Consequences of Empire: The Filipino Rebellion

By Prof. Peter Kuznick, Ph.D. (History Department – American University)

When the dust of the Spanish-American war had settled, the United States had secured the beginnings
of an overseas empire, having annexed Hawaii and acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines
from Spain. The Philippines were viewed as an ideal refueling stop for China-bound ships. After
wavering about what to do with the islands, walking the White House floor night after night and praying
for guidance, President William McKinley opted for annexation, seizing upon the opportunity to civilize
one of the world’s “inferior” races, which Rudyard Kipling referred to as “the white man’s burden”. On
December 21, 1898, McKinley announced to Congress that the United States was pursuing a policy of
“benevolent assimilation” in the Philippines would be under the direct control of the US government
and military until the Filipinos could outwardly prove that they could rule themselves. Critics of the
policy in the US and around the globe called it what it looked like: occupation and annexation by a
foreign power.

Under the leadership of revolutionary-military hero Emilio Aguinaldo, the Filipinos had been rebelling
against Spanish rule for years, much like their compatriots in Cuba had been. To them, the entrance of
the United States into their rebellion for independence had been seen originally as a blessing. Under
the protection of American guns and warships, Filipino delegates drafted a Declaration of Independence
from Spain modeled on Jefferson’s words and established a republic modeled on the US Constitution in
June 1898 shortly after the defeat of the Spanish. Aguinaldo was soon elected the first President and
was hailed by his people as the “George Washington of the Philippines” having blazed a similar path
from farmer, to revolutionary, to general, to President. Few in the Philippines doubted that the US
presence in their nation was to make sure that the Spanish and their collaborators were expelled and
that a new republic would be secure.

The situation changed drastically on February 4 when US forces opened fire near a bridge in Manila (the
capital city of the Philippines). Under the policy of benevolent assimilation, the regular and insurgent
Filipino armies were to surrender both their weapons and their positions to US military officials. When
two Filipino officers refused to do so at a bridge in Manila, an American Pvt. William W. Grayson shot
and killed both men, triggering an all-out battle in the streets of Manila between US and Filipino forces.
The US yellow press mass-media reported this as an unprovoked attack on US soldiers in which 22
Americans were killed and 125-200 wounded. Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World observed that the
United States was “suddenly, without warning, face to face with the actualities of empire…To rule, we
must conquer. To conquer, we must kill.” Pressure mounted on members of Congress to support US
troops. Gen. Charles Grosvenor, a Congressman from Ohio, declared, “They have fired on our flag. They
have killed our soldiers. The blood of the slain cries from the ground for vengeance.”

The Senate hotly debated what should be done regarding approving or denying President McKinley’s
plan for annexing the Philippines. Sen. George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts warned that the US would
become, “a vulgar, commonplace empire founded on physical force, controlling subject races and vassal
states, in which one class must forever rule and the other classes must forever obey.” After much arm-
twisting and assurances that this did not entail permanent US control of the Philippines, the plan for
annexation was ratified by a margin of one vote over the two-thirds needed. Sen. Hoar later observed,
the United States “crushed the Republic that the Philippine people set ups for themselves, deprived
them of their independence, and established there, by American power, a Government in which the
people have no part, against their will.” Sen. Richard Pettigrew called this betrayal of Filipino
Independence “the greatest international crime of the century.”

Filipinos overwhelmingly supported the rebels and provided them food and shelter. The Americans,
some of whom employed the tactics they had perfected fighting Native Americans, responded with
extraordinary brutality. Following one ambush by Filipino insurgents, Gen. Lloyd Wheaton ordered all
towns within a 12-mile radius destroyed and all their inhabitants killed. When Filipino insurgents
surprised the Americans stationed at Balangiga on the island of Samar, killing fifty-four of the seventy-
four men there, Col. Jacob Smith ordered his troops to kill everyone over the age of ten and turn the
island into “a howling wilderness”. Ironically, the US troops resorted to similar methods pursued by the
Spanish on the island of Cuba: to locate and separate insurgent Filipinos, they rounded up entire villages
and placed them in “re-concentration camps.”

One of the most vigorous backers of the US annexation of the Philippines was Sen. Albert Beveridge of
Indiana. Beveridge visited the Philippines to get a firsthand look at the situation. The only senator to
have actually visited the Philippines, his views were eagerly anticipated. He addressed a crowded
Senate chamber in early January 1900, offering one of the most colorful, blunt, and chauvinistic
defenses on record of US foreign policy:

“The Philippines are ours forever…This island is the last land left in all the oceans…Our largest
trade henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. More and more Europe will
manufacture the most it needs, secure from its colonies the most it consumes. Where shall we
turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural
customer…The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East…Most future wars will be
conflicts for commerce. The power that rules the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the
world. And, with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic! God
has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the
world. This is the divine mission of America and it holds for us al the profit, all the glory, all the
happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous
peace. The judgement of the Master is upon us: ‘Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will
make you ruler over many things.”

Soon after this speech, Secretary of State John Hay issued the American policy for equal access to
China’s markets to prevent one or a few European nations from partitioning up the nation for
themselves. It became known as the “Open Door Policy.” Soon after, Chinese nationalists rose up in
rebellion requiring an eight-nation military response including US troops.

