USA General Jacob H. Smith's infamous order in the Philippines, "Kill everyone over ten,"
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."
Origins of the War
In December 1898, the U.S. purchased the Philippines from Spain as part of theTreaty 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 independence from Spain since 1896 had already declared independence on June 12, 1898, and had considered the Americans allies.
On August 14, 1898, 11,000 American ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines; they were successful in defeating the Philippine Army in just over three years time, though sporadic fighting continued on to 1913.
On August 14, 1898, 11,000 American ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines; they were successful in defeating the Philippine Army in just over three years time, though sporadic fighting continued on to 1913.
Between the years 1899 and 1913 the United States of America wrote the darkest pages of its history. The invasion of the Philippines for no other reason than acquiring imperial possessions, prompted a fierce reaction of the Filipino people. In total 126000 American soldiers were brought in to quell the resistance.
As a result, 400000 Filipino "insurrections" died under the American fire and one million Filipino civilians died because of the hardship, mass killings and scorched earth tactics carried out by the Americans. In total the American war against a peaceful people who fairly ignored the existence of the Americans until their arrival wiped out 1/6 of the population of the country. One hundred years have passed. Isn't it high time that the USA army, Congress and Government apologised for the horrendous crimes and monstrous sufferings that inflicted upon the peoples of Filipinas?
It was American policy at the turn of the century to kill as many Filipinos as possible. The rationale was straightforward: "With a very few exceptions, practically the entire population has been hostile to us at heart," wrote Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell, a propos our seizure of the Philippines. "In order to combat such a population, it is necessary to make the state of war as insupportable as possible, and there is no more efficacious way of accomplishing this than by keeping the minds of the people in such a state of anxiety and apprehension that living under such conditions will soon become intolerable."
The comparison of this highly successful operation with our less successful adventure in Vietnam was made by, among others, Bernard Fall, who referred to our conquest of the Philippines as "the bloodiest colonial war (in proportion to population) ever fought by a white power in Asia; it cost the lives of 3,000,000 Filipinos." (cf. E. Ahmed's "The Theory and Fallacies of Counter-Insurgency," The Nation, August 2, 1971.) General Bell himself, the old sweetheart, estimated that we killed one-sixth of the population of the main island of Luzon—some 600,000 people.
Now a Mr. Creamer quotes a Mr. Hill ("who grew up in Manila," presumably counting skulls) who suggests that the bodycount for all the islands is 300,000 men, women, and children—or half what General Bell admitted to.
I am amused to learn that I have wandered "so far from easily verified fact." There are no easily verified facts when it comes to this particular experiment in genocide. At the time when I first made reference to the 3,000,000 (NYR, October 18, 1973), a Filipino wrote me to say she was writing her master's thesis on the subject. She was inclined to accept Fall's figures but she said that since few records were kept and entire villages were totally destroyed, there was no way to discover, exactly, those "facts" historians like to "verify." In any case, none of this is supposed to have happened and so, as far as those history books that we use to indoctrinate the young go, it did not happen."
"EXCEPT during the sixties when the Filipino-American War of 1899-1902 was referred to as “the first Vietnam,” the death of 1.4 million Filipinos has been usually accounted for as either collateral damage or victims of insurrection against the imperial authority of the United States. The first Filipino scholar to make a thorough documentation of the carnage is the late Luzviminda Francisco in her contribution to The Philippines: The End of An Illusion (London, 1973).
This fact is not even mentioned in the tiny paragraph or so in most U.S. history textbooks. Stanley Karnow’s In Our Image (1989), the acclaimed history of this intervention, quotes the figure of 200,000 Filipinos killed in outright fighting. Among historians, only Howard Zinn and Gabriel Kolko have dwelt on the “genocidal” character of the catastrophe. Kolko, in his magisterial Main Currents in Modern American History (1976), reflects on the context of the mass murder: “Violence reached a crescendo against the Indian after the Civil War and found a yet bloodier manifestation during the protracted conquest of the Philippines from 1898 until well into the next decade, when anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000 Filipinos were killed in an orgy of racist slaughter that evoked much congratulation and approval....” Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1980) cites 300,000 Filipinos killed in Bat@ngas alone, while William Pomeroy’s American Neo-Colonialism (1970) cites 600,000 Filipinos dead in Luzon alone by 1902. The actual figure of 1.4 million covers the period from 1899 to 1905 when resistance by the Filipino revolutionary forces mutated from outright combat in battle to guerilla skirmishes; it doesn’t include the thousands of Moros (Filipino Muslims) killed in the first two decades of U.S. colonial domination."
In A People’s History of the United States Howard Zinn writes of American sadism during the Philippine-American war:
"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...
“Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.”
In Manila, a U.S. Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:
"The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness. Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied “everything over ten.”
In the province of Batangas, the secretary of the province estimated that of the population of 300,000, one third had been killed by combat, famine, or disease.
American firepower was overwhelmingly superior to anything the Filipino rebels could put together. In the very first battle, Admiral Dewey steamed up the Pasig River and fired 500-pound shells into the Filipino trenches. Dead Filipinos were piled so high that the Americans used their bodies for breastworks.
