Content Warning: This page contains graphic descriptions of war and violence
Filipinos During the War
Maximo Abad on route to surrender
Filipino revolutionaries and American soldiers in Marinduque, Philippines, 1903. The caption of the image, contained within a photo album, reads, "Abad en route to surrender."
Source: Bentley Image Bank, Harry H. Bandholtz Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
Filipinos held a variety of positions during the Philippine-American War. Some fought as revolutionaries against US military forces. Others volunteered to fight for the US. The civillian population assisted one side or the other, and sometimes both. According to the 1903 US census, approximately 7.6 million people lived in the Philippines and almost 7 million were born there.[1] Of the 7.6 million Filipinos, an estimated 80,000 and 100,000 fought as revolutionary soldiers and tens of thousands more served as “auxiliaries” to the revolutionary forces. For comparison, roughly 15,000 Filipinos served on the American side of the conflict.[2] While Filipinos forged competing allegiances, they all experienced the horrors of the war. In the end, at least 200,000 Filipino civilians died, and entire villages and towns were reduced to ash.[3]
Tracking the experiences and perspectives of Filipinos during the war through the archival collections contained in the Bentley Historical Library is difficult because the vast majority of these collections were produced by Americans who participated in the colonial project. Still, these collections provide insight into some of the actions of Filipinos, as well as the violence and trauma that they endured. It is important to keep in mind that this insight is incomplete because it lacks the voices of the Filipinos, whose motivations and interpretations cannot be fully understood from the writings of American officials. As such, this essay does not purport to be a comprehensive account of Filipino experiences in the Philippine-American War but instead serves as an introduction to the topic.
Discussions of Filipino soldiers fighting for the Americans appeared regularly throughout the documents that American soldiers, officers, and administrators produced about the war. One US army officer, Harry Bandholtz, noted that the level of "insurrecto activity" varied "in different localities."[4] Bandholtz reported about the "Albay Insurrection," a guerrilla conflict between the US military and Filipino troops led by Simeon Ola in the province of Albay. According to Bandholtz, there was “a large force of native volunteers” armed to fight with the United States.[5] Bandholtz also reported that Filipino volunteers had “frequently rendered valuable assistance” and had been “employed to a great advantage.” Bandholtz's report described the strategy of the US military in exploiting tensions and distrust among Filipinos to ensure that the native population would not unify. The US military's efforts to create and guide an army from indigenous groups replicated their previous tactics used against Native American groups. The native volunteers eventually became an official US army unit called the Philippine Scouts. This group was “periodically mobilized to supplement [the Philippine Constabulary, the internal police force in the colony], in its pacification efforts.”[6]
Yet this American-Philippine alliance was not always easy. In a letter to William Howard Taft regarding the possibility of merging the Philippine Scouts with the Philippine Constabulary, Bandholdz warned of friction resulting from the fact that the Scouts were required to salute US military officers, “but not [Philippine] Constabulary officers.”[7] Bandholdz's comment suggested that Philippine Scouts contested the differential treatment of US versus Filipino officers. Even while the Scouts may have chosen to fight alongside the US army, they did not readily adopt the racial ideology of the American colonizers.
By far the largest group of Filipinos affected by the Philippine-American war were civillians. Filipinos who did not fight in the war participated politically in other ways. Some assisted the revolutionaries by paying "war taxes" in the form of both money and food to keep them supplied. They also hid soldiers in their homes, ran errands, and treated wounded soldiers.[8] While civilians often provided this support willingly, at times they were compelled to do so.[9] Following a battle in Dolores, Luzon, Captain Daniel F. Anglum reported that Filipino soldiers had disguised themselves as farm workers, entered an American camp near a banana plantation, and ambushed the American troops. In his official report, Anglum wrote that he believed that "the proprietors of the village were afraid to tell [him] of their presence," suggesting that the civilians in the town concealed the identity of the revolutionaries because they feared repercussions if they told the Americans.[10] A smaller group of civilians provided support to the Americans by serving as guides or informants who gave to the Americans the locations of “Filipinos troops and supplies.”[11]
Some civilians provided assistance to both sides simultaneously. For example, Bandholtz reported in 1903 that the towns of Candelaria and Tiaon were “practically under a dual government” and recognized “both the United States government and the insurrecto government under Malvar."[12] He also noted that “a disproportionate share of the taxes” went to the Filipino government, indicating that support for both sides did not mean equal support. Bandholtz's report does not explain what motivated civilians to donate to the Filipino and American armies. It is possible that civilians were coerced into supporting the war effort. Nonetheless, these records reveal the variety of actions that Filipinos took during the war.
