1. 1
I. Introduction
The Philippine-American war is an often forgotten conflict that shaped not only American
foreign policy, but the eventual recognition of Filipino independence. As the United States
recovered from its Civil War, Americans looked to protect its commercial interests abroad.
Spain's decaying empire provided an opportunity for America to seize territory that could bring it
prominence on a global scale. The modern American navy's swift victory over the Spanish fleet
in Manila Bay, along with the thousands of troops that landed on the shore of the Philippines,
gave the American government effective control over a large archipelago thousands of miles
away from the United States. The Philippines, which had been under Spain's control for over
three hundred years, had become an American territory. The Filipino insurrectos, who had
fought for independence from Spanish rule, found themselves under the rule of a new occupying
power. The American government, convinced the Filipino people did not have the ability to
properly lead their country, set out to civilize and Christianize what they saw as a backwards
country. The revolutionaries, determined to continue their new republic, soon declared war on
the occupation. From 1899 to 1902 a devastating conflict was fought between Filipino
insurgents and the American military, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Filipinos, mostly civilians, and a restructuring of the Filipino social and legal system. By the end
of the war, American forces were firmly in control of the islands and had managed to gain
enough local support to legitimize their occupation. Despite the racial biases held by American
supporters of the occupation and the violent methods used to target the insurgency, the American
occupation managed to win the loyalty of the Filipino people because of the U.S. government's
recognition of some of their demands for self-rule and their targeted reforms for their political
system.

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II. Philippine-American History
The Philippine-American war is not a well-known or well researched historical subject.
Most of the primary sources related to the Philippine-American war are documents from the
perspective of the Americans who occupied the country. The military leaders and the American
soldiers who engaged in the conflict itself left behind their writings of their own experiences on
patrol or in battle, but did not give much information about the Filipino population. Most of the
primary sources I could find were written documents by U.S. military personnel writing about
their experiences fighting in the Philippine-American war both during and after the conflict.
These documents were mainly concerned with the conduct of the U.S. military and the
difficulties they faced in tracking down the insurgents. The primary sources were written from an
American perspective for an American audience unfamiliar with the conditions soldiers faced or
the Filipino culture. U.S publications and letters at the time on the Filipinos tended to be
patronizing, treating Filipinos as inferior to Americans and in need of Western civilization. These
writings, however, are comprehensive in how they, as American soldiers, felt serving in a country
they considered hostile towards their attempts to civilize them. These primary sources do not
give much attention to the reasons the insurrectos continued their fight or to the efforts made by
the U.S government at political reform in the Philippines. I have had difficulty in finding detailed
primary sources in English from the Filipino perspective, even from prominent rebel leaders like
President Emilio Aguinaldo.
The secondary sources mainly focuses on the rise of American imperialism, starting after
the U.S. government's victory in the Indian wars leading up to the U.S. control over former
Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific. American historians who write on the
Philippine-American war either use the conflict as a study in U.S. military history or focus on the

3. 3
Philippines as a model for future occupations by the American government as a part of U.S
foreign policy. The Philippine War is compared to the occupation of Japan after the Second
World War as well as U.S. interventions in Southeast Asia designed to prevent the expansion of
communism. A large portion of the history of the Philippine War is focused on the military
aspects, with historians analyzing the strategies used by American generals against the
insurgency and the political fallout in America from the prolonged conflict. Historians writing on
the military history of the Philippine-American war give little attention given to the political
ideals of the insurgents that the U.S. military was fighting. Books written on the political and
social reforms enacted by the American occupational government are concerned with how the
occupation of the Philippines created America's foreign policy and its use of military power as a
means of securing national interests. The military history limits the analysis of Aguinaldo and his
generals to their competence in fighting, not to their ability to persuade Filipinos to their
nationalist cause or to their reasons for continuing to fight. Discussion of the Filipino population
as a whole are generally limited to details of atrocities committed against civilians or how the
occupation reformed the Filipino government.
II. Methodology
For primary sources I rely mainly on the writings of U.S. soldiers who wrote about the
conflict, primarily Memories of Two Wars written by General Frederick Funston and the diary
left behind by Private John Clifford Brown. Frederick Funston's Memories of Two Wars is an
autobiography written and published more than a decade after the end of both the Spanish-
American and Philippine-American war. In his book, Funston writes about his experiences
leading American forces in Cuba, his transfer to the Philippine conflict, and his efforts to end the
rebellion in the islands. His leadership in the Philippines was colored by his negative attitude

