Assuming the White Man's Burden: The Seizure of the Philippines, 1898-1902

Author(s): Mark D. Van Ells

Source: Philippine Studies , Fourth Quarter 1995, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Fourth Quarter 1995),
pp. 607-622
Published by: Ateneo de Manila University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42634171

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 Assuming the White Man's Burden:
The Seizure of the Philippines, 1898-1902
Mark D . Van Ells

iti

¿Wh»

Perhaps no theme dominates the history of American colonialism in

the Philippines - at least in its early stages - more than race. Written
accounts by white Americans during their years of colonial domi-
nance in the Philippines are fraught with examples of condescend-
ing and bigoted racial attitudes toward the nonwhite peoples of the
archip>elago. Indeed, the Western world's most famous literary ex-
pression of the colonialist impulse was written in an effort to per-
suade the United States to join the imperial club and seize the Phil-
ippines. Briton Rudyard Kipling urged Americans to

Take up the White Man's Burden-

Ye dare not stoop to less-
Nor call too loud on freedom
To cloke your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Most scholars of Philippine-American relations have recognized that

racist attitudes impacted upon U.S. behavior in the islands. However,
few have systematically examined the quality and character of turn-
of-the-century American race thinking and assessed how Americans
translated this ideology into specific actions and policies in their Far
Eastern colony.
This article is an examination of American racist thought and how
it shaped U.S. conduct in the Philippines during the first five years
of American involvement in the affairs of the islands. Although the
Philippines constituted America's first major overseas colonial

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

venture, Americans had had a long history of contact with peop

of different races. This history was a tragic one. Bolstered by a de
seated belief in white supremacy, it entailed the slavery of one rac
and the near extermination of another. In taking their very first st
into Philippine life, white Americans referred back to familiar per
ceptions of other nonwhite peoples and implemented time-test
policies and practices of racial control. As a result, white American
recreated the lamentable climate of North American race relations half
a world away in their new Asian colony.
Based on the impressive body of scholarly literature already writ-
ten on American colonialism in the Philippines, this article is not
meant to be a comprehensive account of Philippine history between
1898 and 1902. Rather, its purpose is exploratory and interpretive,
and intended to add new dimension and stimulate new discussion
of a topic well-studied by scholars on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

American Race Ideology

By the end of the nineteenth century, American westward expan-

sion had reached the eastern shore of Asia. In 1898, the United States
declared war on Spain over disagreements in Cuba. As a second front
to the Caribbean war, the U.S. Pacific Fleet under Commodore George
E. Dewey steamed into Manila Bay in the Philippines on 1 May 1898,
destroyed the Spanish fleet there, and besieged the Spanish army in
Manila. In the Philippine campaign against the Spaniards, the Ameri-
cans found indispensable the assistance of Philippine revolutionar-
ies, led by Emilio Aguinaldo.
The population of the Philippine archipelago was remarkably di-
verse ethnically, composed mainly of Malays of various linguistic
groups (including Muslims in the South), but also significant popu-
lations of Melanesians, and dominated by a Chinese-mestizo (mixed-
race) class. The peoples of the Philippines had the extreme misfor-
tune of coming under American influence during a time of particu-
larly strong racist sentiment in the United States. By the end of the
nineteenth century, traditional American racism had combined with
the misapplication of modem science to produce an especially viru-
lent current of racism in American life. At the dawn of the twenti-
eth century, race relations in the United States had devolved into what
may well have been their lowest point in all of American history.
African Americans had been enslaved, and freed just forty years

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 WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

