From: geoffb@coos.dartmouth.edu (Geoff Bronner)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.filipino,soc.history
Subject: Re: Did American Troops Kill 3 Million Filipinos?
Date: 15 Apr 92 19:07:41 GMT
Reply-To: geoffb@Dartmouth.EDU
Organization: Amos Tuck School

In <1992Apr14.230352.5759@samba.oit.unc.edu> David.Choweller@bbs.oit.unc.edu (David Choweller) writes:

>In an book review dating from the 60's Gore Vidal claims that
>American troops participated in the genocide of 3 million Filipinos
>at the "turn of the century."  I've never heard of this before.  Did this
>happen, and how widely accepted is this alleged fact?  I don't have the exact
>title of the article because I was just given a photocopy of it, but it's
>a review of a book about West Point.  Vidal spends almost not time reviewing
>the book, but expounds his own theories on how the people at West Point have
>been responsible for building America's "empire" throughout the world.

This is certainly not a new topic but most of the reliable work done on
it was done post 1980. I haven't seen Vidal's review but I have seen other
works from that period that carry equally inflated numbers. I may have
even seen the book Vidal was reviewing.

This really isn't an alleged fact, it did happen. But just as many
legitimate scholars are unsure of how many people died during World War II
and other major events it is hard to say how many people died in the
Philippines after the Spanish American War.

If you aren't familiar with the history here are the basics:
Following the end of the Spanish American War several Spanish Colonies
became American possesions. The ones you hear of the most are Cuba and the
Philippines. There was a local resistance movement that had basically
defeated the Spanish in place in the Philippines but for assorted reasons
this group ended up fighting the US. I usually refer to this and Vietnam
as two example of the US ending up in a war with people that wanted to be
allies.
While genocide might be too strong a term it is clear that racist
attitudes among the US troops and commanders in the Philippines led to a
long bitter campaign which left thousands of Filipinos dead. Some of the
more reliable estimates place the number in the low hundreds of thousands
but once you get into numbers that large they really lose all meaning.
Many of the events in the Philippines are strikingly similar to American
atrocities in Vietnam during the 1960s. This is why several books brought
the subject up in the first place.

One book I would recommend highly is "Benevolent Assimilation: The
American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903" by Stuart Creighton
Miller. Imprint: New Haven : Yale University Press, c1982.

Miller does a very good job of balancing the two sides to the story, the
way the 'big picture' looked in Washington and the reality of the
situation in the Philippines. He makes a clear case for a 'right man in
the right place' theory of empire building that can be compared to the
individual actions and decisions that helped make India part of the
British Empire.

A number of scholars refer to what formed after 1903 as the Fil-American
Empire. While the US didn't rule the Philippines directly it is clear that
there was an empire of sorts which was based on the collaboration of the
ruling indigenous elite. It has been argued that this 'empire' formed
because of the actions of military commanders and low level bureaucrats at
the scene, not because of US policy. But as US involvement got deeper and
deeper the government chose to go along with things rather than put a stop
to it. This isn't an excuse for US behavior but an attempt at an
explanation of the escalation of the fighting.

If you are suprised by this, get used to it. There are a lot of things
that got 'forgotten' by the History Books you read in school.

-Geoff
--
geoffb@Dartmouth.EDU  -  Computing Support Consultant, Tuck School of Business
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