4. 4
towards the Filipino people, his questionable conduct during the war, and his belief in America's
civilizing mission. Funston's racial beliefs regarding Filipinos and his treatment of civilians in
occupied territory reflect the mindset held by other military leaders and supporters of the
American occupation. He provides context for the atrocities committed against Filipino civilians
as well as the difficulties of occupying a distant country. Joseph McCallus's book Gentleman
Soldier is an analysis of the life of an American soldier in the Philippines named John Clifford
Brown. John Brown's documentation of the Philippine war helps create the view of the conflict
for the average U.S. soldier at the front lines. John Brown was a soldier who came from an
upper-class background and yet volunteered to fight for America far away from his home. He
was born into a wealthy family in Maine and was educated at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Despite holding a promising career in electrical engineering, John Brown enlisted in
the army and was sent over to the Philippines in 1899. He was a hardworking man who was
eventually promoted to a Lance Corporal during his stay1
. Brown kept a detailed record of his
travels in the Philippines in his diary from August 1899 all the way up until August 1900, which
he sent back to his family piece by piece through his letters. After contracting malaria on duty,
Brown was sent back to the United States. Due to his severe symptoms he did not recover and
died shortly after returning home. Despite Brown's early death before the end of the war, his
correspondence provides valuable insight into the attitude of enlisted men who were sent to the
Philippines and explains their motivations for their involvement in the conflict. Brown expresses
his frustration with the slow pace of the war, the inability of the military to root out the
insurgents, and his bias towards the indigenous people he was sent to occupy. He also struggled
1 McCallus, Joseph, Gentleman Soldier: John Clifford Brown and the Philippine American
War, (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004),184

5. 5
with his deep resentment of African-American soldiers, which helps me understand the racial
prejudices of the occupying soldiers. For secondary sources, I relied mainly on the work of
Brian McAllister Linn, Michael Hunt and David J. Silbey. Professor Linn is a historian who
works for Texas A&M University and is primarily focused on military history. While his book
focuses mainly on the effects of the American occupation on U.S. policies and military strategy,
he also writes about how the United States began to break away from a policy of isolation to a
more militant strategy of benevolent intervention overseas. David J. Silbey is a professor at
Cornell University. He has written before on the subject of imperialism, writing his first book on
the Boxer Rebellion and European colonialism in China. Michael Hunt's Arc of Empire focuses
on the conflict in the context of American intervention overseas, all the way up to Vietnam. Hunt
uses the Philippine War as a start to a trend of U.S. overseas occupations leading up to the War
on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. Professor Silbey's A War of Frontier and Empire is not only
about the military and political history of the Philippine war, but also gives an extended amount
of Filipino perspective of the conflict. He writes about Aguinaldo's inability to organize a
coordinated offensive against the American occupation and his increasing desperation as the war
eroded his ability to lead the First Philippine Republic and his Army of Liberation. His work
provides invaluable insight into the motivations of the insurgents along with the reasons for
Filipino acceptance of American rule after the end of the war.
IV. Thesis
The American occupation successfully occupied the Philippines through the ability of
U.S. officials to make successful agreements with Filipino leaders to end the violence despite
racial prejudices held by American troops and the harsh methods used by the U.S. government to
end the insurgency.