Although Filipinos formed different allegiances, one common experience was the destruction of the war. US troops frequently burned down homes and entire towns and cities. Michiganders who witnessed such atrocities shared what they saw with The Alumnus magazine, the monthly publication of the University of Michigan Alumni Association. In the January issue of 1900, Theodore Vlademiroff, an engineer aboard the USS Helena during the war, wrote that he had been “fortunate enough to watch the grand sights… in the burning of whole villages during the day and night” in early 1899.[13] Other accounts of the war's brutality come from the servicemen themselves. Brigadier General Simeon Ola, a high ranking Filipino revolutionary officer, wrote that US soldiers “burned and reduced [his home] to ashes.”[14] Moreover, in his account of the Defense of Guinobatan by Filipino forces, Ola described the American troops as entering the town center “behind the College and Church, which were still burning."[15] Similarly, Bandholtz reported to William Howard Taft that American troops had engaged in “wanton destruction and wholesale destruction of property” in the province of Albay and that “entire pueblos [had] been entirely wiped out.” According to Bandholtz, such actions on the part of US troops had “turned people against” the US.[16]
In addition to the destruction of towns and villages, American soldiers also killed Filipino civilians. Sometimes they did so out of revenge, as Simeon Ola claimed happened to his father. According to Ola, US troops murdered his father “with bullets and bayonets” because of Ola’s service during the Philippine-American War.[17] Other times, there was no apparent motive for their actions. In a letter sent back home to the US, Corporal Richard O’Brien recounted an incident in which his commanding officer told O'Brien and the other soldiers in his company that “there would be no prisoners taken” as they approached a village. In the words of O’Brien, “It meant that we were to shoot every living thing in sight, man, woman or child. It meant that a massacre was on.”[18] In his account of the massacre, O’Brien mentions that American soldiers shot two old men as they waved a white flag. Furthermore, he wrote that a woman and her three children burned to death in their home because the mother was too afraid to leave and face the American soldiers. O’Brien also suggested that massacres such as these were not rare, and these actions were “no different from the conduct of the troops stationed on the other islands….” He concluded that “the Filipinos hate Americans worse than they did the Spaniards. They have reason to, for the islands are covered with the blood of the natives.” While scholars still debate the exact number of Filipino civillians that died as a result of the war, even conservative estimates put the number close to 200,000.
Despite the unevenness of the archive, it is not hard to imagine the fear, sorrow, and anger that Filipinos faced throughout the conflict. Reading against the grain of the accounts of US administrators and officers such as Vlademiroff, Bandholtz, and O’Brien help to provide a glimpse of the violence and chaos that this war brought to the Filipino people.
Citations
[3] The number of civilians who died as a result of the war is hotly contested. The United States Office of the Historian states that “As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease.”In contrast, Filipino historian Luzviminda Francisco places the number at least 1,000,000.
[4] Letter from Governor Harry H. Bandholtz to the Executive Secretary of the Philippines, January 15, 1903, Correspondence 1899-1907, Roll #1, Harry H. Bandholtz Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[5] “Headquarters Lucena, Tayabas; Colonel Harry H. Bandholtz,” Correspondence 1899-1907, Roll #1, Harry H. Bandholtz Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[6] Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, New Perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 83.
[7] Letter from Harry H. Bandholtz to William Howard Taft, Jan. 19, 1903, Correspondence 1899-1907, Roll #1, Harry H. Bandholtz Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[8] Glenn May, Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 192.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Captain Daniel F. Anglum's Report on the engagement at Dolores, Luzon, P.I., August 16th, 1899, Co. "K" 12th infantry vs/ Filipino Insurgents, Aug. 20, 1899, Constabulary Documents, 1899-1905, Box 1, Owen Tomlinson Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[11] Glenn May, Battle for Batangas, 200.
[12] Letter from Governor Harry H. Bandholtz to the Executive Secretary of the Philippines, Jan. 15, 1903, Correspondence 1899-1907, Roll #1, Harry H. Bandholtz Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[13] Theodore Vlademiroff, “A Letter From the Philippines,” Michigan Alumnus 6, no. 50 (Jan. 1900): 180.
[14] Simeon Ola, “Synopsis of My Service During the Revolution,” Dec. 5, 1940 (translated by Norman Owen), Simeon Ola Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[15] Defense of Guinobatan Against the Americans-Spring 1900 (translated by Norman Owen), Simeon Ola Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[16] Letter from Harry H. Bandholtz to William Howard Taft, Jan. 19, 1903, Correspondence 1899-1907, Roll #1, Harry H. Bandholtz Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[17] “Synopsis of My Service During the Revolution,” Dec. 5, 1940 (translated by Norman Owen), Simeon Ola Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
[18] “Children Shot in Massacre,” Scrapbook, William Atwood Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.