IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE PHILIPPINES

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IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE
PHILIPPINES
Hindî Ako Si Joe! (My Name Isnt Joe)
Dr. Zoltán Grossman, Member of the Faculty,
Geography/ Native American and World Indigenous
Peoples Studies, The Evergreen State College,
Olympia WA http//academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossma
z
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Facing West (Richard Drinnon)

• Manifest Destiny against
• Native American nations
• Kept going across
• Pacific Ocean
• Overseas imperialism

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Spanish-AmericanWar, 1898

• Philippines Liberated from Spain 1898, turned on
  rebels 1899 colony until 1946
• Cuba Occupied 1898, but not annexed
• Puerto Rico Annexed 1898 still a
  Commonwealth
• Guam Ceded by Spain, 1898

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Hay on westward expansion

• The Spanish-American War was a splendid little
• war, part of a general plan of opening a field
• of enterprise in those distant regions where the
• Far West becomes the Far East.
• -- John Hay,
• Secretary of
  State
• 1898-1905

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The Pacific is our natural property. Our great
coast borders it for a quarter of the worldwe
need to keep the passage open to eastern Asia,
the future battleground of commerce. -- Henry
Adams (p. 249)
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White Mans Burden
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Paternalism againstnoble or violent savages

• In Samoa, the nativesare children, and have the
  
• charms of childhood, as well as the faults of the
  
• small boy.
• -- Henry Adams (p. 249)

In the Philippines, the natives are entirely
unfit for self-government. --Dean Worcester (p.
279)
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President McKinleywashes dirtyFilipino
withcivilization
(Thanks to Terrie Mount for scanning.)
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Philippine-American War, 1899-1913
U.S. liberated islands from Spain, 1898
turned on Tagalog rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo,
1899 annexed islands as colony. War fought
until 1913, with 4,000 U.S. soldiers, 20,000
Filipino insurgents, 250,000 civilians dead.
Granted independence 1946 held bases until
1992.
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Warnings of resistance
We will withdraw to the mountains and repeat the
North American Indian warfare. You must not
forget that. --Aguinaldo spokesman to
General Marcus Miller (1899)

• The insurgent government of the Philippine
  Islands cannot be dealt with as though they were
  North American Indians, willing to be removed
  from one reservation to another at the whim of
  their masters.
• --U.S. consul in Hong Kong
• Rounseville Wildman (1899)

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Human rights abuses

• The extensive burning of barrios in trying to
  lay waste the country so that the insurgents
  cannot occupy it, the torturing of natives by the
  so-called water cure and other methods in order
  to obtain information, the harsh treatment of
  natives generally

--Major Cornelius Gardener, U.S. Civil
Governor, Tabayas province
(1902)
Difficult to distinguish civilians from rebels in
a guerrilla war.
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Concentration camps
In retaliation for rebellion, troops burnt
villages, destroyed crops in Batangas province,
1901. Herded survivors into concentration camps
in reservation-like stockades, ostensibly to
isolate insurgents. Easier to control
peasants and use their labor, and
turn depopulated rural areas into free-fire
zones. Model for rest of the Philippines.
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Anti-Imperialist League opposes Philippine
war
I would not exchange the glory of this republic
for the glory of all the empires that have
risen and fallen since time began. --Democratic
presidential nominee Wiliiam Jennings Bryan
(1900) Republic or Empire American Resistance to
the Philippine War by Daniel Boone Schirmer (1972)
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Barbariansvs. Civilized
Of course our whole national history has been
one of expansion. While we had a frontier the
chief feature of frontier life was the endless
war between the settlers and the red men.
Sometimes the immediate occasion for the war was
to be found in the conduct of the whites and
sometimes in that of the reds, but the ultimate
cause was simply that we were in contact with a
country held by savages or half-savages.
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• that the barbarians recede or are conquered,
  with the
• attendant fact that peace follows their
  retrogression or
• conquest, is due solely to the power of the
  mighty
• civilized races which have not lost the fighting
• instinct, and which by their expansion are
  gradually
• bringing peace into the red wastes where the
• barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.
• -- Theodore Roosevelt
• The Strenuous Life (1901)

