Filipino and American war

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Filipino and American war
By Cadet Webb
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The Filipino and American war was a war fought
between the Filipinos and the Americans over
control of the Philippines. After the Spanish
and America war the Spanish gave up control of
some of their territories, such as Cuba, cede
Guam, Puerto Rico, and eventually gave up the
Philippines as well because of a peace treaty
signed in Paris, France in 1899 agreeing that the
Americans get those countries and give Spain 20
million. Howeverthe Filipinos did not know that
they were placed under the American rule instead
of the Spanish rule, and they very much disagreed
with that decision. The Filipinos were also
upset because they had no say in whether or not
they were going to be placed under a different
countries rule during the treaty signing.
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On January 5th, 1899, President Aguinaldo
(Philippine President) issued a proclamation
stating that his army was ready to shoot any
American force trying to take over his country.
This sounded like a declaration of war to the
U.S., but Aguinaldo had no intensions of getting
involved in a war and would rather solve the
problem peacefully without war. On January 9th,
1899, American General Elwell S. Otis appointed
three American officers to meet with three
Filipino military officials to make a peaceful
compromisehowever they accomplished nothing.
The three Americans ended up shooting the three
Filipinos out of fright. However, the Americans
believe that the Filipinos started firing first.
The two sides immediately responded by going to
battle. President Aguinaldo was still trying to
think of a peaceful compromise instead of war.
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After President Aguinaldo attempted more
peaceful ways of compromise between the Americans
and the Filipinos General Otis refused to
compromise peacefully. The Americans immediately
began to invade the Philippines and take over
city by city. The first city was the city Manila
and the suburbs. The Americans swept through all
the cities easily with few casualties. The
Americans left no survivors, they killed all the
natives as well including women, children, men,
whether they were armed or not it did not matter
to the Americans, they killed them all. During
the war the Americans used forms of torture to
get information or confessions from prisoners.
They dragged men from horses, lit fire underneath
them as they hung, and other horrible torture
ways. President Aguinaldo was finally captured
in Palanan, Isabela Province, by American troops
who were acting as Filipino reinforcements.
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After the capture of President Aguinaldo, a few
rebelling Filipinos were left but that was it.
The war officially ended on July 4th 1901. The
Philippines established a Bill of Rights because
of Judge H. Taft giving the Filipinos a civilized
government. It took the Americans three years to
defeat the Filipinos. The Americans had a high
advantage when it came to weapons and numbers in
soldiers. Overall the Filipino and American war
was a brutal war for the Filipinos because of the
innocent women and children that were killed
during battle and also because of the torture
that the Filipino soldiers received when captured.
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The End