prior to the Spanish-American War, only after the bloodiest and

divisive conflict in American history. During the postwar Recons
tion period, radical Republican lawmakers attempted to equalize r
relations, perhaps best exemplified by the Fourteenth Amendmen
the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed national citizenship
equal protection of the law to all Americans. But long-held w
racist stereotypes of African Americans severely undermined
attempts. Many whites believed blacks to be inherently inferi
intelligence and moral character. Blacks, many whites maintained
uncontrollable sexual appetites which threatened the "purity
white women and the white race. Although naturally lazy, childl
and docile, blacks might become "uppity," white racists believ
exposed to "demoralizing" ideas like political rights and racial
ity. Only subjugation and force, the racists reasoned, could co
African Americans. By the 1890s, a system of legally-sanctified r
segregation emerged in the American south (where most bla
lived), which purported "separate but equal" treatment of the
but in reality cemented racial inequality into southern societ
1898, African Americans had lost most of the human rights they
won during the American Civil War (Foner 1988; Newby 1965
The native inhabitants of North America, the American Indian
also suffered in the hostile racial environment. From the time whites
first settled in the area now known as the United States, whites and
native American Indians fought along the frontiers of those settle-
ments. Whites viewed the Indians as uncivilized "savages" who im-
peded the "progress" and "enlightenment" of Euro-American civili-
zation. White Americans believed it their "manifest destiny" to spread
their civilization across North America, and felt justified in destroy-
ing - sometimes to the point of genocide - the "backward" race that
stood in their way. As the frontier drew to a close at the end of the
nineteenth century, many white reformers hoped to convince the
surviving native American Indians to disregard their traditional cul-
tures and integrate themselves into white society. Reformers instituted
a broad program to "civilize" the "savages," largely through educa-
tional efforts like Richard Pratt's Carlisle School in Pennsylvania. But
after 1900, racism led white reformers to lower their expectations of
Indian assimilation. Once promised equality in white society, native
Americans were relegated to the margins of American life, there to
await their expected extinction as a defeated and degraded race
(Drinnon 1980; Hoxie 1984).

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

Race also influenced U.S. immigration policies. While immigratio

from Europe in the 1890s was virtually unrestricted, it genera
considerable controversy. Significant numbers of immigrants w
Roman Catholics. Many Protestant Americans believed that as f
lowers of a dictatorial "foreign potentate" (the pope), Catholics we
incapable of functioning in a democratic society. As more immigr
from southern and eastern Europe arrived, many old-stock Am
cans began to fear the "mongrelization" of the Anglo-Saxon popula
tion by Italians, Jews, and other "swarthy" peoples. Although imm
gration restriction for Europeans was more than twenty years aw
in 1898, for Asians it was ¿ready a reality. Chinese immigrants fir
arrived in California in the 1840s and 1850s as merchants, gold pr
pectors, and railroad workers. The Chinese soon experienced the ra
prejudice of the white population, especially after the completion
the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Whites believed Asians to be
intelligent but treacherous, scheming, and deceitful. In 1882, the U.S.
Congress passed the first of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, effectively
barring immigration from the Middle Kingdom. Japanese immigrants
arrived around 1900, resulting in a "Gentleman's Agreement" be-
tween the American and Japanese governments which halted that
flow. Those Asians already in the United States suffered from race
prejudice (such as vigilante attacks) and legal discrimination (such
as anti-miscegenation laws) much like other nonwhites (Archdeacon
1983; Higham 1955; Chan 1991).
Feeding this long history of racist thought and action during the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the development
of modern science. Many white scholars in Europe and America be-
gan to apply Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to human affairs.
According to these scholars, the races of mankind competed like
animals in nature, resulting in the "survival of the fittest." Europe
and America had come to dominate the planet, they asserted, because
the white race had beaten the other races and proven its superiority.
Some scholars even argued that Africans and native Americans were
deviant and inferior evolutionary branches of the human species.
Many scientists ranked the races; Asians, for example, were superior
to blacks and Indians, but inferior to whites. Scientific method was
often used to "prove" white supremacy. Craniometry (the measure-
ment of skull size), for example, was a popular scientific technique
used during the late nineteenth century to "demonstrate" the supe-
rior intelligence of whites. For Europeans and white Americans,
slanted applications of modern science gave added weight to already

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 WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

existing notions about race. "[One] reason for analyzing quantitative

data/' explains scientist and historian Stephen J. Gould (1981),

arises from the special status that numbers enjoy. The mystique of sci-
ence proclaims that numbers are the ultimate test of objectivity. Surely
we can weigh a brain or score an intelligence test without recording
our social preferences. If ranks are displayed in hard numbers obtained
by rigorous and standardized procedures, then they must reflect real-
ity, even if they confirm what we wanted to believe from the start.

Grounded in scientific "fact," the aura of white supremacy seem

unassailable to many, if not most, white Americans at the end of th
nineteenth century (Archdeacon 1983, 143-73; Daniels 1990, 265-8
Gould 1981).

