Philippine–American War

The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency, emerged following the conclusion of the Spanish–American War in December 1898 when the United States annexed the Philippine Islands under the Treaty of Paris. Philippine nationalists constituted the First Philippine Republic in January 1899, seven months after signing the Philippine Declaration of Independence. The United States did not recognize either event as legitimate, and tensions escalated until fighting commenced on February 4, 1899, in the Battle of Manila.
Shortly after being denied a request for an armistice, the Philippine Council of Government issued a proclamation on June 2, 1899, urging the people to continue the war. Philippine forces initially attempted to engage U.S. forces conventionally but transitioned to guerrilla tactics by November 1899. Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo was captured on March 23, 1901, and the war was officially declared over by the US on July 4, 1902. However, some Philippine groups – some led by veterans of the Katipunan, a Philippine revolutionary society that had launched the revolution against Spain – continued to fight for several more years. Other groups, including the Muslim Moro peoples of the southern Philippines and quasi-Catholic Pulahan religious movements, continued hostilities in remote areas. The resistance in the Moro-dominated provinces in the south, called the Moro Rebellion by the Americans, ended with their final defeat at the Battle of Bud Bagsak on June 15, 1913.
The war resulted in at least 200,000 Filipino civilian deaths, mostly from famine and diseases such as cholera. Some estimates for civilian deaths reach up to a million. War crimes were committed during the conflict by both sides, including torture, mutilation, and summary executions of civilians and prisoners. In retaliation for Filipino guerrilla warfare tactics, the U.S. carried out reprisals and scorched earth campaigns and forcibly relocated many civilians to concentration camps, where thousands died. The war and subsequent occupation by the U.S. changed the culture of the islands, leading to the rise of Protestantism, disestablishment of the Catholic Church, and the adoption of English by the islands as the primary language of government, education, business, and industry. The U.S. annexation and war sparked a political backlash from anti-imperialists in the U.S. Senate, who argued that the war was a definite example of U.S. imperialism, and that it was an inherent contradiction of the founding principles of the United States contained in the Declaration of Independence.
In 1902, the United States Congress passed the Philippine Organic Act, which provided for the creation of the Philippine Assembly, with members to be elected by Filipino men (women did not yet have the right to vote). This act was superseded by the 1916 Jones Act (Philippine Autonomy Act), which contained the first formal and official declaration of the United States government's commitment to eventually grant independence to the Philippines. The 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act (Philippine Independence Act) created the Commonwealth of the Philippines the following year. The act increased self-governance and established a process towards full independence (originally scheduled for 1944, but delayed by World War II and the Japanese occupation of the Philippines). The United States eventually granted full Philippine independence in 1946 through the Treaty of Manila.
Andrés Bonifacio was a warehouseman and clerk from Manila. On July 7, 1892, he established the Katipunan, a revolutionary organization formed to gain independence from Spanish colonial rule by armed revolt. In August 1896, the Katipunan was discovered by the Spanish authorities and thus launched its revolution. Fighters in Cavite province won early victories. One of the most influential and popular leaders from Cavite was Emilio Aguinaldo, mayor of Cavite El Viejo (modern-day Kawit), who gained control of much of the eastern portion of Cavite province. Eventually, Aguinaldo and his faction gained control of the revolution. After Aguinaldo was elected president of a revolutionary government superseding the Katipunan at the Tejeros Convention on March 22, 1897, his government had Bonifacio executed for treason after a show trial on May 10, 1897.
By late 1897, after a succession of defeats for the revolutionary forces, the Spanish had regained control over most of rebel territory. Aguinaldo and Spanish Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera entered into armistice negotiations while Spanish forces surrounded Aguinaldo's hideout and base in Biak-na-Bato in Bulacan province. On December 14, 1897, an agreement was reached in which the Spanish colonial government would pay Aguinaldo $MXN800,000 in three installments if Aguinaldo went into exile outside the Philippines.
Aguinaldo and 25 of his closest associates left their headquarters at Biak-na-Bato and made their way to Hong Kong, in accord with the agreement. Before his departure, Aguinaldo denounced the Philippine Revolution, exhorted rebel combatants to disarm, and declared those who continued hostilities to be bandits. Despite the denunciation, some revolutionaries continued armed resistance against the Spanish colonial government.
On April 22, 1898, the exiled Aguinaldo privately met in Singapore with United States Consul E. Spencer Pratt. Pratt was later severely rebuked for having met with Aguinaldo and told, "Your action was unauthorized and can not be approved", but the meeting convinced Aguinaldo to return to the Philippines and reclaim leadership of the revolution. Aguinaldo and Pratt each offered contradictory accounts of the meeting.
