May 1 Marks 111 years of American Intervention

Published on April 25, 2009

May 1, 2009 will mark a little-known but important anniversary: on May 1, 1898, Admiral George Dewey steamed into Manila Bay and sunk the Spanish fleet defending the capital. The event marked the beginning of 111 years of American intervention in the Philippines.

BY CHRIS PFORR
Contributor
Bulatlat

Dewey’s attack was one of four against the already-collapsing global Spanish empire in response to the sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. The Americans also attacked the Spanish in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Thus began the Spanish-American War, which the Americans easily won against the decrepit Spanish colonial forces within a few months.

Having destroyed the Spanish fleet, Admiral Dewey blockaded Manila Bay and cabled his superiors: “I control the Bay completely and can take the city at any time, but I have not sufficient men to hold… Will ammunition be sent? I request answer without delay.”

The American Secretary of War Russell Alger ordered the dispatch of American troops to the Philippines, but it would be months before a force large enough to attack the Spanish forces in Manila could be assembled. The city was held by a garrison of 10,000 Spanish troops. Outside the city walls was a revolutionary Philippine army. They were poorly armed and not well organized, but they were eager to attack the Spanish troops and bring an end to Spanish rule in the Philippines.

General Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the revolutionary Philippine army, was in exile in Hong Kong. Admiral Dewey arranged to have him transported back to the Philippines to aid in the attack on the Spanish forces. Aguinaldo arrived in Manila on May 19 and boarded Dewey’s flagship to request support. Dewey later claimed that he had refused Aguinaldo’s request, telling him that he regarded the Filipino insurgents as nothing more than “friends… opposed to a common enemy.”

Years later, Aguinaldo recalled the meeting with Dewey: “I asked whether it was true that he had sent all the telegrams to the Consul at Singapore, Mr. Pratt, which that gentleman had told me he received in regard to myself. The Admiral replied in the affirmative, adding that the United States had come to the Philippines to protect the natives and free them from the yoke of Spain. He said, moreover, that America is exceedingly well off as regards territory, revenue, and resources and therefore needs no colonies, assuring me finally that there was no occasion for me to entertain any doubts whatsoever about the recognition of the Independence of the Philippines by the United States.”

Aguinaldo was hopeful that once the Spanish forces were defeated, the Americans would recognize Philippine independence. Nevertheless, he began buying arms and re-organizing the Philippine army. By June, his Philippine army had dug fourteen miles of trenches around Manila. They seized the city’s water pumping station and began cutting off the beleaguered Spanish troops within.

On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo read the Philippine Declaration of Independence from his house in Kawit, Cavite. The document affirmed Philippine freedom “under the protection of the mighty and humane” United States.

American soldiers began arriving in June 1898 and with General Aguinaldo’s assent, established camps in Cavite, in preparation for a campaign against the Spanish forces. At first relations with nearby Filipino troops were cordial, but gradually became tense as the Filipinos began to suspect that the Americans didn’t plan to recognize Philippine independence once the Spanish colonizers were gone.

The Spaniards forces in Manila realized the hopelessness of their position. With Filipino and American armies arrayed against their own weak garrison, they had little chance of keeping their hold on Manila, let alone the Philippines. Fearful of a gruesome end if their fate was left to the Filipinos, the Spanish generals began searching for a way to surrender to the Americans so that they would at least be given safe passage home to Spain.

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