Openendedsocialstudies has a unit for teaching middle or high school classrooms about the history of Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, and controversial leader Daniel Ortega. Find free readings, guided questions, and lesson plan ideas on the following subjects:
A Basic History of Nicaragua: A basic overview of Nicaraguan history and culture through the end of the modern period, with a focus on the post-colonial period.
William Walker, the Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny: William Walker was an American who organized several private military expeditions into Latin America with the intention of establishing English-speaking colonies under his personal control, an enterprise then known as “filibustering.”
Augusto Sandino, National Hero: From 1927 until 1933, Gen. Augusto César Sandino led a sustained guerrilla war first against the Conservative regime and subsequently against the U.S. Marines, whom he fought for over five years. He was referred to as a “bandit” by the United States government; his exploits made him a hero throughout much of Latin America, where he became a symbol of resistance to United States’ domination.
The Sandinistas: The Sandinista National Liberation Front – also called the Sandinistas – are a former guerrilla army and ruling party of Nicaragua. Following a decade of single party rule, they submitted to free and fair elections in 1990, ushering in Nicaragua’s current period of period of peace, democratic stability, and relative prosperity after decades of corrupt dictatorship, civil war, and domination by the U.S. and its corporations.
One great way for students to develop a deeper understanding of a concept is to have them teach others.
Choose any section from this unit and develop a lesson – in the form of a presentation, a storybook, or a worksheet – that teaches younger students about some aspect of Nicaragua’s history. Make sure the material is age appropriate in content and approach, and create some simple questions to check your audience’s understanding.
Find more free lessons on Nicaragua at Openendsocialstudies.org.
There are also plenty of free lessons featuring other peoples from world history.
Examine the Soviet propaganda posters on this page and answer the following questions.
What were the primary Soviet critiques of the United States, and what symbols did these posters use to communicate them?
Do you find any of this criticism of the United States convincing?
Is there value in studying a rival’s propaganda against your own country?
Is there danger in studying a rival’s propaganda against your own country?
Propaganda like this shaped the Soviet people’s view of the United States. Imagine you are an American – how would you explain the criticisms leveled in these posters to a Soviet citizen?
Often, the qualities we criticize in others reveal something about how we see ourselves. What do Soviet criticisms about the United States reveal about their own national self-image?
“Orchestra.” E. Gelms, 1953.“Dollar.” E. Gelms, 1953.“Peace.” E. Gelms, 1953.“According to the Old Fascist Road.” V, Briskin, 1953.“The Goal of Capitalism.” B. Semenov, 1953.“U.S. Diplomats.” V. Briskin, 1953.“Washington’s Pigeon.” B. Efimov, 1953.“In the Soviet Union – in the United States.” V. Briskin / M. Ivanov, 1953.“Friendship, American-style.” V. Briskin, 1954.“Freedom is not for the People.” K. Vladimirov, 1957.“U.S. Deputy Career.” V. Slychenko, 1958.“Remember Hiroshima.” B. Prorokhov, 1959.“Untitled.” K. Georgiev, 1963.“First Lesson.” K. Georgiev, 1964.“Stop the Killers.” E. Arcrunyan, 1965.“Jail.” V. Koretsky / Y. Kershin, 1968.“In the Concrete Jungle.” A. Zhitomirsky, 1970.“American ‘Freedom – 70.'” B. Efimov, 1970.
The Mexica – more commonly known in the English-speaking world as the Aztec – are today remembered as fierce warriors, conquerors of a great Mesoamerican empire still in ascendancy when the Spanish arrived to upset the balance of power in Central America. The Mexica themselves were upstarts in the chaotic and ever-shifting world of central Mexico some five hundred years ago. Until the early 1400s, they were an unremarkable and put-upon faction among the Nahua, the larger linguistic and cultural group to which the Mexica belonged.
Through a stunning reversal (to be covered in future issues) the Mexica came to dominate the Nahua world. Though they had once toiled in the mud to pay their mightier neighbors humble tribute, within the space of a single generation – and under the direction of a great warrior and politician named Tlacaelel – the Mexica now commanded a tributary empire of their own, the likes of which ancient Mexico had never seen. In this newly constituted Mexica empire, people were taught to remember their place in the strict social hierarchy, which extended from the lowliest laborers all the way up to the emperor Tlacaelel and beyond.
This was a time and place in which a people’s particular gods were thought to demand a cut of any good fortune, from a harvest to the spoils of war – for services rendered, as benefactors to the lowly tribes of mortal men who depended on such gods for their very survival. Like all of the Nahua people, the Mexica believed that the current world – existence as we know it, which they referred to as the Fifth Sun – would end in violence and destruction, just as the gods’ previous four doomed attempts at creation had ended.
It was the new emperor Tlacaelel who credited the god Huitzilopochtli, long their patron, with the meteoric rise of the Mexica people. In a sweeping reformation of the traditional Nahua religion befitting the stunning realignment of power in the Nahua world, Tlacaelel elevated Huitzilopochtli to the same level as other ancient gods such as Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc.
Huitzilopochtli became of the Mexica god of war, sun, human sacrifice, and the patron of their grand capital city Tenochtitlan. Every day, relentlessly and without mercy, Huitzilopochtli – in his role as the life-giving sun and champion of the Mexica people – vanquished the abyssal night that threatened to consume the world. The daily sunrise was viewed as another victory in the celestial war against darkness, the moon (Coyolxauhqui), and the stars (centzon huitznahua).
But his success was no foregone conclusion. Under Tlacaelel, the Mexica came to believe that it was their duty and obligation to give strength to Huitzilopochtli and thereby postpone the end of the Fifth Sun. This favorable outcome could only be ensured through the sacrificial offering of human blood.
This blood came in two main ways. First, on a daily basis priests and the Mexica emperor himself would prick themselves ritually with tiny cactus needles, driven into their own ears, tongues, and chests. Second, and most spectacularly, on sacred festival days during the year, humans were sacrificed on the Templo Mayor in the ritual center of Tenochtitlan, their beating hearts extracted from their living bodies by expert priests using sharp obsidian knives, before their heads were decapitated in a ritual patterned on Huitzilopochtli’s murder of his sister, Coyolxauhqui.
For the Mexica, war and the empire they gained through conquest was an important source not just of material wealth, but of human tribute to be offered up in this way to Huitzilopochtli. For this reason, the capture of prisoners of war was typically prized over the killing of enemies in battle. Similarly, in addition to the material wealth paid annually to the Mexica by conquered peoples – quetzal feathers, gold, chocolate, coffee, seashells, and other valuable commodities – the Mexica typically required a set number of human offerings to be sent to Tenochtitlan from subject nations.
The pyramid-shaped Templo Mayor at the center of Tenochtitlan was a symbolic representation of the mountain of Coatepec, where, according to Mexica myth, Huitzilopochtli was born. Here, Huitzilopochtli had emerged from his mother Coatlicue fully grown and fully armed to battle his sister Coyolxauhqui and her brothers the Centzon Huitznahua who intended to kill him and their mother. Huitzilopochtli was victorious, slaying and dismembering his sister. Her body was then thrown to the bottom of the hill.
Just as Huitzilopochtli triumphed at the top of the mountain while his sister was dismembered and fell to pieces below, so Huitzilopochtli’s temple and icon sat triumphantly at the top of the Templo Mayor while a carving of the dismembered goddess lay far below at the pyramid’s base. Nearby, a large skull rack held the decapitated heads of hundreds of sacrificial victims, recalling the way Coyolxuaqui’s head had been cast into the sky and remained on display as the moon.
When the Mexica sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli, the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone at the summit of the Templo Mayor. The priest would then cut through the abdomen with an obsidian or flint blade rivaling a modern surgical knife in sharpness. The heart would be torn out – still beating – and held towards the sky in honor to Huitzilopochtli. The body would be carried away, down the steep steps of the temple, and either cremated or given to the warrior responsible for the capture of the victim. This warrior might then cut the body in pieces and send them to important people as an offering, or use the pieces for ritual cannibalism. The warrior would thus ascend one step in the hierarchy of the Mexica social classes, a system that most keenly rewarded successful warriors.
Who knows? If that warrior were successful enough in battle – bringing back to Tenochtitlan enough captives for sacrifice at the Templo Mayor – he might be inducted into such knightly orders as the Jaguars or the Eagles. He would then know true honor and prestige.
For he had played a part in saving the world; keeping it spinning upon its axis; in ensuring that the sun would rise another day. It is tempting to call the Mexica brutal, and maybe it is true that in the name of Huitzilopochtli they relished war and reveled in the shedding of blood… Would it have been nobler to let the Fifth Sun – the very world as we know it – come to some cataclysmic end?
Knowing that you could have prevented the end of life on Earth – and failing to act, whether from weakness, or squeamishness, or dereliction of duty – that would have been the true definition of brutality.
Most great civilizations have an organizing myth – a story they tell themselves to explain their way of life. For example, in the modern United States, Americans tell themselves that their country exists as a selfless champion of democracy – as maybe the best thing that has ever happened to the world, even if the cost preserving that democracy is violence and war. For the Mexica, if their civilization did not conquer and sacrifice in the name of the sun god Huitzilopochtli, the world itself would come shuddering to an end.
Thus, the story of Huitzilopochtli became one of the driving beliefs of Mexica civilization. This powerful imperative gave rise to one of the great Native American civilizations, the mighty Mexica Empire, who used it to rationalize their dramatic rise and dominance over their neighbors in Central Mexico.
But that’s a story for next issue…
Activities
For discussion and research: What are some of the stories associated with the founding and history of your country? Find out which ones are based on fact, and which ones are based in myth? Are the myths ever presented as fact in your society? To school children? Why would myths be represented as truth? Who would benefit from this misrepresentation?
Research and plan a realistic one week travel itinerary in and around modern day Mexico City that focuses specifically on its Mexica, pre-Mexica, and colonial histories. Explain the historical or cultural relevance of your choices. Present the final itinerary with photos and estimated costs for the whole trip.
Create an illustrated glossary of English loan words from Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica. Consider the following questions: Why have these particular words come over into English and not others? Examine the history of this language in general – where did the written form of this language come from? Is Nahuatl still spoken, and if so, by whom?
Create a short comic book illustrating a story of one of the Mexican gods such as Quetzalcoatl or Huitzilopochtli. Much of what we know about life in Tenochtitlan comes from the so-called Aztec Codices. These are heavily or entirely illustrated works – in a sense, similar to modern comic books – dating from before and just after contact with the Spanish in the 16th century. Study the lush, colorful art in these codices and try to imitate this style in your retelling. Consider the following questions: How does this fit in with what I’ve already learned about Mexica culture and belief? How does this story compare with the myths and legends of other world cultures?
Aside from fire, what other examples of indigenous Americans shaping their environment does Denevan cite? Follow one of the links in the relevant portion of this passage and explain one of these techniques or accomplishment in greater detail.
Why did so many Europeans and their descendants fail to recognize the ways that Native Americans purposefully shaped the land?
How did Native Americans use fire?