Aguinaldo returned to Hong Kong and was transported by the Americans to Cavite, arriving on May 19. He established a temporary Dictatorial Government under which the Philippine Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. About a month later, this temporary dictatorship was replaced with a Revolutionary Government that appointed Aguinaldo as President. Less than three months after his return, the Philippine Revolutionary Army established control over nearly all the Philippines Islands with the exception of Manila, which was surrounded by revolutionary forces some 12,000 strong.
The Philippine Declaration of Independence was not recognized by either the United States or Spain, and the Spanish government ceded the Philippines to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which was signed on December 10, 1898, in consideration for an indemnity for Spanish expenses and assets lost.
The Malolos Congress drafted a constitution that led to the formal establishment of the Philippine Republic by late January 1899. This government would later become known as the First Philippine Republic and also the Malolos Republic after its capital. Aguinaldo, who had been appointed President by the Malolos Congress on January 1, is today officially considered the first President of the Republic of the Philippines.
In July 1898, three months into the Spanish-American War, U.S. command began suspecting Aguinaldo was secretly negotiating with Spanish authorities to gain control of Manila without U.S. assistance, reporting that the rebel leader was restricting delivery of supplies to U.S. forces. General Thomas M. Anderson assessed that a rebel controlled Manila would be able to resist any U.S. attempt to establish a provisional government. General Wesley Merritt disregarded an Aguinaldo warning not to disembark American troops in places liberated by Filipinos without first informing him in writing about the places and purposes of the actions. U.S. commanders came to suspect that Philippine rebel forces were informing Spanish forces of U.S. troop movements.
U.S. and Spanish commanders negotiated a secret agreement to stage a mock battle in Manila, after which Spanish forces would surrender to U.S. forces. Philippine rebels would not be allowed to enter the city. Fighting between U.S. and Philippine troops almost broke out as the former moved to dislodge the latter from strategic positions around Manila. On the eve of the staged battle, 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." On August 13, U.S. forces captured Manila. Relations between the U.S. and Philippine rebels continued to deteriorate.
On August 12, 1898, The New York Times reported that a peace protocol had been signed in Washington that afternoon between the U.S. and Spain, suspending hostilities. The full text of the protocol was not made public until November 5, but Article III read: "The United States will occupy and hold the City, Bay, and Harbor of Manila, pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace, which shall determine the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines." After conclusion of this agreement, U.S. President William McKinley proclaimed a suspension of hostilities with Spain.
In a clash at Cavite between US soldiers and insurgents on August 25, 1898, George Hudson of the Utah regiment was killed, Corporal William Anderson was mortally wounded, and four troopers of the Fourth Cavalry were slightly wounded. This provoked General Anderson to send Aguinaldo a letter saying, "In order to avoid the very serious misfortune of an encounter between our troops, I demand your immediate withdrawal with your guard from Cavite. One of my men has been killed and three wounded by your people. This is positive and does not admit of explanation or delay." Internal insurgent communications reported that the Americans were drunk at the time. Halstead writes that Aguinaldo expressed his regret and promised to punish the offenders. In internal insurgent communications, Apolinario Mabini initially proposed to investigate and punish any offenders identified. Aguinaldo modified this, ordering, "... say that he was not killed by your soldiers, but by them themselves [the Americans] since they were drunk according to your telegram". An insurgent officer in Cavite at the time reported on his record of services that he: "took part in the movement against the Americans on the afternoon of the 24th of August, under the orders of the commander of the troops and the adjutant of the post".
Elections were held by the Revolutionary Government between June and September 10, seating a legislature known as the Malolos Congress. In a session between September 15 and November 13, 1898, the Malolos Constitution was adopted. It was promulgated on January 21, 1899, creating the First Philippine Republic with Emilio Aguinaldo as president.
Article V of the peace protocol signed on August 12 had mandated negotiations to conclude a treaty of peace to begin in Paris not later than October 1, 1898. President McKinley sent a five-man commission, initially instructed to demand no more than Luzon, Guam, and Puerto Rico; which would have provided a limited U.S. empire. In Paris, the commission was besieged with advice, particularly from American generals and European diplomats, to demand the entire Philippine archipelago. The unanimous recommendation was that "it would certainly be cheaper and more humane to take the entire Philippines than to keep only part of it." McKinley concluded after much consideration that returning the Philippines to Spain would have been "cowardly and dishonorable," that turning them over to "commercial rivals" of the United States would have been "bad business and discreditable," and that the Filipinos "were unfit for self-government."
On October 28, 1898, McKinley wired the commission that "cessation of Luzon alone, leaving the rest of the islands subject to Spanish rule, or to be the subject of future contention, cannot be justified on political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds. The cessation must be the whole archipelago or none. The latter is wholly inadmissible, and the former must therefore be required." The Spanish negotiators were furious over the "immodist demands of a conqueror", but their wounded pride was assuaged by an offer of twenty million dollars for "Spanish improvements" to the islands. The Spaniards capitulated, and on December 10, 1898, the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the Spanish–American War. In Article III, Spain ceded the Philippine archipelago to the United States, as follows: "Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, and comprehending the islands lying within the following line: [... geographic description elided ...]. The United States will pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) within three months after the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty."