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V. Beginning of Conflict
The beginning of the American occupation of the Philippines started before the Spanish-
American war, with the cause of Filipino independence that spread at the end of the nineteenth
century. Spain's rule of the Philippines started in 1521 after Magellan had visited the islands
during his voyages. The Spanish government used the Philippines as a trading hub, exchanging
their gold and silver mined in the Americas for Chinese goods like silk2
. The native tribes Spain
conquered consisted of hundreds of different ethnic group, many with their own dialects that
were distinct from one another3
. Spanish missionaries converted most Filipinos to Catholicism,
but did not require Filipinos to learn the Spanish language. At the top of the social order were the
peninsulares and insulares, Spaniards born in Spain and in the Philippines respectively. They
controlled the government, the economy and Filipino society. Native Filipinos, known as indios,
were at the bottom of the social order and were considered to uncivilized4
.
By the late 1800s the Spanish empire had begun to decline, with most of its colonies in
South and Central America either fully independent or revolting against Spanish authority.
Filipinos and their children studied abroad, and became known as ilustrados. One of these
ilustrados, a nationalist from a wealthy family known as Emilio Aguinaldo, began to call for a
Filipino bid for independence. Aguinaldo commanded his insurgents to attack Spanish military
garrisons as he tried to gain recognition as leader of the revolution. In 1898, Aguinaldo and his
advisers were exiled to Hong Kong in exchange for a large amount of Spanish pesetas5
.
Representatives of Aguinaldo began to approach the American for military assistance, asking for
2 Silbey, David. A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902,
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2007), 8
3 Silbey, 9
4 Silbey, 11-12
5 Silbey, 15

7. 7
weapons and ammunition for the rebellion. At first, U.S. politicians were eager to work with
Filipino nationalists in a joint effort to end Spanish occupation of the archipelago. Tensions
between the U.S. government and Spain had already grown by 1898, especially after the sinking
of the USS Maine, an American warship6
. Later that year, President McKinley declared war on
Spain, and the U.S military was sent to fight the Spanish army in Cuba. With the approval of the
U.S. government, United States Counsel General Pratt held discussions with Aguinaldo to assist
his revolution, both through military aid and direct intervention7
. With the help of an interpreter,
Pratt agreed to recognize the independence of the Philippines and its right to self-determination if
the rebels allied themselves with American forces already fighting Spain8
. Rebels would receive
arms and the promise of U.S. troops aiding them in their battle for independence. Despite
Aguinaldo's request for an official document confirming Pratt's agreement, the U.S. consul
convinced him that there was no need for formal documentation9
. By 1898, the American army
had defeated Spanish forces in Cuba, and sent a naval fleet headed by Admiral George Dewey to
the Philippines to secure the islands and defeat the last remaining Spanish forces. Admiral
Dewey's fleet of modern warships defeated Spain's wooden fleet in Manila Bay, effectively
ending Spanish control over the archipelago. Initially, Filipino rebels cheered on the Americans
as they landed on the shores of the Philippines. Aguinaldo returned to his country. They praised
America with its history of liberty for aiding the similar Filipino cause of freedom and self-
determination10
. The American press and political elite in turn praised Aguinaldo for his charisma
6 Funston, Frederick, Memories of Two Wars, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914), 172
7 Linn, Brian. The Philippine War: 1899-1902, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000),
20-21.
8 Bain, David. Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1984), 149
9 Bain, 176
10 Bain, 178

8. 8
and intelligence in leading his rebellion against the corrupt Spanish government11
. Aguinaldo set
up a new democratic government, known as the Philippine Republic, and declared himself the
president. After American military forces landed on the islands, the U.S military began to move
away from recognizing the Philippine Republic and became increasingly hostile towards the
notion of Filipino independence.
In early 1899, the U.S. president McKinley disregarded claims of Philippine
independence and insisted that his military leaders refrain from making commitments with
Aguinaldo that would prevent them from acting independently from the rebels12
. During the
First Battle of Manila, American soldiers were ordered to drive out Spanish forces defending the
city, but were also instructed to keep out Filipino insurgents near the city gates to prevent them
from taking the capital13
. The exclusion of Filipino nationalists from the fighting led to anger as
they already felt suspicious of American forces which quickly set up headquarters within the
city14
. Without Manila, Aguinaldo would be forced to run his country while out with his armies
rather than at his capital. In December 1898 the United States and Spain made peace. While
Cuba was given its independence, the Philippine islands were placed under American control in
return for twenty million dollars given to the Spanish government15
. The U.S. government, soon
after, declared the Philippines to be a territory of the United States. Aguinaldo found that General
Counsel Pratt along with Admiral Dewey had disavowed their promise to recognize Filipino
11 Bain, 12
12 Hunt and Levine, Arc of Empire: America's Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam,
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 30
13 Linn, 25
14 Salamanca, Bonifacio. The Filipino Reaction To American Rule: 1901-1913, (United States:
The Shoe String Press, Inc., 1968), 28
15 Silbey, 58

