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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Philippine–American War (1899–1902)

Philippine–American War

Philippine-American-war
The American war of conquest in the Philippines included killing all males over ten in some villages.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johntewell/with/6864077772/


Philippine-American War: Malolos -- April 1899
The American Military forces invade the town of Malolos in Bulacan in April of 1899.
To see how this street (and the building on the left) looks today, seerally65.multiply.com/journal/item/27


Stolen church bells from Union and South Ilocos, 1899-1900 .jpg

Original writing next to this photograph is:
These bells stolen from towns in Union and South Ilocos were carried to Sablan by Filipino insurgents with the intention of starting a gun foundry. There were also brought in a boiler and some pieces of machinery. The enormous task was accomplished by Igorotes, many of whom have been said to have been shot in order to frighten the others into working harder.

Original print is the property of the University of Michigan Library Special Collections


A crowded room in a cigar factory, women and girls making cigars, Manila, Philippines, early 20th Century
H. C. White Company



Group under the pine trees, Baguio, Benguet, Philippines, c1900

This is a photocopy of an actual page in a photograph album of Dean C. Worcester

There are some that believe that Pine trees are not natural to Baguio. That there were no pine trees there before the Americans came. Anyone that has a good understanding of natural habitat, of plants and animals that have inhabited a given area that fits their pacific needs to thrive and propagate would not need photographic proof that pine trees probably predate man by thousands of years in the Baguio area. With this photograph taken and documented in 1900 of Americans resting under mature pine trees where Baguio City is today is proof that pine trees were present when they arrived.

Persons in the photograph are identified as:
Dr. Frank S. Bourns, General Wright, Otto Sheerer's boy, Lieutenant in command of escort, Otto Scheerer, myself (Dean C. Worcester), Horace L. Higgins of the Manila & Dagupan Railway, an Igorote.

This photo album is in the University of Michigan, Special Collections. To view this page at its source go here:
quod.lib.umich.edu/s/sclphilimg/x-1758/PHLA025?chaperone=...



Group under the pine trees, Baguio, Benguet, Philippines, c1900

This is a photocopy of an actual page in a photograph album of Dean C. Worcester

There are some that believe that Pine trees are not natural to Baguio. That there were no pine trees there before the Americans came. Anyone that has a good understanding of natural habitat, of plants and animals that have inhabited a given area that fits their pacific needs to thrive and propagate would not need photographic proof that pine trees probably predate man by thousands of years in the Baguio area. With this photograph taken and documented in 1900 of Americans resting under mature pine trees where Baguio City is today is proof that pine trees were present when they arrived.

Persons in the photograph are identified as:
Dr. Frank S. Bourns, General Wright, Otto Sheerer's boy, Lieutenant in command of escort, Otto Scheerer, myself (Dean C. Worcester), Horace L. Higgins of the Manila & Dagupan Railway, an Igorote.

This photo album is in the University of Michigan, Special Collections. To view this page at its source go here:
quod.lib.umich.edu/s/sclphilimg/x-1758/PHLA025?chaperone=...


US Army dozers cleaning up the mess in front of War destroyed Pier 7, Manila, Philippines, 1945 .jpg



A young married couple of the Bagobos tribe, in the Philippine Village, St. Louis World's Fair, USA, 1904
This photograph is in the US Library of Congress collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johntewell/page7/

http://www.historyguy.com/PhilipineAmericanwar.html#.T4xEArM9Vfs



U.S. Marines in Combat During the Philippine-American War (1899-1902)

This was America's first true colonial war as a world power. After defeating Spain in Cuba and in the Philippines in 1898, the U.S. purchased the Philippines, Puerto Rico and several other islands from the Spanish. However, the Filipinos had been fighting a bloody revolution against Spain since 1896, and had no intention of becoming a colony of another imperialist power. In February of 1899, fighting broke out between the occupying American Army and the Filipino forces.


"I am not afraid, and am always ready to do my duty, but I would like some one to tell me what we are fighting for."--Arthur H. Vickers, Sergeant in the First Nebraska Regiment



"Talk about war being 'hell,' this war beats the hottest estimate ever made of that locality. Caloocan was supposed to contain seventeen thousand inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native. Of the buildings, the battered walls of the great church and dismal prison alone remain. The village of Maypaja, where our first fight occurred on the night of the fourth, had five thousand people on that day, -- now not one stone remains upon top of another. You can only faintly imagine this terrible scene of desolation. War is worse than hell."--Captain Elliott, of the Kansas Regiment, February 27th

*Quotes are from "Soldier's Letters...", part of an anti-imperialism website formerly operated and edited by the late Jim Zwick.

OF CONFLICT: The Philippine-American War



ALTERNATE NAMES: The Philippine Insurrection (US), The Philippine War of Independence (Phil)


BELLIGERENTS:

The United States
vs.

The Philippines

DATES OF CONFLICT:

BEGAN: February 4, 1899
ENDED: July 4, 1902 (This is the "official" end of the war, as proclaimed by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Fighting continued on several islands for years to come.)

TYPE(S) OF CONFLICT: Inter-State (From the Philippine perspective) and Colonial (From the American perspective).



RELATED CONFLICTS:

PREDECESSOR: The Philippine Revolution of 1896 (1896-1898), The Spanish-American War (1898)
CONCURRENT: The Boxer Rebellion (1900)

SUCCESSOR: The Moro Wars (1902-1913?)


CAUSES OF CONFLICT:

The basic causes of the Philippine-American War can be found in the U.S. government's quest for an overseas empire and the desire of the Filipino people for freedom. In other words, this war was a clash between the forces of imperialism and nationalism.


After centuries as a Spanish colony, a revolution led in part by Emilio Aguinaldo broke out in 1896 in the Philippine Islands. After fighting a savage guerilla war for two and a half years, the Filipinos suddenly found themselves in a seemingly advantageous position as allies of the United States. In 1898, Spain fought a losing war with the United States in which her colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam were overrun with relative ease by the U.S. Army and her Atlantic Fleet devastated outside of Santiago, Cuba. Similarly, Spain's Pacific Fleet was wiped out in the Battle of Manila Bay, and American troops landed on the outskirts of the capitol city.

Following the surrender of the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines to American military forces in August,1898, tensions developed between U.S. and Filipino forces near Manila. The American government decided to keep the Philippines as a colony, thereby denying independence to the Filipino people. Aguinaldo and his army of nearly 80,000 veteran troops realized that their "allies" in the Spanish War would soon become foes.


DESCRIPTION OF CONFLICT:

As early 1899, U.S. and Filipino forces faced off as a tense situation became worse. American forces held the capitol of Manila, while Aguinaldo's army occupied a trench-line surrounding the city. On the evening of February 4, 1899, Private William Grayson of the Nebraska Volunteers fired the first shot in what would turn out to be a very bloody war. Grayson shot at a group of Filipinos approaching his position, provoking an armed response. Shooting soon spread up and down the ten-mile U.S.-Filipino lines, causing hundreds of casualties. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, U.S. troops, supported by shelling from Admiral Dewey's fleet, quickly overwhelmed the Filipino positions while inflicting thousands of casualties. Within days, American forces spread outward from Manila, using superior firepower, mobile artillery and command of the sea to full effect.


By November of 1899, Aguinaldo and his forces had been pushed further and further into central Luzon (the main Philippine island) and he realized he could not fight the Americans with conventional military units. At this point, he ordered his followers to turn to guerilla tactics to combat the American army. From this point on, the war became a savage, no-holds-barred guerilla conflict made up of ambushes, massacres and retribution. Both sides engaged in wanton violence and slaughter. Villages were destroyed, civilians murdered, prisoners tortured and mutilated along with a host of other atrocities. Many American officers and non-coms had served in the Indian Wars, and thus applied the old belief that "the only good Indian was a dead Indian" to their relations with the Filipinos. This attitude of course was reciprocated by the native forces.

Emilio Aguinaldo was captured in March, 1902, and organized opposition from his followers soon faded. Despite the official end to hostilities proclaimed on July 4, 1902, individual tribes in Luzon and the Muslim Moros of the southern islands launched further uprisings for another decade or so.

http://philippineamericanwar.webs.com/thelastholdouts.htm

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