CONFLICTS BETWEEN AMERICANS AND MOROS DURING THE PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR

Due to marginalization produced by continuous Resettlement Policy sustained at start of

Mindanao and Sulu inclusion to the Philippine Commonwealth territory of 1935, by 1969,

political tensions and open hostilities developed between the Government of the Philippines

and Moro Muslim rebel groups. The developing Moro Insurgency was ultimately triggered by

the Jabidah Massacre, which saw the killing of 60 Filipino Muslim commandos on a planned

operation to reclaim the eastern part of the Malaysian state of Sabah. In response, the

University of the Philippines professor Nur Misuari established the Moro National Liberation

Front (MNLF), an armed insurgent group that was committed to establishing an independent

entity composed of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan.

The root of the conflict originates in the Spanish and American Wars against the Moros.

Following the Spanish-American War in 1898, another conflict sparked in southern Philippines

and the United States military that took place between 1899 and 1913. Filipinos opposed

foreign rule from the United States, which claimed the Philippines as its territory. On 14 August

1898, after defeating Spanish general Wesley Meritt as military governor. American forces took

control from the Spanish general John C. Bates was sent to negotiate a treaty with the sultan of

Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II. Kiram was disappointed by the American take over, as he expected to

regain sovereignty after the defeat of Spanish forces in the archipelago. Bates main goal was to

guarantee moro neutrality in the Philippine-American War, and to establish order in the

Southern Philippines. After negotiation, the Bates treaty was signed which was based on earlier

Spanish Treaty. The Bates treaty did ensure the neutrality of the Muslims in the South, but it
was actually set up to buy time for the Americans until the war in the North ended. After the

war, in 1915, the Americans imposed the carpenter treaty on Sulu.

Repeated rebellions by the Moros against American rule continued to break out even

after the main Moro Rebellion ended, right up to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines,

the Moros waged an insurgency against the Japanese on Mindanao and Sulu until Japan

surrendered in 1945. Moro Juramentados attacked the Spanish, Americans, Philippine

Constabulary and the Japanese.