How did Europeans achieve the same or similar goals using different techniques?
Could any of these Native American techniques be applied today?
The Pristine Myth
“There were not really very many of these redmen … the land seemed empty to invaders who came from settled Europe . . . that ancient, primeval, undisturbed wilderness . . . the streams simply boiled with fish … so much game . . . that one hunter counted a thousand animals near a single salt lick … the virgin wilderness of Kentucky … the forested glory of primitive America.” – John Bakeless, The Eyes of Discovery, 1950.
In fact, Bakeless’s portrayal of Native Americans as passive in their environment – as little more than wild animals inhabiting a niche in an ecosystem – couldn’t be more wrong. Various groups of Native Americans shaped North and South America for millennia before modern Americans started paving the forests to put up parking lots.
Historical ecologist William M. Denevan was one of the first scholars to recognize and describe the ways in which Native Americans, just like Europeans, shaped the environments in which they found themselves. In a seminal book, he called the idea that Native Americans had not significantly impacted the landscape of the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans “the pristine myth.” To support his case, Denevan cited the many mounds, causeways, roads, terraces, and cultivated forests in both North and South America – as well as ample evidence that Native Americans used fire as a versatile tool to control and shape their environment.
Purposefully set fires helped promote valuable resources and habitats that sustained indigenous cultures, economies, traditions, and livelihoods. The cumulative ecological impacts of Native American fire use over time has resulted in a mosaic of grasslands and forests across North America that was once widely perceived by early European explorers, trappers, and settlers as untouched, pristine wilderness.
It is now recognized that the original American landscape was already humanized at the time that the first Europeans arrived.
The Indian’s Vespers by Asher Brown Durand was painted in 1847. As part of the so-called Hudson River School of romantic painters, Durand often portrayed the American wilderness as a primeval state of nature, untouched by the hands of man. Here, in keeping with the idea that Native American lived in harmony with nature, accepting its bounty while leaving almost no footprint on the land, a Native American prays toward the rising sun.
Eleven major reasons for Native American ecosystem burning:
Hunting
The burning of large areas was useful to divert big game (deer, elk, bison) into small unburned areas for easier hunting and provide open prairies/meadows (rather than brush and tall trees) where animals (including ducks and geese) like to dine on fresh, new grass sprouts. Fire was also used to drive game into impoundments, narrow chutes, into rivers or lakes, or over cliffs where the animals could be killed easily. Some tribes used a surround or circle fire to force rabbits and game into small areas. The Seminoles even practiced hunting alligators with fire. Torches were used to spot deer and attract fish. Smoke was used to drive/dislodge raccoons and bears from hiding.
Crop management
Burning was used to harvest crops, especially tarweed, yucca, greens, and grass seed collection. In addition, fire was used to prevent abandoned fields from growing over and to clear areas for planting corn and tobacco. One report of fire being used to bring rain (overcome drought). Clearing ground of grass and brush was done to facilitate the gathering of acorns. Fire was used to roast mescal and obtain salt from grasses.
Insect collection
Some tribes used a “fire surround” to collect and roast crickets, grasshoppers, Pandora Pinemoths in pine forests, and collect honey from bees.
Pest management
Burning was sometimes used to reduce insects (black flies, ticks, and mosquitos) and rodents, as well as kill mistletoe that invaded mesquite and oak trees and kill the tree moss favored by deer (thus forcing them to the valleys). Fire was also used to kill poisonous snakes.
Improve growth and yields
Fire was often used to improve grass for big game grazing (deer, elk, antelope, bison), horse pasturage, camas reproduction, seed plants, berry plants (especially raspberries, strawberries and huckleberries), and tobacco. Fire was also used to promote plant structure and health, increase the growth of reeds and grasses used as basket materials, beargrass, deergrass, hazel, and willows.
Fireproofing areas
There are some indications that fire was used to protect certain medicine plants by clearing an area around the plants, as well as to fireproof areas, especially around settlements, from destructive wildfires. Fire was also used to keep prairies open from encroaching shrubs and trees.
Warfare and signaling
Indians used fire to deprive the enemy of hiding places in tall grass and underbrush, to destroy enemy property, and to camouflage an escape. Large fires (not the Hollywood version of blankets and smoke) were ignited to signal enemy movements and to gather forces for combat.
Economic extortion
Some tribes also used fire for a “scorched earth” policy to deprive settlers and fur traders from easy access to big game and thus benefiting from being “middlemen” in supplying pemmican and jerky.
Clearing areas for travel
Fire was used to fell trees by boring two intersecting holes into the trunk, then dropping burning charcoal in one hole, allowing the smoke to exit from the other. This method was also used by early settlers. Another way to kill trees was to surround the base with fire, allowing the bark and/or the trunk to burn causing the tree to die (much like girdling) and eventually topple over. Fire also used to kill trees so that it could later be used for dry kindling (willows) and firewood (aspen).
Felling trees
Fire was used to fell trees by boring two intersecting holes into the trunk, then dropping burning charcoal in one hole, allowing the smoke to exit from the other. This method was also used by early settlers. Another way to kill trees was to surround the base with fire, allowing the bark and/or the trunk to burn causing the tree to die (much like girdling) and eventually topple over. Fire also used to kill trees so that it could later be used for dry kindling (willows) and firewood (aspen).
Clearing riparian areas
Fire was commonly used to clear brush from riparian areas and marshes for new grasses and sedges, plant growth (cattails), and tree sprouts (to benefit beaver, muskrats, moose, and waterfowl), including mesquite, cottonwood, and willows.
Many plants have seeds that open only in the extreme heat of a fire. Other plants thrive once the ground is cleared of dead matter, freeing up resources like sunlight and returning nutrients to the soil. Game like deer and rabbits are attracted to this fresh green growth, both increasing their population and attracting them to the location of a Native American’s choice. A controlled burn can also reduce the risk of an out of control wildfire like those seen recently in California. (Photo Credit: Pennsylvania Gaming Commission)
Changes in Native Indian burning practices occurred as Europeans settled across the continent.
Some settlers saw the potential benefits of low intensity, controlled burns, but by and large, they feared and suppressed them as a threat to their homes, farms, and towns.
Meanwhile, as Native American populations collapsed due to disease, violent conquest, and forced removal, the once-cultivated and sculpted green spaces between European settlements became truly wild.
In fact, the “primeval” forest observed by the romantic and transcendentalist writers of the early Nineteenth Century was the product of a catastrophic disruption of Native American society over the previous century by European settlers and conquerors. In other words, the state of primeval nature – the overgrown forests with thick underbrush, overrun with wildlife – as described by such ostensibly perceptive men as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Henry David Thoreau existed because European-style civilization had supplanted Native American-style civilization, and their carefully cultivated wilderness landscapes had fallen into disrepair.
As Denevan puts it, “The pristine image of 1492 seems to be a myth, then, an image more applicable to 1750, following Indian decline.”
Asher Brown Durand’s The First Harvest in the Wilderness is impressed with the majesty of what he saw a untouched nature. However, his painting might more accurately (if less poetically) be titled The First European-style Harvest in the Wilderness.
By the 1880’s, impacts of colonization had devastated indigenous populations, and fire exclusion became more widespread; by the early 20th century fire suppression had become official U.S. federal policy. Understanding how Native Americans used fire pre-settlement provides an important basis for studying and reconstructing subsequent fire regimes throughout the landscape and is critical to correctly interpreting the ecological basis for vegetation distribution.
A section of Everglades National Park that is maintained through periodic controlled burns, which helps rangers consume dead plant material and clear invasive species. (Shark Valley, Florida, 2018.)
The Philippine–American War was an armed conflict between the First Philippine Republic and the United States that lasted from February 4, 1899, to July 2, 1902. While Filipino nationalists viewed the conflict as a continuation of the struggle for independence that began in 1896 with the Philippine Revolution, the U.S. government regarded it as an insurrection. The conflict arose when the First Philippine Republic objected to the terms of the Treaty of Paris under which the United States took possession of the Philippines from Spain, ending the short Spanish–American War. The war resulted in the deaths of at least 200,000 Filipino civilians, mostly due to famine and disease. Some estimates for total civilian dead reach up to 1,000,000. Harper’s Weekly, A Journal of Civilization was a widely read news magazine which offered extensive coverage of the war for its American readers. One of its most prominent correspondents during that war was John F. Bass, the author of this dispatch from Manila in March, 1899, a month after open hostilities between the Filipinos and the occupying American army commenced.
Answer the following questions using details from the text to support your answers:
To whom does Bass assign blame for the war?
What does Bass think of the American project of bringing self-government and civilization to the Philippines?
What are Bass’s ideas about race? How does this shape his understanding of the war?
Does he seem to think that the Americans deserve their bad reputation among the insurgents?
What is the purpose of Bass’s anecdote about the Spaniard?
An excerpt from “In The Trenches” by John F. Bass, originally published in Harper’s Weekly.
Manila, March 9, 1899.
John F. Bass was a correspondent for the American magazine Harper’s Weekly, covering the Philippine-American War from Manila. He is pictured here with a cage full of homing pigeons which he used to file breaking news dispatches from the field.
New comers in Manila keep asking where the blame lies for this outbreak. Is the responsibility alike for American and Filipino deaths with our government or with the leaders of the Filipino people? At such a time as this it is difficult for a good American not to throw the blame on Aguinaldo and his followers. The American army has done so well that one feels like overlooking the past. Although the true cause does not lie within the scope of any generalization, but rather in a multitude of small detached facts, still I believe that the fundamental reason for our present fight lies in an unrestrained race antipathy. Americans differ so absolutely in mind, body, and soul from Filipinos that the two could not live together in harmony under the then existing conditions. First among these conditions was an American and a Filipino volunteer force, both more or less undisciplined and longing to jump at each other’s throats; and, secondly, a want of any consistent policy in our government. Moreover, both American and Filipino leaders have been so provincial in their point of view that at no time during the military occupation of Manila has the least good feeling existed between the American and Filipino governments. We have ignored Aguinaldo and his followers in so far as it is possible to ignore an army which for months has been encircling Manila in a peaceful siege. Aguinaldo has stuck out through thick and thin for the independence of his people. Instead of getting what he wanted, he received the hard-and-fast declaration of our President that the islands were American property, that the army would proceed to take possession of them, and that any one resisting our authority would be suppressed by force of arms. Since this manifesto was issued there has been no hope of a peaceful settlement.
Illustration from Harper’s Weekly, April 24, 1899 edition, drawn by G.W. Peters.
The bone of contention is the sovereignty of the islands. It is said that the Filipinos will not be able to establish a good government, but the same argument would apply to many of our own communities at home which have wretched local self-government. Much as one may dislike the native – and I must say that I have never met with a more unlovable people – it is important occasionally to get his point of view. No doubt the government which the natives would establish would not please the Anglo-Saxon, but would it not be good enough for the natives themselves?
