Spanish American War: Conflict in the Philippines

President William McKinley elected on the Republican ticket in 1896, was cautious but determined to support U.S. interests. He felt compelled in early 1898 to send the USS Maine to Havana harbor, where a few weeks later, it blew up. The “yellow press,” led by William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, issued the battle cry “Remember the Maine.” Congress declared war in April 1898, but the U.S. fleet had already begun moving into position near Spanish possessions in both the Caribbean (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (Philippines). The small and undertrained U.S. Army was augmented by numerous enthusiastic volunteers, including the famous Rough Riders, organized by Teddy Roosevelt, who benefited from admiring publicity. The navy performed better than the army, but both performed better than the Spanish, and the fighting was over within a few weeks, costing the United States few dead, and most of those from disease rather than battle. During the war, the United States annexed Hawai'i. As a result of the war, although not until 1902, Cuba became independent. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines became U.S. colonies, technically called “unincorporated territories.”

(born March 23, 1869, near Cavite, Luzon, Phil.—died Feb. 6, 1964, Manila) Philippine independence leader. He was born of Chinese and Tagalog parentage and was educated at the University of Santo Tomás, Manila. He became a leader of the Katipunan, a revolutionary society that fought the Spanish. Philippine independence was declared in 1898, and Aguinaldo became president, but within months Spain signed a treaty ceding the islands to the U.S. Aguinaldo fought U.S. forces until he was captured in 1901. After taking an oath of allegiance to the U.S., he was induced to retire from public life. He collaborated with the Japanese during World War II. After the war he was briefly imprisoned; released by presidential amnesty, he was vindicated by his appointment to the Council of State in 1950. In his later years he promoted nationalism, democracy, and improvement of relations between the U.S. and the Philippines.

On April 21, 1898, the United States declared war against Spain. The causes of the conflict were many, but the immediate ones were America's support of Cuba's ongoing struggle against Spanish rule and the mysterious explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor. It would be the first overseas war fought by the United States, involving campaigns in both Cuba and the Philippine Islands.

America's "splendid little war" with Spain may have been "little" in one respect — as a military conflict — but its historical consequences have been anything but small. With its victory and subsequent annexation of the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico, the United States stood poised to enter the 20th century as an imperial power.

This essay explores the Philippines's geopolitical orientation vis-à-vis late nineteenth-century Spain amid nation-building efforts and changing maritime infrastructure. The period in question represents a turning point for Spain's transpacific empire, not only because of the emergent political discourse on nationhood, but also because, following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, state actors and intellectuals alike began to experience and engage with the once-remote colony differently. I argue that the Suez Canal, which profoundly changed the temporal-spatial contours of empire, prompted writers, artists and statesmen on both sides of the Pacific to imagine empire through the trope of intimacy.

The emphasis on poison — in literature, a gendered weapon, associated with cowardice and the disempowered — alludes to the rejection of the narrative that a larger-than-life character like Magellan was killed by indigenous peoples living in a far-away land. The focus on hospitality — a perceived, innocuous national character trait of Filipinos — adds another layer to the national myth-making that could perhaps inform the next 500 years of the Philippine narrative. From the 10th to 13th centuries, the archipelago was home to societies that cultivated the talents of goldsmiths who crafted jewelry, regalia and other artifacts made from gold, to be discovered later in 20th century Surigao. No wonder, then, that the occasional discoveries of pre-colonial antiquities and prehistoric remains, some dating as far back as 60,000 years ago, have evoked the precolonial past that some Filipinos sentimentally seek asa basis for a national identity that is free of colonialism. [...]recently, March 16, 1521 was often, aggravatingly, marked as the date of the “discovery” of the Philippines.