9. 9
independence and claimed he had misunderstood their intentions16
. Aguinaldo and Prime
Minister Mabini spoke to the Filipino public to convince them to fight against American
domination, outraged by their hypocrisy in promising freedom through oppression17
. In response,
the American government and press rejected Aguinaldo, portraying him as a savage bandit rather
than a proper revolutionary. Filipino insurgents, angered by America's presence as the new
occupying power, turned against their former allies and set off another rebellion that sought to
end foreign rule and protect the newly established Philippine Republic.
VI. American Governance
The invasion and occupation of the Philippines was predicated on American notions of
civilization and enlightened rule. President McKinley's policy of assimilation and cooperation
was targeted towards Filipinos still under American control as a way of gaining their support
during the Philippine-American war and to convince them of American cultural superiority. The
president promised protection to Filipinos who accepted the occupation, and created
commissions that would form the new regime in the Philippines18
. American nationalists were
also motivated by a desire to help the Filipino people modernize, but felt that the natives could
not be entrusted to manage their own government19
. The president believed that, like the Cubans
in the Spanish-American war, the Filipinos did not have the capacity to self-determination20
. The
McKinley administration, however, wanted to make sure that the occupation of the Philippines
would be supported by the Filipinos According to the rules set down by senior U.S. officers,
16 Bain 177
17 Hunt and Levine, 47
18 Hunt and Levine, 44
19 Drinner, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building,
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 281
20 Drinner, 279

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public and private property was to be protected and looting was prohibited21
. American officials
replaced the Filipino legal system, which was based off of Spain's legal system, with their own22
.
The new legal system was supplemented by U.S. legal experts who assisted newly appointed
Filipino judges, clerks, and lawyers with understanding their duties. Taxes were also reformed,
simplifying the more complex Spanish tax system and reducing taxes for the poor. The Taft
Commission, established in 1898 and headed by William Howard Taft, was focused on hearing
from the Filipino people to determine how best to form the new government. Most of the
witnesses that spoke in front of the commission were elites who wanted political recognition in
the central government23
. Local governments were elected by property owners who would
control their own territory. The provincial administrator would supervise the territory and would
report back to U.S. backed officials in Manila. In August 1899, Brigadier General John Bates
worked out a political agreement with the sultan of the Moro tribes located primarily in the
island of Mindanao. The Moro leadership would accept the American occupation as well as a
limited political and military presence in their territory. In exchange, the United States would
refrain from interfering with the culture or political system of the Moro people and would give
annual payments to the sultan and his staff24
. The U.S. government also addressed the problem of
the large land holdings controlled by friars in the Catholic church. The Taft Commission
recommended that the U.S. government should purchase the land from the Catholic church and
appeal to the Vatican to recall the friars from the Philippines25
. The American government's
willingness to address some of the concerns of the Filipinos and the causes of the revolution
21 Linn, 100
22 Silbey, 136
23 Salamanca, 54
24 Hunt and Levine, 51
25 Salamanca, 50

11. 11
helped secure Filipino support for the U.S. occupation and lent legitimacy to American efforts to
combat Aguinaldo and other Filipino nationalists.
VII. Culture of the Insurgency
The effectiveness of the insurgents in their resistance to their new occupation was based
more on their reliance of local support and their ability to evade American patrols, not on expert
leadership. Even during the rebellion against Spain, Filipino nationalists struggled to gain a
united front for their cause, often struggling with in-fighting. Andres Bonifacio, a leader of the
Katipunan, commanded his own band of insurgents but often fought with Aguinaldo over the
direction of the revolution. In 1897, Aguinaldo had Bonifacio arrested for treason and ordered his
execution26
. In the Tarlac province in central Luzon a rebellion lead by the Guardia de Honor de
Maria began against the Filipino revolutionaries, blaming them the arrest of the friars27
.
Filipinos were still divided among ethnic lines, and most of the early revolution was led
by the Tagalogs, an ethnic group located predominately in the central islands28
. Filipino
nationalism was only beginning to emerge and most Filipinos organized themselves based on the
patron-client relationship established by the Spanish. Through a complex social network, clients
were bound to their patrons who were supposed to lead their clients and, in exchange, their
clients would perform services for their patrons. Clients were not expected to die in combat for
their patrons, meaning that insurgents would only participate in a battle as means of devotion to
their patron29
. Once the combatants felt that they had performed their service, they would fall
back from the battlefield and would return to their village. Both Aguinaldo and the U.S
26 Silbey, 14
27 Silbey, 63
28 Silbey, 13
29 Silbey, 74