The natives soon learned to dislike us. We plastered the town from end to end with beer and whiskey advertisements. And, so far, Americans who have followed the army have their time and money into saloons. No other business attracts them. According to native standards, the American soldier has been rough and tyrannical, while from our point of view the natives have been tricky and dishonest. The extreme East and the extreme West have learned to hate each other. The importance of these things is great as indicating what the future has in store. The immediate cause of the outbreak was that the insurgent officers and soldiers, being under less control than our men, became so hostile and insulting that we had either to fight or to leave the islands. The outbreak was hastened and made inevitable by the unsettled state of public opinion in the United States, the absence of any fixed policy in Washington, and the consequent contradictory and restricting orders on our local government in Manila. The fact of the matter is that the policy of ignoring the insurgents completely has had its origin in Washington. It reminds one of the ultra-idealistic philosopher who ignored the hard-and-fast world of environment, and while absorbed in thought bumped his head against a stone wall. The insurgent government is here and must be dealt with.
Harper’s Weekly, A Journal of Civilization – “Our New Citizens – A Native Family in Iloilo,” January 14, 1899.
Formerly we might have compromised with them; now we must crush them. There are a few men of education and ability who are managing the insurrection; the rest of the army follows blindly, misled by false reports about our cruelty, and they look upon us now as a species of ogre. We have fallen heir to the hatred which the natives felt for the Spaniards, and the same stories are told about us that were told about our predecessors. The Spaniards and the priests have done what they could to make trouble by circulating false reports in both camps. These reports have been believed by the insurgents and in many instances by our own officers.
The Spaniards are jubilant over the present state of affairs. One of them said to me:
“I speak to you as a Spaniard and an enemy of the United States. If fifty insurgents are killed, good; if the insurgents kill one hundred Americans, better; if the Americans in turn kill two hundred insurgents, best all.”
This exhibit juxtaposes the visual message presented by the stereoscopic images with excerpts from the letters written by U.S. soldiers that were first published in local newspapers and later collected in the Anti-Imperialist League’s pamphlet, allowing us to get a glimpse of the Philippine-American War as it was presented to Americans at home, reading the news or entertaining friends in their parlors.
The stereoscopic viewer was a popular form of middle class entertainment in the United States during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the days before radio or television, these stereoscopic cards gave Americans a 3-D (albeit black and white) window into the world abroad.
The War from a Parlor
By Jim Zwick
The Philippine-American War was the United States’ first protracted counterinsurgency war in Asia. It started on February 4, 1899, just months after the end of the Spanish-American War, a war ostensibly fought to free Cuba from Spanish oppression. Like the Cubans, the Filipinos had been fighting for their independence from Spain since 1896. Many people within the United States objected to the annexation of Spain’s former colonies at the close of the Spanish-American War and, in November of 1898, an Anti-Imperialist League was formed in Boston to mobilize this opposition. When the war in the Philippines began three months later, it quickly became the League’s primary focus. The Philippine-American War would become the most divisive overseas war in United States history and it would retain that status for more than sixty years, until the war in Vietnam.
The counterinsurgency war for the “hearts and minds” of the Filipinos was mirrored in the domestic debate about the war. Politicians and editorialists who supported imperialism spoke and wrote of the civilizing mission of the United States, of taking up the “white man’s burden” of national sacrifice for the benefit of peoples they believed to be racially inferior and incapable of governing themselves. This rhetoric was matched with assessments of the value of Chinese commercial markets that lay “just beyond the Philippines” and the need to establish naval bases throughout the Pacific to expand and protect U.S. commerce.
The anti-imperialists highlighted the “un-American” nature of imperialism by quoting such documents as the Declaration of Independence, Washington’s Farewell Address, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. To them, imperialism was a threat to the country’s anti-colonial and democratic traditions. Many anti-imperialists also opposed the annexation of foreign territories on racial grounds. They initially believed that any territory annexed by the United States would eventually become a state, and they opposed giving what they also believed to be racially inferior peoples a voice in the U.S. government.
From 1898 until July 4, 1902, the date Theodore Roosevelt symbolically used to declare the war over, nearly 200,000 U.S. soldiers served in the Philippines. About 5,000 of them were killed in battle. Most of the soldiers who initially fought in the Philippines had volunteered to fight in the Spanish-American War and, as several of the letters excerpted here indicate, not all of them supported the war in the Philippines. Their appeals for return to the United States were eventually heeded, and the Army Bill of 1901 nearly quadrupled the official size of the standing army so that an adequate number of professional soldiers could be employed to serve in the Philippines.
The number of Filipinos who died from the war is staggering. Some 16,000 to 20,000 Filipino soldiers were killed. Estimates of the number of civilians who were killed or died from war-related causes range from 200,000 to 600,000. Evidence of the brutality of U.S. troops in the Philippines was used by the Anti-Imperialist League to argue for the independence of the Philippines. Their most effective ammunition came from the official reports to the War Department by the generals in charge of U.S. forces in the Philippines. Their reports of Filipino casualties showed that for every Filipino wounded, fifteen were killed. In contrast, during the United States’ Civil War, five soldiers were wounded for every one killed.
The U.S. military censored press dispatches from the Philippines, but many local newspapers published the letters sent home by soldiers fighting there. These contained racial slurs, stories of atrocities, and assessments of the army’s morale that were not allowed to be reported over the cable from Manila. They also provided local significance to the news from abroad. In May of 1899, the Anti-Imperialist League collected many of these letters in a pamphlet, Soldiers’ Letters: Being Materials for the History of a War of Criminal Aggression. It was immediately controversial. Supporters of the war discounted the accounts of atrocities as the boasting of soldiers wanting to impress their friends and families at home or, because the identities of some of the writers were withheld from publication, as outright fabrications. Although their truthfulness was hotly debated, the letters were an important part of how the U.S. public learned about the war as they read their daily newspapers.
Visual images of the war were also widely distributed. At the turn of the century, the viewing of stereoscopic images was an extremely popular form of parlor entertainment. Stereoscopic images were created by taking two photographs of the same scene from slightly different angles. These would then be pasted to a card made to fit a special stereoscope viewer. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the realistic 3-D effect obtained by stereoscopic images was worth at least two thousand more because it added credibility to the images. Although ostensibly meant as entertainment, they contain implicit — and sometimes explicit — messages about the nature of the war, and about the Philippines and the Filipino people the U.S. government was trying to conquer.
This exhibit juxtaposes the visual message presented by the stereoscopic images with excerpts from the letters written by U.S. soldiers that were first published in local newspapers and later collected in the Anti-Imperialist League’s pamphlet. That both contained partisan messages — often racial, violent, and disturbing — is highlighted here by their juxtaposition. While the Anti-Imperialist League’s collection of the letters marks them as having partisan value, we do not often think of the stereoscopic images in the same way. But they were also an important means through which opinions about the war were shaped. The stereoscopic images and the soldiers’ letters allow us to get a glimpse of the war as it was presented to the people at home, reading the news or entertaining friends in their parlors.
“The Filipinos”
“Better Class of Filipinos — who welcome American Rule — Manila, Philippines.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“Traffic suspended –their first look at a Camera, San Nicholas, Island of Cebu, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1900.“A Favorite Costume for Boys at Jaro, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1900.“The right way to Filipino Freedom –Boys in Normal High School, Manila, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1900.
They will never surrender until their whole race is exterminated. They are fighting for a good cause, and the Americans should be the last of all nations to transgress upon such rights. Their independence is dearer to them than life, as ours was in years gone by, and is today. –Ellis G. Davis, Company A, Twentieth Kansas
Some think the insurgents are disheartened, but I think they will make a desperate struggle for what they consider their rights. I do not approve of the course our government is pursuing with these people. If all men are created equal, they have some rights which ought to be respected. –J. E. Fetterly, a Nebraska soldier
“The Place”
“Escolta, the principal business Street in Manila, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“Typical Filipino Farming Scene, a rice field and Water Buffalo–resting between furrows, Luzon, P. I.” Underwood & Underwood, 1900.
The building had been taken possession of by a United States officer, and he looted it to a finish. I suspected something and followed one of his men to the place. I expected to be jumped on by the officer as soon as I found him there, as I was away from my post, but it seems he was afraid I would give him away; in fact, we were both afraid of each other. He was half drunk, and every time he saw me looking at anything he would say, “Tennessee, do you like that? Well, put it in your pocket.” … The house was a fine one, and richly furnished, but had been looted to a finish. The contents of every drawer had been emptied on the floor. You have no idea what a mania for destruction the average man has when the fear of the law is removed. I have seen them — old sober business men too — knock chandeliers and plate-glass mirrors to pieces just because they couldn’t carry it off. It is such a pity. –D. M. Mickle, Tennessee Regiment, at Iloilo
We sleep all day here, as we do our duty all night, walking the streets. We make every one get into his house by 7 p.m., and we only tell a man once. If he refuses, we shoot him. We killed over three hundred men the first night. They tried to set the town on fire. If they fire a shot from a house, we burn the house down, and every house near it, and shoot the natives; so they are pretty quiet in town now. –A Corporal in the California Regiment
“The US Army”
“Gallant defenders of the flag Dewey raised over the Philippines – 1st Battalion, Washington Vols. at Pasig.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“Lookouts on the church top – watching the Filipinos – Taquig, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1900.
The town of Titatia was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight, which was done to a finish. About one thousand men, women, and children were reported killed. I am probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark-skin and pull the trigger. –A. A. Barnes, Battery G., Third United States Artillery
We can lick them, but it will take us a long time, because there are about 150,000 of the dagos back in the hills, and as soon as one of them gets killed or wounded there is a man to take his place at once; and we have but a few men in the first place, but we are expecting about 8,000 more soldiers every day, and I hope they will soon get here, or we will all be tired out and sick…. This is an awful bad climate and there have been from two to four funerals every day. The boys have chronic diarrhea and dysentery, and it just knocks the poor boys out. –Martin P. Olson, Fourteenth Regulars
“The Dead”
“Gen. Lawton’s remains, Paco Cemetery Chapel. — ‘A Hero as great as he was modest.'” Underwood & Underwood, 1900.“The necessary Result of War –an Insurgent killed in the trenches at the Battle of Malabon, P. I.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“A Sacrifice to Aguinaldo’s Ambition – Behind the Filipino Trenches after the Battle of Mala.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“Praying for the souls of departed friends –Santa Cruz Cemetery, Manila, Philippines.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
I deprecate this war, this slaughter of our own boys and of the Filipinos, because it seems to me that we are doing something that is contrary to our principles in the past. Certainly we are doing something that we should have shrunk from not so very long ago. –General Reeve, Thirteenth Minnesota Regiment
The boys are getting sick of fighting these heathens, and all say we volunteered to fight Spain, not heathens. Their patriotism is wearing off. We all want to come home very bad. If I ever get out of this army I will never get into another. They will be fighting four hundred years, and then never whip these people, for there are not enough of us to follow them up…. The people of the United States ought to raise a howl and have us sent home. –Tom Crandall, Nebraska Regiment
“Civilized Warfare”
“Insurgent Families coming into the American Lines with the flag of truce, Philippines.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“Filipino prisoners of war at Pasig, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.“Bringing Peace to the fertile Philippines –some of the 9th Infantry Boys at Las Pinas.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
The boys go for the enemy as if they were chasing jack-rabbits…. I, for one, hope that Uncle Sam will apply the chastening rod, good, hard, and plenty, and lay it on until they come into the reservation and promise to be good “Injuns.” –Colonel Funston, Twentieth Kansas Volunteers
Soon we had orders to advance, and we rose up from behind our trenches and started across the creek in mud and water up to our waists. However, we did not mind it a bit, our fighting blood was up and we all wanted to kill “niggers.” This shooting human beings is a “hot game,” and beats rabbit hunting all to pieces. –A private of Company H of the First Regiment, Washington State Volunteers
“The Hospital”
“Stricken with fever –more deadly than Filipino bullets– 1st Reserve Hospital, Manila, Philippine Islands.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.Civilized Warfare — restoring men we had to shoot — Reserve Hospital, Manila, P.I. Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
I never saw such execution in my life, and hope never to see such sights as met me on all sides as our little corps passed over the field, dressing wounded. Legs and arms nearly demolished; total decapitation; horrible wounds in chests and abdomens, showing the determination of our soldiers to kill every native in sight. The Filipinos did stand their ground heroically, contesting every inch, but proved themselves unable to stand the deadly fire of our well-trained and eager boys in blue. I counted seventy-nine dead natives in one small field, and learn that on the other side of the river their bodies were stacked up for breastworks. –F. A. Blake, of California, in charge of the Red Cross
Our Country Victorious and Now a Happy Home
A Spanish-American War Drama in Six Parts
This six-card set of stereoscopic cards was copyrighted in 1899 by Strohmeyer & Wyman and published by both it and Underwood & Underwood. The sets were available in at least two versions, one with Jack going off to fight in Cuba and the other with him fighting in the Philippines. The photographs and captions are identical except that “Manila” in the caption on card three is replaced by “Santiago.”
