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The Philippines is one of the largest countries in

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the world. With a population of 115 million people,

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it is the fourth largest country on

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earth in terms of population. However,

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for a period of 48 years, it

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was actually a colony of the United

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States. That half century was

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one of the most important in the history of the

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Philippines. It saw two major

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wars, profound social and cultural changes,

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and laid the foundation for full

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independence. Learn more about

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the period of American occupation of the

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Philippines and how it changed both countries

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on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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United States went through a very brief phase

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of trying to become a colonial power. And

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by that, I mean they actively wanted

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to acquire territories outside of North America

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to run us colonies, not just generally

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stick their nose in other people's business.

2:44

By very brief, I pretty

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much mean the presidency of William McKinley.

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McKinley isn't high in the list of

2:52

presidents that most people think of, but

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he was elected president twice, even if

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his second administration was cut down by

2:58

assassination. And a lot happened

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while he was president. Almost

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all US territories outside of the

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North American continent were acquired during

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the McKinley administration, Guam,

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Puerto Rico, Hawaii, American Samoa,

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very briefly Cuba, and the

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subject of this episode, the

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Philippines. The

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Philippines is the outlier in the list

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of territories I just mentioned. Its

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size and population were several times

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greater than everything else put together.

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The United States wasn't even looking to annex

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the Philippines when they went to war with

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Spain. They were more concerned about Cuba on

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May 1st, 1898. Commodore

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George Dewey defeated the Spanish in

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Manila Bay. And this victory paved

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the way for US involvement in the

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Philippines. When the

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opportunity arose to take the Philippines, the

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McKinley administration grabbed it. The

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Filipinos had been fighting against the Spanish

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for centuries. Now that the Spanish

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were out, the last thing that they wanted was

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for them to be replaced by some other country.

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On June 12, 1898,

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Filipino revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo

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declared Philippine independence from Spain.

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However, all the other parties involved in this

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conflict simply ignored it. At the

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Treaty of Paris in 1898, which ended

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the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded the Philippines,

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along with Guam and Puerto Rico, to

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the United States for $20 million. After

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signing the treaty, President McKinley announced

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a policy that he called Benevolent

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Assimilation. In

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his proclamation, he said, Finally,

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it should be the earnest wish and paramount

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aim of the military administration to win the

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confident, respect and affection of the inhabitants of

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the Philippines by assuring them

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in every possible way that the full measure

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of individual rights and liberties, which

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is the heritage of free peoples, and

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by proving to them that the mission

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of the United States is one of

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Benevolent Assimilation substituting the mild sway of

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justice and right for arbitrary rule. This

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policy of annexing territories was not

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universally accepted in the United States.

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A group known as the Anti-Imperial League

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lobbied to stop ratification of the treaty

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which annexed the Philippines. Their

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argument was that the United States was a

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colony itself that fought a revolution for its

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independence, so it shouldn't be in the business

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of doing the same thing to other people.

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One of the vocal opponents of the treaty was

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the author Mark Twain. He wrote in the

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New York Herald, I

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have read carefully the Treaty of Paris, and I

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have seen that we do not intend to free,

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but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We

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have gone there to conquer, not redeem. It

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should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and

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duty to make those people free and

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let them deal with their own domestic questions in their

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own way. And so I

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am anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having

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the eagle put its talons on any

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other land." The

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treaty was ratified in the U.S. Senate

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by one vote. As

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soon as the war was spent, Spain was

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over, another war with the Filipino revolutionaries began.

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The Philippine-American war began on February 4, 1899. The

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opening battle was the Battle of Manila, which

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was also the largest battle in the war,

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and it started with American private

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William Walter Grayson firing shots at

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Filipino soldiers. The

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war was far larger than the Spanish-American

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war in terms of casualties on both

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sides. Over 200,000

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Filipino civilians were estimated to have died,

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mostly from famine and disease, with

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4,200 Americans and 16,000 Filipino

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combatants killed. The

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Americans captured the aforementioned Filipino leader

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Emilio Aguinaldo in 1901, which

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weakened the Filipinos, and the conflict was declared

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over in 1902, but there were still

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skirmishes by guerrilla fighters for years

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afterwards. In the

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middle of the war, the Americans moved

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from military to civilian control of the

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Philippines. The military governor was General

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Arthur MacArthur, the father of the future

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general Douglas MacArthur. The

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new civilian governor was the future US

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President William Howard Taft. The

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Americans took a different approach to their administration

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of the Philippines than the Spanish. The

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Spanish administered their colonies in a

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top-down fashion, while the Americans attempted

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to incorporate Filipinos into the territory's

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administration. Much

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of this policy change was prompted

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by President McKinley's assassination and Teddy

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Roosevelt's assent to the presidency. Roosevelt

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famously opposed the US annexation of Cuba,

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and also was not surprisingly in favor

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of Philippine independence. He

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stated in 1901, quote, We hope

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to do for them what has never been

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done for any people of the tropics, to

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make them fit for self-government after the fashion

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of really free nations. End quote.

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When I said the US experiment with

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colonialism was short-lived, just three years after

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it took control of the Philippines, the

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wheels were already in motion for Philippine

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independence. But it

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didn't happen immediately. rather it occurred through

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a series of phases. The

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first phase was the 1902 Philippine

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Organic Act. The

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Organic Act officially established the Philippines

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as an unorganized US territory and

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marked the end of the Philippine-American

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War. The Act

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established a democratically elected Filipino legislative

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assembly, known as the Philippine Commission,

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which would be seated in 1904.

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It also had a Bill of Rights, the

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separation of church and state, and the creation

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of two non-voting representatives to the United States

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Congress. And if

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any of that sounds familiar, it's not

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dissimilar to the situation under which most

8:37

US territories operate today. The

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changes from Spanish to American control

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resulted in political changes as well

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as significant cultural changes. The

8:47

primary cultural institution in the Philippines was

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the Catholic Church, which was

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closely aligned with the Spanish governing

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authority. The church wasn't

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abolished, but it no longer had any

8:57

official standing. A host

9:00

of American nonprofit groups established operations in

9:02

the Philippines, the religiously affiliated

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Salvation Army and YMCA, as well

9:06

as the Lions, Kiwanis, and Rotary

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Clubs. Educational reforms

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were instituted, including instruction in the

9:13

English language. The US

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sponsored the construction of bridges and hospitals. The

9:18

urban planner Daniel Burnham visited the Philippines

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and created a plan for the development

9:22

of Manila. The

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US purchased 166,000 hectares, or

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410,000 acres of land from the Catholic Church, and

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then sold parcels back to Filipino citizens in

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a program modeled on the Homestead Act in

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United States. They also

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established a land title system to track

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land ownership. While

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the land reforms had good intentions, most

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of the land ended up going to

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large landowners and not small farmers. The

9:49

elections promised for the Philippine Commission actually ended up taking

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place in 1907 and not 1904. The

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next step on the road to Philippine independence was

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the Jones Law, or the Philippine Autonomy Act

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of 1916. The

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Jones Law replaced the Organic Act of 1902. It

10:07

replaced the Philippine Commission with a formal

10:09

Congress with a Senate and the House

10:11

of Representatives and gave this legislature more

10:13

power than the commission. Perhaps

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most importantly, the Jones Law

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explicitly promised future independence to

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the Philippines. In

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1932, the Hare-Haws Cutting Act was

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passed, which set a particular timeframe

10:27

for Philippine independence. American

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farmers were one of the groups inside

10:31

the US who were the biggest supporters

10:33

of Filipino independence. Because

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the Philippines was a territory of the

10:38

United States, cheap sugar was imported into

10:40

the US, which undercut the price of

10:42

American sugar farmers. The

10:44

act was passed by overriding a veto

10:46

from President Herbert Hoover. The

10:49

final step before full Philippine independence

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came with the Tydings-McDuffie Act of

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1934. The

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Tydings-McDuffie Act superseded the Jones Law and

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had several important provisions. First,

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the vague promise of independence was replaced

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with a firm timetable setting a date

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of independence of July 4th, 1946. Second,

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the Philippines was established as a

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Commonwealth. The term Commonwealth

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doesn't really have any official meaning under

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US law. Puerto Rico and

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the Northern Marianas Islands call themselves

11:21

commonwealths today, but then again, so

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do Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

11:26

In the case of the Philippines,

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Commonwealth status established a democratically elected

11:31

president, a unicameral legislature, which eventually

11:33

became bicameral, and a Supreme Court

11:35

made up of exclusively Filipinos. Finally,

11:38

it established Tagalog as the national

11:41

language. At the time, Tagalog was

11:43

actually just the dialect spoken around

11:45

Manila. The Philippines

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government would have almost full authority in

11:49

all domestic affairs, with the United States

11:51

continuing to control foreign affairs. In

11:54

1935, Manuel Cuazon became

11:56

the first president of the Commonwealth

11:58

of the Philippines. The

12:01

Commonwealth government was intended to be the

12:03

transitional government that would prepare the country

12:05

for full independence. However,

12:08

there was a massive roadblock on the

12:10

path to independence. On

12:12

December 8, 1941, the

12:14

Philippines was invaded by Japan. The

12:17

island's defenders lasted only a few months,

12:19

eventually retreating to the Bataan Peninsula. The

12:22

subsequent surrender of the Filipino and American forces

12:24

was covered in a previous episode on the

12:26

Bataan Death March. On

12:29

December 24, 1941,

12:31

President Kuizon and his family, along with

12:33

the Vice President Sergio Osmania, the Chief

12:35

Justice of the Supreme Court, and other

12:37

senior officials fled Manila for the island

12:39

of Corregidor. From

12:41

there they were taken south to Mindanao, then

12:44

to Darwin, Australia, and eventually to Melbourne. From

12:47

there they took a ship to San Francisco on

12:49

a train to Washington, DC, where they set up

12:51

the Philippine government in exile. Before

12:53

the evacuation, the Philippines legislature passed an

12:56

emergency powers act that granted the President

12:58

exceptional powers to handle the crisis. In

13:02

Washington, President Kuizon represented the Philippines

13:04

in signing the Declaration by United

13:06

Nations, which was the formal document

13:08

that established the Allies during the

13:10

war. This document, despite

13:12

the name, was not the establishment of the

13:15

United Nations organization that took place

13:17

after the war. On

13:20

October 14, 1943, Japan created a puppet

13:22

government in the Philippines that they called

13:24

the Philippines Republic. The President

13:26

of this Republic was Jose Laurel. The

13:30

Republic declared war against the United States and

13:32

the United Kingdom. When

13:34

American forces landed in the Philippines, Laurel and

13:36

members of the government ended up fleeing to

13:38

Japan. President Kuizon

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developed tuberculosis and died in August 1944 in the

13:42

United States. Laurel

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was later held in prison and was to be put

13:47

on trial before he was given a full pardon. On

13:51

October 20, 1944,

13:53

General MacArthur, the former field marshal of the

13:55

Philippines Army, landed with US forces

13:57

in the island of Leyte. During

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1945, Manila had been recaptured after

14:02

a month of fierce fighting, but at great

14:04

cost with much of the city destroyed. When

14:07

the war ended in 1945, the date

14:10

of independence that had been previously set

14:12

was kept. In

14:14

the Treaty of Manila, signed on July 4, 1946,

14:17

the United States

14:19

relinquished all claims on the Philippines

14:21

and recognized the Philippines as an

14:23

independent country. Today,

14:26

the former ties between the United States and

14:28

the Philippines can still be seen in both

14:30

countries. The Philippines has one of

14:32

the highest percentages of English speakers in Asia,

14:34

although almost everyone speaks it as a second

14:36

language. In the United

14:39

States, Filipinos are one of the largest ethnic

14:41

groups in the country, especially in Hawaii and

14:43

California. Tagalog is the fourth

14:45

most spoken language in the US after

14:47

English, Spanish, and Chinese. The

14:50

United States' occupation of the Philippines only

14:52

lasted 48 years, and for about four

14:54

of those, Japan actually occupied it. However,

14:57

for the Philippines, the path to

15:00

independence from first contact with Europeans

15:02

took over 400 years. The

15:09

executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is

15:11

Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji

15:13

Long and Cameron Kiever. I

15:15

want to give a big shout out to everyone

15:17

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15:19

show's producers. Your support helps me

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everything are in the show notes.