honour in forbidding our abandonment of the archipelago. We cannot from any point of view escape the responsibilities of government which our sovereignty entails; and the commission is strongly persuaded that the performance of our national duty will prove the greatest blessing to the peoples of the Philippine Islands. [...]"

• Second Philippine Commission

- The Second Philippine Commission (the Taft Commission), appointed by McKinley on March 16, 1900, and headed

by William Howard Taft, was granted legislative as well as limited executive powers.

- Between September 1900 and August 1902 it issued 499 laws.

- A judicial system was established

- A civil service was organized.

American War Strategy

• American Tactics

- The American military strategy in the Philippines shifted from a conventional footing against Spain to a suppression footing against the insurrection.

- The use of internment camps or "zones of protection"

Stuart Creighton Miller writes "Americans altruistically went to war with Spain to liberate the Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos from their tyrannical yoke. If they lingered on too long in the Philippines, it was to protect the Filipinos from European predators waiting in the wings for an American withdrawal and to tutor them in American-style democracy."

Philippine War Strategy

- Estimates of the Filipino forces vary between 80,000 and 100,000, with tens of thousands of auxiliaries.

- The goal, or end-state, sought by the First Philippine Republic was a sovereign, independent, socially stable Philippines led by the ilustrados . Local chieftains, landowners, and businessmen were the principales who controlled local politics.

- 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.

Philippine War Strategy- The Filipino general Francisco Makabulos described the

Filipinos' war aim as, “not to vanquish the U.S. Army but to inflict on them constant losses.” They sought to initially use conventional tactics and an increasing toll of U.S. 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 revolutionaries in the short term, his victory demoralized them and convinced many undecided Filipinos that the United States would not depart precipitately.

Guerilla War Phase-  In 1900 Aguinaldo shifted from conventional to guerrilla

warfare, a means of operation which better suited their disadvantaged situation and made American occupation of the Philippine archipelago all the more difficult over the next few years.

- The Philippine Army began staging bloody ambushes and raids, such as the guerrilla victories at Paye, Catubig, Makahambus, Pulang Lupa, Balangiga and Mabitac.

- The shift to guerrilla warfare drove the US Army to a "total-war" doctrine.

Decline and fall of the First Philippine Republic

- The Philippine Army continued suffering defeats from the better armed American Army during the conventional warfare phase, forcing Aguinaldo to continuously change his base of operations, which he did for nearly the length of the entire war.

- On March 23, 1901 General Frederick Funston and his troops captured Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela with the help of some Filipinos (called the Macabebe Scouts after their home locale) 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.

Decline and fall of the First Philippine Republic

- On April 1, 1901, at the Malacanang, 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.

- On April 19, he issued a Proclamation of Formal Surrender to the United States, telling his followers to lay down their weapons and give up the fight. “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.”

Decline and fall of the First Philippine Republic

- General Miguel Malvar took over the leadership of the Filipino government, or what remained of it. He originally had taken a defensive stance against the Americans, but now launched all-out offensive against the American-held towns in the Batangas region. General Vincente Lukban in Samar, and other army officers, continued the war in their respective areas.

- In response General J. Franklin Bell adopted tactics to counter Malvar's guerrilla strategy.

- Bell also relentlessly pursued Malvar and his men, breaking ranks, dropping morale, and forcing the surrender of many of the Filipino soldiers. Finally, Malvar surrendered, along with his sick wife and children and some of his officers, on April 13, 1902. By the end of the month nearly 3,000 of Malvar's men had also surrendered.

Decline and fall of the First Philippine Republic

Official end to the war- The Philippine Organic Act of July 1902 approved,

ratified, and confirmed McKinley's Executive Order establishing the Philippine Commission and stipulated that a legislature would be established composed of a lower house, the Philippine Assembly, which would be popularly elected, and an upper house consisting of the Philippine Commission. The act also provided for extending the United States Bill of Rights to Filipinos.

- On July 2 the Secretary of War telegraphed that the insurrection against the sovereign authority of the U.S. having come to an end, and provincial civil governments having been established, the office of Military governor was terminated.