The U.S. experienced a movement for Philippine independence; some said that the U.S. had no right to a land where many of the people wanted self-government. In 1898, industrialist Andrew Carnegie offered to pay the U.S. government $20 million to give the Philippines its independence.
On December 21, 1898, McKinley issued a proclamation of "benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule" for "the greatest good of the governed". Referring to the Treaty of Paris, it said that "as a result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States." It enjoined military commander Major General Elwell Stephen Otis to inform Filipinos that "in succeeding to the sovereignty of Spain" the authority of the United States "is to be exerted for the securing of the persons and property of the people of the islands and for the confirmation of all their private rights and relations". The proclamation specified that "it will be the duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner that we come, not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights".
The Spaniards yielded Iloilo to the insurgents on December 26. An American brigade under General Marcus P. Miller arrived on December 28 and opened communications with the insurgents. A Filipino official styling himself "Presidente Lopez of the Federal Government of the Visayas", stated landing required "express orders from the central government of Luzon" and refused permission to land. That news reached Washington on January 1, 1899.
Otis, who had been appointed Military Governor of the Philippines, had delayed publication of McKinley's proclamation. On January 4, Otis published an amended version edited so as not to convey the meanings of the terms sovereignty, protection, and right of cessation, which were present in the original version. On January 6, 1899, General Otis was quoted in The New York Times as stating "convinced that the U.S. government intends to seek the establishment of a liberal government, in which the people will be as fully represented as the maintenance of law and order will permit, susceptible of development, on lines of increased representation, and the bestowal of increased powers, into a government as free and independent as is enjoyed by the most favored provinces in the world."
Unknown to Otis, the War Department had sent an enciphered copy of the Benevolent Assimilation proclamation to General Miller for informational purposes. Miller assumed that it was for distribution and, unaware that a politically bowdlerized version had been published by Otis, published the original in both Spanish and Tagalog translations which eventually made their way to Aguinaldo. Even before Aguinaldo received the unaltered version and observed the changes in the copy he had received from Otis, he was upset that Otis had altered his own title to "Military Governor of the Philippines" from "... in the Philippines", a change that Otis had made without authorization.
The original proclamation was given by supporters to Aguinaldo who, on January 5, issued a counter-proclamation:
After some copies of that proclamation had been distributed, Aguinaldo ordered the recall of undistributed copies and issued another proclamation, which was published the same day in El Heraldo de la Revolucion, the official newspaper of the Philippine Republic. His statement in part said:
Otis, taking these two proclamations as tantamount to war, strengthened American observation posts and alerted his troops. Aguinaldo's proclamations energized the masses with a vigorous determination to fight what was perceived as an ally turned enemy. Some 40,000 Filipinos fled Manila within a period of 15 days.
Meanwhile, Felipe Agoncillo, who had been commissioned by the Philippine Revolutionary Government as Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties with foreign governments, and who had unsuccessfully sought to be seated at the negotiations between the U.S. and Spain in Paris, had traveled to Washington. On January 6, he filed a request for an interview with the President to discuss affairs in the Philippines. The next day the government officials were surprised to learn that messages to General Otis to deal mildly with the rebels and not to force a conflict had become known to Agoncillo, and cabled by him to Aguinaldo.
On January 8, Agoncillo stated:
The Filipino committees in London, Paris, and Madrid about this time telegraphed to President McKinley:
On January 8, Aguinaldo received the following message from Teodoro Sandiko:
The New York Times reported on January 8, that two Americans who had been guarding a waterboat in Iloilo had been attacked, one fatally, and that insurgents were threatening to destroy the business section of the city by fire; and on January 10 that a peaceful solution to the Iloilo issues may result but that Aguinaldo had issued a proclamation threatening to drive the Americans from the islands.
By January 10, insurgents were ready to take the offensive, but wanted to provoke the Americans into firing the first shot. They increased their hostile demonstrations and entered forbidden territory. Their attitude is illustrated by an extract from a telegram sent by Colonel Cailles to Aguinaldo on January 10, 1899:
Aguinaldo approved the hostile attitude of Cailles, replying:
The First Philippine Republic was declared on January 21, 1899. Lack of recognition by the United States led to rising tensions and, eventually, to hostilities. On January 31, 1899, the Minister of Interior of the Republic, Teodoro Sandiko, signed a decree saying that President Aguinaldo had directed that all idle lands be planted to provide food, in view of impending war with the Americans.
On the evening of February 4, Private William W. Grayson fired the war's first shots at the corner of Sociego Street and Tomas Arguelles Street. A study done by Ronnie Miravite Casalmir places the event at this corner, not at Sociego-Silencio where they erroneously have the marker.