Thus the 1900 election between McKinley and William Jennings Bryan took place with US troops tied
down in China, Cuba, and the Philippines. At the Democratic National Convention, Bryan defined the
contest as a fight between “democracy on one hand and plutocracy [government by the wealthy] on the
other” and he launched into an impassion attack on imperialism. In his booming baritone, he aligned his
opposition to imperial conquest with the philosophies of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln,
quoting Jefferson: “If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every
American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.” On the other hand, McKinley and his
Vice Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt stated that prosperity had returned to the US and that
any “insurgency” would not last long. American troops would be home soon with victory in hand. Order
would be restored to the Philippines and their people would be made better due to American
occupation and intervention. The voting public, by a narrow margin, seemed at least to acquiesce to the
new imperial course laid out by McKinley and his advisors.

Roosevelt’s claims turned out to be a lie. McKinley was well-aware that the situation in the Philippines
was continuing to deteriorate and that it would take much more manpower and time for any type of
order to be restored by American force. Sec. of War Elihu Root (in his memoirs) wrote that he had been
ordered to table a report regarding the difficult position the US military was facing in the Philippines
until after the election. According to his commanding General Arthur MacArthur in the Philippines, “the
war is not lessening and there is no end in sight.” MacArthur went on to warn that the Filipinos were
honing their guerilla tactics which would prove more deadly to US forces in the long run. Much like the
Pentagon Papers would demonstrate during the Vietnam War nearly 70 years later, the American
government and military went to great lengths to cover up the truth from its people

After the election, Philippine atrocity stories began to circulate, replete with lurid accounts of murder,
rape, and torture. In November 1901, the Philadelphia Ledger’s Manila correspondent reported:

The present war is no bloodless, fake, comedic opera engagement. Our men have been
relentless; have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active
insurgents and suspected people, from lads of ten and up, and idea prevailing that the Filipino,
as such, was little better than a dog…whose best disposition was the rubbish heap. Our soldiers
have pumped salt water down the throats of men to “make them talk,” have taken prisoner
people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom
of evidence to show that they were even insurrectors, stood them on a bridge and shot them
down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down as an example to those who
found their bullet-riddled corpses.

One soldier sent the following account to the Omaha World-Herald:

Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in
the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don’t give up pour in
another pail. They swell up like toads. I’ll tell you its terrible torture.

This method, taught by the Spanish to American troops in the interregnum period between Spanish
transfer of power to US hands, was known as “the water cure” in the 1890s. In the 21 st century it is
called “waterboarding”.

Fighting persisted for three and a half years before President Theodore Roosevelt simply declared the
islands “pacified”. The US deployed a total of 126,000 troops, 4,734 of whom did not make it back home
alive. The toll among Filipinos was much higher – perhaps 20,000 guerillas and at least 200,000 civilians,
many from cholera. Americans comforted themselves with the thought that they had spread civilization
to a backward people, but at a hefty price -- $400 million. In 1902, Congress passed the Philippine
Organic Act which established the Commission (American men hand-picked by President Roosevelt) to
make all executive and legislative decisions for the Philippine islands and its people; Filipinos would not
get to choose their own elected representatives in a lower house until 1907 and its decisions were still
subject to approval by the Commission. It would take until 1916 for the Philippines to achieve
“commonwealth status” within the US sphere of influence and allow for the direct election of Filipino
Senators to replace the Commission. The Governor-General of the Philippines, however, remained an
American. Not until the end of World War II in 1946 would the Philippines be “declared by the US” an
independent republic – nearly 60 years after it began its independence movement from Spain.
Name:____________________________ Date:_____________________

Consequences of Empire: The Filipino Rebellion – Analysis/Reflection

Directions: Please read over the attached article; when you have finished please answer the
questions that follow.

1. Assess your level of knowledge concerning this event in American history. Have you heard of
this event? If yes, please discuss how the article may have enhanced your previous knowledge.
If this is the first time you’ve heard of this, what are your initial thoughts after reading it?

2. Historians have a hard time understanding McKinley’s motives on the decision to annex the
Philippines under “benevolent assimilation”. McKinley took few notes, did not keep a diary, and
due to his assassination in 1901 he never got to write his memoirs. There are three commonly
accepted historical projections about McKinley’s motives:
a) his deeply religious beliefs convinced him that he was doing “God’s will”
b) he had sinister/ulterior motives (acquiring a geographically strategic location filled
with natural resources to enrich the US)
c) he was a “neoconservative” ahead of his time (an active promoter of democracy and

American values abroad with a penchant for intervening in foreign affairs – think
President George W. Bush)

Which category would you classify McKinley under if these were the only three options
available? Please just choose ONE and explain your answer.
3. Where did you see evidence of the “jingoistic yellow press” of American mass media playing its
role in this article? Please list/describe an example.

4. On the other hand, what might be a reason why a newspaper like the Philadelphia Ledger print a
story about American atrocities being committed (especially at a time when extreme
nationalism was being demanded)? Think about your answer and explain it below.

5. Can US tactics of trying to suppress a rebellion in unfamiliar territory be justified (including the
re-concentration camps, “water-curing”, mass-murder)? Please explain your answer.
6. Why do you think it took a greater amount of time to “pacify” a rebellion in the Philippines
compared to the relative speed/ease it took to defeat the Spanish in the Spanish-American
War? Please discuss your answer below.

7. In the end, how might the annexation/occupation/actions and cost of the counter-insurgency of
the Philippines acted as THE “trigger moment” for groups like the Anti-Imperialist League to
form and propagate their ideas? Please explain your answer.