Official end to the war

- On July 4, Theodore Roosevelt, who had succeeded to the U.S. Presidency after the assassination of President Mckinley on September 5, 1901, proclaimed a full and complete pardon and amnesty to all people in the Philippine archipelago who had participated in the conflict.

Irreconcilables

- The war unofficially continued for nearly a decade as Constantino has suggested, since groups collectively know as Irreconcilables remained active.

- After the close of the war, however, Governor-General Taft preferred to rely on the Philippine Constabulary in a law-enforcement role rather than on the American army. He was, in fact, criticized for this.

- September 25, 1903 Simeon Ola of Guinobatan, Albay in the Bicol region

Irreconcilables

- In 1902 Macario Sacay a veteran Katipunan member formed another Tagalog Republic, called Katagalugan after Bonifacio's, in southern Luzon. The republic ended in 1906 when Sakay and his leading followers were arrested and the following year executed by the American authorities as bandits, after they had accepted an amnesty offer.

Pulajanes- Quasi-religious armed groups included the pulajanes (so

called because of their red garments), colorum (from a corruption of the Latin in saecula saeculorum, part of the Glory be to the Father prayer), and Dios-Dios (literally "God-God") groups of assorted provinces. These groups were mostly composed of farmers and other poor people led by messianic leaders, and they subscribed to a blend of Roman Catholicism and folk beliefs. For example, they used amulets (called agimat or anting-anting), believing they would become bulletproof. One of these leaders was Dionisio Seguela, better known as Papa Isio (Pope Isio). The last of these groups were wiped out or had surrendered by 1913. These resistance movements were all dismissed by the American government as banditry, fanaticism or cattle rustling.

Moro Rebellion

- The American government had a peace treaty with the Sultanate of Sulu at the outbreak of the war with Aguinaldo that was supposed to prevent war in Moro territory. However, after the resistance in the north was crippled, the United States began to colonize Moro land that provoked the Moro Rebellion. Beginning with the Taraca, which occurred on April 4, 1904, American forces battled Datu Ampuanagus, who surrendered after losing 200 members of his people. Numerous battles would occur after that up until the end of the conflict on June 15, 1913. During the conflict, the battles of Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak were among the most notable since casualties included women and children

Atrocities

•American atrocities- General Jacob H. Smith's infamous order "KILL EVERY

ONE 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. The bottom caption exclaimed, "Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines". Published in the New York Journal-American, May 5, 1902.In 1908 Manuel Arellano Remondo, in 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.”

Atrocities

• American atrocities - United States 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". In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:"The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog...."

Internment camps- Filipino villagers were forced into internment camps

called reconcentrados which were surrounded by free-fire zones, or in other words “dead zones.” Furthermore, these camps were overcrowded and filled with disease, causing the death rate to be extremely high. Conditions in these “reconcentrados” were inhumane. Between January and April 1902 8,350 prisoners died out of approximately 298,000 in total. Some camps incurred death rates as high as 20 percent. "One camp was two miles by one mile (3.2 by 1.6 km) in area and "home" to some 8,000 Filipinos. Men were rounded up for questioning, tortured and summarily executed."

Internment camps

- In Batangas Province, where General Franklin Bell was responsible for setting up an internment camp, a correspondent described the operation as “relentless.” General Bell ordered that by December 25, 1901 the entire population of both Batangas Province and Laguna Province had to gather into small areas within the “pablacion” of their respective towns. Barrio families had to bring everything that they could carry because anything left behind – including houses, gardens, carts, poultry and animals – was to be burned by the U.S. Army. Anyone found outside the internment camps was shot. General Bell insisted that he had built these camps to "protect friendly natives from the insurgents, assure them an adequate food supply" while teaching them "proper sanitary standards." The commandant of one of the camps referred to them as the "suburbs of Hell."

Filipino atrocities- U.S. Army General Otis stated that Filipino insurgents

tortured American prisoners in “fiendish fashion”. According to Otis, many were buried alive, or were placed up to their necks in anthills. Others had their genitals removed and stuffed into their mouths, and were then executed by suffocation or bleeding to death. It was also stated that some prisoners were deliberately infected 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.

Filipino atrocities

- Sergeant Hallock testified in the Lodge Committee that 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.”