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government failed to gain the full support of the more independent Muslims tribes in the south.
The Moro people were mainly interested in defending their ancestral homeland and were hostile
to the possibility of Christian Filipinos ruling over them30
. General Elwell Otis devised a strategy
of appealing to the northern tribes of Pampangans, Pangasinans and Ilocanos, who opposed the
Tagalogs who primarily fought with Aguinaldo31
. In contrast, Aguinaldo held only loose
alliances to keep his army together, united through a nationalist cause but divided over strategy.
Antonio Luna, one of Aguinaldo's chief commanders, constantly threatened his men with
beatings and summary execution in order to keep them in line after struggling with
insubordination32
. Aguinaldo and his commanders attempted to fight a conventional war in 1899,
but completely lacked the weaponry and manpower to compete with the U.S. military.
Insurgents, hampered by the lack of ammunition for their rifles, could not train their forces with
live rounds and were known to be poor shots33
. Filipino rebels also lacked proper weaponry,
resorting to using bolo swords to supplement the rifles they had obtained from the Spanish army.
After the American civil war and reforms to the military, the U.S. military was modernized.
American soldiers were trained in suppressive fire techniques to pin the insurgents down, and
used artillery or naval support to destroy their fortifications34
. Aguinaldo and his generals were
unable to coordinate their leadership, having to organize an insurgency across the many islands
of the Philippines. After the Battle for Manila Bay the U.S. navy controlled the waterways,
severing communication links the insurgents had between the islands. The U.S. army began to
30 Blout, The American Occupation of the Philippines: 1898-1912, (New York: Oriole Editions,
1912), 230-231
31 Linn, 88
32 Linn, 92
33 Silbey, 72
34 Funston, 185-186

13. 13
work with Filipinos to stop the rebellion and negotiated with provincial officials to locate rebels.
The navy relied on local merchants and smugglers as interpreters for their operations, and sent
them into villages as envoys to persuade the villagers to relinquish their weapons and accept the
occupation35
. After only a few months at war, Aguinaldo's plan for a direct confrontation with
the U.S. military fell apart. The President of the Philippine Republic and his military command,
after a series of military defeats, were forced to take refuge in the mountains by the end of 1899,
isolating them from the rest of the Philippines36
. Aguinaldo finally shifted tactics and engaged in
asymmetrical warfare as a major feature of his strategy37
. Unlike conventional armies, insurgents
could operate without a centralized command structure and could fade away into the dense
jungles. Aguinaldo's shift to unconventional warfare, however, affected his ability to
communicate to his commanders and to lead his Army of Liberation. The insurgency was
conducted in the mountains of the Philippines, requiring his men to leave behind a large portion
of their equipment and to head into difficult terrain38
. Most U.S. military leaders were veterans
of the American Civil War or the Indian Wars, and had experience with combating asymmetrical
warfare. The American government decided to avoid tensions with the local populace by
shipping over large quantities of food to feed their soldiers, instead of the then standard
procedure of living off the land39
. Filipinos were to be considered friendly unless they wore a
uniform or had a gun in their possession in order to prevent violent reprisals by Americans for
insurgent actions40
. American officials noted the difficulty in communicating with the Filipino
35 Silbey, 179
36 Silbey, 124-125
37 Salamanca, 29
38 Silbey, 128
39 McCallus, 78
40 McCallus, 84

