Philippine American War

How many of you have ever heard of the Philippine American War? Not many is my guess. Now most educated Americans have heard about the Spanish American War of 1898 which was fought to free Cuba from the oppressive Spanish and in the process the US gained the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Many people may remember the war chant, "Remember the Maine" about the warship that was sunk off the Havana Harbor. Referred to as "A splendid little war!" Because of all that was gained in such a short time and at the cost of only about 1000 American lives.

Let me now explain about the Philippine American War. It lasted 15 years from 1898-1913, 4300 American lives were lost (as many as 200,00 Filippinos may have died). This war was fought why? To stop the Philippines from gaining independence. The US annexed them instead. We just fight a war supposedly to help Cuba gain independence, and now we have just fought a costlier war to stop another country from gaining theirs. What is worse is that the US committed unspoken about atrocities to the Filipino people. Women and children were killed, villages were burned, it was horrendous!

The meaning of this blog post is to point out the fact that the Spanish American War is still celebrated in this country and well written about, yet a longer and more tragic war with the Philippines is hidden and hardly written about at all. Why? Because we are embarrassed and would prefer to hide that part of history. History is written by the winners, what will happen when we lose? What will the history of the US look like then? Hmm....

Here is a link to a Mark Twain writing about the Philippine War. It is a nice snippet to some of the atrocities that we committed there. It is also a good read as Twain is masterful with his sarcasm!


http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/25/26060/timeline/docs/sources/theme_primarysources_Culture_17.html