Philippine-American War
The United States fought the Philippine republic from 1899 to 1902 and the war killed far more people than the one it grew out of. Filipino forces had been fighting Spain since 1896, had declared independence in June 1898, and controlled most of the archipelago outside Manila when the Americans arrived. The Treaty of Paris in December 1898 transferred the islands from Spain to the United States for twenty million dollars, with no Filipino present. McKinley announced a policy of benevolent assimilation. Fighting began on 4 February 1899 outside Manila and the conventional phase lasted about ten months before Aguinaldo dispersed his forces into guerrilla warfare. The counterinsurgency that followed used methods the Americans had criticised Spain for in Cuba: reconcentration of rural populations into guarded zones, the burning of villages and crops, and the interrogation technique known then as the water cure. The campaign in Samar after an ambush at Balangiga in 1901 included an order to make the interior a howling wilderness and to kill everyone over ten, for which the general was court-martialled and admonished. Estimates of Filipino deaths run from 200,000 to over half a million, most from cholera and famine produced by the fighting. American losses were about 4,200. The war was declared over in 1902 and continued in Muslim Mindanao until 1913. An anti-imperialist league at home included Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie. The Philippine government did not officially call it a war until 1999, having used the American term of insurrection for a century. Congress renamed it the Philippine-American War in 1999, and 4 February is now commemorated.
- Year: 1899 CE
- Category: Military