“I am so Sorry to Leave You, dear.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
“My Country Calls and I Must Go” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
Sad News from the Battle-field — Jack has fallen at Manila. Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
“For my Country I can even give Jack up.” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
“Oh Jack! Jack! — Not Killed, but Only Wounded!” Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
The Story of the Battle — Our country victorious and now a Happy Home. Underwood & Underwood, 1899.
This essay and exhibit, originally presented online in the early 2000s, were the work of the late historian Jim Zwick. Since Mr. Zwick’s passing, they have disappeared from the internet, as has the original host site. It is truly a shame for his important exhibition to disappear, especially considering its seemingly perpetual relevance. I present them here – with an expanded collection of stereoscopic images – in a purely academic spirit, with all due respect to Mr. Zwick and the educational value of his original work. Openendedsocialstudies.org does not profit in any financial sense by hosting this lesson.
What does Mark Twain think about the idea of American Empire? Do you agree?
The political cartoon at the end of this section makes the argument that the United States has always been about expansion by any means necessary, whether they be financial, diplomatic, or conquest. In contrast to Mark Twain’s point of view, “Empire is American,“ the author is arguing – just ask the Native Americans or the Mexicans. How do you respond to this argument?
In the Twenty-First Century, does the United States have an empire?
Not all Americans cheered the conquest of the Philippines by the United States.
Perhaps one America’s greatest celebrities at the time was the author Mark Twain, a fierce critic of the U.S. war in the Philippines, who wrote:
“…I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone to conquer, not to redeem… And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the [American] eagle put its talons on any other land.”
Mark Twain, fierce opponent of American annexation of the Philippines.
On October 6, 1900, he published an editorial in the New York World:
“There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it—perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands—but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector—not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now—why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I’m sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.”
On October 15, Twain continued in the New York Times:
“We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket… And so, by these providences of god — and the phrase is the government’s, not mine — we are a World Power.”
Despite articulate voices like Twain’s, the Anti-Imperialist League was ultimately defeated in the battle of public opinion by a new wave of politicians who successfully advocated the virtues of American territorial expansion in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War – after all, the Republican Party, the party that most strongly advocated for empire, held the White House through the Philippine-American War, despite the best efforts of the League, all the way until 1912.
Do you take Aguinaldo’s Proclamation of Formal Surrender statement to be sincere – or something he was compelled to say by his captors?
In your opinion, did the Filipino resistance ever have a chance of success? Did the loss of life that resulted from this conflict accomplish anything?
A group of Filipino combatants laying down their weapons during their surrender, circa 1900.
While this argument played out in American newspapers and polling booths, the Philippine Army continued suffering defeats from the better armed United States Army during the conventional warfare phase. This steady string of setbacks forced Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo to continually change his base of operations, which he did for nearly the length of the entire war.
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’ side. 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 immediately fell upon the guards and quickly overwhelmed them and the weary Aguinaldo.
On March 23, 1901, Aguinaldo was celebrating his birthday when he was captured by Filipino troops in service of the Americans. (Diorama in Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
On April 1, 1901, at the Malacañan 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, or what remained of it. He originally had taken a defensive stance against the Americans, but now launched all-out 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.
General Bell relentlessly pursued Malvar and his men, forcing the surrender of many Filipino soldiers. Finally, Malvar surrendered, along with his sick wife and children and some of his officers, on April 16, 1902. By the end of the month nearly 3,000 of Malvar’s men had also surrendered. With the surrender of Malvar, the Filipino war effort began to dwindle even further.
Official End to the War
Who gets to decide when a war is over?
Why was Sakay labelled a bandit and executed when Aguinaldo and Malvar were both allowed to surrender peacefully?
The Philippine Organic Act—approved on July 1, 1902—ratified President McKinley’s previous executive order which had established the Second Philippine Commission. The act also stipulated that a legislature would be established composed of a popularly elected lower house, the Philippine Assembly, and an upper house consisting of the Philippine Commission. The act also provided for extending the United States Bill of Rights to Filipinos. On July 2, the United States Secretary of War telegraphed that since the insurrection against the United States had ended and provincial civil governments had been established throughout most of the Philippine archipelago, the office of military governor was terminated. On July 4, Theodore Roosevelt, who had succeeded to the U.S. Presidency after the assassination of President McKinley, proclaimed an amnesty to those who had participated in the conflict.
After military rule was terminated on July 4, 1902, the Philippine Constabulary was established as an archipelago-wide police force to control brigandage and deal with the remnants of the insurgent movement. The Philippine Constabulary gradually took over the responsibility for suppressing guerrilla and bandit activities from United States Army units. Remnants of the Katipunan and other resistance groups remained active fighting the United States military or Philippine Constabulary 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 the irreconcilables as a law enforcement concern rather than a military concern requiring the involvement of the American army.
Macario Sakay.
In 1902, Macario Sakay formed another government, the Republika ng Katagalugan, in Rizal Province. This republic ended in 1906 when Sakay and his top followers were arrested and executed the following year by the American authorities.
In 1905, Filipino labour leader Dominador Gómez was authorised by Governor-General Henry Clay Ide to negotiate for the surrender of Sakay and his men. Gómez met with Sakay at his camp and argued that the establishment of a national assembly was being held up by Sakay’s intransigence, and that its establishment would be the first step toward Filipino independence. Sakay agreed to end his resistance on the condition that a general amnesty be granted to his men, that they be permitted to carry firearms, and that he and his officers be permitted to leave the country. Gómez assured Sakay that these conditions would be acceptable to the Americans, and Sakay’s emissary, General León Villafuerte, obtained agreement to them from the American Governor-General.
Sakay believed that the struggle had shifted to constitutional means, and that the establishment of the assembly was a means to winning independence. As a result, he surrendered on 20 July 1906, descending from the mountains on the promise of an amnesty for him and his officials, and the formation of a Philippine Assembly composed of Filipinos that would serve as the “gate of freedom.” With Villafuerte, Sakay travelled to Manila, where they were welcomed and invited to receptions and banquets. One invitation came from the Constabulary Chief, Colonel Harry H. Bandholtz; it was a trap, and Sakay along with his principal lieutenants were disarmed and arrested while the party was in progress.
At his trial, Sakay was accused of “bandolerismo under the Brigandage Act of Nov. 12, 1902, which interpreted all acts of armed resistance to American rule as banditry.” The American colonial Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the decision. Sakay was sentenced to death, and hanged on 13 September 1907. Before his death, he made the following statement:
Death comes to all of us sooner or later, so I will face the LORD Almighty calmly. But I want to tell you that we are not bandits and robbers, as the Americans have accused us, but members of the revolutionary force that defended our mother country, the Philippines! Farewell! Long live the Republic and may our independence be born in the future! Long live the Philippines!
What conditions did the United States attach to this independence? In light of these conditions, was this true Philippine independence?
Upon the occupation of the Philippines in 1898, the Americans claimed that the Filipinos were ill-equipped for total independence, that they needed tutoring on how to run their own affairs. By 1934, because of economic and immigration pressures created by the Great Depression, the United States finally allowed a Filipino to take charge of the colony. A national election was held, and on November 15, 1935, Manuel Quezon became president – a president who still largely answered to the Americans. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines.)
On January 20, 1899, President McKinley appointed the First Philippine Commission (the Schurman Commission), a five-person group headed by Dr. Jacob Schurman, president of Cornell University, to investigate conditions in the islands and make recommendations. In the report that they issued to the president 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 government as rapidly as possible (the American chief executive in the islands at that time was the military governor), 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 very 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 and particularly impressive in light of the complete lack of representative institutions under the Spanish.
By the 1930s, there were three main groups lobbying for Philippine independence – Great Depression-era American farmers competing against tariff-free Filipino sugar and coconut oil; those upset with large numbers of Filipino immigrants who could move easily to the United States, in their changing the U.S.’s racial character and competing with American-born workers; and Filipinos seeking Philippine independence.
The Tydings–McDuffie Act (officially the Philippine Independence Act; Public Law 73-127) approved on March 24, 1934, provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence (from the United States) after a period of ten years. World War II intervened, bringing the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945. In 1946, the Treaty of Manila (1946) between the governments of the U.S. and the Republic of the Philippines provided for the recognition of the independence of the Republic of the Philippines and the relinquishment of American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands.
In a ceremony on July 4, 1946, the U.S. flag was lowered in Manila for the last time while the Philippine flag was raised over a newly independent nation. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
However, before the 1946 Treaty was authorized, a secret agreement was signed between Philippine President Osmena and US President Truman. President Osmena “supported U.S. rights to bases in his country by backing them publicly and by signing a secret agreement.” This culminated in the Military Bases Agreement, which was signed and submitted for Senate approval in the Philippines by Osmena’s successor, President Manuel Roxas.
As a result of this agreement, the U.S. retained dozens of military bases in Philippines, including a few major ones. It further required U.S. citizens and corporations be granted equal access with Filipinos to Philippine minerals, forests, and other natural resources. In hearings before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William L. Clayton described the law as “clearly inconsistent with the basic foreign economic policy of this country” and “clearly inconsistent with our promise to grant the Philippines genuine independence.
