War of independence Against America, 1899-1902

Philippine-American War, 1899-1902

Home Background Battle of Manila Bay Emilio Aguinaldo Returns Philippine Independence Mock Battle of Manila Malolos Congress Treaty of Paris The Philippine Republic The Philippine Army FIL-AM WAR BREAKS OUT US Ratifies Paris Treaty Battle of San Roque Battle of Caloocan The War In The Visayas Second Battle of Manila Manila to Laguna de Bay Advance To Malolos Lawton's Lake Expedition Advance To San Fernando Advance To San Isidro Filipinos Negotiate Battles at San Fernando Spanish holdouts Americans Take Antipolo Luna Assassination South of Manila Campaign "Ilustrados" Collaborate Capture of Calamba Battle of Angeles Stalling Moro Resistance The War Rages, 1899 Trapping Aguinaldo, 1899 Guerilla Warfare, 1899 Ilocos and Cagayan, 1899 Gen. Lawton dies, 1899 The War in 1900-1901 Capture of Aguinaldo, 1901 Collapse, 1901 Balangiga Massacre, 1901 The Last Holdouts To my Grand uncle, I would add to his tombstone........ Rest easy, sleep well my uncle. Know you served your country, I've surmised your sufferings, your job was done. Rest easy, sleep well. Others have taken up where you fell, Freedom will be forthcomming. Let me bid you peace and farewell......ASC Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest   On this Field of the Grounded Arms, Where foes no more molest,   Nor sentry's shot alarms! Ye have slept on the ground before,   And started to your feet At the cannon's sudden roar,   Or the drum's redoubling beat. But in this camp of Death   No sound your slumber breaks; Here is no fevered breath,   No wound that bleeds and aches. All is repose and peace,   Untrampled lies the sod; The shouts of battle cease,   It is the Truce of God! Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!   The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep   Your rest from danger free. Your silent tents of green   We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been,   The memory shall be ours.

There was a forgotten war, that is seldom written in history books. The similarities and the mood of the period in this war at the turn of the century were congruent to this Iraq war at the present times. The popular writer Mark Twain was a voice of bitter dissent to the patriotic expansionist mood in 1898–1902. In this essay, originally published in February 1901, Twain lashes out at the double standards and deceit of European-style imperialism, which claimed to bring civilization to non-Western peoples "sitting in darkness" (in a paraphrase of a Rudyard Kipling poem). He condemns what he considers to be the United States playing the European-imperialist game in the Philippines.   We Filipinos have all along believed that if the American nation at large knew exactly, as we do, what is daily happening in the Philippine Islands, they would rise en masse, and demand that this barbaric war should stop. There are other methods of securing sovereignty  the true and lasting sovereignty that has its foundation in the hearts of the people. Has not the greatest of English poets said: “Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood?” And, did America recognize this fact, she would cease to be the laughing stock of other civilized nations, as she became when she abandoned her traditions and set up a double standard of government  government by consent in America, government by force in the Philippine Islands. “Coming events cast their shadows before.” Let us look at the situation exactly as it is, as we know it to be, and let the American people no longer deceive themselves or be deceived by others. . . . You have been deceived all along the line. You have been greatly deceived in the personality of my countrymen. You went to the Philippines under the impression that their inhabitants were ignorant savages, whom Spain had kept in subjection at the bayonet’s point. Feb. 6, 1899: US Senate Ratifies Treaty of Paris President William McKinley controlled all the information coming from the Philippines. On Feb. 6, 1899, after he reported to the American people that the Filipinos had attacked US troops in Manila, the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris by one vote more than the necessary two-thirds (57 to 27). The American public tacitly endorsed the ratification by reelecting Mckinley in 1900.  When the treaty was signed on Dec. 10, 1898, it had to be ratified by the U.S. Senate before it could take effect. It, however, met opposition, mainly against the annexation of the Philippines. An Anti-Imperialist League was formed to rally American public opinion against the annexation. Many League members felt empires were anti-democratic and a violation of the nation's heritage. Some union leaders argued that overseas empire would only feed the overwhelming power of big business. Some prominent Americans, such as former President Grover Cleveland, the writer Mark Twain and industrialist Andrew Carnegie, also opposed the ratification. The latter even offered to buy the Philippines for US $20 million and give it to the Filipinos so that they could be free; he believed the U.S. should exercise global economic power but avoid annexing colonies. One of the reasons why the United States should not acquire the Philippines was that the Filipinos themselves were fighting the Americans in the Philippines. Such an act, they said, showed that the Filipinos did not want to be under American rule. They also reasoned that it was inconsistent for the United States to disclaim—through the so-called Teller Amendment—any intention of annexing Cuba and then annex the other Spanish colonies, such as the Philippines. Attitudes about race divided the anti-imperialists. Some opposed annexation because they did not want a "primitive race" to join the U.S. Others,  including many African Americans, suggested that U.S. talk of "uplifting" the Filipinos was hypocritical; at home, they argued, the U.S. was not even trying to protect the rights of black citizens. There were also many in the United States who saw the advantages of taking over the Philippines. Many Protestant missionaries, for instance, favored annexation.  They felt the U.S. was duty-bound to educate and "christianize" the islands, not realizing that most Filipinos were already Catholic. Some people feared that Germany or another European power might get the Philippines if the United States did not. Newspapers had painted the Filipinos as primitive "savages"; consequently, many Americans came to believe they  could not govern themselves or defend themselves against threatening European powers.

My granduncle on my mother side, the 24 year-old "boy general" led a 60-man Filipino rearguard in the Battle of Tirad Pass against the "Texas Regiment", the 33rd Infantry Regiment of the United States Volunteers. The awesome story has been told and retold with epic grandeur, how Del Pilar stood with his valiant soldiers on the steep and solitary mountain Pass of Tirad, steadfast to repel the invader, or fight and die like honorable men. In a moving eulogy the Filipino soldiers' "stand against overwhelming odds has been fittingly compared by American contemporary writers to that of Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylae, and that of the embattled Afridis at Dargai Ridge. Even now, we are thrilled with the account of their courage. But the death of Del Pilar is something more than a soldier's death. It was the sublime protest of a patriot against the decree of adverse fate. He had yearned for death when he saw that all was lost for the Republic. He had wished for it when long before the battle of Tirad, he proposed to meet the pursuing enemy after the disaster at Caloocan. He felt its obsession when at midnight on the bank of the river at Aringay he woke up his soldiers and pointedly asked them this question: "Brothers, which do you prefer, to die fighting or to flee like cowards?' From morning till noon he repelled charge after charge, he tenaciously held on with his handful of men through the heat and agony of battle, till he himself fell dead among his slain soldiers. And well chosen and most fitting was the place where he offered the sacrifice of his life. It was on the mountain summit, overlooking the plains and the shores of his country, a massive and tremendous altar, built as it were for Titans, caressed by the rolling clouds of morning, lighted by the stars of dusk." hope the error was one of judgment alone.

Philippine-American War, 1899-1902