In 1898, few Americans had any real understanding of the “South Sea Islands,” as the Philippines were often called. On the other hand, the American ruling elite were aware of these Spanish-governed islands and saw them as an opportunity to expand the American empire. All great countries, according to the political thinking at the time, had to be empires and this meant that they had to have overseas colonies.
During the nineteenth century, the United States was strongly in favor of the decolonization of the European colonies in the Americas. Getting rid of European colonies in the Americas was a popular cause and most Americans opposed the idea of the United States acquiring these colonies. In April 1898, Senator Henry Teller of Colorado, in the Senate debate about invading Cuba, put forth an amendment that would forbid the United States from exercising sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over Cuba. In other words, the United States could invade and defeat the Spanish, but could not make Cuba a colony.
There were, however, a few powerful people, often described as “industrial imperialists,” who viewed colonies as essential markets for America’s rapidly expanding industry. Since the U.S. was going to war with Spain, ostensibly over Cuba according to the inflammatory reports in the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers, it made economic sense to them that the country go ahead and acquire Spain’s other colonies.
There were also a few “real imperialists,” people who wanted colonies for strategic military, ideological, and geopolitical reasons. One of these was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt. The foundation for the ideology of imperialism seems to come from the thesis of historian Frederick Jackson Turner. According to Turner, the crucible that made the United States strong had been the frontier. Here Americans had had to overcome both primitive conditions and primitive peoples (Turner viewed Indians as savages and did not mourn their loss through genocide). Since Turner had declared the frontier to be closed, Roosevelt reasoned that Americans needed new frontiers to make them strong and to continue American expansion. The Spanish colonies seemed to be ideal for this.
While the United States had emerged from the Civil War with the largest military in the world, few European powers viewed the United States as a major international power. When Commodore George Dewey sailed his fleet—just nine ships including four cruisers and a Coast Guard cutter—from Hong Kong with the intention of taking on the Spanish fleet in Manila (reported to be 40 ships), their British hosts in Hong Kong are supposed to have said:
“A fine set of fellows, but unhappily we shall never see them again.”
The American fleet sailed past the fortress of Corregidor, into the mined harbor of Manila, and sank the entire Spanish fleet with only one American casualty.
The painting shown above depicts the Battle of Manila Bay.
At the end of the Spanish-American War, Cuba was guaranteed independence and began organizing a republic. The United States occupied Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The question now was what to do with Spain’s former colonies. President McKinley wrote a memo to himself:
“While we are conducting war and until its conclusion, we must keep all we get; when the war is over, we must keep what we want.”
Any knowledge or understanding of the Philippines—their history, indigenous cultures, and political situation—was unknown to most Americans, including the U.S. military and political leadership. In other words, American military diplomacy was being carried out in the arrogant cover of almost total ignorance.
In 1896, a revolt against the Spanish had started in the Philippines. The rebels had adopted a constitution modeled after the American constitution. They had elected a government, including a president: Emilio Aguinaldo. The revolt started as a guerilla war, but the rebels soon had an organized army. In 1897, Spain agreed to a truce in which Spain agreed to reforms if Aguinaldo would go into exile. After Aguinaldo had gone to Hong Kong, the Spanish reneged on their promised reforms. The fighting intensified and by the time Commodore Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila, the rebels had nearly pushed the Spanish out.
Following Dewey’s victory, the United States sent troops to the Philippines to help the rebels in their war against the Spanish. However, President Aguinaldo told the United States that they didn’t need or want American troops. The American troops were told that they were to be an army of occupation. The Spanish, who were clearly defeated, did not want the disgrace of surrendering to the Filipino rebels, so they formally surrendered only to the Americans.
United States stayed in the Philippines in spite of the objections of the Filipinos and their democratically elected government. From the American viewpoint, the Filipinos were a conquered people. For the occupying American forces, Filipinos had no rights: houses were searched with no warrants; any person who didn’t show proper respect for the Americans was knocked down; officers referred to the Filipinos as “Indians” while the soldiers called them “niggers.” There was little concern for Filipino life.
What to do with the Philippines? This was the question that troubled President McKinley as he paced the floor in the White House and prayed to his God for an answer. The answer in McKinley’s words as recalled by General James Rusling:
“And one night it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was but it came: (1) that we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable, (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) there was nothing left for us to do but take them all, and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”
In general, the approach was similar to that used by the United States in their subjugation of American Indian Nations: use military force to convert them to Christianity. Unfortunately, most Americans were unaware that most Filipinos—more than 90%--were already Christian.
In the end, Spain agreed to sell the Philippines and its other islands to the United States for $20 million. Under the Doctrine of Discovery, Christian nations such as Spain and the United States feel they have the right, if not the obligation, to govern non-Christian nations.
Spain was a Catholic country and therefore the Catholic Church was the official state church of the Philippines. One of the first acts of the new American rulers was to dis-establish the Catholic Church and to open the way for Protestant missionaries to bring Christianity to the country (many Americans at this time were strongly anti-Catholic and felt that Catholics were atheists or polytheists).
When the Filipinos heard about the treaty selling them to the United States, they wanted to declare war on the United States. War quickly came in 1899 thanks to trigger-happy American soldiers and some drunken Filipinos.