Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Philippine-American War has been described as the United State’s first Vietnam War
because of its brutality and severity. According to the Philippine-American War Centennial
Initiative (PAWCI), roughly 22,000 Philippine soldiers and half a million civilians were killed
between 1899 and 1092 in Luzon and the Visayan Islands, while one hundred thousand
Muslims were killed in Mindanao.
The United States joined the ranks of colonial powers in Asia with support from American
Expansionists and Protestant missionaries, but over the objections of domestic tobacco and
sugar producers. Strategic interests proved most decisive in the age of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s
treatise on the necessity of naval power. The United States was pursuing an “Open Door”
policy in China, and the possession of coaling stations was imperative to a would-be Pacific
power.
Benevolent Assimilation
To this was added the breakdown of the revolutionary leadership. Once provincial elites
understood that the US was offering them the opportunity to run a state free from friar control
– all that many had asked of Spain – there was little to hold them to the goal of independence.
President McKinley dispatched a Philippine Commission to Manila in 1900 to meet with educated
Filipinos and determine a form of government for the colony. Many “men of substance”
testified before the committee on the need for American sovereignty in this country for the
good of these “ignorant and uncivilized people.” This first group of collaborators soon formed a
political party that positioned itself as pragmatically nationalists.
Reference:
Escalante, Rene R. The Bearer of Pax Romana: The Philippine Career of William H. Taft, 1900-
1903. New Day Publishers. Quezon City. 2007.
Abinales, Amoroso. State and Society. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., Lanham, MD.
Anvil Publishing Inc., 2005. Manila.
Photo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931946)