American Attitudes Towards the Philippines

Prior to Dewey's arrival in Manila Bay in 1898, very few Ameri-

cans had any direct knowledge of the Philippines and its people.
America's most renowned "expert" on the Philippines was Univer-
sity of Michigan zoologist Dean C. Worcester, who had performed
field research in the archipelago during the 1880s. Worcester's per-
ceptions of the Philippine people reflected classic American notions
of white supremacy. He noted, for example, the "childlike" nature
of Filipinos, as well as their "oriental" traits such as deceit and treach-
ery; "honesty among Filipinos is a theme for the humorist" he once
wrote. Worcester, an admirer and avid reader of Kipling, claimed to
have "discovered" over eighty ethnic tribes in the islands, which he
categorized into three broad groups: Malayans, Indonesians, and
"wooly headed, black, savage dwarf" Negritos, whom he later re-
moved from the human category altogether (Drinnon 1980, 283-306;
Sullivan 1991).
More extensive contact with Filipinos after 1898 changed Ameri-
can racial attitudes remarkably little. Americans in the Philippines
"observed" first hand the "laziness" and "childlike" qualities of the
Filipinos. Army General Robert Hughes, for example, testified before
Congress that the Filipinos' only concerns were to "go to cock fights,
gamble, and whet their bolos." Americans often made explicit com-
parisons between the Filipinos and more familiar non-white peoples.
American soldiers in the islands, for example, routinely referred to

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

Filipinos as "niggers." Comparisons with American Indians were

common; a native female companion was a "squaw," and U.S.
General Charles King claimed that the Filipinos were "utterly w
out conscience and as full of treachery as our Arizona Apa
Americans invented a new hate word for the Filipinos, "gu
"goo-goo," forefather of the term "gook" (Drinnon 1980, 27
Miller 1982, 31-57, 88).
Americans also disparaged Filipino culture and society. T
viewed the archipelago's wealthy and literate mestizo elite -
of whom had been educated in Spanish universities - as only sli
less inferior than the masses. William Howard Taft, for ex
explained that Filipino elites were "glib" and "able to r
phrases," but had difficulty "understanding concepts." Rom
tholicism, controversial as it was in the United States, was even
appalling to Protestant Americans when blended with indig
Filipino traditions. Many Americans denied that there was a
pine culture at all, including Theodore Roosevelt, who dismissed
entire archipelago's population as a "jumble of savage tr
(Drinnon 1980, 279-306; May 1980, 10-12).
The American public viewed the peoples of the Philippines
a combination of fascination and dread. Filipinos, for example,
prominently featured in ethnological exhibitions at the various
Fairs that took place across the United States in the early twen
century, particularly the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Louis. Fairgoers marvelled at the diversity of exotic peoples fr
Philippines, including the islands' mestizo class, the "high and
intelligent" Visayans, the "fierce followers of Mohammed," and
key-like" Negrito people. At the same time, however, many Am
feared the racial implications of widespread contact with the Ph
people. One southern Senator, for example, characterized F
as "inferior but akin to the Negro." "A mongrel and semibar
population," claimed another. The large mixed-race populati
palled many Americans, including Mrs. Jefferson Davis, who p
out how "everybody knows the trouble mulattoes have caused i
South" (Rydell 1984, 142-44, 160-78; Miller 1982, 123-25).
Thus, when confronted with new groups of nonwhite peo
the Philippines, white Americans viewed them in light of thei
isting perceptions of other nonwhites. They surveyed the Phil
in much the same way they did the North American frontier
few decades before, as one of the world's "dark" places aw

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 WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

Euro-American "civilization" and "enlightenment." Similarly, t

saw the Philippine people much as they had the American Indi
as a backward, inferior race which had to either yield to progress
face extermination.

Annexation and War

The combined Philippine and American forces quickly defeated th

Spaniards. Not wanting to surrender to the Filipinos, the Spania
arranged a sham battle with the Americans, after which Spain could
surrender to a Western power with honor. The Americans had d
feated Spanish forces in the Caribbean as well, and the United State
found itself in the position of determining the fate of Spain's over
seas empire. During late 1898 and early 1899, Americans debated the
merits of acquiring the Spanish empire for themselves. Imperialists
such as Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Albert Beveridge of Ind
ana, strongly favored "keeping" the islands and making the Unit
States a European-style world power complete with overseas territo
ries. Anti-imperialists argued against acquisition, believing it wo
weaken America's moral position as an example of freedom, dem
racy, and self-determination to the world. The wishes of the Filipi-
nos themselves were seldom considered. When the subject of Fil
pino people entered the discussion at all, racist attitudes often dom
nated the debate, perceptions which ultimately had great impact
the decision to take an empire (Welch 1979, 3-23).
Both imperialists and anti-imperialists expressed racist views and
assumptions about the Filipino people. But as historian Stuart
Miller has discerned, the character of their racism was somewhat
different. Imperialists, asserts Miller, were more strongly paternalis-
tic in their racism. Part of America's role in world power, according
to the imperialists, included "civilizing" the world's "dark places."
These Americans saw it as their duty to "uplift the child races eve-
rywhere." Protestant missionaries were particularly excited about
"Christianizing" the Filipinos (including the Roman Catholics). God
had called America to do its duty, one missionary contended, by
"laying these naked foundlings at our door." To them, relinquishing
control of the islands would be "utter blasphemy." The United States
owed it to the Filipinos, as well as all of humanity, to carry the gift
of Western civilization to yet another semibarbarous, sometimes savage
land (Clymer 1984, 117-42; Miller 1982, 122-28; Welch 1979, 43-57).