14. 14
population which mostly spoke their native dialects, with the exception of educated elites who
spoke Spanish41
. The attempts by American forces to befriend the population were also hampered
by the insurgents, who blended in with sympathetic civilians who gave them aid and shelter.
Efforts to find the insurgents were difficult since maps of the terrain were often non-existent.
Cartographers had to be assigned on location to track the movements of Aguinaldo's forces in
order to assist troops clearing the region42
. Insurgents left behind traps of stake-pits and snares to
prevent American forces from following them back to their hideouts43
. The unfamiliar terrain,
the constant threat of ambush and the hostility of Filipino civilians towards the American
occupation helped create a firm barrier of distrust between U.S. troops and the local population.
VIII. Racial Identity
The origins of the racial attitudes of both American soldiers in the Philippines and
politicians in the United States lie with America's expansion westward and the taming of the
West. By the time of the Philippine-American war, the wars against the American-Indian
population were over, with the last of the resistance put down by U.S. soldiers and most of the
American Indian population relocated to reservations. James Hall, a prolific nineteenth century
American writer who wrote about the Native Americans believed that it was the nomadic nature
of the Indians and their sporadic food supply that prevented them from being properly civilized
by their white neighbors44
. He believed that the Native Americans needed to be collected into
reservations in order for them to understand the concept of property and to learn the value of
Western civilization. American desire to civilize the non-Western civilizations of the world
41 Linn, 212-213
42 McCallus, 80
43 Linn, 189
44 Drinnon, 206

15. 15
continued after the end of the Indian War. American soldiers who patrolled through the streets of
Manila and had seen the Spanish architecture left behind believed that Filipino civilization could
not stand on its own, and that the Spanish Empire had helped uplift the native population45
. They
were frustrated at the constant threat of ambush and inability to find the rebels and, as the war
dragged on, began to harbor a deep resentment of the native population who they felt were
ungrateful to them for bringing civilization to the Philippines. Some white soldiers saw the
Philippine-American war as a race war, taking increasingly extreme measures to put an end to
the insurgency such as burning down entire villages to revenge fallen soldiers, executing
captured insurgents, and shooting civilians who broke curfew46
. Military leaders who ordered
the burnings of villages made comparisons to Sodom and Gomorrah, that the destruction of
property and the deaths of civilians were justified by the sins of a few insurgents47
. In America,
British poet Rudyard Kipling published his famous poem "The White Man's Burden" with the
subtitle "The United States and the Philippines." The poem supports the imperial attitudes held
by supports of the occupation, who believed that it was the duty of the American government to
civilize a savage race48
. The racial attitude white Americans was compounded by the arrival of
African-American soldiers to the Philippines. African-Americans who signed up for the army
and were sent to the Philippines often did so out of a sense of loyalty and patriotism to their
nation49
. Black soldiers were given cold treatment by some of their white counterparts, who
resented working alongside them. White enlisted men refused to salute black officers unless
45 McCallus, 170
46 Drinnon, 314-315, 327
47 Drinnon, 318-319
48 Sibley, 92
49 Hunt, Michael and Levine, Arc of Empire: America's Wars in Asia from the Philippines to
Vietnam, 38

16. 16
their insubordination was obvious50
. Black soldiers, when asked why they were in the
Philippines, answered that they were taking up "the White Man's burden51
." They saw the
parallels between the treatment of the Filipinos in their homeland and the treatment of black
people in America. Discrimination towards Filipinos started shortly after the start of the
Philippine War. U.S. soldiers, like their commanders, did not believe that the Filipinos were
capable of governing themselves52
. They saw the Filipinos as physically inferior to whites, and
that they were lazy in their work53
. White Americans began to use racial slurs, making African-
American servicemen uncomfortable with the racial prejudice Filipinos faced and saw their
plight as similar to their own54
. Some African-American soldiers decided to leave the U.S.
military and joined Filipino resistance groups. David Fagen, a former captain in the U.S. army,
was one of the most famous of the deserters who fought against the American occupation. Once
he defected, he became a military leader and led a band of insurgents against American forces
until the end of the war55
. The American military, however, began their own attempts to recruit
Filipinos in their fight against Aguinaldo's forces from the beginning of the war. General Otis
began recruitment of Filipinos in the military and police, starting in Manila56
. The native
auxiliaries would be commanded by American officers, and would provide U.S. forces with
knowledge of the culture while allowing more soldiers to be assigned to the front lines57
.
America's recruitment of Filipino soldiers gave the American government more legitimacy in its
50 McCallus, 183
51 Silbey, 107
52 McCallus, 93
53 McCallus, 213
54 Drinnon, 313-314
55 Drinnon, 313
56 Silbey, 113-114
57 Silbey, 114

