Philippine-American War
Filipino revolutionaries under Emilio Aguinaldo had been fighting Spain since 1896 and declared Philippine independence on 12 June 1898, establishing the First Philippine Republic at Malolos. The 1898 Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish-American War, instead transferred sovereignty over the islands from Spain to the United States for $20 million, without Filipino consent. Fighting broke out on 4 February 1899 when US sentries fired on Filipino soldiers near Manila, and President McKinley's policy of 'benevolent assimilation' gave way to a war fought first as conventional battles around Manila and then, after Aguinaldo dispersed his forces in late 1899, as a prolonged guerrilla insurgency across Luzon and the southern islands. US forces under generals including Arthur MacArthur and Elwell Otis responded with a scorched-earth pacification campaign that included the concentration of civilians into reconcentration zones (reconcentrados) and, in Samar, campaigns of reprisal ordered after guerrilla attacks that killed hundreds of American soldiers. Aguinaldo's capture at Palanan in March 1901 broke the back of organised resistance, and President Theodore Roosevelt declared the war over in July 1902, though sporadic Moro resistance in the southern Philippines continued for years afterward. The war killed more than 4,200 US soldiers, an estimated 20,000 Filipino combatants, and as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians through violence, famine and disease, making it far bloodier and more consequential for the islands than the negotiated transfer to full independence that followed four decades later.
- Year: 1899 CE
- Category: Military