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

Anti-imperialists were a varied group, often united only in t

opposition to annexation. But in general these people, accord
Miller, were more traditional "race haters." Most prominent
the anti-imperialists were southern Democrats, who opposed an
tion largely due to racist fears. Southern leaders, perceiving
selves as already burdened by a "race problem," objected to
ing yet another "inferior" race under the American flag. "We u
stand what it is to have two races side by side that cannot
mingle," complained South Carolina Senator "Pitchfork" Ben Til
Mrs. Jefferson Davis opposed annexation because "three quar
the population is made up of negroes." Southern race haters
joined, oddly enough, by several liberal Republicans from no
states, such as Senators Carl Schurz of Missouri and George F
Hoar of Massachusetts, who traced their intellectual roots to
tionism. While their brand of anti-imperialism was mostly con
with the moral questions raised by colonialism and American de
cratic values, racism also tinged their views. For example, Schur
German immigrant, one-time Free Soiler, and Civil War Union
eral - warned that "Malays and other unspeakable Asiatics by th
of millions!" might come to the United States if the islands
annexed (Miller 1982, 122-28; Welch 1979, 43-57).
The possibility of millions of Filipinos gaining suffrage and c
zenship was anathema to imperialists and anti-imperialists
Newspaper editor Whitelaw Reid observed that "the chief av
to. . . . accessions of territory . . . springs from the fear tha
must be admitted to the union as states." Missouri Represen
Champ Clark's defiant denunciation of potential "almond-e
brown-skinned United States Senators" brought him cheers fro
House gallery, as did his assertion that "no matter whether the
fit to govern themselves they are not fit to govern us." But imp
ists had no intention of granting Filipinos American citizenship
they moved quickly to address the racist concerns of the anti-i
rialists. A State Department official, for example, explained th
perialists would not grant citizenship to a "half-civilized peo
so averse to social order." Secretary of War Elihu Root tried
suage racist fears by arguing that "the Constitution follows that
but doesn't quite catch up with it." Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
flatly, "we have full power and are absolutely free to do wi
islands as we please" (Miller 1982, 122-28; Welch 1979, 43-57
While Americans debated the future of the Philippines, the Fi
took matters into their own hands. Independence had for years

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 WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

the goal of Philippine revolutionaries, and remained so after the defea

of the Spaniards; "they will have nothing short of it/' reported one Ame-
rican military official. On 12 June 1898, Aguinaldo declared Philippi
independence. In Malolos, the archipelago's elite drew up a consti
tution and created an assembly. By January 1899, Aguinaldo head
a popularly elected government controlling large areas of the Philip-
pine archipelago. Indeed, the only territory controlled by the Ameri
cans in early 1899 was the city of Manila. But blinded by racist
assumptions, the Americans believed the Filipinos incapable of sel
government. William Howard Taft, for example, argued that "unques
tionably chaos would follow self-government," since "even the educate
Filipinos are below par" (Miller 1982, 167; Salamanca 1968, 6-25).
American officials ignored the Philippine Republic at home an
abroad. No American representatives attended Philippine government
functions, and federal officials in Washington snubbed its ambass
dor there. The American military in the islands did not grant Philip
pine forces basic military courtesies, even though they had been re-
cent allies against the Spaniards. When a Filipino ship "dared" t
fly the Philippine colors, for example, the U.S. Navy confiscated the
ship's flag and guns, and the American captain verbally abused th
Philippine officers. In fact, Americans were incredulous over th
Philippine failure to "appreciate" the U.S. presence in the island
Referring back to familiar racist stereotypes, American officials ar-
gued that the "Asiatics" acted as insolent children who could be
brought into line only by force (Miller 1982, 50-51).
In December 1898, the United States and Spain signed the peac
treaty ending the Spanish-American War. In the treaty, Spain ceded
the Philippines and other colonial territories to the United State
ignoring the Philippine Republic. With Senate ratification of the trea
in February 1899, the imperialists had won the debate over annex
tion. But the Filipinos were determined to resist, and U.S. and Fi
pino forces soon faced off. President McKinley expressed his hop
for the growing American military presence in the Philippines:

The earnest and paramount aim of the military administration [should

be] to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of
the Philippines by assuring them in every possible way that full meas-
ure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peo-
ples, and by proving to them that the mission of the United States is
one of benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice
for arbitrary rule.

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

McKinley and other imperialists no doubt believed such lofty rhe

ric, and genuinely saw their actions in the Philippines as humani
ian and magnanimous. But American racial attitudes and preco
tions of the Filipinos helped such sentiment devolve into a cruel
war. Only in such a mindset could Americans brag about havin
"civilize them with a Krag" and sincerely mean it (McKinle/s q
is taken from Salamanca [1968, 27]).

The Philippine-American War

By early 1899, tensions between American and Philippine fo

reached the boiling point; Filipinos taunted American troops, and
U.S. soldiers were "just itching to get at the niggers." On 4 Fe
ary, a skirmish erupted outside Manila, in which U.S. Army Priv
William Grayson boasted of shooting his "first nigger." The skirm
soon escalated into a full-scale war. Poorly-trained and ill-supp
the Philippine Army proved no match for the Americans. "As
as they aim at us," boasted one American Cavalry officer, "we're
right." By the autumn, the U.S. Army had routed the Filipino re
lar forces, and captured much of Luzon. The initial success of Am
can forces brought overconfidence. General Elwell Otis, command
of American troops in the archipelago, believed the war was a
won and refused War Department offers of more troops. Pres
McKinley also thought the war won, and turned down offers
several states of National Guard units. Theodore Roosevelt qu
that there "wasn't enough war to go around." In fact, the Americ
government did not even recognize the conflict as a war at all
an "insurrection" against legitimate American authority (Linn 19
1-28; Welch 1979, 24-42).
But Aguinaldo was not defeated; Filipino "insurrectos" dis
peared into the mountains and villages all across the archipelago a
engaged their new colonizers in a fierce guerrilla war. Virtual
Americans believed that the war would last four years and in
126,000 American soldiers, over 4,500 of whom were killed. But
Aguinaldo's guerrilla campaign vexed American military leaders. By
the summer of 1900, Otis was critically short of men. Half of his force
of 60,000 troops recruited to fight the Spaniards were due to be dis-
charged, and some state governors now began to demand the return
of their National Guard units. McKinley scrambled to recruit new
troops for the war (Miller 1982, 67-90). Interestingly, the U.S. Army

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 WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

sent several regiments of African American troops to fight in

Philippines. Although the topic is beyond the immediate focus of t
essay, those interested should see Gatewood (1975).
Americans complained bitterly about the "uncivilized" nature
Aguinaldo's guerrilla campaign, but they were actually quite experi
enced in its conduct. Most high-ranking military officers, as well
many other officers and men, were veterans of the Indian War
the American West. Army Colonel Jacob Smith, for example, w
had participated in the "battle" of Wounded Knee in 1890, describe
fighting the Filipinos as "worse than fighting Indians." On the Ame
can frontier, the U.S. Army fought the native American Indians w
"savage" methods of their own - scorched earth policies, refusa
take prisoners, attacks on civilians as well as military forces - met
ods which made a frightening reappearance in the Philippine Island
The tactics that worked so well on the old frontier were adapted
the new. In fact, American soldiers often referred to combat with t
"savage" Filipinos as 'Injun warfare" (Miller 1982, 150-76, 190-2
Roth 1981, 15-35).
Race prejudice was an implicit but strong element of "Injun w
fare." As in the Indian Wars, U.S. troops fought an enemy of a dif
ferent race. The supposed racial inferiority of the enemy led m
American soldiers to perceive their opponents as less than hum
As historian John Dower argues so persuasively in War Without Mer
(a study of the relationship between race and combat in the Pac
Theater during World War II), a strong connection exists betw
race hatred and war atrocities. "Dehumanization of the Other," wri
Dower, "contributes immeasurably to the psychological distanc
that facilitates killing . . . and surely facilitates the decisions to m
civilian populations the targets of concentrated attacks." Ameri
military personnel in the Philippines, from the highest ranking off
ers to the lowliest privates in the field, felt no obligation to w
what they themselves termed a "civilized" military campaign. "
not civilized warfare," explained an American journalist, "but we a
not dealing with a civilized people. The only thing they know
fear is force, violence, and brutality, and we give it to them" (Dow
1986, 11; Miller 1982, 211).
American soldiers committed what can only be described as t
most horrible of war atrocities in the Philippines, actions derived
a great extent from the racist attitudes the American soldiers h
about the Philippine people. The troops often spoke of the Filip
in animal-like, nonhuman terms. For example, soldiers often refer

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

to patrols into the Philippine countryside as "gugu hunts." A W

ington State soldier recounted one such expedition,

. . . our fighting blood was up, and we wanted to kill "niggers." Th

shooting of human beings is a "hot game," and beats rabbit huntin
all to pieces. We charged them and such a slaughter you never
We killed them like rabbits; hundreds, yes thousands of them. Eve
one was crazy.

Another soldier once noted how after a battle dead Filipinos were
piled "thicker than buffalo chips." While a few soldiers actually rev-
elled in the killing of other human beings, most saw such tactics as
distasteful but necessary. "I am probably growing hard-hearted,"
wrote one soldier back to his family, "for I am in my glory when I
can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger." Soldiers
who disapproved of such attitudes and argued that "we came here
to help, not slaughter," were branded "nigger lovers" by their com-
rades (Miller 1982, 176-218).
Filipino prisoners were frequently tortured. The most notorious
treatment was known as the "water cure." A prisoner had water for-
cibly poured down his throat, which was then forcefully expelled by
pouncing upon the victim. A worse fate sometimes befell Filipino
captives. A group of Tennessee soldiers, ordered to escort some cap-
tured Filipinos to a hospital, arrived with "thirty chickens and no
prisoners." Some U.S. commanders gave orders that no prisoners,
wounded or otherwise, be taken at all. One officer, for example, or-
dered Filipino captives to "kneel and repent their sins," and they
were then clubbed and stabbed to death. "When we find that [a
wounded Filipino soldier] is not dead, we have our bayonets," ex-
plained one soldier because the Filipinos were "so treacherous."
Asked about the extraordinarily low rate of captives, General Arthur
MacArthur, Otis's successor, explained that "inferior races" were
more likely to succumb to battlefield wounds than Anglo-Saxons
(Miller 1982, 150-95).
Civilian populations were often attacked with equal ferocity. Mili-
tary officials justified these tactics on the grounds that villages
harbored guerrilla fighters. But American forces had systematically
destroyed Philippine villages long before the guerrilla phase of the
war began. Pursuing Filipino regular forces along the coastline dur-
ing the first days of the war, the U.S. Navy indiscriminately flattened
coastal villages. Such attacks grew worse as the war dragged on. An

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 WHITE MAN S BURDEN

Army artilleryman wrote home that "we bombarded a place ca

Malabon, then we killed every native we met, men, women, childre
The list of depredations by Americans against Filipinos seems endle
the raping of women, the burning of villages, the desecration
churches. "The boys will say there is no cruelty too severe for the
brainless monkeys . . declared one soldier (Miller 1982, 176-95
By 1901, the "Philippine Insurrection" was effectively broken. Th
March, General Frederick Funston captured Aguinaldo. The Phi
pine leader swore allegiance to the United States, and the surren
of most prominent Filipino military leaders soon followed. But
main pockets of resistance remained; to crush them, the U.S. Army
unleashed its most brutal campaigns of the war. In Batangas Pr
ince, residents were herded into concentration camps, the surroun
ing countryside becoming a killing zone for U.S. troops where a
thing and anyone was subject to attack. American military lead
justified the policy not only on military grounds, but also on its "po
tive" effect on the "primitive nature" of Philippine life. 'The ha
ship of the Filipinos in Batangas," wrote one American command

is not the mere leaving of their homes, which are structures of mere
straw and branches, only a little more elaborate than Indian wigwams.
They can endure that, and perhaps profit by compulsory removal from
abodes that long use and neglect have made unwholesome.