According the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, two unarmed soldiers were killed. According to Grayson's account, his patrol ordered four Filipino soldiers to "Halt!" and, when the men responded by cocking their rifles, they fired on them and then retreated. The outbreak of violence triggered the 1899 Battle of Manila. Later that day, Aguinaldo declared "That peace and friendly relations with the Americans be broken and that the latter be treated as enemies, within the limits prescribed by the laws of war."
The following day, Filipino General Isidoro Torres came through the lines under a flag of truce to deliver a message from Aguinaldo to General Otis that the fighting had begun accidentally, and that Aguinaldo wished for the hostilities to cease immediately and for the establishment of a neutral zone. Otis dismissed these overtures, and replied that the "fighting, having begun, must go on to the grim end". On February 5, General Arthur MacArthur ordered his troops to advance against Filipino troops.
In the U.S., President McKinley had created a commission chaired by Jacob Gould Schurman on January 20 and tasked it to study the situation in the Philippines and make recommendations on how the U.S. should proceed. Members included General Otis and two other civilian appointees. The three civilian members of the commission arrived in Manila on March 4, 1899, a month after hostilities began.
General Otis viewed the arrival of his fellow commission members as an intrusion and boycotted commission meetings. The civilian members of the commission spent a month meeting with Ilustrados who had deserted Aguinaldo's Malolos Republic government and studying the Malolos Constitution and other documents of Aguinaldo's revolutionary government. Meanwhile, with U.S. forces advancing northwards from Manila, the seat of Aguinaldo's revolutionary government had been moved from Malolos to San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. When Malolos fell at the end of March, it moved further north to San Fernando, Pampanga.
The commission published a proclamation containing assurances that the U.S. did not intend exploitation of Filipinos, but their "advancement to a position among the most civilized peoples of the world", and announced "that the United States is ... anxious to establish in the Philippine Islands an enlightened system of government under which the Philippine people may enjoy the largest measure of home rule and the amplest liberty."
Though not authorized to discuss an armistice, civilian commission members held informal discussions with a representative of Aguinaldo. Progress on a path without war ended after General Luna arrested Aguinaldo's then-cabinet and replaced it with a more hawkish one headed by Apolinario Mabini. On June 2, 1899, the First Philippine Republic declared war on the United States.
American annexation was justified in the name of liberating and protecting the peoples in the former Spanish colonies. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, a prominent American imperialist, said: "Americans altruistically went to war with Spain to liberate 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."
On February 11, 1899, one week after the first shots were fired, Iloilo was bombarded by American naval forces from the USS Petrel (PG-2) and the USS Baltimore (C-3). Filipino forces lit the town on fire before retreating. The city was captured by ground forces led by Brigadier General Marcus Miller, with no loss of American lives. 25 to 30 Filipinos were wounded. The "native" part of the city was almost entirely destroyed.
Months later, after finally securing Manila, American forces moved northward, engaging in combat at the brigade and battalion level in pursuit of the fleeing insurgent forces. In response to the use of guerrilla warfare tactics by Filipino forces, beginning in September 1899, American military strategy shifted to suppression of the resistance. Tactics became focused on the control of key areas with internment and segregation of the civilian population in "zones of protection" from the guerrillas. Many of the interned civilians died from dysentery.
General Otis gained notoriety for some of his actions. Although his superiors had directed Otis to avoid military conflict, he did little to prevent war. Otis refused to accept anything but unconditional surrender from the Philippine Army. He often made major military decisions without first consulting Washington. He acted aggressively in dealing with the Filipinos under the assumption that their resistance would collapse quickly. Even after this assumption proved false, he continued to insist that the insurgency had been defeated, and that the remaining casualties were caused by "isolated bands of outlaws".
Otis was also active in suppressing information about American military tactics. When letters describing American atrocities reached the American media, Otis had each press clipping forwarded to the original writer's commanding officer, who would convince or force the soldier to retract his statements.
Estimates of the Filipino forces vary between 80,000 and 100,000, with tens of thousands of auxiliaries. Most of the forces were armed only with bolo knives, bows and arrows, spears, and other primitive weapons, which were vastly inferior to the guns and other weapons of the American forces.
A fairly rigid indigenous caste system existed in the Philippines before the Spanish colonial era, which partially survived among the natives during Spanish rule. The goal, or end-state, sought by the First Philippine Republic was a sovereign, independent, stable nation led by an oligarchy composed of members of the educated class (known as the ilustrado class). Local chieftains, landowners, businessmen, and cabezas de barangay were the principales who controlled local politics. The war was at its peak when ilustrados, principales, and peasants were unified in opposition to annexation by the United States. The peasants, who represented the majority of the fighting forces, had interests different from their ilustrado leaders and the principales of their villages. Coupled with the ethnic and geographic fragmentation, aligning the interests of people from different social castes 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 Filipinos' war aim as, "not to vanquish the U.S. Army but to inflict on them constant losses". In the early stages of the war, the Philippine Revolutionary Army employed the conventional military tactics typical of an organized armed resistance. The hope was to inflict enough American casualties to result in McKinley's defeat by William Jennings Bryan in the 1900 presidential election. They hoped that Bryan, who held strong anti-imperialist views, would withdraw the American forces from the Philippines.
