Ample documentation of US torture, summary execution and other crimes during the American-Philippine War 1899-1913 exists but the extent and the reasons it happened and in what context have been argued over till the present. That the US did torture is undeniable but how much it helped or hampered the overall efforts to impose a Colonial administration there seems besides the point in a moral sense. Wrong is wrong. But back then an ocean away from the US which was in the process of completing the denial and whitewashing of atrocities perpetrated against American First Peoples and filtered by a largely Jingoistic press, the war there was little understood and anything negative was often under-reported, reinterpreted in a good light or ignored at least early in the conflict.
And alleged acts of barbarity by US forces reported in the US were often justified in light of alleged atrocities committed by Filipinos.
How little things change in the world....
The US was a new arrival to a first rate power status and in its first flush of confidence and even arrogance, and despite strong oppostion by the Anti-Imperialist league and others it took a while for public opinion to turn against the war.
I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. „
—Mark Twain, New York Herald, Oct. 15, 1900.
Officially over in 1902, except in the South, it dragged on as an overall guerilla war even in pockets of the North till 1913.
The shift to guerrilla warfare, however, only angered the Americans into acting more ruthlessly than before. They began taking no prisoners, burning whole villages, and routinely shooting surrendering Filipino soldiers. Civilians were forced into concentration camps, after being suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Thousands of civilians died in these camps. The camps and slaughter of civilians was excused by the fact that the media told the American population that the savages were little children needing America's help and cleansing. The guerilla warfare helped this case by giving a moral right to what the American's were doing since the "savages" were cowardly uncivilized enemies.
Though it was an era before the modern concepts of "War Crimes" were defined there was already a long history of revulsion at acts of inhumanity committed by Colonial powers. Acts that most in the US felt were not ones that the US would commit. But it was also a time when Manifest Destiny and other notions still seemed to justify almost anything and "of course" the US was better than other Colonial powers and would not make the same mistakes or commit wrongs along the way and that the colonized peoples would somehow welcome the US as a benign caretaker of some sort..... But even Douglas MacArthur's father Arthur who served there under General Otis come to understand the Filipino's true feelings.
In the fall of 1899 MacArthur, who was still loyal to General Otis, said to reporter H. Irving Hannock:
When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that Aguinaldo’s troops represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon — the native population that is — was opposed to us and our offers of aid and good government. But after having come this far, after having occupied several towns and cities in succession, and having been brought much into contact with both insurrectos and amigos, I have been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads.
In some ways engaging in torture to any degree and allowing unofficial summary execution and death in custody are almost unavoidable side-effects of an imperial or Colonial campaign in whatever guise it comes in. The more unreasonable use of force by the subjugators, the more that violent and unreasonable defensive responses will seem necessary. And in turn that somehow justifies more expedient and desperate counter measures in an ever spiraling process till exhaustion, and or common sense overtakes one or both sides.
In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:"The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog...."
Other events dubbed atrocities included those attributed by the Americans to General Vicente Lukban, allegedly the Filipino commander who masterminded the Balangiga massacre in Samar province, a surprise attack that killed almost fifty American soldiers. Media reports stated that many of the bodies were mutilated. The attack itself triggered American reprisals in Samar, ordered by General Jacob Hurd Smith, who reportedly ordered his men to kill everyone over ten years old. To his credit, Major Littleton Waller countermanded it to his own men. Nevertheless, some of his men "undoubtedly" carried out atrocities. Smith was court-martialed for this order and found guilty in 1902, which ended his career in the U.S. army. Waller was found guilty of killing eleven Filipino guides.
Sergeant Hallock testified in the Lodge Committee that natives were given the water cure, "...in order to secure information of the murder of Private O'Herne of Company I, who had been not only killed, but roasted and otherwise tortured before death ensued.
The US experience in the Philippines was no different than any other conquest in whatever form it comes in. Apologist historians tend to minimize death rates and those who tend to demonize above all else believe only the most inflated while some like to take an average of the two extremes... but fewer or greater numbers of dead in a given conflict do not change the fact that war of any kind makes everyone involved in the killing lose the better part of their humanity. If we killed fewer then we can say we weren't so bad...? If a particular country killed more than a certain amount under certain conditions, then the case is proved that they are collectively irredeemably evil? These are silly extremes but the arguments about levels of guilt lead to effectively being in agreement with these kinds of assumptions or conclusions and that obscures the real reasons for knowing what happened in the past. Avoiding the same mistakes in the future by truly understanding them as well as if not also real conciliation and workable justice.
The incomplete documentation of and arguments over extreme acts by the US between 1899 and 1913 that amount to War Crimes in our modern understanding of that idea does not change that they are an inevitable consequence of any type of invasion and conquest or subjugation anywhere and anytime in history. It could be argued that extremes by the US were rare and restrained in comparison to other invasions and colonizations but that is meaningless to those who suffer and those whose loved ones and friends die at the hands of outsiders regardless of their supposed benign and declared motives might be. And the radicalized people who fight back can become as bad or worse as those they resist in order to have a chance at winning.
On the Filipino side, information regarding atrocities comes from the eyewitnesses and the participants themselves. In his History of the Filipino People Teodoro Agoncillo writes that the Filipino troops could match and even exceed the Americans' penchant for brutality regarding prisoners of war. Kicking, slapping, and spitting at faces were common. In some cases, ears and noses were cut off and salt applied to the wounds. In other cases, captives were buried alive. These atrocities occurred regardless of Aguinaldo's orders and circulars concerning the good treatment of prisoners.
But side which has the least restraint can ultimately undermine their own chances of winning. The winner of a race to become the most feared and hated will be the loser overall. Judging from the ratio of wounded to killed... it would seem however that the US was summarily executing most of the Filipino wounded despite strained explanations to the contrary. It was claimed that there were 15 killed for every wounded as opposed to the usual ratio of 1 killed for every 5 wounded in most wars of that era....
For the US stepping into the shoes of a Colonial predecessor with 400 years of history in a complex land with all the ignorant foolhardiness of a George Bush did not guarantee a quick and easy time with little bloodshed and destruction. Would that G. Bush II had read some of this history instead of fluff pieces on US heroes in an effort help him imagine his place in history. Rhyming the past unintentionally has guaranteed him ignominy instead of his desired fantasy legacy.
The US inherited problems that the Spanish helped perpetuate there for centuries. The Spanish had just finished putting down a rebellion by the growing independence movement there just prior to the Spanish American War which ended with the US being ceded the Philippines by Spain. The US then had to in turn suppress the newly proclaimed Philippine Republic which hoped to dissuade the US from replacing the Spanish as the colonial power there. But Spain had ceded the Philippines to the US and as a war prize the US set about enforcing its authority over its new territory just as it was doing with Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. The justification for control could not allow any local opt-outs since the exception would have been all the more reason for the other countries to insist on independence.
It may be that some in the USA had "Nice" motives initially in the Philippines but the reality of dealing with a "rebellion" in the North and the extended resistance from people in the southern part of the the Philippines who the Spanish called "Moros"... after the Moors in Spain and who they characterized and dealt with in a similar manner. (Enforced conversion and violent and often corrupt, unjust practices). The legacy of a mistranslated treaty with the people of the Moro region was maybe the least of the problems there.
Like Spain, the US too had major problems with the "Moros" (1900-1913) and seem to have slipped directly into the role the Spanish played there before them. At times US troops and administrators went "Native" in a colonial sense... The "Moros" were used to the adversarial and often violent relationship they had with Spain and dealing with the resistance in the south the US fell right into becoming sometimes as heavy-handed as the Spanish. ... the farm-boys and average enlisted men thrown into a jungle to fight for Uncle Sam were not prepared for the realities there... (Sound Familiar?) Add to that officers whose background included the latter part of the Indian wars in the American West added up to a view of the enemy that allowed the worst to be normal in many cases. To survive and even overcome per their orders from a poorly informed, distant Washington not a few became as un-democratic and imperial as the Spanish particularly under the more uninformed US Governors and Generals.
Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos!
Cut throat khakiac ladrones!
Underneath the starry flag,
Civilize them with a Krag,
And return us to our beloved home.
(verse from a song popular with U.S. troops in the Phillippines)
As a Colonial power, the US might have minor bragging rights for a lighter more benign hand overall in the rest of the Philippines after quelling most resistance there.... The historic, Spanish influenced conflict with the Muslim population in the south however just continued under different rulers. The US slotted into the "Us vs. Them" roles the Spanish used between the non-Muslim largely Christian North and the Muslim populations in parts of the South. But some of the US leadership was pragmatic enough to find ways to accommodate the resistance in the south and that it took 14 years after defeating the Spanish to finally declare peace down there is both a testament not only to the difficulty of winning militarily but also misguided US policies that had to be replaced with what actually worked to wind down hostilities and accommodate local issues. It took years to understand the local customs and politics to the point where past mistakes could be overcome.
Like any colonized country the Philippines resisted and then came to try and make the best of an uneasy indefinite relationship as a US colony. But as a "wet behind the ears" Nouveau overseas Colonial Master (as opposed to the previous internal colonizing and suppression of First Americans in the US) the US attempts to still be democratic and fair ended up with a compromise that could be called "better" than the record of some European colonists but just how "good" is that? Even the nicest slave holder who never (or hardly ever) beats or abuses slaves and feeds and clothes them well and gives them responsibility and a better life than others is still a slaveholder... And the US like any colonial or imperial power regardless of imagined best intentions, the enforcers sent to govern find it hard to avoid ways of abusing their power at the expense of those who are being governed. While many in authority avoid being corrupted, it is the seemingly inevitable acts of those who overstep and abuse their powers and even commit unapproved crimes that are remembered best by the governed. And even if the worst of these are minor by some historical judgment even taking the norms of an era into account the people they rule over prefer independence.
The US, by stepping into a failing colonial territory and suppressing a strong independence movement negated any pretensions to being a "good" colonial power... As a country founded on the basis of "Consent for the Governed", the hypocrisy of the US ruling over non-consenting people was not lost on many. Justifying it with Western paternalism along the lines of the usual misunderstood reading of a famous poem by Kipling "White Man's Burden" (poem's text whose darkly satirical subtext was maybe too subtle. The poem has a "modest proposal" type message... in every stanza there is a ironic rebuke to the "Imperial mind-set" but which went over the heads of Imperialists and anti-imperialists alike then and still to this day...
...Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild --
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,....
....Take up the White Man's burden --
The savage wars of peace --.......
....The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead!...
....The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard --
...Nor call too loud on freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.....
These lines are out of context... read the whole poem and decide for yourself and maybe realize why this was dumped as part of Queen Victoria's Jubilee ... it arguably was written to sneak some subversive notions into the public consciousness in a plausibly pro imperial guise. It was set aside and his poem "recessional" was used instead. The poem was finally published in the USA and was then intended by him as a commentary on the US involvement in the Philippines and predictably was misunderstood and misused in that context as well.
(Sort of like Darwinian principles being used to justify Social Darwinsim) ... So the literal misreading, which missed the subversive ironies, was added to colonial notions and justifications of helping a people or nation (in Asia, Africa and South America) in a paternalistic way until at some future time they would be "developed enough" to rule themselves in a modern way. No surprise that the Colonized are the ones who finally and emphatically decide when that point is reached and that it takes a long while after that to convince the colonial power to leave. That the US bought into these notions wholeheartedly as a rationale is not surprising though no less disappointing.
It would be nice to think that the US had "Fewer" out of control abusers in the Philippines but regardless of how few there might have been and what yardstick is being used to judge how benign, being in power anywhere tends to corrupt eventually and given too much power rulers, Indian agents, colonial governors, Congresspeople etc just get corrupted faster and more egregiously. If the governed country is still feudal in many ways and allows many medieval customs the easy way is to not only accommodate these realities but even abuse the privileges that go with it. A violent reprisal here, a bit of imprisonment and maybe torture there, a destroyed village or two might be expected of the new rulers and some among them will do it BECAUSE THEY CAN. A benign ruler in this sort of situation is one who does not push the envelope beyond what is normally tolerated... but with no one with the power above in the chain of command or below among the governed to say "when" or "no", practically speaking ...it takes a strong person with a conscience to resist overstepping boundaries, engaging in immoral acts, taking what is there for the taking and more especially if the "enemy" is doing the same. (Justified at the time in Moro areas to put down Piracy, slaving, raiding and other practices besides rebellion or as part of it...)
the disparity in the casualty rates reflects something of the methods and technological disparity of the conflict
It can be seen as a test for any people's advancement how they treat those they have power over... and why they choose to keep some prerogatives and how they use the power they have... A long colonized people is not unlike a prison population or abused children, they bring their past and their coping and survival strategies with them and a new Warder or teacher with nice ideas or intentions is soon faced with a reality they are not prepared for which quickly shapes them into becoming that which they claim to hate... "Freeing" anyone who does not know how to be free is not easy especially when the "liberators" do not see that they are going to end up recapitulating much of the established forms and habits of the despots they have just replaced and even end up justifying acts and policies they previously deplored and perpetuating the Status-Quo.
It takes an incredibly far seeing, aware newcomer or an accident of history (or both) to find the best way out for everyone... and that almost never happens... only time and hard lessons allow something better to emerge. A study of the US experience there shows there were some reasonable people in charge at times and that lead to a workable peace by 1913 and maybe people like Mark Twain and others had some influence on policy makers to try and clean up the US's act in the Philippines to the point where the final workable peace treaties were agreed on...
The US did not become an exact clone of the Spanish and their "Colonial-lite" style may have helped them end up with an ally against Japan in WWII. With the Japanese invasion the country saw a return to a more medieval style colonizer and maybe some small appreciation of the lighter hand of the US but no lessening of their wish for independence. And unlike the French and others who could not see that the Colonial era was as good as dead, the US made good their promise and let the Philippines decide their own future. And yet the colonial habit dies hard and the US has certainly retained a large influence on the Philippines since then. Did we leave it better than when we first came there? Arguably so but would it have been better for the Philippines to have been independent right away instead of delaying? How much harm did we do along with any perceived good? There is no way to know exactly how much or how little the US tortured and killed prisoners back then and there is no complete exhaustive survey that can number the villages destroyed and lives ruined. But what is the point of denial or minimizing how bad it was or over-hyping what was already immoral indefensible with exaggerations. People who do not want to believe will not buy into the really angry histories which amount to a blanket guilt by association by all Americans and that stains and accuses the country for all time. Likewise those who want the truth to come out or be better understood so that the same horrors are not repeated in the future will not be assuaged by "Mistakes were made" style histories that attempt to minimize or wish away things we don't want to admit happened. One murder or act of torture is too many then or now and in any war anywhere there will always more than one...
Any colonizer uses local allies to achieve their aims and the locals are "free" to use "Local" methods that become accepted by the colonial forces out of desperation or expediency. Or that becomes the excuse to commit them yourselves. Who tortured first becomes meaningless when each side for good reason believes the worst rumors about the other. They did it so we get absolution if we do the same is a frequent road to moral ambiguity and corruption. "They" do it already... so going along or even augmenting it is just following local precedent... It could be that we we much worse in Vietnam and now in the current conflicts proportionally and in degree than back during our early more naive international adventures. Perhaps we were worse then. There was probably still enough awareness at the top in the US military in the 60's of what the US forces did in the Philippines so it might be argued in some technical sense that the average US soldiers were actually more "restrained" in some sense in Vietnam despite the huge numbers of Vietnamese deaths there. The pre-doomed attempts to have a Hearts and Minds campaign there is evidence of that.
Eventually Filipinos had to relent and allow the US to govern them for several more decades but regardless of how much brutality or how little there was, it more than enough for Filipinos to never forget. The types of violence or extremes on either side may be less explain the ultimate US success in ending resistance than the extent of the technological advantage that the US had then and has not had to that degree in later wars. That and the lack of support from outside for the Filipinos. Another advantage the US has not had since in other post colonial wars.
The US perhaps had a reasonable Colonial record after 1913 but to this day the Philippines has a love hate relationship with the US. It took many more years of an unequal relationship for it to finally get the USA to give up it's military bases there. And in the end as an independent nation it still has to deal with lingering issues from it's time as a colony, for instance it still has separatist Muslim rebels in the South. So for the Philippines, some things stay the same even after 500 years whether under the Spanish or the US or after independence. And the US has failed to remember any lessons it may have learned there back then and seems to be repeating the same mistakes in even more disastrous ways in Iraq and Afghanistan.