A British witness said:
“this is not war; it is simply massacre and murderous butchery.”
Mark Twain said further of the brutal American genocide:
“...I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the philippines. we have gone to conquer, not to redeem... and so i am an anti-imperialist. i am opposed to having the [american] eagle put its talons on any other land.”
Background
The Philippine Revolution
| On July 7, 1892, Andrés Bonifacio, a warehouseman from Manila, founded theKataastaasang Kagalanggalang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan ("The Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Sons of the Country") or theKatipunan for short, a secret society which aimed to win independence from Spanish rule by armed revolt. The Katipunan spread throughout the provinces and the Philippine Revolution of 1896 was spearheaded by its members. |
While a charismatic and decisive figure, Bonifacio proved an ineffectual military leader and suffered efeats 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 fighters in Cavite province won early victories. One of the most influential and popular Caviteño leaders was Emilio Aguinaldo, mayor of Cavite El Viejo (modern-day Kawit), who now controlled much of eastern Cavite. Eventually, Aguinaldo and his faction gained control of the movement. The Katipunan was superseded by a revolutionary government, of which Aguinaldo was elected President, and the "outmanuevered" Bonifacio was executed for treason.
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 revolutionaries on the battlefield, they could not suppress guerrilla activity. In August, armistice negotiations were opened between Aguinaldo and the current Spanish governor-general, Fernando Primo de Rivera. By mid-December, an agreement was reached in which the governor would pay Aguinaldo 800,000 pesos in three installments if Aguinaldo would go into exile. Aguinaldo then established himself in Hong Kong. Before leaving, Aguinaldo denounced the Revolution, exhorted Filipino combatants to disarm and declared those who continued hostilities to be bandits. However, some Filipino revolutionaries did continue guerilla warfare against Spain. Admiral George Dewey, having engaged and defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay on May 1, ferried Aguinaldo back to the Philippines on May 19. In a matter of months, the Philippine Army conquered nearly all of Spanish-held ground within the Philippines. With the exception of Manila, which was completely surrounded by the Philippine Army of 12,000, the Filipinos now controlled the Philippines. Aguinaldo also turned over 15,000 Spanish prisoners to the Americans, offering them valuable intelligence. On June 12, Aguinaldo declared independence at his house in Cavite El Viejo. By August, the Spanish had surrendered Manila, and the Americans had occupied it. |
The June 12 declaration of Philippine independence was not recognized by the United States or Spain, as the Spanish government ceded the Philippines to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10 (which ended the Spanish-American War), in consideration for an indemnity for Spanish expenses and assets lost.
On January 1, 1899, Aguinaldo was declared President of the Philippines - the first and only President of what would be later called the first Philippine Republic. 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."
War begins
| Tensions between the Filipinos and the American government 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 on the unerstanding that the Americans would only help his cause. Hostilities started on February 4, 1899 when an American soldier shot a Filipino soldier who was crossing a bridge into Filipino-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. |
- One is that calling the war the Philippine Insurrection made it appear to be a rebellion against a lawful government.
- The other was to enable the American government to avoid liability to claims by veterans of the action.
American escalation
| 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 was forced to retreat north. Hard-fought American victories followed at Quingua (April), Zapote Bridge (June), and Tirad Pass (December). |  |
Philippine war strategy
Estimates of the Filipino 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 Filipinos. 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 Republic 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 war 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 Makabulos described the Filipinos' war 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 revolutionaries 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
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. 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 Philippine Army 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 Filipino soldiers. 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 guerrillas.
The subsequent American repression towards the population tremendously reduced the materials, men, and morale of many Filipino soldiers, compelling them in one way or another to surrender.
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 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 Macabebe 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 the 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 soldiers. 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 government 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 these was 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 and a cholera epidemic that raged during 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 Krag-Jørgensen 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 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 to 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 Filipino 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 in the U.S. military, 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."
Amelioration
In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft as the chairman of a commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines, which had been ceded to the United States by Spain following the Spanish-American War and the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Although Taft initially had been opposed to the annexation of the islands and told McKinley that his real ambition was to become a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he reluctantly accepted the appointment when McKinley suggested that he would be "the better judge for this experience."From 1901 to 1903, Taft served as the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines, a position in which he was very popular among both Americans and Filipinos. For example, in 1902 Taft visited Rome to negotiate with Pope Leo XIII for the purchase of lands in the Philippines owned by the Roman Catholic Church. Taft then induced Congress to appropriate $7,239,000 to purchase the lands, which he sold to Filipinos on easy terms. In 1903, President Roosevelt offered Taft the seat on the Supreme Court to which he had for so long aspired, but he reluctantly declined when native Filipino groups begged him to remain in Manila as Governor-General.
Consequences
MuslimsIn the south, Muslim Filipinos resisted until 1913— the so-called Moro rebellion. They were never part of Aguinaldo's movement, but independently fought the Americans.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 issued for its larger .45 caliber ammunition (45 ACP), resulting in additional stopping power. |
English education and the Catholic Church
The Roman 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. The English requirement barred many from political office and ensured a dependency on American administrators.
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. It also ensured that Filipino nationalism would rise no more as an important force.
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