American Blunder in the Philippines in 1898

HIST102 : Week 3 – Assignment: American Blunder in the Philippines
May 27, 2012
Kier O'Neil
Student
American Public University

On May 1, 1898 Commodore (later Admiral) Dewey guided his naval attack squadron into Manila Bay and quickly and decisively defeated the Spanish fleet. Not a single Spanish ship survived and not a single American life was lost. Simultaneously the Spanish were being attacked by land on all sides by native Filipino insurgents. With no hope of reinforcements or re-supply the Spanish sued for peace. A tenuous situation presented itself to the Americans, now in charge of a strategic archipelago with a native population striving for independence. I intend to argue that while the Americans had good intentions of allowing Filipino self-rule, the political and perceptual environment in the US made it inevitable that the Americans would end up at war with the Filipinos that they intended to liberate.
America had been focused inward since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Tired of war they looked to fulfill their Manifest Destiny of claiming the entire continent and pacifying the indigenous Indian population. Railroads were being built to tie the entire country together coast-to-coast, and settlers were moving west to claim land and a new life. There was a general malaise towards international affairs for 25 years after the Civil War. The 1890 census changed all of that when it declared that the frontier no longer existed and by Frederick Jackson Turner's contention that "the first period of American history is over." (Miller 1984).
Spain, in the 1890’s, was ruling over a crumbling empire. Insurgents were active in both Cuba and the Philippines which kept their forces on constant alert. Prime minister Cánovas del Castillo, who had long dominated and stabilized Spanish politics, was assassinated in 1897 leaving a Spanish political system that was not stable and could not risk a blow to its prestige (Ruiz June 1998). Práxedes Sagasta, who supported Cuban autonomy, took power in Spain and negotiated Cuban self-rule to begin on January 1, 1898. A small riot erupted in Havana only 11 days later and President McKinley felt that it was prudent to send the battleship USS Maine to Cuba to protect American citizens and interests.
Another seemingly unrelated, but very important, factor came into play also. In 1895 William Randolph Hearst bought the New York Journal Newspaper and went in a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World newspaper. Hearst spearheaded a movement that came to be known as ‘yellow journalism’. Yellow Journalism was characterized by scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news; lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings; use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts; and dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system (Mott 1941). Hearst realized that newspapers sold on emotion. Large headlines that targeted people’s patriotism or compassion sold better than those that blandly stated facts. Hearst had a few years’ experience before the Maine blew up but once that event happened journalistic integrity took a backseat to a good narrative. Even though history has borne out that the explosion was probably caused by munitions being stored too close to the boilers, and President McKinley also felt that it was an accident, once the press started putting a spin on the event popular opinion changed so dramatically that it could not be changed back. It didn’t help that McKinley’s fiery Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, was fanning the flames of war either. On February 17 the Journal’s headline was “Destruction of the Warship Maine was the Work of an Enemy” and in bold, identical sidebars offered a “$50,000 reward for the Detection of the Perpetrator of the Maine Outrage!” (Journal 1898).
The situation in the Philippines at the time was beginning to simmer too. Spain had colonized it 300 years before when Magellan landed there and the relationship between the native Filipinos and the Spanish had gone through ebbs and flows during the entire period. In 1896 a popular uprising, or insurrection, began in the Philippines against their Spanish masters. Initially it was led by Andres Bonifacio(1863-1897) in August of 1896, but later co-opted by Emilio Aguinaldo(1869-1964) who had Bonifacio executed for treason because of an internal dispute. Aguinaldo was eventually driven into the mountains by the Spanish and, at a stalemate, Aguinaldo accepted an exile to Hong Kong in exchange for “$800,000 (Mexican)” or around $400,000 in gold at the time, in return for his army turning over their arms. Neither side fully upheld the conditions of the agreement. Aguinaldo did go to Hong Kong but his army only turned over their oldest weapons. Spain paid the first installment but never made subsequent payments (Miller 1984).