In perhaps the most vicious campaign of the war, Col. Jacob Sm

vowed to make the island of Samar, sight of a recent massacre
U.S. soldiers, "howl." Smith ordered a Marine officer to "kill and
burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want
all people killed who are capable of bearing arms. . . ." He believed
anyone over ten years of age to be "capable" (May 1984; Miller 1982,
219-52).
American race hatred brought American forces in the Philippines
to the brink of genocide. While no official policy of race extermina-
tion existed, many Americans expressed an almost unbelievable non-
chalance about the deaths of thousands of Filipinos. General William
Shafter, for example, once argued that it might be necessary to kill
half of the Philippine people in order to bring "perfect justice" to
the other half. Many noted the parallels between the Filipinos and
the fate of the American Indians. One Kansas National Guardsman,
for example, flatly stated that "the country won't be pacified until
the niggers are killed off like the Indians." Another wrote that

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PHILIPPINE STUDIES

we exterminated the American Indians, and I guess most of us

proud of it, or, at least, believe the end justifies the means; and
have no scruples about exterminating this other race standing in t
way of progress and enlightenment, if that is necessary.

Some were even more frank. One soldier adapted a well-known

from the Indian Wars, "the only good Filipino is a dead Filipin
no prisoners. Lead is cheaper than rice" (Miller 1982, 176-95
Not all Americans, of course, held such attitudes toward the
pinos. One American soldier wrote that "when you hear of our
ple sending missionaries here, tell them they had better pu
missionaries to work in New York." And Americans were not the
only combatants in the war to commit atrocities. The American-or-
ganized Philippine Scouts, for example, composed largely of
Macabebes, had a reputation for brutality against their Tagalog en-
emies; "word reaches a place that the Macabebes are coming and
every Tagalog hunts his hole," reported one American officer. The
war was cruel and barbarous for all parties involved. The cruelties
inflicted by Americans derived to a large degree from the dehuman-
ized racial perceptions the U.S. troops had about the people they were
sent there to benevolently assimilate into the "civilized" world (Miller
1982, 180-88).
In July 1902, arch-imperialist Theodore Roosevelt, now President
of the United States, declared the "Philippine Insurrection" over.
American colonial policies reflected American racial prejudices long
after the end of the Philippine-American War. The United States now
concentrated on remaking Filipino society in the American image,
through educational programs and economic development. However
well-intentioned, race prejudice limited the scope and effectiveness
of the these programs. Educators, for example, stressed an education
befitting a "backward" race. Fred Atkinson, first educational coordi-
nator for the new colony, wrote that

In this system we must be aware of the possibility of overdoing the

matter of higher education and unfitting the Filipino for practical work.
We should heed the lesson taught us in our reconstruction period when
we started to educate the negro. The education of the masses here must
be an agricultural and industrial one, after the pattern of our Tuskegee
at home.

Americans also extended their "civilizing" mission - both military and

social - to those not yet under their sway, such as the Moros of the

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 WHITE MANS BURDEN

south and the various highland peoples of the islands (May 19

Gowing 1977; Jenista 1987).

Conclusion

United States behavior in the Philippines cannot be properly un

derstood without reference to American history and culture. In race
relations, white Americans - by accident and design - recreated t
racial climate of North America in Asia. Race permeated the deba
among Americans over annexing the Philippines, and the nation u
timately did so in order to contìnue its ''manifest destiny" to spread
Western civilization to "backward" peoples. Native resistance to U.S.
expansion, believed Americans, derived not from nationalism or
desire for peace, but the "insolence" of ungrateful children. Reason-
ing that "uncivilized" people only understood force, "civilized"
Americans suspended their own rules of warfare when fighting the
"savages" on their frontier. In many ways, Luzon in 1900 resembled
the Arizona or Dakota Territories just decades before.
Clearly, Americans were not the only colonizers in history to ex-
press racist sentiments about those subjected to their rule; indee
colonialism was based largely on racist assumptions. But as this e
say attempts to show, the character of American racism had a stron
impact on U.S. policy in the Philippines between 1898 and 1902
Further research focused specifically on the issue of race will likely
reveal even more. How did race affect the development and impl
mentation of American educational, political, and economic polici
in the archipelago after 1902? How did the Philippine experien
differ from that of Hawaii or Puerto Rico? How did a colonial em-
pire change white American attitudes toward race? Scholars of Phil-
ippine-American relations have already noted that race affected
American colonialism; scholars may now want to explore specifically
how it did.

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