Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos
Cross-eyed kakiack ladrones
Underneath our starry flag
Civilize ’em with a Krag
And return us to our own beloved homes.
— Popular soldiers’ song during the Philippine War 1899-1902
It’s a dark jungle path I have chosen, my friends. I am deep into the general reading for Cowboy Revolutionaries: Rough Ride Into The American Century. My current mission is to get a solid grounding in the history of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War, aka the Philippine Insurrection.
When the U.S. went to war with Spain in 1898, the focus was on Cuba. However, the U.S. fleet under Admiral George Dewey won the first great victory of the war, steaming into Manila Bay and utterly demolishing the Spanish fleet. The U.S. made common cause with the Filipino independence movement, but that cooperation broke down as it became apparent to the Filipinos that the Americans were planning to stick around and that they had traded one colonial master for another.
Within a year, there was a war on. Depending on where you stood, it was either an insurrection or a war for independence. The conflict had profound implications as the U.S. entered the international Great Power stage, but it’s barely even a footnote in our history. It’s not hard to see why; it’s almost impossible to square American ideals and our stated aims in the Philippines with our actions.
Filipino insurgents.
The war in the Philippines, which coincided exactly with the Brits’ dirty war in South Africa, was very rough stuff, indeed. The most savage kind of imperial frontier warfare. Witness this: After 48 American troops were massacred at breakfast in 1901 on the island of Samar, the American general tasked with pacifying the island — Jacob “Hell-Roaring Jake” Smith — told Marine Major Littleton Waller,
“I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States.”
Major Waller asked for clarification: “I would like to know the limit of age to respect, sir?”
“Ten years,” Smith said.
“Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms?” asked Waller.
“Yes.”
Marine badass Littleton “Tony” Waller.
Waller, as remarkable a combat Marine as that storied outfit ever produced, wasn’t having it. He countermanded the order and told Captain David Porter:
“I’ve had instructions to kill everyone over ten years old. But we are not making war on women and children, only on men capable of bearing arms. Keep that in mind no matter what other orders you receive.”
Even so, Waller ended up being court-martialed for summarily executing mutinous porters. He did not meet the fate of his contemporary prisoner-shooter across the globe, one Breaker Morant. Waller ended up getting off and went on to a generally distinguished career, marred by drink.
The Philippine War was an ugly, nasty, brutish counter-insurgency. The Samar Campaign, waged in unbelievably horrible jungle conditions, will certainly be explored in depth in Cowboy Revolutionaries.
American troops interrogated Filipinos using the “water cure” — similar to waterboarding, but worse. They force-filled the subject with water, then pounded on their distended belly.
Waller’s epic March Across Samar echoes Rogers Rangers’ terrible retreat from St. Francis in 1759. There are other powerful echoes of earlier frontiers. Some Americans went “renegade,” going over to the Filipino rebels. One such was a Buffalo Soldier named David Fagen. He is the subject of a recent biography by Phillip Hoffman — David Fagen: Turncoat Hero, which is on my reading list.
Hoffman is the author of the deliberately similarly titled biography of Simon Girty: Turncoat Hero. Hoffman’s biography of the 18th Century Ohio Valley frontiersman, “white savage” and British Indian agent, is outstanding. Like Girty, Fagen was regarded by the Americans he betrayed as a low cur, a traitor, and a price was put on his head. Accounts vary as to his fate. A bounty was paid on a decomposing head that was purportedly Fagen’s; yet some say he lived out his days with a Filipino woman in the mountains. I am eager to read Hoffman’s take, which I have no doubt will be as definitive as it is possible to be.
I am irresistibly drawn to this history, these “persistent frontiers.” The pull is visceral and emotional, and I would have immersed myself in frontier history my whole life simply because it is where I “live.” But I think I can make a pretty good case that our wars of frontier and empire — which continue to this very moment — define who we are as a culture and as a people. The best and the worst: the extraordinary bravery and sacrifice; the innovation; the high ideals and naivete inextricably mixed with bone-deep resource-greed and racism, and a great capacity for cruelty and brutality brought to bear against those we deem “savages.”
It matters. And I do love it so.
Traven Torsvan says
Here’s one of my favorite pieces by Mark Twain on the war
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/clemensmoromassacre.html
deuce says
More penetrating insights from Twain:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hns/indians/redman.html
Breaker Morant says
In some book on the Marines that I read years ago, I remember reading that whenever a veteran of Samar entered a mess or whatever, it was common practice for those present to say “Stand Gentlemen, He Served on Samar.”
JimC says
Damn — you’re right! I forgot about that. Tells us something, doesn’t it?
john roberts says
Supposedly, if an enlisted man entered a room where high officers were conferring, even generals had to stand if he was a veteran of Samar. In one of the Fargo books, Neal Fargo, a veteran of Samar, has been arrested and is taken to such a room. A general is the first to recognize him and stand and recite the ritual formula. All the others stand and salute. The general is Blackjack Pershing.