Between April 22 – 25, 1898, exactly as Spain and the US were declaring war on each other, members of Commodore Dewey’s staff meet with Aguinaldo who “urged members of the junta to return to the Philippines as soon as possible in order to join and lead the incipient rebellion there. He assured them of American support in the event that the United States went to war with Spain, hinting that the latter was inevitable. Members of the junta were granted an audience with Dewey himself to give the plans the imprimatur of his office.” (Miller 1984). Aguinaldo boarded the US warship McCulloch on May 17 and arrived in Manila Bay on the 19th for a personal meeting with, promoted, Admiral Dewey who assured “that the United States had come to the Philippines to protect the natives and free them from the yoke of Spain. He said, moreover, that America is exceedingly well off as regards territory, revenue, and resources and therefore needs no colonies, assuring me finally that there was no occasion for me to entertain any doubts whatever about the recognition of the Independence of the Philippines by the United States.” (Aguinaldo 1899)
On June 13 Aguinaldo issued a Declaration of Independence and declared himself Dictator of the Philippines, as instructed by his American advisors. The Spanish were still in control of Manila as Dewey awaited ground troops from the US to take the city, so this was a rallying cry for the Filipinos to come out and bring the fight to the Spanish.
Spain, under heavy pressure on all sides, agrees to a staged battle with the Americans so as not to have to surrender to the insurgents. On August 12 they sign to a peace protocol that is to be negotiated in a Paris
Back in the US the mood was jubilant having just won two decisive victories over the Spanish. Now, instead of turning the territories over to home rule, an American expansionist movement developed. Why should we turn over what we have won in war to anyone else? “The whole surface of the earth has been stolen and re-stolen … and the process will be repeated” observed the Detroit Tribune. The Filipinos are characterized as savages that are incapable of self-rule. While it is true that they are incapable of self-defense they were certainly capable of self-rule. Aguinaldo was more than willing to cede a port and naval bases to the United States even before they were demanded. Indeed, he was ready to turn foreign policy over to the United States in return for protection against other major powers and for complete autonomy over internal affairs. (Miller 1984)
Unfortunately for the Filipinos the American press and the expansionist movement made it politically impossible for President McKinley, seeking re-election in November 1898, to follow through with his original intention of seeking no more than to demand [the Philippine island of] Luzon, Guam, and Puerto Rico (Miller 1984). So much pressure came from the electorate that on October 25 McKinley declared that he favored keeping all of the Philippine islands. He would have never done so unless he felt that this would increase his popularity two weeks before the election.
On December 10, Spain and the US signed the Treaty of Paris that gave Spain $20M for full possession of the Philippines. Many Americans were infuriated that they would give the vanquished anything for losing the war but in diplomatic circles this seemed to be a fair bargain. The only one not considered was Aguinaldo who was now being pushed out to the fringe of Manila and ostracized. He felt that he had an official agreement from the US government and they were now backing out of that agreement. Further humiliations continued until he could not lose face anymore. On February 5 a major engagement took place between the insurgents and the American military that escalated into full scale warfare over several years with atrocities taking place on both sides but the net effect was very lopsided. The Americans suffered 3,000 killed while the Filipinos suffered from 100,000 to 1,000,000 killed, mostly civilian.
Could this have been avoided? Certainly. Dewey had already worked out an arrangement with Aguinaldo which he should have honored. The press in the Philippines rarely ventured out of Manila and could be fed whatever information that the military wanted to feed them. America turned an ally into an enemy over strictly political terms. Making the Philippines a protectorate of the US would have been the best terms to keep them on, instead of trying to maintain a colony of such a densely populated country, while subjugating the natives. I hope that you will agree that it was the intention of Admiral Dewey to, indeed, let Aguinaldo control the interior of the Philippines while the US controlled the exterior. Popular opinion in this election year was driven by an emotionally charged press rabid for sales. In the end politics won over honor.

Aguinaldo, Emilio. True Version of the Philippine Revolution, Chapter III - Negotiations. Authorama Public Domain Books, 1899.

Journal, New York. Yellow Journalism. February 17, 1898. http://www.pbs.org/crucible/headline7.html (accessed May 26, 2012).

March, Alden. The History and Conquest of the Philippines and our other Island Possessions. Ayer Co Pub, 1899.

Miller, Stuart Creighton. Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984.

Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism. Routledge/Thoemmes, 1941.

Ruiz, Octavio. "Spain on the Threshold of a New Century: Society and Politics before and after the Disaster of 1898." Mediterranean Historical Review, June 1998: 7-27.

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[ 1 ]. The range is so large because the American military kept limited records of enemy kills and the Filipinos were felt to exaggerate their claims of loss of life.