17. 17
attempts to form an occupation government.
IX. Conduct of the War
As the Philippine-American war dragged on, the U.S military was under more and more
pressure by the American public to put an end to the rebellion. President McKinley believed that
the Philippine war was an opportunity to challenge German and French commercial dominance
in Asia, and to uplift an uncivilized people58
. American soldiers were angered by Filipino
villagers professing their friendship to the new occupying forces and that they were non-
combatants in the war59
. U.S. soldiers were given strict orders to treat all Filipino natives not in
uniform or with a weapon as friendly, despite any personal apprehension60
. Filipino guides and
translators were also viewed as suspect, misleading U.S. forces by taking them into ambush spots
or losing them in the often uncharted jungles. Rooting out the insurgents became a problem as
the war turned into a more unconventional conflict as Aguinaldo's forces relied more heavily on
local cooperation. They hid their weaponry after an attack and blended into the local villages,
making identification problematic. The American military leadership, determined to punish the
Filipinos who supported the rebels, ordered their soldiers to destroy the villages that harbored or
assisted the insurgents61
. Burning down villages would concentrate the remaining villagers into
the towns under American control and would serve as a warning to civilians who thought about
opposing the occupation. Capturing insurgents became an essential way for the military to root
out rebel hideouts and armories. Torture was a common interrogation method used to get
information. According to General Funston, the insurgents were to be considered "war rebels"
58 Bonifacio, 108
59 Kramer, Paul A. "Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire: The Philippine-
American War as Race War," 197
60 Brown, 84
61 Drinnon, 320

18. 18
and under military law were not entitled to treatment as prisoners of war62
. The water cure,
precursor to waterboarding, was invented by the U.S. military to coerce stubborn insurgents into
giving up information about their resistance group and the location of their base of operations63
.
Soldiers would hold down a suspected insurgent, force a bamboo pole down their mouth, and
pour a pitcher of water directly down their throat, forcing water into their stomachs and giving
the prisoner an intense sensation of drowning. Soldiers commonly used the water cure to obtain
information about the insurgents, believing the method to be non-fatal and only temporarily
damaging to the human body64
. At first, the method was restricted to captured insurgents as a
means of information gathering, but as the war progressed military personnel also used the
technique on civilians suspected of helping the rebels. Military officials justified the water cure
and other methods of torture to the American public by stating that it was effective method of
extracting information and that it was vital to combat the Filipino rebellion. Permanent injuries
or deaths caused by the water cure were ignored by commanders who firmly believed that the
technique left no lasting damage. American commanders also believed that Filipinos captives
deserved the harsh treatment as a punishment for their conduct against American forces and
Filipino civilians.
Besides the threat of torture, Filipinos also had to worry about the looting of their villages
by occupying forces. American soldiers often took to robbing churches or homes destroyed after
the fighting, despite the laws created specifically to tackle incidents of looting65
. The growing
anger against the Filipino population by U.S. soldiers began to result in attacks against civilians,
62 Funston, 373-374
63 Blount, J.H., The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912, 202-203
64 Blount, J.H., 204
65 Funston, 208

19. 19
who were grouped with the insurgents because of their ethnicity66
. American reprisal attacks and
the harsh treatments of villagers who were perceived as sympathetic to the rebellion culminated
in the Balangiga massacre of September 1901. The American garrison commander in Balangiga
had ordered force labor on the village, which led to insurgents and civilians killing forty-eight
soldiers. General Chaffee, commander of U.S. forces in 1901, believed that the Filipino
community was treacherous and was hostile to white Americans67
. Chaffee ordered one his
generals, General Jacob Smith, to put an end to the resistance in the village. Priests in Balangiga
rung the church bells to try and warn Filipinos of impending American attacks. In response, the
bells were looted from the church by U.S personnel weeks after the attack and were sent back to
the continental United States as memorials of the war68
. News of American atrocities in the
Philippines reached home, and anti-imperialist sentiment began to spread as newspapers wrote
on the violence. U.S. military leaders would often deny that their soldiers were committing war
crimes, and would court martial soldiers who spoke out about what they had seen69
. General
Funston believed that the enemy they fought had no concept of honor, and were using their fight
for independence to battle the Anglo-Saxon value of order70
. Theodore Roosevelt, who became
president after President McKinley's assassination in 1901, commented on the allegations of
American war crimes by claiming that the Filipinos were ignorant savages alongside the
American Indians and the Chinese71
. He believed that granting Aguinaldo's request for
independence would be akin to granting self-governance to an Indian chief. Like Funston,
66 Silbey, 172
67 Hunt and Levine, 55
68 Alido, Kimberly, "When I Get Home, I Want to Forget": Memory and Amnesia in the
Occupied Philippines,1901-1904, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 108
69 Bain, 86
70 Bain, 87
71 Bain, 88

20. 20
Roosevelt accused critics of the Philippine war with siding with savagery by giving aid and
comfort to "Chinese half-breeds72
."
While American politicians struggled to keep up public support for the war, Filipino
nationalists had their own problems in reaching out to their audience. One reason for the failure
of Aguinaldo's forces to repulse the American occupation was the crimes committed by
insurgents against occupied villages. Insurgents, mirroring the anti-insurgent tactics of the U.S.
military, torched the houses of Filipino civilians suspected of collaborating with U.S. forces.
They also routinely tortured and executed suspected traitors within their own ranks, including
high ranking officials73
. Aguinaldo attempted to stop the assassinations of Filipino leaders who
were caught working for the Americans, but his commander Jose Alejandrino ordered the
execution of all government officials suspected of supporting the American occupation and
Filipinos accused of spying for the Americans74
. The executions helped turn Filipino leaders
against the insurgents, who began to withdraw their support for the resistance. Filipino civilians
were caught between the atrocities committed by American soldiers and insurgents, and often
feared both groups75
.
After President McKinley's re-election in 1900, William Taft argued that the American
occupation should shift its tone. He argued that a civil government should be established which
would gain Filipino support and would decrease sympathy for the revolution76
. Meanwhile,
Aguinaldo's constant flight from American forces eroded what remained of his public support
and damaged his ability to lead his country. By March 1901, the President of the Philippine
72 Hunt and Levine, 55
73 Linn, 176
74 Linn, 194
75 Alidio, 112.
76 Salamanca, 31

21. 21
Republic had finally been captured. He agreed publicly to end his resistance movement and to
accept the occupation of the Philippines, recognizing that his forces not only lacked military
strength but also Filipino support to continue his mission77
. In June of that year, the U.S. military
governor was relieved of his duties over pacified provinces, and had his duties given to the
President of the Philippine Commission78
. With the exception of the Moro provinces, all of the
Philippines were placed under the authority of the civil government. In July 1902, President
Roosevelt declared the Philippine-American war over. With the end of the military rule and the
establishment of the Philippine territory the war finally ended and the process of Filipino-
American reconciliation could begin.
XI. Conclusion
In the beginning, American military leaders and political leaders refused to believe that
the Filipinos were capable of self-determination. Supporters of the occupation believed that it
would be up to the United States government to re-educate the natives and restore order to the
islands. American soldiers fighting the insurgency were hesitant to take on the role of occupier,
and wanted to return back to the States79
. They believed that those Filipinos loyal to America
were mainly merchants and wealthy planters who supported them out of fear or opportunity in
the new occupation government80
. The suspicion of the local population held by U.S. troops
along with their racial bias led to the use of violence against civilians. The exact amount of dead
from the Philippine war is not fully known, but it is estimated that between two hundred
thousand and one million Filipinos died out of a population of seven to eight million, most of
77 Hunt and Levine, 50
78 Bonafacio
79 Feuer, 85
80 Linn, 82

22. 22
whom were civilians, who died from food shortages or from disease outbreaks81
.
Despite the war's official end in 1902, major military operations were conducted in the
Visayan islands from 1905 to 1907, and operations in Mindanao did not end until 1911.
Reconciliation between the Filipinos and the Americans quickly deepened after the war.
Americans taught a large number of Filipinos English, giving them a unified language that could
be used for both commerce and governance82
. Filipino officials were given limited powers under
the occupation, and U.S. officials kept a mostly hands-off approach to their rule83
. By the time of
the Second World War, the Filipino people were considered to be close allies of the United
States. The memory of the destruction caused by the Philippine-American war would be
supplanted by American cooperation with Filipino interests and the recognition of their desire for
political independence.
81 Hunt and Levine, 58
82 Silbey, 211
83 Silbey, 208