McKinley's election victory in 1900 was demoralizing for the insurgents, and convinced many Filipinos that the United States would not depart quickly. Coupled with a series of devastating losses on the battlefield against American forces equipped with superior technology and training, Aguinaldo became convinced that he needed to change his approach. Beginning on September 14, 1899, Aguinaldo accepted the advice of General Gregorio del Pilar and authorized the use of guerrilla warfare tactics in subsequent military operations in Bulacan.
For most of 1899, the revolutionary leadership had viewed guerrilla warfare strategically only as a tactical option of final recourse, not as a means of operation which better suited their disadvantaged situation. On November 13, 1899, Aguinaldo decreed that guerrilla warfare would henceforth be the strategy. This made American occupation of the Philippine archipelago all the more difficult over the next few years. During the first four months of the guerrilla war, the Americans had nearly 500 casualties. The Philippine Army began staging bloody ambushes and raids, such as the guerrilla victories at Paye, Catubig, Makahambus Hill, Pulang Lupa, and Mabitac. At first, it seemed that the Filipinos might be able to fight the Americans to a stalemate and force them to withdraw. President McKinley considered withdrawal when the guerrilla raids began.
On December 20, 1900, MacArthur, who had succeeded Elwell Otis as U.S. Military Governor on May 5, placed the Philippines under martial law, invoking U.S. Army General Order 100. He announced that guerrilla abuses would no longer be tolerated and outlined the rights which would govern the U.S. Army's treatment of guerrillas and civilians. In particular, guerrillas who wore no uniform but peasant dress and shifted from civilian to military status would be held accountable; secret committees that collected revolutionary taxes and those accepting U.S. protection in occupied towns while assisting guerrillas would be treated as "war rebels or war traitors". Filipino leaders who continued to work towards Philippine independence were deported to Guam.
The Philippine Army continued suffering defeats from the better armed United States Army during the conventional warfare phase, forcing Aguinaldo to continually change his base of operations throughout the course of the war.
On June 24, 1900, MacArthur as U.S. Military Governor published a proclamation offering full and complete amnesty to all insurgents who surrendered within ninety days.
On August 3, 1900, Aguinaldo issued a decree urging a continuation of the war and offering rewards for rifles and ammunition brought in by prisoners or deserters from opposing forces.
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. The Americans pretended to be captives of the Scouts, who were dressed in Philippine Army uniforms. Once Funston and his "captors" entered Aguinaldo's camp, they quickly overwhelmed Aguinaldo's forces.
On April 1, 1901, at 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. 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."
The capture of Aguinaldo dealt a severe blow to the Filipino cause, but not as much as the Americans had hoped. General Miguel Malvar took over the leadership of the Filipino government. He originally had taken a defensive stance against the Americans, but launched an offensive against the American-held towns in the Batangas region. General Vicente Lukbán in Samar, and other army officers, continued the war in their respective areas.
On March 3, 1901, the U.S. Congress passed the Army Appropriation Act containing (along with the Platt Amendment on Cuba) the Spooner Amendment which provided the president with legislative authority to establish a civil government in the Philippines. Up until this time, the president had been administering the Philippines by virtue of his war powers. On July 4, 1901, the office of U.S. Military Governor was terminated and civil government was inaugurated with William Howard Taft as civil governor. Hostilities continued, and the civil governor shared power and control with the U.S. military government.
A centralized public school system was installed in 1901, using English as the medium of instruction. This created a heavy shortage of teachers, and the Philippine Commission authorized the secretary of public instruction to engage 600 teachers from the U.S. – the so-called Thomasites. Free primary schools that instructed on duties of citizenship and avocation was introduced. The Catholic Church was officially disestablished, and much church land was purchased and redistributed.
An anti-sedition law was established in 1901, followed by an anti-brigandage law in 1902.
On July 4, 1902, Theodore Roosevelt, who had succeeded to the U.S. presidency, proclaimed officially that the war was at an end and extended a full and complete pardon and amnesty to all persons in the Philippine Archipelago who had participated in the conflict.
On April 9, 2002, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo proclaimed that the Philippine–American War had ended on April 16, 1902, with the surrender of Malvar. She declared the centennial anniversary of that date as a national working holiday and as a special non-working holiday in the province of Batangas and in the cities of Batangas, Lipa, and Tanauan.
The Kiram–Bates Treaty secured the Sultanate of Sulu. American forces also established control over interior mountainous areas that had resisted Spanish conquest.
Historians Glenn May in 1983 and Rene Escalante in 1998 conclude that Aguinaldo's cause had multiple fatal weaknesses: they blame his inept political leadership; his strategic and tactical military blunders; his loss of mass support; his alienation of the Catholics; his failure to mobilize the Filipino elite; squabbling and corruption among his generals; and failure to win any international support for his cause.
Filipino casualties were much greater than among Americans. The United States Department of State states that the war "resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants", and that "as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease". The total number of Filipinos who died remains a matter of debate. Modern sources cite a figure of 200,000 dead civilian Filipinos, with most losses attributable to famine and disease. A cholera epidemic at the war's end killed between 150,000 and 200,000 people.
Some estimates reach 1,000,000 dead. In 1903 the population of the Philippines was counted by American authorities. The survey yielded 7,635,426 people, including 56,138 foreign born. In 1887, a Spanish census recorded a population of 5,984,717 excluding non-Christians.
Rudolph Rummel estimates that 16,000 to 20,000 Filipino soldiers and 34,000 civilians were killed, with up to an additional 200,000 civilian deaths, mostly from a cholera epidemic.
In terms of civilian casualties, historian Glen May in an in-depth study one province, argues that the demographic environment was very negative in 1897-1902, as the death rate soared. The main causes were malnutrition caused by massive crop failures, and epidemics of cholera and malaria. Furthermore the 1903 census, was badly flawed. Military casualties had a very small effect.
Throughout the war, numerous atrocities were committed by the U.S. military, including the targeting of civilians. American soldiers and other witnesses sent letters home that described some of these atrocities. For example, In 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger wrote:
Reports from returning soldiers stated that upon entering a village, American soldiers would ransack every house and church and rob the inhabitants of everything of value, while Filipinos who approached the battle line waving a flag of truce were fired upon.
Some of the authors were critical of leaders such as Major General Otis and the overall conduct of the war. In 1899, the American Anti-Imperialist League published a pamphlet of letters allegedly written by U.S. soldiers. When some of these letters circulated in newspapers, they became national news, which forced the War Department to investigate. Examples:
Major General Otis' investigation of the content of these letters consisted of sending a copy of them to the author's superior and having him force the author to write a retraction. Soldiers such as Private Charles Brenner refused and he was court-martialed. The charge was "for writing and conniving at the publication of an article which ... contains willful falsehoods concerning himself and a false charge against Captain Bishop." Not all such letters that discussed atrocities were intended to criticize General Otis or American actions. Many portrayed U.S. actions as the result of Filipino provocation and thus entirely justified.
In September 1901, enraged by the Balangiga massacre in Samar, Brigadier General Jacob H. Smith retaliated during the pacification of Samar by ordering an indiscriminate attack upon its inhabitants, openly disregarding General Order 100, and issuing an order to "kill everyone over the age of ten" and turn the island into a "howling wilderness". Major Littleton Waller countermanded the order to his own men saying, "we are not making war on women and children". Still, 2,000 to 2,500 Filipino civilians were killed in the expedition across Samar. This became a caption in the New York Journal-American cartoon on May 5, 1902. Smith was eventually court-martialed by the American military and forced to retire.
In late 1901, Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell took command of American operations in Batangas and Laguna provinces. In response to Malvar's guerrilla warfare tactics, Bell employed counterinsurgency tactics (described by some as a scorched earth campaign) during the pacification of Batangas that took a heavy toll on guerrilla fighters and civilians. "Zones of protection" were established, and civilians were given identification papers and forced into concentration camps (called reconcentrados) surrounded by free-fire zones. At the Lodge Committee, in an attempt to counter the negative reception in America to Brigadier General Bell's camps, Colonel Arthur Wagner, the U.S. Army's chief public relations officer, insisted the camps were to "protect friendly natives from the insurgents, and assure them an adequate food supply" while teaching them "proper sanitary standards". Wagner's assertion was undermined by a letter from a commander of one of the camps, who described them as "some suburb of Hell".
Methods of torture such as the water cure were frequently employed during interrogation, and entire villages were burned or otherwise destroyed.
During the First Battle of Bud Dajo in March 1906, 800–900 Moros, including women and children, were killed by U.S. Marines led by Major General Leonard Wood. The description of the engagement as a "battle" is disputed because of the overwhelming firepower of the attackers and the lopsided casualties; 99% of Moros were killed in the attack, with only six survivors. Author Vic Hurley wrote, "By no stretch of the imagination could Bud Dajo be termed a 'battle'". Mark Twain commented, "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle ... We cleaned up our four days' work and made it complete by butchering these helpless people."
U.S. Army Major General Otis alleged that Filipino insurgents tortured American prisoners of war in "fiendish fashion". According to Otis, many were buried alive or were buried up to their necks in ant hills. He claimed others had their genitals removed and stuffed into their mouths and were then executed by suffocation or bled to death. Stories in other newspapers described deliberate attacks by Filipino sharpshooters upon American surgeons, chaplains, ambulances, hospitals, and wounded soldiers. An incident was described in The San Francisco Call that occurred in Escalante, Negros Occidental, where several crewmen of a landing party from the CS Recorder were fired upon and later disemboweled by Filipino insurgents, while the insurgents displayed a flag of truce.
It was reported that Spanish priests were mutilated before their congregations, and Filipinos who refused to support Aguinaldo were slaughtered in the thousands. American newspaper headlines announced the "Murder and Rapine" by the "Fiendish Filipinos". Brigadier General Joseph Wheeler insisted that Filipinos had mutilated their own dead, murdered women and children, and burned down villages, solely to discredit American soldiers. Apolinario Mabini, in his autobiography, confirms these offenses, stating that Aguinaldo did not punish Filipino troops who engaged in war rape, burned and looted villages, or stole and destroyed private property.
Other Filipino atrocities included those attributed by the Americans to Filipino commander Lukbán, who allegedly masterminded the Balangiga massacre in Samar province, a surprise Filipino attack that killed almost fifty American soldiers. Media reports stated that many bodies were mutilated.
Testimony before the Lodge Committee stated 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."
In his History of the Filipino People, Agoncillo writes that Filipino troops could match/exceed American brutality. 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 treatment of prisoners.
Worcester recounts two specific Filipino atrocities as follows:
The Schurman Commission concluded that "... The Filipinos are wholly unprepared for independence ... there being no Philippine nation, but only a collection of different peoples." In the report that they issued to McKinley the following year, the commissioners acknowledged Filipino aspirations for independence; they declared, however, that the Philippines was not ready for it. Specific recommendations included the establishment of civilian control over Manila (Otis would have veto power over the city's government), creation of civilian government as rapidly as possible, especially in areas already declared "pacified", including the establishment of a bicameral legislature, autonomous governments on the provincial and municipal levels, and a system of free public elementary schools.
On November 2, 1900, Schurman signed the following statement:
The Second Philippine Commission, appointed by President McKinley on March 16, 1900, and headed by William Howard Taft, was granted legislative as well as limited executive powers. On September 1, the Taft Commission began to exercise legislative functions. Between September 1900 and August 1902, it issued 499 laws. The commission established a civil service and a judicial system that included a Supreme Court, and a legal code was drawn up to replace obsolete Spanish ordinances. The 1901 municipal code provided for popularly elected presidents, vice presidents, and councilors to serve on municipal boards. The municipal board members were responsible for collecting taxes, maintaining municipal properties, and undertaking necessary construction projects; they also elected provincial governors.
Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Ernest Crosby, and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines. Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had become a colonial power.
Some 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 into the United States. Others worried that annexing the Philippines would lead to the non-white population having a say in the American government.
As news of atrocities committed in subduing the Philippines arrived in the United States, support for the war flagged.
Mark Twain opposed the war using his influence in the press. He said the war betrayed the ideals of American democracy by not allowing the Filipino people to choose their own destiny:
In a diary passage, Twain refers to American troops as "our uniformed assassins" and describes their killing of "six hundred helpless and weaponless savages" in the Philippines as "a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory".
Some of Aguinaldo's associates supported America, even before hostilities began. Pedro Paterno, Aguinaldo's prime minister and the author of the 1897 armistice treaty with Spain, advocated the incorporation of the Philippines into the United States in 1898. Other associates sympathetic to the U.S. included Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Benito Legarda, prominent members of Congress; Gregorio Araneta, Aguinaldo's Secretary of Justice; and Felipe Buencamino, Aguinaldo's Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Buencamino is recorded to have said in 1902: "I am an American and all the money in the Philippines, the air, the light, and the sun I consider American." Many supporters subsequently held posts in the colonial government.
U.S. Army Captain Matthew Arlington Batson formed the Macabebe Scouts as a native guerrilla force to fight the insurgency from among a tribe of that name having a history of antipathy with Tagalogs.
After military rule was terminated on July 4, 1901, the Philippine Constabulary was established as an archipelago-wide police force to control brigandage and deal with the remnants of the insurgent movement. Organized and initially commanded by Brigadier General Henry Tureman Allen, the Philippine Constabulary gradually took responsibility for suppressing hostile forces' activities. Remnants of Aguinaldo's Republic, and remnants or holdovers of the Katipunan organization, which had predated the American presence, and other resistance groups all remained active, fighting for nearly a decade after the official end of the war. After the close of the war, however, Governor General Taft preferred to rely on the Philippine Constabulary and to treat this as a law enforcement concern. Thus the actions of these remaining guerrilla resistance movements were labeled as brigandage or banditry, and dismissed by the American government as bandits, fanatics and cattle rustlers.