Despite these inconsistencies, President Roxas did not have objections to most of the United States’ proposed military bases agreement in 1947. Below are some of the demands Roxas approved.
The United States would acquire the military bases for ninety-nine years (Article 29)
Clark Air Base would cover 130,000 acres, Olongapo City will be integrated into the Subic Naval Base, and areas surrounding the bases will be under US authority (Article 3)
The Philippines should seek U.S. approval before granting base rights to third nations (Article 25)
On March 17, Roxas submitted the Military Bases Agreement to the Philippine Senate for approval. The Military Bases Agreement was approved by the Philippine Senate on March 26, 1947, with all eighteen present senators in favor. Three senators did not attend the session in protest.
Philippine Senator Tomas Confesor stated that the military bases were “established here by the United States, not so much for the benefit of the Philippines as for their own.” He cautioned his fellow senators: “We are within the orbit of expansion of the American empire. Imperialism is not yet dead.”
This statue, Children of the Sun Returning, stands in Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base retained under the Military Bases Agreement. It commemorates the 1992 withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Philippines, nearly a century after the Philippine-American War and nearly fifty years after the ostensible independence of that country. The Filipinos in the sculpture are removing the symbolic blindfolds of colonialism. The inscription reads in part: “We, the Children of the Sun, had lost our way. Apathy blinded us, stripped us of our power… The skies darkened and the Earth shook. Pinatubo (a nearby volcano) taught us humility before nature and then the Americans were gone as well. Nature and man took our jobs, our wealth, our security. November 24, 1992… A day of reckoning – a defining moment when we found within ourselves the true spirit of the Filipino for it was then that we threw off the blinds that had entrapped us and reached out to one another, bound together by a dream of the future… The Children of the Sun had returned.” (Subic Bay, Philippines, 2018.)
Activities
There is a long tradition of resistance to colonial rule in the Philippines. Juan Sumuory is celebrated in the Gallery of Heroes. (Manila, Philippines, 2018.)
Couple of this with the country’s strong Catholicism – with its tradition of sainthood and martyrdom – and you have nation that is very aware of those who have sacrificed to advance the cause of the Filipino. Manila’s Rizal Park features the Gallery of Heroes, a row of bust sculpture monuments of historical Philippine heroes. These include: Andres Bonifacio, Juan Sumuroy, Aman Dangat, Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Gregorio Aglipay, Sultan Kudarat, Juan Luna, Melchora Aquino, Rajah Sulayman, and Gabriela Silang. Choose one of these personalities to commemorate in your own classroom. Write a brief description of their accomplishments to accompany a piece of artwork that celebrates their life for those who aren’t aware.
Jose Rizal never specifically advocated violence or even open revolt againstJose Rizal famously declined the Spanish offer of a carriage ride to his execution site. Instead, he walked, and today, bronze footprints mark his path from Fort Santiago to today’s Rizal Park, a memorial that literally allows one to walk in the footsteps of a national hero.
the Spanish, pushing instead for political reforms within the colonial structure. He wrote with such clarity and passion, however, that he become a symbol to revolutionaries – and this is why the colonial authorities decided he needed to die, in a plan that ultimately backfired, transforming him into a martyr. Debate with your class – “Does a national hero need to be a warrior – a violent figure? If not, why are so many warriors celebrated the world over as national heroes?”
Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous poem about the U.S. and its conquest of the Philippines. It is called “The White Man’s Burden.” The poem became so famous that it became the subject of parody as well. Read both the poem and one of its parodies and discuss it with your classmates using the included questions to help guide you.
Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire – This exhibit juxtaposes the visual message presented by the stereoscopic images with excerpts from the letters written by U.S. soldiers that were first published in local newspapers and later collected in the Anti-Imperialist League’s pamphlet, allowing us to get a glimpse of the Philippine-American War as it was presented to Americans at home, reading the news or entertaining friends in their parlors.
In the twenty-first century, the Philippines faces many challenges. It is also one of the most stunningly beautiful places you could ever visit, filled with some of friendliest people you will ever meet. (El Nido, Philippines, 2018.)
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The Philippine-American War pitted one time allies in the overthrow of Spain against each other. Spain negotiated a separate peace with the United States in the Treaty of Paris, ceding colonial rule of the Philippine Islands to the Americans rather than granting the Filipinos independence. The American government accepted this new imperial role, and set about subduing any Filipinos who resisted. In this scene, the city of Iloilo is captured from Filipino forces by Americans led by Brigadier General Marcus Miller, with no loss of American lives. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
Waging the American War
How did the Americans justify their takeover of the Philippines? Are you convinced by this argument?
In your opinion, did American conduct during the war match these justifications? Why or why not?
How did the American military attempt to counter rumors of their brutality?
Annexation of the Philippines as a colony of the United States was often justified by those in the U.S. government and media on moral and racial grounds. The U.S. was simply doing its duty as an advanced, Western nation, spreading civilization, democracy, and capitalism to primitive Asians who enjoyed none of these things and were too simple to be trusted with self-government. Historian Stuart Creighton Miller writes that in this view, “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.” Implicit in this attitude were notions of racial superiority and the inherent superiority of white America over primitive people of color.
The ugly reality of Americans colonial mission was laid bare by Dean Worcester, an American colonial official, who wrote in his memoirs that the Filipinos were “treacherous, arrogant, stupid and vindictive, impervious to gratitude, incapable of recognizing obligations. Centuries of barbarism have made them cunning and dishonest. We cannot safely treat them as equals, for the simple and sufficient reason that they could not understand it. They do not know the meaning of justice and good faith. They do not know the difference between liberty and license…. These Filipinos must be taught obedience and be forced to observe, even if they cannot comprehend, the practices of civilization.”
One popular defense of the U.S. conquest of the Philippines was to say that the U.S. didn’t really want this role – they were stuck with the responsibility, as poet Rudyard Kipling put it, this “White Man’s Burden,” to help the poor, benighted Filipinos. Never mind that the Filipinos didn’t seem to want the “help” that was being offered.
On February 11, 1899—only one week after the first shots of the war were fired—American naval forces destroyed the city of Iloilo with bombardment by the USS Petrel and the USS Baltimore. The city was then captured by ground forces led by Brigadier General Marcus Miller, with no loss of American lives.
Gregorio del Pilar, only 24 years old at the time of his death in 1899, belonged to a whole generation of high school and college graduates who, despite their youth, were pressed into leadership roles during the revolution. Sent to negotiate an honorable peace with American General Otis, he was rebuffed and told peace could be achieved only though the “complete submission” of the Filipino people. Angered, he set about defending a mountain pass, stalling American troops in hot pursuit of President Aguinaldo. He succeeded, but died, hit in the neck by an American sharpshooter. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
Months later, after finally securing Manila from Filipino control, American forces moved northwards, engaging in combat at the brigade and battalion level in pursuit of the fleeing insurgent forces and their commanders. In response to the use of guerilla warfare tactics by Filipino forces beginning in September 1899, American military strategy shifted to a suppression footing. Tactics became focused on the control of key areas with internment and segregation of the civilian population in “zones of protection” from the guerrilla population (foreshadowing the Strategic Hamlet Program that would be utilized decades later, during the Vietnam War). Due to unsanitary conditions, many of the interned civilians died from dysentery.
General Otis gained notoriety for some of his actions in the Philippines. Although multiple orders were given to Otis from Washington to avoid military conflict, he did very little to prevent the breakout of war. Otis refused to accept anything but unconditional surrender from the Philippine Army. He often made major military decisions without first consulting leadership in Washington. He acted aggressively in dealing with the Filipinos under the assumption that their resistance would collapse quickly.
A member of the American colonial government offered an alternative theory on what Bell was achieving, noting in his official report that far from breaking the spirit of the Filipino people, the blanket policy of violence and destruction was:
… sowing the seeds for a perpetual revolution. If these things need be done, they had best be done by native troops so that the people of the U.S.. will not be credited therewith.
American soldiers survey the bodies of fallen Filipino soldiers.
Otis also played a large role in suppressing information about American military tactics from the media. When letters describing American atrocities reached the American media, the War Department became involved and demanded that Otis investigate their authenticity. Each press clipping was forwarded to the original writer’s commanding officer, who would then convince or force the soldier to write a retraction of the original statements.
Meanwhile, Otis claimed that Filipino insurgents tortured American prisoners in “fiendish fashion.” During the closing months of 1899, Aguinaldo attempted to counter Otis’ account by suggesting that neutral parties—foreign journalists or representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross—inspect his military operations. Otis refused, but Aguinaldo managed to smuggle four reporters—two English, one Canadian, and one Japanese—into the Philippines. The correspondents returned to Manila to report that American captives were “treated more like guests than prisoners,” were “fed the best that the country affords, and everything is done to gain their favor.” The story went on to say that American prisoners were offered commissions in the Filipino army and that three had accepted. The four reporters were expelled from the Philippines as soon as their stories were printed.
U.S. Navy Lieutenant J.C. Gilmore, whose release was forced by American cavalry pursuing Aguinaldo into the mountains, insisted that he had received “considerable treatment” and that he was no more starved than were his captors. Otis responded to publication of two articles concerning this by ordering the “capture” of the two authors, and that they be “investigated,” therefore questioning their loyalty.
When F.A. Blake of the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived at Aguinaldo’s request, Otis kept him confined to Manila, where Otis’ staff explained all of the violations of international humanitarian law perpetrated by Filipino soldiers. Blake managed to slip away from an escort and venture into the field. Blake never made it past American lines, but even within American lines he saw burned out villages and “horribly mutilated bodies, with stomachs slit open and occasionally decapitated.” Blake waited to return to San Francisco, where he told one reporter that “American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight.”
H.L. Wells, a staunch imperialist writing in the New York Evening Post, excused the troubling American racial theories that contributed to the often callous violence that characterized the Philippine-American War “There is no question that our men do ‘shoot niggers’ somewhat in the sporting spirit, but that is because war and their environments have rubbed off the thin veneer of civilization…Undoubtedly, they do not regard the shooting of Filipinos just as they would the shooting of white troops. This is partly because they are “only niggers,” and partly because they despise them for their treacherous servility…The soldiers feel they are fighting with savages, not with soldiers.”
A burned district of Manila following combat between American and Filipino troops, 1899.
Waging the Filipino War
How was the class structure of Filipino society a challenge to carrying out the war against the Americans?
What was strategy of the Filipino war effort before the U.S. election of 1900? How and why did it change after the election?
Filipino insurgents pose with their weapons, including bolo knives, circa 1900.
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 those of the American forces.
A fairly rigid caste system existed in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. 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 – they were more likely to favor redistribution of land, tax reforms, and greater democracy, whereas the Filipino elites were more likely to favor a plan in which they replaced the Spanish elites, leaving the broader social order intact. 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’ strategiccenter of gravity.
Several Filipino leaders, including President Emilio Aguinaldo (bottom row, third from right), pose for a photo. Cavite. 1898. The Filipino leadership was clearly wealthier and more educated than the average villager or soldier.American media tended to print photos that emphasized the primitive nature of Filipinos and the impoverished, backwards nature of the Philippines. This better suited the narrative that the United States was “saving” the Philippines out of some sense of duty.