- On the Filipino side, information regarding atrocities comes from the eyewitnesses and the participants themselves. In his History of the Filipino People Teodoro Agoncillo writes that the Filipino troops could match and even exceed American brutality on some prisoners of war. Kicking, slapping, and spitting at faces were common. In some cases, ears and noses were cut off and salt applied to the wounds. In other cases, captives were buried alive. These atrocities occurred regardless of Aguinaldo's orders and circulars concerning the good treatment of prisoners.

Filipino atrocities

- Worcester recounts two specific Filipino atrocities as follows:

"A detachment, marching through Leyte, found an American who had disappeared a short time before crucified, head down. His abdominal wall had been carefully opened so that his intestines might hang down in his face. Another American prisoner, found on the same trip, had been buried in the ground with only his head projecting. His mouth had been propped open with a stick, a trail of sugar laid to it through the forest, and a handful thrown into it.Millions of ants had done the rest."

Consequences• Cultural impact

- The Roman Catholic Church was disestablished and a considerable amount of church land was purchased and redistributed. The land amounted to 170,917 hectares (422,350 acres), for which the Church asked $12,086,438.11 in March 1903. The purchase was completed on 22 December 1903 at a sale price of $7,239,784.66. The land redistribution program was stipulated in at least three laws: the Philippine Organic Act, the Public Lands Act and the Friar Lands Act

Section 10 of the Public Land Act limited purchases to a maximum of 16 hectares for an individual or 1024 hectares for a corporation or like association. Land was also offered for lease to landless farmers, at prices ranging from fifty centavos to one peso and fifty centavos per hectare per annum. Section 28 of the Public Lands Act stipulated that lease contracts may run for a maximum period of 25 years, renewable for another 25 years.

Consequences

• Cultural impact

- U.S. President McKinley, in his instructions to the First Philippine Commission in 1898, ordered the use of the Philippine languages as well as English for instructional purposes. The American administrators, finding the local languages to be too numerous and too difficult to learn and to write teaching materials in, ended up with a monolingual system in English with no attention paid to the other Philippine languages except for the token statement concerning the necessity of using them eventually for the system.

• Cultural impact

- In 1901 at least five hundred teachers (365 males and 165 females) arrived from the U.S. aboard the USS Thomas. The name Thomasite was adopted for these teachers, who firmly established education as one of America's major contributions to the Philippines. Among the assignments given were Albay, Catanduanes, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, and Masbate. Twenty-seven of the original Thomasites either died of tropical diseases or were murdered by Filipino rebels during their first 20 months of residence. Despite the hardships, the Thomasites persisted, teaching and building learning institutions that prepared students for their chosen professions or trades.

Consequences

• Cultural impact

- They opened the Philippine Normal School (now Philippine Normal University) and the Philippine School of Arts and Trades (PSAT) in 1901, and reopened the Philippine Nautical School, established in 1839 by the Board of Commerce of Manila under Spain. By the end of 1904, primary courses were mostly taught by Filipinos under American supervision.

Consequences

Philippine independence

- From the very beginning, United States presidents and their representatives in the islands defined their colonial mission as tutelage: preparing the Philippines for eventual independence. Except for a small group of "retentionists," the issue was not whether the Philippines would be granted self-rule, but when and under what conditions. Thus political development in the islands was rapid and particularly impressive in light of the complete lack of representative institutions under the Spanish. The Philippine Organic Act of July 1902 stipulated that, with the achievement of peace, a legislature would be established composed of a lower house, the Philippine Assembly, which would be popularly elected, and an upper house consisting of the Philippine Commission, which was to be appointed by the president of the United States.

Philippine independence- The Jones Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1916 to

serve as the new organic law in the Philippines, promised eventual independence and instituted an elected Philippine senate. The Tydings–McDuffie Act (officially the Philippine Independence Act; Public Law 73-127) approved on March 24, 1934 provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence (from the United States) after a period of ten years. World War II intervened, bringing the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945. In 1946, the Treaty of Manila (1946) between the governments of the U.S. and the Republic of the Philippines provided for the recognition of the independence of the Republic of the Philippines and the relinquishment of American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands.