INSURRECTION
Admiral Dewey took a great liking to General Anderson, "Fighting Tom"
(L.'s cousin), the first military officer to command the American forces
in the Philippines. On one occasion the Admiral fired a salute well
after sundown (contrary to naval regulations) to compliment him on his
promotion to the rank of major general, and scared the wits out of some
of the good people ashore. General Anderson has given me a few notes
about his experiences at that time, which are of special interest.
"When in the latter part of April, 1898, I received an order relieving
me from duty in Alaska and ordering me to the Philippines, I was engaged
in rescuing a lot of people who had been buried by an avalanche in the
Chilcoot Pass. I took my regiment at once to San Francisco, and there
received an order placing me in command of the first military expedition
to the Philippines. This was the first American army that ever crossed
an ocean. We were given only two days for preparation. We were not given
a wagon, cart, ambulance, or a single army mule, nor boats with which to
land our men. I received fifty thousand dollars in silver and was
ordered to render what assistance I could. I had never heard of
Aguinaldo at that time, and all I knew of the Philippines was that they
were famous for hemp, earthquakes, tropical diseases and rebellion.
"We stopped at Honolulu on the way over, although the Hawaiian Islands
had not been annexed. The Kanakas received us with enthusiasm and
assured us that the place was a paradise before the coming of the
missionaries and mosquitoes. From there we went to Guam, where we found
nude natives singing 'Lucy Long' and 'Old Dan Tucker,' songs they had
learned from American sailors.
"When we reached Cavite the last day of June, Admiral Dewey asked me to
go ashore and call on Aguinaldo, who, he assured me, was a native chief
of great influence. Our call was to have been entirely informal, but
when we approached the house of the Dictator we found a barefooted band
in full blare, the bass-drummer after the rule of the country being the
leader. The stairway leading to Aguinaldo's apartment was lined on
either side by a strange assortment of Filipino warriors. The Chief
himself was a small man in a very long-tailed frock coat, and in his
hand he held a collapsible opera hat. I saw him many times afterward and
always thus provided. He asked me at once if I could recognize his
assumption. This I could not do, so when a few days later I invited him
to attend our first Fourth of July he declined. He further showed his
displeasure by failing to be present at the first dinner to which we
American officers were invited. There for the first time we met Filipina
ladies. They were bare as to their shoulders, yet in some mysterious way
their dresses remained well in place. In dancing there was a continuous
shuffling on the floor because their slippers only half covered their
light fantastics, rendering them more agile than graceful.
"In returning from visiting the Tagalog Chief we saw a headless statue
of Columbus. I asked a native to explain how Christopher had lost his
head. The reply was that they beheaded him because they did not wish to
be discovered.
"Soon after I got to Cavite, I was invited with the officers of my staff
to attend a dinner given in my honour. At the symposium I was asked
to state the principles upon which the American government was founded.
I answered, 'The consent of the governed, and majority rule.'
Buencamino, the toastmaster, replied, 'We will baptize ourselves to that
sentiment,' upon which he emptied his champagne glass on his head. The
others likewise wasted their good wine.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF FILIPINA LADIES.]
"When General Merritt arrived he first came ashore at a village behind
the line we had established where Aguinaldo was making his headquarters.
Rain was falling in torrents at the time, but Aguinaldo, who must have
known of the presence of the new Governor General, failed to ask him to
take shelter in his headquarters. Naturally General Merritt was
indignant and directed that thereafter any necessary business should be
conducted through me. This placed me in a very disagreeable position. At
first I thought I could conciliate and use the Filipinos against the
Spaniards, but General Merritt brought an order from President McKinley
directing that we should only recognize the Filipinos as rebellious
subjects of Spain. Aguinaldo reproached me bitterly for my change of
conduct toward him, but because of my orders I could not do otherwise,
nor could I explain the cause.
"We soon drifted into open hostility. I found but one man who appeared
to understand the situation, and he was the much hated Archbishop
Nozaleda. After we took Manila he invited me to come to see him. He
remarked in the course of our conversation that when we took the city by
storm he expected to see our soldiers kill the men and children and
violate the women. But instead he praised us for having maintained
perfect order. For reply I quoted the Latin, '_Parcere subjectis, et
debellare superbos._' Which prompted him to say in Spanish to a Jesuit
priest, 'Why, these people seem to be civilized.' To which the Jesuit
replied, 'Yes, we have some colleges in their country.'
"The statement that we seemed to be civilized calls for an explanation.
I found many Filipinos feared American rule might prove more severe on
them than the Spanish control. In a school book that I glanced at in a
Spanish school was the enlightening statement that the Americans were a
cruel people who had exterminated the entire Indian population of North
America."
The battle of Manila Bay was fought and won, as we well remember, on May
Day. Through the kind offices of the British consul the Spanish admiral
came to an understanding with Dewey. Surgeons were sent ashore to
assist in the care of the wounded Spaniards, and sailors to act as
police. The cable was cut, and the blockade was carried into effect at
once. The foreign population was allowed to leave for China. German
men-of-war kept arriving in the harbour, until there were five in all.
It was known that Germany sympathized with Spain, and only the timely
arrival of some friendly English ships, and the trenchant diplomacy of
our admiral, prevented trouble.
All the rest of that month, and the next, and still the next, the fleet
lay at anchor, threatening the city with its guns, but making no effort
to take it. The people lived in constant fear of bombardment from the
ships which they could so plainly see from the Luneta on their evening
promenades. But they could not escape, for Aguinaldo's forces lay
encamped behind them in the suburbs. In fact, the refugees were seeking
safety within the walls of the city, instead of fleeing from it, for
while they had no love for the Spaniards, and were fellow countrymen of
the rebel chieftain, they preferred to take their chances of bombardment
rather than risk his method of "peaceful occupation."
Of course there was no coöperation between the Americans and the
Filipinos, although both wanted the same thing and each played somewhat
into the other's hand. Admiral Dewey refused to give Aguinaldo any naval
aid, and the _insurrectos_ on at least two occasions found it profitable
to betray our plans to the common enemy.
The delay in taking the city was caused by Dewey's shortage of troops.
He could have taken it at any time, but could not have occupied it. The
Spanish commander made little attempt at defense. A formal attack on one
of the forts satisfied the demands of honour. When the city surrendered,
on August 13th, the Americans were in the difficult position of guarding
thirteen thousand Spanish soldiers, of keeping at bay some fourteen
thousand plunder-mad Filipinos, and of policing a city of two hundred
thousand people--all with some ten thousand men!
The way in which it was accomplished is in effective contrast with
European methods. When our troops broke the line of trenches encircling
Manila they pressed quickly forward through the residence district to
the old walled town, which housed the governmental departments of the
city. Here they halted in long lines, resting calmly on their arms until
the articles of capitulation were signed. It took but an hour or so to
arrange for the disposition of our troops among the various barracks and
for the removal of the disarmed Spanish garrison to the designated
places of confinement. Then command was passed along by mounted officers
for the several regiments to proceed to their quarters for the night. In
columns of four they marched off with the easy swing and unconcern of
troops on practice march. A thin cordon of sentinels appeared at easy
hailing distance along the principal streets, and the task was
accomplished.
By noon next day they had a stability as great as though they had been
there for years. Not a woman was molested, not a man insulted, and the
children on the street were romping with added zest to show off before
their new-found friends. The banks felt safe to open their vaults, and
the merchants found a healthily rising market. The ships blockaded and
idling at anchor in the harbour discharged their cargoes, the customs
duties being assessed according to the Spanish tariff by bright young
volunteers, aided by interpreters. The streets were cleaned of their
accumulated filth, and the courts of law were opened. All this was done
under General Anderson's command, and it seems to me is much to his
credit.
A daughter of General Anderson's, who was there at the time with her
father, writes: "Days of intense anxiety followed the opening of
hostilities. The Filipinos were pushed back more and more, but we feared
treachery within the city. We heard that they were going to poison our
water supply, that they were going to rise and bolo us all, that every
servant had his secret instructions. Also, that Manila was to be burned.
There proved to be something in this, for twice fires were started and
gained some headway, and we women were banished to the transports
again."
Aguinaldo had demanded at least joint occupation of the city, and his
full share of the loot as a reward for services rendered. We can imagine
his disgust at being told that Americans did not loot, and that they
intended to hold the city themselves. If there had been no other reason
for refusing him, the conduct of his troops in the suburbs would have
furnished a sufficient one, for they were utterly beyond control,
assaulting and plundering their own brother Filipinos and neutral
foreigners, as well as Spaniards, and torturing their prisoners. But
this refusal, justifiable as it certainly was, marked the real beginning
of the insurrection against American rule, though there was no
immediate outbreak.
Aguinaldo was a mestizo school teacher when, in 1896, he became leader
of the insurrection against Spain. The money with which Spain hoped to
purchase peace was to be paid in three instalments, the principal
condition being that the Filipino leaders should leave the Islands. This
they did, going to Hongkong, where the first instalment was promptly
deposited in a bank. The second instalment, to Aguinaldo's great
disgust, was paid over to Filipinos left in the Islands, and the last
one was not paid at all. This was just as well for him, because his
fellow insurrectionists were already demanding of him an accounting for
the funds in Hongkong, and had him summoned to court for the purpose.
This proceeding he wisely avoided by leaving for Europe in disguise.
He got only as far as Singapore, however, for there--in April of '98--he
heard of the probability of American interference in the Islands and
interviewed our consul. The go-between for this interview was an
unscrupulous interpreter, whose intrigues were destined to have
far-reaching effects for us. It has been charged that both our consul at
Singapore and the one at Hongkong committed this nation to a policy
favouring Philippine independence, but the whole question of American
pledges finally resolves itself into a choice between the word of an
American admiral and a Chinese mestizo.
When Spain had failed to pay over to Aguinaldo the balance of the peace
money, he had promptly gone to work to organize another revolution from
the safe harbourage of Hongkong. His flight to Singapore had interrupted
this, but now, with the Americans so conspicuously there to "help," it
was a simple matter to put his plans in operation.
A month after the battle of Manila Bay Aguinaldo proclaimed himself
"president" (in reality military dictator) of the "Filipino Republic."
But this republic existed only on paper. Dewey accurately states the
condition of affairs when he says, "Our fleet had destroyed the only
government there was, and there was no other government; there was a
reign of terror throughout the Philippines, looting, robbing,
murdering." A form of municipal election was held, but if a candidate
not favoured by the insurgents was elected, he was at once deposed. One
candidate won his election by threatening to kill any one who got the
office in his place. Persons "contrary minded" were not allowed to
vote. These happenings hardly suggest a republican form of government,
but they are typical of conditions at that time.
[Illustration: AGUINALDO'S PALACE AT MALOLOS.]
Naturally the self-styled president was not recognized by the American
officials, and they were justified, as is shown by the fact that before
the year was up Aguinaldo himself had come to realize that he could not
maintain order among his people, and tried to resign from his office.
Meanwhile his lack of recognition by the Americans, and his exclusion
from the spoils of war, so far as Manila was concerned, showed him that
his only hope of achieving his ambitions lay in driving these
interlopers from the Islands. But for the time being, while awaiting a
propitious moment for attack, he occupied himself and his men by
conquering the Spaniards in the outlying provinces. Since there was no
coöperation among the Spanish forces, he was quite successful. Having
proclaimed the republic with himself at the head, he felt justified in
maintaining, with the aid of his booty, a truly regal state in his
palace at Malolos, aping the forms and ceremonies of the Spanish
governors in Manila.
As fast as Church property, or property belonging to Spaniards, fell
into his hands, it was confiscated and turned over to the State--if
Aguinaldo can be considered the State. His houses and those of his
generals were furnished from Spanish possessions, all title deeds were
systematically destroyed or hidden, and administrators were appointed
for the property.
At the beginning of the new year (1899), he turned his attention to the
Americans, and Manila. Because our forces seemed reluctant to fight, the
Filipinos, like the Mexicans to-day, believed that they must be cowards
and afraid to meet them. A Mexican paper has recently told its readers
what a simple matter it would be, if war were declared, for their troops
to cross the border and crush such slight opposition as may be offered
to the capture of Washington. So it is no wonder that the Filipinos felt
confident of success, especially after their victories over the
Spaniards in the outlying regions.
By January, Admiral Dewey, General Anderson and General Merritt had left
the Philippine Islands and General Otis was in command. He announced
that the government of the United States would be extended over the
islands of the archipelago. Next day Aguinaldo retorted with what was
virtually a declaration of war. From then on he and his advisers
hastened their preparations for the conflict. Members of the native
militia who were living in Manila under the protection of the American
garrison were warned to stand ready to receive the signal which should
start the sack and pillage of the city and the massacre of its
inhabitants. By the end of January there were about thirty thousand
Filipinos under arms fronting the American lines outside the city, all
keyed up for the moment when they should be let loose to drive the
Americans into the sea. This time the spoils of Manila should not be
snatched from them!
The signal for the advance was to be a conflagration in Manila. Ten
thousand militiamen were to rise, set fire to the city, free the Spanish
prisoners of war, arm them with arms stored in the arsenal, and attack
the Americans. They were to be promptly aided in this last detail by the
thirty thousand Filipinos waiting outside, who, surrounding the city,
would drive back the fourteen thousand American soldiers upon their
burning citadel and upon the two hundred thousand Filipinos, who would
by this time have joined their countrymen. If everything had worked out
as he had planned, Aguinaldo might very probably have entered the city.
He chose a night early in February, at a time when he knew the American
reinforcements which had been ordered could not yet have arrived. Firing
began about nine o'clock in the evening, near the San Juan bridge, and
continued during the night. Meanwhile, the militia in the city tried to
assemble, but the groups were promptly fired on and dispersed. In the
morning the ships of Dewey's fleet opened fire from the flanks of the
American line. A little later our troops sprang forward and swept their
antagonists before their fierce attack. In this encounter the Filipinos
lost about eight hundred, and the Americans two hundred and fifty.
For a week the insurgents were quite demoralized, and no wonder, for
this was not the way they had expected the "cowardly" Americans to act.
But when they saw that our men did not follow up their advantage by
pursuit, their courage revived and they began once more to believe those
things which they wished to believe. Our troops had to stay where they
were because they had not sufficient transportation to take them
anywhere else, because the enemy within the city still needed their
attention, and because their reinforcements had not arrived.
When these came, General Otis divided his forces. General MacArthur
began a movement from his right against the insurgents, who contested
every village and locality capable of defense, and burned every train
before abandoning it to American hands. The insurgent capital, Malolos,
was occupied. In April, General Lawton took Santa Cruz. The American
casualties during these operations were about ten thousand officers and
men, but the sick report listed fifteen per cent of the expedition,
mostly from heat prostration.
[Illustration: SAN JUAN BRIDGE.]
General Lawton, who went out early in 1899, and was killed in December
of the same year at San Mateo, is believed to have been perhaps the most
able of our commanders.
Uniformly the Filipinos lost, but when their courage waned their
officers would announce that they had won a big victory somewhere else.
In one day, they reported, we had lost twenty-eight thousand men, in a
region where in the entire month we had lost but fifty-six. On another
occasion they announced that two thousand colonels had been killed. They
must have thought our troops were all from Kentucky.
All summer and into the fall this more or less formal and regular
warfare continued. But by that time Aguinaldo had decided that while a
concentrated field army might appear more impressive to foreigners and
be better for advertising purposes, it was not effective for his
purpose, and some change must be made. The discontent among the
conservative men who still had anything to lose was increasing, while
the labourers in the fields, the fishermen, and the great masses of the
people were growing weary of the war and the exactions of the commanders
of their troops. The spell which Aguinaldo had cast over Luzon was
almost broken. The war was nearly over, it seemed--in a civilized
country it would have been over.
To the Americans it appeared that the insurrection had been destroyed,
and that all they now had to do was to sweep up the remnants of the
insurgent forces by a system of police administration not likely to be
either difficult or dangerous. In November, MacArthur had his force
ready to strike anything within reach, but there seemed to be nothing
within reach to strike. He soon came to the conclusion that there was no
organized resistance left, that the insurgent army had broken into
fragments which would soon become banditti. The disbandment of the
insurgent field forces, which the American authorities took to mean the
coming of a general submission to our rule, was followed by a long
period of inactivity. This, of course, strengthened the impression, but
the time was being used by the Filipinos to prepare for a new method
of warfare and to organize for resistance by means of a general banding
of the people together in support of the guerillas in the field.
[Illustration: GENERAL LAWTON.]
To obtain this necessary coöperation the leaders announced the
inflexible principle that every native residing within the limits of the
archipelago owed active individual allegiance to the insurgent cause.
This was enforced by severe penalties, including burial alive, which
were systematically exacted. There was little resistance on the part of
the victims, who accepted the new policy with a curious combination of
loyalty, apathy, ignorance and timidity.
In this way there arose a strange system of dual government, in many
cases the town officials openly serving the Americans while they were
secretly aiding the insurrection, and with apparently equal solicitude
for both. Each town was the base for the neighbouring guerillas, and
when a band was too hard pressed it would dissolve and take refuge in
its own community. This was easy enough to accomplish, with the aid of
the people, for it took very little to transform a Filipino soldier into
a good imitation of a peaceful native.
Several months before the formal declaration of guerilla warfare in
November of 1899, the Filipino commanders had adopted a policy of
occupying a succession of strong defensive positions and forcing our
army to a never ending repetition of tactical deployments. This they did
with such skill that they were for a time successful. The native force
would hover within easy distance of the American camps, but would avoid
close conflict and temporarily disband. This would not be regarded by
them as a calamity, but simply as a change from one form of action to
another, and even a positive advantage.
By February of 1900, General Bates had succeeded in scattering the
larger bodies in the south of Luzon, and while some of the Filipino
leaders and their followers abandoned the cause, which they saw was
hopeless, others returned to the life of bandits, which in many cases
had probably been their profession before the war. When their guns were
gone they took up the knife and the torch. They did not cease to call
themselves soldiers of the republic, but they were not in reality.
By September General MacArthur, who had succeeded General Otis in
command of the American forces in the Islands, realized that the
opposition to American control came from the towns, and that the
guerilla bands could not exist without their support. At first he
thought that on account of the efficiency of his troops, the natives
would be actuated both by conviction and self-interest to support him.
But four months later he saw that further pressure was needed to secure
this. So he ordered that all persons suspected of contraband traffic
with insurgent organizations should be arrested and sent to Manila. In
January, 1901, he ordered the deportation to Guam of twenty-six Filipino
leaders, sympathizers, and agents, who were to remain there until peace
had been formally declared. Two months later, Aguinaldo was captured by
the dare-devil Funston of "the Suicide Squad."
The effect of this measure was to alarm the leaders, of course, who now
realized that they could be held responsible for their acts. Orders were
also issued that all men who surrendered should be disarmed but released
at once, while those captured in the field or arrested in the towns
should be held in custody till the end of the war. A letter was found,
written by a bandit leader, in March, saying that he was ordered to
"proceed more rapidly" with his operations, "as Bryan ordered Emilio
(Aguinaldo) to keep the war going vigorously until April." However true
that may have been, it is certain that the encouragement which the
insurgents received from the country they were fighting much prolonged
hostilities and caused the loss of many lives on both sides.
It is hard to realize at this distance the lengths to which the
anti-imperialists went, or were willing to go, in those days. Governor
Pack told me of an experience he had with one of them--a New Englander
of good family and American antecedents. Pack was on his way out to the
Islands at the time, and on arriving at Hongkong received the tidings of
McKinley's assassination. He was surprised to see this man, a
fellow-passenger, rush up to a Filipino with the news and shake his
hand, congratulating him on what had happened. The Governor, then a
young civilian, could not forget the shocking incident and later, when
they shared the same stateroom on the small boat for Manila, he
discovered papers which proved that his companion intended to furnish
aid and encouragement to any natives who wished to fight against
American "tyranny." This discovery gave Pack his appointment as one of
the seven lieutenant governors of the hill tribes. But the other man was
punished only by being refused entrance to the Islands. It was the
stupid and foolish fashion in America then--as indeed it still is--to
call this particular form of treason Idealism, and be lenient with it.
Our soldiers found it difficult to take seriously the bands of half
naked men, who, they knew, had been pillaging the villages of their own
race. It was true that these bands were difficult to pursue and capture,
but an army which fought only from ambush, whose detachments fell only
upon stragglers and carefully avoided the main body of its enemy, and
which showed no regard for the sacredness of a flag of truce, could not
inspire much respect. Plunder appeared to be the sole excuse for its
existence, and the pompous titles assumed by its commanders were amusing
for the leaders of robbers. The Americans followed the retreating
bandits without hatred and without fear. But they became weary of the
eternal pursuit, and felt a growing irritation.
The Filipinos, however, felt very differently about their soldiers, and
it is only fair to give their side too, especially as it may throw some
light on the Mexican situation. Even the richest and most highly
educated men found nothing to laugh at in these poor bands which were
after all composed of their own people fighting and suffering for a
cause which they could at least understand, whether or not they
sympathized with it. They did not regard the pillaging, tortures, and
murders to which the Filipinos subjected their own people as we did.
They called the robbery "collecting contributions for the support of the
war." As for the murders--in the Orient to kill is an immemorial right
of the rulers of men. What if they did fight disguised as peaceful
country folk? They were a weak people fighting against a strong. They
were naked and they were hungry, and they were fighting for a cause.
Their arms were often of little use, and they made powder out of match
heads and cartridge shells out of the zinc roofs of parish buildings,
and even then they had only ammunition enough to fire a few volleys and
then run. But men so armed had forced the United States to send out
nearly seventy thousand well equipped soldiers to subdue them. To the
native Filipino, as perhaps to the Mexican to-day, the ragged and half
savage figures of the guerillas stood for their vision of a united race.
But it was natural that our troops could not understand this, and that
they should gradually become embittered against their antagonists. The
officers, by the necessary division of our forces, found themselves
confronted with conditions utterly alien to their experience. They had
to live in native houses or churches, in the midst of four or five
thousand people whose language they did not speak, and whose thoughts
were not their thoughts. Most of them were young men. They came from all
over the United States, and were neither monsters nor saints, but good
examples of their time and country.
When these officers learned that the dignified Asiatics who called upon
them daily, who drank with them, who talked with them, and who held
offices under our government, were also spies of the guerilla leaders,
secretly aiding those who were anxious to win the price set on their
heads, they were hardly pleased. When they found that every movement of
the guerillas was reported to them just too late to be of any use, while
every movement of their own small forces was promptly made known to the
enemy, and when they were present at the disinterment of the twisted
bodies of the men who had been buried alive because they were loyal to
us, they decided that stricter measures were necessary. This was a state
of war. Within wide limits their will was law. Upon their judgment hung
not merely their lives and those of their men, but the honour of their
country and their regiment. Perhaps in some cases they met cruelty with
cruelty, but they at least tried to be honest and just. And the people
came to realize this, and also that they were not afraid, with the
result that whole communities transferred their allegiance from their
own guerilla leaders to a single young American, not because he
understood them or sympathized with them, but because he was a man whom
they could trust and respect.
It was July of 1902, four years after our taking of Manila, before the
Islands could be officially declared pacified. Let us hope that the
lessons which we learned then may not be forgotten in our dealings with
Mexico.[14]