Philippine Resistance to American Rule

The Philippine American War began in 1899, after fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists.  The Filipinos wanted independence from colonial rule, not just a shift in colonial power from Spain to the United States. Many of these fighters had helped overthrow Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, aided by the creation of the Katipunan in the early 1890s. The Katipunan was an anti-colonial society founded by Filipinos in Manila in 1892. Its goal was to gain independence from Spain through armed revolution. The Spanish American War of 1898 marked the end of Spain’s colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere and in the Philippines but began the United States’ trajectory as an imperial power. Now facing another colonial power, Filipinos continued to fight for independence against a different enemy. This page seeks to discuss the modes of Filipino resistance to the Americans during and after the Philippine-American War. How strong was the resistance to the American occupation of the Philippine archipelago? In what ways did  Filipinos resist the American military during and after the War? How did the American forces understand Filipino resistance?

Filipino resistance to American occupation has its roots in anti-colonial struggle against Spanish rule . Since the 1880s, Philippine nationalists advocated  for Philippine independence. Mainly young men who were educated in Spain (and other parts of Europe), these nationalists became exposed to the writings of European liberal thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Kramer).  Small militia groups formed throughout the Philippines in order to fight first against the Spanish, and then against the American military. People who had fought for their independence from Spain also found themselves fighting against the Americans as they believed that they were freed from one colonizer only to be handed to another. Some of these militia groups developed from  secret societies founded by anti-colonial Filipinos in Manila such as the Katipunan, which stood for independence and wanted to establish a Philippine republic free from colonial influence (Espiritu).

References

Owen A. Tomlinson. Box 1: The Ifugaos of Quingan and Vicinity by Father Juan Villarde and edited by Dean Worcester. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan

Owen A. Tomlinson. Box 1: The Bontoc Igorist. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan.

Owen A. Tomlinson. Box 1:  Manual for the Philippine Constabulary. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan.

Owen A. Tomlinson Photograph Series. Visual Material, 1899. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan.

Worcester, Dean Conant, 1866-1924. Articles, 1898-1915 and undated, concerning the Philippines. Dean C. Worcester Papers, 1900-1924, Box 2. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan.

The Non-Christian Tribes of Northern Luzon; Worcester, Dean Conant, 1866-1924. Articles, 1898-1915 and undated,concerning the Philippines. Dean C. Worcester Papers, 1900-1924, Folder 4 Box 2. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan.

Worcester, Dean Conant, 1866-1924. Articles, 1898-1915 and undated, speeches concerning the Philippines. Dean C. Worcester Papers, 1900-1924, Box 2. Bentley Historical Library. University of Michigan.

Kramer, Paul A. Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, & the Philippines. Readhowyouwant.com, 2011. 

Augusto Fauni Espiritu, Five Faces of Exile: The Nation and Filipino American Intellectuals, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005).