The Philippine–American War: A Captivating Guide to the Philippine Insurrection That Started When the United States of America Claimed Possession of the Philippines after the Spanish–American War by Captivating History

Author:Captivating History [History, Captivating]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7 – America’s Military Government in the Philippines

As the United States worked to defeat Filipino resistance militarily, it also worked to put in place institutions and structures that would steadily bring over non-combatants and wealthy members of society to their vision for the future of the Philippines. As part of the military occupation, the military governor was tasked with the overall mission of bringing the Philippines in line with American ambitions. Beginning with Major General Wesley Merritt in 1898, the position then transferred to General Elwell Otis later that year, who held it until 1900 when the title shifted to Major General Arthur MacArthur. He held it until 1901, and thereafter, it was shared from 1901 to 1902 between civilian Governor-General and future POTUS William Howard Taft and well-recognized military general Adna Chaffee. Under Taft’s oversight, the Philippines truly shifted into a testing ground for Progressive Era initiatives, instituting Western educational curricula, English language lessons, and laws that cracked down on anti-American sentiments expressed through any form of Filipino culture, including music, art, and literature. Taft thoroughly shared the predominant view of the Filipinos as being backward, childlike people in need of Anglo-Saxon rule, telling President McKinley that “our little brown brothers” would require up to one hundred years of “close supervision” in order to cultivate “anything resembling Anglo-Saxon political principles and skills.”

Under American direction, a number of municipal governments were set up and staffed by Filipinos who supported the American mission. The American strategy in this regard was to basically fill the positions with individuals from the upper class of the Philippines, known as the Ilustrados, as well as to split the local populations by ethnic divisions that had been longstanding and bitter prior to American arrival. This, similar to the British colonial strategy in India and other locales, was actually quite effective, as it prevented a critical mass of Filipinos from unifying and led to a considerable number joining the American military government. The Filipinos did so both for the benefits and power that it could confer and because of a lack of feelings of solidarity or trust for Filipinos of other ethnicities and classes who were ostensibly their countrymen. Military Governor Elwell Otis believed that dislike of the majority Tagalog ethnicity—of which Aguinaldo was a part—would allow the Americans to install rival and disloyal governments across the islands, which they did do on the island of Negros, Central Luzon, and the Muslim region of Sulu.

The American goal with the military government was to make the Philippines learn the American way of doing things. Leading American statesmen, like John Barrett, stated the belief that with American help, the Filipinos would eventually be ready for freedom and “all the privileges of absolute independence.” The US Congress had not formally set out regulations for how to manage the islands, and so, the American forces retained many previous regulations and systems that Spain had used. Taxation, the postal system, courts, local law enforcement, and marriage were all run by the US military, which had authority to delegate as it saw fit.

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