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 characteristic 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. Bryan, who held strong anti-imperialist views, would then hopefully 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 soon – after all, the war was McKinley’s and the American people had just reelected him, thereby approving his actions. This, coupled with a series of devastating losses on the battlefield against American forces equipped with superior technology and training, convinced Aguinaldo 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 guerilla 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, Emilio Aguinaldo decreed that guerrilla war would henceforth be the strategy. This made American occupation of the Philippine archipelago all the more difficult over the next few years. In fact, during just 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, Pulang Lupa, Balangiga and Mabitac. At first, it even seemed as if the Filipinos would fight the Americans to a stalemate and force them to withdraw.
American Atrocities
Describe the actions of the Americans that might be labeled atrocities.
Imagine that an invading force was doing this sort of thing in your town – would this make you more or less likely to cooperate with them?
Imagine you are a soldier and your commanding officer has ordered you to burn down a village, then administer the water cure to anyone you capture in the process. What do you do?
If the goal of a war is to win, should there be rules in war? What should those rules be? How should captured enemy soldiers be captured? Should it matter if they wear a uniform? Should civilians be harmed?
What should happen to commanders or soldiers who break any rules you established in the previous question?
In an effort to curb guerrilla warfare, Filipino civilians were moved into concentrations camps.
Following Aguinaldo’s capture by the Americans on March 23, 1901, Miguel Malvar assumed command of the Philippine revolutionary forces. Batangas and Laguna provinces were the main focus of Malvar’s forces at this point in the war, and they continued to employ guerrilla warfare tactics.
In late 1901, Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell took command of American operations in Batangas and Laguna provinces. Writing about his approach to the war, Bell said, “All consideration and regard for the inhabitants of this place cease from the day I become commander. I have the force and authority to do whatever seems to me good and especially to humiliate all those in this Province who have any pride….”
In response to Malvar’s guerrilla warfare tactics, Bell employed counterinsurgency tactics (described by some as a scorched earth campaign) that took a heavy toll on guerrilla fighters and civilians alike. “Zones of protection” were established, and civilians were given identification papers and forced into concentration camps (called reconcentrados) which were surrounded by free-fire zones. At the Lodge Committee, in an attempt to counter the negative reception in America to General Bell’s camps, Colonel Arthur Wagner, the US Army’s chief public relations office, insisted that 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 “suburbs of Hell.”
On December 13, Bell announced that the killing of American troops would be paid back in kind. Whenever such an event occurred, Bell proposed to select a prisoner “by lot from among the officers or prominent citizens” and have him executed. On December 15, Bell announced that “acts of hostility or sabotage” would result in the “starving of unarmed hostile belligerents.” The warning to Malvar was clear: he either had to give up the struggle or the “detainees” would face mass starvation. To show that he meant it, on December 20 Bell ordered all rice and other food lying outside the camps to be confiscated or destroyed. Wells were poisoned and all farm animals were slaughtered.
By December 25, 1901, nearly the entire populations of Batangas and Laguna provinces had gathered into the reconcentrados. Families had to bring everything they could carry because anything left behind—including houses, gardens, carts, poultry and animals—was subject to confiscation or destruction by the U.S. Army. The reconcentrados were overcrowded, which led to disease and death. Between January and April 1902, 8,350 prisoners of approximately 298,000 died, and some camps experienced mortality rates as high as 20 percent.
Civilians became subject to a curfew, after which all persons found outside of camps without identification could be shot on sight. Men were rounded up for questioning, tortured, and summarily executed.” Methods of torture such as the water cure were frequently employed during interrogation, and entire villages were burned or otherwise destroyed.
Throughout the war, American soldiers and other witnesses sent letters home which described some of the atrocities committed by American forces. For example, In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger wrote:
“The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe 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 up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog… Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.”
Reports were received from soldiers returning from the Philippines that, upon entering a village, American soldiers would ransack every house and church and rob the inhabitants of everything of value, while those who approached the battle line waving a flag of truce were fired upon.
Some of the authors were critical of leaders such as General Otis and the overall conduct of the war. When some of these letters were published in newspapers, they would become national news, which would force the War Department to investigate. Two such letters included:
A soldier from New York: “The town of Titatia was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight; which was done to a finish. About 1,000 men, women and children were reported killed. I am probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger.”
Corporal Sam Gillis: “We make everyone get into his house by seven p.m., and we only tell a man once. If he refuses we shoot him. We killed over 300 natives the first night. They tried to set the town on fire. If they fire a shot from the house we burn the house down and every house near it, and shoot the natives, so they are pretty quiet in town now.”
General Otis’ investigation of the content of these letters often consisted of sending a copy of them to the author’s superior and having him force the author to write a retraction. When a soldier refused to do so, as Private Charles Brenner of the Kansas regiment did, he was court-martialed. In the case of Private Brenner, 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.
Soldiers from the 35th US Volunteer Infantry subject a Filipino to the ‘water cure’ – the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat into which tremendous amounts of water are poured. The stomach fills until near bursting and is sometimes beaten until the victim vomits and the torture begins again.
Filipino atrocities
Why is it important for the Americans to claim that Filipinos were at least as brutal as they were?
There was surely violence on both sides of this conflict. Is the American violence, carried out by a more powerful invading force, different from that carried out by Filipinos?
Examine the cover of Life Magazine from May 22, 1902. It appears to be a realistic drawing at first, but it is actually a political cartoon. What does it mean?
Enraged by a guerrilla massacre of U.S. troops on the Island of Samar, General Jacob H. Smith retaliated by carrying out an indiscriminate attack upon its inhabitants. His order “KILL EVERY ONE OVER TEN” became a caption in the New York Journal cartoon on May 5, 1902. The Old Glory draped an American shield on which a vulture replaced the bald eagle. The bottom caption exclaimed, “Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines.” Published in the New York Journal-American, May 5, 1902. Smith was eventually court-martialed by the American military and forced to retire.
U.S. Army General Otis alleged that Filipino insurgents tortured American prisoners in “fiendish fashion.” According to Otis, many were buried alive or were placed 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 bleeding to death. It was also reported that Spanish priests were horribly mutilated before their congregations, and natives who refused to support Emilio Aguinaldo were slaughtered by the thousands. American newspaper headlines announced the “Murder and Rapine” by the “Fiendish Filipinos.” General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler insisted that it was the Filipinos who had mutilated their own dead, murdered women and children, and burned down villages, solely to discredit American soldiers.
In January 1899, the New York World published a story by an anonymous writer about an American soldier, Private William Lapeer, who had allegedly been deliberately infected with leprosy. The story has no basis in fact however, and the name Lapeer itself is probably a pun. 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 CSRecorder were fired upon and later cut into pieces by Filipino insurgents, while the insurgents were displaying a flag of truce.
Other events dubbed atrocities included those attributed by the Americans to General Vicente Lukban, the Filipino commander who allegedly masterminded the Balangiga massacre in Samar province, a surprise Filipino attack that killed almost fifty American soldiers. Media reports stated that many of the bodies were mutilated. The attack itself triggered American reprisals in Samar, ordered by General Jacob Hurd Smith, who reportedly ordered his men to kill everyone over ten years old. To his credit, Major Littleton Waller countermanded it to his own men. Smith was court-martialed for this order and found guilty in 1902, which ended his career in the U.S. Army. Waller was acquitted of killing eleven Filipino guides.
Sergeant Hallock testified in the Lodge Committee 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.”
1902 Life magazine cover, depicting water curing by U.S. Army troops in the Philippines
On the Filipino side, information regarding atrocities comes from the eyewitnesses and the participants themselves. In his History of the Filipino PeopleTeodoro Agoncillo writes that the Filipino troops could match and even exceed American brutality on some prisoners of war. 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 good treatment of prisoners.
Dean Worcester, an official in the American colonial government, recounts two specific Filipino atrocities as follows:
A detachment, marching through Leyte, found an American who had disappeared a short time before crucified, head down. His abdominal wall had been carefully opened so that his intestines might hang down in his face. Another American prisoner, found on the same trip, had been buried in the ground with only his head projecting. His mouth had been propped open with a stick, a trail of sugar laid to it through the forest, and a handful thrown into it. Millions of ants had done the rest.
Casualties
Why is there so much debate over the number of Filipinos dead?
Why is there reason to be skeptical over numbers provided by the U.S. government?
Should famine and disease caused by the conduct of a war be considered a form of violence? Is this kind of death different from one that occurs during a shooting or a bombing?
The total number of Filipino who died remains a matter of debate. Some modern sources cite a figure of 200,000 total Filipino civilians dead with most losses attributable to famine, and disease. Some estimates reach 1,000,000 million dead. In 1908 Manuel Arellano Remondo, in General Geography of the Philippine Islands, wrote: “The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number.” Another expert estimates that at least 16,000~20,000 Filipino soldiers and 34,000 civilians were killed directly, with up to an additional 200,000 civilian deaths, mostly from a cholera epidemic. Filipino historian E. San Juan, Jr. argues that 1.4 million Filipinos died during the war, and that constitutes an act of genocide on the part of the United States. 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.”
There is a long tradition of resistance to colonial rule in the Philippines. Juan Sumuory is celebrated in the Gallery of Heroes. (Manila, Philippines, 2018.)
Couple of this with the country’s strong Catholicism – with its tradition of sainthood and martyrdom – and you have nation that is very aware of those who have sacrificed to advance the cause of the Filipino. Manila’s Rizal Park features the Gallery of Heroes, a row of bust sculpture monuments of historical Philippine heroes. These include: Andres Bonifacio, Juan Sumuroy, Aman Dangat, Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Gregorio Aglipay, Sultan Kudarat, Juan Luna, Melchora Aquino, Rajah Sulayman, and Gabriela Silang. Choose one of these personalities to commemorate in your own classroom. Write a brief description of their accomplishments to accompany a piece of artwork that celebrates their life for those who aren’t aware.
Jose Rizal never specifically advocated violence or even open revolt againstJose Rizal famously declined the Spanish offer of a carriage ride to his execution site. Instead, he walked, and today, bronze footprints mark his path from Fort Santiago to today’s Rizal Park, a memorial that literally allows one to walk in the footsteps of a national hero.
the Spanish, pushing instead for political reforms within the colonial structure. He wrote with such clarity and passion, however, that he become a symbol to revolutionaries – and this is why the colonial authorities decided he needed to die, in a plan that ultimately backfired, transforming him into a martyr. Debate with your class – “Does a national hero need to be a warrior – a violent figure? If not, why are so many warriors celebrated the world over as national heroes?”
Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous poem about the U.S. and its conquest of the Philippines. It is called “The White Man’s Burden.” The poem became so famous that it became the subject of parody as well. Read both the poem and one of its parodies and discuss it with your classmates using the included questions to help guide you.
Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire – This exhibit juxtaposes the visual message presented by the stereoscopic images with excerpts from the letters written by U.S. soldiers that were first published in local newspapers and later collected in the Anti-Imperialist League’s pamphlet, allowing us to get a glimpse of the Philippine-American War as it was presented to Americans at home, reading the news or entertaining friends in their parlors.
The Philippine-American War ended more than a century ago, but much of the nation is still gripped by the poverty and dramatic income inequality that characterizes many former colonies around the world. Why do you think the effects of colonization tend to linger long after the empire itself has crumbled? (Pasig River, Manila, Philippines, 2018.)
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“I have asked myself many times: Is the Filipino worth suffering, or even dying, for? Is he not a coward who would readily yield to any colonizer, be he foreign or homegrown? Is a Filipino more comfortable under an authoritarian leader because he does not want to be burdened with the freedom of choice? Is he unprepared, or worse, ill-suited for presidential or parliamentary democracy?
I have carefully weighed the virtues and the faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for because he is the nation’s greatest untapped resource.” – Ninoy Aquino
Islands in a Friendly Sea: Some Basics of Filipino History and Culture (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Who are the Filipinos? What is their history and culture? How has it been shaped by island geography? By contact with the outside world?
Manila at the Crossroads of World Trade (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): For more than three centuries, Manila was one of the crown jewels of the Spanish Empire, sitting at the intersection of global trade between Asia, the Americas, and Europe. How did this global trade shape the Philippines – and how did the Philippines shape global trade?
The Origins of the Philippine-American War (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): How did the Filipinos gain independence from Spain, only to have it snatched away by their alleged ally, the United States? How does this experience resonate in both Philippine and U.S. history?
The Brutality of the Philippine-American War (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Why was the Philippine-American War so violent? Did this violence help or hinder the goals of each side? Should there be rules that govern the conduct of war?
The Philippines in the American Empire (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): After nearly 400 years, how did independence finally come to the Philippines? Was the United States conquest of the Philippines an anomaly in its history, or was it business as usual?
“The White Man’s Burden”: Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Full text of this imperialist poem, as well as an answer in the form of an anti-imperialist parody.
Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): This exhibit juxtaposes the visual message presented by the stereoscopic images with excerpts from the letters written by U.S. soldiers that were first published in local newspapers and later collected in the Anti-Imperialist League’s pamphlet, allowing us to get a glimpse of the Philippine-American War as it was presented to Americans at home, reading the news or entertaining friends in their parlors.
In The Trenches: Harper’s Weekly Covers the Philippine-American War (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): How did the American media cover the war in the Philippines? An excerpt from “In The Trenches” by John F. Bass, originally published in Harper’s Weekly.
Ninoy and Marcos – “A Pact with the Devil is No Pact at All.” (Free online text suited for middle or high school classroom use, guided reading questions, and suggested activities): Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Cory Aquino, and the People Power Revolution toppled the kleptocratic Marcos regime through nonviolence, answering with their lives the question, “Is the Filipino worth dying for?”
A balangay is traditional Filipino ship, made of wooden planks and pins. It is used for everything from fishing to hauling cargo, travel and conducting war, and it was likely the boat that carried the original settlers of the Philippines to the islands in ancient times.
The balangay is a boat used by native Filipinos for at least 2,000 years. The balangay could cross open ocean – with navigation techniques involving the sun, the stars, the wind, cloud formations, wave patterns, and bird migrations. The word barangay – a variant – is also the word used to describe the basic unit of Filipino political organization, with a meaning similar to clan, before the arrival of the Spanish. Members of a barangay – typically 30 to 100 families – owed their allegiance to a datu, or chief, who ruled in conjunction with other datus. So, poetically you could think of your community as the people who were in the same boat as you.
While this system fell away under Spanish rule, the word barangay is still used to describe a neighborhood in the Philippines, an evocative double meaning in a nation so oriented to the sea.
There are a number of distinctions between the modern barangay or Barrio, and the city-states and independent principalities encountered by the Spanish when they first arrived in 1521 and established relatively permanent settlements in 1574. The most glaring difference would be that the modern entity represents a geographical entity, the pre-colonial barangays represented loyalty to a particular head (datu). Even during the early days of Spanish rule, it was not unusual for people living beside each other to actually belong to different barangays.
The barangay of precolonial times was either independent, or belonged to what was only a loose confederation of several barangays, over which the rulers picked among themselves who would be foremost – known as the Pangulo or Rajah. In most cases, his function was to make decisions which would involve multiple barangays, such as disputes between members of two different barangays. Internally, each datu retained his jurisdiction.
The barangay hall is typically a combination of city hall and community center.
Who are the Filipinos?
Consider the map of the Philippines – how does the country’s unique geography lend itself to the diversity of its population?
This ten pound pure gold halter is one of the most spectacular artifacts ever found in the Philippines. It is believed by some to be an Upavita, a ceremonial sacred thread worn members of the Brahmin class of India after a purification ritual – its existence demonstrates the influence of Hinduism and Indian culture in the early Philippines. (Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
There is no easy way to describe Filipino culture – no one settled definition – because the Philippines are a particularly diverse nation spread across some 7,000 islands, with hundreds of distinct languages and dialects, thousands of years worth of history, trade, and colonization serving to add color and flavor to what seems like a simple question.
Prior to the advent of European colonialism in the 1500s CE, much Southeast Asia including the Philippines was under the influence of greater India. India was a wealthy society with well-developed technology and religions. Indians spread throughout southeast Asia as professionals, traders, priests and warriors, bringing with them a written language (Sanskrit) and religion (Hinduism or Buddhism).
Detail of the sacred thread, woven entirely from gold.
Numerous Indianized principalities and empires flourished for centuries in areas that would become modern Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam. Artwork, philosophy, models for royalty and class structure, as well as written languages in these lands were all influenced by India, similar to the way that Greek culture was a guiding influence on later European societies. However, each of these countries adapted, blended, and assimilated this Indian influence in its own unique way, giving rise to the great diversity of cultures seen even just in the islands that make up the modern Philippines.
Locations of pre-colonial Filipino Polities and Kingdoms (900 CE to 1565 CE).
By 1000 BCE, the inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago had developed into four distinct kinds of peoples: tribal groups, such as the Aetas, Hanunoo, Ilongots and the Mangyan who depended on hunter-gathering and were concentrated in forests; warrior societies, such as the Isneg and Kalinga who practiced social ranking and ritualized warfare and roamed the plains; the petty plutocracy of the Ifugao Cordillera Highlanders, who occupied the mountain ranges of Luzon; and the harbor principalities of the estuarine civilizations that grew along rivers and seashores while participating in trans-island maritime trade. It was also during the first millennium BC that early metallurgy was said to have reached the archipelagos of maritime Southeast Asia via trade with India.
Piloncitos, small bead-like gold bits, each about the size of a corn kernel, are considered to be the earliest coin used for trade starting around the 9th Century CE by ancient Filipinos. This one is marked with Baybayin, and a prehispanic Filipino alphabet.
What is the Boxer Codex, and what can it tell us about the Philippines?
Describe the general social structure of the prehispanic Philippines. In what ways is it similar to or different from the social structure in your own society?
Consider your status in your own society – to which corresponding class would you belong in ancient Filipino society? Justify your answer. Is this different from the class you WISH you belonged to?
Can identify any foreign influence assimilated into the social structure of the Filipinos?
An illustration from the Boxer Codex depicting a Spanish ship greeted by natives of the Mariana Islands, near the Philippines, naked and seemingly bearing gifts. The Boxer Codex is one of the earliest attempts to describe Filipino daily life in detail.
The Philippines were ruled as a colony of Spain for 333 years. This colonial experience transformed the culture and social structure of the islands dramatically, as Spaniards converted Filipinos to Christianity, reorganized barangays into barrios that suited Spanish political needs, and reorganized farming and land use according to their own economic needs. The diverse languages and traditions of prehispanic Filipinos did not disappear completely, by any means, and much can be learned by talking to and studying the way of life practiced in various parts of the modern Philippines.
However, another important way that historians and anthropologists can gain greater insight into what the Philippines were like before the Spanish arrived is via the Boxer Codex, an illustrated manuscript commissioned by the Spanish around 1590. The Boxer Codex depicts the Tagalogs, Visayans, Zambals, Cagayanes or possibly Ibanags and Negritos of the Philippines in vivid color. The technique of the paintings, as well as the use of Chinese paper, ink, and paints, suggests that the unknown artist may have been Chinese. Since Spanish colonial governors were required to submit written reports on the territories they governed, it is likely that the manuscript was written under the orders of the governor. While it is written from an outsider’s perspective and contains many cultural biases that the Spanish carried with them, it is still an invaluable tool: this richly illustrated document provides a window into Filipino society at a time when the Spanish themselves were trying to gain a clear picture of it.
Paramount Leader of the confederacy of barangay states. In a confederacy forged by alliances among polities, the datu would convene to choose a paramount chief from among themselves; their communal decision would be based on a datu’s prowess in battle, leadership, and network of allegiances.
Datus were maginoo with personal followings (dulohan or barangay). His responsibilities included: governing his people, leading them in war, protecting them from enemies and settling disputes. He received agricultural produce and services from his people, and distributed irrigated land among his barangay with a right of usufruct.
Maginoo comprised the ruling class of Tagalogs. Ginoo was both honorific for both men and women.Panginoon were maginoo with many slaves and other valuable property like houses and boats . Lineage was emphasized over wealth; the nouveau riche were derogatorily referred to as maygintawo (fellow with a lot of riches).
Members included: those who could claim noble lineage, members of the datu’s family.
Powerful governor of a province within the caliphate or dynasties of Islamic regions. Their position was inherited by a direct descent in a royal bloodline who could claim the allegiances of the datu. Sultans took on foreign relations with other states, and could declare war or allow subordinate datus to declare war if need be. The sultan had his court, a prime minister (gugu), an heir to the throne (Rajah Muda or crown prince), a third-ranking dignitary (Rajah Laut, or sea lord) and advisers (pandita).
The timawa class were free commoners of Luzon and the Visayas who could own their own land and who did not have to pay a regular tribute to a maginoo, though they would, from time to time, be obliged to work on a datu’s land and help in community projects and events. They were free to change their allegiance to another datu if they married into another community or if they decided to move.
In Luzon, their main responsibility to the datu was agricultural labor, but they could also work in fisheries, accompany expeditions, and row boats. They could also perform irregular services, like support feasts or build houses
In Visayas, they paid no tribute and rendered no agricultural labor. They were seafaring warriors who bound themselves to a datu.
Members included: illegitimate children of maginoo and slaves and former alipin who paid off their debts
Members of the Tagalog warrior class known as maharlika had the same rights and responsibilities as the timawa, but in times of war they were bound to serve their datu in battle. They had to arm themselves at their own expense, but they did get to keep the loot they won – or stole, depending on which side of the transaction you want to look at. Although they were partly related to the nobility, the maharlikas were technically less free than the timawas because they could not leave a datu’s service without first hosting a large public feast and paying the datu between 6 and 18 pesos in gold – a large sum in those days.