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• The presence of troops in the Philippineshas no
  more to do with militarism and imperialism than
  had their presence in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and
  Wyoming during the many years which elapsed
  before the final outbreaks of the Sioux were
  put down.
• To grant self-government to Luzon under
  Aguinaldo would be like granting self-government
  to an Apache reservation under some local chief
• The Seminoles, who had not been consulted in the
  Spanish sale of Florida, rebelled and waged
  war exactly as sons of the Tagals have rebelled
  and waged war in the Philippines.
• -- Theodore Roosevelt (1900)

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Officers letters to newspapers

• We exterminated the American Indians, and I
  guess most of us are proud of itand we must have
  no scruples about exterminating the other race
  standing in the way of progress
• Our men have been relentless, have killed to
  exterminate men, women and children, prisoners
  and captivesfrom lads of ten up, an idea
  prevailing that the Filipino was little better
  than a dog. (pp. 314-15)

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• I want no prisoners.The more you kill and the
  more you burn, the better you will please me.The
  interior of Samar must be made into a howling
  wilderness.
• --General Jacob Smith, 1902
• We must act with vindictive earnestness against
  the Sioux, even to their extermination, men,
  women and children. Nothing else will reach the
  root of this case.
• --General William T. Sherman, 1866
• Our future security will be in Iroquois
  inability to injure usand in the terror with
  which the severity of the chastizement they
  receive will inspire them.
• --General George Washington, 1779

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Philippine Ethnic/Religious Groups

• Pink Lowland Catholics
• on Luzon (north),
• Visayas Is. (central)
• Green Lowland Muslims
• (Moros) on Mindanao (south)
• Yellow Highland tribal peoples
• (sometimes used against rebels)

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Igorot rice terraces in Cordillera, N. Luzon
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Navajos meet Igorots at St. Louis Worlds Fair,
1904
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Moro Crater Massacre, March 1906
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Mark Twain on the Philippine-American War
The completeness of the victory is established
by this fact that of the six hundred Moros not
one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory
is established by this other fact, to wit that
of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their
lives. General Wood was present and looking on.
His order had been, Kill or capture those
savages. Apparently our little army considered
that the or left them authorized to kill or
capture according to taste, and that their taste
had remained what it has been for eight years, in
our army out there--the taste of Christian
butchers. . . .The enemy numbered six
hundred--including women and children--and we
abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby
alive to cry for its dead mother. This is
incomparably the greatest victory that was ever
achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United
States.
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• It kept leaking down from sources above that the
  Filipinos were niggers, no better than Indians,
  and were to be treated as such.
• -- A.L. Mumper, 1st Idaho Regiment
• We had been taught (the devil only knows why)
  that the Filipinos were savages no better than
  our Indians.
• --Returned officer in Congressional Record
• The boys go for the enemy as if they were
  chasing
• jackrabbits. Apply the chastening roduntil they
  
• come into the reservation and promise to be good
  Injuns
• -- Colonel Funston, Kansas Regiment Commander

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Indian Filipinoself-government
It is possible for us to govern them as we
govern the Indian tribes. --
Governor-General of Philippines
William Howard Taft (1902) We have acted on the
theory for a hundred years with regard to the
American Indians, that no matter what they wish
or what government they desire, we will hold them
by force. --Methodist Bishop James
Thoburn (1902)
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B.I.A.

• Bureau of Indian
• Affairs (BIA)
• War Department to
• Interior Department
• 1849
• Bureau of Insular
• Affairs (BIA)
• Interior Department
• to War Department
• 1900

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Bataan Export Processing Zone
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Fishing community relocated
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Workers boxcar housing
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Labor strikes forbetter working conditions
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Morong nuclear plant Westinghouse plant on
volcano, quake fault would power EPZ, U.S.
military bases
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Bataan fishing community of Morong
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Fishermen opposenuclear plant,educate nuclear
workers
Shootings, disappearances
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Sweatshop workersplan anti-nuclear strike
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Workers, fishers, farmersblockade roads
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Peoples strike barricades
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Military brings in soldiers
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Standoff of soldiers, protesters
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Stalemate
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Military prepares for attack
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Military attacks with light tank
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Aftermathof attack
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Protesters dont budge
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Strikers win, nuclear plant canceled
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The Cordillera, Northern Luzon
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Bontoc tribal rice culture
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Ancient rice terraces
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Chico River dam proposal
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Rice terraces near Chico River
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Belwang village
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Militarization of Chico River
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Tribute to slain tribal leader
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On the way to the rebel zone
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New Peoples Army tribal rebels
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Tribal rebel priest
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Women in rebel army