Though most fighting in the Philippines had ceased following Aguinaldo's surrender in April 1901, nationalist forces continued to hold out in some areas, notably in Samar under Lukbán and in Batangas under Malvar. Acting under authority of section 3 of the Organic Act, President Roosevelt used U.S. military forces to put down these pockets of resistance. The Balangiga massacre on September 28, 1901 triggered a major U.S. pacification operation in Samar. In Batangas, Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell relentlessly pursued Malvar and his men from 1901 through the opening months of 1902, forcing the surrender of many of the Filipino soldiers. Malvar surrendered on April 16, 1902. along with his sick wife and children and some of his officers. By the end of the month nearly 3,000 of Malvar's men had also surrendered.
In 1902, Macario Sakay established the Republika ng Katagalugan, claiming to succeed the First Philippine Republic, in Morong along Katipunan lines as opposed to Aguinaldo's Republic. This republic ended in 1906 when Sakay and his top followers surrendered based on offer of amnesty from the American authorities. Instead, they were arrested by constabulary forces under Colonel Harry Hill Bandholtz and executed the following year.
Beginning in 1903, brigandage by organized groups became a problem in some outlying provinces in the Visayas. Among these groups were the Pulahan (Spanish: Pulajanes), who were from the highlands of Samar and Leyte. The term is derived from the native word pula, meaning "red", as they were distinguished by their red garments. The Pulajanes subscribed to a blend of Catholic and folk beliefs. For example, they believed certain amulets called agimat would render them bulletproof. The last of these groups were defeated or had surrendered to the Philippine Constabulary by 1911.
The American government had signed the Kiram–Bates Treaty with the Sultanate of Sulu at the outbreak of the war, which was supposed to prevent resistance in that part of the Philippines (which included parts of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, Palawan, and Sabah). However, after the First Philippine Republic collapsed, the United States canceled the treaty, and began to colonize Moro land, which provoked the Moro Rebellion, beginning with the Battle of Bayan in May 1902. The rebellion continued until the Battle of Bud Bagsak in June 1913, in which Moro forces under Datu Amil were defeated by US troops led by Brigadier General John J. Pershing. The battle marked the end of the Moro conflict; negotiations between the US authorities and Sulu Sultanate continued until the latter's dissolution in March 1915.
A 1907 law prohibited the display of flags and other symbols "used during the late insurrection in the Philippine Islands". Some historians consider these unofficial extensions to be part of the war.
The influence of the Roman Catholic Church was reduced when the secular United States Government disestablished the Church and purchased and redistributed Church lands, one of the earliest attempts at land reform in the Philippines. The land amounted to 170,917 hectares (422,350 acres), for which the Church under Pope Leo XIII asked $12,086,438.11 in March 1903. The purchase was completed on December 22, 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 Lands 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 ran for a maximum of 25 years, renewable for another 25 years.
In 1901, at least five hundred teachers (365 males and 165 females) arrived from the U.S. aboard the USAT Thomas. The name "Thomasite" was adopted for these teachers, who established education as one of America's contributions to the Philippines. Among the assignments given were Albay, Catanduanes, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, and Masbate, which are the present day Bicol Region, which was heavily resistant to American rule. 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. 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.
According to historian Daniel Immerwahr, the first 15 American officers to hold the office of Chief of Staff of the United States Army all served in the Philippine–American War. Some veterans of the war, including Douglas MacArthur, Chester W. Nimitz, Walter Krueger, and Rapp Brush were senior commanders in the US campaign to liberate the Philippines from the Empire of Japan during World War II.
Multiple films were based on the war: Virgin Forest (1985), Baler (2008), Amigo (2010), El Presidente (2012), Heneral Luna (2015), and Goyo: The Boy General (2018). The film Sakay portrays the latter part of the life of Filipino patriot and hero Macario Sakay. Malvar: Tuloy ang Laban is a biographical film about the life of Miguel Malvar; it has been in development since 2000 and is still pending release.
The 1945 film Los últimos de Filipinas and the 2016 film 1898, Los últimos de Filipinas depict the siege of Baler.
In the U,S., the 1926 film Across the Pacific and the 1949 film Last Stand in the Philippines are about or are set against a background of the war. The 1939 film The Real Glory is set against the backdrop of the Moro Rebellion beginning in 1906.
The Schurman Commission declared that the Philippines was not ready for independence. Specific recommendations included the rapid establishment of civilian government, including establishment of a bicameral legislature, autonomous governments on the provincial and municipal levels, and a new system of free public elementary schools.
From the 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 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 popularly elected lower house, the Philippine Assembly, and an upper house consisting of the Philippine Commission, which was to be appointed by the United States president.
The Jones Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1916 to serve as the 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 and for independence after ten years. World War II intervened, bringing the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945. In 1946, the Treaty of Manila between the governments of the U.S. and the Republic of the Philippines provided for the recognition of the independence of the Philippines and the relinquishment of American sovereignty over the islands.