The Philippine-American War (1898 - 1946)

The Philippine-American War(1898 - 1946)(1898 - 1946)

Hostilities broke out on February 4,1899, after  two American  privates on patrol killed three Filipino soldiers in San Juan, a Manila suburb.This incident sparked  the Philippine-American War, which would cost  far more money and took far more lives than the Spanish–American War.

 

Some 126,000 American  soldiers would be committed  to the conflict; 4,234 Americans died, as did 16,000 Filipino soldiers who were part of a nationwide guerrilla movement of indeterminate numbers. At least 34,000 Filipinos lost their lives as a direct result of the war, and as many as 200,000 may have died as a result of the cholera epidemic at the war's end. Atrocities were committed by both sides.

Aguinaldo dissolved the regular army in November 1899 and ordered the establishment of decentralized guerrilla commands in each of several military zones. The revolution was effectively ended with the capture (1901) of Aguinaldo by Gen.Frederick Funston at Palanan, Isabela on March 23, 1901 and was brought to Manila.

Free trade, established by an act of 1909, was expanded in 1913. Influenced of the uselessness of further resistance, he swore allegiance to the United States and issued a proclamation calling on his compatriots to lay down their arms, officially bringing an end to the war. However, sporadic insurgent resistance continued in various parts of the Philippines, especially in the Muslim south,until 1913.

U.S. colony

 Civil government was established by the Americans in 1901, with William Howard Taft as the first American Governor-General of the Philippines. English was declared the official language. Six hundred American teachers were imported aboard the USS Thomas. Also, the Catholic Church was disestablished, and a substantial amount of church land was purchased and redistributed. Some measures of Filipino self-rule were allowed, however. An elected Filipino legislature was established in 1907.

Consequences of the American  colonial  rule

During the Spanish period the Spaniards had given enormous land properties to the Catholic church.One of the first things the Americans did was to take care for the redistribution of these land properties. To do so they first had to pay an amount of US $7.2million to the Vatican in 1904. The small farmers or tenants didn't get any land however. The land became property of some large landowners. Most of the small farmers couldn't pay the asked price or couldn't prove that they were the former owners of the land.