Today, the word alipin means slave and that’s how the Spaniards translated it, too, but the alipins were not really slaves in the Western sense of the word. They were not bought and sold in markets with chains around their necks. A better description would be to call them debtors. Slaves who lived in their own houses apart from their creditor. If the alipin’s debt came from insolvency or legal action, the alipin and his debtor agreed on a period of indenture and an equivalent monetary value in exchange for it. The alipin namamahay was allowed to farm a portion of barangay land, but he was required to provide a measure of threshed rice or a jar of rice wine for his master’s feasts. He came whenever his master called to harvest crops, build houses, row boats, or carry cargo.Members included: those who have inherited debts from namamahay parents, timawa who went into debt, and former alipin saguiguilid who married.
Alipin Saguiguilid
Slaves who lived in their creditor’s house and were entirely dependent on him for food and shelter. Male alipin sagigilid who married were often raised to namamahay status, because it was more economical for his master (as opposed to supporting him and his new family under the same roof). However, female alipin sagigilid were rarely permitted to marry.Members included: children born in debtor’s house and children of parents who were too poor to raise them.
The Laguna Copperplate
What is the Laguna Copperplate? How does it further illuminate our understanding of early Filipino social structure?
Do you have documents that perform similar functions in your own society? What are they?
The Laguna Copperplate, a legal document inscribed on a copper plate in 900 AD, is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines. The document states that it releases its bearers, the children of Namwaran, from a debt in gold amounting to 1 kati and 8 suwarnas (865 grams; 27.8 troy ounces).
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription was found in 1989 near the mouth of the Lumbang River near Laguna de Bay, by a man who was dredging sand to turn into concrete. Suspecting that the artifact might have some value, the man sold it to an antique dealer who, having found no buyers, eventually sold it to the National Museum of the Philippines, where it was assigned to Alfredo E. Evangelista, head of its anthropology department.
Kasumuran; His Honor the Leader of Pailah, representing Ganasakti; (and) His Honor the Leader
7
han binwangan barjadi bishruta tathapi sadanda sanak kaparawis ulih sang pamegat de-
of Binwangan, representing Bisruta. And, with his whole family, on orders of the Chief of Dewata
8
wata [ba]rjadi sang pamegat medang dari bhaktinda di parhulun sang pamegat. ya makanya sadanya anak
representing the Chief of Mdang, because of his loyalty as a subject (slave?) of the Chief, therefore all the descendants
9
chuchu dang hwan namwaran shuddha ya kaparawis di hutangda dang hwan namwaran di sang pamegat dewata. ini gerang
of his Honor Namwaran have been cleared of the whole debt that His Honor owed the Chief of Dewata. This (document) is (issued) in case
10
syat syapanta ha pashchat ding ari kamudyan ada gerang urang barujara welung lappas hutangda dang hwa …
there is someone, whosoever, some time in the future, who will state that the debt is not yet acquitted of His Honor…
* Line 10 of the LCI ends mid-sentence.
A year later, linguist Antoon Postma noted that the inscription was similar to the ancient Indonesian script of Kawi. Postma translated the script and found the document dated itself to the Saka year 822, an old Hindu calendar date which corresponds to 900 AD, making the Laguna Copperplate the earliest example of writing ever found in the Philippines. The document pre-dated the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and is from about the same time as the mention of the first known mention of Philippines in world history, in the official Chinese Song dynastyHistory of Song for the year 972.
Place names mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription.
The text of the Laguna Copperplate offers us a window into Tondo culture, an ancient Filipino barangay that thrived along the Pasig River, not far from modern Metro Manila. Because it is written in Kawi, an Indonesian script, and uses several Sanskrit loan-words, it demonstrates just how connected the Philippines were with other ancient societies in Southeast Asia.
A turo turo is a special kind of Filipino restaurant. Food is prepared in advance, and customers point, point – turo, turo in Tagalog – to the dishes they want to order. In a turo turo, one can find many of the Philippines’ most popular foods – and a great primer on its history. (Pasig City, Philippines, 2018.)Available in the turo turo: Adobo is a popular dish in Philippine cuisine that usually involves pork or chicken marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and black peppercorns. It has sometimes been considered as the unofficial national dish in the Philippines. Early Filipinos often cooked by immersion in vinegar and salt to preserve the food longer in the island heat.
New Voices, New Flavors
What outside cultures have contributed to the notion of what a Filipino is? Describe ways in which these newcomers have shaped the Philippines.
Archaeologists have found evidence for trade with China dating back nearly 2000 years. The first high volume trade began in the 10th Century CE. The Chinese brought ceramics (what we call china), tea, and silk, while the Filipinos offered raw materials like wood, wax, pearls, and tortoise shells. This trade happened regularly, often taking place on the beach. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
After Spanish conquest, the Chinese population in Manila rose dramatically. These Chinese were merchants facilitating trade between Spain and China, but their relationship with Spanish authorities was often characterized by mistrust and violence, as in 1603 when tensions spilled over into an uprising – that left some 20,000 Chinese dead. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)
Trade and interactions with China have also shaped the culture of the Philippines since ancient times. Starting in the 900s CE, trade with China become more regular, leading to increased access to Chinese goods as well as intermarriage between Chinese merchants and local Filipino women. This exchange would culminate in the Manila galleon route during the Spanish colonial period. The arrival of the Spaniards to the Philippines attracted new waves of immigrants from China, and maritime trade flourished during the Spanish period. The Spanish recruited thousands of Chinese migrant workers called sangleys to build the colonial infrastructure in the islands. Many Chinese immigrants converted to Christianity, intermarried with the locals, and adopted Hispanized names and customs and became assimilated.
Available in the turo turo: Lumpia are made from meat and vegetables, rolled in a crepe-like shell and usually fried. They were brought to the Philippines by merchants from China’s Fujian province and have become a favorite Filipino snack.
Trade brought Arab and Malay merchants to the Philippines, especially in the southern islands of Mindanao and Palawan. These traders brought with them their religion – Islam, which continues to be a crucial part of Filipino identity in these islands, where as much as 10% of the population is Muslim. In fact, it is possible that if the Spanish had arrived much later, Islam could have become the dominant religion of the Philippines; while the independent-minded barangays were conquered one by one by the Spanish, the Muslim sultanates of that existed upon their arrival were united by a cohesive religious identity that contributed to an increased ability to resist Spanish attempts to dominate these islands.
Arab traders have been visiting Philippines for nearly 2000 years. After the advent of Islam, in 1380, Karim ul’ Makhdum, the first Muslim missionary to reach the Sulu Archipelago, brought Islam to what is now the Philippines, first arriving in Jolo. Subsequent visits of Arab Muslim missionaries strengthened the Muslim faith in the Philippines, concentrating in the south and reaching as far north as Manila. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)Available in the turo, turo: Satti is skewered, barbecued meat carried throughout the islands of Southeast Asia by Muslim traders.
The arrival of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 began a period of European colonization. During the period of Spanish colonialism the Philippines was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which was governed and controlled from Mexico City. Early Spanish settlers were mostly explorers, soldiers, government officials and religious missionaries born in Spain and Mexico who worked to convert the Philippines into a country that is today 83% Catholic.
The death of Ferdinand Magellan while engaged in combat with the warriors of Lapu-Lapu became a potent symbol for later Filipino nationalists chaffing under the rule of the Spanish. (Diorama in the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines, 2018.)A lush carving depicting the Virgin Mary – an important symbol for Filipino Catholics – adorns the 400 year old door of San Agustin Church. The first San Agustin Church was the first religious structure constructed by the Spaniards on the island of Luzon. Made of bamboo and nipa, it was completed in 1571, but destroyed by fire in December 1574 during the attempted invasion of Manila by the forces of the Chinese pirate Limahong. A second wooden structure built on the same site. was destroyed in February 1583, by a fire that started when a candle ignited drapery on the funeral bier during services for Spanish Governor-General Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa. The Spanish rebuilt the church using stone beginning in 1586. (Intramuros, Manila, Philippines, 2018.)
The Peninsulares (governors born in Spain), mostly of Castilian ancestry, settled in the islands to govern their territory. Most settlers married the daughters of rajahs, datus and sultans to reinforce the colonization of the islands. The Ginoo and Maharlika castes (royals and nobles) in the Philippines prior to the arrival of the Spanish formed the privileged Principalía(nobility) during the Spanish period.
Available in the turo turo: Longganisa is a (usually, but not always) sweet sausage of Spanish origin eaten widely across the Philippines, with lots of varieties suited to local tastes across difference islands. Here, it is served with eggs and rice for breakfast, but it be eaten at any meal. In addition, as part of the Colombian Exchange, Spanish colonizers brought with them produce from the Americas like chili peppers, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and the method of sautéing with garlic and onions.Introduced from Spain, Lechón is a whole roasted pig, prepared throughout the year for any special occasion, during festivals, and the holidays. After seasoning, the pig is cooked by skewering the entire animal, entrails removed, on a large rotisserie stick and cooking for several hours in a pit filled with charcoal. The process of cooking and basting usually results in making the pork skin crisp and is a distinctive feature of the dish.
In modern times, the Philippines was an American colony and protectorate, meaning that English became the language of business and education, and the economy and culture of the Philippines was influenced heavily by this interaction.
The jeepney is the most popular form of public transportation in the Philippines and a relic of U.S. occupation. Surplus Jeeps left behind by the U.S. military upon Philippine independence were transformed – their bodies were extended to increase passenger capacity and decorated in vibrant colors with chrome-plated ornaments on the sides and hood. Thus was born a unique form of Filipino transportation. (Pasig City, Philippines, 2018.)Not available in the turo turo: The Americans inspired an abiding love of fried chicken and a distinctive, sweet style of spaghetti. While you might be able to get each of those at the turo turo, Jollibee is a homegrown Filipino fast food restaurant with more locations across the country than McDonalds – they seem to have the market cornered.
Activities
Seek out some Filipino recipes. There are also plenty of cooking tutorial videos online. Visit an Asian grocery store, purchase the necessary ingredients, and actually make a Filipino dish for dinner. And don’t forget dessert – halo halo is one of my favorites (only the Filipinos would think to put raw beans in an icy desert).
There is a long tradition of resistance to colonial rule in the Philippines. Juan Sumuory is celebrated in the Gallery of Heroes. (Manila, Philippines, 2018.)
Couple of this with the country’s strong Catholicism – with its tradition of sainthood and martyrdom – and you have nation that is very aware of those who have sacrificed to advance the cause of the Filipino. Manila’s Rizal Park features the Gallery of Heroes, a row of bust sculpture monuments of historical Philippine heroes. These include: Andres Bonifacio, Juan Sumuroy, Aman Dangat, Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Gregorio Aglipay, Sultan Kudarat, Juan Luna, Melchora Aquino, Rajah Sulayman, and Gabriela Silang. Choose one of these personalities to commemorate in your own classroom. Write a brief description of their accomplishments to accompany a piece of artwork that celebrates their life for those who aren’t aware.
Today, the Philippines is increasingly urbanized. Manila, the capital, is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet. (Manila, Philippines, 2018.)
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