Matthew says
From everything I’ve heard the was in the Philippines was the most inglorious war America was involved in. Most people tend to think it was Vietnam mostly because that’s the way it’s portrayed in the movies.
Years later we will again fight in the Philippines during World War II and I believe we have CIA is helping track down terrorists there. Interestingly, the Philippines have been conquered inter by the Spanish, the US, and Japan, but Filipinos have embraced Spanish, American, and Japanese pop culture.
deuce says
For all the trashing Andrew Carnegie gets on a regular basis, it’s a stone-cold fact that he opposed the war and even tried to buy the Philipines from the US in order to give them back to the Filipinos:
https://filipiknow.net/andrew-carnegie-annexation-philippines/
Victorian Sword says
“1898: Our Last Men in the Philippines”, a Spanish-language historical drama on the Siege of Baler from 1898 to 1899, is on Netflix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1898,_Our_Last_Men_in_the_Philippines
JimC says
Thank you! On it.
Black Tyrone says
In my Library. Most interesting.
Greg Walker says
Indeed we are what so much we assign to others.
Tom Linton says
Right. just like National Socialist Germany and Marxist Socialist USSR. “Mark Twain” was rounded up by the secret police and executed, along with Carnegie. 0___0
Black Tyrone says
What? no reference Kipling’s famous poem “White Man’s Burden” Kipling’s plea to America to join with Britain in their self-appointed task to extend the blessings of the Law to the far corners of the world Hmmmmm.
Ugly Hombre says
http://www.morolandhistory.com/
A great website with a lot of information on the “Moro Rebellion” . Some mistakes in the history of the 1911 .45- but over all quite good.Esp good info about the 1897 Winchester shotgun. Maybe you have seen it before?
My FIL was a Philippine Scout Veteran of Bataan and Corregidor- later on retired US Army and a driver bodyguard for the RP minister of trade.
In his youth, he drove a teak truck for a lumber company in Moroland. I asked him “Papang weren’t you scared down there in Mindanao driving a truck in the boondock with all of those bandits, pirates and cut throats?”
“No”
“Why- I damn sure would be ”
” No- there is just one way to operate in a place like that, you let them know that you don’t want trouble- but if there is trouble- you will Kill them right away.”
The R.P. is a great place but conflict management is a whole hell of a lot different than it is here- take a look at the M.O. of the current Pangulo if you want to get a idea. Always has been always will be.
Best not to judge our country of near 100 years ago or the men of yore by the standards of today IMO.
If you ever get a chance to visit the Philippines take it- a incredible wonderful country.
JimC says
Great stuff.
A frontier credo if there ever was one.
Matthew says
Yeah, I like that.
Paul McNamee says
I know this is more of a non-fiction crowd, but on a related note; my friend Ed Kurtz released a book containing three horror novellas, AT THE MERCY OF BEASTS. The second tale, “Kennon Road” is set during the occupation. I haven’t gotten back to it, but Ed read some of the story at a bookstore appearance. It was captivating.
Not a common setting for fiction, at least not short horror fiction.
JimC says
All of the stories sound worthy:
Paul McNamee says
Yes. At the signing, the books were delayed and I only got mine about a month afterward. It’s the top of my pile as soon as I get back to my pile.
Someone (it might have even been me) asked about the three historical settings and Ed said, “History is my jam.”
Matthew says
All those stories sound interesting. The first one seems like “The Thing on the Fourble Board” an episode of the horror radio series Quiet Please. It’s famous for being the scariest radio show of all time. You can listen to it on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilRbcBhD9_0
I read about Manananggal in a book on folklore. Freaky stuff.
Ugly Hombre says
The PI has a lot of supernatural stuff, and the pinoys believe it- well many do.. I got into a drunken bar stool conversation with a Philippine Constabulary NCO in a Balibago bar about Capris and other R.P. goblins once. I asked him if he believed, he said “I believe in bullets”
Later he changed his mind but that’s a long story best left for another time.
Don’t get a girlfriend from Capiz.. That place is infested with aswangs and all kinds of huants.
Col. Edward Lansdale, during the Hukbalahup revolt, hired and used some powerful mangkukulamand, to enlist some Aswangs (don’t ask me what they payed them with) to catch and drain some of the Communist terrorists and leave them up in the trees- In the contested areas. They hired a Capiz PI witch.
The Huks wanted no part of that and soon left for the deep boondock- and many of them went straight after that and rallied to the Government.
President Magsaysay found out about it- and was pretty upset as he was a devout Christian. He put the kabosh on Lansdales supernatural antics.
Never found out what happened to the Mangkukulam that Lansdale hired- some said he went to the states others said he followed Lansdale to Saigon.
Not sure.
JimC says
Well, I enjoyed that, Ugly Hombre. Except this part:
No fair.